Ep1 Session 2 Play Summary

The party started this session as they left the last, in the Dancing Goat Inn.  They took some time to eat and heal, and found out that there was a temple on the North side of the city.  Sir Piffler of Rimsley was healed back to full health by a Sister-Healer.  They spent the rest of the day clearing the junk and debris away from the corner of the cellar, and were presented with a tool dug tunnel in the wall behind.  The party then slept for the night in the inn above, with Icarus retreating to the woods outside of the city, unable to bear the thought of sleeping indoors.

Having restocked on torches and managed to acquire some healing potions, the party made their way through the tunnel and found themselves in a well-constructed, but foul smelling, sewer running with foot deep excrement and waste.  The tunnel was an even 6 x 6 foot and a dim glow was cast by a thick layer of slime.  The flow seemed to be going to the left, so the party went upstream, with Icarus starting to feel noticeably sick with sewer rot.  After an hour or so of wandering through winding tunnel and having taken a left turn at a T, Icarus managed to notice a light being extinguished and then foil an attempted ambush by ruffians.  Icarus made a fighting retreat, spinning and firing his bow as he moved back toward his companions.  The crossbow wielding assailant had his hand near cut off at the wrist by an expert shot and retreated.  Another was hit square in the chest and limp of into the dark cursing and crying.  Yet another suffered a knockdown when hit in the liver and spent the battle struggling to keep his head above water.  While Icarus was retreating, Piffler of Rimsley was moving forward to help, and Cognor charged a powerful fireball.  Cognor let the fireball fly when the battle was brought close, but fumbled the attempt and his aim was not true.  The deadly fire hit Icarus in the back, destroying much of his belongings, and bringing him perilously close to death.  Piffler of Rimsley brought another of the scoundrels close to death with a mighty stab to the face, the man breaking his shortsword attempting to parry the greatsword.  All told, two of the bandits lay dead, two had retreated with terrible wounds, and two fled in full health, fearing for their lives.

Piffler felt that there was something unnatural about how quickly Icarus had fallen ill upon entering the sewers and counselled a retreat to the surface to seek healing.  The party managed to find 23 copper pieces, and retrieve both the broken shortsword and dropped crossbow.  Cognor was able to repair the sword with his magic, making it worth more than scrap.

The party returned to the surface and sought aid at the temple, healing Icarus of disease and damage.  Cognor also acquired some materials to magically repair the armor off Icarus's back.

Returning to the sewers, the party started searching the sewer walls meticulously and eventually uncovered a concealed door opposite the tunnel through from the cellar.  Cognor blasted away at the door with fire, with Icarus battering through the remainder.  The other side of the door was a perfectly rectangle stone corridor 6' wide and 8' high, probably crafted out of stone by magic.  Red glowing runes covered the walls and floor, and there was a heavily bound door about 20' forward .  Cognor deciphered the runes as powerful defensive wards, causing a damaging dehydration effect to any crossing their boundary.  As the party ad no apparent means of circumvention, they pushed through, with Cognor and Icarus taking a moderate amount of damage.  As the corridor ended in a heavily bound door, the party took time for Piffler to administer aid, praying and using the last of his holy water to provide some relief.

The door was found to be unlocked, although the party noted the glow of blood red light spilling through beneath the door.  Upon opening the door the party looked upon a large room (30 x 30') with temple like architecture, complete with high vaulted ceilings.  Three brightly glowing blood red ornate lanterns hung from the ceiling around the room, keeping the room in full light.  A large alter lay directly opposite them, a large black curtain was in the center of the left wall, and a large canvas painting of demonic debauchery hung in the center of the right wall.  Piffler stood examining the room as Icarus moved toward the black curtain and Cognor moved straight toward the altar.  Before Cognor reached the altar, a daemonic female form with six arms wielding curved blades and with the lower body of a giant snake rose up from behind it.  Piffler was able to identify the daemon as a Peshkali.  He recalled that they are known as guardians of remote places of evil and of places of demonic sanctity.  He also recalled that the only real chance of defeating them is to severe or destroy all of their arms.  The daemon cursed at them and it swore they would not bring it under control.  Piffler was able to stride forward and strike the daemon over the altar, crippling an arm before the party decided to make a hasty retreat when they realised they were likely outclassed.  The party made it back into the corridor unharmed, with the Peshkali refusing the follow them out of the sanctified temple.

The session ended with the party having retreated back to the surface and having sought out healing at the temple.

Ep1 Session 1 Play Summary

Characters Present

Colin - Colin the Holy Warrior

Tim - Cognor the Wizard

Tom - Icarus the Elf Scout

Summary

The characters had traveled to Gryphonburg, the capital of the Western Marches, where adventure and fortune are said to abound.  The inn that was to be their starting point, The Dancing Goat, was found to be locked up, and apparently abandoned.  Other than that the inn appeared to be solidly built and clean.  Shortly after they were approached by a portly middle aged man who introduced himself as Lee, the new proprietor of the Dancing Goat.  He was dressed in  fine velvet with gold braid, marking him as a member of a rich merchant family.  He then went on to explain that his uncle Merle had been running this inn on behalf of the family, but had disappeared.  He had found the place locked on his arrival and had entered to find the foul smell of the sewer and decomposition coming from the cellar.  He dared not open the cellar door to investigate as giant rats are known to swarm in the under maintained sewers of the city and he had heard scratching and movement coming from the other side.  The characters agreed to help Lee clear his cellar of rats for 8 copper per rat head as well as a weeks free room and board once the cellar was cleared. 

Upon entering, the characters were greeted by the stench  as described by Lee.  The front door opened up on to a large Tap room, maybe 50 x 60 in dimension.  Apart from the smell, the tap room of the inn was well made, and clean, with good solid oak furniture and a large bar. 

The characters went straight to work, Lee led them to the cellar door, which was a very heavy oak door with black iron bands to reinforce it.  They realised that they had no light, so Cognor improvised by creating a globe of fire and concentrating to move the fire with the party.   They could see that stairs followed the wall left from the door down to another landing, taking a right turn down to the floor of the cellar.  The cellar was noted to be heavily web infested. 

Upon reaching the floor of the cellar, Colin started to move some of the heavy webs aside with his greatsword.  At this point, a giant spider launched itself from the webs and attempted to bite Colin.  Within a second, more spiders were moving in on the party. 

The fight was concluded with Colin having taken 1 vicious bite to each leg, with acidic spider venom taking a further toll on his health.  Colin was not in good shape. 

The characters continued to explore the cellar, while Colin attempted to patch up his wounds a bit.  The cellar turned out to be as large as the room above, with 6 heavy stone pillars arrayed in a 3 x 2 grid holding the ceiling up. Cognor had found unlit torches in sconces on the pillars an went about lighting them with his fire.   A junk pile of crates, webs, furniture, barrels and dirt was found in the opposite corner, piled half way up to the ceiling.  An opening was spotted in the wall behind the junk pile.  Cognor attempted to move some of the furniture aside, and was halted by a warning from Icarus, whose danger sense was ringing alarms, just before becoming dangerously entangled in the webs.  At that, an enormous spider launched itself out of the debris at Cognor.  Colin halted his first aid attempts to face the beast, but had a way to travel across the room.  Icarus started raining arrows upon the beast, but ultimately it was two heavy blasts from Cognor's Flame jet at close range and a lucky dodge by Cognor that destroyed the spider.

Cognor utilised his flame  to burn off the webs, where the corpses of 40 giant rats were found.  These were swiftly decapitated and returned to Lee for their agreed reward, plus a bit more for the spiders.