Players:

  1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful (Mark)
  2. Marcellus, Level 1 Archontean Cleric of Atashak, Chaotic God of Fire and Battle (NPC)
  3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
  4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful (Bill)
  5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
  6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)

Note taker/map maker: Bill Caller: Brad Quartermaster: Jake Treasurer: Earl

Six giant centipedes descended upon the group but the Fingers seized the initiative and were able to slay them all without anyone getting poisoned. They scouted the rest of the large room and decided to open a door to the west. When they opened the door, eight large spiders ambushed the group. After the first few spiders fell, Everet, for reasons unclear to the rest of the group, bizarrely shut the door behind him, leaving himself alone in the room with the six poisonous spiders. The spiders launched themselves at him, and all were deflected by his shield and freshly-looted banded mail. The group rushed in to aid their companion, and promptly slew all but one of the spiders. With just one spider left, the group had little to fear - or, so they thought. The last spider succeeded on his morale check to stay in the fight and promptly critically hit Everet, who failed his poison saving throw to take a total of 16 damage, bringing him to exactly zero HP. The next round, the Fingers were able to slay the spider and heal Everet, but not before we named the vicious arachnid “the first mini-boss of Arden Vul.”

As a consequence of being brought to zero HP, Everet lost one point of Stamina permanently (this is a DCC core rule that I forgot to apply earlier, but will now and in the future). He also failed a FORT saving throw to take a lingering injury: mental trauma (a permanent -4 to WILL saves). I, too, would be traumatized by such an event. Five successful consecutive Lay on Hands checks later (wow), Everet was healed back up to 13 HP.

Pushing through the spider webs, the party entered a dust-covered room that contained a pristine silver chalice perched atop a blacksmith’s anvil. Kicking around in the dust, Battista struck gold (technically metaphorically) and found a diamond worth 1,000gp lying on the floor. The group nabbed the chalice, which seemed to have a supernatural ability to clean itself, and marched north up a hallway.

In a room located off the hallway, the group found the corpse of a deceased halfling. On the body, the group found a note with some scribbled Archontean on it: “Use the little pyramid to access the Howling Caves. Beware of the Darkness!” The only pyramid the group had discovered so far was the Pyramid of Thoth in the ruins, which could not reasonably be described as “little.”

Everet opened the next door to find a massive stirge nest and 18 very angry stirges. They quickly threw an improvised lamp-oil molotov in the room and shut the door, causing the stirges to flee up a chimney that seemed to connect to the surface. Thinking fast, Marcellus cast Resist Heat upon himself and braved the flames to grab a cone of incense and a tattered piece of paper from the room before either item could be incinerated. The paper contained notes from an adventuring party that apparently met their end at the hands of what they called “the white ones” who “feared the light” in the vicinity of the entrance to “the Drowned Canyon.” The group also found a glowing bronze rod with a Mithric inscription, as well as hundreds of coins in the charred ruins of the nest. They scooped as much as they could into their pockets and backpacks, only leaving behind a small pile of 50 copper pieces.

The next room the party explored contained a privy constructed over a 5’ wide vertical shaft that descended far into the darkness below. The party noticed that someone had hammered iron rungs at regular intervals in the walls of the shaft. Shortly thereafter, the Fingers found a descending spiral staircase in another room to the east. The group formed a consensus of “perhaps we’ll come back to these when we’re stronger,” and continued to explore the rooms on their current level.

After searching a few more rooms, the group looted some lamp oil and a magical boot from a corpse of someone who perished in a cave-in. The group reasoned that they’d need to find the other boot to activate its magical effects. After slaying a carrion crawler without much difficulty, the Fingers found a piece of paper upon which was drawn a map of what looked like another area of the dungeon.

After this, the group entered a room that contained a corpse and a pool holding a dark, viscous liquid. They lifted a bag of gold dust (75gp) and a scroll from the corpse before continuing on. In the next room, they encountered three animated stone monkeys who immediately started screaming and flying about when the group opened the door. The group promptly turned around and fled south. Everet was hit with a magical silence effect and could not talk for half an hour, but everyone was otherwise unharmed.

Heading south and then west, the party came across a room that appeared to be a recently-used living space for someone, as it contained a cot, a barrel of water, and a bronze tripod heating a fire that was somehow smokeless. Here, the group found a gem stuffed in the cot, as well as nine unidentified spell scrolls: six of cleric spells, three of wizard spells.

Approaching the last room the group explored this session, Pif opened the door to see a non-hostile zombie staring blankly back at him. It had a dog collar with a silver pendant worth about 10gp around its neck. Enraged at the zombie’s apparent threat to the natural, Lawful order of the universe, Pif lifted his holy symbol to drive the passive undead into a corner before it was swiftly decapitated by Everet.

End time: 2993 AEP, Lunday (2nd day of the week), the 3rd day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 11:00am.