"Kick a Devilman in the Balls" - Nightwick Abbey - Session 40

The Devil's Playground by A.W.B. Lincoln

Last week in Nightwick Abbey...

Session 40 - 15th of December 1391

This week's adventurers:

Sotar (Cleric 4)

Mayfly (Magic-User 3) Grolmes (Fighter 1)

Anston (Fighter 2)

Verinka (Changeling 1)

Maelwyn (Cleric 1)

Liminal Space (Changeling 2)

Mechtild (Fighter 1) 

Blossom (Rogue 4)

Hirelings: Ticze (Changeling 1), Gerung (Magic-User 1)

Downtime in the Village

Over the past weeks, Mayfly bought a house in town. With a surplus of coin and an increasing number of valuables, it seemed prudent to get a place to store things away from the inn, the Medusa's Head. He celebrated the purchase by going out drinking - the night before our delve. He woke up with a nasty hangover and opted to stay in the village, recovering (we use rules for carousing between sessions to spend silver to gain XP - this was the result of Mayfly's roll). In his stead, Mayfly's faithful hireling Grolmes has been promoted and will venture into Nightwick. We gave him an extra set of chain and the magic sword we received from Father Winter, Dhinron. The idol we received from Father Winter, we gave to the woodsman instead of selling it to gain favor with the group. Sotar buys a silver mace and some of the others buy silver polearms to increase our capabilities, and we decide to explore more of level 2 this week.

 

Into Nightwick

As we make our way to level two, we're stopped in a chapel on the first level. We see 3 figures sitting in pews. They are heavily disfigured - they're either undead or very diseased. Dhinron, however, detects that they are undead, and compels Grolmes to charge forward, attacking the undead and the rest of us follow in behind him. The fight ends quickly and we progress to level 2 of the dungeon.

Searching for Silver

We reach level two and Sotar casts Protection from Evil as soon as they reach the floor. As he does so, the party feels the ground shake beneath their feet. It seems as if the abbey has again rearranged its geometry in response to Sotar's spell. The party speculates that as he becomes higher level, the abbey becomes more likely to respond to his magic, but we don't know for sure how it works. I've been under the assumption that it's more likely to react the farther down we go. Dhinron has the ability to detect metals, so Grolmes tries to detect silver and senses some to the due east of us. We've never explored the room next to the landing, but we know there's Devilmen in there thanks to Mayfly's use of ESP previously. We go to the hallway and hear Devilmen in that room and soft repetitive whispers to the north. Grolmes detects silver in the first room, so we decide to go in.

Do We Suck At This?

As we open the door, we see a few figures moving at the edge of our torchlight - Devilmen, we're sure.

"We're bringing you treats!" - Mechtild calls out, in an attempt to parlay. She steps into the room and is surrounded by 5 Devilmen. "Oh wow there's five of you all around me." Somehow, Mechtild survives two rounds of attacks from the Devilmen as they got the surprise round. Liminal Space hypnotizes 2 of them, ordering them to hug a comrade, and Sotar holds two more. Grolmes is hit and loses his only hitpoint. His leg is broken, but he's not killed. Liminal Space then spooks one into retreating while Sotar is hit with a sword. The spooked one runs across the room and opens a door into another hallway and we hear the sound of heavy boots from the other side of the door.

We're able to clean up the encounter after that, though the fight is dragged on by some impressively bad rolls on our part. We loot the necklaces and chain armor from the dead Devilmen and notice a mural on the eastern wall of the room. It depicts St. Gax holding a bloody mace and a key. From experience we know that the key gets us into a secret room. Sure enough, a door behind the mural opens and we find 3 chests. Worried that reinforcements are coming, we put the armor and chests on a floating disk and hightail it out of the abbey. 

Back in Town

Once on the surface, Blossom is able to safely pick the locks and they contain 2 suits of plate armor and 1,000sp. Maelwyn reaches level 2 and Verinka is just a few XP away from level 2. Warren suggests that Verinka can go into Nightwick and kick a single Devilman in the balls to get that last little XP.

All in total, we only explored 2 new rooms this session. Certainly a small amount, but we acquired a total of 7 new sets of armor and nobody died. We'll definitely be using that armor to outfit new hirelings and party members.