Shadowdark: The Borderlands Session 2

In our prior session, the PCs clever plan to lure in either the brigands or the scrablings had worked…just not exactly how they had wanted. This led the PCs to a path that split with brigand traps leading in one direction and scrabling tracks in another. Reasoning that with scrablings being creatures of the night and it was daytime, that they would be at an advantage to pursue the scrablings now and the brigands later. This proved true. They caught many of the scrablings mostly unaware in Goblin Gully (based on the wonderful map from Dyson’s Dodecahedron) but not without harm to themselves. After regrouping (and some healing), the PCs started to head deeper into Goblin Gully.

RJ and Savannah were both missing. Rachel played Aja and Jen played Norfek. More below the break.

• Ellery had opened the door to a chamber on the opposite side of the rope bridge from the rest of her party. A number of scrablings were within and were shielding their eyes from her torchlight. The party no longer gained any advantage (literally) from the torchlight as the srablings were prepared for it now. This made the fight a bit more difficult with Ellery taking a good bit of damage before it was over. This chamber had two additional obvious exits, a shaft leading about 20′ up to another chamber and a spiral staircase leading down. A rope with grappling hook was tossed up the shaft and hooked.
• After Ellery provided her an herbal stimulant, Morgan headed up first. As she neared the top, she could tell–with her heightened senses–that there were enemies waiting at the top. Three more scrablings are approaching as Morgan reaches the top. A fourth, larger one, is hanging back in a different chamber beyond an open door. Morgan thrusts a torch in the face of one of the srablings, causing it to retreat. The larger one pushes this one back into the room to fight. The fight continues as the other PCs make their way up the rope. Although the party prevails again, Morgan is mortally wounded and the party is not able to save her (no healing left and all failed their attempts to stabilize her). Various bits of her gear, judged to be useful or valuable and easily carried, is taken by the survivors.
• During this fight, the larger of the scrablings started to squeeze through a small opening in the back wall of the prior chamber. One of the smaller scrablings from the fight fled and was attempting to do the same as Norfek approached it. The paladin dispatched the thing before it could wiggle all the way through. After some experimentation (including reaching as high as a 12′ tall Nightmare Elf might put a secret latch), the party got a secret door to fully open. The scrabling squeezing crack was part of this partially opened door. A stairway leading down was revealed.
• At the bottom of the stairs was a small chamber with another passage leading out and a statue of what Aja identified as a Dusk, a servant of the Nightmare Elves. The statue is made of the same odd black stone as this compound with the exception of a sword it was holding, point down and pommel resting under its hands. The party cautiously moved around the statue, avoiding any contact, to the opposite passage. It eventually leads back to the chamber with the shaft leading up. On the way, the party found a small antechamber which held, they believe, the skeletons of two Dusk who look like they have been there for a very long time. The party heads back to the chamber with the statue of the Dusk. Although they enter from the opposite side they had before, they Dusk is now facing them as it had when they previously entered. Aja convinces the party that the Dusk are too dangerous. Given that they’ve not yet found additional enemies (or the larger scrabling that scrambled away), the party heads out to recover from their recent adventures.
• In the morning, the party descends back into Goblin Gully and find that all is as they left it. Some time is spent searching for secret doors in the room with the Dusk statue. None are found. Despite Aja’s protests (admirably if not nearly as enthusiastically portrayed by Rachel than they had been by Savannah), Ellery tries to remove the sword from the statue. It comes away quite easily. As it does, the stone on the statue begins to crack and shatter to reveal an actual (and armored) Dusk!
• Ellery quickly strikes at it with the sword she just grabbed and badly wounds it. The Dusk, however, easily retrieves its sword from Ellery. All three PCs hear a voice in their head saying that they will greatly suffer. Running its hand across the blade, it then strikes Ellery. Although she is not badly damage, Ellery drops unconscious. Aja is struck and drops next. Norfek, fortunately, gets in the killing blow before the Dusk can defeat him. Norfek wraps the sword and attaches it to his pack. He then carries both of his companions up to the (now often traveled) chamber with the shaft up.
• In about ten minutes, both Aja and Ellery wake up. The group head down the spiral stairs for the first time. The stairs lead to a relatively large chamber with a number of dirty and musky bedrolls…enough for all the scrablings encountered. Nothing of value is found. A door in this chamber leads to a a large shaft some fifteen feet across and dropping down below the light of a torch.
• The party heads back up the spiral stairs and searches the various scrablings that they defeated. Nothing of value is found except that one is wearing a gold bracelet, possibly the bracelet that Harold had mentioned a merchant saying had been stolen by brigands but then spotted on a scrabling. There was no sign of the ruby ring with the reward on any of the scrablings or in any of the chambers explored.
• Unwilling to explore or descend into the deep shaft and having nowhere else to explore, the party leaves Goblin Gully to check out the brigand trail. Ellery scouts ahead. She finds some very recent tracks which appear to be two people dragging a body between them. She speeds up, while still remaining as stealthy as possible, and spots two men. Each has one arm crooked under the arm/shoulder of a woman and are dragging her along. She is unconscious, but Ellery spots a prominent holy symbol around the woman’s neck, one to the Shining Lords of Law.

And that is where we ended the session. I’ll give you one guess as to the new character that Jen rolled up to replace the fallen Morgan. We’ll have to wait until next session to find out for sure.