Players: Tre/Tienarth, Henry/Chubb, Jeff/Memnon, Nick/Azrak
The group returned to the fortress crypts, minus half their party. It was rumored the cleric was off attending a play. No one heard from the other thief. In the past three weeks Tienarth’s arm healed well enough to head back out. So, the party made an uneventful trip back to the island.
Eight more rooms of the crypts were explored, plus two more shrines which had strange totems and wooden tablets with obscure writings. One room was filled with cobras. The party swiftly closed the door rather than battle the deadly snakes. In all, the party killed two ghouls, a zombie, two skeletons and four stirges.
Chubb the thief’s lockpicking skills were on display as the opened several doors and a chest. Azrak charged in battle bravely, knocking down foes in one shot at times. Tienarth tried out his new Magic Missile spell to decent effect.
In the final battle of the adventure, the party defeated four stirges and then Chubb knelt down to search through a pile of dung on the floor. Mixed in the offal were many gold and silver coins, a statuette and a anklet of ancient barbarian design. At first, Chubb feigned finding anything, perhaps half-baking a scheme to make off with the rich treasure alone. Azrak’s gold-digging dwarf instincts got the better of him and he too dove head-first into the filth. The two made poor work of hiding their glee at the hoard. Chubb played off the deception as a joke and shared all the coins with party, more than 2,000 gold pieces. Meanwhile, he pocketed the valuable anklet and let Azrak take the statuette.
Back in the fort, after paying the 10% tax for entry, the party sold their treasure and sought training from the local fight masters. Azrak achieved level 2. Chubb went to level 3. Tienarth was just shy of 2nd level, but Azrak generously paid for his training to get to level 2. Plus, Azrak had enough gold to buy a suit of plate armor. The party is significantly stronger now and feeling confident about heading deeper into the fortress levels.
Tienarth: Jackpot!
This is the first session where no character took enough damage to die. At least once before, we had a character to below zero hit points but survive, such as when Tienarth was bitten by a ghoul in the previous session. The team is working together to be more cautious and stealthy. They made the choice to quickly shut the door to a room full of snakes rather than fight. They held off on bashing doors and chests open to keep the noise low. When it comes down to it, it’s the loot that matters. Battles are fine, but the XP gain from walking out with treasure outweighs the XP from defeating 1 HD monsters.