Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

Journeying away from Aramore, the Dwarf, Khugraek Redman, continues to follow the group back towards the Deadstone Keep. He’s an Armsmaster, a Knight Armsmaster that one hands his halberd in full epic plate armor. Returning to the keep, none of the covered entrances seem to have been disturbed and have been covered in a light dusting of snow. The bodies that were cremated haven’t moved. They descend into the bowels of the well, Keel-Breaker heading down first followed silently by Crow and then the rest of the crew. At the bottom, it looks like there’s a passage that leads to a door glowing softly in the bedrock.

The Catacombs of Deadstone Keep

Alabaster, Crow, Keel-Breaker, and Rashi
Zhven (Tenth Month), 12th, 986 F.R., 1st Hour of the Sun (6:00 am)
Redstone Keep, Northern Veneficia, Sicatra 

Crow decides to search it down, inspecting for traps. She finds a small goblin hole that leads off that she immediately crawls into. The hole is a large loop around the door and into the hard rock. Unfortunately this inspires Keel-Breaker to follow Crow, but he’s far too large and gets stuck with a critical failure roll of 17. Despite there being a Low-Mana Zone, Alabaster manages to open up the hole a bit more with Earth to Air, releasing the minotaur.  Crow finds herself on the other side of the door, in a hallway where torches light up by themselves in a dim light. She decides to turn around and join back up with the rest of the party.

Reading the door, they find a riddle inscribed on a door.

“I can trap many different things and colors, Ever changing, not boring. Look closely and you may find yourself also caught in my trap. What am I?”

Keel-Breaker easily answers it as being a mirror, which is the correct answer (much to the GM’s chagrin). Crow and Alabaster thought it to be a prism while Rashi it thought it to be fire. Either way, they move through the door and down stairs on the other side. Most of the group manages to roll Stealth, including Rashi. Keel-Breaker sees goblin zombies stumbling towards them which he immediately throws his anchor at, smashing it into the zombie’s chest dealing 24 cutting damage and killing it.

Worrell charges forwards while Keel-Breaker takes a step and throws his boat anchor into their chests, striking one of the zombies in the chest. Rashi rushes forwards throwing out a Holy Bolt into one of the zombie’s knees, blowing it apart. More Zombies stumble forwards and Redmane moves into formation and watches the group’s back alongside Crow, transforming his halberd into a pike.

Worrell rush’s forwards, ripping through one of the zombie’s hands with a critical roll of 6 on attack and while he only does normal damage, it’s still enough to tear the hand off. Keel-Breaker swings his anchor over the badger and manages to immediately remove the feet from 2 more zombies. Alabaster stepped forward and throws a 4d acid ball that dissolves another leg while Rashi throws his Holy Bolt into a zombie’s skull, blowing it apart immediately with 28 crushing damage. Zombies charge forwards Worrell and attempt to attack him, but missing each time. Crow charges forwards and readies her ring for Extra Attack.

Worrell burrows through a zombie’s torso while Keel-Breaker continues to defeat zombies to the ground through excessive uses of All-Out-Attacks and Rapid Strikes. Alabaster charges up his favourite Acid Ball while Rashi blasts off half the zombie’s head with a Holy Bolt. More zombies head forward, crawling past and attacking Worrell, but missing with each swipe. Crow, now next to a zombie, stabs it with her Feather in the skull killing it by doing 8 points of impaling damage.

The next round and Worrell burrows through another zombie, his flame killing it. Keel-Breaker, not to be outdone, slams a zombie’s face off with his anchor and defeats another zombie with his anchor. Alabaster throws an acid ball at a zombie, causing the last little sizzle to kill it. Rashi’s next Holy Bolt gets dodged while the zombie attempts to attack Worrell, missing with their swipes as he dodges. Worrell, tired of the game, takes out another zombie and severely wounds another which Keel-Breaker finishes off by tearing off an arm with a roll of 19 cutting damage.

The fight finished they move into what looks like an encampment with an old rat still roasting on a stick. Off of the encampment on a hallway, Crow sees a statue of Zytarrin the Slayer, a demon of Slaughter. It almost immediately animates and comes down towards Keel-Breaker attacking with 6 scimitar swings, but is parried or blocked each time.

Keel-Breaker blocks and parries the attacks while Worrell uses his new collar to cast Fast-Fire on himself. Redmane charges forwards and has his pike parried. Alabaster knows that it’s a demon possessed Statue and charges up his Acid Ball, getting a crit of 5 allowing him a free Acid Ball up to his Magery level worth, 12d corrosive damage, as long as he waits the full time of three seconds. Rashi begins to pray loudly as Crow stabs at the statue, her daggers parried several times.

In exchange, the statue levies three attacks on both Crow and Keel-Breaker, breaking his sword on the wall with a critical failure roll of 18 and then rolls a 4 on the miss table. Crow barely manages to dodge the blows while Keel-Breaker blocks and parries the blows. Redmane stabs his pike at one of the statue’s hands, breaking it off leaving it with only 4 weapons left. Worrell runs around the back while Keel-Breaker’s attack is parried by the statue. Alabaster, while charging his Acid Ball, identifies that it’s an avatar that was sent down since it was ticked by their slaying of the zombie goblins. Rashi finishes his rather short prayer to the Eternal Flame (rolling a MoS of 3 for the petition roll, and gets a Very Good reaction) causing a pillar of white flame to descend from the ceiling and bathe it in white light. The statue continues to parry attacks from Crow’s blender of knives.

The statue strikes out at Keel-Breaker who parries it while Worrell comes up from behind and tears out the neck of the statue, breaking the neck and burning it. It and its weapons turns to dust which Keel-Breaker gathers. Crow and Alabaster work together to try to find anything hidden in the hallways, but can’t see anything. Finally they just pile all the zombie’s long knives in a crate and leave it by the entrance. Crow slips out and scouts out the location, she finds an area with several portraits that catch her gaze and leaves her dazed. Keel-Breaker, Rashi, and Worrell follow them in and get dazed by the artwork. Redmane manages to spike one painting, but they move to the next discussing composition and colour choices between each other.

Redmane manages to grab Rashi and pull him out where he then casts Create Fire and Shape Fire and then burns the paintings. Free from the influence of berets and little cheese trays, they look around the area, heading south and finding a trapped door with more paintings within. Crow blocks it off while Rashi burns the paintings. It’s art and must be destroyed.

To the south is another closed door with a summoning circle, a pentagram trap is on the door and when they open it, they’re confronted with several Demons of Old seemingly trapped inside a circle of glowing magic dust that keeps them there. He asks for Keel-Breaker to close the door and then starts chanting an exorcism. During the exorcism they hear a stomping noise coming towards them from a northern hallway, another Demon of Old comes along.

It throws its chain, crippling Alabaster’s hand and forcing him to nearly dropped his 12d Acid Ball that he’s been holding for the past hour. Keel-Breaker slashes into the Demon and slams his anchor into the demon’s pelvis, breaking it and causing the demon to fall down. Alabaster throws his 12d Acid Ball at the demon, burrowing into his chest for 41 points of corrosion damage with Crow dealing the finishing blow by throwing her Feather into his chest through the hole that the acid left, stabbing it in the heart with a critical blow roll of 5 and then a roll of 15 causing maximum normal damage. Keel-Breaker immediately grabs the chain for himself and then butchers the demon, pulling out its heart. Rashi, not bothered by the fight behind him, exorcises the 4 demons within the room. With that done, Rashi Lays on Hands on Alabaster and heals his crippled hand.

Moving back to the painting gallery, they move south into a second hallway and check a door for traps. It looks clear at least. At least until Keel-Breaker opens the door and activates an evil rune burning his hand which Rashi had to heal. Smelling blood throughout the next room, the floor is coated in it. There’s something in there that looks like a skinned demon dripping blood everywhere. Several rolls of Occultism and Hidden Lore (Demon Lore), they learn it’s called a Bloodborne, an unliving demon. It’s got the ability to draw blood from victims dealing massive damage while ignoring DR, they’ve got to resist it.

Redmane steps forwards and swaps to a dueling halberd and shield while Worrell goes all out with his Fast Fire collar, dealing 12 times more damage with his burning aura. Keel-Breaker slashes through a Bleeder’s neck causing horrible damage but the unliving demon still stands. Alabaster uses his Wild Talent and starts charging up an Explosive Lightning (getting a critical success on Wild Talent he immediately learns the spell and doesn’t have the -2 penalty for use). Crow activates her Ring of Speed for Altered Time Rate 1 and rushes into the room after activating Blackout on the Bloodborne and slashing at it, missing twice. It doesn’t seem too bothered by the issue. Rashi prays out for aid while Keel-Breaker has 4 HP pulled from him by the Bloodborne.

Redmane slashes the neck of the bleeder, but it dodges. Worrell charges forwards leaping through a bleeder causing it to evaporate with 23 cutting damage and 96 burning damage before attempting to fight the Bloodborne but it’s dodged. Several Bleeders attack Keel-Breaker and get their arms slashed off. One Bleeder manages to attack Keel-Breaker with a critical roll of 3 and critical hit table roll of 16 dealing 12 cutting damage to his left leg, starting to bleed from the wound. Keel-Breaker moves to remove the offending arm but the attack is dodged. Alabaster throws his Explosive Lightning, dealing only 9 damage to several, but possibly no injury. Crow stabs with her knives, blinding the Bloodeborne and then stabbing the Bleeder behind the big guy blinding it as well.

Hearing Rashi’s failed prayer, the blind Bloodborne charges forwards brushing against Worrell and immediately exploding into flame and blood with 72 burning damage. Worrell, not one to let such a small thing affect him, immediately turns and explodes another two Bleeders, one of which was hit with 27 cutting damage and 108 burning damage. Keel-Breaker parries one of their attacks and hacks off their hands with critical success rolls. Alabaster charges up another Acid Ball with a critical roll of 5 and takes the offered Missile Spell Mastery for it.  Crow moves forwards to stab the blinded Bleeder in the back, killing it and then moving over stabbing two more Bleeders once each, taking both. Redmane stabs forwards killing the one in front of Keel-Breaker with critical hit rolls of 5 and 4, obliterating it with a combined 64 points of cutting damage. Worrell burrows through another Bleeder, burning it to a crisp while one tries to attack Crow through the darkness. Worrell doesn’t even bother to dodge attacks coming in at it, taking it on the chin and instead watch as the Bleeders burn themselves on his aura, rolling the lowest burn damage in the fight at 48 burning damage.

Keel-Breaker moves forwards and attacks the darkness, ripping the face off of the Bleeder, killing it. Alabaster spends a turn aiming his Acid Ball while Crow attacks two opponents in the Blackout Radius, stabbing them both twice and killing one of them. Worrell finishes off the last Bleeder inside the darkness with lucky strikes.

Aftermath

Once they butcher the unliving demons, they search the room finding a chest in the corner, finding three potion bottles, a sword that looks like it’s made from blood, a ring, what looks like a charcoaled stick, a carpet, some boots, and that’s it. The group takes some time to stow and identify things.

After Action Report (GM)

And we swing the other way – the PCs absolutely mopped the floor with what I thought would be a trying encounter. Also, Fast-Fire with 12 FP spent is absolute murder when you have a fire elemental ally. Like seriously. The badger just destroyed half the bad guys by himself. Part of that was me forgetting his aura hurt those who moved through his hex and the other way it getting 4 attacks per second. The PCs also ended up in the final boss room, because, hey, C-Team. They can’t do anything in the right order. Sigh. Overall, fun was had and that is what counts.

Other Notes

Fast-Fire is getting house-ruled. Yup. I haven’t decided how yet, but it’s getting a nerf. That bloody badger was just toasting enemies left and right.