Session 7
Following the directions given to them by the villagers and guards in Brindol, the party set out for the long-since abandoned castle of the Family Rivenroar to the East. After journeying for nearly a full day, the party exited the forest into a vast clearing. In the distance, the decrepit structure of Castle Rivenroar could be seen. The silence surrounding the complex gave off an unsettling feeling worthy of caution. Sensing this, the party carefully made their way towards the castle's main entry, unhindered by foe, beast or trap. After entering the castle antechamber, the party made a choice between 3 doors, North, East and West. They first traveled East and traversed the dark and musty hallways until they came to a room occupied by a stone pillar at the far north wall as well as pews set up along each wall. Likely this room served as a chapel of sorts. However now it was occupied by an unsightly Gnome and his small army of dire rats who proceeded to attack the group as they crossed the threshold.
Among the most entertaining points in the fight were Armando's grappling endeavors. One such action was to use one of the grappled rats as a sort of (sigh) rat flail to damage others. Another was his overkill of another such rat by slamming it aggressively (and not very Clearic-like I should add) against his armor spikes, impaling it.
When the fight ended, the party scoured the room and found a crude crimson sword propped up against the pillar. Small in size, it was at one point wielded by the leader of the Red Hand of Doom in his raids against the continent. The group pocketed it and continued to search the eastern wing for further enemies.
What the found next was another large open room whose only noteworthy decor was a 5x5 grid of glowing blue runes adorning the floor. Mezlo and the others made attempts to identify their nature while a small hoard of miniature drakes scurried out from the cracks in the floor and out of crevices in the ceiling and attacked them.
Noting the lizards avoidance of the runes, the party determined that they were likely dangerous to touch and that these creatures had learned this the hard way and been conditioned to avoid them. (Yeah, I like psychology. Shut up!)
Fending off the swarm while systematically avoiding the runes proved to be challenging but not entirely impossible. Soon enough, the room was littered with dead drakes, several of which were being slowly cooked on what were then identified as Electrified Runes. Following this encounter, the party backtracked their steps to the main entryway and chose to take the northern door this time.
Opening the northern door gave Lyulf the bright idea to run WAAAAAAAY ahead of the group, down the steep staircase beyond the door and around the corner of the corridor almost 100 yards away. As the party hurried to catch up, everyone entered the enormous underground chamber. The ceilings were at least 50 feet high, or so they assumed since the ceiling was too far to be seen, and the floor was littered with boulders, rocks and glowing phosphorescent mushrooms of various colors and sizes. Seizing the opportunity to collect something, Jarre picked a bunch of each type and stuffed them in his backpack of holding as the rest of the party avoided them and crossed the room with caution.
Exiting to the East, they made their way through a series of hallways that eventually led them to a chamber containing one of the abducted townsfolk. The poor old woman was trapped inside of a pulsing magical dome that encased her in the middle of the room. Her shouts went unheard and she systematically avoided touching the dome's walls, which seemed like a wise thing for the party to emulate. Mezlo once again investigated the trap and judged it to be a variation of a hold person and containment spell, used to imprison someone or something. He further identified the pulsing as electric in nature. At this point, Firewind rolled up his Rogue sleeves and went to work attempting to disarm the trap safely. Mezlo cautioned that any tampering with the field or causing it any damage would likely reflect that damage inward at anything held captive within.
Success! Cid disarmed the trap with fancy chalk tricks and the field finished to nothing more than a light blue circle of dust encircling the old woman. But was it a success? Was it? Well yeah it was, but as it turned out, the old woman turned out to be a little more than a hand-full for the party to deal with. Throughout the rest of their adventure through the castle, she near constantly badgered about wanting to be taken home and how long it took to be rescued... and... you get the picture. From hence forth we identified her as "Old Crone".
Once again, the party backtracked to the main foyer and prepared to take the only remaining door in the chamber. Through the western door, the party encountered what appeared to be a sort of base-camp for the goblin forces. Crude bedrolls and tables were set up around a pit of fire as a number of their kind milled around the room. Quickly however, the parties presence became clear and they were attacked. The fight took place in fairly close quarters and ended with quite a bit of damage being taken by everyone involved. As a result, the group rested here for a few moments and deliberated on their next move. In addition, Cid had made the executive decision to detain one of the goblins for questioning, pinning him by the chest, to the wall, with an immovable rod. From this room there was a door to the north, through which could be heard the noises of other goblins, presumably making their way toward the noise. To the West was another door that had been left unlocked. Using their quick wit, they blockaded the door to the north, sealing it from whatever was coming and escaped through to the west.
Through another short hallway, the party came into an upside-down, trapezoidal shaped room whose features included several lanterns on posts, facing a large mural painted across the northern wall. The mural itself was of a castle that looked eerily similar to this one, but some time in the past when things around the area were probably a lot more green and... alive. Suspicious as always, Cid stayed back. Fire on the other hand, approached the mural with no regard for safety and gave it a closer inspection, which turned out to be a bad idea. His proximity to the mural triggered the latent magic within it to spill forth into the form of a huge purple gelatinous blob that oozed its way from the wall and congealed into a mass in the center of the room, slowly edging it's way towards the party.
Universal First Instinct: Run!
And that's exactly what they did. They hauled ass back to the previous room with the dead goblins and barricaded the door with tables and bedrolls and whatever else they could find... and they waited. Soon enough, the slurping noise of the ooze could be heard on the other side of the door as it seeped through the cracks in all around the frame and reformed on the other side.
A collective "Ahh shit" followed.
Plan B to take bedrolls, douse them in oil and set them on fire to throw at the creature. It seemed like a good plan, until the first thrown roll hit the creature and was absorbed into it, dousing the flames. So much for kill it with fire. Plan C was surprisingly one thought up by Lyulf that everyone else quickly got behind. His plan was to lure the likely stupid creature into the room with the electrified runes and have it cross on top of them. If it's base structure was conductive, it would surely fry itself without the party coming to any danger. Everyone agreed and slowly lured the blob to the room.
After a long and drawn out walk back to the chamber, the blob rolled into the room and right onto the runes, causing a large electric zap. The blob itself vibrated violently and split into 2 pieces that flew to either side of the room. Following this, the 2 separate blobs continued their pursuit of the party.
Another collective "... shit"
As the fight continued, the blobs rolled over the electric runes several more times until there were roughly 14 of them. The party slowly learned that piercing and slashing damage did little to nothing to them while blunt and magical damage seemed to work quite well. Mezlo (absent from the session and played by Firewind) cast a slow moving orb of fire into a cluster of the blobs and burned a number of them into nothingness. In addition, Jarre used his Sword to "twat"* several of them on the head repeatedly. At the close of battle, the party had sustained numerous injuries and were in pretty poor shape. They took this time to check on the Old Crone (still bitching) and question their captive Goblin (still pissing himself). After some intimidation by Cid as well as some... colorful threats, the goblin struck a deal with the party.
"I'll take you to Sinruth (the leader of the goblin force) if you let me live"
Begrudgingly, the party agreed and had the poor sap lead the way to Sinruth's chambers. Upon arrival, they unshackled the Goblin and busted the door to room off it's hinges (not quite that dramatic... but I'm using poetic license... cut me a break). Inside the room was a stone coffin, behind which Sinruth stood, grinning and swinging a long spiked chain.
Close quarters combat turned out to be a poor, but ultimately still effective, tactic as Sinruth used the confines of the chamber to his advantage, swinging the chain wide and hitting as many of the party members as possible with each rotation. No casualties resulted, but severe damage was taken by everyone. The final blow was struck by Jarre (a critical hit) that split the poor bastard down the middle.
Ransacking the room turned up the remaining 2 artifacts stolen from Brindol; a crude and dented crimson helmet and a wooden shield emblazoned with a blood red hand print. In addtion, the party found a small note tucked into Sinruth's breast pocket. The note (cliffnotes-style) went along the lines of:
Honorable Sinruth,
Love what you're doing to revive the Red Hand. Good stuff. As a continued gesture of your commitment, the other factions ask that you sack Brindol and recover our honorable leader's rightful property. Do what you will with your prisoners. Reinforcements are on their way. We'll be in touch.
- The Emissary
Love what you're doing to revive the Red Hand. Good stuff. As a continued gesture of your commitment, the other factions ask that you sack Brindol and recover our honorable leader's rightful property. Do what you will with your prisoners. Reinforcements are on their way. We'll be in touch.
- The Emissary
*Twat: To hit something bluntly... as over the head with the flat of a sword.
End of Session 7 *I''m back at it! There's more! Stay tuned*
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