Dyson’s Delve – Session 7 – Deeper Delvings

This session happened Wednesday, December 29, 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)
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

After a good night's sleep and an early breakfast at the Aldelle inn, the adventuring group Super Rat returned to the sheriff's office to question their captive.  They found the sheriff's office in a state of agitation.  Once they were able to get in a question sideways, the adventurers learned that the prisoner had disappeared from the cell!  No one knew how the man had escaped as the cell was not damaged nor unlocked.  The adventurers suspected that Tim had something to do with it and decided to return to the Delve immediately.

After a few hours of travel, the adventurers arrived and started making their way back down into the Delve.  Arriving at the 5th level of the dungeon, the group decided to investigate the side passage rather than pass through the Tapestry Room.  At the end of the side passage was a T-intersection and the group went left, following a longstanding protocol.  The passage turned right shortly and opened into a 15 ft wide octagonal room with a passage leading out the far side.  Floating in the center of the room was a wand.  A closer look made the edges of a five foot by five foot by five foot cube of some gelatinous material.  The adventurers found this odd and had misgivings.  [Several of the players, however, immediately recognized the danger they were in.]  Their misgivings crystallized when the cube started moving towards them.  Luna and Harkaitz quickly broiled the cube with fire attacks.  The wand inside the remains proved to be a wand of cure light wounds, a valuable find.  It was also noticed that the side walls of the room were mirrored, if extremely dirty.  Luna used prestidigitation to clean them before the adventurers moved on.  [She likes to leave the dungeon cleaner than when we arrived.]

Past the octagonal room, the passage turned right again and eventually connected to another room.  There were several holes in the ceiling and the adventurers could hear something moving around up there.  Suspecting that this was a defense mechanism against the cube, Frankie called out in draconic, asking if there were any lizardmen up in the ceiling.  He received no answer, so Wednesday fired her crossbow up into one of the holes.  She received a vial of flaming oil to the face in return.

While tempers are high, Frankie called out again in draconic and started up a conversation.  The creatures were kobolds and they had indeed tunneled into the ceiling to avoid the cube.  They never attacked the cube as it kept larger monsters out of the area and could not reach them.  After some negotiations, the adventurers were able to secure passage through this room and the next, which returned them to the T-intersection.

Having no other path, the adventurers traveled through the tapestry room.  After a quick side trip to verify the carrion crawler corpses were still in the room to the left (they were), Super Rat followed the right hand corridor, skipping the side passage where they had fought the guards in plate mail, to where the corridor ended with a door.  Wednesday proclaimed the door safe and the door was opened.  Beyond it was a room containing the stairs down, another door, and three guards in half-plate.  A fight quickly ensued, during which Sahar and Wednesday were injured.  Harkaitz healed them before the group investigated any further.

Not wanting to descend any further without knowing what they were leaving behind, the group of adventurers decided to check the door.  Once again Wednesday checked the door and pronounced it safe.  As it turned out, the door had a pendulum trap attached to it, which Sahar found by opening the door and getting hit by it.  The room beyond contained another door with a pendulum trap attached to it as well.  Wednesday disarmed the second trap while Harkaitz healed Sahar.

Checking the next door, Wednesday heard the distinctive sounds of ghouls on the other side.  Super Rat sprung the door open, surprising the ghouls, and moved to the attack.  In a quick fight, the ghouls were hacked up and destroyed.  The room they were in was ringed in gargoyle heads sculptures.  In the mouth of one of the heads, three pieces of jewelry were found.  Everyone in the group expected a trap, so Frankie did his "snatching the pebble" monk trick to pull the jewelry out of the gargoyle mouth before it snapped shut.

The hallway past the ghoul room opened to a corridor that led back to the original guard room.  There were two doors along the way and, after verifying where the corridor ended, the group investigated the first door.  Behind it was a mostly square room with a number of lit candles floating in the air and a six-inch diameter circular groove carved in the center of the floor.  Not certain what the room was for, Super Rat decided to skip it for now and check out the next door.

The next room contained two statues that looked like standing suits of armor flanking a chest.  Wednesday checked the chest and declared it safe, so Frankie opened it and found an assortment of junk, immediately earning this room the appellate "the dungeon's junk drawer".  Frankie also found that the chest had a secret compartment inside it, which he opened.  While the main part of the chest was safe, the secret compartment contained a dart trap (which Frankie discovered the hard way) and three amulets.  The three amulets detected as magical, but neither Harkaitz nor Luna could identify them properly, so they were thrown into the haversack for later investigation.

Not ready to descend to the next level, the group returned to the "ominous floating candle room".  Sahar investigated the circular groove in the floor and worked out that it was the same size as the iron crown Frankie was wearing.  After fitting the crown into the groove, two wall panels dropped into the floor, exposing a magically locked chest [and returning the room to a square shape].  Luna and Harkaitz pooled their arcane knowledge and discussed possible ways to open the chest.  They noticed that there were eleven points on the iron crown and eleven floating candles.  They extinguished the candles, impaled the candles on the crown points, and relit the candles, causing the chest to unlock.  Inside was a golden crown that detected as magical, but again neither Luna nor Harkaitz could identify it, so it was put into the haversack.

Having cleared out this level of the Delve, Super Rat finally descended the stairs to the next level down.  The stairs ended at a T-intersection.  The passage to the left dead-ended almost immediately, so the group turned right.  This corridor went a bit and turned right at a door locked with heavy chains.  Having learned to avoid such doors, Super Rat turned the corner and continued down the corridor.  The corridor turned right again and then opened to a square room with stone debris on the floor and an open side passage to the left.  It appeared that the room was once ringed with gargoyle statue heads, but they had all been destroyed.  Perhaps someone was looking for something?

Down the passage out of the room Wednesday spotted three wizards.  [Pointy hats and arcane symbols on their clothing – dead giveaway.]  Harkaitz, being the most diplomatic, walked down the corridor to talk with the wizards.  While not the most forthcoming individuals, Harkaitz was able to learn that they work for Tim, who has tasked them to look for three amulets.  The three amulets would grant them some sort of power when used in conjunction with something Tim possesses.

Harkaitz knew the conversation would end in a fight - he intended to start it himself.  The wizards had a different plan.  Looking at the situation from their point of view, it appeared they were talking to a fighter of some sort with another person or two hanging back in the shadows.  Apparently they expecteding to be able to take down Harkaitz quickly and then deal with the others hiding in the shadows, all three wizards cast magic missile at Harkaitz, each launching two missiles.  This heavily injured Harkaitz, but did not kill him.  Luna immediately cast scorching ray and burned one of the wizards to the ground.  Harkaitz fell back to heal himself while Sahar charged forward with her +1 longsword/+3 vs. spellcasters and quickly cut down a second wizard.  Frankie then moved forward and, using a flurry of blows, knocked out the third wizard, securing a prisoner for questioning.

Searching the bodies, Wednesday found a map of the current level of the Delve with a room marked with an "X".  The part of the level containing that room did not connect to the current area – it appeared Super Rat would have to descend a level and then come back up before they could get to the marked room.  Super Rat took the time to check a secret door Frankie had noticed during the fight and verified the location of the stairs down before returning to the surface with their prisoner.

*End of Session*