Session 28

The 28th session, taking place during Week 50, involved a veteran group of adventurers traveling to the Tomb of the Serpent Kings and entering via the third floor secret entry.

Participants

Game Master	mAc Chaos
Astoria	Adun
Hywel	Seika
Quick-trip	Steak
Kalina	Thalraxal
Batraz	Zurvan

Summary

The following entry was written by Seika:

Serpents' stone sword, granite guardian
Patient protector, fell foeman.
The great gathered, allies of old,
vowing vengeance, flight forsaken.
Plans plotted: a strike swift
and stealthy - success so sought.

Many months ago, on the very second expedition that ventured into the tomb, a party found an ancient golem, at the bottom of a trapped stair, in an arena lined by shields. Batraz and I briefly confronted it, before being forced to flee by its clear overwhelming power. Nearly a year later, Batraz desired to gather as many of the same party as could be, to avenge this slight on our honour and open up a way deeper into the tomb. Poor Seylessa fell on that self-same expedition, and Darick not long after, but Batraz, Kalina, and I have weathered the times and dangers ever since. To this we added the ingenious Astoria Goldfellow, who had a clear interest in such a construct, and the wise Quick-Trip, with his curative spells and his tamed pets.

We had a singular intent here: to destroy the golem. We would turn aside, wherever possible, from other foes and distractions, and finally destroy our enemy.

Breaching below, the hidden halls:
past peering pupils and chiming chains.

Slime strikes, green glutton;
Quick caught, Quick cleansed.

Forge forth for pit's precipice.
Wicked worms - hidden - hewed,
beaks broken, hides harvested.

Schemes sounded, action agreed.
Advance! To the Arena of Ancient Arms!

We decided to avoid the ever-populous first floor, and slipped in by the secret entrance. Though there were disquieting sounds in the basilisk chamber, and a treasure chest out in plain sight which we thought suspicious, we moved through quickly, closing the hidden doors on any pursuit. An unfortunate communication difficulty resulted in Quick-Trip getting caught by the green slime of the ceiling - regenerated, it seems, from the remains of the goblins that had tried to eat it - but we eventually scraped him clear. We continued to the entrance to the arena, where we were briefly ambushed by wormlike gricks hidden amidst the statues around the pool. They struck hard, but were ill-defended, and we hacked them apart in short order. Then we discussed various plans to deal with the golem, and agreed on our course of action. Batraz tied some rope together, and several of the party began to lower themselves down into sight of the golem. Astoria was held aloft by her invisible familiar; Kalina held back with bow drawn.

Zurvan's zeal - fearful fright:
stone shook at warlock's word;
Quick Kalina far-flighted fletching
from fierce longbow looses;
Clever Quick-Trip slings spells,
powers past plunging piercers;
Batraz the Bastion, stands strong,
beset by both sides swarming:
Great golem, silent spores,
drifting deadly against armour.
Hywel hight "power", pure:
Brightness blazes, stone shattered,
ruin wrought, foe fallen.

Behind the cover of Astoria's spells of fear, which even the stone golem's strange mind could not shake off, we engaged our old enemy. It had many tricks, cutting at us with great heaving blows that could send us sprawling, or leaping up and falling down to shake the ground itself and make us lose our footing, as well as the purely deadly impacts of its stone sword. Kalina for the most part shot from afar; Quick-Trip managed some spells before piercers striking from the ceiling occupied his attention and took him out of the main fight. Batraz did fine damage and managed to distract the golem from many of the more vulnerable members of the party, even when gas spores came up out of the chasm at the far end of the chasm to try to entrap him (and were subsequently burst by the golem); and while I failed to connect with one overly-invested strike, another did land. The potency contained in it was sufficient to tear the golem apart in a shower of rubble, and finally put paid to the damned thing.

Bloodied, breath broken: rest and respite required.
Drink drained dry, fallen on fresh food.
Sentry sights sneak: great grick glows
seeks, to slay. Torches tamped and tamed,
Deep darkness drawn. Worm wanders wide,
though then this follows: fearsome and foul,
a huge, hideous hulk, its mien miring the mind.

Cunning and cleverness avails aught:
raining from the roof, piercers puncture;
trollkin thunders, bringing beetles:
snapping scarabs to bite and bother.
Venom vitiates, an invisible imp:
Brave Basil the swift slayer,
crowned and coronated clockwork king.

Having put down the golem, we meandered about to explore a bit, revealing an almost bottomless cavern at the far end of the chamber, lined with a narrow and slippery path that we forebore to explore for now. In the chamber itself, the shields lining the walls represented the emblems of ancient tribes. We were briefly detained by a gaseous trap on a treasure chest that caught Quick-Trip, and decided it would be best to rest and try to revive our battered bodies a little.

Unfortunately, in the middle of the rest, two monsters encountered us. One, a great mother grick, was attracted by our camp: warned by Kalina and Basil's sight, we doused all our light sources and watched it go past. As we continued to catch our breath in this darkness, a much more terrible foe happened on us: an umber hulk, with its dazing gaze and baffling look. Although some chaos ensued, as we tried to lure it through traps and navigate the trapped stair - included a terrible moment where the stairs turned into a slide as I was hanging at the top of the rope, about to fall and bring down half the party with me - it was eventually overwhelmed by our ability to strike and evade it. Most particularly, we owed our thanks to Astoria's familiar, Basil, whose dagger was most potent indeed. Kalina helped eviscerate the corpse, and we were left with a carapace to add to our haul.

Heavy haul hangs on solid, strong shoulders;
Lives like leaving, lest left lifeless.
Corpse collapsed by green goblin-gobbler
An heir apparent, by fierce fire freed.

Last: lizard's looming hall has heroes
hanging hopeful. But thousand-eye terror thirsts
to take in triumph skulls' sole sight.
Basil by basilisk gaze gravely gathered:
silent, sleeping statue. Rescued by resilience,
resistors return rightly to gentle, joyful Jokari.

No longer willing to take the risks of resting, we decided to make for the exit with haste, and preferred to chance the basilisk hall again rather than the unknowns of the higher levels. We passed the green slime again, now collecting a treasure chest left by it by some poor soul it had clearly caught. Now knowing that the slimes turned their victims into more of their own substance, and seeing that this was happening to him, we cremated his corpse to spare him that fate.

Next, we had to go through the basilisk hall again, and our hopes that the eye-horror had moved on were quickly dashed. Nevertheless, through some use of cunning and distractions, circuitous routes, avoiding eye contact with where it seemed to be (for myself, I never even caught sight of it, though I nearly fell victim to its magical effects multiple times), and Batraz's ingenious use of a statue to block its line of sight, we nearly all made it out. Basil, at the very exit, began to turn to stone, but we have good hopes that a prepared salve will be able to revive him too. So, triumphant, we left.

Victors, vaunt!
Golem ground
down to dust.
Tomb's terror
dared, defied.
Blood bled;
life lingers.
Our honour,
great glory,
all ascend!

Treasures

The following log of treasures was written by Steak:

Chest 1 (Golem Arena): 1200GP (Level 3 Treasure)

Chest 2 (Green Slime Area): 1200GP (Level 2 Treasure)

3 Shields, taken from the Golem Arena, worth 30 GP each.

Ruby

2 Grick's worth of material, harvested from their corpses.

200lbs of Umber Hulk Shell, harvested from its corpse.

1200 level 2 XPG = 240 level 2 XPG Each

1290 level 3 XPG = 258 Level 3 XPG Each