Session 31 recap
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This session was played on October 4th, but the next day I left for a long term project out of town for work and am only now getting around to writing the recap, in advance of Session 32 tonight. There will be another gap between sessions of at least a month as the project wraps up. Given the long gap between playing and writing the recap, some details may be a little off (Scylla may have gained a level, for example); many thanks to Batengis’ player for taking detailed session notes which allows me to even begin writing this recap!
The party:
Hector, a 7th level Archontean fighter
Coco, an 8th level Archontean magic-user
Julia, a 7th level Archontean cleric of Lucreon
Melnax, a 6th level elf
Batengis, a 7th level Khumus acolyte of Tingri
Susarra, a 6th level Archontean fighter (retainer)
Scylla, a 5th level Archontean ranger
The party awoke at 6:00 AM on the morning of Molivios 18th and after breakfasting on a helping of goop from the well oil Lankios’ basement cautiously returned to the baboon level. Hearing nothing at the door to the main baboon chamber the party entered and were shocked at the carnage before them, with multiple baboon corpses strewn about the chamber, some frozen and some rended in twain. The hotting of hollering of numerous apparently live baboons was heard coming from the south.
Returning to Sisco’s chambers the party spiked the door shut and began to loot. One sack contains a mixture of modern coins and five ancient octagonal platinum coins. The other sack contained a variety of items including a femur made into a flute, a conical bronze helmet, a pair of red silk slippers, a black glass square, a gold sorption eye, a jar of candied oranges, and a set of silver chess pieces. Exiting the room by the secret door the party returned to the room where they had encountered the devil. Each corpse in this room was found to have a signet ring (one for Arpostas and one for Xerxastes).
The party exited back through the secret door and made their way south toward where they believed the Hall of Echoes to be located. They found themselves in a room with a large statue of a baboon and a door to the north with an ear painted on it. Hector attempted to open this door and was struck by a hidden needle, the poison on which did not affect him. Julia search the door and found a hidden keyhole which one of the keys found on the Mad Druid unlocked.
Passing through the door revealed an impressive chamber. The interior walls were sheathed in brick topped with a layer of painted plaster. The paint is a vibrant royal blue, still mostly intact. The ceiling was twenty five feet high in the center of the chamber, dropping to only fifteen feet tall at the sides. Eleven slim floating columns rose from the floor, made of stone sheathed in flaking painted plaster. The northeast side of the hall was open to the Great Chasm with a two foot brick wall extending along the lip of the chasm with a ten foot gap in the exact center of the room’s width. A ten foot by fifteen foot by five foot platform occupied the center of the hall; on it was a seven foot diameter, two foot tall stone disk from which protruded an iron rod holding an ivory olifant. The edge of the platform had an inscription in Mithric which read “Hall of Echoes. Name Thyself, and Whisper Thy Message. Thou Shalt Be Rewarded in Thine Ear”.
The party dutifully followed the directions and heard various thing whispered back to them, but luck was not with Batengis and he was the unlucky recipient of an ancient spell, suffering a minor amount of fire damage. A search of the chamber uncovered a secret door in the northwest wall, behind which was a chamber which overlooked the Hall of Echoes with some unobtrusive spy holes. On a chair sat a piece of elf parchment and a large conch shell. The parchment was written upon in Mithric and read “Lycandus - illusions conceal his remains. Ptarmis claims he can control the Fungal Foresters. Horkhari was shown the tomb of great Theskelon, of the Set Cult; it lies to the east of the Southern Necropolis of Set. Amhit has found the Obsidian Gates, but has been unable to teleport behind them.” Batengis listened to the conch shell and found it amplified all sound. Hector discovered that he was still suffering some effects from the poison at the door after all, and took some damage and felt his constitution weaken slightly.
The party proceeded south past two doors within which, with the aid of the conch, Batengis was able to hear snoring baboons. As they continued down this passage Coco spotted a secret door, behind which was a hidden passage containing a skeleton wearing a chef’s hat lying on the ground with a scroll clutched in its fingers. As Hector picked up the scroll the skeleton arose and began to attack him with a cleaver. Julia was able to turn (but not destroy) the skeleton and the party finished it off with missile weapons. The scroll was found to contain a recipe for baboon soup.
Returning to the north-south hallway the party found another door on the west wall that led to a plain, undecorated room which apparently served as a supply room for the baboon. Along the south wall were a series of hooks on which hung corpses of various creatures - several baboons, two goblins, a human, a fungal creature of some sort, and three giant centipedes. Along the south wall were a dozen or so old crates which contained a large number of dried mushrooms, many freshly dead giant insects of various species, about twenty pounds of dried fruit and vegetables, and hundreds of strips of dried meat of indeterminate kind. An elderly human wearing rags was chained to. Large metal bolt in the floor and was terrified of the party when they approached him. It was clear that he was suffering trauma from years of abuse at the hands of the baboons, so the party transported him by Rug back to their villa and took him to the Temple of Mitra in Gosterwick.
Continuing south down the corridor the party found an open portcullis, beyond which was a platform that overlooked a vast natural cavern containing a fungal forest which stretched beyond the limit of the party’s light sources. The party closed the portcullis and returned in the direction they had come from.
Returing to the doors through which they had heard sleeping baboons, the party cast Silence 15’ Radius, spiked the western door shut, and opened the eastern door. They were able to surprise the eight baboons within and after Hector cleaved through multiple baboons shortly into the fray were able to dispatch the rest with relative ease. The only item of note they found was a quire entitled “The Deeds of Phagtro the Westron”.
Returning to the diamond intersection the party proceeded south, finding doors to the west and east and double doors to the south. Listening with the Conch to the west and east doors revealed no sounds and the party proceeded west. This was a short hallway that led to a door in the north wall. No sound was detected beyond but when the door was touched a glyph anti rated, causing Terror in Julia and Coco. Batengis was able to rally them from their fright but the glyph activated again when Hector attempted to open the door. None of the keys they had recovered from the Mad Druid worked, so Coco cast Knock and the party proceeded through the door.
The room was layered in a thick layer of dust, having obviously not been entered in centuries. An archaic bed, desiccated and brittle with age, rested against the west wall with four posts of ash, as well as a rope-strung mattress. The east wall contained two collapsed bookshelves and a decrepit desk. In the middle of the south wall near re entrance was a pedestal on which rested a one foot diameter orb of softly glowing arcanum. A desiccated corpse wearing a jade amulet lay peacefully on the bed.
Batengis retrieved a broom from Larel’s Sack and began cleaning the floor while Hector searched the desk. As Coco tried to pick up the large spooner of arcanum the corpse rose from the bed and struck her. As Coco fell to the floor paralyzed Julia turned the beast and the party was able to return it to lifelessness. While waiting for Coco to recover, Julia found a secret door in the south wall west of the entrance. Batengis’ cleaning revealed reveal a glorious set of frescoes accentuated with gilt and and inlaid silver showing scholars at work, Thoth issuing forth knowledge in the form of a continuous scroll from his mouth, and the like. Hector discovered half a dozen magic user scrolls and a book written in Mithric entitled “On the “Properties of Arcanum”.
The secret door led to a short hallway ending at an unremarkable chamber a low ceiling and no decorations. The walls had been hollowed to form book cabinets in which wooden shelves contained books and scrolls. A wooden table with three wooden chairs occupies the middle of the room. An unbound quire of twenty four parchment folios rested on the table; examination of it showed it to be a diary of sorts written by the librarian and recounts his discovery of the large sphere of arcanum, his efforts to master it, and his growing frustration and alienation. The pages become increasing chaotic and raving as the. Next to this lay a set of parchment scraps, clearly first drafts of letters. The only one f interest read “To Neferet, high priestess, from Hellas, greetings. Your demand to relocate the contents of the special library to your new residence is impossible to grant. I will be party to neither your fantasies nor your self-aggrandizement. If the Lord of Light wished us to live eternally, he would have granted us this power; to seek eternal life through necromancy is grotesque and a perversion of Thoth’s teaching. Furthermore, your new residence, with its entrance in the Great Hall, is much too public and therefore unsafe. Most of the acolytes cannot learn of the existence of the works which I guard, and to bring them to you would risk too much. You may already have claimed the Circlet from the archon, but you will not steal the heritage of Lord Thoth. Hithra the Paleologue agrees with me. Given this day, April, AEP 1787.” All but the first two sentences were lined out. Many codices and parchments were found on the shelves, including Pol’s Treatise on Scrying and a large, illuminated codex of the Litany of Light. A scroll with a list of what appeared to be locations and assorted two letter abbreviations was theorized to be teleportation instructions to various places in the Halls, including The Hall of Shrines, The Lady’s Asylum, Psalor-Ki, and the Archon’s Palace.
After transferring the contents of the library to the villa, an Augury was cast to see if it would be possible to raise Sisco from the dead with a scroll. It was determined that though this would normally not workGerrilad’s imbuing of the large baboons with the spark of sentience made it possible. Upon being Raised Sisco was very grateful and pledged his life to Julia, but said that it would take a few days to restore order to the baboon level. The party decided to rest for the night in Lankios’ basement.
Arising on the morning of the 19th of Molivios the party decided to give Sisco more time to get his smaller and wilder kin under control and returned to the basement at Isadora’s Villa. This time the words ISADORAPRISCUS were spelled by touching the glyphs, which revealed a previously unseen door. A spiral staircase with rough circular granite steps, wide and much too tall to have been designed for human (or even varumani) use, spiralled clockwise down, eventually leading to a twenty foot square room with a ten foot alcove to the east, at the back of which a secret door was discovered. Through this secret door was an octagonal chamber that resembled a storage cellar with boxes and barrels lining the walls. The center of the chamber contains no clutter but instead features an impressive and detailed twenty foot mosaic showing a man and a woman standing next to each other, surrounded by an inscription which read in Mithric: “Priscus and Isadora stood together against adversity. Their eyes revealed more than would have been thought possible.” The party peered into the room and considered their next move.
RIP:
None
Foes defeated:
Skeletal chef
Ghoulified head librarian