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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wsclark" data-source="post: 41978" data-attributes="member: 97">Session XV – What Else Can We Find and Why Do We Hear Drums?Snowfall 9th, 744 YNDIt is mid morning and the glistening is finally receding from the adventurers eyes as they take all the loot and load it into their backpacks. They continue to search the throne room, finding another chest behind the velvet curtain. Daloren checks it out finding no traps and proceeds to take his time to open it.Ouch!! A needle stabs him and it has some liquid on it. Fortunately, Daloren is very healthy today and the medium-sized monstrous spider poison doesn't affect him. (DM's note: He passed both of his saving throws. Too bad, if he had failed either one, his strength would have gone down by 4, by 8 if he failed both. Rats.) After finally unlocking the chest, they find 2,730 sp inside, after taking about 15 minutes to count them. They load this up with everything else they have found thus far and proceed back into the great room.A thorough search of the great room yields nothing, so they look to see what else might be on this floor. There are two additional exits from the room, both of them hallways, one to the northeast and one to the northwest. They follow the northwest one to find a stairway leading down to the second floor along the west side of the hall, a door in the east wall and the hallway opens up in the north revealing a circular stairway leading up. They decide to check out the door in the east wall, listening to hear nothing. After checking for traps and whether the door is locked, they enter the room. Broken cots and beds lie around the room, even one stuffed into the fireplace. Two skeletons are on the floor, one still clutching a rusted sword. Other bones and debris are also evident. A though search provides nothing.They decide to check the other hallway before heading either to the second floor or back to the fourth floor. Wandering down the hallway, they find a door in the north wall. After following now standard protocol, they kick the door open. The room is full of shelves, most of which are empty. Jars of bootblack polish, weapon oil, and other essential martial supplies line the rest. A table stands in the north corner of the room. A thorough search provides nothing. It now off to the stairs and a debate on whether to go down and explore the second floor (championed by Rufio because they haven't been on that floor yet and believes they should "clean it out" before going up) and going up to find what was hinted at in Halaan's journal (championed by Shaedra who wants to find it as the castle appears to not contain much of anything). They decide to go up, but at the fourth floor, Rufio, Pug and Daloren decide to check out the one door they haven't touch on the fourth floor. They head off there while Shaedra, Lulla and Thalen continue up to the fifth floor.Rufio, Pug and Daloren get to the door and, once again, check for traps, try to pick the lock and open the door, but it won't move. The door appears to be stuck so they throw their might into the door. It doesn't budge. Pug starts hacking away at the door.Meanwhile, Shaedra, Lulla and Thalen have reached the fifth floor, which seems to have a very similar layout to the fourth. They decide not to investigate and continue up to the sixth floor. The sixth floor is different as the circular stairs continue up but the landing is actually more of a room with a single door to the south. They decide to check out the door. After listening and hearing nothing, they open the door and see a huge, 10 foot tall, snake, arched up and ready to meet them, with large fangs glistening and eyes glittering. They scream and quickly close the door. (DM's note: I didn't describe the room to them, I just handed them the adventure quest drawing from the module depicting the room. Lulla's player actually let out a scream. It was great)Downstairs, Pug has given up on the door, although he has hit it repeatedly, he doesn't seem to be able to damage it (DM's note: It's arcane locked at 10th level) The three of them decide it's time to catch up with the others and return to the stairs, starting to head up. When the reach the fifth floor landing, they hear a scream and quickly rush up to join the others. Shaedra and Lulla explain what they just saw behind the door. After a very short discussion, all agreed that they would have to take care of this now instead of letting it take care of them later.They prepare to assault the snake. Lulla casts Bull's Strength on Pug. Daloren casts True Strike on himself. Rufio pulls out his crossbow. Pug readies his greataxe and Shaedra readies her greatsword. Thalen provides illumination from the back of the group. (DM's note: I guess I should point out that the group has the concept of the "lantern bearer". Anytime a player can't make a session, their character becomes the lantern bearer for the group. This is what Thalen is doing) The plan is to have Pug kick the door in, Shaedra to get into the room first because of her high fortitude as protection against poison and Rufio to fire his crossbow at the snake, while Lulla prepares her mace and Daloren prepares his longsword and shortsword.Pug kicks the door open. Shaedra gets into the room. Rufio fires his crossbow at the snake, hitting it square in the middle. The snake doesn't even flinch. Lulla and Daloren prepare their weapons. With surprise over, Daloren gets to act first, rushing into the room taking swings with his weapons. He connects with his longsword, knocking some stuffing out of the snake. Stuffing? He stops swinging as he realizes that the huge snake is nothing more than a stuffed trophy. The entire group feels ridiculous for attacking a stuffed animal. They search the room finding behind the snake, in the center of the room, a stone basilisk. In the southeast corner is a stuffed deinonychus while mounted on the southwest corner are the jaws of a giant shark.(DM's note: I almost couldn't keep myself from laughing out loud with this encounter. It just ran perfectly, the players fears doing all the work. I was still chuckling while driving to work this morning)After securing the trophy room, our group decides to continue up to the top of the tower. They reach the seventh floor landing, which is room-like, similar to the sixth floor, except a little larger and the only door is in the east wall. They continue up to the eighth floor landing. Here the stairs continue up to the ceiling and the room has an exit through a door in the south wall. They going up to the top of the stairs and find a trap door in the ceiling. Shaedra pushes the trap door open with her greatsword and the group quickly climbs out onto the roof of the tallest tower of the keep. They can see for a fairly good distance here and search the entire roof, finding nothing. What they are looking for must be on the eighth floor.Back down they go to the door in the south wall. Listen, check, nothing, the door isn't locked. Pug kicks it open revealing a table and three ladder back chairs, one of them toppled over. A skeleton lies in the corner. A piece of parchment has been nailed to the eastern door. There is another door to the south. Everyone searches the room, finding nothing, while Shaedra goes over to the parchment. It has one word on it, Halaan. She tells the others. They listen at this door, check it and find it not trapped or locked.Shaedra cautiously opens the door. Tapestries that depict a woman with golden silk pants and a silver cloak adorn the walls. She is shown with great riches and commoners bowing down before her feet. All of the tapestries are sagging and rotten, most of them with large rips and tears. Several skeletons lay on the floor, all with loincloths and clutching various weapons. In the center of this massacre lies a bone scroll tube.The scroll tube is most likely what they have been looking for so Shaedra steps into the room. As soon as she crosses the threshold of the room, the six skeletons get up and surround her, with one even getting behind her into the room with everyone else. Battle is joined as Shaedra tries to repel the undead creatures to no avail. Pug and Daloren happen to be flanking the one skeleton that got past Shaedra into the room they are in and try to take it down, unsuccessfully. Unfortunately, this prevents Shaedra from backing out of the room, so she steps further into the room to allow more of the group to attack the skeletons. The skeletons are not having much luck hitting the group. Then Lulla calls upon the power of Boegoo causing all six skeletons to flee from her. Five run to one corner of the room to cower while the last goes to another corner. Pug enters the room, dropping his greataxe so he can pull out his mace, getting next to the large group of cowering skeletons. Rufio follows pug to the same group while Daloren goes to the lone one. Shaedra goes and picks up the scroll tube, then leaves the room to join Lulla.Pug, Rufio and Daloren start to smash the skeletons. One by one they start to go down. After the first two are destroyed, Pug feels a whoosh of air behind him. He turns for a quick glance to find this club floating in the air trying to hit him. He ignores this temporarily and goes back to smashing skeletons. Rufio take another one out while Daloren is just having a tough time dealing enough damage to vanquish the one he is attacking.Two more clubs are now dancing around the room and both Pug and Rufio are hit once. This is starting to get annoying so Pug takes out a fourth skeleton but Rufio can't seem to take out the last of the large group. Daloren is slowly beating his into dust. Now there are four clubs trying to hit Pug and Rufio. Both take some more damage and both Pug and Rufio start swinging wildly at the clubs. Despite their best efforts, nothing seems to happen. Daloren finally finishes destroying the skeleton he was attacking.Now there are five clubs dancing about the room and no one seems to be able to hit them, but the clubs are still hitting Rufio and Pug. Rufio decides to get out of the area under attack by tumbling away. Shaedra and Lulla have been trying to figure out the scroll, realizing that they something that can read magic. Lulla tries to call upon Boegoo once again and lo and behold, the clubs fall to the floor. The others retreat from the room and close the door shut.(DM's note: the skeletons turned into poltergeists once they were destroyed. They picked up weapons from the floor to attack with. Everyone was rolling well enough to hit them, but since they were invisible, they had a 50% miss chance, which they made for every single attack)A short debate occurs which results in Shaedra, Lulla and Thalen heading back downstairs to riddle out the scroll, but Pug, Daloren and Rufio staying behind because they want to check out the other door leading from the room in the south wall. As the one group gets down to the seventh floor and the other is listening at the door, Lulla and Pug pick up the not too distant sound of drums........</blockquote>

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