We decided to deliver the head to the mummy in hopes of getting the pass key to the saw traps. That way, we could finish off that level. Just being in his presence caused everyone to have Frighten 1 with no save. He gave us the pass phrase to turn it off for 1 minute. He went back to preparing to leave so hopefully he’s stuck in a loop like a lot of the noncombat NPCs down here and won’t ever leave. We went back to the gladiator lounge and into the mural room. Unfortunately, Zara was still in there and she gave us a hard time. We decided to just go around a different way rather than deal with her. Through the kitchen area. We hurried through the area, chanting the phrase. The first room was empty. The next was locked. Xeelie was eager to search the bones but we weren’t sure how long this trap worked. Oakwood argued we could search after the rest of the party got out of that room. He checked his keys and Brian decided it shouldn’t have been locked in the first place. That room looked like a blood-stained office. We searched and the only thing we found was another alchemist lab but it was another 5 bulk. However, Clarisa’s bag could hold 25 so she had plenty of room. Xeelie went back into the saw room to search the bones. However, a search took 10 minutes. A minute later, a saw blade shot out and did 12 points of damage. There were also 3 glue bombs. TerStegan took one and the others went into the party stash to be sold. And there was a door going back down to level 6.
Xeelie wanted to try disabling the traps. But it was a DC26 thievery check, once for each of the 6 blades. She and TerStegan and Oakwood jumped in the room and tried to disable them. TerStegan and Oakwood critically failed and were attacked. Oakwood was missed but TerStegan was critted. He started swinging and missing. He crit failed again and was crit again. Xeelie crit failed, used a hero point and succeeded. Oakwood failed and was crit. TerStegan finally hit it but most of it bounced. He tried, crit failed and was crit. We ended up in initiative order. Xeelie failed, the saw attacked Oakwood for another crit, Oakwood stepped out of the room with his 15 hit points and cast a Protector Tree. Clarisa deferred. TerStegan disabled the last one. Oakwood did a round of healing. While we waited for 10-minute, we searched the bones and found nothing but bones. A complete waste of time. Through peep holes in the walls, we did get to see the other fighting group in their rooms so Xeelie did her lore thing on the undead demon thing. That took 10 minutes so we healed again. All told, it was 30 minutes of recovery time.
We went down the newly found stairs which emptied to the south end of the viewing area of the operating room. There was a door down on this end which TerStegan opened. In there was a bunch of broken wooden furniture. There was also an eerie full-length mirror. TerStegan suggested that a mirror shouldn’t work without light so proposed using his darkvision to search the room. He stepped in, closed the door and looked around a bit. He looked at the mirror to prove he had no reflection and saw a distorted TerStegan. He won initiative and with his remaining action, tried to make a thievery check to cover it. He failed. It missed and then hit for 29. And then a fort save which he missed for Drained 1. It had a +19 attack. Xeelie steeped in, saw two reflections, was crit hit for 55 and missed a Fort save for Drained 1. And successfully covered the mirror. And fled. The trap was bested. We spent more time healing. TerStegan and Xeelie wanted to take it back to the cabin. Oakwood and Brisco were against it. Clarisa voted for chaos so we took it. They had visions of using it to guard the house or vex our foes or something. We needed a night’s rest to reset the Drained so we headed back home.
That night, Clarisa was attacked by the mirror in the bathroom. Evidently the cursed mirror had infected our cabin mirrors. It critically hit her for 53 points. She made the Fort save at least. She left the room after much confusion about the map. Xeelie made a lore roll and thought a religion roll could exercise it. It was a haunt, not a trap or a monster. Brisco had the highest religion skill but was obstructive on general principles. “You three brought it in here, why is this my problem.” But we talked him into it so we could move on with our lives. Xeelie aided for a +2 with a 20. Brisco rolled a crappy 10, used a hero point and rolled a crit for a double crit. And we cleansed the cabin and got a poor quality, full-length mirror for TerStegan for our efforts.
We got a long rest and recovered from the Drained. And then started making items since Xeelie currently existed. TerStegan tried to get a job. But first, he went to Wren to buy a Lifting Belt and scroll of Sure Strike for Xeelie. Xeelie made Goggles of the Night for herself and Clarisa but she was a bit short of cash. She sold some fancy bottles. We sold the alchemist lab. And argued about the second lab. We all agreed that we put it into Clarisa’s bag of holding except Brian so we lost that argument. TerStegan got a job at the Crow’s Cast, used a hero point and rolled great. That only got him the job however. On the earning roll, he rolled poorly for a 20. That got him not much. Oakwood went out with the lumber crews, made a diplomacy roll and made some popularity points with them. That got him 7 silver pieces. Brisco switched his Druid Crown to leaves mode and wandered about outside of town. He was looking for the accountants, assuming they got away. The not dead one was currently in custody, battling in the courts. The vampire one had been killed, right? He looked for the guys they had hired but they were gone. Xeelie gave Oakwood her Bracelet of Dashing rather than make a second one. We spent one extra day to transfer the striking rune to TerStegan’s backup backup hand axe.
We went back into the Gauntlight through the back door. Oakwood said he was trying to obscure our tracks into it. We didn’t want anyone wandering in. We came down at the tavern and headed over to where the keys we picked up from Jafaki would open a door we couldn’t get through before. However, we ran into some more monsters at the spiral staircase. We fought here a couple games ago but evidently there was traffic coming up. Two Dreshkan (electric spider bugs) and two Barbazu (devil minitours). Brisco considered using a Blazing Bolt but there were too many walls in the way to target enough of them. He moved up and cast Electric Arc, hitting two. They saved for half for 3. The electric bug guy took none. One Barbazu took a step, used his reach glaive and attacked TerStegan. He crit, of course, for 42 plus 2d6 bleed. As a free action it moved him 10 feet and attacked with his beard. And missed despite no MAP. Xeelie did a 2-action heal on TerStegan for 25. And then cast Life Boost on him. The next Barbazu charged up and attacked Xeelie with a reach weapon through the doorway. It missed and then used his beard to attack TerStegan and missed. TerStegan got fast healing and cast Bless. He attacked the Dreshkan to the south to try to get rid of the flanking. He crit for 29. And the Barbazu took 7 from the sweeping crit. TerStegan took 13 from the bleed and missed the flat check. That was a 20 DC so he needed a nat 20 to recover without aid.
Another Dreshkan moved up, climbed onto the ceiling and over TerStegan to get past the glut of monsters around TerStegan. TerStegan crit with his rection and did 26. He did more sweep damage to the same one. Xeelie noticed it was averting its gaze. The last one hit TerStegan once for merely 12 and closed the door. Oakwood was screwed by the closed door just like last time. He turned on his damage aura, using cold instead of fire because of the devils. And then stepped and opened the door. Clarisa was going to do her missiles but Brian made him update his character to get the new and improved focus spell for an arcane dragon sorcerer. She used that instead and hit one and crit another. That did 17 and 16. Some of it bounced off the devil. And the last Dreshkan went. It was definitely avoiding looking at the rest of the party. It was allowed to share a space with another of its kind. He tried to close the door against Oakwood’s athletics. And beat it easily with a 17+12. It shot something at TerStegan and missed. Brisco was faced with a closed door again. He moved up, opened the door, and moved in.
A devil cast Dimension Door, unafraid of TerStegan’s used up reaction and appeared behind Clarisa. It hit for 25 plus 1d6 bleed. And then moved her 5 feet away from aid. Xeelie at least had an open door. She moved through Brisco and between two monsters. A tight fit but Brian allowed it. She did her lore on the bug and learned that they had had no weaknesses or resistances. She got flanking and hit. And did 16. A devil hit TerStegan because of the flanking and did 19. He moved him 5 feet and he fell down the pit 40 feet. Brian made it make an athletics roll to get over the railing. It did that with ease. And TerStegan had no reaction to Grab an Edge. That was 20 points of falling damage. And then it crit Xeelie for 23 with its beard. She made a Fort save. Meanwhile, down below, TerStegan started prone. He stood up in a red stone chamber with ominous doors at each compass point. There was another devil ordering 4 blobs to the north but they didn’t notice him. Or didn’t care. He fled up the stairs. Rather than calculate how far it was up, Brian decided it would take a couple of turns. And then he took 7 points from the bleed. A bug took 3 frost, and was still dazzled by our lights. It missed Xeelie 3 times even with flanking. They were definitely less dangerous. The next one was also still dazzled. It did a 30-foot cone Needle Spray. It hit Oakwood and Xeelie but also two of his pals. Only Oakwood missed his save for 11. Oakwood considered using his AOE but could only get two of them so he attacked instead. He missed but hit with the second and took one out. And made the devil near Clarisa his prey.
Clarisa took a step to avoid its reaction but it had reach. It hit her but missed the crit by 1. So, her spell went off and she missed with both claws. She used a hero point and hit a devil for 21, 5 of which bounced. She gave herself +1 AC from her blood line effect. And then took 5 from the bleed. The bottom bug did a Needle Spray on Brisco and Clarisa and they both saved for 9. Brisco stepped 5 feet to target both bugs with a Blazing Bolt. The devil missed with its reaction. They both took 14 fire. The devil behind Clarisa went next. He reached Clarisa and did 24. It pulled her towards her but she was already out. It then moved near Oakwood and took 3 frost damage. With flanking he hit for 18 plus the bleed. Xeelie attacked the bug she had flanked and crit for 33. She hit again for 19 and dropped it. For her third action, she did lore on a devil and rolled a crit success. It was weak to Holy, immune to fire, resistant to all physical and poison. A devil missed Xeelie with a 1. He switched targets to Brisco, rolled a 2 and finally hit with its beard on its last action. He took 10. He made his Fort save. TerStegan kept running. He healed for 6 and then took 6 bleeding. The last bug crawled on the ceiling and dropped in the middle of everything to get and give flanking. It crit Xeelie with a claw for 8 points. It hit Oakwood for 8. Oakwood did Herbs on Clarisa at range. And then hit a bug for 14. He took 6 bleed but 3 was resisted by his Aeon stone.
Brisco did battle medicine of 29 on Xeelie and then failed on Oakwood. He used a hero point and did 28. And then took another step and critically failed on Clarisa. He used a hobbit luck and gave her 32. 89 points of healing and 3 steps in one round. Clarisa woke up. She did a 3-action barrage without bothering to stand up, hitting the further but more injured devil. 44 points and killed it. And then she bled a little. The last devil took 3 frost and hit Oakwood for a meager 11. It then cast Dimension Door to get to the floor of the pit. We argued that he couldn’t possibly see down that far from where it was. Brian assumed he could fall the rest without issue. It was after 1AM and he was trying to finish up. However, Xeelie could see down the hole from where she was at the railing and pulled out her starknife. But she was at long range for it. She rolled a 1 and used a hero point. She crit with a nat 20. She did 31, it resisted none and took some bleed from the crit specialization. She then rolled another nat 20 and crit again. That was 32 and killed it. That last bug was declared dead. Brian assumed we would save the bleeding and healed up. We stopped there. Reeling from another “random encounter” that lasted 3 rounds.
