On the 17th day of Ostar, guild members Kelso, Kimly, Leowe, and Erik, (see PC profiles here) with the bearer Karl in employment, and accompanied by the mendicant monk Brother Tuck, returned to the southeastern section of the underground complex.
Here, they entered the south door in the chamber with coloured walls, and defeated the undead within, and recovered the grave goods, which included a fine bronze sword.
Then, returning to the eastern corridors, they explored the four side chambers, each of which they learned house a bronze skull upon a plinth, and each of which was protected by an elemental guardian. The party was able to defeat the elemental guardians in turn and retrieve the four bronze skulls, which when placed into the niches in the central bronze door, caused it to open.
The bronze door lead into a large hall, within which was a single sarcophagus and much grave goods contained in earthen urns. A ghostly form arose from the sarcophagus when the party attempted to recover the grave goods, and began to attack them with elemental magic, but the members were able to defeat it and recover the grave goods, which included a golden sceptre with four precious stones set upon its head.
Grave goods recovered were assessed to be 251 Gros in value, of which 84 Gros was disbursed to the members according to the terms of the contract. Member Kimly purchased the bronze sword at 66 Gros, and member Kelso purchased the sceptre at 66 Gros.
Addendum:
On the night of the 17th day of Ostar, the guild hall, as well as the Kellos chapel nearby were set on fire by unknown arsonists. Most guild members and staff were able to evacuate the hall, but bearer Karl died in the fire, and many others suffered from the effects of inhalation the noxious smoke.
I was able to salvage with my person these chronicles, and Harnold was able to keep safe the Guild ledger and much of the guild's treasury, but much of the sundries and supplies were consumed by the flames.
When we sent for help at Fort Rodric, we learned that the garrison had been taken ill, with tainted food being the suspected cause.
Our pressing need now is to care for those who are stricken, which we do with the aid of Brother Othar and his guests from Vynevale, but it seems several guild members wish to undertake a final expedition to the barrows, for what goal I know not.
Signed,
Jeras, Guild Chronicler
Prepping and Running the Game
This is the penultimate session of the campaign, and it happened that the four players who could attend are the same who will be in the Sorcery! sequel campaign, so we played a short session before going on to create characters for that campaign.
There were no healer PC available, so my players petitioned me for a hireling healer, and I decided to conjure up a monk to join them.
The session was filled with shenanigans, such as when Leowe inadvertently caused damage to the other party members when he used Gust of Force on a Fire Elemental, and Kelso returned the favour on his turn, and when the other members pranked Leowe by slamming the door and leaving him alone with an Air Elemental in a room instead of going in to help him as they agreed.
The delve ended with the party getting their hands on two magical items: a flaming sword, and a sceptre that grants the holder resistance to elemental damage.
In the final part of the session I set the lead-up to the finale session: visitors from Vynevale - Brothers Grimmel and Berkin (see here), accompanied by two justicars - bring grave news from the holy city; the copy of inscription sent to Vynevale by Brother Othar was recognised to be the same script as an ancient manuscript, which told the story of one Druentes, a follower of Eusodes (Yasoda), and the company he led into the crypts of Nodros cultists in a quest to destroy the Heart of Nodros, a magical artifact that gave them the power to raise undead. Druentes was betrayed and killed, but his follwoers were able to chase the cultists to the northeast sector of the crypts, and collapse the tunnel there, trapping them and the Heart of Nodros. Druentes was buried in the crypts as he requested in his dying words, that he may watch over the evil in case they should rise again.
Although they did not know the true intent of the dragonkin and his party, the players were able to put two and two together and realise that the Heart of Nodros and the fact that the Ashen Hills was once the site of a great battle during the Dragon Wars and therefore contained perhaps many remains of dragons made for a bad combination.
Brothers Othar and Grimmel then beseeched the PCs to return to the underground complex and recover the Heart of Nodros before someone else did. The players briefly considered returning straightaway, but decided to do so the next morning.
This allowed me to proceed with my plan and have the death cultists set the halls on fire in retaliation for the PCs' part in their ousting. I then told the players that one out of their two PCs is incapacitated from smoke inhalation, and they would each have to decide which character to use for the final session.
I am hoping to be able to get six players around the table for our finale, which should be one big fight, after which we will convert the surviving characters to 5E, and archive them for a future campaign. We will then hopefully be able to have a discussion and decide on what campaign to play after the Sorcery! campaign sequel.
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