Post by Dungeon Master on Nov 2, 2016 11:28:57 GMT -8
After sleeping in an empty room, the party pushes onwards to a familiar looking hallway. They find a room, with a totem-pole like statue in it, which they remember does something that makes it best to have only one person in the room at a time. They don't remember why, but they do remember that only one should be in the room at a time. They also remember the hallway they're in, is a high traffic area for not inconsequential encounters with patrolling monsters looking for their dinner...
Leoric leads the way, while the rest of the party closes the door behind him; he's hit with some kind of a ray which reduces him to a fit of coughing and renders him helpless and paralyzed. Time passes and he recovers. He enters the adjoining room with the statue and when asked if he wants, 'Life or Experience' he says Experience. He is attacked by the totem statue on the way out (each time they enter the room, they're hit... but once hit they're not attacked for as long as they stay in that first chamber of the room).
Helmut enters and manages to avoid being struck by the ray entirely. He too takes the Experience option. On the way out, he is hit by a ray which makes him invisible to both the party and himself. It takes some time, but the effect wears off.
Burgerkrieg is the next to enter, the ray striking her and rending her paralyzed and in a fit of coughing. Leoric, who hears the coughing through the closed door says that he intends to enter, pick her up and carry her to the statue for her experience, as the party doesn't have time to wait through several potential monsters coming down that hallway.
He enters the room, closes the door behind him (with the warning that the room is a one person at a time thing, and to not enter to help him...), and is struck by a ray from the totem-pole thing. He immediately begins to hallucinate (effect 4 is fun). The paladin sees that a soul-demon has just finished sucking the life and soul out of his recently met companion, who now not only is dead but has her soul condemned to torture in the lower planes... The soul-demon turns its' attention upon Leoric!
Naturally he defends himself against the vile fiend... meanwhile Burgerkrieg's Eidolon starts to go crazy in the hallway, and attempts to force its' way through the door. Helmut decides to open the door and render what aid he can, against whatever has attacked his friends. He sees Leoric thrust his blade through Burgerkrieg and decides to pull Leoric out of the room and subdue him if necessary.
As soon as Helmut (Barbarian/Psion) reaches into the room, he too begins to hallucinate. He sees a Mindflayer which is in the process of sucking his friend's brains out, so he attacks it. The mindflayer turns its attention upon Helmut, and it is a close battle for a short while and then Helmut emerges victorious. That's when he notices that the Illithid has reinforcements; several more of them come around the corner and move menacingly towards Helmut. Helmut, already severely weakened retreats.
The rest of the party is perplexed... why did the Paladin attack Burgerkrieg, and then why did Helmut attack Leoric? And why did Helmut then run away from the party, when they asked him what was wrong and what they could do? Acetalyne tries to approach Helmut, but that only drives him away faster...
The party retreats back to their 'safe room' to spend another night, and to await reinforcements from the Wizard... The effect wears off of Helmut, who manages to return to the safe room without any altercations with wandering monsters along the way. He doesn't understand how the rest of the party did not see the Mindflayers and cannot explain his actions.
The wizard teleports in replacements for Burgerkrieg and Leoric.
They are another Drow Noble female... Einfal (Sorcerer 6/Summoner 6), who uses Mage Armor constantly (not just on the Eidolon on occasion) and Barkskin + Shield in combats... her Eidolon is bipedal with four claw attacks...
And Thrymmm (three Ms, as this is the third Thrym) (Aegis 6/Fighter 6) (two-handed archetype, again).. AC 18, with his Astral Suit... +12/+7 to attack (with Power Attack) for 3D6+23... this one utilizes a size increase and Lunge, to so far stay behind the tank whenever possible.
Thrymmm decides he wants to get his experience for this new toon, but the rest of the party prefer to just advance towards new territory. Thrymmm enters the room alone, while the party proceeds slowly without him. Thrymmm is once again paralyzed, this time for an hour. He then stands in front of the statue and chooses experience. The chance to swallow a character, instead of granting experience kicks in FINALLY, and Thrymmm is swallowed whole.
He finds he cannot effectively swing is Greatsword here, but manages to wriggle about within the confining statue and grasp his shortsword. The statue inflicts automatic crushing damage each round, but Thrymmm is massively strong and begins to chop his way out from within.
Meanwhile, the party has a random encounter with some kind of black skinned undead creatures that are capable of incredible jumps and seem to prioritize slaying divine healing characters. They party is still severely under-equipped, but they're higher level than their predecessors. The battle is not exactly easy, but it is never in question.
Without Thrymmm, or even being aware of his predicament, the party advances towards the 'Fountain of Pestilence' slowly, to allow Thrymmm to eventually catch up.
They descend the long flight of stairs and Acetalyne (with an Invisibility and the company of an Invisible Eidolon) surveys the first room. There are plague zombie like things within the room and flying Pestilence Demon things as well. Acetalyne unlocks a door quietly and then runs full out back towards the party (still invisible). The demon things hear something and become invisible themselves. The Eidolon opens the unlocked door, moves through it and closes it behind itself.
The party descends the stairs, finds several plague zombie things clawing at a closed door. Helmut positions himself at the bottom of the stairs and the zombies converge upon him. They're rather ineffective, but every time anything strikes them, they spray diseased puss over everyone within a fairly large area. The Pestilence Demon things drop their invisibility, and begin launching Magic Missile attacks at Helmut. The party focuses on one of the demon things, and it eventually disappears (they assume Invisibility again), and after a bit of attacks on the next one, it too departs.
Thrymmm has broken his way free, and catches up to the party at this point. With the aid of invisibility and haste, the party spends as little time as possible in the puss-like sewage/diseased/bloody waters and advance to where the Eidolon has found a set of stairs leading down. They decide to leave the remainder of the new areas of the level unexplored, and explore deeper regions of the dungeon.
The first room connects to a stable area, with a pair of undead/zombie horses, which die in a single Fireball. The party rests within this room. Opposite the stable, another doorway leads to a passage that progresses countless miles and takes three days of travel, before the party encounters an underground inn of some sort, run by a Mongrelman. They have some drinks with the creature, and learn that several Priests of Orcus, accompanied by numerous Acolytes make a monthly trip out of Rappan Athuuk and to the Mouth of Doom, where they reset traps and such, for some unknown reason. The party considers staying at the inn for a couple of weeks, to meet with these Priests but are undecided. Eventually, they tell the Mongrelman that they're planning on taking the northernmost of the two passageways leading away from 'The Mouth of Doom' but instead take the southernmost passageway, the one that leads to where the Priests come from and return to.
They get a day away from the Mongrelman's Inn when we call it for the night.
Leoric leads the way, while the rest of the party closes the door behind him; he's hit with some kind of a ray which reduces him to a fit of coughing and renders him helpless and paralyzed. Time passes and he recovers. He enters the adjoining room with the statue and when asked if he wants, 'Life or Experience' he says Experience. He is attacked by the totem statue on the way out (each time they enter the room, they're hit... but once hit they're not attacked for as long as they stay in that first chamber of the room).
Helmut enters and manages to avoid being struck by the ray entirely. He too takes the Experience option. On the way out, he is hit by a ray which makes him invisible to both the party and himself. It takes some time, but the effect wears off.
Burgerkrieg is the next to enter, the ray striking her and rending her paralyzed and in a fit of coughing. Leoric, who hears the coughing through the closed door says that he intends to enter, pick her up and carry her to the statue for her experience, as the party doesn't have time to wait through several potential monsters coming down that hallway.
He enters the room, closes the door behind him (with the warning that the room is a one person at a time thing, and to not enter to help him...), and is struck by a ray from the totem-pole thing. He immediately begins to hallucinate (effect 4 is fun). The paladin sees that a soul-demon has just finished sucking the life and soul out of his recently met companion, who now not only is dead but has her soul condemned to torture in the lower planes... The soul-demon turns its' attention upon Leoric!
Naturally he defends himself against the vile fiend... meanwhile Burgerkrieg's Eidolon starts to go crazy in the hallway, and attempts to force its' way through the door. Helmut decides to open the door and render what aid he can, against whatever has attacked his friends. He sees Leoric thrust his blade through Burgerkrieg and decides to pull Leoric out of the room and subdue him if necessary.
As soon as Helmut (Barbarian/Psion) reaches into the room, he too begins to hallucinate. He sees a Mindflayer which is in the process of sucking his friend's brains out, so he attacks it. The mindflayer turns its attention upon Helmut, and it is a close battle for a short while and then Helmut emerges victorious. That's when he notices that the Illithid has reinforcements; several more of them come around the corner and move menacingly towards Helmut. Helmut, already severely weakened retreats.
The rest of the party is perplexed... why did the Paladin attack Burgerkrieg, and then why did Helmut attack Leoric? And why did Helmut then run away from the party, when they asked him what was wrong and what they could do? Acetalyne tries to approach Helmut, but that only drives him away faster...
The party retreats back to their 'safe room' to spend another night, and to await reinforcements from the Wizard... The effect wears off of Helmut, who manages to return to the safe room without any altercations with wandering monsters along the way. He doesn't understand how the rest of the party did not see the Mindflayers and cannot explain his actions.
The wizard teleports in replacements for Burgerkrieg and Leoric.
They are another Drow Noble female... Einfal (Sorcerer 6/Summoner 6), who uses Mage Armor constantly (not just on the Eidolon on occasion) and Barkskin + Shield in combats... her Eidolon is bipedal with four claw attacks...
And Thrymmm (three Ms, as this is the third Thrym) (Aegis 6/Fighter 6) (two-handed archetype, again).. AC 18, with his Astral Suit... +12/+7 to attack (with Power Attack) for 3D6+23... this one utilizes a size increase and Lunge, to so far stay behind the tank whenever possible.
Thrymmm decides he wants to get his experience for this new toon, but the rest of the party prefer to just advance towards new territory. Thrymmm enters the room alone, while the party proceeds slowly without him. Thrymmm is once again paralyzed, this time for an hour. He then stands in front of the statue and chooses experience. The chance to swallow a character, instead of granting experience kicks in FINALLY, and Thrymmm is swallowed whole.
He finds he cannot effectively swing is Greatsword here, but manages to wriggle about within the confining statue and grasp his shortsword. The statue inflicts automatic crushing damage each round, but Thrymmm is massively strong and begins to chop his way out from within.
Meanwhile, the party has a random encounter with some kind of black skinned undead creatures that are capable of incredible jumps and seem to prioritize slaying divine healing characters. They party is still severely under-equipped, but they're higher level than their predecessors. The battle is not exactly easy, but it is never in question.
Without Thrymmm, or even being aware of his predicament, the party advances towards the 'Fountain of Pestilence' slowly, to allow Thrymmm to eventually catch up.
They descend the long flight of stairs and Acetalyne (with an Invisibility and the company of an Invisible Eidolon) surveys the first room. There are plague zombie like things within the room and flying Pestilence Demon things as well. Acetalyne unlocks a door quietly and then runs full out back towards the party (still invisible). The demon things hear something and become invisible themselves. The Eidolon opens the unlocked door, moves through it and closes it behind itself.
The party descends the stairs, finds several plague zombie things clawing at a closed door. Helmut positions himself at the bottom of the stairs and the zombies converge upon him. They're rather ineffective, but every time anything strikes them, they spray diseased puss over everyone within a fairly large area. The Pestilence Demon things drop their invisibility, and begin launching Magic Missile attacks at Helmut. The party focuses on one of the demon things, and it eventually disappears (they assume Invisibility again), and after a bit of attacks on the next one, it too departs.
Thrymmm has broken his way free, and catches up to the party at this point. With the aid of invisibility and haste, the party spends as little time as possible in the puss-like sewage/diseased/bloody waters and advance to where the Eidolon has found a set of stairs leading down. They decide to leave the remainder of the new areas of the level unexplored, and explore deeper regions of the dungeon.
The first room connects to a stable area, with a pair of undead/zombie horses, which die in a single Fireball. The party rests within this room. Opposite the stable, another doorway leads to a passage that progresses countless miles and takes three days of travel, before the party encounters an underground inn of some sort, run by a Mongrelman. They have some drinks with the creature, and learn that several Priests of Orcus, accompanied by numerous Acolytes make a monthly trip out of Rappan Athuuk and to the Mouth of Doom, where they reset traps and such, for some unknown reason. The party considers staying at the inn for a couple of weeks, to meet with these Priests but are undecided. Eventually, they tell the Mongrelman that they're planning on taking the northernmost of the two passageways leading away from 'The Mouth of Doom' but instead take the southernmost passageway, the one that leads to where the Priests come from and return to.
They get a day away from the Mongrelman's Inn when we call it for the night.