Friday, June 15, 2018

Far Isles Session # 87 - Torak Gets His Groove

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Awg Wahmn (Calmonari 6)
Torak (Cleric 6)
Chaff (Vivimancer 6), with familiar Pretty Bird
Kwinsea (Aquamancer 6), with familiar Hermes

After a short debate about next steps, the party decided to head back to the entry chamber to see if they'd missed anything of importance there. They also decided to take the opportunity to use the ebony fly, still hovering combat air patrol overhead, to lug their accumulated treasure back to the "No Man's Sea" for safe keeping. They examined the grate and fan in the floor a little more, noting that the unknown liquid was condensing on the slow moving blades, while the motion of that fan forced the liquid into a collection of crystal capillaries that ran down the walls and out of sight. Touching the liquid cause no harm, but did give a bit of a 'zing;' or shock, prompting Torak to note it may be condensed lighting or something. 

Leaving Rodrigo to guard their six, the rest of the party moved out through one of the two unchecked doors in the room. It led to a winding corridor, and ultimately led back to the room with the three egg tanks. There was also another door, which opened into a room with what appeared to be a desk in the far corner. There was also something vaguely body-like slumped on the floor, although it was hard to tell if it was a fresh corpse or something else. Kwinsea checked for traps, and once she had given the all-clear, the party moved into the room to investigate. The thing on the floor was a mostly skeletal corpse, covered in a faintly opaque coating like lacquer or glue. Everyone immediately was on guard, checking above and around for the source of the solidified goo. Finding nothing, they examined the desk itself. It too was covered in the coating, including the pile of papers which lay there. These were mostly illegible thanks to the unknown material, but short snippets were readable. Chaff discovered it was written in Teroclidian, and it described that a God Who Walks Among Men, by the name of Iomnogoran, was the master of this installation. And he had gone mad trying to find a way to escape 'imprisonment' in the Coral Cays, getting more and more suspicious of his human servants and pouring his energy into making and breeding other servants and guardians so he could do his work undisturbed. 

Crystal tree
Finding nothing more of interest, the party retraced their steps through the entrance chamber and out the door on the other side. There they followed a twisting side corridor which led them to a small room buried deep in the centre of the egg. It was notable for the strange crystal tree growing in the the middle of the chamber. It's branches reached above the walls and into the lightning field. It did not seem to be harmed by the occasional lightning strikes, but would crackle with a blue light whenever it did absorb a bolt. The tree appeared to grow out of the floor. Around the base were scattered a dozen pulsing gem-like objects, while from the branches hung a number of crystalline fruit about the size of a plum. Torak, much enchanted by the fruit, entered the room first, followed cautiously by the rest of the party. The cleric unrolled his bedroll underneath the tree, and then proceeded to use the butt of the shark spear to knock the fruit onto padded bedroll. He was just about to head for the pulsing gems when the party sensed movement. Looking around , they saw the tree had pulled it's roots  out of the floor. One had snaked over to block the exit, while the others now flailed menacingly around and started to lash out at the trapped adventurers. And lash it did, pummeling everyone multiple times and bludgeoning several to the edge of death. And in return the party seemed completing unable to cause it any visible harm. In the end, Torak saved the day by casting  protection from evil. When protected, the cleric edged towards the exit, which forced the root blocking the way to recoil. That allowed everyone to escape with their lives. Before the spell ended, Torak also slipped back into the room to recover both the fallen fruit and the gems while the rest of the party retreated.

The bruised and battered party decided they need to rest and recover. Which seemed to be a problem in a place where the creatures could phase through the walls. So they simply hunkered down in the corridor to rest for the night.  Said night passed mostly uneventfully, except for a small swarm of the giant blue and white ants that appeared on Awg's watch. Antennae waving, these approached the calmonari. But to Awg's puzzlement, after a moment of investigation, the insects turned and went back the way they came and did not return. 

Having had a night of undisturbed sleep, the casters recovered their spells , and both Torak and Kwinsea (using the stole of the sacred) liberally passed around cure lights wounds  to those who needed it. Sizing up their map, they party decided to head towards the outside perimeter of the egg. There they discovered a corridor that they followed all around the circumference of the egg. In the process, they also discovered a number of new doors and well as another side corridor. Exploring the corridor first, they came to a large room with walls covered in carved circles about the size of a gold piece. Seeing nothing of concern in the large room, Chaff entered to explore. As he did, the circles closest to the vivimancer moved together into a tighter cluster and started to spin. That made Chaff very nervous, so he retreated to where the rest of the party waited. Torak, however, decided to make a dash across the narrow side of the space and into the room they could see on the opposite side. There he found a nest of slitterrats, curled up on a pile of broken crystal and quartz. They lazily eyed the cleric with no apparent concern, while he in turn observed nothing in the pile which would encourage disturbing and/or slaughtering the creatures.  He rejoined the party, which then headed around the perimeter corridor to the next door. 

Ghostly Figure
This led into an empty room with another door opposite. This door in turn led into a large chamber with another door on the opposite wall and a passageway leading north. In the middle of the room was a pile of corpses, while at the south end of the room there was glowing spectral figure, vaguely bipedal, with hands upraised. Suspecting undead, the party let Torak go first. When he entered the room ,the remains in the centre did indeed rise and advance. The cleric tried to use the power of Brall to turn them, but it seemed to have no effect. As they figures got closer, it was obvious these were not ordinary skeletons. They were covered in some sort of a mineral crust, and still bore and wore accoutrements typical of an adventuring party. The party shifted position to allow Kwinsea to wedge the door open, allowing Torak to escape and Chaff to web both the door opening and 4 of the skeletons. These were dispatched in short order, but with the web in place the party couldn't get back in the room. But there was another door out in the perimeter corridor, which they assumed would lead to the other door in the room. The party tracked around, passed though another empty room ,and then did indeed find themselves back where they expected. Torak tried (unsuccessfully) turning the ghostly figure, leaving the party to  pummel the two remaining skeletons to pieces. (In the course of the fight, Torak also become especially attached to the new dagger he'd found the previous day).With one eye on the strange figure, the party picked through the skeletal wreckage to recover a fair bit a treasure, including a mix of coinage, a scroll, rusty sword with a gem it the pommel, and a couple of potion vials. Chaff bravely checked these, and discovered they were potions of lightning resistance. A quick check and search of the northern passage revealed that it led to a secret door back into the entry chamber (Hi Rodrigo!)

Bag of Holding
The party now was starting to wonder how to get down to the other eggs. So far they'd found nothing resembling stairs, shafts, etc. They dutifully headed back out into the perimeter corridor to the last as yet unexplored door. This led into a room with three more of the strange egg tanks. Each of these was still full of fluid, and each also contained one of the strange clawed humanoids. After carefully checking the entrance for traps, Kwinsea moved inside to look closer at the tanks and their inhabitants. Once she was well inside the room, the figures in the tanks began to move. They appeared to be operating some kind of controls. Suddenly, from two of the tanks came a blast of electricity, scorching everyone nearby. At the same time, the door to the room slammed shut, leaving Kwinsea trapped. The aqumancer lined up with the tanks and gave them a taste of their own medicine; her lightning bolt shattered the three tanks and cooked the creatures inside. As the smoke cleared, the rest of the party returned to help her out. But there was nothing left to do but move on to the door on the opposite side of the room.This led into a small space with a seemingly random pile of stuff on the floor. In addition to a mace and shield, there were four potion vials (potions of healing as it turned out), a set of dark lenses, a wand and a small stack stuffed full of something. Kwinsea examined the ivory wand, which had a small set of wings carved on the butt as well as a command word. Torak and Awg scooped up the rest, except for the sack which Chaff claimed. He opened it up and found it to be full of copper coins. Disgusted by the essentially valueless contents, the vivmancer upended the bag to pour the coins out onto the floor. But the coins kept pouring and pouring. To the point where he had to stop or else the room would fill up with copper pieces. Going outside into the corridor, he tipped up the bag again until it was empty and he stood shin deep in a sea of coppers.  Well, this might be a useful item ...

TOTAL XP
10435*

GAINS
12 assorted gems (250gp each)
1550gp
100sp
Sword with gem in pommel
Mace
Shield
3 crystal fruit
2 potions of lightning resistance
potions of healing
Scroll - Knock, Detect Magic
Wand of Flying
Bag of Holding 

KILLS
3 Oozanderthals
6 Fossil Skeletons

LOSSES
None

*2xp per gp rule in effects