Solo Session 6; To Cleanse the Valley take two.

 Session; Played out on October 18th 2023, played over two days. 

Finally finished putting together the next solo group and it is as follows;

1st level fighter Rico of Areos.

1st level mage Lorenzo the Luminous (my first character to get a +2 bonus on intelligence.) (Sleep+Detect Magic)

1st level mage Synope the Spiteful. (Sleep)

1st level mage Lexius No-Name. (Sleep+Charm Person.)

1st level cleric Bede (a weirdly healthy fellow of 8hp)

1st level cleric Syro the Seventh.

Given Bede’s preeminent wisdom, he has decided to assemble a party of adventurers to go to the valley of Slaughter and make sure that it is cleansed.  The exact state of the old cults is unknown, but it is known that the valley was visited by two fighters of lawful reputation who have not returned.  While they are positive interpretations that the cleric could put on it, he has decided to just go over and ensure things have gone well.  The mages, naturally, are less interested in this, but are invested in personal development and that regretfully pulls them from their books and learning, as they need funds to power their unnatural ambitions.  Rico the fighter’s motivations are his own, perhaps he seeks atonement for stain on his past?  Who can say.  More importantly, the party sets out.  With passable luck they find their way and enter the forest in high spirits on the morning of the 18th of October. Later in the day they break into the hills and notice that it has rained a bit here. They make camp uneventfully having marched about 8 miles.  The night passes uneventfully (I don’t think there are rules for night encounters at camps, but if someone has page number for this that would be nice.)

In the morning they get lost, but end up going the right way anyway (following the labelling of zones around where they are) so we will double their time in the zone.  Despite this, they arrive uneventfully at the Valley of Slaughter.   9 nesting fire beetles remain where they nested when the fighters came this way, but the party is surprised by this. However, the Fire beetles, for reasons unknown, make buzzing noises of happiness at the surprised party and make no attempt to molest them as they near the open door. (Weirdly positive reaction roll of 12.)

The party enters the narrow hallway and follows it without incident down into the first open door. They see a strange sight. Two bodies as though in rigid combat stand, swords upraised and around them 9 Striges burst and rotting as though smitten for a fell deed.  (Note; when restocking I rolled that they came across something unusual. This seems… unusual.). The priests made signs of their faith at the sight and noted the dark altars and blood pits and partially charred bones.  

The mages and fighter then turn to guard the door while the worthy Bede and the somewhat less impressive Syro prepare to cleanse the place and bring it back into the light. Sadly, even these two clerics are unable to bless the altars to make them permanently unusable, but their trusty maces and elbow grease provide an excellent stoppage solution. Thus decided they set about smashing and breaking things. It will take them over an hour to accomplish this and it is not quiet, but the mages and fighter are standing and waiting for anything to come through the door.  

Unsurprisingly, the smashing of the altar brings up the curious from the depths.  3 morlocks, two of the common sort and one champion, but they are uncertain in the daylight and surprised by the larger numbers. Lorzenso the Luminous immediately casts Sleep and lets his willpower make itself felt. Surprisingly, the ordinary two make the save and remain on their feet, while the champion falls.  Synope then spitefully casts his own Sleep. Both again resist, showing unnatural albino willpower,  or is it class solitary?  Who can say.   Rico steps forward to end this embarrassment and cuts one down. He then cleaves (D20+5) the last standing Morlock is utterly slain.  Rico then takes the next turn to stab the sleeping Morelock and begin the looting process. 

They find…

14 copper pieces.

A bent and crooked silver piece.

1 trinket of unknown value. 

And nothing else of value.  (I really feel like I am not getting this treasure chart yet, but we keep going.)

Having thus gathered their meager pickings, the four take up guard again and waited for anything else. Nothing comes for a while, but then a new challenger(s?) approaches. Three giant ferrets come speeding down the hallways of the interior towards the mace sounds.  The mages and fighters nervously prepare for battle, but the giant ferrets make pleased chuckles (I watched a few youtube videos of happy ferrets and this seems the most accurate term) at the breaking of the altars, look on for a few moments and then disappear out of the hallway, with the bodies of the morlocks in tow. (Weird 12 check on relations.)

Just as the altar is completely broken up (an hour and ten minutes of work have elapsed) a new danger appears. Three men appear from the outside of the tunnel (due to the location I have ruled them to be a Chaotic party and likely key cultists).  One wears the robes of a dark god, patterned in dark images, a silver robed mage and a nondescript figure of unknown class (thief) they are all at level 2. 

Neither side is surprised and no words are exchanged as initiative is sought. (Well, at least after I work out their character sheets… And these are some of the best characters have yet rolled up.)

. 

(Relevant map)

The evil cleric shouts out a war cry and rushes forward in a cry, mace raised high. And misses, badly.  Synope the Spiteful, out of spells, steps behind the corner and covers his head in his hands (he has 1 hp, bravery is unsuitable.). Lexius summons charm person and fires off his sleep spell at the mage and thief. Both of them immediately collapse onto the ground into a pile.  Lorenzo tries to knock the dark cleric down with a splitting crack at his ankles. Unsurprisingly, the mage’s special maneuver is unsuccessful as he is a pathetic mage. Syro and Bede move closer, but do not engage.  Rico having got his head in the game goes for the head. It utterly finishes the cleric off with a single stroke.  The magical sleep holds and Rico, kills the two wicked cultists where they lay. 

Rico’s haul.

6 silver.

2 ornaments of unknown value. 

4 trinkets of unknown value. 

A mace, a dagger and a staff.  Also the cleric's armor and four weeks of iron rations that have not been ruined by the spilled blood. 

These are collected and the swords and gold of the fallen lawful fallen fighters (these last are set aside to be sent back to their families.). The party then ventures deeper.  The door to room 3 is closed and the party bypasses it for now, Rico leading the way. There is no door into room three and the party enters. As they walk in, an arrow snaps out of a wall and zips towards Rico. It skitters off the rim of his shield, but no damage is done.  They spend some time in the open room and see nothing of interest.  So they return to the closed door, but it is too sturdy to open and they have no proficiencies that would aid in breaking the door down. Bede, ever wise, determines it is time to go home.  

They march back to their camp and spend the night there.  In morning they begin marching back to Punishment, or so they think.  Sadly, they are lost and heading south west through the hills. After some (2) hours they realize that they are on the wrong side of the Mountains of Catsum and they revert course.  As they pass their camp they see where they went off course and head in the proper direction slowly and steadily. They meet nothing while nearing the next set of hills and almost immediately before coming to a camp, they run into trouble.  Worse, they were surprised by  basilisks.  Two of them.  Worse, they long for human flesh.  

They rush forward and catch Syro the Seventh eye as they come forward. He takes ten damage and is turned into a statue. 

The party attempt flight, but they fail evasion!  The first of the monsters surges forward, not catching anyone’s eye, but he is now closer.  The other also gets closer and avoiding looking over their shoulder to avoid being a second, less healthy companion for Lot. 

The party keeps running, but cannot get away yet.  Synope mutters about casting Sleep on himself so that his death will not be so painful.  The Monsters get closer as the party keeps running.  They finally escape in a random direction and by this time it is too late to travel.  

In the morning they quickly find their direction and make their way back towards the legate’s town. As they go into the woods they meet a group berserkers, who at 150 yards declare wild statements of death and began coming forward. Neither side is surprised.  There are 31 of them, so naturally, the party attempt to escape. With an effective roll of 23 we escape this potentially overwhelming force.  It takes the rest of the day to get into town. 

5 trinkets are of fine wood which, I think we can actually identify it here, is 2000 gp value.  The ornamentals are recognized to be turquoise of 50 gp value (together.). The mace found early has a wobbly head.  The dagger is off balance and while the staff is in good condition.  The food is kept in bags. 

So this should (I think) work out to 148 xp from combat experience, (Morlocks+Cultists) and 2050 xp from the discovered goods (not counting the goods brought back from the lawful fighters.). This turns out to be 2198 xp, divided by 5.  Which is 436 per person, with Lexius, Bede and Rico lucking out on 457.  Luminous gets a neat 479.  I am not sure if accomplishing their goal of busting the altar should be counted as something.  They still need to cover it in holy water, to finish the job, but that will be in a few days.  

Overall Feel, Lore and the Like. 

Starting to get the hang of larger combat, and get a feel for fights that can’t be taken.  Sleep alternates from being terrifying to useless really quickly, due to the HD requirements to even attempt it.  I kind of want to have the mages do spell research on something more effective for the high value monsters, but that is a lot of gold for now.