Into the Wild, Session Seven A: The Lightning Staff

General Summary

Caldwell and Rúna made their way to the entrance to the catacombs under the cover of darkness. They made their way down the smooth stone passage, going down for a while before reaching a large door. The scholar notices that the door is trapped, with a wire coming from the frame to the door. Rúna decides to run through the door, hopefully making it to safety before the trap goes off. She barrels through, and as the tripwire catches a section of the stone wall swings out narrowly missing the Valkyrie. Caldwell runs through after her, just to make sure there aren’t any surprises. The two follow the corridor before coming to a junction with a door on either side. Caldwell lights a ball bearing with a spell, rolling it under the door and looking to see what is inside the room on the right. When it looks clear the scholar checks for traps and then enters. The room is large, with furniture made of stone all over. The place looks like it was abandoned years ago. Caldwell checks one of the doors out of the room before going into a narrow hallway. A set of stairs branch off going down, but after a few steps, there is dark icy water. While the two want to see what is down there, they realize that this is a job for another time. Making it to the end of the hallway Caldwell checks another door and then opens it. They are met with a storeroom, but something seems off. Caldwell rolls a ball bearing across the floor and sure enough, it triggers a pressure plate. The two look up to see rusted spikes protrude from the ceiling, and then the entire stone slab falls to the floor destroying all of the shelves in the room. Two chests on the opposite side survive the damage, and the two decide they want what is in those chests. Tying some rope to two of Rúna’s javelins, the barbarian throws them into both chests. With help from Caldwell, they pull the boxes across the floor. Again, the trap goes off, but the two are able to get the chests to safety just as the spikes slam into the floor. Rúna pulls the pickaxe off her back, breaking open both chests with one swing. Inside is a myriad of items, of note being some spell scrolls and a band of loyalty. Caldwell pockets the items and the two backtrack to the hallway where they entered. Caldwell tries the door that was on the right, doing the same as all the ones before. The two enter and are met with an abandoned room similar to the one they were just in. In one corner is what looks like a collapsed corridor, and in the center of the wall across from where they entered is a door. They notice that the dust on the floor has a set of prints, as well as signs of the door opening and closing sometime decently recent. Cautious, the two jump the opening, looking down into the dark water under the structures. Across the gap is a small storeroom, ransacked long ago. To the right is another gap, and they quietly jump it. Caldwell rolls a lit ball bearing across the floor, and it illuminates a table of some kind on the wall. The two approach and find a sacrificial altar. On it is the book of Batarum, and once Caldwell and Rúna light torches they see that this entire room is some sort of ritualistic chamber. The walls have out of context quotes from Batarum written on them, and the floor is covered in dried blood. On the wall next to the altar is an iron gate. Out of nowhere, something behind the iron gate groans. The two immediately back up quietly the way they came. Tossing the torches into the water, the scholar and Valkyrie prepare for a fight. They wait their for a long while at the ready before relaxing. Realizing the doors across the room might be hiding something important, they two stealth across and check them out. Out of sight of the gate, Caldwell checks the first door. The lit bearing shows them an empty room. They try the door, and while it is open the hinges are extremely squeaky. The two of them pause, then Rúna swings the door open and they hurry into the room. The loud squeak doesn’t seem to rile whatever is behind the gate. While the room is open, Caldwell notices that there is a slight draft coming in through the room. The two search the place for a secret door and find one. The stone wall across from where they entered was pushed open to reveal a small hidden room. Full of corpses. The two hold back at this, and back the way they came the creature behind the gate growls. They seal the room and make their way back into the room. As they stealth past the gate, curiosity hits the scholar. He stands and approaches the gate. It is made of iron bars thick as a man’s forearm, with a leaver on the side to open and close it. Caldwell lights a bearing and rolls it through the gate. It hits a wall at the end of the corridor, illuminating a man chained up to the wall. The man looks up and reveals himself to be not a man, but a vampire. This doesn’t stop Caldwell. He calls out to the beast, and at his voice, the creature sits up. On closer look, the creature is chained to the wall with both arm and ankle cuffs, and the chains have a slight blue glow to them. The vampire slowly makes his way up to the gate, the chains clacking with every step. It gets to almost within reach of the bars before the chains go taught. The creature looking at Caldwell looked human, but there was something off about him. He looked to be no older than eighteen, with a slight red glow in his eyes and pale skin. Caldwell introduces himself, to the shock of the vampire. When asked his name the vampire responds with Sidrai. The two converse for a bit, and after a while Caldwell learns he is hungry. To test his theory, Caldwell rolls an apple under the bars to Sidrai. When he takes a bite the creature pauses, realizing it is not sating his hunger. Definitely a vampire. The two backtrack to the room full of bodies, carrying one to the gate. Caldwell takes a risk, having Rúna open the gate. She does, as she is not entirely sure what Sidrai is. Caldwell, sweating bullets, enters the cage. He gets within arms reach with the body, and Sidrai looks frantically between the corpse and Caldwell. When he grabs the body, Caldwell backs out of the cage. He doesn’t want to harm them. When the bloodlust left Sidari's eyes Caldwell and Rúna began to figure out how to get him out. They learned a lot from conversing with Sidrai. He was born before the incursion and died during the fighting. Then, he woke in this cage chained to the wall with an unbearable thirst and hunger. Caldwell is able to deduce that whatever cult is working out of here was able to create a vampire from Sidrai. The question then became how. Caldwell’s brief work with Aedwen helped him identify the runes on the chain. With some quick work with a dagger, the chains lost their magical aura. Caldwell did not remove the shackles, as it seemed as if it was restricting Sidrai’s power. That was something that should continue to happen. The three then backtrack to the corridor the entered from and went in the third direction past the two doors. After avoiding some traps in the corridor the three came to a large room, bigger than any they had seen so far. In the center was a large statue covering a drainage grate to the lower level. There were three doors on the opposite wall, and they decided to try the one on the right first. Caldwell lit his ball bearing and rolled it under the door. To his shock, it bounced off a boot on the other side of the room. Caldwell quickly snatched the bearing back and regrouped with the others. They cracked a plan to jump the man, with Caldwell opening the door, Rúna grabbing the sentry, and Sidrai knocking him out with a punch. They sprung into action, and when the sentry was turned to face Sidrai his eyes widened with fear. Sidrai’s punch snaps the man’s neck, and the group hid the body in the drainage grate. They then make their way to the middle door. Upon inspection, it looked to be trapped, with the mechanism hidden behind the wall. Caldwell realized the spell he learned from Aedwen might help, and he used it to turn him and Rúna into a shadowy mist. They went under the door, materializing on the other side of the wall. Inspecting the trap, it looks as if when the door is opened the walls close in, crushing the unlucky person who came through. Using some ice magic and Rúna’s javelins, the two are able to lock up the trap and open the door. It is at this that voices could be heard back by the guard. Caldwell tells Sidrai to go bide them some time, and he takes off in the direction they came. The two then make their way down into a large room full of chests. On the far side of the room is a large platform with a pedestal where a staff would sit. The pedestal is empty. Caldwell rolls a ball bearing expecting traps, and when it rolls over the platform it begins to glow red hot. Thinking that something is up, the two give the room a closer examination. It is at this that they notice the wall behind the platform looks like it contains a hidden door. They decided to make a bridge of the chests, leaping from one to another until they make it to the other side. With some dexterous jumps and Rúna's strength, they are able to make it across unharmed to the hidden door. When they get the door open the two are met with a long hallway. At the far side on the wall is the staff. They begin to walk but then realize that this unassuming hallway is probably trapped like crazy. Making their way forward the two are able to safely get about halfway there, using ball bearings to set off traps preemptively. After a while, they get close enough that a new plan is decided. Rúna, tying some rope to her last javelin, attempts to make a rope bride that Caldwell could crawl across to the staff. With a solid throw, the javelin embeds itself in the far wall, and Caldwell climbs up and over the floor where the trap triggers are. He makes it all the way to the staff, dropping to the floor right in front of it. In a daze the scholar grabs the staff, forgetting to check for traps with the magic item tempting him. As he grabs it a rumbling fills the hall, and the group goes to make their escape. To avoid the traps Caldwell misty steps to Rúna and they run. When they return to the room with the statue the two are met with the corpses of those who had come to stop them, along with a blood-covered Sidrai. Before they have time to say something water begins to flow out of the base of the statue. The dark, cold water is rising. They run fast back to the entrance, the water slowly rising from ankle height to knee, to waist. They make it to the entrance and up the ramp just as the water would have forced them to swim. At this, the group pauses to inspect the staff. Caldwell is able to identify it as Ostaiel, a powerful staff created before the incursion. It seems dormant to the scholar, as the fabled weapon was able to cast godlike spells. All it could do now is cast a lightning bolt. The three then Return to the South End, waiting to see how their other half got on during their adventure.

Campaign

The Asteria Tales

Protagonists