Leveling up after a fierce and almost fatal battle with a swarm of noxious glowing bugs, the party paused for a brief tasting of magical spirits before heading back to the moon bridge. When they arrived, the appearance of the moon above the chasm between karsts did, in fact, manifest a ghostly bridge. Taking a leap of faith, they crossed over into a tunnel illuminated with a mysterious green light.
Being sensitive to magical auras, Zog and Drak could both sense something momentous. Turning a corner, the party entered a large chamber with an extraordinarily regular jade monolith emerging from the middle of a slight depression.
In an awesome out-of-character homage to a sci-fi classic, Sven produced a bone from an earlier and encounter, approached the monolith, and hurled the bone at it, just daring it to respond. Well, respond it did. With a green shimmering in the air, Sven was overcome by a dweomer that turned him into something unearthly (and not too dissimilar from inscrutable high elves that hide in hidden vales).
Since Sven seemed to make out ok [I drew inspiration from a random roll on the Vornheim magical effect table], other characters decided that they wanted a chance at a beneficial mutation. Zog approached, physically touched the monolith, and grabbed his head in pain. When he recovered, a third eye opened in the middle of his fore-head, which increased his supernatural sensitivity a thousandfold.
Colin was then moved [by a present player spending an Awesome Point] to approach the monolith and the resulting effect was that he became literally (rather than just metaphorically) insubstantial.
Drak was the last to touch and was engulfed in enough green magical energy that sparks leapt off his fingertips and his his hair stood on end. In addition to being able to overpower his spells with added force, he would later learn that he now frightened animals, withered vegetation, and has a tendency to spoil food in his presence. A small price to pay for Ultimate Magical Power...
Meanwhile, Guy-Ho was having none of it. The spirit of Hakuna shielded from all such magical effects and, indeed, subtly warned him to move from the room lest something truly awful happen. The party wisely decided against touching the Hakuna tiki to the monolith, fearing a world-shaking catastrophe.
Next up, the party ventured down a natural stair to a room swirling with mysterious purple energies. Through the violet miasma, a dreadful howling wind could be heard. Cautiously investigating further, the party discovered that winds blew through a gap over which could be seen yet another passage into a different karst. A frightening battle with the spectral forms forced the party to retreat back up to the jade monolith.
The second chamber to be explored appeared to be an alchemist's laboratory filled with alembics, beakers, and shelves of now useless reagents. Prominently displayed on a table in the center of the room was a vacant pedestal that was labeled (in ancient runes that Zog could read) "Philosopher's Stone".
Searching the the room further, the party discovered a secret entrance to a treasure cache of unimaginable riches. Everyone was consumed by greed and began filling pockets with golden baubles of every sort. Everyone but Zog, that is, as his third eye saw through the glamour to the heaps of trash and rotting filth that the party was now thrusting into their pockets.
It was Fool's Gold, but the dweomer might possibly hold long enough to sell to unsuspecting rubes back in Sanctuary. So the party made of the illusionary gold and vowed to retrieve it before they returned to civilization.
Finally, the party investigated the third room off the monolith chamber. It contained an enormous petrified head. Upon entering the chamber, the great stone head came to life with a hideous sigh, as countless crawling bugs issued forth from its mouth. Then it uttered the words, "Ask. Thrice."
So the party asked the stone oracle three questions. They asked about upcoming dangers they would face. They asked about the history of the chantry. And Zog asked for the precise location of the Philosopher's Stone. The answer to that last question is that it was hidden in a crypt among the "Skulls of the Ancients", across the Howling Gap, through a Mystic Barrier, and past the Somnolent Lich (DungeonWords all).
Stay tuned for the final installment of this very eventful dungeon crawl...
4 comments:
Very eventful! Incredible game, and engaging write-up. I fancy a wander in those parts.
Thanks Porky! I had a blast creating and running this adventure. Part 3 of the writeup should be up later today or this evening.
I agree, this has been interesting. Not only from a gaming point of view, but also from a behind the scenes point of view on how you came up with the adventure.
@Matt: That's one of the reasons that I post these AP reports. I know that I find it very useful to peer behind the screen at the techniques of other GMs.
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