New party
Andrzej
- Aihsz th’Baigh, Explorer 1 (Mariner template)
Brooke
- Arvellas, Elven Spellsword 1 (Swordmage template)
Matt
- Mando Kant, Mendicant 1 (Custom class)
Panem (Aug) 15, 1181 EC
Outside the town of Briarglen, an old farmer by the name of Wilhelm Franke has been desperately asking around town for brave volunteers to delve into a mystery: a spiral stone staircase in the middle of his field. He swears it was never there before, and he's terrified of what may come up. He can't offer any reward aside from the right to keep anything found down there, so he hasn't found anyone willing to help - except for three misfits who are just desperate (or in Mando’s case, pious) enough to give it a try.
Our three unlikely characters received a hero’s welcome from farmer Wilhelm, despite not having done anything. The mendicant accepted this praise with humility, the jaded explorer met it with indifference, and the cocky spellsword demanded an even deeper bow as the bare minimum due to her esteemed personage.
With the party’s pecking order established, they approached the steps. Finding them as the farmer had said, they descended without much further ado. Three storeys below the earth they debouched into a large room decorated in the style of a hunter’s hall, with a floor covered in heavy pelts (ancient and rotten) and a fireplace with a proud set of antlers above it. At the far end there was a stone pool with a central statue of a man wearing an ornate crown. Clear water ran from the man’s hands, but the pool was stained with blood. Arvellas identified the subject of the statue as the Arch-Warlock Ix, conqueror of the Old Auran Empire and founder of the evil Cthonic religion.
As they inspected one of the doors out of this room, another opened and admitted three gnomes, nervously skulking with arrows nocked. Both parties were shocked at the other’s appearance, but Mando seized the opportunity to parlay and immediately put the gnomes at ease (seriously, this was a natural 12 with a +2 on the reaction roll). Before long they had struck a deal with the gnomes to loot the place and split the treasure.
Zilzu, the lead gnome, then explained that they were a small group of explorers from the gnomish town of Grindledeep, who happened across this area while tunneling. They suspected it of being a Cthonic temple of some sort due to the prominent statue of Ix. He said they’d fought some Kobolds but couldn’t get further into the complex due to locked and stuck doors.
The gnomes proceeded to show the party a section of the area which they had explored. Behind a set of iron bars, animated skeletons were manacled to the wall. Down a certain passage they warned of giant bats. And behind a secret door they showed a room with what appeared to be tree roots hanging from the ceiling and among them a bag of coins hanging from a string.
“Don’t touch that, it’s just too obvious a trap,” said Zilzu. So of course the players immediately made a plan to touch it.
Mando reached out with his shepherd crook from the edge of the room and pulled on the bag, hoping to be out of range of whatever trap was there. But he wasn’t. The room filled with paralyzing spores and the mendicant collapsed. Aihsz managed to drag him out by the feet, leaving the coins scattered on the floor, and they retreated to the gnome campsite to let Mando recover.
It took about 40 minutes for Mando to recover enough to set out exploring again. The party headed east, to a doorway the gnomes hadn’t explored. An inscription on the door in classical Auran read “Armory.” Arvellas opened the door and found skeletons waiting. After a quick fight where the party took down the first skeleton, the gnomes cast an illusory wall across the doorway, fooling the skeletons into returning to their posts.
Mando disguised himself as an undead wizard using the newly acquired skull, and entered the Armory. Inside he noticed more marked doors: “Nave” and “Vault.” He commanded the skeletons to leave the room, and they broke down the Nave door to do so.
Time: 10:30 am
Enemies defeated: 1 skeleton
Treasure: none
XP: 13 (split with 3 gnomes)
3 per PC
Current XP totals:
Aihsz 3 / 2000, level 1
Arvellas 3 / 4000, level 1
Mando 3 / 1250, level 1
