So we started this session in the morning as they woke up in the Temple of Thor. In attendance was Anthony playing Hermiad the ranger, Marc playing Varin the warlock, Marcus playing Mendas the rogue, Martin playing Edgar the fighter, and Rebecca playing Oddny the paladin. The players of Bartix and Rurik couldn't make it, so we made a group decision to leave them unplayed in the back of the scene. We've tried to put two characters on one player, and it got us through some early games when people couldn't show, but it's not what we like.
So the party went out and marched directly to the mysterious pit!
The floor in this large circular room spirals downward into darkness. A five-foot-wide path is easily walked to the bottom of the dark bowllike depression.
Mendas secured himself with a rope and let Edgar be in charge of rescuing/hoisting him if things went wrong. He carefully descended two levels down while above him, on the platform above, the rest of the party readied missile support. As Mendas landed on the second level, two spirits materialized in front of him! The party could see swirling forms of vapor floating just feet from the rogue. Hermiad, who rolled the high initiative, took the first action and tried Diplomacy instead of Arrow. He called out to the ghosts, telling them that the party were brave Viking sons here to liberate the island from the invaders, and that they meant no harm.
The ghosts responded by backing away from Mendas, although two more appeared lower in the pit. That was still a good sign, so Mendas tried Diplomacy as well, and rolled really high. He tried to explain to the ghosts that they had secured the Temple of Thor and the runestones, and were close to clearing the island of non-Norse filth. He backed it up with a really high Diplomacy roll, especially for his character. The ghost liked the cut of their collective jibs, and opened up, telling Mendas that they were the last defenders of the island, killed years ago defending against an Underdark incursion from the doorway at the bottom of the pit. Mendas acted as spokesman throughout, and the part used "One Heart, One Mind" from the runestone blessings to effortlessly trade ideas. Finally, the specters asked the party to give their remains a proper Viking burial (as everyone knows, you put the body on a boat, and then you shoot the boat with a flaming arrow). If they could perform the burial before the sun set, they could help themselves to the magical armor the corpses still wore!
Well, you don't turn down a chance at magic armor, or the chance to start a fire. So the party descended and gathered up the bones, then retraced their steps through the dungeon and exited out of the bear cave. Making their way over to the beach, they tried to decide on how to make a boat. It wouldn't work to burn their own boat, so they quickly chopped down a tree and started creating a dugout canoe. We ran a skill challenge using Athletics or Nature as the mechanism, and got 10 out of 10 successes. That's how you make a boat! Of course, at that point, someone remembered that Bartix had a specific plan for this kind of issue... he had been carrying around miscellaneous junk so that he could use Make Whole to create a bridge or a house or a boat! Oh well. The party laid out the bodies, towed the canoe out in their longboat, and set it aflame. Then they went back on the beach to admire their new armor.
The party made their way back to the caves, stopping by the runestones first to refresh their blessings. They went to the opening of the cave they had first discovered (all those weeks ago, to us) and cautiously worked their way in. The opening room was empty, and some exploration of one of the surrounding passages revealed a place they had already been to. Now able to place themselves on the dungeon map, they proceeded to the east and found themselves at a mysterious doorway. They thought they recognized this as a heavily-trapped room from the journal, so they peered in the door and examined it carefully.
The corridor widens into a roughhewn cavern strewn with debris and an eclectic collection of bizarre belongings. Pocket knives, handkerchiefs, assorted knick-knacks, a small pile of cutlery and broken pottery, a candle, flint and steel, and a rusty old grappling hook cover the floor.
They noticed good stuff in there, a shiny medallion and at least a hundred gold coins. Peering in, they noticed grooves cut across the floor at regular intervals, but probing the grooves did nothing. At this point everyone in the party knew that the room was going to attack them, but what was there to do? Mendas cautiously leapt in to see what would happen, with Edgar close behind.
The doorway of the room immediately shut as a stone block swung down from the ceiling. In the room, Mendas and Edgar saw the door ahead of them close. Then two bladed pendulums swung through the room (though they were nowhere near the characters. Finally, from the debris, two small serpentine humanoids rose up and rushed the heroes.
In the hallway, the three remaining characters attempted to break down the door. Meanwhile Edgar and Mendas were grappling with the monsters, revealed at some point to be Cavern Chokers. Mendas had the high initiative, but he held his action to react to the creatures. The chokers charged across the room and grabed the two vikings, but Mendas got a simultaneous hit in. The pendulum axes swung again, but they only went through the back of the room.
The rest of the party launched an attack on the door, and Varin's blast was able to get through! Varin hopped in through the hole he had made and helped Mendas with his Choker. Edgar had been grabbed, but he broke away. Mendas's foe missed; so far, these creatures weren't performing well. Then one of the axe blades swung at Varin, doing one million damage! Or 18 something, but we established that the axes were serious business.
The rest of the party charged into the room, and the chokers lasted only a round or two. However, the axes were still swinging. At this point, everyone was frantically rolling Perception checks to see where the next axe would be. Hermiad figured out that he could damage an axe that swung through the middle of the room in a row next to him. But it required doing a lot of damage to a moving target. Then a pendulum went through Row 2, where most of the party was clustered. Everyone unloosed either sword or spell, and the axe was stopped. Now they had a safe place to stand!
From row 2, it might be possible to clear the rest of the room, as most of the party had some ability to attack at a distance. But everyone knew that this would take forever. Oddny assisted Mendas with a perception check, and they got to 25! That was enough to see the control panel hidden in the corner of the room.
Mendas crossed the room and began to try to disarm the trap. This turned out to be a really tough skill challenge! Hermiad went a few rows away and tried to clear some heat by attacking nearby pendulums with his axes. He and the rest of the party were able to stop another axe on row 10, but Mendas got more faliures than successes, and the number of axes increased! He had to start again, and this time, worked his way through the trap.
Searching the room revealed an Amulet of Health, a pair of Acrobat Boots, and 900 pieces of gold. Everyone had to spend some healing surges to replenish the several axe trap hits, but they were okay. Now it was 10:30, so I quickly rolled them through the rest of the dungeon. A room to the east was a water cave where the goblins had fished: Edgar found some Wavestrider boots (which are useless, as far as we can tell). In the middle of the dungeon was a newly consecrated shrine to Loki, but the priest was absent, possibly killed in a previous attack. They checked the pit as well, and the spirits were absent. Everything else had been explored and killed. Done and done!
The party agreed to sleep for the night, then assault the barrows. Important game next time, everyone totally has to come!
Casualties:
4 Specters (not killed, but released)
2 Cavern Chokers
2 Pendulum traps
8 beers (I blame myself)
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