Session 6 Recap & Experience Points Awards

 

Cautiously, five weary explorers crept forward into a broad, domed cavern chamber where they hoped to pick up the trail of their missing comrade. They hadn’t known him all too well. But he was a sturdy trooper with a sharp blade, and all help was welcome in the perilous depths of the Rock Marsh.

Corso had come under the spell of poltergeists; spooked beyond rational thought, he’d taken off running into the dark unknown. The enchanter, Tristan Pureheart, tried to stop him. But Corso simply charged past, and soon disappeared into twists and turns of the haunted cavern. Now the party regrouped to carry on the search in a slow, methodical manner. But there remained no sign of the terrified hospitaller. Not even the shadowblade Ailier Solenight, a skilled tracker in the outdoors, could discern a single clue from the dirt and dredge of the cave floor.

About all the company did find was a strange, broad track in the dust—the unmistakable movement pattern of something wide and ponderous. There was truly no telling just what that might be, but with few other choices the party elected to follow it. This decision led them north through a new passage that dipped deeper into the earth, the temperature dropping precipitously as the group moved on. Nearing the end, the party sensed a faint humming sound, a monotone buzz that grew louder with each successive step, until finally the passage terminated in a deep, dead-end black chamber.

The cave was musty, frigid, and old, with a course floor crossed with rises and divots all over. The air hissed faintly from the middle, where the party set eyes upon a wide shambling mass of viscous dark vapor, purple and turbulent and sagging like a mattress stood on end. Semi-solid, the mass glowed and swirled with an internal light, flickered with wicked, bright yellows and streaks of pale blue. The spectacle was at once monstruous yet spectacular—so spectacular, indeed, that those who saw it struggled to look away.

Yet look away they did, just split-seconds after watching the colors form momentarily into a distinct teardrop-shaped crest with a flat blue bird—only for the image to instantly atomize into a churn of deconstructed energy once more. Unsure what to do, the party commenced an impromptu brainstorm here in the depths of the cavern. Might it be an illusion, one wondered aloud—but if so, perception in this case remained reality. Was it hostile? Might it even be friendly? There was no telling. Was it even a sentient being? One of the company tried speaking with the mass, but this proved of no avail.

Whatever it was, the violent energy maelstrom looked dangerous—and might well have had to do with the disappearance of their comrade, Brin Corso. But it drifted across the floor at almost painfully slow speeds, perhaps drawn to heat or energy or perhaps moving in entirely random patterns. Either way, it would not catch them of its own accord. Corso wasn’t here, and there were other paths to take. The party moved on, still troubled by the mystery of the shadowy mass.

Checking their bearings, the company found only one last unexplored region at the bottom of their map. Moving swiftly through the cavern, they reached another ample domed chamber, this one catching a slow but steady water drip from an unseen point high on the ceiling. The water dripped into a dark pool of cloudy water, smelling of sulfur and shot through with streaks of orange and dark greys and copious bubbles across the surface. Could Corso have found his way in here?

Wary of the pool, the dwarf Jadearch retrieved an ugly silver belt buckle he’d looted from a dead weremarten and lobbed it softly into the middle. Just as soon as the buckle smacked the surface the pool came alive with furious splashing and sloshing and bubbling. This continued for at least ten or fifteen violent seconds, then faded as the water calmed back down. There was something in there.

Several party members approached the water’s edge to investigate, and only now did they finally find trace of Brin Corso. His familiar boots lay partially dissolved at the water’s edge, and Vagar found his mostly-empty monogrammed coin purse a foot from the pool. But now would be no time to mourn. As the company drew near, suddenly a bedraggled tentacle of gull blue sludge shot from the water and lashed at the nearest body. That was Tristan, who saw the attack just in the scratch of time. He dodged out of the way, and his companions unleashed a torrent of arrows, crossbow bolts, and spear thrusts back at the origin point—not stopping until the waters fell silent again.

Moments later, the company watched as the inert remains of the aquatic ooze floated to the surface, where they steamed and dissolved into the acrid water. With the mystery of Corso’s disappearance now solved, the party decided to try a second time to unravel the secrets of what the dwarf Brodrath was now calling “the glitter shade.”

“Come to think of it,” the dwarf added, “I do recognize that crest. Think I seen a few of them up through the Fertile Pocket. They call it the Eagle of Awar.”

Perhaps there was more to know. The company trudged back to the northwest corner of their map, where again they picked up the ominous buzz of energy in the distance and cautiously crept up to the glitter shade—at all times averting their direct gaze. Here, the dwarf Jadearch would exploit the being’s ponderous pace to dodge around it and inspect the surrounding cavern. Tristan would take a more aggressive approach, having his comrades to tie a rope around his torso and then feeling his way along the wall into the cold of the glitter shade’s chamber.

As the being approached, Tristan decided to hold his mage’s staff outward, horizontally, to the meet its arrival. He would nearly pay for this decision with his life. No sooner did the glitter shade make dull contact with the staff, than a jolt of negative energy shot from the enchanter’s hands and up his arms and through his whole body—a withering strike that might well have killed him, had his companions not instantly pulled him away.

At this, Vagar released the first of his arrows toward the glitter shade, and then a second. But with the spellsword unable to gaze directly at the target, and uncertain how to discern center mass on a being such as this even if he could, both shots fell wide of their mark.

Meanwhile, Jadearch caught a glimpse of some object buried in the dust at the far end of the glitter shade’s chamber. On closer inspection, it proved to be the handle of a polished wooden cudgel—dusty, but still in fine condition and inscribed everywhere with unfamiliar runes. How such an item might have come to be here, or survived untold durations in the presence of the glitter shade, seemed nothing short of miraculous. “Magic,” the dwarf gasped, taking the cudgel into his grasp.

With little difficulty, the dwarf dodged back free out of the chamber and the five remaining members of the company turned their heels to the glitter shade once more. Within moments they would emerge back into daylight, heads above ground and again breathing the soggy air of the Rock Marsh.

“We’ll need someone back in town to inspect it,” Jadearch announced, producing the runed cudgel for all to see. “But I think it must be magical.”

For now, however, the group agreed the dwarven cleric Brodrath would carry it. The same Brodrath had lost his spear to the slime haunt in the Cave of Horrors, but his arm would be needed in battle. The horizon revealed two large rock formations still to be explored, and Sione Bari had warned of a weremarten shaman still lurking somewhere in the marsh. 

Adventure Notes

• Eagle of Awar.  North across the Three Sisters rivers lies the agricultural heartland of Sekara Valley: the Fertile Pocket. Many who have traveled through the region have reported seeing the colorful crest of the Awar family from time-to-time, whether painted on the occasional building or shield or stitched into a flag or banner. The significance of these appearances is not widely understood, as the crest is not an official symbol of the Amberdale Seat. But perhaps the greater controversy surrounds the species of the blue avian depicted on the crest; though known popularly as “the Eagle of Awar,” there are those insist quite forcefully that the bird is no eagle at all.  

• Glitter Shade. The untold variety of haunts and geists that arise in dark, remote places throughout the realm are believed to all have their own terrible stories. Indeed there are some who believe such spirits are created solely to record such tales, or link the ancient past with the long, unknowable future. What is a ghost, one wonders, if not a window into another time. Or dimension.

•  Runed Cudgel. The fine runed cudgel the company recovered from the glitter shade’s chamber is a single trunk of polished blackthorn, topped by a sinister knob of root wood. The craftsmanship is beautiful, and the weapon must bear an enchantment to have survived as it did, But the runes, which appear neither dwarven not elvish in origin, provide no discernable clue of its power. For purposes of game mechanics, the cudgel is equivalent to a mace: weighs 2 lbs., does d6 base damage, and is a basic weapon of the power style (i.e., enables use of a strength modifier).  

 Experience & Inspiration

·        The company defeated the aquatic ooze in battle this session. They also encountered the glitter shade and learned many of its characteristics. 360 XP.

 ·        The party completed its exploration of the Cave of Horrors. 75 XP.

 ·        The party learned the sad fate of Brin Corso. Though they regret being unable to save him, some in the company take solace in the fact that the complete annihilation of his earthly form will ensure he cannot rise as an undead being. At least, not unless it’s some kind of invisible undead being with no actual body. But who has ever come across anything like that? 50 XP.

 ·        The company recovered the runed cudgel from the glitter shade’s chamber. Ordinarily, the XP for recovering this treasure would not be awarded until its powers are discerned. Being it was a slow session, however, the company will receive a portion now. 325 XP.

 ·        Ailier Solenight is awarded one inspiration point for his suggestion that the party tie a rope to Tristan before he probed along the cave wall toward the glitter shade, which likely saved the enchanter’s life.

Session 6 totals: 810 XP

The total XP award from the session will be divided into nine shares:

• Jadearch (2 shares)
• Brodrath (1 share)
• Tristan Pureheart (2 shares)
• Vagar (2 shares)
• Ailier Solenight (2 shares)
• Brin Corso (1 share)

Of the total 810 XP, each share is worth 90 XP. Hence Brodrath gains 90 XP this session, while Jadearch, Tristan Pureheart, Vagar, and Ailier Solenight each gain 180 XP.

Bird Crest

 

Session 5 Recap & Experience Points Awards

 

Bidding farewell to Sione Bari, the company emerged back into the daylight and continued its search for the remaining martenweres. Trekking east, the party came first to a line of stones making a practical causeway across a wide channel in the Rock Marsh. Who might have placed the stones there, or why, or when—these were all questions so shrouded in mystery that none of the weary adventurers bothered asking. They simply formed up, and proceeding cautiously across—vigilantly scanning through the entire crossing for alligators and other waterborne threats.  

But they reached the other side safely and without incident. There, the party immediately came upon a fantastic stone lady, carved into an outcropping on the western face of another towering rock formation. Seemingly elven or half-elven, the long-haired, slender figure wore flowing robes and held an ornate mage’s staff in her right hand. The elves in the company immediately recognized her as the revered Aisul Awar, a Sentinel of the Last Age.  

Why such an immaculate carving of the venerated alpine elf would be found here was not entirely clear. But the domains of the Five Sentinels were never clearly marked. And the Rock Marsh does not lie so far from the Fertile Pocket—the highly-arable region of the valley and crossed by the great “Three Sisters” rivers. It was in the slopes above these rivers above that Awar settled and built her famous Chateau of the Three Sisters—and perhaps in the Last Age her gaze did extend so far as these swamps.

Whatever its origin or purpose, the company quickly found that the statue marked a narrow path through weeds and muck, leading around the sheer cliff face and to an easy track up the rock mount. Climbing quickly up, the group reached its broad, mostly flat summit and gazed down upon a full 360º view of the Rock Marsh. Above, however, clouds and gloom still concealed the far horizons.

But with more caves to uncover and more martenweres to confront, the company did not linger long. Scampering back down to ground level, the party proceeded eastward around the broad rock tower and before long passed a conspicuous barrow mound off the edge of the furrowed footpath. There was no marker other than a pattern of white-bleached stones, arranged in a symmetrical “S” shape, that topped the piled earth.

The company probed around the grave for clues. The grave looked fairly recent—less than a year old. But there was no indication of its occupant’s identity, or who dug the grave or placed the stones upon it. At last the elven spellsword Vagar began dislodging the stone to check beneath them. But there was nothing to be found—not on the surface, anyway. None in the party could tell whether merely moving the stones had crossed any line drawn in the canons of whichever unknown deity oversaw this tomb. But excavation surely would, so the party moved on.

Following the trail as it dipped southward to a broad black crag, the company soon came upon the yawning entrance to yet another cave. A brief search revealed a second, less conspicuous entrance—but one that also dove sharply into the ground and was so tight that the characters would need to have crawled through. So the party opted for the broad opening, which sloped gently downward into a sweeping tunnel branches that branched off in several directions.

The company opted for the first left turn, with the dwarves Jadearch and Brodrath leading the way into what proved an ample, slightly domed chamber. The walls and floors, they suddenly noticed, were preternaturally clean. But just as they began to grasp their very surroundings, a fearsome sludge suddenly dropped from above the remaining party members who toed the chamber’s threshold or lingered in the passageway behind.

Tristan the enchanter had the misfortune of being the seeming actual target of this clearly animated mass, but he dodged out of the way with astonishing ease and left the mass to reconstitute itself on the floor amidst the startled adventurers.

The company wasted not a single moment. They promptly beat the  strange, living goop with their clubs and staves—and most especially the battle axe of the burly hospitaller Brin Corso, which definitively ended the threat.

“Well,” muttered Jadearch. “Guess that explains that.” The dwarf’s simple comment connected the toxic, deteriorating remains of the grey ooze to the remarkable cleanliness of the room. This was a being not unknown to the realm; elders who sought to keep children out of cellars and crawlspaces often warned children of such sludge creatures, though they not actually seen frequently enough for their existence to be universally agreed upon. But now six men knew for sure.

The gray ooze had clearly consumed anything and everything there was to be consumed in here, right down to the very dirt and dust of the floor. But now its remnants lingered only as a hazard to be stepped-around; no longer did it move, think, or attack.

With this chamber about as literally empty as conceivable, the party returned to the main tunnel and this time too the first rightward turn. This time, the side tunnel continued some distance to a second fork—one tine jogging left and carrying on, the other tine jogging right into another domed cavern. But this time, there was hardly a decision to be made.

As the party approached the division point, a small rock flew startlingly—if harmlessly—from the domed chamber and clanged off the rock wall before the company. Then came another, and an ominous deep groan, and then another rock. Yet there seemed to be no one there.

Several members of the party moved forward to the chamber in hopes of learning who or what had hurled these stones. But on entering, instantly both Brin Corso and the dwarven cleric Brodrath would turn pale as snow and race hysterically away. To their companions, the resolute terror in both men’s eyes was troubling—and yet familiar.  This had not been the company’s first run-in with paranormal fear. Indeed mere hours had passed since Corso himself had last been in the throes of a similarly unnatural trance, one the company suspected may have been magically induced. Now, he was at it again.

And the affliction was worse this second time. For not only had Corso gone running aimlessly down the southward passage, but in turning to flee he had thrown down his battle axe—which the company saw land in a vile puddle of green and red slime that criss-crossed the floor in streaks. Immediately the acidic slime began to dissolve the weapon—helplessly corroding it beyond utility within seconds and making clear that just minutes later the axe would be fully disappeared. Meanwhile the cleric Brodrath threw his own weapon down to meet the same fate—before charging helplessly into darkness along the opposite, northerly path. And still the agonizing groans taunted the party, and still small rocks flew through the air to harass them.

 Realizing the unknown perils their fleeing comrades might stumble into, Ailier Solenight followed Brodrath to the north while Tristan chased Brin Corso to the south. Meanwhile, Vagar the spellsword joined Jadearch in the slime-ridden chamber where the two tracked the hurled stones to three strange, invisible sources. Using silvered weapons and a burning hands spell, the duo managed to swiftly destroy their tormentors—with the magical fire also clearing a good amount of the slime from the chamber floor as well. But the pursuit of the fear-ridden allies would not go nearly as smoothly.

Brodrath reached the end of the north-bearing passage before Ailier caught up to him. There, the passage switched sharply south and Ailier tackled the dazed dwarf just as he awkwardly shifted his course. Luckily, nothing came to meet the pair as Ailier held the dwarf down and waited for the terror episode to pass.

Meanwhile, however, Tristan struggled to catch up with the fleeting form of Brin Corso as he scurried through the twisty southern passages. His best opportunity came when Corso doddered into the grey ooze chamber and almost served himself up as a final meal for the already-deceased sludge being—then reversed course and came face-to-face with Tristan rushing back up the entry hall. Yet Tristan, perhaps confused by the hospitaller’s erratic movements, failed to lay a hand on him. Corso rushed off to the west, and disappeared into a series of forked passageways and branching caverns.

Tristan gave chase for a moment. But when he failed to discern Corso’s path, returned to regroup with the others. Where Brin Corso was now, and what dangers his uncontrolled panic might have carried into, the company dared not imagine.  

Adventure Notes

• Aisul Awar. Little is known in Sekara Valley of the Alpine elven society west of the mountains. Yet most hold the Alpine Elves in high regard for their most famous daughter, Aisul Awar, Sentinel of the Last Age. Known to have been an arcane mage, Awar’s magics are believed to have ensured the bounty of the Fertile Pocket for decades and enabled the rapid growth of the great city Amberdale from what had been in her childhood nothing but an obscure trading post. On the high slopes to the west, Awar’s Chateau of the Three Sisters still stands overlooking those three rivers—even if the people of Sekara Valley have long since lost track, and interest, in the names of those who fill the rooms of that citadel this day.
  

• Grey Ooze. Among the more deadly creatures the company has encountered in its travels so far is the grey ooze--a living mass of corrosive sludge that so resembles wet rock or melted stone as to be practically invisible within caverns and other subterranean environments. It's incredible camouflage makes the grey ooze highly capable of surprise attack, though with fortune having luckily steered this one to the side, what damage the being actually inflicts on those stricken by its surface remains in some question.

• Poltergeist. Of the many varieties of spirits and haunts known to inhabit the realms, perhaps the most common are the “noisy ghosts,” often called by the Khelgir word “poltergeist,” so often found in old ruins, underground caverns, and other forgotten places. Invisible and sometimes dismissed as mere hallucinations, these spiteful spirits aim try to terrify all who cross their paths—usually through dreadful howls and by hurling small objects with their telekinetic powers. Some poltergeists have also been known to generate highly corrosive, substances known as “slimes,” which can prove destructive or even lethal to any who come into contact with them. Others are rumored to possess even greater powers.

Poltergeist (slime haunt variant)

HP: 2d8    AC: 4    THAC0: n/a

Abilities: invisibility, telekinesis, cause fear (40 radius), only silver or magic weapons can damage

Special: always surrounded by slimes. Characters affected by the poltergeist’s fear have a risk of stepping in the slime, or may discard handheld objects which may land in the slime.

• Slime. The umbrella term “slime” refers generally to any number of sticky, corrosive substances that tend to appear in dark places, often in connection with undead or otherworldly beings. Exactly what chemicals and ichors these slimes are formed from is not well understood, particularly as slimes tend to be unstable and extremely hazardous. Some have even suggested slimes may be sentient beings; this seems dubious, though there can be little doubt that significant biological processes are at work within many (and perhaps all) varieties of slime.

Slimes are generally grouped by colors, of which the most dangerous is are believed to be those of bright green hue. A sufficient quantity of green slime will dissolve animal flesh almost instantly, and metal or wood in over a slightly longer period. Whether or to what extent the dangers of red or blue slime differs from green is not well known—and it is, of course, widely believed that slimes can appear in a practically endless variety of colors.

Experience & Inspiration

• The party defeated a grey ooze and 3 slime haunts in battle. 650 XP.

• The party continued its exploration of the Rock Marsh. Important discoveries included the carved lady, a strange grave with bleached stones arranged in an “S” pattern, and another cave complex. 110 XP.

• The party was also able to ascend the central rock formation, enabling them to see substantially the entire Rock Marsh from above. 125 XP.

Session 5 totals: 885 XP

As noted previously, XP awards from now on will be divided as follows:

• One share to each participating character;
• One share to each participating player.

Applying these rules to this session results in the following distribution:

• Jadearch (2 shares)
• Brodrath (1 share)
• Tristan Pureheart (2 shares)
• Vagar (2 shares)
• Ailier Solenight (2 shares)
• Brin Corso (1 share)

This makes for a total of 10 shares, hence easy math for the DM. Of the total 885 XP, each share is worth 88.5 XP, which we shall round up to 89 XP. Hence Brodrath and Brin Corso each gain 89 XP this session, while Jadearch, Tristan Pureheart, Vagar, and Ailier Solenight each gain 178 XP.

The Rock Marsh (trailhead marked)