Thursday, January 27, 2011

Dyson’s Delve – Session 10 – Starting the Hunt for Tim

This session happened Wednesday, January 19, 2010.  This campaign uses the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game.  We are using the Pathfinder RPG, so some adjustments were made (or so I’ve been told).

Adventuring Group:
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)
Wednesday (female elf rogue)
Sahar (female human fighter)
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Luna (female elf sorcerer)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)

SPOILER ALERT: If You Might Play Through Dyson's Delve, Stop Reading

While discussing their plans and options for the day's expedition, the sheriff approached the adventurers with an elven woman in tow.  He made the introductions between Super rat and the elven woman, Tre-ba Bel a sheer, an elven alchemist and another adventurer new to the area.  Accepting the sheriff vouching for her, the group of adventurers welcomed her to the group and explained their current goal: find the wizard Tim and put a stop to whatever it is he is up to.  Frankie took some time to pick up a masterwork glaive.  [Luckily the town had one.]  He was tired of being unable to contribute in a fight in the narrow corridors of the Delve and a reach weapon would ameliorate that.

The group made its way back to the Delve, but rather than use the cave entrance they had been using, they searched the area for the side entrance that leads directly to the Elemental Temple.  After some searching, they found it and resumed the tactic that had worked so far: they pre-empted any questions with one of their own, “Have you seen Tim?”  Apparently, word had gotten around about the group seeking Tim and the guards let the adventurers into the tunnel without any hassle.  At the end of the tunnel, the belled door rang when it was opened and the lead guard from the guard room looked out to see who was entering the Temple.  He recognized Harkaitz from the previous day and minor pleasantries were exchanged.

The adventurers performed a quick circuit of the temple, checking to see if Tim was around (he wasn’t) and then climbed the spiral stair to Level 6.  Verifying the room was empty and no one was around, the adventurers discussed their options.  Harkaitz was not willing to attack the people in the Elemental Temple unprovoked.  Considering Tim’s track record, they could be potential allies against the wizard at the very least.  The other adventurers either felt the same way or were willing to go along.  It was decided that the group would search the area above the entry level of the Delve, up the stairs by the original goblin guard post.  If they did not find Tim up there, the group would return to the Elemental Temple, ask to speak with whomever was in charge, and then simply state, “We aren’t with Tim.  How do you feel about that?”

Tracking their way all the way up through the dungeon (nullifying the reason they had entered the side entrance), the adventurers made their way to the spiral stairs on Level 1 and climbed them.  At the top, they found a rectangular room with five-foot wide stretches of carpet crossing the floor and connecting passages in the center of each wall.  Intensely suspicious, the adventurers carefully advanced on the carpet (Wednesday checking each ten feet) and made their way to the hallway on the left.

The hallway turned right after a bit and opened on a room with a single inhabitant – a humanoid that looked like a cross between a lizardman and a giant insect with four arms and a tail.  Tre-na identified it as a Xill and likely hostile.  This turned out to be the case and a fight ensued.  After a few short rounds, Luna finally killed it with a scorching ray.  After finding little else besides the Xill’s three shortswords, the group reversed course.

At the carpet room, it was decided to check the other passage (directly across the room) and leave the single door alone until afterward.  Heading down that passage, it turned left and ended in a room containing two Xills talking to each other.  Thinking this would be a quick fight, Harkaitz stepped up and cast a fireball into the room.  [Fireball is a third level bonus spell for the Fire Domain.]  It failed to kill either Xill and they took cover against a wall.  The adventurers moved forward enough to cast more spells, thinking to draw the Xill out, until Harkaitz boldly [read: foolishly] stepped into the room to engage the Xill in combat (and theoretically provide flanking for Sahar and maybe Wednesday).

This worked until the Xill paralyzed Harkaitz during one series of exchanged blows.  This caught the adventurers by surprise and the fight took a somewhat desperate turn with the only healer paralyzed and stuck in the room.  Then a third Xill appeared and joined the fight.  Sahar took several hits and was able to shrug off the paralytic effect each time, but was being worn down by the multiple attacks each Xill was able to make.  The adventurers were giving serious thought to fleeing the room when they finally brought down one of the Xill.  Also, at this point Harkaitz realized that, while he could not move at all, he was still able to channel positive energy, which he did, excluding the Xill from the healing effects.  [Using a feat he picked up when he leveled at the end of last session.  He is only able to exclude two targets, but after one of the three Xill went down, this stopped being a problem.]

Once the adventurers defeated the Xill, they packed up the still paralyzed Harkaitz and retreated back to Aldelle.  After two hours, the paralytic effect finally wore off and Harkaitz was able move again.  He immediately healed the other adventurers back to full health, just in time to return to the inn and order drinks.

*End of Session*

[In this session we started exploring an area not part of the source material (Dyson’s Delve), a level above Level 1.  Also, the DM has also chosen to not include levels 8 through 11 of the Delve as he is nearly ready with his own material for us to explore.  We also picked up a new player this session (my wife), bringing the gender tally to four women and three men (including the DM), just in case anyone is wondering.]

[As a note: One of the players has a training class on Wednesdays for the next two months, so we have moved our scheduled days from Wednesdays to Tuesdays.  We have not made a decision as to whether or not we will switch back after that.  It will depend on whether or not Tuesdays continues to work for everyone.]

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