The Aldelle Group – Session 37 – Tracking through the Swamp

Session 37 happened Tuesday, July 19, 2011.

This campaign used the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game as a starting point, but has now moved on to new material from the DM-in-training. I heartily recommend Dyson's Delve as a beginning adventure.

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

NPCs:
Aziz of the Light (male human paladin, cohort of Harkaitz)
Sarisvati the Suntouched (female Ifrit oracle, cohort of Aziz)
Midnight (female half-elf witch, cohort of Frankie Hu)
Short John Copper (male halfling expert, hireling)
The Red Keffiyehs (human warriors, followers of Harkaitz)


Evening, June 19, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, whose light gives life, even strange life.

This morning we followed the trail of the zombie pack. When I say “we”, I mean Brek’nok who has amazing tracking skills. Late morning we saw a lightning bolt go INTO the sky of the tracks we were following and we decided to investigate.

What we found was a dead black dragon. Brek’nok read the tracks and it appears that a small group fought and killed the dragon, using steel and magic. There are several scorch marks on the dragon’s body, indicating either a large number of lightning bolts or a chain lightning spell, possibly both.

I cast commune again to discern which path we should follow – the zombies or the dragonslayers. Based on the answers given by Ra, we are on a tighter timetable to secure the swamp gate than we thought. I also learned that the lich is not Lucien, the owner of the manor house library, but we should start blocking his scrying. I have some thoughts on doing that, but we will need to go to Ttaeladra to get that taken care of. But first, the swamp gate.

Aziz, Tre-ba, and Brek’nok are currently skinning the corpse of the dragon with an eye towards making more armor or at least selling it. Luna is not keen on this at all. I’m not certain

Something’s coming.



Oh really now. This swamp is home to many strange beasts. While I was writing and the others skinning the dragon, a giant mobile flytrap wandered up, looking for a meal. Luna and I dropped fireballs on it and then Aziz and the others closed in on it and killed it. Well, the others minus Tre-ba who decided to use the dragon carcass as cover but still managed to hit Aziz and Wednesday’s shadow with one of her bombs. [Critical miss on the player’s part.] Rather than repeat this incident, we are moving away from the carcass a bit before camping for the night. The smell is getting fearsome.


Late Afternoon, June 20, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, His constant light reminding us to be patient.

The tracks of the dragonslayers headed west from the dragon corpse, eventually leading to and through the village of the lizardfolk. When asked who came through, none of the lizardfolk saw anyone else, so we suspect the use of invisibility. Ashias has recommended we stay and wait upon the return of the scouts he sent to investigate the gate area. We wouldn’t get much further today anyways, so we have agreed.

Short John is chatting with the lizardfolk who cook about herbs and whatnot. I am curious as to what he will come up with as a result.


Noon, June 21, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, in whose name we act.

The scouts returned a little while ago and reported that they found an underwater entrance to some caves in the correct area. We are packing up to go now. We should reach the area by sundown if we step quickly.


Morning, June 22, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, whose reveals even the darkest secrets.

Since we acquired it, our morning ritual has included Brek’nok casting dispel magic on the sealed coffer from the manor house, trying to remove the magical seal on it. This morning it worked! We then let Wednesday perform her mastery and remove several traps off the interior of the coffer, including a maximized disintegrate trap (which she kept for later use “just in case”).

Inside we found a journal in the hand of the lich. More importantly, it covers the period during which he turned! While I would very much like to start reading this now, we have more pressing matters at hand. Brek’nok is about to cast life bubble on the group so we can swim down to the flooded cave entrance. In the case of Aziz and myself, this will be more like controlled sinking due to our armor, but the life bubble will last a couple hours, so this should be OK.


Afternoon, June 22, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, whose gives us hope, even in the darkest of places.

I was correct about the swimming being more controlled sinking for Aziz and I, but with Ashias’s help, we made it into the correct underwater cave entrance. We surfaced in a cave with no light. Rather than alert our enemies by lighting a sunrod, Tre-ba used one of the wands of darkvision we made in Ttaeladra to grant that spell to those of us without it naturally. Luna used prestidigitation to dry us off, which was much appreciated by all. It also kept us from dripping or making squelch noises as we moved into the caves.

While the rest of us waited in the entry cave, Wednesday and Frankie scouted ahead. Tre-ba and I were in discussion as to what we might be facing at the gate when something alerted the rest of our group that a fight was taking place. [Tre-ba and Harkaitz both rolled a 1 on their Perception to notice when Wednesday and Frankie were attacked.] The first I knew of it was Luna charging down the tunnel and then lobbing a fireball into the next chamber.

A derghodaemon, a kind of shadow daemon, had been lurking in the next cave, guarding it. It surprised Wednesday and Frankie and made multiple attacks against them before the rest of us could respond. The creatures multiple limbs allowed it to hit and rend Aziz multiple times [doing 6 points of CON damage total]. After a hard fight, Aziz finally put the beast down with a killing blow.

[From this point on actually happened in the next session, but I’m putting it here for story flow purposes.]

The derghodaemon’s wounds will take a great deal of time to heal without magic, so we are taking an emergency tactic – we are camping in the caves. Wednesday has thoroughly searched the large cavern the derghodaemon was guarding and pronounced it safe and void of any secret passages. I have cast wall of stone to block off part of the back of the cavern and Brek’nok has cast hide camp multiple times to obscure our changes. This is a gamble for us, but we are in no shape to push on without some rest and a change in blessings from Ra. Now we must remain silent and wait, hoping any enemies that pass through do not notice us.

*End of Session*