Session 16: To the Bone Room!
At a glance
- Starting location: The Castle Avernus Treasury
- Ending location: The Bone Chambers beneath Castle Avernus, mid-combat
- Characters present: Ignatius, Rage, Carver, Ooru, and Slippery Siv; Voss joined them after his release
Summary
Morning found the company rested among the gold of Castle Avernus. Carver returned immediately to the treasury’s shelves and components, testing the room for one more secret. A bookcase shifted beneath his touch. Behind it, stairs descended into a hidden library filled with records of lands beyond Darkon.
Rage conducted a different kind of research. He gathered another armful of wealth—roughly a thousand gold pieces and a glittering assortment of rings and necklaces—then found a canvas portrait of two stern, detective-like human figures, one seated in a wheelchair. Their identities meant nothing to anyone present. Rage cut the canvas into a cape and wore them away.
Rage found two unknown investigators in the treasury and immediately promoted them to outerwear. View image record.
Carver searched the concealed collection for Har’Akir. He found its deserts and familiar lands described as Ooru remembered them, but its history carried a stranger claim. Ankhtepot, the god-king Ooru served, had once been a mortal priest. Seven gods stood behind that earlier life. Ooru recognized them, yet the book called each by a name he had never heard.
The merchant confirmed the geography and much of the account. The changed names, however, left him with no answer.
Before the party descended, Siv asked for another kind of answer. The curse had made him a dog-like mongrelman for longer than the castle’s broken time allowed him to measure. Could the scroll bought from him restore what the curse had taken?
Carver read the words of greater restoration.
The curse released its hold. Fur, muzzle, and twisted limbs receded until a short, slight human man stood before them: no child, but a wiry burglar perhaps thirty years old, with the wary look of someone accustomed to doors that should remain locked and purses that belonged to other people.
“Slippery Siv is back.”
He pledged himself to the people who had freed him twice.
The curse fell away, and Slippery Siv stood human once more. View image record.
The company left the treasury and descended toward the crypts, searching for the tomb Irik had said lay below. Carver lit a torch and passed it to Ooru. They found no tomb. Instead, two towering skeletal guardians stood before a cell containing an unremarkable bald man who battered the bars with animal desperation.
Ignatius met the first guardian with a storm of disciplined blows. Rage’s greataxe carved through one horror and into the next while Chip washed both in spectral flame. Lightning gathered in dead hands and lashed toward Ignatius, but the monk answered with another flurry and a line of acid. The first guardian dissolved where it stood. Rage shattered the second beneath one tremendous stroke.
The prisoner still fought his cage. Rage struck the bars until they yielded. Carver took the dried black lily Rage had carried since the Crystal Gardens and released its magic. Calm settled across the stranger.
His name was Voss. Beyond that, he claimed to remember nothing—not the cage, not the road that led to it, not the life before it. He possessed only a conviction that he had once been someone powerful. Whatever that lost life had contained, he now pledged himself to the party that had freed him.
Rage broke the cage. Carver quieted the prisoner. Voss could offer them only a name. View image record.
Rage gave Siv one gold piece to watch Voss and keep him alive. Then he reached into Carver’s gray Bag of Tricks and drew out a giant rat.
The next chamber held hundreds upon hundreds of corpses.
The sight broke something in Rage. He wheeled away, fled through the antechamber, and raced down another level. The others followed. His flight ended face-first against an invisible seal. Beyond it waited chests of gold coins, every piece stamped with Azalin’s face. Rage brought his greataxe down until the barrier broke. Carver searched the coins for magic and found none. The Dark Lord’s image was the only spell they carried.
Ooru, Siv, and Voss remained in the relative safety of the antechamber. The three adventurers moved into the adjoining Bone Chambers.
The bones moved first.
A gargantuan beast charged from the ossuary while two houndlike shapes gathered themselves from the dead around it. Four humanoid skeletons rose behind them. Carver raised the crystal formed in the elemental laboratory and called Pearl into the world for the first time.
Grave earth surged upward into a towering human shape. Bones jutted from its shoulders and arms. Shattered boards from old coffins protruded through its earthen body. Pearl met the charging beast with the weight of the buried dead and drove grave magic into it.
Pearl met the bone beast where the chamber floor vanished beneath the dead. View image record.
Ignatius followed, discovering that ordinary impact barely troubled the enormous creature. His infused handwraps hardened his next strike into force, and his Hand of Harm carried deathly power into the thing. The beast withdrew through the heaped bones and toward a northern tunnel, leaving its hounds and rising skeletons to hold the chamber.
Rage and the giant rat crashed into one of the bone dogs. The rat’s teeth found a perfect opening, but the hound answered by tearing poisoned wounds through Rage. Ignatius joined him, and together they battered the creature apart. The second hound threw itself against Pearl while the humanoid dead closed around the company.
Rage’s axe, Ignatius’s hands, Pearl’s grave-born strength, and Chip’s fire reduced the lesser dead one by one. Carver circled toward the tunnel. The great beast waited within, and something about its position suggested that it defended whatever lay deeper inside.
Carver lit a Boom Stick and threw it into the dark.
The explosion tore through the passage. It struck the beast—and caught Ignatius in the blast.
When the smoke rolled back, every bone dog and lesser skeleton lay broken. Pearl still stood with the party. Beyond the shattered bones, the great beast remained.
And the battle was not over.
Key events
- Carver discovered a hidden staircase and library behind a treasury bookcase.
- Rage took more treasure and made a cape from an unidentified portrait.
- A record of Har’Akir described Ankhtepot’s mortal past and seven familiar gods under names Ooru did not recognize.
- Carver used greater restoration to return Slippery Siv fully to human form.
- The party descended in search of Irik’s tomb but instead found two skeletal guardians and an imprisoned man.
- Ignatius destroyed one guardian with acid, and Rage shattered the other.
- Rage broke open the cell; Carver used the dried black lily to calm the prisoner called Voss.
- Voss claimed total amnesia, said he felt he had once been powerful, and pledged himself to the party.
- A chamber filled with hundreds of corpses overwhelmed Rage with supernatural fear and drove the company deeper into the castle.
- Rage broke an invisible seal protecting chests of mundane gold coins bearing Azalin’s face.
- A gargantuan bone beast, two bone dogs, and four skeletons attacked in a lower ossuary.
- Carver summoned Pearl for the first time, revealing the grave elemental’s towering earthen and bone-strewn form.
- The party destroyed all the lesser dead. A Boom Stick blast injured both the large beast and Ignatius.
- The session ended mid-combat with Pearl active and only the large bone beast remaining.
Decisions and consequences
- The party restored Siv rather than preserving the scroll.
- Siv regained his original human form and pledged himself to his rescuers.
- Rage smashed open Voss’s cell.
- The party gained another companion whose identity and past remain unknown.
- Carver used the dried black lily to calm Voss.
- The single-use gift from the Crystal Gardens was consumed.
- The group followed Rage’s fear-driven retreat deeper into the castle.
- They discovered Azalin’s coin vault and entered the Bone Chambers without finding Irik’s tomb.
- Carver summoned Pearl and used a Boom Stick against the retreating beast.
- Pearl’s physical form was revealed, one explosive was consumed, and both the beast and Ignatius were caught in the blast.
People
- Slippery Siv: Restored to his original human form and newly pledged to the party.
- Voss: Amnesiac prisoner who believes he was once powerful and now travels with the company.
- Pearl: Grave elemental summoned for the first time and still fighting when the session ended.
- Ankhtepot: Har’Akir’s god-king, described by the hidden library as a former mortal priest.
Places
- Castle Avernus Treasury: Concealed the stair to a secret library and yielded still more wealth.
- Hidden Library: Held records of other domains, including an unsettlingly accurate history of Har’Akir.
- Castle Avernus Crypts: Held Voss’s cell and two skeletal guardians along the party’s unsuccessful search for Irik’s tomb.
- Bone Chambers: Corpse-filled lower rooms containing Azalin’s coin vault and the unfinished battle against the bone beast.
Clues, lore, and notable items
- Ankhtepot was described as a mortal priest before becoming Har’Akir’s Darklord and god-king.
- Seven gods familiar to Ooru appeared in the library under names he did not know.
- Voss remembers no life before his imprisonment but feels he was once powerful.
- A sealed vault held mundane coins stamped with Azalin’s face.
- The large bone beast appeared to defend a tunnel or something beyond it, though the party has not confirmed what lies there.
- Pearl is a grave elemental formed from grave soil, bones, coffin remnants, and deathly elemental power.
Story threads
- Opened: The Prisoner Called Voss
- Opened: The Beast in the Bone Chambers
- Advanced: Ooru’s Search for the Ka
- Advanced: The Phylactery in the Castle
Rewards, losses, and character changes
- Roughly 1,000 gp and jewelry worth roughly 1,200 gp, treated as additional communal treasury wealth rather than a precise ledger
- One portrait converted into Rage’s canvas cape
- The scroll of greater restoration was consumed to restore Siv
- Rage’s single-use dried black lily was consumed to cast calm emotions on Voss
- One Boom Stick was detonated, leaving two in the party’s communal supply
- Ignatius was injured by the Boom Stick blast
- Siv regained his human form
- Voss joined the traveling company
- Pearl manifested physically for the first time
Memorable moments
- Rage transformed an unknown pair of solemn investigators into formal outerwear.
- Siv emerged from the restoration magic and announced, “Slippery Siv is back.”
- Ignatius’s acid breath ate through a skeletal guardian.
- Rage paid Siv one gold piece to keep the amnesiac Voss alive.
- Rage’s flight from hundreds of corpses ended against an invisible wall.
- Pearl rose as a towering body of grave earth, bones, and broken coffins.
- Carver’s Boom Stick struck the last beast and Ignatius together.
Open questions
- Why does Castle Avernus hold records of other domains?
- Why did the Har’Akir record use unfamiliar names for Ooru’s gods?
- Who was Voss before his imprisonment, and why does he feel he was powerful?
- Why was Voss imprisoned beneath Castle Avernus?
- What is the surviving bone beast protecting beyond the tunnel?
- Where is Irik’s tomb?
- Does the hidden library contain a clue to Azalin’s phylactery?
Next session
- Immediate situation: Ignatius, Rage, Carver, and Pearl remain in combat with the sole surviving bone beast while Ooru, Siv, and Voss wait in the antechamber.
- Likely goals: Survive the battle, learn what lies beyond the tunnel, continue searching for Irik’s tomb, and determine whether the lower chambers conceal the phylactery.