September 6th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Vic
Characters:
Krusher as "Fleck"
Omegaman as "Kojack"
Vic as "Buckles"
A Paid Actor off the Street as "Robert"
The party members (Fleck, Buckles, and Kojack) attended a memorial service at the temple for the fallen Grimnir, and Buckles was Blessed by the encounter. While the party tried to hire a cleric, they found none. They did hire Robert, however—a “specialist” of sorts—for 1% of the loot. After some time hiking, the party found the Halls of Horror’s secret staircase entrance, hidden under brambles and such.
They took the staircase down to a good-sized room that (six yards wide by ten yards long), and the defining feature, aside from the pillars, was a large statue of a mouse wearing plate armor and with a two-handed longsword in the center. The dwarves recognized it as a statute of a dwarven fairytale of Rittermaus, a mouse that fought with adventurers.
While standing in the doorway admiring the statue, five kobolds ran towards them from the darkness. Fleck, enraged, charged at them, and swung at two kobolds, doing massive damage, cleaving one in two, and horrifically wounding the other (who otherwise took it like a champ) and was standing there like a crazed lunatic (“like a headless chicken,” as per the GM). Kojack attacked and smashed a kobold’s shield.
Surprisingly, the kobolds stood to fight, but rather uselessly (one hit Fleck, and the attack bounced off, while another completely missed Kojack). Fleck then swung at two other kobolds, and killed both, while Buckles roasted the last one with a fireball. A quick search revealed that one kobold had a pouch with twenty bronze pieces found. Further exploration revealed a secret (magical) door, or archway, in the rear of the room. Above it, written in dwarven, were the words “Speak what the knight desires and be led to his companions.” While Kojack and Fleck used the words “glory” and “honor,” Buckles said “cheese” in Dwarven, and the door opened. It led to a short bit of corridor, with another door at the end of a hallway.
Robert opened it, and that led to another hallway, a longer one, with a door to the left most of the way down, and a door dead ahead. The party asked Robert to see if he can unlock the door to the left, which he did. That lead to a hallway that proceeded for ten yards and ended in a door. Robert tried to disarm a pressure plate that he found along the hallway, but failed, and a trapdoor opened above him and spilled out rocks. Luckily, Fleck grabbed and yanked him out of the way just in time.
Robert thereafter picked the lock on the door and it opened into a long room (six yards wide eighteen yards long), with six pillars and two staircases; At the back of the room between two pillars is a sarcophagus. Buckles noticed that the wall to the left radiated magic. Approaching the wall, he attempts to tap it with his staff, but it went straight through the (illusory) wall, revealing five ghouls who charge out wearing chain mail and wielding axes.
No one was surprised, and Fleck did not lose his cool and go into a rage, but still chopped off the arm of one of the ghouls. He then got paralyzed for a second when he got punched. Buckles tried to cast a flame jet but accidentally hit Fleck (for effectively no damage), and Kojack masterfully defended against three ghouls’ attacks (while Robert ran).
Kojack then hit a ghoul in the neck while Buckles got a Flame Jet ready. Fleck got hit with an axe, but that bounced off his armor; shortly after that, Kojack got paralyzed. In response, Buckles lit one on fire, who eventually burned and died. The four remaining ghouls both attacked Fleck and Kojack, but did not do much damage. Fleck then hit both of the ghouls in the skull, and killed both of them. Kojack also brained one with his weapon and put it down. The lone remaining ghoul got a good shot in at Kojack, but Fleck cut the last one down. Buckles called out for Robert, and then reassured him that he’s safer with the group
Beyond the illusory wall was a sarcophagus and chest. In the chest they some 240 silver coins and a map, which looks like a treasure map. There is a name repeated on the sarcophagus: Kret Neb. Nothing jumped out, but there was a disheveled body with an ornate looking short sword and a silver crown with gems on it.
Fleck opened the second sarcophagus in the main room, and while nothing popped out, everyone (except Fleck) feels a little unlucky. Still, they took the 187 silver coins. The group then went through the next door, and when Fleck opened it, he saw some kind of humanoid things that have blood red glowing eyes, as well as a floating pile of bones and rags that is terrifying looking. Those are allegedly two wights and a wraith. Buckles thought they might have been wielding magical short swords.
The party spent a good amount of time convincing Kojack not to attack, and Buckles started to have a low-grade panic as Kojack kept talking about doing this thing. Eventually, he tried to cast Sunlight and failed, and figured that Tyr didn’t want him to do it at this time. Buckles noted that as he got further away from Fleck, he no longer felt unlucky, but once he got close, he felt unlucky again.
When they went back, the door that they had gone through, Fleck discovered as he pulled the door handle off, was now a trapped false door —somehow—that shot fire out at him. The group went back to the sarcophagi and tried a bunch of different things, but nothing happened.
Trying to figure out what to do next, a cleric (Elwood) and a warrior-type (Jake) appeared, and it seemed like they also found themselves trapped. They tried moving all of the rocks off the pressure plate, and nothing helped. Despite many attempts, they had to use a Scroll of Divine Intervention to get back. Once back in town, the group figured out where the treasure map points to, but decided against going there at this time. While Kojack asked the clerics at the temple for any magic items, they did not have any, but noted that they did have scrolls of Sunlight (which weakens wights and destroys wraiths) and Protection from Evil.
Author's Notes
No notes were provided.
GM's Notes
I've never seen a session go that poorly and smoothly at the same time. They think they fell for some sort of trap or puzzle, but couldn't figure it out, and spent over two hours of real time poking and prodding at it until Fleck pulled out a Scroll of Divine Intervention so they could go home.
It sounds like next week is either going to be going into the first entrance or going to dig up that treasure that they found on that treasure map, though, they haven't done any digging (heh) into any information about that treasure. The session itself wasn't too shabby though; ~25 gp each is a pretty good haul considering the amount of rooms they explored and cleared.
I want to especially commend Vic for writing a recap of this length, because, man, this is longer than some of the recaps that I wrote! The quality is great too. He did a seriously great job and I set the bar for future recaps to be like this, because, man, this is good.
Character Advancement
+2pts from Loot
+1pts from Roleplay
+1pts from Exploration
+0pts from Freeing Prisoners
+0 Bonus Points
Total: +5 points, +4 to Fleck
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