When a fella has spent the previous week reviewing the potential ways the party could jaquays the dungeon, it should seem almost a certainty that party is not leaving the room they’re in. Or so seemed the case with this latest session. This is, in many ways, kinda perfect. This dungeon is so dense you could likely spend three hours playing in two rooms and still come away without finding all of the hidden parts.
Oh, and there was fighting. After the a successful luck and find traps check, þordis found a secret door she thought she had seen before. While I didn’t explain what the luck check was for, the party did in fact discover a crypt-like room with an empty sarcophogus. No instant death traps or horrible curses. Sounds boring, right? Fortunately, the action picked up from there.
The party, while off to explore a room that Poundfoolish had reported contained a puppy in a cage (like, the cutest little guy you’ve ever seen), ran into a Minion of Set. After I believe a failed attempt by þordis to parlay with the demon spawn, combat ensued.
As to be expected in DCC, when Nicklaus cast his first spell, the formidable scorching ray, he fumbled and lost it. And his misfire extinguished all torches in a large area, which meant the party was suddenly battling in darkness. But he didn’t earn a corruption, which is probably a good thing.
In spite of all of this the party defeated the demon. But moments after, the skeletons and zombies that Stacia had turned in the previous session were back and ready to resume their undead day jobs. Stacia turned more of them while others were reduced from undead to dead dead. The fight soon lead into the room to the north.
The room contained the cage with the puppy. The party observed four scale mail wearing brutes brandishing morning stars. After they ran into the room, they discovered that was only half of the veteran warriors guarding the sleeping pooch. A surprise attack followed, and this is where the swingy nature of the game presented itself, because Nicklaus cast Sleep and knocked out several of them. From zero to hero! He cast Sleep successfully at least a couple of times and handled crowd control like a pro.
A few more frantic rounds later, the party had either killed or magically put their enemies to sleep. Which is where the events of the evening ended, just a few feet from where they began. I know I’m leaving out some action, but there was a lot of it and I don’t take many notes. But I am relieved that this session’s research won’t be wasted, since next session we’re starting almost exactly where we started. So I’ll be ready for wherever they end up going next. Probably. Maybe?
Oh, one last thing- there was a notably absence last week that no one in the party made note of. More on that next time.
