The party consists of 6 fifth-level adventurers: GIMLIT SON OF GROIN (dwarf fighter), ST.JOHN WILDBLADDER III (human paladin), BELWINA (human female ranger), KRANOVAL (half-elf magic-user), THE BISHOP OF BATHENWELLS (human cleric) and FRITO BUGGER (hobbit thief). The party was still carrying the dead and somewhat scorched bodies of FIDO and KOBBE.
The party camped for the night in the priest's welcome room and recovered from the toils of the day. Morning came, and now fully rested, the party decided to carry on exploring the burial halls.
The party examined the "exploding secret door" and as it had closed they didn't want to risk opening it again. Led by Gimlit and Wildbladder, they peeked into the "skull room".
They decided that skeletons would appear every second turn, as long as they were in the room, so the pushed in Wildbladder to test their theory. Wildbladder entered and four skeletons appeared out of the skull.
The party rushed into the room. The Bishop of Bathenwells elbowed his way to the front of the party, he pulled out his Holy Symbol and cried out "Flee before the power of LAW, foul undead things of Chaos!". Only two of the skeletons were dissipated, the remaining two attacked Wildbladder!
As planned, the party fled from the room via the opposite door, leaving Gimlit and Bathenwells supported by Belwina as a rearguard to block the passageway.
While the rearguard were fighting the skeletons, Frito, Kranoval and Wildbladder turned right down another passageway which came to a door. Gimlit used his thieving skills to listen at the door, through which he could hear a confused mumbling.
So without waiting for the rearguard to catch up, Frito opened the door to find a 70ft long room containing 10 zombies and a red glow at the far end of the room.
Just in the nick of time, Bathenwells caught up and for a second time pulled out his Holy Symbol and cried out "Flee before the power of LAW, foul undead things of Chaos!". And somewhat to his surprise, all 10 of the zombies were dissipated.
Without waiting to see what happened, Kranoval the magic-user rushed into the room with Frito and Wildbladder following behind. As Kranoval approached the glow, a fiery Red Devil appeared and attacked the approaching Kranoval.
Kranoval was in trouble, and the rest of the party rushed in to his aid. Frito sneaked behind the Red Devil and back-stabbed. Frito was using his Hellfire Dagger which immediately got the Red Devil's attention, it turned immediately and concentrated all its efforts on the hobbit.They was a lucky stroke, as it gave the seriously wounded Kranoval a breathing space. Belwina wisely stayed out of the melee (not having a weapon that could damage a devil), instead choosing to use her magic arrow. After a hard fight, the Red Devil was defeated.
When the party examined the red glow at the far end of the room, they found it surrounded a hidden door leading to a stairway downwards.
The stairway and a winding passage led to a room 40ft square in the middle of which was a 20ft diameter sinkhole. The floor and walls were covered with bat guano. Faint rays of light hit the floor, as the sinkhole goes both up to the surface and down deeper into the earth.
There were two passageways leading out of the room as well as a second set of stairs leading up. The Bishop thought that the second set of stair would lead up to the secret door and pit trap that they had previously encountered.
As they party went across the room and up the other stairs they were attacked from behind by 4 stirges.
Having defeated the stirges, the party continued up the stairs, followed the passageway, and discovered that Bathenwells had guessed correctly; they arrived at the secret door and pit trap that they had previously encountered.
The party retraced their footsteps back to the sinkhole, where this time the encountered a swarm of bats.
The party checked down the right-hand passageway. There they came upon two rockfalls partly blocking their passage. Gimlit examined the rock and could determine that these were actually "man-made" and not natural like the other party members had assumed.
So the party returned to the left- hand passageway instead. Frito listened and heard a noise that he had heard many times before: the sound of rats!
So the party rushed in. The room was long and narrow, the rats' nest was made of rotted clothing, straw and fungus. There were eight giant rats.
Alerted by the noise of the fight and the dying, a group of wererats rushed in from another room! The wererats were much tougher opponents.
Alerted by the noise of the fight and her dying servants, Quintessa Moonfall a female evil cleric appeared.
Quintessa waited for her servants to attack, and once the attack was finished she called "Darkness". The whole room was filled with a magic pitch black darkness. The party couldn't see their foes, but Bathenwells cast a light spell which dispelled the darkness.
Kranoval took out his wand of lightning, pointed it at Quintessa, and a bolt of lightning hit her doing great damage. It also sizzled a wererat on the way there. She was obviously not happy, pointed her finger back at Kranoval and cried "Wound".
Taking advantage of the hole created by the lightning bolt, Belwina rushed through and attacked Quintessa. Frito copied Belwina and rushed past the wererats to attack the severely wounded Quintessa from behind.
Frito stabbed Quintessa from behind, and she immediately vanished into thin air with a "wooosh" leaving all her clothes and possessions behind falling into a heap on the floor.
The fight was won but the party were in a sorry state and decided that they must retreat from the dungeon to recover, but first they looked for treasure.
The party searched the rats' nest, the rooms of the wererats and Quintessa Moonfall. They found two cleric scrolls and a +1 longsword in a bejewelled scabbard worth 100 gp. The priestess was wearing a necklace worth 100 gp and in her room were temple decorations worth 500 gp. Additionally 200 gp worth of assorted coins and gems was found throughout these rooms.
The party exited the dungeon via the second set of stairs, thus avoiding summoning any skeletons in the skull room. They rested and recuperated by camping yet again in the priest's welcome room.
Great review as always!
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