This session begins once again in the town of Gren, which is surrounded by a vast grasslands known for having grass will grow extremely tall. Our goal for today was to investigate the Chapel Grounds further. During the last session we experienced the town during the annual Festival Day of Riswa. We found that there were many items relevant to the Goddess Riswa being sold such as walking staffs with designs of magical beasts carved into them and some shops would sell small lode stones, a curiosity. The town of Gren was full of festivities including lots of food and singing.

We were also approached by Thomas Duskhollow who offered to give us free suits of armor for dealing with the bandits at the Chapterhouse. Not plate mail of course. Of the two taverns that we frequent in Gren, adventurers are known to meet there and discuss matters and events of our group. These adventurers are represented by our characters that we keep in our stables.

This session's characters were:

- Ithimyr Sarfanis, Half-Elf Cleric / Ranger of Riswa.

- Lathar Cassimir, Human Ranger.

- Erebus Priscus, Human Paladin.

- Vella Sloan, Human Cleric.

- Fandillas, Elf Fighter / Magic-User.

- Sander, Human Paladin.

- Islon, Human Cleric.

There is some kind of “large thing” in the Chapel.

Prior to our departure to return to the Chapel grounds, we received the blessing of the Temple. Syrah, the head priestess of the Temple of Riswa, bestowed this upon us and she provides to Ithimyr, a Scroll of Bless, to use in our time of need.

We leave on the morning and arrive at the Chapel area without incident. The Chapel rises up so high, it is even visible from Gren. Although it still stands intact at the base, the top of the Chapel and the roof is mostly caved in. The upper level has a row of stained glass windows with images that depict fields and colors. The designs are all abstract.

The smaller Chapterhouse which stands some distance away is 100' x 80' and the party also knows that there is a 30' x 30' building between the Chapel and the Chapterhouse.

Lathar and Ithimyr begin searching for tracks on the approach. Lathar, the human Ranger, finds some tracks. These are deep imprints, like big poles were driven into the ground in rows. They appear to him to have been left by some kind of massive spider beast. They go towards the Chapterhouse door and come FROM the Chapel.

The Chapterhouse door is open and these tracks were made within the last 12 hours. The creature that made them went back and forth a couple times. These include both bigger tracks and smaller tracks of a similar type. We presume that the larger tracks were made by a beast that is two horses in size.

Standing outside the Chapterhouse, we notice it only has 2 window openings on either side of the door. We notice that the windows themselves are missing.

It is a cloudy day today.

Erebus leads us into the Chapterhouse. In the darkness, there are dangling webs hanging from the ceiling which were not there previously. Loose strands blow lightly in the wind. The roof is largely made of stone otherwise.

Followers of Rook hold castles and foundations as sacred. The presence of the webs in this building is anathema to their cause. We discuss potentially burning them, the Paladin of Rook feels that we should not cause it to burn down due to damaging the stone monument of the Chapterhouse.

We check to see if there are any spiders on the ceilings and do not see any, other than lots of webs. Someone checks in the direction of the Chapel, for anything moving and there is no sign of movement. The larger and smaller tracks were both from the same species of creature. We estimate that there are probably between 3 to 5 smaller spiders and 1 to 2 big ones that entered this area.

Lathar lights up his torch and looks inside the Chapterhouse more carefully to see. With his shield and torch in hand, he begins lighting the webs then quickly, begins to “book it out”. The torch ignites the webs and we hear it burn up slowly at first then a thick smoke billows out of the windows.

At this time we hear a collective screech! Four large spiders crawl out from the windows.

Immediatly, the group moves to engage them in melee combat after missing with all of our ranged attacks. Most of us charge them!

Fandillas's shortbow fire a volley and drops one of the spiders instantly. One down! Quickly afterward, another spider is slain and two others are struck but they are not dropped. Ithimyr starts getting mobbed but they all missed!

In the next few round, we have killed all of the large spiders and the party takes one minute to gather ourselves. Recovering arrows after being fired has a 50% chance of success.

We check out the Chapterhouse and the webs appear to be gone. Only bloodstains remain on the floor, we see that a font has been tilted up and the inside container has been exposed. The door in which the bandit leader was killed is now slightly open.

The webs were mostly grouped into the corners of the room so there is no damage to the place, it was a clean burn. The place can remain viable for the standards of the Paladin of Rook.

The stone door leading into the Chapterhouse is heavy and we leave it closed.

The Chapel itself is tiered, with a bell tower up at the top but having no bell at present. The front of the Chapel has big wooden double doors and top of each tiered section has collapsed in. It is not quite completely open to the elements as there still remains a pointed more, structured part of the roof. Most of the roof that remains, however, is now flat. It is apparent that rain would get in for sure.

The front doors are closed. We find evidence of tracks that a large spider lead to and from these doors but there are tracks that go around the sides of building too. These seem to lead up next to several broken windows.

Based on our adventurer knowledge, the building does not look like it will collapse necessarily but a well placed bolt of lightning or a rampaging ogre might collapse the walls. The Rangers suspect that the large resident spider would not have the strength to tumble the walls alone. We believe that these spiders are still on the inside of the Chapel.

In keeping with the doctrine of Rook, we do not want to damage the building more than necessary. It may also be useful to rebuild at some later time.

Outside, we can see the tall grasses of are 100' away from the building itself, the very edge of a vast grassland that stretches for miles. The fortifications surrounding the chapel are made of old wooden beams.

The party begins listening at the doors and looking through the windows. Through the windows, we see a cloudy light, rafters and broken stones covered in thick webs. If we wish to repurpose this one day, these will need to be removed.

Erebus does not bring the party mule with us this time, in case we needed to move stuff out of this location.

As we are discussing these things, Erebus spots over Sander's shoulder a long spider leg. It climbs down from behind him…a Spider, bigger than three horses!

We start flinging arrows and sling bullets at the monstrous spider. It has AC 6 and we take a -2 to our roll for it being in cover. The spider moves with extreme speed, charging down the side of the Chapel. It scales straight down the walls, toward our group.

A few of our arrows and slings actually hit! Ithimyr begins running for the Chapterhouse, to get the door open and to get our group to safety.

The spider engages with Vella and Fandillas, attacking Vella this round. At the same time, a Sleep spell is cast by Fandillas, but this does not effect the great spider's form…or so it seemed. The Sleep spell actually overcomes the thing, miraculously, and it is put down quickly.

The giant spider now lays dead, it's huge form only twitching slightly…

Back inside the Chapel, we take a closer look. The main building is just one enormous chamber. There are broken beams and furniture lying about. Perhaps unexpected, we find that there are no pews or statues or figures representing a deity. At the back of the Chapel, there is an altar area raised about foot off the ground. Thick webs are spotted covering the ceiling but nothing is moving. We spot a single door in the altar area leading to a side room.

When we go inside we step over broken things, glass, stone and wood. No decorations of any kind are found inside. No flourishes. The building feels more like a warehouse other than it does still have some beautiful stained glass windows.

As we go further inside, we find that there is a lock on the door to the side room of the altar. Someone added a padlock on the door, on top of some previously built-in lock. Erebus wants to break the lock off.

The altar itself is made of a large stone block. As we investigate the altar, Erebus breaks the old lock off and then tries to open the door. He is able to pull it open which reveals a room lined with shelves, broken chairs in the corner and a heavily rotted chest. The chest is fairly large and is sitting in the corner. It has a lock and two handles and there are bits of rope dangling from each of the handles.

Sander has an 18/60 strength so he picks it up and out, leaving the Chapel to take the chest out front. It does feel somewhat heavy at about 40 pounds or so and it creaks loudly. A few splinters fall out of the bottom as Sander transport it.

The chest is somewhat damaged as it has a rotten bulging area and looks moist on the bottom. We decide to give it a single blow down the center to bash it open. Inside, we find that part of the chest was crudely sanded down. There are also two silver, gold and electrum candelabras sticking out from some rocks, partially buried beneath. The metal looks valuable and it is undamaged.

Fandilas pierces through the remains of the giant spider and grey-brown chunks along with some bones come pouring out. It smells foul.

A brief discussion regarding the copying of spells ensues. According to the Unearthed Arcana rules for copying down spells, this costs 100 gp per spell level. The spell materials for copying down spells is a higher cost, closer to 500.

We break open the chest the rest of the chest and find a small blue gem and a beautiful topaz. There is also several coins of gold and silver.

A total amount of 120 cp, 280 sp, 80 gp, and 12 pp. The gems are a lapis lazuli and a topaz and there are two valuable candelabras that weigh 30 coins each.

Looking back into the Chapel, we wonder how someone might access the upper floor. Only a thief could reliably climb up perhaps but there is not an upper floor, only some rafters. The Chapel itself is strange, like an empty shell.

Fandilas can see a large, dense collection of webs, a bundle of white, all clumped together, like a spider's egg sack. This is seen in the top corner, near the top of the bell tower. It appears to be as wide as a cart that is driven by horses. We also noticed that the egg sack is broken, on the right side.

In another room within the Chapel, we find 6 jars made of brown clay and a small box about 4 inches in height. Feels pretty light, the box. Taking the small sack. The jars are 80 coins weight each and contain a bunch of green-brown organic mush. It has a rotted grass smell. Ithimyr puts a stick in the stuff and finds that it feels like a bunch of old, decayed plant matter. One of the jars is filled with white grains, like salt.

Opening the box, we find that inside there is a leather bottom. Resting on the bottom of the box are several jagged white chips about the size of a gold piece. There are a total of 20 of them and they look like bone. Bone chips are thought to be used in certain spells regarding the dead, such as raising the dead. Each of the chips looks to have different colors and qualities.

Back at the Chapterhouse, we head toward that trap door where a staircase descends down into the blackness. We decide to go into the dungeon. We move 60 feet per turn as we head downward.

We come to an open room at the base of the stairs, with a door on either side. The steps and the ground are made of the same stone and are fashioned crudely. The two doors are wooden. There is some dust and debris on the stairs and signs of numerous footsteps made here recently. On the floor in the dungeon we find a large pool of black liquid in front of the left door. It shines like oil with evidence of streaks going off in different directions. It appears as if the streaks were made by a small creature with thin legs.

Erebus attempts to detect evil out to 60' but detects no evil.

Ithimyr and Lathar contemplate the streaks. What creature might have made these tracks? Possibly a small insect but it was not like a spider but more like a beetle or a crab. There are two corridors, about 10' distance from the doors further down. We look down the right side, then peer down the left side.

The left hallway reveals a humanoid figure, naked except for some thin cloth that looks like rags. The figure is not surprised. It moves forward and engages us in melee. Behind the figure come two more figures lumbering forward from the darkness. These are zombies!

We managed to take down the zombies but Sander, one of our Paladins, is knocked unconscious during the fight. Sander is the first casualty of this game. Islon the Cleric can replace Sander for now and we store our wealth before heading back.

Once we head back inside, we shine our torches around and open the right hand door. We go right and see two doors at the end of another hall. There are benches in here, along with 2 empty crates that once contained rolls of fabric inside. There are some hooded black robes with bright green threading. On the south wall is an outline of some sort of portal.

Someone tries to determine if the cloaks are valuable but we determine that they are only slightly more valuable than a standard cloak. Back to searching the south wall, it appears like portal is flush with the wall. There is some “missing dust” on the wall where one might knock on the door. Islon tries to move the hook but finds that it is held firmly to the stone with fasteners.

At this point, we decide to open the door to the north. Inside, we find a large bed frame made of wood and iron and a heavily decayed mattress on the floor. Strewn on top of the bed frame is a 10' long snake skeleton. It has the head of a man, like a Naga skeleton. A chest of drawers is covered in dust except for a square about 6“ x 8” in size. There is also and outline of a circle. All of the drawers are empty and the handles are free of dust. It appears as if another large group was in here recently…

The snake skeleton is not a Naga skeleton as this form does not match such a creature. It is something different, some kind of a snake with a human head attached. Creepy.

We fail to open the door to the north the first time but eventually we do and it reveals a hallway that extends forward, then left. A decayed humanoid head is seen on the ground, not unlike the creatures we just fought. It must be a Zombie head.

Suddenly, we hear the rattling of a gate or a bar up ahead. Ithimyr goes up by himself to investigate and becomes paralyzed! Another skeleton thing with a human head emerges to attack. Our party moves to engage it in combat and the party manages to destroy the skeletal snake monstrosity! Eventually, following the combat, Ithimyr recovers from the paralysis.

We proceed forward and find a large room. On the right side of the room, inside of some alcoves, is a closed portcullis. We see three zombies banging against the portcullis bars. Ithimyr goes into the room and finds that there are more portcullises without zombies. Ithimyr drops them to the ground.

Shining the torchlight through the portcullises, we find a hallway. On the upper right of the room behind the portcullis. we find a lever.

Inside this main room, we open the southern door and find another standard 10' hallway. This hallway goes forward about 40' until we see another door.

We decide to open a door on the right side revealing a crude laboratory, full of stools placed under tables, shelves everywhere, and an assortment of lab equipment. Glass vials, an alembic, mortars and pestles, These are not high quality but they are precision instruments. A door in the corner has a keyhole on it.

Searching the room, we find no recent movement or tracks. Someone finds a drawer hidden under the shelves with a little handle. The drawer is about 9“ in width, 3” in length. Ithimyr carefully checks and notices two capsules attached to a slider, placed at approximately the same height. One could presume that these two capsules could combine.

Fandillas grabs a glass vial and it does not break but the drawer is empty except for a metal key. The key fits in the tumbler, which clicks loudly, the lock opens, but nothing else happens. We find a smaller room beyond. It contains numerous jars, pots, glass vials which are clear and visibly filled with dark red and brown leaves. There is some matter that looks similar to the pots in the Chapel. The jars are sealed clay jars and there is a wooden box with a small metal latch and no lock. It appears to be made of fine darkwood. Erebus opens it and finds 5 gems on a velvet cushion. These gems are round cut zircons.

We gather up the items from this area, including all the lab equipments and make it back to Gren without incident.

There will be combat XP for defeating the monsters.

A lapis lazuli worth 10 gp, 430 gp, one candelabra is worth 90 gp and 20 gp for the other, The 5 zircons are worth 140 gp each, the cloaks are worth 5 gp each and there are 3 of them.

As for the lab / alchemist equipment, the apothecary will buy this stuff for 60 gp. They will also buy the vials and pots for 80 gp. These are mostly common herbs that have become spoiled. However, some of them are not spoiled and still usable.

The box with the velvet lining sells for 30 gp.

There is 119 xp per person for the first half of the game (before introducing Islon).

For Ithimyr, 131 for the first half or 165 xp + 165 xp / 330 xp total.

We each get 26 cp, 106 sp, 90 gp, 2 pp.

For the second half, there is 148 xp per person + 18 xp = 166 xp each.

183 xp total for Ithimyr.

Ithimyr takes one zircon (worth 140 gp), 7 gp and 10 sp.