Gygax & Greyhawk Session # 90 - To the Doors and Back Again

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Skeef Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 8 / Thief 8) 
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 7 / Fighter 7) 
Solcha (Elf Fighter 5 / Magic User 8) 
Chanee (Human Paladin 7)
[Baqua Irontoes (Halfling Fighter 4 / Thief 6)]

Date/Time

Patchwall 8 (late afternoon) to Patchwall 8 (early evening) 

Gathering up the dead Chossos' treasure, the party continued on it's exploration. Just around the bend from the gorgimera's lair, they came to a pile of old broken, worked stone piled against one wall. Solcha searches and realizes the stone hides a passageway, so the party starts excavating. One stone, oddly coloured and light, appearers hollow. Breaking it  open reveals a stone tablet inscribed with the following: 

In the center Lies the gate

But opening it is sure to vex

many are the guards who wait

as you qo to the middle hex

 

Randomly sent to find a way

Back to a different iron door

a seventh time and you may stay

and seek the glowing prize no more

 

you have won old Iqqwilv’s prize

her hoarded cache of magic

and freed the one with yearning eyes

whose lot was hunger tragic

With stones removed, they also find a set of stairs going down; it is takes only a short conversation to decide their goal must be somewhere down there. 

Over 900 steps stairs lead straight down to more caverns, which if anything, are more phantasmagorical than those above.  They wander a maze of branching tunnels for some time, always heading toward the 'centre' as they understand it. Eventually the reach a pair of iron doors,  Each door is 9' wide and 20' tall, and at least a foot thick, On each  are many leering demon visages in bronze, and weird symbols form a the border of each great iron portal. In the center of each is a plaque with the following:

Iqqwilv’s treasure nests within,

her curse on any who disturb it.

seek no further to steal it, nor

to free she who is prisoned here,

for a fate worst than death is

sure to come to those fools who

Violate this circumscribed place.

The doors are very heavy and difficult to move, but eventually the party gets them open. Beyond the iron doors is a corridor with walls of red marble. A thick black carpet runs from the entry to an ebony door 40' away. The arched ceiling is of black marble shot through with bands of scarlet. The walls and floor are polished and dust-free. From the entrance can be seen the gleam of silver hinges, studs, and ring set in the far door. A dim red glow seems to come from the ceiling, bathing the entire passageway in eerie light. A painting shows a wooden boat with a lovely, black-haired lady at the tiller, smiling under a stormy night sky.  The boat in the painting has a name on the prow—the name "SHRIMPKIN".

As the party moves down the corridor towards the black wooden door at the end, they feel a tingling in the air-a perceptible magic. The ebony portal's silver hinges are bright and oiled, so when Goro reaches out to grab the pull ring, the slightest tug swings it open. At this very instant there is a brief flash of golden radiance. When their vision clears, they find themselves in a square 30’ cavern with multiple exits. 

The party continues it's exploration, taking care to leave traces of their passage behind so they know if the end up retracing steps at any time.  Eventually reaching another iron portal identical to the first, they enter again and the same course of events repeats. After a couple of encounters with a pair of chasme demons and a lurker brings them once more to a third set of iron doors ... 

GAINS

9 gems (9x100gp)

potion of plant control

2x Keoghtoms Ointment 

KILLS/VICTORIES

1 lurker

2 chasme demons 

 

Gygax & Greyhawk Session # 89 - Trial by Fire

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Skeef Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 8 / Thief 8) 
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 7 / Fighter 7) 
Solcha (Elf Fighter 5 / Magic User 8) 
Chanee (Human Paladin 7)
[Baqua Irontoes (Halfling Fighter 4 / Thief 6)]

Date/Time

Patchwall 8 (midday) to Patchwall 8 (late afternoon) 

After a short detour to stirges, the party enters a large cavern with multiple exists. Next to each is a carved face, human but with varied animal characteristics. When approached, each say the same thing; a mournful TURN BACK ... THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT WAY. When the faces speak, Skeef notes there are gems deep in their mouths. So he proceeds to 'pick pocket' each, receiving only one cushing bite for his troubles. 

The party chooses a random passage and pushes on. In one dead end cave they encounter an enraged clay golem that charges out of the shadows at them. Once it is defeated, Solcha notes a strange pattern of lines carved into the constructs back. Further examination by the party convinces them it is a map of the caverns. Testing their theory, they follow another passage to see it it matches with the lines. It seems to, and they arrive at large cavern with a thick layer of guano on the floor and a high ceiling lost in darkness. Somewhere ahead Skeef has heard water, so the party moves in to investigate. And then out of the darkness dives a massive bat, striking hard and fast before disappearing into the darkness again. This attack pattern repeats, but each time it appears to be a different bat. Goro casts a silence to block the agonizing shrikes of the creatures, and the party fires away with bows and try to chop them down as they dive. Meanwhile, the paladin (having borrowed Baqua's gloves) climbs the wall to find a total of 6 bats hanging from the ceiling; and a ledge about 30' about the floor. Skeef makes a beeline for the ledge, and there finds two things; a pile of treasure, and a passage in the wall leading out to a ranging underground river. 

Finishing off the mobats, the rest of the party climbs to the ledge. They see across the raging river another passage. And so decide to hop on the carpet and fly across to explore this new part of the caverns. A long straight passage leads to a stone arch bridge over (anorther?) river. Around them, the rock walls have gone from grey and brown to a kaleidoscope of color and phosphorescent lichens. 

Crossing the bridge, they pause at a 4 way intersection. Skeef stops to listen, and hears emanating from the left hand passage, a sound of something large moving about. Creeping ahead, he sees a strange creature with the body and head of a metallic bull, plus the head of a lion and a red dragon. It crouches behind humps in the uneven floor, apparently guarding the pile of treasure in front of it. Assuming it to be evil (confirmed shortly by the paladin), the party plans a surprise assault. Prepped with prayer from Goro and haste from Solcha, the party charges in. Only to find the gorgimera is ready for them. A gout of flame engulfs the party, and it is by luck alone that none die a fiery death. But the beast does not get a second chance; Goro and Chanee hastily charge it, and with whirling blades slay it before anyone else can react. And then the looting begins. 

GAINS

7073sp, 9012gp

gems (5x10gp, 4x50gp, 9x100gp, 5x500gp, 4x1000gp, 1x5000gp)

jewelry (silver broach 700gp, necklace 2000gp, matched pair of gold and lapis lazuli broaches 2x5000gp) 

Dagger +2, Longtooth

Bag of Holding (1000lb)

Potion of Green Dragon Control

Scroll of protection from elementals

Horn of fog

KILLS/VICTORIES

8 stirges

clay golem

6 mobats

Chossos the Gorgimera 

Gygax & Greyhawk Session # 88 - From Crypt to Caverns

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Skeef Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 8 / Thief 8) 
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 7 / Fighter 7) 
Solcha (Elf Fighter 5 / Magic User 8) 
Chanee (Human Paladin 7)
[Baqua Irontoes (Halfling Fighter 4 / Thief 6)]

Date/Time

Harvester  18 (slightly later) - Patchwall 8 (midday) 

As the demon charges the party, Skeef throws down the figure of wonderous power and a mastodon immediately blocks the fiends path. Goro and Solcha turn their focus on Lady Deveri, assuming she is the primary target. Another demon appears, but Goro and Solcha take out the succubus while the rest of the party and mastodon take down one of the demons. At this point, the second demon disappears and the combat if over. 

After collecting the jewelry from the oily smear that once was Lady Deveri, the party turns thier focus on the stone sarcophagus she'd been standing behind. Wrenching off the lid, they find the inside full of silver coins. And below the coins lies a body, a wooden stake through its heart. Solcha takes a lock of it's hair and places it on one of the blank pages of her vampire tome; and is rewarded as the page fills with writing, the story of Mathew Deveri. A great illusionist, Mathew made a pact with Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead, trading his soul for great power and unliving life. He slew the rest of his family who opposed him, sparing only his granddaughter, whom the party knew as Lady Elohira Deveri.  She in turn was cursed to take on the form of a succubus. But alas, the story of the the Deveri's has now come to an end. 

Scooping up the silver coinage, the paladin then beheaded the body and Goro poured holy water into it's mouth, once and for all destroying the vampire. And it is then time to leave, and the party flies back to Greyhawk for rest and resupply before heading west to the Yatil Mountains and their search for the Lost Caverns.

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.

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The time in Greyhawk and the journey west are uneventful, and the party now finds themselves in the northern reaches of the March of Bissel, facing the mountain path to which their map has led. Choosing once more to fly rather than walk, they soar about 100' above the trail, following it deep into the mountains. They encounter two other groups; a warband of surly dwarves who are uninterested in small talk or help, and a raiding party of gnolls who take a few potshots at the carpet before the party pulls away. After flying back to warn the dwarves about the gnolls, they party retrances their path. They find themselves, just as night is falling, back at the wide pass and trail intersection where they had earlier encountered said gnolls. Wishing to avoid any trouble, they opt to camp away from the intersecting paths (and the route of the gnolls), heading to the flanks of the mountains to the south east to find a place to rest. And to their surprise, there they find another hidden path, winding south east!

After another uneventful night, the party rises and follows this new path. After avoiding another warband, this one of goblins, the path brings them under the eves of a tall tooth-like peak. At the base is a cavern, and the party moves in to explore. Obviously once inhabited and used by intelligent creatures, it is now empty. Delving deeper, they come to a winding passage, slopping down below the mountains. As the passage levels off, the party sees ahead that more cavens await them ...   

GAINS

Jewelry (24300gp total)

7000sp

KILLS/VICTORIES

Lady Elohira Deveri

1 Type IV Demon