Nightwick Abbey - Session 51 - Picking Up After Ourselves

Previously in Nightwick Abbey...

Session 51 - 6th of Elders, 1392

This week's adventurers:

Blossom (Rogue 4) 

Mayfly (Magician 4)

Sotar (Cleric 4)

Liminal Space (Changeling 3)

Mechtild (Fighter 3)

Hirelings: Gerung Floating Disk (MU 1), Andre (Fighter 1), Heyno, Elger, Gutteral

Downtime in the Village

Blossom uses the week to search for rumors of ways to see in the dark. Through her various contacts, she finds out that the Blindfold of St. Candace of the Night, purported to bestow its wearer the ability to see in the dark, is in the hands of the Brotherhood of Thieves and Assassins. Where, exactly, they are holding it is still unknown to Blossom, but the expert rogue will be able to find that out in due time. Taking it from an assassin's guild may be foolhardy, but maybe they will want to strike a deal for her to obtain it.

The party clerics spend the week declaring their saintly devotion - a traditional practice for warring holy men that has been neglected in Nightwick until now. They each pick one saint to express their devotion to and, in turn, they are each blessed with holy knowledge. (Player's Note: this is a bit of extra role-playing potential, but this also gives each cleric a bonus 1st level spell that they always have memorized. Through saintly devotion, they even have the potential to learn spells not on the cleric spell list!)

Sotar devotes himself to The Lady, the first to hear from the God of Law and who founded the Church by sharing the God of Law's teachings.

Yevgeniy devotes himself to St. Gax the Lawgiver, who wrote down The Lady's teachings before her death and then added some bits to make it more "comprehensible, complete, and followable," according to him.

Cherwe devotes herself to St. Richard the Prior, the patron saint of truth tellers who died by immolation.

Sotar is interested in St. Gunther, the Goose (who leads the Company of the Goose), but must first decide if he aligns with the Eastern Church and then establish an enclave to him.

Liminal Space went carousing, but it went quite poorly. He got into a one-sided knife fight where he got badly stabbed (starting the week's session down 8hp - over half of his total). On the morning of our delve into Nightwick, he shows up, badly bandaged and still bleeding a little bit, but insisting that he is fine.

Mayfly studied the recently captured spellbook and learned Web from it.

How (Not) to Care For Magic Weapons

We're going on a tour of Nightwick to recover lost magic items this week. We've lost over 60% of the magic weapons we've recovered from Nightwick according to our records (we're very irresponsible).

First, we're going after The Butcher's Cleaver, a magic axe that Grodsworth van Snorly was holding when he was killed by undead on level 2.

Hey, No!

We pass through level 1 rather uneventfully and make it to level 2. We listen to a door that leads to what we know is a sort of control room and Liminal hears the sound of babies crying? As we struggle to force open the door, it bursts open and 3 baby-shaped creatures made of rock and fire are there. The front two quickly strike down Heyno! One of our new hirelings, Gutteral, picks up his spear and attacks back. 

After another round of combat, Liminal casts Fog over the fire babies. They're unable to see us, but we can see the glow of their bodies through the fog. Despite this, one of the manages to land a hit on Sotar before we finish them off.

Sotar's wounds are bound by Mayfly and Gerung picks up Heyno's corpse so that it doesn't decide to join the abbey at some point. Blossom decides to give Heyno's chain armor to Bero, a new hireling she got last week.

Watchers and Lookers

We continue on past the control room, into the red room, and Liminal sees a group of manimals in the distance, watching our approach. He hails out to them and they respond.

Who goes there.

"We're looking for an axe."

That doesn't really answer our question.

"Uhh... we are the one looking for an axe." 

Knowing the manimal naming convention, we introduce ourselves with similar names - Looker, Seeker, Mumbler, etc. This (plus Liminal's +3 charisma bonus) tentatively wins them over. He convinces them to let us pass safely, but they seem disturbed by Mayfly, who has previously claimed to be The Master, the powerful magician who first made them.

We advance past them but are wary. Manimals are known to betray us. We know that danger lies ahead of us, but we don't like the idea of having danger lay behind us as well.

Abbey of the Living Dead

We go past them and their weird underground hut and come to the hallway where Grodsworth van Snorly died and, sure enough, the Frogling's body is still there, right where we left it when we had to flee. We warily advance and see four fungal zombies at the edge of our torchlight before we can reach his body.

High Level Spellcasters Doing Their Thing

We prepare to attack, but then remember they release spores when hit in melee. Mayfly casts fireball at them, killing off their front line as well as several other unseen zombies still in the dark.

More keep advancing out of the darkness and one lands a strong blow against Mechtilde (8 damage!) She responds by killing two of them with good hits. Mayfly casts web across the hallway and Liminal Space casts auditory illusion down a side passageway. One keeps advancing towards us and two shamble off towards the illusion. As the zombie gets stuck in the web, we shoot it and finish it off with spears.

In the midst of the fight we hear a screaming roar echoing through the ruins. At first, we fear it may be the demon Bloatus, who've we briefly encountered down here before, but the sound sounds less human-like and more tortured than Bloatus (or was it more human-like and less tortured?) It's still not a comforting thought, however.

Three more fungal zombies shamble forward and get caught in the web. Sotar uses his torch to burn up the web, the zombies with it.

A Mission Completed and An Expeditious Retreat

We recover Grodsworth's corpse. Sure enough, the Cleaver is still there along with the rest of his equipment and 152sp. We hear the screaming again and decide it's time to leave the abbey and book it back to town. As we start to leave, we see 12 more fungal zombies shamble out of the darkness, but it's already too late and we outta there.

Back in the Village

We return to Nightwick village, celebrating our success and making plans to recover our other lost sword, Dhinron. But not right away. Next week, we're leading our 700 strong army into battle against the White Lady and her forces. Next week, we're breaking out Chainmail!

XP earned: 257 each.

Treasure earned: 152sp (25 each) and the Cleaver