sessions home  email    previous session    next session


Party at the start:
Mace Blackstar (Mike D.; Human Fighter)
Wilbered The Silent (Bob S.; Human Cleric)
Castor Bean (Steve B.; Human Bard)
Trygvie (Steve G.; Elven Wizard)
Kane (Al G.; Human Monk)
Geia (NPC; Human Fighter)
and Malus Thunderhammer (NPC.; Dwarf Ranger)

It was around 4:00 pm on the 25th of the month of Sept.

The party was in the cave that seemed to have served as a smithy for the monkeymen with vines growing down from above along the walls.  Two seemingly drugged prisoners (villagers) were chained to the forge.  The party debated the merits of freeing the prisoners quite heatedly.  Finally Gaia convinced the others and Mace helped break the chains binding the prisoners.

The cavern had three exits --- straight up, hundreds of feet through a natural chimney that allowed sun and air into the cave, back the way they had come and another cave, thirty feet up that could be accessed by climbing some vines.  The party elected to climb the vines and explore the tunnel that led deeper under the mountain.

After traveling more than four hundred feet through the tunnel in a northeasterly direction, the players came to a broad chasm, more than a hundred feet wide.  Since the cavern was dark, the players were not sure how deep the chasm reached --- their light sources could not reach the bottom.  It was crossed by a narrow bridge made of rope and wooden planks.

Castor volunteered to cross the rickety looking bridge first.  He commanded his magical spear to flame and Kane tied a rope around his and the Bard's waist.  Castor walked as far across the bridge as his rope allowed and could see the other side by the light of his flaming weapon.  The bridge led directly to a cave exit similar to the one on the other side and a few small window like holes could be seen in the wall above the tunnel exit.  The Monk then tied another rope around his own waist, handed the free end to his companions and walked out  over the bridge.  The bard was able to advance to the cave with the slack in the rope created by the advancing monk.  He could see two large lizard creatures crouching in the entrance to the cave.

Suddenly rocks and arrows began raining down upon the characters on the bridge from the windows over the far cave entrance.  The rocks were large; those that missed the characters began smashing through the planking of the bridge.  Trygvie launched a fireball at the lizards guarding the cave entrance as the rest of the party abandoned their cautious approach and stormed across the bridge, hoping to reach the other side before the falling rocks broke the bridge and dumped them into the chasm below.  The rocks and arrows were being fired by more of the small and hairy monkeymen who hid behind the windows.  

After a fierce and nerve wracking battle, the players managed to kill off the lizards and get off the bridge which was now seriously damaged by all of the boulders which had smashed through it.  A narrow staircase led upstairs to the small room with windows that the monkeymen had been using to attack the players on the bridge; after Mace got to the few remaining Monkeymen it was all over for them.  When they were done, they tossed the bodies of the monkeymen into the chasm.

The party elected to secret themselves in the small room with the windows and rest and heal up.  They took turns standing guard.  While Gaia was on guard, a furtive figure in leather armor snuck up the stairs and surprised her, killing the champion of Feldspar with two blows with a heavy mace.  The sound of Gaia's body hitting the floor awoke the rest of the party and they quickly killed the intruder, but not before he had wounded several of them with repeated blows from his heavy mace.  The intruder was basically humanoid in form and about the size and shape of a man, but his torso seemed unusually flexible and long.  Removing his helmet, they saw that he had greenish scaled skin and inhuman features.  After searching the corpse, they tossed the creature's body into the chasm and rested a few more hours before pressing on.  The two villagers, who still seemed groggy and despondent, carried the body of Gaia wrapped in a cloak.

The tunnel they were following took them northeast another 400-500 feet until they saw dim light outlining an exit ahead.  They doused their lights and Castor the Bard crept forward to investigate.  The tunnel exit led to a small and unused looking ancient amphitheater open to the moonlit sky -- the valley of the shrines at last!  Castor noted that a throne like chair stood on a small dais on one side of the stage.  Beyond the area designated for the audience, outside the shallow bowl of the amphitheater, he could see the tops of trees.  Waving his companions forward, Castor went over to check out the chair.

The throne was decorated with human skulls and 6 gems.  After seating himself and performing a search of the throne, Castor used the point of his dagger to pry the gems loose and put them in his pocket.  After his companions joined him, they proceeded up the path and into the trees.  The air was warm and the characters could not see more than 100 feet ahead due to a fog like mist that filled the air.  After they had gone a few hundred feet along this path, they saw torch light ahead.

Castor and Kane the monk went ahead to scout out the location.  The torches flanked a large pair of bronze doors in a huge square stone building.  The doors were green with verdigris and had the images of huge coiling snakes in bas relief on their surface.  To the left of the doors, near the corner of the building, was a hole in the masonry just about big enough for a human to crawl through.  Kane and Castor got down on hands and knees and began crawling through the hole.

Inside, Kane saw a large statue of a snake with gems for eyes flanked by two flaming braziers.  A man was bound spread eagle to the floor and an enormous snake was coiled around one of the four pillars in the room, advancing on the helplessly struggling figure.  Immediately Kane bounded across the room to help the poor man.  Two additional gargantuan snakes that had been coiled around the pillars, out of sight in the darkness above, slithered forward and attacked.  Soon Kane was fighting for his life.

Castor saw that the situation was desperate.  He ran over to the bronze doors and heaved them open, ignited his flaming spear and waved to his companions outside.  One of the serpents bit him and looped it's muscular coils around the bard's body and began squeezing him to death as two more of the serpents thrashed and bit at Kane.  The battle would have ended there but then Mace, Wilbered and Trygvie arrived.  Using spells and swords, the party killed the three serpents.  Only a timely application of healing spells saved the Bard's life.  While Castor climbed the statue of the snake and pried out the gems in its eyes, the rest of the party freed the bound man who introduced himself as Zuran, son of Uzna, the headman of the Village of Nudlo.  A cloth sack in the corner was found to contain 250 silver coins, 4 golden decorative disks engraved with spirals and a wicked looking curved knife (kukri knife).  Zuran said that the Kukri had been taken from him by the slavers so the party returned it to him.  After a brief discussion, they elected to allow Zuran to accompany them.

The session ended here.

Character
 class/race
 player
 xp at start
 xp at end
Geia
 human fighter
lvl 3
 npc
 4475
 na
 dead
Mace
 Human fighter
lvl 6
 Mike D.
 17449
 19030
Wilbered
 Human Cleric
lvl 6
 Bob S.
 16028
 17609
Castor Bean
 Human Bard
level 5
 Steve B.
 13034
 14615
Trygvie
 Elven Wizard
level 5
 npc:
(Steve G.)
 13801
 15382
Kane
 Human Monk
level 6
 npc:
(Al G.)
 15662
 17234

Malus
 Dwarf Ranger
Level 4
 npc:
(Chris)
 9917
 10708
 level 5!