The owl explored a large hall with giant statues, as well as more hallways and corridors, giving an idea of the general layout. It also found several arrow-riddled (presumably dead) giant spiders. As such, we advanced carefully, starting with the shorter end - to the left.
The ceiling was covered in spider webs, which Selene shot down using Firebolt. Rolling a natural 20 made the whole thing go up in flames, and we had to dodge the flaming bits. We all managed - except Selene. I guess we saw it coming.
We found some junk, but the place looked already looted. A roughly fresh corpse had a few weapons on, but nothing else. That is, until we reached a closet full of skulls. Mounds of them. Hundreds. I took a few, as keepsakes.
I blew some charges off my Wand of Secrets in some suspicious looking dead-ends, and one of them did contain a secret door. The small room had a throne inside, so I immediately commanded my undead to block Selene[1]. Fortunately, this one proved harmless, although we did spend some jolly time figuring it out. We inspected and prodded, looked at it through the bronze mask, shot arrows and spells, sent an undead to investigate - until I put the helm on (also found in the room) and sat down. Another Wand of Secrets fell onto my head. Convenient.
We returned to the hall of statues, and inspected the corridors branching out. One was a dead end with a small room, where, upon opening the door, footsteps appeared in the dust. We activated every possible detection method, but found nothing. I concluded that the dungeon is haunted.
Another corridor housed a larger room, with acid floating on the ceiling. Or rather, being kept there by a force field. In the room, a statue held a locked box. Okos tried to pry open the box ready to teleport away, but it was held fast in rocky fingers. I then tried to open it using Thieves' Tools, and succeeded, although the acid fell down, and I scrambled up the statue in a hurry. We looted the desiccated magical heart from the box, and flew away.
A run-down armory held some sort of mechanism with a pressure plate (pedal?) which we tried to figure out, to no avail. I wonder how many secrets we missed in this damn place.
The next room had a set of double doors. Upon touching them, a goblin was summoned to our side, calling Tari his Mistress (and talking quite rudely to the rest of us). He had no information to tell, other than being held captive in "another place" until being summoned. He kept up the act through the rest of the dungeon, and shot his shortbow at the threats unveiled, all the while groveling at Tari and letting loose biting remarks towards the party[2].
We went through the double doors right into a Manticore den, and we did dispatch two beasts. Their filthy nests had some treasure, so we were quite pleased.
The next door had a dead basilisk behind it, clutching a Driftglobe. Brave, greedy Selene went to take it, and she was immediately attacked by two Giant Centipedes nesting INSIDE THE CORPSE. No match for our might, obviously.
The basilisk might once have guarded the entrance to a ruined temple, filled with crumbled statues. Selene did her thing by setting the spider webs on fire, which activated the black slime coating one of the statues. We killed it rapidly, but not before it engulfed Selene, consuming her clothes.[3] The cocoons did hide corpses and treasure, so again, it was not for nothing.
The last monster we fought was a troll which we disturbed in its bedroom, and it also went down without much of a fight.[4]
With that, the exploration of the first level is almost complete - all we need now is to refuel and rearm, then take on whatever is guarding the descent to level 2!
[1] See the previous session.
[2] Mostly Okos, who can't keep his mouth shut.
[3] I gave her fake vampire clothing.
[4] Being level 10 in a level 5 dungeon has its benefits.
No comments:
Post a Comment