Session 3: The Barrier Peaks Expedition 071715 of Vapors and Shadows

Name	Player	Race	Class	Present	Survived	Replaced
Blake	Carl	Human	Bard	N	Y	N
Catherine Lastation	Chris	Human	Oracle	N	Y	N
Faolan Ironhammer	Glen	Dwarf	Paladin	Y	Y	N
Finger	John L.	Gnome	Rogue	Y	Y	N
Goran Stonecrucher	Guest Player	Dwarf	Fighter	N/A	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	N	Y	N
Thadious Bullskin	Mike K.	Human	Wizard	N	Y	N
Mrs. Page	Mike’s npc bard	½ Elf	Bard	N/A	Y	N
The Homunculus	Mike’s critter		Critter	N/A	Y	N

7/17/2015 – Of Vapors and Shadows

With Halvar leading the way, the group forced open the door to the holding area the clockwork golems had put them in and walked out. A lone sentry golem was in the room. It asked what they were doing. As it started to move forward, Halvar flashed the red glass card while stating that they were doing a security inspection. The golem processed this answer and then returned to its duties.

Using caution, the adventurers used the red glass key to open another door in the sentry area. Beyond this door they found the skeleton of a human in ruined and rotting clothing. A search of the room confirmed that the skeleton was not mobile and that a tall chest in the room had a red colored lock. The key they had work on the chest, revealing a ragged, rotting uniform with some jewelry on it, a strange scrying device (their assumption), and a strange suit of plate armor.

Halvar, while curious about the scrying device, decided to pocket it away for later examination.  Seeing that the suit of plate armor was human/elf size, several adventurers looked for a way to get it open. Fingers and Halvar looked over the armor and noticed 2 buttons under the back of the helmet. Pressing both of the buttons opened the back of the suit. Menyw removed her mask and gear and climbed into the suit. Closing up the suit seemed to activate its magic but something went wrong (or it was a trap). Vile smoke and heat started to fill the suit as something caught fire inside it, eating away at Menyw’s health. With little effect she was extracted from the suit by the others, but the vile smoke filled the room and most everyone succumbed to its poisonous effect, except the hardy dwarves. The adventurers fled from the room, greatly sickened by the poisonous vapors. After a while, Faolan remembered that Moradin had blessed him with the power to cure poison. Burning the last of his power Faolan cleansed the poison from the others, but the damage was done. Catherine had to expend many valuable uses of her healing wand to remove the ravages of the poison from the group’s shattered health.

Not wanting to risk the sentries again, the group explored the hallway they fled into and found three doors. Two were marked with grey panels and one was marked with a red one. The red door was checked first. Beyond they found healing kit refills, rations, some healing containers (Ranold tested these), and 12 strange vials with odd symbols. Blake could only puzzle out one symbol as some sort of anti-poison. Catherine and Blake suspected one might be anti-plague but were not willing to test it (yet). With the room searched and items gathered and tallied, the team went to ask the lone Sentry Golem some more questions. Halvar suggestion/thinking was that if worse came to worse, they could take one golem.

Upon reaching the main room, they found not one but five sentry golems! Not to be discouraged by this, Halvar asked how they could get access to a grey room, only to be told that he did not have clearance for that answer. When Halvar asked how would he get the needed clearance, the golems responded that they would inform the proper authorities. Ranold noted that the response was in common and this was a new development. He pointed this out to the team. He also pointed out that if the skeleton in the other room was part of the proper authorities, they would have a very long wait to get authorization. Nodding quietly in agreement the explorers attempted to exit the room. The door leading out opened to just touching the panel by the door, but it took a few seconds the puzzle that out. Just as the party was leaving the room, Ranold turned and asked for some navigational assistance. He was told by the golems to go north and turn east to find the library. After that no other answer was given.

Taking that to heart, the Explorers headed north. As they reached the corner they discovered several doors: 2 with clear panels, one with a brown panel, and a few that had no doors at all. Not wanting to leave unexplored doors behind them, Ranold used his arcane gloves to give him a peek beyond one of the doors with a clear panel. “The inside looked like a mead hall” he reported, and with that Faolan and Halvar went on in.

The room was a jumble of table, chairs, skeletons, and bones. Faolan immediately went to one of the skeletons to see if he could see how it died, only to trigger a primitive trap that inflicted a mere nick to his person. The skeleton in question had been rigged to thrust out with a sharpen arm bone, according to Halvar.  After that no one else moved deeper into the room, waiting until Finger and Halvar cleared it. After a short while, both Finger and Halvar declared the room clear. Sweeping the room for any clues or/and treasure, Halvar and Faolan noticed something odd. In the dim light of the room there were more shadows then Explorers.

At once they called warning, but it was too late: the living shadows attacked! With the exception of Catherine and Menyw, the team was poorly equipped to handle the creatures and the fight quickly turned ugly. The creatures focused most of their attacks on Faolan, Ranold, Halvar, Catherine, Ruis, and Thadious, unaware of the true danger that Menyw posed to them until it was too late. Faolan and Halvar paid the heaviest before Catherine’s burst of holy energy and Menyw obsidian sword started to turn the tide. The shadows were relentless and even Catherine and Ruis were nearly brought low as the dark creatures sapped the strength from their prey. Finger slayed wounded shadows with his bow as Menyw just cut them down, their inky form too solid to her sword for the shadows’ liking. As the last of the shadows fell into inky mist, the weariness of the explorers was apparent – many had been damaged severely by the creatures’ strength-sapping touches. Knowing that this would hamper her team, Catherine did her best to reverse the damage, expending many more precious charges of her healing wand on her team to restore their lost strength.

We ended here for the night.

Total time elapse since entering the Keep: 2 hours 10 Minutes

Updated post after edit by my Editor (Thanks Patrick)