Session 50: Reluctant Adventurers

Session 50: Reluctant Adventurers

9/24/23-9/29/23, rest 9/30, active 10/1

PC: Zektel, Cracaryn, Alari (Spellsword), Karl (Explorer)

Hench: 

#ACKS

If you’re into milestones, it’s Session 50. That’s like, half of 100 or something. I don’t know if it’s significant but it feels good to have a lasting game. We’ve rotated out some players but it just keeps on keepin’ on. Open tables are the way.

The players came together at Teutch tower with some new PCs because they keep dying off. Zektel and Cracaryn were returning while Alari and Karl were fresh level 1s.

Cracaryn, as usual, wanted to chase his other PC’s hook about some artifact located deep in enemy occupied territory to the north. The other players were having none of it. They’d spent a few sessions on it but usually spontaneously, with no plan or resources to ensure success. Goes to show that even with a big (huge) payout on offer, Patrons have to excite the players to get them into their hooks. It is an age-old problem for our erstwhile NPCs.

They tossed around ideas and settled on heading back to, of all places, The Fallen Castle dungeon near Teutch’s Tower, which had been there since nearly the beginning of the campaign. This was the site of a crashed storm giant castle that revealed deeper levels within the mountain beneath. Teutch had offered many loaner items and hooks and things that led there in the past, but after a few delves the players never went back. It had been over a year since their last visit.

There were signs of activity outside and they recalled having seen a band of mercs camped there the last time they came through. Apparently, they had gone by now and the PCs had a clear path to the skewed giant-sized double doors on the front of the wrecked castle. There was a large gap that they could squeeze through, which many an adventurer and monster had squeezed through before.

The foyer was as the players remembered it, a few ever-burning torches high on the cracked and slanted columns that barely held the thing together. They chose a door that led further in and descended to level 2 through a wide opening in the floor. 

Much whining was shared about “why are we here” and “what are we doing” and “I don’t want to be here” since they had a ranger and explorer for outdoor work. Despite over a year in the game and the system, there was still some belief that wilderness adventure was easy peasy no big deal for a bunch of low level turds with no punching power vs. random encounters that could outnumber them 100:1 and environmental hazards that literally killed their last party. I laughed at them and prompted them for action. They chose deeper into the dungeon. Such Chads.

We had a new mapper today, a man I’ve played D&D with in various forms for 30 years and never once seen him put pencil to graph paper. Much laughter was had but he did well, especially since without any navigation or mapping proficiencies I wasn’t being particularly helpful as the DM.

The group advanced through this second level of the dungeon pretty cautiously, certain that they were doomed. At the end of a long hallway they came across hulking, huffing forms that were– “Are those gnolls? They’re gnolls” said Alari. Dammit, yeah fine, they’re gnolls, whatever. A short battle with some damage spread around ended in two dead gnolls and some wounds that Zektel was successful in bandaging with his healing proficiency. Karl had to use his fate point to recover after setting himself on fire with military oil and burning to death. He’s now in permanent pain and suffers a penalty to initiative, but did not require bed rest due to the magical healing received from Zektel’s newly acquired spell slot.

Beyond the gnolls was a cavern with wet, slick walls of stone that had deposits that glittered in their light. Two elves in the party make finding secret doors pretty likely, which was demonstrated by them finding the small crevice in the southern wall leading to a little grotto. Within was a bubbling pool, the edge of which was chiseled in ancient Flannish runes. Someone, Zektel I think, was able to dope out the metaphor of the runes, put something of value in, get something of more value out. They tried everything they had, magic items and weapons and whatever, to no results. Then Karl put his gold in. It came out as platinum! I asked Karl to roll a d6. He got a 1. This will matter later.

Instantly, the cheese was summoned. “How do we sell this to patrons, how do we go get all of our gold from the bank and bring it back, how do we find more gold in the dungeon, what if it’s limited”. Cracaryn kept his wealth in gems for the reduced weight so even though he was well-off, very little was in gold coins. The party figured they’d look around a bit then jet off to town to retrieve actual gold pieces. Zektel was a champ and shared out his new platinum with the party, which turned into XP. The player thought it ludicrous but he plays his roles and plays them well.

Empty rooms and map confusion followed, eventually leading to a cell block of sorts where they found clay pots filled with silver coins. The pots were trapped with poison darts but they didn’t know that. It also didn’t matter because Karl picked them up one by one and smashed them against the wall. “I’m going full-out Link!” Shake. My. Head.

In another of the cells, they found a stairway leading very far down into the darkness. It was flanked by two everburning torches that went out when removed from the sconces. Did our heroes leave these to continue to add flavor to the dungeon? Nay nay, they ripped them from the walls with the intent to sell the sconces themselves. Looting a dungeon is sometimes looting the dungeon itself.

Onward they explored, discovering a large room with a shadowed back wall. There were wolves there that Cracaryn was able to convince to hunt with them as long as they didn’t go north. Back through the dungeon towards the staircase, the party tripped a trap that they miraculously all missed the first time through. Pit vipers dropped from a spot in the ceiling and it got serious quick. The wolves took the brunt of it and fortunately the PCs who were bit were able to save. Otherwise, they’d have died to poison. The one surviving wolf failed morale and bounced. The party harvested snake parts and decided to cut their losses and aim for cheese.

Back to town where they converted all their wealth into gold. Quick turnaround back to the dungeon where they hoped to really rack up on converting gold to platinum. It only took a few days to get back, but by the time they dunked all their gold into the fountain, nothing happened. It appeared the magic had expired. Karl’s d6 from before was the number of days the fountain would stay active. That’s a shame.

The party cut their losses here and retired for the session.

Musings:

Little Appendix A action for the 2nd level of the dungeon gave us some interesting things. The wolves clued the party into something scary on that same level. Will they pursue it? Probably not. After all, what were they even doing there?