56 sessions into my 13th Age campaign. Eyes of the Stone Thief expanded to cover all 10 levels. Five player characters who were 5th level for most of the events below but are now finally 6th level.
I've not been posting regular updates. Due to (my) life, we also didn't play much over the last few months. Fortunately, we're now back in it. Three months ago I said I'm going to begin accelerating leveling as I'm hoping to wrap this campaign in about 6 months. This time I mean it.
Since I last posted, the characters:
Made an alliance with the Witch of Marblehall, who is the sister of the Rogue.
Discovered that the crystal ball they took from the Cult of the Stone Thief allowed the Cult to spy on them, so all their secrets are known, and the Cult is several steps ahead of them.
Got ambushed when the Cult twisted the Witch's magic so the illusory servants of Marblehall attacked the characters.
Fled Marblehall with the Witch as the Stone Thief consumed it and ground it to rubble.
Traveled to the Pit of Undigested Ages, which looks like Smaug's treasure hoard, only bigger.
Looted it for the most powerful magic items from a dozen Ages.
Climbed the Pyramid of Skulls to retrieve the Sword of Boundless Slaughter.
Got caught in a dream sequence where the characters fought each other to the death over the Sword of Boundless Slaughter with the winner claiming the cursed blade.
Awoke to discover the undead guardians of the Pit had stirred and were attacking them.
Narrowly escaped utter destruction by the White, the dracolich of the Empire's greatest white dragon, slain in a previous Age by the Lich King.
Teleported to the shadowed heart of the Labyrinth of Darkness, the last step before confronting the Secret Master who rules the Cult.
In yesterday's "Down to Erthe" campaign session, the PCs:
Were asked by the family whose son had been recently slain to intercede with a local dwarf gemcutter, who had agreed to carve the diamonds needed for a raise dead spell and then recently told the parents he couldn't continue working on their order in time for the ritual, as "something had come up" - there wasn't time to have another gemcutter start fresh before the son would have been dead too long for the spell to be effective
Approached the gemcutter's workplace to find it locked; unable to pick the lock and finding no other way in, the wu jen purchased two scrolls of knock and they got in that way
Found the dwarf slumped over a desk in his workshop, but found he'd merely fallen asleep from overworking
Got the story from him: a drow necromancer had insisted he craft a diamond to be used in his transformation into a powerful undead, and when the dwarf refused, the necromancer charmed the gemcutter's fiancée into doing his bidding, giving him a deadline to complete the drow's diamond or he'd start parading the dwarf woman through a variety of ever-increasingly bad scenarios
Got the gemcutter to continue work on the original set of three diamonds while the PCs tracked down and rescued the fiancée
Based on the first threat (which was to occur that evening), they found the bard performing topless in a gentleman's club, which they forced their way into through the back door when denied entry through the front doors
Fought the invisible drow (the changeling PC used his true seeing to discern his location), forcing the drow and the dwarf bard to flee using potions of gaseous form once hidden inside an area of darkness, with the drow telling the PCs beforehand to tell the gemcutter he was advancing the timeline due to the dwarf having hired the PCs to try to stop him
Spent some time trying to track the drow necromancer and the dwarf bard to the next threatened scenario, in which he entered her as a "voluntary priestess" at a "temple" of the goddess of fertility (so, a whorehouse), eventually finding her in the third place they tried
Split up, with the men (human monk, changeling rogue, mongrelfolk adept and his rat familiar) fighting off the three skeletons and the drow necromancer waiting outside the "temple" in an alleyway while the two women (snow fox hengeyokai wu jen and mermaid scout in a human body) went inside the "temple" and paid to spend some time with the new dwarf recruit
Ended up with the monk almost immediately blinded and the rogue exhausted by the necromancer's spells, although they managed to take out the skeletons fairly easily
Rescued the dwarf bard (and undid the drugging she'd endured at the "temple" via a potion of delay poison), got her geared up, and fought their way out of the "temple" by taking on the two half-orc fighters serving as security and the trained krenshar serving as a guard dog
Survived the drow's spell onslaught and sicced the adept's rat familiar on him; the rat only dealt one hp of damage per round, but almost never missed, and gradually ate away at his hp total until he was out of attack spells and decided to flee
Chased down the necromancer and eventually killed him
Reunited the bard with the gemcutter, got paid a reward for her safe return, and the gemcutter managed to finish the three gems for the parents of the slain son (from the previous adventure) in time for him to be raised
And, since this was the replacement game day for our normal New Year's Day session (in which the two families comprising our gaming group exchange Christmas presents), we did that after we finished the adventure. But we determined Scruffy, the mongrelfolk's rat familiar, had been the MVP for the adventure, as not only did he continually harry the drow necromancer (even following him up the outer wall of the "temple" - rats have climb speeds! - when he tried using spider climb as a means of escape), but earlier got a confirmed critical hit with a shared cure light wounds spell cast by his master, which dealt double damage to one of the skeletons and destroyed it outright with a single bite. You go, Scruffy!
