Finally, a dungeon. But not just any dungeon, the 2nd level of a dungeon. A dungeon that under normal circumstances would not be where the party normally would find itself on the 3rd session. I gave them their first handout of the campaign, and it was the 10th handout. In the name of full transparency, I will admit that I did forget to give them one handout, a menu for the Inn. But in all fairness, the party made a hasty retreat when a lady of the night started flirting with the dwarf. But it still means 8 other handouts, while not guaranteed or totally linear in distribution, before that one.
Suffice it to say, this was a dangerous dungeon. And hasty retreats were the order of the night. Which also means death was avoided by all players, even if only by the hair of Stacia’s divine teeth. If there is one thing DCC does not discourage, it’s running the fuck away. Many fine soldiers (and grimy murder hobos) lived to fight another day by knowing when to flee.
We resumed where we left off- in a jail cell. Which is what historically dungeons are primarily known for containing, yet we all know the best dungeons have giant pools of glowing skulls in them as well. The party had begun parlaying with the suave-as-Billy-Dee-Williams Ishpemo the Terrible. Maybe he’s nicknamed “the Terrible” for the same reason large fellas are called “Tiny.” What’s kind of funny is I tried to find a person to draw inspiration from when I role-played him, and I thought of Liam Neeson. But in the middle of the session, I looked him up in the Appendix C section where more detailed descriptions of NPCs are, and realized he has more Lionel Ritchie look to him. Although as I write this, I also think he looks a bit of a Phil Lynott look to him, which gets him back to being Irish and aligning with my head-canon.
Ishpemo tells the party that he wants to get out of the village, and he thinks that they can help him finally escape. He believes this party, which had some serious firepower on them in the form of armor and magic weapons, can help him fight his way out. Ish said he plied information from Merth the Sheriff over drinks after he dropped the prisoners off. For Ish has a stash of wine laced with giantish wine (which I think is like fermented ketamine). Merth revealed he had found the Fang of Set on the party, and he was not going to turn it in as was his duty to Aphris. It spoke to him. Ish also told the party he help the sword and it talked to him. He asked the party “if you are enemies of Set, why would you wield such a weapon?” The party sagely responded (and it wasn’t the whole party, it was Stacia I think or at least David but you get the point) that they were here to destroy the sword. Ish accepted this answer and told the party they should rest. He gave Merth a bottle of the drugged wine and he’d be incapacitated for a while.
The party rested, allowing Nicklaus to regain all of his spells and folks to lick their wounds. When they awoke they found Ishpemo’s fellow guard, Midod the Filthy, stooped in the corner, sitting in a pool of his own blood. Ish told the party he had to kill Midod, that he could not be trusted. The party also found that all of the other prisoners were heavily drugged to the point of incapacitation as well. Ish assured them that they were safer this way, and that a bunch of filthy nomads would be no good to them in a fight.
Whoops! I published this too soon. And I don’t think there is an easy way to unpublish it. So live with the typos, and check back later when I finish off the following sections:
The Water Elemental!
With Ishpemo the Mustachioed in tow, the party left the prison cells and out the only known exit. Down a hall over a hundred feet long, the party passed a stairway going down. While Ish explained that was the direction their magic items were, he discouraged going deeper into the dungeon. He had only a vague sense of the right path, and he was sure he never went deeper. The current dungeon level was deep enough as far as he was concerned. Having been blindfolded entering and leaving the dungeon, he had few exact details but he knew the dungeon was dangerous.
After passing the stairs, the party found itself in a large, humid chamber with a pool in the center, filled with silver and copper coins. Ish remembered moving along the walls and cautioned against getting too close to the water. As the party crept along, þordis boldly investigated. She inched to the pool’s edge. When she finally reached it, a water elemental emerged and slam attached her!
þordis then did the highly improbable- rolled a natural 20 on her strength test with the water elemental. Only a natural 20 would have succeeded, and she did it with some acrobatic maneuvering. Combat ensued, and the elemental was cut down with two commanding long sword strikes by the hirsute heartthrob, Ishpemo.
The Secret door and the hallway to a ROOM FULL OF NIGHTMARES!
After the party stuffed their pockets with silver, þordis discovered a secret door at the end of the chamber. The party went down the narrow hallway beyond it. At the end of the hallway another secret door was found. A careless opening of the door revealed horrors. The large statue of a jackal was poised above an altar. A congregation was gathered, with both humans and demonic horrors in attendance. A hasty retreat was made, and the hope that they closed the door without being seen.
That hope was soon dashed when the door to the evil temple was starting to open. The party pushed it shut, and Calvert went full-on dwarf stonemason by driving a piton into the base of the door. The party then fled back down the hall and out the chamber and into another chamber.
Here is where I got to hand the party their first handout. It showed the large precarious columns of stone that occupied the long chamber.
Also there were 3 hill giants playing dice at the far end.
With the scars of their encounter with an angry stone giant still running deep, the party agreed on one thing- don’t mess with giants. Instead a stair way going up was found! All they needed to do was sneak over to the stairs without the giants seeing them. And this was the point where I think Nicklaus secured the MVP for the night.
A good character defies expectations, does the unexpected. And did the resident wizard, known perhaps more for his polearm than his magic, do the incredible- make two of the least popular spells of all time kick some unexpected ass. Nicklaus made Ventriloquism and Comprehend Languages work together that reminds me that even this game, this often ridiculous d&d offspring, is more than just combat.
First he snuck up on the distracted giants. After realizing they were speaking in their native tongue of giantish, he rolled high on his spell check to comprehend. He then moved on to his next spell, Ventriloquism. That’s right, Ventriloquism. They’re called, illusions, Michael. Again he successfully rolled high enough to imitate one giant and started calling another giant a cheater. This worked as expect, and the giants began fighting each other. During this fracas the party took the opportunity to creep up the stairs.
If one thing was starting to seem very clear, each of these rooms seemed to be occupied by something awful. The same could be said about the room they ascended to on the first level. It was filled wall-to-wall with undead. Much like the earlier attempt to sneak to the edge of the pool unnoticed, þordis tried to sneak toward the passage just to the right of them, but to no avail. The cadre of zombies and skeletons were immediately triggered, and I had the pleasure of reminded David that clerics could turn undead. Turning undead looks so cool on paper. It’s one of the reasons why my first ever AD&D character was a cleric. Me, aged 11: “He get’s to wear armor, cast spells, and, well can’t use a sword for weird religious reasons (as a catholic that made perfect sense to me for reasons I couldn’t explain) but he gets this awesome looking thing called a mace! Oh, and he can TURN UNDEAD! Sign me up!” If only turning undead happened more often. In many ways it’s just another sad reminder of wy the cleric is almost always the bridesmaid and seldom the bride.
But this wasn’t one of those occasions.
Oh no. Stacia was going to turn some undead.
And turn some undead she did! With one solid roll, 10 of the 30 skeletons ran off in terror of this Mitraic warrior (which reminds me, David, I think you may have had more bonuses with that roll since these dudes were clearly in league with Set). Nicklaus was not to be outdone for party MVP, and had a critical success with Flaming Hands. He atomized one zombie and blasted some holes into two others. Soon the whole party was fighting. The skeletons proved to be soft targets and Stacia turned even more of the more formidable zombies. Before long, the party had prevailed. And the time ran up for our game night.
It was quite an evening. The party, now in level 1 of dungeon, will have to find their way out as they seek Merth the Sheriff who has the Fang of Set and Kthüü, Birmzy the Trixter’s very neutral sword.
