SESSION 17A: SHILUKAR’S LAIR
March 9th, 2008
The 7th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
The clattering commotion of the dislodged debris echoed down the vertical tunnel. The six of them looked at each other.
“We should go quickly,” Elestra said. “Before whatever’s down there to hear the noise can respond.”
“Right,” Tee said, and swung herself over the edge and onto the wooden ladder.
Agnarr followed her, cracking a sunrod and sticking it into his backpack.
At the bottom of the stairwell, Tee found herself in a plain room of worn, dull gray stone. A solid door of iron was set in the far wall.
As the others descended, Tee approached the door and inspected it. It was quite sturdy, but she was able to make short work of the high quality lock. Easing back she let Agnarr step up to the door and open it.
Beyond the door the next room widened considerably. The sole exit from this room was a set of two iron doors marked with a bas relief of a large claw. Standing directly before these doors, however, were four emaciated figures. They stood with perfect stillness, their features obscured by charcoal-colored cloaks and hoods.
After a long, silent moment in which neither the strangely disturbing figures nor the wanderers moved, Tee drew her dragon pistol and fired a shot.
The blast of energy neatly clipped one of the figures, catching it in the shoulder. The reaction was immediate: All four of the figures threw back their heads with an eery, wailing ululation and darted forward, their hands lashing forwards with fingers ending in long, tapered claws.
The features revealed as their hoods fell back were those of goblins – but goblins possessed of sickly gray skin. More disturbingly, the eyes and mouths of each goblin had been sewn shut with thick, black string. Despite this, all of them moved with sure, fluid motions.
Tee fired again and then these strange, gray goblins were upon them. Tee stumbled back as one of the claws caught her along the ribs, but Tor smoothly stepped into place – his blade whirling alongside Agnarr’s as they fought to adjust to the strange pace of the flurried attacks.
The gray goblins would launch themselves in coordinated blasts of extraordinarily fast movement, but then fall into startling periods of poised stillness from which, a moment later, they would explode again. The result was disconcerting and discordant, and both Tor and Agnarr suffered several vicious cuts before they could adjust to the strange tempo of the battle.
But after only a few score of seconds, the last goblin fell – spitted upon Tor’s sword and pulsing with the blue arcs of electricity which the blade pumped into its body.
“Worth every sovereign,” Tor smiled.
As Tee moved up to inspect the next set of doors – which she found to be secured with similar locks despite their design – Dominic took a moment to study the fallen goblins. “I don’t think they’re undead.”
“That’s a blessing,” Agnarr growled.
There was a soft click. “Door’s open,” Tee said.
“Let me get to the front this time,” Tor said.
“Happy to oblige,” Tee smiled, stepping back and drawing her pistol again.
Agnarr shoved open the doors, swinging them wide.
THE LONG HALL OF BLOOD
The sight which greeted them was almost nauseating: The floors, walls, and ceiling of the hallway which stretched before them were covered with a sickly, pulpish, pinkish flesh. A translucent, scabrous membrane seemed to coat the fleshy substance, which throbbed here and there with blasphemous life. Thick purplish and reddish veins could be seen turgidly running in twisted lines, gently pulsing.
About thirty feet away there was an intersection with a perpendicular hall – also coated in this fleshy growth – and in it stood four more of the gray goblins.
Tee shot her dragon pistol again, but this time the goblins scattered – heading down the side hallways and out of sight.
The group moved forward cautiously – Agnarr and Tor keeping the lead. As they reached the intersection, Agnarr poked his head cautiously around the corner.
The gray goblins hadn’t gone far. Eight of them, probably including the four that had dashed away, were lurking down the hallways. Now they darted forward, their movements still strangely assuming that stilted and unnatural rhythm.
As they reached the intersection, Agnarr tried to bring his sword down upon the first of them. But before he could, the gray goblin darted to one side and used its scythe-like claws to gash the flesh of the wall. On the other side of the hall, a second goblin did the same. A thick, arterial spray of viscous blood gushed forth.
The floor suddenly became slick and treacherous. Agnarr and Tor both fell, with Tor toppling backwards into Dominic and carrying him to the ground as well.
Tee, suddenly finding herself on the frontlines, lowered her dragon pistol and fired wildly – trying to keep the charging goblins at bay until Agnarr and Tor could regain their feet.
Chaos reigned and it seemed for a heart-stopping few seconds as if their position might be overrun. But then Tor was able to gain a knee and enough purchase to bring his blade to bear. Agnarr, with his panther-like reflexes, was able to twist about and leap almost instantly back to his feet.
For a few moments more, the blood-slicked intersection was a confusion of claw and steel. The gray goblins swarmed – darting and weaving – but the rigors of the last few weeks had transformed Agnarr and Tor into true companions in arms. The line held.
And then Dominic, unable to regain his own feet on the slippery floor, slid his way forward until he could lay his hand upon Agnarr’s back. “Amplifico Offundo!”
The divine strength of Itor once against filled Agnarr’s body, and the gray goblins suddenly paused in uncertainty as the barbarian grew to nearly twice his normal size, almost filling the entire intersection with this girth. Agnarr seized the moment – his greatsword swept out, nearly cutting one of the goblins in twain.
This seemed to resolve the goblins’ uncertainty: They turned to flee. But this proved their undoing, for Agnarr’s blade swept through their unprotected backs, killing four of them in almost the blink of an eye.
Now the black blood of the goblins was mixing freely with the crimson blood which had been spilled from the walls, but through this chaos Tee’s sharp elven eyes spotted a disconcerting sight: Perhaps eighty feet further down the hall there was another intersection, and there she saw – crossing their own hall and then passing beyond it – a massive figure at least nine feet tall. Its skin was gray like the goblins they fought, but with thick reddish veins pulsing just beneath the surface of its skin.
It was just a fleeting impression and then the figure was gone and the battle was rejoined: The last two of the gray goblins, realizing that no flight was possible, turned back and fell upon Agnarr. Elestra’s soothing and magical touch helped to ease the wounds they were clawing into Agnarr’s flesh.
And then Dominic and Tor both cried out: Off to their right the hallway ended in a T-intersection. They had each seen at least a half dozen figures moving rapidly parallel to their position. “They’re circling around!”
Tee, for her part, kept silent about what she had seen: She felt it was important for everyone to stay focused on the current threat. These gray goblins were disturbing and dangerous, and the quicker they were dispatched the happier she would be.
A CLASH OF TITANS
Agnarr slew the remaining goblins with quick dispatch and then led the way, cautiously, down the hallway towards the next intersection.
As they neared it, the hulking creature Tee had seen before returned. The unnatural bulges of its massive muscles rippled, and as it stepped back into the main hall its mouth unhinged and dropped to its chest – the thick stitching through its lips stretching hideously to reveal a gaping black maw from which a ululating howl emerged.
Agnarr tightened his jaw and stepped forward to meet the creature. His blade cut viciously into the brute’s side, but the creature didn’t react at all – it simply lashed out with its vicious claws, impaling Agnarr multiple times through his chest.
The barbarian gasped and blood frothed to his lips as the creature ripped its claws loose. But Dominic was there, soothing the wounds with the gentle strength of his divine faith. And so Agnarr was able to straighten and step forward again.
The reinforcements they had spotted before now reappeared behind the creature – circling into a larger room with some sort of pool in the center of it. These goblins resembled both the gray goblins they had fought before and the brute – not as large as the brute, but possessed of the same bulging muscles and thick, pulsing veins.
They might have been able to turn the tide against Agnarr if they had been able to come to the brute’s aid, but Ranthir snapped up his hand and uttered an arcane chant. The room filled with thick, ropy webbing. The would-be reinforcements were caught fast.
Agnarr, meanwhile, continued to suffer grievously from the lightning quick impalements of the brute’s claws. Without Dominic’s and Elestra’s aid he would have surely fallen – but their divine strength staunched his wounds and knitted his muscles.
Agnarr, meanwhile, was landing fiercesome blows of his own. His greatsword swept back and forth, tearing great gouges from the creature’s hide. Step by step, Agnarr was forcing the creature back down the hall.
I’ve been reading this series for a while, but now that I’m starting my own campaign I’m wondering, how do you remember everything that happened in the session so clearly? Even with taking down bullet points mid-session I miss things here and there, and there’s no way I could write dialogue verbatim.
Granted, it may be just a lack of experience or resources (with this group in my national service, I run with only my phone, a notebook, and dice), but is there some way you write down everything with such detail, especially dialogue? Is it editing polish or something? For my first session I left out specific dialogue and some detail, but I’d like to add in dialogue now that I’m writing the second session. Thanks!
For the early journals, I had two methods that helped immensely:
1. I would write the journal IMMEDIATELY after the session. We’d wrap, the players would leave, and I would go straight to the computer and start recording the session. Having the memories fresh in my head made a big difference.
2. Once the journal was done, that same night, I would send it to the players. They’d usually be getting it first thing the next morning. They could then review the journal (which was great for helping to cement stuff in their own memories) and send me corrections for any bits I’d screwed up. (In some cases I’d ask specific questions to clarify stuff I was having difficulty remembering.)
It certainly helps that I have a very good memory to start with.
For the past decade or so I’ve been recording my sessions using a Livescribe Echo pen. This is useful in SO MANY WAYS, but also changed the way I do the journals. (I now listen to the recordings.)
The good thing is that now I don’t need to immediately stay up late writing the journal. The down side is that this can result in me getting lazy and procrastinating the journal.
There’d always been a question in my mind of exactly how accurate the journals were before I was doing recordings. I felt they were accurate representations of our play; the players did, too. But was that true?
Probably. The journals produced after I started recording are basically indistinguishable from the ones I was producing before. I take that as a pretty good indication that I was, in fact, accurately capturing these early sessions.