Starday, 15th Wealsun, 591 CY (low summer)
Leaving the wounded elf Beren behind at their camp out side the tomb, the party move aside the round stone blocking the entrance and enter a cave. They hope to find the fabled giant-slaying sword Nightbane, said to belong to a former Paladin called St Dunstan. Whether they let the elf have it or take it for themselves is something they’ll deal with when they find it.
The cave has a natural tunnel leading off, and a door. They go through the door into a long, 30′ high corridor, with alcoves bearing marble busts of heroic looking men; no one recognises them. As they explore, from the shadows a pair of giant grubs with tentacles: Carrion Crawlers (or, as ACKS calls them, Carcass Scavengers)! Idni and Corvin shoot off a couple of arrows as the monsters rush at them, scoring hits but not slowing them down, and Halmary slings a stone at one too; the creatures scurry off the walls and ceiling and attack Halmary and Ungrid, their tentacles paralysing both. Idni kills one, with a spear thrust to its head; Zarkov casts a curative spell to remove Halmary’s paralysis, and then sees the other crawler grab Ungrid; it starts dragging him away and Zarkov grabs hold of his brother and tries, but fails, to hold him back. Everyone rushes after it, hacking away, stabbing it with spears, and eventually it falls, again to Idni’s spear thrust.
Halmary removes the paralysis from Ungrid, and they continue to explore. They find a nest at the end of the corridor, along with an iron flask. Corvin discovers a secret door behind an alcove, and down a corridor they go. Halmary takes the lead, triggers a trap that has a bolt hurled at him. The bruises ease with some application of comfrey herbs, and the room has numerous doors leading out, one false, one leading down to a rubbish tip that holds nothing of interest.
The other door leads to a room with a mosaic of a constellation of stars. They discover, by accident, that it is a teleporter and after some experiment learn they can teleport freely. They all go together, and end up in a similar room with more doors leading off. Through one they go, and into yet another room; but as they move in to investigate, Corvin and Idni both trigger pit traps; Corvin, being a nimble thief, leaps out of the way just in time; Idni falls to the floor, winding and bruising himself, perhaps breaking a rib or two [down to 1 hit point]; 20′ deep. They lower a rope and he starts to crawl out…
End of Session
Kills: 2 carrion crawlers.
Note: we had some technical issues during this session, first time really. For some reason (I suspect internet speed issues, possibly mine, possibly others, maybe a mix) the light sources and FOW weren’t updating properly and at several times people’s characters vanished when moving from one part of the map to the other. Very odd. Killed almost half-hour, which was annoying. Hopefully it’ll be better next time.
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Against the Giants: Session Eighteen | …and the sky full of dust.
July 14, 2012 at 17:41
[...] After falling down the pit, Idni discovers a heap of coins and a glittering gem amongst some bones. He bags them and the others haul him out of the pit and tend to his wounds (using a mixture of herbs and healing magic). After some exploration, searching and checking for traps, they deduce that the three doors leading out are all false, with dart-trpas; Corvin disables them all, using iron spikes to jam the mechanisms. [...]