This session took place the weekend after Hurricane Zeta. Our power had luckily returned after 23 hours, but Ian’s power didn’t come on until the evening before the session, so he had to take care of some things around his house. To make up for the lack of uncles we decided that K’un-Lun and Professor would stay in the temple to keep watch, while the rest of the party would explore the mysterious, cursed town. (Personally, I imagined K’un-Lun spending the entire time trying to get Professor to say his name correctly.) The party did not know that they were about to encounter the consequences for Surina’s Thunderous Smite (see Session 5)….
DM: You are in this underground temple. Lysithea believes things were taken from the temple, which caused the curse, so you are going with her to explore the town. As you exit back out the temple you see floating weaponry, as if it’s being held by someone. Roll initiative (Draggy 6, Octavia 23, Lysithea 5, Surina 13). The tunnel is dimly lit, but all you see are these 5 floating weapons. Octavia goes first.
Begin Weapon Fight
Octavia begins by rolling perception (Nat 1). She perceives absolutely nothing. In fact, she feels this area is too dim to do anything confidently.
Octavia: I don’t see anything. Do you detect any Undead?
Surina: No.
DM: The weapons are moving closer because they saw the doors kind of shift as you walked out. Next is Surina. You see these weapons flying about, blocking you down the stairs.
Surina: Are they bad guys or just flying weapons? (Rolls investigation, 17)
Cordelia is acting totally on her own right now, and we are impressed.
DM: The weapons seem to be drawn in hostility. The 2 in the back have crossbows. What are you going to do?
I discuss with Cordelia her options – she could try attacking, or she could try sneaking past the weapons. She decides on attacking, staying true to her character, and does Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo to choose which weapon to attack. She goes for the mace, but the DM needs to know what she is going to attack. Will she attack the weapons themselves, or the air in front of them? Cordelia said, “Well, I think someone is holding them but we just can’t see them,” and she attacks the air where the weapon is. Because we cannot see exactly what we are attacking, all attack rolls against the air will be rolled with disadvantage.
Surina moves in to attack the air in front of the mace, but misses with a 7. Draggy moves in, swings his battle ax to the air in front of the sword and makes contact with something. His attack roll of 11 did 7 damage to whatever he hit. Lysithea realizes these are probably the miners who freaked out from the roaring thunder clap Surina did against the skeletons. She doesn’t want to attack, so she uses Thaumaturgy to try to intimidate them by vibrating the ground. Her intimidation roll of 12 was not strong enough to break their focus. They will not be intimidated. Octavia also does not want to hurt these potential miners, so she rolls acrobatics to try to sneak by. She rolled a 13, but the DM rolled a Nat 20. She cannot pass them and they feel her. They begin swinging their swords wildly, attacking Surina. The first one hits Surina for 3 damage, but the other one misses her. Octavia realizes that defeating them will be the only way the party can get out. She aims her longbow at where she feels a head would be, hits with a 12, and does 10 damage. The weapon clatters to the ground. Octavia rolls intimidation 9, and sees the other weapons fall back a bit. Suddenly, 2 crossbow bolts head towards Surina. Her armor protects her and both arrows simply clink off her armor. Surina moves forward to attack, hits, and does 5 damage. Draggy moves forward and hits the weapon next to Surina, doing 4 damage. Lysithea attempts to use Chill Touch, but misses. Octavia aims her an arrow with her longbow at the weapon attacking Surina, fires, and does 4 damage. The first weapon swings at Surina and misses. The second one swings at Draggy and misses. 2 more shots fire at Surina from crossbows, but both miss. Surina attacks the air in front of her, but she doesn’t hit anything. Draggy swings hit battle ax at the air in front of him, makes contact, and does 5 damage. Lysithea hits the air by one of the crossbows with Chill Touch doing 4 necrotic damage. Octavia aims her longbow at the air in front of Surina, hits, and does 10 damage. The mace falls to the ground. She rolls intimidation 12, but the weapons do not react. A weapon swings at Draggy but misses. The crossbows fire at Octavia, both missing. Surina moves and attacks one of the crossbows, hits, and does 10 damage. Draggy ties to attack the air by him but makes not contact. Lysithea tries to hit again with Chill Touch, but misses. Octavia aims at what she assumes is a swordsman in front of Draggy and hits, doing 10 damage. That weapon falls, but she fails her intimidation roll with a Nat 1. (I would like to point out that there have been a lot of Nat 20s in this battle, but everyone has been rolling with disadvantage…) The crossbows shoot at Octavia again, but both miss. Surina attacks her crossbow space again, hits, and does 7 damage. The crossbow falls, but because of Octavia’s previous Nat 1 there are no more intimidation rolls. Draggy attacks the final crossbow and does 10 damage. Lysithea uses Chill Touch one more time, does 8 necrotic damage, and the crossbow falls.
End Fight
DM: All the weapons have fallen to the ground.
Lysithea: *inspects the ground around where the weapons are*
DM: You feel there is still life force there. The magical presence you felt before remains; however, you notice the mine cart is now gone.
Lysithea: I don’t think they are dead.
Octavia: Well if they aren’t dead what are they?
Lysithea: I have a theory. I still believe these people are in-between dimensions. They are still here in a way, which is how they were able to attack us and why we were able to hit them; however, they are not completely here. While their weapons could have killed us, our magic and weapons could only hurt the part of them that is in this dimension. Did we do damage? Yes. But since they are between dimensions we probably only did enough to knock them out. Their life force remains, I can feel it, so they are not dead.
Octavia: I am skeptical because I don’t have a theory of my own, but I’ll go with that for now since it’s plausible.
Lysithea: I think we need to continue out and inspect the town.
DM: You make it out without any other issues, but you see that the mine cart is at the entrance of the excavation site. It is empty. You don’t hear any commotion or see any movement. The town is completely still. The sandstorm has ended. The buildings around seem shoddily make, except for one large building in the middle of town. This building looks really well made.
Since combat was over Victor decided to go play in the other room. He comes back later when there is more combat. We let Cordelia decide if we should inspect the shoddy little buildings, or the big one.
Surina: Let’s go to the nice building in the middle of town.
Octavia: Excellent, I agree.
DM: As you head towards the building you notice they tried to grow crops at the edge of town. There are scarecrows standing over the field, but the crops looks failed.
Lysithea: Are there… crows here?
Octavia: Why would there be a farm set up in the desert? Are these… I don’t know.
DM: The fields are behind the big building. There are 2 scarecrows and crops stick out weirdly.
Lysithea: Should we inspect the crops first?
Surina: Sure.
DM: (The party goes around the outside of the building to inspect the fields.) There’s a hastily made fence with a post, and 2 scarecrows.
Lysithea: (Rolls arcana to see if there’s any different magical sense, but doesn’t feel anything different.) There’s no soil here, it’s just sand.
DM: Roll nature or survival, whichever is higher (Lysithea 14, Octavia 14, Surina 11). The sand was plowed like it would be a field, and there’s bigger mounds as if for crops. The area looks affected by the sandstorm, but not a lot. The plow lines are still visible.
Lysithea: I think they weren’t trying to actually grow anything, but made it look this way to throw people off and actually buried something.
Octavia: That’s very sinister. Surina, what should we do?
Surina: *hesitates* Let’s explore the mounds.
Begin Field Encounter
The party enters the fields, keeping the same initiative. Lysithea heads towards the green scarecrow on the left side of the field. Cautious and untrusting, she uses her Mage Hand to inspect the scarecrow. There’s nothing significant about it, it’s just a scarecrow upon investigation. She rolls perception (18), and it looks very well made, like it was made better than the buildings.
Lysithea: Hey everyone, this scarecrow is really well made. Like, it’s really well put together. It looks like more attention was put in to building this scarecrow than the town.
Surina stays along the fence and heads to the right. She uses both actions to move to the red scarecrow, but cannot do anything else. Octavia moves on to the mound by the green scarecrow with Lysithea. It looks like where you would plant a crop. It seems huge, kind of like a row for corn, but it’s weird. She rolls investigation (10) and starts digging through the dirt. Going through the dirt Octavia notices there’s rocks and things that don’t seem to belong in a field. Rocks and stones from the cave are planted in the mounds. That’s all you can see.
Octavia: Were they trying to plant crystals or something? Were they trying to grow what comes out of the temple? This is definitely something that I don’t know about farming. I’ve never tried to plant a rock. Knowing the desert they wouldn’t get very far.
Draggy moves to follow Lysithea. Lysithea moves towards Octavia and digs deeper past the rocks, rolls investigation (17), and finds pieces of the temple and the walls. She digs further and notices something glinting.
Lysithea: Oh this is bad.
Lysithea reaches down and pulls out a small gem, and now everyone rolls new initiative (Surina 19, Lysithea 12, Octavia 11, Draggy 21). The green scarecrow starts moving. Draggy moves in and attacks the scarecrow, hits with an 18 and does 13 damage. Next is Surina. The red scarecrow in front of her starts moving. Surina immediately moves to attack, hits with a 24, and does 9 damage. The red scarecrow attacks Surina, misses its first attack, but hits with its second, doing 7 damage. Surina has 14 hp left, and has to make a DC wisdom save. She succeeds with a 19. Lysithea attacks the green scarecrow with Fire Bolt and does 3 damage. She rolls Arcana (11) and notices the attack seems to have done more than the others.
Lyisthea: HIT IT WITH FIRE!
The green scarecrow moves to attack Lysithea, but first Draggy gets an attack of opportunity. He hits with a 17 and does 6 damage. The scarecrow attacks Lysithea, but misses both attacks. Octavia aims with her longbow at the green scarecrow, rolls a Nat. 20 to hit, and does 12 damage. Draggy moves to hit the green scarecrow, hits with a 16 and does 4 damage. Surina, having heard Lysithea’s shout, attacks the scarecrow with her fire breath. The scarecrow has to make a constitution saving throw of 13, but rolls below and fails. She rolls 2 d6, and does 11 fire damage. The red scarecrow looks very angry and very burnt. It attacks Surina and hits on the second attack, doing 6 damage. Surina has 8 health left. Lysithea moves back, hits the green scarecrow with Fire Bolt, and does 3 more fire damage. The green scarecrow moves and attacks Lysithea, hits, and does 3 damage. It hits her again with its second attack and does 5 more damage. Lysithea has 5 hp left. Surina passes her Wisdom saving throw with an 18, and Lysithea passes both of hers with a 20 and 21. Octavia moves to heal Lysithea for 10 damage using Cure Wound. Draggy hits the green scarecrow with his battle ax and does 5 damage. Surina cannot use her breath again, so she rolls to attack with her longsword, hits with an adjusted 20, and does 7 damage.
Dad takes a second and reminds Cordelia she has Divine Smite, where she can roll 2 more d8 to do more damage. Cordelia gets excited and immediately puts that in to action.
Surina uses her Divine Smite on the scarecrow, doing a total of 12 damage, including her original attack. The scarecrow is dead. Lysithea moves back and hits with Fire Bolt again, doing 5 more fire damage. The scarecrow bursts in to flames, defeated.
End Encounter
Lysithea: Well that was annoying. It looks like the people here brought things from the temple and buried them. Let’s dig up a little more and see what we find.
DM: As you dig you find pieces of the temple. Some pieces that look chipped away, some bigger pieces… Nothing that looks like it had been dragged, just smaller pieces. (Lysithea chooses to keep the green gem.)
The party decides to check out the big building. The back door by the fields is locked, so Surina leads the party to the front door, which is unlocked. There is a lobby upon entering the building. This is a town hall, a bureaucratic looking building. The party hears something that sounds like a gavel knocking from the other room. At a glance they see a gavel floating, and pews set up like a town meeting room. There’s a quill writing in a book off to the side. Lysithea notices the magic feels the same, but stronger. She rolls arcana (19), and can tell the source of magical strength is coming from above.
Lysithea: The magic feels like it’s getting stronger from this way *points up*.
Octavia: Do we want to explore the first floor, or move on up?
Surina: Let’s explore the first floor first.
The entire party rolls investigation (Surina 7, Octavia 6, Lysithea 11). They don’t find anything at all. They do notice there’s artwork that’s all sphinx themed, very similar to the temple, but they find nothing else really. The party goes up stairs. The first floor was mainly a meeting room. The second floor is a hallway, with several small doors and huge double doors at the end. Up here they notice there’s complete silence. Lysithea feels the source of the magic is coming from this floor. The party decides to check room by room, just like the inn (see Session 4). The doors are all locked. Surina rolls investigation (much to Cordelia’s delight, 14). She notices there’s a sphinx carved in to each of the door handles, but there’s no key hole. Surina decides to knock on the first door. All of a sudden writing appears on the door and it states:
You see me in water, but I am never wet.
Lysithea: My reflection?
The door opens. Inside in an office, with a sphinx statue displayed. There is only paperwork on the desk. Nothing of interest, just papers with orders of supplies for the excavation. The floor looks like things have been dragged in to the room, like the statue.
Lysithea: Let’s go knock on another door.
Surina picked the door and knocks. More writing appears:
I may be a nuisance but commit no crime, but I’ll be a part of a murder in time.
The party is slightly stumped. They guess a knife, the truth, the judge, the jury, yet nothing happens.
Octavia: Well I know group of crows is called a murder…
The door opens. In this room there is a desk with a lot of supplies. Lysithea rolls arcana (11), and senses there was something magical here. Octavia rolls survival (9), and notices there is hay and other things from the outside. Surina rolls survival (10). It looks like they were making something in here, like the scarecrows (DM: Get it, scarecrows, the crow door.).
Surina picks the next door and knocks.
I have a tail and I have a head but I have no body. I am not what slithers in the dark. What am I?
A story? A worm? A ghost? A nail? Shadow, comet, book…
Lysithea: A coin!
The door opens. Inside is gold. Coins, bars, and a desk covered in coins ala Scrooge McDuck. Surina knocks on the next door.
I have not flesh nor feathers nor scales nor bone, yet I have fingers and thumbs of my own.
Human, jellyfish, octopus, piano…
Lysithea: Gloves!
The door opens. This room is filled with equipment, mining gear, and clothes. There’s another desk with a log of the equipment. Surina knocks on the next door.
Alive without breath, as cold as death, never thirsty, always drinking, all in mail, never clinking.
This riddle is from The Hobbit, which I have been reading to Cordelia. When we got to the chapter “Riddles in the Dark” I read to her using my best Gollum impression. I think I did Andy Serkis proud. Gollum is now one of Cordelia’s favorite Tolkien characters. Justice put this riddle in thinking it was Cordelia’s favorite, but her favorite was actually the egg riddle. I was asked to not answer at first to give her a chance to recall the answer to the riddle. She couldn’t come up with the answer, and neither could Liz, so I finally got to blurt it out.
Lysithea: Fish!
The door opens. There’s dried meat in the room, like jerky and other dried meats. Surina knocks on the final small door.
The poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it you’ll die.
Lysithea: Nothing.
The door opens. There is nothing in this room. Lysithea feels traces of magic that feel came from a dark power. Something evil has been using this room. Surina moves to the end of the hallway and knocks on the double doors. On each of the double doors a different riddle appears.
There are 2 sisters, one gives birth to the other and she in turn gives birth to the first.
What goes on 4 feet in the morning, 2 feet at noon, and 3 feet in the evening?
Octavia: Could the first one be Yin and Yang?
Surina: Or sun and moon?
Cordelia’s answer was so very close! We prompted her to change her answer just slightly…
Surina: Night and Day.
Lysithea: The second one is Man.
Both doors unlock and open. This looks like the big wig’s office. There is one big desk, and behind it is a giant sphinx. In the sphinx’s mouth is a large blue gem.
Lysithea: Oh, I think this needs to go back to the temple.
Octavia: To break a curse?
Lysithea: Yes, to break a curse.
Nothing happens when Lysithea touches it. She uses the Mage Hand to grab the gem, and stores it in her bag to bring back to the temple. The party feels chills as other “people” leave the building. On the way to the temple a bell begins to ring.
Lysithea: It’s either dinner time or they realize the gem is gone.
Octavia: Maybe we should move faster.
Lysithea: Agreed.
The party reunites with Professor and K’un-Lun in the temple.
End session.
Notes:
- The Man riddle on the double door is from the play Oedipus, the riddle of the sphinx. The sphinx would kill someone if they didn’t get it right. The Day and Night riddle is sometimes included in Oedipus as a second riddle. Some accounts say it’s an even older riddle.
- The scarecrows were challenge ratings 1. This was a hard encounter for the party. Fire did double damage to the scarecrows.
Analysis: Cordelia was awesome this time. She was confident in her actions, and only needed to be guided a little. The guidance she did receive was mostly just Justice and I listing her options. She was focused and eager to participate. When we got to the riddles she lit up! She blurted out answers even though she had no idea if she was going to be right or wrong. This is one of the few times I’ve seen her apply herself and not be afraid of making a mistake. If things go our way this type of confidence will grow and carry over in to daily life.