Conallgen Session P2b

When we last left our heroes, they had been drugged by the villainous Desperado or was it by the desperado Oscar…well, regardless, they had been drugged and had lost consciousness. Regaining consciousness, they found themselves blindfolded and chained to a wall. Each regained consciousness at different times and, when they did, they were not alone.

Spoilers for the adventure, “The Black Larder,” from Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics #29, “The Adventure Begins.”
Though they could not see through the blindfold, they could sense that some sort of creature was in the room with them. And then the pain would start…a most horrific, soul-sucking pain…as the creature would place its hand (paw?) upon their chest. The cool relief of unconsciousness was the only relief only, at some point, to be followed by consciousness and another…feeding.

There was no way to know just how long this patten continued but it was finally broken. I don’t remember which of the heroes it was but the creature had come to feed and one of the heroes was conscious. The walls suddenly shook and shuddered and dust fell from the ceiling. The creature hissed something about someone having strayed into its larder and then, from the sounds of it, left the room to, apparently, investigate. Drogar (I think it was Drogar) was able to free himself from the wall…though still manacled. In short order, as the walls continued to shake, he freed his companions.

They found themselves in a small, windowless room, lit by a single lantern on a table. A door led out of the room and a key also sat on the table. However, they were not alone. It was not, fortunately for them, whatever creature had been feeding upon them but, instead, a man who looked to be another of the victims. How did they determine this so quickly? Because, like him, they were each wearing a copper amulet, a simple circle, around their necks and it hung to right where the creature had been placing its hand on them when it fed. And, like them, he had none of the gear one might expect an adventure to have (yep, all of their gear was missing).

This man did not trust the heroes and yelled for them to stay back. He had reached the table first, with the lantern and key and threatened to throw the lantern at them if they came any closer. He was going to leave and they could leave later but there was no way he was going to trust them. For all he knew, they were involved with whatever had taken them captive. The heroes tried to reason to no avail and so then approached him. The lantern was thrown and the man ran for the door. Drogar caught him before he could use the key as he could see in the darkness that fell after the lantern did.

The key unlocked the door and the manacles and all four left the room together. A hallway, with some torches in sconces led away in two directions and a horrific screech echoed through the hallway but sounding as if it had come from some distance away. Murals of some family, complete with names, were painted on the walls. An organ (as in musical instrument and not body part) sat in an alcove across from the door. It had an extra set of keys, made of gold, labeled, in order, do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti. Above the keys was an inscription, “Honor my family and my music.”

It didn’t take long at all before Bryn figured out the riddle of the organ. The murals were of the Llandyr family. The patriarch was Barclay and his wife Ailis. They had seven children by the names of Donell, Rebecca, Dougal, Regan, Faelan, Labhrás, Sorcha, and Lara. Playing Do-Re-Do-Re-Fa-La-So-La on the golden keys led to a small click and a small metal key fell into a notch next to the keys.

The man (whose name I have forgotten) went his separate way and the heroes started exploring the complex they found themselves in. It appeared to be a mausoleum. Some halls had a large number of plaques on the walls. Some areas where blocked by metal gates but the small key unlocked them. Beyond one of the locked metal gates was all of their gear with one exception, the letter that they had found from Cadoc to Ithel regarding Ednowain and his treasures but they didn’t find their gear right away.

I fully admit that some of this timeline could be wrong but the party found a few things while they continued to explore the complex. Some stairs were found that led up. Going up, they found an empty room with a door leading out. Listening at the door, Bryn heard some voices. Although she couldn’t clearly make out everything, it sounded like they were arguing about loot and shares. Pushing the door open, they found it blocked (it was partly blocked by rubble) but could see that beyond was a chapel and three individuals, two rather thuggish looking ones and a halfling. They didn’t seem too pleased to see anyone coming up from below and threatened to kill the heroes. Since the heroes hadn’t found their gear at this point, they didn’t fancy a fight and headed back down to look for another way out.

One room smelled of ashes and had a metal tube extending out of the ceiling. A desk was blocking the door and a large area of the floor was covered by caltrops. A young man stood in the corner, with a crossbow, and had a prominent dragonfly tattoo on his cheek. He chuckled and said something about expecting grave robbers, not the food. The party dispatched of this man. The room, I think, had a number of large jars in it as well.

In another part of the complex, they found a portion of the wall which, unlike the walls near it, had no plaque. It turned out to have a secret door that led to small five by five chamber with a stone door that was sealed with wax. At the top of the door was inscribed the name Barclay Llandyr and at the bottom was an inscription that read, “He loved his children as much as his music and both more than gold.” In between the inscriptions was a carving of a handsome, elegant man, winking at whoever stood in front of the door. He was surrounded by several musical instruments, including a harp, a large organ, and a lute.

The heroes broke the was seal and entered. A rush of air escaped as the door was opened. The small room beyond looked like it had not been disturbed since it was sealed. In the center of the room was a plain pall draped with simple…and very dusty…velvet cloth. A number of musical instruments sat about the room, all crumbled, warped, and dusty from time and disuse. However, a bit of music did waft through the room, clearly some sort of magical effect. The body in the pall was wrapped in a simple funeral cloth and, I think perhaps disappointingly for Bryn and her curiosity, with nothing else.

Another wall like this one was also found and also held a secret door. The small room beyond had another stone door. This one, however, did not have an intact wax seal. The name carved in the door was Maeve Llandyr. The image showed a woman reclining on a comfortable looking divan with an outstretched finger, a dragonfly landing upon it. Lush fruits and gold surrounded the woman and she had a sardonic, almost cruel, smile upon her face. The inscription under the image read, “She keeps what is hers.”

The small chamber beyond the door had no sarcophagus, coffin, or pall. Instead, a shriveled and dessicated body lay in the middle of the room. The back wall had over a hundred small ceramic jars stacked against it, each with a small label. The body looked to have once been a woman dressed in the shreds of what was probably once a fine evening gown or the like. The fingers of the body were all bent at very odd and unnatural angles and all of the teeth were missing. The labels on the jars were names…not that any meant anything to the heroes…and the jars contained ashes. Cremation jars perhaps? Many of them looked quite old but some looked pretty new.

With no apparent way out in this lower level and now fully geared, the heroes headed back up the stairs. Although they were not looking for a fight, the thugs above gave them no choice. I believe that there was at least one near casualty for the party as Bryn was badly wounded and fell unconscious but they took care of the thugs. The chapel looked like it had been visited by a wrecking crew…pillars had been knocked down, the altar damaged, and the walls pounded at. Almost as though someone was doing a major search. A set of double doors led out into the night and there was one other side door.

The heroes headed over to the side door and opened it. As they did so, the walls and floor shook. Beyond the door was a room covered in soot. A large metal box, almost coffin shaped, sat in the middle of the room atop a platform of sorts. Fresh firewood was stacked beneath it. The walls of the room began to crack and so the heroes, carrying Bryn, made all due haste for the double doors leading out.

As they made it outside, the building they had just exited shuddered and then began to collapse in upon itself. As Drogar (carrying the unconscious Bryn) and Shory hurried away, the rubble then collapsed into a large sinkhole, collapsing and covering–presumably–the lower level of the complex. They had escaped with their lives and their gear but they had no idea where they were. It was night and they were in the middle of some thick woods. Shory spotted no trail to suggest which direction to head so they decided they needed to take a well deserved rest a short distance away.

Drogar took watch while Shory rested and Bryn struggled to recover from her wounds. As he made some rounds, Drogar heard a sound–perhaps a footstep–directly behind him!

That, of course, is where we stopped this session. 😉

Like I said, probably missed some stuff and might have gotten the order of events a bit mixed up but it gives the general idea of what went on.