The Crystal Dominion - Session 06 Summary

[avisarr]

The Crystal Dominion - Session 6 Summary

The players, having successfully retrieved one of the four stained glass art pieces, moved on to the next location. The other three glass pieces of the four piece set were, according to Baldorin, buried with the Arch Mage Mazuris himself. Luckily, he was intered in the Church of Imarus in the city of Drakkel. So at least the players didn't have to go very far.

The party discussed the mission. It was a large and major Church, but it was not a fortress. It was run by humble clerics and scholars, not warriors. Furthermore, the Church was not expecting any kind of trouble. Therefore, security would not be a serious issue. Still, the party decided that it would be wise to reconnoiter the Church.

Eiran and Tristan visited the church and attended one of the daily services. The Church was large and had almost a dozen clergy living and working there. A minor religious service was held every day, but the church was only open during daylight hours. It closed every evening at sunset.

N'sahd went to the city government offices to see if he could obtain the architectural plans of the Church. He found that there was a major network of catacombs beneath the church and that was likely where Mazuris was buried. The city sewers passed within 30 feet of the main stairway heading into the catacombs. Although this was tempting, the party decided that tunneling through 30 feet of dirt and rock would be too difficult and noisy. Instead, they decided to use stealth.

RedEye and Ethos were both called away by the guild for urgent business elsewhere. So, for this mission, it would be only Eiren (elven ranger), N'sahd (human wizard), Tristan (human knight) and Alan (human arcanologist).

The four visited the church again the next day and attended the daily service. After the ceremony, many people waited to speak with the priests and receive various blessings. The players, in two pair, snuck off away from the main chamber and went to the catacombs door. The great oak and iron door was held fast by both a mechanical lock and a powerful spell. N'sahd attempted to undo the restraining magic with a spell of his own, but his magic was not strong enough. Alan thought that perhaps the foul ichor from the etherbane (the anti-magic bile) that the witch had shared with him might be useful. He painted some of the foul smelling liquid onto the lock and the spell holding the door shut failed completely. The anti-magic slime had worked. N'sahd oiled the rusty hinges of the old door so that they would not make a sound. They then opened the door and proceeded into the darkness, closing the door behind them.

Beyond the door was a large stone spiral staircase that descended deep into the ground. They estimated that they had descended about 20 meters when the staircase opened up into a large rectangular room with multiple corridors leading away. It was a vast maze of halls and doors they now found themselves in. As they began to explore, they found rows of doors, each bearing the full name and family crest of the person buried there. They also discovered that the network of catacombs was much larger than they had anticipated. It would require some patience and care to search every corridor. The catacombs were dark and quiet. The air was dank and musty. This place was only opened for a funeral procession to inter someone. The party knew they would be able to explore at their leisure and no one would likely be down here.

The catacombs were divided into several sections. N'sahd lit with the way with a hooded lantern. As they began to explore the second section, giant rats leapt from the darkness and attacked them. The group was only momentarily caught off guard. After a few seconds, they killed most of the rats and the last remaining rat fled back into the darkness. Around the next corner they came upon a particularly large rat chewing on a corpse in the middle of the hallway. The party quickly killed the rat and examined the body. It was badly decomposed and looked to be about a month old.

On the body they found a map of the catacombs they were in. It was soiled, bloody and yellow with age, but still readable. They also took off the body a very nice steel short sword that glowed with magical power.

The party continued on into the catacombs. In section 3, in the midst of a dark corridor. N'sahd heard something above them. He shone his hooded lantern up toward the ceiling just in time to see a huge 12 foot spider above them poised to attack. The spider fired a silk strand from its abdomen, striking Alan in the chest, and then began reeling Alan up toward the ceiling like a caught fish. As Alan yelped in fear and surprise, the party reacted, drawing weapons and knocking arrows.

N'sahd set the lantern down and cast a lightning bolt. The bolt of energy ripped through the spider. Behind the spider was its nest – a tangled mass of sticky web strands and debris in the form of a large cocoon. The lightning bolt hit the nest and the nest exploded in a shower of bones, bits of webbing, baby spiders, corpses, treasure which came raining down on the party. Alan came crashing down to the floor as well. The giant spider itself landed squarely on N'sahd, knocking him flat. The spider was badly burned, but still alive and thrashing wildly.

The baby spiders, each with two foot leg span, attacked en masse and the party soon found themselves fighting two or three each.

Thinking quickly. N'sahd cast a gust of wind spell. Strong winds roared down the corridor. The baby spiders were swept to the next turn .

Eiran threw two of the alchemical grenades down the corridor. With a muffled boom the two grenades killed and scattered most of the baby spiders.

A few arrows and sword strokes finished up the giant "mother" spider. The remaining babies were killed quickly.

The party examined the desiccated corpses that had fallen out of the nest. Several of the corpses were just giant rats. But three were humanoid.

On the first corpse they found a dark green potion, unlabeled.

On the second corpse, they found a small vial filled with a sour smelling milky substance. Alan dipped a finger in it and it burned him badly. Obviously some kind of acid.

On the third, a goblyn like creature, they found a spell stick adorned with roeda glyphs (the magical runes used by orcish shamans).  Alan and N'sahd studied the runes and deduced that it had something to do with a fire based protection spell. This corpse was also wearing an interesting suit of leather armor fashioned from a strange type of leather.

We ended session 6 with the party sorting through the loot.