Session 18 - A Sidequest at the Meuseum

 This week was a little different in that the side quest we played was a Wondrous One Shot from dungeoninabox. As the one shot was aimed at players of Level 3 I had everyone roll up a new character for the session. 

Meet Sir Silex of the Glade, a fighter ready for combat, Verne Hopslinger a master of beer creation and sorcerer and Foghorn Leghorn a giant bird cleric. 

Sitting down for a drink this wandering heroes encounter a small lady staring at a glass of sherry crying her eyes out. She asks them to help her out, her museum has been robbed every night for the past 4 nights and she fears that no one can help her defend her artifacts from the robbers.

She explains that the museum contained some amazing artifacts from an ancient civilization, including the Sarcophagus and mummy of a warrior known as Strong as the Oak, his axe forged from meteorite iron, an amulet and cloak he was also buried with. The mummy, and those items have been stolen one each night and she fears she will be ruined if more things are taken.

The party agree to help out by guarding the museum for the night, and arrive just before nightfall. Glynis (the old lady) shows them around and suggests they setup a camp of sorts in the lobby. The party agree and she leaves. 

As they start to take a look around the first room they enter contains two stone coffins, and shortly after the doors slam shut and two ghostly wood elves appear. They ask the party a riddle which they easily answer and then each of them is asked what they seek most in the world. 

Next the party enter a room full of weavings and tapestries depicting pictures of a clay tablet attached to the top of a well decorated Sarcophagus. As they look around one of the rugs jumps down off the wall and confronts them, kind of walking towards them, they begin their attack, slashing and burning sections of it. the rug is able to encase Silex giving him a nice warm rug hug. As the others battle to release him he takes a little damage from their onslaught but manages to break free, they shortly after take the rug down. 

As they look around the notice there is what looks like a brown stone under a mannequins foot. 

They head into the next room and are greeted by two bear skeletons and they pass through unmolested. The next room contains a bunch of painted pottery depicting the village folk offering sacrifices of cloth, food etc into flames. As they look around a couple of small flame embodied creatures who appear to be made of magma jump out of the pottery and begin to attack the team. They are able to destroy one which turns into a burning pile of fire, and then move onto the next, they realize that they can throw in food to the fire and it will dissipate. Foghorn runs back to grab the rug to try and put the fire with it, and Verne and Silex continue to fight the flame creatures.

They defeat another two and feed the flames to dissipate the fires. They notice there is another clay colored shard of something in here, and pick it up. They recognize it as about 1/3rd of the tablet shown on the tapestries, and head back to check under the foot of the mannequin, finding the two pieces fit together. 

They head upstairs and encounter three rooms, one with displays of weapons with an empty display which says the Meteorite Great axe was on display here. The other room contains a garden bed with plants that are labelled of being native to the village. There are two doors behind the displays with Employee only on them and two doors leading to the Star attraction the Mummified remains of Strong as the Oak. They head into his room, and see his sarcophagus with what looks like a replica clay tablet at the head, its open and the mummy is missing. There is also a display with an amulet plaque but the amulet is missing. 

The party head back out and past the plant display to open the door, they find the managers office and standing inside is what they can only assume is Strong as the Oak, he faces them and attacks "Interlopers, leave this place you have disrupted my rest and taken me from my home" they fight for a while and after taking some damage Strong as the Oak disappears. His disembodied voice says "You are stronger than I expected. Restore my tablet in the place of that fraud and I will reward your earthly forms. 

They search the room and discover that Glynis had not been exactly honest about the premise here, and that her expedition to remove the valuables was more grave robbing and profit driven than one of genuine betterment of the public's knowledge of the Village. They also find out that the expedition was unable to remove the sarcophagus until the clay tablet was smashed. 

They search the other employee only room and quickly discover the final piece of the clay tablet. They are able to join them each holding one piece....and nothing happens. They work out that it requires dirt from the village to fuse the pieces together. 

They restore the tablet to its correct place and the mummy appears back in its correct place as the lid of the sarcophagus slides closed. They hear the voice of stone of the oak and he thanks them for their service, and gives them the Axe the Cloak and the Amulet as a reward. 

As they walk downstairs Glynis greets them and sees the items, and says "oh my you recovered all my treasures" taking them quickly and returning them to the display she says "thank you you have saved my Museum, who was the thief" They party explain what happened and she says "oh those were your rewards, I am sorry I cant let you take them, and well I only have about 4 silver to spare at the moment but you can take it by all means. "

The party are ushered out the door with enough for a round of drinks and lodging for the night and return to their drinking session.