Lark's Landing, Episode 63

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.


4th-5th of Waning Fall, 1AL

Patrick and T'Zaric, having decided that it was too dangerous for their friends to go to an orc-inhabited castle all by themselves, follow the odd trail of the rest of the 3rd Watch and find themselves, in the middle of the night, reconvening with the rest of the group at the castle's drawbridge just as Fiaeorri creaks open a door... then gets pulled inside by something.

The group rushes through the door, finding Fiaeorri already pretty beaten up by four orc - but the tide of battle quickly turns and the orcs are cut down and subsequently searched for treasure - revealing a collection of several different kinds of coins.

The room the battle dragged them into has some battered chars and a broken table, but also a door on the far side. Logan peeks through this and finds an empty room with some destroyed chests and some broken, mattress-less beds.

Feeling ready to go on, they head back out into the wide, well-lit hallway. They know the doors across from them lead to some sort of kennels, but they aren't concerned with that right now, as the canines inside lack the thumbs required for opening doors. However, further up the hall there are four double-doors to investigate. Fiaeorri moves ahead of the group to carefully listen at and examine each of these. Finding nothing, Extang follows behind, sending his bat familiar inside each room to scout - the first room on the left is a large room with mostly damaged and destroyed benches, chairs, low tables, a tarnished mirror on one wall, and double-doors at the far end. The next rooms on both the right and left are smaller, but similarly attired rooms, both with double-doors at the far end. The final door on the right leads into a hall with a double-door at the far end, and a door to the right.

Determining there are no hidden enemies, the entire group heads into the first, larger room. Extang asks for some time to ritually cast a detect magic spell, which they give him while they wander around the room, checking the new doors for sounds from the other side and to ensure it isn't trapped, and searching for anything valuable. When the spell is done, Extang says that he can detect some magic from the new doors - which Quib promptly attempts to push open. The doors don't open - however, the doors they came through slam shut and Extang sees a flare of magic shoot through the whole room, then vanish.

Quib rushes across the room and flings open the doors - discovering a dark, dank hallway beyond, which is definitely not the hallway that was there before. He tries the other doors again, but they still don't open, and nothing changes. They're no longer certain where they are - or if they're even on the same plane of existence. Taking a gamble, T'Zaric teleports himself 500 feet straight up and finds himself above one of the castle's towers - though farther from the castle's entrance than where he estimates they were inside. Gauging the distance, he believes the group is below ground level, and he teleports back down to report this.

Relieved that they're at least still on the correct plane, the begin very carefully exploring this new, dark, dank place. They choose to go right down the hallway, which carries on for some time before turning left at an open doorway to a room. The room is empty, but there's a circle of odd markings on the floor. Extang's detect magic spell has worn off, so he wants to cast it again, and T'Zaric wants to take the time to use a magical scale that allows him to cast a spell to detect particularly good or evil beings - so, the group pauses.

However, partway through the spell, they are attacked by flaming-eyed, fire-breathing dogs coming from further down the hall. The 3rd Watch leap into battle, fighting back, and find, coming out of the darkness, two more enemies. These green floating heads have one eye, but they have four smaller ones on eye-stalks sprouting out of them from which they shoot beams of magic. Though it is discovered that the hounds are immune to fire, and Logan and Fiaeorri get temporarily paralyzed by the beams from the floating green creatures, the battle is won and everyone survives.

Some eyes are harvested from the green creatures, identified as spectators with the help of Quib's former-master's notes, and T'Zaric and Extang return to casting their ritual spells. Extang's spell reveals that the circle of runes on the floor are magical, though their magic is dormant, and of the school of conjuration. He and Quib then put together their heads and are able to work out that this circle can be used to summon creatures from multiple planes of existence, though they have no idea how to make it work.

Patrick suggests that they could really use some sleep, and everyone agrees. They make their way back to the room that first brought them down here, close themselves in, and bed down for the night. When they wake up, T'Zaric, with his uncanny sense of time, is able to tell them that it's late in the morning.


And that's where this week's game session comes to an end. Join us next week as the 3rd Watch continue their explorations of this castle in Episode 64.