History Comes Alive

November 4, 2010

The group is considering what they will do.  Teldryl wants to go to Baldur's Gate to look into commissioning a magic item.  However, as they are still considering this, Lady Ambermantle's assistant comes and asks the group if they are willing to go on a patrol of the ruins where they saw the orcs.  While the city has increased the patrols around the city, they also want the ruins fully explored.  Teldryl is still thinking about the magic item but Darksouls wants to go and so they decide to go.  They are accompanied by a dozen Red Cloaks.  

They get to the ruins just fine and the Red Cloaks set up camp, including some defensive positions.  As they finish up, the dwarf caster with the Red Cloaks notices some runes on the foundation that's left.  The group and the dwarf search it and find that there is a portal there.  They can open one that goes down or to the east.  The group decides they want to open the one going down.  The dwarf is told by the commander to stay.  

The group open the portal and go into it, coming into a small room.  There are runes on the wall behind them where the portal opened, showing how to open it.  It can only open up from here.  There is one door and they open it to see a hallway with five doors and four stone guardians in the hallway.  They see that there is a riddle on the wall in Netherese.  It leads up to a particular word and if said, they can pass.  If not, they will be attacked.  Darksouls and Teldryl look at it, nod at each other and say a word.  

Two different words.  They look at each other in horror, sure they had each figured it out and realized both were wrong as the stone guardians come to life and attack.  It's a brutal attack as the stone guardians are able to meld with the stone and come into the room to attack.  Further, being constructs, they are resistant to psychic damage and so Teldryl's attacks aren't as effect as she would prefer.  They manage to defeat them but it is a tough fight.  

Looking at the doors in the hallway, four are locked but not trapped.  Opening the two closest finds supplies in arms and food.  And they are preserved and still good even now.  Teldryl thinks this place is about a thousand or more years old and the stuff they find bears that out.  The next two are rooms, one for a wizard commander and the other for the guard commander.  They don't enter the rooms but look inside and see a few items.  They can tell there is magic in the wizard's room.  The door at the end of the hall has runes on it but Teldryl and Darksouls think they can dispel it.  

After activating both traps and resting up from it, they enter the room and find a bound demon inside.  It begs, cajoles, threatens and offers to help them if they will free it.  It bargains and tries to help them, including given them what it thinks is the password.  Darksouls checks out the laboratory and finds lots of components that are also preserved and look fine so he grabs what he can.  They then go back to the wizard's room and Vahn jumps through the doorway to the other side, yelling the password.  The demon is not the smartest and it's been there a LONG time, which is probably way it was wrong.  A guardian appears and again it is a fight.  At the end of it, the group is panting hard and very tired, with Vahn and Bamarden panting to catch their breath.  They search the room and find some treasure, including a chest of holding but it's been glued to the floor.  However, Darksouls knows about this glue and goes and gets some components from the lab to make a solution that allows them to move it but it's tacky on the bottom side.  It can hold a lot but it is bulky and always weighs fifty pounds.  

They think they have enough and head back up to the surface.  In the portal room, they knew one of the stone guardian had hit the wall with runes and were wondering if it was damaged but it wasn't.  They portal back to the surface with no problem.  The surface is quiet and they head back to their tents to check what they found.  

They probably have a half hour before the orc attack.  

335 XP

GM Notes

• I assume my bad joke title does not need the rest of it explained.
• I wonder if Red Cloak will equal Red Shirt? :)
• Lots of funny stuff, especially with the runes and the rolls being completely bad.
• Vahn and Bamarden were left with very few healing surges left and the above was my attempt to explain that.  
• I did set up a lot of orcs around the perimeter as we ended, setting up a big fight for next time.  Fortunately, the group isn't alone!   

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