Session 4:

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There is a quick brainstorming session as to how we can manage to get the mechanism to turn. (jguy pretty much grasped what we were going to attempt on the first shot). We decide to get both casters into the hidden section and after reduce wears off, the gnome will cast enlarge person to get the rogue to medium size. It’s a real gamble with a short window since the sorcerer also is responsible for casting minor image to give us a decoy. We have maybe 30 minutes between patrols and precursory cell checks to pull this off.

The following day we request a trip to the commissary to purchase a bulls strength potion for use in the days events. That request is granted and we are told that the potion will await us with the remaining equipment for that day. We need to get through the days combat with the gnome pretty much casting nothing. We need two reduce persons to get them out, an enlarge person for the rogue and if all goes well they will be able to get in from the secret entrance. If not we will need a pair of reduce persons to get them squeezed back in from the bars. So 3 1st level slots is a minimum and very risky. 5 is safer and our goal.

The day’s fight is once again at dusk and we are the run up to the main event. My fighter is still dragging because of his dex damage and we are rather apprehensive for today’s fight. Everyone is geared up and ready to go and the rogue is carrying the bulls strength potion. We are taken into the arena and the whole place is flooded to resemble a swamp. The crowd are all wearing strange goggles and laughing and pointing at something we can’t see. Have I mentioned yet that our DM for this campaign has a morbid sense of humour? As we all shuffle around awaiting whatever is going to attack us (we are thinking trolls) out of nowhere a shock of electricity singes my fighter, and a small glowing light materializes.

Me: Oh HELL NO…
Everyone makes checks to see what details are characters have. The cleric rolls high and gets to examine the manual entry for Will o Wisp. It doesn’t look good. AC 26, immune to magic, natural invisibility and a touch attack that is pretty much an automatic hit against us. Every round the wisp shocks someone, turns invisible, we all try to make attacks…the following turn it moves and shocks, then repeats its process. This means there is a 2/3 ratio of attacks, basically two shocks per three rounds. Pretty much across the board we need 17+ to land a shot and with concealment we end up flat out missing quite a bit. We get run through the wringer and everyone is singed and shocked into low single digit health.

The Psy Warrior and Rogue eventually kill it after a crit that connects and a sneak attack that rolls big damage. The gnome cast a single enlarge person so he has the required 5 spell slots. The Cleric is tapped out of healing spells and the rogue makes a nifty sleight of hand check to palm the potion.
As we are complaining about the fight and getting stripped of our equipment we are already table talking to decide our plan of action once we get to the sub level. Then we get hit with a curveball. As we are being escorted out a guard at the equipment room drops his glaive and stops us in our tracks.

Mook Guard: I registered a faint magical signature.

Benedict comes to attention from the other end of the room and works his way over to us. He gestures to a guard who runs down the hallway and returns a few minutes later with a tiefling in robes. She is referred to as Kjellin and from our board we know she is the head of arcane services for the compound. She does a thorough examination of everyone and singles out the Halfling. They run detect magic on everyone leaving the area to ensure no contraband of value can elude them. The rogue forgoes denials and goes straight for the ignorance route.

Rogue: I wanted it to aid in defending myself in our cell. Sometimes the half-giant gives me funny looks and I don’t want to fail a grapple check against someone his size if you know what I mean.

A few of the guards snicker and even Benedict cracks a microscopic smirk. They confiscate the potion and return it to the inventory control room.

Benedict: You will be allowed the use of this potion during arena activity only. All further attempts to remove items from this area will result in harsh treatment. This is your first and only warning.

As he starts to walk away he pauses and snaps off a roundhouse kick to the rogue’s abdomen, he follows this up with 2 more strikes that leave the rogue crumpled on the floor and groaning from broken ribs.

Frustrated and now armed with the knowledge that sneaking potions or scrolls out is going to be tough we brood on the return to our cells. We can try to see is two characters working together both enlarged will provide enough force to turn it, but that is a big gamble. Next level the Psy Warrior could take Compression as an ability and reduce himself two sizes, wait for it to wear off and then use animal affinity to get a str boost, if he also expands that would have to be enough. But that means he needs to burn a feat for expanded knowledge or use his next power known for compression. It also means he needs to preserve almost his full power point pool to pull it off. By our math we are close to level 5 but this DM tends to make leveling slower and instead of going up every session or sometimes twice in one session we can go three sessions between levels.

We decide to gamble and have both the small characters reduce to tiny, they sneak out and make their way to the hidden entrance. Once below they wait for reduce to wear off and both enlarge, they make a decent roll at 14 and the secret trapdoor almost opens up. There is a 3 or 4 inch gap but they can’t get it to make the final turn. They use the final two reduce person to get back into the cell and disappointed we all hunker down to rest for the night.

The next day is a day off. All activities are suspended and from what we are gathered on our guards everything is a hornet’s nest of activity on the day off. People are running around like mad and everyone is on their toes. No one wants to talk about anything with us and it takes some heavy schmoozing to get Boris to tell us that “The Caliph is coming”. We peace together over the full afternoon that every year a gladiator house is selected to host a tournament of various events. The Caliph is an appointed Pasha that selects the host compound and the associated profits that come along with it are life changing. Mistress Jezebel is a finalist for hosting the games and he is coming to make a personal inspection of the grounds and her warriors.

A pair of clerics and one of Jezebel’s onyx robed guards all come and do a full sweep of our cell. They heal us all to full and cure any ability damage (including my dex penalty) and then the onyx robed guard reveals herself to be tiefling as well, she is a wizard and does a detailed sweep of our room. We are on pins and needles as she examines the sculptures and the tile that hides the secret entrance. She commands a guard to smash one of our sculptures and is by no means surprised to find it hollow. She is surprised that it is empty.

Cleric: We find that hollowing them out makes them lighter to move.

Nothing is lost in this cell search as we have transported everything to the below ground secret temples, and we actually learn a few valuable things from the sweep. Kjellin is the head of arcane services and the onxy robed guards are all tiefling wizards and personal guards/sergeants to Jezebel herself. They are all on edge with the coming visit, and the rogue decides to have a bit of fun with this.

That night he gets free from the cell and visits our first cache. It is still right where we left it and he takes the few daggers we had hidden there and puts them in much more obvious positions in other occupied cells. He also makes a nail biting trip to the upper levels where he tries to locate any of the tiefling’s quarters. He lucks out and spots one leaving her chambers. He takes a huge gamble and sneaks in, inside he finds what you would expect in a wizard’s room and he helps himself to a supply of ink and parchment. He also locates several forms for equipment requisition and a pile of forms that spell out other slaves and their upcoming assignments.

The Rogue returns to our cell and hastily duplicates the schedule of events for the next few days. He takes the original and slips out a second time to go to another groups cell. He slips the scroll taken from the guard’s chambers into their cell and then comes back.

The next day all hell breaks loose. A few of the contraband daggers are located AFTER the cell sweeps from the day before. Benedict is furious that such oversights could occur on this particular day, and he personally oversees a resweep of all the cells. When he finds the schedule of events and a brief note requesting further payment he absolutely loses it, shrieking in a high pitched tone he demands the arcane guards report to him. When he determines which one is at fault he marches her out to the courtyard and word gets back to us that he beat her to death. The two surviving guards are named Echo and Whisper. They go on the board as well.

When the Caliph arrives the whole compound is walking on a razors edge. Jezebel is flanked by the two remaining guards and Benedict trails her like a teapot ready to explode at the slightest provocation. The caliph personally looks us over and seems interested. That afternoon we get our first serious glimpse of the other teams. There are 11 gladiator teams in total and we are assembled in the courtyard where we are put into a large scale “skirmish”, the weapons are all dulled and non lethal. We put a good showing in and for the most part we hold our own in the wild brawl. Our desire to preserve spells probably kept us from making a run at last ones standing, and we are actually getting concerned that our lack of magical aid will start to raise red flags.

We are rewarded with making level 5 and we get stuck into making some short term gain versus long standing gain decisions.

I take level 5 fighter and Power Attack as my feat.
The Sorcerer goes to level 5 and gets Scorching Ray as a bloodline spell, he takes Disguise Self as 1st level spell and Bulls Strength as 2nd level spell. He takes Improve init as his feat
The Rogue takes Improved init as well
The Cleric takes Augment Summoning
The Psy Warrior takes Cleave and picks Strength of My Enemy he also takes Improved Init as his bonus feat
We roll init every round and I.I is practically automatic for most of us as some point.

There is heavy banking on the gnome being able to bulls strength, enlarge person the rogue and that will be enough to pop the trapdoor. Come nightfall the two slip out and repeat the process this time with bulls strength…and finally success. The opening is tight but everyone can fit down it. All systems are now go for everyone getting egress from our cell. It has to be opened from the inside, but now that the initial locking mechanism has been released opening it is far easier.

I am going to sum up about four hours of gaming rather briefly, because it is all prep work that has been alluded to. We have three more encounters and three more nights of clearing traps and investigating that culminate in us finding the means to reach the mass grave. The Cleric desecrates an alter in the vicinity and he reanimates 20 HD worth of zombies. We have a Drider zombie, 4 ankhegs and 2 medium skeletons that are in essence now our sentries and guards for the temple level.

There is now a crude workspace and staging ground where the sorcerer can scribe scrolls and we can craft added items. We also acquire a time table. In 60 days the tournament is going to be hosted at our compound. From our gather information and contacts amongst the guards it is revealed we are very likely to be sold or killed during the tournament. That means we have 2 months to get the heck out of dodge or all our plans are going to be for nothing.

As we fully open up the temple level we start to gain access to other areas of the compound, including an office that serves as a crossroads for most orders and documents for the daily activities. We do a test where we change out the scheduled combat (we are slated to fight a trio of manticores) with the summoning of a single dire rat.

Hijinks ensue when the following day our now rather popular group is prepped into an arena where Arnulf summons a single dire rat. The crowd is baffled and my fighter just walks up to it and transects it with his blade then flings it off and shrugs. We all make a big show of yawning and sitting down and the crowd is cracking up. We get to witness one of Benedicts little tantrums and Arnulf firmly shows him the orders to summon a single dire rat… we hear “your orders are to follow these instructions to the letter…that is exactly what I did”.

We never found out the name of the clerk that was in the office that day, but the next night the Cleric finds a human with a broken neck, shattered ribs and lots of bruises along with inkstains on his clothes.

Most pretenses of the rogue being N are abandoned and he is officially NE. For the most part that is fairly accurate for all of us. The session ends with us in charge of several undead, we now have the ability to come and go from our cell almost as we please and several important areas of the compound are available to us. We have sown aggravation amidst the guards, created tension for the antagonists and deflected extra security to other segments of the prison.