Post by Dungeon Master on Nov 2, 2016 11:41:32 GMT -8
Session 28 - (17th October).
Having rested (and with Seven Underhill and Skeeter in attendance... players too, not just their characters tagging along without taking too many risks), the group chose to reinvestigate the demon thing.
Knowledge checks were made, by two additional players, and the party ascertained that most of its' abilities could be countered, but its aura would prove to be insurmountable at this level of prowess/experience. Seven, decided that he too would be coming back to slay the thing.
The branch in the hallway (to the west) lead to the approach of the Bandit area that had not been investigated previously. It also lead to a secret door, that while easily found by Spion (this time) had not been even approached previously. The passage lead to a series of hallways, another set of the doors that could only be opened one at a time and a pit trap, that was a slight chute angling to the east.
.... [Swap the chute point of egress, with the misinterpreted/poorly labelled map destination, and everywhere can be travelled to, plus its an even more unique experience than others who run the same level] ....
The party returned to town, and spent a while having armor reforged and creating consumable potions or scrolls.
Attention was turned upon Vorlak, the Ogre, and his hundreds of Kobold... who were mugging people as they left the 'Mouth of Doom' .... "Vorlak smart Ogre. Vorlak take your weapons and stuff, but let you keep your armor. You take weapons from dummer hummies and go back into hole in ground. You come out and Vorlak take more stuff from you. Vorlak let you keep armor, so you live to go back in hole in ground again. Vorlak smart".
The rest of the party was camped about half a mile from the Mouth of Doom, with Spion and Skeeter flying and invisible and later Improved Invisibility (which was a little tricky, as neither has See Invisible to spot the other). Fireballs were thrown, and the Kobolds basically scattered. Vorlak ran down the stairs, into the Mouth of Doom; apparently a scared Ogre is a much faster runner than an angry Drow.
Spion, who could recast Invisibility ended up staying on the surface, near the entrance to the Mouth of Doom, while Skeeter went to fetch the rest of the party. Half an hour later, they descended cautiously into the dungeon. The now very familiar first room and its connections were drawn. Seven was able to track the direction that Vorlak had run, and unfortunately for him that was right onto a pit trap with sharpened stakes at the bottom. Scratch one ogre.
The fortress ruins (upon the surface) were returned to, and the party descended back into the 'Tunnels of Terror', via the bandit lair. Steps were retraced, including ignoring a doorway again, and the party took a passageway that had previously been discovered but unexplored.
This led downwards to a roughly rectangular room, with a smaller room in the South East corner of the larger room, taking up more than a quarter of the space (N-S) and about a quarter of the space (W-E). In front of the room's entrance (on its' north wall) was a very large pit trap. Within the room were three piles of skeletons, with the pieces of five or six distinct corpses in each pile and distributed in such a way that no pile contained the entire bones of one creature. Within the room, is a corpse of a dwarf, with evident corrosion damage to his equipment, from an unknown source. As soon as the door to this room was opened, each of the piles of bones animated into several skeleton creatures and attacked the part. While not a real threat, they were dangeous enough to not be push overs and did take a while to slay.
The rectangular room had a doorway to the north, almost across from the door that led into the smaller room (with the dead dwarf and corroded equipment).
This room was also rectangular shaped, but with N-S being the long side of the rectangle. The South East corner of the room had a passageway that leads to the East and the North East corner also has a passageway leading to the East, but curving slightly to the North as it moves eastward. There was also a door, roughly centered upon the Northern wall. Strangely, the floors and walls of the room were absolutely clean, as sterile as any hospital in the modern world; not a speck of dust or dirt to be found, deep underground within a subterranean dungeon. Spion was first within, the party not that far behind, as he was clearing areas as safe of traps.
An ooze like creature arose from the floor, previously undetected or possibly undetectable... although that is not clear yet. It arose from the floor (similar to the T1000, within the asylum area, in Terminator 2) and decided the Spion would make a fine meal. Each of its attacks inflicted moderate damage, but left behind a massively corrosive gob of acidic goo with the consistency of thick honey. Similarly, most melee attacks resulted in having weapons coated with the goo, which continued to disolve the weapons as the fight continued. Some members of the party thought the goo thing was a Gray Ooze; it was defeated without too much issue, and then weapons were cleaned off and repaired via Astral Repair.
The SE passageway continued to the east and wasn't explored beyond ascertaining that was the direction it led. The NE passageway was also not explored beyond a cursory look.
The doorway to the north lead to a fairly simple maze, except that numerous pit traps were scattered within the maze and many of those were massively large and impossible to bypass short of flying/jumping across.
A secret door was discovered but not taken, and the maze was explored a little deeper. It lead to a jail like area, with a pressure plate on the outside which would cause a porcullis to rise and once pressure was removed that porcullis would fall and lock inside those beyond the porcullis. Spion entered the area and scouted, with one after the other.. party members also walking into the area and having the porcullis trap them within. Finally Seven stopped on the pressure plate and did not advance within. This 'jail' section contained a nearly transparent blob (later identified as a Gelatinous Cube) that moved towards party members simply trying to envelop them. It wasn't too difficult to defeat, and items were once again cleaned and repaired.
The party backtracked to the area where the Bandits had been, specifically the area that had been boarded to cover a metal grate of some kind that had been partially cut by something from down the stairs.
Having rested (and with Seven Underhill and Skeeter in attendance... players too, not just their characters tagging along without taking too many risks), the group chose to reinvestigate the demon thing.
Knowledge checks were made, by two additional players, and the party ascertained that most of its' abilities could be countered, but its aura would prove to be insurmountable at this level of prowess/experience. Seven, decided that he too would be coming back to slay the thing.
The branch in the hallway (to the west) lead to the approach of the Bandit area that had not been investigated previously. It also lead to a secret door, that while easily found by Spion (this time) had not been even approached previously. The passage lead to a series of hallways, another set of the doors that could only be opened one at a time and a pit trap, that was a slight chute angling to the east.
.... [Swap the chute point of egress, with the misinterpreted/poorly labelled map destination, and everywhere can be travelled to, plus its an even more unique experience than others who run the same level] ....
The party returned to town, and spent a while having armor reforged and creating consumable potions or scrolls.
Attention was turned upon Vorlak, the Ogre, and his hundreds of Kobold... who were mugging people as they left the 'Mouth of Doom' .... "Vorlak smart Ogre. Vorlak take your weapons and stuff, but let you keep your armor. You take weapons from dummer hummies and go back into hole in ground. You come out and Vorlak take more stuff from you. Vorlak let you keep armor, so you live to go back in hole in ground again. Vorlak smart".
The rest of the party was camped about half a mile from the Mouth of Doom, with Spion and Skeeter flying and invisible and later Improved Invisibility (which was a little tricky, as neither has See Invisible to spot the other). Fireballs were thrown, and the Kobolds basically scattered. Vorlak ran down the stairs, into the Mouth of Doom; apparently a scared Ogre is a much faster runner than an angry Drow.
Spion, who could recast Invisibility ended up staying on the surface, near the entrance to the Mouth of Doom, while Skeeter went to fetch the rest of the party. Half an hour later, they descended cautiously into the dungeon. The now very familiar first room and its connections were drawn. Seven was able to track the direction that Vorlak had run, and unfortunately for him that was right onto a pit trap with sharpened stakes at the bottom. Scratch one ogre.
The fortress ruins (upon the surface) were returned to, and the party descended back into the 'Tunnels of Terror', via the bandit lair. Steps were retraced, including ignoring a doorway again, and the party took a passageway that had previously been discovered but unexplored.
This led downwards to a roughly rectangular room, with a smaller room in the South East corner of the larger room, taking up more than a quarter of the space (N-S) and about a quarter of the space (W-E). In front of the room's entrance (on its' north wall) was a very large pit trap. Within the room were three piles of skeletons, with the pieces of five or six distinct corpses in each pile and distributed in such a way that no pile contained the entire bones of one creature. Within the room, is a corpse of a dwarf, with evident corrosion damage to his equipment, from an unknown source. As soon as the door to this room was opened, each of the piles of bones animated into several skeleton creatures and attacked the part. While not a real threat, they were dangeous enough to not be push overs and did take a while to slay.
The rectangular room had a doorway to the north, almost across from the door that led into the smaller room (with the dead dwarf and corroded equipment).
This room was also rectangular shaped, but with N-S being the long side of the rectangle. The South East corner of the room had a passageway that leads to the East and the North East corner also has a passageway leading to the East, but curving slightly to the North as it moves eastward. There was also a door, roughly centered upon the Northern wall. Strangely, the floors and walls of the room were absolutely clean, as sterile as any hospital in the modern world; not a speck of dust or dirt to be found, deep underground within a subterranean dungeon. Spion was first within, the party not that far behind, as he was clearing areas as safe of traps.
An ooze like creature arose from the floor, previously undetected or possibly undetectable... although that is not clear yet. It arose from the floor (similar to the T1000, within the asylum area, in Terminator 2) and decided the Spion would make a fine meal. Each of its attacks inflicted moderate damage, but left behind a massively corrosive gob of acidic goo with the consistency of thick honey. Similarly, most melee attacks resulted in having weapons coated with the goo, which continued to disolve the weapons as the fight continued. Some members of the party thought the goo thing was a Gray Ooze; it was defeated without too much issue, and then weapons were cleaned off and repaired via Astral Repair.
The SE passageway continued to the east and wasn't explored beyond ascertaining that was the direction it led. The NE passageway was also not explored beyond a cursory look.
The doorway to the north lead to a fairly simple maze, except that numerous pit traps were scattered within the maze and many of those were massively large and impossible to bypass short of flying/jumping across.
A secret door was discovered but not taken, and the maze was explored a little deeper. It lead to a jail like area, with a pressure plate on the outside which would cause a porcullis to rise and once pressure was removed that porcullis would fall and lock inside those beyond the porcullis. Spion entered the area and scouted, with one after the other.. party members also walking into the area and having the porcullis trap them within. Finally Seven stopped on the pressure plate and did not advance within. This 'jail' section contained a nearly transparent blob (later identified as a Gelatinous Cube) that moved towards party members simply trying to envelop them. It wasn't too difficult to defeat, and items were once again cleaned and repaired.
The party backtracked to the area where the Bandits had been, specifically the area that had been boarded to cover a metal grate of some kind that had been partially cut by something from down the stairs.