Last night's session, if I do say so myself, was a good one - we went an hour and a half longer and managed to polish off the first adventure, along with the first encounter of the second one. Roleplaying was done and laughs were had. Let's get right into it.
All four players were in attendance this time, and Iados was introduced rather unceremoniously to the other adventurers who had joined his company, the Blacksword Band. Iados and the rest of the party had a bit of acquainting to do at first, but after a bit of a Mexican standoff they figured out who was who and got to work. Heading down through the trap door they had discovered at the end of last session, the party found themselves in a kennel full of dead (and undead) dogs, along with the skinwalker skeleton who had escaped them before. The tight quarters of this battle proved to make things difficult, as the hounds tore into everyone but Iados, leaving them bloodied or nearly dead by the end of the fight. Adrie in particular found herself in dire straits, as she was dying and had ongoing damage - if the turn order had come around to her again she would've been at -12, 1 HP from outright death.
Naturally, the party took the opportunity to rest after this - this was not something I'd anticipated them doing, but given the difficulty of the kennel encounter perhaps it was for the best. Really need to start keeping track of time so the party doesn't go to sleep mid-adventure all the time... Anyway, after their uneventful rest the party returned to the kennels, and after some exploration they found another trapped door buried under a pile of rotting gore - this gore was no match for Erik and his filter mask, however. Below they found Rover - zombified and hostile, along with a second gravehound, three more skinwalker skeletons and the apparent leader of this operation, a deathlock wight by the name of Beleak.
This combat, the last of the adventure, proved far less difficult than the previous one, thanks to a daily dump on the part of the party. Mika ensured that the monsters didn't even have the opportunity to move for about 2 rounds, and the gravehounds (with the exception of Rover) were quickly dispatched - the skinwalker skeletons fell not long after, and Beleak was unable to hold up at that point. With just Rover left, the party opted to "mercy kill" the poor hound - that is to say, Mika burst its head open with a magic missile. In the aftermath the party explored the cave and found that the ritual circle was inscribed with the religious icons of two rather disturbing powers - one was a symbol of Orcus (a mace with a human skull for a head) with a small crown over it, and the other was a spider-like symbol of Lolth. Being that these two beings are the Demon Prince of the Undead and the Demon Queen of Spiders, respectively, the party was understandably concerned at this revelation. Additionally the party found a spiderweb-choked tunnel - this tunnel ended after a ways, however, in a cave-in, and prevented the party from moving any further.
In lieu of returning to Cairnmoor with a rotting undead headless dog corpse, the party went back and explained the situation, first to Halpern, and then to Ulrick. The scene with Ulrick was understandably awkward - given Ulrick's (admittedly unusual) attachment to his dog, the party found themselves in a bit of a spot. Adrie was quite comforting to Ulrick, however, and netted a bit of bonus XP in the process. The rest of the party remained rather silent, and after claiming their reward, they quietly let themselves out, leaving Ulrick to grieve. After that, the party enjoyed a respite at the Misty Morning Inn, doing a little roleplaying as they got to know eachother. Having finally acquired the money to do so, the ladies got themselves luxury rooms - the guys took their chances with the standard rooms, but were fortunate enough to land a room to themselves.
The party's respite was interrupted the next morning by the ringing of the town bell - they looked outside to find people fleeing through the streets, many of them dressed in the finery worn by the clergy of Pelor. Following the screams, the party reached the Temple of Pelor, and found out from Halpern that skeletons had broken through the floor of the Temple (more of a monastery in construction) and begun slaughtering the worshipers attending morning services. Making things even more interesting, the High Priestess was trapped inside, and a skeleton archer had his bow trained on anyone coming into the main section of the Temple. This proved to be an interesting encounter, as the party had to use the pews for cover or, as Erik experienced firsthand, find themselves bombarded with arrows. This encounter nearly killed Erik, as the DM's dice were rolling pretty high in this encounter, and the archers targeted Erik every time save once. Revenge was had, however, as Erik dealt the killing blow to the skeleton archer which had earlier been knocked into the hole, and drew an opportunity attack trying to climb back out.
The party stabilized the High Priestess, and Halpern brought what was left of his guards, who had been beaten up pretty badly by the skeletons, in to survey the situation. The party learned by talking to the High Priestess and Halpern that these skeletons had come from the Catacombs of Sir Cairnstone, the burial ground for the war hero who had founded Cairnmoor and his loyal men. The situation was revealed to be quite dire, as the catacombs contained upwards of 300 men who could quite possibly overwhelm the town if they attacked in numbers. Iados volunteered the Blacksword Band's services in dealing with this matter, and the party headed down into the hole. There was an attempt on Mika's part to hypnotize someone into jumping into the hole, but her attack rolls took so long to connect that, by the time she had, everyone else had already jumped down. This led to the titular situation of this recap: Mika shouting "Hypnotism! Hypnotism! Hypnotism!" at nothing while the High Priestess, Halpern, and the guards stared in confusion. We ended the session with everyone down in the catacombs.
Events are beginning to unfold in the Titangrave campaign - the sleepy town of Cairnmoor appears to have quite a problem on its hands, and the Blacksword Band find themselves right in the thick of it. What horrors await in the Catacombs of Sir Cairnstone? What dark forces (apparently under the influence of Orcus & Lolth) have designs on the town? Will Mika having a considerable bust size become canon? I suppose we'll just have to be there to find out...
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