Artifact Hunters: I'm On A Mote

Game Date: 12/18/2010
DM: Nick

The Party (Level 4):
Anna Bella (Leigha) - Halfling Monk
Gavail Pontiff (Ted) - Eladrin Wizard
Marek the Silver (Rusty) - Dragonborn Paladin
Morigan McBane (Jesse) - Human Artificer
Talindra Seryth (Matt) - Razorclaw Shifter Avenger

Notes:
Last session Nick wowed us with his hand-crafted miniature of Gavail's scathebeast mount, George. So this time, I took some pics:

(For comparison, there's a pic of a scathebeast here.)

The Session:
Our current sidequest is to rescue the Genasi Earthsoul geologist Manganese, so that he can give us some information for our main quest. We are currently searching for him in a dungeon full of Bane-worshippers, on an Earthmote high above the mountains.

Having taken an extended rest right in a safe room on the dungeon's second level, our heroic adventurers took the stairs down to the third level. There we found a large door, which was difficult to open. Once we finally made it through, we faced a bunch of undead, including wights. Tal and a few others spent several rounds weakened and stunned. Once we finally defeated these Wight Supremacists, we searched some side passages.

In one hallway we found a rockslide trap, in front of a gold statue. The statue turned out to only be painted gold; it was just a temptation put there to lure people into the trap. In another hallway we actually spotted a trap before triggering it, and spent several rounds determining which tiles we could safely step on before disarming the trap. Then we found more stairs, leading down into the fourth and final level.

We encountered a beautiful red-haired woman sitting on a throne. Like any good villain, she acted very hospitable at first. She was impressed by Gavail's scathebeast, and wanted to know what it tasted like. While Morigan was okay with the idea, the rest of us decided to start the battle.

The woman turned out to be a Lamia, with the ability to turn partly into swarms of bugs. We affectionately nicknamed her "Bitch". It was a long battle, and we spent a lot of time stunned by her Pacifying Burst. She had a damaging aura, but it only damaged you if you started your turn next to her. Since she had a tendency to move away a lot, we didn't start our turns next to her most of the time. Marek took the most damage in the encounter, due to the Lamia's Devouring Swarm power. It was hard to hit her defenses, and she took half damage from most attacks, so it was a fairly long battle.

Once she was finally dead, we had another large door to get through. It required sacrifice to open, which meant blood. Gavail got the door opened, but contracted Cackle Fever in the process. Once through, we found cells containing some dead bodies and Manganese.

We let Manganese out and began our trip back to town. Getting back off the Earthmote was a bit of a chore in itself, as our party doesn't have a lot of climbers. But we finally made it back to town and ended the session.

Obsidian Portal Entry

Reminders:
No games for a couple of weeks, due to the holidays.

Rewards:

22 pp, 216 gp

Shroud of Revival (lvl7) - Unclaimed

Bracers of Brachiation (lvl 5) - Unclaimed

Bracers of Defense (lvl 7) - (Gavail)

+2 Sustaining Cloak (lvl 7) - (Gavail)

Total XP: 4825/5= 965 Each

This brings us up to 5466 (Level 5).