Nightwick Abbey - Session 80 - RIP To A Real One

Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...

Session 80 - 25th of Undecember, 1397

This week's adventurers:

Mechtilde (Fighter 5)

Ulf (Magician 4)

Verinka (Changeling 4)

Liminal Space (Changeling 4)

Voorhis (Cleric 2)

Poppy (Fighter 2) 

Hirelings: Helusch (Magician 1), Niklaus (Fighter 1), Kite, Bero the Bandit

Downtime in the Village

Liminal leveled up since last session and learns Phantasmal Force and Knock.

New hirelings offer themselves up for service:

Bero the Bandit, armed with a falchion and leather armor and missing two fingers, has a large "B" branded on his forehead. Unable to find work in polite company, he offers up his service for 2gp/month plus 1gp danger pay.

Kite the Woodsman has recently lost a hand, but is still able to fight with an ax. He offers to work for 1gp/month and 1gp danger pay per delve. 

Liminal space hires Kite and Mechtilde, who's never met someone she couldn't fix, hires Bero the Bandit. 

The party also stocks up on oil for fire bombs, just in case.

Into the Dungeon

This week, with a small party and no Mayfly, we decide to go to level 2 to kill a gibbet monster to impress Dhinron, the magic sword who hates undead who Mechtilde also wants to date. 

We also see out a Knight of Armadeus known as the Manager on level 2 - the cleric Johanna, another adventurer in Nightwick from the other group, has offered us healing potions in exchange for capturing the smoke that a knight emits when it dies. She has also provided us with a bellows and a glass bottle for this purpose.

We depart the village early on a very cold morning and descend down the western tower into the remains of Nightwick Abbey.

Traversing through level 1, we reach the room Mayfly once Fireballed only to find the next door stuck.

Mechtilde forces it open, but in the next room we see a group of Dregs - weird creatures that look like rats mixed with old men.

Fortunately, they take one look at us and flee into another part of the Abbey.

Down to Level 2

We continue on to level 2, arriving on the landing with blood trickling down two columns.

Verinka listens at the door to the hallway and hears nothing.

Mechtilde forces open the door and as the front rank steps forward, we hear the sound of loud cackling and a group of corpses lashed to breaking wheels come rolling down the hallway into our front line.

They roll over Verinka, pushing her into their ranks, separated from the party.

Phantasmal Force is a Well Written Spell in B/X

Liminal casts Phantasmal Force, conjuring the illusion of a pit appears between us and the wheels - one of them appears to fall in it.

Mechtilde powers up her sword while we debate the metaphysics of Phantasmal Force.

Four of the breaking wheels roll up to the pit but stop. The first one who rolled over Verinka turns around and charges towards Mechtilde.

The next round, Mechtilde and Verinka each destroy a wheel while another one rolls over Verinka and into the 'pit.'

There are still three wheels, who gang up on Verinka. She is struck down, dead!

Mechtilde hops over the phantasmal pit to avenge Verinka and, with the aid of Niklaus and Poppy's spears from the 2nd rank, slays the remaining breaking wheel skeletons.

Luckily, the month is Undecember and so is still winter and therefore, Father Christmas still has reign! We can petition him to reincarnate her as we did with Liminal!

Now we only need to scrape together 2,000sp to pay for the reincarnation.

Onwards and Upwards

Determined to come home with money, we continue on our route: go east and then north, coming to the hallway between the "Nightwick Shitter" and a room with the "manager" of the level - a demon knight.

We force open the door across from the shitter to reveal a room with a tall, bird-footed creature with a wicked smile and a giant bird-beaked polearm - the Manager!

The creature jumps to attack and casts a Darkness spell between us and it.

Once Again, Liminal Space is the Only Useful Spellcaster in the Group

We back up down the hallway to draw it out, but Liminal Space stands his ground and casts Hypnotism on the creature.

The spell is a success and he commands the creature to "Grovel at my feet!"

It approaches and lays down at Liminal's feet dutifully.

Mechtilde strikes the prone creature before the spell wears off and lops off its head in one slice.

It dissipates into a greasy black smoke immediately and Mechtilde manages to work a bladder to suck up some of the smoke for Johanna.

The Journey Home

We loot the room and find a single locked chest along with a key on the Manager's body. 

In the chest, we find 1,000 silver coins. 

At that, we grab the coin, Verinka's body, and the Manager's polearm and return home.

We gain 360xp each and recovered 1,000sp total, for 166sp each.

Johanna also gives Mechtilde a healing potion in exchange for the Manager's smoke. 

We still have to kill a gibbet cage monster for Dhinron and reincarnate Verinka, but those are problems for another week.