Delve 4, actually … but Lencio’s third. We have competition: Another party called The Ratters recently returned from Stonehell, bringing the mortal remains of Saint Ulther and enjoying fame and praise. So we were fired up to outdo them.
And reaching the valley we even spotted a black bear looking out of its cave – a bear that’s supposed to bring good luck. Lencio doubted this: “I don’t believe in omens. We make our own luck,” he foolishly said, pissing off the spirits of fortune.

We were “the Beatles” (or Beetles, depending on how well you know your letters):

• Antonius (Cleric 1)
• Lencio (Fighter 1)
• Igring (Fighter 1)
• Lucky (Thief 1)
• Hubbub (Torchbearer)
• Tyr (Dwarf 2)

We lit our lantern and descended into the first level.

Our plan: To get down to level 2 fast!
We didn’t know the regular way, but we knew of a dry well that seemed to lead to a lower system of caves, according to rumor.

We had a short discussion if we should spin the wheel of fortune again or not — but decided to skip that. Instead, we went to the cave where kobolds were met last time — another debate followed if the kobolds were nice, rude, or fun? Lucky especially seemed to be pretty anti-kobold. No matter: They were not there.

Call of Iron

On impulse, we decided not to climb down the well after all, but to go south from the cave and get to an “iron door” that was mapped on the second delve. “Iron door” always sounds like something important.

(A meta-game discussion broke out about the distance travelled in a turn in known, semi-known or unknown-terrain. We “turn” out relatively slow – going in mapping speed even though we already have a map. But that’s the game, right? Mapping speed is supposed to be 20 meters in 10 minutes for heavy armored guys. With that kind of speed nobody should ever run into a trap. Generally the GM was pretty lenient about turns because we had seen most of these halls before and he was prepared to count them as known terrain. But well… somehow we still managed to crawl. Trouble with counting time and distance: that’s part and parcel of the life of a dungeoneer.)

Slick Fingers

As we reached the iron door, the armored guys took a rest turn while the Thief Lucky checked the lock of the door. He attempted to pick the lock and got it open on the first try: A great success that boosted his confidence. He’s going places!

We opened the powerful metal door and it creaked open. Dust, age, ancient, undisturbed! Nobody was here for decades. Good reason to suspect that we may find riches here!

We see a corridor with doors adorned with incomprehensible writing, and it smells of age-old  decay.

Tyr the dwarf tapped the floor for traps.

(That gave us double chance to trigger a trap before stepping on it, and it also may give some extra hints.)

Lencio volunteered to stay at the door to guard our backs, the rest of us moved in.

Skellington Tango

The party breached the first door on the right and found six skeletons: They spilled out of a crypt and attacked in eerie silence. They struck Antonius the cleric, wounding him, and grazed Tyr.

Lucky ducked out of the corridor, Lencio circled in.

Missile attacks get a -1 for every friendly between archer and target, so we didn’t shoot and focused on melee.

Tyr threw the door closed to block off 4 skeletons, then Igring the Fighter attempted to spear one skeleton. He damaged it, but it survived because spears do only half damage against the fleshless animated bones. The others missed, and the attempt to turn undead also fell flat.

Lencio dropped his semi-useless spear and grabbed his mace from the belt. Igring also changed to a sword. And so, Igring decapitated one skeleton, Lencio bowled off the head of the second one.

Stay or go now?

Now what to do with the other four barricaded in their little cell? Spiking the door shut seemed very difficult, but probably worth it. Yet Lucky, although far back, was psyched for killing and managed to convince the group that it was best to fight and kill them all.

We waited for Turn 10, so that Antonius could recharge his turning undead.

(The GM ruled that Turn Undead could be done once per exploration turn.)

Tyr stood in the door to protect the cleric, the rest was ready to support. (except for Lucky who waited far back.)

Alas, the four skeletons immediately pushed out and started harassing the front line and flowing around it to get at the softer targets behind.

Igring hit one of the skeletons and struck it down. Lencio damaged another one. Antonius attempted a turning: and failed again! The horrible visages in his face apparently distracted him from the prayer.

Now the door on the left got pushed open too: Zombies came out, self-motivated. The weight of numbers shifted against us! We decided to call this a bust and do a fighting retreat.

(We meta-debated how far that would bring us, but the GM gave us a bit more leeway than B/X distances, so even the well-armored front rankers had enough movement to get right outside the door.)

And yet: Nothing was safe yet. Two skeletons attempted to overpower the dwarf and tear him down. But they rolled narrowly worse than he: He threw them off and they were stunned! 

The zombies were too slow to stop us. We pulled the door shut and Lucky locked it in their rotting faces. Safe!

We left a brotherly message for rivals and allies alike: 

Don’t Dead
Open Inside!

Down we go

We returned to the well that we spurned earlier.

We lowered the lantern down to see where that would lead.

While Hubbub held a torch, the lantern went down 60 feet to a weird bottom of the well. A glistening surface.

Lencio volunteered to get lowered down to inspect that surface, an oil cloth.

Only with lantern and mace I dangled down to find a hexagonal room with one corridor going on east and one west. Lencio took down the oily tarp and collected it and four iron spikes for our own use.

Lucky climbed down after him to take a look around.
Alas, he got discovered by screaming primitive whatevers. Mutants? They stormed at us, but we were pulled back up in the nick of time.

Resting at the crossroads, the party discussed Kobolds again. Lucky is a bit kobophobic and only allows for one option that warrants suffering them: that they might provide rare trading opportunities. But Lencio assures him that the kobolds are fine guys. So far meeting them was always a net positive. Antonius speaks of a dragon den up north, but Lencio cuts that off. We just ran from Zombies and mutants, the last thing we need are Dragons.

Stone Portal

We moved to the eastern end of our map, because the southeast is orc-land, and once again Lencio cautioned against biting off too much.

Suddenly Lucky panicked as he saw something like a ghost, and ran away. We followed and found him and dragged him back. Now we needed to rest one turn and do that at the same spot.
Hubbub also saw a ghost, but was cool with it.

The rest of us saw nothing and concluded that Lucky and Hubbub were simply imagining things.

Then we moved forward to a huge stone door inscribed with dancing skeletons. Not exactly subtle as a warning: more undead. We heard pitterpatter of many small feet behind the door, and gnawing and crushing. Someone was there, a mulitude of someones.

Bloodlust & Cowardice

Lucky prepared to shoot and suggested we others rush in. Lencio thought little of that.

He suggested that if Lucky was so keen on fighting whatever that was, why didn’t HE rush in?
Lucky sniped back that he could just as easily go home if we were talking cheeky at him.
Tyr was happy to rush in to a glorious death, but his attempts to open the door behind our arguing failed.

The only way to open that door is supposedly to break it down with a pickaxe … meaning, making a ton of noise and losing the ability to close the door again like we did with the iron door. Not acceptable to both Lencio and Lucky .. and besides, we don’t have a pickaxe.

“Thwarted by a stone door!” lamented Lucky.
The others consoled him.
“We come back with more tools.”
“And Rat poison!”, suggested Lencio.

Meet Joe Orc

We went south to the room where Oberon died back then, when we met Tyr.

And there were seven orcs!
They reacted with glee: “It’s these arseholes again! Kill them!”
One of them immediately struck the gong for reinforcements.

Lucky pulled a bow to oblige their challenge, but Lencio called: “Run! Let’s flee!”
The orcs shot after us and Igring got hit. Down to 1 HP!
For evasion, we made reaction rolls against the dungeon.
7! The orcs stayed close, the chase continued.
Another, a 5, that’s bad. The orcs caught up. 4 were on our heels.

They cornered us.
Right at the dead end where they ended up last time themselves, so a fair exchange.

“Our glorious last stand!” Tyr the dwarf called out triumphant, ready to go on to meet his forefathers in the eternal mine.
“Don’t say that!” yelled Lencio, contradicting his earlier talk about making your own luck.

Orcs and adventurers crashed into each other, lots of bruises and grazes were traded, but then wounded Igring showed them where the hammer hangs and ended one … and the others’ morale broke and they fled.

Good for us! That way we managed to make our own escape before we were completely outnumbered.

Know when to hold it, know when to fold it, know when to walk away, know when to run

At a safer spot Igring shared sandwiches that his mother lovingly prepared for him, even cutting off the crust, and we discussed where we were standing.
Our light sources were depleted and most of us were wounded and bloodied to the point where the next hit would likely take one of us out. And frankly, we had run out of options for now.

We decided to do the smart thing, cut our losses and go home without loot – apart from the oil skin and the four iron spikes we stole from the lightless underground folk.

The tiny amount of XP from kills managed to push Antonius across the level threshold and the cleric joined Dwarf Tyr in the club of Second-Graders. He received a prayer book with two spells: 

• Cure Light Wounds for d6+1
• Resist Cold

Stonehell with Simpler Rules:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3 (this here)
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Lost in the Depth