Session 18 - Napoleon BoneApart

As the latest battle came to an end, the water in the chamber eventually grew still, disturbed "only" by hundreds of smoldering rat corpses bobbing around. Wary of new ambushes, the party adopted a more cautious approach to exploring the ancient ruins. With caution in mind, Mergrim opened another door and revealed the chamber beyond. The back wall of this room was lined with shelves stacked with intact bottles (alcohol). Beneath the shelves and the surface of the water stood a single wooden chest with an ominous cloud of half-eaten fish carcasses floating around it. Ever-cautious, Mergrim warily swam over to the chest and carefully touched it, upon which his hand adhered to the chest and became impossible to pull away. The surface of the chest split open, revealing teeth, eyes and a long tongue, as it ambushed Mergrim. The struggle didn't last for long and the chest was soon reduced to driftwood, or rather a grotesque blob of muscles and sinews as the mimic regained its true shape upon death.

Zunigri, who had trusted in her companions' abilities to deal with the mimic without her, suddenly found her foot triggering a hidden pressure plate in the corridor. Spears jutted out of the tunnel floor and walls around her in an attempt to skewer the unwitting half-orc. Thanks to her great agility and sense of danger, the spears narrowly missed Zunigri and instead blocked the corridor ahead. After some fuckery with a lever in the adjacent room to reset the trap and try to get past without it triggering, Mergrim, Louie, and Zunigri became trapped on one side of the extended spears with a now-broken reset mechanism. It was then that Siveril investigated the spears and found them constructed with now-rotten wooden shafts. Breaking off the spears and disarming the trap, the party continued their journey deeper into the ruins and through the corridor.

Darkness greeted them in the next chamber. Marxiros called upon the powers granted upon him by his sacred oath and bathed the room in light emitted from his battlehammer. The party had entered into an ancient prison block. Flooded cells filled the room, their only occupants long since decayed into bare skeletons. Marxiros extended his senses and became aware that all the skeletons innocently slumbering under the water were actually undead. The party made a plan, tried to sneak, failed to sneak, and then promptly abandoned the plan in favor for a fireball. The skeletons were greatly hindered by the mass of water in the room, so we managed to decimate their numbers (thanks fireball) mostly from afar as they struggled to reach us. Louie, having exhausted most of his resources in previous fights, elected to stand as far away from combat as he possibly could and lob punny (and slightly funny) insults at the skeletons instead of doing anything actually useful. With words as their weapons (and actual weapons as their weapons) the party made short work of the skeletons. They should've drunk more milk, skellybois. A necklace was found around one of the skeletons' necks before the party continued onwards to another room.

The next chamber was even more waterlogged than the previous ones. A walkway lined the walls of the room, encircling the gaping abyss of water in the center of the room. It became apparent that some parts of the ruins were entirely underwater. Contemplating how long one could breathe underwater, our discussion was cut short with the emergence of five fish-ish-creatures from the watery abyss. Initiative was rolled, fish soup was made, and the party emerged once again victorious. As the combat came to an end and calm returned to the ruins, we ended the day's session.