CotMA - Episode 1b

(continued from here)

The heroes continued down the hallway and discovered a secret door.  They opened it and found three skeletons inside waiting to pounce upon the party!

Jace the Devine attempted to turn the undead AND HE SUCCEEDED!  The three skeletons fled away from the party, back toward the dungeon entrance.

Inside the chamber of the skeleton was a prominent lever mounted to the wall.  The lever was in the up position.  JD's halfling, with very little preparation, threw the lever into the down position, "because that's how levers are supposed to be."

There was a loud racket.  Grinding noises.  Thumping and the floor trembled below their feet a bit.  Ultimately (as far as they could tell) nothing happened.

Behind them, a short corridor led up to a closed door.  RF's fighter forced the door and they entered a rectangular room with a single exit door.  In the center of the room was a smashed amphora that appeared to have once been filled with oil, due to the huge puddle it was sitting in.  Upon opening the only other door in the room, the heroes found three more similar amphoras (stoppered) and they assumed these too contained oil.  They moved the amphoras out into the hall and set them in the corner.  They assumed that they could use them for an emergency fall back position -- smashing the amphorae and setting the oil alight to aid their escape.

They continued down the hall...

Eventually they entered a room where they found a non-corporeal warrior type, crying over the mouldering remains of his body.  They entered the room and prepared to do battle!

The discovered that their weapons were of no real use to them in the fight (the apparition was only hit by magic) but application of fire and holy water to its corpse seemed to injure the undead horror.  JD's halfling actually succeeded in damaging the apparition by smashing what remained of its skull.

The heroes simultaneously evaded and attacked the monster while gaining entry to a room in the rear of his chamber.  They discovered, through trial and error, that the apparition couldn't leave the room.  He also couldn't enter the back chamber.

For awhile we had action on three fronts -- those who were doing hit-and-run tactics with the apparition, those that were guarding the entrance in the hall (and watching Bob the burro) and a few that were examining the three chests that were found in the back room.

First the back room -- JD's elf, RF's magic user and DB's Jace the Devine were all in the back room.

First up, Jace decided to smash the lid of a chest in with his mace.  While this would have foiled a poison needle trap, it turned out that the chest was Fire Trapped and the resulting gout of flame reduced his torso to a holy cinder.  Inside a sack of coins and a scroll tube of magic user spells was found.

Seeing what just happened, JD's elf pushed his chest over by the door.  He reached around from behind and triggered the chest -- opening it toward the apparition who was menacing at the doorway.  The resulting mystical acid blast sprayed forth from the front of the chest, damaging the non-corporeal apparition.  Inside a shiny sword was found with a scabbard embossed with birds and other flying creatures.

Lastly, RF's mage dragged her chest over by the door and triggered it in hopes of blasting the apparition with some magical effect.  Unfortunately, her chest was trapped with a poison needle.  It sunk deeply into her finger and she died on the spot.  Another sack of coins was found inside the chest.

Meanwhile, outside of the room DB's dwarf and RF's fighter -- both badly injured from previous combat -- were watching the battle and tending to Bob the burro.  While they waited, a gelatinous cube slid up on them from the unexplored corridor.  Both men (and their burro) broke into a run and headed back down the corridor as fast as their legs could carry them...  just barely faster than the gelatinous cube itself...

Back in the room, after JD's halfling fell to the claws of the apparition, JD's elf took hold of the newly discovered shiny sword and leapt to do battle with the creature.  This weapon seemed to have the ability to actually do damage to the foul creature.  They went toe-to-toe for a number of rounds, but eventually the elf fell under its preternatural blows.  Sensing that the battle was nearly over and leaping to the defense of the elf, LB's fighter took up his sword and slew the beast.  The heroes in the room were able to revive the halfling and the elf with a bit of wine and the tending of their wounds.

At the same time, just down the hall, the dwarf and fighter had fallen back to the position of the three amphorae of oil.  Teaming up,  they swung one container through the air and crashed it on the floor some 40' distant.  As the gelatinous cube arrived, they hurled a torch down the hallway and set the creature alight.  They followed up hurling the other two amphorae at the beast, causing quite a conflagration.  The gelatinous cube had one chance to attack the men, swinging a flaming pseudopod at the dwarf, but missing.  It went down in a flaming jello heap.

(to be continued...)