Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Youth DnD: Battle Against The Undead!

At the end of the the last session, the party had entered a room in the style of the long-fallen empire that once controlled this area. At the far end of the room sat a throne on a dais, flanked by a pair of black onyx jackal statues; behind it was an ornate tapestry. There were two pairs of sarcophagi against the walls on their left and right. The group moved around the room, carefully investigating, until finally the mousefolk cleric set foot on the dais. That was when the sarcophagi finally opened, and four undead figures lurched out. One of them attacked the monk, who had been trying to pry a sarcophagus open, and injured him fairly severely - these were unusually strong zombies, and did more damage than normal.

So today's game opened with the group scattered through the middle of the room, and two opponents on either side. The Arcane Trickster took a moment to cast False Life on himself and make himself a bit harder to kill; then he used Mage Hand to slap one of the zombies across the face. This did absolutely no damage, but did make Barrith feel better. Kaz, the elvish monk, took advantage of the opportunity to withdraw, and then moved back to stand on the dais beside the cleric. Aspen the mousefolk cleric hit one of the zombies with Sacred Flame (I think - something that did radiant damage, anyway) and readied it to use again the moment any of the zombies looked almost dead. Toruv the dragonborn draconic sorcerer used burning hands on the two so-far-undamaged undead, then moved out of melee range from them. Shadow, the drow assassin, meanwhile moved to flank one of the zombies and did it some further damage, which the cleric added to with their prepared action.

At this point, the undead finally made their attacks. The two zombies from the north side of the room attacked Toruv, doing him quite a bit of damage, while the remaining zombie attacked shadow but missed, and the remaining undead attacked Barrith with a longsword but also missed.

That was the point at which Toruv, raised around magic and the products of magic, realized that zombies do not use swords. So this thing could not be a zombie; in fact, it looked like a wight... He shouted a warning to the group.

That changed the whole pattern of the battle, as everybody moved to take down the wight before it could hit anybody with Life Drain. Owing to a combination of luck and effort, they succeeded, and were able to mop up the rest of the zombies shortly afterwards. With that done, they retreated to the grain room and took a long rest. Except... before they left, Toruv set fire to the tapestry, revealing a hidden passage behind it. He then went to go rest, and Aspen went with him. Barrith, Kaz, and Shadow, however, stayed around long enough to scout the passageway and discover a mid-sized chamber at the far end, with a single chest in the middle of it. Barrith checked the thing over, finding no traps on either the chest itself or the surrounding area; but after some (fairly heated) OOC argument, they left the thing untouched and went to rest with the other two.

Upon their return, they were pleased to see that the undead that they'd dispatched were still sprawled defeated on the floor. The dungeon had not reset. (As far as they know right now, the dungeon only resets when they leave, but it's a magical construct and this may not always be the case.) They proceeded to the chest, opened it with Mage Hand (it was unlocked) and discovered 200 GP and a black onyx ring inside, carved with the image of a jackal's head. The cleric immediately claimed that.

Also, in the process of checking it over with Detect Magic, the cleric discovered that the small cat statue (the one the meows and purrs sometimes) is indeed magical, and probably associated with divination of some sort; the ruby that they've been keeping tied to its neck is not magical at all.

So far on this expedition, the group has added:
-another bronze short sword from room o' spiders where they originally found the cat statue.
-200 GP from the chest
-a ring from the chest, its properties known only to the cleric (and only once she gets it attuned).
-a longsword that they claimed from the defeated wight.

In addition, the group has the following items that they still need to sell, mostly left over from their griffon-slaying expedition:
-A quarterstaff
-4 shortswords
-4 light crossbows

Current party treasure by my count is 246 GP and 15 SP, which will increase once they sell that stuff off and split the GP with Lord Aldenmier. I'm also curious to see whether or not they'll mention the ring to him; there's some roleplay potential there.

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