Session 38: Day 2-3 of Planting: the party expands

As Lhoss, Gnorcia, Ronan, Armaziti, Chiki, and Arnd surveyed the bones of the destroyed skeletons, they were glad to see their companion Calbach had rejoined them. He is a trusted and valued member of the team. Then suddenly without explanation, three figures appeared, seemingly out of thin air. A monk initiate called Blizzard, Tatania the evoker, and a thief who goes by the name Hoddour were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. We briefly explained to them where they were (the barrowmaze) and our mission (to find and defeat Nanor). To their credit, all three seemed eager to join up with us on our adventure. Naturally that means we will have to split the treasure more ways, but with the number of near deaths and difficult foes we've faced already, a few more helping hands are most welcome.

We all puzzled over what to do with the trap we had discovered, not knowing its purpose. Calbach thoughtfully noted that springing the trap intentionally might be preferable to coming across it and accidentally setting it off later on. There was a lot of back and forth over the wisest course of action. Growing listless, Lhoss studied the door that the skeletons had emerged from. She saw a spring and deduced that the trap was likely meant to open the door and catch unsuspecting trespassers off guard. She closed the door. Gnorcia tossed Calbach a skeleton and instructed him to lob it onto the stone which triggered the trap, which he did. Lhoss was half right; the door she had just closed sprung open and additionally a large stone slab shot up, blocking egress from the room. If the trap had not been found, the first person through the door would have been sealed inside a room with a horde of skeletons! Terrifying! We were briefly separated from Chiki who had been outside the room, keeping a rear guard. Fortunately we had also previously discovered the switch to disarm the trap which Chiki flipped to let us all out.

It was noted that a few among our group needed healing after the skeleton encounter. Armaziti blessed them after which we collectively decided to move to another room where we were less likely to be trapped in order to rest, recover, and regain our spells. A watch was set up. With ten members of the party, five short two-person shifts were assigned which allowed us all a relatively restful night. On Ronan and Arnd's watch, they heard scratching coming from the hallway. They decided to wait quietly while the creatures moved closer, closer, closer, and then gratefully past the door. At the end of the last shift with no other disturbances, everyone ate and prepared to journey on. Blizzard expressed that she was feeling a growing sense of claustrophobia. Perhaps this gloomy place is intensifying some latent fears. For now she seems able to press on.

The group headed south out of the room to a hallway that had flour on the floor which some of the group remembered encountering before. This portion of the barrowmaze had not been thoroughly explored and Lhoss found a door that had not yet been opened by the group. She attempted to open it, but it was stuck. Ronan, believing himself equal to the task also tried without luck. Finally Arnd (needing a win) was able to unstick the door. Unfortunately for him, he was met with a pack of zombies!

Zombies are slow creatures and Ronan was able to get the jump on them with a mighty swing of his sword. Blizzard was able to finish one off with a bolt from her crossbow and Tatania hit another with a magic missile (these new folks are already pulling their weight!). Gnorcia was able to move in and hit one with a dart. The doorway was crowded and couldn't allow additional melee fighting. Lhoss, having no ranged weapons or spells that work on undead grasped her last flask of oil. "This trick never works" she muttered lighting it and lobbing it toward the zombies. But miraculously it worked incredibly well! The flask landed squarely on the head of one zombie, melting off its sickening, dead skin and killing it. The oil splashed onto another zombie and continued to burn on the ground where a couple of the mindless brutes walked through and took further damage. The zombies were unable to connect their thrashing blows with any of our heroes who dispatched the foes: Gnorcia with another dart, Ronan, slicing one in twain with his sword, Arnd connecting with his mace, and Calbach finishing the last with a killing blow from his sword.

Jubilant from the battle, Lhoss saw a door that she attempted to open, only to find herself once again not strong enough to open the sturdy door. She called upon the strongest teammate at hand: Gnorcia. Of course, Gnorcia easily opened the door. Inside they found four pedestals holding four black velvet funerary boxes. Inside, each held a right handed black velvet glove. Lhoss also noticed a false bottom in the box which concealed a switch. Feeling impetuous, Lhoss instructed Calbach, Hoddour, and Tatania (who had also entered the room) to put on the gloves and flip the switches on the count of "three". Amazingly, they did! A door opened to reveal a crypt thick with cobwebs and a body lying atop a block of stone. Hoddour had a burst of inspiration and grabbed Tatania's torch and threw it into the room to burn away the cobwebs. It burned the cobwebs, all right. It also burned Hoddour and Tatania and the clothes off the body to boot. Tatania was a bit miffed, but walked in to investigate the body. She found a sturdy iron wood cudgel. While Tatania could not wield it, Ronan said that he could use a blunt weapon, so it was given to him.

Lhoss' keen elf eyes noticed a secret door. She was able to open it (much to her delight) and found an alter to the forest god Fharlanghn. Tatania and Ronan cleaned the cobwebs from the alter after which Ronan knelt out of a sense of honor, if not worship. Though Lhoss is not a worshiper of Fharlanghn, she aligns with his ideologies and said a simple prayer to him that she was familiar with. All three felt as though they had been blessed by their interactions.

Lhoss proceeded to find a series of additional secret doors. Behind one was a bag fat with silver. While Lhoss weighed the danger of rushing in, Hoddour did run in and grab the bag. He was attempting to keep it all for himself when Lhoss explained (at daggerpoint) that treasure is to be shared equally among all. The little thief showed a surprising acquiescence. Behind another hidden door was found a pair of unlucky adventurers impaled on a wall. The stench was horrendous! Ronan and Lhoss both began puking, but Hoddour was able to withstand the smell and retrieve a backpack with gold and silver. He needed no additional persuading to share this time.

Session 37: The shadows are defeated Days 1 and 2 of Planting

The party were cut off in a chamber, with 3 dangerous shadows awaiting outside the door. The door had been barricaded, and the shadows were not able to come through the small cracks in the door, so the party had time to discuss a strategy. Armatzi first cast all of his remove fear spells on Lhoss, Chiki, Gnorcia, and Armatzi himself, to remove the dread that had been building up in each of them. He then prepared a chant spell, bless, and protection from evil. 

Chiki planned to use Armatzi's hammer "Melissa" to hold off the area, and fight the shadows. Gnorcia, Arnd, and Ronan (who had mysteriously appeared), would brace the door so that only one shadow could enter at a time. Lhoss planned to throw a vial of burning oil at the shadows. 

Armatzi cast protection from evil and bless, and then the door was opened and he began to chant. Unfortunatly, Chiki was just not able to hit the shadow for several rounds. The oil angered the undead, and they were able to hold the door against one. Finally, Chiki defeated one of the shadows with a piercing shatter. The group was able to push the door back, and Armatzi prayed again for his spells, and Chiki was protected again. He was abel to defeat a second shadow before getting faint (having lost some strength from being hit) - the door was again closed and Chiki rested a bit, and "Melissa" was given to Ronan, who wielded it and fought the last shadow, after being protected and blessed. He was able to defeat the shadow after a few minutes of combat. The party had used tactics and intelligence to defeat the nasty foes. 

The group rested and healed, and slept through the night, keeping some heat and light going, and had a somewhat restful sleep. They awoke and had some breakfast before searching the burial room that the shadows came from. They were able to search most of the room before a pitiful creature approached them in extreme hunger and fear. Lhoss and Chiki recognized the creature as a horrible breading project called a mongelman. The creature identified itself as Oogle, and after being fed, revealed that he and his fellows are former slaves of the Cult of Set, and that they equally fear the Cult of Orcus. Revealing that Nanor is prominent in the Cult of Set, and that they reside to the east, he fled the group. The party finished examining the room and found a small amount of silver, and also a suit of leather armor and a shield. Armatzi was able to pray for the spell detect magic, and both were revealed to be magical. Ronan took the shield and found that it is emblazoned with a black dragon and that it is a +1 device. Lhoss tried on the leather armor and found it to be like wearing normal clothing and also giving a +1 protection! 

The party explored around a bit, returning to the entrance room, and examining a couple of the other rooms. They found a doorway heading north that they had not been through. Lhoss examined the doorway and determined there was something suspicious about the floor area around it. Looking around, she found a loose flagstone that when removed, revealed a lever. The lever would not move, and she theorized that it had something to do with the suspicious floor in front of the door. 

The party decided to open the door, and there was indeed a slight depression in front of the door. Ronan attempted to trigger this by throwing his shield on it to no effect. After some discussion and vetoing the idea of Gnorica stealthily stepping on the area (especially after Lhoss looked at the ceiling and saw a rectangular outline), the group jumped over the floor depression and entered the room. They found another door to the north, and after examining, Lhoss determined that the door was rigged to the mechanism, and would likely open the door if it had been triggered. 

Chiki volunteered to go back by the lever while the rest of the party opened the door. A force of skeletons burst out of the door, surprising the party and doing some damage. The party fought the skeletons, and due to primarily having blunt weapons, were able to defeat them. Arnd was unable to hit them at all, to his chagrin. Lhoss was knocked out by one near the end of the battle, but Chiki was able to heal her quickly. 

Session 36: Day 1 of Planting: Skulls are a Sign of Danger

Victorious over the zombies, we rested. Armaziti spent some time loudly contemplating his spells and considering which ones to memorize. The rest of us felt like we got an education in cleric spells while he was doing that, but the room was starting to smell really awful from all those rotting zombies so as soon as Armaziti memorized and cast some more healing spells on Calbach (who was still bleeding) we hurried out of there.

Venturing across the hall toward the room that terrified Lhoss, we were blessed by Armaziti, who then passed the broken door and discovered a ghostly figure in a corner, with a skeleton lying on a stone slab. The ghostly figure was repeating the same action, lying down on the slab then moving back to the corner and back to the slab. There was a runic tablet next to the skeleton and Armaziti picked it up and tried to read it. Suddenly he looked very confused and seemed not to know where we were or how we got there. Calbach grabbed the tablet from his hands and crushed it, crumbling it into dust.

We turned to the ghostly figure again and realized that it was re-enacting its death over and over, like we had seen another do. Armaziti performed a blessing on it, releasing it, and the figure looked at him gratefully then shimmered away into nothing. We searched around the room, looking at the walls and the exceedingly-faded frescoes on them, which appeared to depict some sort of sacrificial ceremony.

Finding nothing, we exited back out to the hallway and decided to make use of the sledgehammers to bash down the brick wall at the end of the hall. There was an animal skull (possibly a cattle skull?) set into the wall near the top, but that really just made us more curious and after about 20 minutes of bashing, Armaziti and Calbach were able to bring it down. As the dust settled, we peered in and saw walls covered in time-worn frescoes of warriors, scores of burial alcoves, and four evil shade warriors floating toward us!

Armaziti tried to turn the undead but his ability failed again. Calbach shot an arrow at one but missed. Arnd ran at it, swinging, but also missed. Lhoss tried to stab the same one, and missed again. Frustrated with all the missed attacks, I swung at another one with my staff and should have connected but the staff went right through the creature! Chiki tried to hit the same one, but also missed. Finally, Calbach took a second shot at another one and his arrow also went right through it! Apparently they could not be hit with our normal weapons.

The shades retaliated and attacked repeatedly, doing damage to Arnd, Chiki, and Lhoss, and draining them of strength! Lhoss collapsed and both Arnd and Gnorcia were hit as they grabbed her and started to run down the hall. Chiki also started running. In the meantime, both Calbach and Armaziti pulled out their magical weapons and renewed their attack on the shades. Swinging wildly, Calbach suddenly heard a sound like shattering glass and the shade he was attacking vanished! He charged at another but missed and it tried to attack him in return but also missed.

Angered, the shades started attacking with fury! Chiki ran back into the room to help, shouting to get the attention of the creatures, and was immediately injured and significantly weakened by an attack as the shades turned on him. Sensing imminent death, Chiki yelled for Chick-chick to flee and the chicken let out a loud and mournful squawk as he flew to Arnd’s shoulder. As the shades pressed their attack, Chiki fell to the ground, pale and bleeding out.

Setting down Lhoss in the room where we fought the spider, I ran back out and picked up Chiki, evading the shades as I carried his frail body out of the room and down the hall. Calbach and Armaziti swung wildly at the shades as they also turned and ran. Everyone made it into the spider room and Armaziti quickly swung the door shut. He then healed the injured and prayed for his spells and as he did the rest of us slowly felt our strength returning, along with a severe hunger. We began gnawing hungrily on our rations as Armaziti continued healing. We could sense the evil creatures still outside the door and slowly became more and more frightened, even as we felt fortunate they could not get through to us.

Session 35: Day 25 of Coldeven, Growfest, and the start of Planting

The team began our further exploration of the barrowmaze in the room where we vanquished the vicious rats. We determined that we had come in the south door, and the door to the north was unexplored. Naturally, Lhoss opened the door. 

The door opened to a corridor with two doors and an alcove with a brick wall broken outward. We explored the alcove to find there were scratches on the wall, but it was otherwise empty. There was also a bricked-over wall. Gnorcia pressed her ear to it, listened, but heard nothing.

Lhoss opened the door on the north wall to discover a table with three polished skulls. Calbach knocked them off with a pole; they fell with a crack, but nothing else notable occurred. Upon searching the room, Calbach found a catch in the wall. Lhoss triggered it to open a secret door. Behind the door a body was lying on the ground. Calbach checked out the body and found a burned out torch and bag. The bag looked pretty hefty! It appeared that the figure had crawled into the room to die. Surprisingly, it did not stink that much? There was nothing else remarkable about the room. We searched the bag to find it held 15 platinum. Nice payday!

Lhoss opened another door which led to a long hallway with more doors. Lhoss opened the door at the end, walked in and noticed there was writing on the wall. Upon closer inspection it read "the dead walk here." That was enough to scare Lhoss and she immediately backed out. 

There was another door that was partially open opposite a portcullis. Lhoss moved past it to a room with a broken door. Inside she saw a creepy figure and felt a cold sensation coming from within. Shaken and filled with fear, she fled posthaste. Lhoss is noping out a lot lately.

Gnorcia decided that pushing aside a slightly ajar door is not the same as opening a closed door (a task that usually falls to Lhoss). As she peered inside the room, she saw a skeleton with a bag next to it. Perhaps more platinum? One could only hope! She also observed a bas-relief with images of the dead entering into the afterlife. Seeking to recover the bag, Gnorcia moved silently into the room. Suddenly, a spider dropped down and attacked her! It dealt a fatal bite and infected her with its poison. Calbach rushed into the room and attacked the spider. Lhoss stabbed it with her dagger. Arnd swung and missed. Chiki bound up Gnorcia's wounds. The spider attempted to flee, but Lhoss succeeded in killing it. Armaziti was able to cure Gnorcia's wound, but she was being slowly poisoned. If the poison was not quickly neutralized, she would die. As we had no means to do that, a stretcher was made to carry Gnorcia back to the village of Orlane. The group hastily retreated from the dungeon.

Gnorcia was deteriorating and becoming delirious. The group made good time and did not encounter anything that would delay us. Knowing that the priestess Misha would be our best hope, we headed for the temple of Merikka. Lhoss ran ahead to rouse the attendants of the temple as we had arrived in the middle of the night. Getting the attention of the guards and summoning the priestess seemed to move in agonizingly slow motion. We did not know how much time poor Gnorcia had! Finally, Misha came out and dispelled the poison. At last, Gnorcia was safe, though weak. She had come far too close to death!

Realizing the close call we had just encountered, the group recognized the advantage of having a more powerful cleric. We decided to pool our money and treasure to allow Armaziti to train under Misha and become a priest. This training would take a week. Fortunately for us, it coincided with the changing of seasons (Needfest to Growfest) and the associated festival. We were able to join in the partying and partake of the delicious food. It was a welcome distraction from our dreary work in the barrowmaze. So began the month of Planting and low summer. Of course to us elves, the transition from the month of Snowflowers to the month of Blossoms is a less ostentatious affair, but when in Orlane...

Priestess Misha explained to us that the life force of Nerul is in the barrowmaze and is what is generating the evil creatures. She charged Armaziti with the sacred duty of cleansing the barrowmaze. We departed and returned to the barrowmaze without incident.

Gnorcia wished to claim the fangs of the spider that nearly killed her. We easily found our way back to the site of the gruesome attack. She was able to use her nimble hands to get two fangs and poison sacs. We identified the creature as a crab spider. Unfortunately, the bag near the skeleton was gone. In our rush to save Gnorcia's life, nobody thought to grab the treasure and another intrepid adventurer benefited from our haste.

Moving on, Armaziti, Gnorcia, and Arnd used their combined strength to open the portcullis. Behind it, there was an unremarkable room. Gnorcia found a catch on the wall. Armaziti pushed it and a door opened to reveal: zombies! Ach! Armaziti failed to dispel the undead. Lhoss threw an oil flask at the creatures and missed. Sensing a difficult battle Calbach threw the switch to close the door. The party regrouped and decided to open the door back up and defeat the zombies. The group engaged and dealt some damage to the brutes. Chiki managed to slaughter one outright. The undead monsters attacked and dealt a mortal wound to Calbach. With several precision strikes (and a cool acrobatic spin by Lhoss) the party finished off the zombies. Armaziti healed Calbach and Arnd who had also been injured. Looking around, we saw hundreds of octagonal burial tombs. Gnorcia, Arnd, Chiki and Lhoss searched the tombs and found many silver pieces. Who knows if it makes up for the bag of loot we lost in the spider's room, but it's something.

Session 34: Day 25 of Coldeven: Back to the Barrowmaze

Arnd (NPC), Armaziti, Calbach, Chiki (NPC), Gnorcia, Lhoss,

Preparing to leave Orlane and go back to the barrowmaze, we heard a rumor that there had been more raids along the road. It was a drizzly morning as we headed out toward the dim forest but we were pleased to find the road was now patrolled a little better by the sheriffs from Orlane. We traveled for the day, through the eerily quiet dim forest, finally reaching the barrowmaze and its gloomy darkness again.

Instead of going straight into the mound with the maze entrance, we poked around a bit and Lhoss began examining some of the mounds. First she found one that had a large and seemingly-ancient stone protruding from the mound. It was worn down and had a great skull on top of it, along with runes in a language none of us could understand. Sharp, dry, weedy grass grew around it in some unnatural-looking grey dirt.

Lhoss looked around at another mound and found one with a well-sealed rock entrance. She suggested we try to break it down so Calbach and Arnd started bashing on the door with our new sledgehammers. After about 10 minutes of a great racket with the sledgehammers, we noticed 12 men approaching. They wore armor, some leather, some chainmail, and one who appeared to be their leader was wearing plate armor. They all wore black robes and were carrying shields, swords, clubs, and slings.

As they approached the leader spoke to us, saying they were the Band of the Black Hand and demanding that we pay for protection. We refused, of course, and Lhoss tried to cast a sleep spell but several in the back started slinging stones at her, knocking her unconscious. They then charged at us! Three attacked Calbach, who was seriously injured. Armaziti bound up Lhoss’ wounds before she could bleed out and I cast phantasmal force in the large shape of the demon god Orcus. Several of the men were fooled into believing the phantasm and it knocked out two of them, who fell to the ground as if they were dead. One of the men, however, was not fooled and he yelled at the others, saying it was just an illusion. Our phantasm revealed and two of our party seriously wounded, we begrudgingly decided to pay 20gp each to send them on their way. They took our gold and faded back into the mist of the valley.

Armaziti healed Lhoss and Calbach and we decided to finish breaking down the door. Inside we found a wooden funerary casket in the shape of a man on a dais in the center of the room. Eight wall sconces with decorated amphorae lined the walls. We collected the pots and wrapped them up, placing them in the bag of holding. Apparently the humans could tell that whoever was buried there was a good person and they were not willing to disturb the casket so we decided to leave and head into the barrowmaze.

Back inside the large center mound and down the rope into the barrowmaze, Chiki suggested we head west down the hallway. We all agreed and found an iron door on the south wall. It opened to reveal a horrific smell. After coughing and spitting, we peered in and spotted two corpses impaled on the wall, their guts spilled out and eaten by something! We quickly closed the door and retreated back to the hallway. Across the hall was another door and Lhoss happily opened it. Arnd marched in and across the room to the north wall where there was a message scratched on the wall in charcoal. I followed as he read the message out loud: “Make no sound. They will seek you out.” I tried repeatedly to shush him but it took a minute before the meaning of the message got through his thick skull. Nothing happened, however, and we decided to stay in the room and re-memorize spells.

Finishing that, we went back out in the hall and noticed that the floor of the hallway to the west had about an inch of what appeared to be flour dusted across it. I was disgusted that someone would waste perfectly good biscuit-making flour by dumping it on the floor in a crypt. Calbach first poked at it with a pole and it moved easily like flour would, so I got out my goblin hat and dusted a path through it so we could pass without leaving tracks. A bit farther down the hall, we found another door with the familiar iron bands on it and Calbach opened it to reveal a room full of giant rats! He tried to slam the door shut but it was stuck and the rats turned to attack us. Lhoss cast her sleep spell and only three of them managed to evade it. We quickly dispatched the remaining rats, squished the sleeping ones, and finally Armaziti was able to get the door unstuck and closed so Lhoss could re-memorize her sleep spell.