Mirtul 19
Mirtul 19, 1370:
High = 30, Low = 15
No precipitation
Wind gusting to 40 mph from the north.
Partly cloudy.
The party boarded the Prawn Shredder in the morning and sailed out
with the tide around 11:00am. They left an invisible gargoyle
behind on the Star Chaser. They made good speed and anchored off
shore from the site of the lizard man village around 3:30pm.
They found the entrance to the temple without difficulty - a cave
mouth in a nearby slope made to look like a serpent's mouth - and
headed in. The caves were mostly natural with some carving in
places to keep the corridors roughly 10' wide.
Marching Order:
Maanamere Ag
Tristan Steve
Darius Dexter
Brogan Denyae
Henkles
Darius failed a Strength spell on Maanamere, causing him to
sprout leaves all over his body. (Both oak and ash leaves.)
Tristan cast Strength on Henkles and Maanamere bringing
both to 18/00 for 5 hours.
60 feet in they found a pit trap. While Ag was disarming it, cave
fishers snared Ag and Henkles, which turned out to be a mistake
for the cave fishers.
350xp to Ag and Henkles for 2 cave fishers
The party continued on afterwards, planning to check the pit on
the way out.
The corridor forked, sloping up on one side, down on the other.
The party proceeded up to a group of three natural chambers that
may have been sleeping chambers once but held nothing more
interesting than some old sacks that had been slit open long ago
and three giant centipedes.
Heading down, the party came to a large chamber with statues of
lizard man guards flanking each exit. The chamber was full of
webs and they sensed a trap in the statues flanking the NE exit.
To nobody's surprise, there were 6 giant spiders in the room. A
wall of fire was employed, which caused some spiders to circle
around through other parts of the dungeon and resulted in an
extended battle in the corridors, but eventually they all died.
3900xp to Ag, Brogan, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Steve and Tristan for 6 giant spiders
While playing hide-and-seek with the spiders, they explored south
and found a chamber that held many large clay urns, most of which
had been smashed. The urns all seemed to be seled with wax and
marked with one of two different symbols (hard to tell, faded,
flaked paint). Experimentation suggested that one symbol was for
water and one for vinegar.
Further south the party found a huge chamber that their light
could not reach the other side of. The floor was covered with
stalacgmites and guano, the ceiling with stalactites and giant
bats. They backed away.
Moving back toward the statue chamber, they found another
web-filled area, this one with a larger number of (relatively)
smaller spiders.
2100xp to Ag, Brogan, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Steve and Tristan for 12 large spiders
Ag disarmed the trapped statues and the party headed NE.
Start of 2015-09-07 Game
large canyon area - room 9
fly on Maan for 11 turns
lizards attack
32-33
32-34
39-45
ag preexplores 16
1950xp to Ag, Brogan, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Steve and Tristan for 3 subteranean lizards
into next chamber downstream - mushroom farm (16)
start to search, lizards attack
24 - 33, brog
40 - 49, maan
41 - 37, steve
33 - 38, denyae
34 - 40, dexter
29 - 33, Henk
3900xp to Ag, Brogan, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Steve and Tristan for 6 subteranean lizards
Corridor leaving to S is carved by skilled artisans. Strange
runes all over walls.
ag checks corridor S for traps
dexter collected mushroom samples
into the ancient temple (17)
ag sees lizard & runs
brogan and archers
56-57
1988xp to Ag, Brogan, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Steve and Tristan for a dire subteranean lizard
cast Locate Object for statue
back to 9, detect
ag climbs, finds sack and rope
Sack contains 246cp, 549sp, 89ep, 4 lizard man stone
carvings (chess pieces) and the following gems:
2 10gp Lynx Eye
5 10gp Sheen
3 10gp Wonderstone
2 10gp Crown of Silver
1 13gp Skydrop
2 25gp Chalcedony
7 30gp Fire Agate
1 50gp Orprase
1 100gp Chrysoberyl
1 100gp Ulvaen
explore prelooted priest caves
into 10, into 11, etc
down, up other side (ag & rope in copper ring)
into 8, rockburst to clear centipedes
1680xp to Ag, Brogan, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Steve and Tristan for pest control
explore bat cave from both sdes w/light & telek
resweep all walls
exit around midnight
take boats back to Prawn Shredder
Henkles explains how things went to Maask at some length, ending
with not finding the statue, Maask replies to the effect that it's
not a big deal - the important thing was getting the party away
from the Star Chaser at night.
While that's sinking in, ominous music starts playing in the
background (literally - later revealed to be a Drums of
Despair spell) and three vampires step out of the captain's
cabin, followed by a cloud of black smoke filled with glowing red
eyes. Darius cast Nahal's Reckless Dweomer and hoped for
the best. He didn't get it, but the next round he cast
Alternate Reality and got a somewhat better result - a
Fireball hit the vampires and smoke cloud for poor damage,
but stayed in place, burning continually for what turned out to be
the rest of the Prawn Shredder's existence. Sailors in the
rigging began casting low-level spells at the party while Tristan
cast Prayer and Denyae read the scroll of Materialize
Mystic Moose on the inside of her shield, which crumbled to dust.
Maanamer drank and Enlarge potion. Someone drank a
Fly potion. Mrap-M'rap headed for the hills. When the
Moose appeared at the front of the party, its first act was to
bellow. Dexter hopped on his Ebony Fly to get out of melee range.
The bellow of the Mystic Moose summons nearby moose to help (not
very helpful when the fight is on a ship 50 yards from shore) and
stun everyone in the area for 1-4 rounds. The effect was close
enough to that of Urgoth and Ylgoth that the party were able to
reduce the time they were stunned by a round. As a result, the
moose had time to headbutt stunned vampires back into the fireball
and the party got on average, one free action before the enemy
attacked. This proved very helpful. Mrap-M'rap saw what was
happening and swooped into the rigging where he managed to kill
two low-level wizards before they recovered from the bellow.
All of the vampires were tossed into the fire and did not emerge.
Brogan turned ethereal to go into the burning portion of the ship
and look for their coffins. He ended up in the hold but did not
find the coffins. In the mean time the party started mopping up
surviving crew members. Maask came to his senses before the party
started killing him (some wanted him alive for questioning) and
immediately summoned a djinn from a ring and told it to "Kill my
enemies!". The djinn took stock of the situation and went after
the vampires. Turning gaseous isn't such a good defense against a
creature of elemental air.
After that it was pretty much down to grabbing Maask and gagging
him before he could change his orders and getting everyone safely
off of the ship. In the end the party got themselves, the
captains corpse, Maask and the two longboats away from the ship.
Everything else was lost.
31910xp to Ag, Brogan, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Steve and Tristan for a boatload of hostiles
Once the vampires had been held underwater for 3 rounds they were
destroyed and Maask came to his senses, demonstrating a remarkable
command of a subset of several languages. Like the other
Lieutenants, Maask's party, The Battling Hellhounds, had been
taken over one at a time by the General, the spellcasters turned
to vampires and the others charmed. Maask came to Neverwinter
with "Trollbait" Karidoach, an artificer/vampire on the Prawn
Shredder after Trollbait charmed the captain and crew. In
Neverwinter they met up with Ghed Firestory and Stanaphe
GreenHawk, of the original Lieutenant's who had come overland.
They had come up with the idea to lure them away to this dungeon
that the Battling Hellhounds had cleared out some years earlier
and ambush the party. The first mate had been turned into a
vampire just the night before. Stanaphe stayed behind in
Neverwinter to watch the Star Chaser.
Captain's body:
1 500gp Horn Coral, 7 50gp Chalcedonys, 7pp
potion, 2 rings
+1 Studded Leather & +2 shield
Cutlass, +1
Hand Crossbow, +1
Start of 2015-09-27 Game
Dexter, on his Ebony Fly with Steve sitting behind him, and towing
a sleeping Maanamere on the throw rug, depart for Neverwinter.
The rest of the party (and Maask) camp on the beach for the night.
There are several visits from friendly moose but no other
incidents.
