The Mysterious Tower - Defeated!

[Ant]

The Mysterious Tower Defeated!

DM’s Foreward

I count myself very fortunate that I get to play in two very different, yet very enjoyable, gaming groups. I’m doubly fortunate in that I have a chance to DM D&D for both groups. The second group (so named only because they formed some time after the first group) is small but, far from being an obstacle, this has opened up a number of opportunities that don’t present themselves in the other group. One such opportunity has been to start up a casual, ‘old school’ campaign of loosely-linked adventures. I unashamedly admit that this campaign (such as it is) focuses far more on hack-and-slash than roleplaying, political intrigue and city adventuring.

I was not willing to sacrifice any time to fully craft my own adventures so Dungeon Crawl Classics was an obvious choice. The players had expressed their concern about getting wiped out at lower character levels (there was an incident with a fiendish dire weasel that was still fresh in one player’s mind) so the consensus was to start the party off at 5th level.
I happened to already own DCC #3 The Mysterious Tower so it appeared that our course was predetermined.

What follows is a most entertaining recount of the complete first adventure of the campaign, wonderfully written by Stephen, one of the players. Careful readers familiar with the original module will note that I couldn’t help myself and added a twist or two of my own. Some of these were even intentional. In particular, I needed to cater for the fact that there was no rogue in the party. Also, I wanted to add orcs. And a big lizard man thing. Just … because.

A big thank you to Stephen for taking the time to put pen to paper, and a very big thank you to Stephen, Mick and Dean for being such amazing players. Finally, I’d like to give special mention to Don, the fifth member and heart of our group, who has not been able to make it to gaming of late but is always there in spirit.

Ant
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The Rogue’s Gallery

Stephen: Mailcon pen Annwn (human male druid 5 -- Unearthed Arcana simple variant allowing for ranger and monk abilities) and Logan (wolverine animal companion)
Mick: Bas (half-orc male barbarian 5)
Dean: Tyrant (human male fighter 5\vindicator of the Storm Coast 2 – the VotSC is a homebrew prestige class)


Character Backgrounds

[DM’s Note: I didn’t actually require character backgrounds for this campaign given its nature. One thing led to another, however, and well, you’ll just have to see for yourself …]

Character Background for Mailcon pen Annwn

In a distant land, a tiny kingdom is gripped in the tyranny of the 3 Storm Lords….

In the mountains bordering that kingdom, a young orphan boy is raised by a grizzled tracker and his wife. The boy, Mailcon, learns to read the trails and spoor of animals but is restless for more. Eventually he leaves to join a travelling caravan that moves between the towns and villages of the kingdom. He learns quickly and soon becomes the master of his own wagon, transporting pork and ham goods from the farms to the towns.

In one coastal town he meets a group of Monks from a land over the seas that have set up a temple here and befriends a young monk named Wing. One day, while visiting, he joins Wing at the wharf of the town awaiting a ship that carries the young monk's bride to be. However, disaster strikes when the followers of the bandit Storm Lord kidnaps her. They also steal Mailcon's wagon.

Mailcon joins the monks on his first adventure as they, with the assistance of a wise elderly mage called Eggerol, raid the Storm Lord's fortress to rescue her. They succeed, but are forced to flee the town in a ship. The weather reflects the Storm Lord's anger however, and Mailcon is washed from the desk of ship into the turbulent water.

The following day he wakes on a tiny beach, miles from the town. Weakly he drags himself to the shelter of a cave and spends a fevered night slowly dying. He is saved, surprisingly enough, by a wild wolverine that appears from nowhere and brings him food that it caught. Over the next few days Mailcon recovers his strength and marvels at his new friendship. After regaining enough strength to travel, he is even more surprised when the wolverine, which he has named Logan, leads him into the mountains.

After many weeks of dodging Storm Lord patrols they eventually reach a cave hidden deep in the mountains. Here they meet a Druid named Obie-Won who reveals to Mailcon his heritage. He is the last of the pen Annwn's. They were a family opposed to the Storm Lords and their undead Lich master King Pan (called the Low Pan in his current state). Although his family was killed by the Lords, Obie-Won convinces Mailcon that is his destiny to oppose the Storm Lords and eventually destroy the Low Pan in his mountain lair.

Mailcon learns the ways of the Druid, gaining in strength and having many adventures with rebels against the Storm Lords. This comes to an end after a few years, when one night, Obie-Won's hideaway is discovered and Mailcon's mentor is slain. His dying words to his young apprentice is to seek out Obie-Won's own master, a Halfling Druid called Ker-Met.
Mailcon vows to do so, and has now left the land of youth, travelling with his loyal friend Logan in far away places. He doesn't know where to find Ker-Met, or even if he still lives, but he continues to look.

(Part of him also wants his wagon back too).

Apologies to any pun-nishing damage caused

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Character Background for Bas

[DM’s Note: Mick is relatively new to RPGs and came from a Battletech background. Mick took to the game (which had adapted a slight tongue-in-cheek nature) like a rust monster to an iron breastplate.]

Further Embellishment on my Character.

Character Name: Balthazar Abdiel Sakti Tahirah Abbán Radhika Dagmar
Just call me “Bas” for short. I'm named after each of my fathers. I have two ailments.

The first, heterochromia iridis, which doesn’t cause too many problems, although when people look at me they do tend to stare.

Secondly I suffer from Rhabdophobia. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Rhabdophobia)
I used to have Amnesiphobia, …………………………………………………………… What was I talking about again?
My last partner (female) suffered from Medorthophobia, which was extremely troublesome for our relationship. She is no longer with us. She died of multiple stab wounds and multiple axe wounds. There were no suspicious circumstances.

My third father (Sakti) wanted me to take up Lapidary, however, I much preferred killing things.

“Bas” wields a great axe with devastating power and is terrified of magic (read roleplaying challenge!).

[DM’s Note: After crafting Mailcon’s pun-filled background, Stephen had some puns left over so he had a go at Bas’]

On those occasions when the half-orc can't sleep he pulls out a special scroll and likes someone to read it to him. It is a scroll given to him by a wise elder before he left his village. It's a story called....

The Chronicles of Bas

And there came a day when a witch delivered a prophecy to the King called Vol. The prophecy stated the King could be a King for Eternity and Little or a King of All and Briefly . The King laughed as he wiped the witch's blood from his sword and proclaimed he would henceforth be the Mortal Vol. He then went on to conquer his neighbouring lands.

The Mortal Vol did well, as few could offer him true resistance. One of the few was a mercenary group known as the Griffin Door. They were a rowdy crew, lead by the powerful wizard Balthazar, and named for his habit of summoning Griffins and creative use of the spell Dimension Door. In their home kingdom they gave the Mortal Vol great offence for denying him so effectively.

After one stunning victory against the armies of Vol, one of the Griffins, an orc named Hermione, partied hard into the night with several of the group, including the wizard Balthazar. The result of this was discovered a couple of months later when Hermione discovered herself with child. As none of the group could decide who the father would be, they closed ranks and all chose to take responsibility for the child. So it was that, a few months later, Balthazar Abdiel Sakti Tahirah Abbán Radhika Dagmar was born, named after each of his fathers. Everyone just called him Bas.

The war went on for several years, but eventually the Mortal Vol gained the upper hand and the Griffins were trapped in a burning city. It came to be that the close family found themselves facing the Mortal Vol himself. Balthazar was the first to fall, Hermione the last. The young boy was faced with the horror of watching his family being cut down and, when he was the last, lashed out in anger. The Mortal Vol sneered and laughed harshly as the small half-orc broke a staff across the King's ankle.

The King was blinded by bloodlust and arrogance; otherwise he would have noticed the staff was actually Balthazar's Staff of Wizardry. The resulting explosion was the turning point of the war as a good part of the army leadership was eliminated in one stroke. When the city folk returned to the smoking crater, after driving off the routed army, they were amazed to find the half-orc boy still alive.

He was sent to Balthazar's family in the magic college in Privet Lane to recover. Being magical scholars they came up with a theory about Zero-Point Thaumatical Exclusion Bubbles to explain Bas's survival but couldn't convince anyone to take a Staff of Wizardry and test the theory. Everyone who wasn't a magic-user just called it a miracle and left it at that.

Bas did recover, but from then on he had a fear of magic that he couldn't shake. Living with wizards didn't help and he took to living in the cupboard under the stairs. When he began showing signs of Rage, they finally decided it was a sensible thing to send him to his orc relatives in the wilderness to the north.

His relatives lived in a little village called Hog's Wart. Bas liked it here as the temperament of the orcish peoples suited him. He grew big and strong and was well on his way to becoming a great warrior when war came to Hog's Wart.

The Mortal Vol had also somehow survived the explosion and had reformed his army, stronger than ever. The wilderness was one of the last places to be conquered but the Vol found a people what would not easily submit.

Bas battled for many years, growing in strength and power and had many great adventures . But finally the end came. An unexpected end. The Mortal Vol now ruled many rich lands, and their wealth flowed into his coffers. Life in the capital grew decadent and lazy. Over time the war in the orcish wilderness became a burden for the Mortal Vol. It was a poor land taking a great amount of resources and time and he decided he had better things to do.

And so, peace came to the wilderness. A peace that most of the orcs celebrated. Not so Bas. A young man who knew only battle now found no outlet for his Rages. So the elders of the tribe suggested to him that he may want to explore the greater world. A bored Bas agrees, and gifted with suitable equipment and this scroll, he left in search of adventure.

months later finds him self in rather unexpected company.

Bas sleepy now......
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Character Background for Tyrant

[DM’s Note: Dean’s single-sentence intro of Tyrant was thus:

Tyrant is a seasoned veteran of a number of campaigns in the Duchy of Urnst and the country of Onnwal.

Dean was bringing in his long-running character from the First Group. Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words so here was Tyrant’s background as Dean saw it. Awesome …]

 

[Ant]

The Adventures of Bas and Friends

[DM’s Note: The heading for each episode is taken straight from Stephen’s emails. For the most part I’ve only done some very minor editing and corrections of the tales themselves. After the end of the first session Mick posted the following

Balthazar Abdiel Sakti Tahirah Abbán Radhika Dagmar (Bas for Short - Pronounced Baz) says:

Game good, lollies good, chips good, coke and fanta good.
Shiny hot stones good, bear owl claw across face not good.
Cut animal in half good, stone in head not good.
Fight good, falling on ground not awake not good.
Waking up feel better good, money gone not good.
Fight Bear Owl and losing not good, dragged away by companion good.

I'll leave the rest to Steve hehe.

[DM’s Note: Stephen responded and the rest, as they say, is history. No more interruptions from me from now on. Promise.]
Translation of Bas speak:

Being a dungeon crawl, our little adventure naturally begins in a Tavern. Here Bas the Half-Orc Barbarian with a magic phobia becomes friends with Mailcon the magical Druid/Ranger variant with orcs as favoured enemies. Tyrant the fighter/pyromaniac joins them (although I imagine he feels the drop in standards these days).

So off they go, seeking adventure, and joined by Mailcon's animal companion: Logan the wolverine. With a little backstory that no one seems to have paid attention too, they find themselves at a set of ruins with a haunted (with a full torso apparition no less) white glowing phallic tower in the middle. Bas' phobia becomes apparent at this stage, until Mailcon bluffs him into thinking the stone is naturally that glowing colour.

Seeing some giant bugs in one part of the ruins they carefully move around to another part to check out the tower from a more completed part of the remains. While stumbling through, Mailcon stealthily falls over, attracting the attention of a giant staghorn beetle. It rushes over, enraged by the fire bomb that Tyrant hits it with.

Bas ducks into a ruined building and, startled by bats, jumps in a hole he finds without looking. Once again Mick shows an uncanny knack for playing low Int barbarians and an instinctive disregard for D&D falling damage. 40ft later, he picks himself up and discovered that the 2 owlbears in the cavern he is in welcomes him with open arms.

Meanwhile, Tyrant hacks into the beetle and Mailcon notices that the other bugs are also moving this way, but avoiding the underbrush he is standing next too. So he steps into the bush and lets the bugs run past him and attack the stag beetle. One does follow him into the bush, but is obviously wary, so gives up and joins in the Starship Troopers battle.

Tyrant jumps out of the way and joins Mailcon and Logan in the ruins, peering down the hole where the Raging barbarian is getting the snot beaten out of him by the owlbears. Always ready to help, Tyrant shoots at one with his bow, while Mailcon distracts the other by missing with his sling. However, his target is annoyed by being pelted with rocks and scrabbles up the wall to get them. This plan is foiled by an absent minded disemboweling AoO from Bas.

Keen to help even more, Mailcon sends Bas into a coma with a critically fumbled shot to the head. Tyrant takes control and jumps down into the pit with sword drawn and, in a vertical charge, slays the beast in a manner that draws applause from a passing god.

At this point, realising that Bas is close to death, and that the stag beetle has finished off its opponents, decides he wasn't going to leave Logan alone with the beetle and finishes it off. Just then he hears the jingle of harness and Orcish voices talking about searching the ruins for the humans and missing child (that backstory we didn't pay attention to).

With Bas having only one round to live, Mailcon gives a sigh he learnt off Kif of Futurama and jumps in the pit (why the sigh? He was the first to notice that the walls were climbable but no time to climb them). 7 pts of damage later, and several charges of a Cure Light Wounds wand, Bas is on his feet again.

They look around, pick one of 2 tunnels and off they go, Logan tracking in the lead. He comes back a few moments later quite excited and, due to Mailcon failing the Skippy school of communication, the group decides to look around the corner. Mailcon throws a lit torch into the room and they discover an Owlbear and cubs. They decide to leave it alone and continue. The corridor butts up against the glowing tower wall and some nearby bones from Owlbear feasts prove that the glowing barrier is solid and not disintegratey in any way.

Again mastering the art of being a barbarian, Bas decides to go back to beat up the owlbear. Tyrant backs him up with the bow, Mailcon pulls out some jerky to share with Logan and watches.

One unconscious Bas later, Tyrant moves up to drag him away while Mailcon and Logan flanks and distracts the owlbear. To further reward, I mean distract, the owlbear, Mailcon throws it the rest of the jerky. It retreats back to the cubs. Mailcon goes over to where Tyrant has dragged Bas and heals him by whacking him with the healing wand several times. While Bas is unconscious, Mailcon reimburses himself for the wand charges by taking 200gp from Bas' backpack.

They return to the other pit and try the other tunnel. At the bottom of the pit, super hearing rolling Mailcon discovers that the orcs are talking about descending into the pit. The group moves into the other tunnel, only to discover the tunnel was burrowed through the wall of a dungeon. Bas checks a door in the dungeon while Mailcon hears something from further down the tunnel. Bas checks out a room which looks like part of a jail, sees a 3 legged, 3 tentacled aberration, decides he didn't see that, keeps looking around the jail and looks back to discover the aberration is still there. Decides closing the door is a good idea. He holds it firm against the raging monster, but its roars awaken the creature down the tunnel. Deciding what worked once will work again, Tyrant wanders down the tunnel, sees an asthmatic owlbear and lures it down the tunnel by running really fast past Mailcon. When it moves into the room, Bas opens the door and runs as well. Mailcon retreats slowly enough to watch the beasts engage. When they do, he whistles for Logan and bolts back through the door. Tyrant and Bas hang around in the pit long enough to be noticed by the orcs climbing down and race into the room with Mailcon. They close the door just as the aberration becomes owlbear fodder.

And here we pause.....

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[Ant]

The Further Adventures of Bas

When we last left our intrepid adventures they had just closed themselves off in a jail cell, to escape a 3 legged monster currently fighting an asthmatic Owlbear. At the same time, a bunch of orcs were in pursuit of the group.

In the jail area, the 4 cells were still locked off, but all the bars were twisted and rusted. Tyrant and Mailcon decided to move on up the passage while Bas squeezed into a cell to look for nothing. And after finding nothing, decided to follow the rest of the party. We left the Owlbear to finish the orcs for us. Up the passage we found an exit leading back to the surface as well as a door. The passage junctioned off into the distance again also.

Bas helpfully unjammed the door by ripping it off the hinges. On the other side was a room that was apparently an old armoury. Bas had a wonderful time of finding stuff that looked good at first glance, then turned out to rusted rubbish. Mailcon noticed tracks in the dust that indicated the 3 legged monster had been in here at some time. The fact that it could close the door behind itself indicated Bas was possibly less sophisticated than the monster.

We all continued on up the passage. All didn't include Bas who decided he wanted to check out the surface exit instead. So we left him behind.

The exit came out in a couple of different rooms until the GM figured out where it was supposed to be and the quantum wave formula collapsed into the right spot. From this surface building Bas observed several orcs herding a cranky giant lizard man. The glowing tower with the spooky thing in it exceeded his magic phobia threshold and he returned to the dungeon.

Meanwhile Tyrant and Mailcon had found a couple of archways with carvings of hags in the corridor. This corridor ended at a cave-in. With torch in one hand and sword in the other Mailcon raced to the other end, expecting to be obliterated or something. Logan the Wolverine joyfully raced with him. At the other end, he discovered nothing tried to kill him and that the cave-in had a gap near the top. Tyrant saunters down with his lantern and we peer through the gap. Not seeing anything too scary, Mailcon uses Logan's 10ft burrowing speed to help him widen the gap. Tyrant kept guard and Bas wanders up after all the hard work was done. We crawled through and followed the winding tunnels that only insane dungeon makers seem to like. It ended at a room with 2 other passageways leading off, a statue of a hag in the middle and sarcoghic, sarcoffigusi, bugger it, coffins standing up in each corner. Skeletons lay at the foot of each coffin and at base of the statue. Naturally we triggered a trap which caused the coffins to march over to block our escape route and one of the other passages. From the 3rd passage troops out 8 skeletons (cue scene from The Mummy).

We reacted true to character. Tyrant drew weapons with joy. Mailcon dashed over to one side so they walked straight past him and he could attack from behind. Bas freaked out and blew his Will save, leaving him shaken for the combat. With several on both Tyrant and Bas and Mailcon and Logan moving up to flank, things looked dire for our hero's.

To be continued.....

(we did more than this, I'll just have to finish the writeup later. Stay tuned to this Batstation)

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[Ant]

Bas vs The World - Part 2

And there was a blizzard of bone and wolverine.

The bones came from Tyrant and Bas demolishing skeletons left right and center. The wolverine blizzard was Logan being wounded and then going into a Rage. This, plus really poor rolling on my part, resulted in bouncing and swirling around, swiping claws and clamping jaws all over the place. And doing bugger all damage. Mailcon wasn't doing much better, on account of my dice liking to roll in the high teens for Spot and listen checks and below 10 for everything else (at one stage I had Tyrant looking at me suspiciously when I had Spot and Listen checks over 20 for Mailcon and Logan, and totals less than 10 for him. I was half expecting a call for a recount).

In the end we reduced the enemy to a pile of bones. Mailcon healed Logan while Bas checked out the piles of gold in the corners where the coffins had been. Mailcon also takes a scroll case off the skeleton at the base of the statue. Mailcon then wandered down into the room that the skeletons came from and found a bunch of empty coffins, from whence they had been in repose until being disturbed we assumed.

Alright then. It was time to leave. Mailcon approaches the coffins blocking the other exit and narrowly misses being smacked in the nose by the coffin's aggressive door snapping open and closed. After a moment reflection Tyrant is called over and asked to carefully approach the coffin. He does so but successfully ducks out of the way as the door opens and closes. We then wait for the torch that Mailcon had chucked in the open door to do something.

The coffin shudders and starts to smoke. Eventually it hops back down the passage a few feet and then returns to the spot next to the other one. It continues to do this while bursting into flames. After a while, when it hops back, Tyrant throws some oil in the spot it will return to, liberally splashing the other coffin. When the first one returns to position, both go up in oily smoke and eventually collapse into a pile of burning fragments.

With the way open, Mailcon sneaks down the passage to find a chamber at the end. The chamber seems to be empty but with pillars lining the walls and an exit other end. Mailcon gets Bas to grab a couple of coffins from the other chamber and we block the entrance behind us (to confuse the orcs). We then cross the pillered chamber and into the next passageway.

This one turns out to be quite short and ends at an empty chamber with a hag statue in an alcove directly opposite. We enter the chamber, get to the statue and trigger the trap. With 3 seconds to decide, Mailcon hits the floor and Tyrant and Bas try to jump back into the passageway.

Mailcon and Logan watch the blade trap slice over their prone heads, Tyrant just makes it into the passageway but has to fend off the tip with his shield. Bas stops the blade with his stomach, which was handy for the rest of us. Springing the trap also caused the alcove to descend into the floor, creating a new door.

Bas bravely goes first and bravely fends of the attack of the wight or whatever it is that was hiding in the next room. Warnings that undead could be lifesuckingly dangerous become largely irrelevant in the dogpile that occurs. 1.5 rounds later, Tyrant downs, and then Bas decapitates, the thing.

So we search for treasure. We check the ornate coffin that it came out of, finding heavy gold armour and a wooden longsword. A Detect Magic reveals only the sword is magic. Tyrant gets lumbered with the armour, Mailcon takes the sword, thinking how appropriate it is for a Druid to have a wooden sword. 10 seconds later he thinks how inappropriate it is for a Druid to have a sword he isn't proficient with.

Anyway, we run out of things to find and return to the pillar chamber. There we discover we can hear the voices of Orcs in the skeleton chamber and it sounds like they have discovered the passageway behind the dummy coffins we set up.

So we set up an ambush in the pillared chamber. Tyrant and Bas with bows behind the back pillars, Logan and Mailcon hiding behind the front pillars with weapons and fangs drawn. Eventually one of the orcs cautiously moves to the entrance of the chamber. Tyrant and Bas fails hide rolls. Logan and Mailcon make theirs. Conversation between orcs occurs:

*Orc in doorway: Uh. They are here. Are you comin’?
*Orc in other chamber: Are you sure?
*Two arrows: Thwock! Thwock!
*Orc in doorway turns to other orc and points at arrows in chest: See? They're in there.
*Orc in doorway collapses to floor.

Other orc charges in, survives arrow strikes and runs up to Bas. Ignores Mailcon's sling stone to back of the head and swings at Bas. There is a bullet time slo-mo, accompanied by a 'rooowaaarreee' sound effect from the orc as Bas ducks under its attack and then fillets the orc with his axe. (I think this is the combat where, after it is all over, Ant asks me what Mailcon does next. All I could think to do was applaud.)

Back in the skeleton chamber another search of the join discovers that the skeletons in the corners have keys carved into one finger each. Tyrant takes these skeleton keys, we burn the coffins blocking the way back and off we go.

We get back to the hole leading up to the surface and the group decides its a good idea to check out what is happening above. So Mailcon climbs up to the hut above and does some spying. He sees orcs trying to get the lizard man down the hole. Helpfully the Lizard man has killed some Orcs in the process. Mailcon's Favoured Enemy Monstrous Humanoid sense starts to tingle when seeing the lizard man. While there he hears some orc voices behind him discussing another hole we missed in the tower remains behind the building Malicon was hiding in.

Mailcon climbs down and they ponder their next move.....

(still haven't finished. This method of write up is darn time consuming. Will try to finish Monday).


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[Ant]

Bas vs The World - Part 3

And their next move was....

Hey, we got these keys and we are out of dungeon. Now what?

So, they decided to go back to the room that the asthmatic owlbear originally came from and check that out. Quickly before the orcs got the lizardman downstairs. But the quick check came up with nothing, so we decided the other hole that the orcs were talking about must be next step.

We returned to our favourite exit and climbed up to the building on the surface. The orcs were arguing over which hole to send the lizard down, and we discovered that they have a mage with them. Eventually they all agree to go down the first hole that Bas had jumped down and all tromp over to that building. Once out of sight, we leave the least agile of us (being Tyrant) and clamber out of the roof of the building and down the other side to look a the hole in the collapsed tower floor. It’s a big hole, and we notice floating rods making a kinda 5ft apart ladder into the depths (the last one ends 20ft off the floor). Bas naturally freaks. Swearing under his breath, Mailcon gives him some rope and, holding the other end, gingerly moves to the edge of the hole. The ground crumbles beneath his feet, but he manages to keep his balance.

After a moment, he uses his second coil of rope, makes a noose and lassoes the top rod (note: DM secretly rolls Use Rope for Mailcon at this point). Once secured, the rope is dropped into the hole. He then gets Bas to let go of the other rope and then loops it over the rod and drops the other end to the ground. A roll of 2 on the Bluff vs Sense Motive fails to convince Bas that the rope is holding the rod in the air and no magic is involved.

Shrugging his shoulders, he calls Tyrant out and then picks up Logan to get ready to descend. Tyrant clanks out and is immediately spotted by the orcs, 3 charge out, including the mage. Mailcon jumps, manages to grab the rope and slides into the depths. Tyrant runs up, throws his loot down the hole and jumps for the top rod. A fear driven Bas prepares for combat.

Mailcon gets to the last rod floating 20ft off the ground. Suddenly a bag full of treasure goes whistling past his head and startles him. The combination of this, plus a wolverine in his arms and having 0 Use Rope ranks becomes too much. The rope comes loose up top and we fall the last 20ft. Luckily for Mailcon, the ground is covered with fungus (which, strangely for D&D fungus doesn't immediately try to gas or eat them) and that cushions the fall somewhat. Luckily for Logan, Mailcon cushions his fall even more, so he takes even less damage than Mailcon. They clamber to their feet and wait for more arrivals.

Tyrant is the first, having jumped to the first rod and used the second rope to climb after us. At the bottom rung, Mailcon convinces him to try and find the button for that rod, which he does, and the deactivated rod falls to the floor. He climbs after it. Now they both wait for the last member of the party.

Bas kills one orc and sends the 2nd into a Rage. The mage hangs back and casts spells at him (and somehow, for the first time, Bas makes a Will save). Bas is doing fine against berserker orc, but finally decides that its time to move one when the mage magic missiles him a couple of times.
He jumps, grabs the rods, and again manages to make a Will save and hold on. It doesn't help as he finally slips and falls the entire way (which is his standard method of entering holes in the ground anyway).

Yet more precious charges of the wand keep him alive, and the group finally gets a chance to look around. And what they see is....

Known only to the GM, because that is where the saga ends for the night.

Great night. Looking forward to finally finishing the sucker.

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[Ant]

Today's Menu: Tenderised Bas on a Bed of Mushroom

Which is how the latest part of the adventure began. Our intrepid heroes found themselves on the floor of a 100 foot wide chamber. They were in the center, directly below the hole they just entered. A forest of giant mushroom encircled them. While everyone clambered to their feet, there was no sign of pursuit. There was sign of precedence however and there was a dead orc on the ground with the party. Bas wasted no time in robbing the body of the several hundred gold pieces it had. Mailcon climbed back up the rope to retrieve as many floating rods as possible (except for the top one, which had the rope tied to it). Unfortunately, testing down below determined that the rods wouldn't reactive again, much to Mailcon's disappointment.

The group moves to the northern edge of the giant mushroom forest. Bas's cautious nature comes to the fore. He pulls his axe out and starts chopping his way in. Tyrant follows until they realise that it would be a lot quicker if they just push their way through the fungi stems instead.

Meanwhile, Mailcon remembers he's a tracker and could probably track stuff. Or something. A few rolls later finds some giant insect prints on the ground. That being it, Mailcon decides to follow the other two. He discovers that Woodland Stride also works in mushroom forests and glide through with ease. Much to the disgust of the long suffering wolverine that is quickly left behind. Mailcon quickly reaches the northern wall and discovers that Bas and Tyrant had gone left. So he decides to go right and soon finds a passageway in wall. He shouts to Bas and Tyrant to tell them and discovers they have found one as well, and that Bas has already gone in. Mailcon shrugs and goes to join them.

At the same time, Bas was busy discovering a giant bug and was proceeding to be eaten by it. He'd been investigating a giant chamber which had a giant refuse pile at the far end and 5ft wide hole in another wall that was letting in light. When he wandered over to the refuse pile a giant bug thingy erupted out of the ground and tried to bite him with acid dripping mandibles. An axe to its head showed it what Bas though of idea. This swift counter-attack so intimidated the bug that it reduced Bas to zero HP with its next attack.

At that point, Tyrant and Mailcon enters the fray. Mailcon has his usual success with a sling stone. Tyrant just wanders up and smacks it to death. Bas backs up in the meantime and collapses against the wall.
Mailcon fails to notice Bas's zero HP status and goes looking at the treasure pile. He notices something in the middle of the pile of rusted and acid eaten junk. Unfortunately for Mailcon he is weak, apparently, and can't pull the object out of the pile. He calls over Tyrant, who is not weak, and he manages to pull a mace out of the pile. He also releases a cloud of gas from the middle of the pile. Mailcon maybe weak, but he is well Fortified and shrugs off its effects. Tyrant doesn't do quite so well and, thanks his failed Fort save, takes damage.

At the back of the chamber they notice a square pillar that descends from ceiling to floor. The pillar is about 20 ft on a side and has about a 5ft gap between it and the walls, so it is possible to circle the pillar. A horizontal crack runs all the way around it. Tyrant and Mailcon check it out, then move over to the hole in the wall. The passageway is about 5tf off the ground and angles steeply up to the surface. At that point they decide to check out the other passageway that Mailcon had found and move out. Bas slowly follows them, at which point Mailcon notices his condition and uses a couple of wand charges to heal him.

The other passage leads into a low ceiling rough cave that fails to turn up anything in a search. At that point Mailcon decides to search the rest of the walls of the mushroom chamber. As they aren't as fast has him in the forest (manfully resists a 'because you are like, slow' comment), Bas and Tyrant retreat to the center of the chamber to wait.
In the southern end of the chamber, Mailcon notices a pair of mushrooms that are different from the rest, and they are flanking a passage in the wall. He calls over the others and they join him. The mushrooms are recognised as screamers that will go off if you get within 10 feet of them. A brief discussion reveals that the mushrooms are far enough apart to move between them, although the dense growth of other fungi requires balance rolls. Naturally one of the group fails (Tyrant's turn this time) and they start shrieking. Mailcon and Bas rush on, headfirst into a pair of whippy attacky type mushrooms. Mailcon and Bas tumble successfully between them. Tyrant follows them but, not having a Tumble option, successfully fights his way defensively between them. Coming last, Logan uses Tyrant as spam shield (meatshield in a tin) and avoids being attacked.

On the other side of the 'shrooms, a new chamber is found. Its empty, except for the gelatinous cube quietly sitting in the middle. Tyrant was lucky to spot the reflection of the torch on its surface and recognise it for what it was. So the party searches the chamber, carefully avoiding the Pioneer Jelly Monster, and finds nothing of interest. The Cube sits quietly, until Mailcon decides to entertain himself by taunting it with some beef jerky. He decides to make a food trail from the Mushrooms of Slaying to the Cube, to try and lure it out.
Unfortunately the DM was having none of that kind of rot, and the Cube only went to the entrance of the tunnel and refused to go any further.
Eventually it returned to the center of the chamber.

With no other options, Tyrant pulls out his trusty fall back trick. Flaming arrows. And it works quite well, with the two guardian mushrooms bursting into flames and collapsing into piles of cinder. Once they were dead however, the Cube shudders to life and proceeds up the now unguarded passageway. The group looked at each other, shrugged, then made use of the new passageway that the Cube was eating through the forest for them.

The Cube hung a left as it entered the forest and dissolved its way along the wall (a clear sign of the DM trying to hurry things along if you ask me). The group follows the new path but finds no new chambers until they reach the acid bug room (which sounds like a Naked Lunch quote).

Anyway, we decide to have another look at the pillar in this room. Bas chips at the crack in it and manages to open it enough to see all the way through. Bas's player realised the pillar is hollow but, alas, Bas himself is too dumb to realise the same thing and the rest of us weren't really paying enough attention.

What we do notice, thanks to some Listen checks, is that somewhere the Orcs are digging a hole. When we realise it is happening right above us we fall back on the usual plan and decide to go kill them.

The 5ft wide hole that leads to the surface from this room is shallow enough of a slope to be worth climbing. At least for Logan and Bas that is. Tyrant and Mailcon managed to get stuck part way up. Bas throws down so rope to help and eventually the party makes it to the surface. The find themselves in the forest a small distance away from the ruins. A brief moment of preparation and they return to the ladder down into the ruins and clamber down.

Once down there they listen around and hear the Lizard man roaring in one direction and the digging happening in the other. The party heads towards the digging and find themselves in the room with the prison cells. The door leading into the chamber where the 3 legged thing died has been closed and the digging can be heard here. We form a plan.

The bow wielding Bas and Tyrant aim at the door ready to fire when Mailcon bursts it open. Which he does, then rolls into the chamber and dodges to the right. Bas and Tyrant sees two big orcs attacking the left wall with picks, 2 smaller orcs just standing around and the Mage at the far end of the chamber. Mailcon merely sees a pair of boots.

Some advice to Tyrant about Magic Missile spells results in him firing 2 arrows at the Mage. One hits, one misses. Bas shoots at the smaller orcs and sends them running away. The orcs with the picks drop their picks and move towards Mailcon. Mailcon in the meantime was fighting a big orc and would have been doing a lot better if he remembered that it was his favored enemy. Logan also runs in and bites it.

Tyrant decides to shoot another couple of arrows and rolls 3 20's in a row while he is at it. The mage goes down with an arrow in each eye.

The 2 orcs that had been digging decided to attack the only enemy in the room - Mailcon. He is flanked by them, but assisted by his trusty sidekick Logan. Logan turns and bites one on the newcomers on the groin.
This is a good thing for our side, with the sole exception of the unfortunate side effect of triggering a Barbarian Rage in both of these orcs.

Tyrant to the rescue however. He drops his bow and bullrushes one of the Raging orcs. And does so beautifully. Bas also rushes in to attack the orc trying to deal with his new wolverine sporran. A flurry of dice, swings and blood results in: a bullrushed orc on the ground; a criticaled defense roll (from that showoff Tyrant again naturally) translating into a fumbled attack for an orc, now swinging a handle minus an axe; a wounded and Raging Wolverine and Mailcon killing his first opponent for the dungeon.

One mop up round later and the room is quite and empty of living orc (well, Logan is savaging one of the corpses but its quite other than that).

We do the usual 'rob the surprisingly rich orcs' thing again then go to look at the wall they were attacking. Realising that there is a secret door in the wall we attack it with the picks, and break one while trying to open it. Eventually the door is sprung and we discover a secret stair leading down (incidentally the same size of the pillar we found below. Who would have thought it?).

The group descends (about 70 feet from memory) and at the bottom we find....

To be continued (note we are entering the annoyingly stupid part of the classic dungeon design, which meant I started to lose interest in the events - despite Ant's and everyone else's cool antics. Believe me Don, there is a very awesome Bas and Tyrant bit to come . Will try to remind myself what happened and finish it either lunch today or tonight.

 

[Ant]

Bas Goes Barefoot - Session Part Two

*Ye gods, the traffic this morning. Good thing I wrote this up last night. Anyhow, we begin…*

So, the room at the bottom of the stairs has 3 levers in the walls, and 2 energy barriers separating them and incidentally blocking the way. At the far end of the room we can see an exit. We rig a rope and grapple situation and loop over the nearest lever and pull it down.
*Bink* the nearest barrier vanishes. So far, so good. So we try it again and the barrier *plinks* back into place, cutting the rope, and the space between the 2 barriers starts to fill with green acid which is pouring in through 4 holes in the ceiling.

We reel back the severed rope and watch for a few moments. Mailcon then gets irritable, casts Spider Climb, and walks along the wall to the first lever. Tyrant does a very good bluff and convinces Bas that Mailcon is wearing lizard -skin boots and that lizards do indeed stick to walls. Bas' intelligence contributes greatly to Tyrants attempt. In the meantime Mailcon moves the lever again and the nearest barrier vanishes again. Acid spills across the floor and the group retreats up the stairs.

Safely on the ceiling Mailcon moves the other lever, causing the barrier to close again. This traps him in the space between the barriers that is filling with acid. With a deep sign he waits for the others to rope the first lever and pull it down, therefore removing the barrier.

In the meantime, a successful Spot check on the ceiling sees a hidden, recessed, lever on the ceiling. Pulling that opens the second barrier giving access to the final lever but not stopping the acid. A couple of rounds later of putting all the levers into various positions eventually finds the right combination and the acids stops. Unfortunately it doesn't drain away, although it does flow down the passageway and around the corner. Bas and Tyrant discuss how to deal with an inch of acid on the floor while Mailcon goes for a wander along the roof to see where the tunnel goes. After a few twists and turns and a hundred or so feet of passage way he eventually gets to a point where the slope of the floor stops the acid from progressing. He goes back to the others and tells them. They, in that time, have come up with a plan to put some of the oversized orc boots over Tyrant's boots to protect him. Bas just wades right in and a couple of rounds later exits the pool at the other end minus his boots and a layer or two of skin. Tyrant is better off, protecting his own boots but taking a couple of burns from splashing as he ran. Logan displays wolverine-ish scepticism but grudgingly allows Mailcon to cradle him to his chest as he carefully crawls along the ceiling until the reach the far end.
At that point, they all wander down the remainder of the passage until the reach the next room.

The new room had an energy barrier across the opposite wall and 4 holes in the points of a diamond on the floor. Mailcon goes into pseudo-rogue mode and goes for a walk on the ceiling while the others wait in the hall. He walks down one wall and sticks one of the finger bone keys in one of the holes. It fits but won't turn. He sighs, knowing what comes next but tries one near the other wall anyway. Same thing. With no other choice he steps onto the floor and puts the keys in all the holes. They all fit but none will turn. He counts 4 holes, then counts off people on his fingers. 3 people. He looks at Logan. Ok, 3.5 then.
He calls over the wolverine and spends a 1/2 hour teaching Logan to turn the key on demand (without eating it). This is later ret-conned to be 15 minutes as the DM forgot a rule about Druids and their animal companions. A rare thing in a game with so few rules.

*Looks up to see DM drumming fingers on table, with raised eyebrow*

*Cough cough. Ahem.*

Um, right. Anyway, after a few goes the keys click and the energy barrier goes down. And off we go. To see the wizard.

The new passageway intersects another one in angled T junction. With a choice to go left or right, Bas goes left and Mailcon goes right. Naturally.

Tyrant waits at the intersection. Mailcon turns a corner and finds a dead end room with an upside down mouth on the far wall. No wait, that's Mailcon on the ceiling, he's upside down. There was a failed Will save going on here too, although Mailcon doesn't know what the consequence of that is yet.

Bas, on the other hand, has turned the corner at the other end and found a long passageway. His natural love affair with falling also conflicts with his Barbarian trap evasion abilities and, in the end, he discovers the 20 ft pit trap by falling into it. He likewise discovers the spikes on the floor of the pit by impaling himself on one of them. Tyrant comes to investigate all the noise.

Meanwhile, Mailcon has touched the lips of the wall mouth with no effect. Logan wanders into the room and looks at his weird buddy on the ceiling. Mailcon gives up, steps onto the floor and leaves the room. The fact that he weighs more than a wolverine triggers the trap on the way out and door slams down in the passageway and gas hisses out. The mouth starts talking "you can't breath, you can't breath". A successful Fort save leaves Mailcon wondering what it is on about.

At the same time, Tyrant has climbed down into the pit and uses a Heal Moderate Wounds potion on the half orc healing sink. Back in positive hit points, Bas joins Tyrant in climbing out of the pit. Tyrant throws his sack of treasure across the pit. Bas makes a running leap of 27 feet and clears the pit easily. The leap impresses even him. On the other side he poses Charles Atlas style then swaggers back to pick up the sack.

This is how he finds the second pit trap that was 4 feet behind the first one. Tyrant watches with surprise as Bas vanishes from sight. He then collapses on the floor with laughter.
Meanwhile, Mailcon and Logan have returned to the room where the mouth is still telling them "you can't breath". He looks at Logan. Logan looks at him. Mailcon then gets some alchemical fire stuff out of his backpack. With the retort of "Bite me" he throws it against the wrong wall.
(rassen fassen 1's).

However, some splashes on the mouth and reveals it to be an illusion. He looks at Logan. Logan looks back and shrugs. They return to the door in the hall.

While this is happening Tyrant climbs across one pit to the other side and helps Bas out of the 20 foot deep second pit with a rope. They sit there for awhile and then decide to see what happened to Mailcon. They eventually get back to the junction to find a new metal door blocking the way. Mailcon has already tried lifting it from his side but without much success (apparently he is weak). A plan is devised where Tyrant and Bas lifts the door while he slips a dagger underneath to stop it from closing again. Bas and Tyrant heave the door up. It slides up into the ceiling and stays there. The dagger skitters halfway down the hall. Logan quizzically watches it go. He looks at Mailcon. Mailcon looks at him. They both shrug and step out into the intersection.

Mailcon asks the others what they've been up to but the answer is interrupted by the appearance of the Lizardman wandering down the angled hall from the key room.
And here we pause until next time...

To be concluded.

Seriously.

(No, seriously).


------

 

[Ant]

Bas Dreams of Genie - Part One

And time unfreezes for our intrepid group, beginning with a recap. They had gathered in an intersection to compare wounds and notes, when a giant lizard-man trundles down the corridor that they had used to get here. It lets out a bellow and hefts a huge mace. Initiative rolls leaves Mailcon goings last as usual and Tyrant and the Lizard Man charging towards each other. Bas mutters about not feeling well but follows Tyrant’s charge up the hall.

An immovable object/unstoppable force collision occurs. The Lizard man with the reach weapon swishes his mace past Tyrants head as he ducks under then up for a near disembowelling critical slash with his sword against the monster’s belly (those 20's are on the dice for a reason, after all).

Unfortunately the heavy mace's back swing connects with the side of Bas' head. It caves in with a sickening thud and the half orc collapses to the ground. The corridor turns into a long tunnel with a bright light at the far end, which Bas starts moving towards.

Meanwhile Mailcon watches Bas charge up the corridor then looks at the Cure Light Wounds wand in his hand. He shrugs, puts it away, draws his scimitar and joins the melee.

With his Monsterous Humanoid favoured enemy advantage, Mailcon finishes the job that Tyrant began with a skilful scimitar slash. With a pitiful roar the creature collapses to the floor and Tyrant administers a coup de grace. In the sudden silence Mailcon just notices that there appears to be an orc ducking back into the shadows from whence the Lizard-man had appeared. He points it out to Tyrant, who takes a guard position with his bow while Mailcon checks out Bas.

In the meantime, Bas realises that he can hear the voices of all of his parents as he gets close to the light but, before he can say anything, something pulls him backwards down the tunnel. He awakens to find Mailcon leaning over him with that weird little stick that he has. The Druid taps him again with it then puts it away. Bas gets up, feeling much better. Mailcon congratulates him on taking care of the Lizard-man for them. Bas is puzzled as the last thing he can remember was a smack to the head. When he sees the corpse on the ground, he decides it must be true and starts to do a little celebratory boogie.

While this is happening, Mailcon overhears the bunch of orcs arguing about who goes first (they appear to be playing a version of rock-scissors-paper). He and Tyrant prepare themselves as eventually they hear their leader shout at them to get going. Suddenly 3 club wielding berserk ninja orcs (or whatever they are. They have headbands!) come charging around the corner and down the hall. Behind them a forth orc follows, carrying a massive axe. Tyrant peppers one with arrows before dropping his bow and swapping to his longsword. Mailcon and Logan readies themselves while Bas's initiative roll indicates that he is still distracted by the music in his head. One orc fails to charge due to a Lizard-man corpse being between Tyrant and itself. One charges into Mailcon the other smacks Bas from behind. Logan slips between Bas and Tyrant and attacks the orc that is threatening Bas.

Mailcon hears an orcish voice yell "Arggh, my man-parts" and glances over at Logan's target. He winces and wonders if perhaps that using the word 'nads' as the command word for attack was such a good idea. But he hasn't time to think too much about it as his own opponent lashes out at him. He dodges easily and slips into a Zen-like Favoured Enemy state. His scimitar weaves smoothly through the air when he steps forward to strike, then back again, flicking blood of the end of the blade to clean it. His orc target looks at him with a stunned expression then falls into several bits due to Mailcon's critical.

Bas is angered for being struck and he swings around and buries his axe in the head of the orc that is currently being savaged by a wolverine. At the same time Tyrant takes care of his target and moves to get the final orc that appears to be their leader. The orc strikes first though and breaks ribs through Tyrant's breastplate armour with its axe blow. Mailcon also almost gets knocked down by the severe damage the orc deals him.

It’s the last thing the orc does however, as Bas is overjoyed at another target and demonstrates his glee with a great axe critical. 47 points of damage relieves the creature of the burden of life.

In the aftermath, Mailcon again needs the rapidly depleting wand to heal himself and then he heals Tyrant when the armoured warrior requests it. At that point he discovers the unhealed warrior had more hit points than the Druid has at max-health. The incredulous Druid demands to know why he needed healing so badly. The only reply was: “But I feel better now.”

They do the ‘rob the corpse’ bit, with the treasure being added to the running total and then ignored as usual. After that, Mailcon decides that with only 15 minutes or less of Spider Climb left that they should continue on.

So they head for the pits that Bas had so cleverly found. Tyrant muses that they would have found the trap if certain gnomish thief that he once knew had been with them.

Mailcon thinks for a moment and realises that Gnomes are quite magically close to nature. "Could you summon a gnome with Summon Nature's Ally?"
he wonders.

The living conciousness of nature that the Druid worships replies to this thought with the statement: "Only if it is a garden gnome".

Mailcon bows to the wisdom of the living world and turns his thoughts to crossing the pit. He carries his wolverine buddy across the pits by climbing along the walls. One the far side he comes up with an overly elaborate plan that involves using a rope to help Tyrant and Bas to climb down one side of the pits then up the other. With a great deal of effort they eventually get to the other side and continue on with their journey. Mailcon takes to the ceiling to scout out for traps.

The get to a corner that turns to the left and see a passageway that extends for 200ft or so (they can see that far as all the walls glow with a soft light). Mailcon wanders down the passageway ceiling, examining the floor quite carefully until he spots the signs of a 10ft wide trapdoor. He mentions it to the others and starts looking at the other side to see if he can see a second pit trap. Tyrant's yell and crash alerts Mailcon to the fact that he had already found the second pit. It was the first one that he missed (charming DM trick). He climbs down onto the ledge separating the 2 pits. In the meantime Bas figures out that he has enough Jump ranks to bunny hop the 10ft gap without any significant issue with failure. So he hops over and helps Mailcon lift Tyrant out with a rope.

Bas hops over the second pit and Mailcon goes and retrieves his animal companion. On the far side Mailcon twigs to the fact that the pit is 10ft wide and 20ft deep, therefore they tie a rope to Tyrant and brace themselves on the assumption that Tyrant won't fall more than 10ft and then they can pull him up. Mailcon makes a nifty Handle Animal roll so that Logan assists them holding the rope. Tyrant makes the leap and crashes through the trap door. He swings down into the side of the pit. Mailcon and Logan brace themselves and holds him. Bas's roll indicates that he starts to help then lets go to scratch his itchy arm.

A grumbling Mailcon and Logan helps Tyrant up and then they decide how to deal with any more traps. Mailcon realises he's the lightest of the 3 of them so gets them to tie a rope to him and to follow him with a distance for 5ft. The idea is that he'd trigger any pits and they could haul him up when he did (note the blithe assumption that the next trap won't be an explosion or something else).

So off they go and sure enough it works. Mailcon falls into a pit and is hauled back. He then lugs Logan over that pit, as well as the assumed 2nd pit. Bas bunny hops again and they use the rope trick to pull Tyrant across. Again Logan successfully helps hold their armour plated friend, and again Bas is distracted and lets go. Despite this, they manage to avoid either dropping Tyrant into the pit or falling into one themselves. Once Tyrant is safely across Mailcon turns to Bas and tries to use Handle Animal on him, on the assumption that it worked on the wolverine. Alas, the half orc proves immune to training and it is yet another hard haul to get Tyrant across the last pit.

Eventually they reach the corner of the passageway to find it turns again to the left and again disappears into the distance. They carefully make their way down the tunnel and are slightly relieved not to trigger any more traps. They find yet another passage leading to the left but it turns out to be much shorter and ends at a room with an iron chest in the middle and a door at the far end. Mailcon figures he has about a minute left of his Spider Climb so takes to the ceiling. He crawls over to the chest. He can't see anything from this angle and gives up by dropping down next to it. The others wander into the room after him. Bas and Tyrant decide to look very closely at the chest, so Mailcon and Logan wanders over to look at the far door. He finds that it is a strong metal bound door with a key hole in it. While looking at this he hears a foomp and there is a flash of ruddy light from behind him. They turn to see Tyrant lying on the floor from where his Reflexive dodge landed him. Bas is standing in front of the now open chest and is smoking slightly. He also hasn't got any eyebrows. Tyrant gets up gingerly and looks in the chest. Mailcon and Logan look at each other and they agree that one of them should go over there. Taking a leaf from the orc's game book they play rock paper scissor to see who would go. Despite the fact that the wolverine doesn't have any hands Mailcon somehow loses and so wanders over to the chest.

While this was happening, Tyrant had noticed there was a key in the bottom of the chest (framed between the ashes of a pair of eyebrows) and carefully managed to lift the key on the tip of his longsword. Mailcon walks up, says 'Hey cool. Thanks', grabs the key and wanders back to the door. Tyrant follows him. Bas stays behind to try and put his eyebrows back on.

Mailcon determines the door swings inwards, so he swings it such that it'll be between him and whatever comes through. Tyrant takes station on the other side. Mailcon opens the door and in runs two propeller tailed armadillo with tentacles. Tyrant whacks the first one with his longsword, drawing attention to himself. The second one sniffs around, spies the iron chest and dashes over to it. Mailcon shouts 'nads' and points at it. Logan runs over to bite it on the arse. Mailcon also uses his levels of experience (and knowledge skills) to remember these things are known as 'Rust Monsters'. He also recalls that he is carrying around a wooden longsword and, shouting out a warning to the others, throws it to Tyrant.

Tyrant flourishes it with a 'ha!'. The rust monster responds by waving a tentacle and slapping him on the chest. There is a plink followed by a soft sound, as though sand was pouring off a ledge. Tyrant looks down to see his magical breastplate form a small pile of rust at his feet. He shouts out 'bastard!" as the rust monster begins to lap up the rust. Bas looks up at him and asks "What?"

Meanwhile, the second one is running around the iron chest, rusting it and trying to eat the remains. Bas pulls out an arrow and, seeing that it made of iron, bites of the arrow head off before firing at it. Mailcon also pulls out his sling and wacks it with sling stones. Between the sling stones, wolverine bites and the occasional blunt arrow, eventually the beast squeals and dies.

Tyrant is also dealing with his opponent but has to throw away his iron bound shield in the process. That only delays the inevitable and Tyrant is disappointed to find that he fails to slay it before it eats his shield. During the fight, he has time to notice Bas biting off the heads of his arrows.

"Why," he asks, "are you doing that? Just shoot them with the heads on it'll.... oh never mind". He goes back to killing his shield eater.

While all this was going on, a third, somewhat bigger rust monster had entered the room, pausing to rust the back of the door and slurp it up before entering the fray.

("Wait a minute. Hold up. What stopped them from rusting the door before we opened it?"
"Good question"
"Oh. Right")

Anyway, it rushes in and looks for the tastiest source of iron left in the room. Sensing Bas's great axe it rushes over to him, but luckily it is distracted by the pile of arrow heads on the ground and stops to rustify and eat them first.

("Rustify?"
"Hey. I'm a pseudo-medieval tree hugging druid with a religious intolerance to worked metals. What do I know about oxidisation?"
"I thought that hippies were all over the theory of free radical production"
"Only in so far as them being oppressed the Man. That fascist bastard"
"Hello? Yes?"
"Not you Bas"
"Hey. Don't want to interrupt or anything, but anyone interested in the adventure going on?"
"Oppressor!"
Note: These conversations may or may not have occurred on the night. The author reserves the right to have more conversations going on inside his head than on the outside at the time).

By this time, but Bas and Tyrant move in to deal with the great threat. Mailcon, on the other hand, has decided that they are no threat and he and Logan have gone to check out the passageway behind the door. The corridor turns out to be about 30 foot long and ends at a wall that is somewhat cracked and rubble strewn. With the sounds of battle still coming from the room behind him he carefully checks out the end wall. Here he discovers there is the faint outline of a door in the wall, and searching around he finds what appears to be the doors catch. He digs his fingers in and then asks Logan if he should open the door or not. The wolverine nods, and takes a step backwards.

Mailcon pulls open the door and the remaining bits of wall falls away to reveal the continuation of the passageway. It runs for another 30 odd feet before ending at an energy barrier. There is also a level in the wall. Mailcon nods to himself and goes back to find someone to pull the lever for him.

Back in the room the battle is finally over. Tyrant has remembered the armour from the orc leader in the sack he has been lugging around and has put it on. Mailcon tells them of what he has found so they trudge up the hall to the barrier. The barrier is mostly transparent so they can see what appears to be a semi circular room beyond the door. They rig up a rope technique to pull the lever and the barrier blinks out. When it does, they hear an unearthly howl that sounds like it is receding into the distance.

To be concluded....

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[Abciximab]

A very funny read, any more to it?

 

[Ant]

Thanks, Abciximab! I'll pass your compliments on to the author.

Actually, now that you ask ...