In our last session, the Clerics Three had been joined by two new companions, met a rather atypical ogre, fought some orcs and an owlbear, and found and began exploring the Two-Faced Shrine, a long lost shrine to Demogorgon, a bestial demon lord. The shrine is said to have an inner sanctum that can only be reached via some sort of magical means. At the end of the session, the heroes just might have discovered said magical means. That’s where we’ll pick up after the break.
There are potential spoilers for “Troll Trouble” from Gary Whicker and “Here There Be Monsters” from Dungeon #142. Both, as always, are significantly modified for our use. This write-up is from Todd and my GM comments are in [brackets and italics] as usual. We were joined by an old player, Todd, who is playing Alaric, a human fighter. Kevin won’t be playing and so Rosco will be departing in this session.
Chuck and Roscoe touch their mirrors. Large distorted versions of themselves step out of the mirrors, calling them “non-believers!” Chuck staggers back, and Pallas shoots an arrow at the Chuck monster.
A tall blonde warrior steps through the doors. Quickly assessing the situation, he rushes forward and swings his great sword at the Chuck monster. He puts a big gash in the monster. Blows are traded.
Otilia shoots. The Roscoe monster smashes the real Roscoe into the floor and moves to engage Delg. Chuck takes a hit and moves away from the combat. Pallas attacks the Roscoe monster.
Chuck yells a warning to the warrior. The warrior side steps a huge blow from the Chuck monster, a blow that breaks the floor. Chuck shoots a fire bolt from his hand and kills the Chuck monster. As the Roscoe monster falls to the floor, a portal forms in front of the altar.
The warrior stands in front of Chuck, an angry look on his face. Chuck says, “I didn’t do it! It was Roscoe that hooked up with your woman.” The warrior looks to the bloody mess that used to be Roscoe and shrugs his shoulders.
Pallas introduces himself and the others. The warrior introduces himself as Alaric.
[Alaric is Todd’s character. He had been chasing down Chuck and Roscoe as they had been traveling together…at least until Roscoe took liberties with Alaric’s significant other or something like that. Perhaps it will get developed a bit more by the players later.]
Delg heals the wounded.
With everyone healthy, Chuck steps through the portal. The others follow. They find themselves in a natural cavern [on a stone bridge of sorts]. The air is warm and has a coppery scent. A reddish glow is reflected off the walls. A red bubbling pool is below a three-pronged bridge. Behind them, the portal is gone. On the wall is a mirror. Alaric senses something moving in the pool. The liquid in the pool is blood. A woman’s voice greets them, in their heads. It offers to aid them for a sacrifice.
The spans of the bridge meet above the middle of the blood pool. The span to their left leads to a door in the wall. The span to their right leads to an opening in the cavern wall. There is a set of stairs that lead down to the pool of blood.
Again, the voice offers aid for a sacrifice. Alaric calls out that they don’t need its aid. In Chuck’s head, the voice tells Chuck to sacrifice the insolent warrior. Chuck wants proof of the voice’s power first. A large creature shoots forth from the blood. It has the head and torso of a woman, six arms, and the body of a snake. In each hand is a weapon. She tells them to send Alaric as a sacrifice. In Delg’s head, she tells him to pick anyone for a sacrifice. Delg, sheepishly points to himself, and walks towards the stairs. Otilia yells to stop him. Alaric moves to grab him and stop him. The creature slips back down into the blood pool.
Four orcs come out of the opening to our left. Alaric puts himself between Delg and the orcs. They defeat the orcs without too much trouble. Chuck pushes one of the dead orcs off the bridge, offering it as a sacrifice. The voice tells them that the orcs already belonged to the temple.
The group goes over to the door on the left. It is an iron door, and the door is locked. Otilia goes back to the orc bodies to search for a key, saying that she hopes the key wasn’t on the sacrificed orc. She does find a key and uses it to unlock the door.
The room beyond the iron door, is rectangular. It has six pillars, a circular grate in the floor, and a [stone] throne at the opposite end of the room. The room smells of wet fur. The group takes a short rest.
The grate has hinges that allow it to open into the room. The hole drops ten feet, then slopes towards where the blood pool would be. The throne is covered with carvings of demonic baboons. After some searching, grooves are found in the floor in front of the throne.
They pull on the throne, and it starts to slide away from the wall. When the throne is a few inches from the wall, four of the monkey carvings come to life. The monkeys attack the group. Some of the attacks are flatulent. Green clouds come out of the monkeys’ butts, poisoning some of the heroes. After the monkeys are killed, the group pushes the throne back against the wall. They speculate that if they pull the throne out farther, then more of the carvings may come to life.
They go across the bridge to the opening. The voice whispers to them. She will aid them for a sacrifice. The opening turns to the right, and there is a door in the wall. The key fits this door also.
In this rectangular room are bones, bones and more bones. Bones cover the floor to a depth of about two feet. To the left end of the room is a double iron door. To the right is an opening, the sounds of running water coming from it. Muffled monkey sounds can also be heard. All but Alaric are reluctant to enter the room. Alaric claims that Tyr favors the courageous as he steps onto the bones. Walking is difficult, but he gets to the opening in the right wall.
There is a pool of murky water, murky water flows from two demonic monkey head fountains, on the left and right walls. Alaric activates his Mark of Detection. It allows him to see magical auras. The monkey fountains are magical. Something is moving in the water. Alaric moves closer to the pool, expecting something to come out. A skeletal snake with a baboon head comes shooting out of the water attacking Alaric. They soon realize that the monster can cast spells. Some of the party falls to sleep. The others wake them up. It casts another spell, and Otilia can’t move. Chuck kills it.
Alaric shuffles around in the pool, seeing if there is worth finding on the bottom. Finding nothing, Alaric sets to destroying the fountains. He can tell that he has drawn the attention of…something not seen. The rest of the group studies the double doors at the other end of the room. The animal’s sounds are coming from the other side. Otilia tries to determine how many different creatures there are. She guesses about a dozen. Not wanting to tangle with that many the group goes back to the throne room.
They take a short rest. Alaric destroys some of the carvings on the throne. Nothing bad happens. Prepared to fight monkeys, if more come off the throne, they pull the throne out from the wall. No monkeys appear.
A small room is behind the throne. In the room are two rusty chests. The chests depict demonic monkeys eating people. Both chests radiate magic. The left chest spews forth fire when tampered with [monkey mouths opening and spewing the flame]. The right chest does not. Alaric and Delg force the chest open with a crowbar. There is a metal mace and some hand wraps sitting on a pile of silver and gold coins. The head of the mace is that of a screaming baboon. The hand wraps have baboon fur on them. Both items are magical.
Alaric and Delg try to force open the left chest and are burned by fire.
The group discusses how to proceed, wondering if the two men they are looking for are still alive.
[No cliffhanger this time.
The players feel that they need to take a long rest as they are pretty beat up and, I think, out of spell slots. The dilemma is that if they leave the “inner sanctum,” will they have to fight monstrous versions of themselves again in order to get back in. If they don’t leave, it is pretty clear that “intruders” have reached the inner sanctum given the carnage the PCs have left behind. If they press on, can they survive more fights given their state? If they don’t press on, what might happen to the two individuals that Clem said the orcs took and what other nefarious plots might be going on deeper in the inner sanctum?]
