Editing Session015

===Session Fifteen - 17th November 2023===
====SHORT VERSION====


====LONG VERSION====
 - <u>[[Media:The_Demonplague_-_Session_15.mp3|Link to audio file]]</u> - 

Drex cautiously sent a mage hand into the room with the weapon rack, lifting a sword and carrying back to the corridor and into the other room.  Nothing seemed to happen, so this was done for the remaining weapons in the rack, till some 18 swords and a couple of battle axes were into the room where the suits of armour had been.  Morthos used a Detect Magic, discovering that all of the weapons appeared to have some sort of enchantment on them.  Suspecting it was magic to animate them, and deciding it would be good to neutralise that magic, Mogadon systematically destroyed each of the weapons, bending the sword blades and breaking the hafts of the axes.

With the broken weapons trapped in the other room, the group finally set foot inside the room with the weapon rack.   The only other exit was an ornate heavy looking stone door with a stubby fingered handprint inset into the stone at about four feet off the floor.

With the rest of the party returning to the corridor to peek in from a distance, Mogadon, as the party dwarf, took it upon himself to try the door, pressing the stone first with his gauntleted hand.  A nasty shock of necromantic magic later and he decided maybe he needed to try it with bare hands.  Believing that the door was testing him in some way, and that the reason he had been shocked was because he had failed the test.  The group spent some time trying to persuade Drex the Aasimer to try instead, but he resisted, suggesting instead that maybe Mogadon needed to try with his gauntlet off instead - but to the same effect.  As Morthos investigate the weapons rack and the discussion continued, the group split up to search the walls for secret doors.  Cormir stepped out into the corridor to check the wall from there.   Spotting that the line that had been holding back the suspected geletinous cube had faded.  He scrabbles in a coin pouch and pulls out a coin which he hurls down the corridor, only to see it splat into the surface of the cube right next to him.   He is engulfed by the cube, and the rest of the party spill out into the corridor to start attacking the cube, an acid burned Cormir managing to break free from the amoeba like creature and stagger back to help destroy it, at one point causing fiery chains to appear around it.  When it is finally dispatched, it collapses into a massive puddle nearly a foot deep of caustic liquid, which quickly drains through drain holes in the floor. 

As the acid drains away, Cormir hears voices from down the stairs, and Drex is finally persuaded to try putting his hand on the door to try to open it.  He too is struck by necrotic damage and doesn't have any idea about what more might be needed to open the door (despite casting ''Guidance'' to aid his own ''Arcana'' check).

Reflecting on why they were there, Drex takes the unusual course of action of taking a sheet of parchment, casting light on it, and then slipping it under the door, but there is no reaction.   Deciding to give up on the door, the group again head for the corridor and the top of the stairs.  Spotting a dwarven shaped golem coming up the stairs, the group worry for a moment how they can defeat this till Mogadon thinks to speak to it in dwarfish, commanding it to halt.   Realising they have some control over the dwarven golem, Mogadon tells it to return from where it came.  It turns and heads back down the stairs, passing through a tapestry hanging over a doorway and disappearing from view.  The group sneak down the stairs behind the golem, but hear the sound of voices in alarm from behind the tapestry hanging on the opposite side from where the golem went.  Choosing to avoid confrontation for a moment, they duck through the tapestry after the golem, finding the construct at the far end of a new room, trying to open a closed door.   For a few moments they also try to open the door, eventually instructing the golem to bash the door down, which it noisily starts to do.   Meanwhile, Drex, peeking through the tapestry, can see that someone else on the far side of the corridor also is peeking through.    

Spotting some mud oozing through the now cracked stone door, Mogadon instructs the golem to go through into the other room, and as the group start to consider following, they catch the sound of someone telling it to "Halt" in heavily accented dwarfish, before commanding it to "Kill the Intruders" and someone else immediately casting a silence spell.   Realising they wouldn't be able to issue any new commands to the golem (or be able to cast any verbal component spells), the group retreat back to beyond the edge of the silence.   The Golem doesn't appear however, and Drex sends Spank to peek through the tapestry again, his fire-monkey familiar reporting back that the Golem had gone outside of the temple instead.

Mogadon charges across the corridor and barges through the tapestry on the other side, in time to see a couple of men holding crossbows, together with another who jerks a rope, tugging the tapestry down on top of Mogadon, who is entangled in the heavy fabric.   A large half-ogre lurk was also lurking just around the corner.

Mogadon throws off the tapestry, Morthos, from the far side of the corridor (and just outside of the silence spell) casts Tasha's Hideous laughter on one of the crossbow wielders, who starts to laugh.  The half-ogre steps forward and slams his mighty axe into the dwarf who has just got back up to his feet, knocking him back across the corridor into Drex, before stepping back out of sight.

Deciding that perhaps a tactical withdrawal might be in order, the four heroes decided to chase after the golem that had gone outside, hoping to perhaps command it to their side.  As they moved, Morthos passed Mogadon a potion, which he carefully drank, repairing some of the damage dealt to him by the powerful half-ogre.

On to <u>[[Session016|Session 016]]</u>

Back to <u>[[Session013|Session 0013]]</u> 

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