Torches Session 31, plumbing the depths of plumbium
General Summary
Kormatin, Brigid, Ragani, and Bendek ventured it to the lair of a deadly lich with a nervous but holding it together Hallmar Snowview.
Kormatin deduced that the portculus was activated with a catch phrased and Ragani correctly guessed that that phrase was the Draconic version of House Selwyth's motto.
Cue the music from Ridley's Lair
The walls were lined with skeletons magically embedded into them. They had glowing green eyes which followed the party and Gerallt the lich's voice boomed out of them.
The party and Gerallt exchanged some banter. He mocked Ragani for being a gnome Guardian. He taunted Hallmar for not being a true warrior and saying he would make an interesting undead minion.
He did not immediately recognize Kormatin's party until they gave their names and even then recognition was not to what they were accostomed to though Gerallt did jokingly refer to Brigid as being the wayward Gruffyl bastard Lantern and Kormatin being the other wayward Gruffyl bastard of the other Lanterns.
Hallmar spotted an illusory wall and shortly thereafter seven Lead Blade Undead rushed out at them from multiple sides. There was also a ghost rider zombie lobbing Dispel Magic impact potions at the party.
Lead Blades were a rare undead with lead coated bones and blades for hands that could inflict supernatural lead poisoning on their foes via their blades and by expelling a supernatural miasma. They were also slightly resistant to turning.
The party battled through them but took some damage.
They passed more illusory walls with ambush chambers but they were empty. Gerallt didn't have the time or corpses to fulfill all his necromantic ambitions yet. It was obvious that Gerallt had mastered the Transmutation spell, "stone shape".
The party encountered Gerallt in the outer chamber of his lair, fully armored and with six more Lead Blade Undead around him.
Two Lead Blades each attacked Ragani, Kormatin, and Hallmar. Brigid and Bendek took the opening and charged Gerallt.
Ragani's opening move was to to try to summon lions but she rolled higher than she ever had before while summoning and summoned none other than Tihalt himself, now as an empowered spirit.
Bendek's opening move was to chuck the undead tear gas made of enchanted vampire dust hitting Gerallt dead center. Kormatin discovered that Purification "Turning Undead" could the gases' size and potency.
Tihalt one-shot killed lead blades one by one with a glowing magic bow. First destroying one of Ragani's attackers and then destroying Hallmar's attackers after catching on to what his allies were doing.
Kormatin and Ragani prioritized defending Hallmar over themselves and Tihalt caught on and destroyed but they eventually took down their attackers. Hallmar went full defense to the best of his ability and ended up struck and lead poisoned anyway (though he acquitted himself much better in the warm up fight).
Gerallt had heavy armor and potent magical protection both from his innate undead resilience and and abjuration spell so it took Brigid and Bendek several blows to take down even with their magical buffs.
Apart from Brigid, most of the party was low on mana and quintessence. Bendek dispelled the Wave of Pain spell and the group healed up as best they could.
Tihalt said inspirational words to his friends and thanked Bendek for keeping his friends safe before departing back to the Aetherial Realm.
The group set about looting the place of anything of value. They ditched their caltrops to make more room for all the books and journals. They had to leave the piles of lead bars and smithing equipment behind.
Hallmar helped direct Bendek's Stone Shape spells to collapse tunnels and otherwise inconvenience House Selwyth's efforts to reopen the mine later.
The party exited Swynfaredia without a noteworthy incident and dropped Hallmar off at the mine he was working at before heading to see Baron Fyodor Deorac IV.
Gerallt unleashed the most powerful Wave of Pain spell the group had ever encountered. Even with Bendek dispelling a portion of it with Reactive Dispel the group was taking a five-dice penalty and burning through Willpower just to stay effective much like Gerallt was burning his Willpower to fight the tear gas.
by Eron12 with Hero Forge
by me with Midjourney
Gerallt had a very potent magical sword that made him good at parrying but he didn't have particularly amazing swordsmanship skills and he couldn't parry both Brigid and Bendek's augmented and relentless attacks.
Rewards Granted
12 experience points
371 gold pieces
100 platinum pieces
3000 drams of necromantic reagents
520 drams of durable reagents
1000 silver worth of silver wood
Lots of books and journals
10 pounds of silver
The more expensive and least bulky portion's of an alchemists lab
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