After 10 meetings, the youths finally had a chance to turn some of their coins and treasures into goods, potions, and supplies. On the 5th level, I had changed the doppelganger room years ago into a way-station room for whatever “cult” the party had positive relations with – and only use it as such when running a new group or new players through B4. The idea is that typically they will be desperate for any supplies and will usually have some serious amount of coin they will seek to sell off.
What this mean/meant though is that they spent almost an hour and a half “shopping” and trading – and when they looked at the clock were dismayed to see how little time was left- they wanted to get back into the exploring frame and rolling d20’s as soon as possible.
Write up follows:
The group then went through all the supplies Pronius and the followers of Gorm had, trading some of the purloined masks they had gathered, gems and jewels, and dumping as much silver as they could in order to free up their bags.
There were a few scrolls for sale, some more potions purchased, oil, food, and any bit of supply they thought they might need as they travelled back to the 4th level and sought out the last 2 (or 1?) ancient weapons of Cyndicia. Finally after all was done, we made a donation to Pronius for Gorm and the friendly priest had one of his followers heal us up as thanks. We were all sporting holy symbols to Gorm by this time and spent the night with Pronius and his followers while Volkan scribed a few more spells in his book.
On the next day we filled our skins in the water barrels and left, thank Pronius for his efforts and promising to return before heading at some point down to Cyndicia. For now though, we wanted to head back to the 4th level and look around for the tombs of King Alexander and Queen Zenobia.
We took the long passage back south until it turned to the left, and then took that back until we arrived at the 4 way split in the corridor – Safir’s soot marked line still visible on the floor. With great care to avoid the pit trap, we jumped the corner sideways to the south passage and then moved on. We arrived at the gargoyle room – the door still ajar from how we left it. Just inside was the busted remains of the foe we had faced earlier and as we proceeded across the room to the west and the passage beyond, we encountered the 2nd one where we had left it.
This brought us to the room with the tapestries and the two iron knight statues flanking the north wall and the pair of couches. Volkan entered and the candles lit up again, the mage wanted to see if the 2 statues would come alive – similar to how the gargoyles did. There was some jockeying about as we repositioned ourselves around the chamber – Volkan near one of the statues – 10’ pole at the ready – Safir with an arrow drawn, Delsin holding the door open that we came in, and Mark sitting on the couch.
As before – sitting on the couch had the statues subtly turn their head – but nothing else. The door that Delsin was holding open had some pressure to it, but was easily held in place. It was when Volkan would “Boop!” the knight on the face plate of the helmet that the door gave this sort of pressuring hum and TRIED to shut on Delsin who was forced to throw his back and weight against it to keep it in place.
This happened 3 times before Volkan made a change. Wanting to look under the helm, he first unlatched one side of the helmet lock – and then the other side. He stepped back, held the pole like a bat, and swung it with all his might to try and knock the helm off.
It hit with a “Thwang!” and the entire helm flew sideways, crashing to the floor. The statue then swung its sword up and slammed it against Volkan who was screaming shrilly like a damsel in distress. As the magic user was being battered, Delsin was racing across the chamber and Mark was struggling off the couch. Safir’s arrow was shot – and broke against the statue’s breastplate. Volkan was then throttled as the statue lifted him off the ground by his neck, choked, shaken, and then hurled gasping and dying to the floor as the knight tossed him towards the party like discarded trash.
Then both of them began stalking towards us.
Mark called to Gorm to heal Volkan, his newly purchased Cure Light Wounds scrolls curling up and turning to ash as he called out the prayer. It succeeded though as Volkan’s wounds closed up and he was helped to his wobbling feet. The statues did move slowly though, and we were able to trick them to coming across the chamber before running past them and hitting the north door and coming back to the kitchen, slamming the door closed behind us.
Remembering the pythons that were here earlier we looked – one table had a very FAT python on it – the 2nd one was…not seen! We could hear the statues coming closer and Delsin wanted to jam the 2nd table without the python on it in front of the door. So he went to one side, Mark to the other. And when they went to lift it, something slithered out from under a chair and Mark dropped his end, dancing and running back as the 2nd python emerged.
And then the door behind us opened and the 2 iron statues were there, coming in to attack us. “Let’s go!” Delsin roared and the group ran around the back end of the 2nd table in their dash to get to the next door going north while the snake side winded towards us and the statues clomped closer and noisily across the kitchen. We hit the next door leading us to what was once Demetrius’ study and bedroom and eventually the secret door to the 4th level.
Slamming the door closed, Delsin took out one of the new spikes he had purchased and hammered it into the base of the door in order to lock it in place. And sure enough, the two iron statues hit the door on the other side but the spike held and after 30 seconds the banging stopped and we could hear the statues walking away and presumably back to the couch chamber.
Catching our breath we thanked our lucky stars and then made our way to the north east corner of the room. Mark lifted the lever and the secret door rose up – revealing the small chamber and the iron ladder running up to the gloom above.
We climbed. 25’ straight up until we were once again in the long corridor of the 4th level where we discussed which way to go next. Most everything we felt had been seen except a south east corner that we had missed, the contents of the “cold room” we had only walked outside of, and the further north direction of this corridor that we had not travelled down yet. We wanted to walk south and check out the cold room and the south east corner first.
But while we were discussing it, we heard a goblinoid voice call out from the south, wondering who we were and what we were doing here. Only Volkan could speak goblin and he parleyed with them, convincing them they were followers of Zargon and that they were searching for “those who came from outside a few days ago” on Zargon’s orders.
The goblinoids were ameliorated but stayed in the area. So we wanted to get past them, the leader who referred to himself as “Pox” but didn’t want to be caught as followers of Gorm. So Volkan took out his graphite stick and drew and eyeball on his forehead. Then everyone did the same (Delsin begrudgingly) and we then walked south – Volkan commanding everyone to shut up and let him do the talking.
As went, coming out of the gloom were 6 hobgoblins – 5 and a half feet tall, green skin, orange haired, wearing brigandine armor and sporting spiked clubs. They challenged Volkan’s story and then poked holes in it before it was rapidly turned to combat and Volkan was struck by a flailing club. Delsin shoved Volkan back and took Heat Stroke to combat, wallowing into the melee and making room as he did so. Safir danced back and Mark ran forward, Mace of Gorm lite up and smashing the hobgoblins aside.
But in the chaos of the combat, Safir accidentally shot Mark in the back high on the shoulder and Volkan was having a tough time striking the hobgoblin’s with his dagger. Delsin dropped another one and the party made a reverse wedge shaped front in the hall, allowing the party to engage 3 of the greenskins and continue to make headway against the enemy.
As the third and then the 4th enemy fell with an arrow to its eye by a lucky shot from Safir, the last 2 turned to run. Delsin tackled the first one, trying to hold the wiry creature down while the 2nd one was making good distance when Mark hurled the Mace end over end, shattering the hobgoblin’s left shin and causing him to fall over screaming. Volkan ran forward and using the mace, smacked the hobgoblin in the head until it shut up. We then trussed up the 1st goblin and tied the two of them together while we were getting ready to question the wandering Zargonites.
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