Scarred Lands - To The Ratcave!

Game Date: 6/26/2010
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Alek Corman (Ted) - Half-Elf Paladin
Aria Thatcher (Matt) - Half-Elf Bard
Blast (Nick) - Gnome Warlock
Gorn (Jesse) - Half-Orc Ranger

Notes:
Dornn has left the group. Gorn - who had changed his name Kobaka to prevent confusion - is now known as Gorn again. So no more Kielbasa jokes. We're handling things okay, but we are looking for a fifth player. If the new player names his character anything that ends with "-orn", we'll lynch him.

Previously, on the Scarred Lands:
Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Ratman!
A suspicious well? A secret passage? A dungeon full of Ratmen? A temple to the Titans? A Ratman guide? Some unexplored hallways? An annoying recap? Our adventure continues!

Tonight's Episode:
We continued our rat-ridden dungeon crawl. The next room we found was a sleeping room, where we satisfyingly slaughtered several sleeping scumbags.

We took an extended rest back at the previously-explored temple room, and upon waking we found that some traps had been set up in the halls. Next we found a tiny room containing only a snakelike metal guardian. It was here we found our perfect single-file marching order. Alek in front, since he can take the most melee damage. Then Gorn, because he can do melee from one square away. Then Blast and Aria, who are completely ranged. After killing the guardian we discovered a secret door leading to a room with a magic mirror in it.

Upon gazing into the mirror, I saw my long-dead parents, and my reflection was holding the Quiddich cup. No, wait, wrong campaign. Actually, this mirror turned out to be a portal leading to a Dwarven kingdom. We went through and met some dwarves, who were surprised by our sudden appearance.

We had dinner with a Dwarven Runepriest named Duvall. They allowed us to rest and sell our loot, and they asked us to be their liaison to the impoverished town above the rat dungeon. We agreed, but we decided to finish clearing out the dungeon first. Back through the looking glass.

A couple of dwarves came with us, but only to guard the mirror. We fought through one difficult encounter, made either harder or easier by the fact we were stuck single file in a tunnel the entire time. Our perfect marching order wasn't quite as effective, especially since one of the baddies had a ranged At-Will that could stun. But the melee enemies were bad off because only one of them could reach us at a time. Two enemies fled, but we caught up to them later.

Our next encounter was a large cavern with only four ratties (two were from the previous encounter), but we went into it low on health. There was a river cutting through the middle of the room, and in the process of trying to cross it, our paladin fell down into the river. Much like the guy in Unbreakable, our Alek seems to have a supernatural weakness for water. He tried climbing back up, but fell back in, and was swept further down the river. It was there he discovered the secret fifth baddie, a giant glowing Cave Squid.


Aria, who couldn't roll a high number all session, also fell into the river while trying to jump across. It was a DC 10 and she has an Athletics of 5... seriously, who can't do that? Apparently, Aria can't. But at least she managed to crawl back out. The rest of us finished off the ratguys, then went about trying to save the now-dying Paladin. We couldn't quite get a rope out there to reach him, and we were about to write of his character as seafood. Luckily (and by "luckily" I mean the DM felt sorry for us), the squid only took a bite and swam off. We retrieved Alek and took a much-needed rest.

Later we found a room full of drakes, who we killed rather effectively. They were guarding a trapped treasure room, where we finally got our hands on a little bit of phat lewt. There appears to be only one more room in the dungeon. At the end of a trap-filled hallway (now disarmed by Gorn), there is a door. From within, we heard someone whispering about how this is their last stand. We broke session there, standing outside the door, ready to kick it in and waste some ratdudes.

Reminders:
Some of us are still diseased.
We need to tell the townsfolk about the dwarves.
We now have some spending cash, and a place to spend it, which is good because we all need some upgrades.
After we've exterminated the dungeon, we need to search for any missing children. If we can't find any alive, we may just have to dress up the gnome as a child again. I mean, we have to give those townspeople something.

Rewards:
XP: 120+60+345+150+150=825 each.
Gold: 258+50+185=493
Misc: Ironskin Belt (Alek), Amulet of Health (Aria), a rod (Blast), and a few healing potions.