CoD 1: Session 12: Cultists Cave
Pre-scene Notes
-
Scene setup/conflict:
Party arrive at the dungeon Baldie was talking about.
No altered/interrupted scene
Scene:
Walking out of the fog, the party found themselves still within a cave. The cave was very three dimensional, with ledges and narrow corridors between them. There was a damp smell and the sound of running water echoing from the depths of the cave. Looking back, they could only see fog and Zar tried to walk back into it, only to reappear a few seconds later in the opposite direction. Filli spotted fifteen feet in front of them was a fallen man in an unfamiliar soldier uniform from the light emitting from magical tinkering contraption on his hat.
Rushing forward, Filli saw that the solider was mere moments from death and there was no way he could heal enough of his wounds to recover. The solider having seen Filli, grabbed his arm and gasped as much as he could.
“It’s been hours, but the last batch of adventurers had not come back, I’m afraid they have met as horrible an end as I feared.” The solider coughed up enough blood to further soak his tunic. “There isn’t much time, I beg of you, please stop the cultists! They are trying to summon a great evil that if brought to this land, there will be be no escape for us. Please, you haven’t much time. By my counts, their ceremony will be completed in another eight hours or so. You-you must…”
And the soldier was no more. Fill suggested the party bury the solider, who died honourably in his mission. The others thought, considering the soldiers said time was a constraint, they should hurry to try and stop the cultists instead.
The way I tried to determine this was ask the question to Mythic, going down one level for what each character may vote for, then rolling for yes/no. In this case, I rolled an Unlikely roll and it turned out a No result. If the party had buried the soldier, I was going to give them a reward as the spirit of the soldier would materialise if they stopped the cultist ceremony in the end, but alas that won’t be the case now.
Filli was unable to convince the other two and the party went further into the cave.
The way I decide where the party goes when there are no supporting information is to just roll a dx to the number of corridors leading out of the current room. There is one to the North and one to the West, so I just rolled a d2, 1 as N and 2 as W.
The result was North, and as a spider was waiting to pounce, I was lenient and allowed Filli, who was leading the party, to do a Dex saving throw instead of a straight attack round. He got a Nat20… For that, I gave him a free spear hit, considering he was weak at it. It landed and with only 1HP, the ambushing spider died, but roll for initiative.
Having no hints on which direction was the best way to the cultists’ ceremony, Filli raised his shield and progressed cautiously up the North passage from the entrance. The passageways in this cave were narrow, and he kept his ears open for any patrolling cultists or the spiders he was warned about by Baldie. Entering into what seemed to be a small chamber with a stone hill in the middle, his ears picked up a hissing and Filli immediately did a barrel-roll forward, slashing his spear as he tumbled. His spear caught the lunging spider right through its guts, bile spilling about the grounds and the clicking of mandibles echoed around them in rage.
Within an instant, three spiders surrounded Filli with a fourth not far away. He was able to parry one off with his shield, the other with his spear, but the third one landed on his chest and sunk its fangs into him. With a scream he was able to shake it off, hoping he was not poisoned despite the deep wound.
“Remember what Baldie said! Aim for the nest!” Zar shouted from the back, with his orcish darkvision just making out the the spiders’ nest atop the stone platform in the middle having spawned a new spider already. Who knew how many there were still to come out from the nest.
Taking action, Zar took a deep breath and held a hand over the amulet about his neck. His other hand pointed out at the spiders’ nest, and beckoned the rusty sword still in its sheath. He willed the amulet to give him mental fortitude as his hand tingled, a green glow forming at his finger tips. He hoped it was just his hallucinations but his hand looked even more orcish than usual, and as if through a yellow semi-corporeal claw on his index finger, a beam of tight green light blasted forth towards the top of the stone platform. The green beam missed its target but with a boom blasted the cave ceiling, rocks tumbling to the cave floor. Zar gripped his hands tighter over his necklace, willing the whispers that had started in his head to stop.
Yankovic was apprehensive about Zar’s change in demeanour and felt the green arcane energy coming from him was more than a little stomach churning. It was just an instinct, and there were no actual smell or taste, but something in his being objected that energy. Regardless, it was the midst of battle and Yankovic moved forward to aid Filli instead. He jumped, and with a step up to an adjacent stone platform, shot at the spiders’ nest with his crossbow at the elevated position. A spider in front of him tried to get in the way, but Yankovic’s aim was true and the spiders’ nest shattered into pieces as the crossbolt smashed through the relatively small construct.
Filli was of the same idea and shot a Fire Bolt at another nearby nest and setting aflame the spider that had just appeared as well as any number of spiders and eggs that had been nesting inside. As Filli’s spell was a much brighter spectacle than Yankovic’s, the remaining spiders in revenge all descended upon Filli as he tried his best to fend them off, although still having many tiny fangs sink into his limbs.
Holding his Red Princess symbol into the air with his hand, Yankovic yelled out the spell incantation for the Cry of Xanthia. White flames rose up from the ground, catching one of the spiders as its small body burst into flames.
Bitten once again by one of the spiders, Filli could feel himself swaying as poison set in his system. Before another spider descended, Zar moved in front of him and parried off an assault with his shield, finishing off the offending spider with a riposte. He willed his head to focus on the battle, letting his native bloodlust run wild as spider blood and venom splashed his face as he protected his younger ally.
Yankovic from his ledge jumped behind the remaining two spiders. He called upon the Xanthia’s flames once more and finished off the last of the spiders.
Considering about 3 turns had passed, the soldier’s introduction at the entrance, and getting to this chamber, I’m going to round up to it having been fifteen minutes since they first entered the dungeon. As they did not stop to bury the soldier, they have plenty of time for now.
Filli held his hand to the initial bite on his chest, chanting the healing spell to recover from the damaged done to him. He berated himself at the amount of injuries he had taken dealing with just a small group of spiders while Yankovic confronted Zar.
“Whatever you did there, that was definitely no paladin spell.”
Yankovic attempted to roll an Arcana check but unable to identify it as a warlock spell with the low 2 rolled.
“It does damage,” Zar panted out, wiping sweat off his brows. “That’s all that matters.”
“I don’t know how you’d suddenly learnt something like that, but I have my eye on you.” Yankovic was starting to worry. Maybe it had been too hasty of him to come into a dungeon with no exits with someone he had just met days ago.
I did roll a Perception check for Filli, which was a middle 11, so not much to comment on whether he had seen Zar’s Eldritch Blast or internal struggles.
Zar on the other hand, trying his best to avoid the topic, brushed past Yankovic and examined the dead spiders bodies. He was not proficient or knowledgable, but suggested to move on the conversation, “Maybe we can harvest these dead spiders. Not the fluffy creatures Cavesmuth is looking for, but it may be something.”
As Zar started decimating the spiders’ bodies with his parring knife, Yankovic helped Filli to his legs and whispered, “I don’t know what fuels his magic, and I did feel something of a paladin aura previously, but that last spell wasn’t. We should be careful.”
Yankovic just sighed and helped harvest the bodies. It turned out he was the only one out of the three that actually had any real survival skills, and he collected six small bunches of lesser quality silk, which was more than he had hoped for to be honest. The party moved on silently down the passage after that, with Filli burning the rest of the spiders’ bodies. Yankovic gestured in front of the narrow passage out of this cavern, and Zar harrumphed and led the way this time, considering Filli was still injured.
I did have someone’s homebrew rules for harvesting dead monsters for a look, which was a mix of skill DC checks and what value the items resulted in. I plan to just make it up as I go. Yankovic rolled an 11 in Survival, and as he was the only one proficient, no advantages. Considering these are the weakest monsters here, I’m just considering them as 1G each if they sold it back at Cavesmuth. Of course, this value counts for the added time though and I would consider this a lot longer than their entrance and battle, at 30 minutes. It was only fair whatever gave the party benefits would result in time spent.
Zar was leading the way, and with his mind preoccupied with how much effort it took him to master whatever new powers he had obtained, he hardly had time to lift his head as a beam of cold energy shot at him. The surprise attack came just a few steps into the next passage, but Yankovic pulled him back just it time as the beam shot past them.
Zar’s eyes narrowed at what he could see in the distance as a shadowy humanoid figure. He was in a sort of black hooded robes, hands still outstretched from the previous spell. The spell focus in his hand seemed similar to the token Baldie had given to them.
Filli was glad he spent a bit of time patching himself up, and sent a Fire Bolt past his two allies at the cultist. The cultist had not expected a third member to appear so suddenly from behind the ranks and his shoulder got badly charred by the spell.
The cultist looked ready to run but was not fast enough for Yankovic to trap him in a spell. The cultist thought he heard a bell toll in his head, as if the last of his mortality had been beckoned. A sharp pain froze his mind and he fell to his knees unconscious. Yankovic had never planned to kill the cultist, but instead gauged his spell to just knock him out for interrogation.
The party woke him up aggressively and Zar had enough intimidation to draw out all the information they could out of him, from when he was born to what ceremony was taking place deeper in the cave. He was just a patrolling grunt however, therefore did not know much, but the party took enough time to have an understand of the basic layout of the dungeon. Coupled with the targetted questions from what Baldie had told them, it was clear to get to the inner caverns where the ceremony was taking place, they had to do something about the corroding water the cultists had let lose as a barrier after Baldie’s party’s last intervention. The party even managed to get out of the cultist with Zar’s further intimidation that they should avoid one of the caverns where a massive spiders nest was, summoned by the Head Cultist. The cultist, begging for his life, also pointed at the mushrooms growing at the top of the tall stone platform in this cavern was a rare ingredient for poisons, and could fetch a good price at the merchants. Zar was able to easily retrieve the mushrooms to sell later for party funds. Yankovic asked whether Zar had tortured people before, but Zar simply pointed at the cultist and asked whether he had even laid an orcish pinkie on the cultist at all before the cultist spilled everything. Yankovic answered no and left it at that.
The party knocked the cultist out and headed West, as the cultist said more spiders and patrolling cultist awaited them on the path North. To the West, there was a water pool with a stone platform in the middle. If it was not for Baldie, the party might have waded in or even drank the corrosive water. Instead, Filli was able to devise a series of contraptions from the climber’s kit, grappling hook, and block and tackle into a system for all three to traverse this cavern without any risks. They also spotted a weird nest of small eggs in the middle, and could have retrieved them safely by taking a bit more time, but they had no idea what eggs they were. Even Zar was infinitely against the idea. It was the last thing they needed for eggs of monsters to hatch while they fought the cultists. They had thrown the eggs into the corrosive water, as they fizzled and let off a pink smoke.
Just as they made it to the other side of the pond and retrieved their equipment, the entire cave seemed to shake as if it was a scared halfling against a towering troll. Yankovic could especially feel a dark presence getting closer in the air, and not just because they were advancing into the caves. He urged the others to make haste, guessing the ceremony was well underway at this point. Fillie could only assume Baldie’s party probably had more time, but they landed a bit after they had arrived, and it was not a far stretch to think the Cave of Dreams likely bent both space and time. He told the others they should prepare their minds for returning to CAvesmuth. They might have been away for a while, or just one second, when they return to Cavesmuth as he was not sure if time ran parallel. Zar understood all the words out of Fillie’s mouth, but just urged the others to go on.
This was basically a story way of reminding the party of the time constraint and certain percentage of time had past. They had spent over 25% of their time already.
The party headed further West, but was ready for the next patrolling cultist as they rounded the corner. The party was unable to get a surprise against him, but it seemed like this cultist, patrolling an area deeper into the cave, was smarter than the previous one they encountered. Filli’s Fire Bolt missed as the cultist hid behind the cave wall for cover. As Zar dashed forward to deliver a sword strike, the cultist was able to divert Zar’s charge to the other side of them, closer to a menacing looking drop into a deep pitch. Zar could hear scratching sounds from the depths of the pit and the cultist in front of him held out his arcane focus. Just as the cultist was about to cast whatever spell in an attempt to cause Zar to fall into the pit behind him, Yankovic was already there and his trusted warhammer bashed in the back of the cultist’s skull.
Zar thanked Yankovic, which tempered the atmosphere a little, as the party investigated the pit. Filli dropped one of Yankovic’s torches into the pit, and the flash of light showed a giant spider at the bottom, its pincers clicking upwards but it was unable to climb up out of the pit. The party decided they had more than enough on their plate despite it would be possible to burn the spider alive and salvage it for trophies.
Returning back North, the party encountered a room in complete darkness, either by arcane or other means, that they could not see past. This was not a cave the cultist knew of. Zar, having experienced other dungeons before, almost looked like he smiled as he pulled out one of his many knick-knacks. He explained in one of his previous dungeon dives, there were many traps that the party had fallen prey to, whether it was due to his bad luck or not. Zar threw his bag of ball bearings in front of them into the darkness, and it was clear from the sounds that came back there was a very deep hole right in front of them in the darkness. Having solved the puzzle this time, Filli devised another way for the party to cross the dark chasm using the ropes they had along with the climbing kit and pitons, although it did take them even longer this time to get to the West side of the cavern.
Following the first cultist’s description, they headed North and came across an underground river, with a stopped water wheel. The river seemed to be running at almost no pace because of the halted contraption blocking the width of the river. The river seemed to disappear into an underground network on one cave wall. Looking to the West, the party could see an area of reeds on the far side where the entrance to the river was, with an opening from another underground cavern filling the river. From what the cultist said, the cult had destroyed the water wheel as to prevent fresh water from this river diluting the corrosive properties of water traps in other caverns. This would have prevented the party from reaching the ceremony easily at the deepest cavern.
Filli did a Nature check on the reeds, rolled a 20.
Filli after observing the set up was pretty sure the key component to the natural purification system were the reeds. Going over to examine them, he recognised the reeds as a type he had seen before in previous books he had read, and confirmed his deductions. It made fixing the water wheel slightly easier, but he told the party it might still take a bit of time due to the lack of materials, and the cultists really did a job on destroying the mechanisms. Zar and Yankovic agreed they would stand guard as Filli started on the wheel with his carpenters tools. Zar took a bit of time during to harvest some of the reeds for selling at Cavesmuth later as well.
As a GM here, instead of doing a simple skill check, it would be jarring if it failed. Instead I just put it as a DC20 check with carpenter’s tools, and for everyone 1 roll away from passing the DC 20, that would equate to 5 more minutes spent on fixing the wheel. Filli rolled a 10, which I’d thought was sufficiently low that I had to add in some more challenge.
I asked Mythic whether nearby cultist heard the noise and came to investigate. As I’d set up two cultists on either sides, I was going to roll twice on Likely, as although the party stood guard, they didn’t try to be stealthy. Not only did I roll an Extreme Yes to both, I also rolled a random event, NPC Negative, Deceive Weapon. I’m going to interpret it as both cultists investigated, saw the party, and hatched a plan to lure the two away to gang up on Filli before the wheel is fixed, and Filli’s backpack is left to the side as he was just fixing the wheel. He is able to use his armour anyway as an artificer’s spell focus as it was an infused item now with Enhance Defence, so can still cast spells, but no items or weapons. I’d prepared a Giant Spider monster nearby, so I’d thought might as well use it too, saying the cultist controlled one to come out of its pit to delay Zar and Yankovic.
Just as Filli was in the middle of his repairs, Zar and Yankovic heard shouting from the West passage and both hurried over to investigate. When they arrived, they were met with a Giant Spider who blocked their way back to Filli.
On the other side, Filli was none the wiser as two cultists came into the cavern. They surrounded him behind his back to mount the surprise ambush. One shot a Ray of Frost at him while the other summoned a plague of spiders. Filli cried out but his the cultists grunts obviously had no coordination with each other, as one’s magical beam actually shot most of the spiders that materialised. Knowing they had been found out, Filli shouted for his allies.
Hearing Filli’s shout, Yankovic was experienced enough to know this was a trap, and his eyes lit up as a Priest of Zeal would. Tightening his grip around his warhammer, Yankovic swung it down, then brought it back up in a backward swing at the Giant Spider without hesitation. The monstrosity however was unlike the others they had dealt with, climbing up a perpendicular wall to dodge both strikes and hissed at the two with its pincers drooling in green mucus. It shot a web at Yankovic’s direction, but actually aimed at Zar. Zar saw right through the beast’s play and instead sidestepped to dodge the web, advancing as he cursed the enemy in an unknown language even to him. As he brought his longsword down, a trail of green glow followed and the Wrathful Smite smashed into the Giant Spider’s body. The green arcane power accompanying the strike seemed to have sent fear into the Spider, and with a shrieked backed away into a cave wall.
On the other side, one of cultist seeing their ambush had not worked, was a bit smarter than his companion. Shouting for the other cultist to hold Filli off, he backed away into one of the passages and took cover round a cave wall, and managed to fire a well placed Ray of Frost at Filli. Filli screamed as the shot hit him square in the chest, triggering the previous spider bite wound and he could feel his limbs numbing up. Filli gripped the chain shirt his father once worn, and called upon the arcane energy he had imbued within it this morning to cast a Cure Wound spell on himself. Calling forth his father’s courage, he rushed into the range of the other cultist, using him as cover against the other cultist and to hinder both spellcasters’ incantations, just so he could deal with one at a time as his allies tried their best to make it back.
In the other room, Yankovic observed the Giant Spider’s fear of Zar, who looked to be glowing green even in his eyes in spite of his orc-ish skin. The attack certainly looked more like a paladin’s smite than the last one, but Yankovic felt quite opposite from the divine fury of a deity that he experienced before from other church paladins. Hearing the sound of more combat from the other cavern, Yankovic ignored his own puzzlement for now and took advantage of the Giant Spider’s fear, and in two swings disposed of the injured monster. Both Zar and him rushed back as quick as they could back to the water wheel, but the narrow passages and convoluted turns in this dungeon made them unable to progress at much pace. They could only hope Filli could hold out until then.
Filli dodged another ice beam shot at him from behind as he was still surrounded. He also could not back away from engagement with the cultists as his back was to the river, which were still corrosive as the water wheel had not been fixed enough to turn. He could only shoot a Fire Bolt back, to very little effect. The nearer cultist behind him tried to take advantage of the situation when Filli’s back was turned, but considering he was not suited to close combat contacts compared to Filli, his ice beam not only missed, but Filli was able to grab his wrist and push him to the ground.
Yankovic and Zar came back into the cavern just in time and Zar lunged forward and slain the downed cultist dead without a moment’s hesitation.
“It seems like we had nothing to worry about,” Yankovic joked. Filli was just glad they came back and with renewed vigour, turned and shot a Fire Bolt at the remaining cultist’s head. He tried to dodge but it hit him on the side in a burst of flames. Seeing the situation untenable, the cultists eyes grew wide in fanaticism.
“For the glory of Marduke!” The cultist in a self sacrificing move rammed into the water wheel. The party tried their best to clear the burst of icicles and spiders from the wheel, but severe damage had been done to the water wheel that eliminated any progress Filli had previously made, if not having made it worst. It was practically hanging by its last legs, but Filli was confident he could still fix it with enough time.
I rolled for two dagger strikes from the cultist stat block, having +20 to hit and a total of 12 damage against the water wheel. I would have made it impossible to fix if it had been a Nat20, but now the time for fixing that water wheel just went up significantly. I would add a further 5 minutes for each 1 point of damage. That’s another hour. At this point, the party blown through 50% mark and the 75% just fixing the water wheel.
Zar got sat on one of the stone ledges and prepared some quick snacks for Filli to eat as he worked. The party knew they did not have enough time to take a long rest, but Zar recommended they at least had some food in their stomachs to regain their strength. It had been a few long hours since they had entered, and as if on queue, an ear deafening roar could be heard echoing through the dungeon. They looked at Yankovic, who just said they did not need to be told that was no lawful good creature meowing. Yankovic went back to the giant spider’s corpse to try and see if there were anything of value he could harvest, and he was successfully able to extract the full poison sack from the creature. He gave it to Filli as he knew the boy’s magical reserves must be running dry now, being the hardest working person in the party to his chagrin even though Filli was the youngest.
It got boring thinking of items just to sell for money, therefore I’d instead thought of things that might just give the party an advantage in the fight ahead. Filli didn’t have any spell slots left for a Catapult, but it may be useful, who knows.
Yankovic sat back down next to Zar as he also took a piece of dried meat as lunch. He said to Zar, “This Cave diving business definitely is harder than it looks. By Xanthia I enjoy the fights, as per any opportunity to, but I need to know I can trust you in this. Not for me, cause I’ll bash your head in if you turn those yellow claws on me, but I won’t let you touch a hair on little Filli.”
Zar narrowed his eyes, “I won’t think of hurting the boy even in my sleep Weird Elf. I swear my cursed life on it.”
“You’d better keep that promise.”
As anyone who had played a Warlock under any GMs worth their stock, this is what some people call a ‘flag’. It also resolves one of my problems in how Zar will tell others about the rusty sword willingly.
Scene close-out:
- Chaos factor up to 5.
- + party thread: Stop cultists’ ceremony
Post-scene Notes
I’d thought this would be a good place to end as I think short/long rest were the best places to stop a scene/a DND session during a dungeon crawl.
Comments
Post a Comment