Session 14: November 28th, 2011: Computer Science Class

Our intrepid party returned to school this week for a refreshing review of the depth-first search.

First, we went into the rightmost path. We came to a room with two exits, of which we took the rightmost. From there, another room, this time with 4 exits and many goblins armed with rifles. A brief skirmish, in which we killed 2, captured 1, and 2 got away. We decided to continue down the rightmost exit.

At length, we came to a dead end. We went back up the path to the first branch, and took the next-rightmost path. And so on, until we came at last to a hellhound, which we summarily destroyed.

Our goblin prisoner, naked and frightened, managed to slip away in the skirmish, but we gave chase and, thanks to an excellent rifle-shot after a long run by our Wizard, took him down.

--

Monsters slain: hellhound (300 XP) & 6 goblins (125 XP each) = 1050

Session 13: Undead Haroran, Colter Slain

Broken elevator going down.

Reached the room with the elevator going up. Discovered. Several members of the House of Five Blades (one was Colter, the other was new; both were disguised by illusion as members of the younger generation of the Circle of Orin: Colter was disguised as Hep'ztar and the other unknown NPC was disguised as Vira). They also had a shrouded undead servant on a chain. When the PCs entered the room, Colter and Friends were killing some miners just as the elevator was coming to rest.

Battle was joined. The shrouded undead turned out to be the animated corpse of the PCs former mentor Haroran, who summoned two more undead. Colter was slain relatively early on, and the other disguised NPC managed to escape up the elevator. A bubbling red potion was left in the elevator mechanism. After a while, the potion detonated, vaporizing some of the hydraulic mechanism within the elevator (and several PC wineskins), bringing the elevator to a halt.

The undead Haroran was forced into a corner and defeated after a gruelling melee.

The dwarf then managed to cut the metal cables in the elevator mechanism box, causing the platform to fall back to the chamber, along with coils of metal cable. No sign was seen of the other NPC.

Session 12: Black Staff, Stirges, Mines

Robed skeletons and mummified remains cleared.

Dead figure at bottom of pile found crouching of 4-section black staff. Staff radiated powerful demonic magic. Under figure was large metal trap door.

Inside trap door was naturally mummified human that looks like he was sealed in alive. There was also a steel box with dwarven treasure: magically obscured map, ceremonial hand-axe, 10 dwarven books (very thing stone sheets bound with mithril rings), and 300 ancient dwarven gold coins.

Party examine room and debated what to do for some time. They discovered that the staff could be disassembled into sections, and that each time a section was removed, the staff as a whole seemed to diminish in dark power. The staff sections are now carried by Berrian, Ramuh, Ashen, and Hep'ztar. The party took several sacks worth of precious metal grave goods and the dwarven books, which seemed to be particularly prized by Vira as she is a cleric of knowledge.

There was a buzzing in the outer crypt room. The party investigated and found a single stirge, which had been drinking at the blood basin. They chased it and slew it.

The party then decided that they had accomplished their brief and should return to the surface. The returned to the connection between the tomb and the mines, to discover that several miners had been killed and dragged several hundred feet away deeper into the mine. The PCs followed this passage through several rooms and ultimately came to a dead end. They also discovered a natural cavern with a fish pool down this way. The returned and the went the other way, back the way they originally came when they were escorted by the miners to the tomb. They fought off a small swarm of stirges while in this tunnel.

Monster experience: 10 stirges = 1000 XP / 6 = 166

Present: Karen, Mark, Dennis, Alex, Danny, Michael (? I think so)