Wallacian Campaign Session #17

General Summary

Continuing their exploration of the abandoned(?) lair of the wizard Yendor, the half-elf warrior Ravinte took his place in the vanguard.

Begin Flashback

Following the creek upstream to the south, the party needed to move further away as it entered the narrow Cragmaw gorge. as the rapids fill the entire width of the canyon. While they passed the ruins of Cragmaw Castle, they encountered a half-elf warrior who appeared to be lost. The warrior identified himself as Ravinte, and spoke with a slight Valaran accent. He joined the party as they continued southward, and is now helping to lead their exploration of Yendor's lair...

End Flashback

The tunnel began a long, slow spiraling climb into the depths of the mountains. After a rise of what seemed to be several hundred feet, the tunnel ended at the bottom of a ten foot wide vertical shaft. The bottom of the shaft was filled with stone rubble. It appear as though the floor of a room spanning shaft somewhere above had collapsed down the shaft, shattering upon impact.
The shaft extended upwards into the distance, lit periodically by orange flickering magical flames in small alcoves. With no where else to go, the party broke out the climbing gear they had purchased before exploring Phandelver. The ascent wasn't too difficult, as the pitons were fairly easy to drive into the stone walls, and the periodic alcoves provided ready handholds and steps. However, it was slow-going. The party had to make several stops to rest while hanging in their climbing harnesses.
At about the halfway point, a few hundred feet up the shaft, they spotted a "bump" in the shaft wall approaching them from below. It turned out to be an angry earth elemental, and it attacked the person at the bottom of the rope chain, Almalexia. She did not enjoy the attention of the stony foe, and soon clambered up the rope chain past some of her comrades. As they continued clambering up the shaft, the party assaulted the elemental with both spells and projectiles. Ravinte managed to cast Command on the elemental, causing to flee for a few seconds before turning back on the party. Almalexia then cast a spell on it that caused it to collapse in a laughing fit.
The creature lost its grip on the shaft as it doubled-over, and then it began to make a deep rumbling noise it fell disappeared into the depths. A few seconds later a loud crash echoed up from the bottom of the shaft. The creature did not return to assail the party.
The party eventually reached the top of the shaft. They reasoned that the stone rubble they had found at the bottom of the shaft had probably been elevator raised and lowered by tamed/enslaved earth elementals. With the wizard's lair in ruins, perhaps the enchantments controlling the elementals have faded, and creature had become feral.
After passing several storerooms filled with rotted debris, they spotted a side passage leading to a set of bronze doors. Just like the entrance down below, this one also had a set of silver runes inscribed about six feet before the doors. After crossing the wards and opening the bronze doors (easy from the inside) the party found what almost looked like a large stone ship dock. Instead of a water-filled ship berth opening onto a bay, they found a dry, 30 feet deep stone chamber opening into the open air of a cliff face high in the mountains. It appeared that the opening faced east, the peaks on the far side of a valley lit with the red light of a sunset behind them.
Ravinte recalled some ancient stories he had read, dating from before The Shattering, which talked of flying ships. Up till now, he had assumed that the stories had been works of fiction. However, this appeared to be a dock designed for a flying ship.
The dock area was littered with scattered branches, pieces of wood, feathers, and what appeared (and smelled) like bird poo. As Ravinte stepped into the dock, he spotted several large nests on the walls higher up in the cavernous dock. Over the edge of the nearest dock, a large bird-like head peered down at him. It then climbed out of the nest and began to glide down toward him, revealing that it was a large griffon. For some reason, Ravinte then began to shove feathers into his armor. Seeing this, Almalexia then cast an illusion on Ravinte, making him appear to be a baby griffon.
The adult griffon flew down to Ravinte, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, then flew him (under the illusion of being a baby griffon) back up to its nest. Ravinte then offered the creature some of his rations, but the griffon in turn fed the rations to him. It then tried to regurgitate a recent meal down Ravinte's throat, but he was able to dodge it.
Meanwhile, other griffons launched from their own nests and started diving towards the party at the dock entrance. Silvermoon drove the first one off with accurate arrow fire, then ducked into the narrow entrance tunnel as other griffons approached.
While ducking to avoid more food from his surrogate griffon parent, Ravinte spotted a bronze rapier with a golden-yellow gemstone in the pommel in the bottom of the nest. He grabbed the rapier and shoved it into his belt, then jumped down to dock below.
Still appearing to be a baby griffon, Ravinte ran/galloped towards the entrance tunnel. The griffons appeared to be distraught, and made aggressive fly-bys of the tunnel entrance, but appeared to be unwilling to enter the confined area where they would be unable to fly. Almalexia was able to identify Ravinte's new rapier as a +1 weapon.
Continuing their exploration of the lair, the party found a darkened room lined with stone shelves. Most of the books on the shelves had rotted away long ago, but four were still intact:

• On Arcana - This tome details various arcane principles. It details a brief summary of the interactions of various components within spells, such as the purpose behind material components and a theory of why some material components are consumed while others are not.
• The Alchemy of Blood - This tome explains the use of blood in magic and in alchemy. It was written by an evil wizard and frequently digresses into explanations of the joy of taking blood from unwilling individuals.
• A Study of Souls - This tome discusses the various ways that souls could theoretically be used as a magical component. It is entirely theoretical and does not offer any practical applications.
• Grimoire of the Ebon Rose - A large, leather-bound tome with a black rose embossed in the front cover. Attempting to read the contents struck the reader with a damaging jolt of necrotic energy.

On a stone table on the far end of the room lay two other books. One appeared to be a journal, but the erratic scribbles were illegible. The other book lay open, with a jeweled firefly bookmark clipped to one page. This book was written in Abyssal, and the titled translated as Tome of Lichdom. As one would expect from the title, it appeared to detail the process of becoming a lich. Also on the table was a three-inch tall owl figurine carved from marble.
Casting detect magic revealed the bookmark, the owl figurine, and Grimoire as being magical. Identification spells revealed the figurine as allowing one to cast Find Familiar without consuming components, but the familiar will always be an owl. The bookmark was revealed to illuminate a book it is attached to. The Grimoire defied identification.
Almalexia decided to clip the magical bookmark to the Grimoire, then activate it's light spell. The bookmark lit up briefly, then went dark, and it is no longer magical.
The next section of the lair appeared to have been the living quarters, but all the furnishings had long since rotted away. The final room in the lair appeared to be a ritual chamber of some sort. It was bathed in a sickly purple light from a large quartz crystal sitting atop a pedestal in the center of the room. A set of six faintly glowing candles hover in the air, forming a ring around the pedestal. A set of glowing runes form a circle underneath the glowing candles. At the base of the pedestal was a desiccated corpse in tattered black robes.
Ravinte used one of his paladin abilities to spot evil energies. The only two sources which could see were Almalexia (who was carrying the Grimoire) and an apparently empty far corner of the room. The entity in the far corner was revealed to be a spectral humanoid shape, apparently belonging to the corpse lying at the base of the pedestal. The corpse then attacked the party, and battle was joined!
The party was quickly whittling down the spirit, and soon it was almost completely dissipated. Then Almalexia opened the Grimoire with the pages toward the spirit, and called for the spirit to read the tome. Necrotic energy then flowed from the book toward the spirit, and appeared to heal it, restoring it almost completely. Almalexia then fled the chamber, with the spirit pursing her. The spirit even ducked through the solid rock walls to reach her. The other party members once again reduced the spirit to mist, and this time Almalexia did not heal it.
After confirming that the spirit was gone, a search of the body by pedestal revealed a charred spell book, a gold ring, a brown stone ring, a key-shaped pendant, and a palm-sized black and gray granite box. Identification spells revealed:

• The stone ring provided protection against fey magic, while boosting the effectiveness of damage-dealing spells used against fey. So of course, Almalexia tried on the ring, and was injured by necrotic energy.
• The gold ring allows the ring wearer to identify arcane spellcasters from a distance.
• The granite box contained Dwarven Whiskey Stones, which can chill small amounts of liquid (such as whiskey).
• The key-shaped pendant appeared to be a magical lock of some sort.

A search of the living quarters while carrying the pendant caused a section of the stone wall to disappear, revealing a small alcove with stone shelves. On the shelves were found:

• Three potions of healing.
• A magical silver hand mirror.
• A Ring of Featherfall
• 20,000 silver coins (400 pounds).

The party decided to leave the wizard's lair by retracing their steps, rather than going through the griffons at the airship dock. When they reached vertical shaft, Almalexia proposed simply dropping the silver coins down the shaft. Silvermoon and Ravinte balked at this suggestion, and instead each of them carried 100 pounds of silver coins in their backpacks. Almalexia then poured the rest of the silver coins into the pit.
When the party reached the bottom, they discovered that most of the coins which Almalexia had dropped had fallen between the cracks of the stone rubble of the fallen elevator, and were inaccessible. Almalexia told the party not to worry, since they can simply come back later with the proper tools to clear the rubble after delivering the Hand Mirror and Grimoire.
The party left the tunnels, pushing their way through the magical stone wall. Exiting seemed to require more effort than it did for them enter. When the last person exiting the stone wall, there was a loud crack behind them. The water was no longer flowing through the magical stone doorway, and when they pressed against it, it was now solid stone.
Continuing her experiments with the Grimoire, Almalexia next attempted to read its reflection in the magical hand mirror. However, she discovered that the Grimoire did not appear in the hand mirror's reflection at all.
Next, she crafted a simple snare to capture a small squirrel. Propping up the Grimoire facing away from her, she then held the frightened squirrel in front of the arcane pages, forcing it to view the contents. The squirrel struggled against her grasp, letting loose a bloodcurdling scream, and then...

Rewards Granted

Each player earned 812 XP.
200 pounds of silver coins (currently being carried by Silvermoon and Ravinte)
Individual loot:

• +1 Bronze Rapier (claimed by Ravinte)
• Magical Firefly booklight/bookmark (destroyed by Almalexia)
• Dwarven Whiskey Stones (claimed by Almalexia)
• Book titled "On Arcana" (claimed by Almalexia)
• Book titled "The Alchemy of Blood" (claimed by Almalexia)
• Book titled "A Study of Souls" (claimed by Almalexia)
• Book titled "Tome of Lichdom" (claimed by Almalexia)
• "Grimoire of the Ebon Rose" (currently being experimented on by Almalexia)
• Unidentified magical Silver Hand Mirror (currently being carried by Almalexia)
• Ring of Feather Falling (claimed by Ravinte)
• Ring of the Arcanum (claimed by Ravinte)
• Yendor’s Ring of Stone  (claimed by Silvermoon)
• Marble Owl Figurine (claimed by Silvermoon)

Report Date

04 Jun 2023