Connecting the Dining Room’s Dots [session 17]

Adventurers Present

Bilbo - hobbit

Mossmullet - dwarfley tempest cleric

Orsek Ungart - dwarfley barbarian wizard

Red - elfin rogue
SMASH - dwarfley life cleric

Thik Thak - orcine fighter
Wilfred Fizzlebang - gnomic paladin

It was a large group of explorers who roamed the halls of Quasqueton on this leisurely outing.  Although perhaps not a great deal of territory was covered during this day’s perambulations, some good treasure was recovered and a fine task was accomplished – connecting up the party’s two maps of the upper level of Quasqueton, thus combining them into one, seamless whole.

The massed army of adventurers started in the longish room of the deceased flying monster, exiting out the other side into an oddly-shaped and relatively boring barracks room.  Nothing of value or interest was discovered, so the group backtracked over to the dining room area.  Deciding to head North from there, they soon stumbled into the great wizard’s bedroom.  An expensive bed frame worth hundreds of gold pieces was discovered, broken down, and made ready for transport by the party.  The moving men attempted to examine his nightstand as well (and pilfered 37 gp inside), but Thik Thak got a splinter or something, so the miffed marauders SMASHed the thing to bits.  Some annoying zombies showed up to distract the party from the serious work of moving furniture about, but they couldn’t provide union cards and were dispatched without pay.

The carefully disassembled bed having been safely tucked away for later retrieval in the trophy room, the party then riffled the wizard’s closet.  Putting on his dress-up clothes, trying to read his indecipherable books, and harshly judging his taste in cloth bolts, the group generally made a mess.  They did keep a cob-webby old magic spider-web-cloak, which was immediately coveted by the gnomish paladin to such an extent that he gladly traded away his magic +1 sword for it.  Thus began the sad wanderings of the most un-loved magic weapon in all the lands around Deeyin Deel.  Once praised for its good work at slaying zombies and given the name "Redead", the poor short sword was tossed aside by Fizzlebang for a newer, moldier magic item.  Red took the displaced sword in for a while, rather than simply leaving it to tarnish upon the floor.

From there it was on to the wizard’s spell-practice blast-chamber, where a extra-large skeleton with a great axe was hanging around waiting for some wood to chop up.  Failing that, but not caring much for the squirmy living humanoids who wandered in either, he settled for using his axe upon them.  Which didn’t end that well for him, I must say.  While he did inflict a sizable wound upon one of the group, the horde of the living soon overwhelmed him and sent him on to his final reward.

That done, the party wandered on to the false-door pit-trap room.  This lovely trap sent 5 of the 7 party members plunging 40’ down into the icy pool last seen in session 15.  The one with the shelf of skeletons, in close proximity to the FORBIDDEN ROOM of session 14?  Yeah, there.  So, Mossmullet almost drowned, being pulled to the bottom by his heavy chainmail.  But he doffed it smartly, swam out, and joined his other slightly-injured brethren upon the shores of the icy pool.  After using a little ingenuity (spike tied together at end of rope) and a little magic (Mage Hand), the dwarf’s beloved chain armor was recovered.  A couple spells were cast to repair the fallen heroes to a semblance of fitness, and they then trekked back upstairs to rejoin their less accident-prone fellows.

The group again returned to the area of the dining room, making it by far the most-visited area of today’s session.  This time, they set off to the West.  They discovered a long, skinny kitchen, complete with moldy old food.  SMASH did the Purify Food & Drink thing, gaining the party two days of rations when they otherwise might have gone hungry.  This being something vaguely resembling a root cellar (or the closest anyone’s seen to date in Quasqueton), perhaps the cleric’s god was made happy…?

Exiting out the other side of the kitchen, the explorers were delighted to (re)discover…the library!  Yes indeed, they were back on the map, so to speak!  The dots all finally connected, the group celebrated by burning some books to warm themselves up from their earlier icy bath (and picking up a few odd spellbooks for the wizard).  Once all fit, warm and hale, they set off again to locate new challenges.  Finding a nearby storage room containing all kinds of goods and oddities, their search was temporarily interrupted by the appearance of a swarm of stirges.  Although they did manage to suck some blood from a couple of the party members, they somehow missed the candy-flavored gnomish fluids coursing through Fizzlebang’s tiny veins.  So their deaths were both unnourished and un-mourned.  Ah well, nobody ever said a stirge’s life was easy.  After slaying the pests, the group sorted through the random junk left behind when the complex was originally abandoned.  Unsurprisingly, nothing of value was found.  EXCEPT for an exceedingly well-crafted light hammer, of clearly magical origin!

Needing a good way to deal some bludgeoning damage, Red gladly accepted the shiny new hammer!  I think somebody else might have taken his unpopular short sword.  Or maybe he kept it.  Or maybe it’s just lying there on the floor of the storage room to this day…?

Thus ended the session.

Party Experience Gained
Combat:  48 each

Exploration:  35 each