I haven’t used this blog for anything useful in a very, very long time (arguably ever), so I might as well use it to store my session recaps for the lunchtime D&D game I’m running at work. I’m using The Black Hack with Labyrinth Lord along with The Race Hack and Additional Things to run Greg Gillespie’s Barrowmaze Complete. I’m doing something like open table, since not everybody can show up every week.
Adventuring Party:
Kärl – Level 1 ShieldBreaker Dwarf
Wollus – Level 1 Sensitive Conjurer
Nine-Toe Jimmy – Level 1 Dungeoneer Thief
Sven – Level 1 Pit Fighter Warrier
Grancis – Human Torchbearer
Inghas – Human Man-at-Arms
Willes – Human Man-at-Arms
After the excitement of the last excursion, the party needed some downtime to rest. Wollus and Jimmy had the worst of it – the poison gas did a number on them, and they spent the next five days in bed rest. Kärl spent a few days recuperating, and worked at the blacksmith’s for the rest of their time in town to earn some coin. Sven, uninjured, decided to make coin in a way more fitting for his lifestyle, and fought for bets at The Brazen Strumpet. Given his pit-fighting heritage, he had no trouble beating the locals, and easily took their meager offerings.
Once rested, the group set forth into the Barrowmoors once again. The trip out was uneventful, and they decided to crack open the first sealed tomb they found. The noise of their efforts drew the attention of some giant scorpions from the bogs, which Grancis was able to see from a distance thanks to his newly purchased spyglass. Fearing the worst, the adventurers fled to their crypt-away-from-home with the sealing door. They locked themselves inside for 20 minutes, and when the emerged, the scorpions were gone. Jimmy considered how often they went through this exercise, using this particular tomb as a safe hideaway from danger. He had Sven open up a small peephole in the jamb of the door to the tomb, such that they could see when dangers had given up pursuit. Satisfied in their safety, they returned to their original target and resumed their efforts.
The crypt behind the slab opened into a 30-by-30 foot octagonal room, a stone door on either side and a six-foot-tall iron statue of a man ahead. The statue was forged in the fashion of a warrior of the Duchy of Aerik, the heraldry of the family barely visible through the rust and time-wear on the statue. The party investigated the statue from all angles, looking for any mechanisms, traps, triggers, magic, or indications of movement. Finding no mundane machinations, Wollus began to test the statue for any magical properties, starting with a dainty touch of the toe, moving up the foot, to the thigh, and finally to the chest. The rest of the party simply watched as the mad wizard felt up the iron gentleman, until the conjurer satisfied himself that it was entirely quotidian. Jimmy gave the statue a wobble, and heard the clunking of something wooden inside. With Sven’s help, they toppled the statue, and as its head hit the floor, it cracked off the body, revealing the source of the sound to be a wooden support from the original forging of the statue.
The group eventually relented to the mundanity of the statue, and turned their attention to the burial alcoves in the room. A thorough search revealed a pouch of coins, a silver dagger, and a wooden sword. The retainers remarked that soldiers whose weapons were unrecoverable were buried with these swords as a matter of honor, and Sven convinced the group to leave the ceremonial weapons in place. No reason to disturb the dead unnecessarily. They then turned their attention to the door to the right, and found behind it a room containing an upright sarcophagus with a standing, mummified corpse. Assuming the worst, the Sven and Kärl hugged the wall and moved to the back of the sarcophagus, while Jimmy prepared to loose an arrow towards the corpse. Should the body animate, the plan went, the melee fighters would topple the sarcophagus on top of it. As the arrow struck the mummy…nothing happened. Their fears turned out to be no more than paranoia.
Ever-careful, they moved on to checking the floor of the room for traps. As Jimmy carefully searched the stone floor for cracks, lips, and ledges, he neglected to find the real danger in the room dangling above him. The grey ooze fell directly on top of him, utterly engulfing him and eating away at his flesh and armor. Wollus unleashed his magics on the creature, and the men-at-arms took swings at it. Sven and Kärl left for makeshift weapons, fearing that the acid of the beast would corrode theirs beyond use, but stopped when they saw that weapons were not affected. A vicious blow by Sven and several Magic Missiles felled the glorping, schlorping menace, and it dissolved into a powdery white film. Below the film was a pink puddle, lumpy with metallic objects, the remains of their friend Nine-Toe Jimmy. Grancis couldn’t bear to see his employer dissolved, dropped his torch, and ran back to Nexus. The rest of the group collected his belongings and followed, making it back to town without issue.