Session 0056 - Observatory

Roster

List of characters who's player was in attendance

Player characters who's player is attending the game start with 1 Hero Point, and can get more during the session.

Absent

List of characters who's player was absent

Player characters for missing players do not start the session with a hero point, and can not get any more during the session.

Session Log

The party had returned to the familiar room they have been camping out in recently to rest and recover for the day.
Both Alicia and Harbek use their healing skills to patch everyone up, save for Arkaban who still claims their methods will not work for him. Rebar presses him and wonders how he is able to heal up. The party saw him use something to cure himself that appeared to be some kind of salve. Arkaban is cagey about this, simply stating it helps him but would not work on the others.
While the party rest and recover Harbek attempts to repair Muroni's enchanted short sword. He succeeds, and partially repairs the weapon. It is still not completely repaired but is not longer broken. Harbek does not want to risk continuing to work on it, and the ranger is happy to have a functioning weapon again.
Hrovard takes out the leather armor they found recently off the undead water-bloated dark elf and examines it. He wears mundane hide armour, which affords better protection than leather armour but is more restrictive to the wearers movements. He tries the armor on and it does shift slightly and fit reasonably well. Rebar already confirmed it is enchanted, but they do not know how enchanted it is. To match the protective quality of his hide armor it would need to be strongly enchanted.
Eriana also gives the armour a try. It is very similar in the feel of her own enchanted armor, but quite different from her own lamellar leather.
After those two experiment with the enchanted leather armour Rebar attempts to identify the magic on the item. Unfortunately its enchantment eludes the wizard, but he resolves to try again in another day or so.
During their recovery Muroni is concerned about her supply of arrows. She wonders if the dark elves they defeated might have any more arrows, so she, Hrovard and Eriana all go and check the bodies and confirm they took all the available arrows already. Only their leader had a bow and arrows. The others had hand crossbows. There is talk about crafting more arrows but they really don't have ideal materials for that.
Instead, Hrovard offers a supply of 20 arrows for Muroni from his own stash.
They return to the others and the rest of the day passes without incident. Everyone camps out overnight and wake up refreshed.
During their rest here something large continues to make noise in the room to the south behind the stuck massive stone door. They have camped out here for a few nights and the noise is getting louder and more random in its intensity and timing. It was disruptive enough they find themselves camping out far away from the door. They also notice that whatever is making the sound does not often bash against the stuck stone door and wall. The noise more often appears to come from hitting something farther away from whatever is behind that door.
There is some discussion about the door and wondering if they should check it out, but the party remain focused on their mission. When they have recovered the group resolve to head upstairs and confront Garrow and the rest of the emerald claw.
The group then head upstairs towards the massive spiral staircase that Arkaban says leads to the upper floor with the giant throne.
In that room they see the slabs of stone that form a giant-sized circular staircase, but a narrow, human-sized staircase is cut like a ribbon into the stair’s exterior. Moving with stealth, the party make their way up the narrow staircase, ascending over 50-feet to the floor above.
The circular stairs lead to a large chamber. Crates, barrels, and packages on sledge-like pallets are piled in all four corners and along the walls. Everything looks new and recently packed, and no sign of dust can be found on any of these items.
Quietly moving about the room, they take a quick look at the items piled here. The crates, barrels, and other parcels contain dried meats, relatively clean water, dried fruit, flour, grains, linens, and other supplies required by a large force on a long expedition.
The only exit from this large chamber is a single massive stone door to the west. It appears like all the others in this giant complex, and does not have a visible lock but does have handles suggesting it pulls open.
Hrovard moves to open the door with everyone else ready with weapons in hand.
When the door is opened they see four emerald claw soldiers on the other side clearly surprised to see the party, suggesting they were stealthy enough to avoid being heard.
The combat is quick as the soldiers scramble to grab their shealed and unsheathe their swords while the Eriana, Hrovard, and Ferdinand rush into melee to attack. Arkaban, Rebar and Harbek use offensive spells from the other side of the doorway while Alicia backs everyone up with missile filre. Muroni runs in to join the melee a little late.
One soldier did manage to get to the door after Eriana rushed in, but a powerful cantrip from Arkaban knocked him back, clearing the way (their new ally scored a critical hit with his spell, injuring the soldier badly and sending him back 10 feet).
Ferdinand and Eriana dance around two of the solders and cut them down while Hrovard faces the other two. They are brought down quickly with the support of ranges weapons and spells and Ferdinand joining in to finish off the last standing soldier.
They quickly loot the bodies and find a small amount of coinage, but have little interest in their other mundane gear (crossbows, bolts, chain armor, etc.).
It also appears they were not detected as it falls quite silent after that.
From this chamber there is an open archway to the north. It leads to a corridor heading west that has a large stone door on the south wall near the end of the hallway. Opposite the door on the north wall is a large open archway.
When they get to the end of the hall they see through the archway to another large chamber. There is another spiral staircase here, but this one is much smaller than the other spiral staircase and is clearly only human-sized. It leads up and not down.
Before anyone can try the door to the south Arkaban warns the party that Garrow has trapped the door. He is not sure with what, but only knows that all the emerald claw soldiers must use a special pass phrase to open the door or trigger the trap. The phrase is "I am loyal to the Emerald Claw."
Hrovard tries the phrase and pushes the door open. The door swings open without incident. There are pallets of crates and barrels stored in the far south-west corner of the chamber.
They leave the door open and examine the contents. There are a lot of useful items here, including arrows. They resupply their arrows and also find some replacement thieves picks in the lot which Ferdinand and Harbek help themselves to. They scan the spot for magic and do not detect any, so they move on - closing the door behind them when they leave.
They head through the archway next to the room with the human-sized spiral staircase heading up. There is one exit from the room - another stone door on the east wall. Arkaban tells them that after that door there is a hallway and another door to the north that will lead directly to the open cleft on the floor facing the massive chair.
Everyone moves as stealthily as they can, going to the door and opening it. They opt to leave the staircase for now (Arkaban says they did not explore it when he was with the group, so he does not know where it goes).
Once they all get to the door on the north wall everyone gets into position with weapons ready. Eriana listens at the door and thinks she hears faint movement and odd rustling - maybe papers?
In preparation, Rebar casts a Gecko Grip spell on himself and climbs up 20-feet on the wall by the door. Hrovard pushes the door open and they cautiously move through it. Rebar climbs along the wall, through the door and out the other side, 20-feet up.
The constructed fissure in the cyclopean ruin throws the area into shadow, despite being open to the elements on two sides. The walls rise up well over one hundred feet on the north and south, and the clifflike faces are pocked with cavities and balconies opening on darkness. Great gauzy webs hang above at a height of sixty or so feet, crossing and recrossing the wide gap, which keeps the cleft in shadow even when the sun is high above. At the center of the cleft sits a throne fit for a titan: a mammoth chair of stone and metal sitting on an inscribed disk of unblemished iron. Around the periphery of the iron disk are wooden crates, and a few barrels.
They only get a few steps beyond the door when they hear a female voice call out from the other side of the massive chair and iron disk it sits upon. Walking out into view is a middle-aged rotund female in simple work clothes. Rebar recognizes her as the Provost Maisy Beckett from Morgrave University who was leading the expedition into the jungle.
Everyone in the party is convinced this is a ruse and that the figure is actually Garrow, the leader of the cultists. They do not wait to parley. Hrovard goes into a rage and charges her, swinging his battle axe at her and missing. She avoid the blow with a look of surprise and the barbarian notices his axe grazed her simple clothes and did not cut them, and made an odd metallic sound.
Ferdinand is next, bounding up and tumbling behind her. He jabs at the woman with his enchanted rapier and missed, but also notices her clothing seems to partially deflect the blow.
Alicia was also quick to react, running in and shooting at the woman, presumed Garrow with her arbalest and hitting. It is a glancing blow, but clearly hits.
The woman then responds, running out of melee and around to the far side of the giant chair and the platform it sits on. When she gets to the other side the party hear a loud, deep masculine voice yell "Scimitar! To arms! We are under attack!" This lends confidence to their assumption that this was Garrow in disguise.
Eriana races to the other side of the chair after that shout but does not see anyone, though she is certain the voice came from roughly where she went to. It appears the woman/Garrow has vanished - possibly become invisible.
She races to the other side of the cleft next to a large opening and passage on the north wall. Peering down the hall she can see lights, and begins to hear shouts and movement. She calls back to the others "Others are comming!"
Rebar climbs down the wall, up on the platform and most of the way up the back of the 25-foot tall stone chair.
Muroni runs up just beyond Alicia go get a good view and cover from the hallway Eriana was referring to.
Harbek is the last to follow up next to Alicia he casts a Bless spell first, with the goal of sustaining it until it is able to encompass everyone (this was part of their initial plan).
Nobody notices where Arkaban has gone to at this point.