Session 6 - The Ruins of Keldyrion, delving deeper
General Summary
Brovar misses the golem, and then Digby does a bare 9 damage even though he hit it solidly. In return the bone golem does 23 damage to Digby. Sai Kyo misses and Tripp does 5 damage.
Next round Brovar hits it for 9 damage with his long sword and then smashes it with his mace for a 19C crush hitting its weapon arm, giving it another 5 hits and reducing its attack by 50. The bone golem shrugs off the criticals. Sai Kyo sweeps it from behind for 4C reducing its OB further. Digby hits it with his battle axe for 13A and another 2 damage stopping it attacking this turn. Lilrie swings but only hits thin air. That is still better than Tripp who fumbles, juggling his weapon as if he wants to join the circus. We all fail our resistance rolls and feel drained again.
Digby swings and does a piffling 3 damage. Brovar hits with his long sword and does 7A, but no extra damage, and then hits with his mace causing a 13B puncture, for another 2 hits. Sai Kyo throws it again for 2B, but his follow thru is shoddy and there is no extra damage. Lilrie does better with an 11A crush critical and 2 extra hits. The bone golem attacks Brovar missing with its first attack and doing an 8E grapple critical stunning him for one round. Baka casts Hesitation and the Bone Golem hesitates for 2 rounds, dropping Brovar.
Sai Kyo attacks again doing a 3A and an additional 5 hits. Digby goes next but fumbles and stumbles, his classless display leaving him stunned for 3 rounds. What is going on with him? Has he been on the “shrooms” again? Brovar hits with his long sword doing a 14B crush, taking the skull head off. We are all relieved that the fight is over as it was touch and go.
Undaunted we ease off the lid of the sarcophagus and it has the same large spikes. Baka searches the altar and finds a panel which seems to open into some sort of void, the opening smaller than a normal door but passable if stooped. Standing there she can hear a rustling sound, not of bones, but of something else. Brovar slips in front of her and delicately smashes open the panel with hi mace, finding a small room with another statue, similar to the others we saw, and a large stone chest. He can just see the opening to a narrow corridor behind the statue he hears the sound emanating from down the corridor.
Tripp searches the stone chest for traps, not finding any, so we lift the lid off. Inside we find a pair of supple boots, a fine battle axe and long sword, and a pair of gauntlets with sharp spikes on the end of each finger. Sai Kyo sees the gloves and thinks he could do more damage if he wears them. Digby takes the battle axe and Brovar takes the long sword. Baka takes the boots and tries them on - they fit perfectly. She then looks at the battle axe and long sword and sees runes which may be magical.
Brovar leads the way behind the statue into the corridor and finds some stairs going down. The light from the lantern does not reach the bottom, so instead we decide to go back to the room with the brazier to check the corridor heading East. Brave (we call him that but he is actually a human shield) Brovar, leading as always, finds a T-junction and follows the corridor left and then right to a door. Tripp (I am beginning to worry about the meaning of his name) searches for traps but doesn’t find any. He picks the lock unlocking it easily, but unfortunately it was trapped and a wall to the rear of us collapses and four skeletons appear.
They attack Digby who hits them first for 33B crush, doing another 6 hits and getting initiative next round. They miss him and next round he moves diagonally allowing Lilrie to move up to attack. The skeleton targets Lilrie hitting for a 10B crush doing another 4 hits and forcing her to parry next round. Digby smashes the skeleton with his new battle axe, doing 42D, exploding the skeleton into pieces. This new battle axe is awesome!
Next round Digby does it again with a 37E, doing an extra 15 hits destroying this skeleton too. Lilrie attacks the next skeleton missing and feels a wave of weakness rolling over her. She grits her teeth and attacks again connecting with a 26E crush and doing another 15 damage. Digby is on a roll and hits for 55 destroying the large skeleton. The last skeleton attacks Digby doing 2 damage. Lilrie does a 13B puncture critical but it ignores the critical while Digby misses for the first time. The wave of weakness comes again but we carry on fighting. Digby redeems himself doing a 26D crush and an additional 4 hits dropping the last skeleton to the ground. Lilrie heals herself regaining 5 hits as we search the room, but find nothing.
Brovar leads the way back and takes the corridor South checking the floor as he goes with a pole. He finds a 5-foot pit which we all cross and then finds another which we cross again. It takes us back to the main chamber and we manage to open the bars into it. Baka notices that when she comes to the pits she finds them easy and thinks that the boots are helping her. We cross to the other bars and take the corridor finding two more spear pits and linking up with the corridor leading to room to the West.
Before sleeping Baka tries to climb up one of the pillars and does so easily, but it is difficult to tell if the boots made the difference. Lilrie heals Digby and we all rest for the night gaining another 8 hit points. Baka is now on 28 and Sai Kyo up to maximum, 51. Most of the rest are up to maximum hit points, except Digby.
After resting we head down the stairs that we found, descending even further than before, emerging into a small room with a door to the East. The room walls are still made of bone, but these walls have been smoothed off, not rough as above. The floor is also more elaborate, with green tiles laid in a pattern. On two of the walls are hung cloaks and robes, all in tatters, possibly ceremonial. We search the walls but find nothing and listen at the door with the same result.
Tripp checks the door for traps and then opens it, revealing a corridor. We move off into it and reach a corner to the North and see a lit torch at the end of it. We reach the torch which looks normal but we cannot see why it keeps burning. Turning that corner, we continue prodding the floor all the way and enter a room from which a fetid breeze wafts towards bringing a dank, unwholesome smell. There are another two of these torches and at the end of the room there seems to be no floor, just a void, with some dim patches of light beyond. As we get closer, we can see there are some patches of floor, but otherwise nothing. Brovar notices a colony of bats swirling above.
As our eyes get accustomed to the dark, we can see a sarcophagus in the distance to the South and there seems to be a flask in front of it. Off to the North there seems to be a bone archway. We lower a lantern down on the end of a rope and can see the edges of the bits of flooring which are made of a mix of bone and soil. The lantern goes down about 30 foot and then disappears but we find the floor at 40 foot down. As we pull the lantern back up, it reappears, so somehow the last 10 foot are shrouded in darkness. I wouldn’t want to fall down there.
Baka, apparently the most expendable member of the party, ties a rope around her waist and tests the floor of the first column with a 10-foot pole. It seems firm so, with Tripp and Brovar holding on the other end of the rope to stop her falling, she steps on to it, feeling a definite boost from the boots. As we discuss our strategy Tripp and Sai Kyo notice that the corridor from which we entered has disappeared so we are effectively trapped here. How the hell did that happen?
Baka jumps on the columns to a large one to the South. Brovar and Lilrie sense something out there and can just make out a large, winged creature wafting past Baka, perhaps with a beak and talons. Tripp and Baka are unaffected, but the rest of us have an intense feeling of fear and terror, and are at minus 10 to all activities.
Baka continues jumping on the pillars and reaches the sarcophagus to the South finding the word “nejmawch” engraved in the bottom of it. She picks up the flask and makes a series of jumps to the North to the platform with the bone archway that we saw. On reaching it she sees that there is a lever in the wall, and with a quick prayer to Tripp’s gods, she pulls it and a shimmering floor appears. Oh no, she thinks, this will give Tripp an excuse to pull every lever in existence! After testing the shimmering floor with a 10-foot pole, the others run across to join her and at that moment, the large black carrion bird swoops down to attack.
As the others pull various weapons, Baka starts preparing a spell. Digby hits the bird with an arrow for a 5B puncture doing an additional 5 damage. Brovar shoots well but misses, the same as Tripp. Sai Kyo tries throwing a shuriken but misses as the penalty range is too high. The bird attacks Lilrie with its claws doing 5 damage and lacerating her ear stunning her for a round and another 6 damage. She misses with her return blow. Later, after the fight, Lilrie worries what this will do to her seduction skills. The rest of us, try not to react, but only manage a second or so, and then explode with laughter.
Next round Digby fumbles with his bow breaking the arrow, losing his cool and stunning himself for one round. Brovar misses and the bird swoops in to attack Baka hitting her for 13 damage, stunning her for the next round and giving her an additional 6 hits, so she is down to 9 hits.
Next round it also aims for Baka, but misses her. We do not better as Tripp misses with his bow, and Brovar and Digby do also have no luck.
Sai Kyo hits it for 3 damage as it comes to attack him. Brovar, Tripp and Digby all miss again as Lilrie runs to the bone door. The bird hits Sai Kyo for 4A doing another 9 damage, so he is down to 38 hits. Baka casts Jolts at the bird and hits it, but it seems to be able to ignore it.
Next round Digby hits it with an 8C puncture, and he can see it is bleeding, but Brovar and Tripp both miss again. Digby attacks again with a 14D puncture making it bleed even more, and stunning it so that it falls to the ground and we can all attack. Sai Kyo hits it first with a 17D strike, stunning it and giving it 4 more damage. Brovar attacks next giving it 4 damage with his long sword and a 17C crush with his mace, smashing it in the back. We can hear its bones crunching and he does an extra 20 hits. Lilrie then creams it with her morning star doing 43 damage and E and A criticals. She has caved in its chest, giving it another 30 hits finishing it off at last.
After the fight we start patching ourselves up, Lilrie healing Baka for 9 hits so she is now on 18. Brovar searches for arrows and finds 3 which he can use again.
Over at the brazier the light seems to be burning more brightly so we move over to take a look. We see there is a hole in the sarcophagus in which there are some items, wrapped in priestly garb. The first is a rusty short sword which the men seem to think is useless, but Lilrie and Baka see as a finely made. Baka takes it. There is a normal looking ring with no markings which Lilrie takes, and a short bow with two normal arrows. When we pick it up and examine it, we can see that there are indentations for two arrows to be fired at once. Neat. Tripp takes the bow.
We go back to the bone door in the archway and open it with the bone key. It leads into a 10-foot-wide stairway leading down into darkness. We start going down and after 10 mins we are still going and after 20 mins we wonder how long the stairs will be. After 30 mins we reckon we have gone a mile, and soon after that we see light ahead and arrive at last in a large, open, lit room. There are two huge bone doors, set into the bone wall, and we can see into a gigantic chamber. Peering through the doors we can see that there is a 40-foot-high vaulted ceiling set on pillars of bone. There are skeletal figures around large skeletal figures on each side, all carrying weapons. At the end of the room there is an enormous sarcophagus 10 foot across and 20 foot long. It is as silent as the grave.
On the floor we can see some concave, chest-height, mirrored panels which seem to be movable. Standing around the sarcophagus seem to be several flasks, to match the 6 smaller flasks and 2 larger ones, that we have picked up already. Lilrie heals Digby and herself and we decide to rest again, as we can’t help feeling that we are about to be shat on again.
Report Date
04 Jan 2021
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