Campaign Journal 36 - Escape from the Noble Tombs

We last left our heroes as they entered a chamber filled with noxious slime pits...

July 26, Friday (cont.) - The characters entered to chamber, and immediately began to gag on the noxious fumes rising from the fluorescent slime pits. In the eerie green glow, they could see what looked like it might be a body crumpled on the floor on the far side of the chamber.

Noxious Slime Pits and old dead body

Approaching the form, they could see that it was indeed an old dead body, clutching a satchel. The satchel seemed to be in good condition, and had preserved the papers inside, which included what turned out to be a spell book, inscribed as that of Illvag of Korvann. One or two of the characters were able to recall that Illvag of Korvann was the name of the wizard from the Silver Swords Company (the adventuring group whose map and notes they were following to get here). According to the Silver Swords' journals, Illvag got separated from the rest of party, along with a warrior named Arstof, and they never saw them again. This apparently was Illvag's long-dead corpse. Near the body was a hole in the ceiling, from which the tattered remnant of a rope hung down. They also found a wand that would later prove to be a Wand of Magic Detection.

Navigating the slime pits

Also in the satchel was a hand scribbled map with notes in the margins. The map was written on the back of a scroll of Blindness/Deafness. The map and the notes seemed to detail what happened to Illvag and Arstof after they got separated from the rest of their group, and their (unsuccessful) attempt to find their way through the Underdark wild from a spot labeled "lake shore" to a spot labeled "slime pools".

Illvag of Korvann's Map (and journal scribbles)

The notes described their struggles as they tried to find their way back to the tombs, while trying to keep a badly wounded Arstof alive. Illvag described Arstof's eventual death, and marked the location of the burial cairn he was able to erect over his dead body. The notes specifically mentioned Arstof's shield, and that he wished he could bring it with him, but was unable to carry it. This interested the characters.

Reviewing these materials, the characters decided that they would go up through the hole in the ceiling and use Illvag's map to get to the lake shore, hoping to be able to find a way to the city and the Blood Orb using this rugged back way. The characters assumed that there would be temple guards looking for them back in the tombs, and in the temple areas beyond.

About halfway to the lake shore, the party found the chamber containing what appeared to be a heaped pile of stones making a cairn. As they were about to investigate the cairn, three cave fishers attacked. Their thick outer shells proved to be difficult to penetrate with melee weapons, but they were eventually slain.

Cave Fishers and Arstof's Cairn

Moving on to the cairn, the party removed enough rocks to find Arstof's shield. A Detect Magic spell showed that the shield was indeed magic. Badric took the shield for his own use.

Arstof's Shield

Moving on, the party soon reached a ledge overlooking a very large body of black water. They heard a noise off to the right, and realized that three figures were rowing a crude boat carefully along the shore in their direction. They didn't look like priests or temple guards, and gave the impression of trying to be quiet and sneaky...

Next - Shrashtak and the Temple of the Shadowed Veil.

GM Commentary - The group is getting closer to the end of the story arc, and I have to admit (writing this later) that I was having mixed feelings at this point. It felt to me like there were a certain number of sessions that could/should have been allocated to this whole story arc, and that I had spent too many of those sessions in the "getting there" part of the arc. Honestly, this may be more my feeling than that of the players, but I was feeling mental fatigue, and was not at all happy with my GM'ing of this arc with regards to pacing, etc... Oh well. Live and learn. In retrospect though, I definitely fell like we should have done just a couple of sessions on getting here, and then spent more time in the city and its environs than we ended up doing.

The next couple of sessions, because of the above, felt disjointed and rushed, which is my fault entirely. But that is a story for another day...

Campaign Journal 35 - Battle in the Noble Tombs

We last left our heroes camped for the night in the entryway to the Ruby Knight's Tomb...

July 26, Friday - The Noble Tombs.

The party woke after a sound sleep in the entryway to the Ruby Knight's Tomb when the sentry, Niam, heard sounds of an approaching boat. As he watched from the shadows, another boat appeared from the other (main) entry passage and docked across the cavern at the Noble Tombs docks. Three men in robes that looked like priests (confirmed as such by the captive Farrin) got off the boat and disappeared into the far passages. After a little while, they returned to the docks, noticed the party, and the characters attacked...

The nearest point between the two docks was about 35 feet apart, and as the characters watched, the older of the three enemy clerics pulled a glass globe from his belt pouch and smashed it on the floor. In the air above the spot where he smashed the globe, a glowing shimmering ball of energy appeared. From the ball spewed a number of winged creatures...

Battle at the Noble Tombs docks

In response, Malachy dove into the water to swim across and close the distance, and Thalmyr cast Find Steed in order to summon a large enough fish to drag her across the water to the far docks. As this was happening, the remaining characters drew bows and cast spells...

As Malachy swam and Thalmyr was dragged through the water by a giant fish, the flying demons attacked, striking with small halberds and flicking fiery motes of arcane energy from those same halberds. The ensuing fight had the party realize that the glowing globe was a demon-spawner which would keep bringing more demons into the conflict until something stopped it. Hoping that the answer to the problem would be killing the cleric that opened the rift, the party focused their attentions on that target, soon bringing him down. The rift closed, and the remaining demons were dispatched (although a few escaped, flying south down the main entry passage). A second cleric was killed and the last one ran away, heading east into a side passage.

Showdown

With Mal and Thalmyr now on the far side, the party uses the magical boat to assemble on the Noble Tombs side of the cavern. They skip exploring the main noble tombs area, following the fleeing cleric into the east passage. A few minor burials are plundered, and a shrine is discovered. The iconography in the shrine is to some sort of rodent god. Just beyond the shrine is an iron-work gridded barrier blocking the way forward, but the door in the barrier is open...

Forging ahead, the party descends a slope into a large cavern. The cavern is very rugged, and is filled with stalagmites, stalactites, and broken rock formations. A little bit ahead there are snarling, growling, and rending sounds. Approaching, the party sees a trio of six-legged rats munching on the now-dead body of the fleeing cleric. The plague rats turn to regard the party, and attack...

Plague Rats

The party is able to defeat the rats, and pause to regroup after the fight. They notice that one of the three now-dead rats is soaking wet. At the far end of the chamber is a pool of water. Exploring the pool, Malachy notices that there is an underwater passage out the far side of the pool. A simple breath-holding of a few seconds duration is enough to allow a person to dip under the intervening underwater area and come up into another dry passage ten feet or so on the other side.

Plague Rats closeup

The group navigates the pool and follows the passage to another rugged rock-filled chamber a short ways down the passage. While exploring the chamber, another plague rat sneaks up on the party from beneath a rocky outcropping and latches onto Farrin's leg. With a howl of anguish, Farrin is dragged down into a hole under the rocky outcropping and is gone. Screams of pain persist for a moment and then are silent...

Recovering from the shock of the death of Farrin, the party moves on into the next passage, and emerges into a chamber filled with noxious glowing green slime pits...

Next - The Slime Pits and into the Traniskan wilds...

GM Commentary - The players treated the events of this session with a degree of urgency, and that made for a good session for me. I know that given the time to do so, they would have loved to take the time to loot all of the tombs in this area, and it would have been very lucrative for them to have done so. Given the threat of alerted guards, more demons and any number of other threats, they elected to keep moving forward. Which made for a good session, I think...

XP for this session was a hefty 1,800 for each of the 5 characters present, accounting for a few evil clerics, a host of flying demons, and three plague rats...