B/X Stonehell Dungeon, Session 9, March 27, 2021

 Dramatis Personae:

Izzie the Thief

Benji the Halfling 

NPCs

Banfiz the Elf

Gort the Cleric 

Mik the Torchbearer 

Kiwi, Benji’s War Doggo 

The party spent some time at the Bog Standard, trolling for rumours, and didn’t learn anything new. Since they had “time” (wait for it!) they went to see Garfunkel the “Sage” (damn I’m good) for intel on Malfreces, who came through town a while back. Some kind of “Undead Whisperer”, apparently. 

The party wasn’t feeling particularly brave, so rather than pressing on to the second level, they decided to try to find Malfreces in the Quiet Halls. They didn’t find him, but they found something, and were also themselves found by others: 

They came upon a room, the walls and floor of which flickered with undulating black and purple flames which crisscrossed back and forth across the chamber. Gort identified it as Balefire. The room also contained a stone dais topped with a chest, a target too tempting for the PCs to think too deeply about how to proceed. In their infinite wisdom, Izzie and Benji decided to race for it, braving the Balefire. Izzie won the race, but failed the test, getting singed by the flames. She only suffered a single hit point of damage, however, a mere boo-boo to a third level Thief! Benji was less than speedy, but more than nimble, avoiding both the damage and the dubious honour of the laurel of victory in a dungeon foot race. 

Izzie inspected the chest, found no traps, and attempted to pick its lock. She was unable to do so, but then remembered a key she had found in a previous delve. Fortunately, the key fit and unlocked the chest. This was doubly fortunate as the chest was indeed trapped with a deadly poison gas (Save vs. Poison or die). Inside was a substantial reward: a thousand gold and three pieces of jewelry! 

Next, the party explored a room with hieroglyphs covering the walls, full of stone sarcophagi, and a large set of merchant’s balances, big enough to weigh a person. The sarcophagi were empty, and standing upon the balance had no effect on any party members who tried it. There’s nothing like a room full of sarcophagi to keep players on their toes! 

In underground, generally lightless dungeons, you can’t see much without bringing a light source with you. It’s pretty much a necessity, actually. Not getting hopelessly lost in dark catacombs and starving to death in the inky blackness is a plus. However, if you bring light into dark places, it generally means that whatever is in said dark places can most definitely see you. Thus it was with our intrepid explorers. It so happened that Mik’s torch lit up an adjacent chamber to a hallway and room the group was investigating. This was noticed by its resident undead guardians, a large group of skeletons and zombies. They engaged the party, who formed ranks and set up a choke point in the hallway. However, unbeknownst to our intrepid heroes, there were other exits to the newly uncovered undead lair, allowing some of them to attack the party on their flank. Now the party had to fight a battle on two fronts! 

This is where the party actually shone: Kiwi is well trained and tough, and Banfiz was armed with a polearm. We’ll call it a glaive-guisarme in honour of Gary who sent us. Gort was placed so he could use his holy power to Turn Undead to make them flee from his unveiled power. However, there’s always Benji. And Graham’s dice. And lack of proper dungeon social distancing. Benji critically failed an attack, instead striking Mik the torchbearer, who was standing behind him. Unfortunately it didn’t kill Mik, which would have been hilarious: Mik falling dead on his torch, extinguishing it, plunging the party into darkness with a horde of undead trying to claw their eyeballs out. Oh well, better luck next time. Mik gave Benji some serious side eye while chugging his healing potion. Bernie Sanders needs to have a talk with Benji on how to treat employees, I think. 

After that, they made short work of their foes, and investigated the room. Near the south wall was a large gong. Then all of a sudden, Benji was also near the south wall. With the gong. And the striker. And then he struck the gong. Thus started the gong show. First, the chamber filled with mist. Then the incongruous sound of water lapping a boat hull was heard. Next, a skiff appeared out of the darkness, sailing on the fog. It was steered by a gaunt, hooded figure in a cloak, and crewed by zombies and skeletons who tried to drag the PCs on board, to a fate none there could guess. A frantic scramble ensued, but fortunately none of the party were taken, and the skiff sailed away into nothingness. 

In the next hallway, zombies burst out of fake walls and attacked, but were cut down with alacrity by the heroes. At this point, the party was battered, out of healing, but had found substantial treasure. They high-tailed it back to town, where both Benji and Izzie levelled up. 

With new found confidence provided by a mere handful of additional Hit Points, the party decided to try the second level. 

Upon descending, they entered a room with a large statue of a snake that had been smashed. 

Continuing their delve, they listened at a barred door, and heard a small party going on inside. Being polite plunderers, they knocked on the door, so as not to commit a social faux pas in a *checks notes* monster-infested megadungeon. Despite the civil overture, the party goers told them in no uncertain term to “feck off”. The PCs (correctly) reasoned that some unknown yobs partying like frat boys in an underground prison complex probably didn’t carry much in the way of loot, so they shrugged their shoulders and left them alone. 

Continuing on, they noticed a room with some very large beetles, about 3 feet long each. Incorrectly reasoning that beetles hoard treasure, they engaged them, and a pitched battle ensued where Gort was dropped below zero HP several times. This made him rather cross. He was probably also cross because the beetles spat a debilitating poison, which penalizes victims attacks by 2. What put him over the edge was that the beetles were also inexplicably flat broke. He demanded extra pay or he’d quit. Being the only NPC Cleric in town, the PC s ponied up more cash. 

The last room of the night was interesting. It was pitch black, and no light could penetrate the darkness. Benji feared it could be a Sphere of Annihilation, a good guess in and old school dungeon. The tested that, and anything put into the darkness came out fine, so they concluded it was magical darkness. Izzie tied herself off and went in. While in the room, she almost tripped over an object. Picking it up, she could tell by touch that it was a sword in a scabbard. She came back out and realized it was quite a find! It was an exquisite sword with etchings of sunbeams on the blade and scabbard, seemingly untouched by time or corrosion. The scabbard bore the name “Lightbringer”. At this point, it was getting late in the real world, so we called it a night, but not before visiting Garfunkel to identify the sword. 

The sword is a bastard sword +2. It can cast Light once per day, or will dispel magical darkness automatically if drawn from the scabbard within the radius of said darkness. I put this in the dungeon to encourage going deeper into the complex. The party needs some firepower to do this, so I figure Lightbringer will do the trick. 

Until next time!