Deepingdale's adventuring logs 9

Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.

Company Members Present
Slippy, 3rd Lvl Ratman - Founding Member
Venser, 3rd Lvl Human Thief Rear Guard*
Cagliostro, 2nd Lvl Human Necromancer
Hjalhir, 3rd Lvl Human Wizard Rear Guard*
Blade, 2nd Lvl Human Cleric of Hegg, God of Blades
Deepingdale (Tal), 2nd Lvl Dwarrow
Skarr, 1st Lvl Female Ratfolk Thief
Stignarr, 1st Lvl Human Fighter Rear Guard*
(*Absent)

Starting and ending locations: The Chasm Deeps returning later to the Red folk’s village of Lembde, 2 hours east of the Chasm Deeps (5 miles).

Session 9 (26/10/11)
After cleaning ourselves up after the fight with the spider, Hjalhir decided that he was in no fit state to continue and so we escorted him outside to join Venser, Stig and the mules at the camp that they had set up in a small hollow in the cliff face, just around the corner from the entrance (hopefully away from prying eyes and noses).  The remainder of the company apprehensively returned back to the deeps.  We returned to the spiders room and after listening, John the animated skeleton opened the door opposite on the northwest wall.

This lead into a large room 40’ x 55’, which was both strangely and quiet disturbingly, very clean.   Immediately Deepingdale became a little anxious about possible traps, but after an extensive search, nothing could be found.  3 other doors lead off from this room, one on each wall.  We decided to move north first and when John opened the door it revealed a dark corridor ahead.  Cagliosro’s animate undead spell ran out at this point and John collapsed to the floor, his work done for now.  As the Necromancer started to collect up John’s inanimate bones and return them to the coffin which he strangely carried on his back, suddenly out of the dark, shot a web thread and entangled Johns ulna (lower arm bone).  Before Caglisro had a chance to grab it, the sticky web thread shot back into the darkness along with John’s lower left arm.  Caglisro, in fear, quickly shut the door in front of him, thinking that another giant spider was about to do the same to him.  The party quickly assembled with Deepingdale acting as a shield guard at the front and Scarr and Slippy with bows with Blade with his Glaive set to receive.  We cautiously opened the north door and peered into the darkness.  All along the corridor ceiling hung a deep blanket of dusty old spiders webs.  At this point Caglisro heard a wooden creaking sound to the south of us and we closed the north door and prepared for our visitor.

Scarr had the plan to surprise however was sneaking up on us and we pretended to leave the room back to the east, but instead stood still very quietly and waited with weapons poised, but nothing happened.  10 minutes later we decided to proceed through the southern door to investigate.  Using Deepingdales brute strength he managed to wrench the door off its hinges when trying to open it.  This would prove a problem later.  The room to the south entered into another large oblong room 60’ x 30’ with a large 20’ stone statue of a frog in the centre of it within what was once clearly a fountain.  A number of double doors lead off from this junction hall.  The doors to the west and south where both slightly ajar and spots of fresh blood lay on the floor leading through the western door.  A strong smell of dogs (gnolls?) hung in the air.  The doors to the east hung off their hinges and through these we could make out day light from the entrance.  Deep looked through the doors to the west and could see a carcass of a dead deer lying on the ground. 

An additional door lay on the northern wall leading back into the dead spiders room.  We decided to check this first as another door which we had not opened yet lead to the east and looking at our map we wanted to know if this room contained gnoll guards as the smell seemed very strong from this area.  After hearing nothing, we opened the door to reveal a small 20’x20’ room, its floor seemed to look exactly like the nights sky, brilliant black with shiny stars that looked up at us.  Deepingdale asked Cagliosro to check it out and the Necromancer started casting a detect magic spell.  Whilst he did this, from the door way Deepingdale dropped one of his stone marbles onto the floor into the room.  For a moment the marble rolled around and once it settled it disappeared through the floor.  Deepingdale then took out his 50’ rope and dangled 3’ of rope into the room.  The rope settled on the floor, then like the marble, slowly sunk into the floor and disappeared.  Deep was unable to retrieve the rope and began cutting the section off with his knife.  It is at this point that the party came under attack and Cagliosro's spell was detect magic spell was interrupted.

From the room to the south with the Frog Statue in it, we saw a grey humanoid hand push open the door on the southern wall.  Scarr who was standing guard shot at the hand with his bow, but the arrow embedded into the south door and the hand quickly withdrew.  Perhaps this was our earlier stalker we thought.  Deep dropped his knife and the rope, withdrew the Azure Serpent Sword from his scabbard and quietly moved into the room behind him to see what the fuss was.  Slippy and Blade joined Scarr and at the same time from the east we heard a terrible humanoid dog like cry and from the corridor charged two 7’ Gnolls carrying large spears.  Slippy and Scarr let loose their arrows and Blade attacked with his Glaive.  The Cleric of Hegg and the Ratfolk soon dispatched the foul dog men and just when we thought all was safe, from the door to the south three ghouls charged in.  Scarr managed to leap onto the Frog statue just as an undead red man ghoul leapt up at him clawing with both hands and biting with his teeth.  The little rat women was badly scratched in the back, but managed to resist the diseased paralysis from the ghouls dirt ridden claws.  In a state of shock and surprise, Scarr’s arrow missed completely.


Deepingdale, Slippy and Glaive prepared to receive the three ghouls.  Combat was chaotic and confused.  Deepingdale skewered the Ghoul in the back who was leaping up at Scarr, but before we knew it, despite managing to strike the Ghouls with Hjalhir’s magical dagger, Slippy lay on the floor paralysed from the unclean claws and bite from one the Ghouls who was now lying on top of him trying to eat him.  Deepingdale was also hit, but his Dwarrow endurance was no match for the filth of the ghouls and he took nothing more than a small flesh wound.  Blade then tried to cast a sanctuary spell to rescue Slippy, but just before the spell incantation was complete, a ghoul scratched him and disrupted the spell.  Despite this, Blade bravely tried to pull Slippy from under the attacking ghoul but instead was bitten and clawed himself and ended up also lying paralysed next to Slippy near the door.  Deepingdale seeing that the situation was turning dire, backed off, retreating slowly to the north east door and stood over the two paralysed bodies of his colleagues defending them from the ghoul claws eventually killing his own assailant, but not managing to do anything more.  Scarr in the meantime shot arrows down from his safe vantage point.  After failing to earlier cast control undead on the attacking ghouls, Cagliosro at this point managed to successfully cast an animate dead spell and raised the dead spider and the two Gnolls who proceeded to enter the battle just as another 4 ghouls appeared through the south door.  The undead gnolls and spiders made quick work of the last two ghouls before their comrades could join them to reinforce their attack.  Meanwhile, Cagliosro managed to drag our paralysed companions back into the dead spiders room and summoned a new John the skeleton from a scroll to support the ensuing combat.

Unfortunately it was now becoming very clear that with only three remaining party members left in combat, one of which was seriously injured and potentially cut off from the rest of us, we decided it was time for a fighting retreat (or running for our lives).  Deepingdale opted to prepare burning oil to try to dispatch the four new ghouls who had entered the chamber, but through the pressure of battle he lost the initiative and ghouls poured in and pursued poor Scarr as he leapt down from the frog statue just before one of them jumped up at him narrowly missing Scarr.  Scarr ran like the wind through the broken door to the northwest, into the clean room, pursued by ghouls.  The undead gnolls and spider helped Cagliosro to carry our paralysed colleagues towards the exit.  Meanwhile, through the south door we heard the howling cry of more Gnolls.  Deepingdale tried to attack the ghouls who were now chasing after Scarr.  Whilst watching the door to the south, Deep slung the flaming oil flask into the room with the ghouls, but it went in too far, missing the undead.  Recognising that the situation hung in the balance Deepingdale ran to join Cagliosro in the dead spider’s room, just as the Ghouls were trying to force the door open to the west.  Deep managed to spike the door shut, but the door to south now burst open with more Ghouls and something else behind them.  The party then ran for their lives and headed for the exit and daylight, with the angry sound of pursuit we did out best to carry our colleagues to safety.  Fortunately, as we emerged into daylight we noticed that we were no longer being pursued.

We joined Venser, Stig and Hjalhir in the camp by the cliffs and quickly packed away our stuff and fled to the village to rest.  Again, fortune shown on us as we encountered nothing during our return trek and after two hours we arrived safely in Lembde to be greeted by Olob, our friendly gatekeeper.

Deepingdale enquired about possible sources of healing and we were directed to the village herbalist, Meerka, where we were able to purchase some non magical balms and tonics to help speed up natural healing process and assist in removing ghoul paralysis.  We then retired to the inn to rest and recuperate after a lucky escape.  Praise be to Assedh