Real World Info
This session was played on November 18, 2010, featuring…
Summary
It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
They said Quasqueton was a cakewalk. A milk run.
Nobody told us about the wight. Or the slime. The bear, we knew about. That one was on us.
Pritchard Hood, bolstered by his recent victory against Farkas and the Vrock, rode into Eastkeep thinking to perform a civic duty. He, along with Goldfinch the miraculous elf, would take a team of raw recruits and show them how dungeoneering was done. Maybe turn a few of them into captains, if they had the bottle for it. The party thus joined headed up to Quasqueton with songs on their lips and individually packed sack lunches. Upon encountering the magic mouths in the main hallway, they laughed and made fun of the dire warnings. Retracing their steps they looked for the stairs to the second level, only to be accosted by a brownish-yellow unicellular garbage collector. Thaddeus, the first to die that day, fell and was devoured while the party could only watch.
The Company learned a quick lesson: If it's yellow-brown, burn it down. Only fire hurt the amorphous beast; any other attack merely split it half and doubled their trouble. Burning oil did the trick, but made it impossible for them to continue on their path. They retreated from the blaze, only to fall afoul of a pair of poisonous spiders. Without warning Little Orphan Aehie bloated and turned purple and quietly expired from a spider bite.
Death count: two. The party decided to return to Eastkeep to nurse their wounds and restock their oil supplies. They had not entered a single room since their arrival. Pritchard Hood looked deeply confused and demoralized, but urged the party to return to save some kind of Company honor. If only they'd stayed at home…
The Bear
Joined by two new stalwart novices and a talkative hireling named Jean, the party returned to Quasqueton only to find a bear sheltering in the entrance from a light drizzle. The bear clearly had no intention of leaving any time soon. The Ninth Destiny, a querulous young mage attached to the Radiant Red Rider (see below), decided to spur things along by antagonizing the bear, this accomplished by tossing daggers in its general direction. The bear's ire finally stoked, it lumbered toward the party. Pritchard Hood attempted to drive it off with a terrifying phantasm: another, bigger bear. Despite taking massive damage from the illusion, the bear continued its charge. The Ninth Destiny killed the beast, but was pulped as its body collapsed on top of him.
Pritchard had reached his limit. Like a schoolmaster watching his pupils dance over a cliff, one after another, he snapped. His weeping, screaming prayers ceased and when he rose from his knees he seemed… changed.
The party entered the dungeon, thinking the worst was behind them. It was not.
The Quasqueton Day Spa
The search for the stairway failed to turn up a way down, but did lead the party to a room full of shallow pools, each containing strange and magical liquids. Boarface Bristlebrush drank what appeared to be wonderful wine until he could hold no more, and was mightily drunk. Hood himself drank from a pool of swirling green liquid which put him into a sorcerous sleep. He didn't seem to be in his right mind. Leaving him there, the party explored another room directly adjacent to the pools, and finally learned why the place seemed to have been designed by a madman. It had. Now an undead wight, the architect showed the party his plans for an even more cryptic dungeon and seemed quite happy to discuss any matter of things with them. Surely they'd never met a friendlier wight.
At this time, Gael Ur-Boss decided to attack, as befit clergy of her faith. The young Orcess attempted to turn the wight. This did not prove fruitful. The wight attacked and drained the life force of Ur-Boss, rendering her unable to even cast spells. Numerous attempts to bring the wight down failed, though, as Jean the Talkative helpfully pointed out, "That guy's not so tough. He can't hit s—t!"
The Radiant Red Rider, a gallant if heavyset man, came up with a brilliant plan: he would threaten the architect's plans to make him stop fighting. This proved to be a mistake. The Radiant One's life force was completely drained, leaving him dead. Meanwhile out in the spa room Chisa, also called the Tenth Destiny, attempted to wake Pritchard Hood by partially submerging him in acid. Unfortunately she lacked the strength to drag his slumbering body.
The wight finally went down, mostly thanks to magical arrows fired in a space far too small for proper archery. A few pearls and potions were found in his desk drawer. Out in the spa room a number of flying centipedes arrived, thinking they could get in on the slaughter. They were dispatched handily.
When Pritchard Hood finally awoke he found some clues hidden in the architect's drawings and a magical tome that had been erased and used for scrap paper. He mocked the younger party members for the mess they'd made, then stormed back to Eastkeep with them in his trail.
Losses & Loot
Things found, characters lost, monsters killed