Bard Harder - Its a Trap

Repeat

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

On exiting the Tavern and head to the centre of town, they see the Doomsayer shouting from the top of his lungs, frightening many townsfolk.

He screams about how the cycle has begun and death is upon them. They are blind to the truth that death is charging towards them at this very moment - a pack of orcs riding on worg back to pillage and murder each and every person in the town. People keep a wide berth from him with parents shielding their children. 

As the band approaches him, The doomsayer looks over to them with eyes filled with wonder. "Newcomers, I have been blessed with foresight! Death rides for the town and we must prepare! You must believe me for the sake of us all! An army two-hundred strong will be at our doorstep by nightfall!" 

He introduces himself as Korin and the Band reveal they know that the day is repreating.

None of the townsfolk take notice of his warnings and it is frustrating. He wants to save them, but they don’t listen! 

Korin offers to help without question, but is still shouting and raving.

The band sees an older man, pushing eighty years old, with a long white beard in comfortable robes looking like he is wandering around asking townsfolk questions.

Yomi picks up that is is asking if people feel strange or remember having vivid nightmares.

Yomi then as well, she figures that were in a loop so why not, Power Word Kills the old man.

Korin screams murders at the top of his lungs.

As the Guards start arriving

Gribble makes the body invisible, Yomi changes to look like the Old man.

They manage to convince the guards that its just the ravings of the lunatic Korin.

Heironymo then raises the what they found out was the Historian Parket who worked at the Pawney Library as a Zomibee, commanding it to take them to his home.

They find that Parket had living quarters at the Libary.

When Heironymo asks the Zombiee Parket about what is going on, there are wild gestures and mimes that mean nothing to any of the band, as of course the zombie cannot speak!

Zombiee Parket gestures to a book on a shelf - The Pawnerius Fortress.

Reading through it they discover that :

• This town used to be a fortress that was thought to be protected by some sort of divine magic. 
• Pawney was built on the grounds of a military fortress. 
• No matter how outnumbered or how clever the enemy’s tactics, the Pawnerius Fortress could not be destroyed.
• The base was unconquerable and that many hidden tunnels still lie below the city.  
• These have been sealed away for over a millennia.
• The stories speak of supernatural insight by some of the commanders - knowing things they couldn’t possibly know. 

On closer inspection they find that on the inside cover of the book is a strange riddle of sorts.

There is a gasp from the Zombiee Parket.

The band read it:

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

uh, go drop my grung

All the band scrunch their brows over the meaning of it, when Lemmog pipes up saying it is an anagram, and to the surprise of the rest of the band solves it.

Grumpy Groundhog

The band leave the Zombiee Parket behind (well that cannot go wrong can it, a zombiee on the loose in a library!) and head back to the Grumpy Groundhog.

They see a tall blond woman with striking green eyes and an outfit that shows off her curves. She is attractive and knows it very well working the bar. 

Camilla owns the Grumpy Groundhog.

There are simply chairs and tables and the bar itself, but no sign of any secret entrances.

They ask Camilla if there is a cellar, and if they can go down there, to which she replies yes and hell no.

After some attempts at intimidation, she bars them and tries to throw them out.

The band (I think it was Gribble) casts a spell that makes them all indifferent to them.

Yomi casts Knock on the cellar door and they all go down to the cramped cellar.

Grumpy Groundhog Cellar

Down in the cellar are multiple barrels of whiskey, a wall covered in wine bottles, and numerous kegs of beer of all varieties. The area is pretty packed and there is little room for maneuverability.

Gribble looks over the bottles of wine and sees outline of a door grooved into the stone behind the floor to ceiling wine rack.

Ekam notices behind one of the bottles a small hole that doesn’t fit any traditional key, but there is a small hourglass painted on the stone next to the keyhole. 

Heironymo reminds the band that they have seen a key with a hourglass in the Mayors home.

Yomi not wanting to waste time, again casts Knock and they open the door which reveals a spiral stairwell that descends 30 feet, which they go down.

Into the Tunnels

The spiral stairwell that descends 30 feet before opening up to a large hallway. It is 15 feet wide and continues on into darkness.

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.

Lemmog goes first and just as he starts climbing through the rubble he sees that the corridor is 120 feet and ends in a fine wooden door.

Oozing with Danger

Just then an ooze drops on Lemmogs head and several more drop before him.

As Lemmog carves into it with his axe it splits into two, his axe starts dissolving and with his second swing he accidently launches the axe down the corridor.

Spells go off, Heironymo and Lemmog start punching ooze and eventually the oozes die.

The band then progress to the fine wooden door, and open it.

As they open the door, magical torches spring to life, casting the entire area in dancing yellow light. This room is absolutely massive.

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.

Heironymo tries to keep a centipede found as a pet.

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

As Lemmog walks in front of the first set of torches, the entire passageway immediately goes dark. A few brutal cleavers fall from the ceiling and swing through a full fifteen feet of the path on either side of this trigger location. Lemmog heavily hurt stumbles forward as the cleavers almost make sashimi of him.

The others try to dextrously get through the gap by the wall and floor of the trap, most make it, some get hurt in the process.

Yomi tries to misty step forward, but finds that the spell did not work, the entire hallway is an antimagic field.

The most important part of this hallway is to use vivid descriptions in the (likely) brutal evisceration of some of the party members. Even with a skilled rogue, this hallway is filled with incredible dangers. As the party enters the area, read the passage below:

Trap 2

Gribble scouts forward not spotting anything, then oops. Gribble steps on one of these pressure plates, a twenty foot section of the path opens up to a pitfall trap. The trap is twenty feet deep and at the bottom is a set of jagged poisoned spikes. Gribble not only falls, but is impaled.

The doors then immediately close up and leave Gribble trapped.

Lemmog makes a running jump across the trap, triggers the trap, but manages to grab the other side and scramble up.

Ekam then disarms the trap and the rest of the band use ropes to get Gribble out. 

Trap 3

Lemmog scrambling up the side of the Trap 2, takes one step forward and triggers yet another trap

A fireball detonates in the middle of the hall engulfing Lemmog.

While the rest of the band are getting Gribble out of the pit trap, Lemmog pushes on.

Trap 4

Lemmog steps on another set of pressure plates. Green smoke starts filling the hallway poisoning everyone, every round.

This causes the entirely of the hallway to fill with a deadly poison. 

Lemmog just gassed the band.

After some manuvering the rest of the band catch up to Lemmog gasping for air and on last legs as the poison gas after a minute subsides.

Trap 5

As Lemmog 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. 

Lemmog is crushed by the boulder.

The boulder then begins to roll towards the entrance of the hall. 

Trapped Gribble is then crushed as Ekam and Yomi desperately try to open the door at the start.

Yomi and Ekam having escaped decided to pick a bar fight and cause trouble, knowing that the day will reset.

Again