Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

The PCs are still in the tower of Ghanz on Taskar island. Last session, the players fought a lot of mimics while Waraxe was taking a bath to get rid of the stank of the excrementals. Waraxe

 

Inside The Tower of Ghanz, Third Floor

Fyadhiel, Gaffer, Galen Fallowhide, Ryeleah Lopek, and Waraxe Mandrake
Anner (Fourth Month), 3rd, 981 F.R., 6th Hour of the Sun (12:00 pm)
Taskar, Dancorra Bay, Abolethe (“The Span”)

Waraxe rushes back to where the others are. The PCs are in a room. There a few stairs up where there are crates and things. Fyadhiel and Waraxe go in there to look around,and get attacked by more mimics. Waraxe backs off, and gets bit from behind in the foot by another… mimic for 16 control points. This time it holds on to him. Fyadhiel swings at another mimic, and it bites at his blade garnering 18 control points. Waraxe tries to use Wrestling to pry off the mimic, but alas makes no progress.

Combat continues. Gaffer tries to fire his crossbow… and it malfunctions thanks to a natural 17 on his crossbow (given the expiermental nature of the weapon it malfunction on a 16 or higher). The mimic chomps Waraxe and knocks him down doing 13 crushing damage and 13 control points. Waraxe tries to chop at it with his axe, Lydia, but the thing parries and grabs the axe! Waraxe fails to yank the axe free doing a counter-grapple. The second mimic comes in and joins the grapple, doing huge damage to him and immobilizing him (another 23 crushing damage and 23 control points).

Fyadhiel yanks his sword free (or the mimic lets it go?) and takes a step back. Ryeleah has her Wand of Concussion in her hand. She fires a sonic blast of some sort, trying to stun everybody; one of the mimics is stunned (a natural 17 to resist the effects of the spell), as is Twerp, but not the other mimic, Waraxe, or Fyadhiel. Waraxe stands up and steps away; the unstunned mimic is still holding on to Lydia.

Gaffer has made his weapon functional again, and fires alchemist’s fire at the hex where the mimics are. He burns the stunned mimc inflicting 10 points of burning damage. The other mimic drags Waraxe (who won’t let go of Lyida) toward the back of the storeroom. Fyadhiel slashes at the stunned mimic, (which stays stunned). Waraxe smashes the mimic with his shield, and only does a small amount of damage (a single point of crushing damage). Galen’s dancing shield comes in and bashes the mimic as well, doing a small amount of damage that’s twice as high. Gaffer fires at the mimic grappling Waraxe, hitting it (roll a natural 4 and hitting it with all three syringe bolts); this kills the mimic in a violent explosion of mimic gore and fire. The other mimic remains stunned. Fyadhiel chops at it with his sword which finally kills it with a combined 19 points of cutting damage.

Waraxe is embarrassed; he was mostly ineffective – again, in a grappling situation. He was the focus of most of the mimic’s attacks, so that’s something. But, Waraxe’s at -16hp . . .Galen works some of his healing skills and magic on Waraxe, patching him up. Gaffer works on Waraxe’s mangled armor. Everybody rests almost 90 minutes to get fatigue back and let the healer do his work.

As soon as we’re barely rested, Fyadhiel goes and impulsively tries to kick open another door. He kicks… and needles come up out of the floor in front of the door, stabbing into Fyadhiel. Waraxe asks Gaffer to take a look at the door and see if he can make it safe to open; Gaffer does so with style, and collects nine needles (coated with paralysis toxin that allows an HT-2 roll or be paralyzed for an hour).

Another room with chests . . . The PCs are scared. There’s a table with weapons on it. A couple of the arrows are magic. Ryeleah aims a Lightning Bolt at a chest, and Waraxe goes to touch it. It’s . . . a chest. Not a mimic! Whew! Gaffer believes there’s no traps – but the GM is evil. Opening it, it’s a chest filled with armor. The chest next to it is filled with yet more armor. Just things. Not mimics.

Inside The Tower of Ghanz, Fourth Floor

Fyadhiel, Gaffer, Galen Fallowhide, Ryeleah Lopek, and Waraxe Mandrake
Anner (Fourth Month), 3rd, 981 F.R., 7th Hour of the Sun (1:30 pm)
Taskar, Dancorra Bay, Abolethe (“The Span”)

A floor up, there’s an alchemical lab. As the PCs come into the room, a fire starts in the fireplace. Ryeleah can tell that we’re in danger. Fyadhiel puts arrows into a couple of chests. They don’t move. The PCs curse the GM a bit. They notice that one of the beakers on the table sprouts arms and legs, and has huge anime eyes, and it looks at us and blinks. It launches at Waraxe, who parries it with Lydia. A big cloud erupts as the glass shatters. Fyadhiel and Waraxe take damage; the cloud is made of pure necromantic energy causing a Death potion’s effects. (GM note: these are creatures/traps of my own devising called “beaker babies” where a glass golem contains a powerful aerosolized alchemical potion. Destroying the golem realeases the potion. Also, the babies are crazy so they WILL break themselves to inflict their payload on a delver.) They see a bunch of eyes open on the lab equipment. Lots of beakers want to kill us . . .

Ryeleah unleashes a Lightning Bolt at one. It screams in glee as it explodes; the cloud starts eating through the floor as aerosolized Alkhast fills a 4 hex area. Galen moves in and shield bashes one of the beakers; it too explodes into a reddish cloud (this one was a Debilitation Potion) . . . It gives him a -3 penalty to Health rolls for the next four minutes.

The beakers start to move. One near the stairway explodes into another death cloud (another Death potion) that envelops Galen and Max. One in the corner flings itself at Waraxe. He takes a penalty of 3 to his IQ for 3 minutes (a Foolishness Potion) . . . One breaks in the vicinity of Fyadhiel; he jumps out of the radius of the cloud. One on the mantle flings itself off and breaks near Fyahiel, giving him a -12 to his DX for the next 5 minutes. One flings from the worktable towards Ryeleah (who is holding her breath). This one is a Liquid Ice Potion. On the other side of the table, one launches at Waraxe, exploding into fire (a Combustion Potion), but Waraxe is immune to fire thanks to a spell from earlier in the day.

Fyadhiel , despite huge DX penalties, steps out of the cloud and fires at the one beaker they still see intact. The beaker baby does out of the way nimbly.

“I’m going downstairs,” Ryeleah says to the other characters in a deadpan voice, as she starts to go downstairs. Waraxe runs out of the clouds. Gaffer, fires at the beaker baby, setting the rug there on fire, but does not kill the beaker baby. Galen runs towards an open area, but goes through other clouds and takes necromantic damage (more Death Potion)… and has to blow two uses of luck in order to avoid dying. The beaker runs on its stubby legs right towards Fyadhiel and a cloud erupts around him, and he’s at -9 to ST for the next four minutes (a Weakness Potion).

Gaffer uses a rope to lasso Fyadhiel (who can hardly move) and tries to drag him out of the cloud. After about six minutes all the clouds clear. Galen does some quick combat medic stuff to patch us up. After the effects of the clouds wear off, the PCs look around. Ryeleah, who knows about this kind of thing, tell us that there are thousands of alchemical reagents in the lab. There’s also an odd-looking backpack in one of the mim^H^H^H chests; Ryeleah sees that it’s magic. Galen finds a pouch with a dozen odd looking little tablets, about the size of a quarter. Ryeleah has heard of these things, but never seen them. They hail from the Nythusian empire and are called “Cloud Crystals.” If you put them in an alchemical potion and break the potion, they create a cloud 2 yards wide, and anybody inside the cloud feels the effect of the potion. Multiple crystals multiply the duration (1 for 1d seconds, 2 for 1dx10 seconds, or 3 for 1d minutes). A rare find! The backpack is a Quintessential Lab; it’s like an Instant Workshop, but for Alchemy. Ryeleah takes it.

Inside The Tower of Ghanz, Fifth Floor

Fyadhiel, Gaffer, Galen Fallowhide, Ryeleah Lopek, and Waraxe Mandrake
Anner (Fourth Month), 3rd, 981 F.R., 8th Hour of the Sun (2:30 pm)
Taskar, Dancorra Bay, Abolethe (“The Span”)

The PCs head up to the next floor. There’s a door there. Gaffer pronounces it trap-free. Waraxe opens the door and steps in. There are a lot of books in there . . . and there are ghosts reading them. One of the ghosts approaches us when Ryeleah casts a spell.

The ghost asks us what we’re doing here, saying they shouldn’t be here. The place is cursed. Ryeleah says the PCs are hoping to remove the curse. The ghost says that they can’t do that while the Master is trapped in the mirror. Some of the rest of the PCs talk. The ghost says the Master was put in the mirror when he tried to become a god and failed. They’ve been there for over 800 years; trapped. Eternally. They tell us that the Master has gone insane being trapped in the mirror all these years, and we’ll have to try to kill him to set him free. There will be trials that they have to go through inside of the mirror. Their Master’s quarters is one floor up. They also warn us not to go to the topmost floor, where the Master’s former captian of the guard awaits to kill any who go to the top floor.

Inside The Tower of Ghanz, Sixth Floor

Fyadhiel, Gaffer, Galen Fallowhide, Ryeleah Lopek, and Waraxe Mandrake
Anner (Fourth Month), 3rd, 981 F.R., 9th Hour of the Sun (3:30 pm)
Taskar, Dancorra Bay, Abolethe (“The Span”)

The PCs go up to the next floor. There’s a small antechamber, and there’s a door which they go through (no traps and not locked). There’s a giant black mirror being held by a statue in the bedroom chambers. Ryeleah casts Sense Danger, and figures out that the mirror is reaaaaly dangerous. There is an inscription on the outside of the mirror; it’s a transportation incantation. They say it, they get transported somewhere into the mirror. The PCs hesitate, but Ryeleah just reads the inscription. It opens up a portal into the mirror.

Aftermath

The PCs  end up in a strange place, with stone platforms surrounded by a void expanse with scintillating sharts of mirrors, swirling in a pool of oddly colored mirror radiance.

After Action Report (GM)

This session was more cut’em up and cut’em down, but remains fun – I’m still letting the PCs decide what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. Right now they want to get treasure and kill monsters and that’s just ifne by me. The beaker baby fight was sooooo funny. The sheer look of horror on the players faces when they realized what was going to happen was amazing. The players themselves loved the evil little critters and at this point I’m probably going to have to fully stat them up and put them in the wild.

Footnotes

None.