Day four of the Mountain of the Mad Marquis. The adventurers made good progress last time, and with the berserkers out of the way were ready to push forward and get the Duck Signet Ring from the tomb of the Mad Marquis so they could reach Level 3 of the dungeon.
This time, five adventurers showed up to dig into the dungeon.
- Al-Hafiz, Level 2 Fedayeen
- Jack Fatherd, Level 5 Survivor
- Laguna Tempest, Level 1 Warcaster
- Protesilaus Poliorcetes, Level 2 Acolyte
- Wakefield, Level 1 Burglar
They brought Eric the Barbarian along with them as an extra pair of hands to hold weapons and treasure. Several adventurers sported plate armor formerly worn by the skeletons, refurbished at Ishizaka's shop.
The giant crows were back in the surface keep, watching Jack Fatherd to see if he would give them more treats. One of the beasts approached him and let him stroke its feathers. It dropped a shiny trinket for him: a small blade of prismatic obsidian, attached to a wooden hilt. He rewarded the bird with a silver coin.
The group descended the excavated stairs at the Southwest end of the old keep, and from there went down through the smashed floor in the Holy Mountain room to the Necropolis.
The gap across the bone pit was filled with a bridge of linked skeleton arms. The adventurers crossed without incident. In the chamber beyond, Wakefield stooped to investigate a crevasse in the rock. There was a rotten corpse inside, covered with glistening eggs. Wakefield stuck a torch inside, setting the eggs on fire and incinerating the larval carrion crawlers inside. The fire boiled the Potion of Diminution on the corpse's belt, breaking the flask and shrinking the dying worms to half their already tiny size. Wakefield waited for the flames to die down, and used his grappling hook on the end of Jack's ten foot pole to pull out the body. They were rewarded with coins from the dead man's purse, and a silver studded mace.
Al-Hafiz investigated a side passage, where a ghoul scraped the words HOLY MOUNTAIN into the walls in an endless loop. The undead man didn't even notice the cleric until he slashed his hand to offer the ghoul some blood. The beast almost jumped on him, before realizing that he was a friend of Thelema, who had instructed the creatures of the Necropolis not to feed on the adventurers. The beast licked the blood from Al-Hafiz' hand, then went back to carving.
The next chamber had a vaulted ceiling with a slot at the top. Jack tested the floor tiles with his pole, until he hit one that jingled a bell beneath the loose stone. A troll skeleton dangled out of the slot in the ceiling upside down and reflexively swiped with its claws. It realized that the party was friendly, waved, and climbed back up into the ceiling.
By Adam Munger
The room Thelema said would have the ring was a large stone chamber filled with sarcophaguses. They were piled haphazardly and all were empty. They were blocking the doors of an ornate family crypt, which bore the DeCavalier family crest: a duck with wings close. This seemed like the most likely place to find a signet ring with a duck on it. The adventurers began moving the sarcophaguses so that they could get the doors open.
When the last heavy stone box occluding the tomb was away, the doors swung open of their own accord.
Behind them were the Marquis DeCavalier, his personal Chaplain and his Court Wizard. The Marquis had been reduced to a bag of desiccated skin, filled with crawling insects. The Chaplain was a drooling, mindless ghoul. The Court Wizard was a snake with the skull of a human being. The Marquis opened his mouth to speak and a torrent of grubs fell out. Laguna and Wakefield fled, overcome by magical fear. The rest of the group called on their respective gods for courage and pushed through the effect. Battle was joined.
Eric the Barbarian fell in the first exchange of blows, paralyzed by a vicious stroke of the ghoul's claws. Jack took the ghoul out of the fight with a timely turn undead, forcing him back into the crypt and giving the group some breathing room to deal with the other two. The necrophidius-wizard tried to bite the adventurers' ankles but couldn't get through their sabatons and greaves. The worm-that-walks battered away at the plate armored warriors, but couldn't get his fists or vomited insects through their defenses. The adventurers stomped out the necrophidius and made short work of the ghoul, but the Marquis puked a rot grub into the gap between Protesilaus' doublet and gorget. Jack Fatherd cut the bug off him Mummy style before it could burrow under his skin and go for his heart. Protesilaus swung his two handed sword and bisected the Marquis.
By Matthew Mitchell
Al-Hafiz made sure Barb Eric was ok. Protesilaus stomped the insects swarming around the remains of the Marquis, and noticed they were trying to re-form into a human shape. He used the torch to burn the remains. Jack Fatherd cataloged the treasure. Thousands of silver pieces in grave goods, some crossbow bolts, a magic ring, an enchanted plate armor, and a mysterious horse armor. All that plus a signet ring with an image of a duck.
Upstairs, Wakefield and Laguna calmed down enough to regroup. The fear effect still prevented them from returning to the necropolis, so they decided to explore the areas of the Gaol they hadn't visited yet. There was still draconic smoke pouring out of the Library entrances, so they decided to take the long way around and see if they could get in through the emergency exit they visited earlier. They found a ransacked art gallery, and storage room with a metal jug that bore a Holy Mountain symbol. Laguna surmised that the jug was related to the room with the Holy Mountain inscription and fountain - the one the berserkers smashed open. The next room had running water, flowing down from the cistern on the floor above into another catchbasin, then out through a grate into another drain.
Jack, Protesilaus, Al-Hafiz and Eric came back up the stairs to the Gaol with all their loot. They ran into Cortez the Orc, mercenary guard from Ishizaka's market, coming down from the surface. He had his saber in one hand, a small cask on his shoulder, and a rifle slung across his back. He recognized Jack, who he robbed once back in Anguishedwires. He told Jack he was too tough to rob now, him and his new friends. And anyway, Cortez had more important things to worry about than banditry. Like taking the barrel of exotic spirits down to the Necropolis, where he heard there was a dwarf who would trade liquor for sex. He pushed past Wakefield, who stole a handful of silver pieces from the Green Man's sock without him noticing, and went down the long flight of stairs to the second floor of the dungeon.
The gang rested for a bit and had a snack, then decided to explore the areas of the Gaol they missed on the previous days of exploration. Then they could go through the back entrance of the Library and close the vent where the smoke was coming through. They mapped the rest of the jail cells, and at the end of the block they found a dead berserker covered in yellow spores. He had died of suffocation outside a jail cell where a thick yellow mold pulsed around a skeleton.
This one is from Tales of the Yawning Portal but I couldn't find the specific artist
Protesilaus went to get a sample of the spores, hoping Irene the Vivisectionist could weaponize them. The mold on the dead berserker sprayed spores everywhere, nearly suffocating him. He got out of the spore cloud before they could infest his lungs. The group retreated and Laguna tossed a torch, causing a dust explosion that incinerated both corpses and the mold coating them. The blast annihilated whatever the dead berserker had on him, but the skeleton had a nifty diamond ring in its ribcage.
The chamber beyond the cells was a torture room, smashed to pieces by the berserkers in their quest to cleanse the dungeon of evil. There was an iron door they hadn't been able to breach with their axes. It had an indentation shaped like a dragon. The group debated whether going inside was a good idea. Laguna stuck the dragon signet ring in the slot and opened the room up. It was another torture room, untouched. In the corner was a crow cage, inside which was a scalped corpse, cap of the skull blood red. Treasure was heaped around the cage. Thousands of silver pieces, a magic javelin and a scroll of Suggestion.
The gang decided to explore a few more rooms before taking their treasure back to the surface. They went into the room with the cistern and investigated a formerly-secret door hanging off its hinges. Eric the Barbarian said the berserkers never found it, indicating someone else had broken in. The rooms beyond the door were a secret slaughterhouse, kitchen, dining room and taxidermist workshop, all dedicated to the consumption and display of human beings. Most of the rooms had been looted but the adventurers grabbed a perpetual light stone from inside the chandelier in the dining room. The taxidermy room hadn't been fully pillaged because it was full of hungry dermestid beetles, which swarmed the characters as they pried gems and gold from the displayed skulls. The room beyond that was a drain, where the cistern emptied out into the floor below. There was a loop in the ceiling where a rope or pulley could be hung. The adventurers left a rope there in case they ever found themselves on the level below.
Jack and Wakefield ascended the chimney of the secret kitchen and found themselves on the surface, in the ruined castle. They took the nonmagical treasure out of the dungeon and stashed it, then went back down to join the group. Next stop: Thelema's glade in the sinkhole on level 2, to ask her if she could identify any of the magic items they found.
By Lensar
The gang halted on the stairs down to the Necropolis. They could hear someone in the chamber down below. A group of people discussing the situation in the cult stronghold. Al-Hafiz went down the stairs to talk to them. There were five dragon cultists, wearing lizard leather armor and not much else. Three of them reflexively lit oil flasks when they saw Al-Hafiz, sparking them with flint wheels mounted to the wick. Al-Hafiz explained that he represented a group of adventurers and the God of Mercy. The dragon cultists asked if he was interested in helping them fight the lizardmen. Al-Hafiz said it sounded like an interesting idea, but at the moment he was going to see Thelema. The cultists asked him more questions, including if he was alone currently. He said his allies were waiting just beyond line of sight, which was completely true. But the cultists didn't believe him, because it's exactly the lie they would tell if they were cornered and alone. So they attacked him.
The adventurers on the staircase let loose a barrage of ranged weapons, shattering one of the oil flasks. The two cultists in the back row began chanting. The adventurers rushed in and began hacking away with weapons, killing two of the dragon worshipers. The cultists fled down the passage back to the cult stronghold, dropping equipment and tossing a flask of oil to block the passage with fire before Al-Hafiz could catch them. The adventurers recovered oil flasks and loose change from the dead cultists. The flasks had a flint built into the nozzle for one-handed lighting, and they burned without producing smoke.
In the sinkhole glade, Cortez and Thelema sat on a stone bench at the base of a cenotaph, sharing a pipe. They were both drunk and covered in grave dirt. The Dwarven bustuaria was willing to identify the adventurers' magic items, in exchange for some sheep jerky and a cheese she'd never had before. The haul included:
- Fourteen +1 Crossbow Bolts
- A +1 Ring of Protection
- A Plate Armor of Comfort (can sleep wearing it and gain full benefits of resting)
- The Horse Barding of The Blue Men (lets a horse swim and breathe underwater)
- A +1 Javelin of Lightning
Thelema warned them not to throw the javelin if there were any friendlies in front of them. Al-Hafiz tried to teach Cortez about the God of Mercy, but he wasn't interested. He already had a god: Marrow Bone, one of the Four Adventurers who overthrew the Monarchy. Worshiping the Four was awkward because nobody knew if they were actually still alive, but they had a huge advantage over other deities: everyone knew they actually existed. Al-Hafiz tried to think of a more effective strategy for converting people who already had religion, while Cortez found a tree to piss on.
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