Session 39: Three Doors Down

Session 39: Three Doors Down

6/11/23 - 6/12, rest 6/13, active 6/14

PCs: Gwendolyn, Luther, Redcorn, Clete, Max, Flynn

Henches: Amadayo, Madroff, Beyza, Eggie, Mulligan

#ACKS

The group might be the most focused I’ve ever seen them on a single goal. It’s also one of the only goals I think they haven’t been able to knock out in a session or two, the other being Dufresne the Condescending. This week we’re back in the Butzkrag chasing the source of The Dark Hymn.

Lord Issac’s Yellow River Base camp has made a solid safe stopping point for the party so far, where they can rest and get back into the dungeon each session since it’s only a few miles away. They’ve been fortunate to not suffer any extensive mortal wounds to slow them down and are starting to pry some of the valuables out of the dungeon, so all in all it’s been a good delving location for them.

This week Caspian the Bard was out, opting to write new sea shanties by the river. He was replaced by a longtime friend but a new player to the campaign in Flynn, a cleric of Tritherion, the god of Freedom and Liberty. Max the barbarian was also back in the mix after a bit of a hiatus. Welcome, gents.

At the top of the huge notAztec pyramid that dominated the hill there was a wide stairwell that descended into the dungeon in a counter-clockwise and irregular spiral. They landed in Gwendolyn’s “Lobby” room and went straight for the brigand camp in the south of the dungeon to “check in” with Antonius and the boys from the last session.

Manlius was still on guard behind the portcullis and shared with them that one of their guys Steve was down bad. Clete excitedly asked whether Steve had eaten any of the black mushrooms and it turned out that he had. Redcorn offered to cure him now if they’d fight with them, but the bandits were pretty clear they weren’t going deeper in the dungeon. The cleric of Ehlonna claimed he would stop back by after the delve if he had spells left to cure Steve’s illness.

They knew that lizardmen waited somewhere on the second level from what the bandits told them last time, but they didn’t know quite where. They had two stairs to choose from, so they avoided the one near the brigands in the hopes of dodging the lizardmen I think. Unfortunately this other stairwell led further down, letting out into a room with familiar style walls of matte black metal covered in runes.

The party was sure that they had gone past the second level and were trying to stay disciplined in their approach to clearing every level. They spent some time for Gwendolyn to Read Languages, learning that the runes detailed a family tree or legacy line of some kind, in several places mentioning the von Malkin line which Clete could tie to the manifesto that he had been working to decipher.

They took that info with them as they left, deciding to risk the rumored lizardman stairwell. Eggie the thief hench picked up some sounds at the door and then successfully disabled the gas trap that they had tripped the previous visit. At this point, Gwendolyn started up a thrilling cover of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” hyping up the party with the bard’s Inspire Courage ability. A joke was made about whispering the opening lyrics to preserve surprise, but one does not play Eye of the Tiger at any volume but 11 thank you.

High on 80’s pop-rock and ready to throw down, the adventurers burst through the door into a forked hallway, not the room that they expected, and kinda uh’d their way around for a second. Determining that east led them to a chamber opening and almost certain combat, they charged off.

A phalanx of lizardmen awaited their arrival, but the front line was undaunted, both Max and Luther charging the set spears with never a care about double damage this or that. Fortune favors the bold, as I understand it, and this was no exception as the bristling spears missed every attack and the lizardmen were shot and chopped down by the group in short order.

From a secret door the lizard chieftain charged, nearly killing Beyza the fighter hench while a witch doctor ooga booga’d a charm at Max which he resisted. Luther ran through the secret door to engage the caster while the party chopped the chieftain down. The door was wizard locked and slid shut behind him, leaving Luther alone with the witch doctor, but it didn’t take long for the party to dispel the door, break it open, and for Clete the Tweeker to dispatch the last lizardman with a magic missile shaped like a flying middle finger.

The loot’s been pretty solid this dungeon, just not so much in liquid and this was no exception, with a decent store of electrum and silver and a few magic items tucked in the storeroom. The party discussed options, choosing to load up their whole crew like pack animals and waddle out of the dungeon at minimum speed. Amazingly there were no random encounters so they escaped free and clear with only Flynn using some comfrey and some healing spells expended on the wounded.

Leaving their new treasure with their backup roster of henchmen and security forces (I’m limiting party size to 12 in a dungeon), the crew dove back into the dungeon and straight for the second level. This level’s rooms and hallways were carved in notAztec whorls and symbols throughout, with stone doors instead of the wooden above, but otherwise had construction consistent with the previous level. 

The next discovery was a chamber carved in a forest theme, with scenes of hunting and looming bears throughout. On the far side of the room was a pedestal that held an ancient stone statuette of a roaring bear. They stopped at the doorway for Luther to detect evil, revealing that the statuette was emitting enough evil to cover the room. The others observed that many of the bears depicted in the scenes on the walls had too many arms or insect mandibles or other deformities. Redcorn cast dispel evil, the statue split as though cut with a sword, and the evil dissipated.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Only challenge was that they were pretty sure there were six of these altars and dispel evil spells don’t grow on trees. That’s later them’s problem. 

Onward through the twisting corridors of a randomly generated AD&D Appendix A dungeon the party trudged and I don’t know why but it still surprises me when they go turn after turn after turn with no encounters. They discovered a small room with an old nasty rug laying over the floor which a couple of the henchmen were detailed to roll up. During this they triggered a pressure plate and spears shot out of the floor and ceiling to obviously kill them dead. Fortunately, their high ac repelled the source of their pointy doom. A quick plan to trigger the spears and chop at them resulted in a disabled trap.

The party found in two separate small rooms murals of nature scenes that were not corrupted with extra limbs or too many eyes, accented by gems inset in the walls. They quickly went to prying them out, collecting quite a little store of precious stones.

While clearing a very large but empty room, Max stumbled across a small stone basin lying in the center of the floor. It seemed to have very old stains in it that maybe could be blood? While the others discussed it the barbarian just pricked his finger and bled into the thing, activating some ancient magic. It swirled to life, filling the bowl with an iridescent liquid completely to the brim, and a woman’s face formed on the surface and gazed at the Lawful members of the party. “What is it that you wish?” she said to them.

You ever want a smoke break or piss break or something, drop a wish like a knife in the middle of the table and walk away. Could probably smoke a brisket before they made a decision if you didn’t press them too hard. Eventually they determined that wishing for all the evil entities in the hex to be destroyed and a pony and a million dollars and some other things I forget was the move, so Redcorn spoke as the premier Lawful PC present.

Somewhere in some ancient folklore that I cannot remember the source for, there’s a warning against using “and” in a wish. If this was a petty entity like a genie or something there may have been some consequences, but fortunately for the party the lady in the bowl was legit Lawful Good by AD&D standards (Appendix A remember) and as soon as the first request of the wish was spoken there was a loud pop, the liquid flashed to steam, and the bowl was empty.

The group kinda stared at each other for a minute, then I think greed got the best of them. Luther bounced and I think Clete did too, hiding outside the room in case of some terrible reaction and discussing what should happen with the bowl. Max pricked his finger again to see what would happen, this time watching the basin fill with a dense liquid metal substance very like mercury. Clete had some ranks in alchemy and examined it, determining that there’s no way that was actual mercury and he noped back outta there.

They fiddled with some ideas, eventually Max determining to get a skin full of the notliquid. He dipped his hand in to fill the skin and felt the world go a little duller. His eyes crossed a bit and his player was informed to reduce Max’s intelligence score by two points. Oof. Fortunately Max weren’t the big thinker in the group in the first place and he was happy it wasn’t his strength score that got reduced.

Max tried one more time with the blood, this time getting cool clear water that Flynn could get no effect from by drinking, dipping his head in, weapons in, I forget what else. They tried to fill a skin with it, but though the water appeared to be entering the skin it never actually filled it. Feeling as though they had run that well dry and having spent quite a lot of time in the dungeon, the party backtracked, stopping at the bandit wing of the dungeon to offer the help that Redcorn had promised.

It turned out that their ill member Steve had EXPLODED just a short time ago. Manlius was aghast and Antonius had had enough of the dungeon. The party offered the humans a chance to leave with them, which they took, slinking off of the back side of the pyramid to avoid the waiting soldiers and uncomfortable questions of Issac’s men. The crew rested their weary heads, got their spells back, and spent the first few hours of the next morning waiting on Redcorn to scout around on his giant hawk. The idea I think was to verify that the wish had killed all the evil entities in the hex, but the results were inconclusive so they jumped back into the dungeon with plenty of session time to spare. Or so they thought.

I still hadn’t rolled a single random encounter but it is what it is. The party started moving pretty confidently through the second level again, sure that every evil thing was destroyed and reassured in that belief when they encountered what looked to be a rotten cow’s corpse or something that had exploded all over the hallway in front of them. They picked their way through and continued.

The next room of interest was one carved with panthers in a jungle, although the panthers’ eyes and heads and figures seemed to be moving in the corner of their eye and they could hear a low growling sound. Concerned about having to use high level magic on each altar, this time Flynn and Luther entered the room to break it physically. They immediately had to make saving throws against the overwhelming feeling that they hated one another and would certainly kill each other, with jokes made across the table about the fresh cleric not lasting long against the leveled paladin.

Fortunately the two Lawful dudes shrugged off the magic and beat the snot out of the altar, with Redcorn casting bless to cleanse the pieces. With a plan of action and no encounters to slow them down, they came across another altar in a swampy motif room and the boys went in to start clubbin’. Unfortunately, Luther failed his save against fear and was paralyzed with terror, shaking and suffering a negative to ac even after Redcorn cast remove fear on him. Clearly this evil magic was of different stuff.

Flynn broke the statue, Redcorn blessed it, and on they went through the dungeon, feeling good and safe and OH SHIT WE’RE STUCK IN AN ELEVATOR GOING DOWN!

The room that they were crossing when it happened was walled in a familiar matte black metal material which started sliding by as the floor descended for what felt like forever. It eventually slid to a stop revealing three doors made of woven bone material. It was the end of our scheduled session time and panic was high considering 1:1 time and particularly Redcorn’s player being unavailable for next week. They searched rapidly through some of the adjoining rooms, which I was randomly generating on the fly since I forgot this trap was in the dungeon, and freaked out that there was no control panel or anything to activate the elevator.

After a while of searching, Redcorn used his high level spell slot to Commune with his goddess Ehlonna, which gives him 3 yes or no questions. It also burns quite a bit of time to cast. He went meta on me with the first question but I let it slide due to concern over his heart rate, “Is there an easy way out of this dungeon before the end of the session?” Yes. “Is the exit north or south?” No. “Is it the elevator?” Yes.

They pondered and searched and looked and felt and smelled everything around there for a while until the elevator reactivated on its own, carrying them back to the second level. It was a timed lift. They hustled out of the dungeon as fast as they could and breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Musings:

This was a fun session, even the tense spot at the end. Uncertainty is apparently a powerful emotional catalyst. I wasn’t too sure what I was gonna do about the trap and 1:1 time. Really the only thing I could do if they didn’t figure out the way out was pause time there. They weren’t advanced enough into the future to warrant it as precedent has dictated, but considering the conditions I felt that I could work with it. I’m glad it didn’t come to that, ole Redcorn woulda had two weeks to sweat it.

The basin was cool and completely emergent. I didn’t really plan for anything to be there, but I described it as a feature of an otherwise empty room that the party decided to interact with. The players rolled the results of the randomized effects which we have fun with for treasure too sometimes. They’ve got a hand in their own fates that way.

Wishes are powerful. Are they powerful enough to kill every evil entity within a 6 mile hex including the super evil den of evil magic giving the whole region evil dreams for the past 6 evil months? I don’t know. We’ll find out.