Day two – return to the halls
Relatively well rested, Joran lights his lantern and returns to the ruins.
GME
Q: Has anything happened to Devran’s body?
A: Yes
– The most likely thing is that one of the various denizens has dragged it off to eat. The most likely culprits are the centipedes from the ruined guest room that Joran didn’t poke around in.
Joran lights his lantern and heads down the now safe stairs. Noticing that Devran’s body is missing, he decides to investigate if only to set his own mind at rest that it won’t be coming back for him. He first heads towards ghouls’ bedchamber and it isn’t long before he sees a pair of booted feet sticking out of the doorway of the rubble filled room. Moving closer he sees the glossy carapaces of the centipedes and leaves them to it – it’s not as if Devran was anything more than a hired sword.
Returning to the main junction, he heads south.
8. The Hall of Bones
A vast rubble strewn chamber, lined with great columns of blood stained stone. Manacles are set into each of the remaining columns, with bones heaped at their base. A partially destroyed throne can be seen under the rubble to the south, as can a set of mostly blocked stairs leading down to the south. Joran investigates the throne and discovers that it’s covered with gold leaf.
The gold leaf could be scrapped off with about half an hour’s work; it would be worth 50gp. Joran isn’t strictly here for material treasure, so he moves on.
Leaving the ruined throne room he takes the eastern passage.
9. Arrow Death Corridor
A long and relatively unadorned corridor leads into the darkness.
GME
Scene setup: 6- an Interrupt.
The obvious is a monster attack. The only mobile monsters left in the dungeon are the centipedes (busy eating Devran), and some Slithers (lurking on the ceiling a couple of rooms away). There is also a decaying garden, and whilst as written it’s empty, it could easily be home to a Spore Fiend and its attendant zombies. As the zombies are under the control of the fiend, they’re not going to just blunder into traps.
About to head down the corridor, Jaron hears footsteps approaching from the darkness ahead. Once more he places his lantern on the ground and readies his crossbow. Advancing towards him are a trio of mushroom covered zombies, following an erratic path down the corridor. Jaron fires as they close.
Round 1
Cross bow vs. Zombies is a hit for one HD, leaving the zombie standing, but damaged.
Round 2
Jaron slashes at the zombies, downing one and damaging a second.
2 points from the scimitar, fray die dealt no damage
The first zombie swings wildly, and whilst the second connects there’s little force behind its blow, leaving Jaron uninjured.
Round 3
The damaged zombie goes down, whilst the remaining one deals a solid blow
2 points of damage to Jaron
Round 4
Jaron deals a mighty blow, nearly cutting the zombie in half.
Critical hit, which does maximum damage by default. Can test your luck to see if you do double damage, but that’s not needed in this case
With the zombies dead he heads cautiously down the corridor, choosing to ignore the strange way that they were moving. Until he hears an ominous click and an arrow strikes him
2 damage, saved for half
Now he remembers, and carefully advances down the rest of the corridor, remaining unscathed.
The way the adventure describes it, I think that once the PCs know about the trap and aren’t in a hurry they can make it through safely. A different matter if they were travelling at speed though.
The corridor gradually transforms from worked stone to walls of gleaming, slightly luminous, white crystal. It opens out into a room of obvious mystic import.
10. The preparation room
A geometrically perfect room with mirrored columns polished to a sheen. Two rough corridors in the eastern wall lead off in slightly different direction. Jaron glances into one of the columns and sees his reflection warped and corrupted. Shuddering slightly he takes the most northern of the corridors, following it cautiously.
11. The Shattered Portal
Behind a large pile of shattered crystal is a portal, steeped in the energy of the shroud. Jaron moves quickly on, continuing to follow the corridor around
12. The Room of Inky Night
GME
An altered scene, result Oppress Reality.
The room should be full of Slivers, instead the walls of reality have worn very thin here, and there’s another opening to the Shroud.
Quite lucky, actually – the encounter here would probably have been brutal.
As Jaron advances he starts to feel a cold wind pulling him forwards, the air and the light from his lantern thin, and his magical senses start screaming at him.
Succeeded at a skill check. The shroud is a different layer of reality that allows travel to different planes and is tapped by spells like Dimension Door and Teleport. It’s also full of monsters.
Paying attention for once, he turns around and heads back to the Mirrored column room, and takes the other exit out of it, another rough corridor. Reaching a T-junction he turns to the right where the corridors look worked once again.
A band of runes runs around ceiling, walls, and floor. Jaron examines them, but is unsure of what they mean. Ahead he can smell the distinct odour of rotting vegetation, and mushrooms?
Unwilling to risk stepping through the runes when he doesn’t know what they do, he returns to the T-junction and takes the unexplored branch to the East. He ignores a branch leading north as it clearly leads back to the Shroud-torn room, and continues onwards.
13. The Great Summoning Chamber
A large protective circle is inscribed into the floor, alien runes pulsating with multi-coloured light. There’s also a pile of rocks against the southern wall.
Joran copies down the runes around the circle before checking the pile of rocks – they’re normal rocks, not the alien crystal that forms this section of the complex.
There’s a concealed tunnel behind the pile of rocks, but Joran doesn’t manage to find it, despite poking around.
14. The Cleansing Chamber
Unhappy about the idea of crossing the runes with no idea of what they do, Joran casts Divination. He both understands the guidance from the spell, learning that the runes remove all magical effects from anyone passing through them, and successfully retains Divination in memory.
After casting a Sorcerer or Elementalist can choose to test for luck to keep their spell.
Before continuing onwards he has a swing or two of wine to steel his nerves; he suspects that whatever controlled the fungus infested zombies lairs in here.
healed 3 points from the drink
To be continued…