The Halls of Arden (ACKSen?) Vul

[Yukiomo]

[if my players find this thread, please don’t read it]

The Halls of ACKSen Vul

The Halls of Arden Vul is the megadungeon’s megadungeon: absurdly large and chock full of traps, treasure, monsters, and lore. As a capsule review, one might describe it as “Dwimmermount, but more”. A vast dungeon that (1) is deeply embedded into the setting and (2) takes advantage of this. The reams of descriptive text describing everything from wall graffiti to item history to factions, to a shocking extent, is player-accessible and matters (with respect to solving puzzles, bypassing dangers, making allies, etc.).

I have no idea if this campaign will last long enough to encounter even a tiny fraction of it.

Bryce’s review of Arden Vul (https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=6633) is typically informative; there’s also a currently-running DCC campaign (Vul Yourself Together: A Halls of Arden Vul DCC Campaign Log | RPG PUB) that has a better name than mine.

We’re using the eldritch spellcasting classes from the Heroic Fantasy book because I really like them, although this could change if needing to write up NPC spellcasters becomes too much of a chore. Characters have started with 1500 XP, because our sessions only last 2-3 hours and I’m hoping to minimize dead game-time from dead characters. I’m happy to talk about other aspect of preparing/running Arden Vul.

Session I

The cast:

• Sabrina, a Sylvan Witch

  • Clive, the cacodemon she often chooses to summon

• Ferret, an Elvish Nightblade

• Frank Reynolds, a Dwarven Vaultguard

• Thesk, a Thrassian Gladiator

Arden Vul, jewel of the Old Archontean Empire, home to uncountable wealth, graveyard to a thousand heroes. Though the world is full of wonders, Arden Vul is known by all to be the crucible that decides whether a name lives forever or is swiftly forgotten. Most are forgotten, and we laugh at their misfortune as we dream of our ascendance.

With these words, and more, in their mind, an indefinite number of adventurers [read: the four current PCs plus any needed replacements or alternatives] have made their way up the treacherous plateau upon which the ruins of Arden Vul’s surface layer rest, in the hire of a merchant who plans to make a killing off of questing would-be heroes. The merchant has left them at a strange fortress-inn, the Luck in the Head, run by an uncannily-jolly man and his wife.

Some of the things they have learned, during the travel and at the inn:

• A priestess of Mithras has gone missing; some saw her being carried up the plateau in the guard of a band of pig-men.

• The two best ways to enter Arden Vul’s depths are (1) the Pyramid of Thoth, a great landmark that stands tall in the ruins, and (2) a small ruined building near the Pyramid, recognizable due its still-tall chimney

• A few levels beneath the surface are the “Obsidian Gates”, a strange barrier that not even the ancient Archonteans managed to open.

With these nuggets of wisdom, the adventurers venture into the ruined city for the Pyramid. Climbing to the top of this structure revealed a great statue of the ancient Archontean god Thoth, along with a set of baffling carvings. Although the party recognized that Thoth’s arms could be rotated, and that there were closed passages near Thoth that led downward, they could not decipher the ancient knowledge needed to gain entrance. Perhaps the mosaics on the stairs leading up to statue clearly revealed the answer, but reenacting the rituals they depicted failed to achieve that which was desired. Despite this, Sabrina’s sacrifice of gold to Thoth seemed to imbue in her an ability to discern the character of objects and remnants.

Thus, they moved next to the smaller ruined building near the Pyramid. Investigation here swiftly revealed a staircase leading downward; descending this staircase led to a vast underground chamber overrun with rubble and hints of vermin infestation. The company avoided the worst of this (a nest of centipedes) and were able to put to torch a number of large spiders without harm, recovering an appealing silver chalice. Continuing on, they found a room filled with yet more mosaics. The strangest of these, perhaps, showed a white baboon (thought to be a representation of Thoth) laying waste to a group of salamander-like creatures none in the group could recognize.

Session II

The cast:

• Sabrina, a Sylvan Witch

• Clive, the cacodemon she often chooses to summon

• Ferret, an Elvish Nightblade

• Frank Reynolds, a Dwarven Vaultguard

• Thesk, a Thrassian Gladiator

The party continued their investigation of the ruined structure in the top layer of Arden Vul. Some of the things they encountered:

• a pool of sludge. Despite its ominous appearance, Frank deduced that it was, in fact, restorative when consumed.

• a giant snake in its lair. Thinking quickly, Thesk threw a fallen adventurer’s body at it, and it retreated to hungrily feast on this bounty.

• a strange and deeply malodorous old man who called himself Lankios. Lankios seemed not all there, but he was willing to parley. He suggested that the Pyramid of Thoth could be opened by either rotating Thoth’s arms to point aligned with the horizon, or to the sun. He couldn’t remember which was correct though, and suggested that the wrong choice would lead to certain death. He also warned against “the privy”, a dreaded location north of his home, and counseled them to eradicate the Cult of Set, should they encounter it. (Set, like Thoth, was recognized as the name of an old Archontean god whose worship was proscribed in these modern and civilized times.) Lankios seemed obsessed with a woman named Guivrel, perhaps his lost love, though he had forgotten most anything he had once known of her.

• a second vast room, covered in guano and inhabited by far too many stirges for comfort. Although a cleared path guarded by foul-smelling candles led through this room, past an intriguing circle of stones, the party grew concerned by their rapidly deplenishing set of torches. Thus, they chose to retreat to the Luck in the Head for the night.

Upon leaving, they met a hitherto-unknown major presence of the ruined city, a green dragon that called itself Craastonistorex. The wyrm was content to let them let them pass, although it hinted that it would henceforth expect tribute sampled from whatever treasures the group came across. (Frank’s initial tribute, a set of iron spikes, was luckily accepted with gentle amusement.) The return to the inn also put the group in contact with another group of adventurers; these had the snazzy name of Dalton’s Darlings. Their leader proved to be quite unpleasant, although he laughingly said that he knew of Lankios, and that his lost love had left the city, where she had died in a tower. Rather than the Pyramid of Thoth, the Darlings were consumed with Arden Vul’s obelisks, another mystery.

Session III

The cast:

• Sabrina, a Sylvan Witch

• Clive, the cacodemon she often chooses to summon

• Ferret, an Elvish Nightblade

• Frank Reynolds, a Dwarven Vaultguard

• Thesk, a Thrassian Gladiator

Having re-equipped themselves with torches, rope, and herbs, the party ventured for a second time into Arden Vul. Lankios’ advice fresh in their minds, they returned to the Pyramid of Thoth. Seeing that the statue’s arms would only be able to be pointed at the sun at the sun’s zenith, they instead rotated the arms to face the horizon. As Lankios suggested, this indeed revealed a staircase leading downward. Descending proved to be a tragic error.

Intriguingly, the area revealed by this statue manipulation bore minimal sign of prior habitation or exploration. Like much of Arden Vul, some corpses lined the stairs, but they were old and very decayed. “This is it guys, we’ve hit the jackpot” Frank suggested to his colleagues. Thesk was more cautious, especially after he found graffiti on the wall featuring quotes like “the way is blocked” and “where is the exit?”, so he carefully led the descent, tapping each step with his wooden pole.

This forethought proved insufficient, and, after taking one step too many, the steps turned to a ramp and sent the Thrassian sliding (thankfully without injury) into a lower room, lit with an unseen magic. As his compatriots threw down a rope that he might climb and rejoin them, however, the lizard-man triggered a second trap and was sent hurtling downward into the Pit of Bones. Perhaps mercifully, the fall knocked him unconscious.

As Frank prepared to descend and rescue his friend, Sabrina wisely summoned additional muscle, in the form of a cacodemon (named Clive as it happens). Unfortunately, as this all happened, three other things took place: (1) the party heard the trap door near Thoth’s statue that had granted them entrance to this region slide closed, (2) from the stairwells through which they had descended came the howls of the undead, (3) Frank saw a horrific winged eyeball crawl toward him on the pit’s floor.

The outcome at this point was likely inevitable. The howls proved to be from two ghouls, who dispatched Clive (with the inadvertent aid of Ferret, who fired upon his ally in the melee), and then threw themselves at Ferret. Ferret endeavored to escape to the Pit, but he misjudged his jump, and, like Thesk, fell to his death. Sabrina successfully descended to aid Frank, and, though they both fought bravely, they could not overcome their demonic foe.

[Yukiomo]

Session IV

The cast:

• Nick the Bear, a Berserker

• Thorvald, an Explorer

• Rickety Cricket, a Venturer

• Augusto, an Ecclesiastic in the cult of Basileus

As the previous party was meeting its tragic and unexpected end beneath the Pyramid of Thoth, four more adventurers at the Luck in the Head stirred themselves from their morning ales and decided to venture into Arden Vul. Their stay had revealed some additional information from other visiting would-be greats; most notably, perhaps, that a number of disreputable merchants, venturers, and traffickers had often recently congregated near the lake at the bottom of the plateau upon which Arden Vul rested. They sought out “The Forum”, a marketplace of some sort located somewhere beneath Arden Vul.

Although they lacked some of the brute strength of the previous party, they had one key advantage—Rickety Cricket’s meanders across the world had left him with an impressive gift for deciphering writings; including, they hoped, Mithric, the tongue of the Old Archontean Empire, now known only in fragments by sages and scholars. Thus, they made plans to search for some of the obelisks of Arden Vul, ancient structures that stood untouched in its ruins, with purpose none alive had decoded.

En route to one obelisk others had told them about, they passed a great clear forum or plaza, dominated by a single vast oak tree. Nick’s attention was piqued, and a brief investigation ensued. The tree clearly had some enchantment guarding it—although Nick glimpsed a gleam of some sort hidden under its roots, no amount of digging let him reach it. The party moved on.

The obelisk was tall and granite, and covered in carvings that Cricket excitedly attended to. Some of these were clear in meaning: names of the old emperors, images of the sun. Others were more opaque, most notably, an inscription that read “The Beacon shall be revealed to those who bring midday life to the Sun, the Moon and the Stars” and encircled a space in which an ankh might be placed. Wondering if other obelisks might correspond to the Moon or Stars, Thorvald clambered up a guard tower. Across the city, in middle of a foetid swamp, he did see what might be another obelisk. He hastily descended his perch when he realized the tower seemed to be the nest of one or more things with too many legs, and violence was avoided.

Moving toward the swamp, the group passed the ruins of a structure. Its ebony doors retained an ancient enchantment that warned loudly against trespassers; after some minor interaction, the group decided to heed this. They also found, on each end of these ruins, two vast and destroyed statues.

The swamp proved to be more treacherous than anticipated, both in basic traversal and in inhabitants. Some of these inhabitants, a trio of giant frogs, soon made their presence known, and a frantic fight began. The frogs were fierce combatants—Nick and Cricket both took heavy wounds from the their thrusting tongues, and Thorvald fell in a hidden sinkhole while trying to maneuver himself. However, the group ultimately prevailed, helped in no small part by Augusto’s magic (a rallying of the faithful for extra HP, as well as a successful hastily-performed cure). In recognition, the other three adventurers immediately swore themselves to the cult of Basileus: “there are no non-Emperor worshipers in foxholes”, Cricket quipped.

With the frog population temporarily subdued, the obelisk beckoned. As anticipated, this one was dedicated to the Stars; it too had a slot for an ankh to be placed. After leaving the swamp, the party returned to the vast oak tree. As the others roasted a giant frog leg and enjoyed a tasty repast, Augusto sought to ascertain to what extent it might be magical. Ironically, here his ceremony fizzled and imbued him with stigma. More intriguingly, Thorvald spotted Kronos, the previously innocuous and slightly laughable keeper of the Luck in the Head, creeping around the plaza. Kronos and his companion were dressed in thieves’ garb, and they quickly vanished.

With each hour, it seemed that Arden Vul’s mysteries multiplied.

[Yukiomo]

Session V

The cast:

• Nick the Bear, a Berserker

• Thorvald, an Explorer

• Rickety Cricket, a Venturer

• Augusto, an Ecclesiastic in the cult of Basileus

The party made its way back to the inn “The Luck in the Head”. At its entrance, Rickety Cricket, savvy stone merchant, recognized that the inn’s titular stone head likely belonged to one of the great statue fragments the group had observed on either end of the small island in Arden Vul proper they had crossed previously and seen near the palace ruins. Did the inn staff know something deeper about this head?

The venturer, with an air of mercantile friendliness, sold the remaining giant frog legs to the inn staff. This provided the impetus for a deeper conversation. As evidenced by his witnessed skulking, Kronos was aware of more than he had initially let on. With mutual shared distrust, the two men of coin danced and feinted around each other. Cricket perhaps emerged the victor, as Kronos revealed: (1) the Halls of Thoth, within Arden Vul proper, could be entered by rotating both of Thoth’s arms straight up to the sky, (2) within the Halls, factions of hobbits and beastmen dwelt, (3) if the party could identify how the beastmen typically moved between the Halls and the surface, Kronos would be appreciative.

Flush with new information, the party returned to the Pyramid of Thoth. Just as Kronos suggested, rotating both of Thoth’s arms upward revealed stairs leading downward. These stairs bore signs of obvious and frequent use: this was clearly how most would-be heroes entered the Halls of Arden Vul. “Man, this is so easy, it sure would be embarrassing to have been unable to figure this out”, Cricket quipped. “Say, what do you think Thesk, Sabrina, Frank, and Ferret are up to right now?” Thorvald responded (in a seeming non-sequitur).

Descending into the underground Halls of Thoth, the party encountered yet another Thoth statue. It too had rotatable arms, but deeper investigation was stalled by the appearance of a cheerful hobbit whose seemingly-innocuous demeanor lightly obscured a capacity of and propensity toward great violence. The hobbit announced himself as being in the service of one Phlebotomas Plumthorn, the hobbit king of the Halls. Those who sought to explore the Halls for treasure were expected to pay for this privilege and share any discovered wealth. Here Cricket protested mightily and did his best to bargain. With a tragic lack of success, the party was about to either attack the hobbit or make a run for it, when Nick revealed he could easily pay this initial toll. Violence was averted, for now.

Moving now into the Halls of Thoth proper, the party (now dubbing themselves “The Phlebotomizers” in honor of Phlebotomas Plumthorn’s unique name) discovered yet another Thoth statue (bypassed), a nest of giant rats (avoided), a pool of sludgy brown liquid (boring), a barrier adorned with the staked head of a hobbit (plausibly the territory of the beastmen and best avoided for now) and, most intriguingly, a medium-sized pyramid made of granite. In the process, they triggered two traps or spell remnants that each summoned vast red-lipped mouths that pontificated in tongues not even Cricket could understand. It did seem that one mouth’s message and language was designed to maximally interfere with the other’s, perhaps hinting at some ancient internecine conflict amongst the priests of Thoth.

Climbing atop the pyramid, the adventurers observed that its flat top featured a triangle of lapis lazuli with a steel bar in its centre. Nick threw a rock at this bar, and the group saw that it depressed into the triangle. A cloud of smoke emitted from the pyramid, and when it cleared, the rock was gone. “We need some way of easily triggering buttons from afar” bemoaned Augusto. “We usually refer to those as ‘henchmen’”, rejoined Cricket, “but they’re unfortunately a bit pricy.” Nick then poked at the bar with his trusty 10-foot pole. As the smoke again appeared, he felt some sorcery trying to pull the pole out of his hands. Quickly choosing audacity over caution, he held on and jumped onto the triangle. Following their friend’s lead, the others did similarly. A teleportation thus grabbed the adventurers and took them… somewhere else. Only then did they recall the note their predecessors had discovered stuff in a corpse’s pocket in the basement: “Use the little pyramid to access the Howling Caves, but beware of the Darkness.”

[Yukiomo]

Session VI

The cast:

• Nick the Bear, a Berserker

• Thorvald, an Explorer

• Rickety Cricket, a Venturer

• Augusto, an Ecclesiastic in the cult of Basileus

After pushing down a rod atop a pyramid, teleportation took the Phlebotomizers somewhere else. Relighting their torches, their new surroundings were identical to the room they had just been in, save that (1) the rod they had pushed to trigger the teleportation was no longer to be seen, and (2) the passage that led out of this room was off a different wall. Had they traveled through time, space, or both?

Exiting, they entered another room, the floor of which was a great mosaic depicting the pyramid they had just teleported from, complete with its rod. Two bodies lay in the centre of the mosaic, their armor and flesh rent with great claw wounds. One of these sad souls had, in the moments before his death, scrawled “They are deterred by light, we should restore the well” in his blood on the wall. Furthermore, the tiles of this mosaic depressed when stepped upon, as if they could rearrange themselves. For now, the party saw no way to exploit this and moved on.

Exiting this room, they entered a hallway, dark and covered heavily with the foeces of beasts, its walls adorned with silver mirrors. The group discovered several small rooms, each depicting a different sacred rite the ancient worshipers of Thoth would perform; they also found a larger room with a hole in its ceiling through which sunlight, amplified by many mirrors, shone onto a heaping mound of foeces and white hair. Augusto had the clever idea to use his ceremony of magic rope to ascend to the light’s source, but Basileus deemed this plan foolish [a natural 1 on his ceremony roll, which also destroyed his implements].

Hearing screams of pain from the north and fearing attack, the party began to dig into the foeces mound—perhaps it was the well the inscription spoke of. Tragically, they set no guard and were surrounded by many albino baboons. Conflict seemed inevitable, but, by remaining in the sunlight, no baboon approached them. The ape leader, massive, four-armed, speech-capable, introduced himself as Trefko and gave them the choice between death in combat, death as sacrifice, or death after fleeing.

Only one of these options was at all palatable, so the group made a swift retreat down the one hallway the baboons were not guarding. This led eventually to another room with containing three stone faces and an inscription referring to “Thoth’s breath”. Feeling a hint of air from the centre face, brave Nick (after being tied to his companions to a somewhat excessive and potentially dangerous degree) climbed through it and discovered a set of stairs leading hundreds of feet downward. At the bottom of these stairs, inexplicably, was a marvelous marble statue of an ibis, its wings encircling a stone chair, in which sat an aged man wracked with terrible pain. Thinking quickly, Cricket lasso’d the man off his chair, where he fell heavily on the floor.

When he recovered, this man identified himself as one Anaximander. After seeking to match his will against Thoth’s, and failing utterly, he had been trapped in this chair for aeons. His attempt to gain omniscience had shattered his will but left him with scattered divine knowledge. For example, the hated Settites dwelt quite close by (albeit through tens of feet of thick stone wall, so further exploration was required). Thinking that a more cautious request of this statue could be beneficial, Augusto and Thorvald each sat in the chair and made requests of the Presence. It possessed them and spoke Truth, leaving them diminished (but sane).

Augusto asked what Thoth sought, and was commanded to “Restore to me my desecrated statue” (none of the statues of Thoth they had thus seen were overly damaged). Augusto then quipped to Anaximander “You should try this statue thing again, it’s really not that bad”; the poor sage vomited from horror. Thorvald was more ambitious and asked what lay beyond the infamous Obsidian Gates (a famed landmark of Arden Vul). Thoth was less clear here, saying “The inhabitants of the Shining Beacon of Glorious Heaven left rods, one platinum and one gold, that open the way”.

Neither of these questions addressed the more pressing issue: how could the party ever escape and return to the surface? Augusto’s cheerful suggestion to force Anaximander back upon the throne and query Thoth was ignored, for now.

[Yukiomo]

Session VII

The cast:

• Nick the Bear, a Berserker

• Thorvald, an Explorer

• Rickety Cricket, a Venturer

• Augusto, an Ecclesiastic in the cult of Basileus

The party was trapped beneath the Howling Caves, inhabited by fierce albino baboons and with no obvious hope of escape in sight. Thus, Augusto carefully sat back in what he called “the crazy chair” and communed with Thoth. Forgoing any attempt at negotiation, Augusto offered his services to the forgotten god. Thoth accepted his worship and conjured for him from nothing a new set of theurgic implements: a silver ankh. Seeing the divine tides turn, Nick immediately converted to the cult of Thoth (after having only yesterday just as immediately converted to the cult of Basileus). Thorvald and Cricket were more cautious in throwing their belief behind Thoth: “He seems like a great guy and all, but are we sure we should all entrust him with our souls?” The proselytizers and proselytize-ees thus embarked again up the stairs, leaving Anaximander behind and saying they’d return for him after they cleared the area.

Upon reentering the Howling Caves proper (climbing the 150’ of stairs upward and tiring their legs greatly), the party saw no baboons. They thus moved to return to the large room with a hole in its ceiling through which mirrored light shone. As before, their plan was to dig up the heaping mass of accumulated foeces under this hole in hopes of finding a great mirror that would bring light to the entire level and drive away the baboons. Fortuna cruelly laughed at their plan though: the party was en route ambushed by four albino baboons that sought only blood and pain. Initially, their defensive line held, with Cricket and Thorvald landing skillful blows. However, when Nick’s famed skeggøx missed a crucial slash, a baboon clawed his face and cleaved through to Cricket. Things were undone.

Thorvald sought to escape to the mosaic room, but the baboons gave chase and slew him at the door. He had failed to make it as far as the bodies they had seen in the mosaic room.

The cast:

• Arachnick, a Fighter

• Brunhilde, a Bladedancer

• Mungo Jerry, an Elvish Enchanter

• Hamlin Dawnshield, a Paladin

The following morning, Arachnick awoke at The Luck in the Head and decided (with all of his 7 Wisdom) that Thoth had visited him in his sleep and shown him visions of four would-be heroes venturing into the Halls of Arden Vul, swearing fealty to Thoth, and then being overcome by baboons in the Howling Caves. “The god is telling us to return to the Howling Caves and rescue our predecessors!” he opined to his peers; speaking for the group’s remainder, Brunhilde decreed “sure why not let’s do it”.

Successfully traversing the Pyramid of Thoth, this new party entered the Halls of Thoth, where Mungo Jerry’s glamorous aura enabled a much more positive interaction with the hobbit bandits that laired near this level’s entrance. MJ easily negotiated a “License to Adventure” from this faction. The lead hobbit cheerfully communicated the lay of the land: to the south, beastmen; to the west, Settites; to the north, scattered undead; to the east, the hobbits themselves. He also had some familiarity with the small pyramid that had led to the previous party’s demise: “Those few we know of who have escaped the Howling Caves have used another portal shrouded in darkness, which took them to the borderlands of the beastmen territory.” Should these heroes prove successful in their initial ventures, the hobbit suggested an alliance with his master, the infamous Plumthorn. He also hinted that his master possessed the secret of “Mortality”, with which he could slay all his foes.

The party continued their plan to return to the Howling Caves, when they passed by the second statue of Thoth in the Halls and gave it a closer look than did their predecessors. The Thoth-worshipping Arachnick got “good vibes” when looking at it, and so the party pushed both of its arms upward, as they had done to the statue above to gain entrance to the Halls. This was either an excellent idea, or a deeply tragic one. Regardless, trapdoors opened around statue and sent the four adventuring plummeting hundreds of feet downward into an underground lake shrouded in darkness. “This is it, we’ve definitely found the dungeon’s lowest level; we’re gonna be so rich”, Arachnick triumphantly proclaimed. Only time would tell if he was right.

[Yukiomo]

Session VIII

The cast:

• Arachnick, a Fighter

• Brunhilde, a Bladedancer

• Mungo Jerry, an Elvish Enchanter

• Hamlin Dawnshield, a Paladin

The winding chute deposited the party in a shallow pool, hundreds of feet below the Halls of Thoth. All was pitch black, and the air was oppressively damp and humid. Lighting a torch, the group saw they were on the shore of a vast underground lake, inside an even vaster cavern. Behind them, a section of the cavern wall was polished to an unusual polish. Looking upward, they saw that a wide twenty foot passage opened up directly over this polished wall.

Mungo Jerry sang a song that enchanted her rope, and it reached upward toward this passage’s entrance. Brunhilde deftly climbed up and looked around. The passage stretched into the darkness, periodically adorned with pairs of thick stone pillars. The pillars glistened with patches of mucous or oil of some sort, and they gave Brunhilde the proper heeby-jeebies: something about them was inherently evil. Below, the party heard splashing of some sort in the water. Although they saw nothing in the water, the pillars seemed less immediately threatening, and everyone clambered up the rope.

Walking down the hallway, they were accosted by multiple fat large toads. Despite their ominous croaking, Mungo Jerry’s affinity for beasts indicated the toads bore them no ill will. Hamlin had studied history while training to be a paladin: he suspected this room to be the famed Hall of Forty Pillars, which was said to lead to the even more famed Obsidian Gates. “We’re gonna be so rich”, Arachnick reiterated.

A fork in this grand hallway led to an octagonal room, its great bronze doors having in the past been forced open, their locks scorched apart. Inside the room, there was a surprisingly-new statue of a human man, garbed in Archontean symbols of authority (rods, a toga, etc.). A plaque in front read “Adrienic, Governor of Arden Vul, 2759 AEP” [250 years ago]. From rumors they had heard while traveling to Arden Vul, Adrienic had led an expedition to reclaim Arden Vul for the New Archontean Empire. He had failed, but the details escaped common knowledge. This, evidently, was where he had been laid to rest.

Mungo Jerry’s elvish eyes noticed drag marks near Adrienic’s statue, as if it could be moved. Hamlin thus pushed the statue aside, revealing a vertical cavity with a shroud-wrapped corpse. It was festooned with treasure, including a wax tablet written by none other (it seemed) than Lankios, the mad human hermit the first party had encountered in Session II. “Man, Thesk & co. said Lankios looked old, but they didn’t say he looked centuries old. This is pretty weird.”, Brunhilde noted. The tablet recounted the fall of Adrienic’s briefly-resurgent Arden Vul fiefdom, in battle against a horde of trolls.

Most mysteriously, Adrienic’s corpse had with it a severed hand made of a flesh-colored but iron-tough unknown material, with an azure eye in its palm. It would have been unlike anything the party had ever seen before, except that a set of oval-shaped double-doors on the opposite side of this octagonal room appeared to be made of the same material. These doors lacked any handles or keyholes, and the party was unable to find anyway to open it.

Hamlin proceeded to work through the other doors in this octagonal room. Each was small and contained a sarcophagus dedicated to another key member of Adrienic’s expedition. None led anywhere. Around this time, Arachnick noticed movement in the Hall of Forty Pillars: four ghouls, ravenous and horrid. They had caught the party’s scent but were thus far reluctant to launch a concerted attack on the octagonal room.

Thinking that escape could be effected by opening the oval doors with the hand item, Mungo Jerry looked for some mechanism of use. She discovered a button on this hand; when pressed, an azure beam shot from its eye. The beam did nothing when applied to the oval doors; however, when aimed at a ghoul, it, improbably, shrunk the undead abomination to three inches in height. “Honey, we shrunk the ghouls!”, and the tiny corpse skittered off in fright.

Tragically, this last shot seemed to have exhausted the energies in the hand. With no other avenue of escape, the party slowly advanced toward the ghouls. Despite additional help (Brunhilde’s summoned mane demon, whom she named Siegfried), Fortune turned decisively against the party. Arachnick and Hamlin were girded in the strongest steel their coin could buy, but strike after ghoulish strike found the gaps in their armor. The two warriors inevitably succumbed to paralysis. Brunhilde and Mungo Jerry soon followed them.