The Aldelle Group – Session 47 – Light and Darkness

Session 47 happened Wednesday, October 5, 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:
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Elspeth (female half-elf rogue)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)

NPCs:Aziz of the Light (male human paladin, cohort of Harkaitz)
Sarisvati the Sun-touched (female Ifrit oracle, cohort of Aziz)
Midnight (female half-elf witch, cohort of Frankie Hu)
Macha (female human fighter, cohort of Elspeth)
Estrela (female Aasimar druid, cohort of Tre-Ba)
Short John Copper (male halfling expert, hireling)
The Red Keffiyehs (human warriors, followers of Harkaitz)
Carnish (male gnoll spellcaster of some sort)
Professor Walsh (male human expert)


Evening, July 29, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, who guides my path.

So that went about as well as expected.  OK – it was worse than expected, but no one actually died, praise Ra.

So when I placed the stone head, the statue animated, but not as an animated statue.  It animated as a stone golem, which we now know are much worse than animated statues.  But I get ahead of myself.

It looked down at Aziz and I and asked “Who thinks they are worthy?”  This was not entirely unexpected – it is why I volunteered to place the head on the statue.  After it asked its question, I raised my hand and stated “Hail Ra.”  It immediately attacked me with the stone scimitar we had placed in its hands.  And it hit hard.  Twice.  I quickly stepped back, but could not get outside its reach.  [Harkaitz rolled the highest initiative for this combat.  It was the first time ever in nearly a year of regular play.  It threw us off balance the entire combat.]

Aziz and Macha stepped up and blocked for the rest of us while Frankie slid around and started throwing fists harder than stone.  The golem breathed out a cloud of gas that slowed Macha, but Aziz, Frankie, and I were able to avoid the effect.  The fight was slowly turning to favor us (even though Macha required regular healing to stay on her feet) when a bright light filled the room and the entire room reset.  Except our wounds.  While we panted, the golem stood aside and said we could pass.  I'm not certain what changed, but we were not going to pass up the opportunity to NOT fight a stone golem.

We took some time to heal up.  I then stepped past the golem and went to push open the double doors in the back of the room, but everyone wanted Elspeth to check the doors for traps first, so I waited.  Once she cleared the doors, we discussed taking a short break to use nap stack to recover, but decided there was no place secure enough we would feel safe and the pass from the golem might be timed. 

I pushed the doors open.  They opened noiselessly with little effort.  The chamber beyond was octagonal in shape.  The 50-foot tall walls were covered in great murals showing legends from the worship of Ra.  The mural on the left showed Sylar defeating The Nightshade.  The mural on the back wall showed scenes from the First Pilgrimage while the wall on the right told the story of the spread of the worship of Ra across the Uskar.

We tried several things and looked around for a way to proceed.  I eventually cast find the path, which directed me to stand in the center of the room.  Professor Walsh, having read the various inscriptions on the walls, asked if there were any other interpretations of “the Light of Ra”.  I said, “Well, there’s this,” and activated my nimbus of light.  This triggered the opening of the ceiling.  The wedges that made up the ceiling arches slid down into the walls and exposed another area above them with a passage into the back wall.

Fifty feet is a long way to climb up and I do not climb well.  Luckily Carnish knows the fly spell and is willing to share.  I flew up to the top of this chamber and through the entrance into another chamber now exposed.  This chamber held an altar to Ra.  I prayed at the altar and received a vision.

In the vision I flew back out of the pyramid and then across the sands of the Uskar to another pyramid, one not on our map.  The vision settled on the entrance to the pyramid, and then I was back in my body.  [The DM-in-Training swears he's never seen The Mummy 2 and was puzzled about why we might want to make sand sculptures.  Really.]  I then left the altar chamber and flew back down to the octagon room to tell my friends what I had seen.  I will admit that I took a moment to float a small distance above the floor of the altar room before descending just to check that the fly spell was still active.  I was not certain how long the vision had lasted and was nervous about just stepping off into a 50 drop.

After explaining what I had seen, we quickly made our way out of the pyramid and back to our camp.  The Red Keffiyeh were pleased to see us again as most of the day has passed and they had no word from us.  Short John is cooking what smells like a very tasty dinner.  Aziz and I mulled over our options while we assisted in the preparation of the meal.  [Most of the party leveled at this point.  We’d made the XP necessary a couple of sessions earlier, but could not level until we rested back at camp.]


Morning, July 30, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, whose light inspires.

I have had an idea on how to get to the new pyramid quickly.  It will take us four days to march there, but Ra now grants me the ability to cast wind walk twice.  This will allow me to move myself and eight others all the way there in half a day.  Those taken can establish a forward camp and I can return to our current camp.  The following morning, I will move the rest of our party the same way, getting us all there in a day and a half.

I have shared this plan with the others and we have decided to go with it.  This will be new and I look forward to it.


Evening, July 30, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, whose light fills the world.

I’m back at our original camp after moving Aziz, Sarisvati, Tre-ba, Estrela, Frankie, Midnight, Elspeth, and Macha to the new pyramid.  The stone has a slightly green tint to it, so I am going to refer to it as the Green Pyramid, although it is not actually green.


Mid-Afternoon, July 31, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, whose Eye protects us.

This morning I ferried over the rest of the group to the Green Pyramid.  Once the camp was re-established to Short John’s liking, the rest of us moved up to the pyramid.  The stairs up ended at a platform lined with columns, like the first pyramid, but unlike that one, this one had dead bodies wearing the clothes of servants of Ra!  We suspect they were defenders of this site and we moved their bodies aside and I asked the Red Keffiyeh to give them proper burials.

We then turned our attention to the entrance.  After trying several ways to open the door, Elspeth determined it was barred from inside.  Suspecting that whoever killed the others may still be inside, we were eager to enter the pyramid.  Carnish and Midnight can cast dimension door, so we readied two strike teams.  Carnish moved in himself and Aziz, Macha, Elspeth, and Estrela (in bat form), to be followed by Midnight with Frankie, Tre-ba, and myself.  The plan was for the second group to wait to see if the first group would be able to easily open the door.  This was not the case.

I found out later that the first group in was surrounded by scruffy-looking humans.  Aziz asked them to explain themselves and when they declined, Aziz asked them to leave.  They attacked, thinking they had the numbers.  When we heard the sound of fighting, the second group moved in and appeared in the middle of two groups, one group in the front, the other group in the back surrounding Estrela, slicing her with their weapons.  The fight immediately became chaotic.

Carnish evened the odds by mesmerizing two of the bandits and Midnight vomited a swarm of wasps on the group in the back.  This was terrifying to see and I am on her side.  We eventually turned the tide, but Estrela came near to death several times, which sort of explains what happened at the end.

I englobed the last living bandit from the back group in a wall of stone.  Once the rest were down and Frankie had knocked out the final combatant, I called the warriors among us to surround the stone globe so the final bandit would understand the situation.  I then used stone shape to turn the wall to pebbles, which dropped down around him, and demanded he surrender.

I could see him doing the math in his eyes and realizing he had no other choice.  He started to drop his sword and state his surrender when Estrela cast a ball lightning spell and murdered him.  I was aghast.  He was about to surrender and she killed him.  I am still angry and upset about it.  I turned to her and demanded to know why she had done that.  She stared at me blankly with no answer at first.  She eventually said he had nearly killed her and that I had not stated we were taking his surrender.  That was more of an excuse (and a weak one at that) as I had clearly told him to surrender and Macha, Aziz, and Frankie had not attacked the bandit.

I knew I needed time and wanted to walk away, but everyone was still wounded, so I healed everyone.  Including Estrela.  I am still angry with her, but Ra teaches to heal those who need it, not just those we like.

We have returned to the camp with our unconscious prisoner.  Thankfully Frankie knows how NOT to kill our only sources of information here.  I need to pray to Ra for guidance.  I will let Sarisvati question the prisoner in the meantime.

*End of Session*

The Aldelle Group – Session 46 – Bottom to Top

Session 46 happened Tuesday, September 27, 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:
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Elspeth (female half-elf rogue)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)

NPCs:
Aziz of the Light (male human paladin, cohort of Harkaitz)
Sarisvati the Sun-touched (female Ifrit oracle, cohort of Aziz)
Midnight (female half-elf witch, cohort of Frankie Hu)
Macha (female human fighter, cohort of Elspeth)
Estrela (female Aasimar druid, cohort of Tre-Ba)
Short John Copper (male halfling expert, hireling)
The Red Keffiyehs (human warriors, followers of Harkaitz)
Carnish (male gnoll spellcaster of some sort)
Professor Walsh (male human expert)


Later, July 29, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, who shows us the way, even when we are weary.

After our short rest [not enough to level yet], we resumed our search of the pyramid.  Elspeth finished a sweep of the hallway ring we were in and found no other traps.  Once we were certain it was safe to move around, Elspeth and Frankie started searching for hidden passages while Midnight used detect magic to check for illusionary walls.  A single concealed alcove was found.  It contained a lever in the back wall.

Elspeth searched the alcove and declared it free of traps, which left the lever itself.  After some discussion and with no other options, Macha pulled the lever while the rest of us remained alert.

We heard the sound of stone grinding on stone in two places.  The one we could see immediately was the entrance to the hallway ring.  The floor of the pit hidden by illusions rose, blocking off our only known route of escape.  A similar noise came from the back hallway area, an area we could not see directly.  With great caution, we started searching for a new way to either proceed or escape.

What we found was another pit concealed by illusion.  Similar to the route we descended, this was protected by a scorching ray trap, which Estrela found the by flying through as a bat.  While I healed her, Elspeth set to deactivating the trap.  Frankie investigated ahead by running up the side of the pit to the next level above.  He reported it safe and Elspeth followed him up.  They reported the level above seemed to be the same hallway ring that encircled the chamber of the giant undead hands.  They could even follow our original foot prints.  Needless to say, we found this odd and it made us wary.

Looking for the secret door back into the chamber of giant undead hands, we found it had seemingly moved clock-wise forward one segment of the circular hallway.  [NOTE: Harkaitz wouldn’t say “clock-wise” here as there are no clocks, but for the ease of reading, that’s what I’m putting.]  The chamber in the center was the chamber of undead giant hands and they still lay there where we had destroyed them.  But the handholds carved in the wall up to the entrance level were missing.  Luckily, the stone coffin that formed the cover to the entrance was still aside and we could see up into the chamber above, the false crypt chamber.  Estrela flew up (still in bat form) and confirmed the false crypt chamber was there, but the secret door we used to enter was gone.

We used knotted ropes and a grappling hook to ascend to the false crypt chamber.  Searching for a hidden passage out, we found two instead of the single one we were expecting.  Opening one, instead of the hallway we were expecting, we found a completely new passage, which turned out to be another hallway circle, this one only five feet wide.  Elspeth and Frankie scouted ahead, going to the left first.  At the end of this passage, approximately where the entry passage to the pyramid should have been was a small chamber, about 10 feet wide by 15 feet deep.  Elspeth found a trap at the entry to the small chamber and disabled it.  Inside the chamber they could see a chest against the left (inner) wall.  Elspeth and Frankie returned to the false crypt chamber to report what they had found before going back to check the chest.

With Frankie in the hallway, Elspeth checked the chest for traps.  She found a fireball trap on the chest, but missed one set to trigger when she opened the chest.  This one dropped two walls – one from the ceiling at the entrance to seal the entry and one down into the floor at what was the back wall, exposing a 10 foot wide and five foot deep area holding two animated statues!  Four of these things nearly killed our entire group back in the Delve and here Elspeth had to face two all alone.

Elspeth immediately called for help and them moved into a corner and took a defensive stance.  She hoped to avoid being hit too much before the rest of us could arrive.  Frankie called back down the hallway for help and then moved to the newly dropped stone way, hammering it with fists hardened to the consistency of adamantine.  As we moved up to provide assistance, Frankie unleashed a flurry of blows and shattered the stone wall.  Even during this short time, the animated statues had hit Elspeth several times and she was heavily bloodied.

Frankie went after the statues, knocking chunks of stone off them each time he hit, and he hit often.  Once the statues were rubble, Midnight and I pooled healing capabilities to heal Elspeth’s bones and flesh from the beating she had taken.

Inside the chest we found a stone head.  It looked like part of a statue, but there was no evidence it had been broken off.  It detected as faintly magical and Tre-ba identified the magical residue as “door opening magic”.  Aziz packed it away in a bag of holding.  Frankie believed the chest should contain more than just a stone head and took it apart looking for a hidden compartment.  There was none.

Having reached a dead end at this point, we reversed course and followed the passage back to the right of the secret door.  This passage led to a large chamber before continuing on past it.  The chamber was tall and lined with statues of paladins in the service of Ra.  The back end of the room narrowed down to an immense set of stone doors.  Standing in front of said doors was a larger than life-sized statue of a man in armor, likely another paladin.  It was missing its head and its hands rested where a sword hilt would have been if the sword were not also missing.

It was very apparent that the stone head we found would fit on the top of the statue, so now we had to find the missing sword.  Clearly it would be down the remaining passage, so Elspeth and Frankie proceeded that way while the rest of us waited in this chamber.  Apparently Elspeth found a trap in the far corner of the passage and accidentally triggered it while attempting to disarm it.  We discovered this when we heard the sound of walls slamming down, isolating the part of the passage they were in.  However, by the time we got there, Frankie had already punched his way through the wall between us, spilling out the poison gas that had filled the area he and Elspeth were in.

Once the gas dissipated, Frankie knocked out the back wall of the trap and he and Elspeth entered into a small chamber that was a mirror of the chamber where we found the stone head.  This time Elspeth defeated all of the traps in the chamber and on the chest, revealing a stone scimitar in the chest.  Aziz and Macha have carried it back to the statue chamber and we are about ready to reattach the head and the sword to the guardian statue.  Aziz and I will place the pieces as this will hopefully allow us passage and open the doors to the next chamber without a fight.  We’ll see.

*End of Session*

The Aldelle Group – Session 45 – The Pyramid, Top to Bottom

Session 45 happened Monday, September 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:
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Elspeth (female half-elf rogue)
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)

NPCs:
Aziz of the Light (male human paladin, cohort of Harkaitz)
Sarisvati the Sun-touched (female Ifrit oracle, cohort of Aziz)
Estrela (female Aasimar druid, cohort of Tre-Ba)
Macha (female human fighter, cohort of Elspeth)
Short John Copper (male halfling expert, hireling)
The Red Keffiyehs (human warriors, followers of Harkaitz)
Carnish (male gnoll spellcaster of some sort)
Professor Walsh (male human expert)


Late Afternoon, July 29, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra.

As the legend we are following is unclear (or rather, vague), we had Elspeth scout the top of the pyramid before attempting an entrance. Carnish cast fly upon her and she flew to the top. There she found only the eroded tip of the pyramid – no place for the “Chosen of Ra” to sit or stand.

While there is an unknown amount of the stairs to the entry buried under the sands, the exposed part is still 30 to 40 ft and ends at a platform flanked by columns. Elspeth checked the area for traps and cleared it for the rest of us to proceed. The entry hall ended about 30 ft in at a T-intersection and a mural of Sylar fighting the Nightshade. Sylar’s sword is shown in detail and it is identical to the one Aziz carries now.

Following our standard procedure, Elspeth moved down the left passage, checking for traps. The narrow passage formed a large square with small shrines at each corner. There were four traps (two lightning bolt and two stonewall/poison gas) and Elspeth disabled three of them (she set off the first lightning trap and needed healing as a result).

Suspecting, almost knowing, there was more to this pyramid, we searched again, this time looking for hidden passages. Our diligence paid off and we found the (trapped) entrance to a large square chamber that fit within the boundaries of the passage. There were many stone coffins and the room appeared to have been searched and looted long ago. This is a common piece of misdirection used long ago and often still to discourage tomb robbers, so I knew to look closer.

The tops of the coffins were carved to appear in the likeness of the one ensconced inside and only three of these were paladins, the rest priests of Ra. Only one of the paladin coffins was trapped. After Elspeth disabled the trap, Aziz and I opened the coffin. The remains of a paladin in the service of Ra were inside, clasping his (or her) sword. I noticed the index finger of the left hand was straightened, not curved around the pommel. It was pointing at the next coffin!

We checked the next coffin (a priest) and found its index finger also pointed. Moving down the line, we had Elspeth check each for traps and skipped to the coffin on the end of the row, the only one trapped. After Elspeth disarmed the trap, Aziz and I opened the coffin. The priest interred here had his index fingers crossed in an “X”. Tre-ba observed that there were scratches on the floor, suggesting the coffin could be moved to the side. Aziz and I pushed and exposed an opening in the floor to a lower chamber. Cut into the wall were hand and foot holds, forming a ladder down.

Elspeth descended down the ladder (after receiving darkvision from one of the wands). The chamber below was about the size of the one we were in, but occupied by five giant undead crawling hands that dropped from the ceiling and moved to surround the base of the ladder. She immediately returned.

We formulated a plan of attack, with our combatants (Macha, Aziz , and myself) descending the ladder in rapid succession to draw the attention of the hands while Carnish used dimension door to bring in (Elspeth, Asmo, and Tre-ba) in a flanking maneuver.

This did not work out like we hoped.

The hands were quicker than we anticipated and surrounded Macha the moment she set foot on the floor, blocking me from descending and further. I did surround myself with a nimbus of light, which helped, but Macha took a pounding from the hands. I eventually just dropped on one of the hands, using it to break my fall. When it shrugged me off, I was able to land on my feet and press the attack. Carnish used a very powerful necromantic spell [undeath to death] to destroy many of the hands, finally tipping the balance in our favor. Carnish is more powerful than he lets on. Luckily, his heart seems to be in the right place.

We are almost done taking a break after the fight with the hands. Many of us were injured, some, like Macha, were heavily injured. I have healed everyone back to full health. The room seems to be a dead end, but we all suspect there is a hidden passage in at least one of the walls.

Later
There was a hidden passage and Aziz was the one to locate it. He also swears he found a second one, but after careful investigation, it turned out to just be his eyes playing tricks. The first (actual) passage led to a wide corridor that encircles the chamber of the hands. While searching the hallway for traps, Elspeth found an illusory floor – by falling through it. One of the walls in the pit was also illusory and Elspeth stuck her head through to see what was on the other side. On the other side were two scorching ray traps, both of which hit her.

Once Sarisvati healed Elspeth, Elspeth set to disabling the traps so we could move forward. I will admit that my faith in Elspeth’s ability to locate traps was slipping at this point, but she later redeemed herself.

The illusory wall led to another ring corridor, this one slightly lower than the one we entered it through. A thorough search of this hallway resulted in the location of a summon monster trap (by stepping on it and which did not summon a monster but put us on maximum alert, leading to some very tense moments) and a concealed alcove in the far wall. Aziz opened the alcove door and was promptly dropped into a short pit with poisoned spikes. Luckily, Aziz missed the brunt of the spikes by landing on a dead body. The body was of an adventurer of some sort who succumbed to the spikes and the poison. He was carrying a rapier that detected as magical [+4] and a bag full of jewelry and coins [8000 gp worth of loot]. The coins mostly dated from 300 years ago, when the worship of Ra first spread across the Uskar Desert.

Inside the alcove was a small box, which was heavily trapped. Elspeth found and removed all three traps on (or near) the box, losing a set of lockpicks in the process. Inside the box was a golden amulet in the shape of a sunburst, an early symbol of Ra. Tre-ba has taken the time to identify its workings, during which time I have updated my log. The amulet empowers divine spellcasters, particularly those who serve Ra, enabling them to cast additional blessings [+1 spell slot for 4th and 5th level spells]. In the meantime, it is time to resume our explorations.

*End of Session*