Session recap, 10/6/2010

Here's the recap email I just sent for tonight's session:

Gentlemen,

Here's the recap of events for the Oct 6th session:

As Too, P.W., and the 3 surviving henchmen watched, the 5 bone-and-metal constructs that had accompanied them into the cylindrical room fell upon the corpses of elf Randy and henchman Zorno.  They began chopping the corpses to pieces, and cutting the meat away to get at the bones, tussling with each other to get the best femurs.

The party moved east, leaving the bone/metal monsters behind.  They found a room with two doors leading out, a recessed area in the wall with a red wire and a blue wire sticking out, and a metal bin in the center of the room, filled with many wires

The halfling P.W. went back west to gather see what had happened, and found that the constructs were gone, leaving a pair of filleted corpses and some of Randy's equipment behind.  He gathered up the useful bits of Randy's stuff and returned to the others.

P.W. then ordered Drunk Billy to open one of the doors, at which point Drunk Billy and the other henchmen told them to stick it, and that they were getting out of there.  The three henchmen marched off west back towards the cylindrical room, where nothing remained except the filleted corpses of Randy and Zorno.  P.W. and Too followed them at a safe distance into the cylindrical room, where the henchmen headed south to the room with the cage.  They heard the henchmen exclaim "What the..." in surprise, and then voices shouting "Parts! Parts!".  The two PC's decided to leave the henchmen to their fate, and climbed up a ladder to the upper catwalk, and then headed west through the door, hoping to find a way out of the dungeon.

They entered a small room with a few doors leading out, and many cabinets attached to the west wall.  As they entered, the dust at their feet rose up into humanoid shapes, filled with sparkling light.  Deciding discretion is the better part of valor, P.W. and Too slammed the door shut and retreated back through the cylindrical room, to the room with the bin of wires.

From there, they headed deeper into the dungeon, and came upon a seemingly empty room.  When they entered, a transparent man in clothing of ancient design appeared, facing away from them, and said the following:  "Welcome, visitors and employees, to the Subsurface Research Facility!  As you prepare to enter the Subsurface Environment, remember to follow your Expedition Checklist, and listen to the instructions of your guide at all times.  We have been accident free for three thousand, seven hundred, twenty nine years, 11 months, and 2 days.  A company record!  Don’t be the team to break it!"  He then disappeared.  According to the party's map, the corridor out of this room would probably lead back to the bone-and-metal constructs, and they decided to retreat back into some other unexplored passages rather than face the constructs again, worrying that they might want to take their bones.

Going even deeper, the pair came into a room with a large jewelled metal frame on the wall, with bits of jagged broken plastic material sticking out of it.  When P.W. began prying the jewels from the frame, it made a strange whispering, but he couldn't make out what it was saying.  He then continued prying the gems out.

Heading south from there, they came upon a room with a row of lockers on the east side.  In the rotting cloth at the bottom of the lockers, they managed to collect 500 s.p.

In the next room, they came across 10 more of the bone-and-metal constructs.  These constructs stared at the party warily, shouting "Humans!  Humans!".  The constructs didn't appear hostile, so they questioned them, about what was through the door to the west, and the constructs answered "Nothing!".  When asked what was to the north, the direction the party had come from, the constructs became agitated and started shouting "Danger! Danger!"  With no more questions, the pair headed west.

At the end of a corridor they found a strange bank-vault-like door, but the cylindrical opening mechanism was missing a bar to turn it.  Too used his sword, and they opened the vault.  It led into a room with many wooden tables, with many empty glass containers on those tables.  In the center of the room, on the floor, was a metal disk, and above it floated an 8 foot wide sphere of brilliant bluish-white light.

They experimented with tossing things through.  First Too grabbed a glass container off a table (and the table collapsed into dust as Too removed it, dropping the remaining containers to the floor where they shatterd), and threw it through the light.  Nothing happened to the container, except shattering as it hit the floor.  Then they retreated to a door on the south end of the room and hurled a flask of oil through the light.  It burst into flames as it went through.

The experiment concluded, the party continued through that door to the south, and after heading through another empty room, found they had arrived again at the set of stairs leading up to the first room of the dungeon.  They quickly headed up and back to town, selling their hard-earned loot.

P.W. went on his merry way for the time being, and Too met up with Rollo Jr. and the replacement priest that had been sent from Dethethix, Gutboy Barrellhouse, a worshipper of Thor.  After a brief discussion, they decided that they should really be looking for some easy money in the dungeon on top of Mount Rendon.  They hired and equipped a pair of henchmen from the local louts, Leo and Twonk.  Gutboy also purchased a guard dog, that he named Rufus.

They returned to the dungeon at the top of Mount Rendon, and head northeast through the door marked "Emergency Generator Core".  In here, they found another octagonal room, with a door to the north marked "Emergency Generator Core", and a door to the east marked "Authorized Personnel Only."  They opened the door, and saw a 5' wide corridor that ended at a closed door, some 50' away.  They had Leo go first, followed by Twonk, followed by the rest of the party.  At the halfway point, Leo stepped on a pressure plate, and behind him a pit trap opened, dropping Twonk 20' into an iron cage, suspended from the ceiling of the room below.  Twonk was clearly dead, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.  As the party stared at his body, a group of metal-and-bone constructs entered the room below and pointed upwards, shouting "Parts! Parts!"

The party made their way over the pit to the door at the far end and tried opening it, but the door was firmly shut.  They gave up on that, and returned to the octagonal room and headed north.  There, they found they had made their way to the room with the strange sparkling dust-creatures and the cabinets.   They decided to fight the dust-creatures, and with the help of Rufus made short work of them.  Rollo Jr. was wounded, but Gutboy's magic quickly healed him.

A search of the cabinets revealed many ancient papers within, but the words written thereon didn't make any sense, so they left the papers behind.

The party made their way back through the cylindrical room, the room with the wire bin, and headed in a different direction, finding a room that was dark inside.  Rollo Jr. entered and scouted the room using his infravision.  He found a dais with a chest upon it, and two poles with rings at the ends on either side of the chest.  In the corners of the room were two crystal statues, and the pedestals they stood on were inscribed with "We Dwell" and "In Darkness" respectively.  He lit a torch and the rest of the party entered.  Rollo Jr. was able to move the poles so they pointed at the statues, and then opened the chest.  Within he saw a gold bar, with the words "Simulated Subsurface Treasure" written on it.  As the party stared in confusion at the gold bar, the statues came to life and proceeded to hack Leo into pieces.  The survivors ran out of the room in terror, but stopped when they realized there was no pursuit.  Rollo looked back inside the room, and saw that it had been restored to its original state.

The party then went and got Leo's remains, and headed south to the room with 10 bone-and-metal constructs.  Gutboy offered the constructs a deal:  parts for their assistance in defeating the crystal statues.  The constructs agreed, and Rollo brought Leo's body in.  The constructs fell upon it, slashing the body to pieces, and replacing their old, ancient bones with these new fresh ones.  One of the constructs peeled the flesh off poor Leo's skull, and placed it over the remains of its metallic head.

With this gruesome mob in tow, the party returned to the darkened chamber, positioned five automatons around each statue, hung some of Leo's belongings from each pole, pointed the poles at the statues, and opened the chest.  The statues came to life, and in the battle that ensued, both statues and four constructs were destroyed.  The constructs then began tearing apart their fallen comrades for parts.

Rollo and Gutboy had a discussion about the purpose of the rooms they had found.  Gutboy thought the darkened room may have been some sort of museum, with its "Simulated Subsurface Treasure".  Rollo thought the room with the sphere of light must have been the emergency generator core that the signs mentioned.

The party then decided that it was time to head back to town, so they returned and sold the latest batch of loot.  As it turns out, the "Simulated Subsurface Treasure" was a genuine gold bar, worth 600 gp.