GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Session 162, Felltower 116 - Level 7? (Part I)

Finally back in Felltower! It's been eight months . . .

Game Date: 11/7/21

Characters:
Aldwyn, human knight (345 points)
     Varmus the Hanged, human apprentice (170 points)
Bruce McTavish, human barbarian (340 points)
Crogar, human barbarian (350 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (498 points)
Gerrald Tarrant, human wizard (420 points)
Wyatt Sorrel, human swashbuckler (378 points)
Ulf Sigurdson, human cleric (366 points)

The PCs gathered up in town, spending a considerable time on repairs to corroded gear, gathering rumors, and doing all sorts of discussions about the delve ahead. They decided to sell the Bells of D'Abo, deciding they had no further use, along with the dragonscale gloves they took from the giants. They set aside the iron lamp, since no one was sure quite what to do with it - one third wanted to sell it, one third to open it ("Decide what to wish for!", said Gerry), and one third undecided. In the end they set it aside for later.

Wyatt and Gerry set out to see if Black Jans was in town. The Wizard of the Northern Marches, was in town. They found his tower down a street that normally dead-ends, but this time led to a square with no exits except the one they came in.

They knocked and entered, and met a very human-looking doorman, who called himself "the Kio." He was slightly transparant. He had them sit down and explain their business - selling the Bells of D'Abo and the giant gloves to Black Jans. The Kio went up a spiral staircase, fading away from the floor up until he was all gone. After a time, he returned, and said that his master, Jans the Black, Enchanter to the Emporeror of Nalstad, offered 40,000 in silver for the bells. He didn't mention the gloves.

Wyatt did, asking to make sure that Black Jans wasn't interested. The Kio made a face of considerable distaste, and said, "Do not bring such things again." He produced a small coffer, and hauled out sack after sack of silver - 40,000 in all, weighing in at 160 pounds of silver. They took the bags and the gloves and left, staggering under the weight of their coins. (Wyatt's player wanted to get turned Invisible for safety, forgetting momentarily that nothing happens in town.)

They divided up the money nine ways with the characters who were at the raid on the temple in the Lost City.

They headed out to the dungeon, planning, basically, to go down the second GFS, deal with anything that comes along the way . . . and if not, go to the next level down from the "death floor." They made sure Gerry had the burned-off "moon wand" to get past the Force Dome near the "moon gate."
The late start meant they reached the castle well after lunchtime, having to stop on the way. They found the trap door entrance shut, and went in the main entrance. They took the same path as always, using Silence spells to mask ropes hammered into the walls with iron spikes to cross the pit, on the noisy doors they forced, etc.
Eventually they reached the second level and then the GFS, and went down - using See Secrets on Galen to ensure they didn't miss anything.
On the "Gate level" or "level 4" (both according to Ulf), they traveled the usual route to the second Giant Fantastic Staircase. They found one of the black hemispheres was back, so they had Galen shoot it to pieces. Nothing bothered them while they did so.

They reached "Phase Snake Junction" and turned up past the niches where the obsidian golems had fought them. They carefully passed, ready to get jumped, but nothing did. Bruce touched the door and it opened. Inside the room, they had Galen search for a way to turn off the illusionary wall/"Will Wall." He found nothing. Wyatt announced, "By the Brotherhood let me pass." That didn't seem to affect anything, but he was able to pass. The others did, as well, all making their Will rolls.

They headed to the stairs and wound their way down, two turns clockwise to the next landing. They briefly stopped and had a discussion about continuing for a few minutes before heading deeper. The already oppressive feeling of darkness got worse - and still, no Dark Vision could penetrate the darkness.

Another two loops and they came to another door. Bruce touched it and it shifted, maybe a half inch? But it wouldn't open. They had Aldwyn and Bruce touch it together, although they couldn't both get a hand on the actual palmprint location. It did the same shift. They tried to get someone to peer through the "opening" that was made, but it didn't shift enough to come completely out of the wall and left no gap.

After another few minutes of debate, they continued on deeper. Bruce lead the "go deeper!" push, and Ulf the "go back!" side. In the end, Ulf agreed to go one, with conditions - they'd basically turn back if the darkness closed in.

They went down another two winds of the staircase, and found another a door, and the GFS continued beyond. They decided to check the door, which Ulf reported, with no small sense of alarm, that was "level 7". Bruce opened the door, and beyond was a hallway and room identical to that on the level far above. They moved into the hallway and the door closed behind them. Wyatt moved cautiously into the room, backed by Galen.

Suddenly a Dispel Magic spell hit them, and then a second later a greenish cloud of gas appeared, filling the hallway and part of the room. About half of their lightstones went out, along with a number of spells. They all held their breath, and moved to the exit, either quickly or slowly. But the gas still injured them, some fairly significantly. Gerry was injured, but despite that managed to get off Purify Air and wiped out the gas. They continued to hold their breath as they moved to the door, and Wyatt moved into the room to "scout."

They saw a rush of opponents - short-ish greataxe-wielding cone-hatted figures backed by three tall, lean cone-hatted figures. Wyatt yelled out, "They're coming from the north!" ("Up" being "north.") They also spotted a half-dozen or so golden swordsmen escorting a large, golden cat.

The tall guys backing the axemen threw a grenade - demon brew. Most of the targets were holding their breath and were unaffected. But as they did so, the goldcat roared . . . a massive, ear-splitting boom. It wounded almost everyone - except Varmus and Ulf hiding in the back corner and Wyatt out front - and stunned Galen, who then inhaled some demon brew.

The PCs formed a rough line, with Crogar, Aldwyn, and Bruce "north" to "south," fighting at two hex reach against the axemen. They fended off all of the blows, but the tall ones kept throwing demon brew grenades at them. Galen shot the goldcat several times in what should be the vitals, but it didn't fall, and kept roaring. Wyatt fought in front of the rough line, stabbing a number of axemen and then golden swordsmen in the eyes, wounding several. An ill-timed 18 and a foe's critical hit used up his Extraordinary Luck pretty quickly. Galen shot a few, but suffered from additional demon brew damage. One in the back tossed a smoke nageteppo to cut off the vision of the casters. The goldcat kept roaring, stunning Crogar and Galen again, and damaging them all, deafening several as well. But Gerry Great Hasted himself, and kept up Purify Air, clearing the smoke and persistent demon brew grenades the cone-hatted guys kept tossing. Ulf used Awaken to clear out stunning. Varmus created a Fireball but couldn't get a clear place to use it.

Galen shot down a couple of golden swordsmen, trying to get a path to the cat. Of course, with Bloodlust, that meant shooting the fallen multiple times to make sure they stayed down.

(However, at this point, it was getting late in the real world. The PCs had put down a couple each of the golden swordsmen and axemen.

We ended it there, in the middle of the fight.)

Notes:

- Very slow start today. No one was really sure what they wanted to do, or what risk level is acceptable, and so on. The we needed to price and complete repairs, discuss what to sell, then sell it, then decide who gets some of the treasure, and how much . . . then rumors, plan changes, discussions of which spells to learn to go where, etc. Yeah, we started at 11, but actually 11:30 yesterday because Roll20 wouldn't cooperate with me, and then all of this stuff until almost 2, our lunch break. So actual delving started at 3 pm.

- Because of that, we really had no shot of finishing up in one session. Around 7:30 I suggested that we'd need two sessions, so should we push to finish the fight and then have the PCs run back home, or push it out to two sessions and go from there? We broke it off instead. It's not clear if the enemy has anyone or anything else coming. The PCs feel confident, because they only really worried about the "death floor" and the obsidian golems, so they say. They also say things like "the enemy is armed with our loot" and "kill them before they use up all of those nageteppo because we need some." Remember those wise words: always count your chickens before they hatch. That might be misquoted.

- Token Stamp 2 is very convenient for last-minute token making.

- First appearance of Black Jans in a long time. The bells were an item of "especial interest." The gloves . . . weren't seen in such high regard.

- Roll20 was annoying as usual. It's time to start experimenting with our chosen replacement . . . I'll need to find some time with Vic to work on that.

- Wyatt has Mental Strength. It had no effect on the "Will Wall." Also, no, Hard to Subdue doesn't help against stunning and knockdown, or to recover from stunning. I'm not sure why the latter is even a question this many years into the game.

- I think they said Varmus was mapping, but he doesn't have anything to map with, and started the fight with his staff ready. He also lacks Cartography and much of the interest the other PCs have in mapping. I can't stop players from just mapping on their own anyway, since everyone is remote and can just jot down a map. I won't confirm any details, upload any maps, etc. based on that.

- MVP was Gerry. It was a tossup - Ulf for his stun-ending Awaken spells, or Gerry for his smoke-and-poison-gas-ending Purify Air spells.

- More details on rules and rulings tomorrow. Some odd situations came up.