Continuing the adventures started in Boch’s Belfry.
Cast
Austin - Valoric the Cleric
Carly - Burke the Dwarf
Ian - Milo the Halfling
Jere - Dracen the Magician
Me - The Gamemaster
Last session our adventurers reached the Crystal Caverns after a slight mishap fording a river, and fought off some giant bats and the overwhelming stench of bat guano. When the session began, they heard the sounds of hooting and screeching approaching them. They quickly hid behind some stalagmites so that they could at least see what was approaching before it spotted them, and what they saw were white apes swinging from stalactites towards them. The white apes began investigating the source of the ruckus, and spotted the adventurers (failed Scout roll) surrounding them and waving their arms, baring their teeth, and screaming. Milo took the crabscorpion carcass that he had killed last session and gave it to one of them, which began sucking on it and then swung away with the other white apes in pursuit (good idea!).
The adventurers explored deeper in finding a rickety rope bridge crossing a chasm, and two other tunnels. They tested the bridge and found that the wooden steps were rotted, so instead of cross they explored the side caverns. In the first cave they found more white apes. One approached aggressively and the group tried to stay perfectly still to show they were nonaggressive. As a result, the white ape ripped off Milo’s satchel and swung away with it (failed Manipulator roll). The adventurers chased the white ape around the cave and finally got the satchel back, but not before it had eaten Milo’s rations (successful pursuit conflict, minor compromise).
They investigate the cave some more, and found scorch marks on a wall and some seemingly melted copper rods beneath it. While poking around a bit, Milo gathers some mushrooms that he’s seen the white apes eating (successful Scavenger roll) and made some food for the group. He even fed some to a nearby white ape which munched and then snoozed (successful Cooking roll).
The adventurers then decided to see where the other cave went to. As they entered, they immediately saw four white apes, larger than any others that they’d seen, and some broken and blood bodies. The white apes attacked and the adventurers fought back. They killed the apes, but Dracen was wounded in the fight (successful Kill Conflict, minor compromise). They then learn that the bodies are cultists! Members of the Cult of the Arcane Lord that Dracen once belonged to. They loot the room finding some treasure and some gear on the cultists. Milo is excited to find a crossbow, but then realizes that it is too large and cumbersome for a halfling to use. A small hole is in the wall with water trickling down from the stalactites and running down it. Dracen determines that it’s potable and the adventurers fill their canteens (successful Survivalist check).
Unfortunately the cave is freezing which makes camp rather uncomfortable (minor inconvenience). Dracen patches up his wounds, but is left a bit scarred by it (failed recovery roll, loses 1 point of Pathfinder). Burke tries to patch up his helmet that was damaged in the fight with the apes but his numb hands make him miss a few hammer blows and the helmet is ruined (failed Armorer roll). Dracen then tries to copy over one of the spells from Boch’s spellbook to his, and is successful but unleashes some sort of darkness from Boch’s spellbook which scuttles off down the hole in the wall. They hear a terrifying shriek, but Dracen assures them that everything is fine and that nothing bad has just happened.
The group breaks camp and investigates the room, and discovers that scorch marks and copper rods are in this cave too. He realizes that the rods form some kind of magical gate for travel (failed Lore Master roll). The group is so engrossed in this that they don’t notice the creatures worming up out of the hole until they turn and see blue fire burning in empty sockets.
Next session: Boch’s revenge!