SessionSixteen

SessionEighteen

December 27, 2008.

From the cloud room, the party moves down a hallway, which leads to a small room where they encounter some more goblins.

Since Gloriana can't even get near the room, being at the end of the line, she decides to pray for Divine Fortune. Alecsa quickly moves in to the first goblin encountered, goblin cutter #1, and hits him with piercing strike, killing it. She moves back a square to put some distance between her and his friend. Dex moves forward and kills goblin cutter #2. Osrik moves past Dex, the first to actually enter the small room. He kills a third goblin cutter, saying, "Take that, foul goblin!" [He's been reading cheesy novels again. Sigh.] Chaedi casts cloud of daggers on the goblin skullcleaver and the goblin sharpshooter, which was hiding behind a pillar, missing them. The sharpshooter hits Dex, while skullcleaver misses Osrik. But yet another sneaky goblin, the blackblade, sneaks up and stabs Osrik.

Since Gloriana still can't reach any bad guys, she moves forward and waits. Alecsa moves down into the room and hits the sharpshooter with a shuriken. It is at this point it is determined that Alecsa hates goblins, especially if they have axes. [Thought this was pretty apparent from past battles...] Dex misses his target. Osrik's attack misses the skullcleaver. Chaedi misses skullcleaver with cloud of daggers, while the sharpshooter takes damage from the cloud he was still standing in. The sharpshooter takes off to the back corner of the room, near a chest. Skullcleaver hits Osrik.

Gloriana moves down into the room, finally able to get there, and hits the blackblade. Alecsa moves forward and takes some more points off the blackblade with a riposte strike. Dex takes off after the sharpshooter, managing to hit him before the thing disappears through a secret door. However, Dex is hit by the blackblade and he moves past him to chase the sharpshooter. Osrik's spinning sweep attack misses the blackblade. He takes big breath and tries again, killing it this time. Alecsa acknowledges such a good hit. Chaedi's cloud of daggers misses the skullcleaver. Skullcleaver attacks Osrik, yelling, "Dwargh Grusshhhk!!!" It misses the dwarf.

Gloriana whacks skullcleaver with his mace as he spits out more incomprehensible bits of "language." Just to make it scream, Alecsa hits it with torturous strike, which finally bloodies it. Dex comes over to the melee to say the sharpshooter got away. [We are in the middle of combat. Don't help or anything!] Osrik does a brute strike on skullcleaver. It screams some more at such critical damage and finally dies!

So, the party goes to check out this secret door where Dex's sharpshooter disappeared. The party decides to spike the secret door and then do some looting and chest opening. Alecsa determines the chest is not trap but can't get it unlocked. So, she turns to her backup plan - a smash-happy dwarf. He "gently" chops a hole in the top and moves back for Alecsa to inspect the contents. Inside are 3 bags and a scroll tube. Each bag contains a mix of copper, silver, and gold coins, which she guesstimates to be 2000 cp, 1000 sp, and 500 gp. [She's that good.] From across the room, Chaedi starts drooling. Alecsa pulls the money in the opposite direction to protect it. She remembers Chaedi petting and lump of gold and talking to it. Chaedi retorts that it is no different from Cinoi talking to his pebbles, to which Alecsa replies that Cinoi does not talk to pebbles! Chaedi claims she's just thinking of the things she can buy. Whatever.

[This is NOT how Chaedi remembers this conversation. She drools over the loot, yes. But she NEVER talked to her loot. She just rubbed it when she thought about the possibility of having to SHARE with Cinoi, who wasn't even present! Alecsa makes some remark about her talking to her treasure, and she denies it saying "she doesn't talk to her loot any more than Cinoi talks to his pebble collection". Alecsa can twist anything into its opposite!]

Alecsa puts the money into her pack to divide up later. The scroll tube contains an old map of Kinergh with markings on it.

Among the dead, are several well-made dwarven short swords, and a +1 dwarven axe, which Osrik claims he is only "using until the treasure is divided later." Right. Like he's giving that up. Alecsa refuses to use a dwarven made weapon unless it is magical. She'd be too embarrassed to go home otherwise. Looking over the axe, Osrik notes that a decorative piece looks like the lozenge-shaped gem and bears a resemblance to the Alcon gem and necklace they had found in Vim, telling the party to expect more goblins there. Oh, the joy.

The party decides they need to rest and heal up. So, they put more spikes in the secret door, pick up Cinoi in the cloud room (where he was meditating or something, who knows), and set traps at every entrance between there and the altar-cross room, which Cinoi always enjoys. Nothing happens to them during the rest period.[Chaedi used her silence ritual as well, so nobody could overhear us from outside].

Party gets 364 cp, 182 sp, and 91 gp each, including a half share for Dex. Considering the large amount of coppers they have, Alecsa says they need to hit a town and have a lot of brats run errands for them to get rid of some.

After resting, the party checks the rooms and retrieves the traps, and unspikes the secret door. The party follows a long passageway that eventually makes a sharp turn to the west and comes to a dead end, which turns out to be an opening on the west side of the temple, leading back outside. So, the goblin is long gone. Feeling that this can't be all there is to the dungeon, they retrace their steps and look for hidden doors, etc. Out of frustration, Osrik tries to beat down a pillar in the cloud room. Alecsa tells him to knock it off before he collapses the building down on them! They find one secret door in the room right off the altar room, on the farthest wall. Alecsa checks it over, figures how to open it, and lets Osrik lead them through. The door opens onto a 10' wide long hallway that comes out into a room, where nasty things are waiting for them.

Alecsa moves into the room, heading north to beat the crap out of the boneshard skeleton with a trick strike-backstab combination that seriously damages it. Gloriana boxes the boneshard in on the other side and hits it with her mace. Chaedi moves into the room, about 15' from the entryway, and casts her new icy rays at the boneshard in the north corner of the room, and the skeleton, which is standing in front of a flaming skeleton, in the south part of the room. As she's casting, she feels a cold breeze pass by her. Cinoi stands in the hallway, glaring at everything. A shadowy form appears out of nowhere fairly close to Dex, who is standing in the entryway with Osrik. [Good thing Osrik now has that magic axe!] The spectre hits Osrik, Chaedi, and Dex with a psychic barrage, which leaves them injured and Dex and Chaedi knocked to the floor. [Osrik is too short and stable to knock over - being a dwarf is great!] The flaming skeleton hurls fire at Gloriana -- which Osrik has to duck, since he's in a direct line -- hitting her and setting her on fire. She hates flaming skeletons. Dex stands up, and the regular old skeleton hits him. Osrik attempts a crushing blow on the spectre, but misses. Boneshard hits Alecsa with a scimitar.

Alecsa hits boneshard with a riposte strike. Gloriana moves down the room to stand behind Chaedi and turns the skeleton, the spectre, and the boneshard skeleton, killing the boneshard. Boneshard explodes, hitting every party member, except Cinoi in the hallway, with major necrotic energy. And Gloriana puts out the fire. Chaedi heals up a bit and stands again. The spectre fades from view. ...can only hope it's actually in the same spot. Flamer hits Dex with fire, setting him ablaze. Then....

That's it until the next session!

XP 285