Terra Povos: Vampire Spawn

We’re looking at the room with the shrine of Durest in it. It’s… very full. We decide to go back down and try the side-passages with the skeletons in it. Lithos drops Protection from Arrows on James, who will use his flail. He slides through the door, prepares to fight defensively, and starts singing Jensenian poetry. Whisper opens the door and attempts to hide behind it. 

Lithos drops Mage Armor on himself; the skeletons advance on James but can’t hit him. Amergin tries to tickle a skeleton’s ribs with his spear, but misses. Lithos throws acid and damages one. Baldy fires off a magic missile from the Fomorian weapon at the same skeleton, and it’s nearly dead. Arrows come streaking towards arrows but also fail to connect. 

James swings his flail but misses. Lithos throws more acid and finishes off the first skeleton. Archibald fire off another magic missile. A skeleton tries to spear James, but he’s so bad that James breaks it. James swing his flail again, and takes it out. Lithos throws more acid. Baldy fires off another missile and takes out a skeleton, James attacks the last spear-skeleton and Lithos finishes it off. 

The skeletal archers shoot at James but all miss. James charges the archers. She smacks the first one and wipes it out. Lithos acids the next skeletal archer. James mauls it back out of existence, and Lithos puts acid on the next one. James finishes that one. We continue, and the last skeleton falls. 

Scrawled on the wall on his right is Do not proceed without the weapon. Whisper points out that we should take on the room with the ghasts. We slide up to it, and James waits for Whisper to check the door. He finds no traps, but it is locked. He pops the lock. Amergin casts Guidance on James. 

James charges in and attacks a skeleton, right in front of the altar of Durest. Amergin moves in and hits the ghast with the cure light wounds wand; the holy energy burns it rather badly. The second ghast moves up to attack Amergin. One misses; the other bites him. He is not paralyzed, but he is injured. Lithos moves up and throws acid; Baldy fires a magic missile, and we’re doing our best to take out ghasts. The skeleton tries to attack, and James swings but fails to hit him. Skeletons shoot at Amergin, and one hits. James steps around and flanks a ghast, then whacks it. 

Whisper slings a stone at the skeleton in the corner. Amergin chooses this moment to withdraw, heading out into the corridor and past Lithos. A ghast follows. James swings at it but misses. It only gets as far as the doorway, and attacks Lithos. It misses. 

The skeletons shoot at James; one of the skeletons’ bows snaps and takes its head off; it collapses. Lithos withdraws, leaving Archibald between him and the ghasts. Archibald tags the front ghast with CLW wand, doing minimal damage. James is on archer-smashing duty, though that... really wasn't the plan. He smashes one and moves to the next skeleton. Amergin heals himself a bit, and Whisper gets ready to close the door once a ghast passes through the door. The other ghast turns back, and Sherry Moon Zombie hits him as he goes past; it’s the first damage that ghast has taken. Archie jabs the ghast again; it’s not quite dead yet. Sherry goes to attack the second ghast and trips, it bites her for a bunch of damage. The archer next to James smacks it, then steps over and smacks the next one and takes it out. He is an archer-removing machine. 

Whisper tries to stab the ghast but misses; Amergin hits it with the wand. The ghast bites Archibald, damaging and paralyzing him. The second ghast turns around and rips Sherry Moon apart. Lithos moves up a bit, but can’t get an angle to attack. 

The lone remaining archer shoots an arrow at James; James charges him across the rug in the middle of the room. The rug collapses, and she rolls down the stairs into a room full of snakes. “Ahhh!” thump-thump-thump “At least it’s not ants.”

Whisper steps over Baldy and slashes the ghast, which is barely still on its feet. Amergin tags the ghast with the wand, and it falls back, burning. The second ghast walks over and looks down at the stairs; then it turns to the doorway and licks it lips. 

The snakes are surprised by the sudden arrival of a halfling. There are three large vipers down here, which is… not good. The skeleton moves to the edge of the stairs and fires down, but misses. James comes to his feet and moves up onto the staircase so that hopefully there’s a chokepoint; Whisper comes up behind the ghast but misses. 

Amergin moves in and zaps the ghast with his wand, doing pretty decent damage. The ghast tries to bite him, and crunches down hard. Amergin is badly damaged but not paralyzed. Lithos walks across Baldy and through the doorway, then throws acid at the ghast, which hisses at him. 

The snakes starts slithering up the stairs; one tries to bite James but misses. James attempts to tumble up and past the skeleton, and gets past it; the ghast and the snake both miss her. She swings at the skeleton. She hits it in the arm – very humerus – and it collapses. Whisper slips his blade around using Sleight of Hand, and then slashes him. He hisses. Amergin heals himself a bit. The ghast attacks Amergin but misses; Lithos splats it with acid; and Archibald finally stands up and fires off a magic missile. 

Snakes begin crawling out of the hole. One of them attacks Amergin and hits. He is just barely on his feet, and that only because dwarves are really hard to poison. James swings at a snake with his flail but misses. Whisper tries to deceive the ghast but fails this time. He slashes the thing anyway. Amergin takes a step back and then casts his last Entangle, trying to trap our enemies; what actually happens is that it pins Whisper. The ghast moves up on Amergin. Lithos and Archibald use their magic attack on it, but it’s still up – barely. The snake attacks Amergin again; he goes down, hard, badly poisoned. Two snakes attack James, and one actually hits. He manages not to be poisoned. 

Lithos: “I knew you were a better dwarf than I am.”

Whisper slices but misses; the ghast attacks him, paralyzing him. Lithos finishes the ghast with acid. 

Archibald heals Amergin up to two points, but he’s so badly poisoned that he doesn’t have much health. 

A snake bites Lithos, but fails to poison him. Amergin heals himself with the wand. Lithos steps back from the snake and casts Invisibility on himself. Archibald puts a snake to sleep, and James smacks another one. Lithos stays hidden; Archie uses another Magic Missile on a snake; and James finishes a snake. Lithos starts throwing acid, and Archie fires another magic missile. James crits on the dazzled snake and takes it out. 

We finish off the sleeping snake. 

Next up: we look behind the partial wall on the east side; there’s a cage with a candelabra on one side and a mirror on the other. Downstairs there’s a portcullis with a crank next to it; there’s a sign on the wall that says, “do not open.” 

The torture chair has a sign on it: “Durest will bless one weapon with magic if a friend will sacrifice their blood.” We consider who most needs the help, and grab a light pick from the rack; the other weapons disappear. James sits in the chair and we put the light pick in front of the altar; Lithos pulls the lever for him. James takes some damage, but now has a spiffy magic light pick +1. Amergin heals her. 

The blood has gone through the floors to the coffin on the lower level. 

There is something inside the coffin, and it’s knocking. James’ blood is flowing down some tubes into the coffin. 

We… might be about to fight a vampire. 

James starts picking up treasure: 600 GP worth of platinum. 

Gas comes out of the coffin and starts flowing towards us. Amergin tags it with a CLW wand. Whisper grabs a handful of silver pieces off the floor and slips off a sock. He’s just assembled himself a custom silver club. Lithos throws some acid, but misses. James attacks with a magical pick.

The vampire tries to mesmerize Amergin but misses. Amergin zaps him with the wand again. Whisper comes up behind him and swings… and misses. Baldy zaps it with magic missile; Lithos tags it with acid. It looks at James and dominates him. He drops the pick. 

Amergin tags him with the wand, doing a bit more damage. Whisper attacks him with the sock of silver. Baldy tags him with magic missile. James attacks Whisper with the flail and very nearly takes him out. The vampire attacks Whisper but misses. Amergin tags him with the wand again. Whisper swings but misses; Baldy and Lithos do their things. James attacks Whisper again and loses his flail. The vampire spawn heaves a profound sigh of disappointment. James: “That’s how they feel about me, too.”

Whisper is now dominated as well. Amergin tags the vampire again; Lithos leaps down the stairs, yelling about stakes and beheading and such. James stakes him, and Whisper beheads him and stuffs silver coins in the mouth to finish it off. We add 90 more gp worth of silver and gold, plus two black onyx. 

We check treasure. There’s 300 GP, a sword made out of glass, a genie-looking lamp. The lamp appears to be a potion of cure moderate wounds. The glass sword is a single-use sword; there’s nothing magic in the chest. Whisper checks over the chest and finds a poison needle trap. 

We decide not to open it yet, and retreat to heal up and rest. 

We come back and investigate the coffin; there’s a bottom half of a scroll, probably companion to an earlier one. OOC, we pause there.