Wyrmwick Log: Session 7

Oh my… things sure can change in a week can’t they? We got together this Saturday to continue the Wyrmwick campaign (and again on Sunday, but that’s for later) and this was quite the pivotal session. There were plenty of battles, instantly memorable conversations, and a rather interesting metamorphosis. With that kind of buildup I really can’t waste time dicking around, so let’s get right into the recap!

So the session picked up right where we left off: our party was in Zelayla’s Crypt searching for Zelayla’s Staff, and after a nice extended rest we were back on the classic adventurer pastime of murdering everything. The first victim was a Fire Elemental, but to our shock and bewilderment, this monster didn’t seem interested in murdering us right away. In fact he was pretty kosher with just chilling while we walked around. Dhother performed his ritual to Comprehend Language, and heard the monster saying that he was “part of [a] key”. With no way to understand what else that might mean, we attempted to see if we could provoke the monster. Caitlin drew her swords and instantly the elemental got ready to battle. It was a short but thrilling battle than ended when the elemental teleported away, and then Caitlin took it down via throwing dagger. It was a totally ninja moment.

When the elemental died it left behind a talisman that was set ablaze. The party was a bit too cautious to touch it, but eventually Caitlin grabbed it. Instantly it set her hand on fire, but eventually the fire started to subside and instead left her with a strange tattoo of a snake wrapped around a flame. Cue people already getting ready for the idea that my character is cursed and it’s the Book of Morgana all over again.

After a bit more exploring we found an Air Elemental, and started to sense a pattern. Before fighting we found that Caitlin could now understand the elemental’s speech indicating that she could now speak Primordial. Probably not a great sign, but it allowed her to her the Air Elemental speaking about also being part of a key. Cue the battle, and Caitlin sorta-kinda raped the elemental. I crit on my Rapier attack and then rolled near max damage on my Power Attack and follow up short sword attack meaning my damage clocked in at around 48. It was rather disappointing to come that close to 50 and fail, especially since I forgot to roll my 1d6 for criting, but it was still pretty cool. After the elemental died it seemed to become absorbed in my hand, and now my tattoo shifted from flames to a tornado. Again, we’re sensing a pattern.

With two of the elemental keys in hand (quite literally), we ventured down the only path not traveled which sounds like the lyrics to a Johnny Cash song. After opening the gate we found evidence of a Gelatinous Cube in the area, and for those new to D&D Gelatinous Cubes are basically big moving cubes of Jello filled with acid, so in other words not something you want to be surprised by. Thankfully Caitlin has a high enough Perception to notice the cube was actually standing right in front of us, so we avoided being surprised and thus digested by the blocky blob. Instead we battled it, and there was no love lost for this fiend as we rather mercilessly pummeled it which was rather sad when you consider the Cube only has an Intelligence of 1 so it pretty much just exists to glomp. All he wants to do is hug! Too bad we killed him before he could really hug any of us, but luckily the Cube gets his satisfaction through fanart.

Moving along we found a strange room filled with three altars each carved into the shape of a dragon and containing a copper chalice full of a strange unfamiliar liquid. In addition there was a tiny piece of glowing moss in the middle of the room that Jason noted was “unnatural”. To me I figured that meant it was the third elemental, Earth, but instead Jason meant it wasn’t naturally glowing moss and instead it existed to illuminate this room. We didn’t find that out until much later—far after we had started pouring the liquids on top of the moss expecting it to change into some golem of dirt and mud. Whoops. At that point we couldn’t figure out what we were expected to do with the liquids and figured we’d need more clues to complete this puzzle.

Not to be stumped, we continued on in hopes of stumbling upon some clue to enlighten us to the mystery behind the cups, but instead we stumbled upon our third elemental: Water. To sum it up: Caitlin heard the elemental talk about being part of a key, we kicked ass, and the essence of the defeated elemental was absorbed into Caitlin’s hand. At this point Caitlin was just two elements away from being Captain Planet.

Through another corridor we found a Bulley Pit. Well, I don’t know how to spell their names, but apparently they’re like land sharks, so in complete terror our group ran through the pit waiting for the Bulley to pop out at any minute. They didn’t, and instead we found the diary of Wesley clutched in the hands of a skeleton. Through this diary we found out the secret history between Wez, Owayn, and Zelayla. Turns out the former two were pupils of Zelayla, but Owayn tried to seize control of everything she built and killed her. Wez had mastered a ritual that would allow someone to transfer their soul over to a new body hopefully to revive Zelayla, but he had to use the ritual on himself to survive.

Beyond that we didn’t get too much from the Diary, but we did learn quite a bit more about Wez. Sadly nothing regarding that dragon altar puzzle which was disappointing. Instead we stumbled upon the last elemental, and thanks to an early crit, defeated him rather easily (the only way to defeat the earth elemental was to crit against him). With the earth elemental absorbed, we know had all of the keys… unless we were also using fake elements like lightning, ice, mud, light, darkness, poison, love, dragon, normal, and iridium. Oh wait, that last one actually is an element… nevermind.

We found another chest containing seven golden daggers, and whenever Caitlin held them they seemed to respond to her tattoo and let off a particular feeling that corresponded to one of the elements: fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, and chaos. We figured they’d be some part of the puzzle later on, so Caitlin held on to them. After that we came upon a coffin with a vampire sleeping in it. Figuring we’d probably have to kill her anyway, Caitlin decided she’d take the dagger of light and try to plunge it into the vampire’s heart before she woke up, but as you can imagine the vampire was well aware of what we were doing and bit Caitlin as she tried to attack.

Thankfully one bite doesn’t make a vampire, so Caitlin was spared vampirism on top of the other conditions she received in this dungeon, but we’ll get to those in a moment. As it is now, the party vanquished the vampire, Dhother swiped her rosary in case it came in handy, and the group used the seven daggers to open a door leading to a room with a massive chasm. On the other side of the pit was a golden coffin, but sadly no one in the group could figure out how to get across. After deliberating Caitlin decided to test her luck and tried drinking from one of the cups on the altar. It caused her to double over in pain, writhe in agony, and grow a pair of dragon wings. Yes, I am quite serious; Caitlin grew a pair of dragon wings.

With these new wings she flew over to the other side of the chasm (with a rope attached so she wouldn’t fall just in case the wings failed). After crossing, she opened the coffin to find a spectral Zelayla and her staff sitting in a pile of her ashes. Zelalah was waiting for someone to bring her a body, but since Caitlin didn’t have one, she instead demanded to take the elf’s body instead. With that demand Caitlin acted quickly, and grabbed the staff, avoided the ghost’s grapple, and was pulled back over the pit with the staff in hand. The entire conversation was much more humorous and you can find the entire conversation here.

With the staff at hand we tried one last time to figure out our predicament regarding the dragon altars. Drew and Jonn both tried drinking from the chalices (one of the altars refills the cups) hoping to see if they also received draconic transformations, but instead it just poisoned them and knocked them out. Dhother tried to feed them the moss from earlier but well… Okay I think we can safely say this group is Dethklok Part II. Dhother fed them glowing poisonous moss and surprisingly their conditions didn’t improve. After they woke up we found that Caitlin’s tattoo allowed her to move the statue blocking the entrance, and after collecting a cup of the liquid for study, the group left the crypt. Thankfully Wez was sleeping peacefully in the elevator the whole time, so we collected him, returned to Wyrmwick, and reported back to Khan Muzarog.

Well actually we returned to Alpert first so that Caitlin could reveal her new wings to him (which he responded was “kinda hot”), but the conversation mostly turned to Muzarog where we presented him with the staff and a crystal we found inside the cavern that is used to charge it. Unfortunately we learned the only way to recharge the crystal is to power it with someone’s soul. Since that wasn’t very appealing to the group of mostly good characters, we were told to investigate the weapon more thoroughly and the mages at Colingrove were our first stop. However after arriving we received bad news from Duke Ned: Timmy has been taken hostage by Owayne who is still waiting for the party to kill Thoran Hawklight. Dun dun DUUUUUUUN!!!

There was a bit more to this sessions including a conversation with an annoying mage who couldn’t get over the fact that Caitlin was an elf with wings, but this recap is already long enough. I suppose I should use this change to address Caitlin’s changes because they’re far from your normal fair. To be frank, I like that Caitlin has this story bit. Sure it’s never fun to see your character undergoing a transformation you can’t control, but at the same time there’s a lot of enjoyment to get out of character development you don’t have total control over. I like the way things are going with Caitlin and I’m curious to find out the root of all of this. I just hope that until we discover what the dealio with her dragon-ification is we don’t run into even more problems.

Credit for the images go to DarkVolt.

Until next time, Namaste!