DND Blog

A place to keep DND session recaps, from various campaigns.

The Hundred and Fourteenth Session

December 21, 2024, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

We encounter and defeat a Demilich. We break into a chest and save Embersia from her first death, and then Dirius decides to attack us.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. Rest
  3. The Fifteenth Week
    1. The tower
  4. The Demilich
  5. Next Steps

Last session

We rescued two people from the Medusa's lair: one statue, and the former Medusa herself. We fought two baby sandworms and their parent, and defeated them. The Drow party fought one, and lost two members.

Rest

Tonight, Percival can cast Magnificent Mansion, and so we rest there for the night. The two rescued women stay well away from each other. Percival serves very soft foods tonight, and the Mansion is made up to look like a log cabin. It lacks all stone.

Percival questions Genin. She says that she was exploring the desert. She has no memory of consciousness while a statue. We ask after whom she knows; the youngest perosn she knows is her younger sister, who lived at the time in Setton. We offer to drop her off there; she offers thanks.

The former-Medusa, Audrey, was a priestess of "Apollo", and an oracle. We don't know apollo, but she describes his domain: music, archery, the sun, healing, etc. A lot of things. She doesn't know how long she was a Medusa; centuries at least. She's hesitant to go back into augury, but Ryltar persuades her. She asks for a silver platter and some water.

Ryltar asks what the biggest danger is on this expedition. She does the ritual; her eyes flash grey, and as she holds Ryltar's hands she begins to shake. "No, no, not again" she says, objecting to something, and the silver dish and table rattle. The shaking stops and she refuses to tell Ryltar what she saw. She doesn't want a repeat of the past.

Ryltar says: look, if you're trying to avoid a bad thing happening because you tell others of it, we're probably going to run head-first into it anyways. She says he fell, in black sand, with a wand. "It fell from your hands. A darkened hand reached towards you; a darkened hand reached towards it." Two different hands, though. She's worried that she's told us of something that will lead to our downfall. But Ryltar thanks her.

Genin hears all this, and leaves the room, towards her room in the Mansion. Percival follows; as she shuts her door he puts his foot in the door. She protests. "I can't believe you're siding with that monster."

"I know that's what it seems like, but it's the universe which has conspired to malign you against each other," he says.

"The universe!? She was the one who turned me to a stone."

"You were a statue for 80 years, and lost your traveling partner. She was trapped for hundreds of years, and lost her entire culture."

Genin struggles with this. She blames the Medusa for taking her friends. Percival continues trying to convince her to move on. "Don't lash out at others; build yourself up." She breaks down crying. He comforts her. She thanks him; he offers to have a servant giver her company. She accepts. He calls over the three-legged dog, and its shoe-bearing servant. He draws an artful allusion between the two; they have both lost something. She draws some comfort from that, perhaps.

The Fifteenth Week

We draw a campfire from the journey deck, and recover.

Ryltar asks Audrey if she recognizes the scribbles in his journal from when he met the Tree. She says it's beyond her.

Embersia takes exhaustion from sunlight.

The tower

We come across a crumbling circular wall of stone. Various pieces of furniture and broken wood stick out of the sand at all angles, bleached by the sun. The wall is about 7 or 8 feet tall; there's one section which does dip down to ground level in a U-shape, forming a channel that heads underground. The channel has a 10' solid hardwood banquet table covering one end, which we eventually succeed in pulling it off. A blast of old wind comes out, musty and ill-smelling, and we all take 17 points of Necrotic damage.

The shaft proceeds 30' straight down. At the bottom is a layer of sand, bowling to the center, and the U-shaped slide continues down, filled with more and. There's more furniture. Ryltar notices that the "under" side of the slide has steps. The entire tower has been turned upside-down, and there's 30 feet between floors.

We all climb down to have a look.

A low muttering builds to a voice: "Guests! Huh. Travelers, wanderers. Welcome, welcome."

Percival introduces himself and apologizes for the intrusion. Jerry offers something to eat, and triggers the Magic Microwave for a few hoagies. The voice introduces himself as "Hethun."

We ask what he's doing out here in the desert. He says he's a proprietor of the tower, a beacon to all travelers in the desert. We ask about why his tower is upside-down and buried in the sand. He says, "This desert has taken much from me and from my glorious tower; time weathers all and all must fall, but I remain vigilant of all those who travel here. Come in, and know me better."

The voice comes in from the slope is, and we see there's another floor. He says it's been some time since the last time someone visited him in search of rest and respite.

We look into the next floor: there's a mangled 4-poster bed that has been mangled and broken, blocking the passage. Percival heals Ryltar a little bit before we go down. We pull the bed out, and the sand rushes down. We go down another floor.

This floor has a mechanical thingy set in the former floor, now our ceiling, with pipes and mechanical armatures reaching out into the walls, and lenses, and windows. It's a siphon, we determine, for extracting something from the outside of the tower, and for clarifying and condensing whatever it is. The whole machine is about ten feet tall.

The only thing that seems purposefully placed is a skull, completely cleaned of flesh, with jewels set in the eyes, and runes carved into the skull. It's placed on a sand dune on our floor.

"What do you sell in this place," Ryltar asks?

"I do not sell," says Hethun, chuckling. As Ryltar watches, the emerald eyes glow, and there's a flash of arcane energy between the skull's eyes. "It's been so long since anyone has come to my tower to explore its depths. This desert has taken much, but I survive. I will endure."

The Demilich

  1. Round 1.
    1. The skull begins to rise from the floor, and sand spirals around it, as he Howls, and on a constitution success, you are frightened. On failure, Jerry and Embersia drop to 0. Jerry uses Relentless Endurance to drop to 1, and Orcish Fury to attack for 19 magical slashing.
    2. Ryltar punches with Plane Shift to send Hethun to another plane, but Hethun saves. Ryltar moves around to the other side.
    3. Hethun starts doing more magic, and Jerry and Embersia's maximum HP drop by 14
    4. Jerry pops Hunter's Mark and slashes twice with the Moon Scythe to do 39 damage, near max roll. (Near max damage: 44)
    5. The skull turns to Ryltar. There is a flash of green, and Ryltar's ice armor disappears. He's been hit by an anti-magic field.
    6. Percival gives Jerry inspiration.
    7. Embersia is stabilized.
    8. A swirl of sand whips around the room, harming no one.
    9. Jerry takes 23 points necrotic, and the lich heals for 23. Jerry goes down again: Life Drain
  2. Round 2
    1. Ryltar tries to stabilize jerry with a Medicine check, and fails.
    2. Jerry passes her first death save.
    3. Ryltar's Mage Armor reappears. Percival and Ryltar are knocked prone, as the tower shakes and sand starts to pour in.
    4. Percival heals Embersia for 20.
    5. Embersia casts Aura of Purity for a bunch of protections for all of us.
    6. Hethun does Life Drain on Ryltar, Percival, and Embersia (they're the only ones currently alive). Percival takes 23 necrotic.
    1. Ryltar stands up and Greater Healing Potions Jerry for 14. He summons the Hound of Ill Omen.
    2. Jerry chugs a healing potion, then hits critically for 43.
    3. Percival does a little inspiration.
    4. Embersia uses Channel Divinity to use Radiance of the Dawn to do 30-some damage.
    5. Everyone succeeds on another Constitution save, dodging the swirling sands.
    6. Life Drain again, for 38 healing. 4.
    7. Ryltar moves the dog and attacks with the Plane Shift again, but gets hit by Legendary Resistance.
    8. Jerry chugs another healing potion and then does 39 damage, but it doesn't seem to be useful. She passes a Wisdom save, and thus is not hit by Vile Curse
    9. The lair does nothing.
    10. Percival summons Bigsby's Invisible Hand and deals some damage, then summons his Living Armor.
    11. Embersia used Channel Divinity to use Radiance of the Dawn.
    12. Howl. Thanks to the Aura of Purity, we all succeed and are merely frightened. 5.
    13. Ryltar does Cone of Cold for 22 damage, the worst he's ever seen in his life. The skull is resistant to cold damage, it turns out.
    14. We all succeed on a Constitution save, and don't get our hit point maxes reduced.
    15. Jerry casts Ensnaring Strike and hits with the Moon Scythe, and vines explode from the point of impact, shattering the skull.

The emeralds are already crumbling in the broken skull. With Detect Magic we see something in the sand, and we find a glass vial with cloudy grey oil moving inside. It's a sticky oil, coating all the sides of the vial.

Sand slowly falls in, but we can Dimension Door out, so we go to the next floor down with Shadow Step, and find a satchel buried in the rubble. There's a scroll in there which is magical. Ryltar also finds a trap door, which is opened to reveal an empty pocket of sand, quite deep. Ryltar and Percival dig into the sand, but have trouble keeping the sand away until Percival casts Wind Wall with his Cli Lyre, keeping the sand away. Ryltar's Detect Magic says that the thing should be there, but he doesn't see it: He casts See Invisibility and sees the chest. He Dispel Magics the chest, and doesn't see anything else magical inside it. He hauls it up into the room above.

With Embersia's assistance and crowbar, Jerry forces the hinges. Ryltar and Percival evacuate the room. With a 30 Jerry cracks the hinges off the chest. She and Embersia pass a con save, taking 25 necromantic damage. Embersia is down at -4 HP.

Jerry pours a potion of healing into Embersia, and it has no effect. Percival casts Revivify, and Embersia comes back to life. Percival shoved a diamond into her chest, restarting her heart. There's a crack in the scales around her neck now, a perpetually festering wound.

Inside the chest we see a little filigree egg. Ryltar Dispel Magics the egg, at 22, The egg cracks, and something runs away, exhaling.

The chest also has:

We teleport out.

Up on the surface, we're in shade, in the middle of the desert. Floating above us, there's four floating orbs of darkness. Dirius calls out: "Find anything interesting?"

"Not particularly", says Ryltar.

"You're looking a little worse for wear."

"It's a little spicy down there," says Ryltar, "Would you like to check it out?"

Dirius smirks.

Roll initiative: Dirius plus 10 more.

Next Steps