Wait, Vampires Are Scary?

Deug the 13th

The Party:

• Rig Bigny, Gnomish Beastmaster
  • Flit, the bat familiar
  • Clench, the Wardog War-Badger
  • Midnight, the Panther
  • Faufe Yitaw, Dogwere (Badgerwere?)
    • Rawf, Wardog familiar
    • Aroof, Wardog familiar
• Caranthir, Human Leader of Men
  • Rhea Trueheart, Elvish Nightblade
  • Lucille "Luce" Burwood, Fighter
  • Elenora Garrard, White Mage
• Gróin of Norston, Dwarven Sapper
  • Zarc, Thrassian Gladiator
  • Laurita Gomez, Priestess
• Llarm Paphyra, Elvish Polydoctorate
  • The Metal Man, construct
• Quetgar, Thrassian Assassin
• Gottes Segen, Cleric

After selling off the treasure, the dungeon delving continued, now on the sixth level. In the first room was a message, written on the wall: "That Which Never Sleeps shall reign forever!" Secretly, Caranthir swore to never sleep again, just in case. After some careful sweeps, and the discovery of a secret door, the group found a nest of six giant beetles - bombardier beetles, in fact. Leery of an encounter with ranged attacks of burning acid, the party decided to turn the other way, instead. Oddly, the rooms appeared to be well maintained; rather than lichen-covered walls and dusty floors, the rooms were actually fairly hospitable. Creeping forward, the party discovered a single footprint - a dusty tread from another room. The footprint was humanoid. Looking through the door in front of them with her x-ray ring, Rhea saw several cages, each with multiple humanoid figures inside. A few in the party heard scrabbling and hooting on the other side of the door. After a few moments' hushed conversation, Rhea knocked on the door, with Caranthir just behind her, and Quetgar the Thrassian Assassin lurking next to the door frame.

After a moment, the door unlocked with a snap, and swung open. There stood a man - or rather, what used to be a man. He smiled widely, revealing his pointed incisors. After making a quick count of the group, stared directly into Caranthir's eyes. "Velcome! Please, do come in!"

Caranthir struggled to resist, but to no avail - he was charmed by the vampire's powerful gaze!

Everyone freaked out (out of character, of course); the vampire's level-drain was more terrifying than any dragon's breath or demon's claws! Two levels, lost in a single strike! The vampire swung the door open wide and beckoned inside. However, as friendly as Caranthir had become, no one else was fooled. Quetgar grabbed Gróin's holy symbol from him, and held it out in front of Rhea. The vampire, surprised, stepped back with a hiss; Rhea struck, and Gróin slammed the vampire with a summoned boulder. Before the vampire could react, Quetgar leaped into the doorway, over the creature's head, and with a solid slice, blasted the vampire into... well, into a cloud of gas. Vampire's aren't that easy to deal with. The vampire withdrew, floating away from them.

Temporarily safe, the party looked at the room. Apart from the cages, which were filled with Morlocks, the room was strewn with various scientific equipment. Caranthir opened a cage; the first morlock leaped out, but he caught it on his blade, killing it instantly. He turned to the other morlock and demanded it take him to the vampire's coffin.

The morlock complied, cowed into servitude; or at least, that's what he wanted Caranthir to think. Rather, the morlock hoped he could lead the party through enough traps that he could escape. He lead the party to the room with the giant beetles, adamant that the way to the coffin was that direction. Caranthir didn't believe him, which ended the lying morlock's life quite quickly.

After more digging, the party found writing on a wall: "Praise Sakku the Woeful!" - in this case, Sakku the Vampire. Before they found the vampire, they discovered his treasure trove - a potion, some scrolls, and some gold and gems. Soon, they found a series of secret doors, and behind them a coffin, resting on four small jars of dirt. Inside, the cloud of ex-and-soon-to-be-again vampire lurked. After considerable discussion, it was decided to use the vampire's inability to remain in running water against it. Using Gróin's iron banding spell, they sealed every nook and cranny, making the room as airtight as possible, apart from the entry door. Then, they lay in wait, with the decanter of endless water at the ready. Six hours later, the vampire reformed; he broke open the door, ready for combat... and was knocked back by a stream of water. Quetgar, braced and straining against the geyser, kept the water pouring onto the vampire, as the room filled with water. After ten minutes, swirling water nearly filled the room... and the vampire, with a puff of flames, disintegrated into dust, and was quickly swept into a corner. Stoppering the decanter, Quetgar nodded in satisfaction, opened the door, and waited for the water to sweep out into the hallway.

Further investigation revealed a party of clerics, a priestess, and a bladedancer, hiding in terror from the morlock minions and the vampire. It seems they had been chased by several morlocks, and they managed to bar themselves in the room, but were otherwise unable to move. Caranthir, of course, kicked the door open, then talked them down (once the elder cleric had soiled himself, and the younger cleric had screamed like a little girl).

The party escorted the clerics to the surface, along with the jewels and other items, then bid them farewell and headed along the wall to the city of Crabaille. After selling their treasure, they headed into he forest to find some of the treasure marked on a map - as it turns out, 2 gems and a fair amount of jewelry!

They camped a day in the woods, then returned to once again sell their treasure; however, one gem was unable to be sold.

The vampire's treasure contained a Potion of Levitation, as well as two scrolls: one of Hallucinatory Terrain (4th lvl), and the other of Water Breathing (3rd lvl), both written in Zaharan. The clerics also handed over a pound of garlic and a pint of holy water.

• XP from Encounters:
  • Sakku the Vampire (1840 xp)
  • 12 morlocks (10 xp each)
• XP from Treasure:
  • Vampire's treasure:
    • 1,000 Gold
    • 1 rich fur coat (6,000gp)
    • 8 sticks of rare incense (88gp)
    • 1 Agate (25 gp)
    • 1 chryselephantine jewelry (1,100 gp)
    • 1 Garnet (250 gp)
    • 1 moonstone (50 gp)
    • 1 Silver studded with jet jewelry (4,000 gp)
    • 1 spinel (250 gp)
    • 1 wrought gold jewelry (700 gp)
    • rare books (1,000 gp)
  • Buried treasure:
    • Scrimshaw jewelry (100 gp)
    • Bone jewelry (125 gp)
    • Bronze jewelry (120 gp)
    • Porcelain jewelry (600 gp)
    • Fine wood jewelry (1000 gp)
    • Opal jewelry (4,000 gp)
    • 1 Aquamarine (500 gp)
    • 1 Facet cut imperial topaz (4,000 gp) (unsold)
• Total XP from experience: 1960 XP
• Total XP from (sold) treasure: 20,908 XP
• XP per PC: 4158
• XP per henchman: 2079
• Gold per PC: 7622 gp