Legacies of Exera: Session 4

 

When we last left our heroes they were being charged by a gaunt figure who ends up bottle necking them into the hallway. Harl is able to spear the creature a few times and being able to narrowly shake of the paralyzing chill that almost froze Harl's bones in their place. Gareth and Helenista were able to squeeze into the room and Gareth sliced the gaunt figure from the back as Helenista was able to set the creature ablaze with a firebolt which finally put at end to the creatures existence. 

After the creature was dispatched, Gareth opens the chest that was on the table and finds some gold in it. The party then continues through a roughly carved tunnel and passes a door on their left as they continue on to find themselves where the tunnel ends in a door. Harl opens the door and finds a handuf a skeletons that are working on building some boats. The skeletons notice them and start to head towards the party as they armed themselves with various tools. Harl tries to reason with the encroaching skeletons but they just chatter their jaw bones and do not stop. Harl quickly shuts the door and after a few tense moments it sounds like the skeletons return to work. The party back tracks and discover a storage room full of rotting food and the continue on following the sound of tools working and a humming of a song. As the party follows the noise they come across a sign that stated "Work in Progress" and as they rounded the corner they come across countless mining tools working by themselves to expand the labyrinth on seemingly on their own free will and accord. 

The party then backtracks through the maze of tunnels and finally decides to transcends the stairs where the intense stench of rot is coming from. After every member of the party takes one last breath of fresh air as they march onward. After sometime on a tight winding staircase the party find themselves in a wide open chamber with a couple of bodies laying on the floor. As Claren takes lead and enters the chamber, the bodies start to move and they party makes quick work of them before the bodies even have a chance to stand up. Once the party makes sure more more bodies littered around the floor are going to decide to rise the party continues on to the staircase leading up on the other side of the room. When the party reaches the top of the stairs they come across a giant stone archway with two thick stone doors set wide open and as soon as A'nari (who is the last member to cross the threshold) steps across the threshold the giant stone doors slam shut and throws the party into darkness. Enama activates the light from her belt and a few other party members light up some lanterns. 

Harl takes lead and they party winds themselves through various twists and turns until they come across what appears to be a rather well made door with iron banding. Harl opens the door and finds a group of four Dwarves drinking, smoking, and gambling at a rather large table. One of the Dwarves stands up and lets out a stream of obscenities and that Dwarf eventually stammers out "What are you doing here? Doesn't anyone have any manners and can't even knock." Harl attempts to engage the Dwarves in conversation and to try to get any useful information about the labyrinth from the dwarves. Most of the conversation leaves the party rolling their eyes as the Dwarves spend a lot of time arguing among themselves about which way is the right direction through the maze and one of the Dwarves mention that the pet drake is a cute little fellow that likes scratches behind the ears. The dwarves then try to convince the party to bring them back more ale and eventaully Harl realizes that any more conversation is going to be pointless and with a shrug and a defeated look to Harl's companions, the party wishes the Dwarves well and closes their door. 

 

 

The party continues to explore the maze of hallways and eventually comes across a large wide open cavern with stalagmites. Before the party can even gain their bearings, they notice some movement in  the shadows an instance before a gout of fire lights up the cavern as a red scaled dragon like creature come into view an instance before it charges towards the party. 

 

Enama reacts first and grabs one of Gareth's enchanted stones, moves forward, and throws it at the dragon-like creature. As Harl moves forward and blasts the creature with a bolt of crackling black and purple energy. A'nari connects with a bolt from Shadowgrumble as Helenista steps forward with her hands raise as a deep frost grows over the creatures scales. The creature responds to these attacks by breathing more fire which catches Enama in it and as the fire scorches her flesh, she screams out "bad drake!" Claren's crossbolt flies wide and Gareth's stone throw suffers the same fate. Enama then charges the creature at full speed and slaps it with both hands which causes the creature to pause in surprise as Harl charges and leaps in the air and with both hands, drives his spear directly between the creatures shoulder blades, pinning it to the ground, and slaying it at the same time. Enama laments about how she did not want to kill it and make it her pet as Enama scratches the dead creature behind its ears. Enama continues on about how she is going to make this supposed Warlock to fix it or teach Enama how to make on. 

After a short rest and finding nothing else of note in the cavern, the party discovered a narrow passage where Harl takes lead and after what feels like an eternity comes across a ornate door that is left ajar. As Harl peers through, he sees a very ornate decorating and well lit room with an old harmless looking man sitting at a desk playing cards. As Harl gathers his thoughts to converse with the old man Enama forces her way through the line of the party members dragging the drakes dead body and drops it in front of the old man's desk as Enama demands "Fix it or teach me how to make a new one." 

The old man stands up and in a flash of light transforms into a well dressed young man and in a booming voice, "You killed me beloved pet and then make demands of me? You will never leave this mountain alive!" The party charges into the room as Harl tries to flank the Warlock and landing his spear point in the Warlocks thigh as Helenista misty steps into the room. The warlock then unleashes a deadly explosion of fire the drops Helenista and Claren. The remaining party members attempt to surround the warlock to prevent any escape in desperation as the Warlock yet again, sets off an additional explosion of fire that badly scorches the surviving party members before the Warlock succumbs to additional attacks as the Warlock attempts to escape. 

After the fall of the Warlock, the remaining party members quickly searches the room for any more dangerous as Harl heals Claren and Helenista, bringing back from the brink of death. The party finds a door on the far end of the room which leads into a large storage area filled with supplies, some treasures, and a large chest with multiple padlocks on it. The party is able to solve the puzzle using various keys and some brute strength to discover an impressive cache of resources. Eventually, after taking what they needed and searching the body of the Warlock, the party finds a hidden passage that leads them out into fresh air and daylight...

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PLAYER NOTES: This was the last session of the "belly of the beast" adventure and I found it highly entertaining. There was a lot of things that we encountered that I was not expecting. One of these being basically finding the back door to the boat house of where the skeletons were building doors. It is to bad they did not take to kindly of being interrupted but it was quickly decided to leave them where they be. Then there was the interactions with the drunk Dwarves and after they calmed down for being interrupted, it was like talking to the doors in the scene from the movie The Labyrinth and was almost maddening. A few other character's threw in their two cents into the conversation as Harl tried to get help or any other useful information out of them. I was entertained about this whole interaction but after a lot longer in real world time dealing with this situation then probably should have passed (but there was a lot of fun that was had), we left them alone and moved on. 

The Guard Drake combat was fun and I am surprised it was dealt with in such a quick manner even though Enama had an instance bound with the guard drake and wanted to try to knock it out to attempt to tame it. The slapping of the drake did not knock it before the guard drake met its end. 

When we finally met up with the Warlock, I think some of us were hoping for some diplomatic interaction before combat broke out but Enama had different ideas and wanted the guard drake revived or to learn how to create one. This obviously did not end well, as the Warlock was pissed off and attacked the party. This combat had more worried as the first fireball took out two of the characters and the second fireball left a lot of the other characters under 10 HP! I think Harl was at 6. I was worried about a TPK or death of at least a few of the characters but the Dice Gods had other plans and I think we won the combat by the skin of our teeth. 

After the session, I had a conversation with the DM and he used a conversion of the first Fighting Fantasy Book, Warlock of Firetop Mountain. I have to say, this is one of the funnest dungeons that I have ever got to play through. The dungeon had a lot of personality and there were some many unique encounters that had nothing to do with combat that was a lot of fun. I really liked the interaction with the merchant and the dwarves. I am bummed we did not do more exploration and I am curious how the interaction with the werewolf would have went. 

The end of these session gave everyone enough experience to reach Level 3! In addition to the level ups, all of the characters items of power increased in effectiveness. 

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ITEMS OF POWER UPDATE (3rd Level):

• Garvangr (Harl's Spear) - Gained +1 enhancement bonus.
• Goujian (Prince Claren's Sword) - +1 enhancement bonus.
  
• Bag of Three (Gareth's Belt) - Bag of Holding Qualities
  
• Shadowgrumble (A'nari's Crossbow) - Enhanced Critical Hit: On a critical, this eapon deals an additional 2d6 piercing damage. 
  
• Pia's Belt (Enama's Belt) - +1 to saving throws & DC's to Ki abilities. In addition, a bonus action can be utilized to regain Ki points equal to the roll of the Martial Arts die, this feature cannot be used again until the next dawn.
  
• Feyshadow Boots (Helenista's Boots) - The footsteps of the wearer make no sound and the wearer gains advantage on Stealth Checks that rely on moving silently.