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.]

Dyson’s Delve – Session 9 – Completing Levels

This session happened Wednesday, January 12, 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

This day Super rat decided to investigate some rooms that they had bypassed previously, notably the chained door on the main part of Level 6, a door they ignored in the isolated part of Level 6, and the air and water shrines in the Elemental Temple on Level 7.

Wending their way down through the dungeon, they arrived at the chained door on Level 6.  Wednesday thoroughly checked the door and removed the chains after pronouncing it safe.  Sahar opened the door and entered the room, discovering four gargoyles who immediately attacked.  The adventurers were not certain fire would hurt the stony creatures until Luna hit one with a scorching ray and burned it.  Due to the fight being bottle-necked at the doorway, Sahar was responsible for the majority of the melee attacks.  Harkaitz was able to indirectly heal her by casting shield other on her, splitting the damage she takes between the two of them and healing himself.  It was not perfect, but it worked.  After defeating the gargoyles, the adventurers found two coffers: one with 9000 pieces of copper and the other containing two golden crowns.  [If all the adventurers start wearing crowns, does the group name change to King Rat?]

After healing up from the gargoyle fight, the adventurers descended the spiral stairs to the Elemental Temple.  Harkaitz led the way, acting like he and the others belonged there.  When challenged, he stated the group was looking for Tim and asked if the questioner had seen him.  This worked multiple times.  A door in the back of the air shrine led to a small (10 ft by 10 ft) room with two additional doors, one belled.

After Wednesday removed the bell from the belled door, the adventurers followed a long corridor behind it that ended in a door to the surface.  The door was guarded, but Harkaitz again put the guards off by asking if they had seen Tim and looking dejected when they answered negatively.  The group reversed course and returned to the small room.  Wednesday replaced the bell on the door to the surface and Harkaitz opened the other door.  This door opened to a guard room/barracks with a number of armored guards in the room.  Harkaitz immediately asked if anyone in the room had seen Tim, pre-empting any questions as to why the adventurers were there.  The guards offered that they had not seen Tim in “a while”.  Harkaitz spotted two other doors out of this room, but could not think of a legitimate reason to continue through and did not want to initiate a combat right then.  He thanked the guards for their time and closed the door.

The group next walked over to the water shrine.  There was a passage in the back which led to some sort of guest chambers, one of which was occupied by troglodytes.  Harkaitz’s story of searching for Tim worked here as well and the party was able to leave without a fight.

After a quiet huddle to discuss options, the group walked back to the fire shrine and passed through the wax-sealed door again.  Taking the stairs up to the isolated portion of Level 6, the adventurers turned down a side passage they had ignored previously.  The passage ended at a door, which was unlocked and opened after Wednesday verified it was safe to do.  Beyond the door was a dark room with a single occupant – a medusa!  The medusa was apparently desperate to escape and blindly charged the party of adventurers.  Not knowing that she was trying to escape, the adventurers fought her and killed her.  [Wednesday felled the medusa with a critical hit backstab for near maximum damage.  It was very impressive.]

Searching the medusa’s room afterward, a chest was found containing 10 pieces of jewelry.  None of it was magical, but it was all of value, ranging from an estimated value of 400 gold marks up to 1600 gold marks.  Along with the gold crowns found with the gargoyles, this had been a very valuable day for Super Rat.  The group decided not to push their luck any further and (after bluffing their way back through the Elemental Temple) they returned to the surface and eventually Aldelle to plan their next move.  [And to level up to 5th level characters!]

*End of Session*

[This was a short game session.  We spent time at the beginning dealing with gear and loot from the previous game plus waiting for a late player.  We also stopped a bit early as another fight would have led us to playing WAY late.]

Dyson’s Delve – Session 8 – A Marked Room

This session happened Wednesday, January 5, 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

Rather than risk losing another prisoner through the sheriff, Super Rat held onto their wizard prisoner until they could question him.  Harkaitz and Frankie handled the questioning, playing “good cop/bad cop”, respectively, but part way through the questioning, Harkaitz seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be the nice guy.  The group learned that the three wizards were members of the Temple of Fire, a group that worships the power of the elements or possibly elementals.  (Maybe even elder elementals...)  Tim was once one of their number but was expelled from the group for reasons that were not made clear.  Tim had contacted the Temple for assistance and it was viewed as Tim making amends, so Peter, Richard, and the third wizard [his name was never given, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was John Thomas] were dispatched to assist Tim and find out what he was up to.  The map the had was discovered in the “Dungeon’s Junk Drawer”.

The three amulets the wizards were searching for apparently work with something Tim has to open a portal to…someplace.  Tim was offering everything on the other side of the portal to the Temple – except for the one item he is claiming for himself.  The guys in platemail were Tim’s servants, assigned to keep the three wizards from leaving before the job was done.  Most of this story did not add up, but the adventurers decided that whatever that one item Tim wanted should under no circumstances fall into Tim’s hands.

The group then turned Peter over to the sheriff with the warning that he was a wizard in the service of Tim and should not be trusted.  The adventurers then unloaded more of their loot onto the village trader for coin while Luna identified the gold crown as providing a magical boost to intelligence [+2].  After some discussion, it was given to Wednesday as she seemed best able to use it to the group’s advantage.

The group then returned to the Delve, quickly making their way back down to the sixth level, where they had battled the three wizards.  Planning to do a simple sweep of the last two rooms to verify the map, Super rat ran into a group of four were-rats.  [Side note: one of the players had no idea what “were-rat” meant and it had to be explained.  She was suitably creeped out.]  Due to having the map, Sahar and Luna were able to run around and flank the were-rats.  Both Harkaitz and Luna cast burning hands during the fight, each with a different player character in the area of effect (Frankie and Sahar, respectively).  Harkaitz had done this before with Frankie with Frankie easily was able to evade the flames, but not this time and he took full damage.  Sahar was able to side-step most of Luna’s attack, but still got burned enough that Harkaitz had to run around to that flank and cast cure moderate wounds on her to keep her in the fight until the were-rats were defeated.  Afterwards, Harkaitz healed everyone back to full health with a couple channelings of Ra’s positive energies.  [Who is the one god?/Who is the sun god?/ Ra. Ra! RA!]

Having cleared as much of this level as they could, the group started descending the spiral stairs down to the next level of the Delve.  Part way down, they heard a group chatting as they came up!  Super rat quickly (and quietly) retreated back up to the top of the stairs.  When the group climbing the stairs got near, Harkaitz called out, “What’s the password?”  The group below answered, “Nexus,” and Harkaitz called for them to proceed.  The guard patrol arrived at the top of the stairs to find the adventurers standing about the room nonchalantly.  They gave the group some quizzical looks but seemed to accept them at face value as other guards and moved on.  Super Rat waited until they were out of hearing range and then quickly descended the stairs.

The last 40 ft of stairs were open, descending from the center ceiling of a large, octagonal room.  Four of the walls have large elemental symbols on them, one each for earth, air, fire, and water.  There were also several priestly types going about their business and largely ignoring the player characters, who were doing their best to look like they belonged there.  Apparently, with the previous guard patrol having just gone up the stairs. the priests assumed that the player characters DID belong there and never gave them a second look.  The player characters for their part marched confidently across the room and exited a passage between the symbols for fire and earth.  Turning left, they entered a shrine to fire (consisting of innumerable candles burning plus many fire beetles roaming freely) and finally out of sight of the priests.  Looking around the room, Wednesday’s sharp eyes spotted a door buried under a layer of wax from candles past.  With no other passage except back to where the priests were (and wanting to avoid their suspicions by reappearing so soon) the group decided to try the wax covered door.  Harkaitz used produce flame [2nd level granted spell from the fire domain] to discretely melt the wax only at the edges of the door.  Once freed of the wax binding, the door opened freely and the group entered a very dusty passage containing stairs up to the isolated portion of Level 6.

Following the map they had taken from the wizards, the adventurers passed an abandoned guard post and slipped through a series of rooms and corridors to the secret door hiding the marked room.  Inside the marked room were two coffers.  The first coffer contained 400 gold coins, while the second contained two scrolls.  One of the scrolls had the spell formulae for continual flame on it.  The other resisted both Luna and Harkaitz’s attempts at deciphering it [bad spellcraft roll].  Shrugging and planning to re-evaluate it once they were back in Aldelle, all of the loot went into the haversack.

On the way back out from the marked room, the group checked an adjacent room they had previously ignored and were attacked by five animated statues.  Barely able to damage the stone the statues were made of, Super Rat fought a retreat back to the main corridor, closing and spiking the final door to seal off the statues.  Luckily for Super Rat, the statues did not seem to be programmed to follow past that door.  The adventurers had taken a pounding from the statues and not destroyed a single one.  Battered, bruised, and starting to run short on healing, the group made their way back down through the temple and then up to the surface, their luck holding out enough so that they were unchallenged the entire way.

*End of Session*

[I have a new found respect for animated objects now, particularly ones made of stone.  We had nothing able to bypass their hardness and they took half damage from our energy attack before the hardness was applied, negating our strongest attacks.  We will not be returning to that part of the dungeon anytime soon, I guarantee you.]