Session 12: Entering the Mouth of Doom

The Adventurers begin to explore the Mouth of Doom.

This is based on Kay's (Blaze's) notes from our September 6, 2023 session. The screen shots were taken by JoJo (Breena). Since our group is scattered around the country, we used Discord for our voice communication and Roll20 for our virtual tabletop.

Continued from: Investigating Captain Felrara and Fighting a Worg

Date: May 12th, 3517 I.R.  
Location: Outside Zelcor’s Ferry, 5 miles south of town at a ruined cottage

3PM

Artie had gone back to castle with the worg skin, alone but a halfling rogue isn’t seen unless he wants to be.

Looking south toward the Mouth of Doom, there were a couple hundred yards of grass, then forest, then more clear ground uphill.

Once past the trees, at the head of a small valley we could see a giant carved demon head, much like the one we saw in the goblin’s pit. This one had a tunnel in its mouth, 10 ft. tall.

Lark went to the top of the hill to get a view of the surroundings. He saw the ruined cottage, and maybe some wolves in the distance.

The cave interior disappeared in darkness. Blaze cast light on her quarterstaff for the people who can’t see in the dark. There’s a stairway going down stone stairs to the south. The stairs go about forty feet down to a stone floor.

As we go down the stairs, we can see a 10 x 10-foot niche with a double door in the south wall with a pentacle symbol over the doors. To the east there’s another niche with a door with a skull over it, to the west is a niche with a door and a hand over it. We remembered the information about not going into “the door with the hand.”

As we explored the room at the bottom of the staircase, we found a second door to the east that has a symbol of a goat’s face with fangs and horns over it; one door to the north with no symbol over it; a second door on the west has a wolfs head.

There is a smell of old rot, a stale graveyard odor hanging in the air.



Elron went to the door with the wolfs head over it. As he approached it, he felt a stone shift under his foot and a portcullis dropped behind him; it’s steel, and there’s a click when it hits bottom, like a locking mechanism of some sort.

Lark tried to lift it, but was unable to move it, it was locked in place.

There was the wolf’s head door behind Elron, but he wasn’t going to risk opening it.

Sinis said a few words, made some gestures, and part of the steel bars on the portcullis changed to wood over the next ten minutes.

Lark chopped the now-wooden bar with his axe, freeing Elron.

Elron went to the double doors under the pentacle, tapping the floor ahead of him.  Blaze beside him, tapped on the walls with her quarterstaff and used her backpack to hit the stones in front of the doors to trigger any traps; nothing happened.

Meanwhile, Lark walked to the alcove with the hand and checked for traps and found the floor was hinged on one side, a probable pit trip. He stayed out of the alcove. He noticed that the stone work here was old and has been repaired or remodeled several times.

3:30
The pentacle doors were steel-reinforced wood. Blaze spit acid on the lock and Lark ran full-tilt into it, it opened with a crash and he found himself in the long hallway beyond.

There was a door at the end of the hall to the right (west). Lark checked the door and found it unlocked but stuck. Elron and Lark worked it loose.

On the far wall was a mosaic with plants and animals with a central human figure holding something that could not be determined, many of the tiles had fallen out of the mural and some of the plaster had fallen away from the wall, especially near the ceiling. The room was otherwise empty except for a door to the south.

Suddenly, two giant centipedes crawled out of holes in the mosaic near the ceiling. Beneddar spotted them first from out in the hallway, and he cast Toll the Dead which didn’t affect them.

One centipede tried to bite Elron, the other one bit Lark, but broke a mandible on the edge of his shield.

Elron swung his longsword but missed.  Parahelia moved into the room and attacked one with her longsword and cut it in half.

Sinis cast acid splash on the centipedes; one lost a couple of legs and sizzled.

Lark chopped one to death with his axe.

Another centipede came through the wall near the ceiling, and dropped onto Elron and delivered an extremely painful bite, most likely poison, before Lark could warn him.

Elron brushed it off and impaled it with his longsword.

Parahelia healed Elron.

Blaze moved up to the door and shouted, “Everybody out of the room, I’m lighting it up!”

As everyone moved back, another centipede dropped on Elron and snapped at him, but did no damage as he flung it to the floor. Sinis hit it with acid splash and it died writhing.

Blaze cast flaming sphere near the hole in the ceiling where the centipedes were coming through. She heard a number of high-pitched squeals and then there was silence.  Nothing came out of the holes after that.

Neither Sinis nor Lark recognized the significance of the mosaic.

Lark went to the other door on the south wall and listened, but didn’t hear anything. He checked and found that it was unlocked but stuck.

He pushed on it hard and it opened. Inside he saw walls covered with tapestries depicting the outside of the dungeon. There was a battle raging around the demon-mouth between a small army of humans and a larger force made up of ogres, who were led by three black-robed figures wearing helmets decorated with curling ram’s horns.  The leaders were apparently human and carried a mace topped with a metal skull.

Lark stepped around a corner to get a better look at the tapestries and the floor opened up under him and he fell into a pit. Somewhat bruised, he looked around and found he shared the pit with a skeleton.

The skeleton was dressed in leather armor and was pierced by arrows. It had a full backpack as well.  He handed up the arrows and backpack, and Blaze lowered her quarterstaff for him to climb out of the pit.

Inside the pack were:

·         5 iron spikes

·         50 feet of rope

·         A bag with 200 silver pieces

·         A Lantern

·         Pint of oil

·         The skeleton was also wearing a nice pair of leather boots that were undamaged.

While Blaze was helping Lark out of the pit, Sinis was checking behind the tapestries; there was nothing there.

We went back out into the hall, going east, and tried the next door on the south wall. It was locked. Blaze tried acid on the lock and hit it with her shoulder, but it did not move. Lark tried his shoulder, failed and then went at it with his axe. Eventually he got the door open.

Inside was a kitchen. There was a sink with a pump, and a fire pit with a hole in ceiling over it. To the left was a table covered with cooking utensils.  Near the stove were two large, empty boxes that looked like they held wood at one time.  There was a barrel in one corner. We searched the room, but did not find anything valuable beyond scrap metal.

Lark opened the next door in the south wall down the hallway going east.  There was another hall beyond it with a single door on the right (west) side near the other end.

4:10 PM
The door was unlocked, but stuck. Lark tried to open it and failed; after several tries, he heard a clatter behind it, and realized that it was spiked from the other side. After about 10 minutes of working on it, he finally got it open.

The room contained two skeletons in bedrolls and a third skeleton leaning against another spiked door to the south.

The room also contained three backpacks, a lantern and a chest.

The backpacks looked like standard dungeoneers’ packs, plus a ball of twine and a vial of holy water.

They had 30 silver pieces between them and a sketch map of the area showing the path between Zelcor’s Ferry and the Mouth of Doom.

There was one bed roll in good condition.  We left the ones with skeletons in them alone; they were pretty nasty.

The chest contained mostly servant’s clothing, plus one silk gown and one crimson wizard’s robe embroidered with stars and astrological symbols. Sinis took the robe and the silk gown.



Rocky expressed to Breena that he didn’t like the smell of this room. They both went out into the hallway.

Continued in Drooling Slime and Bandits.