Session 29 - Is This The End?
In-game timeline: Marpenoth 27 - Marpenoth 27 DR1489
We left our "Heroes" resting up for a short while in the tower, after a brief, but gruelling, battle with a couple of crystal minotaurs. Drogan assured the others that he was now a reformed character and would no longer rush in before thinking, or before talking to the others. We shall see.
After their rest the party cautiously open the door to the open walkway, and keep their eyes open for any movement, especially harpies who may be flying around. When they see nothing untoward, they quickly make their way to the other end of the walkway without incident and slowly open the wooden door.
It leads into a small room with stone steps leading down. Opposite the door is a lifesize jade statue of a handsome elf, standing on a stone plinth with an obsidian urn, inlaid with gold, at the statue's feet. It looks very impressive, though the group have understandably become cautious of statues, what with being attacked by crystal skeletons and, more recently, crystal minotaurs. Or so you would have thought.
Dwarrow wandered over to the statue and tapped it with his warhammer.
Unsurprisingly to all, except maybe this particular group of "Heroes", the statue animated. Its face turned from a handsome elf into a grotesque visage with sharp teeth and an evil stare. Dwarrow, standing before the statue, managed to get an attack in, but missed. The statue seemed able to respond with an attack which not only hit Dwarrow, but seemed to curse him in a manner which made the dwarf less able to dodge subsequent attacks. This proved to be Dwarrow's downfall, as, after an impressive critical hit from Devon, who then disengaged and moved away, the statue scored another hit on the dwarf standing before it. And then again, after Alwaith battered the statue with a blast of force.
With three hits on Dwarrow seemingly coming in response to other's attacks, the statue continued to focus on the one person standing before it for its main attacks. Two hits managed to take Dwarrow down, and a third hit took the cleric to two failed death saves. Things were not looking promising.
Drogan stepped in, literally, and put himself between the statue and Dwarrow, and forced a healing potion down Dwarrow's throat, bringing him back up before he could risk a third and final death save failure. Dwarrow needed to get out of the action, so decided to get away from the statue, dodging as he did so. This proved useful, as the jade effigy managed to miss his opportunity attack. However, it then started to lay into Drogan, with a few misses but a hit that managed to curse the barbarian, enabling further hits to land. All the while Devon and Alwaith were taking chunks out of the statue, though not actually literally, and eventually Drogan was able to launch a barbaric attack and finally smashed the jade model into hundreds of pieces.
Drogan quickly gathered up a few of the larger pieces of jade to hopefully sell later on.
Even more battle-weary than before, and finally getting the message that possibly statues around here are BAD NEWS, the group consider what to do with the urn. It had a lid, so the contents were unknown. Drogan considered pissing in it, for some strange reason, but the others suggested this would be a bad idea. They thought about throwing it over the top of the walkway, but in the end decided to leave it propping open the door. Drogan still may come back later and piss in it.
With three members of the group now at various levels of exhaustion, the party presses on, slowly.
Heading down the stairs led to an empty room, luckily. They progress into the next room which had a number of doors leading from it, including a pair of heavy wooden double doors, and was dimly lit with continual flame torches. Dwarrow, still nursing his wounds, hung back and let the others scout around, Drogan was persuaded from doing too much searching around, what with being both exhausted and injured. Devon was instead sent in to look around, despite him also being pretty knackered.
Even in his exhausted state, Devon spotted an obvious trap on the floor. Too obvious, it seemed. The party decided to completely avoid the trap for now, and headed north into what turned out to be a set of sleeping quarters, though only one of the beds had been recently used. Drogan found a journal next to the bed, which gave a bit more background to the more recent happenings in the temple. It also reduced the party's hope of finding the young Clarice alive (see Feandris' Diary).
The group headed out of the sleeping area, and found a way around the trap. Alwaith suggested that perhaps the obvious trap was a deliberate means to get intruders to try to jump it, and in fact the real trap lay beyond the obvious one. In circumventing the trap the group was able to check this out and found out that Alwaith was correct - there seemed to be a much more cunning pit trap beyond the false one, and they were able to easily avoid falling into it.
They pressed on, the feeling of dread and foreboding getting more and more intense as they moved deeper into the temple complex. The next room was relatively large, and contained four chests around the walls, and a large crystal-like statue in the corner of the room - possibly an ogre or similar, though it was very stylised. Wary of these statues now, the group approached it cautiously, and when it did nothing, they decided to try to topple it. Unfortunately, with three of the team feeling very exhausted, and the fourth being incredibly weak, no matter what they did, using ropes, levers, shoulder-barges etc, they were completely unable to topple the statue. In the end Drogan hit it with his axe. Because hitting statues has gone so well for them in the past. The others waited outside the room, or near to the door, just in case.
This time the statue remained motionless, though the floor was now covered in crystal, or glass, from where the axe had smashed bits off of the statue. They decided to leave the statue for now. Drogan then took the unusual decision to just open a nearby chest. Presumably just because it was there. How Drogan has managed to survive thus far is a real mystery. The chest was unlocked. As soon as Drogan opened the chest, the entire room went completely pitch black.
Alwaith and Dwarrow were outside the room and unable to see anything within. The darkness seemed to stop at the doorway. Devon was inside the room but very close to the door, and was able to easily find his way out. Unfortunately Drogan was right over the other side of the room. In the complete darkness Drogan felt something strike him. Twice. For significant bludgeoning damage. He tried to run, but the door was all the way over the other side of the room and he was not only floundering and disoriented in the darkness, but also exhausted - his brain, such as it is, wasn't working all that well, and he was unable to find his way back to the door. As the rest of the group readied actions to hit anything that came out of the room, knowing that something bad must be happening as they heard the shouts of pain and mild panic from Drogan, the barbaric dwarf was hit again by something in the darkness. And he went down, bleeding out.
Hearing the room suddenly go quiet, the rest of the party suspected something was up. Devon tried to take a continual flame torch into the room but it didn’t break the darkness. Worried that Drogan may be dying somewhere, Dwarrow decided to channel the divinity of Berronar into the room to give Drogan some healing - even though he couldn't see him, he knew he was there somewhere. Drogan was back up!
Unfortunately he was raised just in time to receive an attack from some teeth trying to bite him. Luckily they missed and he ran, narrowly avoiding an opportunity attack and making it to the door, which was nearby and with the others calling him to guide him. Drogan made it out of the room and the rest were waiting to take out anything else that emerged from the darkness. Nothing did.
Drogan was now very exhausted. Knackered, slow and nowhere near as effective at fighting as he usually is. He jumped over the trap, trying to lure whatever creature was in the room out into the trap, and only just made it over the trap himself, what with being so slowed, and ineffective at his abilities. The group waited.
When nothing came out, they thought it best to try the large double doors to the south. Battered and bruised, some low on health, most exhausted and with limited spell slots remaining, the decision was "just one more room". Sigh.
The double doors were locked. But wait - Devon has a large, iron key! Perfect - it fits. Unlocked, Drogan tries the doors. They open but are immediately blocked by some massive boulders outside the doors, preventing them from opening. Perhaps it was a natural rockfall? Perhaps the boulders had been placed deliberately? Either way, the group would never be able to open these doors naturally, especially in their exhausted state.
At that moment the darkness in the other room disappeared, and the room was again lit, albeit dimly.
And so the party decided to head back into the room where Drogan had nearly been killed. Battered and bruised, some low on health, most exhausted and with limited spell slots remaining, the decision was "just see what's there". Sigh.
The room was as they had left it - 3 closed chests and one open one, and a slightly smashed crystal/glass statue in the corner. Rigging up a rope to enable them to find their way back to the door if the darkness should again descend, they headed to the only other door in that room. And opened it.
It opened onto a wooden corridor, with small windows letting in minimal light. The sound of water beneath the corridor led them to believe this passage may lead to the main temple in the middle of the lake. At various intervals along this platform were placed crystal statues of various woodland creatures - rabbits, boar, bears and an elk-like creature.
Battered and bruised, some low on health, most exhausted and with limited spell slots remaining, the decision was "See if these statues come alive". Sigh.
Devon did a "beep test" running back and forth to each statue to tap it and see if it came alive. I mean. Seriously? He managed to test each one in this way, and none of them came alive. After this 'successful' test, Drogan followed it up with walking (he can't move very fast) to each one, and looking for the tell-tale red chinz crystal within. None of them seemed to have these crystals, so the party were convinced that these statues were harmless.
And so they arrived at the far door without further incident. This lack of any of them actually dying for at least 10 minutes obviously gave them renewed optimism and confidence.
Battered and bruised, some low on health, most exhausted and with limited spell slots remaining, the decision was "just open this door, into what might be the main temple area. We can always turn back afterwards, can't we?". Sigh. They opened the door.
And revealed a scene which visually and mentally filled them with dread. Though there seemed to be no movement, at least. Ahead of them was an altar of sorts, with some sort of humanoid figure lying motionless upon it. A dark smoke rose from the body and drifted off to the west, around a corner they couldn't see past. Either side of the altar were two grotesque, seemingly humanoid crystal statues, crouched down and holding braziers aloft in their arms, the contents of which were giving off a very dim, greenish light. Off to the east stood a tall crystal statue of a gaunt, almost desiccated figure clutching a staff in one hand, and with the other outstretched. The head of the figure was a crystal skull, with a golden crown atop his (or her) head. It was not a pretty scene.
Battered and bruised, some low on health, most exhausted and with limited spell slots remaining, the decision was "let's just check out what's in here". Sigh.
Devon crept in, heading towards the tall, gaunt statue. He got maybe 15' into the room when suddenly the two grotesque crystal statues flung their burning braziers towards Devon. Surprised, he just about managed to dodge the flames and splashing oil when they landed.
Finally, the party decide to run. Devon dashed out of the door, heading back across the walkway, quickly followed by Alwaith and Dwarrowsteel. Without looking to see what was going on in the room, Drogan joined them, leaving the door to the room open. Drogan, of course, limping along at half speed across the walkway trying to catch up with the others.
With the party FINALLY deciding to get away, have they left it too late? Will anything follow? Find out next week in the next instalment of "How the hell have they managed to survive this long?!"