Adventures in Eberron - The Medusa

Sharn, City of Towers

On Saturday I played through another session of my friend's Eberron campaign. It takes place in Sharn, the city of towers.

My character is a 6th level sorcerer. I have a bag of beans (I'm almost out of beans) a necklace of fireballs (with four beads) and a heward's handy haversack.

In this session, we learned that our NPC friend had been turned to stone and was going to be sold as a statue at an auction. Our job was to try to get our friend back.

The statue was in a gallery owned by a medusa who was a high-ranking member of one of the "houses." Daask, I think? There are a million different houses in Eberron and I have a hard time keeping them all straight.

The Medusa

We are only 6th level and were very worried about taking on a medusa. So for two hours or so, we brainstormed ideas. We came up with about 6 fun ideas, but nobody could come to a consensus on what to do:

• We didn't want to fight the medusa.
• We didn't want to steal from her.
• We didn't want to hijack the statue after it was sold, because it might be impossible.
• We didn't want to meet with the medusa and cut a deal because we'd be at her mercy there in front of her.

She's a medusa. She could just turn us to stone.

After tons of recon and research, you can probably guess what we decided to do. We  just broke in and tried to snatch the statue.

The New Hireling

Our group likes to hire a hireling NPC and see how long they can survive. The newest one was an old gnome lady. She creeped me out. She had a dead bird's head in her necklace or something. Her job was just to have a cart ready (driven by some beast of burden) and when we came out with the statue, we'd get on the cart and ride to freedom.

We busted into the place and there were a bunch of gnolls inside who immediately spotted us. Somehow the fighter ended up fighting them outside, while me and the mage headed for the statue. The statue was guarded by two yetis who were part of some magic trap - they were statues that came to life. The yetis did piles of damage.

I started chucking gems from my necklace of fireballs and yelling out things like "See you in hell *******!" They killed the yetis, but the whole place was on fire and we had to make saving throws each round from the smoke.

Bad to Worse

Before we could even get to the statue, the medusa showed up. I used my sorcerer ability to "twin" a spell, so I could cast invisibility on myself and the mage. We had learned that if a medusa can't see you, it can't turn you to stone.

Luckily for us, the fighter had somehow shaken off the gnolls. He ran in and started hacking away at the medusa.

We could hear screams from outside. The gnolls were eating our poor little gnome NPC buddy. She didn't even survive her first encounter.

We unloaded on the medusa as the fighter "tanked." The mage and I blew through most of our spells, whittling away at the medusa. It took a long time and it was very scary. The fighter had to make a saving throw or turn to stone - thankfully he made it. I finally dropped her with a measly magic missile.

Worse to Dead

The place was full of smoke and we could hear more monsters mobilizing. We knew there was a troll nearby. Earlier, during our research phase, this troll bouncer was talking crap to us. Knowing trolls are vulnerable to fire, my character lit a torch and waved it in his face and gave him some choice words (in a Sean Connery voice, because that's my character).

I used a shatter spell to blow a hole in the wall so we could escape. We're in Sharn, city of towers. We're pretty high up. My plan was for us to jump off a ledge, and my feather fall spell would kick in.

Technically, the statue was an NPC with the petrified condition. I was hoping that meant that I could feather fall the statue, and we could hold on to it and float down to safety far below.

We never got to try out this plan, because the troll rounded a corner and beat the bejeezus out of us. Get this. The troll killed me! As in, dead-dead!

Thankfully the party mage rolled insanely well all night, and she dropped the troll with a fire bolt.

I Died!

There was a bunch of hiding and sneaking, and eventually the group got me and the statue home.

They brought me somewhere and paid to have me raised. The DM said that raise dead in Eberron was rare? He decided that I had 'resurrection sickness.' This means that I have a -4 to all rolls. Once I take a long rest, it will be -3, etc.

That might not sound too bad, but in this campaign, we pretty much play through one day per session! That means I will have minuses for the next 4 months of my life!

It's not the end of the world or anything. I immediately got a kick out of hamming up my sickness. My character walked around in a bathrobe and had ice on his head.

I Bought My Own Tombstone

I got the feeling that if I die again, I'm just dead and I'll have to make a new character. So I bought a tombstone and set up my grave plot. Then I planted a magic bean in my grave and rolled on the chart. Know what I rolled? 100. A beanstalk rose up high into the sky.

The DM decided that the next session will be about what we find when we climb the beanstalk.

Old Man

It was a fun session, but I was a little off. When I was in high school, I could play D&D for 24 hours straight and feel fine. Now I tend to get tired and restless after 3 hours. So in this session, it kicked in and I actually started to get a headache at the 5 hour mark. It was a good session, but I really wasn't able to enjoy it.

The other players loved this session big time. It was one long rolling fight and we took on an awful lot of powerful creatures. I am interested to see what is at the top of the beanstalk. I can't even guess.