Archer Arrowsmith - Human Scout (260 points)
Elana - Human Holy Warrior of Melora, goddess of the wilderness and sea (262 points)
Masha Deathfoot - Human Martial Artist (265 points)
Puddin' Noddington - Gnome Thief (272 points)
Mahk Strawngmussle - Human Labourer (62 points)
Vaelcor Treehippie - Human Druid (271 points)
Jahn the Bear - Bear (201 points)
Celebor the Huntsman - NPC High Elf Hunter (??? points)
Player Absesnt (In The Nega-Zone):
"The" Lukas Zombanyi - Human Cleric of Bahamut, god of justice and protection (260 points)
Amothius 37th 2546, Kral Aklaz, Lower Floor (Cont.)
The party arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and walked into a left-right hallway. Nobody had any more paper, so they decided not to map until they found "known" territory, and used the "follow the right-hand wall" strategy; they passed a hole in the rock large enough for a bear, then came to a wooden door, which had no locked. Because this door was clearly not the vault, they continued on, looping back to take the left hallway.
It forked again, and they held on to the right wall, where they shortly found a group of five dwarf skeletons, three with axes, two with crossbows, waiting at another tee intersection, passed an unlocked wooden door. Elana declared that the skeletons would meet their end, and the skeletons seemed to agree, as they charged the party while the two with crossbows opened fire. The first crit Puddin' and got her in the plate-armoured leg, causing her to drop her katar, while the second missed but somehow managed to crit Elana in the second rank (the random roll for location was also a crit, resulting in a hit to the skull).
Elana, clearly dazed from the bolt sticking out of her helmet, crit-failed her Hidden Lore (Undead) roll, and shouted out that skeletons are vulnerable to attacks that go right through their ribs. Archer opened fire and crit, which resulted in a perfect shot to the "vitals"... which went right on through, harmlessly (and missed the other two behind it as well). Archer glared at Elana, who responded "Oh, no, wait, that was people". Masha moved up, while Elana Waited to Tip-Slash. Vaelcor crit-failed an Animal Handling roll to get Jahn to attack so he just lay down.
The axe skeletons Move and Attacked, but predictably missed, and the crossbow-skeletons moved up to join the fray. Masha retaliated with a bone-shattering kick, while Archer and Elana, their damage mitigated by Unliving, targeted hands to disable them. Masha was attacked twice, but easily dodged and brought down another of the undead with ease. Elana crippled a bone foot, knocking the last axe-wielder to the floor, while the crossbows came into range and tried to bash Masha and Jahn, though they missed.
Jahn failed his Bad Temper and "disobeyed orders", smashing the one near him into pieces; Puddin' jumped forward and cut the floor-skeleton's neck, decapitating it before doing a "tusken raider victory yell". Masha kicked the last one and it, too, collapsed, and they continued down the hall, again following the right-hand wall. They passed two doors separated by a tee, another tee, and arrived at a heavily reinforced metal door with four strange recessed keyholes opposite a relief of the dwarf god Moradin holding a flaming hammer. Puddin' noticed that the belt on the relief looked like it could be moved, but ignored it and went to the vault door instead.
On closer inspection, it became apparent that inserting a key (or picking a lock) would require somebody to stick both their arms into the recessed areas, where sharp, heavy blades were resting at either side, ready to remove the hands of any would-be thieves. Above each recession were images: a crown, a hammer and anvil, an orb crossed by a lightning bolt, and a radiant anvil, which they related to the king, smiths, wizards, and priests. They checked their keys, and found that they had matching images of the king's and wizards', but nobody knew which one Celebor had.
Puddin', overcome with Greed and Curiosity decided she wanted to open the door now. The crown key was inserted, making two heavy clunks, followed by the orb key. A quick inspection of the locks determined that picking them would take Lockpicking-10, and that her arms were small enough that she could keep her plate gauntlets on, so she decided to just eat the penalty in exchange for probably keeping her hands and started work on the hammer and anvil lock. Puddin' took extra time for a +5, and 20 minutes later the party heard the first clunk. It took another 12 to get the second clunk. Puddin' saw the blades move, but didn't get either of her hands out in time, and they were mangled and crushed.
Vaelcor cast Major Healing, and while Puddin's right hand was back to normal, the left looked like it'd take months to heal. They decided to head to Thrunvir to get it Restoration'd, taking their keys before leaving. On their way back down the hallway, an acid lizard stuck its head out of a hole in down one of the tees and hissed. They went back upstairs and looped around to the ruined floor, where Masha suggested they go back to town and hire 20 safecrackers to each try it until one succeeded.
Masha acrobatically jumped to the lower floor and helped the others down without further issues while Puddin' checked and confirmed that the giants seemed to have abandoned the room across the hall. They doubled back to the church and, after Puddin' disarmed their Sleep Potion trap, got Thrunvir (who had not been killed by the halflings, to the players' surprise) to cast Instant Restoration on her left hand. He failed. In desperation, Puddin' tried out the Phial of the Mad Alchemist, and asked it for a Potion of "Heal my Left Hand Please". She presciently warned everyone to back away, and found that her bad luck continued when her left hand exploded instead of being healed (Thrunvir: "Uhhh, why did you drink that?").
After screaming for a while, Puddin' realized that, now that her hand was gone, Thrunvir could try Instant Regeneration instead! He cast it successfully, drained most of the rest of the energy stored in the church, and asked them to carry him out to their camp. They promised to "totally come back later", further annoying him, and went back to the ruined floor to get back to Celebor (and his vault key) on the second floor. Masha jumped up and pulled herself to the second floor, and then lifted up everyone else.
They made it to the fey court again, careful to take a wide berth around the door with holes, and got one of the guards to fetch Celebor. He was annoyed that they hadn't showed up the night before, but forgave them when he found that they had found the vault and were ready to open the final lock. Unfortunately, his key matched the lock they'd already picked, but the party decided that he could come along anyway. Celebor whistled and his white hounds followed him out of the court.
The party headed back to the fountain room to try to refresh Puddin's bonus to DX, but stopped when Celebor asked why they wanted to go to the Fountain of Moderation. As an elf, he was able to read the inscriptions, and relayed that it would only work once per moonrise. With that, they started back to the vault, but were interrupted by a clear melodious note from a hunting horn, and down a hallway, Puddin' saw a winged deer charging towards them.
The radiant white deer entered the lantern light, and asked for help and a place to hide, as "they" were going to kill it. Vaelcor noted that this was a winged white stag, but kept the fact that its pelt would be worth a king's ransom to himself. Celebor remarked that the fey were probably hunting it, and the party told it they knew a way out but to hold on, as they had to check their maps. After a few seconds, Vaelcor told it the way to the Observatory, and it flew away over the broken floor, bidding them thanks.
As the winged white stag left, a group of elves with bows rounded a far corner and ran towards the party, asking where the stag had gone; Vaelcor pointed them the wrong way, but they seemed unconvinced and looked over to the broken floor dejectedly. Elana asked Celebor why the fey were after it, and he responded that the Princess had brought it here to be hunted for her favour; he didn't care much because the crown would bring greater rewards. They made it back to the vault without any issues, though they saw two acid lizards sticking their heads out of holes up two different tees in the north.
They inserted their three keys and Puddin' started on the fourth lock, making sure to take her time. 32 minutes later, the lock clunked twice, and the trapped blades slammed shut again; this time only her right got mangled, and a quick Minor Healing got it back to normal. The vault door dramatically slid to the side on its own to reveal a pair of large chests, a giant pile of coins and gems, some weapons, armour, and shields, and a crown made of ice surrounded by gently falling snow. Celebor, normally fairly stoic, laughed for a while and thanked the party for their assistance as he walked towards the crown.
Puddin' went in and rolled around in the McDuckian pile of coins, only stopping when she saw Celebor put the crown of ice in his pack and her Greed kicked in. She snuck over when he had turned around and tried to Pickpocket it out of his backpack, but Elana saw her and yelled at her to stop. Celebor spun around and, like a child caught with her hand stuck in the cookie jar, Puddin' said that she needed the crown. She was apparently not dissuaded by the argument that there was more than enough money over in that giant pile and did not care that they had already made a deal.
Celebor cautiously drew his bow, and Elana tried to defuse the situation, while Puddin' continued to pester him that surely they could work out some deal where she gets the crown and he can just borrow it. The rest of the party took Celebor's side, and he backed slowly out of the vault, making sure to face Puddin' at all times, and then retreated down the hall, surely heading back to the fey court, followed by his hounds. The party grabbed the rest of the loot and packed the coins and gems into the chests; Mahk took one, Vaelcor the other.
With their packs near to bursting, the party returned to the ground floor, and ran into 4 of the halflings (one bigger than the others, and one with the magical cloak) standing in the way of the stairs up, stopping awkwardly as they both stared at each other. The halflings' hands were hovering over their slings. Elana tried to talk them down, pointing out that they were outnumbered and outclassed, but they seemed unfazed, and drew their slings. Archer quick-fired an arrow into a halflings' vitals, dropping him, and the rest of the party advanced cautiously.
The big halfling fast-drew and threw a smoke nageteppo in the hallway partway between both sides, blocking LoS, and all three survivors Disappeared in the smoke cloud. Puddin' also Disappeared, as she was inside the cloud, and Vaelcor cast Pollen Cloud in the cloud, causing one halfling to start coughing, giving away his position. Jahn charged into the smoke, trying to sniff them out, and the rest of the party Waited. The halflings then loosed a blind volley of sling stones out of the smoke, taking advantage of the fact that the party were densely packed; one harmlessly hit Vaelcor's boots (after missing Elana and being dodged by Archer), and the rest missed.
Jahn found the coughing halfling and ate him to death with a crit, while the rest of the party continued to wait for the halflings to come out and Puddin' continued sneaking in the smoke. The party braced for more sling stones, only for an alchemist's fire to come out of the smoke, splattering all over the ground around Vaelcor, Archer, and Masha. Vaelcor cast Extinguish Fire and got rid of it, while Elana tried to listen for halflings. Archer held her breath and dove into the smoke, while Masha fished around in Mahk's potion belt but didn't find anything useful, and then ran into the smoke as well, coughing in the pollen cloud.
Puddin' crit-failed a Hearing roll and stabbed Masha in the vitals by accident, but rolled poorly enough that no injury occurred. Masha ran through the smoke to the far side, where Jahn was also apparently waiting, to make sure the halflings couldn't retreat ("The smoke will run out soon!"). Instead of retreating, they stayed inside; one of them dropped another smoke nageteppo ("Oh."), while the other stabbed Puddin' in her plate armour for no injury before running away.
Elana finally pinpointed a halfling with a hearing roll, and then impaled him in the vitals. He stayed standing long enough for Masha to jump into the smoke and All-Out Attack kick him from behind, sending him to the ground with a mortal wound. The last halfling retreated out of the smoke... and right into Jahn, who made an All-Out Attack (Double), the second of which ripped his leg off. Jahn didn't stop attacking until well after the screaming did ("Wait, are we still the good guys?").
After Puddin' tossed the corpses (just a few coins, and no magic cloak, surprisingly), looped back around to the ruined floor, dropped down, and went and grabbed Thrunvir. They asked him if there was anything else he needed, and he said that he'd like the anvil. Puddin' assured him that they'd definitely be coming back for the 50lbs silver anvil. With Thrunvir being carried by Masha, they headed to the Observatory and out the shaft to the surface without further issues.
Notes:
I forgot the rule for intervening targets for the crossbow skeletons (not that it would have mattered with crits), so I gave Archer the same rules-exemption for the first round.
One of the players asked if they would have gotten XP for the skeletons had fewer characters been there. The answer is yes: 1XP for 2 PCs, 2XP for 1.
The Phial of the Mad Alchemist makes one potion every day, with a 1/6 chance of making a potion with the opposite effect. There was some fun discussion when I rolled a 6 as to what the opposite of "heal my hand" would be. Other suggestions included "it morphs into a foot" and "it becomes a useless wooden dummy hand".
There was some discussion of giving Thrunvir the Potion of Flight, but decided not to because they want Puddin' to be able to sneak into the throne room and steal the rod off the Thane's neck. Also, Argua had never met him, and might kill a suspicious flying dwarf.
It was a good idea for Puddin' to take extra time on the first lock, but the second was a wash because her +1 DX buff from the fountain wore off mid-pick.
I suggested they cut Argua in for at least a partial share, as she was present when they got the first key.
Just the coins and gems from the vault are worth ~$200k, or $40k each. There are also 4 shields, an entire dwarf-sized suit of light plate, a lance, broadsword, large knife, scepter/mace, crossbow, and 12 cutting crossbow bolts.
For some reason, I decided that Disappearing in the smoke bomb should be at -5. No idea why in hindsight. It's a flat -10 if you break line of sight, and then other penalties for shooting into/out of smoke entirely.
Misruled Pollen Cloud as well, by not requiring one resistance roll per second.
I have some Domain rules ready to test, in case the players are interested. I started thinking about it back when Argua put some money into the restoration of Shadowmantle Manor.
The players aren't sure that they want to actually deal with the giants and the rod any more. The pay was "only" $10k each for the last segment, so it's very high-risk low-reward; the current plan is for them to go back into Kral Aklaz once more to at least steal the silver symbol of Moradin in the church, which is worth a rather large sum in its own right, though it is heavy.
XP was more than 1, finally breaking the 4-session streak:
-1 for opening the vault
-3 for the ridiculous amount of loot
-1 for rescuing Thrunvir
-1 to Puddin' for Greed getting her hand crippled needlessly, and ending the party's relationship with Celebor
-MVP went to Puddin' for letting them open the vault early/losing hands
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