Upon leaving the beach, we made our way to the ruins of an abbey. It was the only structure on the island, but had been razed when it was attacked. However, upon reaching it we discovered a staircase leading down to a mostly unharmed lower level. Assuming this was where we needed to go to finish cleansing the island, we headed on down.
At the bottom of the stairs, we encountered a barred door. Although we had been going for a stealthy approach, this was abandoned in favour of Leonardo breaking the door down. As he burst through, he emerged into a room with three Vecna cultists. A moment’s surprise on all sides, and suddenly they were calling for help.
The fight began as another handful of cultists came bursting in through various doors around the room. Leonardo and our priest ally entered the room to engage, while Cassius and I stayed in the hallways leading from the stairs. Which was just as well, because Cassius got absolutely pummelled in the first round, losing nearly all his hit points.
After that, he retreated back up the stairs while I formed something of a roadblock, fighting off the cultists that came our way with his support. Eventually, they were all dead or Dissonant Whispers fled, so I rejoined the fight in the main room. But only after Cassius turned me invisible with Greater Restoration – which is the most amazing spell to put on a Rogue. I put it to great use.
Meanwhile, during our hallway fight, Leonardo was slowly working his way through the rest of the cultists in the room. His hit points were eventually whittled down along the way, and then he started playing the yo yo game, dropping only for the priest to heal him back up, to do a few more hits only to drop again and for the priest to heal him back up. This cycle repeated more than a few times before the fight was finally over.
In the aftermath, the others took a short rest while I searched the rooms around us. I found a handful of loot and a secret door. Deciding we were too depleted to delve further into a dungeon, we barricaded the door and took a long rest instead.
After the rest, we passed through the secret door and were immediately vindicated in our decision as we ran into a pair of minotaur skeletons, a pair of spectres, and a creepy, undead, goblinoid-like creature-thing. Cassius shut down the minotaurs with a Hypnotic Pattern, then he and I hung back while the other two charged in. The undead, particularly the goblinoid-thing, did a ton of damage, but eventually we got through them.
After that room, we discovered a maze-like series of hallways that, as it turned out, were absolutely full of traps. Being the diligent rogue, I scouted them all, disarming every tripwire (though a couple of bad rolls saw me trigger them instead) and fortunately spotting the pit drops that I was otherwise too light to trigger, so could have easily missed. However, what I did miss were the illusory floors.
The first one was completely unexpected. I dropped ten feet and landed in a pool of acidic ooze, which did a massive amount of damage to me. I barely got out alive, but I did and continued on.
The second one… didn’t go so well. I was on my way back to the others when I realised there was one corner I hadn’t peeked around yet. As I went to investigate, I didn’t spot that the floor was not real and fell again. I had just enough time to call out before I landed and was knocked unconscious. In a puddle of acidic slime.
The others heard my cry, so while I lay melting they came to investigate. Obviously, they couldn’t exactly see me through the illusory floor, and my time was running dangerously low. I failed my first death save, and automatically lost a second from acid damage, but luckily the others figured it out and Cassius got me out of there just in time.
After that debacle, we returned to the first room and took a short rest, while I explained the layout of the place. Once rested, we entered the maze again, heading for what I had seen was a treasure room. I checked a couple of doors along the way, learning that they were all false and rigged with ballista traps (mostly by triggering them on accident).
In the treasure room, we killed a ghoul only to discover that the whole room was a big trap, with all the treasure fake and worthless. As I unlocked a chest, the large, jade statue in the middle of the room came to life and attacked us. It was also a vampire. We managed to beat it, and it wasn’t the hardest fight of the session, but once again, Cassius took a bunch of damage from an early critical hit.
Once the fight was over, I spotted a hidden door which led to another treasure room – a real one, this time. It was guarded by a pair of automatons, but we took them down (again, with much help thanks to Cassius casting Greater Invisibility on me, which led me to do over 50 points of damage to one in a single critical hit). Then we discovered the real loot, which, importantly, included a bag of holding to replace the one we lost on the way out of Hades.
Once looted, I scouted the remaining passages. There were a bunch more traps, including a false door that I accidentally triggered which dropped a boulder on me, nearly killing me (thanks the gods for evasion). And once we were satisfied that there was only one room left with bad guys, we hunkered down for another short rest and ended the session.
All in all, it went pretty well, apart from the bit where I almost died. I think this might have been the first session that Jack used his thieves’ tools, too, so that was pretty cool. Where things are going to go from here, we’ll see. I think we’ll manage the final room no problem, but after that…? Tune in next week to find out.