The Dragon's Hoard

Last week, the party turned their attention from the "unconscious" giants to the horde of chokers that suddenly swarmed into the room. Fortunately, the party excels at dealing with large swarms of weak enemies, and a combination of dragon breath and Evard's Tentacles of Forced Intrusion prevented the chokers from overrunning the battlefield. However, the next wave of enemies consisted of three randomly transforming chaos beasts that proved much more resilient. They oozed, walked, and shambled into the room, phasing through the party's attempts to kill them quickly. Before the party could significantly damage any of the beasts, a bizarre ball made of hundreds of flailing arms rolled into the room and grabbed Lester. The creature instantly grabbed him and crushed him as it rolled around the room, trapping him too deeply in its body for Ione to heal him¹.

As the situation became increasingly dire, the aboleth appeared from the tunnel and mocked the party for their foolishness in fighting the giants. It was only moderately unsettled when Shanky executed a flawless diving sneak attack from the ceiling, where he had been lurking. However, its taunting was short-lived. Thorema, the king of the frost giants, burst out from a second hidden tunnel above the aboleth's hidden tunnel and crushed the aboleth² beneath a slab of wall before body-slamming into it to prevent it from escaping. With that cue, the giants rose from their "unconscious" state and laid a brutal beatdown on the chaos beasts and the many-armed monstrosity. With their help, the tide of battle quickly turned, and the party dealt a staggering series of blows to the grappling aboleth. At last, it fell slain, and Lester was rescued with a tiny sliver of health from the arms.

However, their trials were not over. In the battle, Brand had been afflicted with a terrible curse-like affliction by the chaos beasts, and his body was chaotically shifting its form in increasingly incoherent and horrible ways. The party gathered around to help, and managed to stabilize his condition briefly, but they needed a more permanent solution. Thorema quickly granted them access to the remains of the hoard to see if they could find anything of use while the giants took Brand to see their clerics. In the hoard, Cayosin and Azoreas found ritual books which might be of use, so they rushed them back to the party. One of the rituals was found to be the Shaping ritual, which could stabilize his form. Azoreas quickly performed the ritual and saved Brand.

With the immediate crisis at an end, the party turned their attention to the hoard. Thorema announced that they had unquestionably been responsible for the defeat of the aboleth, and granted them the bonus promised. In addition, he determined that the giants he left with the party had incorrectly failed to intervene sooner, which might have prevented the near deaths of Lester and Brand. As a result, he increased the party's reward to a total of 80,000 gp. The grateful party then set off into the aboleth's tunnel to complete their final challenge: finding the missing hoard.

The tunnel soon split into a labyrinth of various tunnels that meandered through the ice in the glacier. The water was strangely grimy for mountain water thanks to the aberrant nature of the aboleth and its minions, which made journeying through the watery tunnels uniquely unpleasant as the hours passed. After interminable hours of searching, the party finally found a hidden tunnel that branched off from one of the side tunnels, and trekked off through it. The hidden tunnel was not filled with water, but with something far worse: insidious traps. The party made slow progress through the tunnel, disabling traps when possible and having Ione heal afterwards when it was not. Eventually, they reached the end of the hidden tunnel and found their goal: the rest of the dragon's hoard! After a brief moral dilemma, the party decided to return the hoard to the giants as promised rather than keeping it for themselves, and they went back to the giants victorious.

Join us this week to revel in the spoils of victory!

1. He gave himself a rousing series of pep talks to maintain his morale while trapped, which proved essential in preventing an untimely demise.
2. And Shanky, unfortunately.

HOARD CONTENTS

Basic useful stuff:

• +3 light crossbow (5,000)
• +3 short sword x2 (5,000 each)
• +3 flaming longsword (7,000)
• +3 longshot longbow (7,000)
• +3 battleaxe (5,000)
• +3 returning throwing axe (7,000)
• +3 studded leather x4 (2,500 each)
• +3 breastplate x2 (2,500 each)
• +3 ring x2 (2,500 each)

Special stuff:

• throwing gloves (2,000)
• +3 sympathetic holy symbol (6,000)
• +3 staff of time (6,000)
• hunter's cloak (800)
• throwing gloves (2,000)
• ring of counterspells (2,000)
• ring of nourishment (800)
• boots of levitation (800)
• gauntlets of improvisation +3 (5,000)
• healing belt (200)
• boots of teleportation (5,000)
• +3 fortified full plate (7,500)
• mask of water breathing (800)
• bag of holding type IV (12,000)
• +3 staff of missiles (9,000)
• +3 fixating rapier (10,000)
• boots of teleportation (5,000)
• amulet of nondetection (5,000)
• 20,000 gp
• ritual book, divine
  • 1st: alarm, light, mending, purify sustenance
  • 2nd: enhance armor, enhance weapon, shaping, transfer imbuement, water breathing
  • 3rd: remove disease, restore senses
  • 4th: remove curse
  • 5th: resurrection
• ritual book, divine
  • 1st: identify, light, read magic
  • 2nd: augury, comprehend languages, find traps, invisibility purge
  • 3rd: contagion, speak with dead
  • 4th: divination, sending
• ritual book, arcane:
  • 1st: create water, endure elements, mount, unseen servant
  • 2nd: create sustenance, enhance armor, enhance weapon, transfer imbuement
  • 3rd: create object
  • 4th: arcane eye
  • 5th: passwall

Probably not useful:

• a variety of +1 through +3 weapons and armor