Behold the power of the lava lamps
Even though one person had to cancel for work, even though we didn’t get started until way late and had to scramble for an ultimateley awesome meal of appetizers, even though we are still working our way through understanding the rules this iteration it was still a great night of gaming. The party bulldozed though almost half of the first level of the dungeon.
The night started where we left off. The party had just slain a pack of kobolds and were questioning the lone survivor. Its face and arms were painted with blue lightning bolts, and it spoke of its god who dwelt in the top of the ruined tower. The kobold agreed to tell them where the stairs leading up were in exchange for letting it live. The party agreed and the kobold pointed to a door in the north wall and mumbled something about being through there. He then pushed the door open which revealed a room epty except for a few coins and a chunk of questionable meat in the center of the room. The paladin and barbarian each rushed in of course, eager to grab the booty.
A perternatural sense of danger cause Glory the paladin to stop in place, while the barbarian, sensing victory rushed forward and fell through a trap-door covered pit. It was dark down there, and he took some falling damage, but sprang to his feet just in time to hear two shambling forms moving towards him from the shadows. The fightress was the first to arrive on the scene, shining her torch down into the pit to allow the barbarian to duke it out with the pair of famished zombies. A few arrows were launched from above, but they were ineffectual, and it was the barbarian’s orcish battle ax that quickly slew the monstrosities.
During this time, the kobold prisoner took the opportunity to escape, sticking his tongue out at his captor the wizardess, as he ran off laughing.
Doc piled the bodies to aid his climb to the surface, and while doing so, he noticed the skeleton of an elf, concealed by a grey cloak. The cloak turned out to be a Cloak of Elvenkind, which he lovingly draped over his crush, the wizard Reya’s shoulders.
Old school dungeon crawling at its finest
Moving on, they came to a long hallway with windows at the far eastern end, showing the afternoon sky. The drop was over five hundred feet to the valley floor below, and they could hear vultures screeching above. There were two passages and two sets of double doors out of this room, so they chose the nearest set of double doors and pushed through. The room was empty except for a pair of doors and an old tapestry on the wall. The ranger detected the tracks from many creatures in the chamber and bent down for closer inspection.
While searching the chamber, he oticed a large rack in the wall and heard the scurrying of a multitude of tiny clawed feet. A swarm of rats were about to charge from the hole. Thinking fast, he cast Expeditious retreat on himself, and ran towards the wall hanging, intending to stuff it in the crack. When he pulled down the hanging, it revealed a concealed door. In his hurry he did not notice the small hole drilled through the center of the room before a lightning bolt lanced out from it.
The bolt hit the far wall, and rebounded through the room, injuring the ranger, the fightress, and knocking out the wizardess Reya. Soon after, the party heard the “HAROOOO” of a horn blast from the other side of the door and beat a hasty retreat.
They paused to catch their breath in the long hall, while the cleric healed Reya, and once they were sure no one was coming after them from the recently vacated room, chose to explore in a different direction. The entered a chamber with a large black desk and some overturned cupboards. The ranger sent his ferret familiar into the chamber, which discovered a poisonous centipede just before it was bitten and died from he poison. The ferret, being magical, disappeared, and the centipede reared up, angry at being denied a meal. Its faceted eyes centered on the paladin Glory in the doorway, who glared back and charged. She was unlucky though, trying to charge through the obstacles, and when she brought down her orcish battle axe, it bit into her own foot instead of the vermin. It struck her, but the paladin shook off the affects of the poison and went on to slay the foul beast. The party spent the next ten minutes sacking the chamber but discovered nothing of interest.
A door led through the next chamber, and the paladin led the way, but was lucky for the second time, as she stopped in the middle of the chamber just before stepping onto another covered pit trap. This one opened to reveal a pool of green slime at its bottom.
They soon came to a door that seemed stuck, but the wizard showed a surprising amount of strength. The sleeves of her robe stretched as her muscled bulged, and she pushed open the door, pushing rubble aside to reveal a room whose north end was a collapsed heap of rubble, letting light of the early evening shine through cracks. They heard the rustling of bats in the ceiling, but quietly searched the chamber. The barbarian saw a severed skeletal wrist poking from the rubble, and uncovered an ancient human warrior. Most of his arms and armor were long rusted away except for a gold insignia ring and a ruby encrusted sword sheath which appeared to be magical. The fightress hung the empty sheath from her belt in hopes of soon filling it with something better than the looted orcish battle axes which she and most of the party were forced to wield. They managed to leave the room without waking the bats.
Soon they came to a bend in the hallway, which had a door on one side, and they discovered a secret door on the other. No amount of force they mustered could open the secret door, so they turned their attention to the other one which opened easily enough. It revealed an old cloak room with nothing of interest.
They were just deciding where to go next, and had re-entered the long hall, when a patrol of 7 orcs rounded a corner. Everyone was surprised, but the party recovered first, unleashing a hail of arrows and daggers and charging warriors at the orcs, before the wizardess strode forward with palms held outward. She unleashed a cone of fire that burnt 6 of the 7 orcs to a crisp. The last orc, turned tail and ran, but was unable to push open the door he sought to escape through. He was cut down from behind, and the session ended there.
Whew, we accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. The orc battle began when we were fifteen minutes over our regular end time, and was over less than five minutes later, thanks to the Burning Hands of Reya. Great game.
