Session Log: Palace of the Vampire Queen 5

 [IN WHICH THE PARTY DISCOVER THE SECOND LEVEL, AND ORLYN TORCHBEARER DIES IN THE DARKNESS]

We played Vampire Queen yesterday, only like 150 days after I actually ran the last session. Felt really good to be back. I've officially broken this blog's weird curse of never having more then 4 session logs for one campaign.

We also found some of the dungeon's cats! The whimsy of their presence here is honestly one of the things that endeared me to Vampire Queen as something I might want to run, so I was delighted to have that come up.

Without further ago:

The Party

Cinnamon. Fighter. Platemail and shield, flail.

Powder/Pollen. Cribswap (Lunar/Solar); chainmail, sword and shield or light crossbow.

Tomelo the Fierce (Dwarf) and Diino (Cleric), expert rust monster killers, armed with a flint spear and wooden cudgel respectively.

Recent Additions

Kai. A dumb hunky Fighter with expensive taste. Chainmail, shortbow, spear.

Orlyn Torchlighter. A Fighter, spurred on by her faith. Chainmail, morningstar.

 

Downtime

After Giblet's funeral, the party split up, and did not return to the palace for some time. Powder went off to another island to look at bugs, Cinnamon drowned her sorrows and got into fights with bandits, Tomelo and Diino stuck around on the island.

Eventually, Cinnamon, without purpose in the absence of her dead sisters and her adventuring party, set out to reunite the group, finding Powder and returning to the island, where they also hired on Kai and Orlyn Torchbearer.

The group now return to the Palace of the Vampire Queen.

 

The Delve 

Powder is in her lunar aspect, she prepared Hold Portal. 

Giant Rats: 

Exploring the eastern portion of the dungeon, the party come to a room where two massive rats gorge themselves on the corpse of one of the muppet-things, suckling blood from chunks of meaty cloth and stuffing. Kai shoots an arrow, which glances off one of the rats. Powder casts Hold Portal and the party get out of there.

The Cats & The Madman: 

The party flee back to the major intersection, then head north, finding a narrow branching tunnel, with a door at the end. Kai puts his ear to the door and hears the mewling of cats. Though cautious and skeptical, he opens the door, finding that the chamber is in fact filled with over a dozen house cats.

Examining the chamber reveals a spot the cats do not tread, which turns out to be a pit trap. Kai puts out food for the cats, while Powder pokes around the room, discovering a secret door in the northern wall.

Behind this door, the party find a chamber with yet more cats, as well as a very old man, sitting on the floor, meowing back and forth in conversation with the cats. Kai engages the old man in conversation, and gives him wine. He learns that the man has been here for a very long time, and has followed the cats to stay alive. He does not want to leave, there is nothing left for him in the world above.

When the party go to leave, the man asks if they intend to slay the Vampire Queen. When they respond in the affirmative, he tells them of a secret passage, the only way from level III to IV, which he found by following the cats. This is the only moment of their conversation where he seems truly lucid.

The Spider & The Stairs: 

Exiting through another secret door to the north, the party come to a large hallway, off of which branches a door. Entering, they find a room thick with webs. A giant spider attacks, and is slain after a fight, in which the webs were set ablaze. Before it died, it managed to sting Orlyn, and its lethal venom now coursed through her blood.

The party pull back to lick their wounds, and find that Orlyn has been poisoned. She knows the venom will kill her soon, but not how soon.

[In one of Luke Gearing's Pariah session logs, he talks about using a delay on failed poison saves as a potential driver of play. I like this idea a lot, so I tried it here, rolling a duration in secret.]

Returning to the room where the spider was, they find that the webs, now burnt away, have revealed a staircase, leading down into the dark. Knowing she is as good as dead already, Orlyn decides to head down the stairs, leaving the party to see what she can find.

Powder also finds a secret door in the spider's room, containing a long dead body clutching a very dusty map of the second level. This may have proven useful for Orlyn, who had already left.

The Troll: 

Orlyn, torch in hand, sets off into the darkness, wandering the corridors of the second level. Eventually, she comes to a large chamber. A figure is hunched in the shadows towards the back of the room. Large hands, wrinkled and boil-ridden, reach out from the darkness, and long hair partially covers a smile of razor-like teeth.

Orlyn addresses the creature, [making a reaction roll], and it responds as follows: "I smell the poison in your blood. It will kill you, but it will not kill me. When you die, I will eat you."

Orlyn nods in understanding. The creature, sick with hunger, offers her a favor, before she dies. Orlyn asks it to sit with her, and it agrees.

Orlyn sets out her torches, sits with the creature, beholds it in its wretchedness. As the poison takes her, it sings a song, an old song, thick and guttural. A song of rolling hills and flocks of sheep. The torches begin to burn out. The poison blurs her vision. Then she dies. Then the creature eats her.

When Orlyn does not return, the party decide to leave the dungeon. They are startled to see the giant rats once more before they leave, but manage to flee them without combat, returning to the surface. 

 

Delve Summary

Losses:

• Orlyn Torchbearer, the fighter, killed by spider's venom and eaten by a troll.

Foes Slain:

• A giant spider.

 Treasures Found:

• None.

Doors & Portals

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