This session was a continuation of Session 134, which was paused in the dungeon. It is broken up into three distinct parts, the first part being the direct follow up from our paused session, then we return to the prison with some new party members for part two and the third part includes a different line up following the loss of some characters.

The first part includes the following characters:

• Xrith'atiril Torinel-Sarfanis of the West Reach, Half-Elf Fighter (Bard) 1.
• Sapphira, Human Paladin 4.
• Jedor, Human Paladin 1.
• Hendricks, Elf Thief 3 / Fighter 2, 5 hp.
• Keisial, Human Ranger 2.

We have the same members as last session minus Saireal Aldilo, 1st level Monk.

The party is in the dungeons beneath the Delbo Keep, a large prison complex. We are standing in a chamber with the dead Rust Monster. There is door leading to the southwest and a passage lined with the glowing crystals leading south.

There are two sets of prison bars on either side of the glowing passage, similar to the ones in the rest of the prison but they instead have faintly glowing blue crystal bars. The crystals appear to be naturally formed into prison bars. There is a bright light from a fire that appears to come from the left side, beyond the bars. We look toward the crystal bars and can see a dark square mat or very thin rug lying between the two sets of bars in the middle of the passage.

There is an iron door with a sigil found on a door to the north west. We have 4 turns to get to the iron door with the Rust Monster's body. After some debate, we use the Rust Monster feathery antenna on the iron door after attaching it to the 10' pole. We drag the Rust Monster across the door along with the crystal material of the protective sigil melt away.

Suddenly, a great wind emerges from the blackness of the chamber beyond and blows into our party. The wind would have extinguished any torches but we did not have any as we are instead using continual light coins to light our way.

We can see stairs that go down into the chamber and all is silent beyond the door. The wind dies down after the first gust. Looking down into the chamber we can make out the edge of a raised pool that contains some kind of dark liquid. The pool is 3' to 4' tall.

Hendricks throws some rations far into the room. They land on the ground and slide before coming to a stop.

We are surprised on a 50% or less. The roll does not go in our favor.

WE ARE SURPRISED.

As we open the door, a magical darkness is cast over us. The darkness extinguishes our continual light coins. We heard no noise, it was silent and instant.

Hendricks and Keisial try to open the door we entered with Xrith'atiril. Sapphira pulls out her +1 magic sword which normally has a magical light of its own but she has no light from her sword this time. Jedor does the same with his own own weapon.

Keisial manages to open the door in the darkness while Sapphira and Jedor have their weapons drawn. Someone will be attacked in the darkness.

Hendricks is attacked. The enemy gets a +4 to hit through the darkness and there are three attacks. Hendricks is hit on a roll of 8 and he is struck twice only once and takes 4 damage. Following this, the entire party must save versus fear and Xrith'atiril failed his save.

Those that failed their save will flee through the open door at max speed. Along with Xrith the other that failed were Saphira, Jedor and Keisial so the enemy in the dark will be getting parting attacks on Sapphira this time. She has an AC 6 and the attacker will get one full attack routine on her. She is hit and takes 11 damage from claws.

Hendricks is left alone in the darkness beyond the open door and he tries to withdraw. Luckily, this time we get the Initiative. Everyone is trying to flee and the majority of the group gets back up the stairs and out the trap door. Hendricks follows in the rear but manages to close the trap door behind him. Nothing was pursuing us that we could see.

Hendricks blocks the trap door with boxes and the party has fled to our mounts. Once we regain our composure, we meet with Hendricks and head back to Qarn.

Back in Qarn, we are adding some new members. Falavor the Half-Elf Thief, Randimir the Half-Elf Cleric/Magic-User and Agun the Cleric join us.

The new lineup will be:

• Randimir, Half-Elf Cleric 5 / Magic-User 5. He is a freshwater sailor that came inland after an albatross guided him to shore. He is a Cleric of Tralf with a familiar named Monty the Weasel.
• Falavor, Half Elf Thief 5. Hails from a family of Foresters.
• Sapphira, Human Paladin 4. She is young and hot and is thoroughly enamored with Jedor, her retainer. She is a follower of Rook.
• Jedor, Human Paladin 1. Hails from Elsewater and also follows Rook.
• Hendricks, Elf Fighter / Thief. Prefers to use his bow and only has 5 hp for now.
• Kaisiel, Human Ranger 2. She is stone faced and is a devoted follower of Mote. She started to smoke a pipe following the passing of Galador, her former master.
• Xrith'atiril, Half-Elf Fighter (Bard). Hails from the West Reach of Hollow and comes from a family of carpenters. He is a cousin to the late Ithimyr Sarfanis and is a storyteller and chronicler.
• Agun, Human Cleric. AC 4/4, MV 9“, Doors 1-2. Listen 1-2, 9,13,15,11,12,10 hp 3. Cleric of Rook. He comes from a family of woodworkers, is tall and thin.

We are back in Qarn for 1 week to recover our 1:1 time. 1-10-497 will be the activation date for Agun.

After some character introductions, the party that returned from Delbo will divide up their share of the treasure. However, this will be managed after the session.

Here is the share amounts for characters from this session:

• 6 pp
• 40 gp
• 29 sp
• 33 cp

We decide that we will take the new group back with us into the Delbo Prison complex afterall, we have unleashed something dreadful. We have a total of 6 movement points to get there.

The party will have to travel from Qarn, which is a city of 20,000 and are known for their cheese and public executions.

Our travel to Delbo is uneventful and we are now outside the city. All of our continual light coins were dispelled but Randimir has a coin and a necklace with continual light. Xrith, Falavor and Hendricks all have torches but have not chosen to light those yet. A bullseye lantern has 8” of range forward and Hendricks considers going back to Qarn to get one but we convince him that our lighting is sufficient.

We go back toward the keep, heading through the west side ruined wall, and find that it is unoccupied. There are a dwindling number of Orc corpses inside the keep, rotting and the boxes left on top of the trap door are where Hendricks left them.

We descend the stairs and enter the prison and find the open portcullis that leads into the main entrance area. The group heads down the passage where Randimir will leave his continual light coin. We take a look at the bridge to make sure nothing will surprise us from behind. The bridge is still there, silently waiting…

Keisial approaches the bridge as she has a question for the Mimic. “Does it mind that the bodies of the dead Orcs are a week old now?”

The mimic says in a disgusted tone that it has no interest in decayed bodies, unless it must. We will have to give it twice as many to pass.

With that, we go back up to the passage where the darkness was once cast upon us. We are not quite to the door when…

The party is not surprised this time. Out of the corner of our eye, we see a movement. It is low to the ground in the room we just left. Something just disappeared behind a corner.

Someone noticed that it looked like something that was creeping along the grounds, without legs and very flat. It did not look humanoid but they only saw for a split second.

• Agun stays back.
• Randimir goes forth.
• Keisial charges down the hall.
• Xrith charges forward.
• Sapphira hangs back with Jedor.
• Hendricks throws oil toward the east, to prevent another attack from the rear.
• Falavor fires his bow.

We have a tied Initiative.

Around the corner, creeping along the dungeon floor, is a colored slime. It lifts its body to meet our charge as we are able to get to the end of the hall. Those of us that are attacking must hit AC 9.

Falavor hits once with an arrow for 4 damage to the ooze creature. Keisial and the creature attack simultaneously and it attacks Keisial this time. The creature lifts up like a snake at her. She has AC 4 it HITS, slamming into her for 11 damage! Keisial strike also hits the ooze creature for 5 damage and now she must make a save versus the blows to avoid losing armor or weapons. She loses neither!

The ooze creature is a 12' long slime. After observing the fight, Hendricks lights up his torch. Xrith continues his attack, despite possibly losing his sword to the acids of the ooze, it is a risk. Sapphira tries to lay on hands for Keisial and Jedor tries to hold at the back of the line.

Agun continues to stay back, a newcomer to this type of dungeoneering, while Keisial continues her attacks.

Keisial is attacked again by the ooze but now she has AC 2. Luckily, she is missed but she does have a large shield which must save since it was used to block the attack. Her shield saves again!

The missile fire goes off and there is one sling bullet shot on Keisial in the rear by Randimir. The bullet misses Keisial! Falavor is also firing and will be shooting at Xrith'atiril in the back. Xrith takes 4 damage from the first arrow but the second shot did not strike him.

In the meantime, Xrith strikes the creature with his bastard sword and does 10 damage.

Keisial throws a longsword to Xrith and he catches the longsword deftly and attacks the ooze creature. The ooze attacks Xrith this time but he dodges the blow!

Sapphira heals Keisial for 8 hp using her Paladin's Lay on Hands ability. Xrith misses with his attack using the longsword.

Hendricks is now in melee with the ooze and hits, doing 1 damage with a torch. The torch is not dissolved but it is trying dissolve more of our metal armor with each slam.

Xrith manages to hit on the next round, doing 6 damage and then it takes 3 damage from Hendricks torch this time. Falavor fires his bow once more and hits for 2 and 2. The torch was the final blow against the ooze and it is destroyed.

The Combat Ends…for now.

There is 1 turn of downtime after the combat where we take a few moments to recover and clean the ooze off of our weapons. Randimir heals Xrith using a Cure Light Wounds spell which brings him back to full.

Xrith points down the hall and says something more dangerous lies that way, beyond the darkness. Agun will hold the door if we go down into that chamber. Sapphira, Keiseal and Xrith are on doors. Falavor stays 3“ behind the rest of the party, way in the back. Xrith takes a moment to listen as does Randimir, who has keen hearing from his Weasel familiar. He hears a deep belly laugh coming from the darkness.

We are looking down into the chamber, and toward the elevated pool.

We have a 50% chance to be surprised once again and will be surprised on a roll of 1-3…We are surprised.

Furthermore, we are surprised from the rear of the group!

Agun notices something in the light of the coin, he sees an unnatural shadow. It emerges out of one of the cells and it has a humanoid shape. The shadow creature has 3 segments of surprise. The first thing it does is cast Darkness and we are suddenly encompassed in magical Darkness, dispelling Randimir's necklace light.

Nobody can see anything. There is 1 charge at the end of the surprise segment and it is attacking the rear of the group. The shadow creature attacks Agun who was going to hold the door and he has an AC 4. The creature is charging and Agun has the Paladin's Protection From Evil. The shadow creature must roll over a 5…and Agun is struck three times!

Agun takes a total of 15 damage and is obliterated by the shadow creature. Agun is dead!

• Randimir casts Continual Light to dispel the magical Darkness.
• Xrith moves to engage.
• Falavor withdraws.
• Sapphira tries to Turn Undead but the shadow creature has to see her holy symbol.

Hendricks is running for it. As he flees, he will be hit on a roll of 10 and 1 claw attack and a bite hit. Hendricks takes 8 points of damage, knocking him down to -3 as he starts bleeding out.

Randimir casts Continual Light spell successfully and Jedor uses his Lay on Hands on the obliterated remains of Agun, not realizing he is dead yet. Sapphira discovers that she cannot turn this creature.

Whe we now see before us is a thin, lanky long-armed shadow creature, now that the Continual Light is cast. The power of the spell has severely hampered the Shadow Demon and it has AC 9!

Both Keisial and Xrith miss with their attacks. Falavor and Sapphira are now out of melee as Jedor attacks. Hendricks is still down, now at -4. Randimir also tries to Turn Undead since Sapphira's attempt was not strong enough but find that he also is unable to turn the Shadow Demon creature!

Xrith makes a solid hit this time, finding that the longsword seers through the creature causing double damage. Normally he would cause 8 damage but actually does 16 damage, thanks to Randimir's Continual Light! Jedor and Keisial also both strike through the Shadow Demon doing 8 each.

Heavily wounded by the light, the creature howls horribly and casts Fear on everyone.

Xrith fails to save versus the Fear, Sapphira and Keisial also fail but Jedor attacks with Randimir. Keisial and Xrith'atiril run away!

Falavor is moving silently from around the corner and he succeeds so he gets to make an attack. He will get a +4 for the Backstab attempt however he misses with both of his dagger strikes!

Jedor and Randimir also both miss which means everyone missed this round.

It is at this moment that Randimir begins to feel a pulling on his very soul, a terrible feeling deep inside him. He must save versus spells or…he will have a bad time.

Randimir succeeds! We all hear an otherwordly noise ring out from all around, like a dull gong sound, as the Shadow Demon is taken aback or shocked by some great power. The creature now seems stunned and is unable to move.

However, despite being stunned the Shadow Demon still attacks Keisial and all of its attack hit as she takes 11 damage. She has only 12 hp left. Sapphira is running in fear but Jedor, Falavor and Randimir all attack.

Their blows are automatically successful and fragments of the creature are ripped into shreds.

The terrible shadow form is destroyed and the party regroups to assess our wounds.

Xrith'atiril was fleeing but eventually he and the others rejoin with the rest of the party.

Randimir heals Keisial for 10 hp and Hendricks is stablized.

After the fight, we check where the Shadow Demon emerged from only to find an enclosed cell with a single skeleton on the floor that looks old. Xrith picks up the skull to examine and finds that it appears to be human.

Randimir does not find any doors and he takes the skull with us.

With the Shadow Demon defeated, we finally go down the stairs and into the room with the elevated pool. The water inside the raised pool is solid black and quite still. There is a chest squatting against the back wall, but not like a Mimic. Everything in the room is trap free according to Randimir and we find that the chest is not locked. We open it.

Inside the chest we find:

• 6900 cp.
• 6900 sp.
• 758 gp.

Keisial dips part of the skull into the pool and finds that it seems like regular water and looks just like water. The skull was only visible for about an inch beneath the surface, indicating the darkness of the water, likely befouled.

To further check what may lie within the pool, Keisial takes Hendricks's 10' pole (who is currently unconscious) to search the pool. She stirs the pole around on the bottom and can feel that the basin stops around the height of the floor. She also finds that there is stuff down there like coins and some larger objects. Nothing felt bigger than a buckler though.

Randimir drops some Holy Water into the pool and it does not react. In the meantime, Hendricks holds open the door in case something bad happens. Xrith and Randimir get some barrels and boxes from the rooms above the trapdoor to bale out the water from the pool. After 20 minutes, we have taken the gold out of the chest (but left behind the silver and copper for some one else) and we have scooped out much of the water. At the bottom of the pool, we find a preserved skeleton that is still bone white with some other items:

• 315 pp.
• A resplendant Aquarmarine gem in the shape of an egg that is worth 1000 gp.
• A glowing dagger.
• Laying beside the skeleton is a horn, like one that would be used for battle. It is perfectly preserved and made of bone that is as dark as slate.
• A steel key (id 148).

Randimir detects powerful magic on the dagger and on the horn but does not see anything else that is magical within the area. Falavor grabs the dagger and Randimir grabs the horn for now. After 10 minutes we have looted everything except the hefty amounts of silver and copper. We have also collected up the platinum coins.

Do we make it back? Yes or No.

• YES, and there are no interruptions.

We regather for the next day.

Hendricks will be back from bedrest on the 18th and Sapphira pays Jedor's upkeep.

Fineas joins our group. He is a level 3 Cleric.

Lygan the Fighter also joins us. He is a very young, tall and thin man and is known to frequent the gambling dens.

Xrith'atiril and Falavor spar and find that the magic dagger has a +1 enchantment at least.

Randimir goes to blow the horn and gives it a mighty OOOOOO-UMP sound. Descending from the blowing horn, a huge stream of dark fog rolls out the back of it and keeps filling up the area in a 10' cube. The magical fog cuts off at the end of the horn, then the cloud drifts away. It functions as a fog cloud spell.

Falavor takes the dagger.

Xrith'atiril takes the Horn of Fog.

The party heads back, once again, to the ruins of Delbo and decide that we shall first explore the locked iron door we found in the upper tower. Once we get there, Randimir casts Find Traps. He finds no traps so Keisial tries to use the key in the iron door but it does not work.

Falavor attempts to pick the lock and succeeds! The lock opens and the party attempts to open the large iron door. With some difficulty we get it opened and find that inside is a chest pushed all the way to the back of a small room.

Inside the room Randimir does not detect any traps here either. The chest is opened and is filled with electrum and gold.

• 2200 ep.
• 550 gp.

We decide to take the chest to the horses before going into the prison so Lygan and Xrith move the chest together. Before heading into the dungeon, Keisial, Lygan and Xrith grab some of the Orc bodies that are at the surface and drag it all the way to the bridge Mimic.

The bridge groans deeply and splits in the middle and a disinterested pseudo pod extends out and grabs each corpse, one by one. The bridge then seals up in the middle.

We determine that we have 3 people with magic weapons.

Keisial asks the Mimic if the bodies are sufficient and the bridge merely groans. Hendricks says we will bring fresher food later, and the bridge responds “I should hope so”.

Continuing further, we decide to check out the unexplored area to the south west so we cross the bridge and head down some stairs. We check the first door on the left which opens without issue. Inside was a sealed cell with the remains of a skeleton lying on the ground. Wrapped around the bones is a small, decayed purse. The purse may have been purple at one time but is now black.

Xrith scoots it over toward him with his sword until eventually it falls apart and 75 gp fall out. Fineas smashes up the skeleton and then retrieves the coins.

We go for the last door along the passage that opens up into another closed cell that is completely empty. The west passage continues for 20' where we see another cell door followed by a regular door. At the end of the passage are a series of closed portcullises.

The party tries to open the first door on the right and it opens easily but inside is just another empty cell. Our light extends a bit further past the portcullises spaced along the west passage and we can see a skeleton in the far back end.

Randimir casts Find Traps again and sees that no traps are detected but he does hear a chopping noise coming through a door, like the sound of someone chopping up meat or vegetables.

We prepare ourselves for what we may find and open the left door.

There is no surprise for us but the thing inside IS SURPRISED!

Beyond the door is a stair that goes down into a chamber and standing inside this area is a HUGE portly man chopping up the body of a dead Orc. Bones of other Orcs and Goblins lie strewn all around the floor and we can see the shine of over 1,000 loose coins scattered about. The man is unnaturally tall, appearing to be over 7' tall! He is only wearing brown pants and there is sweat glistening off of his back. The Butcher holds up a big meat clever and slams it down on the table, chopping at some of the Orc meat and an Orc skull goes flying out and bounces off the wall.

We are 1” away from the Butcher.

Xrith'atiril pulls out his bow and fires during the surprise and he hits for 1 damage. Fineas and Randimir are both casting Hold Person however, Magic-Users must overcome the Butcher's Magic Resistance. Randimir's spell will be resisted on a 55 or less on a percentile roll. It does not resist Randimir's spell but Fineas's spell is resisted. The Butcher must now save versus spells and must roll a 16 or higher to resist.

He fails to save however, the Hold Person spell will not go off for 5 segments. Keisial charges forth to attack! Keisial must hit AC 8 and the Butcher is considered large. Keisial hits and does 7 damage!

Meanwhile, Xrith will continue to shoot as does Falavor. Falavor hits with both arrow shots for 4 and 3 damage while Keisial strikes again for 10 damage.

The Butcher roars in anger and turns around!

Xrith keeps firing arrows as does Falavor. Lygan the Fighter moves into combat to engage the hulking man. Keisial continues her attacks.

We lose intiative this time however Falavor hits for 6 and 1 damage, causing the Butcher to look like a pincushion of arrows at this point. The Butcher lifts up both of his large cleavers and totters uneasily before us until it falls over. At this very second, suddenly Randimir's Hold Person spell goes off, leaving it locked in a frozen position as it falls.

The Butcher is dead!

Keisial notices that one of the cleavers held by the Butcher is trembling, inching its way out of his grasp. Keisial rushes over and squeezes the monster's hand to hold onto the cleaver which appeared to be trying to break free. After a moment, Keisial grabs the cleaver and discovers that it is fine, nothing untoward happens to her.

She does try to let it go and as she does, the cleaver drops to the ground and immediately leaps up back toward Keisial! She jumps out of the way and it clatters against the wall but then begins moving again as it continues to try and attack Keisial. It starts moving back toward her but quickly, Keisial picks it up.

This is a huge cleaver in size that counts as a battle axe. Keisial is holding on to it for now.

Keisial and Randimir attempt to spar with it to find out what the cleaver can do. While they spar, Xrith'atiril searches around the chamber. While testing it with Randimir, they discover that it has a +1 to attack and it appears to be magnetically pulled toward him, as a +3 weapon. This same effect happens when sparring against Xrith.

Whats behind the table? We see a bunch of body parts including some body parts of humans. Randimir notices a particular cloak that is unique looking and in good condition. The cloak we see resembles the ones we found after the fight above in the keep some weeks back.

Xrith gathers up to coins from the floor:

• 1500 cp.
• 500 sp.
• 100 gp.

After 10 minutes of searching the chamber, nothing else turns up. We take the body of the giant Butcher and go back up to the bridge Mimic. Before we depart however, Randimir casts Detect Magic and finds that there is strong magic on the Butcher's Cleaver but not on anything else in the room.

As we drop off the body of the Butcher, the bridge Mimic happily accepts the food and we cross over. We head out and head for Qarn once again.

We make it back to Qarn safely and divide up the treasure.

For the last session (first part of this session), Jedor gets:

• 3 pp
• 19 gp
• 15 sp
• 17 cp

Everyone else gets twice this amount.

Loot from the second part:

• 315 PP
• 758 GP
• resplendent aquamarine worth 1000 gp
• Dagger (magic)
• Horn (magic)
• Key (ID 148)

Loot from the 3rd time out:

• chest 2200 ep 550 gp
• 75 gp coin pouch
• 100 gp
• Cloak - not magical
• Cleaver (magic)

Half share amounts for today part 2:

• 24 pp
• 120 gp
• Worth 240 xp

Half share amounts for today part 3:

• 48 gp
• 146 ep
• Worth 121 xp

Player characters will get double these amounts.

The Cleaver goes to LYGAN the Fighter, the +1 Dagger goes to Falavor and Xrith'atiril claims the Horn of Fog.

• Sapphira and Keisial get 1225 xp
• Jedor gets 467 xp
• Fineas gets 281 xp
• Randimir gets 956 xp
• Lygan 1,081 xp
• Falavor 1,031 xp
• Xrith'atiril 1,625 xp
• Hendricks 944 xp

Magic Item IDs:

• The +1 Dagger is id 124.
• The Butcher's Cleaver is id 125.
• The Horn is id 126.

We ended the session on Dead Moon the 11th, 497.