Session 14: Rats and a Temple of Green Flame.

The party went back to Castle Calaelan for the night, returning the next morning to continue exploring the Mouth of Doom.

This is based on Kay's (Blaze's) notes from our October 12th, 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: Drooling Slime and Bandits

Date: May 12th, 3517 I.R.  
Location: Inside the Mouth of Doom

6:30 PM
We were in the bandit’s room, where we searched the bodies.

Our loot:

·         33 sp

·         1 deck of cards

·         9 rations of food

·         4 scimitars

·         4 light crossbows

·         45 crossbow bolts (Breena claimed those)

·         4 lice-ridden bedrolls and useless armor.

·         One water barrel.

They had no packs. It was odd, they seemed to have less equipment than we expected.

Looking next door, the lock on the door was broken, but the door is swollen shut. Lark opened it.  It was empty, except for dust, cobwebs, and a pile of skulls in the corner; eight human skulls with a perfectly round hole drilled in the top of each one.

We decided to remove the bandit’s dead bodies from the dungeon, as there are rodents down the nearby hole in the floor and we don’t want to come back to hungry critters.

It was late in the day and we decided to go back to the castle for the night, taking the bodies with us, to dump in the forested area outside on our way back.

Keeping in mind Captain Felrara and her bandits, Blaze and Artie went out first, apparently alone, to see if anyone jumped us; the others stayed hidden for backup.

Nothing happened on the way back; we dumped the bodies at the edge of the wooded area. Back at the ruined cottage, Lark picked up the rusty chainmail. We crossed the two streams; there was a full moon so we got back to the castle with no problem, and we arrived at the castle half an hour after sunset.

 Back at the castle we identified the loot.

Sinis looked at the purple potion, and said it was a highly unstable alchemical bomb with a 10-ft radius, that could go off at any time – good thing Beneddar wrapped it in protective cloth. Falling into a pit or even tripping might have been fatal.

There was a scroll of flying that Sinis and Breena can copy and learn. The red potion was a healing potion.

We disposed of the bomb using mage hand to blow it up harmlessly (to us). It left a small crater in the woods.

There was also 33 silver pieces, a deck of cards, 9 rations of food, one vial of holy water, a red wizard robe, a silk gown, 4 shields, 4 scimitars and 4 light crossbows, none of which was magic.

13 May 3517

We got breakfast and re-supplied our packs. Blaze had started making a map of the dungeon and showed the others where some secret rooms may be; we’ll head there first. Blaze picked up some charcoal for drawing – going into town to get proper supplies would be too time-intensive right now.

9 AM
We were back at the Mouth of Doom. As we headed down the stairs to the first landing, Elron looked down the hallway of the skull door and noticed three giant rats.  Breena said she could see four from her angle.

Elron knocked an arrow and hit one rat. Beneddar cast sleep on them.

Two rats charged out of the corridor and attacked Breena.

Parahelia hit one rat. Sinis acid splashed one rat, while other one dodged his splash. Artie threw a firebolt that missed. Breena used thunderwave at two rats and hurt them, but woke up the sleeping rats.

From the top of the stairs, Blaze cast acid splash on one of the injured rats, killing it. Lark moved up and hit a rat with his battle-axe, killing it. Elron saw more rats down the hall and shot an arrow into one. Beneddar killed a rat with his crossbow. A rat came around the corner at Parahelia, who swung and missed. Sinis cast acid splash on the rat next to Parahelia and killed it.

Lark moved to the last rats at the intersection and killed them.

After the fight, we moved over to the door with the pentacle over it, where Blaze identified two areas we hadn’t checked yet. Going over all four walls, we concluded they were solid. Going back to the south hallway, where Blaze said Elron found a secret door but didn’t open it, and around the dogleg to the west, there was a visible door we hadn’t checked. The secret door led to an empty room we had already checked.

The visible door around the corner, after Artie’s lock picks failed and Lark’s axe opened it, led into a barracks room, with beds and footlockers. Artie found a candle, Breena a mouse skeleton, Beneddar a needle and thread, and Elron one copper piece, a lot of dust, and it looked like it was abandoned a long time ago.

While they were working on opening the barracks door, the rest of us went south farther down the hallway. Blaze, Beneddar, and Elron got to the end of the hallway, and turned east into another corridor; on the south end of the hallway was a huge room lit with an eerie green light. There were pillars in the room carved with small gargoyles. The green light was coming from two giant braziers at the south end of the room blazing with green flames.

10:00
The room appeared to be some kind of temple or chapel. We searched the walls for secret doors, and Elron found one in the east wall; it led to a small closet-sized room.

Beneddar walked next to the brazier while he was looking for secret doors, and saw a giant green snake sleeping in the flames.

While he was examining it, it woke up and bit him, striking like lightning. It was venomous and the bite was extremely painful.

Beneddar retreated to the north, and Elron shot it with an arrow and hit. Artie hit it with fire bolt which didn’t seem to bother it at all. Sinis cast acid splash, which finished it off.

Blaze healed Beneddar.

Afterwards, Beneddar pulled the dead snake out of the fire. The green flames seemed to come from burning rocks in the brazier and were definitely magical. He skinned the snake, which had a beautiful emerald green color and might be valuable for its fire-resistant properties.

Elron, back at the secret door, kept checking and found another secret door on the east wall of the closet.

Continued in: Giant Leeches