Tombs of Scoria: Episode 01

__NOTOC__
== Synopsis ==
The McGary brothers, Anton, Tyrael, and Imrik, are covertly led into Wikkthronrarenta's Royal Castle through the dungeons for a secret meeting with their aunt, Queen Vuularia. They learn from the historian Clertus about their first quest: to retrieve magical items from the tomb of the sorcerer Babylon on Wikk Lamdo mountain, accessible only by the full moon. The tomb is guarded by traps and undead bugbears. Armed with magical weapons and potions from the Queen, the brothers face various challenges, including defeating undead bugbears and overcoming an illusory wraith. They retrieve valuable magical items and Babylon's spellbook, eventually returning to the Queen to have their findings identified.
==Recap==
===20th June 1511===
The McGary brothers are led into the Royal Castle in Wikkthronrarenta through a secret sally port. They travel through the dungeons for a secret meeting with Queen Vuularia, their aunt. While waiting, Imrik goes to drink, but his elder brothers, Anton and Tyrael, stop him. 
The Queen, a royal guard, and a historian named Clertus take seats opposite to them. After a brief exchange of formalities, Clertus describes the brothers' first quest: the tomb (and former workshop) of a great sorcerer named Babylon. He was known for his creation of magical candles, particularly the Babylon Candle, which allows the user to teleport to any location they think of. Clertus explains that Babylon's home is on the nearby mountain, Wikk Lamdo, but the doorway will only open by the light of a full moon, meaning that the brothers will only have a few hours. Halfway up the mountain, the hiking path breaks off into a pathway leading to the north side of the mountain, where the tomb is marked with a specific rock. Furthermore, the tomb is trapped, particularly by undead bugbears and mechanical traps. Along with the Babylon candles, Clertus also lists several other potential magical items believed to be at the tomb, including a ring of free action, a ring of protection, a wand of magic missile, a cloak of the cheetah, and robes of protection. Finally, there should also be a spellbook, whose name Clertus has difficulty pronouncing ("all kaiser? allkister?"). Regardless, he informs the party that the spellbook is protected, and carelessly handling it could lead to damage or even death.
The Queen waves guard to bring in a chest full of magical items, which she promptly gifts the party. Inside, the brothers find two war blades (+1 arming sword), one war spear (+1 spear), a blessed +1 mace, a suit of +1 chain mail, a mithril alloy shield (normal shield, but much lower weight), four potions of healing (2d4+2), and five flaming arrows.
They finish up the conversation, going back through the dungeon, and out through the secret entrance. When they arrive back home, their parents, grandfather, and cousin are already eating dinner. The brothers make up a quick excuse for their absence, blaming Imrik's drinking problems, and engage in small talk for the rest of the night.
=== 21st June 1511 ===
In the morning, the McGary brothers set out for the base of the Wikk Lamdo by a carriage driven by Enaya and attended to by the servant Pherret. The party tells their servants they are going to hunt for sport. Once they arrive, the brothers decide to eat at a nearby tavern for a bit so they can safely follow a hiking party from a distance to ensure no animals are ahead of them. Imrik faces a bout of withdrawal on the hike, but they safely make it to the turning point on the trail. Hearing other hikers approach them, Anton quickly leads them to the north side of the mountain. They eventually arrive at the strange rock that marks the entrance to Babylon's workshop, which sticks out on an otherwise flat part of the mountain. 
They decide to rest and set up camp, eating the good berries made by Anton, while keeping watches.
During Imrik's surprisingly serious watch (due to his rationing of alcohol), he spots a large cat-like creature creeping down towards them using his light stone. He immediately wakes his brothers up, and while everyone grabs their weapons, Imrik fires an arrow at the mountain lion. After a critical strike to its legs, the mountain lion starts limping away from the party. Despite Anton's spells the lion manages to limp away, bloody and defeated. The rest of the night passes without any other problems.
=== 22nd June 1511 ===
The next morning, Imrik casts on a bird to free up a spell slot. He then cooks it up the bird for breakfast.
The brothers chat idly while waiting for the full moon. Eventually, as the moonlight touches the flat rocky surface, a door appears, as though it's always been there. Anton casts . They see a large staircase leading down to a bigger room 25x25. In this room, there is a pedestal in the middle, around it the area is blackened and charred. There are two corpses, each thrown to either side. The one on the left, one with rusted blackened chain mail, a broken sword, lying near the hand, and a rotted bag. The other corpse, lies on the right side, being just bones and a rusted dagger. Clearly, the brothers are not the first people to come in here. The pedestal has nothing on it. There's a door directly opposite of them. They try to find out, why the area is blackened and charred, and the corpses are burned, but they can't quite put their finger on it.
They walk through the door into the next room, the door is made in such a fashion, where it's hung of the center, so it swings back closed. In this long 15 ft wide hall, and 50 ft long. The sides of this hall are fluted, nice, and even at the base, at the top, there's a series of alcoves, four on each side, there's about a 5-foot gap between each flute. Anton detects no traps. They notice bodies in there as well. four very large skeletons 8 ft tall, and 2 humanoid bodies, the humanoid bodies are in the back corners, one corpse has three skeletons around it, and the other has one. Imrik checks if they are bugbears. But isn't quite sure, might be. Anton smashes the skulls with his mace, just to make sure they don't come back to haunt them.
They get to the middle part of the room. as the ground sinks a bit, and the four flutes before them, four bugbear skeletons dropdown. Tyrael in the front, Anton in the middle, and Imrik at the back. And they Initiate combat. The bugbears look armored. They battle the undead bugbears. Anton casts but it doesn't work on undead, Tyrael holds them off, and hits them with his sword and blocks several incoming blows, Imrik hits them with his staff, and casts , but it doesn't affect them. Anton attacks them with his spear and punches them with his shield. Because they are wearing chain mail, the slashing from Tyrael's sword, turns into bludgeoning, doing full damage to the bugbears. They kill the bugbears, and circle around the last one, finishing it off.
Anton casts to heal up his heavily wounded siblings. He casts a new to replace the last one whose duration had expired during the combat.
Tyrael loots the human bodies, finding: leather armor, spears, backpacks with ropes, a broken oil flask, a tinder box, bedrolls with blankets, and a little bit of money (20 gold and 10 silver). Rogues in 2nd Edition gain experience points for wealth looted.
At the end of the hallway is another door. Tyrael checks for traps, finding nothing. And the spell doesn't find any traps either.
In the next room, they find themselves in a 15x15 room, with two exits. In the corners, there are four candles still burning, even after all these years, each in their respective corners. Imrik checks the candles, he determines it's a magical candle, perfectly smooth candle, and blows it out. Nothing happens. He pockets all of the candles, blowing them out.
Anton searches the rug, the rug is green and brown, old and worn, colors a bit faded, it has a picture woven into it, of a forest. Decides to not take it, because it's big and a pain in to carry.
They make their way down the corridor, it stretches 25 ft, and takes a hard left. 5 ft after the hard left, there's another door. Anton notices a simple primitive trap. With his spell, he knows that opening the door will trigger a trap, some sort of device that will swing at them. Tyrael drinks a potion and eats the last good berry. Anton opens the door, and quickly steps to the side against the wall, as an axe swings down, and then just dangles in the air.
The door leads to a staircase that leads down 20 ft. Anton leads them down. Into another room, 25x25 It's clearly a laboratory, everything is degraded with time, jars filled with spell components, alchemical reagents, benches. In the back of the room, Anton luckily spots a grey crystalline ooze moving slowly towards the party. At the very end of the room there is a small passageway, 5 ft wide, starts a bit of the ground, like a box. Like a window into another room, it opens into a 10x10 room on the other side.
Imrik and Tyrael draw their bows, while Anton draws his spear. Not wanting to get trapped, the two archers back up into the stairway and take turns firing arrows at the ooze. Imrik hits it first, noticing the arrow instantly corrodes. To prevent damaging their more important magical melee weapons, the party decides to continue shooting the ooze at a distance while backing further into the stairway. Eventually, they kill the ooze, leaving a puddle of its acidic remains at the base of the stairs. They fold the carpet and use it as a temporary bridge to get over the ooze.
Imrik looks around for a book, and Anton goes into the other room 10x10. It drops down by 5 feet, with blackened and scorch marks. And other colored marks. The room runs 30/40 ft up before narrowing into a small round tube, that continues to just run-up, and it seems this tube connects to the outside, draft. Imrik knows it's a testing chamber, so noxious gases can run up and out.
Imrik finds a spellbook, a large russet-colored volume, constructed of metal plates, covered with burlap, tied together with waxed intricately woven leather thongs. 46 pages of the finest thick parchment. There is no writing on it, but a marking, a circle with two dashes pointing inwards on the side, and an arrow with no end pointing inwards. Imrik doesn't recognize the symbol. He pulls out a dagger and touches the book, there appears to be a softness to the metal. Anton holds Imrik's bag open, and Imrik pushes it into the bag with his dagger, sliding in.
They take a table, and put it over the ooze, crossing it, and take another table, so they can get back in and over if needed. Then back into the room with the four candles pocketed by Imrik. They go through the last door heading south. And it opens into this big very comfortable parlor room. 30ftx20ft. It's filled with a pink smoke, and as they gaze at it, they see a creature that looks like a wraith. Hard to see, but it moving around makes them notice that there is a creature, as it moves towards them.
In the pink mist, a ghost or wraith-like creature, 15 ft away from them moves towards them. Anton in the front and the other two brothers behind him. Tyrael says to draw it back into the hallway. As they ready their weapons and move back. The Wraith seems to be stuck in the pink mist. Imrik fires a flaming arrow, as it goes straight through it. Anton tries to strike it from outside of its reach, but again, it goes straight through it. He tries to use turn undead on it, but nothing happens. Imrik lights a candle and holds it towards the creature. Imrik realizes that it's but an illusion, it's only as real as you want it to be. Anton can't quite make the reality shift, he believes him but it doesn't click. Neither does Tyrael. Imrik walks into the mist and breaks the illusion.
The room is a large parlor, a screen door blocking off an area from view, there's a door that leads out, comfortable couches, bookshelves with tomes on it, and a kitchen corner. Anton blows out a candle, and after some time, the pink mist dissipates, and Imrik pockets it. They search the room. There's nothing that looks magical, all the books are still intact, a couple of books of people's lives, journals, and fiction books, a book of monsters, and a bunch of different books. They take wizard journals. Tyrael puts them in his bag, 20 pounds of Babylon books. There is a door beyond, with carvings in it, nothing meaningful, just a nicer door. And it opens into a bedroom. A big bed with a veil around it, with a super decayed body of a wizard. He has a ring on each finger, robe, and cloak. They are still looking like the day they were made, but his shoes are worn away and ruined, and his undershirt is also decayed. And the wand is under his arm. In the room, they find 200 gold, five rubies, five emeralds, and five diamonds. The robes are red robes with a gold V in the front of it, and thick lapels, and a hook that comes if you need it. The sleeves have a 3-inch thick golden hem, anything stitching is gold. They pocket all the things. The brothers consider using the candles to test if they are teleporting but decide not to. Tyrael checks if there's anything hidden in the room, and finds a small hidden drawer with a bag containing 30 platinum coins.
Back in the workshop, Imrik casts , but finds no hidden doors.
Since they have a couple of hours left, they decide to thoroughly search the tomb. There doesn't appear to be anything else. The screen door back in the parlor, with a 5 ft section and then a 20 ft pit that's 10x10, with a board with a single hole cut in it. It's a latrine. They throw something a stick down there, and it falls into something and then dissolves into various pieces, there's most definitely a gelatinous cube. They search a bit more, but they find nothing and decide to call it a day. It seems there was something on the pedestal in the first room, but they don't want to risk their lives, so leave the tomb, with the door still open, since Imrik forgot to close it after him.
They make camp, as Imrik drinks his wine, wanting to go back and grab a wine from the tomb, but realizing that there's probably no wine after so long. Tyrael and Anton take a sip for a job well done, as Imrik watches greedily. They take watch with no encounters.
=== 23rd June 1511 ===
In the morning, Anton heals the brothers, Imrik casts . They finish up and pack their things. Going back down the mountain, hikers give them respectful bows. At the base of the mountain, a servant runs and opens the doors to the carriage, making small talk about the hunt. Imrik tells them that they killed and ate a mountain lion.
Imrik heads into the tavern called the Creek Side and fills his flask that looks like a water bottle.
They head back to the city, they get there well before sundown, normally the guards at the gate would strip arms and armor, but they are nobles so they are allowed to carry armaments freely.
They tell the mother, to tell the Queen, that they are ready since they can't just show up, as the sally port is locked from the inside.
=== 25th June 1511 ===
They go back through the secret passage and meet with the Queen and Clertus again. They bring all the gear, the wizard journals, and a couple of candles. Clertus is disappointed, as they didn't find all the different types of candles. They hand over the items for identification.
A cloak of the cheetah(+3 dex, every 30minutes, or 3 turns, the wearer may sprint for 3 rounds at 45speed), A ring of free action(wearer cannot be affected by things that would restrict their movement), a ring of protection +1(+1 to ac and saving throws), a robe of protection +1 (same as the ring), and a wand of magic missile. (unknown amount of charges, may use up to 2 charges each round to cast the spell, using more than one charge increases the number of missiles fired.)
The candles are four white candles, ever-burning candles that will forever remain lit. The pink phantasmal candle creates an illusory wraith that attacks everything nearby, dealing damage if the victim believes the wraith to be real. 
The spellbook is the spell book known as Alcaister. It will drain hp as every page damages you, it drains strength after an indeterminate time. 46 pages.
Recap done by Odysseus
== In Retrospect ==
A overall great start to one of the largest and most impactfull shows in Arcadia. We meet the characters, see some scary combat, exploration and get an outline to what will be the challanges in our heros future. The first dungeon provides them with great starting gear (Rings of Protection +1 and a Ring of Free Action), allowing them to puch above their paygrade early on. Especially the Cloak of the Cheetah would be an constant companion to Tyreal with its very stacked and varied magic properties. The episode sets a great example to what the first leg of TOS will be about and what the watcher is getting himself into. 5/5 episode.
== Loot Obtained ==
Loot Obtained
Loot 	Location 	Effects
Robe of Protection (+1) 	 	
* +1 to AC and saving throws
Ring of Protection (+1) 	 	
* +1 to AC and saving throws
30 Platinum 	In a secret drawer in a large parlor	
* N/A
Wand of Magic Missile 	 	
* Unknown amount of charges
* May use up to 2 charges each round to cast Magic Missile spell.
* Using more than one charge increases the amount of magic missiles fired.
Ring of Free Action 	 	
* Wearer cannot be affected by things that would restrict their movement
Alcastair's Spellbook 	 	
* From reading the spellbook, one can learn spells.
* Each page of the spellbook damages the reader in both HP and Strength. Strength is drained in an indeterminant amount of time.
Four Ever Burning Candles	 	
* They remain forever lit
Pink Phantasmal Candle 	 	
* Creates an illusory wraith that attacks everything nearby, dealing damage if the victim believes the wraith to be real
Cloak of the Cheetah 	 	
* +3 dex
* Every 30 minutes, or 3 turns, the wearer may sprint for 3 rounds at 45 speed
== Experience ==
Starting EXP for each class: 4000
1,090 exp each split between their classes
* 540 fighter exp each (30 exp per hit die defeated
* 300 priest exp (50 exp per useful spell level cast)
* No wizard exp (50 exp per useful spell level cast)
* 890 rogue exp (2 exp per gold treasure obtained)
* Clever Idea Exp: Anton gets 200 exp for latrine and carpet ideas (100 to each class)
Tyrael leveled up in rogue, level 4 in rogue.
* Max HP from 15 to 17 (+1.5)
Total lifetime EXP Gained per character:
Tyrael
* 5085 Warrior
* 5435 Rogue
Anton
* 5085 Warrior
* 4845 Cleric
Imrik
* 5085
* 4545
Category:Tombs of Scoria Episodes