[DnD] The Haunting of Hargast (GFF D&D Adventure 3)

"Uh, uh?"

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"Right, well the poof will get on well with the elf. Call it settled."

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

Motsognir glanced at the new human. His shirt was... poofy. Motsognir was not intimidated. Garrmondo clearly was not interested in women. His plans were safe.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Argumentus opens the door leading east in the room where Brigid just recently lost her life.

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I awoke feeling greatly refreshed to find the Horde deep in what could only be called conversation with a gaudily dressed human. It seemed as though he spoke the same unfathomable dialect as the others and I sighed deeply, despairing of ever meeting someone living I could converse with in this part of the world.

I picked myself up, dusted down my robes. The Horde had managed not to start a fight with the newcomer yet so I assumed he would be coming with us.

I waited for one of the others to pick a door.

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

Though he can't tell east from west, Argumentus flings open the last of the doors in the sarcophagus room.

The chamber beyond is choked with rubble. A single lonely cask sits in the far corner, the tap gradually dripping the contents onto the filthy floor.

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

I peered over the big guy's shoulder, hoping that my religious training would give me some insight into what was going on in the room.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Motsognir went north to examine the room those spiders came from.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Bob searches the rocks and cask for the sinister religious undertrappings they must surely have, but discovers nothing concrete.

Motsognir wanders back north, exploring the spider room now that the occupants had been dealt with. A large brass gong squats in the middle of the room, and a plaque is affixed to a wall nearby. The plaque reads:

ONE MAN SLIDES ACROSS THE FLOOR IN ONE DIRECTION. ANOTHER STARTS SLIDING THREE SECONDS LATER AT TWICE THE FIRST’S SPEED. WHAT IS THE LIKELIHOOD THAT THEY WILL COLLIDE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE ROOM?

DECLARE YOUR ANSWER AND RING THE GONG TO BE REWARDED

FELIPE NO

I like riddles, but goddam... thought Motsognir. He finds a rock and walks to the entrance to the gong room, standing just outside. "SOMEWHAT LIKELY" he shouts out, then throws the rock at the gong. He wasn't going into this without knowing the consequences first.

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

Motsognir's rock strikes the gong, and the battered instrument lets out a meager clank, having been so thoroughly dented and battered as to render its resonant qualities nearly moot. Motsognir squints at the thing and hesitantly takes a single step forward when a massive stone abruptly drops out of the ceiling. The heavy rock smashes into the floor, sending out a ripple of cracks and fissures.

100 XP (20 each)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Feeling brave, I pushed past the big guy into the room, bracing myself for a sudden impact or plummet into a pit, with a mind to properly search the room if there weren't any lethal traps in it.

Check for traps. If I don't find any, go into the room and search for treasure/doors/anything else not immediately apparent

There's nowhere I can't reach.

"Well, Mister Alkatraz, I'm no expert in these matters but my papa always did tell me that if'n somebody didn't say no it was just as good as them sayin' yes. I reckon you just do whatever you please until one of 'em whomps you with the cookery and then you'll know where to draw the line."

Bob creeps into the rubble-filled room, searching for any lurking traps.

He finds none.

Bob then seeks any cleverly-hidden passageways.

He finds none.

Secure in his surroundings, Bob then peers about for anyplace a wondrous treasure might be hiding.

He finds nothing.

There is only the keg. The keg and the rocks. The rocks and the keg.

What can it mean?

What does it mean?

There must be something vile and underhanded about this room. It can't just be a little room with a keg in it! It can't be!

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

Ol' Soggy figured that one out pretty handily the Dwarf laughed to himself as he strolled back into the gong room, looking to examine the western door.

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Well it seemed like a normal enough room so I relaxed slightly. The only thing of interest was the cask so I examined it closely, hoping I could determine what the liquid was without having to drink any of it. I also checked to see if anything was concealed beneath the cask.

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Smirking with the satisfaction that only a man who has outsmarted a rock can understand, Motsognir sallies up to the door up past the gong. Nothing about the door seems suspicious and it hangs slightly ajar, so Soggy gently kicks it open and then quickly ducks against the adjacent wall to avoid the monstrous trap attack that must be forthcoming.

When nothing appears, he creeps back to the doorway and peers into the new room. The chamber is clotted with statuary; a burly human in peasant garb wrestles with a lion while 4 armored figures look on.

Bob examines the cask for any indication of its contents. Though the branding on the battered wood is worn through and unreadable in most places, enough of the lettering remains intact to piece together part of the label:

L XIR OF AC U ACY

OP N ONL IN EM RGE C

Bob tips the cask over slightly to see if anything might be underneath, but discovers nothing. The cask is entirely too easy to move. Whatever the contents, not much of it remains.

How ya doing, buddy?

The dwarf wanders into the room with the cask, eying up the female wizard for a moment before he sighed, took his axe and took a chunk out of the top of the cask to see what was inside.

"Too long."

FELIPE NO

Weird shit. thought Motsognir, trying to recall what statue rooms like this might mean.

Arcana check

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

I grabbed the empty vial of anti-venom I had drunk during the earlier fight and filled it up with the contents of the cask which the ugly dwarf had now opened for me.

I then hurried to join the other dwarf who was so much more pleasant to be around.

I found him admiring a series of statues. Still nervous of any traps, I gingerly edged into the room, looking around for any clues or inscriptions that might tell me if this was something important or just a bit of decoration.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

1 Die Roll arcana check, yeah

Motsognir tunes into his newly-sensitive sense of the arcane, but finds nothing magical about the statues whatsoever.

Bob creeps into the room, looking the statues up and down. The base of the lion statue is inscribed:

SUCCESSION RITES OF THE THRONE OF HARGASTUS

On the back of the human figure wrestling with the beast are etched the words "heavy lies the crown". This engraving is significantly more ragged-looking.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Motsognir was bored of statues. He wandered back to the group. "Alright, kids, we have two options. Option A, we go fuck up some rats. Option B, we go back to that first room, but this time head west. I say we ignore the rats, but hey, you people surprise me sometimes."

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

I wasn't sure if this was some kind of puzzle or just the kind of nonsense inscription people put on things in crypts to make it look like a puzzle and annoy anyone taking a look round the place. Certainly this crypt had been pretty light on treasure so far, all I'd found was the funny liquid in that cask which may or may not be an elixir of accuracy. Now this statue was going on about a throne which in itself seemed a little suspicious as it was a pretty small village up above, certainly not the kind of place one would epxect to have it's own royal family.

Still, this crypt seemed pretty expansive and anyone who could have afforded to build all these traps and stock the place with lethal spiders must have had a fair bit of cash and in my experience, those kinds of people prefer to bury their wealth rather than pass it on to future generations.

My own parents had been the same. Whilst my mother doted on me, my father had been a hard man and theirs was a marriage of convenience rather than love. Mother's family had owned a vast tract of woodland in the West March and father's family were the last in a long line of loggers (An unpopular profession at best in elven society but one that paid well as a result) so they had been married to unite the clans and reduce the subcontractor costs for both parties. At first their relationship was amicable enough but after a few years, mother tired of the constant shouts of "Tree murderer" from her previous friends and I suspect that father had more than one dalliance with the half-orc house maid (I could see an uncanny resemblance between myself and her son Urrk-shaq the Effeminate) and they grew distant.

Father had always hoped I would continue the family business but of course, I had bigger and better plans. When I announced my wish to enrol in the Arcane University to study magic, he simply shrugged and the next day I found my meager possesions bundled up on the steps of our house and that my key no longer fit the lock.

Mother simply wilted after I left and it was no more than a year later that she killed herself, hurling herself from the top floor window. Father carried on regardless until the accident. Some folk say that celebrating the death of my mother a year later was thoughtless and it being the dry season and given the size of the fireworks he was using, it was perhaps not the wizest move he ever made. Still, I had inherited one of the largest patches of burnt scrubland in the realm, the sale of which had just about put me through college. I was still no nearer to mastering the arts of ressurection though and my mother was still dead. One day though, I would obtain the powers I needed and we would be reunited!

I snapped out of my daydream. Without realising, I had hopped up onto the large central statue and now lay across the shoulder blades of the lion. I shifted to a sitting position and spent a few minutes pretending to ride the beast, imagining myself riding across the savanna, the wind in my hair, the snarls of my mount and the terror in the eyes of those I passed along the way.

I sighed, I had always wanted a pet.

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

The lion, being only a hollow ceramic sculpture in the first place, promptly cracks apart under Bob's weight. The wrestling figure is quite unable to support its own weight without the lion to lean upon, and promptly collapses to the floor in an explosion of shattered clay as well.

Once Bob dusts himself off and returns to his feet, he finds a hide-bound heavy shield lying in the heap of statue fragments. Presumably it was hidden in the interior of one of the statues.



I was speaking idiomatically.

The dwarf wandered into the room, quickly snatching up the shield from the feet of the befuddled elf. What is an elf going to do with a heavy shield anyway?

He thought about it a moment and then tossed his old shield at the feet of his wizard companion and donned this new one. It had a head on it. Nifty.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The ugly dwarf grabbed the shield which was a shame as I'm sure I could have got quite a few gold for it in the shops back in town.

I checked the room for secret doors, just in case.

FELIPE NO