OSRIC Session Journal: Leave the Rock, Take the Chest

The party saw to the gnome's remains as best they could (it began to rain and put out the pyre, what remained was buried and stacked with rocks). The tower was re-entered via their rope, and further exploration at the next level revealed a locked and trapped door. The traps were discovered and disarmed by Gladric the Thief (this took a lot of time to discuss), and he was able to unlock it. Inside was a crystal bowl, with a rock at the bottom shrouded in a yellowish mist. Demurarg said she saw a man’s face in the rock, in extreme pain and believed that his soul was trapped there.

We discussed smashing the bowl, and ways that we might free the man’s soul. In the end, we had Demurarg take it out onto one of the tower’s balconies and sort of huck the contents of the thing out and away. The stone at the bottom fell to the ground, but the vapors followed and stayed with it. The crystal bowl looked valuable and harmless, so they kept it. Then they proceeded up the steps to the last level and room of the tower.

Nick cued up some Joy Division “…someone take these dreams away…that point me to another day…” and I had to laugh. The next room was barred, and Gladric strode up and bent the bars. Ha! Gladric is really the badass of the party, he’s scaling walls, disarming traps, and bending bars! He’s totally full of himself at this point. So they go into the next room and find a whole bunch of books. Now Gladric is stoked and says pile them all up ‘cos he’s really good with Reading Languages too, and he might be able to sort them out.

Then we got bogged down a little into a discussion of whether or not bleach or hydrogen pyroxide was available in our world, and whether the game was “Conan” or High Fantasy (at which point I pointed out “We have gnomes in this game. Guh-NOMES. It’s high fantasy!” and it was settled that it was, but that it was “dark ages” high fantasy.

Aaanyhow, in addition to the books there was a chest, Gladric couldn’t find any traps and failed to pick its lock. They decided to just carry the dang thing out and huck it off a balcony, but it didn’t break at all. They took as many books as they could, which all seemed fairly mundane but perhaps valuable.

They looked for more secret doors and then they left. They went down and found that the rock they'd thrown down still had evil looking yellow mists surrounding it. They didn't know what to do about that, but nobody wanted to touch it. So they didn’t! They just left it there, deciding to strap the chest to a horse, and go back to town. Vadco couldn’t go, being exiled, and Ouze ended up staying with him. The useless Demurarg, who really hasn’t contributed anything to the whole endeavor thus far, went along. She was eager for a share of the loot and a bath, as she hasn’t had one in months. I’ve decided that I hate her.

We feel a little bad for that guy in the rock, and for anyone else who comes along and messes with it. I reckon Benedict the Lawful cleric is going to have a hard time with us abandoning it. My guess would be that the guy in the rock was the owner of the tower, and would reward anyone who saved him, but see, we’re really not big on heroics and besides, we already have the loot. Now we just need a guinea pig or expert to open the lockbox.

Back in town, the books only fetched 75gp. I think we were probably ripped off. Then it was bed time, so the treasure and crystal bowl appraisal have to wait a fortnight for our next session.

(I'm a player in these bi-weekly OSRIC sessions, and DM our S&W game)