[DnD] Tomb of Horrors (GFF D&D Adventure X)

1 Die Roll Checkcheckcheck

To be honest, I was now at a total loss as to what to do next. The door was riddled with traps so it must be hiding something really exciting, plus the riddle did kind of hint at that being the way forward but my life as a woodsman had given me exactly no skills in disarming magic traps. Round the corner, the lure of sparkly loot seemed to have over-ridden the little common sense the rest of the Five had, despite it being a) Not theirs and b) as obviously a trap as the chest in the entrance corridor had been.

I stood at the corner of the corridor watching on to see what calamity would befall us next. I was feeling a bit peckish so absent-mindedly took a trail ration from my pack and nibbled away at it, feeding some to Howard who didn't look all that healthier for my attempts at fixing his wing. I used the string that had tied up my ration to fashion a lead for the Goose, I didn't want him running off and injuring himself any further. I tied one end gently round Howard's neck and the other to my wrist. I might not be able to stop Slim from killing himself but I certainly could protect Howard.

As I worked, I cast my mind back to other caves and ruins I had explored on my quest, trying to remember if I had ever seen anything like this before that might help our predicament.

Dungeoneering check, we never use dungeoneering

I was speaking idiomatically.

1 Die Roll chasing shadows

With Gra-Fa-Zut now no longer "assisted" by Slim, and Sam investigating the mace, Garold decided to forge on ahead down the hallway. Garold figured knowing what horrible things were lurking in the creepy dark hallway was probably less terrifying than what his mind would generate for him if he kept staring at the shadows for much longer.

Advance West down hallway, giving the mace and the door a wide berth.
Perception check

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

"If it's any consolation I'm only helping you because you might stumble into some bones I can use. If you just up and died I'd be left lying on the floor for weeks, maybe months until all your gross meaty parts rotted away. I won't touch that stuff. Turns my stomach.

You know what I mean. Hey, what are you — perfectly good booze all over the floor, genius."

I don't understand what you're trying to use Thievery on here, and the Inq. Kit works on Perception so uh Perception check = 27? Not that there's really anything to find!

Garold and Slim trail behind the shamus, the kobold looking much the worse for wear than he had on entering the tomb. There was hardly a spot on him that wasn't bruised, scabby or blistered. He wasn't going to be able to stand up to much more punishment.

As it happens, the corridor abruptly ends only a few feet past the doorway. Bit of a tease, that. The doorway opens onto a brief stairway, which leads down into a square chamber absolutely strewn with bones. A rough pathway, candle-lit, leads through the mounds of skeletal remains toward the golden couch at the south end of the room. A somewhat more intact corpse lies at rest upon the golden couch, clad in rusting scale mail and clutching a broadsword between its leathery hands. A circle of golden runes surrounds the couch, etched into the unfinished stone floor of the chamber (though many of the runes are hidden or obscured by the aforementioned skeleton piles).

"Ho there!"

A confident, manly voice pipes up from the approximate location of the glowing, sparkly mace.

"Hello, gents. Look at your weapons. Now back to me. Now back at your weapons. Now back to me. Sadly, they aren't me. But if you stopped using cheap garbage you found in a gnomish flea market, your weapons could be me. Look down. Back up. Where are you? You're in a tomb, with the mace your weapons could never compare to. What's in your hand? Back at me. I have it. It's an enchanted mace. Look again. The mace is now an intelligent artifact that deals massive damage to the undead. Anything is possible when your mace provides resistance to necrotic damage. I'm on the floor."

The manly mace then whistles a jaunty tune, waiting to be picked up.

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

Beefi stays well back, securing Howard on a tether and ruminating on his past experiences. What could his previous excursions into caves and dungeons tell him about this situation? Well, the most important thing where entering any cave was to keep track of your route and know the way back out. He could scratch that one. Failing that, make use of the natural cave ecology and scavenge for food until an escape route or rescue can be found. A sound principle, but they all had plenty of food and water at the moment. Huh. No interesting subterranean life or unusual geological features to speak of, either. Eventually, they'd stumble into an odd fungus or a cave-in or something, though. And then they'll all be quite glad of his extensive spelunking knowledge, yes indeed!

Gra-fa-zut stands alone in the dark, damp and vaguely forlorn.

FELIPE NO

The situation was becoming increasingly perplexing. We were faced with a massively trapped secret door we had pretty much no chance of disarming, a highly suspicious magic weapon and a room full of corpses just begging to be reanimated, again covered in arcane runes. Quite why the sages had thought it wise to send us down here with no proper wizards I would never understand.

I thought back to the riddle.

Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall. These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul.

Well we'd been past two pits and found the fortuitious fall and checking the wall had revealed a lethal door. Beware of trembling hands could refer to a room full of skeletons coming back to life and what will maul could easily be a reference to the mace on the floor. Maybe I was just over-analysing the whole thing, Slim seemed to have the right idea, think first then act later. Of course he wasn't looking too healthy at present as a result but he had found the way forward on more than one occasion. I was moderately convinced that the highly trapped secret door was the ultimate way forward but whether the other two options would provide a means of opening the door I could not say for certain.

I looked down at Howard. The food seemed to have perked him up a little although his wing still looked rather sore. I had no particular desire to enter the room full of bodies and Howard looked like he agreed. Instead, we wandered over towards the mace looking around for the source of the strange voice. I asked Slim if I could borrow his handy pole and used it to nudge the mace, looking to see if it moved at all without either bringing the corridor down around it or transmogrifying into a demon or something.

Go investigate the source of the voice, borrow pole, poke mace.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

2 Dice Rolls Murray u mad?

Well, a wall was certainly less scary than what Garold had been imagining. He wasn't particularly eager to enter the room full of dead things though. With the hidden door still guarded by six trap runes (if Murray could be trusted) Garold decided the least dangerous thing to do was to investigate the mace. He wasn't brave enough to pick it up, but at least since it could talk it could be interrogated.

Hello talking magic mace thing. How did you end up on the floor way down here?

Questioning the mace's lack of mobility made him realize a similarity.

Hey Murray, it's another talking inanimate object! You two can be best of pals! Well, unless that whole "bane of the undead" thing it mentioned is a problem for you.

Insight check on magic mace to see if it seems truthful.
Insight check on Murray to see if he hates the mace.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I smirked at Murray's comment. Well, that settles the age old debate about whether or not the undead retain a sense of taste. I turned my attention to the mace.

"So, what? I just pick you up and then everything's jake? Well, in response to that...'



After I finished laughing, I approached a safe distance from the magic door, and searched the walls for any sort of trip trap or secret. If none were found, I backed up a bit and unloaded my Dragon FP into the bloody thing's hinges. I'd sooner blow up a door than go near that coffin. Also, I had all this gunpowder just sitting here doing nothing.



There's nowhere I can't reach.

"Why poke me?", chuckles the mace casually. "I'm just a charming, attractive mace. Come, lift me up. Swan dive into the best fights of your lives."

"How did I arrive here? I don't know! Perhaps some brave, handsome rogue dropped me here. Perhaps I just love the smell of adventure."

Despite the evident lack of any nostrils, the mace audibly takes a deep whiff of the tomb's unique bouquet.

"Ah, yes. Bracing."

"HOOOOOONK."

The mace seems more-or-less honest, though of course it lacks all the body language and facial expressiveness that usually indicate such things.

Murray, however, responds to the presence of the mace with little other than a continual low hiss until Sam carries him away to take potshots at the trapped door.

"It is a problem, yes, in the sense that if that thing even touches me I may very well explode. Explode! Into a million little pieces! Bone fragments everywhere. In your eyes! In your teeth! Between your toes! Imagine the horror of it!"

Garold's insightful question subtly reveals the truth: Murray does hate the mace. He hates it so much.

Sam unloads a few rounds into the trapped door, but nothing much seems to happen. The damned thing hasn't got any hinges to speak of, and the slugs don't seem to make much of an impression of the door's surface. Likely it's just a stone slab like all the other hidden doors in the tomb.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

1 Die Roll holy rollin

Slim eyeballs the mace suspiciously and thinks back on his religious training. Surely a sentient weapon designed to slay the undead must have caused something of a stir amongst the paladin and cleric community.

Not having eyes and all I don't suppose you've seen anything relevant to getting us through this door have you?

Religion check on mace.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I was surprised at how cautious the others were being about the magic mace. Obviously I had little experience of such things so my reticence was obvious but the others were all hardened warriors, I would have thought any one of them would jump at the chance to wield a mighty magic weapon like the mace claimed to be.

I knew I shouldn't touch it.

It had to be a trap, everything in this tomb was a trap. On top of that, it didn't belong to me and touching other people's things isn't a nice thing to do. Despite that though, my natural curiousity, given to me by milennia of evolution of my species, would not let me leave it alone. I had no desire to own it as a weapon or to own it at all in fact, I just wanted, no needed to know what would happen if I picked it up.

Offering up a pre-emptive prayer for forgiveness, I picked up the mace.

Pick up mace

I was speaking idiomatically.

Slim was not a man with a great depth of ecclesiastical knowledge. But he did have a keen interest in hitting things and making them explode, and this particular mace was the center of many an intriguing rumor amongst similarly violent types. Granted, the things it caused to explode were generally already dead, but the visual effect was largely the same. Slim had never really expected to lay eyes on it, though: it was considered a red herring by most, consecrated as it supposedly was to a god that most people agreed had never actually existed. Saint Cuthbert, it was said; a god of justice, who punished the unjust by beating them about the head and neck. But if such a deity had ever existed, it was long before the lives of anyone present today.

Before Slim could relay this information to the rest of the Five, Beefi had already lifted the fabled weapon from its resting place.



"Ha-HA!" whooped the mace, ancient dust falling from it in sheets as it glowed ever brighter. "Aren't you the noble one, hesitant even to steal from the venerable dead. I think we do well to work together. I recall little of the last to wield me, but if I lay abandoned there then surely his faith was... insufficient.

I know no more of the traps here than you do, kobold, and likely less. I do see, but as you can imagine I've had nothing interesting to look at for quite some time. But enough talk. Let us crush evil."

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I opened my eyes, more than a little surprised to see my hand was still attached to my arm. The mace felt odd in my grip, probably because I was unused to wielding weapons at all, let alone powerful magic ones. I was a little concerned by the mace's words though.

"Stealing? Why no, I was not stealing you from anyone. I have no intention of keeping you in fact dear boy, what use would a magic mace be to a simple woodsman such as myself? To be perfectly honest with you, we're in a bit of a pickle. You see we're supposed to be down here to stop some liche or vampire or something from raising an army of the undead only we've got terribly turned around in all these corridors and the place is practically bursting at the seams with traps. There's a big old door back there that I think is probably the way to go but it's got more bally curses on it than a gypsy swearing contest and a room full of corpses down there that we've yet to investigate yet but again, is probably just a big trap. As I'm sure you can appreciate, a magic, talking mace lying around on the floor was more than a little suspicious so nothing personal dear boy but I assumed you were part of a fiendish deathtrap yourself.

Anyhow, doesn't look liek you are and if you've been here a long time as you say, I don't suppose your owner will be coming back any time soon. How's this for an idea? I'll take you with us for now then as soon as we're through with this little jaunt I'll hand you over to the first Church of St Cuthbert we come across.

My name's Beefi by the way. The little angry looking chap over there is Slim, the hobbit in the hat is Sam and his talking skull is called Murray. The wolfish looking gentleman is Garold and the quiet elemental is called Grapefruit I think, he doesn't say much. Oh yes, this is Howard, he's a goose".

Introductions over and confident that I was commiting a righteous act by retrieving the mace, I took the only obvious option available to us and headed down into the room full of bodies for a closer look at the throne.

FELIPE NO

1 Die Roll Bluffing an inanimate object

I thought I had it. Maybe. It had worked before, at least. I had been pondering and pondering on the door quandary that I had simply completely missed my companions leaving the area. As a last-ditch effort, I said "In order to buy it I had to go into this bizarre little store. I mean, I don't think they'd swept the floor in a decade, and I bet the staff had to have taken unhelpfulness lessons. And there was a big greasy guy behind the counter who seemed really amused that I was like, female, and asking for this comic. He said it wasn't very collectable. Then he said they didn't normally see breasts as small as mine in his store, and all these guys laughed. I wanted you to be there so badly. You would have said something to him that would have blistered his ears and curled his toes and made him feel like he was six inches high. I just blushed and left, mad on the inside. Here you go.

Oh yeah. And here... I thought you'd like it. It's Tacky Flamingo, or whatever it's called. Your favorite color." I hoped that I had conveyed that I possibly knew how to open the door to the door, and waited just long enough to see if anything happened before turning down the corridor to join my fellows in the room at the other end.

Bluff check

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

8 Dice Rolls skeletons init

The door listens to Gra-fa-zut's soliloquy with the quiet patience that you can only really get from a door. This wasn't the first time his companions had left him behind, and the door was really a lovely contrast to their boorish ways. At length he reached the end of his explanation, and the door seemed to rattle around in the wall for a bit before issuing a quite-undoorlike moan. Confused and scared, the secret door waddled backward away from Gra-fa-zut and cowered in a corner of the room it was meant to be guarding.

Of course, Gra-fa-zut himself saw none of this, standing alone in the darkness as he was. But he did detect a strange thumping sound, and the rush of stale air escaping from the room beyond. What lay within remained a mystery (dark as it was), but the genasi quickly identified the distinct odors of rotting flesh and hot cheese. Or perhaps hot flesh and rotting cheese. The bubbling sound Beefi had reported was more audible now, too. Perhaps someone was preparing a lovely fondue.


—————


"Murray, is it? That's a good name for... him." The mace's cheerful voice dips into a low snarl of contempt when discussing the talking skull, but its hearty mood quickly recovers. "Kind of you to offer, but I don't think Cuthbert has any churches anymore. That's the problem with being dead, everyone just stops paying attention to you. Now let's get down there and — oh. Don't have to tell you twice."

As soon as Beefi steps foot in the recessed sepulchre, the leathery corpse at rest upon the golden couch abruptly sits upright, swinging its legs to the side and springing to its feet. Skeletal warriors leap out of the bonepiles just as suddenly. Cradling a musty tome in its left arm and a snake-headed scepter in its right hand, the dead thing carelessly allows its rusty sword to fall useless to the floor.

"YOU BEAT EVERYONE!", shouts the long-dead magus, his booming voice much louder than is really necessary in the cramped confines of the tomb. "BEAT ME, AND YOU CAN LEAVE! COME AND DIE."

The Five have a few free moments to act before the living dead become a real threat; despite their quickness to spring to life, the old bones are unused to movement.

"I AM A SLOWPOKE", the magus proclaims in dismay. Howard honks. It is a mocking honk, triumphal.

Defenses:
Corpse Magus AC 26 Fort 24 Ref 22 Will 26
Skeletal Legionnaires AC 23 Fort 20 Ref 20 Will 18

Sam 30, Garold 17, Uxig 17, Gra-fa-zut 16, Beefi 12, Skeletal Legionnaires 11, Corpse Magus 7

Jam it back in, in the dark.

"But.... but the door finally open- COME ON!"

I sighed and moved my full speed, one could say I double moved, towards the stupid undead and away from the really interesting door thing.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

2 Dice Rolls nacho's bitch!

A delicious and familiar smell floated towards Slim just as the pile of bones started yelling.

Man I haven't had zombie nacho's in ages! Lets make this quick so we can hit the concession stand.

Run and use shifty to AD-90 ranged basic against Skeletal Legionnaire at AI-87

Intimidate a skeleton if ones in range

Hey you! Fetch me some nacho's and I won't set you on fire! THIS IS A LIMITED TIME OFFER ACT NOW!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

1 Die Roll BZZZZZZZZZZ

Garold showed the undead magus that he wasn't afraid by boldy striding toward him. That was the plan anyway. He made it five feet and then decided bravery was overrated.

Move south 1 square to get into 15 square throw range

Garold recalled the unfortunate incident with Murray and the traitorous wasps, and infused his spear with bee spirits. Bees were bros.

Biting Swarm on magus

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

"Thank you, old man. We've heard quite enough from you already!" I shouted, running to join the fight.

Move as far as I can to get into the room this turn

How ya doing, buddy?

1 Die Roll Intimidate

It seems as though my bravado might have got me into trouble again. I found myself rather exposed in the room alone, surrounded by the recently re-animated corpses of the long-time dead.

My natural instinct was to beat a retreat to the relative safety of the rest of the group but I could hear they were already hurrying in towards me and I didn't want to make a bad impression in front of my new friend the mace and Howard.

I took a couple of steps back up the stairs in the name of regrouping with the rest of the Five and assumed what I hoped was a suitably heroic-looking pose of grim defiance whilst secretly really hoping that none of the undead nasties would come anywhere near me.

Move north a couple of steps, full defence and try to intimidate magus

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

13 Dice Rolls *Achoo

"Nachos?" The skeleton looks around desperately. "Paolo! Hey! You've got some nachos, right? Help me out here." The skeleton to his left responds with disgust. "First of all, Dave, that's racist. Secondly, although I did bring some nachos when I came in here that was at least 50 years ago."

Dave emits a terrified squeak, glancing from Paolo to Uxig and back again, before promptly collapsing back into the bone pile. "¡No huyas, pendejo!", shouts Paolo, as Uxig's hammer whirls past his head. "Hijo de puta!"

"Tu madre chupa la polla Orcus!", Murray cheerfully remarks. "I'm negotiating!", he confides to Sam.

The nine remaining legionnaires pull javelins from their quivers in eerie synchronicity, stepping toward the center of the room. "The negotiations have broken down", Murray sorrowfully reports. Four of the javelins hurtle into Slim; the skeletons have apparently taken his attempt to frighten them rather personally.

28 damage to Slim; marked by Skeleton E (Blue)

"THIS TOMB WILL BE YOUR GRAVE!", thunders the magus. "Tomb? You guys always told me this was a sepulcher", Paolo mutters. "It's all the same shit", hisses another skeleton. "They're synonyms."

The magus strides imperiously toward Slim, throwing open his dusty tome and reading aloud from the vile curses within. Despite his normally fearless nature, the sight of the decaying thing approaching him throws Slim into a mild panic — too busy deciding between fight and flight to make a competent attempt at either.

15 psychic damage to Slim; bloodied, immobilized and -2 to attack for 1 round

With the ridiculous kobold out of the way, the magus turns his attentions to Beefi — and that offensive cudgel. The magus levels his scepter in the minotaur's direction, and the serpent's head spits out a vile spray of toxic filth. It settles on Beefi's armor without much effect.

Sam, Garold, Uxig, Gra-fa-zut, Beefi, Skeletal Legionnaires, Corpse Magus

FELIPE NO

2 Dice Rolls DMG

I couldn't help but smirk at Murray's attempts to negotiate with the enemy. We were truly two peas in a pod, an evil, snarky pod. I slid to the top of the stairs, leveling my crossbow and loosing a bolt for the nearest skeleton. I had an idea, and if I'd understood the concept of fear, I may have been uneasy about what I was about to do. But I didn't. So I was sort of excited.

"Don't worry about it, Murray. As long as it is other people taking the javelin to the chest, you and I are good."

Move to AA -92
Deft strike AI -89 for 9 damage

How ya doing, buddy?

3 Dice Rolls crunch

The well-lit "lane" down the middle of the room suddenly reminded Garold of an amusing sport he'd once participated in when an extremely drunk man randomly invited him to a birthday party. Garold only wished he was inebriated. Blood alcohol content seemed to be a crucial element of the sport.

Move to Z-93

It's bowling for boneheads!

Stampede Shot on AH-93

15 damage to AH-93 and pushed up to 4 squares before two adjacent enemies are pushed 2 squares

Jam it back in, in the dark.

2 Dice Rolls *smash

NO DAMMIT! I said nacho's not kebabs! There isn't even any meat or vegetables on these skewers I will be writing a strongly worded letter to management.

In his head Slim makes a note to give this restaurant half a star in his next review for the Kobald Cuisine Quarterly.



Shield of sacrifice taking a surge from beefi and healing Sam and myself as if we'd burned a surge +5 AC for everyone involved until the end of my next turn. Hammer throw at blueC.

12 damage to skeleton +4 temp HP to me

Most amazing jew boots

"Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, JO-LENE," I sang, gleefully sprinting into the midst of things. At the last syllable, I burst my aegis onto the field, enveloping several of the skeletons and the magus.

Major to move, move to AH-91.
Swordmage's decree.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

1 Die Roll UN resolution

The zombie thing that seemed to be in charge of the whole shebang hurled a blob of oozy gunk at me. It didn't hurt at all but it made rather a mess of my tunic which had been clean on only yesterday. I was expecting a fight and instead I found myself in the midst of a mud-flinging contest. Well if that's the way these undead beasties conducted themselves then so be it.

Heedless of the carnage my companions were wreaking around me, I strode purposefully over to the Magus.

"Now look here Sonny-Jim, I appreciate that you may well have been down here for some time and perhaps things were different up top before you ended up as an undead freak of nature but in this day and age, civilised people do not throw slime at other people. It's simply unpleasant and frankly, more than a little unhygenic. Can't you see I have an injured goose here? The last thing he needs is some kind of magic muck getting into his wound and infecting it, the poor chap might never fly again! Now stop all this nonsense and let's talk things through like grown-ups, eh?"

Move to AI-91, diplomacy on magus, full defence

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The Five fell many of the skeletons, but the remaining legionnaires draw javelins once again as Beefi makes his plea for sanity. The magus raises his hand in a gesture of restraint, however, and responds to Beefi in a new and civil tone.

"A goose, you say. Truly, I could no more wound an innocent creature than I could allow your intrusion into my tomb to go unchallenged. How do you propose we resolve our conflict, then? I cannot simply let you go without testing your mettle, having delved so far as to disturb my eternal resting place. How should we resolve our conflict, stranger? As you are both outnumbered and, I daresay, outmatched: I leave the choice of contest to you."

Slim isn't his own ally (lol rules) so I healed Garold instead

I was speaking idiomatically.