Smoke and mirrors?
Mace Blackstar (Mike D.; Human Fighter)
Wilbered The Silent (NPC; Human Cleric)
Castor Bean (Steve B.; Human Bard)
Trygvie (NPC; Elven Wizard)
Kane (Al G.; Human Monk) at
Zuran (NPC; Human Fighter)
Ryneh (Tom S.; Human Rogue)
map of exterior of Hydell
player's map of Hydell Dungeon
The player party was resting downhill from the ruins of Castle
Hydell. The ruined castle stood on a rocky hill and two paths --
a wider
road and a narrow trail, led up to the walls. From their vantage
point, a large set of iron bound doors on the front of the castle and a
smaller door on the side could be seen. The party had initially
decided
to wait until nightfall but on second thought they chose to
proceed up to the castle immeadiately.
On their way up the trail to the smaller door, they noticed some human
sized footprints and some larger footprints on the path.
The smaller door was a solid wooden portal bound in iron with a chain
and ring, probably some sort of bell pull, hanging beside it.
Rhyneh tried picking the lock but some sort of bolt of energy blasted
him when he touched the lock. Instead of messing with the door,
Kane grabbed a rope and climbed the wall, nimble as a cat, and tied the
rope to one of the merlons at the top of the wall. All of
the adventurers, in turn, used the rope to climb the wall.
Unfortunately, Trygvie fell in the climb and had to be
cured by Wilbered.
Atop the wall they could see down into the courtyard. As opposed
to the wall, which was in fairly good shape, the interior was crumbled
away. Apparently the walls were preserved by some magic. At
each corner of the walls stood a large round tower. The courtyard
was filled with rubble, weeds and mounds which were all that remained
of the former structures. Two single story wooden buildings of
recent
construction stood in the southwest corner.
Rather than use the rope to climb back down into the courtyard, the
party elected to go to the southeast tower and (hopefully) find a
stairs down. They walked down the parapet and entered the tower
through an archway. Inside the tower a set of spiral stone steps
wound downwards --- the roof of the tower had fallen in and the
structure was open to the sky. Since they were worried about the
stability of the steps, they went down one by one, ending up in a small
round room in the base of the tower. One door presumably led to
the courtyard outside; the other led to more spiral stairs leading to
the tower's cellar. The players chose to go down into the cellar.
The spiral stairs terminated in a ten foot wide stone hall leading
directly North. As the adventurers walked up the hall, the wall
ahead suddenly exploded in fragments of stone and a blast of
fire. Four archers, their armor scorched and their
garments smouldering, stubled out of the broken wall, firing arrows at
an unseen attacker. They could hear shouts, roaring flames and
heard a deep, evil laugh. Another blast of fire came shooting out
of the broken wall and most of the archers went down. The one
remaining archer shouted at them that they must help --- but in all of
my years of DMing I've never seen a party of PCs that were so
cowardly. As each player's turn came up in initiative, each
announced that he would hold his action and prepare to run away.
As Mace and Kane peeked around the corner into the room, they saw a 9
foot tall devil creature wreathed in flame with horns on his head and
clawed hands. There were dead and dying adventurers lying on the
floor around his feet. Grinning evilly, the creature blasted them
with fire. Reluctantly, they decided to attack.
The players charged into the room and flanked the devil who blasted
them with fire and pounded them with his clawed fists. They
hacked into the creature, doing grievious amounts of damage, but the
devil just shrugged it off, grinned and gleefully attacked. After
a couple rounds, a door behind the devil opened and three men with
crossbows stepped out, firing upon the players. After a short
time, Castor noticed that he could see Ryneh, who stood on the opposite
side of the devil, dimly through the devil's form. Suspecting the
creature to be an illusion, Castor warned his fellows that the devil
was not real. After a while, everyone except Mace accepted that
the illusion was not real... (that's what happens when you use wisdom
as a dump stat). Wilbered had to keep healing Mace to keep the
fighter on his feet -- if Mace hadn't persisted in believeing the
illusion, he wouldn't have kept taking damage. Each round the
demon would inflict horrible damage on the fighter, the fighter
would inflict a large amount of damage on the demon and the cleric
would heal up
the fighter so he could survive the next round. If events
persisted, the fighter would eventually die unless he managed to
somehow "kill" the devil; but ten rounds past and the devil showed no
signs of weakening.
After the rest of the party had defeated the three crossbowmen (who
were very real) and Wilbered had gone into another one of his
mysterious beserk rages, Mace finally saw through the illusion.
Thirteen rounds after the devil had first appeared, it dissolved into a
puff of smoke... it turns out that the devil, the archers and the
bodies on the floor, etc., were all illusions. They found a few
coins
in the beltpouches of the guards. Around the corner from the
illusion room, Castor found a sign that said,
DO NOT ENTER AREA AHEAD ON LEFT!
DANGER - DEATH - ILLUSIONS!
STAY IN CORRIDOR!
There was a similar sign on the other
side, warning persons coming from the other way to avoid the illusions.
The room the three guards had come from
was furnished with some weapon racks, tables and chairs, cots, etc., as
well as a ring of keys that Castor took. One door down the
northward corridor opened into an octangonal room. In the center
of the room stood a large black pillar carved with snakes. The
south corridor was lined with small cells which were easily
opened with Castor's keys. In opening and inspecting the cells,
they liberated two dwarves and three halflings. The prisoners
were weak and thirsty; they carefully gave them each a few sips of
water from their waterbottles. All of these demi-humans had
been captured by orcs and sold as slaves to the humans who guarded the
complex but couldn't tell the players much about their captors.
The room at the end of the hall was a small bedroom with four heavy
crossbows hanging on the wall.
The players decided to go back to the guardroom, taking the halflings
and dwarves with them.
The adventure ended here.
character/player:
|
class/level:
|
XP at start:
|
XP
award:
|
bonus:
|
XP at end:
|
|
Mace (Mike D.)
|
human FTR 7th
|
29,122 |
391
|
|
29,513
|
|
Wilbered (NPC)
|
human CL 7th
|
25,829 |
195
|
|
26,024
|
|
Castor (Steve B.)
|
human Bard 6th
|
20,324 |
391
|
|
20,715
|
|
Trygvie (NPC)
|
Elven MU 6th
|
21,912 |
195
|
|
22,107
|
|
Kane (Al G.)
|
Human Monk 7th
|
26,119 |
391
|
|
26,510
|
|
Zuran (NPC)
|
Human Fighter 4th
|
8,727 |
none
|
|
8,727
|
|
Rhyneh (Tom S.)
|
Human Rogue 5th
|
10,735 |
391
|
|
11,126 |
|
