Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8420194" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 17: DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MENPC Roster:Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 4             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 4             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 2/paladin 2             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 4             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 4Game Session Date: 18 September 2021 - - -"Really?  Breaking into a crypt so we can steal a dreamstone?" demanded Alewyth.  "I hardly think that would be the best use of our resources - nor is it respectful to the dead entombed in their hallowed resting place.""You didn't mind gathering up those other dreamstones before, kupo," pointed out Mogo.  "And they've been very helpful in freeing all of those people you've already rescued from their dreams, kupo!""That was different," argued Alewyth.  "Those were just lying about with those flumphs.  Here we're talking about breaking and entering--""You don't necessarily have to break anything, kupo...""--into a family's crypt, to steal something that doesn't belong to us--""We could leave behind an equivalent amount of gold equal to the value of the dreamstone," suggested Xandro."--and it's something we don't really need," Alewyth finished.  "We already have dreamstones - twelve of them.""Eleven," corrected Thurloe.  "We left that one back with the dwarf we were unable to rescue, remember?  With the dream about the three-headed dragon that continually kicked our--""Yes, I remember," interrupted the dwarven priestess."Well, we could very well come across a few more people we're not strong enough to rescue just yet," Thurloe continued.  "If we leave a dreamstone behind every time that happens, eventually we're going to need more dreamstones.  And it's not like the things grow on trees.  We should probably take whatever opportunities there are to harvest more.""The Queen of Dreams suggested it, kupo.  Somebody was dreaming about a large dreamstone on the end of a sword-pommel and she traced it to somewhere there in the forest you're already in, not too far from your present location, kupo.""It wouldn't hurt to at least check it out," Zander suggested.Alewyth looked over to Wakuren, a cleric like herself.  "What do you think, Wakuren?  Are you up for some grave robbing?"The half-orc frowned and wondered how best to voice his thoughts.  "While I can certainly understand your hesitancy to break into a family crypt," he began, "at the same time I agree that if the dreamstone is being used as simple ornamentation on a sword we can put it to much a better use.  We will, of course, do whatever we can to make amends to the family, perhaps by leaving behind coins of equal or greater value, like Xandro suggested.""I didn't suggest greater value," muttered Xandro.Alewyth's eyes narrowed into slits as she reassessed her feelings towards the half-orc cleric-paladin, having fully expected he'd take her side of the argument.  She hoped he wasn't starting to become as gold-greedy as some of the rest of the guys in their little band seemed to be, and then gave a grunt at the thought that it was the dwarf in the party arguing against going after the valuable gemstones...so much for racial stereotypes.  "Fine," she finally assented."Okay then, if that's settled, I think you should take the rest of the night off so you can be well-rested in the morning, kupo!" suggested Mogo, dismissing them from their dreamwalker training for the rest of the time they were asleep.  They were each sent to their own private dreamscapes, where their minds did what all minds did during sleep time, the only difference being these five would wake up the next morning remembering all of their dreams of the night before, unlike the vast majority of the members of the Waking World.  That, after all, was what made them so valuable as potential dreamwalkers.And so the next morning the group packed their gear back up and resumed their trek through the Darkwood Forest.  Mogo had explained how to get to the tomb, which was at the northern edge of the forest, closer to the main road ranging from east to west.  The crypt, when they got to it, wasn't particularly impressive: a single story tall, 15 feet on a side, made of stone but with no visible seams as if the entire building had been carved from one giant slab of stone.  ("Probably built using wall of stone spells," offered up Thurloe.)  One side held a set of metal doors; all four sides were covered in ivy growths.  It proved necessary to hack away at the ivy obscuring the door, revealing the Tannenheim family emblem engraved into the metal and a keyhole below one of the metal handles."Great - anybody got a key?" asked Thurloe.  "Lockpick?  Knock spell?"  Nobody had anything of the sort, including him (as he'd studied Mistress Jandoval's beginner spellbook enough he had mastered some of the easier spells she'd provided him, but knock was not among their number).  He looked over to Alewyth.  "...Warhammer?" he added, wincing since he knew what her reaction was likely to be.Wakuren also knew the dwarven priestess of Aerik was not going to be happy about breaking into the crypt in this manner.  "I'll do it, if you'll let me borrow your hammer," he offered, holding out his hand."Nay, step aside, I'll do it meself," Alewyth frowned.  "In fer a penny, in fer a pound."  The others couldn't help but notice how her dwarven accent became more pronounced when she was upset.  But in her mind, if she was willing to be talked into breaking into a tomb she might as well go in whole hog - it wasn't like she was sinning any less by going along with somebody else breaking into the tomb...plus, it was her warhammer.Taking a deep breath, Alewyth Putterpye hefted Sjondra and brought it slamming into the metal doors of the crypt.  A loud reverberation echoed across the forest but the door held.  It held up against her second blow, and against her third...but by her fourth blow the locking mechanism inside the doors gave way and she was able to pull the doors outwards, revealing but a single stone sarcophagus at the back of the room's interior.  By its construction she could see the lid hinged upwards to the right, which was no doubt where they'd find the Tannenheim buried with a sword that had a dreamstone attached to its pommel.  "Aerik fergive me," she muttered as the others went inside.Wakuren and Thurloe were standing on the other side of the coffin from the hinges and trying to lift the lid, but it wasn't budging in the least.  They strained until the cords in their necks stood out and Thurloe's face turned a bright shade of red, but they couldn't even lift it an inch.  Xandro, however, was examining the doors.  Along the bottom of each door was a metal arc, more or less showing the path of the doors' edges as they were opened, forming a sort of curved "V" shape that met in the middle and connected in the side of the stone below the level of the floor.  The bard experimented and confirmed that the metal arcs were preventing the doors from being opened more than 90 degrees...and, he was fairly sure, was probably latching the coffin lid shut.  "Wait a minute, guys," he said, pulling each of the doors closed, the metal arcs disappearing below the floor.  With the doors closed it was pitch black inside the crypt until Zander pulled out his everburning torch.  "Now try it," Xandro suggested.  The lid, much to Thurloe and Wakuren's embarrassment, opened right up.  Xandro just grinned at them.The coffin interior, however, held neither body nor sword but rather a set of stairs leading down into darkness.  "Prep spells before we go down there," Thurloe suggested.  He'd purposefully left his buckler in one of Horse's saddlebags and cast a shield spell upon himself to compensate.  And Mistress Jandoval's notes in the margins had been correct: it was tricky casting spells while wearing his armor!  Alewyth cast a trio of spells: protection from evil and detect undead spells upon herself and a bless spell upon the entire group.  Wakuren cast a hide from undead spell on himself, Xandro, and Zander, warning them that should any of the three of them attack an undead creature it would cause the spell to dissipate upon all three of them.  He then followed up with a shield of faith spell upon himself.  Zander Quilson was content with just his standard mage armor spell."Is everyone ready?" asked Wakuren.  He got nods to the affirmative and then climbed inside the empty coffin, taking the steps down to the true crypt hidden some dozen feet or so below the surface of the forest ground.  One by one the others followed him, the passageway too narrow for any to traverse save in single file.At the bottom of the stairs the passageway opened up into a square room, fifteen feet on a side, with passageways continuing on perpendicularly on either side.  But Wakuren's attention was drawn to the niche in the back wall where a throne of sorts had been carved out of the solid rock, upon which was seated a skeletal being in rotting robes.  He was covered head to foot in spiderwebs.  Instinctively, Wakuren knew this wasn't just a skeleton left in place where he had died, but rather an undead guardian of some sort.  Instinctively, he used his paladin training to scan its aura and was surprised to see no tell-tale taint of evil.  Perhaps he was wrong, and this wasn't an undead creature after all?But once Wakuren stepped foot into the room the skeletal being lurched forward in his seat, ripping through the delicate webs and sending a small flurry of tiny spiders scurrying in all directions.   Surprisingly, its aura was just as free of evil as it had been before it had animated.   "Halt!" the thing cried out.  "Who would enter the Tannenheim Crypt?""My name is Wakuren and I serve Cal, God of the Air and of Healing.  We seek only to fetch a dreamstone mounted on the end of a sword stored somewhere in this crypt, that it can be used to free many people currently trapped in their dreams.  In return, we would offer coins of equal or greater value.""I never said greater!" hissed Xandro."Leave this place and never return!" commanded the undead being.  "I care nothing for your trapped dreamers - this crypt is for the Tannenheim family and their loyal followers only and you are trespassing upon their property!""I'm a member of the Tannenheim family!" called out Thurloe from the fourth spot in the single-file line.  He wasn't a Tanneheim by any means but he thought he might have found a loophole that would allow them entry without further questions."Liar!" accused the crypt thing, rising now from his seat and sending the spiders scurrying even faster as their webs were torn asunder.  He rose an accusing finger at the intruders and a flash of light exploded all around him.  In an instant, both Thurloe and Aelwyth (who had been standing directly behind Wakuren) had vanished, leaving the other three to deal with the enraged undead.In a blink of an eye, Alewyth suddenly found herself elsewhere.  Gifted with dwarven darkvision, she could see perfectly fine in the pitch blackness of her new location, which was a wide hallway of sorts with alcoves of crumbling skeletons at waist level against the far wall.  There was a sort of splorching sound coming from her right; turning in that direction she saw a smaller tunnel running at a right angle from the larger corridor with the skeleton alcoves.  Peering inside, she saw an armory of sorts, with but a scant few weapons; one, a sword, lay in a pool of water in the middle of the room, its blade bubbling as if being eaten by acid.  (So maybe that isn't water, the dwarf amended.)  She turned back to the larger corridor and found another smaller tunnel some 25 feet or so away, and in the small room it led to she saw Thurloe standing with his back to her.  However, while the human could see nothing of the room into which he'd just been teleported, Alewyth could see the stone coffin in the room's center, covered to the top with soil.  The stone coffin's lid was off, leaning against a side wall, and the clumps of dirt on the floor by the coffin attested to the fact that whatever was in there occasionally got out....  There was another short tunnel on the far side of the room leading to another room with a sarcophagus in the middle of it - this one with its lid closed - but the dwarven priestess wasn't overly concerned about any other rooms just yet."Thurloe - it's Alewyth!" she called into the room.  "We've been teleported away from the others!"  Thurloe responded by casting a protection from evil spell upon himself, one he felt was even more appropriate as Alewyth started describing what was in the room with them and his mind started filling in all sorts of nasty ideas about what might be in that dirt-filled coffin....Back on the entry stairs behind Wakuren, Xandro unpacked his lute and started playing his song of courage - in the cramped passageway, it wasn't like he could push past the half-orc and get into the room himself just yet.  Wakuren began combat against an undead creature with a tried-and-true combat strategy, casting a cure light wounds spell whose positive energy could knit up cuts and bruises suffered by a living being but which acted like corrosive acid against the undead.  Sure enough, the crypt thing's bones started sizzling at the half-orc's touch.But now that Wakuren had entered the room fully - he'd had to touch the crypt thing to channel his positive energy through it - Xandro and Zander stepped into the room and took position in opposite back corners.  The elven sorcerer cast a scorching ray diagonally past Wakuren, hitting the crypt thing square on.  Zander knew many skeletal undead creatures were immune to cold energy but he'd never heard of one immune to fire, and indeed this one's bones started charring and burning from the heat of the blazing spell.  Wakuren kept his shield arm busy, smashing the metal shield into the crypt thing's body, while Xandro's tune fueled both of his friends on.  The crypt thing fought back with its claws, its magical offensive teleport something it could only do but once a day - it just hoped the two trespassers it had managed to send away deeper into the complex were being taken out by the other guardians the Tannenheims had put into place.Clumps of dirt fell aside from the open coffin as a skeletal figure rose up - a figure only Alewyth could see, for Thurloe was literally in the dark in the lightless chamber.  The dwarf saw right away it was some sort of animated skeleton, but one with some sort of weird hair...?  No, on second look the dwarven priestess realized that wasn't hair on the top of the creature's skinless skull, it was a mass of writhing earthworms.  But Thurloe was closer to the rising grave medusa than Alewyth, and thus it was the fighter who received the undead thing's horrific gaze.  Still not aware of what he was facing, Thurloe felt a cold aura wash over him as he was caught up in the grave medusa's unblinking gaze and all of a sudden he felt his limbs grow heavy.And unseen in the next room over, the gray ooze that had been dissolving the weapons it had discovered in the armory started heading out of the short tunnel to the larger corridor but found its way blocked by something else oozing past.  Undeterred, it returned to its metallic meal and blobbed over the sword, its acidic body dissolving the weapon's metal.Alewyth pushed past Thurloe and sent Sjondra crashing into the side of the grave medusa.  The sound of warhammer on bone gave Thurloe an idea of where the enemy was in this lightless room and he brought his bastard sword crashing down upon the location, trusting Alewyth, with her darkvision, would be able to see the blow coming and get out of the way.  It also helped that part of the initial sword training he'd received from Dougal Garabedian involved fighting in conditions of absolute darkness.  He felt the impact of sword upon bone but was struggling to bring his blade to bear with his usual swiftness - something was slowing him down considerably!Back in the front chamber, Xandro switched to his light crossbow and sent a bolt twanging at the crypt thing, as Wakuren cast another cure light wounds spell on it, taking it down with positive energy.  Zander Quilson blasted it with another scorching ray spell, hoping that would be enough to take it down but the crypt thing fought on, seemingly trying to push its way past the half-orc and escape to one of the side chambers but unable to push Wakuren out of its way.  It clawed at Wakuren's face enough that the half-orc finally stepped back and cast a spiritual weapon spell, sending a heavy mace made of pure force enemy to do his close-in fighting for him.  Zander pressed on with his spellcasting, now down to magic missile spells, while Xandro peppered the thing with crossbow bolts.  Finally, the trio's efforts brought the undead thing down, collapsing into a pile of bones where it stood.The grave medusa turned its gaze upon Alewyth, hoping to start a transformation in her body in the same way it had done in the human's.  But dwarves were made of pretty tough stuff and the gaze attack had no effect.  Surprised at the lack of effect, the undead thing took an instinctive step backwards.  Alewyth followed, her warhammer swinging in for another powerful blow.  Thurloe could hear they had stepped away and reached into his backpack, feeling around for a sunrod.  Upon finding one, he activated it at once and was relieved to be able to see what it was they were fighting.  Then, once he'd gotten a good look at the grave medusa, he looked back upon the simpler time in life five seconds ago when he'd been blissfully unaware of such creatures.  Fortunately, he didn't have to look at it for much longer, for a final blow from Sjondra crushed the creature's ribcage and it fell backwards, its bones clattering against the stone floor and back wall.  The worms crawling over its skull were still squirming around, though, and with a disgusted frown on her face Alewyth brought her warhammer up over her head and crushed skull and earthworms flat."Are you okay?" Alewyth asked Thurloe, whose limbs by this point were incredibly heavy - he could hardly even lift the weight of his bastard sword.  "I--think--" he began, but his sentence was cut off as his skin and armor started turning the same shade of gray.  In a matter of seconds he had become a stone statue, the light winking out from the sunrod as it and the fighter's bastard sword likewise petrified.  Alewyth was surprised at the light going out and looked over at the fighter - she'd been wiping worm squish from the head of her weapon on the back wall - to find him now a motionless statue.  She ran up to him, unsure of what to do...until she recalled the dryad Belisandre had thanked the group for rescuing her from her dream by giving them a small handful of potions and concoctions, one of which had been a vial of stone salve.  Opening the little box they'd gotten from the gnome wizard Grimblegrack Fishmelon, she put her hand into its extradimensional space and pulled out the vial of stone salve, rubbing it all over the petrified form of Thurloe."What happened?" Thurloe asked, once he'd been restored to his normal flesh and blood.  "What was that thing?""No idea," admitted Alewyth.Wakuren walked over to one of the side rooms off the chamber in which they'd just slain the crypt thing.  There were three skeletons on each side of the room, lying in state in full plate armor, each gripping a longsword.  A quick perusal verified that none of the sword pommels had a dreamstone at the end of it and none of the skeletons gave off any evil auras to the cleric-paladin's senses.  Still, Wakuren was all but sure that as soon as they'd traversed the length of the room (or maybe got halfway through it) the half dozen would animate and attack.  So he walked the length of the chamber, exited into a wider corridor, then walked back to meet back up with Zander and Xandro.  "Seems safe," he said, surprised.  Just to be sure, he went in the other direction and saw an identical-looking chamber, also holding six armored skeletons lying in burial niches along the walls, the only difference being which way they were facing.Still, curiosity compelled Wakuren to experiment further.  Walking back to the first chamber, he touched one of the skeletons on its armored chest plate.  The reaction was almost instant: it sat up, gauntleted hand gripping its longsword as it swung its feet over the edge of the niche and stood up, swinging its blade at the startled half-orc.  Wakuren caught the blow on his shield, noted the aura of evil blazing forth now that the undead skeleton had been brought to unholy life, and then Zander Quilson slew the thing with a magic missile spell.  Wakuren spun to face the other skeletons in the room but they remained unmoving in their burial berths."Don't touch any of them," he advised the others."Wasn't really planning on it," replied Zander.The three moved into the larger corridor, noting the skeletons lying in niches along the far side.  These skeletons were in much worse condition than the heavily-armored dozen in the two mirror-image halls of the honored dead behind them; these wretches must have been the low-ranking soldiers hired by the Tannenheim family, worthy only of short swords and leather armor that had not aged well over the many years they'd laid here in the tomb.  But Zander, holding his everburning torch, pointed down the corridor and shouted, "Look out - some kind of bug coming our way!""That's Zander!" cried Alewyth, standing in a T-section of narrow passageways leading into two separate rooms each holding a stone sarcophagus, although the one at the bottom of the "T" also held a gargoyle bent over the stone coffin that the dwarf couldn't determine as being either an unliving carving or a living creature waiting to strike.  But hearing the elf's call to his companions made her decide to come back to that room later on; in the meantime, she ran through the other sarcophagus room - this one's stone coffin holding a carving depicting a noblewoman - and popped out in the same hallway that Zander was in, casting an aid spell on herself in the process.  He was pointing behind her, so she whirled around and saw a carrion crawler almost upon her.Thurloe stuck his head (and sunrod) out enough to see the advancing grub-thing and called, "Back!" to the dwarven priestess.  They raced back into the lady-sarcophagus room, each readying their weapon of choice.  And sure enough, the carrion crawler, which had seen Zander and had been heading his way when Alewyth and Thurloe made themselves a closer-to-reach meal, altered course to pursue them instead.  Xandro got in a shot at the carrion crawler with his crossbow before it exited the larger corridor, and then Thurloe and Alewyth brought their weapons to bear.  The caterpillar-monster died before any of its eight writhing tentacles could try to get a grab on any of its intended prey.Wakuren went in the other direction, following the wider corridor as it made a right angle and went back, under the entry stairs if the half-orc had his directions correct in his head.  He heard the same splorching sound Alewyth had heard earlier, immediately after having been teleported, and he managed to spot the gelatinous cube heading in his direction.  He sent a spiritual weapon spell to go slam into it, knowing a floating weapon made of force energy couldn't be dissolved in the cube's acid.  Fortunately, while the cube continued its approach without slowing it wasn't traveling at a very fast pace and Wakuren got in a couple of good attacks with his spiritual heavy mace before it winked out, its spell duration having run through its allotted time.Zander cast another magic missile spell at the approaching gelatinous cube.  "Borrow your crossbow?" Wakuren asked, and the bard gladly handed it over while he went back to his lute and his song of courageous inspiration.  It took several crossbow bolts and a few more magic missiles (and steadily backing up so the slow-moving cube wouldn't catch up to them), but they finally slew it and it started its slow discorporation as its gelatinous body started losing cohesion.Alewyth, in the meantime, had found another room from further down the larger corridor and, peeking inside, saw three large chests lined up against the far wall.  However, her innate stonecunning ability - an ability shared by all dwarves - warned her that the middle of the floor wasn't really stone.  She approached it cautiously and determined it was this wood painted to match the surrounding stone; she'd bet everything she had that anybody steeping foot on that patch of fake stone would be plummeting to a spike-filled pit or something.  But as there didn't seem to be any active threats in the room she decided to leave it for later, if at all.Eventually, all five adventurers stood outside the room with the sarcophagus of what they assumed must be Lord Tannenheim's sarcophagus, given the image carved into the stone lid was that of a man in plate armor wielding a longsword and it had a gargoyle (that Alewyth still glared at suspiciously) bending over from the wall above it."I still think that thing's alive," Alewyth insisted."Is it breathing?" asked Xandro."No, but I'm not sure if that means anything.""Well, the dreamstone's probably on the hilt of the sword of the main guy in this twisted family, which means the guy who has a gargoyle standing watch over him, which means it's probably inside his coffin with him," reasoned Thurloe.  "Zander, you still got any magic missile spells on hand?""Just a few, but yeah.""Okay, keep 'em ready.  Wakuren and I will enter the room and lift up the stone lid.  Alewyth, you get ready to smack the gargoyle with your hammer if it even twitches.  Xandro, you're on grab-the-sword-as-soon-as-we-lift-the-lid detail.  Everybody got it?"  Everybody did.Peering warily at the gargoyle the whole time, Wakuren and Thurloe entered the chamber which, fitting the head of the family, was slightly bigger than the other chambers in this crypt.  And while the crypt thing had activated as soon as a living person stepped foot into the room, the gargoyle remained perfectly still.  Thurloe shrugged; maybe it was just a statue after all.Alewyth wasn't so sure - she held Sjondra over one shoulder, ready to strike if necessary.But the gargoyle was tricky; it waited until the half-orc and the human had their hands full lifting the heavy stone lid of Lord Tannenheim's coffin before darting forward.  It focused its attacks upon Thurloe, the less-heavily-armored of the two of them.  But while it managed to get in a few good strikes with its claws, teeth, and horn against Thurloe who was pretty much stuck in place without the ability to dodge before dropping the lid, it did so at the cost of an immediate magic missile spell in the face - and then Alewyth had leaped up onto the coffin lid (just as Wakuren and Thurloe dropped it back into place to deal with the gargoyle) and swung Sjondra into the winged guardian's face.  That made him back off enough that Thurloe was able to grab his bastard sword back up and for Wakuren to place his shield into attack configuration, and then the gargoyle found itself in a three-against-one melee combat with an elven sorcerer lobbing magic missiles at it and a human bard shooting it with a crossbow.  Just to shake things up, Zander tried a ray of enfeeblement at the gargoyle, siphoning off some of its strength and diminishing the power of its own attacks.  The gargoyle continued focusing its attacks on Thurloe, apparently deciding to bring one foe down before attacking another one, but Alewyth slew it with a final blow from Sjondra before it could take the fighter down."I knew it was just faking!" Alewyth swore at the dead guardian.  Then Thurloe and Wakuren - after a few moments of the latter casting healing spells on the former - resumed their positions and lifted the stone coffin lid up.  Xandro grabbed up the longsword held in the grip of the long-dead Lord Tannenheim and they let the lid crash down back into place.  Sure enough, there was a sizable dreamstone on the edge of the sword's hilt."Well, we got it," Wakuren said.  "Let's get out of here.""Wait," replied Alewyth.  "There's a treasure room just around the corner.""Wait, what?" Thurloe gasped.  "You mean you're okay with looting this crypt now?  And not just of the dreamstone?"Alewyth nodded.  "This family, anyone willing to bind their loyal followers into undead forms like that worm-medusa thing or that skeleton in the throne when we came in, they're just plain evil!  I've got no qualms about tearing this place apart and stripping it of anything we can use.""Well, now you're talking!" Thurloe whooped.  "Let's go!"Alewyth not only led the group to the treasure chamber and warned them of the pit trap in the middle of the floor, she personally broke through the locks on the three chests.  There wasn't anything in them but coins and gems - to the value of several thousand pieces of gold, in all - but that wasn't too big of a disappointment; Alewyth poured each and every bit of treasure into their extradimensional box."Okay," Alewyth said once the last of the coins had been dropped into their box and she'd closed and latched the lid.  "Now we can go.""May I say, you have never looked lovelier than you do right now," pointed out Thurloe, more than a little pleased at her new attitude.  Then, recalling how she'd restored him to flesh and blood using the stone salve, he turned to the others and said, "Did I mention she rubbed her hands all over my body when we were separated from you guys?""Enough of that!" snarled Alewyth.  Thurloe was pleased enough at the extra money they'd snagged from this little plundering session that he gladly let the teasing drop. - - -This adventure took about two and a half hours to run through, or maybe just a little over.  Joe got a call around 4:50, right as they were about to go into the chamber with the gargoyle; it was his boss, calling to see if Joe would come in to work at 5:30.  So then this turned into a speed session, with everybody rolling their attacks and damage dice together and doing everything possible to speed up the combat.  I offered to let Joe take off right then and there (he'd have to go get changed at home before going in to work) and I'd drive his parents home (and then they said they could just walk home; it's only like a 10-15-minute walk from their house to mine), but Joe said his boss was cool if he was a little late since it was such short notice.The grave medusa was a creature I made up after imagining what a skeletal medusa would look like and then realizing earthworms would be more thematically appropriate than skeletal snakes to an undead skeleton who could slowly turn people to stone over the course of three rounds.  (And to be clear, a grave medusa isn't an undead medusa but rather something a human can be turned into after death with the appropriate necromantic rituals.)  In fact, when creating the grave medusa's stats I realized it was too powerful for this adventure and then made up stats for a lesser grave medusa. - - -T-shirt worn: Still my "Hanes Moore Family Reunion" T-shirt with the silhouette of a tree, since it was the same game session as "Forest Dreams."  But this time the tree was representing the Tannenheim family tree.</blockquote>

Verification