Session 14: A Green Slime, More Animated Cutlery and a Vampire

The Adventurers finish off the last animated plate and step across the hall and kill a green slime. After exploring further, they find another kitchen, this one with animated knives. While fighting the knives, they are attacked by giant rats and Countess Rank Rumpula, a vampiric wizard.

The text was written up by Carl with a few edits by myself. It is based on our Sunday, November 7, 2021 session. Thanks to Jimmy for taking the screen shots on roll20.

Continued from: A Pit Trap, A Lurker Above, The Bakery and The Kitchen.

Location:  Inside Tegel Manor,  in the mess hall.

Monday, April 6th, 4433 Noon

Down with the plates!!! One plate to go, probably needed washing anyway.

Syndra shifted her Gust of Wind so that the table would no longer protect the plate, and the fight continued.

Out in the hallway, the song we were hearing ended and we could hear cheering down the west hallway. Then they started a drinking song. Unlikely the cheering was for us killing the plate, but you never can be sure.

As the last plate shattered, the gust of wind spell shook a silver soup pot in the sink. With the lid displaced, we could see that inside had been at least three snakes. Cottonmouths. Maybe the cotton was being used to clean the pot?

Syndra morphed into a large snake, hoping to communicate or intimidate the cottonmouths. She offered them the option to be left alone if we were, but there was no indication of actual communications. The three just did their snaky thing, no threat to us if we stayed a bit away from them.

Aefir listened to the door on the south wall and heard clanking like someone in armor was walking around.

Reebo walked into the gust of wind, and was blown toward the snakes. He stepped out of the gust and looked for another pot to cover at least one more snake.

One of the snakes actually tried to bite Aefir... silly reptile... very accurate silly reptile, it actually did bite him. He took a little damage, but was able to resist the poison.

Shadow Walker tossed a couple flasks of wick-lit oil at the snakes, persuading them to retreat.

People eventually killed the snakes, and searched the room. Clearly a disused (?) kitchen. The soup bowl was silver, and looked pretty nice - Reebo bagged it up.

Some arrow retrieval from the table was needed after the battle.

We went north back into the hallway and listened at the door across the hall. No noise from within. After some effort, Reebo unlocked it and Aefir opened the door. It was very clean and organized, except for a severed hand on the sheets of the bed, and an oily green slimy puddle (seen this type of thing before) on the carpet.  The ceiling looked good, no hanging rugs or pendulums.

The green slime, as it happened to be, came at the group, and suffered for its effort.  The severed hand was animated and crawled around the room and avoided us while we fought the slime. It eventually hid under a wine cabinet in the south side of the room. We left it alone.



The nicely arranged room had a bed, tables and a wardrobe full of clothes. Formal wear, tuxedo-ish. VERY large size.  Reebo found a backpack with:

• A bag of mixed coins, mostly copper.
• Water bottle, full.
• 5lb block of moldy cheese.
• Spider silk handkerchief.
• A silver pendant set.
• Iron lantern.
• Flask of oil.
• A book.

Shadow Walker took the Flask of Oil to replace one of the flasks that he used on the snakes.

Reebo took everything else except for the water bottle, iron lantern and moldy cheese.

Opening the book, he read the title page:

All Horns & Tails? A Beginner's Guide on Everything Tiefling: Halifar the Bard walks you through the wide and wild world of Tieflings, their heritage, and how to even make friends with our infernal neighbors.
  
It went into his pack.

This looked like a quick departure bag for someone.

Looking closely, some of the really large clothing had slots in the back, as if for wings or some such.

A door in the northwest corner was locked, but responded nicely to Reebo, eventually. Once he realized it was not locked at all, just stuck.
 
Parselene whispered that she heard someone walking down the corridor outside the room.

We quietly went the other direction and found servant's quarters. There was blood stained clothing on bed. Aefir could hear, faintly, a sighing. Noone responded to his demand that it reveal itself.

Other people in the room started hearing the sighing also. It became louder, almost a panting, after a little while. Still no response to Aefir.

Nothing looked dangerous, up down or sides. There was a broken/crushed chest in the room. The breathing sound seemed to be coming from all over and kept getting louder.



The north exit door opened easily to Aefir. The noise became deafening, and the walls moved as if the room was breathing in and out. Natalie, the last one leaving the bedroom, took a little damage from the noise and the walls as she left the room.

When Natalie closed the door, all the noise and wind suddenly stopped.

We moved on to a room with a pit. Perhaps a pit trap that had lost its lid? Reebo dropped a copper piece and counted until it hit bottom. He said that it was about 30 feet deep.

Continuing through doors to the north, we came to a hallway that went east, and went that way. We could smell a stale smell wafting down the hall.



The hall turned south and there was a door at the bend in the hall, like all doors here, it got our attention. It was not locked and Aefir opened it. As folks entered the room, we saw twin fireplaces (kitchenish) and it looked like the room was still in use. A pot of soup was on the boil.

We entered combat as several animated knives attacked. They really trained the utensils for this place. There was one of the fairly common rat holes in the room also.

Shortly after the knives attacked, a door to the west swung open and giant rats poured into the room.

Too bad Syndra was no longer a giant snake...

As the fight continued, a swarm of bats came up the corridor from the south, so the rest of us moved into the kitchen and closed the door behind us.

Outside the door Aefir and Reebo could hear a woman swearing. She was clearly not happy.

And just when you thought you had the room figured out, a pot of soup flew off one of the stoves and attacked Arkelm... sigh.

Reebo noticed a red mist coming under the doorway. He tried to fill the cracks with his cloak. Syndra called out that we should leave through the west door, where the rats came from. Maybe they left some cheese?

Before we could leave, the red mist briefly congealed into a cloud of bats, and then into a person.  Female, tall with piled up hair. Red velvet dress, really nice ring, black silk cape. She looked at Reebo and said, "'DROP YOUR PACK, I KNOW WHAT YOU CARRY". Not so much as a please...

Aefir immediately attacked her, which was not unexpected behavior from a Paladin. She was Countess Rank Rumpula, the thing that the fellow we talked to in town, Sir Runic Rump, said he was most scared of in the Manor.

Reebo dropped his pack and moved away toward a window. As we fought, Syndra tried to break a window with an arrow, hoping to let in some light. Shadow finished off the shutters after the glass was broken with a few chops with his bare hands.

Once the weak sunlight shown into the room, she went down pretty fast, much faster than we expected.  When she died, she left just her clothes and a skeleton behind.



Several of us were nearly dead and massive healing followed, using all the auras and spells available to a priest, a druid and a paladin.

We were pleased to see that not only do we have some actually more than decent damage dealing, we have (once a day) some AWESOME healing, if we are left alone to do it.

LONG REST NEEDED....!!!!  Out the broken window was a pretty good idea, back to the forest for resting and evaluation.

We grabbed the fancy Gold ring with sapphire that the vampire had dropped and took her skull.

We climbed out of the window and walked out into the rain outside.

Continued in: After the Storm.