Garham to Greyhawk Campaign: Session Six - pt. 2

((Includes spoilers for "Challenge of Champions" from Dungeon Magazine #58))
A typical dinner there of white wine, vegetable soup, rye bread, a salad of cabbage, olives, and celery, a broiled halibut, and pickled onions and walnuts cost 11 sp.

At Kevlamin's suggestion, the company sought out what rumors they could hear around town. Every rumor sounded good to Flex, but what really whetted his appetite was the rumor about a place called Odd Alley where one could even buy things from other worlds. Flex made it his purpose to find that alley and spent the rest of the day searching for it.

Kevlamin, meanwhile, took Rex4 to the wizards' guildhall in the High Quarter (paying a 1 sp toll at the Garden Gate) and tried to purchase a spellbook for Rex4 (who, we determined, would start out with nothing but a few scrolls since the last version of Rex had lost his spellbook) there. The 100 gp membership was too steep, but the dwarf guards agreed to let him buy a blank spellbook for 50 gp and copy his spells into it.

Clair was quite taken with the music at the Silver Dragon Inn and never left, so she was the first one Lilyana Ortiz found when she came looking for them. Lilyana gave them 60 gp to help with their guild membership and living expenses, which the company actually briefly considered turning down as too generous, but then decided to take. Lilyana explained a bit more about the Challenge of Champions – this was the 14th annual tournament of the Adventurers Guild and companies from all over the Flanaess had come to participate. The tournament, which was starting the very next day, was already full at its maximum of 30 teams, but she encouraged them to sign up anyway in case another team was disqualified or went missing – cheating and other chicanery was not uncommon in the history of the tournament. Of course, they would need a company name. Kevlamin, Flex, and Rex4 worked late into that night on names and finally settled on The Crazy Adventurers.

The next day's quest for Odd Alley, on the 24th, started early, interrupted only by an intermission to watch the Challenge of Champions officially begin. Through sheer perseverance and luck, Kevlamin managed to find Odd Alley that afternoon. Flex managed to win a gold piece in a gambling den with something called “slot machines” in it. Kevlamin managed to get himself kicked out of a magic shop by admitting he was poor. Flex thought to stop in a map store that sold them a map showing the way back to Odd Alley for 20 gp.

The three Odd Alley visitors returned to the Silver Dragon Inn and Kevlamin returned to the Adventurers Guildhall to check on the tournament. Some members of the Super Slaughter Death Club started harassing them, but were chased off by a guild steward. Then Kevlamin learned that Skender’s Minions had been disqualified in the second round of the tournament and The Crazy Adventurers had been bumped up to finish in their place. Rex4 was busy scribing spells, so Kevlamin, Clair, Flex, and Mina participated. To their surprise, they were told to go weaponless, armorless, and spell-less, with diviners both magical and psionic checking them for deception. Whatever equipment and spells they would need would be provided at each round.

The first round required them to choose the correct pouch of magic dust to turn themselves invisible and bypass the iron cobras blocking a bolted door in 15 minutes, with only a hand mirror and a spool of thread to round out their equipment. Testing the dust on the spool of thread used up a quarter of their disappearing dust (they had chosen correctly at random), allowing them to turn all but Clair invisible. Kevlamin and Mina tried to use the iron cobras’ reflections in the mirror to make them attack themselves or, failing that, to distract them with the mirrors while Flex unbolted the door. What happened instead was that Kevlamin was bitten and paralyzed while Clair ran past to the exit. Luckily, invisible Flex and Mina were able to find Kevlamin and carry him out with just a little time to spare and with a perfect score of 40 out of 40.

After three hours of rest (and a healing spell for Kevlamin), The Crazy Adventurers were called for their second round. This scenario called for them to send someone into the mouth of a gigantic purple worm to retrieve the fighter’s medallion, while the others figured out how to get through a trap door in the ceiling with just a metal spear, a 20’ ladder, a rock, a magic scroll with a Light spell, and a clerical scroll with a Dispel Magic spell in 15 minutes. Flex volunteered to jump into the worm’s mouth, timing it just right so he was not bit. Then he groped around in the dark interior (since they did not have Rex4 with them they could not cast the Light spell), slowly taking acid damage, until he managed to find something he could pick up and jump out with. In the meanwhile, Kevlamin and Mina used the spear to hack the 20’ ladder short enough to fit under the trap door. The item Flex retrieved turned out to not be the medallion, but a jar of some sort of potion. Mina volunteered to drink the potion and turned into a barely visible gaseous cloud. In this form, she flew into the worm’s mouth and explored until she spotted the medallion. She flew out and tried to lead Kevlamin into the worm’s mouth and to the medallion, but it was just too dark and they ran out of time. Luckily, Clair had already climbed the ladder and was out of the room with plenty of time to spare, so they ended with 10 out of 40 points.

In the pre-dawn hours of the 25th, The Crazy Adventurers were summoned back for the third round. This time they were given a dagger, a helmet, a 10’ pole, a magic rope of climbing, a magic rope of constricting, 15 minutes, a 20’ wide pool of water with a bar over it halfway across, and the goal of crossing the water without going in it. Kevlamin put on the helmet for protection and tried the ropes at random, unluckily activating the constricting rope. Flex hacked at the rope with the dagger until Kevlamin could pry it off. Knowing which one was the climbing rope now, they commanded it to attach to the pole over the water. First Clair tried balancing on the pole while using the rope to pull herself across the water, but that only worked for halfway and then she had to climb up the rope and swing herself back and forth until she could swing to the far side. Throwing the rope back and forth, with Mina catching the rope with the pole, allowed everyone to swing all the way across. This was easy for the agile Flex, but Mina almost fell in and Flex had to grab her to keep her from falling in. The goal was completed with time to spare, though Clair lost 5 points for her feet going in the water while crossing, giving them 35 out of 40 points.
((Ending xp)
Kevlamin – 2,400
Clair – 2,084 (2nd level!)
Flex – 1,129
Clair – 1,761 (corrected from over-starting last session, but now 2nd level!)
Rex4 – 682