Skol's Skolduggery

Skol's Skolduggery
Date	10/15/25
Storyteller	Doug
Tier	Trainee/Expert
Player Characters	Ione Icesickle, Husk, DDOS, Kora Caroli, Nari
Rewards	250 exp, 200gp, Expanded Alchemist's Lab, Cultist's Cowl, Elemental Servitor ritual, book of codes and keys (undeciphered)
Result	Success
Author	Ione Icesickle
Downtime	10

Log

The local think tank has made some strides in figuring out what's going on with a barrier around the village of Skol, but before we send in a team to figure out the ritual, they wanted a team to check out Skol's (the wizard the town is named for) study. Apparently he lived in a cave and then it got filled up with elementals? I assume he summoned them to be guards or something. We were assigned to head into his cave and see if we can dig up any more information, since it seemed to be an important site according to the maps the librarians drew up.

Apparently there was a concern about a siege on the town and its barrier, since the ambassador was chased down by some of Apollyon's cultists, but we encountered no resistance by the time we reached the barrier. A local pointed us in the right direction while he waited for the other team, and we came across our first hurdle - the cave was not wheelchair accessible for Kora. We ended up jerry-rigging ropes to carry her down into the hole while the rest us just climbed down.

In the cave proper we hear the sound of bat wings flapping, and moving towards reveals the elementals - some air mephits were hanging around and immediately began attacking us. They weren't that great of a problem, the living armor Husk was instrumental to keeping us safe as we whittled the creatures down. But all the activity attracted something else I noticed in the pits of this cave. A slime of some sorts began to climb up, and then another appeared. They were slow and lumbering, but had a unique method of attacking us from multiple angles, unlike when two creatures would normally attack from multiple sides. Husk stuck close to me to help me out as I channeled the power of the local cave spirits. Meanwhile, Kora and DDOS were handling a mephit that went the long way around. Nari came over and we discovered these slimes had the power to split, but we didn't bother experimenting more with these slimes before DDOS wrapped up with the mephit and unleashed a bunch of boar servitors of its deity. We patched up our wounds and decided to move through the cave.

DDOS picked a path and immediately got caught up in a noose. This happened several more times - I would've been on lookout for traps, but I was focused on attuning with the spirits in the cave. I'm not sure why it wasn't really watching where it was going, but that's not my business. Not like I can talk much either. Walking around and triggering traps to dissuade plunderers, we come across a room with like a hundred undead rabbits in it. Luckily they don't have opposable thumbs so we make note of the room to take care of them later. This cave was chock full of traps, mostly nooses that I could just walk under, but the occasional spear would get launched at us. The worst of it was the final bit before what turned out to be Skol's resting place. Just a load of spear launchers, and that nearly took me out of commission. Luckily I had enough attunement to heal up the group one more time as we set up a way to trigger all the traps at once. We dumped Kora out of her chair and loaded it up with DDOS's gun and a shield, and let Husk push it down the hall. The chair was damaged so Kora had to flop around until we got to put it together again later.

This tomb had a bunch of embalmed organs - seemed like he tried to mummify himself but he failed at it and died badly. But we found what we were looking for - more information on the barrier, as well as documents detailing Skol's decent into madness. Seems like the barrier was imbued with the Banishment spell, but applied throughout the whole area. It wasn't just repelling extraplanar creatures, it was actively and constantly sending them back to where they came from. But the elementals make me think it wasn't complete. His notes also had a bunch of keys and codes, but we couldn't make heads or tails of it. Maybe someone on the other team can make use of it, or maybe one of the librarians can deal with it.

We also didn't forget about his rabbit infestation. We abused the door and the fact they couldn't do anything about it and just blasted the room with area spells until the enemies were rendered silent. Skol was a sick man, turning apparently the entire population of rabbits from within the barrier into abominations, and for what? His failed mummification? I don't think that's how you mummify anything, let alone yourself. I'm doubting this man's credentials more and more - luckily, we'll have some real specialists come around to remake this barrier. They probably should maintain the imbued Banishment of the barrier somehow. Maybe these codes will have a formula or algorithm to doing just that.