Not wanting to be left out, here's my groups accounting for their first night in the WLD:
The party entered the dungeon and carefully scouted the first room. After finding nothing of interest, they opened the door to the north and heard a cough come from their right. The fighter threw caution to the wind and charged straight at the source of the noise. The rest of the party followed close behind.
Before the orcs could react, the bard shot one (critical hit), and dropped him. The others, now outnumbered 3 to 1, dropped their weapons and accepted whatever fate was to befall them. The wizard and druid both chastised the party for attacking something that couldn’t harm us, and began trying to talk to the remaining orcs. They got some basic info out of the orcs, and left some food for them. They then headed directly to the trapped door to push deeper into the dungeon.
With no rogue in the party (yeah, I’m a bit worried about that to), they got caught in the trap. The orcs chuckled, but most of the party pushed on. The fighter who originally led the charge stayed behind to make sure the orcs didn’t follow. Which he did…by killing them, no one else in the party knew this.
They found the secret door to the room full of dead lizards and kobolds. The fighter was able to withstand the stench, but the gnome wizard who went in with him rolled a 1 on the check. So, I had him retching from the stench, and had to make a second fort check to regain composure and get out of the room.
They went through the north door, (not having found the other secret door yet), and found the moldy crates, etc. Immediately they marched up to them and started ripping them open, releasing the black mold. Everyone made their saves, but they became a bit more cautious with the rest. They tied an iron spike to a rope, and began tossing it at the sacks and crates breaking them open and releasing the spores from a distance, planning to search the crates after it was safe.
And then everything went black. All the noise had attracted two dark mantles. Here’s where we came up with an inventive way to handle the darkness. I have a rather large cylinder, about exactly the same area as a darkness spell. We put it down over the area, everyone in the darkness tells me what they’re doing, and then we lift the cylinder up and see if they run into each other, or if they’re attacking their friends, etc. Amazingly, all accidental damage occurred outside the darkness.
The dwarf fighter took 6 points of damage from the first attack, and managed to pull it off his face. He lost control of it the next round and it flew back into the darkness. The other fighter caught the second one full in the face (5 pts), and stumbled backwards out of the darkness.
The druid tried to help the fighter by stabbing it with her dagger. She rolled a 2, (I ruled 1 or 2 would hit him instead), so she nicked him for 2 pts.
The one in the darkness had now glommed on to the bard, and dropped him (took him down to -1). The druid went to help, and …. rolled a 1 again. So, now he’s down to -6. The mage tried to kick it (also rolled a 1, but only 1 damage) -7. The fighter who had just pulled the squid of his face had it fly back into the darkness, took his chance to remove the one from the now unconscious bard. (It took 6 pts of damage). The wounded mantle began fleeing down the hall, and the other one flew at the dwarf, which rolled a critical hit with his axe. The darkness dropped, and the human fighter charged the fleeing darkmantle and managed to take it out with out any more damage. The druid healed the bard, and the wizard decided to finish mapping the room. He poked his head around a corner, and found the acid arrow trap. Thankfully some people made their listen check, and managed to pull him back.
With everyone taking so much of a beating from an encounter and trap, they decided to rest here. During which time they experienced two tremors, and heard the acid arrow trap go off again.
When they went to investigate, they found the body of one of the orcs from the first room. (Started going with the zombie scenario, but they haven’t figured that out yet). The acid trap finished him off. The staked a board from the crates to the wall to block any more arrows coming down the hall at them, and made their way towards the south door. They found the stone working tools and took a couple, just in case. They then found the secret door (since the knew the orc had to get here somehow), and thanks to some chalk marks the druid had been leaving, figured out that they had made a circle (even though the map wasn’t quite to scale originally).
Deciding it isn’t worth facing the firetrap again, they decide to brave the morgue again. Most of the party makes it through with little problem. The mage starts retching, again (I might give him a disorder because he rolled a 1 both times). Since the bard wasn’t having a problem with the smell, he decided to search the bodies, and found a lovely case of filth fever.
Making their way back into the second room, they find another orc dead at the firetrap with a squid around his head.
Continuing on to the door to the east (north of the two) they head in. Search the room and the corpse within, then push into the next room. At this point they’ve started checking the ceilings. A search from the door way had the wizard spot the darkmantle. The bard and dwarf take up positions in the door planning to drop it with their bows.
Initiative went Dwarf, Darkmantle, Bard. The dwarf forgot to load his crossbow (rolled a 1), the darkmantle darkened the doorway, and the bard missed with his shot.
The dwarf charged in to push through the darkness, the darkmantle missed him, and hit the floor where he was standing. The human fighter, missed with his attacks. The mantle flew up at the human fighter and missed, but the fighter took another attack next round, and missed himself. The darkmantle flew back at the human, missed, and as it came by, he swung and critically hit it. With the way clear, they took a breather, since it wasn’t as bad as last time, then pushed on.
They listened at the next door, and heard the rats scurrying about. They prepared some flaming oil and peeked in. They saw the large rat watching them from the door across the room. Lobbing some flaming oil at it, it turned and ran. The fighter tried to leap the flames and… failed. Horribly. Luckily the only damage was some minor burns, a singed bed roll, and a little less pride.
The fire burnt out and they rounded the corner. This time, the lob was a critical hit, and it did enough damage to everything to kill the large rat, and scatter the remaining swarm. The continued mapping up to the orc latrine, and there’s where we finished for the night.
