Lost Colonies Session 29

This session dealt mainly with the aftermath of the battle with the vampire. The players discussed how they were going to deal with the body of the dead vampire and their fallen comrade Tykris (correctly suspecting that if they didn't do anything with him, Tykris might come back to haunt them later). Their solution was actually kinda clever (and was independently thought of by two different members of the party). They cast Resist Fire on the wooden stake that felled the vampire and then proceeded to burn the body. Interestingly, the party has decided to keep the stake and return it to Fr. Valinor as a holy relic.

Much time was spent restoring the chapel wherein they found the vampire. They replaced religious icons, tried to repair what damage had been done by their combat with the vampire and what damage had been done by the vampire himself. In process, they found three things of note:

• A page from an otherwise destroyed and burnt book that evidently chronicled various events of the monks who once worshipped in the chapel. The three entries found on the page indicated that the lower levels of the dungeon where changing; that there were growing attacks from below by people in golden masks; that the monks had believed that they had destroyed something called the Well of Chaos with the Two Swords, though some were beginning to question the success of this endeavor; and that they were betrayed by one of their own who chose undeath.
• Behind the altar of the chapel was an icon of a saint wielding two swords; however, instead of there being a mosaic of the swords, there were two indentations where actual sword could be placed. Whatever swords these indentations might have held were not found.
• The doors of the chapel were sealed from the inside. When the party broke through, they found the remains of a battle between armed monks and people wearing golden masks. In turn, this battlefield was sealed off from the rest of the dungeon.

The rest of the session, the party spent trying to find a way out (having gotten to this level via a one-way trip down an underground river). In process, three significant events happened.

• The party had a disastrous encounter with a golden-masked warrior who was leading a band of gnolls. On a tactical level, things broke down and spells were used in a manner that affected the party as much as they did the monsters. The worst affect was from a wand of fear, which caused the party to flee into three separate groups. While separated, I rolled a doppleganger for a wandering monster encounter. It went after the weakest group and managed to kill off Kavela the NPC magic-user before being killed itself.
• The party found a golden statue of a man in excruciating pain. When Dn. Goram held up his holy symbol to the statue, it changed poses into a man in peaceful contemplation. When Dn. Goram then went to touch the statue, he was Quested to find the Two Swords.
• They encountered a group of werewolves that they had encountered many sessions ago. In explaining that they had unknowingly re-entered territory they had promised to avoid, they found out some interesting information. It seems that the werewolves loyally serve a single faction of the gold mask wearers. Whereas they see their own cause as righteous, they find the other factions as fallen and corrupt. This cause seems to be the destruction of what they call The City of the People. These "People" once enslaved their masters. When questioned about attacks made on the monks who once lived in this section of the dungeon, the werewolves declared that they were merely "in the way."

The party, especially Dn. Goram, were torn about this new information. They had an interesting discussion about what to do about the werewolves. They appreciated their desire to fight for freedom from slavery — they even admitted that such a cause was righteous. However, they were extremely uncomfortable with the idea that lycanthropy (which the werewolves claimed was a gift from their masters) could be used in a righteous manner. In the end, they chose to deal with this issue at a later date and allowed themselves to be escorted to a familiar part of the dungeon, and then found their way back to Headwaters.

As a side note, we saw the appearance of one of our players who has not been able to play with us recently because of a schedule change at work. This spawned one of the most entertaining moments of the evening. When Ahkmed's player exhibited some of his elfishness, the party tried to explain what had happened in the weeks that the player had missed. It was here that Ahkmed earned a new monicker: the Dwelf. With the party still being obsessed with helping Ahkmed create his son, the discussion then went on to hypothesize what effect Ahkmed's Dwelfdom might have on his offspring.