Colonial Caerdia: Lark's Landing is a story being told through a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign I'm running at a local hobby shop called the Devil's Bench. If you aren't familiar with this ongoing story, you can follow this link to Once Upon a Tabletop on YouTube to hear the start of it or read the brief summary I wrote when I switched from video to blog.
You can find the previous episode here.
15th-26th of Waning Summer, 1AL
The 3rd Watch are assembled, and finally ready to head out to hunt Zotzillaha, the vampire god of the underworld. Or, at least, just about ready. They hold a meeting to discuss strategy, spells, and to trade a few magic items tor optimal use. As prepared as they believe they can be, they head out, with Quib and Extang navigating the group through the jungle.
They get turned around a few times, but they eventually make it to the temple on the evening of the 25th of Waning Summer. They decide to sleep and tackle the temple in the morning. However, early in the night, while Fiaeorri and Patrick are standing watch, there is a loud thump that awakens the entire party - Fiaeorri announces that the alter in front of the temple - the one they found a cache of treasure under - has fallen over.
Grumbling, they get up - some of them preparing for an attack. Fiaeorri and Logan go and look into the pit below the alter, where they see three humanoids looking up at them and hissing. Two of them are red-skinned goblinoids of some kind, but the third appears to be Thava - a hulking dragonborn woman Logan had passed over as an apprentice. All three creatures, fangs bared, easily climb out of the pit - practically walking up the walls - and begin attacking Logan and Fiaeorri, with Thava taking a particular interest in Logan.
The 3rd Watch unleash their fury on these new vampires, and mange to kill them - though Fiaeorri loses a fair amount of blood to one of them as it snacks on her. With the creatures dispatched, they return to their rest.
In the morning, after watching the sun turn the vampires to dust, they re-enter the temple - entering down a chute beneath a trap-door, then following a passage through a couple rooms until they reach the one with a well they need to climb down. They lower ropes, and climb down to the top of a hill in the middle of a room with the floor filled with dioramas. A path leads to the doors that lead deeper into the temple, but the door is blocked by three of those reddish goblinoids. One of the goblinoids says, "Intruders! Alert the masters!" - one runs off down the hall, while the other two block the doorway.
The 3rd Watch leap into action, hoping to stop the messenger. Quib dazzles the goblinoids with an illusion spell, while Extang casts haste on Fiaeorri and Logan, hoping they'll be able to catch the fleeing messenger in time. Fiaeorri rushes up and attacks the door guards, and T'Zaric flies into the air, casting spells at them. Patrick runs right up to them, calling on Epesta to destroy undead - which has no effect, as these creatures apparently aren't undead. So he summons a magical greatsword to attack them.
Logan runs up until he can see far enough down the hallway to teleport beyond those guarding the door and runs on into the darkness - but he's blind in the darkness, and there are three different paths his quarry might have taken. Instead of running off into unknown danger, he returns to the doorway and the light cast by his friends' spells.
The goblinoids are quickly finished off, and Fiaeorri (her way lit by Ruby, her pet giant firebeetle) darts ahead with T'Zaric on her heels, trying to find the messenger, while the others debate what to do next. They split up to explore the two secret passages and the rooms beyond, finding them to be free of the creature.
They regroup with the others, and together they take the side passage, heading for the stairs and the lower levels. They come to a large, rubble-filled room with three doorways leading out and one of the red goblinoids lying in the middle of the floor. Fiaeorri sneaks towards it while Patrick casts a spell to detect nearby evil - and finds no creatures of an evil type nearby - except T'Zaric, of course. Reaching the sleeping goblinoid, Fiaeorri stabs it, and withdraws her blade to find almost no blood on it. The creature was already dead - but the body was still warm. They make an educated guess that this was the messenger.
They move on quickly, through the left door, wanting to make as much use as possible of Patrick's spell. They pass through a room of dust phantoms, and follow the passageway beyond to what they know to be the cat motif room, where they faced Zotzillaha the last time they were here. Patrick's spell tells him that there are three evil creatures out in the room. Fiaeorri sneakily opens the door and peeks out... but can't see anything in the darkness. So T'Zaric flies above her head to peek out, and with his darkvision he can see three forms - an elf, a human, and a halfling - in the middle of the room.
They withdraw and make a plan with the others. Everyone readies various attacks, and Logan opens the door. Spells and an arrow bombard the three vampires, and the 3rd watch charge in, blasting their enemies. As Fiaeorri gets in closer, she recognizes the halfling, who she is focusing her attention on, as the one who had a pendant like hers.
The vampires barely have time to get a few desperate swipes in before Quib walks into the middle of the melee and releases a deafening blast of sound that harms friend and foe alike. The vampires, weakened from the earlier attacks, fall to the ground, dead.
And that brings an end to this game session. Will the 3rd Watch find Zotzillaha? Will he find them? Will anyone survive? Find out next week in Episode 52.
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