The Hundred Millionth Day, Session 3

Last session, monk Arisha was severely wounded in a fight with an armoured orc. After killing it, the adventurers dealt with turncoat bandits, cutting two down to the brink of death as they struggled against Quareth’s Entangle spell. The last bandit, Lon, begged for his life, saying he knew where the party could capture a lone priest of Xasu. The cleric visited a remote alcove regularly to do . . . what? Nobody knew. Lon offered to guide them there, northwest of the bandit fortress. The party graciously not only agreed to spare Lon’s life, but to even save his gravely injured friends, Nate and Crow by the same means they planned for Arisha: threatening to kill the cleric unless he made fast with the Cure Light Wounds. So with a horse, donkey and three makeshift stretchers in tow, three adventurers and one battered but ambulatory highwayman struck out for the alcove.

By late afternoon, Nate slipped off the horse and was swallowed by a giant snake that had followed them. Kaith dragged him out of its gullet, but the man’s face was crushed and blue — dead. Crow’s soul shuffled off the Prime Material that night as he succumbed to injuries not aided by a bumpy donkey ride.

(Nate was the victim of a wandering monster: a 6 HD giant constrictor. It bit Kaith too, once he decided to turn and run. Crow had a lousy 4 Con and failed a check to survive the night. I did cheat in not requiring a check for Arisha, but then again, I was bending the rules in letting clerical healing work on a character who’d dipped below 0 HP. But just so you know, I didn’t just get rid of spare NPCs! They just ended up that way.)

Kaith tossed together an ambush plan near the mystery alcove — a place seemingly melded into the rock by some uncertain mix of age and design. Quareth took to a tree to use his sling; Eileen hid behind a rock, ready to cast Magic Missile. They tied the horses some distance off with a bound and gagged Lon. They waited.

The evil priest approached, using foreboding execution tree of his faith as a walking stick. Quareth went wide with his sling bolt but Kaith dashed from a tree and smashed the priest  in the back of the head with the flat of his sword. It sent the dark cleric sprawling — a knockout. (I ruled the attack would be subdual damage — half real. Kaith’s player Steve hit for 15 damage — exactly as much as the cleric  had — with a nicely planned backstab. I also allowed Steve to aim for the head, using the DMG ruling that 50% of attacks go for an unarmoured  head as the miss chance for PCs trying to hit that location.)

They bound and gagged him, and threatened him unless he healed the monk, which he did — but not before hearing Quareth boast about having capricious temper. That made the cleric think a crazy druid might kill him no matter what he did, so he lashed out as soon as the healing was done. He cast protection magic (Sanctuary) to begin his counterattack, but his enemies were too strong willed and broke through the spell. Eileen hit with a Magic Missile and a healed Arisha broke his neck with a clever empty-handed blow (whittling his remaining hit points to 0. Yep — they’d just beaten down a 3rd level cleric).

(I should note I got over-excited at this point and tried to have the cleric issue a Command before Arisha’s turn, forgetting she’d healed. Sorry! He probably wouldn’t have accomplished much anyway.)

Kaith searched the cleric’s body. He found 9 gp, two distinctive rings (one matte black, the other adamantine and steel with threads of gold) and a mace whose spikes glowed dull red. And of course, Kaith packed up the cleric’s well-wrought (but probably mundane) chain mail. Then the rogue climbed into the alcove to see what drew the priest there.

Inside, he found something much like a ball-jointed brass tailor’s dummy. Once he stepped on the floor the figure projected a surface illusion, turning into a strange woman in a form fitting garment. She told him it was “time for flying lessons.” She wore a matte black ring like the one recovered from the dead cleric.

Kaith gathered his friends and they all explored the alcove. This again summoned the dummy apparition, who told them they needed to put on their rings — but only Kaith had one. He complied, slipping the black band on his hand. Kaith felt a rush of flight reflexes and followed the apparition’s instruction to practice a simple, slow drift to (a now vanished) outbuilding beyond the alcove entrance, 20 feet above the closest ledge.

The others saw him confidently step out and drop straight down. Ouch.

Kaith reasoned he must have done something wrong, since he fell and nearly broke his neck, but he knew this must be a Ring of Flying. Absolutely. He just hadn’t learned its techniques, but he would learn faster than the idiot (and come to think of it, scar and contusion-riddled) priest he’d mugged to get it. The dummy mentioned a required “activation code and license.” Kaith barely noticed that, but he knew he had to keep the ring, even he couldn’t fly straight for now.

(Yep — Ring of Delusion. It was a Ring of Contrariness with a legit flying power, but I didn’t want a flying jerk in the party.)

The adventurers eventually tore out a panel in the room, yanked away strange threads of glass and found a tight 10′ drop into a corridor leading southeast — to the yet-untested bandit fort.

Oh, what about Lon? They offered to turn him loose, but after Eileen casually said he might stick with them, he took to the notion (rolling a 98 to indicate an enthusiastic acceptance of the idea before adding Cha adjustments). Lon promised to bear torches and generally make himself useful as her henchman. So into the pit he goes, too!

Final Thoughts: I bent a few rules here, changing the ring type and in giving Arisha preferential treatment. Steve’s character Kaith suffered the biggest reversals. He one-shotted a third level cleric but got hit with a cursed ring. We drifted into a side discussion about how unbearable this would be if we were young teenagers. It would look like major DM dickishness, which explains why this sort of thing isn’t in 3e or later. Steve was displeased (and we maybe heckled him a bit too much) but willing to make it work — with the understanding that I wouldn’t force him to commit crazy LSD suicide by jumping off random cliffs.

Steve probably figured I fudged a roll when Kaith fell out of the alcove. I asked him how many HP he had and — lo and behold! — he was left with 1 after the fall. The truth is a bit more complicated. I actually rolled 6 damage on 2d6 at first but then thought, “Didn’t later books say it was 1d6 + 2d6?” and rolled another die. When Steve told me how many hit points Kaith had, let’s just say I used the more merciful rule.

I’m finding it pretty easy to integrate the system’s randomness and character actions to help everyone feel a coherent sense of system and place. I’m not sure why, yet. System familiarity may be a factor, but it can’t be the whole thing, since I’m running AD&D with subsystems I never bothered with as a kid. I must say I’m pretty surprised with how easy it is to manage the game given my mostly-RAW mission.

Finally, I must remember that they’re at Day Five (I will call it Sept 31st in game) and that they earned 1250 XP each.