COD 1: Session 22: The Coliseum

 Pre-scene Notes

I don’t think the campaign had enough uses of the Cave of Greed at all yet, so I’m jumping right back in.

Scene setup/conflict: 

Party does any shopping and go for another Cave dive.

No altered/interrupted scene

Scene:

The party had a nice long rest and went to the Docks just to see what the aftermath of the disaster with the Locathahs before their last Cave dive. The Docks’ repairs were going along very quickly, considering it was the lifeblood of the island. Both the Roses and the Governor were trying their best to get it up and running again. The party could see if they find a job to aid the repairing effort, but decided that their forte is probably more on breaking things, Filli aside.

They did not have enough gold to buy any upgrades, and decided apart from faction relations, they really just needed money. At the Governor’s Office, and the Trader’s House, they were still putting the priority on getting memory loss curing items. Volden had requested help in building a town guard or finding a guard captain, but that was of a lower priority, and none of the party members thought that was what they wanted to do at  this stage. 

In the end, as they still had the dried broken fin, they tried their luck again with a Cave dive. 

The party understood the drill by now, and walking into the Cave and the thick mist they could not see past, the only way was forward. As they walked forward, the mist got lighter as the sound of a crowd cheering got louder. As the last of the mist dissipated, the party found themselves inside a dark stone tunnel of sorts. It was clean enough with lit torches on either sides. 

Yankovic noticed that although Zar and Filli were still with him, the mist was nowhere to be seen behind them. Instead, it was just a bamboo cage that was empty. They could only guess that was where they would have been as characters in this Cave dive. It was definitely a bad thing the mist was gone, as that meant a quick escape would not be possible. 

“Hey you okay?”Filli asked as he could hear Zar’s raspy breathing on the verge of being a pant. 

“I’m fine!” Zar slapped Filli’s hand away and started walking forward, leaving his allies behind. 

Yankovic could see sweat on Zar’s forehead and asked, “What’s gotten into him?”

The two followed Zar forward, with Zar whispering to himself, “What sort of joke is this? How the hell did I get back to doing this?”

The party felt as if they were attacked from all sides from the echoes in the tunnel. The cheers grew louder, the smell of sweat and blood more pungent, then the sharp ray of burning sun almost blinded them. It was an arena of sand and death.

“I knew it,” Zar grunted in resignation. 

Another great battlemap from Czepeku that my GM from another campaign used.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the coliseum!”A host was making the announcement from somewhere within the packed stands. An emperor and his wife, with two servants behind them were at the observatory balcony to the North, excited at the start of the bloodsport.  “Three fresh slaves caught just this morning! They will be facing up against our seasoned house gladiators, one-on-on in the arena - and only one will remain standing!”

With a roar of cheers, the gates behind the party slammed shut behind them. The arena seemed to have wooden structures constructed to make each member take only one path towards one gladiator. Yankovic could see countless crossbows pointed at them, and if they were to ruin the afternoon entertainment, they would surely be shot without mercy. Three gates stood in front of them, it was clear each of them should choose one to go through as wooden walls were erected to separate the whole arena into three.

As I’d intended, I wanted more fights in this Cave dive. I know they may die separated, but I’d wanted to see each PC’s individual power levels so devised a way for them to fight on their own.

Zar stepped up to the middle gate, and with a animalistic roar drew his sword and slashed at the wooden gate. That seemed to have got the crowd going and they were as hyped up as ever. Yankovic and Filli, still mounted on Fido, could only step into the arena and choose one each. This Cave dive was not as lenient as the others at all. Even though the Greenhand Outpost had put a limit on when they could solve the case, they had every option to flee before the supply escort arrived. This was a battle to death the moment they stepped in.

As each member stepped through their gate, the path led to a gladiator, and the gate behind them shut immediately after. There was no escape.

The gladiators were obviously veterans of the arena and without missing a beat, the moment the gates closed, the gladiator against Filli dashed forward nimbly and a shortsword in front of Filli’s face within a second later. The others heard Filli’s scream as he was struck, but they were busy parrying the crossbow bolts that were aimed precisely at them from their respective gladiators. Yankovic was  hit on the shoulder but Zar on the other hand reacted just as experienced as his opponent and with a roll on the ground dodged and countered, getting into the heat of combat immediately unlike his allies.

As both Zar and his opponent charged up to fight each within the narrow corridor to the cheers of the crowd, Yankovic invoked his bond with the power of Xanthia and his Spiritual Weapon again materialised to his calling. The ethereal hammer was parried by Yankovic’s opponent, but Yankovic was a battle cleric that could both fight in melee and at range. Relying on his equally strong magical powers, Yankovic’s eyes glowed red as his opponent heard the Toll of the Dead in its ears, his ears starting to bleed. Thinking he had miscalculated, he rushed Yankovic, and managed to cut the tall elven figure with his shortsword multiple times. The smell of blood only sent Yankovic into his usual zeal and although his spiritual hammer lacked the speed to catch up, Yankovic traded blow for blow with his opponent, gradually drawing the eyes of all the spectators. 

On Filli’s end, his opponent continued to rain down slashes at Fido and him, Fido’s armour beginning to dent. Filli drew a rune in the air and cast a spell to extrude Heroism as if he was a knight on his warhorse. Taking advantage of mounting on Fido, he disengaged the gladiator and from the other side of the arena, used a Catapult spell to propel a flash of acid that he had been collecting with his Alchemy Jar each day. The strong spell exploded in the gladiator’s face, and not only was his face and chest charred with the corrosive acid, but the force of the attack slammed him unconscious against the wall to the cheers of the audiences. 

Surprisingly, it was Filli that came out on top, as spells really were much better at burst damage. I’d also used rogue-like stats so the gladiator’s AC and HP were lowered.

Filli finally showing his talents with mounted combat, turned Fido back to the gate he came and of the many  artisan tools he had Fido carry, started working on the gate. Being proficient with the Carpenter’s tools, he busted the gate’s lock easily and charged back out to see if he could help his allies. Just as he did, he heard a roar down south from Yankovic. 

Filli rolled a 15 when using his carpenter’s tools proficiency.

Yankovic, having been heedless of his own injuries, suffered a particularly harsh critical hit and was down to one knee. His opponent was no better though, only staying standing with his sword stabbed on the ground. The hot-blooded trading of blows garnered much of the crowd’s praises though and as Filli came dashing to Yankovic’s gate, finished off his opponent with a Fire Bolt from beyond it.

“That’s just stealing my kill,” Yankovic laughed as he cast Cure Wounds on himself. Filli ignored him and just worked on the gate, rendering it useless in seconds after having figured out the first one. 

“Come on let’s get Zar,” Filli went to the second gate and saw Zar still locked in a fight with his opponent. 

Although Zar had started off being the audience’s favourite, looking like an offensive orc for a half-blood, but actually fought conservatively with his sword and shield. He had cursed his opponent and was slowly wearing him down with each blow, releasing small damage but keeping himself from taking much either.  Being a coliseum crowd without patience, and with Filli and Yankovic’s flashier ways of killing their opponents quickly, the audiences started to boo at Zar. 

The more they booed, despite still being in the heat of sword exchanges in the narrow passage, Zar can only hear more and more noises that was not there. The voice that had spoken to him in the wardrobe. The voice that said Zar was weak. Zar needed his power. He could give Zar all the power he wished. 

“Get out of my head!” Zar tried his best to ignore the voice he heard in his nightmare that had been getting louder the more he used the curses. He really was trying his best to hold on and had worn down his enemy. Just one more strike of his sword and he would be able to prove he could finish off an enemy without the help of his allies. His eyes started glowing green.

Just at that moment, Zar saw an ethereal warhammer float above the walls of the narrow passage. Before he could shout for it to stop, a Fire Bolt already sped through the gate behind him and finished off the last gladiator. The crowd exploded in a mix of cheers for Filli and Yankovic, and boos for Zar. 

Zar panted, not just his eyes now, but a light aura of green seemed to be evaporating out of his entire body like steam from boiling water. Not many could see it, but the emperor on his throne and observatory box could. 

As Filli was trying to open Zar’s gate and Yankovic was healing himself, the crowd fell silent. All three looked up and saw an old man wearing gold laced white robes, accessorized with fine beast fur, and a laurel wreath on his head. His age did not come with the feel of frailty, but an aura of authority and dominance. His hand was in the air, signalling he was going to speak and his subjects were expected, commanded, to listen. 

Portrait from gilleskeeting

“Young orc! I can see it! You are born for the arena from your entrance! But your allies, they have stolen your first kill here!” The emperor laughed. “I, Nero! Shall grant you the pleasure! Slay them! Slay those two and show me your true power! That is if you have any! Continue to entertain us!”

Filli looked horrified and tried to protest and shouted up to reason with who was clearly the reason for the coliseum existing. “Please listen sir! We can’t fight each other!”

“My wish is your command smalling!” Emperor Nero bellowed and the crowded starting booing and throwing things into the arena. They started chanting and screaming for the three to fight each other.

Yankovic just shrugged, “Come on Filli, get this Gate opened first and we’ll -” 

Before Yankovic could finish his sentence, the gate burst open on their own as a green force propelled Filli, Fido and him to the arena wall.

A feeling of anguish and terror made their hairs stand on end as they could see Zar standing in the narrow passage, with the dead corpse of the gladiator as his backdrop. The rusty longsword that he always had with him, and covered up when he was sleeping had now floated out from his belt. It emitted a green unnatural light in front of his, as the cracks began to propagate and linked up. With the sound of many screams as if it housed a torture chamber of countless souls, the longsword cracked into shards, the remnants of the rusted metal now mundane about it on the arena sands.

Zar looked up and let his shield and longsword fell to the ground. Filli and Yankovic had no clue what was going and and thought Zar would not fight them, but the half-orc extended both of his hands in front of him at the next moment. A greatsword materialised in his hands, with a frightful aura rising from it. Unlike the spiritual weapon, it was of a substance and would certainly cleave any flesh and blood in half. 

Zar took a step towards Yankovic and Filli, then another, and he was charging towards the two for a fight to the death.

Scene close-out:

• Chaos factor up to 6. 

Post-scene Notes

This had always been Zar’s character arc as he was a warlock, to a point where I still only had him as a Paladin level 1 instead of getting him to level 2 for smite to make him stronger. I didn’t plan for the fight to end up that way, but with Zar being the slowest in defeating his opponent, this became more dramatic instead of what I had planned previously. 

As per my house rules, I needed an event/reason for a level up. I was initially going to level up the PCs after this fight at night, and Zar to attack others in his dream to show his patron growing stronger (so that rusty sword was always going to break).

Considering this is soloplay, PVP isn’t a problem at all, and so I’d taken advantage of Zar just getting his level up now. If I was a DM for this, and somehow if I’d wanted to force the dramatic scene, I may make Zar roll a wisdom save or something. 

The next session is going to be Zar already at level 4, full health, versus the other two at level 3 having expended some resources in the previously fight. Not sure if it’ll be a fair fight, but we’ll see what happens.