Brian proposed 3 days of idle time in town after which our rewarded magic items for saving the mayor’s daughter would arrive from Absolum. However, there were two problems with that. Dave and Dan hadn’t decided on their items yet and it’s impossible for characters to be idle. Dan decided fairly quickly on a 3rd level wand of Force Barrage. Paul took Slippers of Spider Climb. BTO took Boots of Bounding and DG took a 3rd level wand of Heroism. Dave decided not to decide otherwise we never would have played. TerStegan tacked on a request for an Essence Charm of performance and made his Society roll to have it found. Xeelie wanted something as well but didn’t make the roll. TerStegan also asked someone to ask around about the bounty hunter in town looking for a devil worshiper. They had heard of the wanted, a known confidence woman who had been imprisoned and escaped several times. But of the hunter, the guards in Absolum had never heard of. We’ll have to confront him at some point. (Maybe she conned him and he’s pretending to have authority?)
As far as downtime. Xeelie retrained a feat and researched a couple of the monsters in the prison room in the dungeon. And bought and sold some magic gear at her mom’s shop. She did learn that one of them was well beyond our capabilities. So, we decided not to start releasing them and truing to destroy them. Finally, a clear sign on what to do. TerStegan earned a couple silvers in the bars but just missed critting for gold. Briscoe put up “wild life restoration area” signs in various parts of the forest to annoy the lumberjacks. Oakwood spent time reconnecting with his family. Based on the letters Brian wrote for the rescue storyline, they missed him. Clarisa did nothing.
We decided to go back to the secret door found at the end of last time in hopes it would access the area behind the trapped room they avoided. However, as we walked through our “secret” entrance on level 4, we came across a symbol painted/etched on the floor just before the portcullis. A society roll said it was a Kobald clan symbol but not magical. We could also see that stuff had been moved around in a defensive manner. A small voice demanded 1 gold per person to pass. Long story short, we advanced, they fought and were totally outclassed. We took a bit of damage but all it really did is use up time. We earned some coins and a magic ring. TerStegan made an Occult roll and said it was a luck ring. If you were generous, you were lucky. Brian insisted he wanted to keep it so we assume it was cursed in some manner. We pressed on after 20 minutes of healing and refocusing.
We headed down our favorite spiral staircase and could hear the murmurings of a Gibbering Mouther. Did it escape from the prison or was it another one? That confusion power has caused us all kinds of trouble in the past. In addition, we could smell something really bad. We correctly concluded there was more than one thing down there although we couldn’t see anything. A mass break out? We cast some preliminary spells and bravely came down. We faced a Mouther (which turned out to be the least of our challenges), a large crab thing, a large toad thing and a Drydier (large spider thing). And we were back to our old friend. To flee or fight? What are we supposed to do? We decided to flee or more accurately retreat and hope to leave some of them behind so that we could fight less of them. That rarely works because someone will miss a save or get grabbed or left behind or something. But we had little choice and after we saw the damage these things could do, it was the right choice.
Briscoe went first and cast his Mushroom Patch in hopes of slowing some of them down. However, he didn’t flee and that put him a round behind for the whole fight. We moved up as we could. It was hard to visualize the 3-D map. Everyone saved against the Confusion which was only a 19 Will. And against the smell which was a tougher Fort. Making those early saves really made it all possible. It was a fight of making the saves that tried to stop us, taking big damage when they caught us and doing almost nothing to them. The slow Mouther was left behind. The spider hit Oakwood and Briscoe with a web but they managed to make the Dex save to escape. It was impeded by the mushroom patch and broke off its pursuit as well. The crab was large and had reach and a free grapple. It grabbed several of us and did a lot of damage. It managed to reach higher up than we thought possible. It grabbed TerStegan and jumped up and got Briscoe as well. We thought he was done for.
But using halfling luck and hero points, he managed to escape and climb up a turn of the stairs. That put them next to the giant toad which was jumping up levels much like Oakwood was with his Burning Jet. Then Xeelie leaned over and used her Friend Fetch and pulled them both up a level. (We weren’t sure if it was intended to pull across the ground or could be used to lift but since it said TK, Brian ruled it did work.) That finally got everyone out of reach of the giant crab at least. The toad then leapt to the landing we were targeting as our turn and fight spot and the combat could finally start. We started injured or bloodied and it uninjured. But it was outnumbered. Several hit it. Clarissa managed to hit it and the giant crab down below. Brian said that turned it from wander away mode to attack mode but hopefully its size will slow it down. The plan is to finish off the toad before it gets up and then finish the crab. Assuming no one gets pushed off the edge. And then rest up (short or long) and go back down to finish off the other two. Assuming there are more freed monsters down there. So, the plan is working. We just ran out of time for this session.
