Embedded Files
PREVIOUSLY - CAMPAIGN DIARIES 33 - Meeting Mathilda
Orryn the rogue gnome rests on the floor gasping for air after almost being consumed by a bag of devouring. Dain, his dwarf barbarian companion lays next to him, taking in air too after the exertion of forcing the magical bag open and pulling Orryn out.
"Thanks" Orryn says.
"No problem." says Dain. "Let's go kill this bitch."
K'ronk, the dragonborn wizard states "we can destroy the bag if we turn it inside out."
Immeral, his moon elf wizard companion replies "but we might want to use it." The group thinks for a moment, deciding to keep the nearly deadly device, and prepares to march on, when Mathilda appears.
"You see, this could get very dangerous - even precarious, I would say. We can still strike a bargain. I know where some powerful magic items are nearby, a portable hole, a magical axe, even a tome about the raven queen. I would stay in the upper two floors and not bother any of your guests. What say you?"
The League pauses with the decision. Seraphina looks sick, the object of her desires so close, yet likely a lie or a twisted promise. She shakes her head and K'ronk speaks.
Nowhere speaks "give us the object you are attached to, and we will consider it."
Mathilda replies "I don't have any object I am attached to, I am attached to this place and am not leaving."
K'ronk firmly adds "It is no now, and it will forever be no."
Mathilda says "Don't say I didn't warn you" and she vanishes.
Orryn picks up the jar with the eye floating in it, holding it in front of K'ronk and asking if he wants it, and K'ronk nods amusingly at the animated eye.
They don't waste any more time, marching from the Hall to the Common Room, to the den, wanting to make sure if they go up the stairs, nothing follows behind them.
They open the door. Light floods in from the cobwebbed, barred windows in the north-east turret corner. The smell of smoke is stronger in this room, accompanied by mold. The floor is dotted with burn marks, as well as a large sagging section on the east side of the room. A drip of water hits the center of the warped wood rhythmically and comes from an equally sagging portion of ceiling. There is a rug over part of the floor that appears to still be in good condition, although it is dirty.
A doorway to the north leads out onto a long, wood-railed balcony overlooking Saerdoun Street. The railings are heavily damaged. A second doorway leads to a similar balcony facing westward overlooking the Alley, the one K'ronk examined firsthand the first night they arrived, and was scared off by an evil presence. There is a door in the south-east corner.
As they move into the room to examine it, Nowhere spots movement out of the corner of her eye. The rug moves, barely perceptibly. She reaches down and brushes her sword Icerazor along the floor, when suddenly the entire rug jumps upward and engulfs her, crushing her, suffocating her.
K'ronk tries a fire bolt, and it sets the rug aflame. Luckily Nowhere is fire resistant, but she still feels a burning sensation and cries out slightly. Dain tries a soft probing stab with his javelin, but that bites into her as well, so her and the enveloping rug of smothering shares the damage. Immeral does fire bolt and hits for more flames that mostly scorch the rug, but somewhat hurt Nowhere as well. She howls, but her cries are drowned out from the crushing squeeze of the carpet.
Atlas, who had earlier used a potion of fire breath releases another flaming exhale and douses the rug in fire. Nowhere utters a muffled cry as the rug sets aflame, but it is still squeezing.
Orryn steps back, unsure.
Seraphina casts sacred flame and finally kills the creature, it tumbles to the ground extinguishing itself, releasing a smoldering Nowhere who takes in deep breaths of slightly smoky air. She stands up and without a word, imbibes a healing potion, which restores some of her scorched skin, less so her smoky clothing. They move on to the southwestern doorway, but before opening the door, K'ronk warns "This is where I faced the specters the other night!"
They open the door and there is nothing but an empty hallway with broken windows over the alley. K'ronk detects magic but sees nothing. They march down the hall, when suddenly Atlas' eyes begin to glow and a crown of iron appears on her head.
"Crown of madness!" yells K'ronk and Immeral dodges the flurry of blows that the possessed Atlas throws his way. Immeral reaches out with a shocking grasp spell and blasts his possessed companion, ending the magical charm, but just then, two specters enter the hallway, one from each end, attacking the first and last members of the party.
Seraphina casts resistance on Orryn, giving him additional ability to fend off magical attacks.
K'ronk tries an eldrich blast but misses. Dain tries unarmed strike, but it is futile against the creature.
Orryn dodges out of the way of the one ghastly apparition, and Nowhere misses being hit by the other when she swings Icerazor, cutting into the spirit, sending it howling.
Seraphina hits the other one with her undead-defeating mace Lightbringer and bashes it with a flare of radiant light.
Orryn dives at the one with his magical dagger and kills the foul thing, while Immeral casts chill touch on the other and kills that one.
The group reassembles themselves and opens the door at the end of the hall. It is a bedroom.
Two stained glass windows in this bedroom hint at its former beauty. An old tarnished chandelier dangles precariously from the ceiling and a four-post bed sits in the south-east corner. The bed has been stripped of its linen and mattress and only a bare frame remains. A small hearth decorates the eastern wall. Wall sconces are mounted on either side of the hearth and a small intact dresser sits beside the bed, though one of its two empty drawers is missing. Looking out the south window into Trollskull Alley reveals a lush greenhouse with tall frosted-glass windows close by.
As the group enters the room, Nowhere is attacked by a swarm of rats coming from under the bed. Nowhere hates rats and jumps over the bed and onto the dresser.
Orryn misses any with his flail, trying to communicate with the rats, but they are crazed.
Atlas misses with blows from his gauntlets of ogre power.
Dain tries to pounce on the rats with his shield, but he only hits a couple.
Seraphina scorches a score of the rats with her sacred flame spell.
Immeral casts poison spray and hits, taking out many more of the rats.
K'ronk hits more with an eldrich blast, killing the remaining horde with waves of magical energy, when Immeral staggers forward and tumbles to sleep on the bed. K'ronk also falls forward onto the bare bed, landing on Immeral.
They believe the attack is over when Mathilda appears through the ceiling and casts Magic Missile at Nowhere, hammering her with magical energy, but Nowhere points back and launches a hellish rebuke which wraps Mathilda in magical flames. She screams, and the illusion of a grandmotherly old woman falls away and reveals the true face of the hag for a moment before the moves back through the wall and escapes.
Dain shakes K'ronk and Immeral violently and manages to wake them, and they depart the room quickly.
"It's time to go upstairs and deal with this bitch." K'ronk says, and they all agree.
Moving up the stairs to the third floor, each stair groans heavily under the character's weight and they can feel the darkness bearing down on them, even their darkvision seems not to penetrate the shadowy stairs. The sound of footsteps and giggles of mischievous children haunt them as they ascend, and they all bunch up, trying to limit their blind spots as they move up the stairs.
The staircase in the second floor Hall ascends into a landing. Unlit oil lamps and peeling wall-paper decorate the walls. A dusty couch stands next to a small bookcase. A staircase to the north continues upward and turns a corner. There are two doors leading from the landing to the northeast, two to the southeast. To the west is a hallway with doors north and south, and windows overlooking Trollskull Alley. More of these are intact than lower floors.
From the darkness, shadows rise and attack the characters suddenly. There are six shadows that ambush the party attempting to suck the life from them.
The first shadow hits Immeral and strikes with necrotic energy and draws the strength from him. Hopefully temporarily. One goes after Nowhere, but misses. The third goes after Atlas and misses. A fourth hits Atlas for some more deadly necrotic damage, weakening him as well. Dain dodges the attack of the fifth, but the last hits little Seraphina, wounding and enfeebling her.
K'ronk casts eldrich blast and hits one with the spell, severely wounding it, then trying to hit it with his quarterstaff, but it seems to only partially through the semi-incorporeal creature.
Dain swings his great axe but misses. Immeral casts chill touch and aims at the one engaged with K'ronk and kills that one, sending it collapsing into the darkness.
Atlas uses his short sword and hits deeply into the monster, but it seems only slightly hurt. Orryn hits with his magical dagger and cleaves off some of its shadow, but it is still animated.
Seraphina wields Lightbringer and it glows with radiant energy and she hits the wounded shadow, killing it and dissolving it with light.
Nowhere turns to another shadow and uses Icerazor and hits the monster with her magical sword, cutting deep into it, but leaving it "alive".
The remaining shadows attack, missing Dain, but hitting Orryn critically - grabbing him and corrupting him with necrotic energy and weakness. Orryn screams and crumbles. The remaining ones both attack Atlas, but he dodges both, sending one into a narrow stream of bright sunlight where it burns from the radiance.
K'ronk casts eldrich blast, but the spell misses, Dain steps partially into the way, blocking the spell and taking some of the damage, but K'ronk still hits the shadow with his quarterstaff.
Dain swings with his great axe and misses as the shadow dodges his swings.
Immeral casts ray of frost and strikes one of the remaining shadows with freezing magical energy. The shadow crumples and dissipates.
Atlas swings his silvered short-sword and hits a remaining shadow for a bit of damage, but not enough.
Orryn goes to hit the last one and fumbles, tumbling into Immeral and accidentally stabbing the wizard.
Seraphina swings Lightbringer again and bashes in the head of the shadow which attacked Orryn and it is dead.
Nowhere swings at one of the last two shadows, but misses and painfully pulls her shoulder-blade.
The shadows turn on Seraphina and she is badly hurt and weakened by both and knocked unconscious.
Kronk turns on the shadows and strikes one with eldrich blast, wounding it, but not ending its foul existence, and he hits the same one with his quarterstaff for even more damage.
Dain rises and cleaves the one in half with his great axe - it's form dissolving away.
Immeral casts chill touch on the final one, bathing it in destructive magical energy, but it still lives.
Atlas hits it as well with her short sword, and hits, but is still moving, and flails around, ready to kill.
Orryn leaps on one with his magical dagger, striking deeply and killing the final shadow.
They quickly go to tend to the unconscious Seraphina, and she struggles to stand, staggering to recover. Seraphina prays to the Raven Queen and casts a prayer of healing on most of the group, imbuing them with fresh vitality and closing most of their wounds.
The Owlbear League turns to the southeastern corner, ignoring the door marked as a water closet, and opens the one facing south. The room is a private bath with a sink and claw-footed bathtub. It looks to be in just about the best condition of the rooms The League has seen. There is a door to the west.
Looking around with his ability to detect magic, K'ronk notices a small hand-held mirror, and they quickly cover it with a cloth, removing it from the wall and placing it face-down. Not knowing its effects, and being wary of the odd items left around by the hag. They leave the mirror on the wall, and K'ronk says "I can identify it later."
They open the door to the west, and find a bedroom. Although quite bare, this former master bedroom is in good condition. Windows are intact and the four-posted canopy bed is fairly clean aside from a scattering of vermin droppings and some cobwebs. The hearth here is well intact and a dresser with a large dusty mirror stands on the north wall. The southern window provides an excellent view into the greenhouse.
As they take in the room, two glowing disembodied skulls fly out of the hearth and attack.
The League shutters at memories of a single flameskull from Wave Echo Cave, but they are more powerful than just a few short months ago.
Seraphina steps up and swings her undead destroying mace Flameskull, knocking it across part of the room as Nowhere swings her sword Icerazor, hitting the same skull back, smashing off the jaw and releasing a pod of ice-spiders that clamber over the flaming monster.
Orryn uses his short bow, hitting the same skull with an arrow, shattering it, sending it crumbling to the floor.
Atlas turns to the second flameskull and hits a glacing blow with her short sword.
Immeral casts chill touch and grabs the skull with the magical hand, giving it some crushing damage before the hand dissipates.
Dain swings his great axe at the skull, but it dodges.
K'ronk hits it with a eldrich blast, the skull, sending it flying, but K'ronk hits it with his quarterstaff, knocking it about. It turns, and while laughing madly, casts a fireball spell exploding upon the characters.
Nowhere dives out of the way and is only slightly burned due to her Tiefling fire resistance. Seraphina takes the brunt of the fireball and is severely burned and is knocked unconscious, barely alive. Orryn dives to the floor and avoids the worst. Atlas flips back and only takes minor flame damage. Immeral also dives out of the way, leaping from much of the fire, but is still scorched. Dain quickly steps back and does the same, avoiding some damage. K'ronk unfortunately is the center of the blast, but his magical false life protection absorbs some of the damage and he is burned but alive.
The skull continues to laugh mockingly.
Nowhere brushes flame off her clothing and swings Icerazor, connecting and slashing it badly, cutting through the bone of the monstrosity.
Orryn hits with an arrow, landing it in the eye socket, sending it reeling.
Atlas dives at it with her short sword, connecting firmly and destroying it, sending its fragments clattering to the floor.
Immeral tells the group "flameskulls will regenerate if we don't sprinkle holy water on their remains."
Nowhere says "let's get Seraphina up first," as she gently applies magical Keogam's Ointment which heals the worst of her wounds, but the diminutive cleric is still hurt and weak.
K'ronk asks "do you have any holy water?" and Seraphina hands it to him. He sprinkles it on the remains of the flameskulls and they turn to dust. Seraphina continues applying more magical ointment to herself, undoing most of the deadly fireball damage, although she still is weak from the specter attack.
Immeral offers half a greater healing potion to Orryn, half of one to K'ronk, and consumes half of one himself. "Thank you Sister Garaele" Immeral toasts. K'ronk casts false life on himself for some additional temporary healing.
They continue on, marching across the hallway to another door, which is locked. Orryn moves to the front of the order to pick the lock when suddenly a metal crown appears on the head of Seraphina and her eyes glow bright yellow. She attacks Orryn with a guiding bolt spell, a flash of light streaks towards Orryn, bathing him with radiant damage and knocking him unconscious.
The group turns to Seraphina, and K'ronk quickly casts charm person, attempting to override the charm of the hag, and it successfully brings Seraphina back, the iron crown disappearing from her head and her eyes returning to normal.
"What happened?" Seraphina asks.
K'ronk says "The hag is doing this, we have to get rid of the hag."
Nowhere asks "can you heal Orryn?"
Seraphina casts a healing spell and restores some of the damage she inflicted on Orryn. When he wakes, she says "I'm so sorry Orryn!" He tells her "it wasn't you". Atlas can be heard praying to Mizar.
Orryn finishes picking the lock on the door, and it opens.
This old, musty bedroom features a small reading nook in the windowed turret, where there is a dusty chair and table with a lantern on it.
The shredded mattress on the bed and numerous droppings here suggests a family of rodents may live in this room. Another hearth resides on the south wall. More windows seem broken here than the other rooms, and it seems darker due to a black ceiling.
A door on the east stands open and leads to a private bath. The area around the wooden tub is sagging, wet and musty.
K'ronk peers in the room, using his ability to detect magic and he notices a magical aura around a small, dirty, lumpy leather pouch laying on the floor.
Nowhere steps in the room to pick up the leather pouch, and suddenly the ceiling springs to life and reveals itself to be swarms of hundreds of bats that take flight and attack the intruders.
She dives back out the door, tumbling into Dain and they slam the door shut to the sound of bats fluttering and scratching on the other side.
K'ronk asks "should we throw a flaming oil flask in?"
Orryn wonders "and burn down the house?"
Nowhere says to Atlas "could you send your magical rope to get the pouch?"
Atlas says "Hmm, we'd have to open the door, but maybe I could use my remaining fire breath instead."
Immeral adds, "We have another potion of fire breath if we need it against Mathilda."
K'ronk says to Seraphina "if you give me your potion of polymorph, I will give you my potion of fire breath."
Atlas declines. "I wish I could command my tiny magical crab."
Seraphina cracks the door, casts sacred flame, and shuts the door again, killing a small section of the bats. It is a cantrip, so she is able to repeat the technique over and over again from the protection of the door, and has just killed most all the bats, when Mathilda appears behind the group.
She speaks the infernal language. "I call out for protection from the great abyss." and two shadows appear and attack the party. Mathilda disappears, leaping up through the ceiling.
K'ronk casts eldrich blast and hits one of the shadows with the bright magical energy.
"We need to get upstairs and kill that bitch!" Nowhere cries out.
Dain tries his silvered great axe, but it passes through a shadow harmlessly.
Immeral tries ray of frost, killing the one K'ronk hit, dissolving it is a sprinkle of frost.
Atlas tries a silvered short-sword to no effect.
Orryn uses his magical dagger misses the remaining shadow.
Seraphina uses Lightbringer and hits with a bright flash of radiant light which destroys the shadow.
K'ronk walks to the bathroom. It is a private bath with a sink and wooden bathtub. There is a broken window in the room, and it seems as if the heavy tub could cause the floor to collapse any second. There is something foul at the bottom of the tub, and K'ronk uses mage hand to pick it up from a distance, revealing it to be the bloated form of a dead frog or toad. He puts it back down gently.
Nowhere picks up the small leather pouch, opening it to reveal a small swarm of glowing wasps, bright with a green energy. They sting Nowhere right through her clothing, and some of her wounds close, but she is writhing in pain. She is stunned, and falls to the floor. A few moments go by, and Nowhere gathers herself. "That hurt, but I feel like I am of better health than I was before."
K'ronk says "We have to get to this hag."
Nowhere sees that Orryn and Atlas look hurt and weary, and gives a healing potion each to them, "These are all I have left. Let's finish this."
They march up the stairs for the fourth floor and it turns to the east. The hallway ends, and there is a door to the north and a door to the south.
K'ronk looks for magic, but sees none.
"Enough hiding you coward, we will find you eventually, come out and end this!"
There is no answer, so Nowhere opens the door to the north.
Opening the door provokes a sudden flutter of movements and angry caws, as a family of ravens is disturbed. The three ravens quickly fly away through a hole in the roof in this former bedroom. Black feathers flutter through the now still air. The bed here has been converted into a large raven's nest, replete with all sorts of junk and trinkets like tree branches, bones, pieces of wire and wool.
Seraphina gasps at the portent and possible intervention of the Raven Queen.
The group files into the room, while Immeral pairs off and stands outside the hallway.
A monsterous blue creature appears, with pointed yellow teeth, bulbous white eyes, blue skin, and horrible claws, swinging a large polearm that slashes Nowhere, sending blue blood spurting into the air from her abdomen and arm.
Seraphina casts sacred flame bathing the creature in magical fire, but it seems not to even react.
Nowhere swings with Icerazor and hits, but the creature feels like it is made of hardwood, scratched but barely harmed.
Orryn shoots his bow at the monster and drives an arrow into it's chest, but it seems unphased.
Atlas misses with a flurry of blows as it starts to dodge the attacks of The League.
Immeral casts fire bolt, and strikes it with burning bolts of fire, which sets the creature's cloak smoldering, and it seems now more hurt than annoyed.
Dain swings his great axe, but misses the monster.
K'ronk casts charm person but fails to take control of the being.
The monster drops its glaive and attacks with it's cross, attacking K'ronk twice, missing once but hitting with its horrible claws, drawing bloody claw marks on K'ronks arms and chest.
Immeral notices that the door next to him opens.
The others notice that the wounds on the creature they are fighting start to heal, slowly closing.
Seraphina swings her staff and hits the creature, using its withering magic to lash the monster with streaks of black necrotic damage, but hitting weakly due to her specter-induced weakness.
Nowhere attacks back with Lightbringer, hitting the monster and spilling its bright yellow blood.
Orryn his with his dagger, slashing at its legs.
Atlas attacks with flurry of blows and hits several times, knocking the creature back.
Immeral races into the room, slamming the door behind him, then casting one of the stars from his robe of stars at their opponent. It turns into magic missiles and the seven magical darts riddle the creature with damage.
At the same moment, the door that Immeral swung shut is stopped mid-swing and re-opened, but nothing is visible.
Dain swings his great axe, but misses the blue monster.
K'ronk casts eldrich blast but it misses the thing.
The clawed abomination attacks Nowhere, slashing her arms but she backpedals to the wall, avoiding deeper wounds, as she watches the creature continue to heal.
"It's healing! We have to kill it quick!" she cries.
Another of the monsters appears and it swings its glaive at Orryn and Seraphina, but misses as he rolls out of the way and she dodges, landing in the large raven's nest. The ravens utter a caw from above, and a single feather floats down towards the nest.
Seraphina doesn't have time to riddle the portent, she swings the staff of withering at the wounded blue creature and scars it with black necrotic energy, it's skin starts falling off in patches.
Nowhere swings Icerazor and hits the same, and the stab knocks the creature unconscious as it is bleeding yellow blood.
Orryn stabs the fresh monster with his rapier and successfully draws more blood.
Atlas tries a flurry of blows, but the thing fends off the attack.
Immeral casts dissonant whispers and hits the remaining one for some psychic damage.
Dain misses again with his great axe.
K'ronk casts charm person again and this time, he influences the mind of the creature who looks confused. "Wait, don't attack, we're friends" K'ronk says.
"I'm confused." the creature whispers.
"It's OK, what are you?" K'ronk asks.
"An Oni" the humanoid replies.
"The real threat is the hag." K'ronk tells the Oni.
"But she is my master," it replies.
"She is utterly and completely evil. She is lying to you. Trust us and follow." K'ronk says.
Orryn asks "What is the item Mathilda is attached to?"
"It is the doll." the Oni says.
"A doll," Orryn says. "Where is it?"
"In her lair, above the turret." the Oni says.
There is a scream that roars in all the ears of The League that is obviously the voice of Mathilda.
Seraphina looks down at the nest and notices a stick that looks unusual, but before she can investigate, Mathilda in her old lady form comes through the far wall, a look of fury on her face, and she casts a spell, re-charming the Oni who screams in anger.
Will the battered League defeat another Oni? Can they finally get to the hag's lair and destroy her focus? What is in the raven's nest, and all the other rooms of Trollskull manor? Can The League survive another round of everything the hag is throwing at them?
NEXT - CAMPAIGN DIARIES 35 - FALL OF THE HAG
Google Sites
Report abuse