So. There were eight heroes who awoke in Quasqeton. Eight characters trying to pick the best direction to adventure. Eight voices fighting to be heard. In short, a cacophony. Thus started the day, and the chaos rarely clarified.
Still, progress was made. Leaving the security of the secret door-ledge guardroom, the party happened upon a wandering carrion crawler. The mob of adventurers made short work of it, and scored a happy windfall of visceral jewelry upon dissecting the disgusting beast. Then it was back across the pit-trap, and on into uncharted territory. A large cavern contained a giant spider, which Robinhood slew with a well-placed arrow [
editor's note: i think this was actually a well-placed javelin thrown by the party gnome, Wilfred]. A horde of seven screaming skeletons then descended upon the group, and a general melee ensued. Sadly, the party forgot their previous hard-won knowledge about the futility of trying to stabby-pointy a fleshless construction of bones, so the combat went less-well than it should have. Eventually, however, the undead had their “un”s bashed into dust, thus returning them to a more properly dead state.
From there, the group followed Mossmullet’s misguided musings that, since the dungeon was only rumored to have two levels, taking the passage which went down (rather than one of the two which remained level) would likely lead to a quicker off-shoot of the caverns. That advice proved quite wrong, as they found the largest cavern yet (which is reportedly filled with bats). Exploring brought them to a low-roofed passage inhabited by four rat-folk. Some pointless discussion devolved into threats and then blows, and the rattlings were quickly subdued. But not before Robinhood inexplicably attempted to bite one of them while in combat (perhaps he’s rabid? Should we be concerned?). The lone surviving critter begged for mercy, promising to show the group the “rat-king’s treasure”. The heroes decided that the survivor deserved some leniency for ratting out his king, at least until the treasure was in hand. But the dirty rat led them into a rat-trap instead! Attacking in groups, seven giant rats beset the adventuring party. Meanwhile, the ratting ratling slipped out through a rat hole, and made good his escape. The party defeated the rats, and explored another cavern filled with columns and not much else. And thus ended the slowest of dungeon crawls to date, notable primarily for endless debate, disarming a shrieking skeleton, attempting nibbling on a murderous ratling, and a general disorganized shamble of an exploration.
But great minds are already working upon a top-down reorganization of the mob of dopey do-gooders, and forming them into a more efficiently effective team. Hopes remain high that the reign of cacophony, chaos and confusion will come to an end, and be replaced by motion, direction and leadership. And if not, well, it was still fun, and there really isn’t any great urgency in getting to whatever awaits us at…White Plume Mountain!
