Salkan Soiree Ep10: Return to the Tower of Chaos

 Run Date: September 5, 2023

PCs

Baldor: Lv2 Barbarian
Conner: Lv3 Fighter
Tavi: Lv3 Shaman

Hench

Arthur: Lv0

Return to the Tower of Chaos

It took us a bit to get going, and I can't remember why. Nonetheless, it ended with the PCs hiring Arthur, a red-faced proselytizer. Baldor did the talking, and was quickly talked out of 50gp and a suit of armor. The group then started their march to Sherbin to hire on another. They never made it.

Conner purchased a riding horse to speed the group's travel, and the party marched out of Fayum. Along the road, they met some chipper laborers working to build a set of homes. They asked about rumours and talked about recent happenings in the area. The men suggested the party avoid the road since brigands had been raiding of late, but they blew them off and kept marching. Sure enough, prophecy does as it will.

The party was ambushed the next morning by a group of 35. As luck had it, they were Ricky's men and recognized Baldor and Conner fairly quickly. After throwing a few jokes back and forth, they all marched to the Ranger camp. Ricky was happy to see the party again, and even happier to take their money in a few rounds of dice. The crew had a nice day with Ricky, per usual, and informed him of their plans to hit up the tower from the previous week. He wished them luck and provided provisions for the trip. The party set out the following morning. 

The trip went well until the party neared the hills and found a herd of wildebeests. Baldor agitated them by trying to chase them off, and 6 of the bulls charged the party. Conner and Arthur desperately shot at them as they charged, but the party soon found themselves being overrrun. The party continued their struggle against another charge by the bulls. They managed to get the beasts stuck-in just enough to start felling the wounded. Baldor got knocked to the ground, stood up, and cleaved through two. The others continued to slash and stab in desperation. After the group had finally finished off the last bull, they took stock of the damage. Baldor noticed Arthur lying on the ground and picked him up. He gave the man a slap and his head popped like a cracked egg. "Is he dead?" RIP another hench. 

The party had no skills to butcher the bulls and decided to press on (more on this later). They ventured into the hills and quickly found the wasteland and tower. It didn't appear any different than the last visit, but Conner was especially on edge. The group crept into the keep and soon found themselves back at the landing where the platinum bar awaited them. Baldor, Conner, and now Tavi, all touched the teleporting bar. All of them rolled the secret room. The trio looked around to see if the treasure was still there, but to no avail. Conner offered the theory that Ricky had already come to raid it, and that some of his quips about taking their money through gambling were actually jabs at stealing their cut.

The group then had to confront another obstacle: how would they get out? Nobody remembered where the secret door was, just that there was one. It took the characters an hour (in game) to finally locate it. Upon cracking it open, they found themselves surprising the guard room again.Like the first trip, the guard room was full of demonic creatures. Unlike last trip, they were all man-sized.

Baldor charged in and valiantly murdered 4 of them before his allies came into the room. They engaged with fury, but the demons were zealous in defense of their den. Tavi and Conner occupied the larger guards while Conner marched to hold the portcullis; which was up this time around. Waves of pebbles struck Conner from the darkness while he cut down those that charged at him in desperation. Soon, Conner shouted at the others to hurry up and bring the light.

Tavi and Conner finished off the remaining 4 big guards and hurried to join Baldor. Their lightrevealed a Shaman that had been trying to cast Fear on Baldor to no effect. The battlefield quickly shifted into the den proper as Baldor attempted to overrun the guards blocking the leader. One of them managed to stop his charge, but not the cleave chain that followed. He quickly found himself surrounded, however, as the cat-sized demons swarmed him. Conner and Tavi entered the battle shortly after Baldor dropped to the ground and cleaned up.

Baldor recovered, as barbarians do, and the group looted the room. The demon brood only sat, cowering, as the group found the chests from the secret room and a few trinkets. They also found a bunch of barrels; but after Tavi opened one to find black fish sludge, they bounced. The group departed the dungeon with little issue, but found that night had fallen outside. They filled their saddlebags and settled in for the night.

The following day, the group promptly got lost. Fate sent them further into the hills where they avoided some rabid hounds and stumbled across a "Crystal City." The party was extremely hesitant to enter the strange settlement, and were even more averse to meeting the "not quite humans" that occupied it. The party evaded the place entirely and soon found themselves setting up camp again.

Curing Conner's watch, she spotted a strange creature at the edge of her light. It attempted to speak in some alien tongue, but she understood none of it. The creature continued to move around the camp as Conner spotted hints of its details: humanoid, thick black fuzzy legs, a face full of eyes. She soon woke her party and Tavi threw a torch at it; lighting the creature's horrible body for a moment. As it departed in the darkness, strings of web around the camp lit aflame. They promptly abandoned it.

When the party finally returned to the Ranger camp, they were exhausted. Ricky welcomed them back and invited them to stay and rest up. He helped the group unlock the chests and count their loot (and of course take a 50% cut). There was a short discussion of whether they wanted to stay a few days and heal, or head back to town early, but otherwise the session wrapped up.

Rewards (Totals)

900gp per PC

1000xp per PC

Afterword

There was a lot of lost time/silence this session, almost all my fault. I used the new encounter rolls this session and I can say that I like them a lot. The shift to "roll every hex" on the road/civilization slowed things down a little bit, though I had also slacked on pre-rolling encounters for the session (I usually keep a stock of 8). The spread for road/civil stuff is great, and I got both Werewolves (the friendly people) and Bandits (the Rangers). I also had a Commoner and Patrol roll that went unused. On top of the above, the wildebeests lead to me wondering about the time for butchering, etc. I need to practice the mechanics (they're at the end of the MM) so I can fairly adjudicate. My quick and dirty math resulted in 3 hours of work to harvest only 30lbs of meat; which sounded way off compared to say, the beef I ordered last year.