Wow! What an interesting session. While not a whole lot of story plot, there was a ton happening within the party.
To start off our session, Abraxus, the dragonborn, fled the way they came. His fate is unknown and we didn't see him the whole session (read: his player was absent). The rest of the party tiptoed into the suspected dragon lair. An adult frost dragon was present, and the party was still winded (no dailies or action points). The party decided to turn tail, but Keira saw her opportunity and bolted for the treasure pile. Most of the party couldn't see the action from their vantage point, but Keira return slightly heavier and with a bit of frost dragon from being attacked by the dragon as she fled.
Now the whole party headed back into the cave, thinking they may come back after they find a place to rest. When they reentered the aMAZEing caves, they triggered the pending rock slide. Only Yelsha snuck through without triggering it, and three rounds of rocks came tumbling down on the rest of the party. Some where able to use their dugeoneering skills to avoid as much damage as others, but all but Yelsha were hurt. The way through Cave C was now blocked (how they got to the dragon).
As the rock slide came to a halt, a commotion was heard coming from the eastern caves were kobolds were suspected. The party finished a short rest and dug in for battle. Coming from the east cave, enter 3 Kobold Dragonsheilds, 2 Kobold Slingers, and 1 Koblod Wyrmpriest. They came out in advantageous formation with the slingers throwing glue and stink pellets, the Wyrmpreists buffing their allies and throwing energy orbs at foes. Our party departed their foes with no unconscious characters and an effective use of the sleep spell.
They make it back tot he chasm and feel sufficiently tired enough to take a long rest while the chasm protects their flank and they only have to guard one entrance. The rest went well, and they marched back toward the dragon lair. In the aMAZEing Caves, the found that Cave D was actually the right choice, and met back up to the same path as Cave C, but without a rock slide.
Early Day 8: As they enter the dragon lair, the dragon immediately fixates on Shava and Yelsha (we later guess that its because they were carrying baby frost dragon teeth). The frost dragon rushes the player party blocking their entrance into the wide open cavern and uses lots of fear and breath attacks. Occasionally switching up with a double claw attack. The party uses their standard retinue of attacks, with Shava also busting through a cave wall with a strength check to give the party a safer egress from the entrance tunnel and a way to surround the dragon. After sufficiently being surrounded, the dragon makes a bold run for better position granting 4 opportunity attacks. From there he kept wailing on Yelsha who was near and carrying her kids teeth. As the dragons health began to fail, she would shift back after each attack looking for an escape, but our heroes kept pressing and ultimately defeated the adult frost dragon.
There was a moderate amount of silver mundane treasure found. Perhaps, less treasure than there used to be.
Our party makes their way back to the cave entrance without further surprises. They then decide not to rest further and plunged into the cave to the right where there was still some noise coming, mostly draconic speech. As they entered an open room with a long narrow approach and a long narrow exit, Glyth triggers a pressure plate as a stone mechanical device of some sort rumbles. The party quickly works on figuring out what is going on. The best they can tell is that there is 30' of danger ahead, and they take turns running the distance while bull rushing 2 dragonsheilds that block the cave entrance. I felt the run/bull rush tactic was a genius move. It took our players clearing the room before they could find the control panel AND disable the pendulum scythe blades, but no one was hurt from them. Harassing our players while fighting the kobold dragonsheilds were two more kobold wyrmpreists.
Once the room was clear, a repeat of their entrance occurred with an accidental trigger of a pressure plate trying to exist the room. They employed the same strategy of run past danger and then disabling the trap. The finally come to a dead end where sits a larger treasure chest with a beam of light.
Our party approaches the chest, wisely, with caution. Keira discovers that the lock is "special" in that too many failed attempts will cause the lock to be unpickable for a period of time, and that it has 4 tumblers to succeed. Glyth then discovers that there is a magical trap on the chest that will radiant a 5' blast of moderate cold damage. They send Keira in to pick the lock, full of health, while the rest of the party stepped back to watch. Keira corrupted the lock on her 3rd tumbler (2 failures). But our heroes are not about to give up!
While I liked the idea of dragging the chest back with them to wait for lock reset, they prefer to explore EVERY idea including hoisting in the air and dropping it, beating the crap out of the lock, breaking directly through the chest, etc. After seeing how difficult most of these challenges would be (most impossible or improbably for their level), the find the iron hinges are a weak spot and take turns beating on them. Each failed beat caused a burst of frost damage, with another final burst on opening the chest. Everyone survived, and they were able to retrieve some magical weapons and armour (+1 Bloodthread Cloth Armor, +1 Frost Scimitar, and +1 Magic Holy Symbol of Pelor).
Somehow, after so much loot in a day, gold lust set in. Varis questioned Keira, politely on her loot from the dragon, but Keira successfully bluffed him. Shava wouldn't let it go, and a fight was about to break out. Glyth then attempted to cast sleep on Shava and Keira to break up the fight. Shava shook it off and Keira was put to sleep. Glyth quickly woke Keira up, but Keira was pissed at having a spell put on her from her own party, and stormed off. Wanting some time to cool down, she reset the traps on her way out. Our party, after a brief moment of mourning, headed out, essentially just gracefully tumbling through the traps before they could go off. They came back to where they had left their horses and wagon so many days ago and found one horse missing.
I would say it is now late afternoon Day 8.
There we decided to call it a night. A lot of drama in an 8 hour session. At this point several days have passed getting to, through, and out of the cave. What in the world has been going on? Our party seems to be keen to hold on to Faelywn's sword, at least until they have completed their quest for King Hrothgar. So, it sounds like they will most likely head north, toward Hilliana. The map the retrieved from a guard at the NW Encampment shows trouble ahead. Good luck to all!
Session Experience:
Encounter 12 (again) - Rockslide - 100 XP
Encounter 13 - Kobold Scouts - 725 XP
Encounter 15 - Mother Dragon - 1500 XP
Encounter 9 (again) - Cave to the Right - 900 XP
Encounter 10 - Chest in Dead End - 150 XP
Total Experience 3375 / 6 = 562 XP each player
As always I welcome feedback from friends and strangers alike. Players, I especially am looking for corrections and flavor additions. No time for the next has been set, but hope to by Wednesday.
Corrections/Addendum's/and Player Comments as follows:
ReplyDeleteKeira triggered the first pressure plate as the party approached the battle with the 2 dragonshields; Glyth triggered the second one later. All the party dodged the pendulum scythe except for Varis who held back and fired from a distance; waiting for the trap to be disabled. Jadis eventually figured out the 4 code sequence to disable the trap. He also disabled the second trap.
Upon inspections of the large chest, it was Jadis (the Wizard), not Glyth (the Drow Warlock Hexblade) that detected the magical trap on the chest as well as it's 'frosty' nature.
After Keira's failed attempt to pick the locks on the trap, the party considered other options for opening it including hauling it up in the air and dropping it. As a player note, having just killed two white dragons (one of which was a young adult dragon) and several Kobalds; perhaps it's understandable that our heroes might take the time to consider how to defeat a wooden chest; just saying....
After much consideration and further evaluation it was determined that the hinges were in fact a possible weak links. Several members of the party accepted the damage sustained while trying to break the hinges. In the end, it was a success and the party found several items of value.
Perhaps it was the result of being under so much stress of late that finally drove away what was left of the 'team spirit'. It was not Varis that started the questioning of Keira regarding the obvious treasure she had found during her foolhardy but apparently profitable dash for the dragon treasure. It was Shava that started that conversation. However, Varis did participate and when it became obvious that Keira was not interested in discussing the matter; it was Varis that let it go and suggested to the rest of the party to do the same. Shava of course couldn't/wouldn't do so and when it appeared that things were about to get out of hand, Jadis (the Wizard) attempted to cast a sleep spell on both Keira and Shava. Sadly only Keira was affected. Rather than letting Shava search Keira against her will; Jadis woke her up. Unfortunately Keira reacted negatively towards this benign attempt to diffuse the situation and instead of discussing it in a reasonable manor; Keira decided to leave the party in haste, but made sure she reset the traps on her way out making it dangerous for the party to follow her (and in fact several members where injured); a somewhat out of character act considering everything they had been thru in the short time they had been together, and the fact that this party had actually spared her life in the arena.
It's unfortunate the Keira reacted this way as she was a valuable member of the party, but Varis is true to his word (he told Keira she was free to leave at any point when he recruited her into the party) and accepts her decision and will discourage any attempt to pursue her. Of more important concern now is the mysterious disappearance of Abraxus. With the discovery of the wagon still present at the location they left it; this would indicate that Abraxus didn't in fact make it out of the cavern.