Arabelle Adventurers Quest Notes 2011-05-13
Questing
Prologue Episode
Characters involved: Allonia Zapadri (Helen), Sulevi Llyr (Daniel), Waldthear Polmando (Sarah), Gelthien Bracir (Matt), Darly Hunt (Brandy), Ryx Hunt (Trav)
Scene Opens
Scene opens with a brilliant flash of light... Sulevi saves the party from mummies. Full text:
The scene opens with a brilliant flash of white and an unexpected warmth washes over you. The sound of Sulevi's prayer fills the room. Time feels as if it is stopped, but the words continue.
An eternity in an instant, a moment that begins it all. Slowly, the light shifts intensity-- from everywhere at once into a single point in space.
As your eyes adjust to the surroundings, you realize that the brilliant point of light is the center of Alexandria's Star. Sulevi holds her holy symbol before her, eyes closed serenely.
Gelthien lay on the ground, now covered in ash-- that ash being the only remains of the mummies that just a moment ago were pummeling him mercilessly.
As you stand in awe, the white light from Alexandria's Star rises up to the silver circlet on Sulevi's head, causing it to glow slightly. Sulevi is oblivious to this as she opens her eyes and surveys the scene.
Sulevi herself is a small but pretty gnomish cleric, wearing white robes that are unfortunately stained due to the light wounds she has gained in battle today.
Walking down the stairs behind her, you see the imposing figure of Ryx Hunt. The powerful barbarian leader who has been cleaving undead right and left.
Standing beside him in the darkness, you see the mysterious and graceful, Darly Hunt. As a Shadowdancer, her artful combat style is one of the most beautiful ways to die.
Nearby you see an old mage Waldthear Polmando looking rather weak. His eyes are as sharp as ever, though, and it's clear he's analyzing everything carefully.
Off to the side, quite unhappy to be here, you see Allonia Zapadri. She's definitely a rogue and holds her flaming shortsword before her, an orange counterweight to the cold blue sheath it came from.
And finally, as mentioned earlier , we have Gelthien Bracir, the famed gnomish comedian and adventurer. He lies there on the ground, freshly covered in ash. He looks at Sulevi with his mouth frozen wide open, he's stunned but thankful to be alive.
You find yourself and your party standing in a room made almost entirely of human skulls and femurs. This motif is rather familiar to you by now-- it's as if hundreds of graveyards worth of bones were painstakingly sorted by size and bound magically into building materials.
You've just come down the stairs and pretty much no one has any desire to go back that way until your quest is complete.
Everyone is in a skull-encrusted room that was previously inhabited also by mummies. Sulevi informs the party that was her final turn undead and Gelthien heals himself. Sulevi heals the rest of the party as much as she is able.
Sulevi attempts to discern their next action and has a vision of deers roaming free on a pasture. Thinking danger is past, she boldly pushes ahead.
Deeper into the Bone Keep
Mummies
The party moves into another room, quickly dispatches of a cowering skeleton but then two mummies bust through the door. Some of the party cowers in fear upon seeing the mummies, but Gelthien quickly casts Remove Fear to get the fighters into action. Waldthear, unfortunately, is paralyzed with fear. The fighters pound on and the brave fighter Darly receives the chilling mummy's touch with mummy rot.
Mummy Lord
After dispatching the foes and healing a bit, the party pushes on only to run into two more skeletons and a Mummy Lord!
It is a brutal battle, but the party narrowly manages to crush their foes. They continue on through the skull-encrusted rooms, listening for any signs of further undead foes. After another couple of rooms, they easily dispatch some more skeletons.
Magically Locked Door
Upon entering another room, they see a locked door. Allonia walks up to it and says, "Behold my key of the skies. There, I've done it. Can I leave now?" She then presses her sheath against a spot in the door and it opens.
A rush of magic washes over them unexpectedly and they move forward towards an ominous staircase. Waldthear confirms that the effect was a mind-effecting spell, but no one feels bizarre.
Mysterious Conversation
Upon descending the staircase, they see a trap door and listen to an incriminating conversation: a man and a woman discussing an assassination of some members of a group called the Twin Tomes.
- Male (stoic): Flywen. Things are not as I expected.
- Flywen (coy): Whatever do you mean?
- Male: I don't recall any part of our agreement that would lead me to expect the death of two of your partners.
- Flywen: Don't worry-- You know I will honor my side of the deal even without their help.
- Male: Does your husband support your decision to kill two prominent members of the Twin Tomes? That will be hard to explain.
Gelthien whispers in response, "The Tomes! I knew they still existed, but no one believed me. I hoped I was wrong..."
The party tentatively opens the trap door and peers downward into it. They see a web harp with a moving image of a dwarven man on its strings and a woman talking towards it.
- Flywen: My husband supports the decision-- this is better for him, afterall. Yet, my question for you is, why have you sent your elites here today?
- Male (still stoic): I've sent no one there.
- Flywen: They're waiting above me right now, ready to strike at any moment. Why did you send them?
- Male (slightly amused): I can assure you, I've not sent them. Perhaps it's the Twin Tomes come to balance the scales?
The woman then asks the man why he sent his elites, waiting to strike, right above her... clearly she somehow knows the party is here! Nearly everyone in the party has a positive feeling upon hearing Flywen's beautiful but stern voice.
Boss Battle (Flywen)
The woman, (Flywen), beckons them to come down and they do so, though Ryx is reluctant, but goes along with everyone. They walk into a large area with bone platforms held magically in the air above a reasonably large pit of bubbling magma.
Flywen questions as to why they have come- do they seek the artifact or to kill her? It turns out everyone in the party but Ryx was earlier charmed to like her by the magical trap they had sprung earlier.
As the party searches for an answer, and Flywen tries to understand their motives and level of influence of the charm spell, the party members begin to inch forward.
This unnerves Flywen and she casts a spell which Waldthear identifies as a summoning spell. A colossal centipede appears and destroys the staircase- their only means of escape! Flywen then flies over to a levitating platform that houses a large bone altar, presumably the artifact Flywen mentioned.
The attack on the vicious, humongous centipede has begun! Waldthear attempts a Greater Dispel Magic on the centipede, but it does not succeed. Ryx, Darly, and Allonia pound on it, but only the enchanted Ryx is able to penetrate much through its defenses.
Flywen slams Waldthear and Allonia with a flame strike. Allonia tumbles and dodges but Waldthear is burned badly.
Gelthien tries to Fascinate Flywen to give them breathing room to crush the colossal centipede, but he is unsuccessful.
Darly points to Flywen and says "How do we get over there? We need to put an end to her magic or we'll all die!"
Gelthien begins to perform his famous comedy routine in attempt to distract the enemy. One of the jokes reminds Sulevi of something-- suddenly she looks past the centipede towards Flywen and announces with conviction: "My dream! This is it- I see it all so clearly. I'm meant to do this. My flight, her screams, the end... There's no way back now, I know this."
Sulevi driven by her vision, casts Antimagic Field. She now has an area 10' around her is completely immune to the magical centipede and the spells crashing around her. She begins walking towards the edge of the platform closest to Flywen.
The attack continues and Flywen once again targets Allonia and Waldthear- this time with a blade barrier. As soon as a blade slices into the already injured Waldthear, he falls and disappears! (See The Vision below.)
Ryx has a flash of inspiration and calls out to his sister, "Darly! Let's get this girl across!" Darly remembers when they were kids and how she and Ryx would help their younger brother Spry into trees by throwing him into the air.
Flywen then emits a deadly firestorm, blanketing the area with flame and hitting the unprotected Gelthien. The comedic legend bursts into flames; his charred body crumples to the floor lifeless. Allonia dodged the firestorm explosions. When her tumbling is finished, she screams in agony as she watches the death of her dear friend.
Allonia joins her friend in death soon after as the centipede crunches into the halfling's body, severing her in half.
Their final plan now coming to its conclusion, Ryx and Darly ready themselves in the platform's lower corner with Sulevi. The many battles of the day have left them weak, but their combined might is enough to launch Sulevi over the void within range of the altar's platform. Flywen screams as she realizes what is happening. The anti-magic aura causes the levitating platform to fall into the lava. Flywen is unable to save herself and is burned to death with Sulevi as they drop straight into the unbearably hot molten rock.
As soon as the altar hits the lava, the entire skeleton structure of Bone Keep begins to shake-- the platform Ryx, Darly, and the centipede share begins to fall apart and fall into the magma.
The centipede attacks Ryx and he falls down, incapacitated by poison, but urges Darly to escape however she can. Darly comes up with a desperate plan as the only course of action. She makes a difficult attempt to save herself by trying to jump into a shadow and use her abilities to teleport into the levels above her, but the brutal centipede continues to smack her down until she can take no more and succumbs to the cold caress of death. Her shattered body falls lifeless next to Ryx and in his last moment of life, Ryx deeply regrets bringing his talented sister and mourns their pyrrhic victory over evil. The platform and all the structure of the building above them crumbles with many parts of it falling into the lava. Whatever secrets the place held are now burning or buried underground, presumably destroyed.
A New Tale Begins: Nora's Vision
Nora is walking through Arabelle when she sees the bloody and burned Waldthear (whom she recognizes) appear out of nowhere through the windows of an inn room and collapse. Her vision circlet glows and she is suddenly struck by a divine vision of all of the prologue! From her sudden vision, she knows precisely what has befallen the man and she hurries into the inn, running past the confused tavern patrons and up the stairs.
Waldthear appears in his room, having just contingency teleported from the deadly experience at the skull-encrusted dungeon. He remains breathing through sheer force of will alone. There is a lady in the room lying in the bed. She is unconscious and looks quite ill. With intermittent breath he says to her, "Landa, my beloved, I hope you can hear me. The Bone Keep still exists and they will find it again... (rasping) I will not be here when you awake. I'm sorry."
Nora darts up to the room and hears the man's last words as she enters. She panics about the situation but tries to do whatever she can to help. Her healing skills and spells fail on the dead man and she yells for help out of frustration and panic. A person in the next room comes by to see what Nora's yelling is about and that is how Nora and 
Book meet.
They stand alone in the room, feeling powerless, as they consider what to do next.
GAME ADJOURNED
Final GM message
Sorry everyone died!
For your tolerance of technical issues and your patience with a story where it was hard to keep 6 players engaged: Everyone can pick out two free 1st level potions for their baby characters (just potions, no monetary equivalents, etc)
Total XP
These are XP totals for the entire prologue, to be applied to the following characters.
XP Award Details
(NOTE: The XP awards below are already included in the totals above, these details are just for reference.)
In-game awards
OOC awards
Awards Not Acquired
- Survive-Against-All-Odds Award: 0 out of 2 possible
- Secret-Room-Discovery Award: 0 out of 1 possible
Maps and Pictures
Annotated maps and scenes:
Character Dialogue
A subset of the character dialogue:
- Allonia Zapadri wonders if Bracir is going to do anything other than bitch.
- Gelthien Bracir says "Live for six more seconds at least!"
- Gelthien Bracir says "That all you got?"
- Waldthear Polmando says "We should get our palms read instead next time, it will be more accurate."
- Gelthien Bracir says "Go Ryx!!"
- Gelthien Bracir says "Wald! Get in here!"
- Ryx Hunt makes sure Darly is ok
- Gelthien Bracir says "Wow, that's pretty amazing work there, Sulevi."
- Gelthien Bracir says "Quick work"
- Waldthear Polmando says "I don't think we should rely on those visions anymore."
- Waldthear Polmando says "Well, I just had a pretty bad time. That was really scary."
- Ryx Hunt says "That's why we're a team, Waldy my man."
- Waldthear Polmando says "Indeed, let's keep going. We haven't reached rock bottom yet."
- Allonia Zapadri says "Yes, definitely do that."
- Gelthien Bracir says "you hear anything behind that door?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "Mind if I take a listen?"
- Allonia Zapadri yells "WATCH OUT! HE CAN KILL YOU WITH HIS TOUCH!"
- Gelthien Bracir says "Mummy Lord!!!!!!!!"
- Gelthien Bracir says "Well worth it!"
- Gelthien Bracir says "Excellent work!"
- Darly Hunt says "I don't hear anythin'"
- Allonia Zapadri really, really doesn't want to be here.
- Darly Hunt says "Yeah, yeah, we know, Allonia, but you signed on for this, so you're stuck here."
- Gelthien Bracir says "GET SOME!"
- Gelthien Bracir says "Wounded skellie here!"
- Allonia Zapadri gives Waldthear a weird look as he brushes past her a bit too closely for her taste.
- Gelthien Bracir says "Way to go wald!"
- Allonia Zapadri really doesn't want to be here, just so you know.
- Allonia Zapadri presses her sheath into a slot in the door.
- Gelthien Bracir says "Sooooo.. that happened."
- Waldthear Polmando says "myes."
- Gelthien Bracir says "What did I just get this 40 listen check for??"
- Allonia Zapadri sighs.
- Allonia Zapadri still doesn't want to be here. Really.
- Allonia Zapadri says "Now do you see why I REALLY don't want to be here?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "So what was that all about All?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "That was sort of out of character."
- Gelthien Bracir says "Well you should have told us you had a Geas to get us all killed and we might have listened!!"
- Allonia Zapadri says "You wish I did. I don't know what's in there any more than you do, but the only thing I know is I never wanted to find out."
- Gelthien Bracir says "You always feel bad about everything! That's different from "I'm going to unseal ancient evil on you." It's important to be *specific*"
- Gelthien Bracir says "By now I would think bones rather passe to us all"
- Allonia Zapadri crosses her arms and looks both smug and anxious.
- Gelthien Bracir whispers "*all the stuff mattie is saying*"
- Gelthien Bracir says "The Tomes! I knew they still existed, but no onebelieved me. I hoped I was wrong...""
- Gelthien Bracir whispers "The Tomes! I knew they still existed, but no one believed me. I hoped I was wrong...""
- Gelthien Bracir says "I agree! It was foolish for us to... dowhatever we were doing. Let's go back topside."
- Gelthien Bracir says "Let's take these three magic items and write this off."
- Ryx Hunt says "Who are you? Why are you here?"
- Flywen Tulronnu says "Why I'm your friend, Ryx.."
- Ryx Hunt says "Er, who are you? Why are you here?"
- Allonia Zapadri says "For the record, I am not supposed to be here nor did I really want to be here."
- Flywen Tulronnu says "Don't you feel like you want to leave, Ryx?"
- Ryx Hunt says "So, uh, what's your name?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "Yaeh, come on Ryx, let's get out of here."
- Flywen Tulronnu says "You don't need to know my name."
- Gelthien Bracir says "i'm sick of this place."
- Flywen Tulronnu *She watches you closely*
- Ryx Hunt says "Sure we do."
- Allonia Zapadri says "I am all for leaving. Really."
- Flywen Tulronnu says "Wait, I don't think I can let you leave."
- Flywen Tulronnu says "Stand back-- over there"
- Allonia Zapadri says "Er... why not?"
- Sulevi Llyr says "Why were we here anyway?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "uhhhh. Ryx?"
- Ryx Hunt says "Ok, so, why are you here?"
- Flywen Tulronnu says "You will probably come back to kill me, won't you?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "we've got.. uh.. what we came for?"
- Sulevi Llyr says "Why would we ever do that friend?"
- Ryx Hunt says "Depends on who you are and what you are doing here."
- Gelthien Bracir *You know, I'm pretty sure?*
- Waldthear Polmando says "Why would we want to kill you? Did you do something to us?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "I mean, all this lava is probably totally harmless."
- Gelthien Bracir says "and the skulls."
- Flywen Tulronnu says "I did nothing to you-- I don't know you guys very well. You do like me, though... head back to the stairs."
- Flywen Tulronnu says "I don't like the lava either..."
- Flywen Tulronnu says "But I'm safer down here because very few can get through the defenses"
- Ryx Hunt says "Alright, lady, you're not being very cooperative."
- Ryx Hunt says "Safe from what?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "I think we're the one's not leaving her house, Ryx."
- Gelthien Bracir says "We're the rude ones!"
- Allonia Zapadri says "For the record, I don't want to kill you either. I just want to leave."
- Allonia Zapadri yells "CAN WE LEAVE NOW?"
- Gelthien Bracir says "You know, that was rather rude."
- Gelthien Bracir says "I'm starting to wonder about your understanding of proper manners!"
- Gelthien Bracir says "Hey, that's probably, like, her pet or something!"
- Allonia Zapadri says "Yeah! Let's not... er..."
- Darly Hunt looks at Sulevi like she's completely nuts
- Ryx Hunt agrees with Darly
- Gelthien Bracir says "Well, that's helpful. Thanks!"
- Allonia Zapadri says "That's great and all but this is not really the time to get all poetic!"
- Allonia Zapadri yells "OWWW! MOTHERF&^*&%!"
- Allonia Zapadri stumbles after receiving a nasty bite from the foul monster.
- Allonia Zapadri says "The hell! I want one of those!"
- Ryx Hunt yells "DARLY! LET'S GET THIS GIRL ACROSS!"
- Allonia Zapadri screams in agony and anger at the death of her beloved friend.
