Session 15 - Monday, February 6, 2024
We started this session looking at a blank wall. The players had worked out it would be opened when they pulled both levers at once, but let's consider the wall. How out of place it seems. How pulling the levers is going to rotate a section of the dungeon they don't know exists so they can get into it.
I'm sure that some groups discovered the secret doors earlier and were frustrated by the dead ends. But not my group. There had always been regular doors to open. So, the secret centre of the dungeon was immaterial. Pulling both levers at once wasn't even something that took them long to work out. For a dwarven crypt with a complicated puzzle to enter its heart... it wasn't all that complicated.
But finally, the levers were pulled, and the wall pulled upwards into the ceiling revealing... six more crypt guardians.
Oh, hell.
Total Party Kill (Averted)
There is a trick to getting past the crypt guardians, but it requires a lot of luck and isn't all that obvious. If anyone's group worked it out, please let me know. What my party did was fight.
As with last session, this was a long fight. And for my party, who had not rested and were low in spells and hit points, it was not going so well. Except Syzoth, with that artificer's eye for detail, noticed that the crypt guardians were lined up underneath where the wall had been. So, he sent Jake the rogue back to one of the levers, and got him to operate it.
The adventure does not say what happens when a lever is pulled again. Must both be used simultaneously? I decided that only one need be activated. And so the wall swiftly descended, damaging some of the crypt guardians that were too slow to get out of the way. And, because of how the space worked, half of them jumped into the main room, the others were left in their original chamber, unable to get to the party.
Once Vel'rali realised he could cast protection from evil and good again, twinning it to affect both Simeon and Killin, things went a lot better. Both the fighter and the paladin have good armour classes, but not good enough against the incredibly hard-hitting guardians. But when the spell was in effect? Only Simeon got hit. Once. Most of which was absorbed by temporary hit points granted by the construct.
Eventually the guardians on this side were slain, and Jake and Vel'rali raced to raise the wall again before they could heal too much. And then Vel'rali blundered - he ran into melee. Not protected by the protection spell, he took a couple of nasty hits. Luckily for the party, he made both Concentration saves, and the group was able to defeat the guardians before he was overwhelmed. But it was close.
As a Divine Sorcerer, melee is NOT your friend.
The Ghosts of Dwarves Past
At this point they discovered the secret door that led into the central chamber. Well, one of them. Syzoth, upon noticing the other doors, asked me if they could have just bypassed the rest of the dungeon, and I explained how the levers worked.
There's some really great artwork of three dwarven wraiths flying around the big not-an-emerald in the centre of the room, and I happily showed it to the players as they approached through the five-foot-wide corridor. The adventure notes that the wraiths don't leave the room. If the players realised this could have been a very easy encounter.
As it happened, it was still easy. Wraiths are scary when they hit, but both Simeon and Killin have ACs of about 20, and the party were doing a lot of damage to the undead. It was all over in a few rounds.
The not-an-emerald was a gemstone, it was green, and the party took a break of ten minutes so Syzoth could cast identify. In that way he learnt of the mind flayer corruption - and how to purify it (by defeating one more of the "echo" encounters). I prefer it when players get to learn about what's going on. They took a chip of the emerald to give to the friendly svirfneblin (who was very happy when presented with it), and finding nothing else of interest, proceeded onwards.
The Last Echo
One more door led to a mummy guarded by a shield guardian. They have a story; the party wasn't interested. Defeating them would cleanse the place, so that's what they did.
For a party who were really down on their resources, they were blitzing through these encounters. Simeon did take a big hit from the mummy, but he made his Constitution save against the mummy rot, but the fire-using characters had a ball with the mummy, even with the Shield Guardian giving protection. Once the mummy was down, the shield guardian deactivated.
Although the adventure doesn't mention its control amulet, I ruled it was there and Syzoth snaffled it. He'd give it (and its companion) to Sister Garaele, feeling very amused by the idea of protecting Phandalin with a phalanx of Shield Guardians.
With the last echo removed, the characters all gained the Blessing of Dumathoin. They all gained darkvision (range not specified. Sigh). If they already had it, they could now see in colour! I really appreciate this reward. Not gold, but really valuable.
The Obsidian Shard
With the crypt purified, the spectres that would have barred passage to the Shard were now gone. I do appreciate that it is in this final room because a wizard used passwall to get it here. The players retrieved it and returned to Phandalin, where Killin bought a set of plate armour.
Here's a question: What the hell does the adventure think the players are doing with the shards once they retrieve them? These ones are FIFTY POUNDS EACH!
(The answer: It doesn't think about the fragments at all.)
I'm very underwhelmed by the Crypt of the Talhund. It has some interesting concepts, but unfortunately those concepts boil down to "kill one enemy after another". Even when the giant green gem is found, it doesn't do a thing. There's some nice history, but it isn't used in a way that is apparent to the players.
Gibbet Crossing
The final obelisk fragment was meant to be at this place. There were two potential tunnels into the dungeon, one from the wilderness, the other from Talhundered. The players took the latter, believing it to be less travelled. They were correct.
This led them to a barred door - and barred from their side. What was so fearsome in the dungeon that no-one wanted it to leave?
Soon enough they found their first answer: Two Ropers!
Syzoth hates Ropers. With good reason. Soon enough the surprised party were all captured by the Ropers and slowly dragged closer. Big bites were taken out of a couple before Simeon and Jake wriggled free and began attacking effectively - Simeon shielding Jake and the Ropers unable to roll high enough to ensnare him again. Simeon now had an AC of 21 thanks to the Artificer.
The party sighed in relief when the Ropers were dead. The adventure notes that one Roper tries to flee south, but with a 10 foot speed, how does it expect it to get there?
(Especially in the Roll20 conversion, where the Ropers are at the far end of the corridor).
Blurry Communication
The party now found the room the roper would have retreated to, if it were possible. It was large and infused with an ancient magic that made everyone inside appear blurry.
Both Syzoth and Killin activated the other part of the blessing of Dumathoin to gain truesight, which they used to learn that there were no dangers in the room. They proceeded to find some abandoned bedrooms with nothing of note.
Not true to the south, where a Xorn and two Earth Elementals were investigating a strange fallen tower. (Syzoth immediately suspected it was a Daern's Instant Fortress, correctly).
Unfortunately, no-one spoke Terran. Or had magic for communication. (Paladin, Fighter, Rogue, Sorcerer, Artificer). So the Sorcerer - that's Vel'ralu - started using gestures and sign language.
I resolved this with Performance checks to get his meaning across, and Insight checks to understand what they meant. The communication went okay - they established that everyone was non-hostile - and that the Xorn wanted gemstones, which they offered to him. But they completely failed to understand why the Xorn kept pointing north, back the way they came.
Not willing to antagonise the elementals, they returned the way they came.
Short and Sweet
Returning to the main passage, they headed onwards until they found a great intersection... and an alpha grick.
In normal fights, the grick would get reinforced by the small gricks from a side room, but it rolled poorly for initiative, and so it didn't have a chance to call for help before the party killed it... in a single round.
They'd probably find the rest of the gricks soon enough... but that was all we had time for this session. We'll finish off Gibbet Crossing next session, I expect, and with it Chapter 6. If we keep on this schedule, I'm expecting about two months (8 sessions) more of play, give or take a session.
Cheers,
Merric
