Lamentations in Niðwundor 03: A Golem, A Pudding, & A Chasm

Rations Used: five rations each
Light Sources consumed: one flask of lamp oil.
Treasure: Electrum Disc (200sp?), Sparamantur’s trinkets (10sp), Black Pudding (20sp), Silver and Emerald icon (200sp), silver and gold inlays from shields (20sp), miscellaneous snakeman scrolls (??sp?).
Kills: Black Pudding, Skeleton, Stone Cobra Guardian.
Total XP: 725 (145 each)
PCs

• Alphonse Cloutier, a crossbowman
• Goldie, an eldrtitch idiot savant
• Gorgi, a halfing (cannibal?)
• Morrigan, a specialist
• Sister Clover Chipsworth, a nun
• Urist the Dorf

The map keeps getting a little bigger.

Nathaniel Hocking

The party is brought together by an enterprising merchant interested in the wealth that might be in the dungeon, a Nathaniel Hocking. Nathaniel’s plan is to send the party into the dungeon, and pay them for extracting the treasures. He has only served as a device to organize the party at this point.

Before the company sets out, Goldie arranges a funeral for his friends, Dave, Gaewyn Verdect, Jerry, and Loradiel. The funeral is a spectacular affair as Goldie spends his two gold coins on it. Much food is prepared and eaten by the attendees (their primary concern). Goldie delivers a strange and rambling speech about the dead and the need for performing a funeral.

After the funerals and various preparations, the party begins the trek to the dungeon. Heavily encumbered, the journey takes two days. Arriving at nightfall, they have an uneventful rest and enter the dungeon at morning.

Since Goldie is the only one returning to the Royal Lizard Pit, Goldie performs a cursory tour of the so-far explored dungeon. He points out the coffins not to be disturbed in the False Tomb, the secret passageway to the big lizard, and the zapping room of the Tomb atrium.

Morrigan

Informed of the lightning trap, Morrigan inspects the trap in the northwestern room. He discovers a pressure plate that had triggered the lightning trap and outlines it for the others. After that, they pry the electrum disc out of the wall above the stone coffin.

Moving clockwise, they next open the northern door. The light illuminates a rubble obstructed passageway. There is a gap near the ceiling that one could crawl through. Alphonse crawls through and discovers something wielding a big axe which nearly lands it on his head. Crawling away, they made a plan. They through a makeshift torch-arrow into the room to illuminate a skeleton snakeman wielding a big axe. Gorgi and Alphonse took turn sniping at the skeleton while it couldn’t hit them. After many minutes pass, Gorgi finally manages to destroy the skeleton, sneak into the tomb, and snatch 10sp worth of miscellaneous trinkets.

Continuing their clockwise movement, they open the next room (Room 14). They observe the simple and rudimentary tomb (in comparison with the other tombs they’d so far seen) and consider the lone sarcophagus. Urist listens to the sarcophagus and hears nothing. He taps it and is startled by a squishing reply. Urist readies himself while Alphonse uses his crowbar to push the lid off of the coffin. Doing so, a thick black slime with many small treasures embedded within it slithers out through the gap. Alphonse and Urist immediately run out of the room and prepare themselves to fight the slime.

Gorgi

Urist begins attacking the slime in melee with a hammer and Sister Clover begins spearing the slime. The rest of the party fires slings, arrows, and bolts into the melee, (striking Urist and Sister Clover more often than the slime). Urist is nearly struck down by friendly fire and digested by the black pudding. Finally, however, an arrow, a sling bullet, and a crossbow bolt finally kill the slime while it is spreading itself to digest the dwarf. The slime loses shape and slumps into an immobile puddle. Sister Clover casts cure light wounds and heals Urist. Picking rings, amulets, and other baubles out of the puddle, the party estimates its total value to be around 20sp.

Moving clockwise but skipping the ornately engraved door to the east, the party opens the wooden door to the southeast (room 15). Inside they find a silver and emerald icon (200sp) and a bundle of scrolls in an incomprehensible language. They keep the scrolls and the ocon both, expecting a scholar to find them valuable.

They continue on their clockwise circuit and find the empty, unfinished room (room 16).

Alphonse Cloutier

With no other doors to open, the party examines the engraved door and opens it. The stairwell down is revealed. Alphonse holds a one end of a rope while someone else near the fountain holds the other end. Once Alphonse steps on the third step, the stairwell transforms into a ramp and Alphonse falls. Fortunately, the rope he’s holding prevents him from sliding down to wherever the stairwell led. Climbing back up, they notice that the stairwell resets after a minute.

Aware of their wounded nun (wounded only by friendly fire), the party decides to take a break from delving (about two hours in) and spend the rest of the day hunting. Golgi hunts with his sling, spending one rock and retrieving one rabbit. Alphonse expends 9 bolts in killing a faun (3 rations). Urist disappears into the hills chasing a deer with his hammer. Out of the tallow, the party manage to fashion two torches. In the morning of the next day (1 ration expended), Sister clover casts cure light wounds on herself.

Sister Clover Chipsworth

Back in the tomb atrium, Alphonse steps down the stairwell. He finds a large stone statue, which also seems to notice him. The statue gazes at him. Alphone runs back up the stairs to report. Alphonse runs back down and shoots his crossbow at the stone cobra statue. In response, the statue moves to Alphonse’s left out of his view. The two decide to throw bodies down into the room (the five hirelings that have been rotting in the false tomb for the past week). The stone cobra guardian grabs the bodies and fling them into an abyss beyond, providing Gorgi and Alphonse with a chance to fire at it. Exhausting four of the five bodies in this manner, they manage to finally kill the statue. Now nothing guards the passage. The party pries loose some silver and gold inlays in some of the shields decorating the walls (20sp).

The party examines beyond the large shield-room and discovers a yawning chasm with a walkway to the right and left. The walkway is slippery. The party hammers an iron spike into the walkway, ties a rope to it and Gorgi walks to the right while holding the other end of the rope and finds a recessed doorway. The door is large and heavy stone, barred with a heavy stone. Gorgi finds that he is unable to lift the bar.

Gorgi shouts loudly in the chasm his findings and walks back. Gorgi walks in the same fashion to the left and finds a dead end.

Urist the Dorf

With dwindling resources, the party decides to travel back to town. Still heavily encumbered, the party takes two days to reach the town (two rations used). Travel back to town is uneventful. Returning back to town, the party replenishes their resources.

Goldie