There is a lot going on this week, what with trying to get my store front set up, and trying to finish up the next four installments of the Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord, so I am going to have to make this recap brief. Let me start by recounting the meal, which was made up of incredibly delicious grilled burgers and curly fries. I had two burgers, one with grilled onion, and the other california-style with guacamole. Oh yum it was good.
Last week saw the beginning of a new campaign, where the palyers were forced to play zero-level characters enslaved by orcs, forced to escape from a dungeon the night before their harvest. They survived, well some of them did, and made it to the nearest town, Deadrock, though half-starved wearing the bloody armor of their erstwhile captors. Along with this odiferous bunch were a pair of wood elves also on their way to infamous Deadrock, there to see their fortunes made. Greetings were held under the glare of the city guard preparing to open the town gates for another day of business in Deadrock.
A rough and tumble pioneer town, the party did not have much time to explore the sights. They rented rooms, bathed, and went out to by a set of clothes with the meager coin they had scavenged from the slave pens. The next day they were politely asked by representatives of the town concil to exit the town until such time as they could afford their own upkeep. This was mainly done because I wanted to get to the dungeon, and having a bunch of thugs wandering around without a copper to their name was bound to get ugly. Let’s fight monsters.
The party did not resist the nudge toward adventure and before you knew it they were walking the pillaged demesne of the evil overlord. Forgoing the ancient roads, the party struck a path straight across the valley towards the dark speck that was the ruined fortress. With incredible luck they managed to avoid any detection or random encounters along the way, ntil they arrived at the foot of the long stair that leads up the mountainside to the entrance of the ruins. Here they heard a loud buzzing, one might say a GIANT buzzing, and proceeded to build a ring of burning, smoking vegetation, into which they prepared to defend themselves against the rapidly approaching giant bees.
Nearly a dozen bees attacked, and even though the bees were disadvanteaged due to the smoke and fire, one of our new wood elves, a rogue, was struck with a deadly stinger and perished almost instantly from the poison. (I felt bad for the new player, being killed without having a chance, but I let him return the next round with the brother of the slain, who had been running after the party for two days and finally caught up just in time to witnsess his dead brother being carried away by giant bees.)
The party was able to kill or drive off the rest of the bees without further casualties, and made their way up the steps of the ruined fortress, with openings like eye sockets watching their approach. Scouting around the top, they opened a few doors, checked out the flag chamber, an empty office, then made their way to another chamber full of kobolds. Another battle broke out, and this time two characters went down, but were healed by the cleric. The other wood elf turned into a bear and mauled the kobolds savagely, while the human fightress waded through the chamber, and laid waste all around her.
They took one kobold catpive, searchd the room and found a lock box with 55 gold and two 50 gold piece pears, which one of the rogues tried to secretly pocket, but was discovered by the bear, who let out a warning growl. Don’t mess with the bear.
