Session 30 - Almost As Interesting As Watching Weightlifting
Mon 30th Nov 20:00 - 23:30
In-game timeline: Marpenoth 27 - Marpenoth 28 DR1489
Our "Heroes" were in a difficult position. Many would say brought on by their own actions. Can they escape with all their lives? We shall see….
Having explored into the main temple area of the Clerics of Shar, our group, exhausted and injured, came upon what looked like a ritual in the temple. As two crystal gargoyle statues rose to attack, our "Heroes" finally decided to run away. And they ran in style.
Putting as much distance between them and the evil temple as possible, Alwaith and Dwarrow made a decent escape. Devon, who was further into the room when he decided to run, and Drogan, who was so exhausted he was moving at half speed, could not get very far along the wooden platform, with Drogan being slightly behind Devon.
And so the gargoyle statues, which flew pretty quickly, were able to reach and attack Drogan, doing a fair bit of damage. As Drogan was reeling from this attack from behind, he caught sight of a dark, imposing figure moving towards him from the temple. All of a sudden he was racked with necrotic pain, luckily his strong constitution managing to stave off the worst of the damage. Thankful for the healing from Dwarrow earlier, Drogan managed to survive the attacks, but more were to come.
Devon fired off an arrow at the gargoyles, hitting one, but causing crystal shards to fire into Drogan, causing more damage. Devon then ran away some more. Alwaith attacked with what was to become the first of a long line of accurate blasts with his Eldritch power and managed to finish off that gargoyle. He then ran away too. Dwarrow missed with his only ranged weapon, a dagger, and also ran.
Drogan had no real choice but to run. He went into a rage first, hoping to withstand some of the damage from the opportunity attack from the surviving gargoyle and ran as fast as his little, exhausted legs could carry him. Which was not very far. The gargoyle caught up with him and hit. Drogan's rage prevented him from falling into unconsciousness, but the respite was only temporary. When the dark, robed figure moved further along the corridor and once again blasted Drogan with a withering gaze, Drogan went down, knocked unconscious with necrotic damage.
Devon was quick on his feet. He managed to drag Drogan away from the fight, round the corner out of view of the necrotic gaze of the dark creature. Alwaith fired off more blasts at the remaining gargoyle, but spotted that the gargoyle he had originally brought down seemed to be getting back on its feet! Dwarrow quickly used a healing spell on Drogan to bring him back to consciousness and give him another chance, and Drogan quickly shut the door in the face of the gargoyle, shoving his dagger underneath it in the hope it would prevent them from quickly opening it, before the group backed away to the far side of the room with the chests.
Surprisingly, the gargoyles both struggled with actually opening a door that had a dagger shoved under it. This gave the party some much needed time to get further away.
As Devon ran further away, Alwaith cast his shatter spell at the door, hoping that the gargoyles were both behind it and would take at least some damage from the thunderous blast that the spell produced. He then ran to try to catch up with Devon. Dwarrow followed and Drogan, deciding that running directly after the rest of the group was too boring, instead stood next to the fake trap in the floor. His brain was addled what with being knocked unconscious for the fourth time in a day, and he forgot that he was actually standing on the real pit trap that they had worked out was there previously! In his exhausted state he was unable to avoid falling into the trap and more damage was taken, both from the 20' fall, and the slashing from all the crystal shards that had been strategically placed in the walls on the way down. He survived, but only just.
The gargoyles broke into the room and, with Drogan out of sight, Alwaith was now at the back of the group, so they flew towards him and took a swipe, hitting him with their teeth and claws. The dark, scary creature also entered the room and Alwaith was next to feel the wrath of its necrotic gaze.
Devon prepared to shoot anything that came through the doorway, hoping that Alwaith would run and lead the gargoyles into sight of his bow. Alwaith ran, avoiding the opportunity attacks from both gargoyles, and tried to blink to another plane. Dwarrow continued to run away from the creatures, whilst Drogan, at the bottom of a shard-lined pit with little health remaining, decided that staying where he was would be the best policy. The creatures did not see his impressive "standing on top of a trap they knew about" tactic, so did indeed ignore him.
With Alwaith out of the way, the gargoyles flew towards the nearest foe they could see, which was Devon. The halfling managed to loose off an arrow with his readied action before they reached him, but the damage was not enough to stop them. The gargoyles laid into Devon, causing enough damage to worry him, but not enough to kill him. As the mysterious monster at the back continued to slowly approach the group, Devon slashed at the attacking gargoyles, missing, then disengaged and ran further back.
Alwaith dashed past Devon and up the stairs, blinking out of existence, whilst Dwarrow covered Devon with a readied action, waiting for the inevitable gargoyle attack. Which came. Devon was hit again, though not too seriously and he was able to take out one of the gargoyles on his next attack. The other was taken down with a couple more of Alwaith's now-unstoppable eldritch blasts and Dwarrow ran in to ensure one of the gargoyles would not get up again by destroying its crystal heart.
Meanwhile Drogan, still hiding in the pit, felt a strong sense of unease and dread as he felt, rather than saw, the hooded monster approach the pit. Unable to escape the pit he could only wait, which proved fatal, as the dread he felt got strong enough to cause him damage merely by being near to the creature, and that damage was enough to cause Drogan to fall, unconscious and bleeding out, at the bottom of the pit.
With the remaining creature sensibly avoiding the pit, unaware of the dying Drogan at the bottom, it started making its way round the corridors towards the rest of the group, who were all in the next room. This gave them time to destroy the crystal heart of the second gargoyle, ensuring that wouldn't resurrect either. Alwaith got in sight of the slowly creeping forward monster, and, despite feeling intense fear whilst looking at it, managed to blast it with his never-miss eldritch cantrip which brought it down, its cloak falling to the floor as its body, if indeed it had a body, faded to nothing.
With the group unaware of Drogan's dire predicament (though he had managed a successful death save, due to Devon's gifting of his inspiration for the roll), but knowing that he was still down the pit, they make their way over. Seeing Drogan unconscious at the bottom of the pit forced them into rapid action. With Devon too far back, and not knowing how long Drogan had left, Alwaith and Dwarrow had no choice but to get a rope down the pit and for Alwaith to hold it while Dwarrow, who needed to get to Drogan to heal him, climbed down the rope, trying to avoid the sharp crystal shards on the way down.
Unfortunately, for all his eldritch-accuracy, Alwaith is a charismatic weakling. As Dwarrow climbed down the rope, it slipped through Alwaith's hands, and Dwarrow fell to the bottom of the pit, taking significant damage from the fall, and the sharp crystals on the way down, and landing at the base, unconscious, next to an unconscious barbarian.
At this point things looked very bleak for the group, or at least for Dwarrow and Drogan. But the Benevolent Gods were looking down upon them as Drogan rolled another death save. He rolled a natural 20 (ignoring the rule we forgot that he should have been rolling at disadvantage due to exhaustion - another act of the Gods). This meant he was able to regain consciousness, which further enabled him to receive the healing potion that Devon gently handed him from above, using mage hand, and allowed him to pour the potion into the unconscious Dwarrowsteel next to him, managing to bring him back to life.
And so, after a long and eventful battle, with all the party reduced in health, and two dwarves at the bottom of a shard-lined pit, both exhausted and the barbarian so exhausted he is actually unable to move (exhaustion level 5), the characters breathe a sigh of relief. Whilst they are not out of the woods yet, they have somehow managed to survive. Just.
Confident that the immediate danger is passed, Dwarrow spends 10 minutes casting his prayer of healing, enabling the whole party to benefit from some health. They then spend time working out the best way to get both Dwarrow and a completely exhausted Drogan, out of the pit. After some discussion, and some dismantling of beds and tying of bedsheets, Alwaith has the innovative idea to knot a rope at regular intervals, and shut the knots in a door to provide a means of stable anchor for the rope for Dwarrow. The cleric manages to slowly make his way up the pit with no trouble. They then use the same method to haul Drogan up on a makeshift stretcher - the 'knot in the door' method ensuring that if Devon and Dwarrow did slip up in their hauling of the stretcher, the rope would not fall far. A complex, but ultimately successful contraption and they managed to get Drogan to the top of the pit, where they then dragged him, and themselves, into the sleeping quarters so they could all rest for a full 8 hours to regain some health, some spells and to ensure Drogan was able to at least move around, even if he was still very exhausted.
After an uneventful rest, the party resume their adventuring shortly after midnight. They head back to the main temple room to see what may remain of the unsuccessful ritual. Heading in cautiously they find an altar containing a male human body, chest cavity opened and a large, red chinz crystal placed delicately inside. Next to the body is an open tome, written in a language Alwaith couldn't immediately understand. It radiated necromancy, and Dwarrow wasted no time in burning it to ashes. They also got the crystal from the body and smashed it to pieces on the floor.
In the corner is another body - a male, wearing a grey cloak, an expression of complete fear upon his dead face. Behind a curtain they find the body of a young girl, likely to be Clarice. She only appears to have died a few hours ago, giving the party some small regret over their decision to have a long rest before checking out this room.
Having desecrated the altar, the party decide to shatter the large statue of, presumably, Velsharoon. Alwaith's magic causes the head to topple to the floor and smash. Satisfied that they have destroyed the temple enough, they leave the room, with Dwarrow carrying the body of Clarice over his shoulder.
Having found a key, the group decide to try it in the chests in the next room. After triggering another episode of darkness, but managing to escape the room with no further effects, Devon, along with the rest of the party wait it out until the darkness dissipates. Devon then hands the key to Drogan to try it on another chest, which he does… and the chest immediately attacks him! It was a mimic all along. Luckily, despite Drogan's exhaustion, he was still a formidable foe, and with health restored by the long rest, the mimic didn't really stand a chance. However, they didn't bank on the last chest also being a mimic, and it surprised Devon by attacking whilst the halfling was focussed on 'Drogan's' mimic. With the rest of the group laying in on the two mimics, they were soon disposed of with only minimal damage done. However, it did mean that for all their efforts in this room, there seemed to be no treasure, other than a few rocks placed in the trapped chests.
Feeling the need to get out of this place, which has caused them no end of problems, our "Heroes" head out. As they walk past the urn that they left propping the door to the walkway open, Drogan decides to open it up. Not entirely sure why. Aware that it could contain something nasty, rather than the hoped for cache of gems, he decides to stand on the edge of the walkway, holding the urn in both hands extended out over the stream below as he opened it.
And so, precariously balanced and with no weapons in hand, despite his arguments to the contrary, Drogan could not react particularly quickly when, as soon as he removed the lid, two spectres emerged from the urn. Drogan quickly dropped the urn into the waters below, and managed to dodge the attacks from the spectres whilst drawing his weapons. With the rest of the group nearby, the spectres didn't last long, and managed to miss their other attacks, so they proved particularly ineffective. As a final demonstration that their mission was endorsed by the Gods, Dwarrowsteel's guiding bolt, in contravention of all D&D laws, actually scored a hit on a spectre, allowing Devon to take it out on the next attack.
Fed up with everything they touch in this temple turning into something that attacks them (though not seemingly learning to just NOT TOUCH STUFF!) the party decide to quickly head back to the temple of Tyr, where they had left the priest, Braydol, tied up. It's still the early hours of the morning - he may not be welcoming of being woken up at this hour. He'll probably be more pissed off at being left tied up for the last 20 hours though.
And so, after an eventful number of hours, we leave our "Heroes" having survived, if only just, the temple of the Clerics of Shar. They need to decide how they will leave the Island, and with whom. Drogan is still pretty exhausted, moving slowly and on low maximum health. I think they can't wait to see the back of this Island!