After a final week of downtime in Otari (shopping, retraining, earning coin, and a round of fortune-telling questions to Rin), the party returned to Gauntlight through the main entrance. They found signs that fur-clad intruders had been there since their last visit, befriended a lonely Morlock, and discovered a purple-worm tunnel that led them on a side-trek: they rescued a mushroom-picker named Manny from puppet "cobolts" (intellect devourers) and a swarm of biting rocks, and were gifted his Spacious Pouch. Back inside, they avoided a maddening gibbering aberration and a scrying eye, then killed the tattooist ghoul Roth and a pack of ghouls, finally freeing the tethered ghost librarian Gerald Caldren and looting the workshop. Venris caught (and was cured of) ghoul fever along the way.
The party had wrapped a week in Otari retraining and shopping. Cid learned a martial leader path (battlefield auras) and trained Society; Visigok adapted toward healing magic; Veve swapped a spell for Invisibility. They heard rumors of treasure and missing people, and held a ledger from Vandy Bandar Dash about a vanished party.
The party is still on the lower floor of Gauntlight, in/near the cleared tattoo workshop and Gerald's freed study, with several rooms still unsearched and a yet-to-be-identified magical thing the GM will resolve next time. They have new loot to identify (wand, eyepiece, key) and a fresh map of the surface cave entrance.
| 00:00:00 | Downtime in Otari: shopping, retraining, and earned income The party wraps a week of downtime in Otari. A recap covers last session's retraining: Cid trained into a martial/leader archetype (auras) and into Society lore (losing some Caves familiarity for a level); Visigok swapped harm-undead toward healing-hand spells; Veve traded an old spell for Invisibility. Shopping continues: Visigok handles a wand-of-1st-rank-spell trade-in (a healing wand becomes a permanent bonus Rage/Mystic Armor slot) and picks up a steel shield bearing Pharasma's symbol; Veve buys studded leather armor and sells a healer's toolkit and dagger; Venris earns coin via pickpocketing/burglary downtime (about 20 silver); Veve earns about 11 silver performing; Visigok teaches/helps at the farmers' guild (meeting halfling Jella Highstepper at a shrine to Erastil). The GM notes that retraining into martial archetypes will require finding a teacher (the guard captain). [S12 · 00:04:46 · turn 0046 · scene 001] |
| 00:38:00 | Consulting Rin: questions about the future before the descent The party visits the seer Rin to ask divination-style questions before returning to the dungeon. Cid asks whether Gauntlight (the lighthouse/keep) will attack Otari in the coming week; Rin reads the sky and says they are safe for today but cannot see far. Visigok asks whether they will encounter demons/undead on the lower floor and is told the forces of hell and undeath certainly lie where they have explored. A treasure lead about caves/scoundrels below 'the fishery' from the starter box is revealed to already be looted ('the valuables beneath the fishery are taken'). The party discusses the ledger from Vandy Bandar Dash about a vanished party and decides the town disappearances are not connected to Gauntlight. [S12 · 00:42:52 · turn 0419 · scene 002] |
| 00:52:52 | Return to Gauntlight: the broken bridge and the Morlock lair The party departs Otari the next morning and re-enters Gauntlight through the main entrance (avoiding the boathouse where they angered a demon). They find the entry bridge more broken than before, with fresh muddy humanoid tracks and black fur/hair, suspected to be the fur-clad men from the market (possible werewolves). They listen on the open third-floor hall, leave an opened bloody door alone, and revisit the Morlock allies, bluffing past them with deception. They note the cleaned-up/repositioned gas body and the decomposing dragon corpse showing bite/stab marks (the Morlocks have been eating it). [S12 · 00:58:40 · turn 0546 · scene 003] |
| 01:17:20 | The reading room, the friendly Morlock, and a purple worm tunnel Through a previously-unexplored door the party enters a large cross-shaped chamber with couches, dead plants, and a dry lighthouse fountain. A solitary, fevered (ghoul-bitten) Morlock lives here among books; Venris befriends him, and the party searches for the books on their fetch list, finding only an encyclopedia (which Veve keeps for its weight as a thrown weapon). Veve finds a hidden door to the south. Beyond it is a circular dugout identified (via Nature) as a purple worm's tunnel, presumably made by the worm they encountered upstairs. They hear a distant cry for help and decide to investigate, walking at half speed. [S12 · 01:21:41 · turn 0788 · scene 004] |
| 01:34:38 | Manny the mushroom-picker and the rock swarm A wounded half-man, later named Manuel ('Manny'), runs to the party claiming cobolts ambushed him in the caves; his fresh, jagged stone-dagger wounds confirm his story (Visigok treats them). Tracking his blood trail through difficult terrain, the party is ambushed by a swarm of earthen aberration pebbles (blind, with tremorsense; ~50 little rocks counted as one large swarm). The party fights with thrown rocks (Veve), snagging strikes (Cid), arrows (Venris), and Visigok's Divine Lance, eventually destroying the swarm and a second wave. Veve's Lingering Composition courageous anthem buffs the team. [S12 · 01:36:13 · turn 0942 · scene 005] |
| 02:14:56 | Surface exit, intellect-devourer cobolts, and Manny's spacious pouch The tunnel emerges above ground in the forest of Otari, about an hour from town. While retrieving Manny's mushroom bag, the party is ambushed by cobolts wearing 'fancy hats' that are actually intellect devourers (brain-eating creatures puppeting the dead cobolts via tremorsense). The party kills them; the hosts are already corpses and cannot be saved. Venris pickpockets/keeps Manny's bag, which turns out to be a Spacious Pouch (type I) extradimensional container; after escorting Manny safely to town, Manny gifts the bag to the party. The party maps the new cave entrance (closer to the shore, toward the Gauntlight trail), re-enters the tunnel, and Veve and Venris refocus. [S12 · 02:40:42 · turn 1577 · scene 006] |
| 03:03:41 | The gibbering room and the scrying eye (avoided) Back in the tunnel, the party finds a hard-to-locate passage leading to a large cavern with a pond and an aberration covered in eyes and mouths producing maddening gibbering (Aklo words; a will-save hazard). Veve partly understands the Aklo. Venris scouts it invisible (via Veve's Invisibility), takes the noise effect, and the party decides it is too dangerous and turns back, noting it on their map. While speed-running back through the dungeon, Venris opens a door and sees a magical scrying eye, retreats, and marks the door 'Don't Open.' The party passes a ghostly librarian figure and various disturbed rooms. [S12 · 03:37:00 · turn 2014 · scene 007] |
| 03:51:35 | The tattooist ghoul (Roth) boss fight In a former writing studio repurposed into a flesh-tattoo workshop (skin stretched over desks, post-mortem tattoos), the party confronts a sophisticated ghoul named Roth who weaves tattoos into flesh and monologues threats ('Your corpse shall be a canvas for my finest ink'). Venris opens with an invisible sneak attack to the neck; the fight involves trips, snagging strikes, Divine Lance, and Veve's anthem. Roth bites Venris (who contracts ghoul fever) and heals by eating flesh, but is killed. Visigok and Veve treat Venris's ghoul fever so he is no longer a carrier. [S12 · 03:55:04 · turn 2197 · scene 008] |
| 04:22:54 | Ghoul ambush and clearing the workshop rooms Immediately after Roth dies, more ghouls (former scholars turned ghouls) ambush from the corridor and shadows. They grapple Cid and try to grab the others; the party fights free with trips, snagging strikes, Vitality Lash, and a thrown cookery 'boomerang' finishing blow from Venris. All ghouls are decapitated. The party recovers and prepares to investigate the boss/workshop rooms. [S12 · 04:34:47 · turn 2627 · scene 009] |
| 04:48:12 | Gerald the librarian ghost and looting the workshop The party meets the tethered ghost of Gerald Caldren, a former scholar/scribe who locked herself in her room when the others starved and turned into ghouls. She confirms a recent group of fur-and-pelt-clad people (matching the market men) opened her long-locked door, and identifies the Boathouse-portrait queen as Lady Belcorra. After calming her (and the Belcorra topic) with diplomacy/religion, Visigok severs her tether to her work table and lets her pass on (she was a level 5 ghost). The party searches the rooms, recovering several books (including the hidden book they needed and other list books via crits), a +1 silver low-grade hatchet, a blue-and-white wand, a key, a gold paperweight, and a rugged metal monocle eyepiece (unidentified magic). Books are stored in the new spacious pouch. They call it for the night, planning to resume next session. [S12 · 04:56:31 · turn 2844 · scene 010] |