Conallglen Session 7

Continuing their exploration of Ednowain’s Keep, the party had discovered an older section of corridors and chambers below the keep that looked to have not been visited in quite some time, predating Ednowain’s occupation of the keep. The tunneling activities of the giant ants had opened this once sealed section. The Fellguard, an old organization known for hunting down and destroying or banishing creatures from other planes, had built the complex and apparently used it as a tomb for one of their major heroes, Ulrich. The heroes fought many undead and recovered an obviously magical dagger before heading back out into the other sections of Ednowain’s keep and discovering that others had their own plans for the keep.

This write up is from RJ (who is playing Drogar).

There are potential spoilers below the break for the adventures, “The Crucible of Freya,” from Necromancer Games (although a heavily modified version) and, “The Mysterious Tower,” from Goodman Games (also a heavily modified version). I also drew from Weapons of Legacy from WotC for some ideas and images I used.

Shory comes first into the tunnel, and there is a cavern to the right and she sees dead ants stacked up with wood pulp. We continue on and on one side of the tunnel (about 15 feet) there is a marble wall. We assume it is part of the tower. Also in the cavern to the left there are several dozen, what we assume are ant eggs on the floor. As she moves into the room she hears from a click clack sound coming from the tunnel to the left. She pokes her head in and there appears to be a gigantic ant, we assume it’s the queen ant, laying eggs. We decided not to go into the room, since it looks like the queen can’t move or even get out of the cavern.

We search the marble wall for an entrance, but can’t find one. I dig around the wall where the tower meets the cavern and realize that it is a corner and continues on. I tell the party that I could go deeper with proper tools, but with what is available it will take several weeks to get thru
As I am working on the wall, we hear a yell, “Mama.” The sound is going away from us, and we hear another yell a little farther away from us “Mama?” Then we hear it closer “MAMA!!!” and a goblin runs into the room right at Clarissa. She tries to grab him as he leaps at her but misses and the little bugger starts to bite her (which does nothing to her with her armor on), hug her, and what looks like hump her. She shakes him off and he stands up and runs right at Bryn who punches him and Reamus smashes his staff on his head. Reminds me of a Dwarven children’s song, …”bop the goblins head, pop, pop, pop…” ah memories.

There is another note pinned to the goblin, ‘Give me the Key or die. Zotzpox’ All the E’s were backwards again. We decide to press on.

We move back towards the small tunnel we saw earlier and I elect to go thru and hope it leads us out. It takes me a while to get about 150 feet and still no exit. It even takes me longer to get back since I am going backwards. When I get back, I am told that Zotzpox was here. I am told he threatened us, taunted Clarissa about taking someone’s love and then her life. How that person was left unguarded and how we were such heroes (sounds like he is being sarcastic). He goes on about how the treasure is his and started bargaining with us. Reamus tried to get close to him but Zotzpox moved away and left us.

I wasn’t sure what time it was, being knocked out and wounded did a number on me. No one else is quite sure either, so we head back to the opening. When we get there it is dark, as we look at the opening closer there appears to be a tarp over the hole. We hear Zotzpox again “I covered the hole and you will be buried alive.” We turn to walk away and he says “how rude and I was going to give you Oscar”. I perk up at that but am hustled back down the tunnel.

We come to the decision that we need check everywhere and that the brick wall is the next best place to start. We start to gather the old rusty swords to work on the mortar, when another goblin wearing a mask comes running into the room, I just reacted and about chopped it’s head off. Pinned to the goblin is another note: ‘Another messenger will arrive in 30 minutes, in an hour come to the opening, I will give you Oscar for the key. P.S. send this one back with your response’. Oops. I take the mask off the goblin and put it away. I am thinking if he doesn’t know what the key looks like maybe we can trick him with a different key.

We reach the brick wall and start working on some of mortar. I get one brick out and see that there is another brick wall behind the first. We start pulling bricks out to get a better look, when there is another yell “MAMA!!!” and another goblin runs by us, with something in its mouth. Clarissa is watching where it went down the tunnel when it turns around and yells “MAMA!!!” again and again jumps on Clarissa. This time she punches the goblin and it is knocked out, another note is pinned to its chest ‘Another token of my faith. Clarissa goes down the tunnel where the goblin went and finds a tongue on the floor. We continue working on the wall until we think its time to see what Zotzpox wants.

When we reach the room with the opening, hanging from a rope is a body. It is a human tied up with rope with part of its body hanging out of the hole. There are several scars on its face, there is blood around the mouth, and its mumbling.

We hear Zotzpox from around the corner say “I brought Oscar now give me the key. “ The body is slowly lowered to and one of its pants leg drops down to reveal a tattoo of a dragonfly on his leg. I get the fake key out. He responds, “The right KEY!” I respond, “This is the right key.” He goes into its not the right one, I tell him it is, he tells me its not, I says it is, blah, blah, blah and the twins rush around the corner to get the little bugger. We all rush behind them, I can see a flash of light, and then a moment later his voice comes from behind us and supposedly Oscar’s body starts to be pulled back into the hole.

Clarissa yells “Wait, what about a we make a different deal.” Zotzpox “A deal, hmmm…go on.” There is some haggling over treasure, magical items, monetary items, Oscar, and I believe I mention Desperado as well. Romulus steps into the discussion, “there is one thing that we will need and is non-negotialbe that we take.”

Zotzpox responds, “Interesting and what is this thing that you seek.”
Romulus squirms a bit, “It is a spell that holds th secret of Lichdom and I won’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”

Zotzpox responds ‘Fine, how about this 70-30 on the magical items, you get the secret of becoming a lich as you first pick, and we will go one for one, and you get all the monetary items as well. And I will throw Oscar in as well. “ We discuss it, and decide its probably the best deal we are going to get and agree to it. Zotzpox appears before Romulus and says “I have your word that you will follow threw this?” Romulus shakes his head and they shake on it.

Zotzpox flies up threw the hole and moments later, supposedly Oscars body is thrown down the hole. We check and he is dead, “Here is the first part of our deal.”

A Rope is lowered and we are pulled up, one by one. As I get up to the top, I see Carga and Cargo pulling us me up. There are about a dozen Orcs, and a dozen Gnolls with bows trained on me. I see several goblins running around as well. Everyone gets pulled up and it looks like we may have to fight our way out of this when Zotzpox says “remember I am the only one keeping you alive they think they are getting the treasure.” It seems he has us over a barrel right now.

We start to head out of the keep, everyone following us. Carga is looking at me and sees me looking back, “Chewy” as she bites off a piece of bone. I respond, “Tough”. She says, “No you Chewy” and reaches out and pinches my butt. I decide to let that one go for now and continue walking. We are heading to the bandits caves. There is a call from one of the Orcs and ropes are dropped down. Six of the Gnolls go up and we follow. The Orcs and half Orges are staying down, maybe we have a chance up there. Once we get up there, that plan is shot because there are dozens of Orcs and Gnolls already up here.

There is a palsied at the top, Orcs with long spears jostle us thru the opening I get pushed and I push back, the Orc growls and pushes me to the floor, several bows are drawn back and I stop what I am doing. I get up and slowly move thru the palsied. As Shory is going thru the opening, an Orc steps up to her and grabs her breast, says something in Orcish and the others laugh. Clarissa says “Zotzpox, this is not what we agreed to.” He says, “I didn’t agree to your safety, but I will do what I can. I only have so much control you understand.” He tells them “do not touch them again.” There is some growling but they step out of the way and we continue on.

The cave opens up into a much wider cavern, about 25 feet in height and in the middle is a tower made of white marble that flows up into cave ceiling. All round the tower are Orcs, Gnolls, and goblins (dozens of each). There are torches spread out all along the wall. We approach the tower, and none of the monsters move out of our way. The tower is square and on the other side of the cavern are several other tunnels.

As I get closer, Zotzpox says “get your key out dwarf and open the door.” I don’t see a door, but as Clarissa gets closer a door comes into view. I tell Zotxpox “There it is”. He responds “then open it.” I try to push it but it won’t budge. There is nothing for me to grab onto to pull it open. Clarissa steps up and pushes and it opens up inside. A wrath of Air flows out and the smell of death and decay washes over us.

Reamus goes and gets a torch off the wall, but one of the Orcs growls “Put it back”. He pulls out one of his torches and lights it, then throws the torch at the wall and heads back towards the tower.

Zotzpox says “I will wait out here for you.” The mobsters seem to get a silent command and start to heard us into the tower. Romulus as the last one, has to squeeze by and an Orc who nips at him but misses. Clarissa closes the door as we hear Zotzpox “I will be waiting.” Inside on the ground floor, there appears to be a couch/sofa, table maybe, books, and parchments all torn up and placed in the middle of the room. There is also some stairs leading to a door, at the bottom of the stairs there is a body lying in a pool of old blood. We turn the body over and there is no face and the body is very decayed. It looks to be dressed in servants clothes. The body appears to be well preserved.

Before we move on, the twins want to be ready and start to prepare their spells as we keep watch. Once they are done we move up to the door, we see bits of silver on the floor. We pick up the silver pieces and it looks to be like someone was trying to flatten some buttons to make as some kind of spike; maybe to jam in the door. Bryn listens at the door but doesn’t hear anything, Reamus says wait and starts to mumble, at the end of his spell he shivers and says “there is no magical trap, but something knows we are here and its hungry” as he looks up at the ceiling.

Bryn takes the lead and opens the door. There is a hallway that leads to the left and a door as well. She goes to the end of the hallway and it turns to the right, she sees stairs and another door at the top of the stairs. She heads back to the door and listens, but doesn’t hear anything. She spends some time searching for any trip wires or poisoned needles but finds nothing. She opens the door and sees two shambling bodies start towards her. One reaches her before she can react and claws at her. She is hurt and stumbles back to the wall. Clarissa steps in and knocks one down. Three more appear and Romulus grabs his holy symbol and is praying. The bodies back up and as they do Shory shoots one and it goes down. We all get inside the room and take the rest out.

The room looks to be an old servants quarters/kitchen, the bodies appear dressed in servant robes and are very decayed. There are a few cots and foot lockers in the room as well, but nothing of value appears to be in the room. We rest a little while the twins heal us up.

We head up the stairs, listen at the door but do not hear anything. Bryn finds no traps and opens the door. It looks to be about the same set up, hallway with a door to the left. We stop at the door, listen and Bryn checks for traps. Romulus puts a spell on Bryn to protect her from evil since she is the front. We open the door, and inside is a book shelf, a table, a circle in the room (looks like one of them summoning things I have heard about), and four statue like armor around the room. On the table are tubes and glassware. There are books on the shelves and looks like several things have been torn up in this room. There appears to be a piece of parchment in the circle as well. Bryn steps in and starts to examine the statues of armor, she knocks on one and its arm swings at her…

And that’s where we stopped for the night.