Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Session Seventy-Six: Riddles of the Monastery

The group covered Vashti's body with an old robe and promised to give her a proper burial later. They looked around the room and there were four doors, excluding the door they entered through.
They chose one at random and opened it. Inside, they saw an old desk, with a piece of crumbling vellum on it. They also saw an old bed, that was big enough for a half giant, and a stone fireplace.
Shade inspected the vellum and saw strange characters written on it. Alaxander went to inspect the bed and found that it was dilapidated and the linens were heavily moth eaten. Julius inspected the chimney and disturbed a small colony of bats.
The bats swarmed the group, causing a great deal of confusion. Julius was bit, but it was a minor wound. The bats eventually flew threw the open doorway and into the monastery. After causing some havoc there, they flew out of some small windows and into the night. Unbeknownst to Julius, or anyone else, the bat infected him with rabies.
Shade said that the vellum had some characters on it, but he was unable to read them. Everyone gathered around and looked. No one knew how to read the strange looking language. Feeling frustrated, the group left the room.

The group randomly chose another door to investigate. It was locked, so Shade decided to pick the lock. He succeeded, but the lock locked itself again. Shade was perplexed and picked it again, only to have it re-lock. The group thought there must have been someone on the other side, locking the door as it was unlocked.
The monks found their way into the large room, at this point. The sounds of combat and the cloud of bats roused them. Nabil and a female Dwarf, Nyla, were leading the monks. They demanded to know what was going on.

Alaxander and Julius explained their mission, to find the sentient gem and defeat the tyrant of Tyr, who is planning something terrible. They finished by explaining that they believed Kalak was planning to kill everyone in Tyr. Upon hearing this, Nyla asked Nabil if she could join them. Nabil agreed and posted guards inside of the library.
The group accepted the extra assistance and explored the other two doors, which were not locked. One lead to a large, triangle shaped room, with three paintings and a large stone table. One painting was of a wyvern, one was a coiled snake, and the last was an ogre warrior. The stone table had characters on it, similar to the vellum in the other room. The ceiling was so high, it passed into darkness.
The other door revealed two stone lions, who turned to look at the group, and a door beyond them. They quickly closed the open door and moved away from it. They talked about what to do next.
Nyla told them that the library had scrolls that might help them decipher the strange writing. The group withdrew to the library and began their search. It took a couple of hours, but Alaxander found a scroll with the same style of wrting that translated it into another language. No one could read that language, but they then found another scroll which translated that unknown language into Raamin, which Kalino could read.

Day 20, Week 2, Macro, Friend's Vengeance, 190th King's Age, Sun Descending

They decided to return to the room with the paintings and stone table. While Kalino and Alaxander began translating the writing on the table, Julius decided to investigate the paintings. He approached the wyvern painting and touched the frame, to look behind it. When he did, stone arrows rained down on him, from the darkness above.
Julius was hurt, but he used the way to make himself invulnerable to physical attacks. He looked behind the painting of the wyvern again. Stone arrows rained on him again, but thanks to his mastery of the way, the arrows did not harm him. He found nothing behind the painting, only the stone wall.
Using the energy he had gathered, from the arrows, he walked quickly to the locked door, in the other room, and released the energy upon it. The door cracked and split considerably. Julius thought he could easily push it over, but decided to wait for everyone else.
Back in the room, the words were translated. It was a riddle. It took the group a few minutes to solve it. Suddenly, the paintings came to life. The ogre warrior removed his red tabard, emblazoned with an axe wielding bear, and tossed it out of the painting. The snake uncoiled and a quartz gemstone fell out of the painting. Finally, the wyvern threw a copper key out of the painting.
Julius put on the tabard, Shade took the gemstone, and Alaxander took the copper key. Shade saw some characters on the gemstone and sounded them out. The gemstone healed him and then broke in two. They discovered the key was to the door that would lock itself and was heavily damaged by Julius.
The group went back to the room with the fireplace. They were able to translate the writing on the vellum and discovered it was another riddle. They solved this riddle quickly and were rewarded with a stone amulet. The amulet had an image of a bow and arrow on both sides. Shade put it on.
They left the room and opened the door to the room with the stone lions. They discussed what to do, as Shade and Nyla moved to enter the room and the lions got into an attack posture. They backed out of the room. Julius just walked into the room, determined to run through the room, but the lions relaxed. He moved past the lions and entered into the far room. The group guessed that the tabard Julius was wearing was allowing him to move past the lions.
Inside the far room, Julius found masonry tools, two statues, and four skeletons. One of the statues was unfinished. Two of the skeletons died by violence, with ancient copper headed spears still inside their bones. He could not tell how the other two died. Inside one of the skeletons hands was a piece of cloth and on it was writing in Balican.
It was a riddle. Julius shouted the riddle back to the group and, together, they were able to work it out. He solved the riddle and the skeleton, who had been holding the riddle, rose and showed Julius where some treasure was hidden. The skeleton then began following Julius around. Julius gathered the spear heads and a copper chisel, before returning to the group.
Julius explained what he had found and shared some of the treasure. He named his skeleton Fred. The group walked up to the badly damaged door and used the key. The door collapsed as they opened it.
Shade lead the group into a wide hall. He could see the hall open up ahead, into a room with a blue door, and he made his way toward the opening. 
Unexpectedly, as Shade took a step, two dune reapers teleported into the room ahead of him with a bamf. Alaxander ran forward, which triggered the trap again and teleported two more dune reapers into the room. The team began fighting, but in an unorganized way. Instead of targeting the same reaper, they fought individually.
Alaxander decided to bypass the fight and opened a dimension door. He positioned the other side of the dimension door on the other side of the blue door. He jumped through and found himself in a small with, with two animate statues. The statues started beating on him, with their stone fists.
Kiara attempted to follow Alaxander, but could not and passed temporarily through the dimension door, which stunned her. A dune reaper knocked her unconscious.
Julius used the way to make himself invulnerable to physical attacks. Kalino and Shade attacked the same dune reaper and Nyla used the way to walk on the walls, going over the dune reapers. She tried to open the blue door, but it was locked. The dune reapers jumped really well and leapt to attack Nyla. She was knocked to the ground.
Shade fell to the dune reapers attacks. Nyla was overwhelmed and was knocked unconscious. Everyone was badly hurt and things were looking very grim.

Join us in two weeks for another exciting session of Adventures Under the Dark Sun. 
2nd edition AD&D Dark Sun Cast of Player Characters 
Julius: Human male psychokinetic. 22 years old. Played by Dave. Speaks Balican, Tyrian, and Giant. 
Alaxander: Human male psychokinetic. 18 years old. Played by Ben. Speaks Balican, Tyrian, and Elf. 
Nyla: Dwarf female psychometabolist/fighter. 50 years old. Played by my wife. Speaks Dwarf, Tyrian, and Urikite. 
Shade: Half-Elf male ranger/thief, 18 years old. Played by Chad. Speaks Balican, Elf and Tyrian. 
Kalino: Human male fighter/preserver. 20 years old. NPC. Speaks Rammin, Tyrian, and Balican.
Kiara: Human female fighter/templar, 22 years old. NPC. Speaks Urikite, Raamin, and Tyrian.

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