Rangers of Shadow Deep - Burning Light - Part VII

For the seventh part of the "Burning Light" campaign mission for Rangers of Shadow Deep... we have decided to have a look in the Library building of the Convent of St.Emilia...

(There are some spoilers here - so if you are planning to play through this mission yourself, maybe don't read this until after you've had your own game experience...)

   

Our current lineup of Heroes:

Alfie's Team:

Arthur - Ranger (level 7)

Malvolio - Conjuror

Fern - Guardswoman

Hattie - Recruit

Brutus - Hound (rescued in the first scenario)

My Team:

Jennifer - Ranger (level 7)

Archibald - Archer

Seb - (a character from the Bloodmoon mission who is now a companion)

Geoffrey - Warhound

St.Doneera - Ghostly Warrior Priestess (who joined us in the third scenario)

The Library map set up on the table at the start of the game...

 As our intrepid heroes entered the ruined building that was previously the Convent Library, they found that the ground floor had mostly collapsed and been filled with murky water. There were two remaining bits of floor that were "Islands" in the room... one in the center, and one in the far corner that looked like it had some interesting bookcases still intact. A walkway of flooring ran around one edge of the room, leading to a staircase going up to the first floor of the Library. Two giant snakes had made a nest on the island in the center. They sensed our teams as soon as they entered...

Our heroes enter the flooded lower floor... Giant snakes lurk on an island in the center of the room...

 We had a brief tactical discussion. Jennifer my ranger has more points in the swimming skill than anyone else, so we decided that she would try and swim to the bookcases in the corner. Geoffrey the Warhound would go with her as backup just in case they had to team up and do any fighting... Meanwhile everyone else would go along the walkway towards the stairs and those that could would try and shoot at the snakes...

Jennifer used her once per game Smoke Spell to hide behind as she and Geoffrey entered the water... Archibald shot well, reducing one of the snakes to half its health with one shot... Arthur and everyone else started to move around the walkway. Jennifer and Geoffrey were nearest to the snakes, but because they were hidden by the smoke, the snakes started to swim towards Arthur as he was the nearest visible person... Fern noticed a strange rune on the wall, luckily she passed a perception roll and realised that it was some kind of magical trap.. she warned everyone and they all managed to avoid it...

Under cover of a Smoke Spell, two heroes start to swim....

Here come the snakes!

 Whilst Jennifer and Geoffrey were slowly swimming across the room (luckily managing to pass their swim rolls every time!).. a fight with the snakes ensued... It didn't go particularily well for our heroes.. Brutus the dog who was weakened from the previous scenario in the ruined chapel, was knocked out before both snakes could be ganged up on and finished off... just when we thought that was all over, Malvolio passed a perception roll and noticed another previously unseen giant water snake trying to creep up on him out of the water! Seb rushed over to help... between them they killed it: They managed to push it back, and Malvolio blasted it with a Magic Bolt!... but Seb was very badly wounded... only one health point left!

In the distance another snake attacks Malvolio... whilst the swimmers approach the bookcases in the corner...

 We decided that Seb would make a hasty retreat to the entrance, as we didn't want to risk losing him to whatever might be waiting for us upstairs. Jennifer finally made it to the bookcase on the island... she passed a navigation roll, and found an interesting item that will be worth some xp if it survives to the end of the mission. She didn't find anything that might be interpreted as a clue...
Meanwhile Arthur, Fern, Malvolio and Hattie had started to climb the stairs in the corner...

Blood Bats!

 As Arthur and his remaining team ascended the steps, they saw that they were coming up into a large room... there were bookcases along two of the walls, two closed doors were in the opposite wall, and in the center of the room was a large desk. Disturbed by the footsteps on the stairs, four Bloodbats rose up from the desk and started to move towards the heroes... Bloodbats move fast. Suddenly there was a deep rumbling sound and the stairs collapsed! Arthur and his crew all fell back down to the lower level. Malvolio was slightly hurt, but everyone else was ok.

Aargh!!

 Alfie's guys all passed climb rolls to get back up the fallen stairs, of course they were then mobbed by the Bloodbats! Although Bloodbats are fast and annoying, Alfie's guys rolled well, and worked as a team to dispatch them. But what was that?... Oh... two Gnoll archers were hanging out behind some broken bits of furniture between the doors on the far wall...

Where did those Gnolls come from?!

 Downstairs Seb had left the building, Jennifer and Geoffrey although they passed all their rolls successfully - were still swimming back across the flooded groundfloor...
Archibald and St.Doneera managed to climb up to the first floor, and started moving across the room...

 Arthur, Fern and Hattie moved towards the big desk in the middle of the room, whilst the Gnolls took potshots at them... Malvolio made for the left hand of the two shut doors... and St.Doneera went off to the nearest bookcases on the right hand side... this was when two skeletons jerked up out of a gloomy recess near the top of the broken stairs...

...and now skeletons also!!

 Malvolio managed to force open the locked door of the left hand room... revealing an empty plinth...something on the floor that may be a treasure? And three blood bats! Whilst this was happening, Archibald was attacked by both skeletons, despite being outnumbered, he managed to kill one of them, and was only slightly injured by the other. Arthur found the body of a middle-aged woman on the floor behind the desk with a quill still clutched in her dead hand. He found a half-completed scroll on the desk, and succeeding a Read Runes roll, he manged to understand the hastily written note... we're pretty sure we know the location of the decanter now! St.Doneera found another interesting book on the shelves... more xp at the end of the mission if we've still got it to hand over to the authorities back in Alladore....

Malvolio suddenly found an inner strength he didn't know he had... He was inspired to act immediately, and not only that, he could do three actions instead of two! He used his first action to move away from the room with the bloodbats (he didn't fancy taking them all on by himself!), his second action to blast one of the gnoll archers to bits with his final magic bolt spell... and his third action to make a half move further across the room towards the other shut door...

The Bloodbats flew out of the opened door straight at Arthur, Hattie and Fern... they worked as a team to fight them off. Hattie was knocked out!... Archibald killed the final skeleton... St.Doneera moved towards the other bookcases...The last Gnoll Archer tried to shoot Malvolio again, but missed... Malvolio made it to the other door and kicked it open.. there was an over-turned desk, and a frightened figure was huddling behind it... There was a sudden flash, and a smell of ozone... Fern stood there looking shocked... a bolt of lightening had struck down through a hole in the roof missing her by inches!

And so it was the final turn. Jennifer and Geoffrey were back out of the water, and were making for the exit... St.Doneera searched the final bookcase, she detected a trap amongst the shelves, narrowly missing injury... but she failed to find anything else of use... Arthur made it to the room with Malvolio. They both failed leadership roles to try and persuade the frightened person to come out from behind the desk... and then that was it - we had run out of time..

Brutus and Hattie were ok - they will return at half health for the next part of the mission... Jennifer used her Healing spell on Seb to help him out... we found some good stuff in this scenario - but three of our heroes are going to be pretty battered going into the next one.

We have enough XP now for our Rangers to go up to level 8. This meant that we could choose another spell or heroic ability each. Alfie chose "Focus" which means he now has a once per game ability to add 8 to any one skill roll. I decided to take the Burning Light spell for Jennifer, so she can now do a once per game special attack on any undead creatures within 8" and line of sight...

We're 99% sure we know where the Decanter is hidden now. We could go straight to the final part of the mission... but there is still one bit of the Convent we haven't explored yet... we're going to go and check out the Gatehouse before we make our final search for the holy relic.. maybe there will be something there that can help us with the final part of the mission?

...

I created all the floorplans for this campaign using the fantastic free resources available from

  2 minute tabletop.