Session 2: Attack of the Gargoyles

Session 2:

We had five players in attendance on a very cold and blustery Thursday evening.

Batista, human thief, approximately 300 points
Orivileni, who is called Ori, Wood Elf scout, approximately 300 points
Aquinas, Dwarf cleric, approximately 300 points
William Von Cromberg, human knight, approximately 300 points
Drav Emberstrike, dwarf wizard, approximately 300 points


The session opened with the party at the Inn of the White Wyvern. The group spent some time gathering rumors. William learned of some very dangerous metal skeletons in the dungeon. Aquinas thought this odd, as he figured all metal skeletons would, indeed, be dangerous. Batista discovered that some of the locals believe that the tunnels in the dungeon sometimes rearranged themselves.

William tried to purchase a continual light stone, but was not able to afford it. He settled for a stone with a single casting of the spell, which was considerably cheaper, but only lasted 7 days. The rest of the gang made no purchases as they had not made a profit on the last trip into the dungeon.

Again the group set out in the predawn hours. Traveling over the river and through the woods they made their way to the valley of Castle Falcolnflight.  Upon entering the valley, the group discovered that the portcullis had fallen off of its tracks. The falling  appeared to have crushed someone or something, but they chose not to investigate more closely. The guild also spied a large pile of cut stone blocks near the Castle gate. Ori was sent to scout ahead, but found nothing worth noting in the ruined village. The party then joined him in the burnt out house that served as their rally point. Someone suggested that in the future, equipment could be hidden in the house to save time taking it back and forth to town.

From the ruined house the party scampered across the clearing towards the hole in the Castle wall they had used before.  Before they could make it across, a group of Gargoyles swooped down  from the crenelations atop the walls of the fortress. The Gargoyles made one swooping attack, then landed. There were as many gargoyles as party members. The gargoyles foolishly split up to fight the guild one on one. The first round of combat was pretty even. Batista used acrobatic dodges to keep from being hit. Aquinas blocked with his shield, and William parried with little effort.  The gargoyles were very efficient dodgers in that first round, although Drav was able to tag one with a two dice fireball and Ori hit one with a well placed arrow.
After that it went down hill for the gargoyles.  The stone beasts were able to wound both Ori and Drav, but William was able to kill one gargoyle and several others were wounded.  The gargoyles then fled, flying back up to the top of the wall. When the others asked the cleric to help heal them up, Aquinas replied " There are some clerics who can heal people, I am not one of those types of clerics."

Once inside the relative safety of the wall hallway, the delvers discussed options.  One option was to explore more of the castle. Another option was to head straight down into the lower level of the dungeon. Last session the explorers had discovered a passage in the jail cell.last session.  The majority wanted to go down, so down they went. Down the spiral staircase, through the jail cell entering the first real level of the dungeon

The passage went directly to another trap door. This door opened into a library where a bookcase made up the final few rungs of the ladder. William tied a rope to the last of the iron rungs in the passage, to help with climbing out. They also chose to leave the trap door within the ceiling open. When a quick assessment revealed no traps they exited through the only door out of the library.  The library lead into a scriptorium, which contained several tall desks and stools, some decayed parchment and dried ink jars. Another search exposed a door hidden behind a bookcase. Batista loudly announced that since the door was hidden, clearly there must be more treasure to be found behind it. Following his logic, the explorers headed into a long narrow passage. Soon they came upon a side passage, this one of natural stone rather than carved blocks. Without even so much as a "hey which way?" William led the party down the side passage. The natural cave twisted and turned, but always sloped upwards. At a sharp switchback the party stumbled on four giant cockroaches each at least 4 foot in length. Ori, let loose the arrow he had ready, striking one through the eye. William brandished his continual light stone at the insects. Startled the cockroaches fled up the passage. The adventurers followed right behind without attacking, herding the insects in front of them. Soon the bugs were able to find some smaller passages that would have been a tight fit for the group to follow. The group decided to allow the bugs to go. Moving forward the explorers unearthed a passageway.  It ended up being just to the east of the prison complex, down a hallway they had ignored before.

A bit discouraged, they returned to the scriptorium to exit via the only  door available to them.  They advanced down another hall way  into what appeared to be a receptionist area.  A large desk dominated the center while two rusty braziers sat in opposite corners of the room. One wall was painted with a mural, a sun being eclipsed by the moon.

Further exploring led them to a ransacked barracks.  On the wall hung a large tapestry which featured the eclipse design. The looters pulled the tapestry down, rolled it up for William to toss over his shoulder.  The group also located a small waiting room. The waiting room had two hallways that seemed to match up with the reception area. Batista was encouraged by William to pick one and make sure that it did indeed link up. A few steps into the hall, Batista stepped into something squishy. Shining his torch on it he discovered it to be a Reek. Batista made the roll to resist the daze effect of the reek then easily freed his foot before taking any damage.

The hall did indeed lead back to the reception area. At the urging of the player doing the mapping Batista headed down the second hall expected to link up with the waiting room. About half way through the passage a large gonging started to reverberate over and over again. Drav checked for magic and found the hallway to be enchanted. The group concluded it was an alarm spell so they ignored it until the cacophony stopped a minute later.

Beyond the waiting room the party found a one room apartment. From out of the darkness a pale semi solid figure appeared, pointed at the group then shouted "GET OUT" in a low gravely voice. Rather than leave, the party attacked. Ori sent an arrow towards the eye of the creature. The arrow struck home, paused for a split second, then continued through the target without injuring him.  Batista took off at a run for what appeared at first to be a charge at the creature.  He veered off at the last second, headed for a door on the opposite side of the room. Drav conjured a 2d fireball, unfortunately the attack did no damage. William yelled for Aquinas (the cleric) to turn the Wight. Aquinas instead blocked the Wight's attack on his shield then began concentrating on a spell.  William took a swing at the Wight, but it too was ineffectual. Aquinas completed his Affect Spirit spell on William's sword. The Wight simply touched William on the shoulder which paralyzed him. At this point, the delvers decided that discretion was the better part of valor so made a hasty exit out of the room following Batista. The Wight did not follow. William asked Aquinas why he didn't try to turn the Wight.  Aquinas replied, "There are some clerics who can turn undead, I am not one of those types of clerics."  William, upset and confused as to what the cleric was good for asked "What did you do for the Church?!!!" to which Aquinas replied " I passed the collection plate."

The next room proved to be a large kitchen and dining room. On the shelves were many dishes and pieces of cook wear. A quick tabulation estimated the value of the dishes to be  $300.00. Not wanting to be weighed down, the delvers left  most of the find behind. Aquinas and Ori  convinced William to take at least one cauldron with them.

Just off the kitchen in a hallway, a secret door was found.  Failing to disarm the Frost rune trap, Batista just barely dodged out of the geyser of frost which sprayed from the floor. Behind the door a stone staircase led down into the darkness. The party closed the door. Instead they focused on exploring more of the current level.

Through several twists and turns, with a bit of backtracking the adventurers found themselves back in the scriptorium. From here they returned to the hallway behind the bookcase. They passed the cave leading up to the castle.

The next room was rather strange. A steep, red tiled ramp slopped down the long narrow room. On either side of the ramp were several terraces. Each terrace contained a dining table and chairs. One of the terraces had a door behind the head of its table. Batista started down the ramp, but after only a couple of steps the tiles came loose. An avalanche of red tile and dust.thundered down the ramp.  Batista made a desperate leap for one of the terraces, narrowly making it to safety.
The rest of the group avoided the now bare stone ramp, climbed down the levels to the terrace with the door.
Behind the door was a small balcony. The floor 15 feet below them, the ceiling 15 feet above. In the center of the very large room was a mausoleum made of dark stone. On one wall a staircase led to the floor from a closed door. The floor was a random jumble of large red and black squares.   The exception being  a path of black squares that led from a far door to the grave in the center. Batista and Ori lowered themselves from the balcony to one of the black squares on the floor, and after several close jumps made it to the pathway. Just as they were about to enter the small building, Aquinas saw a small shimmer of light, that revealed what looked like a combination of a small bear and a large cat sitting crouched on the roof.  A successful check against his Hidden Lore skill led Aquinas to believe the creature was some sort of guardian spirit. After hearing this, Ori and Batista made their way back to the balcony, again avoiding any red squares. The party returned to town for a  time of rest and healing.  Aquinas felt more information on the guardian spirit was needed before going any further.


Notes

I may have been a bit strong in my encouragement to head down to the deeper levels.

Not taking the dishes, meant the party once again did not make a profit. This is going to make it tough to replace torches, arrows, and healing potions.

Overall a good session. I really need to make sure to take better notes. I got caught up in the exploration and combats so forgot to write anything down. Since it has been a week between playing and writing this post, I may have forgotten some things.

Aquinas really didn't do much in the fight with the gargoyles and I couldn't figure out why. His player is new to GURPS and was reading the character sheet wrong. He thought he only had 5 fatigue points. Once we figured that he really had 16 FP, he was quite a bit more active.

I updated the rumor chart, restocked the areas that have been explored, and in a effort to prevent the PCs from starving to death, upped the amount of treasure a fraction.