Game Session Fifteen

Game session Fifteen: Saturday May 18, 2002

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The game session started the morning of Reaping 15, 3080 YE. The party was in the orc barracks fully healed up. They had just finished clearing the upper level of orcs.

After spending several days haling back up from the mauling they had taken from the ogre, Great Ulfe and his pet wolves the party re-checked the upper level to make sure they didn't miss anything. They found the place empty of life. Deciding to seek the lower levels of Khundrukar they headed towards the grand stairway cut into the floor of the chamber where Corian and Moopo died.

The narrow crevasse wound down a long ways, twisting and turning. The floor had been cut into hundreds of shallow steps but the walls and ceiling were still natural rock. About 60 feet down there was a rushing stream that spilled down from a narrow crack on the left and crossed the stairway, disappearing into a narrow tunnel to the right. The party carefully crossed the stream and continued on to where the fissure opened abruptly into a very high cavern. The stairway continued to wind downward, descending along a ledge in the north wall. They could see a fast moving stream about 5 foot wide running across the floor of the chamber and disappear under a low stone overhang to the south. Larger passageways exited to the southeast and the northeast.

As the party descended the stairway the light from the sunrod carried by Flairian revealed dark forms hanging from the ceiling far overhead. As the party looked up the dark forms dropped and spread out their wings - stirges! Alerted to the danger they quickly lifted up their bows and managed to shoot the blood suckers out of the air before they could close. As the party reached the bottom of the stairs they looked about the chamber and decided to head to the northeast passage.

Travelling along the natural rock passage they soon entered another chamber that held several smaller passages that lead off in various directions. To the north was a 10 foot square-mouthed tunnel that was obviously made by someone (or something). At the back of the chamber they also spotted a strong gate of rough-hewn timber that blocked off another area. While they were looking they were surprised by a javelin that came from the south. Quickly scanning the area they saw a fierce-looking, scaly-skinned humanoid about 30 feet away. They also spotted another by the timber gate. The one to the south gave out a horse cry and charged while the one at the gate moved towards it.

They concentrated missile fire first on the one charging them, quickly bringing him down. As they were doing this the other creature managed to open the wooden gate before also being downed by arrows. As the party watched out of the timber gate stomped a large brown bear. The animal started moving towards them with claws out. Cebo and Rhino moved to the front to combat the bear, after all it was only a bear right?

Before Cebo or Rhino could get an attack in the bear managed to hit Cebo with both claws and his viscous bite, not only doing great damage but also grabbing poor Cebo and crushing him to his great bear chest. The rest of the party tried to hit the bear with arrows, angering him even more. As Cebo struggled to free himself the bear again raked his claws into Cebo bringing him to negative hit points. As the bear threw the lifeless body of Cebo to the side like an old rag doll the rest of the party started to realize that maybe this bear wasn't going to be such a pushover after all.

Rhino bravely stood fast and traded blows with bear, taking tremendous amounts of damage from it's claws but managing to not be grappled like Cebo was, Ulfgar and Flairian continued to shoot arrows into the bear as Moss ran around the bear to Cebo and gifted him with a cure light wounds spell. Cebo now was standing but with only a precious few hit points. Rhino was in trouble, one more attack from the bear would probably kill him outright. Cebo decided to give his all and charged the bear from the rear with his greataxe. Luckily for all involved his strike was enough to kill the bear.

Now the party was in a quandary. Two of their most powerful fighters were sorely wounded and the had few potions or other healing magic to restore them to full health. They decided to look for a place to hole up for a while. After checking out the bear's den they looked at the worked tunnel to the north and discovered that it led, after about 500 ft, to the outside of the dungeon. Here they spent two full days resting and healing.

Re-entering the dwarven stronghold again the party checked out the tunnels leading to the south. Eventually they came to a great cavern that extended almost 200 feet in length. The ceiling glimmered with a faint phosphorescence almost 50 feet overhead and the glow from Flairian's Sunrod struck dazzling glints from the bright flecks and gleaning stone structures in the distance. There were patches of strange fungi dotting the floor, including some capped stalks standing as tall as a human and glowing puffballs almost a yard wide. Bright crystals glimmered softly in the eerie light of the fungus. Weird, beautiful flows and structures of delicate stone graced the chamber.

From the entrance they could see high ledges, 15 to 20 feet, rising above the floor on the north, south and western walls. A narrow passageway could be seen leading off to the south. A flight of carved stone stairs descended from the western ledge to a path that meandered through the center of the cavern toward a small, iron door in the eastern wall. The entire chamber sighed with a soft, cool breeze that rose toward the surface far above.

The party was nervous about entering a cavern full of strange, glowing fungi, but they carefully made there way past the large stalks and glowing puffballs until they reached the path. From, the path they headed to the west, towards the glittering structures they saw. Climbing the carved stone stairs they reached the top of the 20 foot high ledge. At the top they could see dozens of large stone sepulchers lining the cavern walls, each carved with intricate relief's and designs. Dwarven runes marked each one. They also saw a passageway leading to the north and what looked to be a stone wall made of loose rubble and mud wattle.

Checking out the sepulchers the party counted twenty-three of them arranged on this upper ledge. The lids were all carved in the likeness of grim dwarves in armor. There were dwarf runes on the front of each tomb that proclaimed the occupants name and the names of his ancestors. Empty space below the name looked to be reserved to record the dwarf's deeds and manner of death, on most of the tombs this space was blank. Finally, dire dwarf curses threatened doom and retribution on any who dared to defile the "Honorable Dead". The adventurers found only three tombs that had names with how the occupants died on them.

These three sepulchers were those of Borgol the Old, Gharin Orc-Doom, and Numik the Unlucky. Each listed a date of death and described each ones fate. Borgol died of old age, Gharin died in battle, and Numik was killed by molten iron in a forge accident. The party first pushed the lid off one of the unmarked sepulchers, finding it empty, as expected.

Then, ignoring the dwarven curses, they open the three marked tombs. Each contained the bones of the aforementioned dwarves and each had little in the way of wealth buried with them. The group did managed to find a gold ring and a masterwork warhammer that bore Durgeddin's smith mark.

They next checked out the stone wall, obviously not made by dwarven craftsmen. The rough stone wall was fairly easy to break through and lead to a pool of cold water about 20 feet across. A stream entered the pool from the north and exited the pool to the south. They could see a large cavern to the north and a narrow passage that followed the stream to the south. The party figured that the stream was the same as they first saw when they entered the lower caverns and they decided to head to the first cavern they entered and see where the stream entered rather than swimming across the pool. So, backing out they took the northern passage out of the dwarven graveyard to the chamber where the stairs from above led to.

Checking out the low overhang where the stream went to the south they could see that there was an opening about three feet tall, half filled with the stream, plenty of room if they were to crouch or crawl through. Moss also spotted numerous footprints that seemed to be reptilian or bird-like, similar to the creatures they fought outside the bear den. So working up their courage they went through the opening one at a time with Cebo going first.

Once beyond the cold, swift stream Cebo emerged into a large cavern, followed by Moss, then Rhino. They could feel that the ceiling was far overhead and the end of the cavern lost in darkness. There was a foul stench that they noticed immediately. Something, or someone, definitely was living here; the remnants of butchered game animals were hanging from crude wooden frames along the cavern walls, there was also a couple orc corpses dressed out in the same fashion. As Cebo and Moss were looking around and Rhino was climbing out of the stream two scaly skinned creatures attacked with javelins. The one closest was giving off a fearsome stench that caused Rhino to become weakened by nausea. The adventurers quickly dispatched the two creatures and they were soon joined by Flairian and Ulfgar. Searching the cavern they saw that it was indeed the same they saw from the pool earlier. They also found crude door made of mud and wattle along the eastern edge of the cavern.

Gathering all together they opened the door and looked in on a warren of low tunnels. The air was thick with the stench of the creatures and the floor was littered with refuse and gnawed bones. They could hear scrapes and hisses in the darkness of the twisty tunnels. As they entered the tunnels they were quickly attacked from several directions at once. Hampered by not being able to use longbows in such cramped spaces they started hacking at the creatures. One of the creatures ran off down a side tunnel. As they were just about finishing off the creatures they were startled by a large lizard that came from a side tunnel and attacked. They were even more surprised when an invisible attacker launched an attack against them and then started throwing spells.

The party concentrated all their attacks on the magic using creature and quickly brought him down, followed almost as quickly by his lizard. Scouting the rest of the tunnels they discovered a "hatchery" of the creatures guarded by some females along with two dozen young creatures. Moss and Cebo quickly cut down the females and young, cleansing the warren of any creatures. They also discovered the chamber of what was obviously the leader and found a battered old wooden chest filled with silver along with a ruby.

Tired after battle the party retreated out of the stronghold using the tunnel they had found.

The game ended here on Reaping 19, 3080 YE. With the party outside the dungeon at the end of the orc tunnel.

Link to Next Session:

Unanswered Questions:

• You have found another of the fabled master work weapons made by Durgeddin the Black, Surely there are more weapons to be found?
• This was supposed to be a dwarven stronghold but so far you have found no forges. Where are they?
• What's behind the iron door in the cavern with the fungus?

Session Fifteen Experience

Page Last Updated Wednesday, June 19, 2002