Session 6; November 14, 2006 

return to "adventures"       return to home page      previous session     next session

Session 6:  Danger!  Danger!

Player's map from sessions 1-5: this represents what they have explored thus far in Jzadirune.

This is a map they found of the complex; they have discovered that smaller tunnels, secret doors and traps are not marked on this map.

Celceor The Wise (Elven mage, male); Dave M.
Angrod (elven cleric) Steve B.
We-Zel (Half-Orc Barbarian); Mark M.
Corniel (Dwarf Bard); Brook
Nick (human thief); Dave P.

When last we met, the heroes had just killed a couple of hobgoblins and captured the key to an "elevator" type room, that, according to the hobgoblin they captured, gave access to a deeper level where someone named "Kazmojen" held the slaves.  Since they were beaten up and out of spells, they decided to return to the surface.
They went first to Skie's Magical Treasure shop where they offered her the wand of secret door and trap detection.  She offered them 125 gps because it only had 15 charges and they decided to keep it.  They sold her a gnome-made music box for 100 gold which she bought simply because she was a gnome and liked it but when they offered her the rest of their loot, she declined and sent them to "Tygot's Olde Things" --- a local curio shop.
Tygot was a cranky old hobbit who sat in an overstuffed chair smoking a pipe surrounded by old books, statues, bric-a-brac and curios.  A large dog with a silver-grey muzzle sat beside the hobbit, watching the party warily.  Tygot dithered over the prices but finally offered them a fair share for the mask, the silver snake ring, the ewer and the masterwork mandolin -- all plundered from Jzadirune.  Tygot didn't have any interest in the used weapons and armor but told them to go see the Thirfanes -- a wealthy family of merchants that sold most of the weapons and armor in town.  They then headed down to Thirfane's and haggled with one of the merchants there who finally agreed to buy the whole pile of weapons and armor for one price.  Corniel the bard attempted to haggle the price upwards and insulted the man who countered by offering even less so finally they took his original offer of 30% street price and split up the money.
After borrowing gold from his comrades, We-Zul bought a breastplate and paid to have spikes rivetted upon it.  After measuring him, the armorer promised to have it ready in the morning.  Angrod bought a wooden shield and paid a little extra to have the sign of his god, Elhonna, painted upon it.
That night Corniel played a few songs and got a single silver and requests for "Freebird" for his trouble.  The halfling mariachi band that was performing that night seemed a little more popular with the crowd.  Celceor went out to the woods on the edge of town and picked up his owl familiar.
The next morning both Celceor and Nick felt wan and pale -- apparently the Vanishing had afflicted them again --- so they trotted off to Jenya who gave them a lecture about picking up strange magical items in Jzadirune and asked them once more to find the children.  She deduced that the detect secret doors wand was infected with vanishing and had them place it in a box so she could (hopefully) work out a way to remove the curse.  She removed the Curse of Vanishing from them once again.  Before they left she mentioned that Keygan Ghelve had gone missing from the jail where he had been kept under protective custody by Captain Skellerang.  There had been no sign of a forced entry but the guards had heard a scream from his cell in the middle of the night.  When they went to investigate, the cell was still locked and Ghelve and his familiar were gone, but some fine ash was found upon the floor.
Celceor, Nick, We-Zul, Angrod and Corniel returned to the dungeon and went down the stairs.  Celceor sent his owl to scout ahead and the owl returned, warning Celceor that trouble lay ahead.  As they advanced into the room they saw a dark creeper lurking in the hallway across from them.  They began to advance and someone threw a thunderstone from the open door while the door they had used to lock in their hobgoblin prisoner rolled open, revealing a large mechanical gnome made of bronze and iron that stood a little less than 5 feet tall and had a large drill in place of a right hand and a shovel in place of his left hand.
The battle that followed was truly bizarre.  The clockwork gnome golem would sometimes apparently malfunction and stand motionless or attack the air next to it.  We-Zul ran up to it and whacked it with the axe for a huge amount of damage but it just kept coming, even though little bits of it were falling off and gears could be heard grinding and popping.  A secret door opened on the stairs behind the party and a pair of dark creepers popped out and attacked the party from behind while Nick dueled with a skulk through the doorway.  The gnome-golem, whatever it was, would occasionally emit sonic shrieks that would stun whomever was caught in the cone of sound.  When the gnome golem hit anything -- he pretty much destroyed it.  The half orc went down several times when the gnome hit him with it's drill or shovel --- and each time the half orc would get healed enough by the cleric to stand up again in order to take a little more punishment and go down again.  After this happened three times, the gnome golem cornered We-Zul against the wall (the half orc had been stunned and was reduced to fighting with his punching dagger) and drilled a hole right through his breastplate, killing the poor half orc.
Nick, meanwhile, was tottering in place, having been stunned by the sonic powers of the clockwork gnome golem, while a skulk danced around him pinking him with it's rapier but somehow failing to inflict more than 1 or 2 points per round.  "Deadeye" Corniel took out a dark creeper with one crossbow bolt righ through the eye and then promptly got whomped into the negatives by a skulk that crept up behind him.  Celceor summoned a magic dog with a spell that kept the clockwork golem occupied for a few rounds and then tipped the thing over with a grease spell.   By now Nick was backing across the room, trying to stay out of reach of the skulk and tossing daggers and sling stones at him.  After wearing the skulk down 1 hitpoint at a time, Nick finally beaned him with a slingstone and killed him.
The golem was still up and running as the players began retreating up the stairs.  It stood there doing nothing or attacking the air for a couple rounds and they shot arrows and sling bullets at it -- finally Celceor hit the machine with an arrow that wedged itself between two dented plates and it ground to a halt; apparently broken.  Just to be sure, Nick battered it a little more.  He pried open a bent brass door on one side and found broken gears and a large blue spinel which he guesstimated to be worth 500 gps.
Three dark creepers and two skulks also lay dead.  The party gathered up some coins, a thunderstone and the blue spinel and took their dead and wounded back to the Temple of Cuthbert.
Jenya regretted to say that she could do nothing for the dead half orc but suggested they try the Temple of Kord or the Temple of Wee Jas.  They went to The Temple of Lordly Might first where the priest, Asfelkir Hranleurt interrupted his ritual calesthenics long enough to tell thaem that he could not raise the half orc either.  They finally stopped at the temple of Wee-Jas.  This place had a tall and elaborat5e marble spire and was decorated in gold leaf.  Novices in voluminous red robes scurried back and forth while they met with a cleric named Iverson.  Iverson was very stand-offish and even though the party attempted to convince him that raising the half orc was in the best interests of the temple, he refused to do so unless the players could "do something" for the temple.  They finally left and cremated the half orc and stored his remains in a can.
That night they returned to the inn and had to hear all about the latest exploits of "The Stormblades"; apparently these Stormblades were Cauldron's favorite heroes.  While the PCs had been sweating and fighting in the dark, the Stormblades had cleared out a big nest of Kobolds that were living in one of the lava caves outside of town and had been harassing travellers.  Even though the players argued that they had fought a much more dangerous opponent, the Stormblades had returned to Cauldron covered in glory while the players had returned covered in their own blood without any of the "children."  Corniel attempted to compose a song about his group's heroic exploits but the crown proved surly (low perform roll).  He then sang a humorous ditty about a half orc getting drilled to bits by a mechanical gnome and the crowd liked this song much more (good perform roll) and threw silver and gold coins at him (a lot of silver, only a few gold coins from a Merchant trying to impress his date).  Weary and bloody, the adventurers slunk off to bed.

We ended the session at this point.

Character / Player:	Race / Class & Level:	XP at start:	XP for session:	XP total:	Notes:
Bane; Mike D.	(half-elf / Thief 1)	450			not present
Celceor The Wise; Dave M.	(Elf / Mage 2)	1781	1302	3083	LEVEL 3!
Nakama; Tom S.	(Human / Ranger 1)	921			not present
Skylar; Al G.	(Human / Duskblade 2)	1681			not present
Angrod Moonstar; Mike M.	(Elf / Cleric 2)	1051	1142	2193	played by Steve B.
Nick; Dave P.	(Human / Rogue 2)	1281	1202	2483
Corniel; Brook	(Dwarf / Bard 1)	970	1152	2122	Wooohoo!  Level 2!
We-Zel	(Half-Orc/ Barbarian 1)	750			dead...

.