This session happened Saturday, January 22, 2011, and was the only session I ran this past weekend. Normally this would have been run on Friday the 21st, but four of the six regular players could not make the game. Saturday was to have been my monthly game, but two critical players could not make that either, so I ran Southern Reaches instead. (My three game groups currently have a lot of overlap.)
Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
– Dame Yasha of Bereste (Su Bel’s human cavalier cohort)
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
– Kainen (Thorngrim’s human fighter cohort)
Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.
With Sal, Tycho, and (most importantly) Agnes unavailable for an expedition, the remaining adventurers decided that the Terrace of Fallen Horse would be too dangerous to continue investigating [too many traps]. They instead decided to return to the ruins east of Drop-off Tower where they had found the Lake of Fire inside a ghostly tower that could not be seen from the outside (or did not exist). After a short ride on horseback, they entered the base of the tower ruins and stabled their horses in the first room. Thorngrim set up several illusory walls to protect the horses from any monsters that might wander by and then the group climbed the stairs once hidden by the adamantine door.
The stairs opened onto landing in the center of the Lake of Fire. The adventurers followed the trails to the far landing on the left and started climbing the brass spiral stairs up. The extended stay in the extreme heat started causing the heat exhaustion before they reached the top. To combat this, Su Bel cast endure elements on each member of the group, which helped considerably.
The top of the stairs went through the ceiling and into a different environment – one not as hot but significantly more humid. The stairs ended inside a small structure shaped like a step pyramid. All around was heavy jungle with a trail leading off into the foliage. Following the trail, the adventurers were attacked by small humanoids up in the trees throwing banana-smelling tanglefoot bags. When the tanglefoot bags were not immediately followed by an attack, Thorngrim set to using prestidigitation to remove the sticky material from the adventurers. Shortly afterward, while the group was at an intersection deciding on which path to follow, a swarm of monkeys attacked the group, biting and scratching at the adventurers. After some quick effort, the monkeys were driven away, but the adventurers were slightly disturbed by the event.
Further through the maze of trails, Mog discovered a pit trap prior to stepping in it. While he was contemplating how to disable it, six girallons [four-armed, white-furred gorillas – no, really] charged the group. With a simple “I think I’ve solved our pit problem,” Mog readied to receive the girallon charge. During a furious fight, the adventurers were able to kill five of the girallons and drive away the sixth. Several adventurers were wounded but Thorngrim’s dog Snips was killed by one of the girallons. Mog attempted to console Thorngrim by saying, “It’s how he wanted to go – killed by a monkey.” Afterward, Mog threw the girallon bodies into the pit trap, filling it most of the way up. Rather than press on however, the adventurers retreated to the basement ruins where they had stabled their horses and camped.
The next morning, still under the effect of Su Bel’s endure element spells, the group returned to the jungle level. Following the winding trails, the group made their way to the heart of the jungle level, where they were attacked by a tribe of 16 monkey-goblins herding 6 swarms of monkeys into the adventuring party. At the end of the fight (during which there had been some friendly fire issues with a pair of fireballs), the monkey swarms were destroyed and 11 of the monkey-goblins killed. The last of the monkey-goblins fled rather than face the fury of Mog’s attacks. Nearby the adventurers found the monkey-goblin shrine to their gods, which appeared to be the girallons.
Tired of being in the jungle, Thorngrim cast fly on Mog and sent him above the jungle canopy to scout for a way out. Mog discovered that ten feet above the canopy was another ceiling and there were a set of stone stairs up relatively near the group. He returned and reported what he had seen, leading the group in the correct direction to find the stone spiral staircase leading up to the next level.
Cautiously climbing the stairs, the group made their way up to the next level of the tower. When they passed the ceiling, the air temperature dropped, but not the humidity. The stairs opened onto a rough-floored area filled with fog thick enough to limit visibility to 20 ft. Still smarting from the monkey-goblin fight (and the errant fireballs), the group decided to return to the base of the tower again and camp. In camp, Su Bel cast a divination to seek the safest route past the mist. She received the message, “The center is uplifting.”
In the morning, the adventurers made their way back up through the tower, once again using all of Su Bel’s low-level spells to cast endure elements. Back at the mist level, the group used a rope to avoid becoming separated and started a spiral search pattern, looking for the walls to this level. The adventurers had discovered that each level of the tower was circular and Thorngrim reasoned that if they found the wall and put their back to it, they could slowly make their way to the center. The wall was quickly found, but while Thorngrim was making his way slowly towards the center, he was attacked by manticore spikes. The adventurers retreated to the wall and Su Bel cast wall of stone to create a partial shelter from the manticore’s attacks. Turtled up, this mostly protected the adventurers from the manticore, which did little additional damage. When it attempted a fly-by attack, it was quickly targeted and killed by the adventurers.
Searching the body, Thorngrim discovered the manticore was wearing an amulet that let it see through all of the mist. Putting it on himself helped Thorngrim rapidly locate the center of the mostly empty immense area of this level. Thorngrim then laid out a line of arcane marks from the stairs to near the center of the room, but when he stepped forward to place the last mark, he unexpectedly fell up through the ceiling, screaming all the way! Mog, ever the half-orc of action, quickly stepped forward, hammered two spikes into the floor, tied a rope to the spikes, and stepped forward. Unfortunately, he was unable to hold onto the rope and fell uncontrollably up. This left Su Bel and the two cohorts alone.
Su Bel cast sending to get a message to Agnes explaining the situation*. She then ordered Dame Yasha and Kainen to wait several hours until it became apparent that the adventurers would not be returning and then return to the horses to wait for Agnes and the rest. She then tied the rope to herself and stepped into the center of the room, immediately falling up through the mists, past the ceiling…
…and into a large, warm body of water, taking a large amount of damage from the fall. She failed to keep her head above the water and started drowning.
Both Thorngrim and Mog had fallen into the next level of the tower. Thorngrim had been able to thrash enough to keep his head above the water, but was losing that battle when Mog arrived. Mog, able to swim as any half-orc of action can, swam to a nearby sandy island with Thorngrim in tow. Expecting the rest of their group to eventually follow, they waited on the island. When Su Bel fell through ten minutes later, Thorngrim cast fly on Mog, who then flew out to rescue the drowning cleric, pulling her to the island.
The island they were on was about 40 ft by 20 ft, completely sandy with two palm trees, and in a large circular room full of warm, crystal clear, salty water. The walls and ceiling were covered with illusions of being in the middle of a warm and sunny ocean. Not seeing an immediate exit and with Su Bel slightly traumatized by nearly drowning, the adventurers decided they were ready to return to Drop-off Tower. Using a second rope, the original rope was lengthened and tied off to one of the palm trees. Thorngrim then cast fly on the three of them and they flew up out of this chamber and down to the floor of the Mist Level, where they rejoined Dame Yasha and Kainen.
Quickly making their way back down to the base of the Ghost Tower, the adventurers retrieved their horses and rode back to Drop-off Tower. Several stiff drinks were then imbibed.
*End of session*
*Actual content of the sending:
“Agnes, Mog and Thorngrim have gone up through ceiling on left side, Third floor. Follow path if we do not return. Path marked. Su Bel”
[Players of the old convention module C2: Ghost Tower of Iverness should recognize the general levels of this tower. I jettisoned the castle ruins, switched around the order of the Tower levels, and swapped out the monsters for most of the levels to things that fit the Southern Reaches. I’ll discuss this more in a later post.]
Showing posts with label Lake_of_Fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lake_of_Fire. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Thursday, December 23, 2010
SR31: The Death of Su Bel
This session happened Friday, December 17, 2010, and was the only session I ran this past weekend.
Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Sal Ty (elf wizard)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
– Kainen (Thorngrim’s human fighter cohort)
Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.
Su Bel wanted to go to Iron Keep to switch out her current weapon for an improved scimitar, the favored weapon of her deity. Mog, Sal, and Thorngrim agreed to go with her (mostly to get out of the very crowded Drop-off Tower). After making a swap for a new scimitar [+2], the group talked about going back to the tower where the adamantine door had been found. Knowing that there were two fire giants and the Lake of Fire up those stairs, the group spent the day at Spider's Bar planning their attack. The plan was to cast no less than nine spells (later increased to eleven spells) on Mog, increasing his abilities to be (hopefully) over that of the giants.
The next day, with a plan in hand, the group headed back east, temporarily stopping off at Drop-off Tower before following Owlbear Road east. Surprisingly for this late in April, there were no encounters along the way. Once the group made their way into the ruins and up the stairs to the landing below the Lake of Fire, the three spellcasters started casting a series of spells on Mog, including: resist energy [fire], bull's strength, protection from evil, and haste (by Sal); shield other, bless, aid, and prayer (by Su Bel); enlarge person and greater invisibility (by Thorngrim); and barkskin by way of a potion made by Tycho. Mog then charged his way up the rest of the stairs. The others cast a few more spells on each other before following (mostly greater invisibility on Su Bel and Thorngrim and invisibility on Sal).
Thinking he could sneak up on one of the fire giants, Mog quickly followed the arching path from the center of the immense chamber around towards the platform to the left of the stairs. He only made it half way when four fire bats erupted from the Lake of Fire and attacked him, their echolocation completely nullifying the effects of the greater invisibility cast upon him. At the same time, the other adventurers entered the center platform and were noticed by the sharp-eyed fire giant at the other end of the room, who started throwing rocks the size of their heads at their heads.
During the fight, Sal summoned a medium air elemental to fight the fire bats and Su Bel summoned a celestial dire boar, attempting to send it around the second path to the first fire giant to flank it for Mog (who she was able to track thanks to the fire bats attacking him). Unfortunately, the celestial dire boar was not very nimble and stepped off the path, burning itself severely and triggering four more fire bats erupting from the Lake of Fire. Sal dealt with the fire bats by having his air elemental batter the first group and he cast slow on the second group, effectively taking them out of the fight.
Mog went toe to toe with the first fire giant, beating it down while the giant was only able to land the occasional blow due to the greater invisibility Mog was fighting under. Emboldened by Mog's success, Su Bel advanced on the second fire giant in order to cast bestow curse on it. This turned out to be a mistake.
The second fire giant was able to determine where Su Bel was in general and was lucky enough to hit. Su Bel could not take the same amount of damage as an enraged Mog, and the third hit she took killed her. This galvanized the other adventurers, who quickly took down the second fire giant and then mopped up the last of the fire bats. Behind each fire giant they found a set of spiral stairs leading up to another level of the tower. They gathered what treasure they could and then carefully wrapped up Su Bel's body to take it with them.
The adventurers made a bee line back to the Iron Keep. There they were able to use cash on hand to have raise dead cast upon Su Bel. As she was a fellow cleric, the temple forwent the 40% markup the Baron mandated on all transactions within the Keep. This allowed the casting of the raise dead and both restoration spells necessary to bring back Su Bel back to full strength. Most of the money spent was Su Bel's, but Thorngrim was able to cover the cost of the second restoration when her funds ran out.
While waiting for the necessary time between restorations, Sal took the time to create some magic items for the adventurers. After Su Bel was back up, the adventurers decided they wanted the skulls of the fire giants as trophies and returned to the Lake of Fire to claim the grisly trophies. After using magic to clean the skulls, the adventurers returned to Drop-off Tower, where one of the skulls was mounted over the fireplace. The second skull was carted back to the Iron Keep and mounted in Spider's Bar with a small placard. The adventurers then spent another week in town while Sal crafted two more magic items.
*End of Session*
[AD&D grognards may recognize the Lake of Fire inside a tower from an old TSR module. I've switched it up a bit and dropped the portions leading up to the tower. I'll talk about this later, once the players explore more of the ghostly tower.]
Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Sal Ty (elf wizard)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
– Kainen (Thorngrim’s human fighter cohort)
Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.
Su Bel wanted to go to Iron Keep to switch out her current weapon for an improved scimitar, the favored weapon of her deity. Mog, Sal, and Thorngrim agreed to go with her (mostly to get out of the very crowded Drop-off Tower). After making a swap for a new scimitar [+2], the group talked about going back to the tower where the adamantine door had been found. Knowing that there were two fire giants and the Lake of Fire up those stairs, the group spent the day at Spider's Bar planning their attack. The plan was to cast no less than nine spells (later increased to eleven spells) on Mog, increasing his abilities to be (hopefully) over that of the giants.
The next day, with a plan in hand, the group headed back east, temporarily stopping off at Drop-off Tower before following Owlbear Road east. Surprisingly for this late in April, there were no encounters along the way. Once the group made their way into the ruins and up the stairs to the landing below the Lake of Fire, the three spellcasters started casting a series of spells on Mog, including: resist energy [fire], bull's strength, protection from evil, and haste (by Sal); shield other, bless, aid, and prayer (by Su Bel); enlarge person and greater invisibility (by Thorngrim); and barkskin by way of a potion made by Tycho. Mog then charged his way up the rest of the stairs. The others cast a few more spells on each other before following (mostly greater invisibility on Su Bel and Thorngrim and invisibility on Sal).
Thinking he could sneak up on one of the fire giants, Mog quickly followed the arching path from the center of the immense chamber around towards the platform to the left of the stairs. He only made it half way when four fire bats erupted from the Lake of Fire and attacked him, their echolocation completely nullifying the effects of the greater invisibility cast upon him. At the same time, the other adventurers entered the center platform and were noticed by the sharp-eyed fire giant at the other end of the room, who started throwing rocks the size of their heads at their heads.
During the fight, Sal summoned a medium air elemental to fight the fire bats and Su Bel summoned a celestial dire boar, attempting to send it around the second path to the first fire giant to flank it for Mog (who she was able to track thanks to the fire bats attacking him). Unfortunately, the celestial dire boar was not very nimble and stepped off the path, burning itself severely and triggering four more fire bats erupting from the Lake of Fire. Sal dealt with the fire bats by having his air elemental batter the first group and he cast slow on the second group, effectively taking them out of the fight.
Mog went toe to toe with the first fire giant, beating it down while the giant was only able to land the occasional blow due to the greater invisibility Mog was fighting under. Emboldened by Mog's success, Su Bel advanced on the second fire giant in order to cast bestow curse on it. This turned out to be a mistake.
The second fire giant was able to determine where Su Bel was in general and was lucky enough to hit. Su Bel could not take the same amount of damage as an enraged Mog, and the third hit she took killed her. This galvanized the other adventurers, who quickly took down the second fire giant and then mopped up the last of the fire bats. Behind each fire giant they found a set of spiral stairs leading up to another level of the tower. They gathered what treasure they could and then carefully wrapped up Su Bel's body to take it with them.
The adventurers made a bee line back to the Iron Keep. There they were able to use cash on hand to have raise dead cast upon Su Bel. As she was a fellow cleric, the temple forwent the 40% markup the Baron mandated on all transactions within the Keep. This allowed the casting of the raise dead and both restoration spells necessary to bring back Su Bel back to full strength. Most of the money spent was Su Bel's, but Thorngrim was able to cover the cost of the second restoration when her funds ran out.
While waiting for the necessary time between restorations, Sal took the time to create some magic items for the adventurers. After Su Bel was back up, the adventurers decided they wanted the skulls of the fire giants as trophies and returned to the Lake of Fire to claim the grisly trophies. After using magic to clean the skulls, the adventurers returned to Drop-off Tower, where one of the skulls was mounted over the fireplace. The second skull was carted back to the Iron Keep and mounted in Spider's Bar with a small placard. The adventurers then spent another week in town while Sal crafted two more magic items.
*End of Session*
[AD&D grognards may recognize the Lake of Fire inside a tower from an old TSR module. I've switched it up a bit and dropped the portions leading up to the tower. I'll talk about this later, once the players explore more of the ghostly tower.]
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Discovery of the Lake of Fire
This session happened Friday, November 5, 2010, and was one of two sessions I ran this past weekend. We had a new player join the group this session. He will only be available every other week due to Real Life, but he has played in many of my games so it’s nice to see him at the table again.
Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
Thomin (elf bard)
Tycho von Helmont (elf alchemist)
Agnes Sunbeard (dwarf rogue)
Sal Ty (elf wizard)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.
[Happening off-stage, Tycho was cured of his insanity by the arch-bishop who arrived at the Iron Keep before the spring equinox to bless the iron mines. The group also picked up an elven bard, seeking fame and fortune as an adventurer. After being cooped up at Drop-off Tower for two months, a new face was a definite plus and the group invited the bard to join them. Plus, they got to show off the improvements they had made to the Tower to someone new.]
After a lengthy discussion about where they wanted to adventure, the group of adventurers headed to the Eastern Edgewood, seeking to return to the ruined tower where they found the adamantine door. Approaching Owlbear Crossing, they found a patch of five assassin vines laying in ambuscade for creatures crossing the river. After the quick application of acid bombs and fireballs, the adventurers cleared the path and crossed the river.
They arrived at the ruined tower inside a ring of hills near the end of the day. They decided to spend a little more time exploring before making camp and tracked down the exposed stairs leading down under the pile of ruins. The three traps the group had encountered on their previous exploration had not been reset, which the adventurers took as a good sign.
Returning to the hallway intersection where the adamantine door once was, the adventurers found a dead morlock, huddled against a wall. Examining the body, they found claw marks, burns, and a large crushed area over the rib cage. Tycho opined that the claw marks could be those of an immense bat, but no one was certain what caused the ham-sized crushing blow to the morlocks chest. Looking around for tracks, it appeared that the morlock had gone up the stairs the adamantine door had blocked, received its wounds, and then crawled back down here, where it died.
Wary of what might be up the stairs, the group decided to investigate the other hallways and doors they could see first. Through one stone door they found what appeared to be a storage room for old dwarven furniture, stacked tall and covered with sheets. After searching the room, they discovered another door in a side wall. Agnes checked the door and discovered that, while it was unlocked, is was definitely trapped. She took some time (and received a guidance spell from Su Bel) and disabled the trap. Expecting some sort of treasure or items of importance behind the door, the adventures found instead a blank wall. After spending some time “shopping the room” for furniture they might want to take back to Drop-off Tower, the group moved on.
The next stone door they opened revealed a large room with a raised dais in one corner, a shallow pool of water on the opposite side of the room, and another door. Additionally, the floor was subtly sloped towards the pool. Having mapped the hallway on the opposite side (which did NOT contain a matching door), the adventurers were suspicious of the door. Mog went to throw a coin into the pool of water, but was stopped and advised to wait until Agnes had checked out the door. Sure enough, it was trapped with a cone of cold trap. After Agnes removed the trap (and packed it away for later use), the door was opened and revealed another blank wall.
Satisfied that the door was secure, Mog was allowed to throw a coin into the shallow pool. Nothing happened. Further investigation of the pool led to the finding of Mog’s coin and nothing else. The adventurers scratched their heads and moved on.
At an intersection they had a choice of paths to follow. The north passage ended with a side passage visible part way down, the west passage ended in a rough area of stone with a pulley anchored to the ceiling, and the south passage was interrupted by a portcullis. The group chose to go north first. The side passage led to a large set of stone spiral stairs heading down. Suspecting it led to the morlock tunnels, the adventurers chose to avoid the stairs at this time. As the corridor continued past the stairs another ten feet before dead-ending, Agnes decided to search the area. The end of the corridor was a large geometric sculpture carved into the wall. Agnes discovered that some of the components of the sculpture moved a bit and, after trying several combinations of movement, was able to open a secret door concealed in the sculpture. The door opened into a 20-foot square room with bunk-beds, a writing desk, some empty shelves, and a couple barrels. One of the barrels was empty while the other was half full of vinegar. The sheets on the beds were fragile from age and everything had a layer of dust on it. With no other exits, the party exited the concealed room and closed the secret door again.
The group next took the west passage and found it ended at a rough area that was the very top of some immense cavern. The heavy chain going over the pulley was taut, indicating a great weight rested on one end of the chain. The cavern was very tall and they could not see the bottom or what the chain was attached to. Shrugging, they turned back and investigated the southern passage. Beyond the portcullis they could see a shrine to a dwarven deity and side passages. The lifting mechanism for the portcullis was nowhere to be seen and the portcullis looked quite heavy. Tired now from their travels and exploration, the group returned to the concealed room and camped there for the night.
The next morning, with no other options (other than the morlock tunnels and they were not ready for that yet) and Mog and Su Bel actively suggesting the stairs up, the group returned the once secured stairs and started climbing them. They quickly determined that they should have risen above the level of the ruins and yet they were still inside with no sunlight visible. Turning a bend in the stairs, they could see light from what seemed to be a very large number of torches coming from the end of the stairs. Thorngrim cast invisibility on Agnes and she stealthily moved forward.
When she crossed onto the last ten feet of the stairs, the air temperature spiked suddenly upwards and she started sweating from the heat. When she reached the lip of the stairs she could see that the stairs opened onto a platform in the center of a lake of fire. The air was roiled by the heat and she could not tell how far away the walls were, but she could see two other platforms linked to this one by narrow pathways above the surface of the fire. On each platform was a giant with burning hair and beard standing in front of what appeared to be a spiral stair leading up. Where the stairs led was unclear due to the heat waves, but it seemed clear that there was something above this chamber. Agnes fell back to the rest of the adventurers to report what she had seen. When she was ten feet down the stairs, she passed the boundary of hot air and steped back into the cool air of the ruins (which now felt chilly). Wanting more magical support before attempting to take on the fire giants (read: they wanted Sal backing them up), the adventurers left the ruined tower and returned to Drop-off Tower.
*End of Session*
Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
Thomin (elf bard)
Tycho von Helmont (elf alchemist)
Agnes Sunbeard (dwarf rogue)
Sal Ty (elf wizard)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.
[Happening off-stage, Tycho was cured of his insanity by the arch-bishop who arrived at the Iron Keep before the spring equinox to bless the iron mines. The group also picked up an elven bard, seeking fame and fortune as an adventurer. After being cooped up at Drop-off Tower for two months, a new face was a definite plus and the group invited the bard to join them. Plus, they got to show off the improvements they had made to the Tower to someone new.]
After a lengthy discussion about where they wanted to adventure, the group of adventurers headed to the Eastern Edgewood, seeking to return to the ruined tower where they found the adamantine door. Approaching Owlbear Crossing, they found a patch of five assassin vines laying in ambuscade for creatures crossing the river. After the quick application of acid bombs and fireballs, the adventurers cleared the path and crossed the river.
They arrived at the ruined tower inside a ring of hills near the end of the day. They decided to spend a little more time exploring before making camp and tracked down the exposed stairs leading down under the pile of ruins. The three traps the group had encountered on their previous exploration had not been reset, which the adventurers took as a good sign.
Returning to the hallway intersection where the adamantine door once was, the adventurers found a dead morlock, huddled against a wall. Examining the body, they found claw marks, burns, and a large crushed area over the rib cage. Tycho opined that the claw marks could be those of an immense bat, but no one was certain what caused the ham-sized crushing blow to the morlocks chest. Looking around for tracks, it appeared that the morlock had gone up the stairs the adamantine door had blocked, received its wounds, and then crawled back down here, where it died.
Wary of what might be up the stairs, the group decided to investigate the other hallways and doors they could see first. Through one stone door they found what appeared to be a storage room for old dwarven furniture, stacked tall and covered with sheets. After searching the room, they discovered another door in a side wall. Agnes checked the door and discovered that, while it was unlocked, is was definitely trapped. She took some time (and received a guidance spell from Su Bel) and disabled the trap. Expecting some sort of treasure or items of importance behind the door, the adventures found instead a blank wall. After spending some time “shopping the room” for furniture they might want to take back to Drop-off Tower, the group moved on.
The next stone door they opened revealed a large room with a raised dais in one corner, a shallow pool of water on the opposite side of the room, and another door. Additionally, the floor was subtly sloped towards the pool. Having mapped the hallway on the opposite side (which did NOT contain a matching door), the adventurers were suspicious of the door. Mog went to throw a coin into the pool of water, but was stopped and advised to wait until Agnes had checked out the door. Sure enough, it was trapped with a cone of cold trap. After Agnes removed the trap (and packed it away for later use), the door was opened and revealed another blank wall.
Satisfied that the door was secure, Mog was allowed to throw a coin into the shallow pool. Nothing happened. Further investigation of the pool led to the finding of Mog’s coin and nothing else. The adventurers scratched their heads and moved on.
At an intersection they had a choice of paths to follow. The north passage ended with a side passage visible part way down, the west passage ended in a rough area of stone with a pulley anchored to the ceiling, and the south passage was interrupted by a portcullis. The group chose to go north first. The side passage led to a large set of stone spiral stairs heading down. Suspecting it led to the morlock tunnels, the adventurers chose to avoid the stairs at this time. As the corridor continued past the stairs another ten feet before dead-ending, Agnes decided to search the area. The end of the corridor was a large geometric sculpture carved into the wall. Agnes discovered that some of the components of the sculpture moved a bit and, after trying several combinations of movement, was able to open a secret door concealed in the sculpture. The door opened into a 20-foot square room with bunk-beds, a writing desk, some empty shelves, and a couple barrels. One of the barrels was empty while the other was half full of vinegar. The sheets on the beds were fragile from age and everything had a layer of dust on it. With no other exits, the party exited the concealed room and closed the secret door again.
The group next took the west passage and found it ended at a rough area that was the very top of some immense cavern. The heavy chain going over the pulley was taut, indicating a great weight rested on one end of the chain. The cavern was very tall and they could not see the bottom or what the chain was attached to. Shrugging, they turned back and investigated the southern passage. Beyond the portcullis they could see a shrine to a dwarven deity and side passages. The lifting mechanism for the portcullis was nowhere to be seen and the portcullis looked quite heavy. Tired now from their travels and exploration, the group returned to the concealed room and camped there for the night.
The next morning, with no other options (other than the morlock tunnels and they were not ready for that yet) and Mog and Su Bel actively suggesting the stairs up, the group returned the once secured stairs and started climbing them. They quickly determined that they should have risen above the level of the ruins and yet they were still inside with no sunlight visible. Turning a bend in the stairs, they could see light from what seemed to be a very large number of torches coming from the end of the stairs. Thorngrim cast invisibility on Agnes and she stealthily moved forward.
When she crossed onto the last ten feet of the stairs, the air temperature spiked suddenly upwards and she started sweating from the heat. When she reached the lip of the stairs she could see that the stairs opened onto a platform in the center of a lake of fire. The air was roiled by the heat and she could not tell how far away the walls were, but she could see two other platforms linked to this one by narrow pathways above the surface of the fire. On each platform was a giant with burning hair and beard standing in front of what appeared to be a spiral stair leading up. Where the stairs led was unclear due to the heat waves, but it seemed clear that there was something above this chamber. Agnes fell back to the rest of the adventurers to report what she had seen. When she was ten feet down the stairs, she passed the boundary of hot air and steped back into the cool air of the ruins (which now felt chilly). Wanting more magical support before attempting to take on the fire giants (read: they wanted Sal backing them up), the adventurers left the ruined tower and returned to Drop-off Tower.
*End of Session*
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