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| Another session Mayfly has to miss out on... |
Mayfly joins his compansion at the best and only bar in Nightwick village to raise a glass to their safe return and hear about their adventure. Complicated studies with the wizard Halfdan has kept Mayfly from returning to those hellish crypts. Here is the account of their 5th of Youngers delve :
The Party
Glurp (Frogling)
Corfu (Dwarf)
Ulf (Magic-User)
Ianthe (Changeling)
Jek (Fighter)
Hirelings: Cunrat, Pawel, Mach, Heyno, Ticze, Bartel, Assmus
Into Nightwick Abbey…
The Ratmen: The party decides to return, through the western tower, to the room with the four great columns where they fought the deermen a few weeks back. The room is still empty and the party explores to the south, Ianthe poking her head in. There’s an alcove where the walls have fleshy tumors coming out of them. Glurp and Cunrat approach the walls and 8 knee-high ratmen with the faces of old men burst out of the tumors. The two groups are unsure of how to regard the others and Corfu, hesitant to harm any spawn of the stone, tosses them a ration in a diplomatic effort. Unfortunately, this only angers them, prompting them to attack. Fortunately (for them), the ratmen were each “birthed” holding stone daggers. After a full round of misses, Ulf casts light on one of the creatures, blinding it. Cunrat is stabbed in the calf and then he, Corfu, and Bartle all fell a old-man ratman with a single hit each.
At this, their morale is broken, but with nowhere to run they cower in a corner. Corfu interrogates one, “What have you done to the stone?” The ratmen don’t (can’t?) say anything, merely making hand gestures almost resembling devout prayers, and the group decides to put an end to the rest of them. Ulf notices that not blood, but a cloudy liquid is pouring out of them and he collects a sample. At this point, Jak and Assmus show up, having been left behind at the tavern when they went to relieve themselves. [Jak’s player had to show up late to the session]. Ulf studies the creatures further while Jak is being caught up to speed, and identifies them as Mites, also known as Dregs - beings that are spontaneously generated in ruins of a certain age.
The Mounted Heads: The party then goes north, past the room where they fought the deermen and go down a new corridor. They stop at the entrance to a room, across from them is a doorway filled with a fleshy, purple substance, like they’ve encountered elsewhere in the abbey. On either side of the door are a total of 16 women’s heads, mounted on the wall. Glurp and Cunrat step inside the room carefully and the heads start screaming immediately, the sound reverberating through the abbey. Glurp chops one of the heads off, revealing that it was connected to some sort of bloody stump running through the stone wall, and it stops screaming. They step back out of the room and the mounted heads immediately stop screaming. The party quickly realizes that these heads will likely alert someone or something to their presence, so they leave the area, thinking of ways to come back later and bypass the security system. They go back south and then east, into a familiar room with large columns, depicting stairways up to heaven with alcoves holding icons of the saints. Some of the party had previously been in this room, but had come in from the East Tower - they had now mapped out a path underground between the two towers. They go north into the mirrored room, some of the party members cautiously, remembering what had happened last time they were here, but no mirror-version of any party members materializes and they pass through peacefully. Corfu, through his dwarven heritage, recognizes the room as a representation of the Inverse of the God of Law and connects that Mayfly had the copy of himself made last time because he had committed a mortal sin previously.
Onto the Room of Sinners Listening at the door beyond the mirror room, Jek hears sounds which, as a woodsman by trade, he recognizes as a wounded deer. The party makes a plan, and, as soon as Jek opens the door (revealing numerous deermen in the room beyond - just as suspected), Ulf and Ianthe throw flaming oil at the first ones they see. Ianthe then casts sleep over 6 more deermen, causing the rest to flee to the east - the sound of their hooves clopping fading away until it is suddenly cut off.
The layout of this room mirrors the room to the south depicting the God of Law, only this room - its floor is painted to depict a dragon’s mouth, the giant pillars in the room show sinners descending into its open maw. The ceiling depicts the night sky, with a faint twinkle seen in the torchlight. The party realizes that it’s the twinkle of gems embedded in the ceiling and they carefully, hoping that the deermen don’t return, extract a total of 20 gems - not a bad haul considering the previous week they had found almost no treasure. They then decide to return to town through the East Tower to see if that did anything (it didn’t) and celebrated the haul over drinks at the tavern.
Before Mayfly can inquire any more, he spots again a black bear and darts off...
