blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Session 12: ~3 hours total
#1) 90 minutes, 800 XP each, 0 crits, 0 dailies, 1 action points, 6 surges. 5 rounds vs 2x brute 14s, 2x soldier 9s with ~400 hps (mostly insubstantial).
Once we got the large, runed door open, the tunnel behind it forked. One corridor went up towards some barracks, while the other went down towards the mines. Fresh air wafted from the mines, so we elected to go down there. The floor and walls were covered in a strange sand that piled deeper in the corners. In places, old gobs of balhannoth slime were crusted with the sand.
At the end of the tunnel was a sealed metal double door. A turn of the wheel, and it opened easily with a hiss of air. A 40' by 40' room lay before us, an identical metal door on the other side. The walls were covered in 1' tiles, and we noticed a discoloured one over the opposite door. The bard activated his spider-climbing boots, ran straight over, and naturally triggered the trap. The doors we came through closed, but not before the minotaur shoved his mithral crowbar through to prevent it from closing completely.
That's when the ghosts came up through the floor and the walls started closing in on us. It got even more exciting when we saw through the crack in the crowbar-wedged door that a veritable swarm of blue glowing bugs was coming down the hall after us. When somebody noticed that they had feathery antennae and propeller tails we pretty much flipped out.
We pulled the crowbar out of the first door, picked the three locks to open the far door, shoved monsters around to clear the path (and get their damn auras off us), vainly tried to fight off annoying visions that dazed us, and soaked up a ton of damage while doing all that. To add insult to injury, the bloody ghosts ate healing surges when they died, leaving the drow rogue at 0 surges with a fair amount of damage left to heal.
Once we had killed the last monsters, we cleaned ourselves up and kept going down the tunnel. Sarcophagi with haut relief dwarves on the lids rested in alcoves on both sides. Past the catacomb, another tunnel joined up with the one we were following. This time, the way forward had a stiff breeze blowing towards us, while the new branch had another sign indicating that it led back to the barracks. A faint prismatic light could be seen coming from the barracks corridor.
One hand of fate later, we knew that the breezy tunnel was the safest path into Ariel, but that there were balhannoths that way. Strangely, somebody was attempting to interfere with our ritual by guiding the magical hand with multicoloured sand. It kept trying to point the finger towards the barracks. Hardly even suspicious.
Curiosity got the better of us, and we headed back up the narrow passage into the barracks. What we found was a fissure that led into a strange egg-shaped room. The prismatic light emanated from a planar gate inside. We squirmed through the fissure and noticed bright blue scales brushing against the other side of portal. The wizard activated the gate, and a bright blue couatl flew into the ovoid chamber.
It offered to help us for a price. It would heal us if we would promise to help it by doing certain specific good deeds in its name. Hell yeah! It turns out its name sounded like a beautiful blast of trumpets and an angelic choir, but we could call it Blue. We agreed to Blue's terms, and he restored a huge number of surges to us and also gave us back the daily power of our choice. (Considering at this point we've earned a level and a half during since our last extended rest, it was incredibly helpful.)
#1) 90 minutes, 800 XP each, 0 crits, 0 dailies, 1 action points, 6 surges. 5 rounds vs 2x brute 14s, 2x soldier 9s with ~400 hps (mostly insubstantial).
Once we got the large, runed door open, the tunnel behind it forked. One corridor went up towards some barracks, while the other went down towards the mines. Fresh air wafted from the mines, so we elected to go down there. The floor and walls were covered in a strange sand that piled deeper in the corners. In places, old gobs of balhannoth slime were crusted with the sand.
At the end of the tunnel was a sealed metal double door. A turn of the wheel, and it opened easily with a hiss of air. A 40' by 40' room lay before us, an identical metal door on the other side. The walls were covered in 1' tiles, and we noticed a discoloured one over the opposite door. The bard activated his spider-climbing boots, ran straight over, and naturally triggered the trap. The doors we came through closed, but not before the minotaur shoved his mithral crowbar through to prevent it from closing completely.
That's when the ghosts came up through the floor and the walls started closing in on us. It got even more exciting when we saw through the crack in the crowbar-wedged door that a veritable swarm of blue glowing bugs was coming down the hall after us. When somebody noticed that they had feathery antennae and propeller tails we pretty much flipped out.
We pulled the crowbar out of the first door, picked the three locks to open the far door, shoved monsters around to clear the path (and get their damn auras off us), vainly tried to fight off annoying visions that dazed us, and soaked up a ton of damage while doing all that. To add insult to injury, the bloody ghosts ate healing surges when they died, leaving the drow rogue at 0 surges with a fair amount of damage left to heal.
Once we had killed the last monsters, we cleaned ourselves up and kept going down the tunnel. Sarcophagi with haut relief dwarves on the lids rested in alcoves on both sides. Past the catacomb, another tunnel joined up with the one we were following. This time, the way forward had a stiff breeze blowing towards us, while the new branch had another sign indicating that it led back to the barracks. A faint prismatic light could be seen coming from the barracks corridor.
One hand of fate later, we knew that the breezy tunnel was the safest path into Ariel, but that there were balhannoths that way. Strangely, somebody was attempting to interfere with our ritual by guiding the magical hand with multicoloured sand. It kept trying to point the finger towards the barracks. Hardly even suspicious.
Curiosity got the better of us, and we headed back up the narrow passage into the barracks. What we found was a fissure that led into a strange egg-shaped room. The prismatic light emanated from a planar gate inside. We squirmed through the fissure and noticed bright blue scales brushing against the other side of portal. The wizard activated the gate, and a bright blue couatl flew into the ovoid chamber.
It offered to help us for a price. It would heal us if we would promise to help it by doing certain specific good deeds in its name. Hell yeah! It turns out its name sounded like a beautiful blast of trumpets and an angelic choir, but we could call it Blue. We agreed to Blue's terms, and he restored a huge number of surges to us and also gave us back the daily power of our choice. (Considering at this point we've earned a level and a half during since our last extended rest, it was incredibly helpful.)
