Interlude – Rufus’ Raiders Spring Break Mission
- Rufus Hypnol– Lvl 3 Barbarian Death Dealer – Ambushing, Survival, Running, Armor Training STR +2, CHA -1, Switching to plate mail and armed with a two handed sword – Would be gangster
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Dante – Lvl 4 Assassin (Assassin-For-Hire) – Precise Shooting, Bargaining, Fighting Style (two weapons), Weapon Finesse, Intimidation – STR +1, INT +2 WIS -2, DEX +3, CON -1, wearing custom skull helmet, Plate mail, short sword, war hammer +1, unearthly appearance (corpselike skin, black and red eyes) – death worshipping assassin.
- War dog - Finn, Hunting dog - Scout, Guard Wolf - Balto
- Murphy aka Telemachus – 1st lvl freed slave fighter – Labor, (others TBD), STR +2, WIS -2, CON +1
- Lazarus Deathbrood – Lvl 1 Cleric Exorcist – Sensing Evil, and Intimidation, INT -1, WIS +1, DEX +2, CON +1 CHA +1 Wears Banded Plate under a black cassock, armed with shield and sickle or a scythe, Budding Cleric of Death.
The session began with character creation for a new player. For the first time, both characters rolled by a player had over -3 or more total attribute bonuses. I allowed him to re-roll. He choose a cleric and rolled up the exorcist template.
Since it had been a while since Rufus had played and Rufus had not yet received his share of the sale of a +1 ring of protection, we ret-conned what he had been doing. Rufus met with Boss Horner of the Dock Boys, who praised him as a good earner. Boss Horner agreed to talk to his Capo into allowing Rufus to invest 1800 gp in one of his casinos in Adamas (for a 200 gp ‘finder’s fee). Rufus also spent some time in Adamas learning how to be a gangster (spent days towards learning Profession-Gangster).
Meanwhile Dante and Lazarus wanted to build a temple/fortress of Death in Muntburg. They arranged a meeting with Bailiff Cooper with Corporal Peiru. However Lazarus rolled a 3 on his reaction roll, and the Bailiff (probably tired of adventurers bugging him), immediately threw them out of his office. Lazarus urged Dante to try to intimidate him, but Dante thought better of starting a fight with the entire town.
The Raiders prepared to enter the mountain. Isaac told them of a need to investigate a stairway near the moon pool operation, as there were undead coming up from below. Despite Rufus and Dante having skills geared towards being lightly armored, they both decided to go into the dungeon heavily armored. (Dante forgot he had a wolf, so the wolf remained outside.)
The Raiders decided to use the main entrance into the mountain (to ask the stone head a question). When they entered they found a mercenary company, the Crimson Band, led by the Chandler brothers (and their adventuring group). Daniau Chandler demanded proof of a permit to enter the dungeon, which they provided. They found out that the Crimson Band received their authorization from the Despot of Adamas, not the local legate from Muntburg. The party tried to hire some additional men to travel with them, but the smallest group he would hire out (10 men and a member of the Crimson Band), were more meat shields then the party wanted to handle. Additional questions from Daniau were cut short from a growling intimidation check from the red-eyed, death mask wearing Dante (total intimidation roll of 13).
They travelled to the stone head and asked about the current residents of level 2b (by showing the head their map of the stairs). The head replied that it didn’t know. They made it to the unexplored portion of the 1st level without any wandering monsters. They ended up at a door where they heard voices complaining about guard duty. They opened the door to find spirit guards talking. They ignored them and found their bones. Lazarus left the bones instead of collecting them for burial.
They entered the next room and found several marble pedestals. In front of each were metal plates. There was also a stairway going down and many fire beetles. As combat ensued, it was clear what a difference a few levels make. The one-time party killer beetles was merely a speed bump for the party. After experimenting a little, they were able to figure out that the pedestals contained visions of the past, telling a story of the taking of Dwimmermount by the Thulians, later showing mages commanding armies and a group standing around a giant metal head of Terms Termax and speaking.
The party found the stairs to the Reliquary (as the head called the level). They found the scene of an old battle at the bottom of the stairs. Lazarus used his sense evil power and sensed an evil presence WSW from their location. The party agreed to head that way. They travelled through a room filled with six columns, each covered with a letter or symbol and an abstract sculpture at the end. Dante pressed the letters in sequence, spelling out a word. As he pressed each letter, it lit up. As he completed the word he felt divine energy flow through his body. Luckily, he was able to handle the energy (rolled a 17 on his save vs. spells) and found himself imbued with the power to cast detect magic 1x daily. Lazarus tried the same and found himself with the ability to cast sanctuary 1x daily. Rufus decided not to press his luck and didn’t touch anything.
They entered an empty chamber with exits to the north, where they assumed the evil sensed by Lazarus was waiting behind a closed door, and the west. They checked the passage to the west to clear it before battling the evil and found a room filled with many ruined books. They spent several turns searching and found a book in surprisingly good condition on one of the shelves lining the wall. Pulling on the book caused the entire bookshelf to open revealing a small room containing several ancient books and scrolls in good shape. Dante used his newly found power and found that one of the books was magical; a book that explained a way to gain inner wisdom. They snatched it up. They decided that the remaining 300 lbs of books were valuable but decided to come back after they took care of whatever evil lay near.
As they backtracked to face the evil to the north, several members of the party (other than the Rufus, whose barbarian instincts served him well) were surprised by 2 horse sized segmented worms. They attacked, paralyzing Dante and Lazarus. Rufus and the dogs attacked. Murphy dragged Dante’s body to safety before attacking. The worms moved on to Murphy and one of the dogs, paralyzing them as well. Rufus briefly thought of fleeing (he was almost 4th level after all and didn’t want to start over) but changed his mind when he realized he would not be able to get past the worms. Rufus and the last dog became paralyzed, but not before killing one of the worms. Luckily Lazarus was able to beat the worm’s initiative roll and his paralysis wore off before the worm could ingest anyone. Lazarus was able to survive long enough for Dante to awaken and they killed the last worm.
Shaken but unhurt from the encounter, they rested for a turn before opening the door to the north to find a winged demonic statue on a large pedestal in the middle of the room. As they approached the statue, it came to life (a gargoyle) and they attacked. It was able to fly, making it difficult to fight. They also found that it was unaffected by their missile weapons (they bounced off). Dante had Murphy use his shield to boost his jump, leapt up, and attacked the monster with his magical hammer. It worked, injuring the beast. Unable to affect it with weapons, Rufus changed tactics as well. He jumped up and grabbed the creature, throwing it to the ground. After taking a few blows, he and Lazarus were able to hold it down for Dante to smash it with his magical hammer.
Finding no treasure, the party decided to get some help from Issac’s men near the moon pool to bring the books back to town. They made it back up to the first level, but on the way through the hallways they barely escaped a falling patch of green slime. They threw a flask of lit oil on it and turned away, making it safely through a series of rooms to Fabricio, the leader of Issac’s moon pool garrison. He agreed to lend a few men to carry the books for a small fee. They retrieved the books and made it back to Muntburg without any trouble.
The Raiders took the books, along with the first season’s shipment of moon pool water and azoth lined flasks to Adamas for Issac’s henchman Murray to sell. The sale of the recovered books resulted in enough XP for everyone to raise in level. The party also decided to sell the magical book, which was valued at 25,000 gp, but they were not able to sell it the first month.