Timberlands Campaign, Session 15: It's A Recap!

March 2, Caudex Annales, 71 AUP
The party regrouped in the idol chamber, descending one at a time through the trap door above. The choices were forward into the chamber with the recently-expired leeches, or backward into the room with the intellect devourer. Everyone felt curious enough about the latter direction to backtrack, but moved carefully through the room with the half-dozen odd nozzle fixtures in the walls, sensing a trap. Walking through the room one at a time didn't seem to set anything off, however.

The room beyond was full of dead rats, the aftermath of the swarm used to drive off the intellect devourer. (The massively powerful fire elemental warrior had dispatched it with a single blow upon entering.) The room didn't "detect" as a trap in any formal sense (i.e., a trigger), but the presence of multiple pipes, valves, and faucet apertures around the perimeter left little doubt that it was intended to be flooded and drained in a controlled way.

Sure enough, the moment everyone was inside the room, the heavy entry door sung shut. Shayna made a dash for the entrance in bird form, but was caught inside even as the door slammed over one wing, pinning her in place. The room rapidly began to fill as water poured from the pipes.

Drainage issues are a common dungeon design problem.

The dwarves attempted to bash through the bulkhead of stone, while Brand the elemental warrior pushed into the room beyond. The dungeon-bashing attempt made some moderate progress (a small exit hole that allowed a single person to crawl through at once), but the unoccupied far-corner room turned out to present a bigger problem -- the enormous vaulted ceiling was a starfield of unfamiliar constellations enchanted with some kind of ritual magic, and disembodied chanting in an ancient language echoed from the walls. Brand entered and promptly went insane, charging back to attack his own party (with all his ridiculous damage output).

The entire party took down the enraged newcomer, fortunately with no casualties, but unfortunately only after lots of fire-generated steam had turned the room into a sauna above, and the culintary equivalent of hot rat-carcass soup below. At that point, however, the increasingly flooded room filled with strange fog, and the party realized they were not alone. A detection spell reveled the presence of a towering water elemental (in actual fact, a marid in wave-form). Effectively blinded by the obscuring fog, the party staggered around through waist-deep water in an attempt to defeat the creature and/or shut off the water valves. The elemental was quickly cut down to size by dragon-breath, and the closing valves gradually reduced the flood to a trickle.

At the conclusion of the battle, the party backtracked toward the other direction (but only after the dwarves had set off the acid gas trap in the room beyond!) The leech room was drained using a bag of devouring (wait, why didn't they just use that in the first place?!?), and the party detected some kind of illusion-magic altering the apparently smooth appearance of the bare walls. Closer inspection revealed hidden alcoves containing more lurking chuul ambusers! The creatures put up fierce resistance, leaving the party worn and exhausted -- and wondering who would go through so much trouble to transform the lower levels into an overengineered deathpit, and why!

Roster

• Edward Sir Dame Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
• Jeeves, 1st-level butler-paladin
• Zelmar
• Anatolia
• Frigodria Dawnbringer, 5th-level paladin (Reba)
• Insanely OP flaming slayer demigod Brand (Kyle)
• Grurdev Onyxvault, 5th-level dwarven lightbearer (Sion)
• Need to check about henchmen here also (two, I think)...
• Viserion, 5th-level young white dragon (Zac)
• Adonirim, 3rd-level mage
• Shayna, 6th-level shaman (Kim)
• Saltbeard, dwarven pirate (Trefor)

Mercenaries and followers:

• Aksel Steelheart, 9th-level vaultlord
• 10 dwarven lieutenants:
• 4 5th-level vaultguards
• 3 4th-level vaultguards
• 2 3rd-level vaultgaurds
• 2nd-level vaultguard
• 18 fire dwarf infantry
• ~ 90 light-infantry pirate survivors from the defeat of the Charybdis crew in the Saberstrath campaign

Not appearing in this adventure, but potentially available now that everyone is back in the area:

• Ur khla lu khbea, 4th-level gladiator (Jonathan)
• The very young white dragon, Namazu, reporting back on the frost giants
• Sir Rock Boulder Fist, dwarven 5th-level summoner
• Sir Robin

Retiring, unless they somehow resurface:

• Zalgesh
• Jarrus Velt, 5th-level thief
• Thorvald, 6th-level spy (Zac's Mom's PC, not a henchman)
• Togast, 6th-level skinscribe (Juston is happily married)
• Tu'a'than, 5th level spriggan

Casualties

Brand the overpowered fire elemental, put down by the rest of the party under influence of madness

To be continued, treasure/experience when if you're ever finally out...