OAWYM: More Stuff Happens

Game Date: 1/22/2016
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 19
System: Shadow of the Demon Lord
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Malcer (Daniel, subbing for Graham) - Human Warlock
Robb (Daniel) - Human Rogue
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Orc Paladin
Tatio - Malcer's Companion

The Session:

When we left off, we'd been stopped by a room with a collapsed floor, had started backtracking through the dungeon, and ran into a party of orcs.  With poor attendance this session, we briefly considered fleeing back to the floorless room, but Halfbeard charged right in and we were committed to the fight.  We spent the early rounds fighting in the doorway, with Halfbeard taking most of the damage while the rest of us couldn't get in position to be of much help.

As each orc went down, the rest of us gradually worked our way into the room.  Melcer used a Font of Healing spell, which helped us a bit.  One orc fumbled, breaking his weapon.  Val finished off the last foe with some unusually high rolls (for her).  The battle won, we continued backtracking to a secret door we'd found near the entrance of the dungeon.

We still couldn't find a way to disable the trap, so everyone stood back while Val set it off.  A spiked plate thumped against the other side of the door, Val took a few points of damage, and we entered the room.  This room wasn't worth the hype.  It was pretty much empty, but we could tell that one brick wall was much newer than the others.  Halfbeard managed to remove a brick, but couldn't see much on the other side.  He could hear something moving around, however, so we decided not to break through that way. 

We went back to the collapsed room where we'd fought the ghouls, and climbed up to a higher level.  From there we could see a courtyard below.  Robb fastened a rope and climbed down into a courtyard, while Val prepared to follow.  Then a big lizard came around the corner, and we had to make will checks.  Val and Robb each took a point of insanity, and couldn't take our eyes off the lizard.

Robb climbed back up the rope.  The basilisk did not follow.  We climbed back down into the ghoul room, and went back to the room with the missing floor.  Robb used his acrobatic prowess to cross the room, carrying one end of a rope.  With both ends fastened to opposite sides of the room, the rest of us had an easier time getting across the rickety boards. Halfbeard fell right at the end, took some damage, and we pulled him back up.  Malcer also had a lot of trouble getting across, but he made it.

At the other end, we saw more hallways and doors to choose from.  We listened to a door on our left, and heard some conversations.  We went on into the room, which turned out to be the stables.  There were four men shooting the breeze.  Val started to talk to them, but a fight was inevitable.  As we fought three of the guys, the one in the back started blowing a horn and calling for help. He exited through a door in the back, and six more orcs came running to join the battle.

Meanwhile, Melcer was attacked from behind by an "Organ Filch", a creepy Jack-the-Ripper / Phantom-of-the-Opera -looking dude, wielding a scalpel. This was a pretty difficult fight, and we used up a lot of healing resources.  The good news was that the cramped room kept us from getting surrounded, so we rarely faced more than three enemies at a time.  Robb finished off the Organ Filch.  When we were down to three enemies, Melcer hit them with a Fiery Volley, taking out one and nearly finishing the other two.  Halfbeard killed the final orc.

We hid the bodies in the loft, made sure we didn't see anyone else coming, and continued exploring the hallways.  In the side hall, we found a couple of rooms that were empty except for some rubble, and another set of stairs down.  The main hall rounded a corner and ended with two sets of double doors, one on each side of the hallway.  We looked through one of them, and saw what looked like a cemetery, with a big mausoleum-type building in the middle.

We thought about checking it out, but we needed to rest before going much further.  We took shelter in one of the empty rubble rooms, and ended the session.