GoCorral

This session was held over Google Hangouts with my camera pointed at the battleboard during combat. Trajan, Will, and Jamie attended. We did the camera thing instead of Roll20 as Trajan was attending via his iPad. Roll20 didn’t work on iPads at the time we played. We’re used to the battleboard setup though, so it went fine.

Positive and Negative

Having finished talking to the Antenator, the party left the Silver Tower. They teleported to Dalleer and spent the night there. The party’s next plan was to go to the Lich Shade and reach its top as the Antenator had suggested. Then they could easily secure three undead armies and attack Xoria. At that point, Sabriyya decided she was done with the party. She fought with them to defeat the undead menace of the Xorians, not create another undead power. She left stating that she would pray for Tagenadi’s soul.

The remaining party, Tagenadi, Aldarian, Amalius, and Torin, teleported to the Lich Shade and walked in with hide from undead cast as normal to avoid the zombie hordes. Within the Lich Shade they descended down the steps and reached the same room they’d fled from before. Inside the giant zombie behemoths still waited with a few of the petrifying wights.

The undead attacked! Tagenadi stepped forward to take all their shots. Torin flame striked the wights. Aldarian took a defensive position in front of Torin. Amalius climbed up the wall with his boots of spider climb and blasted the undead with an energy cone of electricity. The undead all went for Tagenadi. One of the big ones grabbed him and would’ve pulled him into a grapple, but Torin cast freedom of movement and saved Tagenadi. Tagenadi continued to tank the monsters. Amalius let another energy cone loose, but only the wights fell. With six of the zombie beats closing in, the party chose to retreat. Tagenadi fell back and Torin cast wall of stone to close the room off with four inches of granite.

Unsure of how damaged the big zombie beasts were, Amalius teleported back onto the ceiling of the room. He blasted them with another energy cone, but they still didn’t fall. He quickly teleported back to the previous room. The party discussed tactics. They certainly could eventually wear down the zombies with their magic, but the same couldn’t be said for Tagenadi’s body enduring the assault of the zombies. Torin would normally heal Tagenadi, but he needs negative energy to do that now. He forgot to prep negative energy spells. The party could rest up and continue into the room with negative energy spells or they could just gauge how far the room was and teleport past it. They decided to teleport past it. Before doing so, Tagenadi went outside and wailed on the undead hordes for a bit. He has an ability that heals him every time he strikes something, so he just healed up that way.

Which Path to Take?

Forging on, the party teleported 300 feet forward from the newly made wall of stone. They found themselves on the other side of a pair of iron doors in a ten foot wide corridor. The corridor extended in front of them to a T, splitting off to the left and right. Puzzling over which way to go Amalius asked Torin, “Which path does Athena guide you down?”
“I’m not sure. My dwarven intuition says left, but we’ll have the gods decide.” Torin hefted his spear in his hand and threw it at the wall in front of them. The spear banged off the wall and landed pointing slightly to the left. “My dwarven intuition was always a good match for Athena!”
The party got into marching order after Torin retrieved his spear and began going towards the left. As they passed the intersection, Aldarian’s elven sense tingled. “Hey guys! There’s a secret door behind this wall!”
Amalius asked, “Behind where Torin’s spear struck?”
Aldarian nodded.
Torin said, “Athena would never lead us astray! Let’s go through that secret door.”

Aldarian pressed the catch at the bottom of the door and it swung open. Beyond was a stairway going down. The party followed the staircase and reached a large square room filled with murky water. The adventurers stood on a small ledge one foot above the water. The other end of the room had a passageway similarly placed one foot above the water that led out of the room. Five glowing balls of light moved in an erratic and beautiful fashion over the water. Tagenadi and Amalius recognized the balls as will-o’-wisps.

Wary of the water, Torin cast a light spell on a pebble and dropped it off the ledge. The stone went two feet down into the water before its light was completely obscured by the dirt and slime. Next, Tagenadi took Torin’s spear and began poking the water to identify drop off locations. He found a flat space only three feet down that extended several feet to the left of the ledge.

As Tagenadi was poking, the wisps flew over. They made a formation a few feet off from the entrance. The lights vibrated and they spoke with one voice, “The skeleton man can poke and prod, but we can show you where to go with just a nod.”
Amalius said, “You speak? I thought will-o’-wisps were mute.”
Torin said, “Apparently not.”
“We will lead you over this cleft, first go forward and to the left.” The wisps moved as they spoke and illuminated a path going over an area straight away from the ledge and to the left.
Amalius asked the wisps, “Why are you here? I thought only undead lived in this tomb.”
The wisps answered, “The Bane was not the first in this tower, we live and serve another power.”
Amalius asked, “What other power?”
“Our masters are the immortals themselves, and we serve them in these dungeon delves.”
“But what are you here for?”
“To help you across the watery way, that you may make the Bane pay.”
Tagenadi had continued to poke the water and found the water dropped off even further to the right, but the three foot mark extended straight out from the ledge as well as to the left, but the straightway did not match where the wisps had placed themselves.
Tagenadi said, “Which way did you say to go? There’s no path under where you are now.”
“The skeleton man tells only lies, come with us if you want to survive.”
Tagenadi pulled the spear out of the water and found the area he’d poked below the three foot level was simply gone. A straight mark diagonally across the spear was the only remains of the spear point. “Look at that! If we fall off the path we’ll die!”
“The Bane’s traps may ensnare you, but we are the only ones who can spare you.”

Amalius said, “I’ve heard some stories about will-o’-wisps leading people astray in swamps. What do you have to say to that?”
“The skeleton man is the only liar here, We are truthful and can be your seers.”
“But there’s no path under where you are.”
“The path can change, so quickly you must go, to survive go left then up this row.” The wisps moved again to mark a new path.
Amalius said, “I’m losing my patience with these things. Torin, do you have any spells to get us out of this?”
“Sure. I’ve got a control water spell that’ll reduce the water level in here by a few dozen feet.”
“Cast it.”
Torin cast the spell and the water levels quickly dropped. Three feet down from the ledge was a stone path that snaked its way through the room. It would be a maze under the water. Without the water the path very clearly went forward, to the right, and then followed the wall before reaching the opposite passageway. The path was composed of ten foot high stretches of stone that came out of the stone floor below. Torin’s spell had completely removed the water from the room for the duration. Still suspicious of the empty area where the spear had disappeared, Amalius picked up the light rock from before and threw it down. The rock touched bottom and skipped a bit. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Tagenadi cautiously stepped out onto the pathway and nothing bad happened to him either. “What do you have to say for yourselves now?”
“The skeleton man is undead so he cannot die, but the rest cannot trust the hand or the eye. The skeleton man will lead you round the bend, if you go his way you will meet your end. The path is only safe with the water here, bring it back to reach safety’s tier.”
Amalius brought everyone in a huddle, “What do you guys think.”
Tagenadi said, “I think they’re liars.”
Aldarian said, “Definitely liars.”
Torin said, “Liars.”
“Alright then,” Amalius said.

The party ignored the will-o’-wisps and stepped onto the path. Once everyone was in the room, the wisps attacked. They targeted Torin, Aldarian, and Amalius with electric shocks. They ignored Tagenadi. Tagenadi smote one of them with the broken spear. Amalius made himself immune to electric energy and taunted the wisps to attack him. Torin tried to flame strike the wisps, but found them immune to magic. Aldarian turned invisible. The wisps turned invisible and regroups to attack. Torin as the only remaining targetable member, hid in Amalius’s portable hole. The party waltzed through the room shouting insults at the wisps. The wisps remained silent and invisible.

Grisly Ghost

The passageway beyond the wisp room led to a rectangular room with small step down to the floor from the passage. The floor was covered in thousands of silver coins. Experimentation revealed that taking the coins was as easy as reaching out your hand and that the coins covered about half an inch of the entire floor. Across the room was a stone door. Seeing nothing else out of the ordinary, the party stepped into the room.

AND THE GHOST ATTACKED!

The ghost opened by revealing its horrific appearance which severely weakened Aldarian and Amalius. The ghost then let out a scream, causing Torin and Aldarian to keel over dead. Tagenadi engaged the ghost with his kusari-gama. A blaze of fire erupted from Aldarian’s body and he resurged to full health. He quickly emptied the silver coins he’d taken from his pockets in case that was attracting the ghost. Amalius cast his new power, iron body, hoping to protect himself. The ghost foolishly tried to drain the life energy of Tagenadi, but found none there to take. Tagenadi and Aldarian began wailing on the ghost. Amalius blasted it as well. The ghost turned its incorporeal powers upon Aldarian and drained some of his charisma. The brawl continued until the ghost screamed once again, causing Aldarian’s and Amalius’ death. Aldarian rezzed in flames again and dove into his portable hole. With no living targets remaining, the ghost faded into the ethereal world.

Tagenadi gathered up the bodies and took Torin’s teleportation boots. He teleported back to the other side of the wall of stone. Aldarian and Tagenadi spent the night resting in the old nightcrawler room. The next day they teleported to their accurate guess of Crux’s location. They hoped to treat with Vecna for the resurrection of their friends.

Vecna offered the party a new deal. Two favors in exchange for the resurrection of Torin and Amalius and a energy reversal item for Tagenadi. The two favors could both be returned by Tagenadi or one by Tagenadi and one by Aldarian. Tagenadi included the caveat that none of the favors could affect his family. Aldarian was unsure if he wanted to be part of this deal and argued for a separate deal of his own, one favor for Amalius and Torin. Vecna turned that down as what she really wanted was Tagenadi’s favor.

The party also considered going to Dalleer to beg the Björn for resurrections or to King Dainlin of the Hill Dwarves. They didn’t have enough money for resurrections without selling magic items. They also considered sending Tagenadi back to the room of silver coins to collect as many as possible. Casting speak with dead or reincarnate was also considered.