The Keep on Yeoldelands – Session 82 – There Could Have Been Snakes

Further into the Sunken Temple (aka B4 Lost City)

Expedition 52b

07 Dec 2023

Blakath (Fighter 1)
Koko (Cleric 5)
Mandras (Dwarf 4)

The party edged their way along a winding corridor and came to a door engraved with an unfamiliar symbol. Sliding the door to the side revealed that there was a second door sliding with it on the other side, and at the end of a corridor stood yet another door with another symbol. As they checked the back-to-back doors they’d just come through, they noticed a column of symbols along side. After fighting off a cluster of large snakes investigating these intruders, the adventurers pressed one symbol which they calculated might take them to the fifth level but, when the corridor started moving, it spun around rather than descended.

When it came to a stop, they poked their heads out into yet another corridor, this one decorated with suns and stars. They stuck their ears to the door at the end and heard chanting. Those at the rear of the marching order also heard a door open behind them, and they were confronted by the arrayed scythes of a unit of well-regimented warriors, women dressed identically to the female statue they’d seen on their way down into the temple.

Despite struggles communicating with the Archaic Common speakers, the party were able to grasp that these women were ill disposed to whoever was doing the chanting, apparently a cult of arcane casters intent of stealing the temple from these disciples of Madarua. Probably in league with the accursed Malachie who had commandeered the structure. The adventurers were able to talk the warriors down and convince them that their magic-hating goals may align, and suggested that together they might interrupt whatever rite was being conducted beyond the star and sun door.

The two groups approached the door and attempted to break it down and overwhelm the room’s occupants. Unfortunately, it took a few tries to smash through and thus came face to face with two rows of prepared magic casters, hooded and disturbingly masked as oversized cherubs. As the front ranks of both sides clashed, Koko hurriedly unleashed a silencing spell to stifle their incantations but he wasn’t able to cover the whole room. The party’s eight warrior allies, in the midst of cutting their way through several dagger-wielding opponents, dropped to the floor in a magical slumber and Koko, who’d remained the corridor to cast his own spell while everyone charged into the room, suddenly found himself isolated as the door slammed shut in his face.

While the cleric frantically tried and failed to get the door open again, his comrades suddenly found themselves outnumbered and helpless to prevent the hooded figures from butchering their sleeping allies. Koko’s last remaining retainer, Dimplepool, was cut down as she held off several assailants so that Blakath could start slapping away the remaining warrior women to even up the odds again.

Mandras attempted to cut a path through to, presumably, the caster chief (if the ornate silver crown was anything to go by) but was unable to reach him before he and his last few acolytes retreated through another door. Wrenching the handle indicated that another holding spell had been cast on this one too. Mandras, Blakath, Hats and three surviving allies found themselves shut in a room with two magically locked doors, and Koko all on his own in the corridor outside…

GM Notes

The final battle required a ruling almost instantly, with both sides looking to cast spells and rolling for simultaneous turn order for the first round. Crucially, Koko’s silence spell was intended to prevent the hooded magic users from casting any of theirs, but I’m not aware of anything in the rules indicating how it might affect spells being cast at the same instant, so plumped for each affected caster making a save vs spells to see if they could voice the spell in time. Two succeeded and they were the ones casting Sleep and Hold Portal. Stopped it being an immediate slaughter of a dozen unarmoured magic users.