The Party:
Batista, human thief, approximately 315 points
Orivileni, who is called Ori, Wood Elf scout, approximately 315 points
Aquinas, Dwarf cleric, approximately 315 points
William Von Cromberg, human knight, approximately 315 points
Drav Emberstrike, dwarf wizard, approximately 315 points
Aelwine, human wizard, approximately 305 points
Guest appearance:
Unnamed Dwarf fighter, approximately 300 points. A former player was in town for the night and used a sheet out of the back up characters file.
The players spent quite a bit of time figuring our how they wanted to spend earned CP. Once again most chose to raise stats, or save to raise stats. Time was also spent on deciding what to do with the suit of armor found last session. In the end they sold it to purchase quite a bit of equipment including a permanent Continual light stone, enchanting William's sword with Puissance +1, and a ton of healing potions. As this was the first real money they were able to spend, I didn't bother to roll for availability.
Gathering rumors was less successful for the group this session. I would report them, but I have misplaced the notebook where I recorded the rolls on the chart. (Doh!) I do recall that at least two were already known to be false.
Once again the wagon team from the White Wyvern Inn agreed to accompany the group to the castle in exchange for a portion of the loot.
As usual the group departed the White Wyvern Inn before dawn, over the river and though the woods to castle Falconflight. Scouting around the valley showed no new work in the rebuilding of the castle. After helping the wagon team hide themselves in the ruined town, the group headed into the Castle through the larger gap in the back wall of the Castle.
In the castle jail, the party heard the sounds of fighting from around a corner. Ori sneaked ahead to see what was happening. In the hallway a three foot long Acid spider had a man in plate armor pinned to the ground. The man was no longer fighting back. The sound was actually the spider trying to get past the armor to enjoy his evening meal. Ori loosed and arrow while signaling for the rest of the group to charge in. Aelwine cast an illusion causing the hallway to appear longer than it really was. The spider fell for the trick and came up short on its charge. After that it was quick work for the party to bring the spider down. They did recover enough venom from the spider to make several acid grenades.
Wasting no time the delvers headed down to the large passage, now known as Giant Cockroach path. Once in the dungeon, the delvers made a bee line for the terraced dining room. The group made their way to the bottom of the center isle ramp. Batista suspected that there should be a door here and began searching. He did not find a door but buried under the rubble at the end of the ramp he did find 3 copper tiles in the floor, each about an arms distance apart. A little poking and prodding later, the party realized the the three tiles were pressure plates. Everyone readied weapons while Batista, Aelwine, and William stepped on the tiles. With an extremely loud sound of rusty gears, a secret door opened vertically in the wall. Everyone rushed through into a long narrow hall way.
Advancing cautiously they came upon an unlocked door. While Batista checked the door for traps, Ori ran back to the Terraced dining room and stacked up a bunch of tiles in the still open doorway and returned to the party. His search complete, Batista opened the door. As he did, the same screeching metal sound filled the air. Thankfully ORi's tiles had stopped the door from closing completely, leaving just enough room to shimmy through should they need to.
Entering the room revealed eleven small alcoves, each with what at first appeared to be two burning candles in the recess. As the group moved closer the shadows shifted revealing the true nature of the lights. Eleven flaming skulls took flight and attacked the party. Immediately blades were flashing, hammers swinging and spells were flung. Drav let fly with an area effect fire spell that did little damage. Batista tried to flee the fight by exiting the room through a door on the side wall. Three of the skulls pursued him just as the door slammed shut behind him. It was another battle of patience as the size modifier and speed of the skulls made them hard to hit and the cosmic nature of their attack dealt a slow steady stream of damage to the players. Batista trapped alone with three of the skulls was a dodging machine. He was only hit once or twice before the rest of the group showed up to rescue him. After the fight was over, 11 bloodstone gems were found, one in each alcove. William gathered these up and the party moved on.
A bit of exploring revealed the party to be in a complex of rooms and hallways behind the large room with the crypt. While passing through the crypt room, careful to stay on the correct tiles, the party saw the corpse of the Otoroshi they had slain on the last trip in. By watching for a few seconds they were able to see a second Otorshi had taken residence on the roof of the crypt. Aelwine made several rude gestures at the guardian, but it ignored him.
Moving on, the party found themselves in a large lounge. several overstuffed chairs, lanterns, chandeliers, and other fine furniture were placed around the room. While the others set to searching and looting, Aquinas flopped down in one of the chairs, kicked his feet up on one of the coffee table and tipped his head back in hopes of catching a quick nap to recover lost fatigue. As he gazed at the ceiling it started to wriggle and writhe. Aquinas tried to jump up and alert the others but before he could a three foot spider had dropped from the ceiling and tried to bite him. Large spiders cascaded from the ceiling as the party tried to gather into a defensive formation. The fight went pretty well for the adventures. A few people were bitten, most had plenty of armor to protect them. Those that didn't took not only the 1d-1 from the bite, but 1d-1 fatigue damage as a follow up attack. The spiders were quick and dodged a lot of the attacks. As players figured out the spiders could not get through the characters armor, they started using all out attack, extra attack, to force the spiders to dodge more. The fight still drug on for quite a while. In the end all the spiders were dead, the party was able to heal, and gather quite a bit of loot.
The party made it out of the dungeon, and back to town with no difficulty.
Notes
The second spider fight was long, really long. The players seemed to get a bit disinterested. I take the blame for that, I was not giving very good descriptions of the action. By the end of the fight, they were just happy to have it over.
Not sure why more of the players are not taking advantage of Power-ups. I think it might be not wanting to take the time to read and understand them and just get playing. Not sure if this needs "fixed" or not.
Note taking continues to be a weak link on my part. I have to slow down and take better notes.
the Plate armor, the gems and the furnishings from the lounge added up to a pretty good haul. for the first time, having the wagon waiting for them has paid out.
Each player got 5 CP.
