The Dungeon of Graves: Session 14
General Summary
Mr. Skelebones
Report Date
10 Jan 2021
There were no new messages scrawled upon the walls while the Shrike’s adventurers were away for the night. It seems that they must have slayed or scared away the eager author. Nothing assaulted the group as they made their way through the naturally formed cave and carved rooms of the top layer of the Dungeon of Graves. Making their way back down the stairs to the room with the four locked doors, they let the three experts work their magic. Vai’len and Xantrix would move to a door, investigate it for any traps then the Artificer would step back and let Mogg slide in to unlock the door with Vai’len’s unnecessary help. In the main room they found the axe still lodged in the northern door, the eight rat bodies that looked to have been killed by an animal scattered about and under a loose stone, they found a rotted store of uncooked meat.
The rogue moves into the unlocked door. Making sure they keep to the walls, always alert and constantly investigating they notice a secret door on the northern wall before the hallway turns sharply south. After making sure there was no visible danger in the hallway, Vai’len motions for them all to enter. Keartas is eager to open the hidden door but the rogue wants to make sure it is safe. Vai’len opens the door and darkness spills out. They can hear a deep cackle and Vai’len moves to attack but gets inspired to just shut the door and back away. They all turn to leave but Nam and Lothar want to eliminate the creatures hidden away. Nam moves in and opens the door, the darkness returns and battle ensues.
Lothar channels his divinity and turns the undead away, causing four of the creatures to flee; however, the darkness keeps this news away from the party. They all believe that these must be skeletons similar to the sarcophagus, all hoping that they don’t physically draw out strength. Nam is barely standing after the three creatures attack. Mogg calls out if anyone can deal with the darkness and no one can. The light that was Nam’s maul is being snuffed. Sinestra moves into the darkness and releases a fiery blaze that deals significant damage to the undead but also causes Nam to fall. The warlock then backs out of the darkness and into safety. Lothar moves in, grabs for Nam on the ground, healing him and dragging his fellow cleric out of harm's way. Lupus is summoned to help Vrokíva’s cleric. Nam rises, grabs Lothar and pulls him out of the way, meanwhile clutching his holy symbol and turning the dead as well. Unfortunately the three assaulting the group were stronger than Nam’s magic.
The adventures attack the darkness, hoping to hit the skeletons and not their allies. Vai’len aims at the spot she had landed a bolt just moments before and fires true. The skeleton that the darkness emanating out from falls, their head being severed and landing on the ground. With the darkness quickly dissipating, they all notice the skeleton being formed from the recently slain one. Fearing the worst, they ready for repopulating skeletons; however, this skeleton turns to Vai’len after attacking the other undead and gives his ‘master’ a nod. The battle commences now with a friendly skeleton on their side.
Overall the adventurers have trouble hitting but eventually the two remaining are killed, just leaving the four doubly scared undead cowering in the hidden chamber. Xantrix takes position in the doorway making it hard for the skeletons to move into the more vulnerable companions. With them only attacking one creature at a time and the help of the friendly skeleton, they down the four with ease. When the unturned skeletons approach the group from the doorway, they always choose to attack one of the adventurers and not the undead skeleton attacking them. During the battle, Nam hovered near the door that led into the main room and near the end someone from outside yells “KEEP IT DOOOWWWNNNN!” and it sounded like it originated from the northern door that yesterday the madman appeared. Acacius falls to one of the skeletons and as many of their enemies have done before, attacked the fallen. Luckily Mogg was ready with a Goodberry to bring the fighter back into action. Sinestra slays the final skeleton and they all rest before heading further into the dungeon.
During their rest they all start investigating the curious new party member. The skeleton seems to be aware but doesn’t turn to anyone talking to them until Vai’len asks questions. Sinestra doesn’t like the creature and wants to slay it, but they all talk about how having another shield would be beneficial to the group. Keartas is able to determine that whatever magic was used to create this particular skeleton was thrown together and their new friend probably only had four to five days before they ceased to be. It seems that Vai’len’s shot had hit a very lucky spot that triggered the ritual.
While investigating the hallway earlier before the others were brought in to investigate the door, Mogg and Vai’len had heard the loud metal noise behind the southern door. Moving into the room they note the large magically rolling metal spiked ball blocking the path around a weirdly growing mold. Keartas and Xantrix discuss how it seemed to be brown mold and would spread with fire and only be killed safely with cold damage. The room itself is much colder than the other rooms and at the far end they can see a raised sarcophagus being lit by two torches.
Determining that they were unprepared to deal with the mold or the spiked ball, they move back to the main room to investigate the other doorways. Leaving the northern one alone, they move to the southern one which seems to lead into a longer hallway so they move back to the door on the western wall. Their hope was to find a door that would lead to the tomb behind the traps. This hallway was the path they wanted. Vai’len decided to send their new companion into the cold room to grab the loot and the body they can see lying at the base of the tomb. As the skeleton reached for the body it disintegrated. Moving back with the bag, the party stops the undead. It seemed that the body had been infested and consumed by rot grubs and if anyone of the living were to get infested...it would be a terrible fate. Instead, Vai’len had the undead dump the contents out which seemed to be nothing useful but a bag of coins which were checked safely in the main room being carried by Sinestra’s Mage Hand. The skeleton was instructed to check themselves multiple times to rid them of any rot bugs before the party continued to the southern door. Before they left, they did check the tomb out and it seemed to be a cruel lure for anyone foolish enough to enter the Dungeon of Graves.
