10/6/24 - Operation Delve (3)

Commander: Seth

Marshall: Thomas

Lorekeeper: Fidelis

Quartermaster: Zey

Spymaster: Andreas

Passenger princess: Angel

Mission cost: 3 intel, 2 supply

Mission date: 10/6/24, 42nd Knewidi 715 A.R.

We start, as always, in widowstone keep getting ready to explore level 3 of the sanctum. Seth and Andreas and thomas train, angel gets the complete successes bonus from karina, zey and fidelis go to community center (b reads to children, fidelis hosts art therapy). Jonah clarifies a question abt 3rd mountain, then we get ready to go.

We debate doing the scrap -> supply, and we eventually agree to exchange 1 scrap for 1 supply.

Spy network: Ryan ends up Training, costing morale and supply, to get all of our spies up to lvl 3. Then we put ALL of the spies on supplies (the “supply guys”), and roll 9d6 for our supplies. We end up getting 7 supply from this (thanks Ryan!), and now we are sitting pretty.

Projects: Zey begins to build a memorial center as a place for us to remember our dead. We debate on a design - we land on a wall with names and perhaps little cubbies to leave flowers or other offerings to the dead. It will cost 2 pts to do this, and we complete it the same session.

Intel: We spend 2 intel.

• What’s a good item?
  • Ask another.
• How dangerous?
  • Ask another.
• What are two approaches?
  • Ask another.
• 1-10 how dangerous is Farm?
  • it’s a 5.
• What might we find on this mission?
  • Relics
• What’s a useful skillset to bring on Farm?
  • Someone dextrous, who can move through cramped spaces

Delve Roll: All are sworn members, at least 2 were on the previous level, everyone’s been delving before, no one distracts anyone, fidelis uses recovery to not have a health block missing anymore, supply is not lower than 4, so we roll 3d6. Our highest roll ends up being a 4.

We lose 15 stamina as we go through the first two levels. We then continue going down until we eventually reach a stairwell. As we go down it, we head to level 3.

We come out in a cramped corridor/hallway, and air is abnormally dry. Angel’s lips immediately get chapped. But there is a way ahead of us.

Marcus transforms, but Zey chides him for this. Andreas is in front, and we come to a sealed door. It’s packed with sand and dirt, and it spills through an ancient lock. We find out Marcus’s radar can’t go up, and it can’t go beyond this sand-packed door. He doesn’t smell anything.

Thomas suggests immediately putting up a forcefield so we can see what’s inside before we go, but Andreas points out that it will break if subjected to 500 lbs or more. Zey suggests wetting the sand, but we shout him down. Then we figure out that the door opens inwards and we need to force it open through the sand (again, MASSIVE amounts of sand). Thomas makes a physical check to do so and gets 7 successes (all successes). Colin then calls that a “half-success”. So we’re fucked lol.

Thomas ends up struggling against the door and finally forces it open and sees the towers of sand, as well as boulders and magical chains over the door. And Thomas popped it like it was nothing 😭

Zey says that they were likely trying to keep the creature from level 2 out, and Andreas agrees, but is still nervous. We go into the room and see all that stupid material, but we also see a bell in an alcove in the wall with a string running up through the stone, it looks like a means of communication. It can be rung from BOTH above AND below. There’s an oak tree, 7-8 ft tall, in the middle of the room, as well as a heavy mithril door with an empty slot in it for a lever or a key or something (left). Then there’s another barricaded door on the other side (right).

We know there’s something down here because last level, something rang the bell from down here. So we keep our eyes open.

Angel asks if the tree is alive and makes a mental check. Burns some hero points, but only gets 2 successes. Then Marcus reminds us about the extra 2d6 from magnet for trouble and we go. From fucking WHAT? So Angel gets 3 successes. We find out this tree is just filled with sand, not really alive at all. Seeing this, we feel very, very unnerved.

Seth tries to dig through the sand to find a key for the door. We doesn’t find that, but he does find some greasy paper, likely used for something meat related. He figures out that it was likely cooked a while ago, maybe on our last mission.

We find out that the locks and chains on the rightmost door are real metal, not sand. It’s not very high quality, but is real, nonmagical metal. Zey breaks it with his water, and then tries to check for traps. He gets 3 successes on that mental check. Behind the door is a short hallway, likely trapped. At the end of the short hallway is another door packed with sand.

Seth sniffs, and finds a sulfurous smell lingering beneath the floor of this trapped hallway. We have a brief hiccup with finding a rock, and throw it down the hall. Nothing happens. Then Zey uses his water to probe around, roughly 120 lbs of force. One of the pressure plates activates and the door before us ROCKETS shut, and the closed-off hallway begins to leak with a noxious gas. That’s a fucking gas chamber. It finally stops dispensing after about 20 min, but we realize there’s no ventilation, and the gas is probably Still There. We discuss the possibility of Andreas using his forcefield in various ways, or maybe burning out the gas.

We decide on a course of action. Andreas drops the forcefield and steps back, and Fidelis lights a fire rune at some of the leaking gas. This results in a MASSIVE explosion, and Fidelis and Andreas are thrown back. We’re okay, though, and joke about how they know we’re here now.

We enter the new room, and see it’s very jungle-like in nature. Man-made pools, sort of like an evaporation system, also exist in this place. More sand, lots of sand-trees, sand-grass, etc. We did accidentally blow up a bunch of the trees but oh well. As we look at the water, we see it’s about a quarter gallon in one of the pools, didn’t check the other. Seth takes a sip, and we see it’s “pure, fresh water”. Zey takes some for later. The door to the top is completely airtight, given the trap in the past hallway.

Andreas checks for traps here at this door, and gets 3 successes on the mental check. He finds a small glowing on the hinge, and while he doesn’t know what it is, he knows it’s a magical trap of some kind. Angel calls Fidelis over to look, and he attempts. I make a mental check at ben 1 and, after some hero points, gets 4 successes. He recognizes some runic elements, and I think that if someone walks through this door, something involving sharks will happen to that person’s mind. There might be a reload time.

We discuss lightly what we think it might be or do, and Andreas suggests opening the door and creating a forcefield. Zey offers to test it. Thomas then has a revelation - there are two pools of water, and it involves sharks. He thinks it might actually summon sharks and fill the room with water.

Thomas directs Zey to pick up as much water as he can and to hold it, to see if the pools refill themselves. They don’t, as these particular pools collect from the environment. Angel tries to ask Fidelis if he can deactivate the runes somehow, and he tries to signal-jam it by scribbling as many light and sound runes as possible into it so it becomes jibberish. We then open the door, and Fidelis walks through. I’m asked to make a mental save equal to his power score, and he only rolls 2 successes. We figure out that originally it only made you think you were a shark so you would drown yourself, but now it just Completely Fucks Your Everything Up. The others run down the hall and carry Fidelis with him as lights and alarms start blaring (not my fault this time).

We enter a new room and find more sand, but it looks psychedelic and he is asked to roll a d6. He finally breaks himself free of this curse by biting Andreas’s calf, and is slammed against the wall before he comes back to himself and apologizes.

Marcus makes a habit of running down the hall before we check for traps, and we beg him to stop.

Zey makes a mental check and figures out all of this sand, the psychedelic nonsense, etc and figures out we’re being watched. He laughs.

Marcus calls out to the wall to let them know we come in peace, and he hears back words in goblin that he (and everyone else) don’t understand. We try to piece together his words but we can’t. We just mosey down the hallway, without checking again. Zey makes a [stat] save, and gets 2 successes. He takes some lightning damage, halved due to “the layer we’re on”.

Marcus tries to use his martial school to figure out what the goblin is saying, and rolls 4 successes on a spirit check. He gets that the creature isn’t actively hostile, and that it’s trying to repeat a very simple phrase - but like an american in paris, making it louder and slower doesn’t help.

Marcus writes “don’t speak goblin” in every language he knows and holds it up to the rune. There’s a speaking voice, then a new voice comes back and says “water thief” in dwarvish. We tell them we can give them more water, and the voice says “give water.” We ask if they can deactivate the traps. The voice sighs, then says “forward, slow. Stay. water stays.” We begin to walk slowly forward.

A third voice says “you come from above.” We affirm. The voice says “You are of strange magic and kind.” Angel doesn’t deny we are strange, but promises we only wish to be friends. The third voice says that we are in ancient ground, and to turn back unless we want to trade. Angel asks if we can trade water for further passage, and they say passage is only for the chosen. We say we don’t know about any chosen, but our friend has a special connection with the tree whose roots grow down here. We convince him to meet in person.

There’s a figure dressed in darker clothing head to toe, maybe 5’3 or 5’4. He introduces himself as Elder Apple. Angel introduces us as representatives of the Brigade, and Apple does not know of the Brigade. Angel says that’s fine, we’re fairly recent.

Apple confirms that we want a key, and offers a sand-key, as in this land, this desert land, nothing lasts long and water is scarce. He also offers a warning. Below is the pyramid-maker, dangerous folk. They are old, as old as these goblins. They live in the burning, and the goblins live in the soothing.

We give them the little water we have now, and offer to bring more from the surface. 1 supply worth would get us the key, and 2 supply would get us a TON of information as well as establish a friendly relationship with this civilization. We decide to give 2.

Seth asks about the roots of the primordial tree, and Apple shares that the roots flow into the city, which is NOT for outsiders. Trade is for outsiders.

He gives Angel a stone tablet with what they offer. They have a lot of … basically everything. Supply, recovery, emeralds, magic items, relics, etc. Tons of stuff.

Andreas makes a spirit check at benefit 1, and gets 7 successes. He finds out that we could possibly send other people down to trade, but these goblins tend to be fairly isolationist, and given how dangerous the journey is as well, it’s not great to send more ppl. They’d most likely prefer to be left alone. MAYBE if we do another Delve with the same people, they could be convinced, or just one or two of our number alone.

We decide to trade our supply for some recovery and emeralds. Apple asks why we need it, and Angel says we use it for protection. He is mildly interested by this, and says he usually uses it for seasoning. We trade enough supply to get 10 recovery and two emeralds, on top of the key we already got. Apple then offers us some more things, most notably a dagger of Elthrendil’s Guard (!!!). Definitely has Sheer I and Accelerate III (so if you accelerate it, the dmg rating goes up by 7).

Quick map update:

We try to figure out a combination of trade that we can do for the dagger. We find out that salt is poisonous to them, and torches are WILDLY threatening, apparently. We suggest to Apple 5 lb salt, 5 relics, 1 supply, and 10 torches for this dagger. We succeed. We now have a wicked cool dagger. (side note, we also offered an emerald, but it was not deducted from the total supplies count above so i don’t think we actually ended up trading it).

We ask about the dagger (“Goodbye”?) that Angel found on a floor above. Apple takes a step back and recites a goblin prayer. Angel stows the dagger away again.

We bid our goodbye, and Apple asks us to come again. He then offers, if we come back with 4 water, 6 emeralds and 15 recovery. Andreas tells Angel to tell him that we will come back with that later.

We have a description of the chosen one - one chosen by the gods, who carries plague and death, walks in darkness and light. They HATE this chosen, and we suddenly become mildly uncomfortable.

Apple gives us the key, handed to him by another little goblin. He gives the key to Andreas. Angel then, at the request of various party members, tells Apple that we may return again to trade once we replenish our stores, and we get permission to bring a hobgoblin translator next time.

As we’re about to leave, he asks if we have fruit. We tell him we have corn and apples, and Apple is VERY interested in this. After a brief discussion, we agree to trade apples for emeralds. They give us emeralds, we give them apples. We have a lot of discussion, to figure out the logistics of this and how we can do this. We settle on giving 4 apples, and getting 5 emeralds. We decide, in the future, to use build points to grow an apple tree farm.

We give him 4 apples, and receive 5 emeralds. He is THRILLED. He is thrilled. He is thrilled. He is thrilled. He is thrilled. He is thrilled. We promise more apples in the future. He is thrilled.

When the apple farm is completed, we will get the emerald delve boon. We get 2d6 emeralds every time a delve mission is completed…. As soon as the apple farm is completed.

We return to the first room, but we forgot about the fucking epilepsy shark door. Seth gets epileptic-shark-ed. We all panic, and restrain him until he is fixed.

When we get back to that room, Andreas unlocks the door. His hand passes through the door, and a detection field searching for magic passes up his arm. He pushes magic into it, and the key solidifies quickly, as though it wants his particular kind of magic.

As he unlocks it, there’s a voice that says, “Althara detected.”

It glows red, then another voice says “Come on now. I’ve been waiting for you.”

We go through the door, and find the staircase to the next floor. We leave, because our time is up. This concludes Delve 3. Our ending stats, after the destroyer tax:

We try to figure out who gets the dagger. Thomas gets it, and gives Andreas his old one. Then we do rollsies for training. Thomas trains the 5th mountain and does physical and spirit checks. 5 physical successes, and 2 spirit successes. He gets about halfway there. Seth, having completed the builder’s school, trains the warrior one now. He makes a physical and spirit check. 3 physical successes, and 5 spirit successes. He is making good progress. Andreas trains northern wind, and makes a physical and spirit check. 4 physical successes, 1 spirit. Weirdly enough he is completed with the spirit, just working on the physical.

And thus concludes Delve 3. Yay delve :)