Session 3: Summary

Date of Session: 30 April 2024

Player's in Attendance

Summary

Leaving the Barrier Room

With the barrier wall still on fire and smoke beginning to billow around, the party decided to make quick work of searching the kobold bodies for anything. Ludwick, having pulled the body of the human away from the burning wall, took a closer inspection. It seemed the man was perhaps a guard of some sort. He wore leather armor and still had most of his possessions. He had many arrows and holes in his chest where it seemed the kobolds had perhaps used him as target practice before being interrupted by the party. After a bit of inspection, Ludwick came upon a full flask of some unidentified liquid and a small belt pouch of gold pieces that was on the backside of the man, attached to his belt. The pouch contained 160 GP in total. Rising and eyeing the green light emanating from the heatless torch mounted on the east wall, Ludwick took the torch and realized it must be imbued with some sort of magic.

Observing that two hallways lead away to the east, one in the southeast corner and one in the northeast corner, the party opted to head to the northeast hallway. Ulgren led the way, just outside of the green torch light so as to take advantage of his superior vision. Only a few feet in and the hallway turned due north. Continuing on another 15 feet or so, the hallway turned back west and led off beyond the extent of Ulgren's vision. Ulgren noted that a large 10 foot hallway branched off to the north about 15 feet or so further west and as he looked in that direction, he realized the room contained numerous alcoves to both sides, each one with an open stone sarcophagus void of any remains.

Mutated Weasel Battle

Cautiously, Ludwick and Ulgren moved north into the wide hallway with alcoves. About 20 feet in, they were surprised by a very large, weasel looking creature standing about 4 feet in height and charging south directly toward them. At the same time, a kobold archer moved from around a corner in the north of the room and began firing arrows. Ludwick immediately moved to take cover back in the main hallway to the south while Ulgren took the brunt of the charge from the weasel.

Once in the line of sight, Kaleel moved into the room to aid the monk in combat with the large weasel like creature and as Ulgren landed a blow against the weasel, he realized it felt much more solid than that of a mere animal of flesh and bone. While taking note of this fact, he was surprisingly attacked by the weasel who opened its mouth and breathed forth shards of stone into Ulgren's body. Bewildered, having seen nothing like this before, Ulgren redoubled his efforts to lay waste to the creature with Kaleel now at his side.

From the hallway, now able to see all that was taking place, Ailish became enraged and shocked at what mutations had come to effect this, presumably woodland, animal now turned monster. However, before she could do anything about that situation, she looked across at Ludwick who was facing the battle and had not noticed two other kobold archers who had moved in behind him. Before anyone could react, the kobolds fired two arrows at Ludwick. The first took him in the back with such force that he fell, unconscious to the floor, bleeding from a grievous wound.

As the kobold archer from the northern portion of the room continued to pepper Ulgren and Kaleel, Ulgren struggled with the weasel-like creature, dodging a breath attack only to be hit with the next one. In an attempt to eliminate one of the foes, Kaleel charged north with his lucern hammer and slammed into the arrow firing kobold. As his blow connected with full force, he heard a crack but felt that the kobold seemed far more solid than what a kobold should feel like under such a blow. Surprisingly, the kobold still stood. It took another exchange of melee before Kaleel was able to finally dispatch this oddity and turn back to help the monk. By the time Kaleel had reached Ulgren, the weasel-like creature had latched onto him with its teeth, sucking on the wound while continuing to clamp down. Reactively, Kaleel swung his mighty hammer and with a sickening crack, the creature released Ulgren and fell dead at their feet. Kaleel realized in that moment that the creature no longer felt as solid when he had hit it this last time and wondered what strangeness was at play.

Back in the lower hallway, Ailish and Orryn attacked the kobolds that had dropped Ludwick; Ailish landing an arrow shot and Orryn blasting them with magic missile, burning through the last of his mana. Just as they were feeling confident about having the upper hand, two additional kobolds came around the corner of the lower hallway with short swords drawn as they closed the distance. As melee combat ensued, Ailish was hit a couple of times and wisely retreated into the nearest alcove, easing into the open sarcophagus, her back against the wall.

Out of mana and on his own against a couple of kobolds, Orryn called upon a will he perhaps did not know he possessed. Brandishing his staff, twirling it about as if a trained warrior, Orryn smashed into the kobolds killing them with the efficiency of a barbarian. First one, then the other, and finally the last kobold standing fell to wicked wops from the grey beard's staff. A commending apraisal greeted him from a few paces to the north as Ulgren stared, perhaps in awe, at this warrior-wizard before him.

Recovery

With the enemies dispatched, Orryn moved to check on Ludwick and used a bandage to help bring him back to consciousness. Realizing how close he had come to actually meeting Zodal, Ludwick quickly called forth the divine power of Zodal to heal himself a bit. While Kaleel searched the bodies of the fallen foes, Ailish moved around the room to the north to explore it a bit and search for anything of interest. Kaleel recovered a total of 31 gold pieces and nothing much more of value as Ailish found a nicely balanced (expertly crafted) silver bladed dagger in one of the alcoves, stuffed behind the sarcophagus.

While searching the body of the kobold archer in the northern portion of the room, Kaleel began to feel a bit odd. He felt as if he were even more solid than his training had rendered him and he had the sudden urge to burp. Opening his mouth to let out the air, he unexpectedly sprayed forth a conical shaped blast of rock particulate. This oddness lasted only a few short minutes and during this time, Ulgren noticed that Kaleel's eye color and skin tone changed a bit before returning to normal just as the breath of rock particulate ceased.

Given this unexpected strangeness, the strange mutated weasel, and Ludwick's brush with death, the party decided to head back the way they had come in and try to find a spot outside in the foothills to rest and recover a bit. Using the last of his healing, Ludwick helped the others before turning in for the evening to recoup his spell energy, his mana. The party set watches and fortunately, the night passed uneventfully with no attacks coming from within the temple complex nor from the surrounding countryside.

Getting started early the next morning, the party returned to the area of the temple complex where they had left the night before. Nothing had changed and dead kobolds remained lying all about as they made their way back to the chamber where they encountered the mutated weasel. As they pressed forward in a westernly direction along the lower corridor, Ulgren and his heightened senses could smell meat and vegetables cooking from up ahead. Additionally, Ulgren heard what sounded like coughing and perhaps scuffling coming from behind a set of two doors he could see on the far side of the room they were headed toward and made note that some sort of torch light could be seen illuminating the area to their north.

And thus, session 3 concluded...