It felt like a strong poker game. It was a full house. Seven players, myself as DM, playing eight characters. It worked. The extra bodies were useful considering I pitted our level 3-4 characters against two level 7 encounters and one level 8 encounter.
Our heroes were warped out of the forest last session to land in a pit on top of a pile of bodies. Right as they landed Minron, the minotaur, landed on top of Revots as he caught up to the party in the forest just as they were being magically propelled to this pit. The pile of bodies is 20 feet deep, and its 10 feet to the top, where a two headed giant ettin waits to cleave your heads from your body so he can add them to his trophy case. Your party also notices some movement from under the pile of bodies where two giant carrion crawlers emerge.
Through various means of escape the party teleports, climbs, and jumps its way out of the pit, some taking longer and less graceful methods and others having to be hauled up by a rope. The controllers of the party light the pit on fire with spells such as burning hands and fountain of flames, while the rest of the party discovers that the ettin is almost impossible to hit with standard attacks. Fortunately, several party members have some reflex and will based attacks which prove much more fruitful and the party is victorious.
Shava finds an alcove with heads on hooks displayed like trophies. One hook has a heavy bag on, which a female eladrin voice was calling out "We can help each other!". After waiting for his party to discuss the precautions, over what seemed like hours, Shava opens the bag and begins a dialogue with what turns out to the head of Vryellis. Vyrellis offers information and guidance on escaping the Pyramid of Shadows. if you your party would carry her with you. She seems to be more partial toward elves, and since Shava is already carrying a very powerful artifact with him, he passes the head to Jadis, the elf mizard.
Your party the has to decide on the direction to travel from here. All four cardinal points are available. To the east is a T intersection. To the south, some bushes can be made out. To the west, is a bridge descending over water onto a platform with more bridges. To the north is a hallway with an opening to the east, doors to the west, and doors to the north. The Head of Vryellis' only guidance is that you need to explore the Pyramid and get to know its inhabitants and ways. Your party chooses to head North.
Checking each direction in that north hallway, you smell a dirt like smell coming from the west doors, the east hallway seems to descend to a body of running water, and the north door is quiet. Opening the west door with Jadis' mage hand you see piles of bones and another set of doors in the room heading north. Still, in the hallway, another application of mage hand opens the north doors and an avalanche of bones pours out, causing 16 charnal rats to appear out of the various piles of bones. They rush at the party.
The party has some difficulty planning their entrance into the room through a narrow passage way with 9 characters (including Yelsha's summoned wolf, Revots). Using lots of blast spells several rats are dropped, and Doz creates a cordon of bones zone at a choke point. The clever rats head toward the walls to help get around it, but still made for easy pickings by your party. A few of them got close enough to make you lose health due to their aura of rot, but it ended up being a pretty easy encounter.
The only feature of interest in this room was that there was a rat size hole in the room that the north doors contained that lead straight up. Varis, summoned an invisible spirit companion who could travel up there and report on what it saw. It went up two stories, and found a crypt room with sarcophagi along the walls and around a center structure. That is all it could tell.
The party, reluctantly lead by Shava with Minron close behind, goes back to the main hallway peaks into the north doors. The sites and Vryellis confirm that this is a library. At its center is grass and a status of Vryellis as she appeared in life. Vryellis seemed like she was looking for something in the room she did not find, and that bothered her. All the books and scrolls in the library were whispering alluringly to the party. As the whole party spilled into the room. Two Eaters of Knowledge became visible on top of the book cases surrounding the walls carrying long bows. As the party engaged, two more Eaters of Knowledge appeared wielding scimitars, and ultimately, as Shava rounded a book case, some sort of Eaters of Knowledge mage appeared. Their screams frequently dazed the party, and while they made pretty short work of the mage and sword fighters, the position of the archers made it quite difficult to end the encounter. Finally, enough party members got up on the book shelves via climbs, jumps, and ladders that they were surrounded and forced to fight with their own, less skilled, swords and ultimately succumbed to the injuries the party inflicted.
The mages of the party searched the books and scrolls, finding many of them blank, probably some sort of damage from the Eaters of Knowledge. However, Doz found a bone case with a scroll of RAideJadis found a scroll of Consult Mystic Sages. The books also seemed valuable (roughly 5-10gp each, but they weighed 2 lbs each). Some party members starting stuffing their sacks with what they could carry. Hmph, as if they are going to live to profit from it.
On top of the book cases that surrounded the library, there was a set of doors in the North. The party opened those doors, and saw a room made of several small rooms, with a statue of an angel in the front room. And that is where we ended...
Encounter P1, Location 1 - Entrance Pit - 1714 XP
Encounter P2, Location 2 - Chamber of Rats - 1500 XP
Encounter H1, Location 14 - Library of Whispers - 1800 XP
Session 10: 5014 / 8 PC = 626 XP ea
Session 9: 342 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total so far: 5057 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Level 5 = 5500 XP
As always, I appreciate player corrections, and feed back from anyone on embellishing the story as it happened, should of happened, or should happen.
Session 12 is planned for Saturday, April 14, 2012 4pm-11pm. I believe we have had heard that Doz and Minron may not be able to make it.
Session 13 is planned for Sunday, April 29, 2012, noon-7pm. I haven't heard of can't make it's so far.
Hope to see you at the Encounters session Wednesday at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. This season is really shaping up to be a good one.
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