Session 21 Recap & Experience Points Awards

The careworn travelers dropped their packs and slumped into tenuously comfortable positions around the burled figure of Tuneff, the amiable salt golem who’d occupied this salt crystal dome for untold ages.  The spiritcatcher would not bother the company here, Tuneff assured them.  And judging from the golem’s undisturbed longevity, nothing else would either.  

Tuneff proved correct, and before long the party turned its attention to the unexplored reaches of the salt cavern.  The spiritcatcher was a magical enemy, Tuneff warned, one that thrived on accumulations of the wondrous salt crystals.  Somewhere it lurked—and held the key to release the golem from his endless prison of monotony.  “An uncommon blessing” was promised if this should this be accomplished, but there would be recovering the black key without a fight.  So the company geared up, and moved cautiously into winding passageway ahead.

In only a few minutes the party came upon the first accumulations of the crystalline salts—small mounds rising shoulder-high on a soft-booted hobbit.  Heeding Tuneff’s counsel, the rogue Schlemeel set about leveling the piles as the rest of the party watched vigilantly for signs of the spiritcatcher.  Sure enough, a first ear-splitting howl washed over the company, and then a second—warnings from deep in the dark.  But only upon many more steps through the twisting, rising cavern did the party at last come upon the being—a wisp, translucent ghost, pure white with a face of unadulterated hate.  

“lle il- tela moota!” the phantom taunted, an old elvish phrase the mage Greyndalf quickly translated for his comrades as “you shall never complete the painting!”  There would be no further conversation with this spirit, which grasped with psychic magic at the loose tendrils of the wizard’s mind.  But Greyndalf beat back the mental incursion, and his comrades issued forth into the spiritcatcher’s lair to assault the ghost with their own spells and enchanted blades.  

The company landed several blows.  The dwarf Jowdain, with his might axe.  Schlemeel, with his magical dagger.  The half-orc sorcerer Onog, with his chill touch.  But the ghost revealed little concern for the mounting toll of these strikes—flickering instantly out of sight, then back again in a fully-restored form, over another salt crystal mound several yards away.

Tuneff had told the party of the spiritcatcher’s weakness, however.  It drew its vigor from the salt mounds, and if the crystals could be scattered the phantom could be defeated.  Greyndalf put the strategy instantly in motion, calling an unseen servantto flatten the first of many. But the true breakthrough followed seconds later, as the ranger Unagi poured a vial of water over a chunk of salt crystal to test the effect.  The water dissolved a portion of the crystal, and suddenly the company had a new solution (no pun intended).

After Greyndalf conjured a sleet storm that quickly covered the cavern floor in ice and snow, Schlemeel used his burning hands spell to bathe most of the spiritcatcher’s mounds in the melt.  The spiritcatcher wailed again in anger, and lurched for control of Unagi’s mind.  But again, the attack was to no avail.  Greyndalf blasted away the last of the phantom’s energy-giving mounds with a hail of magic missiles, and the party resumed its relentless attack on the spiritcatcher in earnest.  Within moments, the final blow was struck and the phantom dissipated into nothing—with nary a scratch on a single party member.

The company did not take long to recover the black key from the spiritcatcher’s austere lair.  With it, they returned directly to Tuneff, who expressed his approbation in characteristically stoic terms.  And he answered still more questions from the company—relating the power’s of a wood golem’s heartstone to the cleric Gambol, and speculating that the painting to which the spiritcatcher referred may have been the work of “Sekana,” mistress of Tuneff’s creator and daughter of “the old saltminder.”  But finally the time came for the salt golem to turn his back, and Onog inserted the black key.

With an effortless turn, the salt golem fell silent and crumbled into salt dust—leaving only a jet black crystal in its wake.  This was promptly collected, and the company moved solemnly back through the winding tunnels of the salt cavern. 

Far along the path, the party came upon the dangling forms of four scaly salt worms—thick, burrowing annelid clinging to the ceiling of the passage.  The company caught these salt worms by surprise, and made quick work of them with burning hands fire.  But these were not the last the company would see of salt worms.

Further up the passage, the group came upon yet another collection of salt crystals stacked into piles. With six party members and six of the mounds, the decision was quickly made for each party member to scatter his own mound.  Yet these mounds concealed not six, but seven more salt worms—and this time, it was they who surprised the company.  The salt worms struck with uncommon ferocity, striking with great power and latching their jaws onto their targets.  The mage Greyndalf took the worst of it, thrashed twice by a salt worm’s mandible and unable to free himself as the melee unfolded around him.

 Just as the situation threatened to grow truly dire, however, the cleric Gambol called upon his deity, invoking the power of Cygnival to charm animals.  Though a salt worm is perhaps an “animal” under only the most tenuous of definitions, the strength of Cygnival prevailed and the worms grew suddenly mild.  The party freed their wizardly comrade, crept away to the north, then incinerated the dumbfounded salt worms with a blast of arcane fire.  

Here, the company heard the first groans of wind echoing through the crystalline walls, signaling a possible exit to the Graven surface.  The gnome Schlemeel half-heartedly urged this exit be taken, if only to glimpse sunlight for the first time in days.  But the suggestion fell on deaf ears, for the company’s map showed a passage not taken that the gnome’s colleagues felt no inclination to bypass.  

That unexplored passage led shortly to a domed chamber with a solitary door mounted on the cavern wall. Behind the door, the company found an old live/work space, a safe room complete with a venerable workbench and the decaying remains of a bed and modest closet.  But the most intriguing feature was a faded, child-like landscape mural painted on a part of the wall.  “Sekana,” it was signed.  

Adventure Notes:

• The Spiritcatcher. The salt cavern was home to a strange ghost Tuneff called “the Spiritcatcher,” which seemed to draw its strength from accumulations of salt deposits the party found in a few places around the cavern.  While the company defeated the Spiritcatcher with perhaps anti-climactic ease, a few party members remarked afterward that a few fortunate breaks spared them a much more difficult battle.  The Spiritcatcher found little success with its preferred “soulbind” tactic, an enchantment-like method of asserting mind control over living enemies.  And while the Spiritcatcher also displayed an ability to fully regenerate damage by “blinking” from one salt mound to another, the company quickly deprived that option by hastily destroying the mounds.  Unlikely though it seems they may ever encounter another Spiritcatcher, the company noted its respectable fortitude (~65 hit points) and astounding agility (20 DEX, Armor Class 15).
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• Salt Worm.  These scaly, burrowing worms appear to congregate in groups around the salt cavern. About six to eight feet long and thick, the salt worms are not especially tough (22-28 hit points) but can take their targets by surprise and strike with a powerful, incapacitating mandible.  

• Sekana. The salt golem Tuneff mentioned a woman named “Sekana,” who was both the wife or some kind of other romantic partner the golem’s creator, Gibrondol, as well as the daughter of someone Tuneff called “the old saltminder.”  Tuneff knew Sekana to be a talented artist, and suspected the painting to which the Saltminder had referred could have been somehow associated with Sekana.  Tuneff was careful to emphasize his uncertainty on this point.  

Experience Points & Inspiration  

            Combat/Encounters

The company defeated eleven salt worms in this session, as well as the Spiritcatcher.  The experience value of these victories tallies up to 10,200 XP, with an additional bonus of 1,000 XP for facing the Spiritcatcher in its lair.  This total (11,200 XP) is divided among the six player characters for a (rounded-up) total of 1,867 XP each.

            Interactions/Role-Playing/Quest progress

The company is also awarded experience for the following accomplishments:

• Learning of the Spiritcatcher’s weakness, among other things, from Tuneff, 200 XP;
• Employing the sleet storm/burning handscombination to quickly destroy most of the Spiritcatcher’s salt mounds, 400 XP;
• Discerning the secret of the wood golem heartstone from Tuneff, 60 XP;
•  Recovering the black key and delivering Tuneff to the "permanent rest,” 1,250 XP.

 These awards add up to an additional 1,910 XP, or (again rounded) 319 XP per character.

            Inspiration

The popcorn had been popped and the pay-per-view fee tendered for the showdown between the still-nameless adventuring company and the mysterious spiritcatcher.  But it was not to be.  The battle ended quicker than Mike Tyson on some damn fool, thanks in large measure to the ranger Unagi’s surprising decision to spend the early rounds of battle doing chemistry experiments instead of fighting the ghost. So the adventure gods resigned themselves to an evening of Friendsand 90210, but had to give credit where credit was due.  

Final Session 20 totals:

• Jowdain acquitted himself well in battle, garnering 2,186 XP.
•  Gambolpleased his deity and is rewarded with 2,186 XP.
•  Greyndalf remained a cunning and resourceful (and mostly naked) adversary, earning 2,186 XP.
•  Schlemeel still don’t give a f*k, but he picked up 2,186 XP.
•  Onog played it cold as ice, and acquired 2,186 XP.
•  Unagi looked fresh as ever and gained 2,186 XP and a point of inspiration.