New Party Member!! Nohelp: gnome wizard, possesses the Gnomish Book of Truth, an encylopaedic tome harbouring many secrets. Abhors bloodshed. Crafts and freely distributes home-made scented candles. (AndyB)
Session #2
Nohelp joins the party as they complete their long rest. He is introduced to the party and their grieving henchman. Ulric has carefully transferred his brother's ashes into a small pouch. Nohelp offers Ulric a peach scented candle to help calm his troubled spirit.
The party head north, passed the trapped fountain and into parts unknown. The ceiling is riddled with cracks and crevasses. Three giant centipedes emerge from the fractured stone; one drops down onto Lightfingers McGee, clinging to his back with hundreds of scrabbling legs. Sir Aifer hacks the giant insect in half! The other two critters are still scuttling around on the ceiling. Elouard casts Earth, causing part of the ceiling to collapse. The centipedes are crushed beneath falling rubble.
Once the dust settles, the party head south. They find a statue of a four-armed, bipedal lizard man with a horn on its nose. It appears to be guarding a dish filled with silver! Lightfingers disarms a pressure plate beneath the bowl and takes the treasure. Nohelp sketches the statue and claims it depicts an ancient race of space-faring saurian conquerers called the Rhiceroros.
Beyond the statue is a dead end, containing a cistern full of fresh, potable water. Sir Aifer pushes Lightfingers into the water for a larf. Lightfingers will remember this....
The party head north and enter a cavernous space, dimly illuminated by glowing moss, growing across the walls and ceiling of the cave. A kobold work crew are busy harvesting the glowing lichen. Nohelp and Lightfingers both speak Draconic and initiate conversation with the kobolds. The kobolds explain they are harvesting moss to make luminous liquor (it gets you pissed, and makes your urine glow in the dark)! The kobolds invite the party to visit Kobold Korners (in the south-eastern section of this dungeon level), a neutral trading post where monstrous races and adventuring parties mingle freely. They also warn the party that a dragon lairs to the north of their current position. Nohelp offers the kobolds a scented candle as a symbol of their blossoming intimacy, the kobolds reciprocate by offering him a grappling hook, and the two groups part ways as unlikely friends.
The party turn south and encounter a sealed stone portal. Lightfingers picks the lock. The party enter a dusty crypt. While Nohelp takes some rubbings, Lightfingers locates a secret door and a chest brimming with (9,000!!!) silver, plus some assorted jewellery and potions. Perhaps disturbed by this desecration of their tomb, eight skeletons rise from their biers to attack the party! Nohelp casts Mirror, creating a half-dozen illusory copies of himself. Suddenly, the dungeon is very crowded! A skeleton claws Aifer's face for middling damage. Aifer responds with a Blast spell that blackens bone. Lightfingers produces the jar of green slime from his pack and hurls it, melting two skeletons into a puddle of caustic gloop. Elouard casts Earth, causing a deep fissure to open in the floor of the crypt. The remaining skeletons fall to their doom, but now the party are separated by a 20ft chasm!
Lightfingers, Elouard and SQM cross the rift by edging along a narrow shelf of crumbling stone. Sir Aifer refuses to abandon the heavy chest of silver and contrives an unlikely plan to convey his prize across the pit. To cut a long story short, he ends up dangling from a rope, beneath the broken chest, pelted by a deluge of silver coins, the vast majority of which disappear into the yawning abyss below his feet.
"Shame they weren't gold coins," SQM says, "Then that would have been a golden shower."
The party haul Aifer up. They decide to check out the lair of this 'dragon' the kobolds alluded to, and send Lightfingers ahead to scout. Since he cannot see in the dark (and a torch would reveal his position), he covers himself in glowing moss. The cave extends northward. Lightfingers finds (read: nearly tumbles into) a stone well descending to the next level of the mega-dungeon. Continuing to explore, the rogue encounters a pool of dark water. Something huge and scaly surfaces from the depths. Lightfingers flees, and the beast gives chase! The party withdraw from the 'dragon's' den and wait for it to lose interest and go away. The beast does not pursue them into the dungeon.
The party head north from the room where they fought the centipedes. They find a storeroom filled with dusty tat. Nohelp is appalled to learn the party have not even issued Ulric with a bedroll, let alone a weapon or armour. He gives the hireling his dagger. Ulric runs his finger along the blade and casts a murderous glance towards Lightfingers McGee.
Lightfingers finds and disarms a pit trap. The party encounter another two kobold janitors resetting a trap. Flattered by Nohelp's interest in their craft, they explain how pressure plates in the floor trigger the rotating arrow trap.
"You mean this pressure plate?" Lightfingers asks, hitting it with his 10ft pole.
The trap activates, firing off arrows in a 360' arc. The party hit the deck. Elouard is hit in the thigh. The kobolds are unscathed. They are more annoyed about having to reset the trap AGAIN than about nearly being killed. Nohelp notices the kobokds have a special key that opens up the traps inner-gubbinz. He trades a liquorice scented candle for the key. The party are about to move on, when Nohelp notices Ulric clutching his side. Blood seeps between his fingers as he collapses to the floor, an arrow protruding from his abdomen!
TBC
