Dramatis personae
Kim, a thief
Mayhem, a barbarian
Caleb, a wizard
Anêr, a swashbuckler
Yémos, a cleric
Kúflaug, a slave
Likháfrikh, an engineer (intrans actum in alterum)
Quid occurrit
Caleb lifted his head to let out an Acid Jet, but passed out from his wounds. Anêr started to stand with his rapier in hand, while a guard poked him with his sword. Another guard tried to smite Mayhem, but slipped and fell. Mayhem had reached his limit, and snapped. He planted his axe into the guard before him.
The two cultist clerics again tried to get Mayhem and Anêr to drop their weapons, and again Mayhem held onto his while Anêr dropped his. Yémos turned around, and started back towards the cleric cultists, while Anêr again grabbed his sword. The guard by Anêr struck him, and Anêr couldn't parry, taking a nastier hit. Mayhem rushed one of the clerics but missed, but Yémos stepped behind the cleric and smacked him with his staff, killing him.
The other cleric, now worried about Mayhem, tried to bid Mayhem to drop his axe, but Mayhem shrugged off his words. Anêr stood up, while the guard before him tried to hit him and missed. Mayhem, now on a tear, stepped towards the standing cleric, and smashed his axe into him, killing him. Anêr tried to stick his rapier into the mug of the guard before him, but the guard parried his blow, then dropped his sword and lifted his hands into the air.
Mayhem snapped back to reality, which was good for the guard throwing in the towel. However, another cowled guard slipped out of the hallway in the back of the room and lifted the lever to let out his trapped fellows.
The gang saw this and ran, grabbing Caleb and Kim and slipping past the secret door, near which Kúflaug was waiting. They shut the door, and Yémos cast Watchdog to keep them safe. Then, they rested for the next 20 hours, with Yémos healing Caleb, Kim, Anêr, and Mayhem. After that, the whole gang went back to the room with the columns and the chasm, and Caleb cast Levitate on everyone to get over the chasm.
Nothing bothered them until they made it to the stairs out of the bat shit room. The bats squawked, and as they started up the stairs, Kim stopped before she stepped into a big cube of nothing. They tried to hustle around the cube, but it could keep up with them. Thus Caleb, the last one, hung back and scorched the cube with a few Fireballs, which left it as a big puddle.
They came outside, and found a sunny morning after a rainstorm. They went to talk to an amazed Péllē, who was thrilled to hear that they met cowled men down in the dungeon. Kim told her they would bring her back one. After talking to Péllē, they talked to Likháfrikh, to see about building a bridge over the chasm. Likháfrikh said he didn't have any workers to spare without maybe getting some ore from the ruins. She also told him about the gelatinous cube, and Likháfrikh said, "That's why we send two kobolds. One can come back and tell us what happened to the other."
The next day, they went back down into the dungeon, and got Likháfrikh to come with them. They went to the side of the chasm, where Likháfrikh said it would be tough to make a bridge since the sides were so crumbly. Then he asked how deep the chasm was. Yémos cast Continual Light on a stone, then dropped it. Likháfrikh looked down at the little light at the bottom. "Yeah, I can see why you'd want a bridge," he said. "That's a big drop."
They also showed Likháfrikh the trapdoor in the floor of the alcove at the end of the room near the secret door, but he could tell them nothing that Caleb didn't already say. Mayhem wanted to light the gas, so he went between the columns to light a torch. No sooner did he get there and pull out his torch did jets of flame shoot up from the holes around the trapdoor, and slowly a big demon-head statue came out of the trapdoor, laughing, its eyes gleaming, and its mouth spewing flames. Mayhem lobbed his torch at the statue, but all it did was bounce off and go up in flames from the smokeless fire shooting out of the floor. And thus, the gang chose to run.
They got out the door and down the secret hall to the main hall, then went downstairs. They saw the rubble by which they saw the battle a few days before, and Yémos found his lit stone. They heard some hubbub to their left, and walked towards it.
They made it as far as a short flight of stairs when arrows greeted them. Anêr got out of the way of two of them, but Kim took both of them, and soon fell unconscious, bleeding. Anêr, Kúflaug, Mayhem, and Likháfrikh dashed up the stairs, while Yémos moved towards Kim's body lying on the ground. Anêr and Mayhem could see that four hobgoblins, hiding behind columns at the top of the stairs, had shot at them, and two were getting out their halberds. Anêr stabbed at one, but he missed, not able to see well. Mayhem tried to strike at another, but strained his shoulder. The two hobgoblins with halberds struck at Anêr and Mayhem, and dropped Mayhem prone. Yémos lobbed his lit pebble to the top of the stairs, while Caleb cast an Explosive Fireball. Mayhem lost his cool, and tried to punch the foot of the hobgoblin before him, but he parried. Likháfrikh, now at the top of the stairs, missed with a blow, while a hobgoblin hit Kúflaug, who somehow stayed standing. Another missed Anêr, while the other two shot at Caleb and Yémos, missing Yémos but dropping Caleb. Yémos healed Kim to get her out of immediate danger.
Pedicabo ego vos
Two important things. First of all, I went over the character sheets, and held everyone to their disadvantages a bit more. This mostly affected Mayhem, who lost some Reach from to his short arms, and Anêr, whose encumbrance knocked down his fencing skills a bit. Yeah, I feel like a shit, but they got points for that stuff. I should have been more diligent. Bad GM.
The other thing? When you drop a lit pebble down a chasm, anyone down there will know something is up, even a hobgoblin. Hell, an ogre would figure this out. Thus, when the hobgoblins saw the lit pebble fall, they were alert, and when they saw the gang come down the stairs, they nocked arrows.
So again we leave on a cliffhanger, but this time, the battle is going even worse for the heroes. Kim had lost 24 HP from those two arrows, and luckily she made her HT roll to stay alive. Mayhem going Berserk (another thing I've been enforcing more these last two sessions, but this one is much more fun in play) makes it harder for everyone to withdraw.
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