Date: 11/1/2026
Weather: Cool and sunny.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (367 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (382 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (367 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (391 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (343 points)
The PCs gathered in town and went right to the dungeon.
The PCs brought the Gith Master to the dungeon with them. They'd purchases a few sets of manacles, chains, and cloth. The corpse was manacled hands and feet, then those chained together, then gagged. They added trying dumping alkahest on the corpse but that didn't kill it, so they had Duncan cast Entombment just a few yards away from the edge of the stairs down to the first level, putting it - they think - into a bubble surrounded by stone and in Suspended Animation. Vlad confidently pronounced it taken care of forever. Thor practically jumping down his throat for hubris. "The (powers that be) are listening!" (His actual words were, The GM is listening.)
After that, they headed through the well entrance and down.
Long story short, they went right to the second GFS and in. Using Flight they ferried everyone across the deathtouch floor. They began to explore, first heading back to the secret door they're spotted last time. They spent a good 20-25 minutes searching around, pushing, pressing, feeling, scanning - nothing. Only the outline of a door and no way to open it. See Secrets made them sure they hadn't missed anything but they couldn't find anything. They'd even come back later and check the floor and ceiling, too.
They used Glasswall to see a hallway beyond the wall. They tried (but failed) to see what locking or movement mechanism the door uses.
Next was the vat room. They kept a healthy distance from the vats, and Vlad and Hannari kept a close eye on it.
Meanwhile Duncan searched the walls. From 3' off the floor to 9' off the floor, all around this roughly 50 yard diameter circle, were blocks of mixed pictograms and elder tongue. Some investigation showed a few types - some starting with animals and ending with animal-men, some with humanoids ending in other humanoids. One showed just goo shapes and more goo shapes. They picked a few and had Chop give Duncan fluency with written Elder Tongue. What he read - with Speed Reading - were "recipes" for creating monsters - turning large men (not normal-height ones) into ogres, turning goblins into hobgoblins, and creating slimes, oozes and puddings (and, oddly, "mimicking" mimics.) They only did those three, but he was able to puzzle out a few more - they think. Dogs or dog-like beings into maybe gnolls, hobgoblins into something else shorter and stockier, smaller humans to knob-covered short guys (they think norkers), pointy-eared humanoids into thicker pointy-eared humanoids or - with some crystals - into humanoids with a hood over their faces (no, not a pointy hat). None of them showed six fingers.
Naturally they began to scheme to come back here with a lot of time, a lot of saved points for Duncan, and make some allies.
They left the room and moved around the level, finding a room with a balcony and a few with windows. The balcony room overlooked a salt-covered cave; the window rooms showed out onto colored crystals, a large cave, and the same large cave. All had a slight warp in the air that could barely be seen at the windows or the edge of the balcony extending to the ceiling. Yet another room with windows looked out onto a cave with three hovering Eyes of Death. They opened up Vlad and wounded him mildly, and then much more as he backed off. Vlad shot arrows back and Hannari threw some meteoric stones threw the windows at them but the dodged with ease. Chop covered everyone with Protection from Evil - one of the best spells available to a cleric in DF - and the eyes backed off. They tried to go through the windows to attack but Agar's Wand couldn't, and Hannari's attempt to reach through caused him some toxic damage that ignored his DR and his Protection from Evil. Oops. They backed out of the room.
They explored a bit more before realizing they'd linked to a known area. They indentified what they call the "teleport naked" room that tripped up a previous group.
The group went back to the balcony room and explored the other way. They found a hallway with a gentle breeze towards them. Beyond it was a room with a black hemisphere, so Vlad shot it to pieces. Past it was a blocked-up hallway with unstable walls and ceiling - not so unstable that they'd fall easily, but unstable enough that using magic to dig out the rubble seemed risky. A final room was empty, but had a "deathtouch floor" which zapped Hannari.
Incidentally, so did the balcony and the windows - the same zapping barrier they'd found near the room letting onto the eyes of death cave.
So they went back to the secret door and used Shape Earth to open up one side of it. Beyond they used Glasswall on the inner secret door and saw a room with a set of 6 levers and a set of 3 levers.
That done, they headed back home. It was late and they didn't think it was worth taking a risk - the check of the barriers told them they couldn't harvest some crystals to make their loot totals.
Notes:
Vlad originally bought a coffin for the Gith Master. Well, priced it at $500, but couldn't bring himself to spend money on it - Miserliness. He tried the "I'm not miserly when it comes to saving my life" but if it doesn't apply then, when does it? The whole game is that. Miserly only when it's optional and useless expenditures is a quirk at best. Probably not even that - it's literally a quirk with no downside. In any case, Percy bought it but the left the coffin "on the surface." Not sure if that means in the ruins or not.
For those playing along at home, Elder Tongue.
XP was 1 each for exploration - a handful of new areas, and some in-depth looks at places PCs have been before. MVP was Chop for healing and Protection from Evil
Armed with what they learned about the vats, I think the old rumors and some previously garned information going back to 2011-2012 might make a lot more sense.
Fun session.