Session #41

Ok, if you thought that waiting an extra week for this week's session would make it that much better, man are you going to be disappointed.

The western half of region N is pretty picked clean. So any time the party spends there is going to be a bit boring. And with this session, the party was exploring the areas that didn't have many critters to challenge the party.

Now traps are a different story.

Only three players this session; Aaron, Jeff, and Justin. Senmonious was played by Aaron and Dariel was played by Jeff.

There was much bs'ing tonight. We got started late and just didn't have any one ting in the game to focus our attention. Going from several, good, challenging sessions, to a few with no real challenge makes it hard to focus. It usually takes a week or two for everyone to get back into it.

On thing we discussed was the irony of gaming when you're young (high school) versus gaming when you're older (post-college).
When you're young you have all kinds of time and you can play tons and tons of games of all kinds. Did you ever play D&D from Friday after school until Sunday morning? But the downfall is that you have a limited amount of money on hand. So you have all kinds of time to play your games, but very little money to buy the games.
Now when you're older, you've got a good job. If there's a gaming book out there that you want to buy, you go buy it. But now you have no time.
It's a cruel irony.
I've been at Yottaquest many times and left without buying a thing. I hate that. It feels wrong. And it's not Yottaquests's fault. They've got plenty of things to buy, but nothing I want or will get any use out of.
I have everything I ever need to play Federation & Empire, but now I have no time.
(If you've never heard of F&E; Turn 1 takes 2-4 hours, turn 2 takes 3-5 hours, turns 3-7 take 4-8 hours a piece, and turn 7+ easily 8 or more hours.)

Yes my cheapness does affect my purchases, but only to prevent me from buying book after book, and more-so if it's over $35...it's probably not going to be bought.

But anyway, on with the game!

Map

The party had last defeated the poor, innocent iron golem and checked out the long hallway before heading back to the garrison and resting.

This session started off with the party returning to the long hallway and investigating the door.

Oops! They don't have a rogue any more.
So now they have to fore-go the use of a trap remover and replace him with a trap springer.
Thundercat, you're up front!

Hallway N194: The party encountered a mohrg riding a zombie wyvern.
Instead of immediately beginning a fight, he held up his hand and spoke to party.
He told them he knows of their power and does not wish to fight any longer for his warlord. He only wishes to be left alone to serve the rest of his sentence.
And he is willing to give the party information in trade for his life and freedom.
The party says that their vows prevent them from making deals with something like him, but they may be willing to let him go on his way, depending on the information he gives them.
He reluctantly agrees and tells them that his warlord, a mummy-lord named Kasteoficiss, is a priest of the ancient god of death, Jergal. And she seeks to free some demon of death from the center of the region. If this demon is released and makes it to the surface-world, it will convert every living being into its undead slaves.
To stop this the demon must be defeated while it is still in the dungeon.
To get to the demon the party must find the four doors to the tomb (bronze doors with no handles) and the keys to open the doors, and a way to turn off the force fields in front of the doors.
Kasteoficiss's domain is to the north and she has at least one of the keys.

Note: I have forgotten what I specifically told them. So this dang blog may actually give them some more information than they had. I doubt it will matter much as they would find out the information eventually.

The party believes what he told him is all he knew and all correct, so the party lets him past them, albeit in a very paranoid fashion...just in case.

Room N193: This combat was a taste of things to come for this evening.
The room was your standard evil-altar and sacrifice room.
And residing inside, and in hiding, were 6 allips (powered-up of course...and in case you are wondering...several of the creatures in this region have been powered up to make things a little more challenging).

No round-by-round info this time. This fight was just sad.
Thundercat failed his save versus the insane rambling and just stood there the entire combat.
But it didn't matter. The rest of the group took care of them thanks to spells like Heal, Blade Barrier, and Firebrand. I'm not even sure I remember any melee damage that mattered.

Room N120: This was another altar room. And it also had 5 allips.
Now instead of doing another combat the would have ended the same, I just told the party to mark off a Firebrand, a Flame Strike or Blade Barrier, and a Heal, and I'd give them some pittance XP.

Room N119: Effectively another empty room with some dark-clerical accoutrements in it.

Room N118: This room had hundreds of holes in the floor, walls, and ceiling. Thunderclease, newly anointed trap-springer, carefully walked into the room.
Four poison spikes jumped out of random holes. Had he not been in his Thundercat form, he might have had a problem. But he was, so jumped back to the hallway.
Then he jumped to the other door in the room, hoping to open the door without springing the trap. It almost worked. He sprung the trap again, with the same results. But the door was locked, so he leapt back out and the party chose another direction.

Room N117: Empty room.

Room N116: Another empty room.

Room N115: This is a holding pen for 4 wyvern zombies.
I don't think it took even 3 rounds for the party to clean them out.

Room N114: Black soot covered the walls of this room. Trapspringer Thundercat took damage from 2 simultaneous 18d6 Delayed Blast Fireballs. Once again decent saves and 2 clerics turn a powerful trap into a minor nuisance.

Room N113: Another empty room.

Room N131: Another empty room...with a compactor trap. The ceiling began lowering while the floor began rising. The solo Cleez easily got out of the room. Then the party decided to go another direction.

Room N130: Another empty room.

Room N132: This was the 2nd saddest thing to happen all night.
In this room was a mohrg riding a zombie wyvern.
Combat began immediately.

Round 1: Thunderclease won initiative.
He attacked the zombie wyvern mount. Two massive swings and 0 misses later, the mount dropped. The mohrg failed his riding check and dropped at Cleez's feat. One cleave swing and 2 regular swings later and the mohrg was no more.

The party had even buffed up for this fight.

Room N135: Well at least this room had some rubble.

Room N133: The party detected 3 points of strong evil in this room so they burst the door open. Well they tried too. Upon touching the door a trap with a Horrid Wilting and an Energy Drain blasted out at Cleez. Minor nuisance yet again.
So he opened the door and went to town.
Round 1: Cleez won initiative again. In that round he downed the mohrg near the door.
The other 2 mohrgs, realizing that staying and fighting was not a good idea, ran. One ran north and the other east.
Everyone but Cleez ran after the mohrg that ran east.
Round 2: Cleez with his 100' per round (60' leonal speed + 10' barbarian bonus + 30' hast bonus) movement caught up to one of the mohrgs and did some nice damage to it.
Both mohrgs try to continue to run.
The one Cleez is after is finished with an attack of opportunity.
The rest of the party gets a few AoO attacks, but not enough to drop it.
The last mohrg gets away and opens the door to room N136.
The rest of party catches up to the mohrg, leaving it in bad shape.
Round 3: Cleez sprints over 80' to catch up to the last mohrg and then finishes it off.

While the party is there, and the door is open, they decide to check out...

Room N136: This dark room was both warm, cool, and quite a bit breezy. Cleez investigated the room, to find nothing...except that he triggered a trap. A big trap that stretched out over 300' from the room. And it was a nasty storm.

Round 1: A loud thunderclap fills the area, the party has to save or of be deafened.
The party doesn't like it so they try to run away, then realize that everywhere they look is just as filled with a storm.
Round 2: Acid rain dropped down on the party for a mere 1d6 acid damage.
The party gathers together.
Round 3: Lighting bolts fly about everywhere. Everybody gets a nice 10d6 lightning damage. Dariel is at about 50% after that.
Krieg puts a Wall of Stone above the party.
Round 4: A hail storm crashes about, but the party is protected.
Round 5: Several meteors from a Meteor Swarm drop down on the party. They don't take any damage thanks to the Wall of Stone, but the wall is ruined as a result.
Valden heals Dariel. Dariel casts a Wall of Force over the party.
Round 6-10: Just rain for the rest of the spell. The Wall of Force looks like a car's windshield during a storm though.

Room N140 & N141: One room had a big hole in the floor, 3 long dead elves, and a bunch of rusty digging equipment. The other room was a receptacle for the dug up rubble.

But first, the door leading to room N140 was trapped. A Wail of the Banshee spell went off. Just like the one that killed the sorcerer Zorak. And this time the sorcerer Dariel failed his save and promptly died of fright.

And then we realized that Wail of the Banshee is a death spell, and Death Ward prevented it from working. So Dariel was alive again.

Heh.

Room N142: This room was tall and trapped. It even took 2 charges off the Wand of Knock to open the door.
It was utterly empty except for fiery yellow corundum on the floor. When Cleez tried to grab the gem, the door tried to close, and a spray hits Cleez.
The party is able to hold the door open and Valden and Cleez switch places.
Eventually the party is able to pull the gem free and make a run for it out of the room.

Room N143: Empty room.

Room N146: Another empty room that looked like the sight of an intense battle.

Room N144: Yet another empty room.

Area N100: Another "unholy oil" trap. Everyone makes it past the area with no ill-effects.

Room N149: A rubble filled hallway with some minor treasure buried in the rubble.

It's late, so the party flies back to the garrison and we call it a night.

Next session...Pain!