Bard Harder - Are you sure we are learning from our mistakes

 Repeat, and repeat again till right(ish)

The band wake up in cozy beds on the second floor of the Grumpy Groundhog Tavern in the town of Pawney. There is a chill in the air as the entire area is covered by a fresh sheet of snow that fell during the night. The sound of chatter bleeds through the floor and the smell of coffee and cooked meat is heavy in the air. A strange sensation of deja vu sweeps over the band and their stomachs are in tight knots.

The band emerges from their rooms and find that everything is exactly the same as it was on the day they first arrived. All of the same people are at the tavern and sitting in the exact same locations. The same conversation with the three men at the table is occurring. Ekam prevents the waitress from spilling the coffee on the man.

An Affirmed Doomsayer

Calls them murders, murders shouting from the top of his lungs.

When the band enquire who they supposedly murdered, he points to Parket who is wondering around asking townsfolk questions.

After much explaining that they could not have murdered him as he is currently wondering around, so how could he have been murdered, and that if he was murdered, then as he is no londer dead but in fact alive and non the wiser then what crime has occurred?

The City Guards take Korin away to sleep off what they assume is his intoxication as his ranting is wilder than normal.

A Confused Historian

Parket wanders through the town asking folks if they feel strange or remember having vivid nightmares.

The band reveal they know of the resets, he reveals that he has memories as well. He was cut down by the orcs in his home and then awoke as if none of it had ever happened. 

Parket then invites them back to the library to discuss where he will tell them his theory on the situation.

“This town used to be a fortress that was thought to be protected by some sort of divine magic. No matter how outnumbered or how clever the enemy’s tactics, the Pawnerius Fortress could not be destroyed. The stories speak of supernatural insight by some of the commanders - knowing things they couldn’t possibly know. Well, I think we found out how they managed to do what they did - they got a second chance!” 

He tells the band about a bunker hidden somewhere beneath the city, but the only clue he has ever found as to how to access it is in his book called The Pawnerius Fortress. 

He tells the band he has tried to find significance in its words for years, but with no luck. 

He opens the book and lets out a gasp. “The words have changed!” 

“When you need the town to defend itself, look no further than the words below.” 

uh, go drop my grung 

Ekam quickly states that is this is an anagram for Grumpy Groundhog. 

Parket is amazed at how quickly it was solved and asks the band if they have seen this before.

A few awkard looks, and they all announce NO!

This is where the entrance to the tunnels beneath the city is hidden. Skip to Grump Groundhog Cellar for next steps. (If the party gets stuck, have Parket suggest it is an anagram, but don’t make him provide a solution.)

The band say they will meet Parket at the Grumpy Groundhog, they just need to do something first...

Getting the Key 

The band head over to Mayor Arryn’s home. 

They walk up to a home that is large for the area, but not near the lavish standards you may expect for the leader of a town perhaps three thousand square feet in total. 

The home is two stories tall, made of a stunning interlace of grey and black bricks. It has a lovely garden that spans nearly the entirety of the front lawn. Massive windows look out towards the town and a small balcony on the second floor contains two rocking chairs guarded by a small overhang for poor weather. 

A cobblestone path leads up to the front door. When the band approaches, the door is answered almost immediately by Mayor Arryn’s wife, Leslie. Blond curls tumble down over her shoulders and she wears a massive smile with a comfortable, but still beautiful, navy blue dress. Leslie is as kind-hearted as they come and will immediately invites the band into her home and offers to go make some snacks and tea for everyone.

Mayor Arryn introduces himself and quickly tell everyone to simply call him Jerry. He asks the band if they would like to join him in the parlor if they are looking to chat. On the way, the band passes numerous statues, artifacts placed carefully on pedestals, and a multitude of hanging decorations that are all from a far-gone era. One of the items they pass is a beautiful glass case that contains a silver key with its backside shaped into an hourglass. 

The band straight out ask about borrowing the key, but the Mayor does not understand why and is reluctant to let it go with strangers.

After lots of attempts of trying to persuade him, They ask the Mayor if there is something only he would know.

 “Alright, if you really can repeat this day, you will have no problem telling me the color of my undergarments as well as those of my wife!” 

He will give a coy smile as Leslie glares at him, but she does not stop her husband. 

The band have no idea so guess wrong, but Jerry reveals that his are light blue and his wife’s are white and violet.

So the band go off the reset the day.

2nd try they guess right and the Mayor gives them the key.

Grumpy Groundhog Cellar 

The band head to the Grumpy Groundhog to investigate with Parket. 

It takes joint effort to convince Camilla to let them down into the cellar.

Ekam moves a wine bottle inserts the key and opens the door, much to Parkets suprise.

Are you sure you have not been down here before?

Into the Tunnels 

The air is foul and stale, having received no airflow for centuries. There are sconces on the wall for torches, but they are empty and the passageway is pitch black. There also appears to be massive chunks of stone missing from the ceiling - some lying in large rubble piles on the floor. It is unclear how stable the ground is in this tunnel, but it certainly seems dangerous.

As the band moves in, before they go much into the corridor a series of shatters and other spells go off killing Oozes that were hiding, awaiting to ambush the band.

Subterranean Bunker

The ceiling is 20 feet high with a width and length of roughly 250 feet. Scattered throughout the room are hundreds of military cots, each with their own footlocker. On the far side of the room, the band see a gleaming metal door. Beyond the cots and the door, this room doesn’t seem to hold anything else of interest, but the band imagine the entire population of the city above could squeeze into this room. Lemmog checks a bunch of the footlockers, but they are all empty save a bit of dust and the occasional insect.

Parket remains here.

As the band push open the heavy metal door and reveal a hallway quite similar to the first they encountered in the tunnels - roughly 15 feet wide and 120 feet long. Unlike the first tunnel, the walls and ceiling in this path seem perfectly intact. In fact, magical torches go ablaze along the walls and reveals yet another door on the far side of the room. 

The band can’t help but feel that the air is somehow different in this room . . . it is heavy somehow almost oppressive. 

The band also note that this room is on a slight upward incline. It is subtle but makes them feel off balance.

The Trap Gauntlet

Trap 1 - Cleaver Swing

Ekam disarms the trap.

Trap 2 - Pit Trap

Ekam disarms the trap, steps forward and finds out nope Ekam did not disarm the trap, Ekam must leap back or fall into a spike pit, Ekam was not as good at disarming traps as he thought.

Heironymo then disarms the trap with ease, leaving Ekam confused as to why Heironymo always let him do them when he was obviously better at it!

Trap 3 - Fireball

Heironymo and Ekam disarm the trap

Trap 4 - Poison Gas

Heironymo and Ekam disarm the trap

Trap 5 - Boulder of Doom

As Heironymo and Ekam reaches the door at the far side of the room, the door at the entrance of the hall slams shut as the ceiling opens and a giant boulder drops down. 

Heironymo and Ekam failed disarm the trap

Heironymo dodges out of the way, Ekam does not, nor does the rest of the band as they are squished by the boulder.

Lets Try this again.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, Trap 5

On Silme suggestion, Ekam goes back to trap 2 and re arms it

Heironymo triggers Trap 5, looking to dodge out of the way

Heironymo does not, and takes a boulder on the shell.

But the Boulder rolls down and falls into the trap.

Skeletal Defenders 

The band step out of the trap-filled hallway and into a darkened chamber. This area contains no lanterns to illuminate the area, but the band can smell the rancid odor of death thick in the air trapped for hundreds of years in this place. 

The chamber is square with forty-foot wide walls and a ceiling that is twenty feet high. On the far side of the chamber is a ladder that ascends to the ceiling and then disappears into a tunnel that continues upward even further out of view. Scattered all throughout the area are massive piles of bones, some up to five feet in height.

 To the left is a large wall that reveals glyphs as band members approach.

When a member of the band reaches the center of this room, the door to the previous hall slams shut and the skeletal remains around the room begin to spiral and coalesce into deadly humanoid figures. Weapons mend and reassemble as skeletons rise up with blades at the ready and red glowing eyes. At the center of the room, the bones swarm together to form a hulking monstrosity of a goliath skeleton wielding a great axe made of bone rather than a metal weapon like the other skeletons. It gives a roar and exudes a putrid gas as it smashes its weapon on the floor.

Silme puts on the big hurt with a wall of fire, and the band within 1 round despatched 12 Skeletons and a Goliath Skeleton.

Just then poison darts erupt from tiny holes in the wall all around the room. Anyone who is prone evades these without issue, but creatures that are standing try to dodge and are hit with highly toxic poison.

As the band are searching the area explosives hidden beneath the piles of bones near the four corners of the room detonate! Any creature within 10 feet of these piles takes a huge amount of damage.

Puzzling Passage

The text “Stand together and see as one” is written on the wall for each individual, but below that is a single bit of text that is a fragment of a much larger whole. Each band member sees a different set of letters

Heironymo   

O I I N O _ V _ G L

Yomi

Y _ _ E _ R T M E

Ekam

_ U C _ T V H I R

Silme

N T T _ P S E C _

Gribble

L H Y W E U _ O P

Lemmog

W N A H O I E N I

Heironymo quickly figures it out and works out the message is

ONLY WITH UNITY CAN WE HOPE TO SURVIVE THE COMING PERIL

When he annonces it The doors slide open to reveal yet another long hallway. 

Over a hundred feet away, in an area that seems to open up much further than the hallway, sits a strange ball of energy. Even from this distance, you feel drawn to the blackness of this sphere and the arcs of deep green energy that occasionally leap across the room from this source. Moments later, torches along the hallway go ablaze and light the path forward.

The Anomaly 

This hallway is a nice respite from the violence of all of the other halls in the bunker. It isn’t until the band reach the room containing the Anomaly itself that things grow dangerous again. 

The void of the anomaly seems to extend on for an eternity - and perhaps it does - but it also seems to have some repelling force that stops anyone from approaching too closely. The room containing the orb is fairly large, roughly eighty feet on each side with a ten-foot-wide platform at the center above which the anomaly sits. 

It churns and flows in ways that don’t seem physically possible, collapsing in on itself and sometimes almost disappearing completely before surging back with great force. It appears to be made of some sort of thick liquid, but once again, no one can get close enough to it to touch it even with the strongest of magics.

On one of the walls in this room is a switch that reads “Defense Network” and it is currently flipped to the off position.

Gribble is volunteered to flip to switch.

The room is immediately flooded with red light as the torches along the wall change color. The color is so deep and dark that it is difficult to see. Stone along the edges of the chamber slides open and from new alcoves emerge a set of constructs that approach you. They are humanoid in shape and size with glowing black orbs in their chests. One of these nearest to the band  turns and speaks in a deep robotic voice, 

“Defense network activated. Please speak the passcode or be destroyed.”

 When the last of the constructs is about to perish, it cries out in a squeaking, pained voice, 

“Passcode - ‘I got you babe’ not identified!”

The Defense Network 

With the defense network active, the constructs are friendly and helpful to the party, but only one of them seems to speak. It identifies itself as a Protection, Helpful Information, and Labor construct, but he asks that the party simply call him PHIL. 

PHIL informs the band that the Defense Network is dreadfully underpowered. In order for defenses to operate at peak performance when the attack arrives, they will need at least two hundred living entities present in the staging area and the rest can remain in the living quarters. The defenses of the facility have all been deactivated, so the townsfolk can move safely to the room with the cots. 

(Note: The oozes will still be present in the first tunnel). 

If asked what the staging area is, PHIL simply gestures to the room they are standing in. The essence of the living is how the Defense Network is powered, but with too few it will not work or will cause dreadful side effects to those that are present.

The band head back to the Skeleton Room

Gribble is again volunteered to climb the ladder on the far side of the room goes up for nearly forty feet before ending in a glowing purple emblem emblazoned on the back of a stone slab. 

Gribble touches it, and feels a spark of energy flow through their body as the stone slab flies open and water floods down into the passageway. 

It turns out the ladder leads up into the fountain at the center of town. 

Only Gribble can open the passage way from the fountain.

Gribble seems to  inherently know when the door is opened in such a manner, the skeletons in the chamber below never stir from their slumber.