–Froderik Penderghast – Male Human Wizard. Logical and self-important wizard. Accompanied by his hawk familiar, Mordecai. Getting surlier and more aggressive lately.
–Raskin Daggermaw – Male Half-Orc Rogue. Huge, muscular braggadocios letch who is especially good at stabbing folks, if not interpersonal skills. Ready for more stabbing, he supposes, though his trap finding and lockpicking skills are getting a nice workout. Quite happy with his new dagger, Onyx Razor, even though it seems to whisper to him when he kills an enemy…
–Edella Montfort – Female Human Paladin of Vesper. Somewhat sheltered and naïve but always out to help anyone she comes across and punish evil. Increasingly starting to feel like the only sane person on this quest. Has just acquired the Mermaid’s Spear.
–Zenga – Female Human Witch. Accompanied by her scorpion familiar (and brother) Janis. Armed with newer, creepier, spells and an apparent distaste for dungeon delving.
–Beybulat “Bey” Tasho – Male Human Swashbuckler. A barbarian from the Plains of Galmar, he’s slowly learning the local language, though the customs are still baffling to him. Missing Briac lately.
–Delilah Farmeski – Female Human Cleric of Farmesk. A battle nun from the Eastern Realms who worships the God of War. As always, eager to smash her enemies in Farmesk’s name.
–Ronald “Ron” Cunningham – Male Halfling Bard. A wandering halfling poet from Roadshire. Since joining his magic and bardsongs have been as appreciated as his cheery attitude. Trying some different approaches while slogging through this dungeon.
28th of Skeleton, 1159
The group awoke and broke their fast. During the meal, Edella approached Bey regarding the journal they’d found in the vampire’s coffin. It was a journal of an individual named Centimir, and it revealed that he was questing after the Stouthammer but that he’d been tricked by someone named Klavok and trapped as a guardian in the dudgeon. The text further lamented that Centimir’s beloved Vivienne had abandoned him to pursue her own interests in Imyan.
Recalling that Briac’s sister had been attacked by a vampire, Edella asked Bey if he could recall her name.
“Hmmmm,” the Galmarian said, scratching his head. “I believe it was Dorthea or something like this, no?”
“Noooo,” Edella said. “I’m almost positive it was Vivienne…I wonder if this is in reference to Braic’s sister?”
With Briac still gone, presumably in limbo with Vesper, they concluded they would get no answers soon and discussed everyone’s next step with the group. They opted to collect the blood from the enormous crab they’d slain in order to fully awaken the power of the Mermaid’s Spear before departing the dungeon. A Communal Air Walk spell from Delilah allowed them to cross back over the mud pit easily enough, and they made their way back towards the crossroads.
Froderik, however, lured by the tales of the strange room with the hanging spheres slipped away from the group to check it out for himself. A few seconds after he stepped into the room though the door slammed shut behind him.
Right about that time Ron, back at the crossroads of the dungeon with the others, went to ask Froderik a question and realized he was not with them. Edella sent him a Zengcode and he urged them to proceed with collecting the blood from the enormous crab and urged that he would catch up.
Ron, Bey, Raskin and Delilah continued to the crab to collect the blood, while Edella and Zenga remained to talk to Etrusca a bit. Froderik, meanwhile performed a series of divinations and tests upon the spheres, trying to determine what might be within. After a few tests he concluded the only remaining option was to try to smash one, which he did, only to find a key and a Potion of Eagle Splendor.
Froderik Zengcoded that the spheres held fabulous prizes once broken open and turned his attention to the next one. This caused Zenga and Edella to grow concerned and they made their way towards the sphere room. Meanwhile the others continued to try to get a bunch of the dead crab’s blood into Delilah’s empty waterskin while sharing a flask of Dwarven Spirits Bey had on him.
Froderik continued to experiment by smashing two of the orbs together. Both showered coins and gems to the muddy floor however out of one of the orbs two shadows appeared, attacking Froderik immediately.
Backpedaling, Froderik cast a spell that teleported him outside of the room to the far end of the hallway, behind Zenga and Edella, who had been moving to the room he was in seconds ago. The shadows, as incorporeal beings, merely passed through the door, however and continued their attack. A concentration of magical attacks from Zenga and Froderik and a channel of holy energy from Edella destroyed the creatures swiftly. Froderik returned to the door to examine it, and discovered that there was no keyhole on the outside of the door.
“Oh,” he said. “I get it. I may have screwed this up,” he admitted, stating that he suspected the door would only open from within, and that’s why keys seemed to fall from each of the orbs he had broken
As they began to discuss ways to get back into the room the others, who had finished collecting the crab blood by now, though Delilah and Ron were feeling a bit tipsy, began to make their way to join the others.
When they reached Etrusca’s crossroad, however, they were taken aback. The pile of bones the gynosphinx usually sat upon had been scattered about in the ankle deep water, the bones blackened and blasted. Of Etrusca there was no sign, but standing nearby was a man in a black robe.
“Not thinking of leaving, are you?” the figure said in a deep, rich voice. “You’ve been so very entertaining that I just couldn’t think of letting you go, especially carrying those little collector’s items of mine. And since you’ve eliminated all of their guardians, you’ll simply have to stay and take their places. I’ll have to ask you to leave all of your ridiculous weapons behind and let my servants escort you to the Indoctrination Center. I’ll be most disappointed if you cause…Don’t worry—you’ll like it here.”
With that the man snapped his fingers and four huge Efreetis appeared, Nix, Nox, Box and Cox, each armed with an enormous falchion. “Capture them,” the wizard ordered. “If they resist, use force.”
Ron was the first to take action, sending a quick Zengcode to Froderik, Zenga and Edella and casing a Confusion spell that was able effect Nix who immediately began to hack at himself with his weapon. Box, Cox, and Nox were unaffected however.
Cox responded by blasting Ron with a trio of Scorching Rays, badly wounding the halfling. In response Ron suggested to Delilah, Raskin and Bey to fall back. Bey and Delilah agreed and fell back into the huge watery room and as Box made his way up the hallway, grappling Raskin as Ron withdrew as well to avoid getting injured further, falling into the deep water.
Nox seemed to vanish as he cast an Invisibility spell, as Cox made his way up the corridor as well, following Box, while Edella, Froderik and Zenga ran as fast as they could town their corridor to reach the battle. The wizard, for his part, merely watched the battle with a huge grin on his face.
Bey, seeing that Raskin was now grappled by the huge Efreeti, hurled a Thunderestone to try to deafen the enemies, but to no avail, and moved in with his blade to engage them. Delilah, sizing up the distance in the corridor and and the location of her companions, cast Sunburst at the rear of the room, encompassing the wizard and all of the Efreetis except for Box. Nix and Cox were struck blind, but the wizard seemed entirely unaffected. Surprised, Delilah asked “Who even are you?!”
“Insignificant fool,” the wizard replied with a laugh. “I am Klavok the Black, and you cannot defeat me!”
Raskin managed to slip out of his grapple, but found himself sandwiched between Box and Cox in the corridor, while Bey disabled Box with a deft maneuver with his blade. The Efreeti seemed largely unaffected however, and resorted to smashing Bey and the still prone Raskin with his fists, while the blinded Cox lashed out frantically at the half-orc with his falchion. Ron swam to the ledge and climbed out, calling to Delilah for healing. The war cleric, seeing that not only was the halfling badly scorched, but that Raskin and Bey were taking a beating, began to call upon Farmesk to heal her companions.
Meanwhile, Zenga managed to reach round the corner of the corridor before the others and spy the blinded and confused Nix, who was flailing around while spouting gibberish in a variety of languages. Deciding to add a little more misfortune to the poor Efreeti, she cast a Deafness spell upon him, leaving him blind, deaf and confused.
The invisible Nox, however, saw this and cast a Wall of Fire, breaking his own invisibility spell, right on Zenga. Taking severe burns the witch leaped ahead, now separated from Froderik and Edella by a burning curtain of fire and facing an angry Efreeti. The witch responded by casting a spell that surrounded her by a huge, roiling, black mist that only she could see through, a move that probably saved her life as Nox followed up with a Scorching Ray, blindly fired down the corridor. Still, even though she could not be targeted directly, one of the rays did catch Zenga, burning her to within an inch of her life.
Froderik, seeing the wall of fire, cast a spell to protect himself and ran through it, followed by Edella, who sighed heavily, gritted her teeth against and charged through behind him, doing her bet to ignore the pain.
Nix, having a brief moment of clarity from the Confusion spell, realized he was blind, deaf and confused, and did the only sensible thing he could, he opened a planar gate and fled to the Elemental Plane of Fire.
Meantime Beybulat, bolstered by Delilah’s healing and with the assistance of Raskin slashing from the ground, had finally managed to deal a mortal blow to Box, who vanished in a fiery flash. Raskin, who had taken an absolute thrashing and was only still standing due to his own ferocity and timely healing from Delilah, turned his attention to the blind Cox, and with Bey’s aid the half-orc managed to plunge his blade into the Efreeti’s throat, causing he too to vanish.
Bey, Raskin and Delilah charged down the corridor, making their way blindly as Zenga’s black mist was blocking their sight, trying to reach Nox. Froderik, for his part, was cloaked both by his own Invisibility spell and Zenga’s black mist, and made his way into position to summon an enormous magical ape right behind the wizard.
The beast appeared and brought both fists down upon the wizard (who had been simply watching the fight and laughing to this point) but the attacked passed right through the wizard as if he was not there.
“You didn’t think I’d actually put myself in danger, did you?” he asked the group, laughing. “Very well, I suppose I’ll watch the rest of this from my crystal ball,” he said before promptly vanishing.
Bey, showing a clear path to Nox, charged him screaming bloody murder in Galmari, leaping bodily upon the Efreeti and tackling him to the ground, hacking and slashing with his Short Sword of Lightning. Unfortunately, Bey passed right under one of the magical runes, causing a burst of energy to zap everyone on the field. Thankfully everyone managed to shrug off the effects, but Mordechai and Janis were not so lucky and fell to the floor of the watery dungeon, twitching. Nox, too, was effected, dropping his weapon and unable to move. The Efreeti did not last much longer against Bey’s furious attacks and the ranged attacks from Edella’s ranseur and Raskin’s bow and in moments he too had vanished.
Taking a moment to collect themselves and for Edella and Delilah to administer some healing, everyone caught their breath. The feeling of everyone was fairly well summed up by Bey, however, who uttered a surly “Let us get the fuck out of this place, yes?”
Asking Zenga to keep to the rear of the party, since she could not turn off her spell and the black fog remained centered on her wherever she moved, the group headed out of White Plume Mountain.
GM’s Notes: Thus ends this group’s trip through S-2 White Plume Mountain (or rather, the modern updated version of it). This seemed to be a pretty fun dungeon crawl, and I can see why it’s such a classic.
This last entry comprised a couple of good sessions. The battle with the four Efreetis proved to be a nice challenge. I was worried they’d be a little much with the party separated and given the narrow corridors they were forced to fight in, but it proved to be a pretty fight that nearly took down both Raskin and Zenga (though Bey and Ron weren’t far behind at one point.)
The group was pretty disappointed that Klavok wasn’t really there, but while I substituted my own wizard for the one in the book, he otherwise behaved basically the same. It’s for the better anyway, if Klavok had actually been there they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
So now that the party has acquired the three fabled weapons, what is next for them…
Hoyce's Gaming 