Session 22: Curses, Traps Again!

Characters: Everyone!

Day 27, continued
The three conscious members of our intrepid party bar the doors in the Dire Wolf den and go to sleep. During the middle watch, Tex hears footsteps outside the door to the west. He sneaks up to the door and prepares to attack if they try to enter but whoever or whatever is outside passes by, turns east, and is soon out of hearing range.

Day 28
Everyone feels much stronger after their ordeal with the Wolves. Tthardas even seems to be finally throwing off that nagging disease from the rats. The clerics use many spells to heal up the party over the next hour or so, and soon everyone is up and raring to kill something.

Using their gigantic map, they see that they missed a room off of the room where they found the map. A few steps later, Tex proceeds to check the door for traps. Unfortunately he was so preoccupied with the lock that he didn't notice the goo on the doorknob, and was once again poisoned. The clerics quickly clean off the poison with their herbal remedies. While Tex's hand is now a deep purple color no real damage was done.

Opening the door, they discover a small library, complete with desk, bookshelves, and a glint of light from under a chair. "Dave" Detects Magic and sees that the silver brooch hiding under the desk is magical. He grabs it and is engulfed in flames from a trap left by the celestials. The entire party is cooked a bit, but the books in the room are quite toasted. Orrin's Create Water spells manage to save enough of the materials to learn that they were journals about what various demonic prisoners were doing on certain days.

Taking the melted lump of silver that used to be a brooch, they trudge back to the rooms near the Dire Wolf den. The first room they try has a gigantic pit in it separating them from the corpse of a bugbear and a sword stuck in the floor. With Arren bracing a rope tied around his waist, Tex climbs across the walls to the sword. He sets down, takes a step towards the sword, and jumps back as a pit opens underneath him! He quickly disables the trap and (after getting another length of rope) heads down to retrieve it. Without too much trouble, he also grabs the magical greataxe from the bugbear corpse and gets back to the party.

Next up is a room with nine intricately carved columns that have been ruined by goblin and bugbear graffiti and a floor full of trash. Orrin, Arren, and Tex head in to check things out while the others remain outside. Tex digs through the stuff on the floor and manages to find a beat up gold ring; Orrin and Arren look at the various columns and keep an eye on things.

They then proceed to an oddly-shaped room to the northeast. Inside they find that it's been packed full of vines. In the center of the room is a pedestal with a gem resting on top and runes around its base. Detecting Magic and carefully moving the vines, the spellcasters discover that there's divine abjuration magic on all of the walls and the pedestal and some strange arcane magic on certain walls. After investigating for a bit and finding out the gem is worth some good money, Tex decides to do the ol' Indiana Jones trick with a bag of coins and the gem. The rest of the party clears out, and Tex does his thing...setting off the Glyphs on the pedestal and taking some acid damage.

Now that they know what they're dealing with, Tex attempts to disable the magical trap. He notices a small stud on the pedestal that could be a button, but is covered in dirt and gunk. After clearing it out with one of his tools, he pushes the button and the glyphs dim. The gem is theirs!

Checking the map, Tthardas and "Dave" can see that there should be a door leading out of this room, but there wasn't a door in the right spot. They search for and find a secret door, narrowly avoiding the acid of the glyphs on the walls. "Dave" uses his shiny new spell Knock to pop open the door. Tex grabs the door and takes some more damage from the glyphs, but at least now the party can leave the room.

Around, over, up, and the magic-users' eyes open wide as they see a room with mossy walls and 30 wands! Tthardas casts Detect Magic and is momentarily stunned by the brightness of the room. He grabs for the nearest wand and is thrown to the floor, his thoughts muddled. "Galen" picks up the wand and nothing happens, so he proceeds to collect 'em all. On the sixth wand he's suddenly thrown to the floor as well. Orrin goes to check on him as the mists of time once again interrupt their adventure for another week...

Session 21: Escape From the Traps

Characters: "Dave", Tthardas, Tex, Arren. Orrin and "Galen" proxied by the DM.

Day 27, continued
They're down their clerics but not that many attack spells, so they decide to adventure on anyway. They try to sneak through the southern hallway to the broken door, but alert the occupants. Bursting in, they take a whack from the bugbear who was hiding by the door. Tex fails to tumble by and takes a hit. It's all downhill from there as they take out the bugbears without too much injury. Searching the room, they find a keyring on one of the bodies. This lets them out of the wolf den room and back into their favorite hallway.

Next they check out the northeast door in the mirror room. The mages and fighter wind up trapped inside the very cold room. It takes them a bit but they're able to solve the ring puzzle and escape back to the mirror room, through the water trap room, and on to the gold mine. Tex is able to Appraise the gold flecks to be worthless, but touching them has set off the trap. They run back but naturally the door has closed behind them. Holding their breath, they head into the billowing clouds and start searching. Tex runs out of breath and takes the initial poison hit, but is able to disable the trap. The "virtual-clerics" use their Healing skills to help keep the poison damage to a minimum.

Searching the room without imminent death, they find a wing pattern on the wall and a secret door. Virtual Orrin puts his hands on the wings and the door opens. Beyond they see a well and a rope leading down. They look into it but decide not to dink with it, and just head further into the Dungeon. A small room outside has four doors; they try the door opposite and find that it leads back to the ledge and pit room they'd found earlier while Tex and Arrin were stuck in the water trap. Trying the northeast door, the party discovers the remains of a battle and some very minor treasures. (Do you know anyone who needs a gold tooth? It's goblin-sized!)

Heading north, they follow the corridor all the way to another fancy door they can't open yet. They turn back and take the first path east to a curious room and one of the best discoveries to date: a map of this entire section of the dungeon! They gently take it down and fold it up to take it with them. The search also turns up a secret door to the east.

Seeing the results of the trap, the party is ready. Tex and Arren narrowly avoid being crushed. Tex finds that the trap is now broken and safe to pass by; they continue east to a door to the south.

This door leads to another very dark room, and inside they soon find four dire wolves. Arren does some serious damage to one before being knocked down, and the evoker is able to Color Spray the lot of them, buying time. It's a tough fight, one where the proxy-clerics had to enter combat to save the party. At one point Arren was down to -9 and his only hope was that Tex was able to make an untrained Heal check to stablize him...and he rolled a 19! Tthardas had bad luck trying to cast under combat conditions, which hurt. In the end, it came down to Tex and one Dire Wolf; Tex hit and did exactly enough damage to kill the ferocious beast.

This session gave them enough XP to make 4th Level! Congrats, guys!

Session 20: Water, Water Everywhere

Characters: Everyone!

The party continues their search, finding four doors out of this place. Arren spends some time smashing mirrors but merely chips off parts of the walls. They decide to rest up for the night.

Day 27
They continue searching. Eventually they find the panel that is movable and unlocks the doors. Everyone is much, much happier now that they're free! They confirm that the northwest door goes back to the big trap room, then they decide to head through the southwest door.

After the room description, Tex decides to step right onto the floor. Arren jumps into the room after him while the door shuts behind them. They frantically search the room for any means of opening the doors while the rest of the party tries to find another way to reach them or a way to reopen the door. The room fills with water but before they start to drown Tex finds the release and Arren's mighty arms finally pull it enough to drain the water. With the water gone, Tex is able to jam the mechanism and release the doors.

Sick of the endless traps, the party heads back to the room with the scratching and head on in. They easily beat up the dire wolves inside.

Session 19: Time's A-wastin'

The party makes it back to their favorite room and collapses.

Day 25
They are rejoined by their new cleric, who helps heal up the party while they rest for the day. That night, the two guys on watch hear some orcs arguing over something.[1] They wake up the others. When the first orc sticks his head around the corner they Magic Missle the crud out of him. The orcs run.

Day 26
Everyone but Tthardas makes their disease checks.[2] Deciding that they've had it with rats, darkmantles, and wererat sorcerers, they head to the east through the wide corridors, which are no longer magically sealed.

They open a few doors which lead to a T-intersection, where Tex falls into their honest-to-goodness very first pit trap.[3] He quickly climbs out and disables it before they move on to the door to the north. They bash through to find a former guard room, with some strange words nobody really understands. Here they find a hidden door to a secret armory, which they loot.

With no alternatives, they head back to the pit trap and follow the second path to the north. Here they find a strange room with an "obviously trapped" room inside of it. In an amazing feat of dexterity[4] Tex runs in, gets the gems with only a little damage, and runs back out only setting off the traps at the very end. Unfortunately, the gems crumble into dust.

They head to the eastern side of this room and take the more northern door, beyond which is a north-south hallway. They head north and find a very fancy door to which they don't have the right key and aren't able to pick open. Heading back, they hear whimpering and scratching from a nearby room. They continue past to a room whose walls, floors, and ceilings are covered in mirrors...and the doors close behind them.


Footnotes
1. At this point the players spent an hour arguing over whether Galen's cleric was there the night before and what healing spells would best heal up the people who had taken disease damage. Eventually we established that since I'd assumed that he didn't come back until the next day he couldn't have healed everyone on the night of day 24.

I think this was my first real B.A. moment with this group. I'm sure it won't be the last.

2. So far Flip has spent more time diseased than anyone else in the party.

3. Welcome to Section B!

4. Odie wasn't actually there; Dave was playing Tex so the party had their Theif. I think Dave rolled more successful skill checks tonight than Odie had in the last three sessions. :(

Session 18: Longtail, Take 2

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

Having cleared the darkmantle lair, they head back to their favorite room to rest and recover.

Day 23
They wake up the next day to find that Zay, their necromancer, has turned into a statue. Hearing muffled sounds from inside, they break the statue open to reveal their new mage, an evocation specialist.[1]

After so much time spent in here, they finally decide to touch the seal in the center of the room. Tthardas manages to take some damage while others are healed by it. Their fun time is interrupted by a Kobold and Krenshar, who are taken out quickly by the party.

Day 24
Fully recovered, the group decides to take on Longtail again. On the way there, a rat swarm hits the party and diseases everyone except Orrin. The actual damage was minimal, so they decide to press on.

Once again, Longtail is ready for them. The party is able to counter his Magic Missiles but is unable to cause him any real damage thanks to a Color Spray that knocked out Arren and Tex. After a long fight basically to a draw, a stream of rats swarm from the portal and the party runs.

Footnotes
1. His original plan was to go into a prestige class based on Evil spells. I didn't think the remaining guardians of the dungeon would like that, so he redid his character slightly. This should work out better for the party anyway.

Session 17: Armory, Take 2

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

They heal up and head back into the armory. After setting off the trap one more time (poor Tex couldn't make a disarm roll to save his life) they disable the trap and search the room, taking a magic javelin and some masterwork items. Past the armory, they find a connection back into the orc area.

Filling in the map north of the orc area, Tex sneaks into a room with "a chest and an orc." He tells the rest of the group, and they decide to Leroy Jenkins the orc. They decidedly kill the corpse, multiple times. Trying the chest, they set off the trap before finding out there's nothing inside.

With nothing more to find here, they head back to the secret door and head north. Here they run into the south end of the Darkmantle lair, and the first group ravages the party. (Tex, Arren, and Zay are all knocked out.) They seal the doors and hole up here.

During the night there's a tremor, but nothing bad happens.

Day 22
In the morning, they heal up. After an extensive search of the room, they find some gems as well.

Continuing to the north, they open the door into the next room. Tex is attacked almost immediately, but with quick reactions the group gets back into their room and shuts the door. A few spells later, they open the door and head in. Unfortunately for them, the monsters can see in the dark and aren't fooled by their hiding. They fight a horrendous battle with the darkmantles from this room and (after a round or two) the next room to the north, but are eventually victorious.

(This fight ran so long that we stopped for the night before healing up.)

Session 16: Big Money! Big Prizes! I Love It!

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

The next "day" the party heals, rests, and thinks back on their experiences. During the day a Lantern Archon appears. It talks with Orrin about what they'd been doing, then another one appears and the two celestial messengers confer. They disappear for a bit. When they come back, they give the party a pack filled with goodies: some potions, two scrolls of a new spell named GNUSTO, a magical weapon or two, and some other stuff.

Bolstered by their new equipment, the party heads back to the south. In a storage room they find a beaten and tied-up cleric. After freeing him, they learn that he was captured by the troglodytes and was abandoned here. Also, he was sent into the dungeon 10 years before they were, but is not 10 years older than the rest of the party...

Continuing on through a ton of corridors, they find a secret door. They head on through to a trapped door. After disarming and opening the door, they get beat up by the lightning trap on the doorway. They can see that inside is an armory of sorts. A few shocks later and the party gives up on the doorway for the night. They head back to the room where the priest was held captive and run into a pair of wandering trogs. A Color Spray and mighty whacking later, the trogs are defeated without even getting an attack.

They head back to their sanctuary room and rest for the night. Using some pearls provided by the Archons, they Identify an amulet, short sword, and ring.