Timekeeping
Player Characters Present
Introduction
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Downtime
Session Report
When the session began the there had been a major storm in the area the day before, followed by another on the actually day the PCs planned to meet up. With another set of ill timed storms effecting movement, play moved to Giuseppe. He made contact with people in Eigermatt and this turned into a fun little journey of discovery for both of us. Shortly he had acquired a guide who could lead him through the cave system said to connect the town with the valley to the west leading to Castle Irish. On the way he noted the area that they had previously (months ago in session #51) identified as containing a shrine of the dragon cult.
After a short discussion, the party decided to explore this area. They reached the entrance without incident, and found sure signs of passage through the main cave system, but once they left it into ever smaller tunnels, signs of usage were scarce.
At one point the cave narrowed greatly and Sever had to go ahead, crawling, through the gap. He had a nasty surprise of a number of dead beetles from which Rot Grubs jumped out and attacked, but with his many attacks per level he was able to easily squash them with his spear when he won initiative.
Finally they found a man made room in the cave system that matched what they were expecting. A statue of a multicoloured dragon was in the corner of the room, moulded in such a way that its outstretched claws seemed to be asking for something to be placed in them. Writing nearby resolved into understandable text when the players looked at it with the intention to read it:
"Bring a topaz for an escape into a new life, and Lord Inferno will grant you understanding."
Other writing was on the walls nearby but they showed no interest in this. Previously, a captured dragon cultist had revealed to them that the statue required a gift of a topaz, and, once Sever placed the topaz he had brought for this purpose into its clawed hands, they closed on the offering. Then the entire room sank down into the earth. This was no ordinary elevator trap, the room turned gently as it descended, and, after a few moments, they could see out through the archway that they were reaching a sub-level. Beyond a corridor of stark white alabaster lead away, curving as it went so that it was impossible to see its full length.
The two hirelings Gurt brought with him took one look at the corridor and refused to proceed further, they sensed that the area was too dangerous for the likes of them.
The rest of the party filed into the red corridor, it curved away to their left for a distance of 240 feet before stairs brought down them to a curved T-intersection. The area beyond was also worked stone, and the floor was strangely clean. At this point they heard a blood curdling roar. The creature, who's lair this was, upon hearing the arrival of the elevator room, had begun stalking around the area; I was randomly determining its movement as the players continued. My map began to take shape in the minds of the players, if not in the mapping tool they were using.
They found that the other coloured corridors also terminated at this level, but there were also corridors that led to a central area filled with skeletons of mostly human, or humanoid, creatures. This was the lair of the creature, but it was stomping around elsewhere at this point. After quite a bit of exploring, the party were finally cornered in a corridor that was decorated with a mix all of the colours, but led to a dead end. They turned to confront the gigantic creature, and one look told them that negotiation wasn't an option.
The Hydra began with 5 heads, it lost all but 1 in the first engagement. All the PCs were firing on full cylinders, Gurt held his place in the front rank, and Giuesppe's Dragonslayer sword was delivering extra damage; even though this wasn't a true dragon, but something cooked up by the Dragon Cult.
As each severed head would be replaced by 2 more in 1d4 rounds; I had to come up with an impromptu grid system to keep track of how many heads were going to regrow, and when. Once that was in place the fight moved smoothly. As more heads popped into life they were able to both bite and breath. The players were taking fire, acid, cold, electrical, and gas attacks along with bites, and this damage began to accumulate to dangerous levels even with Comfort Rod healing.
Finally the PCs got serious about using fire attacks to prevent the heads regrowing, and then the tide began to turn in their favour.
As I said, the creature started out with 5 heads; and that factor, plus loosing the first initiative, probably saved the party. If it had had a full 12 heads, or even 8, they would have had a very hard time reducing those numbers while still fighting off the other heads. As it was; the danger level kept ticking up, and hit points were dwindling, by the time they had burnt out the last neck stalk; at which point the body collapsed and died.
By the time all this had happened, the mechanism in the elevator room had reset and the men-at-arms there were holding it in place and shouting for the party to return; which they did, after collecting some items from the Hydra's lair, along with some hacked off heads that they hoped to experiment with later.
Had the party struck a telling blow against the Dragon Cult? Only time will tell.
Lair stats:
Mapped area traversed: 0
New corridor mapped: hundreds and hundreds of feet
New rooms mapped: 3
Combats: 1
Combat rounds: 12
Total time in the Lair (approx): 33 turns
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