Defenders Log Entry #17: Underground Terror
Felix, 4th level fighter, 44 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 3rd level ranger, 25 hp, played by committee
Morgan, 4th level fighter, 22 hp, played by Alan
Balinor, 2nd level fighter, 19 hp, played by Joel
Quentin, 4th level druid, 16 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 4th level thief, 13 hp, played by Sean
Cassian, 1st level cleric, 9 hp, played by Katherine
Virtually all movement during this session was done at about .2".
The mist did not detect as evil, so, excuses gone, we headed down the corridor. After a brief amount of checking, we were abruptly attacked by five skeletons and five zombies!
After an impressive first swing doing 22 points of damage to a skeleton, who promptly fell apart, Balinor found himself frustrated and held at bay. Felix and Morgan blew apart the rest, with a little help from Perry. We pulled the bodies outside-- they were robed and had odd masks on. Turning by the cleric Cassian did in fact work-- the one remaining one fled, only to be chopped apart by Felix. Visibility here, by the way, is a whopping 3 feet with the Continual Light items. Furthermore, we showed that the aura emitted by the entire mist effectively prevented Detect Magic from working.
Drawing upon folklore, Cassian suggested that the skeletons might be of a special variety, since they were wearing death masks of the islands north of Lendore. The fiery red eye sockets still glowed in death, and detected as magical. That is, until Balinor smashed them into little bits with his magical hammer. His regular hammer Bessie got two kills, and he switched to Rip to give it a fair chance.
After avoiding a trip wire trap that would bring a smashing block down on the party, we turned the corner, Perry and Felix in the lead. Suddenly, the rope attached to Morgan fell out of his hands, and there was a cry of "AAAAHHHHH!!!" fading from Felix as he apparently fell a great height into the "floor." We looked through the illusionary surface and saw a swirling vortex. Since Felix could still hear us, barely, and was still yelling about falling after a full minute, we decided that this was some weird illusion. Balinor reached into the floor and wished for Felix-- who promptly popped up, comatose from having bumped his head repeatedly on something. Bizarre trap there. No permanent affects though-- it appears it basically was a great place to hide stuff.
We found a pit trap covering the center area of a room along a different corridor. A couple of general notes: this place is a small maze of corridors and "secret panels" like the one at the entrance. We chose to avoid secret doors and traps at all costs and proceed along the clear ways, assuming that perhaps if someone actually wanted to retrieve the treasure, he would have to get there without dying.
Next, we entered an open space and proceeded along a wall. Suddenly, the entrance to the room slammed shut and poison gas sprayed into the room. Everyone except Cassian and Quentin immediately collapsed. Furthermore, a crystalline elf maiden started heading toward Cassian. Her arrow shattered on impact, which was quite bad. Meanwhile, Quentin desperately cast Stoneshape and began to open a hole in the door. He finished, and Cassian continued running from the golem-like thing. Quentin realized the danger and cast Slow Poison on Balinor, who rose up slightly damaged.
Suddenly, the poison hit again and both Cassian and Quentin dropped, leaving Balinor alone. He scooped up a Healing Potion from Felix and downed as he approached the golem. The elf closed and suddenly swordlike crystal things sprang from her "hands" and sliced at Balinor, hurting him. The potion healed him back up, and he swung the magic hammer-- cracking the maiden everywhere. Heedless, the golem swung again and missed. Balinor smashed it again and it shattered.
He then tossed the party through the Stoneshaped hole, and lugged everyone back to camp, where they shirked off the poison. Everyone was fine, but we waited a day before reentering.
The golem room had seemed to have treasure spilling everywhere, but we were wary of tricks. An astrology done by Cassian was VERY unambiguous:
Is the treasure worth taking?
No words. The number 163,265 is important. The color copper is important.
Duh. Worthless decoy. Cassian cast a Precipitation spell which pretty well cleared the area of poison, and we investigated. Perry got nailed by a poison needle trap on a chest full of coppers, but since we had already cast Slow Poison on him this didn't particularly concern us (Quentin then cast Neutralize Poison). Generally the room was full of crappy items disguised to look nice. There were in fact two secret panels leaving the room.
We ran out of corridors, BARELY dodging a VERY nasty trap in two different places. This beaut opened the floor up suddenly, dropped you in glistening spikes, shut, and then the spikes rattled around like a blender. A real work of something.
Perry then managed to disarm the trip wire traps, despite failing on one of them and causing it to fall, but not anywhere near Perry. The pit traps were avoidable in general.
Finally we came to another room like the first golem room. We decided to be smart this time, and chucked a piece of wood in. Rushing out were... five zombies and five skeletons. The same thing happened again, except this time Balinor only managed to kill one before they began repeatedly hitting him. They were summarily dispatched.
Next, Felix went in alone, and Quentin immediately began casting Stone Shape on the door when it shut as expected. Felix retreated to the corner and suddenly found himself fending off attacks from a crystalline golem-- this one about 10 feet tall and having the appearance of a minotaur! It beat him up before he managed to escape, and inflicted a wound. We fell back when its arm reached through the Stoneshaped section of the door. Balinor whacked it soundly, sending cracks up the arm, but was grabbed and had his hammer knocked out of his hand. It was scooped up by Morgan, and Balinor fell back. There was a clicking sound, and the door mechanism began to reset. The door was about to open!
We retreated all the way outside, and the golem clearly followed us right up until the final door. Thankfully it didn't emerge.
We healed that night, and went back in the next day, after incinerating the bodies of the skeletons and zombies from the previous battle. We couldn't seem to find the golem though, and we assume it has gone back to its reset position in the room, which is where we are now standing, trying to decide what to do.
Joel/Balinor