Saturday, March 9, 2024

Nightwick Abbey - Session 86 - Giving Level 4 Another Shot

Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...

Session 86 - 7th of Primes 1398

This week's adventurers:

Blossom (Rogue 6)

Mayfly (Magician 5)

Mechtilde (Fighter 5)

Ulf (Magician 4)

Liminal Space (Changeling 4)

Krupe (Cleric 3)

Poppy (Fighter 3)

Thekla (Magician 2)

Hirelings: Two Big Shieldmen

Downtime in the Village

Happy New Year from the Dark Country! With the month of Primes rings in the new year. Anne, Lady of Blackleg is hosting a jousting tournament, and rumor has it that she intends to marry the winner...

...However, jousts do not interest our party and so we return to the depths of Nightwick Abbey, as single and celibate as ever. 

We decide to return to level 4, in an attempt to "milk" some gold out of the fly-men who gave us a bad time the last time we down there.

Happening in Nightwick

Ulf was absent last week and this week he notices we have two new hirelings - two large fellas with tall pavises (tall shields that can be stuck into the ground). He asks Mechtilde and Liminal Space the names of their new hirelings and they simply shrug and don't have an answer. 

Two weeks ago, Krupe had to cast Turn Undead to save our party from being overwhelmed by the undead. In response, the Abbey shifted around us. 

Last week, the party discovered that the graveyard entrance to level 3 in now to the northeast of where it used to be - in the middle of the level currently. Due to the Abbey's peculiar natures, we can enter through that door into the middle of the floor, but if we turn around and go back through the door, it will no longer take us out. We'll have to remap the floor to find the new exit.

Into The Depths

We know enough of the level, from last week's exploration, to get to the stairs down to level 4, and we make it down without incident.

Stepping off the stairs, we enter into a 30' by 30' room with a baptismal font holding fetid water.

We go west, towards the fly-men, into a 20' by 30' room with a model of a city in the corner.

Nightwick Meshi

Three small skeletons sit on top of the model - they appear similar to the one Mayfly swallowed a long time ago. Last time, swallowing the skeleton brought a fairy back to life, but it cost him a level.

After hearing this story, Liminal grabs one and immediately swallows it, but feels no different. We suspect that fey creatures, such as a changeling, wouldn't interact with a fairy skeleton like a human would.

He pockets the other two skeletons, planning to sell them to Halfdan the Necromancer back in the village.

Shadows in the Dark

We continue west, into another 30' by 30' room with a shrine in the corner. There are doors north and west from here.

Swirling shadows litter the room, hovering over the stone floor.

Upon seeing the shadows, we assume the worst and prepare for battle.

Mechtilde powers up her sword, imbuing herself with strength and Mayfly throws a silver dagger at one of the shadows. He hits it and the blade sinks it - he thinks there is something corporeal within the shadows.

The First Time You Fight Someone In An Anime, They Always Beat You. That's Just The Rule So You Can Show How Much You've Grown The Next Time You See Them.

As we enter the room, the three shadows swirl around the party - Mechtilde dodges out of the way, but the shadows briefly overtake Liminal and sucks blood out of him through his skin!

Ulf casts Light on one and it fails its save! The creature is blinded.

Mechtilde swings at one with Dhinron and it explodes into a mist of blood.

Blossom follows up with her magic sword, the Shard of God, and lops off a chunk(?) of another shadow.

Next round, Ulf casts Light on another shadow. The rest of the party whiffs their attacks and a shadow retaliates by wrapping itself around Mechtilde, covering her up completely.

As the shadow begins to suck the blood out of Mechtilde, we become concerned for her and her 7 remaining hit points.

More Rumblings in the Deep

Thus Krupe, once more, holds up his holy symbol and casts Turn Undead.

He is successful and the shadows flee, but we sense the abbey shift around us.

As the creatures leave the room through the doors, we see only blackness through the doorways where there were once hallways and rooms to the north and west.

Even More Rumblings in the Deep

Krupe casts a healing spell on Mechtilde to help her recover, and the abbey shifts again around us!

The shadows leave behind three dead bodies - all human. They must have been their previous meal that they were finishing when we found them.

On the bodies we find a phial with a white liquid. Thekla tastes a drop of it and it gives her the sense that she can control something powerful within the abbey through it - demons or undead, perhaps?

At Least We're Not Lost

We peek back east to confirm that our route to the stairs is still intact.

Returning to the stairs room, we go south now, past a fountain room. 

More Jerks Who Want to Kill Us

We open the door beyond it to reveal a short 20' hallway that opens up to another room. We see several robed figures up ahead in the darkness.

Mayfly whispers into his cupped hand and we hear something drop out of his pocket onto the ground and skitter away, but we see nothing.

After a moment, Mayfly announces that the room contains 4 columns, is 30' by 30', and contains 13 "servants of the master," but not his master. Whose master it is, he does not explain.

Do We HAVE to Fight?

We retreat back north and listen at a door to the west and hear the roaring of a great ocean.

There's ocean and void to the north and west of us now, and we don't know of any passages that lead east, so we have to go south somehow.

Yea, We Have to Fight.

We set up a chokepoint at the door to the hallway and have the hirelings bang on their shields to attract the attention of the foes ahead.

Wizard Bowling

Soon, a group of undead, clad in rusted chainmail, start shambling down the hallway.

Mayfly casts Lightning Bolt down the hallway and kills 8 of them! 

Yet more still continue to shamble down the hallway towards us.

The Sticky Stuff

Mechtilde strikes one down with Dhinron and the next round, Mayfly casts Web across the hallway, trapping some of the blind undead.

However, Mechtilde had stepped forward to continue fighting and got caught in the web herself!

We quickly pull her out then set the web on fire, killing the rest of the undead with little fuss.

We advance past their corpses into the next room. 

More Dungeon

It's 30' by 30', with a door in the middle of each wall.

To the east and south, we see long hallways continuing on past our torchlight with several doors in the walls on either side. To the west, the hallway goes 10' and ends in a massive room.

The room is foggy and littered with bodies and we glimpse a massive metal pillar in the room, just past the entrance.

Back To the Village

The evening draws late, and despite our lack of treasure, we decide to leave the abbey for the week. We take the stairs up to level three, and then follow the old route out through level 2 and return to the village without incident.

We get no treasure, beyond the miniature skeletons and potion, but get 300xp each from our defeated foes.

Not the most lucrative delve into Nightwick Abbey, but any one where no one died is a success in my book.


 

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