Session 26: A fiend and a forge

General Summary

Having rested after that horrible wraith encounter, we continued exploring this section of the fortress. We found several small rooms, most had already been looted long ago. Some rooms contained corpses or skeletons from dwarves and orcs that died long ago. One room had several skeletons in it that tried to attack us, but the divine powers granted to me by Moradin worked really well against these; utterly destroying them. The other corpses that we found stayed dead luckily. Which is good because at the end of the other hallway we found signs of a huge fight and a lot of corpses.Just to be sure, we decided to destroy the kills of the corpses we found.   Investigating some more rooms, we found one which didn’t look to be looted yet. Skrik entered first, because he offended Valstrax earlier. Suddenly the rug in the middle of the room started attacking us! Luckily time hadn’t been so kind to it, as Voron’s acid nails caused it to start unraveling. Apparently this was a wizard’s room once, and the rug was enchanted to attack everything that wasn’t a dwarf. We didn’t find any spell scrolls in the room though, which was a bit of a letdown.   Most of the other rooms were much of the same, looted with some old corpses. One room however contained a woman called Idala which said she had been trapped there by a wizard. This all sounded very suspicious, especially after Valstrax pointed out that she was not a human but some sort of fiend. Janey and Skrik talked to her in what I think is her own language, and eventually she tried exiting the room she was apparently trapped in and succeeded! We didn’t really know how to proceed, something didn’t feel right. Janey asked her whether she was evil, she replied that she most definitely wasn’t. I could tell she was lying though, most fiends aren’t to be trusted. She didn’t hurt any of us though, so we didn’t see any reason to keep her here, she wanted to go home after all. Before she left, Skrik wanted to know whether she had any magic that she could teach Janey. She replied that she had some magic, though not something she could teach. She offered to show her magic, but could only do that if someone allowed her to kiss them. Most of us were reluctant, but Skrik agreed to it. The kiss seemed to drain Skrik of most of his life force, leaving him very weak. Logically this created a very tense situation. This fiend almost killed our friend, but Skrik agreed to this. Voron was done with this unnatural fiend and attacked her. I was very worried about Skrik, but healing didn’t help at all. I decided to fortify his life, so that he wouldn’t instantly die. The rest didn’t want to kill someone who only did what was asked, so we got to a compromise. We would not attack her anymore if she allowed Valstrax to restrain her while we figured things out. After some discussion, we figured out she was a succubus; a being that feeds off of the life force of others, and a danger to civilization. We took a vote and decided to put her down quickly, which Voron and Valstrax did skillfully.   Skrik was in need of rest, he was very weak. The rest made sure there weren’t any other threats close by, so that we wouldn’t be ambushed, they did find some spell scrolls this time though. The other rooms were safe, so we moved to one of the nicer rooms and took a rest.   After some sleep, Skrik looked like his old self again. I was happy she didn’t do any permanent damage. Before we got some rest we were able to finish exploring the library, so the next stop was the kitchen.   Walking into the kitchen, we noticed it looked just as abandoned as the library did. We didn’t have much time to look around however, as one of the tables sprang to life and started to attack us. I guess this table was enchanted much like that rug we had found the day before. Even though it was a pretty interesting enchantment, it was just a table and didn’t really stand a chance against us. After the table turned into splinters, we looked around the kitchen. We didn’t find anything useful. Skrik searched through the rotten food for anything edible, and he did find something. I wouldn’t eat that though, that food spoiled long ago. Next up were the two ways that were left in the throne room, both of which the Duergar lady told us not to go to. I really wanted to see what else was on this level though, especially the forge.   We entered the door behind the throne, a Duergar stood guard in the room behind it. He wanted to know what we were doing here, we told him we were exploring the fortress. When he asked how we got past the other group of Duergar, Skrik mentioned that we killed them. This noticeably angered him and he told us to leave. Another Duergar guard showed up at that point, most likely she had heard the ruckus. We told the first guard that we wanted to see the rest of the fortress, I especially wanted to see the forge. They didn’t allow us to continue through here or to go to the forge, but if I gave them my word that we would leave peacefully afterwards; I was allowed to see the forge. While they were Duergar, they were still dwarves so I trusted their word. One of them escorted me to the forge while the rest waited in the throne room.   When I got to the forge, several Duergar were using it. The forge was noticeably patched up, understandable since it hadn’t been used for a long time. While still a glorious site, it was a bit disappointing. I remember what one of the Duergar said before, it was the smith and not the forge that made the masterworks. I would’ve loved to use it to refit the plate armor for Valstrax, but I was only allowed to watch. With that I was escorted back to the others and we went back to the caves which we hadn’t fully explored yet. Skrik suggested that if we would’ve cleared out the dwarves, then I would be the sole dwarf in the fortress and thus the owner of the fortress. While I wouldn’t mind being the lord of a fortress, that's not how it works. Besides, my path is to serve Moradin.

Rewards Granted

18785 xp total