Run Date: September 3rd, 2022
One day I’ll learn spacing and distance. Until then, the party is just going to have to suck up losing 3 days to travel into the wilderness. Today was a dungeon crawl where the most dangerous thing was the moss.
PCs
Richard: Lv1 fighter
Carthalion: Lv1 rogue
Red Water Sanctum
Another week where one player was MIA. The session started with discussion about plans and managing time as the main crew wanted to go bonewicce hunting during next week’s full moon. They decided to inquire at the Gold Digger’s Guild to find out about a recent discovery and a mission to clear out a point of interest. After they ran the numbers and realized they wouldn’t be back in town in time, the players pulled out alternates for this session.
Richard, the guard that worked the graveyard shift, returns alongside several henchmen he’d been interviewing in his off time. A new face joins the crew with Carthalion, a rogue that prefers second story work and big breaks. With the information in hand, the party geared up and headed out of Riversmeet 9 people strong. The location they were searching for was discovered in the mountains east of Riversmeet proper; the foreman describing it as an ancient place with swirling black and white stone pillars and floors. He also noted that the crew that discovered it were attacked in the middle of the night and few survived. Yet, the first obstacle for the party would be finding the place.
Despite their numbers, the group lacked anyone trained in wilderness tracking or navigation. This oversight resulted in only a day’s loss (extremely lucky veering). Due to the delays, the party arrived at the entrance just before sunset. They used the remaining daylight to examine the refuse left in the camp and enter the onyx building before them where they discovered an ancient basin filled with red water. As the group spread out, Carthalion decided to taste the water and learned that the water had a strong metallic flavor and numbed his tongue (Lucky Save). Deciding not to mess with it any further, eyes shifted to a pillar that had collapsed in the back corner. There was some back and forth about the value of the stone in this sanctum, and the group had zero qualms with “taxing” their employers by hauling out a few chunks. While they weighed the idea of excavating some more, Richard took his torchlight to the shadowed area in the back and discovered a tunnel leading down into the mountain.
With night incoming, the decision fell to making camp and preparing for excavation in the morning (using improvised tools since the one in the camp had been destroyed). Shifts were laid out and everyone settled in. The first pair of watches were uneventful, and it wasn’t until morning that the party discovered there was nobody to wake their fourth watch. As the camp roused, they discovered that three of their henchmen had disappeared along with their onyx hunks. The first assumption was thievery until someone spotted a trail of blood leading into the sanctum. There was less concern about the lost henches than what would happen if they camped without scouting it out.
Gearing up, the group settled into their combat ranks and headed into the sanctum. Richard noted that they may have angered the spirits or god of this place as they discovered the lost hench’s weapons in the red water basin. It was at this point they figured out the water dissolved metal. Carthalion took a sample for later testing and the party headed down the back tunnel.
It only took a few minutes for the group to arrive at the end of the tunnel, finding themselves in an old stone room with brass-banded stone doors to their front and right. A quick inspection for blood revealed the path forward and their door was chosen. Carthalion was cautious about the brass banding, but found the door lacked any traps or other dangerous mechanisms. With this easing his mind, he lead the party into the next room: a dining hall adorned with metallic dinnerware in varying states. The standout, an untarnished golden candelabra with unlit candles, caught the eyes of Richard. He chose to light what was left of the candles, and the entire table roared to life. The room quickly became a swirling maelstrom of dinnerware; forks, knives, cups, and plates. Initiative was called and the group won out. Deciding not to waste time fighting kitchen utensils, the party mounted a retreat into a door they spotted on the side of the dining room. They managed to squeeze past the door and into the hallway before any heavy damage was inflicted. Here, they waited and listened. The candelabra’s light revealed the shadows of the maelstrom as it calmed and the dinnerware settled back into its place.
Safely behind a new door and with a moment to think, the group looked forward and found they’d come into a long hallway they couldn’t see the end of. Forward into the unknown or back into kitchen hell? Courage won out over caution as everyone shifted back into position for their traversal into the unknown. Richard was leading with a torch as the party followed the walls forward into a new chamber where he discovered the bodies of their missing allies dressed in a ritual circle, their blood filling ridges carved in the stone floor. Despite the horror of this discovery, he also managed to spot two pairs of red eyes just beyond his torchlight.
Initiative went to the players. Richard decided to charge into the room first so he could offer the support of light and maintain the mid-line while his two buddies flew into a rage and charged at the now revealed monstrosities: 4 foot humanoid mutants with pitch black skin adorned in bones. Between the raging henchmen and follow up assault, they tore through the monsters like paper with little to no harm to their own.
With the pair of unknown creatures dispatched, exploration continued. This time, the party pressed further forward to a door that split into a T with an archway to their left and another door to their right. Richard lead the group toward the archway. He first noticed a quick drop in temperature, followed by the torch flame wildly dancing, and finally spotted the source as he turned the corner. Inside the archway was another chamber with brown moss clinging to every crack, nook, and stone. Richard (whose player has probably never seen something like this) decided to try and burn some of the moss. Today, Richard’s player learned about dungeon hazards.
As soon as the flame came close, the moss consumed the torchlight and half of Richard’s arm. Luckily, another hench was carrying a lit torch so they wouldn’t be stuck in pitch darkness, however it did little to help Richard’s situation. One of the other henches rushed forth to try and scrape the stuff off, but ended up getting infected as well. In desperation, the two took knives and chains and nearly tore their skin off removing the moss before it consumed something vital. The pair were strong and quick enough that they’d only suffer some scarring from the incident.
With this path blocked, they ventured for the door on the opposite side of this hall. It opened to reveal a stone pit filled with giant beetles with glowing abdomens. The creatures gave off an almost magma-like glow as they chewed through the stone making up the floor. Carthalion was the brave one in this instance, firing a missed shot into the bowl the beetles had eaten into the center of the chamber. It spooked them for a moment and he chuckled and headed down to meet them; two pets on the back of a shell, an ember-like glow, and a golden glitter. The party, working their way around the room from the uneaten sections, found that these beetles were eating the stone around veins of gold, and thanked their new friends as they chipped away and bagged what nuggets they could snatch up.
Free gold, heavy chunks of onyx, and no real obstacles? It all seemed too good to be true. The group still had a mission, however, and soon returned to their exploration. A hallway to the right had a door looping back to the room with the monstrous sigil and a split that was filled with toxic gas (they avoided playing with this hazard). Back in the beetle room was another unexplored section, but behind that door they found several more of the pitch monstrosities; this time bloated and swollen. Like the last ones, they died quickly, and the party took a bit of extra precaution in avoiding any potential diseases. Inside this room was another sigil, though much older and piled with bones. The group was not about to muck about with it so they went back to the center room with their fallen henchmen.
This primary sigil room was more or less a central point with doors leading in all directions. Having explored every direction but south, the party figured they’d press on. Carthalion was hitting a stride at this point, perhaps high on all the potential treasure he was going to cash out with. Unfortunately, pride goeth before the fall… literally. He opened one of the southern doors and nearly fell into a 20ft crevasse. Luckily, Richard was quick on his feet and caught the rogue. With the torchlight spreading through this giant crevassed hall, they discovered two exits on the same wall (the light didn’t reach either end). One was the nearby door on their side that lead into the pit, and the other was an open hall.
With a bit of rope and some dexterous maneuvering, Carthalion worked his way to the hallway. As his hands gripped the ledge to lift himself, he felt that familiar dread. It happened quickly, first the breeze, then the chill, then the numbness. This was the end of the earlier hall of moss, and he was now being consumed by it. With nowhere to go, he let go and started desperately trying to climb the rope while Richard yanked him up. Alas, by the time Carthalion’s body hit the landing, it was a half-frozen mass. One of the henchmen, seemingly having forgotten Richard’s earlier mistake, tried a last-ditch attempt at saving Carthalion’s body by, you guessed it, trying to burn away the moss. Pitch darkness surrounded the group as the only light was snuffed and they heard the terrible, chilling screams. By the time a new torch had been lit, the woman was dead.
So it went, the party cut their losses and left; rushing through the maelstrom in the dining hall and traveling back to town… Oh yeah, I guess it’s not so easy as that. We only had a few minutes of session time left and the party still had to navigate their way home. Several adjudications, some rolls, and some quick encounter back and forth. Results: Failed navigation, rations depleted, starvation setting in. The remaining characters dodged a bulette (thank you encounter distance and reaction rolls), escaped from raging mountain men (Vance chose to fight to the death while the others fled), and stumbled into a grove of druidic cyclopean creatures (reaction roll… Friendly and Helpful!). This last one was a literal life-saver as the matriarch fed and guided the characters back to the plains, “There, human realm.”
Rewards
4 hunks of Onyx (est. 2k gp each)
~1lb of raw gold/each (est. 500 gp value each)
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