A party without magic items in a dungeon filled with demons and undead is definitely bad news. It’s actually a little impressive that this party has managed to survive under such circumstances for four sessions. The peril continues to mount and it will be interesting to see how long they can manage under such hostile conditions. But it isn’t all bad, at least the party now has a cute puppy. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
The session began in combat. With several of the mercenaries guarding a sleeping puppy dead and several more asleep due to Nicklaus’s wizardly ways, it was clear that there was only some clean up left. The one standing guard dropped his morning star and surrendered and the remaining were tied up. Then with acrobatic aplomb, þordis vaulted off the back of Stacia and up to the cage suspended from the ceiling. After a masterful lock picking roll, the cage was opened and the puppy was freed. “Freed” may be a bit of an exaggeration, for the puppy was still stone cold asleep. And nothing the party could do could seem to rouse it from its adorable slumber. þordis fashioned a Baby Björn-like sling to carry the pooch and the party, after discovering nothing else of interest in the room, went back to the room where we started the previous session.
Unfortunately, the party found itself face to face with another Minion of Set. As the fighting began, Ishpemo the Terrible reappeared and joined the melee. Nicklaus summoned a bear and a badger as it was one of the only spells he hadn’t lost yet. Poundfoolish resumed being a whirling dervish of destruction by arming himself with short swords from the fallen skeleton warriors. þordis took to the shadows for backstab opportunities. Calvert tried to mighty deed the Minion to the ground, but then watched as Poundfoolish did it with a well-timed crit.
The Minion of Set then decided it was time to go full snake and polymorphed into a giant boa constrictor. Soon most of the party was ensnared by the beast, who was crushing them for good measure. Nicklaus, for umpteenth time, hit zero hit points. I imagine at this point Nicklaus has a relationship with Death not unlike the one Rincewind had in the Colour of Magic: always waiting nearby and slightly annoyed with the wizard when he manages to narrowly escape his clutches. But Ishpemo slashed the head off the demon and Nicklaus was revived, albeit with a smashed groin derived from the Rolland Wound Table (which probably deserves a post of its own). I am not sure if the alternate Wound Table is a blessing or a curse for Nick- I am pretty sure he’d have reached permadeath by now if we followed the rules-as-written on hitting 0 hp, which is to lose a point of Stamina.
Ishpemo warned the party to make haste, as it was clear that they were being pursued and they didn’t have long before another Minion of Set or worse found them. The party then proceeded westward down a hall that they knew contained at least one secret door.
They reached an alcove that was guarded by two skeletons wearing bronze plate armor and brandishing imposing great swords. Soon the party found themselves in combat with the fiends. Ishpemo smote one with a single blow, which would prove to be an important detail. For when the rest of the party attacked, they soon found anything less than 6 hp of damage would cause the skeleton to duplicate itself!
A mirror in the south wall of the alcove proved to be the key to a swift victory. A crossbow bolt from þordis cracked the mirror, causing an eldritch flash like an electric surge. But it remained intact. Nicklaus, taking a break from summoning more animals (he had two badgers now) mounted his bear companion and charged the mirror holding his halberd like a lance. It was a dramatic charge, but only inflicted 1 hp of damage, which failed to shatter the mirror.
More and more skeletons emerged from hits that just couldn’t quite seal the deal. It was quickly becoming a dire situation until Poundfoolish moved to strike the mirror. Rolling a crit and a hit the mirror finally shattered and as its pieces fell the skeletons turned to dust.
Two more secret doors were found in the hallway. In door number one they found another crypt. There were hieroglyphics on the wall but they had been horribly defaced to the point of being indecipherable. It also contained a sarcophagus, but this one was not sealed and its lid was ajar. Poundfoolish opened it with haste and was surprise attacked by a gravewight. The party disposed of it quickly and moved on to door number two.
Door number two was another crypt with a sarcophagus in it. Except this sarcophagus was covered in thick chains and had a wax sigil of a serpent. þordis took her trusty crowbar (for those locks that need a little extra something something) and tried to break the chains. This triggered another surprise attack, except this time it was a gh-gh-gh-ghost! The party soon realized their mundane weapons were just passing through its incorporeal form. Ishpemo, after watching his longsword pass through the apparition, retreated from the crypt.
The rest of the party learned that the attacks of this undead drained physical attributes. Stacia tried twice to turn the ghost, but failed to summon the might of Mitra to do so. It is at the perilous point in the party’s journey that our session ran out of time. Will the party survive the encounter? Will Stacia be able to turn the ghost before it reduces their physical stats to nothing? We’ll find out next time!
