Session 56 - Gates of Gloom

The adventurers continue their battle with the Black Skeletons and move on, eventually finding the end of the long tunnel.

This write up is based on Kay’s notes from our May 14, 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 screenshots.

Continued from: Plantoids, Part 2

Location: The Gates of Gloom in The Gut.

Date: Wednesday, June 10, 3517

8:35 AM
We were in combat.

Elron’s Sling-O-Doom hit the skeleton coming through the bars, and tried to magically ensnare it, but it didn’t work. His second shot hit and shattered the first skeleton. Skeleton #3 squeezed through the bars and headed to Elron, swung and missed; its next swing connected, injuring Elron and he felt a loss of his strength.

Rocky stayed where he was, and Breena moved to him. Skeleton #2 moved through the bars also towards Elron, it hit with both swords, cutting him and draining his strength with each blow.

Skeleton #4 moved to Parahelia, swung and missed.

Sinis cast burning hands at the two skeletons on Elron; the first one dodged, taking partial damage and the other took the full effect.

The skeleton facing Parahelia suddenly turned and ran to the east; she hit it from behind but her sword only hit armor.

Blaze cast flaming sphere and moved it to both skeletons on Elron, hit the northernmost one for minor damage. Artie, standing behind Elron, moved away and backed off the platform, aimed his short bow at the southernmost skeleton. The arrow landed a solid hit.

Parahelia healed Elron’s cuts, but he still felt weak. He disengaged and moved away down the corridor we came from. The northern skeleton attacked Parahelia, its first swing missed and it seemed to suffer a loss of nerve.

Rocky moved behind Sinis. Breena aimed her crossbow at Skeleton #3 for minor damage due to its armor. Skeleton #2 ran west down the corridor after Elron.

Sinis cast witch bolt and hit. Skeleton #2 turned around and came back for Blaze. Blaze’s chaos bolt missed but she moved her flaming sphere into the skeleton for fire damage. Artie hit the south skeleton with his short bow. Parahelia hit her skeleton with her sword.

Elron’s skeleton caught up to him; Elron disengaged and pulled back. The skeleton with witch bolt on it moved and attacked Parahelia, but missed twice.

Breena tried to shoot the skeleton in front of Blaze, but missed.

The skeleton chasing Elron gave up and ran back towards Artie.

Sinis’s witch bolt killed the skeleton, and he moved back next to Rocky.

The skeleton in front of Blaze swung and missed with its sword and overextended itself, allowing Blaze to move out of the way. Blaze’s flaming sphere hit from behind. Blaze followed it up with a chaos bolt, hitting it with acid.

Artie shot the skeleton that had been after Elron, disengaged himself, stepped back and hid behind Rocky.

Parahelia moved toward the skeleton near Artie and swung at it but missed.

Elron ran back from the corridor.

Breena hit the skeleton in front of Blaze.

The skeleton hit Parahelia, cutting her and drained her strength. Sinis attacked the skeleton in front on Blaze with a witch bolt. The skeleton then swung at Blaze twice, missing her both times. Blaze hit it twice with her flaming sphere, and then acid splash. Artie shot at it, but his arrow missed.

Parahelia, still attacking the skeleton in front of her with guiding bolt, hit, and killed it.

Elron used his sling but missed. Breena shot her crossbow at Blaze’s skeleton. Sinis’s witch bolt finally killed it.

Elron looted the bodies, using his cape to not touch anything. Their swords absorbed strength, so we thought they might be magic. Sinis cast detect magic but showed none. Their armor was chain shirts. They had eight short swords, not magic and poor quality. The bones were magic, but fading.

One skeleton had a necklace; it was jeweled and not magic, worth about 500 gp.

The door was definitely magic with the runes of a demon, a square and a circle.

Everyone took a short rest to get their strength back.

12:30 PM

We had no encounters while we rested. Elron wanted to explore further to the east down the hallway the skeleton ran down. Moving east, past the bars, there was a cross-shaped room and a hall past it with a large hole in the floor, looks like an explosion.

6:30 PM

We walked another 14 miles and the tunnel came to a dead end with a rough tunnel dug into the wall going north.

Elron went first; there were a series of stairs down, carved into the rock.

Elron came back up and said he saw an ogre, and other ogres beyond, talking to something he couldn’t see. The area smelled unpleasant and had a feeling of evil. Elron cast a spell of beast sense and let his mouse out of his pocket. He sent it back down the tunnel. The rest of us went back to the west along the hallway for about 1/2 hour and rested.

Elron took an hour for the mouse to explore the ogres’ lair. It is about 50 feet below the main tunnel and it smells of lots of garbage (which the mouse liked). Elron reported the mouse saw 8 ogres armed with great clubs and javelins.

2:00 AM
We finished our long rest and had a plan to fight the ogres in the tunnel where they would have to fight single file.

3:00 AM
We got back at the ogre’s tunnel and got ready for a fight.

 

Continued in Session 57 - More Ogres