Eberron Session Summary 11/13/2005

Attendance

Bruce (Grenville d'Tharashk) shows up incredibly late to find that the group has grown tremendously, and that violence is already well under way. Chris (Varth Lokkur) does his best to introduce the so-called new group members and stop Bruce from babbling, "Move the wafers! Move the wafers!" Ernest (Kurgash d'Tharashk) grumbles unsettlingly, indicating that he is deeply engrossed in the whole process of bloodshed. Chuck (Graf) reminds everyone, "We're in Eberron, so if you die you could come back as a shifter! Or a changeling!" Peco (Solmar) notes that he's been getting his ass kicked all day long. Patrick (Elyandre) is one of the newcomers, though a newcomer who has been part of the Vampire game for over a year; he's playing an elven Fighter-Rogue. Matt (Munaak) is the other apparent newcomer, appearing in the role of a goblin Wizard. Paul sits in the center of everything, looking deeply overwhelmed by the piles of players he's acquired.

Tim (Lungpuncture) shows up rather later, as he is still burdened by his bizarre work schedule.

What's Going On Here, People?

Grenville d'Tharashk wanders down a corridor to find that the others are already heavily engaged with a whole passel of enemies, including (but not limited to) some kind of necromancer, three or four summoned demonic things, a shocker lizard, and a stitched-up zombie dragonne. He boggles as Munaak (who apparently came out of just about nowhere) howls out, "I cast the Thunders of the Three Mighty Might Thunders Thundering!" and sends a combined lightning-and-thunder bolt down the corridor. Elyandre staggers, but doesn't appear to object too much, as one of the demonic entities suffered much, much more. Kurgash and Graf follow up by thundering straight into their foes.

Cutter Gerald offers, "Who cares why we're fighting, that demon looks stunned!" He shoots the thing in the eye and kills it.

As it dies, it mourns, "Ohhh! My seeing eye!" Then, as with all summoned things, its body vanishes.

Cutter exults, "Didja see that! Didja see that! I just killed something! I don't know why, but it's definitely dead! And once again, I prove that I am way more effective than my boss!"

Varth Lokkur pays no attention to Cutter's remarkable archery: he is too busy shredding whatever is left of the necromancer with an Empowered Eldritch Bolt. He hums a happy tune in satisfaction as necromancer gibs drip off the wall.

Elyandre manages to recover from being stunned. He gripes, "If I have to bleed, then so does everyone else."

Munaak realizes that he's in hand-to-hand combat with a zombie dragonne. He decides that this is an untenable situation, so he steps back into a Dimension Door to appear behind Grenville. Grenville leaps up and exclaims, "Yeeek! A goblin just appeared behind me! Eeek!" Munaak rolls his eyes and reflects on how he's just glad that Grenville didn't attack him.

The other characters, with nothing more than a single demon and a zombie dragonne to face, start discussing how to kill the zombie without leaving marks on the body. Munaak finally finishes the discussion by spraying it with Magic Missiles. At this point, Lungpuncture wanders in to see what everyone else has been crowing about.

Varth notes that everyone else has forgotten about the demonic entity, so he zaps the thing with a quick Voracious Dispelling and makes it go away. Graf congratulates him, "Good show, old man!" Varth grumbles something about only being middle-aged.

All This Bleeding Just Won't Stop!

The characters quickly recognize that both Kurgash and Elyandre are still suffering damage from bleeding. Even worse, bleeding wounds are resistant to magical healing attempts. Lungpuncture empties himself of spells fixing their wounds.

Rescuing the Girl

The characters see that the human artificer Elly is sitting paralyzed in the back of the room. Kurgash tries to communicate with her. He knees down in front of her and explains, "We are sended to rescue you. Do not worry, you will soon become pliable again." He concludes that ghouls paralyzed her. The others conclude that his efforts at communication are not having any impact upon the paralyzed artificer.

Varth starts looking for magical loot. He determines that Elly is actually wearing a small fortune in magical goods:

• A magical headband
• A magical ring; and
• A magic sack

But her wealth is as nothing compared to the necromancer had:

• A Light Mithril Buckler of Fortification +1;
• Gloves of Dexterity +2;
• A Headband of Intellect +2;
• A Rod of Extended Metamagic;
• A Necklace of Adaptation;
• A Clear Spindle Ioun Stone (user doesn't have to eat or drink);
• A Wand of Enervation with 9 charges;
• A potion of Cure Serious Wounds; and
• 2 masterwork daggers

The entire room is decorated in the sort of highly-pimped style the characters have become used to seeing in powerful magicians. Solmar makes a very impressive Appraise check ("Nobody can match our dwarf's avarice!") and estimates that the furniture is worth at least 3000 gold, but also weighs at least 1000 pounds. More portable valuable items include:

• Two crystal goblets (50 gold each);
• Three silver bowls (80 gold each); and
• Three bottles fine wine (60 gold each)

Kurgash points out, "Not to distract everyone from the looting, but there's yet another dock complex that we might want to depopulate. I bet there are a lot more undeads over there..."

And Then Elly Recovers

While the characters are admiring the necromancer's décor, Elly comes back to consciousness. She tells them, "Thank you for rescuing me, but I had everything well under control. I was just waiting for the right time to betray him."

Kurgash casually replies, "Oh, by the way you'd better be careful about going back to your boyfriend Zabydos: he's mind-controlled by an evil mermaid and was going to take you off to her so she could snack on you."

Elly seems legitimately surprised, "Really? I had no idea. But that necromancer had a secret door somewhere around here. Let's search!" Much searching follows, at the end of which no secret door has been located. And then Solmar realizes that the back wall is of newer construction than the rest of the room. This still doesn't help.

It turns out that all Elly is interested in is the necromancer's notes on how he got zombies to do skilled work. She tells the characters that they can have anything else. Varth suggests, "That sounds really valuable. But wouldn't that wreck the economy? If the dead could do skilled tasks, then the living would be worthless. Oh well, at least I won't be poor."

Solmar produces his Wand of Stone Shape and melts a hole through the newer wall. It is quickly obvious that there is only a thin marble veneer on the wall, covering over the bricks. The secret room is behind the bricks. Kurgash curses, "Damned cheap necromancers!" He kicks the necromancer's body.

The Necromancer's Secret Room

Varth peers inside and comments, "Oh goody! More things to fight! Why do they keep on getting bigger?" The room looks like a necromancer's lab, full of tables and alembics and femurs. The place is lit by magical blue torches. Four huge articulated skeletons stand inside, one at each corner.

Kurgash suggests, "Tell you all what. Let me draw them in to the doorway so we can get them one by one."

Lungpuncture offers, "How about I send in a fire elemental to scorch everything in there, including the notes?"

Kurgash tells the other characters, "Someone put him in the Bag of Holding."

The characters buff up, noting that the skeletons are all armed with morning stars. Grenville unrolls one of his Shield scrolls and casts it on himself.

Varth peers inside and reports that there are magical Symbol spells scribed all across the middle of the room. One is Symbol of Pain; the other is Symbol of Sleep. Kurgash notes, "Oooh... sleepy pain. Why don't you dispel those, warlock-boy?"

Varth starts spraying Voracious Dispellings into the room. It takes him a few minutes, but he manages to take them both out. Then he tries a Shatter on one of the skeletons' morningstars. It works. The skeleton doesn't respond, so he goes across the room and Shatters all the remaining morningstars.

Kurgash gets impatient, "Can I pull now?" The others agree. He moves into the room. Only then do the skeletons move, just in time for Munaak to hit one with a sound-infused Lightning Bolt. Varth joins in the fun with an Eldritch Blast. Between the two of them, they blast away most of the creature's ribs and one of its shoulder blades. Everyone else stands poised and ready.

The skeletons finally manage to make it out to the doorway. At least, the first one does. It promptly encounters a half-dozen held attacks and another very loud Lightning Bolt. The characters dispose of it, then get down to the grinding work of obliterating every skeleton in the area.

The South Docks

The characters head down the corridor to the south docks. They are smaller than the east docks, with only three quays and obvious active construction going on. There are six zombies and two ghouls in the area.

Varth observes the area and comments, "Okay, fighters: take 'em out!"

Kurgash doesn't need to be told twice.

Munaak is completely amazed to see a zombie make a save against one of his Lightning Bolts. Doesn't help the zombie much in the longer term: the creature still gets fried, along with four of its comrades.

The characters find six more zombies building a stairwell. They kill all of them, then strip the area of interesting magical objects. The only things worth mentioning are eight blue-burning Everburn Torches.

There is also a magical aura on one part of the pillar in the necromancer's lab. Varth thinks it is an evocation. Grenville thinks it might be a Fire Trap. The characters decide to take advantage of Varth's Voracious Dispelling trick to just get rid of the spell, then let Elyandre search it. He finds a latch but no traps. The latch opens a panel. Inside the panel, he finds:

• An unlocked coffer containing 18,000 silver and 836 gold; and
• A small silk bag containing 93 black onyxes (65 worth 100 gold each and 28 worth 200 gold each, per Solmar's appraisal). The bag itself is worth another 50 gold.

The characters are curious why the necromancer would have so many black onyxes around until they remember that onyxes are components for Animate Dead and Create Undead. Later on, they spend 11,000 of the silver coins on pearls for Identify spells.

The other portable furnishing items the characters take away include a large silver wall mirror, the necromancer Delthryn's notes and comments on the nature of undeath (which Elly claims), and Delthryn's spellbooks. The spellbooks contain lots of spells, but all of them are evil so they need to be destroyed. Or kept by Munaak.

Tidying Up the Loose Ends

The characters bring Elly back to House Lyrandar and collect the balance of their fee: 5500 gold less the 1200 gold advance. Kurgash looks around at the larger number of characters who will draw shares and comments, "Grmm... the value of our cuts went down. We'll have to deathmatch."

Once the rest of the mundane loot is totaled up and sold off each character's share turns out to be worth 6038 gold. Grenville donates the change to charity. Detail on the actual treasure items is below:

And then the characters hire a sky-lorry to cart off all the good furniture. Kurgash takes the shocker lizard to be his pet, even though the creature never really takes to him and always shocks him ever so often. Finally, the dragonne carcass gets better with a few Mending spells and 100 gold worth of quality time with a taxidermist. It ends up as yet another trophy in the Fallen Angel.

Mermaid Hunting? Yes! Yes of Course!

Now that she has been brought back to civilization, Elly offers to pay the characters in magic items to take out the mermaid. She offers "a few thousand gold." Grenville suggests, "How 'bout a few thousand more?" He dusts himself off with Friendly Face.

Varth observes this process and tells Grenville, "You're such a bastard." Then he steps back to watch Grenville do his thing.

By the time Grenville is done with her, Elly is offering the characters 7000 gold in items for the job. And she's also in love with him. She offers to slip Grenville a few extra potions (or maybe oils) on the side; Grenville isn't completely sure what they might contain.

Solmar preps for the trip by making two Water Breathing scrolls. He loans his long spear to Kurgash so the big orc will have an impaling weapon.

The End of the Session

Characters who participated last session each gain 2880 experience points, except for Lungpuncture who gains 3500 experience points. Each character present today gain 2200 additional experience points, except for Lungpuncture who gains a 2462 experience points.

Ernest borrows $20 from Bruce.

Grenville cheers because he just jumped to 9^th level. He becomes Bard6, DmHeir 3. Barely noticed in the background, Cutter Gerald goes to Rogue7.