Solo Session 13; If you are happy and you know it, Clap!

 Session 13; Started on the October 26th to October 28th, 2023.

William of Silvans.

Cleric 1st Level. -

Civilius the Weak.

Mage 1st Level.

Polemius the Stout.

Fighter 1st Level.

Semplarius the Ugly.

Thief 1st Level. 

Gaias The Sleeper.

Mage 1st Level.

Bill The Silent.

Explorer 1st Level. 

(+2 hunting dogs and 1 mule.)

The party outfitted and equipped set out, to the Grave of Fell Heroes. Somehow, despite the presence of an explorer and the dungeon being almost in sight of the gates of the town, the party gets lost.  Probably Bill stayed silent, out of fear of correcting his social betters.  To the confusion of the rest of the group they head back to Punishment.  Sometime of confusion later, they decide to go out again.  They successfully reach the entrance of the dungeon.  Semplarius is sent forward to check for traps.  None are discovered. The entrance room is empty, even the ashes of Rico and his pyre are gone.  Who is sweeping in here?  The door is checked by the thief and it is found to be locked.  He is instructed to check for traps, but after ten minutes further study, he does not find any and to the annoyance of the others he decides to try and open it with his kit.  After an attempt, he gives up on his key and tries to force it open. Despite straining until his face turns a florid red, he is unable to open the door.  In frustration he begins to go for his axe, but the stout Polemius steps up and tries to open it.  The door makes noises, but it resists.  The party disgusted, the axe is used.  The cavern is filled with the noise of the door being reduced to kindling.  

2000 Silver pieces lay scattered along the floor.  William, looks on in concern and asks the thief to give it a check.  He does and determines to go forward.  This proves to be a mistake as a massive rock rolls out of a side passage and towards the door way.   It hits the  fighter, cleric and thief, who had entered the hallway and they are all crushed down.  The cleric’s legs are crushed before he dies, unable to heal himself.  The same fate happens to the fighter, while the failure of the trap finder is crushed in the spine and immediately dies. 

Sometimes you Indiana Jones the rock traps, and sometimes you do not.

The remaining party collects the silver, the axe, mutters some words for the fallen and then go deeper into the Grave. (I rolled a morale roll, and they very tentatively decided to keep going) As they slowly progress through the hallway they find two doorways. The first is a metal coated door and simply looks too strong for any axe work.  So they smash down the other one, making no attempt to open it regularly.  They explore the much larger room, but find nothing other than an immensely strong metal coated door coated in wizardly glyphs.  Civilius recognizes the glyphs saying, ’stay out light born!’ And more relevantly, ‘clap once to open.’

A brief clapping, and the metallic door swings open.  The room may have once been a study, but the organic matter has long been reduced to dust, earth and mold.  The room is very cautiously explored. Three more doors are found, and they decide to approach directly.  It is also iron, but the same glyphs mark it.  It swings open and they find five strange trinkets among the ruins of the room.  These are quickly stored and the room is explored.  It is irregularly shaped, suggesting construction by a deranged builder. 

As they are studying the far walls, they hear the dogs begin to emit a low growl.  The casters do not have time to react before there many high pitch claps and a group of kobolds enter the room and let out a host of chittering noises.  The Bill the Silent preps his sword, but the kobolds simply leave the room and run away, with hoots of excitement and derision.  The door closes, cutting off their line of sight and the party stands nervously.  Perhaps the kobolds had already found and taken the bodies of their comrades.  There were 11 of them, which Bill cautions is too numerous a force to hunt, so they wait a while, letting their oil burn for a while.  

Having decided they have given the kobolds enough of a head start, after ten nervous minutes they clap once and retrace their steps.  There is no sign of the kobolds and they study the other doors.  One is open, so they carefully go in.  As they walk through the largish room, the dogs begin to growl and they hear the scurrying of little feet.  4 giant ferrets pop up out of the mirk, their eyes reflecting red as they stare forward, Bill the silent takes a step forward and using his knowledge and friendship with all animals, attempts to convince them to return to their burrows and ignore them.  They remain where they are and as the party cannot see any loose treasure, they leave the room.  The mages are not confident of defeating that many targets, especially as they are vicious animals.

Returning to the last unopened door, Bill takes a stance and heaves the door opens with a boom.  The three morlocks standing just in front of the door jump back in surprise, but the party will take this as combat.  Gaias, casts sleep and all three collapse into a pile.  Bill flicks out his long knife and makes short work of the three targets.  They are quickly searched and other than two spears, the party finds 18 silver pieces.  The party then begins to leave, successfully retracing their steps and clapping for the doors. 

On reaching the outside it is very nearly night, but the party decides it is best to force march to Punishment. They spot a troop of Centaur, but they disappeared into the night without speaking or threatening the party.  What they could be doing in this part of the island is, most unusual. 

But the survivors reach Punishment!  They spend the night rejoicing in their survival at a tavern, sleeping/dragging around for the entire next day.  

201 from the coins. 

One bone trinket,  600

A bronze trinket with the words ’slide off like water’ stamped on the plaque and tears on the reverse. 69 gp.

Shell necklace. 90 gp

Other shell necklace. 97 gp 

6 prisms of glass (230 gp value total)

1287 xp from treasure. 

40 xp from the morlocks killed.  

So a total of 1328 xp. 

442 is the average share. 

22

Bill and Gaias each getting 464 while Civilius gets 442.  

While in the tavern Gaias bragged extensively about the ability to open the iron doors by clapping, while the others tried to keep the information to themselves.  Gaias however, wanting to parade his college time, was undeterred and bragged extensively.  All parties that visit the town before the 5th of November will hear about this and also suffer a -1 relation towards Gaias. 

Reflections.

This was really fun.  The rock trap was devastating, but otherwise things went really well.  Future parties will probably try to go for at least two healers, as the thief might have been able to survive had there been healing… but sadly such was not the case.