Lost Colonies Session 25

The last time we saw our stalwart adventurers, they had just driven off the Yellow Lady after efficiently taking care of her ogre minions. Initially, the party were happy to see her go, feeling that they had secured an advantageous ground by occupying the Yellow Lady's sleeping quarters. After assessing how little damage and spells they used to fend off the ogres, they decided to pursue.

They found her in a giant, columned hallway at the end of which was a cauldron shaped like a gaping, demonic mouth. The whole room was filled with a low hum and living corpses were crawling out of the cauldron. The Yellow Lady lay before the cauldron in a pool of blood and a giant amber statue of a cyclops with blood dripping down its face stood between the party and their quarry.

The ensuing combat was brutal, but fun. Both Hamlen and Swibish were on death's door several times during the melee and had I not rolled a '1' for damage on the last hit I got in on them, Swibish would have breathed his last. This combat demonstrated to me that the Fighter in older editions is far more powerful and useful than is generally accepted. Hamlen was responsible for doing most of the damage and was able to absorb a lot of hits that would have otherwise killed other party members and their henchmen.

It turned out that the cyclopean statue was being controlled by the Yellow Lady. She had cut out her own eye and placed it in the statue's socket in order to do so. This was supposed to be a puzzle for the players; however, in her desperation to get her spell book back from the characters (though they didn't know they had it and she didn't know that they didn't know), she decided to use the cursed statue herself.

As they have done in the past, the players prayed, used a bless spell and their holy symbols in order to destroy the demonic cauldron. I know it sounds easy, but I do allow these things a saving throw, based upon what kind of effort the players put into such things.

There was one casualty in the whole affair — Tyrd the goblin cook. Ahkmed failed his saving throw, his sword Hornet took over and skewered the goblin just as he was rejoicing over the demise of his former master. Surprisingly, the whole party took Tyrd's death rather hard and immediately set about leaving the dungeon with their hoard to find a way to get the little guy raised — Hamlen argued that it was a matter of honor.

The rest of the session saw the party confer with Fr. Valinor (who showed great distress over Ahkmed's growing relationship with Hornet) and set off to Trisagia in hopes of getting Tyrd raised. Bishop Iova of Trisagia was more than happy to help, but offered an alternative in order to possibly avoid future episodes with Ahkmed and his sword — a reincarnation spell. Thus, we ended our session by rolling on a combination of tables and Tyrd woke up with a mixture of relief and chagrin as a half-elf magic user.