LotFP solo dungeon crawl - Part II

Took us near five days to get healed up all proper in town. And Tleera went and hired us a local girl to carry a lantern so we could worry about the fighting instead of the lighting. And by then we'd used up all the silver what we found in the Vaults [84sp lodging, 21sp for the linkgirl's salary for the next 5 days]. So 'twere really time to go win us some more!

We gave the linkgirl (I forget her name; it was like Miss Enpysie or summat) Hostrick's lantern -- he weren't going to be needing it in the churchyard. And I gave me own one to Ethy, seeing as how she didn't like to have a shield.

And so we goes back and we goes back in. First thing Ethy does, is she says she wants to check to see if them bandits is still hanging about, on account of we didn't even look when we got the hell out of there. So she puts the lantern to where it's only giving out a sliver of light and she goes all stealthy-like down the corridor. She comes back in a minute and says they all left [according to Mythic. And there was no random encounter with new occupants in the room.] We looks over the empty room, but it didn't have nothing interesting, nor traps nor treasures, nor secret doors.

So we goes out to the intersection [A] and this time we goes right. And there's a torchlight flickering at the end of the corridor. So goes towards it, and finds a couple a human lasses standing in front of it [D -  wandering monster: 2 acolytes].

They was friendly enough [reaction=9], and told us what they was here looking to find out what happened to some friends of theirs. They come into the Vaults
some days ago and ain't been seed since.

[Q: Are they allied with the bandits? Yes
Q: Do they want help? Yes]

Their friends seemed like them guys we met right off the entrance room, by their description. Well they was nice enough when we met them -- or harmless enough at any rate -- so we offers to help look. And I think they was glad of the company.


            CH CN DX IN ST WI HP
Jirtin f C1 12  9 12 12 11 16  4 leather & light mace
Belota f C1  9 14 12  8 11 13  5 chainmail & light mace
Spells- J: Cure Light Wounds; B: Bless
Morale: 7

So we goes for a ways, Jirtin and Belota -- that were the new girls names -- bringing up the rear, as they were just holy types, and not of such battle-loving gods like our dear Sister Midge.

And we come to this weird place where the corridor goes all diagonal for a bit, and real wide [Room 5 - environment only], some thirty feet or so. And it's full of fire. Big gouts of flame shooting up from the floor and down from the ceiling and out the walls on all sides.

We weren't feeling none too suicidal, so we left well enough alone and passed it by. Up another long hall where we found another door [E]. Doors is good at making one curious. So we opens it, and goes in.

[Room 6 - Monster & Environment]
There were a great big room, so big the lantern light didn't reach the far end. And it once must of been a real nice vaulted ceiling, like with columns and such, but summat had happened and it were mostly all collapsed in the centre [Environment: lots of hard cover]. There was tree roots growing through the ceiling. Them it must of been what pushed down the vault. Didn't seem too dangerous though [Architecture roll succeeds], nor for us nor for them what we found in it [4 Acolytes + leader, C2].

[Q: Bandit allies? No.
Reaction: 5
Q: Does it end in violence? Yes.]

They was a bunch of holy types, in long black robes with big black hoods -- and armour underneath -- and wearing big wooden medallions around their necks what I could tell meant trouble. Ethy tried to talk to the leader, but everyone could see he was just sizing us up. Then Tleera tried to enspell him all sneaky like [Charm Person], but it didn't work. And then things got ugly.

The lead holy man -- I should probably say UNholy man -- ordered his lot to attack. Me and Izayne was hiding behind some of the rubble with our crossbows, and when we hears him we pops up and lets them bolts fly. Thwunk! Thwunk! Two of them go down quick as that. Then Kella screams out a battle cry and runs right at the leader, whilst Ethy is still backpedalling to draw her sword. Kella runs the guy straight through, right under the heavy breastplate he's got on under his robes, and that were all for him [6x2=12 damage, dropping him to -1hp]. The other two [morale fails] bolted right out the southern passage.

Ethy and Kella runs after them, and sees that they run right into some big lizard thing coming up the corridor [F - wandering monster], probably to see what all the commotion were about.

reptilian beast
unintelligent AL:C
AC: 17, HD 3+1, Move: 150', 1 bite: 1d6, ML: 10
exudes Slow gas (save vs. magic or slowed for 1 turn)

They is already killed the thing when Ethy and Kella got there, but it had filled the corridor with some sort of smelly vapours, and everyone what breathed too deeply started moving real slow-like. Everything they did was all drawed out and they even talked half speed, to say nothing of fighting!

Well one of the fleeing guys musta held his breath or summat, cause he was gone by the time the rest of us got there. We just watched as Ethy and Kella fought the last of 'em, looking more like they was in a dream than a real fight. Kinda eerie it were, and we wasn't about to get slowed neither, so we's just watched. Ethy finally stabs the guy through his neck with that sharp thin sword of hers, and I swears what his blood were slow in hitting the ground, too.

Well, it wore off pretty quick, and by that time we'd looted the bodies. Only about 100 silvers between the lot, but we needs the money, we does! [Each had treasure type U; total of 49sp on one, 50sp on another.]

We went past the dead monster right quick-like, and ended up going in a circle past the fire again. So then back up past the door to the room we was just in [E] and then up to this really big passage [G] what had really ornate decorations on the walls, and a fine set of double doors [H] to boot. We searched the wall like hell but we didn't find nothing. So we tried the big doors.

They opens into a big funny-shaped room [Room 7 - Special], kind of like a sawed off triangle, and with a huge set of stairs going way down into the darkness [down to level 2].

We wasn't ready to go deeper, so we goes out the side door, and down a passage, which forked at the end. We goes right. At the end of the corridor there was this weird-shaped room [Room 8 - Monster & Environment]. I mean it were just a square, but he floor was all slanted down from where we come in to the exit on the opposite corner[I], all smooth and round, like we was standing on the edge of a quarter of a bowl.

We was just starting down when out the bottom corridor come a whole pack of these gross, snappy lizard things. They was about 3 foot tall, and stood on these tiny legs, and ain't had no arms to speak of, but a long jittery tail. Didn't need non either, cause they had a big head what was all mouth. They run up and surrounded us, and we had to fight. Only the slope was awkward, and every time you took a hit you as like as not loose your footing and tumble right down to the bottom. Course, they had the same problem as us, though not many of them was as could take more than a single good hit and get up again.

[Environment: floor slanted. Anyone hit in melee must save vs. paralyzation or tumble down to the bottom, losing their next action.]

bitey lizard things
unintelligent AL:C
AC: 16, HD 1/2, Move: 90', 1 bite: 1d8, ML: 12

We got 'em all in the end [6 rounds], though we was a little banged up. And Izayne looked like she were near bit in half, but our new friend Jirtin's holy magic put her to rights [Cure light wounds back to full hp].

So we went carefully out the exit, and the corridor branches off. The first way we goes down was a dead end [J]. We searched it a good long time, but weren't nothing to find there. "Weird," I says, "that someone'd build a big long useless corridor and have it all dead end without a room or even something hid."

And Izayne says, "We've come through all these strange chambers..."

"...and just now you're starting to find it weird?" finishes Tleera.

Well, they was right: none of this were normal. But I guess what wizards got their own ideas about construction that don't make sense to us normal folks. And sometimes not even to other wizards!

So we thought to go the other way, but the corridor was filled with gas or fog or some such like [K] and we didn't fancy wading through it. So we turns back and decides what we should try our luck the other way.

We comes to a big room, [Room 9 - Monster & Environment] long and tall, and with a balcony [the environment] running round three of the sides. There were steep steps up on either end, facing towards the way we comes in, and we sees a door on the upper level at the far end leading out. Underneath it all were pretty empty, just some old wooden benches, and what were prolly once a table down the middle of the room. But a door's a door, and made to be opened. So we tromps up the stairs, half of us on either side, and we makes to open it.

Only we never got that far. We feels like this wind stir up, up there weren't no wind. It were these wispy, smoke-like phantoms what drifted all around us. All mournful and immaterial-like they was -- when you could see 'em at all, that is -- and they had some nasty little claws, and they takes a mean swipe at us.

diaphanous phantoms
semi-intelligent undead AL:C
AC: 16, HD 1/2, Move: 150', claws: 1d8, ML: 12, #appearing: 1d6
invisible, surprise on 1-5

[surprise round]
They was everywhere! [there were 1d6=4 of them] Suddenly Tleera screams in pain and falls, her back a bloody mess [6 damage put her at -2hp]. Jirtin got her face all clawed off and dropped too [7 damage put her at -3hp, mortally wounded]. And one must found a hole in Sister Midge's armour, cuz she started spraying blood every which way and fell over the balcony [7 damage dropped her to -4hp; she was dead before she hit the ground].

We was pretty spooked, and run out the way we came. That linkgirl got tore to shreds [4 damage, down to 0hp], and I even felt some sharp little claws down me back [1 damage drops our narrator to 2hp].

We was lucky they didn't follow us. Felt bad 'bout leaving all our comrades-in-arms, and even that link girl (what was her name?), but we was in no shape to fight for their bodies. So we thought we'd get out of these damn Vaults and come back once we had our strength up -- and a couple o' hired swords to go with!

We got to the bowl room [Room 8] all safe-like, and paused to catch our breath. And light a torch to go with Ethy's lantern, now that our linkgirl weren't with us no more.

We shoulda just went the way we came, but I thought what we could take a shortcut back to join up with the fountain room [Architecture check to estimate relative position on the map]. We was walking down a corridor in that direction, and then there were a flapping of wings in the dark. And these two stirges [L - wandering monster] come right at us!

Kella and Ethy was hit straight off, and the little buggers latched right on with them snouts o' theirs. Kella got hers off on the point of her short sword, but Ethy weren't so lucky. Damn thing near drained her dry [to -3hp, mortal wound]. I killed it meself, but Ethy were not long for this world. We drags her off with us, but we knew it were just so's we could bury her [she had 1d10=8minutes to live].

And to think, it were a door that trapped the stirges in that hall. Else they'd a flied out and we'd might not of lost Ethy. But that door weren't too good for us even with the stirges gone.

We opens it and goes into a big empty room [Room 10 Trick/Trap] with a door on the other side, what I were sure must lead to the fountain room, if me instincts were correct. But when I tries to open it, it were stuck. And the other door'd closed all of itself, all quiet-like. So I pulls harder on the door, and then I hears a click. And then a big rumble. And then the floor seems to give way a little, only it don't move out from under my feets. "Ah shite," I says when I realises it, "the whole room be descending!"

Down and down it went, I'm guessing a good hundred feet or so [trick/trap: elevator room down 1d4+1=3 levels; now Room 4.1] afore it finally stops. Well, we was well and truly buggered now if we couldn't find our way back up and out the dungeon. We laid Ethy out as nice and peaceful-looking as we could -- no sense in dragging her about until what we found some stairs. So we gives our new cleric friend Ethy's lantern, and me and Izayne gets our crossbows ready, and we sets out to explore the deep levels.


Marching order:
KF
IB

So we opens one of the doors to find a big chamber what we could barely see, what with all the webs filling it from wall to wall [Room 4.2 - Environment only]. They wasn't too hard to avoid, and not so devilishly sticky like what them wizards like to make, but they made it hard to wee what was what [Environment: webs. PCs must make Search rolls to find anything in the room]. We was about to give up when Izayne finds a whole door hid beneath 'em.

We goes up the corridor a ways to a crossroads, and picks a direction. There was a side passage we ignored, but we ended up in a empty chamber [A], what we decided to ignore.

So we tries the side passage, and off it we comes to a even bigger side passage [B]. It were some 20' wide, and had a row of columns down the middle. It goed a ways then bends around a corner. We thought what how the stairs we seen up on the first level were in a big funny room, all fancy-like, and off a great wide gallery, so's we though maybe this'd lead us back up. Or we hoped it would.

We followed the bed and it let out in a grand long chamber [Room 4.3 - Monster & Environment - lots of cover]. The columns kept on in straight up through the middle, and then formed a kind of rounded diamond shape near the far end. And there was all these benches looking like them arse-breakers the humanfolk likes to put in their churches.

But inside the ring were this big old skeleton beast. About the size of a cow it were, but with fangs. It were looking pretty angry to see us, so we just backed up real slow-like and got out before it had a chance to eat us up. Or whatever skeleton beasts do to living folk.

skeleton beast
unintelligent undead AL:C
AC: 18, HD 4, Move: 60', bite: 1d6, ML: 12
turns clerics

So we tries a different way. We tromps all the way down and finds yet another empty chamber [C] what we also couldn't be bothered to search. Wasted trip, waste o' time. So we goes all the way back, and tries a different passage off the crossroads. We comes to a big chamber with a lot o' ways out [Room 4.4 - monster only]. But there were something horrible in it. A big spidery sort of thing with long arms ending in suckers [rhagodessa, 26hp]. And it were fast. But there were four of us, so we had at it.


rhagodessa
Expert rules p. X38
AC: 16, HD 4+2, Move: 150', sucker or bite, ML: 9, #appearing: 1d4

[round 1 - it wins initiative]
It reached out to Kella with them sucker hands, and grabbed her good. Me and Izayne takes our shots, hoping not to hit our friend [it's a Large target, so there's only a 1 in 3 of hitting Kella]. Izayne's hit the beastie, just barely [1 damage]. Mine didn't go anywhere near. Belota hit it pretty solid with her mace [6 damage puts it at 19hp].

[round 2]
And then it just casually pulled Kella to its great big open mouth, and just bites her head clean off and spits it out again [automatic hit, 7damage puts her at -4, dead]. We was so shocked we just sort a stared at it all dumb-like [in game terms, miss miss miss].

[round 3]
Then it goes and grabs Izayne. We all tries to save her, but only Belota did it any real hurt [4 damage puts it at 15hp].

[round 4]
That were it for Izayne. It bit her head off with a crunch. And chewed it up good. Guess it just don't like eating helmets. I were sure by the look on her face what Belota were going to run, but she she didn't [passed Morale (7) check]. And I finally hits the thing, and makes a big, satisfying crunch with me hammer [8 damage drops it to 7hp].

[round 5]
That sent it reeling a bit, and it didn't get a hold of either of us. Belota even gave it another good thwack [5 damage leaves it with 2hp].

[round 6]
I were sure it'd flee after that, but it didn't. And it grabs me with its sucker but good. What with all the shakin' about and pullin' I couldn't get a decent hit on it, and kept getting in Belota's way too [they both miss].

[round 7]
Then it pulls me all close like, and would you believe, it bites me head clean off [6 damage to -4hp, dead]. And I remember it going dark, and thinking its breath were a lot less worse than you'd think it'd be!

Well, I didn't see too much after that, and things get a little disjointed, ha! It spit me head out, on account of it can't chew through a good helm, and I saw Belota running away. She goes out of sight real quick, but the spider monster runs after her, and it were a fast little bugger. I hears it catch her, and then there's a chomping noise, and that were kind of it. I seen it come back and drag Kella's body off [back to Room 4.2], and after a while it comes back for Izayne's and mine.

So that's all I knows. I don't know if it answered your question or not, but I hope there were something in it what can help you find your magic artifact. It sure were nice of you guys to stop by.

--- --- ---


The necromancer set the old and crumbling dwarf skull back down on the stone floor where he had found it. He looks to his companion, who is still standing there in stunned silence. "I suppose you were right," he says, after along pause. I guess you really can use that spell on non-humans." [v. Speak with Dead: LotFP Rules & Magic, p. 130]

"Why... why would the archmage tell us something so blatantly untrue?"

"After what we just witnessed, I'd say it was for our own good!"