| Campaign 2000 22 January, 2001 |
Player Characters
The party continued on, exploring the dwarven caverns...
After a quick and uneventful exploration of a large storage area and what was obviously a kitchen, the party found a bit of excitement in the form of a large ogre with 2 pet wolves. Between Dalf's axe and Viper's magic missiles, the trio didn't last long, size and bad attitudes notwithstanding. Ransacking the ogre's chamber, the party came across a good bit of gold and silver and a magical rapier (rapier +1). Lothar took the rapier.
A bit further on, a statue of a dwarf turned out to be poison gas trap. Lothar triggered the trap, but, fortunately, no one was too hurt by the gas.
5 orcs in a small barracks didn't last long when surprised by the party.
Returning back to a door they had skipped exploring earlier, the party found an iron cauldron sitting in front of it. The door was stilled closed, but the cauldron hadn't been there before. After a bit of prodding with a spear and careful checking, it was discovered that the cauldron contained only gold coins. An orc voice in broken Common from behind the door told the party to take the gold and go.
The party considered the proposition, but went into the room anyway. The 4 orcs in their crude ambush didn't last long either.
A secret door was found at the end of a narrow tunnel off of the large storage area. The party surprised an orc alchemist/cleric and her assistants in a small labratory. Dalf was hit with an alchemist fire, but otherwise the party (again) mopped up quickly.
In a large chamber north of the labratory, the party found a stairway that led down into the mountain. While exploring the room, the party was attacked by a group of flying-buzzing-annoying stirges, but the creatures were killed without incident.
The party headed down the stairs. As they followed the stairway into a large cavern, another group of stirges attacked. The stairs prevented much maneuvering and both Torlic and Dalf found themselves providing plasma to stirges. Frantic cursing-beating-pulling-killing eliminated the stirges, but both Torlic and Dalf were weakened by the blood sucked out of them.
Retreating back to the top of the stairs, the party prepared to spend the night in the large chamber.
The north door, with it's angry dwarven face carved on it, and its burn-blasted orc skeletons in a blast-pattern in front of it caught the party's attention. Lothar's attempt to disable the trap on the door resulted in him being engulfed in flames. After putting himself out, Lothar decided to sit back and watch and ponder the fate of his clothes. While Lothar dealt with his fire-issues, the door he had opened clicked shut again.
Challenged, Dalf and Torlic worked out a scheme to get the door open. Dalf soaked 2 blankets in water, covered himself in the 2 blankets, and tied a rope to himself. Opening the door, he quickly placed some orc bones so it wouldn't close again, and was pulled to safety by Torlic. The blankets were completely destroyed, and Dalf was a bit singed, but the door was open.
It was a closet. Except for the machinery to operate the trap and house the flame agents, the closet was empty. Disgusted, the party began dismantling the trap to claim the flame agents.
The noise of this activity attracted another batch of stirges. Dalf and Lothar were both significantly drained before the annoying creatures were dispatched.
The party holed up in the labratory room for 24 hours while they healed up enough to head back to town. [an error occurred while processing this directive]