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| The Crystal Ball by John Williams Waterhouse (Public Domain) |
As always remember you may find spoilers, so if you are playing the campaign or think about playing it you probably do not want to read more beyond this point (or perhaps you want, who knows).
To write the chronicle of this session I was helped by Amaia, who acted as assistant chronicler during its development.
After the combats of the previous session the group continued to explore the remaining caves and reached a long tunnel in which Alanna didn't Detect Evil, it ended into a wall with a heavy red curtain hanging. When they approached it noticed that temperature of the place began to fall abruptly ❄ and that the cold began to invade their bodies.
Fearing the worst they set aside the curtain a little and used the little mirror they carried to take a look inside, this allowed them to see a table with objects over it...
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| Tarot cards by valentin_mtnezc (Pixabay license) |
Wanting to know more about the mysterious objects they finally went through the curtain and saw a table with some chandeliers, its smoke surrounding the room with an eerie fog, a crystal ball 🔮 (Alanna touched it... and nothing happened) and a handkerchief with two card decks facing down which powerfully caught their attention, because Belacqua knew thanks to her arcane knowledge that the cards may have some effect on the characters but, of course, these effects not necessarily could be good (and Alanna Detected Evil in some of the cards...).
Feeling uneasyness due to what Alanna and Belacqua were explaining to them the group tried to burn the cards 🔥 and use the Dispell Magic spell on them, but both tries ended in failure, so they not risked to manipulate what seemed to be very powerful magical objects. They carefully wrapped the letters in the handkerchief and then put them with the crystal ball inside Mary Poppins bag 👜 and later decided to leave the room... although perhaps it won't be so easy, because when they were about to leave ii through the tunnel they have entered before a mechanism got activated and a deadly trap was released: 6 pendulums with a sharp-edged scythe at the end that traveled alarmingly fast the whole width of the tunnel, if they touched one of them surely could do a lot of damage 💀 ...
Seeing that they had gotten into a trap from which it seemed impossible to leave they began to think about potential exits to the quagmire and it was then when Hassba achieved to understand 💡 how the pendulum system seemed to work, so this gave them the chance to try to deactivate or disassemble them, because it seemed impossible to stop them at ground level (they tried to block one of the scythes with the crystal ball and it shattered, they tried to see if the cards could have some effect over the blades putting the decks on the ground, but it only achieved to scatter them without suffering any damage).
With the information Hassba managed to find out the other characters concluded that there was the chance of removing the pendulums from their anchor on the roof or destroying it, so Belacqua casted her Levitate spell to rise towards the tunnel's roof and cast Flaming Sphere upon the anchorages of the first and second pendulums, causing them to fall to the ground, and affecting the anchorage of the third one which ended up falling thanks to an accurate shot with the bow that made Flynn (a good attack roll with a critical outcome! 👍).
Encouraged by the good results of their planning they decided to try to block the fourth pendulum with the axis of one of the pendulums that had fallen and that they lifted by force of arms (The paladin Alanna is really the group's “tank” and has a great strength, so she got it with the help of the other characters) to finally unmount it, although they didn't move away on time and it fell over them slightly injuring Hassba and Alanna.
Seeing that it will be better to rest to recover strength and heal they decided to stop and leave the two remaining pendulums for the next day.
During the night all the group members experienced a disturbing dream in which they relived the moments before their fight with the dark elves and clerics in the previous session and remembered at the same time some of the words of the conversation:
“... the trident is already shining on the grave, my lord...”
“... in a few days everything will be ready...”
“... now nobody will oppose the will of Penumbra”
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| Kobold by siloru (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) |
Upon waking suddenly all the characters became aware they had experienced the same nightmare and the need to hurry grew up in them, because it seemed that time was running out, but they had to leave these dark thoughts aside for later because they had been discovered: a kobold at the other side of the tunnel, beyond the scythes, had screamed shrilly seeing the trap had been activated and a group of another 4 kobolds had appeared, looking furious at the intruders while deciding what to do.
Of course the kobolds knew it was extremely dangerous to try to pass through the scythes, so they did not even try, although the characters didn't allow too much time to think about it, because they began to shoot arrows at them achieving to kill three of them while the rest ran away terrified.
After kobolds fled the characters hurried up to finish unmounting the reamining pendulums and prepared to follow the creatures, not without first collecting the mysterious cards with the greatest possible care (it was impossible to see any image alllowing to guess their characteristics or possible effects since all always appeared diffuse or with contradictory details).
Following the trail that kobolds had left behind they finally caught them and discovered they had entered a nest of these creatures disrupting what seem to be a feast and forcing them to entrench to resist their attacks, something that was impossible given that the player characters put all their effort to beat them, Belacqua using the Confuse spell so a large number of kobolds will not attack them and her companions could easily kill them (also getting their treasure 💰 and more experience).
As they went inside the kobold den they continued to successfully face a greater number of these creatures (even some of them being part of the elite of this race), although not everything was so easy for Hassba, because in the combats... he rolled 4 fumbles in a row 😟, so he inflicted himself some gashes (well, I had not seen something like that in a while).
Finally they reached a hall with a great kobold contingent protecting what seemed to be the tribe's queen, which turned out to be a very powerful magician that managed to resist the strange phenomenon that has been occurring since several sessions (you know, dead enemies falling dead or injured with bleeding ears and eyes) and Belacqua's Sleep spell, albeit the half-elf magician managed to shoot down the queen thanks to an accurate arrow of his bow and the help of Luna, which prepared the way with an attack with critical score 👍.
After finishing the fray and stop for a moment to heal their wounds they set out to go ahead with the exploration of the kobolds nest, although not without first recovering the magic rod of the kobold queen, which Belacqua claimed as a reward for her feat.
What will happen in the next session?
As is customary to say:
To be continued...
The graphical elements of these post without proper credits are created with elements from
Freepik and Openclipart.
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