Castle Xyntillan Session 33: Fear the Reaper

In the last session, the party jailbroke some witnesses, met a werewolf librarian, exorcised some ghosts, retrieved, and immediately lost, the Book of Valorous Deeds, claimed the Reliquary of Bygone Kings, and rested in a pocket of the Indoornesse. Will the party seek out yet more treasure in the halls of Xyntillan? Will they return to Claude and receive their reward? What mysterious illness* afflicts Longo? Read on in this week's session of Castle Xyntillan!

The Party

Longo Lightfoot, Halfling Thief, wears a sky-blue headscarf. Played by CaptainSabatini.

Corby the Joyful, Human Cleric of Sucellus, wears a horned helm. Played by diregrizzlybear.
Idred the Most Omniscient, Human MU, wears a full-visored greathelm. Played by David Perry.
Boroth Swinney the Joyous, Human Fighter, wears a masked helm depicting a happy human face. Played by Justin Hamilton.
Francois, Light Footman, noticeably dogless.

Jorg, Promoted to Relic-Bearer

Yessica, Arbalist

Kaleb, Arbalist with a nose for booze and a magic pipe

Eric, Light Footman and cart driver.

Oscar, Arbalist of unusual strength

LaBeouf, Camp Cook.
Raymond, Mule.

Casualties

I'm not spoiling that. Read on

Loot

Charon's Scythe

The Game

• The party exited the painting-portal to the Indoornesse, and found its appeal had disappeared. Still, they were not the type to leave a pocket dimension lying around, and assigned one of their hirelings to carry it with them. 
• They journeyed to the royal hall and took the elevator down to the dungeon level. They wanted to explore the dungeon's waterways, and lacking a boat, they came up with a hare-brained scheme to get one.
• Down in the dungeon was the Reaper's bell. Last time they rang it, the Grim Reaper came from the shores of death on a skiff. The party were confident in their abilities to drive off the spirit of death, or even destroy it, and so claim its vessel. 
• Because that is a perfectly proportional way to get a boat.
• They stood back and Idred commanded the shambling mound to ring the bell for them. If I recall correctly, one member of the party actually said:

"What's the worst that could happen?"

• A figure paddled out of the fog towards them. But this was not a Reaper of the sort they had fought before. This one was taller, carried an brought an aura of cold into the cave, and nothing could be seen beneath its shawl. It carried a scythe, but it was carved from bone. 
• The last creature to come through the fog and challenge the party was a lesser Reaper. This was Charon, Ferryman of Hades. 
• He docked in front of the party and pointed an accusatory finger at Idred. It  had come for the one who had rung the bell, and was all too happy to finally get his hands on the wizard who had cheated death once too many. 

Idred: Well, actually it was the mound that rang the bell, not any of us. Take it!

Charon: Don't try those bullshit technicalities with me! I am the manager here!

• The party begged and pleaded with Charon, trying to find some way to worm out of their predicament. Charon suggested they sacrifice one of their hirelings instead. There were no takers, and the party was unwilling to do so anyway. They offered to hunt down some Malevols and sacrifice them instead. Charon was unconvinced. 
• The boatman grew tired of their dithering and threw the party a set of lots. If they could not decide, then Fortuna would choose for them. Longo attempted to rig the draw, but failed. So one by one, they drew the lots, and the lots chose...

• Idred. Charon was practically salivating. He gave Idred a moment to remove any items he didn't want to take with him to the Shores of Death. The party slipped him their resurrection potion, hoping that drinking it while bodily on the other side would have a good effect. But Idred had a different plan in mind.
• He placed one foot on Charon's skiff, and brought his Wand of Fear to bear on the ancient spirit.
• A valiant last stand, but, alas. Creatures that old and powerful don't get that way by being easily pummeled by spells.
• *rolls dice*
• Aaaaaaaand he failed his Save.
• Fuck.
• Not only that, but Charon dropped what he was holding, which happened to be his scythe. The ancient boatman of Hades jumped backwards in fright, landing on the water and levitating just above the surface. His scythe fell and caught on the side of the skiff, and Longo rushed forward to grab it before it fell in the water. 
• Charon ran over the water away from the party, yelling curses and swearing vengeance on Idred. As he ran away, he pulled a horn from beneath his cloak and blew it.
• Back on the ground, a pair of specters rose from the earth, crowned and terrible to behold. They lunged for the party, but Corby managed to cow them and send them scurrying away. These were powerful spirits, however, immune to nonmagical weapons, and another successful turning was not guaranteed.

• Boroth was torn about whether to wield the scythe. It was too large for Longo, Corby couldn't use bladed weapons, and Idred wasn't in the front row. He asked his telepathic blade, Scrupulous, if it would be alright, and it responded that it would. In fact, it was oddly titillated at the prospect of Boroth dual-wielding...
• Having only a limited time before the Grim Reaper's boss and his minions returned to exact vengeance, the party decided that a boating expedition was not on the table anymore. 
• Instead, they retreated to the tiny chapel just to the north, and Idred used the Scepter of the Merovings to seek out the Holy Grayl. Combined with their previous knowledge, they cut down their search space to just one room. 
• They found a quartet of ghouls, the survivors from a previous dungeon expedition, picking the last scraps of meat off a corpse. Corby wasted no time in intimidating and commanding them to be on guard for the specters and to yell when they returned.
• With the ghouls gone, they searched the room. Holding the Scepter aloft, Idred saw what should have been obvious: a door-shaped seam in the wall, under a fresco of the Crusades. The secret door opened with barely a push, and they entered the Grayl Chamber. 
• A banner within read, "Your youngest and strongest will die by the sword." As the party went on in, Boroth and Corby barely dodged a huge blade, hidden in the wall. Further in, thy were confronted by frescoes of ancient saints. Some incautious words on Longo's part caused the fresco of a giant saint to hurl a boulder at him, dealing exactly enough damage to take him from full health to zero. 
• The party extracted themselves and healed Longo, and found themselves in a domed chamber, lit by the glow of a thousand starlike gems, and a clear pool marked 'The waters of Renewal.'
• After much hemming and hawing, Longo tested the pool. He thereafter immediately jumped in, and remarked that he felt immensely better.

Longo: Corby, I finally know what you mean about 'doing the right thing' and 'the love of your fellow man.'

Corby: I am not getting near that pool.

• No amount of Longo's insistence could convince the (not at all suspicious!) cleric to jump in with him, and they explored the chambers further. There was a room filled with sarcophagi which creeped out Corby to no end, a room piled high with exotic treasures which the party elected not to take just yet, a room bearing a stone snail idol, and, finally, a simple golden cup atop a pedestal.

• The party was immediately suspicious, and referred back to the Chanson of the Grayl. According to that poem, they would need a pair of items just to see and touch the Grayl. These they had, but this cup didn't disappear when those items were removed from its presence. Further, they supposedly needed a third item, either the Crown of Thorns worn by Runcius the Anti-Druid, or the Oils of Cleansing, which they don't know where to find, in order to 'break a shadowy fate of old.' This grail, they decided, must be a trapped decoy.
• By that point, they had exhausted the available rooms. More than that, the specters must have returned already, but they had heard nothing from the ghouls. They realized that with the chamber sealed, they couldn't hear anything outside. Worse, Charon would have overcome his fear by now and come back.
• Even worse, Boroth had a nasty surprise for the party. One of the castle's two remaining vampires, the one in the tombs just north of them, which had not moved in the entire time Boroth had his vampire sense, was now out and about. As if they weren't dealing with enough.
• In a last attempt, Corby called on the Cherry Crow to search for magic nearby. In the room with the snail idol, he sensed the potent magic that permeated the chamber, but also a faint signature, nearly hidden. Following it, they discovered a secret door, and a tiny, cramped room. As they brought forth the Scepter, a golden cup appeared as if from thin air, and the presence of the Reliquary made it appear solid. There still remained a patina of filth covering the Grayl. 
• Their victory was interrupted by the sound of cracking stone, as the snail idol burst out of its prison. The size of a lion, with ivory teeth and an iridescent shell, the Grayl Guardian stared down the party, prepared to attack.
• The session ended there. The party is an arms' reach away from the greatest of all treasures, but they cannot yet claim it! They are faced with not only one, but two of the toughest monsters in the entirety of the castle, and whatever they do next, they must fight one of them. Might this truly be the end for our intrepid band of adventurers, who have survived all that the castle could throw at them and conquered it in turn? I do not know. What remains is in the hands of the players and the dice.
• What I do know is that Melan will look upon what he has wrought. And he shall laugh. So don't miss the next (and very possibly final) installment of Castle Xyntillan!

Takeaways

Now that was an eventful session. Not all CX sessions are, many are a sequence of quirky and procedural dungeon exploration scenes, but sessions like these are really excellent. It also couldn't have happened without transparent rolls and a commitment to player freedom. The presence of Charon instead of a lesser reaper which the party would have swiftly overpowered? The whim of the dice. The fact that this entire sequence of events got set off by the party taking a ridiculous and roundabout route to finding a boat? A consequence of player decision which I could never have predicted. 

And then the last-ditch attempt to escape death actually working, against all odds. That doesn't happen when the enemy has legendary resistances. I could have said 'Charon is immune to fear' but that would have been ad hoc and boring. This is how the GM stays entertained. What glorious bathos!

I really don't know what will happen next. This party has evaded TPKs in the past, and they're not quite empty on resources, but they're being squeezed between two of the biggest threats in the dungeon. PC deaths are likely, and a TPK may be inbound. I rest sweetly knowing it is entirely due to the players' own choices. 

Final takeaway: Always use punny titles.

Next Chapter: 'Twixt a Rock and a Hard Place

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