Dragon's Demand: Good Baron Sarvo Wills It

Game Date: 2/1/2014
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Dragon's Demand, Session 2
System: Pathfinder
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Erevel (Daniel) - Elf Rogue
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Ranger
Lilith (James) - Tiefling Paladin
Raz (Matt) - Human Sorcerer
Tanith Tularn (Thomas) - Human Cleric

The Session:

Last session ended with us thwarted by a river of acidic slime.  We returned to town, rested, and spent the next morning getting to know our way around the village and collecting rumors.  We learned all the latest juicy gossip:  The baroness allowed kobolds to move into an abandoned quarry.  Dragons still live nearby, and have been stealing boars.  There are unmarked mine shafts in the hills, haunted by the ghosts of miners.  The town Druid hasn't been seen in a while, and his pregnant wife is missing.  A wolf pack has been killing livestock.  The town wizard might be a devil worshiper.

We bought some wooden boards and nails, intending to make a makeshift bridge for the acid river.  We went to see the Baroness for supplies, but spoke to his son Arnhold instead.  He wasn't extremely helpful, and might not have even been sober, but he did arrange a bit of healing for us.  Once we felt ready to press on,  and headed back to the dungeon.  First we made our way towards the room with the control lever, so we could make the ledge appear beside the acid river. 

As we approached the control room, a voice spoke to us through the door.  Just like last session, it told us it was starving.  This time, Halfbeard tossed some rations through the window, and the voice replied, "Good Baron Salvo wills it."  It wasn't the first time we'd heard this phrase, and we decided to keep it in mind this time.  This time we were not attacked this time when we used the controls.

We reached the river and used our planks to cross it.  It took some fancy footwork to cross unscathed, but eventually we all made it to the other side.  We tried to pull the boards after us, but damaged them in the attempt.  Next we walked down a long hallway.  At the end there was a small room containing illusory magic.  We heard instructions that told us to close the door behind us before using the pass phrase.  We briefly split the party, each group entering the room, closing the door, saying "Good Baron Sarvo wills it", and proceeding into the next room. 

The next room was much larger.  It contained a four-armed arcane servant, but it made no move to attack us.  There was a lever against one wall, which we later learned controlled a pit trap in the previous room.  Glad we knew the pass phrase.  We also saw a key floating in the air.  As we approached the servant, it instructed us to "present the crest for passage."  Halfbeard had found a crest in the previous session (not that the rest of the party noticed), which he now presented.  The servant stepped aside.  The floating key turned out to fit in the back of the servant.

In the next room there were several treasure chests, but we couldn't reach them because they were behind bars.  There were two slots on the floor that might have been keyholes, but none of our keys fit them.  As we pondered the situation, a ghoul came from an adjoining hallway and attacked us.  We finished it off in a round, and peered down the hallway from which it had emerged.  The hall was barricaded and filled with booby traps.

After making our way through the traps, we emerged in a cave with a low ceiling, making everyone except Halfbeard crouch.  We saw a large pile of rubble and a lot of kobold tracks.  Searching more closely, we found two kobold bodies and one crushed human.  We believed it to be the wizard Hunclay.  We found two keys on his body, so of course we tried them in the treasure room.  No dice.

As we re-entered the cave, we were attacked by three kobolds.  It was a weird battle because we were stuck single file in the hallway, and Halfbeard took most of the damage since he was stuck in front.  Raz managed to make one fall asleep, we took down another, and the final one decided to parlay.  We asked the kobold about all the rubble, and she told us the kobolds had been hired by Hunclay to destroy the mage tower.  We continued to speak with her for a while, until we felt we'd learned all she could tell us.  Then we grabbed Hunclay's body to take it back to town. 

We used some of the larger pieces of rubble to make a bridge across the acid river, and headed out of the dungeon. We will pick up the story in town next week.