Session 1- Into the Mountain

The Barrier Peaks Expedition

6/19/2015

Name	Player	Race	Class	Present	Survived	Replaced
Blake	Carl	Human	Bard	Y	Y	N
Catherine Lastation	Chris	Human	Oracle	Y	Y	N
Faolan Ironhand	Glen	Dwarf	Paladin	Y	Y	N
Finger	John L.	Gnome	Rogue	Y	Y	N
Goran Stonecrucher	Guest Player	Dwarf	Fighter	Y	Y	N
Halvar Gunnarson	Cory	Dwarf	Ranger	Y	Y	N
Menyw Daolg	Danielle	Elf	Fighter	Y	Y	N
Ranold Winterhare	Tim (T.J.)	½ Elf	Magus	Y	Y	N
Ruis	Johnunce	½ Drow	Magus	Y	Y	N
Thadious Bullskin	Mike K.	Human	Wizard	N	Y	N
Mrs. Page	Mike’s npc bard	Human	Bard	N	Y	N
The Homunculus	Mike’s critter		Critter	N	Y	N

The bold Heroes left Baron Maynard Keep, along with enough retainers to protect the base camp while they explored. The expedition climbed up into the mountains, where they came across a mountain of metal and rock. It looked as if was an ancient, long-forgotten and buried fortress. As the expedition set up base camp at the foot of the metal mountain they noticed two doors: one large door near the base and a second, smaller, door approximately 200 feet off the ground.

Blake, Faolan, and Thaddeus examined larger door on the bottom and Finger, Halvar, Ranold, Goran, and Ruis climbed up to the smaller door. Finger noted that the rock along the cliff face they were climbing was primarily igneous and metamorphic rock. Halvar and Ranold set up a climbing rope for the rest of the group. The examination of both doors revealed: they were made of a metal unknown to the adventurers, not trapped, locked somehow, and that even the expeditions mightiest weapons, made of adamantine, could not penetrate the metal. While Halvar and Ranold finished securing the climbing rope near the top, Finger climbed down to consult with Blake. After a bit of discussion they both concluded the doors on both levels slide into their walls but were mystified as to how to make that happen.

Up at the top, just as Halvar finished tying off the rope, the door behind him opened. He quickly turned and asked the others “What did you do?” to which they replied “Nothing.” After some more discussion, the rest of the party ascended to the open door, the climb made easier with the improvised rope and piton ladder. Ruis stepped first into the hallway, discovering a small room at the end. He was soon joined by Goran. After a brief examination by those two, the room was declared “clear” and the remainder the party entered the room.

Like the outside, this room was metal-coated, by a metal they had never seen before. As the last member of the party entered into the small room the outer doors behind them closed and a pair of large double doors in front of them opened, exposing a dark room of fairly reasonable size. Near the center of the room was a large hollow pillar nearly 20-feet across. Both Blake and Halvar went to go examine it. Upon examination of the pillar, Blake concluded this was some sort of shaft leading down, maybe to the low levels. On Halvar’s advice, the group resisted going on down the shaft, as he had found what looked like signs of habitation on this level. Fingers went to inspect the passage to the right and Faolan went to go inspect a passage on the left.

The left passage yielded nothing but a fairly wide hallway with doors but no activity. The only items of main interest were some minor debris. On the right, Fingers noticed something that looks like a small Golem and quickly called over Blake come check it out. Meanwhile Ruis discovered a pair of doors on the two walls behind the party, along the wall the door the group had entered from. He checked the one on the left while Halvar, finished with the pillar, checked the one on the right. During his investigation, Ruis jammed his knife into a slit located in a panel by the door and was unable to retrieve it. Halvar noted that these panels might be locking mechanisms for the door and seem to be color-coded: find the right color key and you might be able to open the door. Currently they had no keys.

With Faolan, Ruis, Gorlan, Menym, Thaddeus, and Mrs. Page watching the hall to the left, Fingers and Blake investigated the small Golem. They were soon joined by Ranold, Catherine, and Halvar. Blake’s examination revealed this was some sort of clockwork golem - maybe some sort of repair creature as it had tools scattered about it. Using those tools, Blake, with the help of Fingers, was able to pry open the carcass, or maybe chassis would be a better word, revealing a small handful of perfectly round gems stones inside.

Meanwhile, over at left passage, flustered with the fact no one had come to check the doors, Faolan and company started down the hall. No sooner had he, Gorlan, and Menym entered the hall when a section of the ceiling fell upon them, encompassing them in some sort of fleshy mass. Reacting quickly, Ruis cast a spell to boost his speed and zipped past the fleshy mass, giving it a mighty strike from his sword infused with his arcane power. The three trapped within were slowly being crushed to death. Fearing for his life, Thaddeus retreated quickly away from the creature, along with his bard, Mrs. Page, calling for help from the rest of the group.

Catherine’s team quickly jumped to join the fight. Blake set off a dazzling performance so that he could transport the Oracle quickly to heal the wounded with her magic. He spurred the group’s courage in the fight. Ranold and Halvar raced to assist their fellows. Ruis’ lightning speed allowed him to make another round of vicious volleys against creature with his mighty katana, but he badly tore his shoulder with a swing that sapped some of his strength.

The combined knowledge of Ranold and Halvar identify the creature as something called a “lurker”, which was a very tough creature to slay, being immune to precision damage and having no discernible anatomy in which to put a telling blow. It was, however, definitely something that was a favored foe of the Ranger Halvar, so he was able to point out weak points and what energy resistances the creature had.

Still trapped within the creature, Faolan saw that his team was running out of air and that the creature’s crushing might was quickly going to kill them. He attempted to escape, but when that failed he called forth the holy might of Moradin to heal himself so that he could ensure that the others escaped or provide divine healing until rescued.  Gorlan and Menyw struggled to escape the creature’s grasp as well. Outside, the creature started to defend itself from the team’s desperate attempts to save the ones it had captured, landing vicious blows on any that got too close. Then, to the surprise of all, Gorlan managed to force himself out of the creature’s hold only to be rendered unconscious by a retaliatory blow from the creature for the boldness of escaping.

Halvar took this opportunity to charge the creature and land telling blows. While they are not as completely effective as he’d liked due to the creature’s immunities, he managed to shove the creature back Sadly this caused the creature to roll over and engulf Ruis, just as he was preparing for a major attack. Catherine noticed that the life force of those trapped in the creature was fading (the magic that she cast on the party keeping her alert to those who were dying), but they were out of range for her ability to magically heal them to work without also healing the creature. But luck was with them: the paladin’s ability to lay hands and channel positive energy was still within his grasp and through this powerful divine magic he was able to keep those who were nearly dead from the creature’s crushing grasp from dying until the creature could be slain by a well-timed blow from Ranold’s corrosive, electrical Falcota.

Shortly after they killed the creature, Ruis started looting the area around it along with Thadious (though Thadious was doing more sample collecting than looting). They discovered a bright violet colored small rectangle of obsidian or maybe horn. They thought could this be a key. Just as the thought rolled off their mind, Blake shouted a warning! Around the corner came a large number of very vicious -looking creatures of green skin and tendril-like hair along with some dog-like creatures. Without much time to rest and with many still injured, the expedition drew their blades and prepared to fight again.

While these tiny creatures were not as dangerous as the lurker, true they were difficult to injure, even the mighty spells of lightning cast by the magus Ruis had no effect on the hominids and their canine like companions. Though these creatures had great numbers they seemed unable to effect any serious harm upon our heroes, while the weapons of our brave explorers tore through the creatures, slowly but surely. Though at one point things looked grim, each mighty blow from Halvar’s shield sundered one of the things to bits of paste as he slammed them around like bowling pins. Blake, finally seeing the creatures where they truly were in the multi colored swirling light that he had called forth, called out a warning, “Be wary! Lightning harms them not and arrows seem to just bounce off theirs rubbery hide - they’re plant creatures.”  While the creatures outnumbered the group, the adventurers paid no mind their numbers as slowly, with only light injury, the group Harvested them to the plant until the last two creatures, seeing the danger before them, fled screaming for help down the hall.

Instead of giving pursuit and realizing that more numbers would be a better chance for them to be injured, Catherine advised Faolan the Paladin not to pursue. “Let us heal the rest of the group and prepare or look for a different way around these vicious little hordes.”

Session end for the night. Time passed inside: 15 minutes.