Session II of Escape from Thunder Rift, picking up where we last left off….
Spoiler Warning
This post will contain spoilers for the first adventure in Escape From Thunder Rift, Part 1: The Escape. Some character and place names have been changed, and some dungeon rooms have been altered, but if you plan to play through this adventure as a PC (that isn’t in my gaming group), stop reading here!
Party’s Route through the Dungeon
Battle of the Bugs
Marigold the Half Dwarf Wild Magic Sorcerer/Fighter/Bard is caught by surprise by a ravenous Carrion Crawler, drawn by the scent of the dead Giant Leech at her feet. Luckily, Laurana the Half Elf Tempest Cleric of Ley Lethion of the Far Shore was able to see the attacking monster before it struck! The Carrion Crawler attempted to gnaw and batter Marigold with it’s rows of offal-encrusted teeth and it’s mouth tentacles, but her armor and shield held fast until Laurana could let loose a thunderwave spell.
The Carrion Crawler and the dead Giant Leech were knocked backward by the blast of energy, Marigold holding fast against the onslaught – a desperate move by Laurana but one that paid off. The force of the thunderwave sent the water from the nearest pools of steaming water surging backward, revealing the pools to be deep enough to cause difficulty for a Dwarf or Halfling, should they attempt to wade through the pools.
More concerning, however, were the two living Giant Leeches uncovered by the blast. Neither were knocked back, and the one closest to Marigold latched onto her leg with a swift attack, beginning to drain her blood away. The other Giant Leech attempts to go after Laurana, but it is struck by an Opportunity Attack by the Carrion Crawler (!), which became aggressive when it saw the Giant Leech attempting to go after its prey. The Giant Leech continues on after being struck by a flailing tentacle, but it’s sucker-mouth is intercepted by Laurana’s Shield.
In the Jailroom, Quartz the Dwarven Bard, Frankmeir Wedgeby the Traveling Entrepreneur (Rogue Thief), and Orestes the Hoplite Oath of Vengeance Paladin scrambled to rejoin their comrades. Wedgeby’s 20+ Initiative roll (now referred to as “a Wedgeby”) has him out the door and down the hall before Orestes can receive his just chastisement for having disturbed a potentially Large-sized Skeleton in Cell C.
Wedgeby makes it into the Hotsprings room first, and lands a Business Opportunity (sneak attack) against the Giant Leech attached to Marigold’s leg. It doesn’t dislodge the creature, but it does tear a good chunk out of it’s mouth, allowing Marigold to successfully dislodge the creature after jolting it to death with a shocking grasp.
The Carrion Crawler advances again, attempting to slap Marigold again with its tentacles, but her armor meets the tentacle, which slithers around her arm before she dislodges it and blocks the creature’s bite again with her shield. Laurana thunderwaves the creatures back again, this time able to angle the blast to avoid hitting her comrades, and this time upcast.
The Carrion Crawler and the Leech are once more knocked back, this time suffering greater damage. Orestes and Quartz now arriving, the Hoplite Paladin jumps into the fray and skewers the Giant Leech twice with his Spear of Ire, ending its place in the Initiative Order permanently. Quartz attempts to shoot the Carrion Crawler with an arrow but it glances off the creature’s filth-covered carapace.
Wedgeby lays into the Carrion crawler with his magical dagger equipped with a grip of returning, causing it to reconsider its choice of papyrus supplier quite intensely as it writhed in pain even as he called back the dagger to his hand. The Crawler attacks Orestes and strikes with its tentacle… and Orestes drops to the ground, unmoving!
Laurana vocally opts not to cast a healing spell on Orestes, and instead attempts to skewer the Crawler with her thrown trident, but the attack misses, her trident landing near a door at the far, northern end of the room. Marigold quickly casts healing word to try to rouse Orestes, but he remains torpid on the floor of the cavern.
Quartz strikes the Crawler with an arrow from her shortbow, eliciting a screeching wail as it was forced back a half-step from the languid form of Orestes. Wedgeby rushes the creature, still focusing on the downed Orestes, with Laurana and Marigold still close enough to distract the verminous cur. The Halfling leaps over Orestes’s unmoving body and plants the magical dagger into the creature’s chest. The Carrion Crawler, still clinging to life, chittered and screeched in Wedgeby’s face, until he produced a second dagger in his left hand and proceeded to gut the creature, causing it to tumble over backwards into the hot-spring behind it as he buried his daggers over and over into the creature’s carapace. Ichor sprayed out over the Halfling, a rain of splashing water and insectoid innards flinging up over his head.
Orestes regained motility, his limbs released from the creature’s paralyzing venom. He got up, and walked over to Wedgeby, who was still ravaging the Carrion Crawler’s still twitching corpse with a violence Cease and Desist order, and thanked the Halfling, admitting that his joke in tossing the coin at the skeleton probably wasn’t wise.
Marigold and Quartz collected themselves after the ordeal as Laurana walked over to the north door and opened it to reveal an L-shaped corridor with one door (again to the north) nearby, and another down the hallway around the corner. The Party continued on, Orestes electing to open the closer door (to the north). This door possessed an intricate locking mechanism, but it seemed to be unlocked…
17. The Bed Chamber
Orestes and Laurana enter the room behind the north door to find an elegant Bed Chamber in tattered ruin. Furniture is overturned and broken, dressers are torn open, bedding is slashed, and chests have been smashed. Wedgby watches from the doorway as Quartz and Marigold venture off to the other door down the hallway.
In the Bed Chamber, Laurana notices footprints in the dust, and goes to examine them. She sees a smudge on the floor, and a set of footprints that disappear right below a raised catwalk 60′ in the air, which terminates in a plain wooden door. Orestes sees a spiral staircase leading up to the catwalk and heads up. About half way up, he hears an audible “click” as he sets his foot down on one of the steps…
15. The Alchemy Lab
Marigold and Quartz open the Eastern door to find a room charred by an explosion. Glass crunches under foot as they explore the room, finding it to be an old Alchemist’s lab. The floor of the room seems to have been scorched by a massive explosion, and in the center of the charred patch on the floor lies a Blackened Skeleton. Grasped in the skeleton’s hand is a wand of dark red-stained wood with grooves carved into it’s length. A white gem is set at the very base (a Wand of the War Mage+2). Quartz meanwhile examines the tattered remnants of the lab and discovers a Potion of Healing.
They spy a door to the North and press on, opening it to find a short antechamber and another door. That door conceals a sulphurous smell from beyond. Opening the second door, they are assaulted by noxious fumes from within.
They spy a trio of stoppered glass phials on the ground, next to what look like more hot springs. Marigold exclaims that she thinks there are dragons about… taking a careful step inside, she can see with her dark vision that there are no exits to this room, so she tries to search for secret passages…
…and begins to cough uncontrollably as the fumes enter her lungs! She almost succumbs to unconsciousness but her dwarven heritage sustains her long enough to duck back out of the room. Quartz helps to steady Marigold, who gets a gulp of breathable air and starts to feel light headed. Between the blood loss and the fumes, Marigold’s starting to feel a little high on “dragon’s breath.”
Then the two hear a loud whirring from back down the hallway they had come from, a cry of surprise, and a loud crashing sound from the room where they had left the others!
17. The Bed Chamber, Part II
As soon as Orestes steps down on the trapped step, the step depresses and sets the devilish trap in motion – literally – as the spiral staircase begins to spin wildly. Orestes jams his spear down into the staircase, locking it in place against the metal grating and using it to hold on for dear life as Laurana and Wedgeby watch helpless.
The staircase continues spinning, and after about 10 seconds Orestes loses his grip, flying outward and landing on the floor right beside Laurana… and the smudge on the floor! Laurana deduces that someone must have triggered the trap before they arrived – most likely the mage Chambrin in his haste.
Wedgeby enters the room at this point and, taking a look around as he heads to the staircase, notes that this looks like the room had been ransacked by someone looking for something particular – something they believed to have been in this room, but unsure of the exact location. He checks the stairs methodically, and while he does so, Marigold and Quartz return to see what had happened. Orestes sits on the floor for a bit, less than enthused, then gets to his feet.
Wedgeby discovers the trap trigger on the 45th step, and marks it with chalk. He continues to the top of the catwalk while the others start climbing after him… and then he notices the banner hanging above the bed. It depicts a coat of arms with a wand crossing a broken sword. He stares intently at it, for he’s seen this emblem before… on one of the pages he glimpsed in the Spellbook of Morgaroth, before the trapped tome sent him reeling into unconsciousness!
Orestes sees him looking at the banner, and the hoplite runs over and tugs it down. He brings it up to the catwalk where they can all examine it, careful not to trigger the trap! They can’t determine what the connection to the Dark Lord of Avonleigh might be, but they can determine that the wand Marigold found is the same wand depicted on the banner.
As they discuss the discover, Wedgeby checks the door for traps. Finding none, he tries to slip inside to avoid the discussion, still shaken by the experience of nearly dying at the hands of the trapped tome during the Party’s adventure in the Demiplane of Dread, but Laurana catches him by the shoulder and keeps him from running off.
Marigold opens the door when everyone is ready, and she, Laurana, and Wedgeby enter first, with Quartz and Orestes following in the rear.
19. The Reflecting Pool
The Gauntlet of Guardian Golems
An unexpected sight meets the adventurer’s eyes, as a large skylight reveals the bright light of day cast across the peaks of the nearby mountains. A large reflecting pool dominates the room, flanked by two life-sized statues of lions made of amber.
As the Party tries to determine if the skylight is an illusion or reality, one of the lions suddenly comes alive and leaps down from the steps leading up to the reflecting pool, and begins to pace and snarl at the Party!
Wedgeby once again rolls a Wedgeby and leaps into action, running through the legs of the taller folk and into the room, he launches his magical returning dagger and it buries itself into the Amber Golem’s flank. The jagged cleft where the dagger bit into the golem leaves a momentary glow of yellow light which seems to absorb into the creature’s gem-like body.
Wedgeby recalls his dagger as Marigold attempts to cast animal friendship on the monster. Unfortunately, she finds out that it doesn’t respond to the magic! It then pounces at Wedgeby, who sees his profitable life flash before his eyes.
Rolling a straight 18 on his unmodified Strength Saving throw to avoid being pinned, Wedgeby rolls under the beast-like guardian and gets to his feat behind it. The Amber Lion, meanwhile, rebounds off of the wall and turns to face its enemies, now being cornered by Wedgeby, Laurana, and Marigold.
Just then, Orestes rushes forward, stumbling over the doorjam… and misty steps into the last free space in front of the lion. He gives a mighty smite, followed by another, and his magic spear digs mighty trenches into the creature’s body. Again, it glows with a strange light…
Suddenly the glow that has been building surges outwards to the surface of its amber body, and a crackling field of electricity surges outward. Wedgeby nimbly evades the streaking energy, while Orestes, Marigold, and Laurana resist the surging bolts, but suffer some wounds (13 damage). Quartz takes the full brunt of the magical electricity (27 damage), but having more hit points than Rasputin, she walked it off. She fires an arrow, almost hitting the crack that Wedgeby’s dagger had made. The arrow digs in however, and she notes that the magical weapons seem to be inflicting far more damage.
Laurana turns to the second lion, not trusting it to be just a statue, and casts dispel magic on it. Something seems to happen – she can feel as if magic were suddenly suppressed in the statue, but only for a moment. Unbeknownst to Laurana, she had just prevented the second Lion from awakening, giving the group another round before they had two Amber Golems to contend with.
Wedgeby now takes the opportunity to Business Opportunity the Amber Lion right in the neck, blowing out a large chunk of the automaton’s neck and chest. He cunningly disengages from the Amber Golem and backs up to range. Marigold raises the magic wand and casts forth an acid splash – but the Leonine Amber Golem ducks to the side. She gets her second wind, healing back a solid 11 hit points of damage.
The Amber Lion was going to attack Wedgeby, but his decision to move out of range the monster instead swipes twice at Orestes with its massive claws, and the hoplite deftly ducks and deflects both attacks. The Amber Golem is swift, however, and it lands a bite attack on his bare shoulder, gouging him for 2d10 damage (the result of which I forget!).
Quartz strikes again with an arrow, and laurana casts a mass healing word, and everyone regains 6 health (cutting the damage from the lightning blast in half for all but Quartz!).
Wedgeby throws both of his daggers, nearly destroying the beast. He notices as the daggers sale past the reflecting pool that it wasn’t reflecting the skylight, or the room, but a pastoral scene of a riverbank, a forest, and a strange stone that looked like a sleeping child resting by the bank of the river… the same scene as painted in the landscape hanging in the murder room!
Marigold once again raises her wand and casts acid splash, nearly melting the creature completely. Then she action surges, casting another volely of acid splash and reducing the Amber Golem to slag. As it melts and then fades into nothingness, Orestes walks over to the second lion, and jabs it with his spear at reach. This awakens the second guardian, but as luck would have it, this allows Quartz and Laurana to act on their initiatives before the creature could act, since the turn hadn’t ended! He takes his second attack to smite the Golem with radian fury.
Quartz ttempts to cast vicious mockery but the Golem saves against it. Laurana casts another thunderwave, now depleting almost all of her spell slots, but forces the lion back and damages it considerably.
Wedgeby can’t yet sneak attack because none of his allies are close enough, so he makes a dagger attack. He uses his cunning action to examine the reflecting pool. Laurana’s thunderwave had splashed the water back away toward the far wall, and as it settled back to the edge of the pool, he could see that there seemed to be a rush of wind that had caused the trees to sway backwards at almost the exact same time!
Marigold misses the amber lion, and it misses her in return. Orestes lays into it again with his final spell slots for smiting. Quartz casts vicious mockery again, and this time it sticks, inflicting psychic damage (to which the Golem wasn’t immune!) and making its next attack at disadvantage!
Laurana shield-bashes the Amber Lion… but the creature begins to glow as the previous one did, and erupts with lightning, catching her, Orestes, and Quartz for additional damage (about the same as before). By now Laurana and Orestes are fairly hurt, but luck being with the Party, it’s now Wedgeby’s turn. Another sneak attack from range brings the Golem quite low, and Marigold finishes it off with another acid splash.
This time, the creature bursts into a shower of amber shards and stones.
The Portal
Marigold begins collecting them, seeing their value. Orestes tosses a coin into the reflecting pool and it vanishes! Examining the scene, he thinks he can see where it seems to have landed just on the very edge of the riverbank! Laurana places her hand in the pool and nothing happens – she touches the bottom of the pool with ease. However she hears the voice of her god calling to her… and she immediately slides into the reflecting pool head first, submerging and vanishing completely once the water settles!
…well, not completely. Her comrades can see her appear in the reflected image, arising from the river near the edge of the water…
Laurana rose gently to the surface of the water, no longer beneath the skylight in the Mage’s dungeon deep within the mountainside of Thunder Rift, but now feeling sunlight and cool air across her skin. She alighted gently on the riverbank, basking in the afterglow of sensual release brought upon her by the embrace of her god beneath the water (note: player’s narration – Ley Lethion is bae).
Seeing Laurana appear in the reflection, Orestes resigns himself to another journey across space (and possibly time) and faceplants into the reflecting pool He experiences a sensation similar to when he, Wedgeby, and Laurana had escaped from the Demiplane of Dread through the magic portal opened by the Dark Powers of Ravenloft. His senses muddle and mix in a confusion jumble, time seeming to compress and contract in strange ways as he traveled through the magic portal of the pool.
On the other side of the portal, Orestes trudges out of the water onto the riverbank. The racket disturbs Laurana from the intense relaxation of her divinely induced orgasm, and she unceremoniously socks the hoplite where the Sun God doesn’t ride his chariot. Grimacing and limping, Orestes makes his way to the riverbank sits to wait for the others, who emerge from the water one-by-one as they follow through the pool.
The heroes are battered, weary, and running low on magic, but Chambrin has several hours head start already, and a full day’s rest might let the trail run cold… or worse… might allow Chambrin to accomplish whatever foul deeds he has traveled through the portal to enact! He seems to have known about the portal, and possibly where it would lead…
…and speaking of where it leads, the Party sees a trail of footprints, not very old, in the mud of the riverbank. They head down the road that leads past the edge of the forest, and it looks like toward a town off in the distance of the hillside…
END OF PART I