Session 22: Dungeoneering 101

® +2 Keen Kukri: crit: 16-20 / x 4.
 * At the base: boiler system built into whole building - steam power. There's a huge chasm in the stairs to the boiler room. Ivan's been hearing shrieking coming from there and wants us to check it out.
 * There's also a wooden door. Inside is a workshop that looks like it's been ransacked; a bunch of alchemical equipment, glass vials, etc.
 * In the back of the room, wardrobe, washbasin, etc. Wardrobe has a small bronze statue of frog holding gems. Wardobe smells like weird chemicals.
 * Mogen made this frog - attempt at recording device a long time ago. It never really worked that well; would start/stop recording on its own. "This is my Audio Croak…order. Yeah, I made it when I was a lot worse at naming things."
 * Playing the device: "That's enough! They can't do this to me anymore." Something about Dax and driving Mogen away. "Leave a vial here just in case." Sounds like someone coughing, "My name is Hubert and if you found this, I made it out. If this is Dax, you had it coming. If not, it was his fault, you'll know how to find me." Then message trails off.
 * 3 vials: Lazarus's Tears, Aquavita, Eramin's Scythe (which is a mushroom - not poisonous)
 * Alchemical basin with green w/white in it; 2 potions (one blue, one brown & sludgy)
 * Brown smells mulchy, no smell to others.
 * There's a hole down below basin, looks finished. Venga goes in - nothing super scary at first? Just looks like stone. There's something shiny/reflective? Try to teach Venga how to fetch, but we're interrupted by a shriek.
 * Vikrit leaps across the chasm with Vesun (unknowingly) casting fly on him. He ties off the rope on the railing on one end, and Sarienne ties the other. Vikrit thinks the Ring of Jumping he just received also lets him fly, so when he goes back to get Mogen, he misses the other side, scrambles, and falls a long way.
 * Vesun heals him fully (whew). Vikrit starts to get suspicious that something was cast on him.
 * Mogen rappels down.
 * There's a hallway, with a door on the right.
 * Wooden door: smells mineraly in a way Vikrit can't really articulate, Sarienne doesn't find any traps and pries it open.
 * Empty stone table in middle, chairs piled up; writing on far side of the wall, 2 doors as well.
 * Sarienne goes in: "they deserved to be punished" is scratched in. Also 2 vials on shelves that look like oils.
 * Mogen finds black dust (coal?) on surfaces.
 * Sarienne checks the 2 doors. West: she busts it open. There looks like a coal chute that lands in a pile of ash, and another door.
 * There's also a ghostly dark shadow in there… FIGHT!
 * Vikrit's arrow goes right through it, and so does Sarienne's sickle. Mogen asks what it is, it doesn't respond. She realizes it's some kind of ghost (SHADOW).
 * It tries to grab Sarienne's neck but barely misses. Vesun turns undead and fucking obliterates it.
 * Mogen and Tork find a mithral tube with gold on either end in the ashes. Sounds almost like a tuning fork when touched. When she hits it, a wave of magic comes out. A small crack appears where she hit it. (There are 4 cracks already.)
 * The door in this room is stuck. S opens it: stone dais here, door at opposite end and one to the right. Boxes/barrels next to dais.
 * "Hubert's stash, do not touch." is carved into the wall above the chest. Mogen tries it: a wave of magic blasts her in the face, and she feels like her flesh is turning into stone for a second but it passes.
 * There are a LOT of plat coins in here. The chest isn't magic any more but the tube Mogen picked up is magic. 2600 GP!!!
 * Both doors in here are locked. Sarienne opens the one to the west. It's another room.
 * There is a giant furnace in this room. It looks like something was dragged into the furnance. There are 2 corpses - 2 wraiths floating above the corpses.
 * Wraith 1 swipes at Sarienne - this is the scream we heard earlier.
 * Vikrit takes out his shortsword, waiting for a wraith to move through. Wraith 2 hits Sarienne for some damage. Mogen hits the mithral cylinder and it unlocks the other door???
 * One wraith tries to hit Vikrit and misses, Vikrit tries to hit with the shortsword, slices through and drops it, then runs out of the room. Tork (Tasha) magic missiles the wraith again.
 * Vesun uses a scroll ray of searing light and fucks up Wraith 2. Wraith 1 attacks Tork and does a bit of damage but he saves. Vikrit tries to hit Wraith 2 but his arrows go through it.
 * Mogen gets con damage from getting hit by a wraith, OH NO. Tork blasts a Scorching Ray off but misses. Vesun turns undead and the wraiths flee over Vikrit to where we came from.
 * Vanesse comes down, tries to touch a wraith, heals it by accident and throws her axe through it by accident.
 * While the wraiths flee, Sarienne applies oil to sickles ("They're all slippery now!" M & Vik: "NOT THE HANDLE!") to do +1!
 * The wraiths come back at us. Mogen launches a holy water flask at them. Sarienne and Vanesse attack, but they just go through; Vikrit's kukri hits nicely. Tork vaporizes one, then Sarienne murders one with holy water.
 * In the corpse room, there's a furnace and a mural.
 * Sarienne loots the two bodies (she finds House Cannith medallion and masterwork mace - given to Vesun - on one) then goes and opens the other door back in a few rooms ago (cv]. There's a big gold beetle with a big spinning gear and a blue gem embedded in it that starts going toward her. It whirrs and blasts a lightning bolt at her.
 * Everyone runs to go help Sarienne. Vanesse runs into the room. Vikrit shoots it. Tork blasts it with a Scorching Ray, and it buzzsaws Vanesse. Vikrit shoots it again and Vanesse smashes the thing in half with its battleaxe.
 * The beetle starts to whir and blasts Mogen, knocking her out, and Vikrit (who ducks but still takes damage). Vikrit stabilizes Mogen and Vesun heals her, and Sarienne kills the beetle.
 * Vanesse "heals" Vikrit for 1 damage and Vesun heals him for 11 points.
 * Sarienne opens the other door in this room and a bunch of rocks fall on her. Vikrit goes to help her and gets grabbed by a choker with a tentacle that's on top of a pillar in the next room.
 * Vikrit struggles free. Vesun casts sanctuary on Vikrit. Vanesse runs in and misses the choker, then gets grabbed by another. Sarienne gets whipped by Choker 1. Vikrit shoots it. Tork magic missiles it; Vanesse is still getting choked. Vikrit shoots Choker 2, then Vanesse breaks free. Tork gets frosty. Sarienne stabs the fuck out of Choker 1 and kills it.
 * There are 3 humanoid corpses (masterwork studded leather, 4 x flasks of water, 3x pc lapis lazuli (worth 10 gp total), silver ring with House Cannith emblem (minotaur breathing fire), masterwork manacles. Vikrit gives the armor to Mogen and the manacles to Sarienne.
 * Sarienne tries to open the chest in the next room and the walls start closing in. She has to race out and only et s a little squished. No treasure. :(
 * We go back to the door that clicked. There's a specter floating in front of a large copper boiler. It level drains Vanesse. Vikrit gives 1 flask of holy water to Sarienne and 1 to Mogen, and S splashes it. Vikrit does the same.
 * Vesun summons a celestial giant fire beetle. Tork's scorching ray would hit but it phases out of the way. Mogen throws another flask. Vanesse tries to bullrush the specter and goes right through. Specter tries to hit Vikrit and misses. Vikrit slices through it (would crit but can't and also miss chance). The beetle spawns on top of Vanesse. Vesun cures the fuck out of the specter, and Tork magic missiles it to (re)death.
 * There are 4 levers, some up and some down. After 2 pulls, we somehow solve it. 2 passageways open up to the original hallway, and something clicks further away past the west door. The porticullis in the original hallway also slowly opens.
 * Sarienne opens the west door. There are 2 beds and a table. On the table is an iron key.
 * Mogen & Vikrit go down the original hallway to the actual boiler room. The others keep going through the west door room.
 * There's a hallway - 1 corpse of human, 1 corpse of… warforged?! partially buried under rubble in pool of water, which is still pouring in from above.
 * One of them… is Hubert. The warforged has started to rot away - mainly made of wood. The eyes are still glowing faintly.
 * Vikrit asks if it's still alive. It says we're too late for it. We try to pull it out, but just end up pulling its leg off. Its name is Limbo. It says to tell the Shepherd he's coming home. It says it escaped. Mogen says are there more of you? "So many more." Where? "Below."
 * "Who did this to you?" "House Cannith." It keeps asking for us to return it to the Shepherd. "How'd you find the shepherd?" "I heard its song." Vikrit cuts its throat at its request.
 * They bring up some of its parts to Dax.
 * Vesun remembers Vigilance telling him to go to the Shepherd's Lodge and give a specific line. No one else knows this yet.