Session 31: A Balor, a Black Pudding and a Moldy Couch

The Adventurers continue their foray into the Manor, finding a gate into a realm that spews lessor balors (lessor only so far that is). From there they continued east into unexplored areas.

Written by our scribe Carl with a few additions from myself. It is based on our Sunday, June 4th, 2023 session.

Continued from: Back to the Manor.

Location: Inside Tegel Manor.

We had just finished up a scary room, dispelling a shadow and finding a bag of gems in a nook under the carpet.

Beneddar turned the 'show me' painting back forward to look at it and it was no longer updating to the current situation in the room.

Reebo unlocked the door to the west, and we investigated further. There were cougar skins on the floor, coal black banners on the walls, and an ivory colored throne. There was a strangely alluring aura of total darkness in the southwest quarter that weirded out some of us. When people approached it closer, they could see flames within it - the room felt colder, if anything, from the flames.

Out of the blackness and flames stepped a tall and solid version of a balrog. It had a sword in one hand and a whip in the other, it roared flames at us. The aura of evil was oppressive. Opinions varied as to which room the fight should occupy, but fight we did.

Aefir identified it as Lessor Balor, a demon from a plane of darkness.

It whipped Shadow and drug him into melee range.  Did not go well for the Balor, as Shadow pummeled and stunned it with his fists.

Some ways into the combat, it disappeared into a cloud of smoke. Everything it carried went with it, but the darkness persisted.  Arkelm cast continual flame into the dark, and the darkness just swallowed the flames.

More flames erupted from the corner as we moved out of the room so Beneddar could cast Thunderclap to test if it had gone invisible. There was no effect.

Aefir took the 'show me' picture into the balrog room, but no update occurred.  He tossed one of the hides into the corner and the balor reappeared. No, it was different balor, and this one appeared even larger than the previous one.

We closed the door, and after several minutes of nothing at all waiting for it to break through we moved on, marked this room for a revisit at another time.

Reebo checked the doors in the hallway, but they were all rooms we had visited before.

We crossed through the old jail to the wrecked room, then through the secret door to the hallway. We didn't see any changes from before.

We eventually came to the ballroom and heard wild chamber music as we heard the first time. This time the ghosts did not try to get us to dance with them, just faded as we entered.

Thanks to Aefir and his map, we found a door we had not tried before to the south of the ballroom behind a curtain.

There was a smashed chandelier on the floor in the ballroom. No crystals were undamaged.

Beneddar looked at the painting of Rarin the Rearguard, but nothing happened to him that we could see.  We had forgotten to warn him about the paintings.

The door to the south opened onto yet another hallway, with several doors. We could hear a whining sound from the south. More like some sort of machinery than a human sound.

Reebo unlocked a door to the east, and we opened it to find a blood red pennant hanging from a lance, several shields, and a mossy couch. One door to the west. Reebo checked it out and found it locked.

Aefir looked around and noticed a ghost with a scroll.  It appeared to be taking inventory. Perhaps this was a storage area. The ghost did not react, and the stuff in the storage area looked like rotted junk.

Reebo went past the ghost and examined a tea service, it looked valuable. A black pudding pseudopod reached out and attacked him, nearly knocking him flat and giving him acid burns. Reebo disengaged and pulled back out of range.

Ranged attacks were the order of the day for this one, and all stuff like a pudding. Aefir got off a great arrow hit. Enough ranged attacks took it down, but Reebo lost a bit of his armor to the acid.

We had enough damage to enough people, we headed back to town for a long rest.

Back in town, Reebo went through the bag of gems we found under the rug. There were a variety of gems and they were worth about 2500 gp.  A nice haul.

Tuesday, May 7th
Rested and ready, back to the manor. The trip was uneventful. 

We decided to go in through the ballroom window. We tried to see if Reebo's dog will come in that way. 

NOPE.

That dog really did not want to go inside, so we left him tied to a tree in the alcove with is water bowl.

We went back to get the tea set. The ghost ignored us and would not respond; the tea service was in the next room, so we were hopeful.

As Nattie left the bedroom, being last out of the room, we heard a voice saying “Dastard-hearted coward hinds!” and the mossy couch from the bedroom followed and attacked. It did not end well for the couch.

An east door from the tea room opened onto a narrow hallway. 

We picked a door and Reebo unlocked it.

Entering the room we saw a bunch of candles light up, only to start going out one at a time. There was a coffin on the bed in the room, and Aefir went to check for a vampire.

Aefir opened the coffin, and found that it took two to lift the lid.  Opening it, a strong wind blasted through and put out all the remaining candles. The coffin was empty, but had cushions and was very clean (no dirt).  Poking with a sword got no results, and trashing the lining pad revealed nothing.

We discussed moving the coffin, and moved the bed first. Something white was underneath. A kite, of all things, made from silk paper. No traps, no secret openings. Pulling the coffin off the bed got a loud clang and left an indent of the coffin on the bed.  Searching all around found nothing

Wrapping the kite in the sheets, Shadow put the kite into backpack.

We tried another door: large pillows, looks restful.  Incense from a brazier. Faint giggles just at the edge of our hearing.  A rat hole marred the room, and we found a secret door in the southeast corner. 

Checking out the secret door and eventually figuring out how to open it, we discovered a room that contained two women in chainmail bikinis, chained to the wall with silver chains. There were two doors out of the room.

Both doors opened inward, so we spiked them before doing anything else.  The women said they were captured by vampires. The chains were high quality silver. Aefir's Divine Sense felt slightly evil down from neutral.  A little holy water did nothing but make them wet.

Beneddar cast charm person on one of them, hoping for some truth, but did not get any real results.  With evil auras, we decided to come back just before leaving for the night and try releasing them then and see if we can help.

We unspiked the doors, said our goodbyes and stepped out into the hall through the eastern door.

Continued in Session 32: A Shambling Mound and a Temple