To Wear the Carrion Crown (Group 2) (Inactive)
Game Master Haldhin

Round Three

17 Sethis
15 Leon
13 Father
07 Lysa
06 Jean
06 Firavel
06 Mithias

Sethis remains frozen in place, straining against his protesting muscles to move even an inch!

Leon is also frozen in place, unable to escape from Father who looms over him with mirthful glee.

The monster rears back and unleashes powerful blows with his claws, attempting to disembowel Leon. One claw connects, knocking Leon to the ground 8 damage. The other slams down, but Father's attention is drawn to the figure of Lysa and he misses the prone form of Leon.

Lysa holds a mass of holy symbols in front of her, forcing a tiny tombstone to the front to face Father. She concentrates and focuses herself, then releases a burst of positive energy. Unlike other times when she has channeled energy, a brilliant blue light erupts outward from her. It washes over her allies and slams into Father. Everyone heals 5 points

The undead monster appears stunned as it rubs its eyes. With a roar, it begins flailing around - it appears to be blind!

Jean throws a vial of water at it, scoring a direct hit on the creature's chest.

Taking advantage of Father's blindness, Firavel steps forward and executes a masterful stroke, slicing through its thick neck and sending its head flying against the wall and back to the monster's feet.

Father's body collapses to the ground and almost immediately begins dissolving into a fetid oily pool of bubbling viscera.

The ghostly image of an older human slowly rises up from the remains. His long hair and beard appear unkempt, and the deep lines on his face speak of both age and hardship. He raises his eyes to look at you, but only madness lies within. As he continues rising, his image becomes more and more insubstantial, until the ghost has completely disappeared along with the corporeal remains.

The ghost of Father Charlatan no longer haunts Harrowstone Prison.

-----

The tangled holy symbols in Lysa's hand suddenly fall apart into a delicate necklace. Though the necklace has small symbols of many gods, the largest and most prominent is an elegant comet with a spiral tail - the symbol of Pharasma.

Sethis and Leon are both freed from their paralysis in a round, no lasting effects.

Let me know if somebody wears the necklace

clw wand tap 1 Leon 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
clw wand tap 2 Leon 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

Lysa breaths a sigh of relief as the ghost dissipates into the ether and then goes to see about her companions' injuries. "Leon, that was a rather fearsome blow you took, let me try the wand on you."

After tapping him a couple times she turns and looks over everyone again. "Anyone else still injured?"

right now the necklace is still in Lysa's free hand

I say that we should finish up here by checking area T-1, then moving on to T-6. Appraise:1d20 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

"Well done everyone. That was an especially well placed strike from you Firavel. We have struck 2 of our 5 down. Even so, we should not let our guard down. Once Lysa has seen to everyone's wounds we should move on."

Firavel looks down at his gore encrusted blade before wiping it down. "That was... interesting. I'm glad I could actually harm the thing, let alone kill it. It seemed to be whittling us down one by one with that paralysis."

Appraise: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (20) + 7 = 27

"I am uninjured," he says in response to Lysa's query, "but it looks like that bundle of symbols has turned into something quite valuable. Although I'm sure it would look best on you, if you were so inclined, it could be sold for a few hundred gold."

Lysa looks down at the necklace. "It is quite pretty. Perhaps I will hold onto it for now? At least until we leave this place, speaking of which, where to now?"

Leading the way to area T-1.

"I think I recall seeing a guard post earlier. Perhaps we can find that symbol of authority if we are fortunate."
Seeing that everyone is okay, Jean leads the group onward. His bow at the ready.

I took 28 damage. Was at -7. You healed me 6 so I'm still out. For RP purposes I'll just say I'm at the edge of consciousness.

Leon's eyes jerk open and he shudders as the paralysis leaves him. "Thanks..." he says weakly. "Symbols... worked?"

I'm not as bloody as Leon but still have 6 damage on me.
Once able to move and speak, "Okay its official i hate ghosts and whatever that thing was. Ouch, Leon are you okay? Thanks for stepping in and i'm sorry you got hurt so bad helping me." then he turns to Lysa, "Looks like the gods were watching over us when they help us find you. I don't know what you did but it seemed to have worked."

"That was a close call. We'll have to be a little more careful next time, or hope that our luck holds."

Did you remember the 5 that everyone got healed for by the channel?
And I will dink you again with the wand
1d8 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

"Yes, channeling Pharasma's energy through the symbols seemed to have a rather negative effect on that ghost. You took a horrible hit there, are you going to be alright to continue on?"

No, I forgot about that. I thought it was damage to the Ghoulfather. That puts me up to 8 HP. Good enough for now as long as we take a break soon.

Special circumstances for that particular channel - plus me using my house rule for channeling - more on that in the Discussion tab.

Is the intent of the group to search the remaining few rooms of this floor before going back downstairs? If so, I'll go ahead and open up the rest of the map since there isn't much more to see.

Yes, that was the groups intnetion to my understanding.

Always best to clear a level before leaving it behind... especially when there's ghouls

The rest of the floor remains uneventful after the tough battles the group has faced so far. Several skeletons lie in locked cells, apparently where they died when smoke and fire tore through the prison

The only excitement occurs when a small secret cache of healing items is found behind a false stone in the wall of the guard area (T1).

The party finds the following:
A pouch containing 24 gp, 3 pp, and a single citrine (50 gp)
Two healer’s kits
Vial of antitoxin x3
Vial of antiplague x3
Vial of soothe syrup x2
Bloodblock x3 doses
Smelling salt x2 doses
potion of cure light wounds x4

-----

The upper floor of Harrowstone has been cleared out. Let me know what you want to do next.

Jean will take a Healers kit, a vial of antitoxin, one of Anti-plague, a dose of Bloodlock, a smelling salt and 1 potion of Cure light wounds. I suggest we head down to the basement level to clear out the rest of the ghosts, but first we should heal completely.

I would suggest completing the main floor before going to the basement. I don't like leaving potential foes at our back. Fir will take 1 each of the antitoxin, antiplague and CLW potion. He'll also take the Lesser Restoration from before, since noone claimed it.

Not taking sides, but wanted to mention that the group has not yet discovered a way to reach the lower level. The staircase on the main level that leads down is caved in and impassable. Sorry if that wasn't clear before now.

How much time has passed in game while we've been in Harrowstone? Wondering if our characters are tired and/or hungry enough to need to take a break.

It's around 3-4pm in the afternoon. You have investigated more than 1/3 of the prison today, taken some bumps and bruises, and defeated 2 of the 5 ghosts. Pretty good for a full day of adventuring! :)

CMW on Leon 2d8 + 3 ⇒ (3, 4) + 3 = 10

Lysa will give Leon some additional healing when she sees he is not even near full health from the wand yet.

After they finish clearing the upper floor, Lysa has a suggestion. "Perhaps we should consider calling it a day and returning back to Kendra's house for the evening? That way we can come back in the morning and try to find a way to reach the lower level. I would rather not risk having to spend a night in this place and would rather we all be well-rested before taking on whatever may be laying in wait for us down there."

"Agreed. I could use a little dose of reality, and perhaps a warm bed away from all this...," Firavel says, waving his hand at the skeletons, corpses and ruin around them, "...stuff."

"This is a fair point, my only concern with leaving before we're done is what Vesorianna told us. I can't be sure but neither of the spirits we destroyed seemed to be the one trying to destroy her. If we return to rest for the evening only to waken in the night as spirits are attacking the town, our situation would be far more dire than it is now. I say we should press on and at least find a way to the basement before returning."

"Who is Vesorianna and what did she say?"

Did this happen before I joined?

"Jean has a point and I don't think we've exhausted our resources that much yet, but I will follow the will of the group."

"That ghost lady we met not too long ago. She said that there were five spirits close to breaking free, one of which can leech her essence by spelling out her name in a magical ritual. It's once her name is spelt out that she goes 'poof' and the gates of hell, so to speak, are open," Firavel explains.

"That being said, I haven't seen any evidence of any... Oh! Hang on!" he exclaims. "That must be the bloody 'V' that was found on the monument not too long ago. So maybe the ritual has begun... So there's still around 8 letters to go."

"But if that's the case, and that letter was related to the ritual, how did this spirit get into the town to do this? I must be off on the wrong tangent. Still, haven't seen any letters around anywhere else. They could be in the basement, I guess. I just don't want to have to deal with any more spirits today."

Jean nods at Firavels explanation. "As I said, we should at least find the entrance down to the basement if not enter today."

Lysa waits for Leon and Sethis to weigh in on the matter before arguing any further.

"Despite being tired I have to agreed with Jean, we should at least see if we can find some symbol of authority or make sure this level is safe before calling it a night, I just hope we're up to it."

I'll take the last anti-toxin, anti-plague and one of the cure light wounds potions if i can

Lurking and enjoying the roleplaying :)

"Wow, thank you. That's much better." Leon says, straightening up and stretching a bit, checking to see if anything still hurt. With a rakish smile, he took a deep breath and winced a little. "Still a little sore inside, but nothing that's going to slow me down. I think finding you has definitely been the best part of this little excursion."

"Lets push on a little more. If we can find the stairs down and block them off, we'll probably have less to worry about when we come back tomorrow."

Lysa blushes slightly at Leon's comment. "Thank you for saying so, though I still think I benefited more from you finding me than the other way around."

Since most seem to want to at least find the stairway down, Lysa wonders what to do when they find it. "When you talk of blocking off the stairs, what exactly are we trying to keep from using them?"

Leon shrugs and points to the corpse of Father Charlatan. "Things like that?"

"Hmmm, not sure how much good it would do, but I could at least Consecrate the stairs in addition to whatever else you plan to use to block it."

"Even if we can't block them off, it would be useful if we could set something up so we could tell if anyone had used them while we were away. Besides the spirits, those cultists might still be lurking about."

Seems like everyone is on board with continuing to explore until a way to the lower level is discovered. Looking at the Main Floor map, you have two options. Go north through double doors off the hallway connected to the stairs at S10, or go east through the double doors leading out of S15 toward S18. Which direction would you like to go?

Disclaimer - S6 was explored, nothing there, I just need to uncover it on the map.

I'm pushing for the double doors to the north. Nothing states big encounter like double doors.

vote for north too.

North works for me

You open the doors to the north to see several moldy cots lying strewn around this room, while doors to smaller, more private sleeping cells hang askew to the west. A large cabinet leans against the north amidst a pile of broken glass and unwound bandages. Judging from the rest of this room’s decor, this must have once been the prison’s infirmary.

A door across the room leads toward the northeast.

Lysa will move over towards the large cabinet and open it up, looking inside to see if there are any useful supplies they can use.

Lysa, it's a little meta gamey of me to suggest but since we occasionally find magic items, using detect magic can help us find any auras easily enough. Also since you have Resistance, casting it on yourself before is a nice way to boost your saves since we don't know where the haunts will pop up.
Jean heads over to the sleeping cells. Cautiously inspecting each one, while holding a haunt siphon in his hand.

Lysa isn't going to walk around with Detect Magic up constantly since it requires her to keep her concentration on it to keep it up. I could just see her tripping over something and falling since she'd be distracted.

Though she will cast it to examine the contents of the cabinet if she can get it open.

Lysa finds:

A pouch containing 24 gp, 3 pp, and a single citrine (50 gp)
Two healer’s kits
Vial of antitoxin x3
Vial of antiplague x3
Vial of soothe syrup x2
Bloodblock x3 doses
Smelling salt x2 doses
Potion of cure light wounds x4

As Lysa goes through the cabinet, everyone else notices movement as some of the smaller debris shifts around. The movement is slight at first, then becomes more rapid. Suddenly, a shard of glass flies at Lysa, embedding itself in the cabinet door inches away from her head.

I'm assuming Mithias identifies the potions :)

"This place is just loaded with these handy little stashes. Wonder who left them?"

Then the glass flies!

"Down!" he yells, rushing forward and moving himself between the priestess and the direction the glass came from.

Lysa shrugs. "This is the infirmary, maybe no one was willing to come back and clean everything out?"

As Lysa goes through the cabinet, she jumps in surprise as a shard of glass embeds itself in the cabinet door inches away from her head and is then further surprised by a quick moving Leon as he tries to interpose himself between her and the flying shards of glass.

"Who threw that? Where is it?" Scanning the room for signs of a creature holding his crossbow in one hand and a holy water in the other.
perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (10) + 4 = 14

The items in the room are moving even faster now. Several sharp objects fly at the group, slightly wounding Leon and Mithias (1 damage each).

"I'm guessing there was a reason noone came back for the stuff. Watch out! Something is chucking sharps around. You think this is one of those situations where one of those Haunty Siphony things would work?" Firavel says before flinching back as a shard flys by his face. "Or maybe we should just leave the room..."

"We can try to leave and see if anything tries to stop us or if the effect follows."