Nightwick Abbey - Session 56 - Deja Vu

Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...

Session 56 - 18th of Youngers, 1392

This week's adventurers:

Blossom (Rogue 4)

Mayfly (Magician 4)

Liminal Space (Changeling 3)

Mechtilde (Fighter 3)

Verinka (Changeling 2)

Ulf (Magician 1)

Franz Croakenbell (Frogling 1)

Hirelings: Gerung Floating Disk (MU 1), Fredman (Fighter 1), Grumbletoe (Dwarf 1)

Downtime in the Village

For the second week in a row, a new joiner joins! A Frogling by the name of Franz Croakenbell (played by my actual brother) seeks to delve into the horrors of Nightwick with us! Mechtilde put out an ad, seeking to hire a dwarf to act as a scout for the party. One dwarf, named Grumbletoe, responds, and she agrees to pay him handsomely for his services. Ulf manages to buy a crossbow from a traveling merchant to give him a way to be useful once he has cast his only spell.

Ulf also spends the week researching arcane secrets from what he has learned in the abbey, studying the Pits of Hell and its denizens. Since he has begun this study, however, strange happenings have occurred in the house where much of the party dwells. Doors have been opening and shutting of their own accord, people have claimed to bump into large objects not visible to the eye, and strange, glowing eyes have been seen in the windows at night. Normal magician stuff, nothing to worry about.

Into the Abbey

This week, we decide to explore level three, taking the route beneath the Deerman altar that we visited in Session 31. Our ultimate goal is to find more of the bag-winged helmed, undead Sword Brothers. Each one wears an amulet that we need to open the seal on level 2.

We enter into the abbey through the western tower and in the landing, we show Franz to secret passageway opened by pressing they keys on a carving of St. Gax.

Pudding for Breakfast

As we travel through level 1, the Changelings and Frogling in our party see puddles up ahead in the next room. The "puddles" are undulating in a way that reveals they aren't really puddles, but those blood pudding monsters we've been fighting lately.

Grumbletoe sneaks ahead and pours out two bottles of oil across the hallway to set a trap. Mechtilde shoots one with an arrow and, with an awful squelching sound, the puddings start coming towards us.

Grumbletoe lights up the oil and the first pudding hits the oil and starts squealing as it burns. It burns to death and Verinka slays the other one with her blade.

Meet the Goatmen

At the entrance to the altar room, Grumbletoe listens at the door and reports hearing bleating - more deermen?

Rather than go through the main doors to the room, we sneak around through a secret passage into the room. The doors of Nightwick are old an rotted and so the denizens of the abbey can see our torchlight through them. The secret passage has heavy, stone doors and so we stand a chance or surprising whoever's on the other side.

Going through the passage, we open the door and see six Goatmen worshiping at the altar. Mayfly and Blossom shoot one down and Liminal Space wounds another. Verinka casts Sleep, dropping several of them, and the remaining two Goatmen flee to the south. 

We kill the sleeping Goatmen and spike the doors out of the room to prevent anything from coming back. We find 10 silver candlesticks with black candles in them on the altar. Blossom values the candlesticks at 100sp total and Mayfly takes the candles because they match his aesthetic. Ulf cuts off the horns of a dead goat for decorative purposes, and his love of goats.

Down to Level 3

We forgot to check if we have rope, but luckily someone had some. We use spikes to secure the altar (which sits on rollers to cover the entrance to the pit) and tie rope to it and climb down to level 3.

As we drop down onto the landing, one by one, we take stock of the room. It's a small, + shaped room, with a door to the east and a hallway to the west. On a northern alcove to the room is a statue, a headless figure with an iron crown hovering above 2 points of green light where it's eyes should be. 

Valax

Last time we were here, the statue had blue "eyes" and was Orobas, one of the Dukes of Hell. We recognize this figure as Valax, another servant of Armadaezus, the King of Hell.

Mayfly is interested in that crown, figuring it to be valuable, but as he steps close to inspect it, he hears a voice in his head. "Tell me a secret, and I shall tell you one. Favor for favor."

Mayfly approaches the statue and whispers a secret to it that none of us could hear except Blossom the Rogue. If you want to know what he said, you'll have to ask Mayfly yourself. The demon replies to him "due west, then north is what you seek," which sounds suspiciously like the directions to treasure we received last time we told secrets to such a demon.

Steal From a Demon, Sure, That'll Work Out Well For Us

Mayfly moves to take the crown floating above the statue, first poking it with a dagger. As he grabs it for himself, he hears, "You di..." and then the voice and the eyes disappears with a loud thunderclap.

"Looks like it's lights out for this guy," says Mayfly.

Verinka sees a phalanx of armored dead things coming down the corridor, she reports 10 of them coming. They are likely responding to the thunderclap.

Steel and Bone

We line up and prepare to cast web to block them in the hallway.

Ulf and Mechtilde hit one with an arrow and bolt but it's still moving.

Mayfly casts Fireball as they step into the web and they and the web go up in flame, killing several of the undead.

Three initiate melee with us

Blossom strikes one, Mechtilde lops off a piece of one's skull, killing it the next round.

Ulf casts Light on one, but it seems to have no effect as these creatures doesn't use their eyes to see.

Fredman is struck down, cleanly decapitated. We fumble more attacks and Mechtilde is the only one to land a hit, killing one of our armored foes, leaving one left standing.

Mechtilde hands Franz her other magic sword, Steel, while the last skeleton uselessly slashes against her. Studying its attacks, she thinks that it doesn't know how to fight against opponents armored in platemail.

Franz and Mechtilde finish off the last armored skeleton.

Looking for Treasure

After recovering from the battle, Grumbletoe listens at the door that Valax directed us towards, hearing nothing.

We open the door and Mechtilde and Franz are met with swords swiping out of the darkness at them.

They spy hints of emaciated undead in the dark of the next room. Verinka is grabbed by them, but Gerung, the strong magician, pulls her free.

Using Every Trick in the Book

Mayfly casts Protection from Evil, preventing the undead from touching or attacking him.

Mechtilde is grabbed by two of them but breaks free, and we begin to retreat down the hall.

They start to filter out into the hallway, swinging at Mayfly and Mechtilde.

Verinka throws another oil flask at the group and Liminal successfully hits them with a torch, lighting them up. They approach forward through the fire, burning but not falling to it.

Mechtilde calls upon the power of Dhinron, her magic sword, and it lends her power, granting her superhuman strength. She cleaves through a skeleton (dealing 28 damage!)

The one on fire burns to death and they advance to close rank.

Verinka throws oil on another and Liminal sets it on fire with a torch

Mechtilde is hit badly (8hp) but kills one in retaliation. 

Downtime  A Expeditious Retreat

With Mechtilde badly hit, we decide to retreat rather than risk her death, using Mayfly's Protection from Evil to protect our flank. This is almost exactly how our last delve here went - we tried opening that same door looking for treasure and got swarmed before retreating, then with Sotar guarding our retreat.

We make it safely out of the abbey. The crown Mayfly took was worth 1500sp, for a total haul of 1600sp (213sp for each person) and 416xp and 1 lost hireling.