Session 11: Back to the Southwest Wing

The Adventurers finish off the skeletons they encountered in the previous session and find themselves teleported back to the Southwest Wing.

This write up is from our Sunday, August 1st 2021 session. The text was written up by Carl with a few edits by myself.  Thanks to Jimmy for taking the screen shots on roll20.

Continued from: The Ghost and The Mayor.

Location:  Inside Tegel Manor, in the Great Hall.

Monday, April 6th, 4433 10:00 AM

Skeletons, why does it always have to be skeletons...

Big dining hall-ish room, LOTS of skeletons. Where is a fireball when you need one?

At least the dining hall had a much more sealed roof. The entry hall, which we just left, had lots of drips from holes (it was raining as we approached, and still is).

The battle was ON!!!  Pretty well defended skeletons, shield and some additional armor, but we persevered.  The cursed great sword came out of the sheath for the first time, and did marginally well.  Definitely not the sharpest sword in the armory, but it works.

With a flurry of attacks and counter-attacks, the skeletons were boned.  Literally.

Syndra cast detect magic and wandered about. The skeletons only showed fading residual magic, but she found a strong indication on a treasure chest. As Reebo was checking for traps, he noticed some crossbows pointed downwards. Smelled like a trap... He tied on a cord, and diddled the treasure chest. However, the rope went right through the chest.  An illusion?

Reebo grabbed a shield and tried his mage hand spell. It went through also. Definitely an illusion.

A big moldy tapestry with 'a' history of the Rumps was on the east wall. The room held lots of useless trophies and miscellaneous equipment. An ENORMOUS Halberd was on one wall. Way too big for any of us to use.

Shadow Walker threw a shortsword at the array of crossbows, to see if it was real or not. First toss was nowhere near. Second throw hit them, and a bolt from one was stuck in the floor. OK, real crossbows...

Reebo walked in the space between the tapestry and the east wall of the room, giving it a cursory lookover and just found dust and cobwebs. A thorough search would, perhaps, come later.

There were doorways in the west and south sides of the room.

Shadow Walker, dinged up by the skeletons, used a charge of one of his healing kits to restore some of his health. That is why we bought them.

The halberd had a plaque which read “The Halbard of Broll”. Syndra detected magic behind the plaque.  Aefir lifted the plaque and found a compartment with a lever in it.

Aefir pulled the lever... and of course he disappeared... how not? 



Splitting up is BAD, so we all lined up to pull the lever. Syndra pulled next, after everyone came over near the halberd and plaque.  Syndra and Natalie poofed out, arriving in combat.

Giant rats...looked like we were teleported to somewhere in the rat warren that seems to be all over the manor. Oh joy!

Three giant rats remained by the time we were all there, and we finished them off. A small crawlspace to the west and a path going to the north was also visible. Definitely a rat warren.

Looking down the hallway Aefir could see a hole in the ceiling and one in the floor.  We went down the 'hall' and eventually came to a bedroom dimly lit, with a mirror in one corner.  Shadow looked up through the hole (we were in a 3' tall crawlspace), and as soon as he did a mirror in the room shattered!!

Nice looking bedroom, overlooking the vestibule. Two shadows and the mirror itself radiated magic to Syndra's detect spell.

Combat ensued as the shadows attacked, and as the fight went on the mirror REASSEMBLED itself. A very wounded Shadow disappeared into the mirror with a scream.

The second shadow also screamed and went into the mirror after it was hit.

The room had windows to north and east, doors to west and south, plus the hole through which we entered.

Searching the room, we found nothing of value.  Opening the south door, we found a small room.  A second door would not open, so Shadow knocked out the hinge pins. The door still did not open readily, so Shadow tried to pry it open with a piton. Success.  A room full of SKULLS...LOTS of skulls, some human, some not.



There was a banner that proclaimed 'Brotherhood of the Skulls' hanging on one wall. As we moved into the room, a purple skull on a shelf screamed and flew across the room to a cabinet and disappeared.

A green skull on the bed caught Reebo's interest, but it was (like lots of others) just a skull. There was a book on a nightstand, but just a novel of some sort.

Skulls everywhere, no wonder they named this group as they did.  Opening the cabinet, the purple skull was gone... just a pile of normal skulls. Hmmmmm.

We could smell a decaying something, through the cracks around the door to the north. The door to the south had no noticeable smell.

Shadow opened the southern door, finding hallways to south and west.  The northern door, when opened, revealed 9 goblins that had been butchered and some books on a shelf.  We closed it up behind us.  Notable was that the goblins had tabards with the Rump coat of arms on them. Reebo said, "Probably mercenaries."

Going north up the hallway, we came to another door. Slime was leaking out under the door. Opening carefully, the slime trail led to a skeleton sitting on a couch. It glistened. A sparkling stairway was in the northwest corner. It radiated magic, and was going down... perhaps.

A golden brooch was on the skeleton, no magic. The skeleton was covered with the slime, the brooch in the mess.  As Reebo approached, the skeleton fell apart and the slime moved toward Reebo. As Reebo fled, Aefir attacked. After the ooze was dissipated, the brooch was there and clear of mess.

Reebo bagged the brooch, being careful not to touch it.

Back to the hallways, heading south.  A door to the east had the sounds of dogs and kids playing behind it.  Suuuuure, I believed that... Aefir and Shadow were down another hall, and heard a wolf howl behind a doorway.

Opening the door with the wolf howl, we saw a bedroom. Six pillows and a tea service.  Things looked in good shape, ceramic, with regular spoons and etc.  Reebo noticed one of the pillows moving.  Aefir lifted an edge of the carpet, and Reebo moved toward a chest.  As they did, a purple robe on the bed sort of animated.

Another Shadow.... wowee!!  Like those that came before, it went down and vanished after being hit several times.

Reebo checked out the room for goodies. The pulsing pillow was the only thing of interest, but we left that alone.

As we walked further down the hallways, something must have heard our battle sounds and came to check us out.  It came down the hallway from the north.  Rather than fight in the hallway, we moved back to the pillow room.

We prepared to make a stand against a WRAITH.

Continued in Session 12: A Wraith, Werewolves, Skeletons and Stirges