Vaults of Pavelorn - Session V - Incineration by Lion

Beni Profane - rat catcher and affable spelunker

Once again the four adventurers, Lune the Veteran, Higgans the Sorcerer, Sarin the Cleric and Travin the Crusader entered the vaults of Pavelorn in search of easy gold.  Gold was recovered but it wasn't easy.  Lune was hampered by an incredible hangover that left him with only 2 HP (a poor initial roll) and bad judgment (my own), but the rest of the party was in good spirits and suitably chastised by last week's narrow escape.

Entering as usual the party investigated the first room to the South of the entrance, its walls molded with faces and its entire width bisected by a cliff dropping to the boulevard fifteen feet below.  As the party investigated the faces, finding nothing, their light attacked the notice of something wearing heavy boots and marching feet echoed in the distance.  A troop of Monster Men was expected to arrive shortly so Lune encouraged an ill advised ambush involving placing a pole with the lantern in one area with hiding out of its light.  The ruse worked and a group of ten armored figures and one smaller rag wrapped one investigated the light.  The rag wrapped creature began writing something on the floor and playing with a strange object.


When one of the armored man-things shot the party's lantern with a crossbow bolt and destroyed it Lune and his man threw a flask of oil.  The oil splashed the ragged creature and sent it fleeing into the darkness while its companions flung a spear that pinned Sarin's loyal henchman to the floor dead.

The party and thier attackers both fled, with the party flinging the monster man helmet they had recovered on their last delve and calling out "The Pact is broken!" with the hope of stirring up inter monster feuds.  As the adventurers regrouped in a room beyond a dust stirring, room shaking blast knocked several off their feet.

Shaken, physically and mentally, the band returns to the town and talks up their adventure in the Giant's Sword, finding two guardsmen who might later be willing to help chastise the monster's beneath Pavelorn.

A return to the dungeon the next day finds the door to the face/cliff room bricked up, and after a brief discussion the band decides not to smash through the wall, preferring not to have another easy way between their entry room and the dangerous boulevard.  In the next room, where a window leads to the boulevard, a flask rest on the window sill.  Sarin investigates and the room fills with a sulfurous smell.  The bottle beings to bubble and with the rest of the party shouting at him Sarin flings the vial out the window where it promptly explodes.

Deciding to avoid the boulevard and any more exploding vials the adventurers make their way to the fancy home where the centipedes were lairing.  The alley that the party used last time was barricaded with an 8 foot tall pile of broken furniture and timber.  Rather than climb the barricade, the adventurers go down another alley towards an area previously spotted that appears to be a frozen garden.  The garden is ominous, mist and icicles, with some sort of serpentine creature moving slowly through it. A line of sigils protects the alleyway from the chill of and creature within the garden and the party gingerly advances so as not to disturb them.  From the Northern street the group is easily able to get to the fancy house, but as they are preparing to enter the house through a window, a band of beastmen with a giant lizard on leash approaches.  Bol, Lune's Henchman, is half up the rope and scrambles into the window as a crossbow bolt whips by.  The rest of the party dashes into the fancy house's unopened door and bars it.  They meet Bol upstairs by the window and he reports that the Beastmen entered a door further East. Exploration of the house reveals strangeness and treasures. A demonic entity in an iron maiden, who expired when helped out of the device.  The presumed weapons of the demon, a bejeweled trident and crossbow.  In another room the party discovered a pile of dead beastmen cut, stabbed and clubbed and beneath them a trapdoor containing a chest of neatly 
rolled gold coins and a letter of credit for a local merchant.

Bouyed by success the group advanced quickly to the great doors on the Southern edge of the boulevard and after a sneak attack by giant bats (who amazingly failed to kill anyone) opened the great doors with unexpected ease.  Within the vestibule beyond were two large gold lion statutes, life sized and with scorch marks in front of them.  The marks were crossed by boot prints, and prodding the floor with a pole elicited no response.  Lune, with hungover bravery and bleeding from bat inflicted claw marks, decided to stelp boldly into the room.

That was the last poor decision the debauched and war haunted veteran would make as a gout of red hot fire poured from both lines and reduced Lune to a pile of melted armor and smoking bits.  So complete was the fighter's incineration that nothing could be recovered from the corpse.  Within the great building a gong sounded marking Lune's demise.

Loaded with gold and strange weapons the party returned to town, having lost a member and a henchman in this delve.

So I killed off Lune the fighter - sometimes ones luck runs out.  I pretty much knew what would happen, and the GM looked so surprised when I declared Lune's intentions that my suspicions were confirmed.  Still Lune was not the type to chicken out even in the face of death and those foot prints crossing the scorch marks provided a plausible proof that the lions were inactive.  All in all I am not dissatisfied, though this is the first character I've had die since I started playing again six months ago. It's part of the game, and especially a high lethality game like Pavelorn - the only thing I regret is that this delve finally netted the party a might good haul and Lune was getting close to 800XP already.

Still now I get to play a rat Catcher/thief (Beni Profane above) and skulk around letting people with better armor do the brave things.  As Lune I felt a sort of compulsion to 'lead' the party, though I never really wanted to - and this may be because two of the regular players are new to D&D [Check out one of their Blogs regarding Pavelorn] (and I think LBB old school play is the best introduction - not to edition war, but the danger and fragility of the characters creates a great deal of very fun tension).