Session 4

"It's best to let sleeping dragons lie." 

Before we begin, I need to make a correction to the last session. I was under the impression that Laughing Fox had the two goblins as his minions and they went with him back to Pottsfort disguised. That’s not so. Instead, he had them stay at the Old Bastard, acting as spies for the party. With that out of the way, let’s see what happened during this session!

We start out with the group finally opening the golden metal chest found all the way back in the first session. Glomm, the dwarven jeweler, was able to make some keys for the ancient dwarvish chest, one for each latch. There’s four latches in total; one on each side of the chest and they have to be opened at the same time. The group gathers around, with they four square like keys, and manage to open said chest. It hisses open, but not trapped! With the top off, they find three items: a black spike wrapped in golden tentacles, a map, and a gold ring with an onyx kraken with golden eyes. The onyx seems to glitter, like as if it’s made of stars. The ancient map shows the Devil’s Spine, in most of it’s foreboding glory. They see a skull like mountain at it’s southern western edge, Glomm thinks this is the Old Bastard. Sprinkled about the range, are several square blocks. This astonishes Glomm, as he didn’t realize there were so many Dwarven Blocks among the Spine. Or even on the other, northern side of the vast mountain range. They see a lake on the opposite northern side of the mountain, which seems to be dotted with ancient human cities along it’s coasts. But what captures the groups attention is the kraken symbol in the middle of the north eastern section of the vast mountain range. The symbol is just as black as the ring, but above it is a giant red X. Glomm has no idea what to make of it, and has never heard of a black kraken. He tells the group to maybe ask some of the native tribes, or perhaps go down to Rivertown and see if anyone knows about the strange symbol. With that, the group decides to open the wooden chest they found last session. Managing to unlock it, they find inside three potions and two scrolls. They’re unable to identify them at the moment.

Though a smaller group than that of the previous week, our four adventurers decide to head back out to The Old Bastard. Once there, Rumbo, Stonewall, Laughing Fox, Kazzik, and a new henchman, Nickos the Dwarf, decide to head back to the four chambers containing the escape tunnel found last week. On there way, the come across three orcs. They aren’t in a talkative mood and proceed attacking our party. An orcish arrow knocks out Nickos down to zero hp. He falls down, unconscious. The adventurers soon wipe out the orcs with little effort. Searching the orcs, they find that two carry a strange insignia: a black leg, with blood coming out of the top. Stonewall’s player has leave early, and takes Nickos back out to the wagon, and finds some healing herbs to stabilize his wounds. The rest of the group proceeds with their plan.

Getting to the escape tunnel, the party realizes it’s not a steep drop, but slopes under the stream they heard on the other side. The decide to send Laughing Fox’s spirit animal, a monkey named Buska inside the tunnel and to explore the other side. After a couple of turns, he comes back and tells Laughing Fox that on the other side of the tunnel is small stone chamber with set of stairs on the opposite wall leading twenty feet up to a door. Buska also mentions that the room is cold and the smell of dragon is coming from the other side of the door. Hearing this, the group decides to go down into the tunnel and check the other room out themselves. Getting in the small stone chamber, they realize that door on the stairs is actually a secret door, at least on the other side. They open the door slowly, with each side opening towards them. Rumbo and Buska peer inside and see large chamber, about fifty feet from floor to ceiling, and almost a hundred feet squared, except for the southwestern portion being cut at an angle. The two also see a large hole in the ceiling about thirty feet wide, with sun light pouring in. Inside, it looks like part of the underground stream was diverted and spills out into the chamber, making pond. Or did, as it’s now frozen, with a small glacier that rises about ten feet in the middle of the room. On that glacier, they see a sleeping, very young white dragon, with it’s small hoard of treasure. Looks like they found Whisper. About the frozen room, they see skeletons, and even the frozen corpses of goblins standing about the glacier.  

With this discovery, our players quickly decide to send in Bushka and for him to steal some of the loot. He goes, and a couple of turns later, returns with pack full of fifty gp, three gems, three rings, a scroll, and necklace that resembles that of the sun necklace found back in session one, except the medallions are silver, and the large middle piece is that of a moon, instead of a sun. With this haul, they decide not to take any more chances, close the secret door behind them, and make their way to the plaza in the middle of the level. They get to the plaza safely. Looking at the large stone door with the faces of the sun and moon carved into it, they realize that mouths of the celestial objects are actually slots, and adding two plus two, they place the large medallions into their matching slots. The door glows around it’s edges, and rumbles open about ten feet in the middle, revealing a forty-five degree angled hallway. Once more, they send in Bushka. 

He comes back reporting that the hallway is about sixty feet and leads inside a large cavern, with walls in the middle of the chamber with braziers with green, glowing fires lighting the vast room and a soft music playing within. On the western opposite side of the northern middle wall, sees a large man made pool, with land on the other side with stairs going down. In the north eastern section, Bushka sees a smaller chamber with some steps leading down to an altar with a statue of a large woman. He mentions that there may be a few smaller chambers in the southern part of the cave. With the session almost over, the group retrieves the necklaces out the mouths of the doors, and head back outside of the dungeon. On their way out, as they are leaving the middle of the intersection, the western hall becomes cold, and they see a ghostly figure floating their way, telling them to stop. Or at least they hear that in their heads. The group doesn’t listen and run out of the dungeon, with the ghostly voice echoing in their heads, saying “I’ll see you soon...” With Nickos wounded, they head to their secluded spot, and rest a full day and arrive back to Pottsfort unharmed four days later.

While light on loot, the party agrees that the session was a success with the information regarding that they found Whisper, what kind of dragon he is, and managing to open the large stone door and seeing some of what was inside. Sometimes success isn’t determined by the treasure found, but also by important intelligence that’s gathered.

Players:

Rumbo Battlecock (10%): 634XP

Laughing Fox (0%): 554 XP

Hazzik (10%): 634 XP

Stonewall (5%): 7 XP

Henchmen:

Lester: 0 XP

Nickos the Dwarf: 7XP