Session 16: Saint Muerte's Secret

Player Characters, Henchmen, Hirelings , & Animals:

Party - The Silver Claw

Ramses Numeral Uno - Level 1 Human Fighter, Lawful Neutral

Smoker - Level 1 Human Fighter, Lawful Neutral

Padre Pedro - Level 1 Human Cleric, Lawful Good

Klarma - Level 1 Human Cleric, Lawful Neutral, (Smoker)

4 Spearmen, 1 Swordsmen, 2 Guard Dogs, 2 Oxen. (Smoker)

2 Spearmen, 2 Swordsmen, 1 Guard Dog. (Ramses)

3 Spearmen. (Pedro)

12/30/23 The day starts with Smoker, Ramses, and their new addition Klarma, taking their men into the dungeon connected to the Paradiso sewer system. Padre Pedro is always a day late so they decided to look for him at the spot tomorrow. Plus they have another cleric that can heal them if needed in the mean time. They leave 2 guard dogs with the 2 Oxen and climb into the Sewers by the dungeon entrance. Using their updated map thanks to the drawling on the wall of a previously found room, the party is able to traverse at 5x speed to a lot of places they have yet to explore. They want to see what is behind the locked stone door to the West of the first room. They use the map and travel through a lot of rooms they had been to then come to a long hallway on their map. They take it all the way West and then take an archway in the Northern wall. This leads to a 70' by 70' square room, which happens to have 4 Skeletons hanging out in. No one is surprised, so combat begins; initiative is tied, simultaneous initiative. Klarma pulls out his Holy Cow Symbol to turn the undead whilst every one else in the party charges in. Klarma is unable to to turn the Skeletons but the rest of the party makes contact. They manage to kill 2 skeletons but not without the skeletons landing a fatal blow on one of Smoker's Spearmen.

The party loses the next initiative but the skeletons miss their attacks, Smoker kills another skeleton thanks to his Jo Sticks blunt damage. Party wins final initiative and slays the final skeleton. In the room they find a coffer containing 1,000 Silver Pieces, and a Wrought Platinum Pendent that is identified on the spot thanks to Karma's secondary skill of jeweler. The party takes a door leading to a hallway heading North. This comes to another door leading to the other side of the locked room. They open the door and come to a 30' by 30' square room.

Inside the room is a large brass statue of what appears to be The Virgin Mary but instead of her face, it has been replaced by a skull. Her hands are cuffed and extended outward as if either begging or gifting something to the viewer. They talk about this for a while and decide Padre Pedro would be best to help investigate this when he returns from the Mission. The party tries to open the stone door but it is locked on both sides, they will need a key of a thief. They backtrack to more of the mapped but unexplored areas to the Eastern section of the dungeon. They eventually come to a rectangular room and find a bloody journal within. It appears to be written by a sewer worker who had gotten injured in a trap and was lost. It notably ended with.... "THE CUBES, WATCH OUT FOR THE CUBES!" They explore some more but more cautious of areas with lots of long winding hallways that they have mapped. They come to another 30' by 30' square room with something dwarven written on the wall. There is a locked door so the party decides to chop it down since they are not in a thief's company. They get a good chop and then hear a voice from behind the door.

They can see torch light coming from the other side of the small hole made in the door. There are several bodies and voices but they party can not tell how many. The party tells them to identify themselves. A man with a calm voice identifies themselves as an adventuring party named The White Hats. They are seeking treasure from the dungeon. The party then identifies themselves as The Silver Claw and asks if they would like to help the party. They say not for free and the party decides they don't really need them anyways. The White Hats say they are the ones who have written various warnings on the walls of the dungeon and even the partial map they found. They Then ask if the party would open the door for them. Smoker speaks his alignment language but gets no response. The party gets suspicious decides to turn around quietly and not say anything. They back track aways and go through a weird door facing South. They open it to find several dead dwarfs on the ground who upon investigation were recently killed and some had magic used on them. There are 2 exits and one of them appears to lead to the room they heard the White Hats. It was locked by a wizards lock and the party leaves the room to find another square room littered with garbage and refuse. Klarma digs through the piles and finds a large bent key. This could be exactly what they were looking for. The party heads back for the statue room when they find a door across from where they went to fight the skeletons has been spiked open with a small white hat mascot drawn on the door with chalk. The White Hats must have came through here. The party decides to take a look inside the room.

They walk in the door to find a giant creator blasted into the floor of a 70' by 70' square room. There are 2 more doors on the South wall of this room. They take the door on the left. This leads to a small hallway which has a door leading to a rectangular 30' by 50' rectangular room. There is an archway on the Eastern wall and a door on the Southern wall. Next to the iron door, "RUN AWAY!" is written with chalk on the wall with another White Hat mascot drawn underneath. The party decides to heed their warning and take the archway to the East. It has a small hallway that turns South int a rectangular room and they go through another exit in this room to a hallway heading North. They come to a door and open it inro another 70' by 70' square room but this one was full of rats, 11 of them. The combat was not that eventful. They slayed the vermin with ease. 2 were able to retreat into rat holes by the Southern wall. The party backtracks to the room where they found the bent key and try the door to the South. It opens to a hallway with a door at the end. Smoker uses his spear to tap the ground for traps.

He does tap a floor stone that has been trapped outside of the door. The trap is an electric trap and sparks up dealing only 1 damage to him. They take this as a sign to leave the dungeon and head back to the statue room to try the bent key on the door. It does work and the stone door does open up back to the area at the bottom of the stairs. They leave and rest for the day after properly burying their fallen comrade.

12/31/23 Padre Pedro shows up with his spearmen at the Meadbeard's Tavern, where the party has been staying on the outside of the Dwarven District of Paradiso. They tell him they are glad to have him back and introduce him to Klarma. They tell him about what happened the other day with the White Hats, the bent key, the dead dwarfs, and the mysterious statue. Pedro prepares his spells and the party descends into the sewers to head to the dungeon. They use the bent key and open the door to the statue room. Pedro casts detect magic on the statue. It does resonate with magical energy. The party discuss how to activate it or if they could move it from the dungeon. After a while they decide to get on with the action and head to the room where they found the dead dwarfs. Ramses opens the door and as soon as he does, WHOOOM, he vanishes into thin air. The party is very confused because they had been here before and this didn't happen. I wonder why... Anyway Smoker is able to take charge of Ramses' spearmen. We will call this the Group. The Group attempts to find Ramses by searching the dead dwarf room but find nothing while Smoker spikes the door they came in open. Looks like they are going to have to search the door to the South. It leads to a hallway continuing South and they can see a door on the East wall of the hallway.

Flash over to Ramses and he finds himself in a confusing and awkward situation. He is teleported torch in hand, into a 30' by 70' rectangular chamber with some demonic masks hanging on the wall appearing to be of savage craft. It didn't quite matter though because the bigger concern to Ramses was the 9 dwarfs he had all around him n the room. He got a 86% on his base reaction roll which was huge! The dwarfs started asking him about what is going on, and how did he get here? He explains what happens and the dwarfs seem to recall planting a teleport trap in the dungeon. The dwarfs came up to this level because they had not heard from the patrol they keep on this level and Ramses tells them they were killed, and he has some suspicions about who did it but keeps them to himself. Ramses then asks if they could help him get back to someplace on his map they look at it and agree. They take him to the room that had "RUN AWAY!" and Ramses rewards them with some coin. He then heads back to the party's last known location at 5x speed. Meanwhile, The Group in heading into a diamond shaped room.

The room has chains hanging from the ceiling with a headless body hanging from them. Smoker searches for secret doors and manages to find one in the South Corner. It opens to a small 30' by 50' rectangular room that happens to have 13 bandits hiding out. Surprised is rolled and the party wins. They decide to take it and engage killing 6 bandits in 1 round of surprise thanks to the groups size! combat continues until the last 2 bandits drop their weapons and surrender. The bandits have a chest of loot containing 1,000 Siler Pieces and a wrought gold crown which Klarma identifies as being worth 600 Gold Pieces. They interrogate the 2 prisoners but they are not talkin' and seem a little crazy. The Group heads back to the dead dwarf room and are able to meet back up with Ramses thanks to his travel speed. They catch up and decide to head out. On the way out, Smoker takes one of the bandits alone in the statue room for some bad cop action. He asks him if he knows anything about statue.

The bandit goes to the statue and mummers some quiet prayer. A strange vile appears in the hands of the statue. The bandit quickly drinks the vile and says," you'll never take me alive!" He then begins to foam at the mouth and violently convulse on the floor, and eventually he stops moving. The rest of the party and see the scene. They ask the other bandit and he explains that the statue is of St. Muerte, a evil deity of death. They leave the dungeon and see a giant White Hat mascot drawn on the wall across from the bottom of the stairs heading out. The party heads to the mission outside of town to drop off the prisoner. They find out Pedro is in trouble for not having the mirror with him and he sets up a negotiation between the party and mission for a later date. In the mean time the bandit is locked in prison and call it a night.

Treasure and XP:

4 Skeletons - 104 XP - Split 50/50 - Smoker and Ramses

1,000 Silver Pieces - 50 XP - Split 50/50

Wrought Platinum Pendent - 2,000 Gold Pieces - 2,000 XP - Split 50/50

9 Giant Rats - 88 XP -Split 50/50

11 Bandits - 147 XP - Split 50/50 - Smoker and Padre Pedro

1,000 Silver Pieces - 50 XP - Split 3 Ways

Wrought Gold Crown - 600 Gold Pieces - 600 XP - Split 3 Ways

Rankings:

Ramses Numeral Uno - E - Led troops and got kills.

Smoker - E - Got kills, took charge when Ramses teleported, found secret door.

Padre Pedro - E - Used detect magic on statue, convincing party to negotiate a deal with the mission.