It’s nice when, towards the end of the campaign, you can still surprise your players.
The treasure rooms were guarded by various glyphs. The party set the first one off without knowing it existed. They were much more careful after that. The second room was a puzzle, though. I’m proud to say it took them several tries to figure it out, one of the more cerebral characters almost giving up before the one he always argues with figured it out instead. Very satisfying to see the interaction. They ended up dispelling the glyphs in the final treasure room to suppress them long enough to steal the treasures. Then I had one last surprise when they tried to teleport out. The first try stunned the caster for a bit, the second dumped a bunch of treasure through a hole in reality before whisking them away. Even if they beat the baddies, it’s fun to have more surprises waiting. I also gave them a bunch of evil treasure, but that doesn’t surprise them as much anymore, though a couple of items raised eyebrows quite high. They, of course, turned all the bad things into the cops (Den Mirimm).
The next surprise, was theirs for me. I’ve been prepping for all the antagonistic backstory encounters. Instead, the one with the best family life just decided he wanted to go home and visit his folks. Completely reasonable now that they have teleport, I just… hadn’t prepped for that. He quickly reminded me of his family members and I skimmed the descriptions he had given me. Then the description for the other party member who had family in the same village. I think it went alright, we had some good conversations and the first of three nights of parties for the group to blow off some steam after all the stressful adventuring. (The next two were after party members were consecuted into their respective Dens.)
The final surprises were back on plot. First, a couple worshippers of Zehir who the party had left to wander in the northern deserts. They had teamed up to continue sacrificing/eating (one’s a Medusa) people. However, the Cerberus Assembly was after one of them, and the party waited too long. By the time they got back around to scrying, the Medusa had been turned to stone and the man was unreachable. Second, a group of children who had gone missing after the party got a cultist arrested back home in Asarius. He had escaped, taking the children with him. The party was surprised to scry and find them sitting alone in a tent near the Miskath Pit. It’s a place of wildness and corruption, but one must willingly go into the Pit.
This week will also be full of surprises and I hope the party enjoys them rather than getting frustrated. This Pit is going to be quite wild.