DF Session 190, Felltower 128 - Exploring Level 1

Date: January 14th, 2024

Weather: Sunny, cold, occasional snow squalls.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (308 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (305 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (297 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (304 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (255 points)

The group gathered in town and exchanged the rumors they'd heard. They then headed up to Felltower. Given the lack of Persistance - a heavy melee hitter - and Urbaine - who could sell the big hoard they saw at 100% instead of 40% - they decided to head to Felltower's main entrance.

First, though, they wanted to dig out the well entrance. They brought a pair of picks and a pair of shovels. Once at the castle, they preceeded to start digging it out. The mix of earth, stone, and wooden rubble fill made it tough. After an hour of digging they figured on at least 12 hours of digging to get to the bottom, plus a number of hours to clear from the bottom to the tunnels on the side. Shape Earth could help, but is costly and a lot of casts given Felltower's restrictions (a 1-second, not 1-minute, duration.) Plus some of the stones were wall pieces, and thus of varying levels of magic resistance.

Next goal was to open the trap door entrance from the surface, able to be unlocked from below. Next they crossed the pit, and explored the secret passage behind the "apartments" near the stairs to level 2. They managed to get in there and check the armory mostly looted way, way back in earlier delving by another group. The weapons and armor there were in terrible shape, and worth so little they didn't take any. They exited the area via a complex of rooms; in one, they found a broken bed, 8 holes about 1" diameter and 2-3" deep in the middle of the floor like someone tried to drill down, all in no discernable pattern. They also found gnoll tracks in the dust, quite old.

They made it out to the hallway and then took the long way around the big room and mural-covered hallway. "Just to be safe" they checked a few doors. Thor forced one and was hit with two dropping pink slimes - oozing and corrosive. They burned off 1 DR of his armor before Chop put Resist Acid on him. He then burned them off; they smelled of greasy beef. There were five more beyond the door so they shut the door and moved on.

Eventually they reached the "noisy room," and they decided to veer off to open the metal door just inside the entrance. Forcing two doors on the "noisy room" was pretty loud. They got there and found it wouldn't open because it's double locked. Hannari spent extra time and picked one lock. As he was picking the other, Chop heard something trying to sneak through the noisy room. He called out an alert, and the "sneakers" charged - three trolls!

The PCs stood ready, Thor using a Wait to chop the first troll to come within 2 yards of him. The first of the three charged, right into the hex with an invisible, floating Duncan (who was using Walk on Air and 1 yard off the ground.) Thor couldn't see Duncan, and rapped off two shots at the neck. One hit the troll and decapitated it; the other hit Duncan and put him to -20 HP (-22 after burning damage) and two death checks. He blew the first one by 5 and died with a brief exclamation of pain.

The other two trolls charged. In a short melee, they managed to claw Thor and wound him slightly, but otherwere were cut down. Chop aided the cause with a Command to get one to attack his friend, briefly, which slowed them down until Hannari could stand shoulder to shoulder with Thor and help with the butchery. Hannari then threw three Alchemist's Fire grenades, one every 30 seconds, to roast the downed trolls (since they do an average of 75 HP each, and you want 220 injury to ensure a troll is destroyed.) Chop used Resist Fire on himself to go into the fire and feel around for Duncan - he lucked out and found him in 1 second, and put Resist Fire on Duncan.

They pulled his corpse free and used Tracking to see if they could follow the trolls back to their lair; Vlad found they had some black smudges they'd left behind. They led to the mosaic hallway and then he lost track. Vlad moved ahead and hit an NMZ / NSZ and lost his spells on, including both lightstones, clerical and wizardly. He broke out a glow vial and moved ahead, carefully feeling around with a foot before he'd put it down. That revealed an illusion-covered pit of some kind. So they decided to go around and check two-three rooms that the trolls could have come from. But "on the way" they wanted to check the triangular chamber off to the side . . . "just to be safe." There they stumbled on a resting black pudding, which rushed them.

It took a bit of time, but they pounded the pudding down pretty hard; Hannari used his new wand to scorch it but found fire wasn't any better than other forms of damage. They beat it until it stop moving and then beat on it some more. What can you do, with a pudding like that?

They have up on finding the troll lair and headed to the trap door entrance.

They found it . . . and found the reason it wouldn't open. Their notes say there is an "airlock" handle on the door that controls the bolts that shoot out to the sides to keep it closed. That handle was gone . . . along with part of the hinges and much of the inside of the trap door . . . rusted off and what remained thick with rust. It was closed and would need the metal bolts cut somehow, and the hinges fully banged away, and then the trap door lifted out from above. A construction project they were ill-equipped to try.

So they headed home, carrying out Duncan's corpse.

Notes:

- Since we finally have Invisibility sorted out in our VTT, this kind of thing happens. Thor's player had no idea where Duncan was . . . and his Wait trigger and response was set. He did one-shot kill a troll (temporarily kill, anyway) along with a wizard. Had he, say, been aiming at the legs, this wouldn't have been a problem. But neck on a Size Modifier +1 troll? Oops, that's right through where Duncan was desperately trying to retreat to avoid getting slammed. And schwing! Dead wizard.

- I'm amused to note that they stumbled into that same pudding twice; a few sessions back they stumbled into it, beat it up, and left it for dead. They did the same today, but after a much larger load of damage.

- The armoury loot is technically not loot for XP purposes - it's an exploited hoard left behind; loot must be found and exploited in one go . . . no taking half the hoard each time to maximize XP or anything like that.

- They debated breaking the locks on the metal door to the entrance room, but decided it would take too long and they didn't have the tools . . . and they want to see if something locks it again. If so, they'll break them.

- Duncan had about $8K and Percy $12K, and Percy had left instructions for this money to be available for in-town stuff like this . . . so they could get Duncan a Resurrection spell. I make the player roll for it, with skill 15. His player rolled a 10 and Duncan was back.

- MVP was Thor for being a damage-dealing engine. And for being a good sport about Vrycing a fellow PC.

- Seems like next time it'll be the stone bull and chimera; they're not willing to go without at least two knights. And they want to track down the possible places the trolls could have come from and get their loot, too.