Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...
Session 83 - 15th of Duodecember, 1397
This week's adventurers:
Mechtilde (Fighter 5)
Ulf (Magician 4)
Liminal Space (Changeling 4)
Krupe (Cleric 2)
Poppy (Fighter 2)
Voorhis (Cleric 2)
Thekla (Magician 1)
Hirelings: Helusch (Magician 1), Niklaus (Fighter 1), Assmann (Fighter 1)
Downtime in the Village
Ulf was absent for last week's delve but was regaled with stories of the party fighting endlessly in a single 30' by 30' room. Since our last session, Blossom has also attained level 6! Alas, she and Mayfly both are unavailable this week for the delve.
During our downtime in the village, Ulf researches, gaining 800xp at the cost of 800 silver, but loses 2hp from paper cuts (worth it). Mechtilde ordered construction of a spear attached to a bellows for the purpose of sucking up the smoke that is produced when a Knight of Armadeus is killed. The offer of healing potions in exchange for smoke is still valid in the village.
Ulf also sought to restock on torches, but the village supply is somehow completely extinguished! Hopefully, he has enough for this week's delve. We decide to return to level 3 to continue exploring the unexplored bits.
Into the Catacombs
We enter the accursed abbey through the graveyard entrance, straight onto level 3.
We traverse through the level to the four glowing sigils that once kept level 4 locked away.
At the first one, we go south to an intersection. This area is different than our maps show. The abbey must have shifted at some point.
Ahead of us and to our right (west), we see three alcoves with glints of silver in them.
To the east, we see a room - the details unimportant, we see a great black and shaggy shape moving in the darkness of the room. Surely it knows of us from our torchlight, but it seems to ignore us.
Liminal's New Friend
Liminal Space walks forward to introduce himself to the creature.
Before he can speak, he sees that the beast is curing the skin of a dead person. We don't directly recognize the person, but it looks like someone from the village - we assume its a hireling left behind by the other group who adventures in Nightwick.
"Helloooooooo. May we pass by?" Liminal asks.
"What do I get out of it?" the beast growls.
"The friendship of Liminal Space, America's Sweetheart."
He's not impressed by the offer and points to Ulf "You may tell me your name."
Ulf politely declines, knowing that giving a demon your name is tantamount to selling your soul, which most of the party has already done.
Mechtilde, however, leans over and whispers in he ear, "It's easy, you just tell him your name, which is 'Ulf."
Free Treasure - It's Just That Easy
Ulf doesn't budge on the issue and the party goes west to the alcoves and recover 750 silver coins from shelves in the alcoves after carefully searching.
We decide we would rather fight the Devil of Hell rather than walk an extra 100' to go around it.
Fine, We'll Fight a Devil
Mechtilde powers up her magical sword to increase her strength and runs into the room with Liminal Space to ambush the devil.
Unfortunately, said devil seems to have noticed Mechtilde's magical girl power up sequence sword powering up and he is gone as they run into the room.
Before the party can react, the Devil suddenly appears in front of Mechtilde and Liminal and swings a giant fire poker at them...
Devil Can't Fight
...but fortunately it really whiffs its swing. Like really badly. It rolled a 2.
The rest of the party piles into the room and shoot arrows at him, but they bounce harmlessly off his hide.
Liminal casts Phantasmal Force but he brushes off the effect with a laugh - "You have no tricks for me, Liminal Space!"
Mechtilde swings mightily with Dhinron and kills the beast with one stroke! Her enhanced strength allows her to roll for 20 damage!
The Devil bursts into greasy black smoke and Mechtilde grabs her bellows-spear to suck up the smoke.
Salt-Dried Human
In the room, there are a large number of baskets and boxes and a table with the dead hireling - his eyes and tongue removed and his skin covered in salt. The baskets are filled with salt and other herbs which we know to be valuable and there is also a set of embalming tools present. We take it all, loading down our hirelings with loot. Without a rogue present, we cannot know for sure how much its worth until we take it back to town.
Past the room, to the east, we see an identical layout as behind us - three alcoves, a path north to the sigils, and there's a door beyond all that to the east. We find another 750sp in the alcoves.
At this, Mechtilde runs off back to the village, having forgotten that she left the stove on. (Her player had to leave the session early).
This is Really a Game About Doors
At this point, we also realize, as we try to open the door east, that tonight's missing players are the ones with crowbars (Blossom, Mayfly, and Mechtilde), yet we somehow force open the door east.
This room is empty, but shows signs of heavy foot traffic, particularly from the south to the east.
The room is 30' by 20' with doors in each direction. Liminal listens at all three doors and hears nothing.
We force open the southern door to reveal a 20' hallway ending in another door.
The door is misshapen and swollen and we can see a flickering green light through it.
Advancing to the door, Liminal hears a voice in his ear, "not you, send someone else."
From our previous delves, we know the green light is Valax, a Lieutenant of Armadeus and a Duke of Hell.
We fail to force open the door south to Valax, so we just leave.
Let's Just Not Talk to the Duke
We force open the door east instead, into a 40' by 50' chapel, with a 20' alcove in the wall holding an altar.
There are 4 figures with silver masks and a leader wearing a skull mask and a mitr - an anti-bishop? They turn to look at us as we open the door.
Thekla steps forward to cast Charm Person on the bishop and succeeds!
He welcomes her as a friend and bids us to come and enter.
Making Friends and Murdering People
Behind the altar, painted on the wall, is the image of a spear with a woman impaled upon it. From the wound bleeds a pale purple blood and her head is a hyper-realistic round rusted spear. The sphere is pitted with rust and multi-colored eyes peek out from the pits.
The image is both captivating and horrific. Ulf thinks the figure is meant to represent Armadeus, but can't quite make sense of the details of the painting.
The altar looks to be made of bronze, and the parishioners' masks are silver, which means money for us and so Liminal casts Sleep and succeeds in putting the entire group to sleep.
We carefully slit their throats and take their stuff.
Back To The Village
Loaded down with multiple rooms worth of treasure, we call it quits for the week and return to the village.
We recovered 1500 silver coins, the bronze altar (1500sp), the embalming supplies and tools (1500sp), and the cultists fine robes and masks (1000sp) for a total of 5500sp of treasure.
We each receive 718xp and 647sp for the delve. This is enough for Poppy to level up!
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