Session 53 - Spiker

The adventurers fight a harrowing battle with The Spiker, then travel back home for some rest and recovery.

This write up is based on Kay’s notes from our April 2, 2025 session. Since our group is scattered around the country, we use Discord for our voice communication and Roll20 for our virtual tabletop. Thanks to Kay for the proofreading and the screenshots.

Continued from: Caverns

Location: Rappan Athuk, “the Gut”

Date: Wednesday, June 7, 3517


11 AM
We were just past the rune cavern in a side passage, where there were skeletons spiked to the walls. Elron was standing against a wall with hands to his sides, staring into a room around the corner from the rest of us.

Breena moved south and saw a humanoid, unnaturally tall and thin, holding a hammer in one hand and a long iron spike in the other. He was walking toward Elron. She cast witch bolt; her lightning hit him but didn’t appear to have done anything to him except to singe his clothes.

Artie went down the tunnel and hid in the rocks. Sinis blurred himself and moved down the passage to see the man.

The Spiker walked up to Elron and looked at Breena; suddenly his eyes glowed yellow. Breena felt an urge to stop what she was doing and stand against the wall, but it quickly passed and she kept concentrating on the witch bolt which was starting to show results.

The Spiker put his 3-ft-long iron spike against Elron’s chest and swung his hammer, missing him and hitting the wall instead. The witch bolt was distracting him and throwing him off balance.

Blaze cast dispel magic on Elron to no effect. Rocky skittered up to Elron, jumped on his head and nibbled on his ear to get him to snap out of it, but had no effect. Breena’s lightning continued to damage the man; he was starting to get visible burns.

Artie shot his short bow and an arrow hit him. Sinis cast burning hands, doing flame damage. After all of that he was still standing; this guy was tough.

The Spiker hit the spike with his hammer, and dented Elron’s armor, but he took no damage through the padded breastplate. The Spiker looked at Sinis, eyes glowing yellow once more, but it didn’t affect him at all.

Blaze cast chaos bolt, hitting the man with acid. He ignored his burns, focusing on pinning Elron to the wall and readying to take another swing.

Rocky continued trying to get Elron to snap out of it. Breena’s lightning bolt continued to damage the Spiker.

Artie’s next arrow hit and the Spiker dropped to the ground.

Elron finally snapped out of it when the Spiker died.

Beena ended the lightning bolt and Breena walked over to Elron and asked, “Are you ok?”

Apparently Elron was, because he started looting the body. There was only the spike and hammer. Checking the skeletons on the walls, we found that they were already stripped. We searched around to the east and found more skeletons on the walls, and a bed with a treasure trove under it.

Treasure items:

·         12 usable pairs of boots (and a considerable quantity of footwear that is so old as to be unusable),

·         2 pointed hats,

·         6 suits of chain mail, (300 gp/each)

·         1 suit of plate armor, (65 lb, 750 gp)

·         8 longswords,

·         7 helmets, (one of the helmets is magic. A helmet of protection (+1))

·         9 shields,

·         4 lanterns,

·         3 pints of holy water,

·         13 backpacks,

·         a small birdcage,

·         a spare hammer, and

·         30 long iron spikes.

·         There is also a bag containing 614 gp and 1,358 sp, a turquoise ring, and a plain gold necklace

Elron did a fast and dirty division on the coins and gave each of us 100 gp and 200 sp.

Blaze claimed one pint of the holy water; Breena wanted the turquoise ring; and Elron claimed the magic helmet.

We loaded up the loot in the 13 backpacks and used the spikes to make a stretcher that we could drop quickly if needed.

We decided to head back to the castle.

11:40 AM
Elron, Blaze, and Artie heard footsteps and voices; everyone hushed and listened. Breena, Elron and Blaze recognized the voices, they were speaking in goblin and hadn’t realized we were here yet.
 
Elron cast rope trick and we climbed up into a pocket dimension and hid.

Looking down, we could see twelve goblins going past us, and we figured they’d get to the main rune cave in about 10 minutes. We waited one hour and Elron used the time to bind to his helmet of protection.

One hour later we climbed down and continued on our way.

12:10 PM
No sign of goblins. It’s 10 miles to the cavern with the giant statue; we got there 4.5 hrs. later.

4:30 PM
We got to the cavern with the dripping water and the giant statue; it took about 10 minutes to cross the cave.

June 8, midnight:
Walking back 18 miles to the Last One Inn took 7.2 hrs.

We stayed at the stables, with two-person guard shifts.

7:00 AM
We heard the sound of goblins again; they were harassing the innkeeper over prices. We stayed quiet.

8:00 AM
We haven’t heard anything since then. We quietly packed up and headed down the hall. There was no sound from the inn. Four and a half hours later, we went 11 miles to the zombie horse stable. At the ogres’ bodies we found an ochre jelly and the bodies were gone except for some bones sticking out of it. It’s well-fed and content to stay there. Sinis cast a 30-ft-long wall of water between the hallway wall and the jelly; Elron cast guidance on Sinis for his spell. We walked in single-file past the jelly; it didn’t move and the wall of water worked.

Back at the stable on level 4, we got out, and at the Fountain of Pestilence there was a swarm of roaches, but we just walked over them. No other encounters happened all the way back to the castle.

2:00 PM
Back at the castle, we gave the good armor to our minions, and decided to sell off the rest. We spent the night here and went into town the next day.

June 9  9:00 AM
At Zelcor’s Ferry. Breena and Blaze traded in their gold pieces for gems.

Elron asked the armorer to pound out his dents; the blacksmith asked, “how did this happen?”

Noon
We went to the Bristleback Inn for lunch and rumors. Blaze chatted with the out-of-towners.

Rumor at the inn: Many back entrances to the most famous of dungeons are said to lie in the wilderness, but the hills are so riddled with caves that finding these entrances is all but impossible if one knows not where to look.

There is an entrance near some pilings at the river, south of the Old Fort Road, but north of the mausoleum. Take the ferry across the river and follow the river trail to the Old Coast Road about 50 miles from here. When you come to the river bridge keep going until you see the pilings. The Old Coast Road has an inn about every ten miles and the entrance to the mausoleum is between two of them.  The John Chapel Inn on the north and the Hornville Inn to the south.

Blaze bought a hand cart at Rasmus’s for five gp, small and compact enough to go through the dungeon’s passageways and we can pile stuff on top, like the armor and weapons we find.

June 10
People who were reading the books from the Healers room now have a better understanding of healing.

TO BE CONTINUED.