After our last big money-grab we had leveled up high, and also collected piles of money that we could not spend because we were fenced up here with the Morlocs and monsters behind a magical barrier.
Lencio hired some help. Two lizardmen: Lizzie and McDrake. Sadly, both of them had glass chins, with only 1 or 2 HP. But highly motivated nevertheless.

Some of the group had their minds set on clearing the valley of its ever growing population of aggressive Morlocs, and this time they won the debate. Although the direct route to the exit had closed (the dungeon being a living, breathing thing and opening or closing connections sometimes) there was another way. We followed it, resisted the lure of a weird ghost that showed us a pit trap, and ascended up to the surface.

What a sight greeted us: The land was overrun by Morlocs and Grimlocs of all shapes and sizes. We quickly discussed strategy and decided to go to the closer entrance, not through half the valley, even though we expected the breeding ground to be over yonder. And at least for Lencio the breeding ground was the objective. He wanted to take the cauldron from the Morlocs, to stop them from multiplying.

But closer is closer, and so we stormed at the first possible cave entrance.

Meat the Morlocs

There we encountered a great many Morlocs and some Grimlocs – and started hacking them apart as they tried to crawl under our magic rock.

We were also seen, so there were more coming from the valley, and we were drawn into a two-front-war. Lencio, Eban, Obelix and Donald held the front, the Dwarf Gerion, Fast-Leveller Cairn, and a second rank of Lizard-people held the back.

It was tough going, a real meatgrinder — for the Morlocs. We had the advantage of high HP-counts, fine armor, good dice rolls, and a big magic plug for our bottleneck, so while we decimated the Morlocs and Grimlocs, we were only slightly whittled down.

When we won the hall through wave after wave of Morlocs, we found dozens of young Morlocs ripening in cocoons glued to the wall. Donald and young Robin went round and round with mace and other weapons and smashed them to pulp while Gerion held the exit, supported by Lizzie and McDrake.

Mega Morloc

Meanwhile the big boys moved forward, using the Boulder as mobile cover and resisting Morloc efforts to kidnap the thing and use it against us. And so they encountered something new: A Graveloc. Basically a Frankenstein’s monster made out of various dead Morlocs or something.

Big, anyways.

We had to take this one apart in stages: Dismantle his 4 HD, then his 3HD iteration, then his 2HD iteration… each time with freshly rolled HP, so suddenly the 2HD Graveloc was much stronger than the 3HD one.

And we did not always roll stellar numbers.

Yet, the Morlocs suffered similar fates and crushed one of theirs while trying to take control of our boulder.

Good for us:

a) the Graveloc counted as undead, so was vulnerable to Eban the Paladin’s smiting,

and b) we got “cleave”, ACKS’s (and other’s) re-imagining of OD&D’s fighter multi attack: Because an individual Morloc was not strong, one attack often took out two, or at least wounded the next one.

Morloc Magic

And then the valley brought something bigger too: A magical Über-Morloc, a Warloc. Spindly-thin and tall, deathly pale, a bit like a very tall Slenderman with a weird face. He was carried by four Grimlocs in a palanquin.

That Warloc zapped 200 feet of lightning all through the bottleneck and whatever happened to be there. Luckily, we somehow happened to escape that ping-pong bouncing menace.

And Robin sniped one of the palanqin-bearers to spill the Warloc on the ground.

Sadly, we did not manage to hit the caster himself. But he crept closer once a replacement bearer came to him.

The inside fighters destroyed Graveloc 1, rolled up a couple of Morlocs, and were met by a Graveloc 2 carrying two stone-chucking Grimlocs on his shoulders. Everyone was slick with blood, Morloc and his own both. The dying Graveloc headbutted Obelix in the face.

It was brutal.

Somehow we dodged a second and even a third bolt of lightning, but then Donald shot down another palanquin-bearer, and sure-handed Robin managed to hit the Warloc himself. 

That gave him pause and he retreated.

By that time we were already fatigued ourselves; several wounded, and no sighting of the cauldron yet, even though it could not be far.

—–

Either way, we decided to call it a day before the Morlocs sent their reserve. They had several hundred of their sort after all… enough to wear us down with sheer numbers.

So we fled — or retreated: without reaching our objective, but with a big dent made in the Morloc numbers, miraculously zero casualties on our side, and (thanks to DM leniency) 328 XP per capita to show for our slaughterhouse-effort.

(Why Leniency? Because the DM had actually decreed that due to our high level we would no longer get XP for activities on the shallow levels… let alone up on the surface.)

But we were very lucky. A couple of different rolls and we could have lost four or five people. Next time we should be a bit more strategic and work toward an actual goal.

Like, taking out the hobgoblins to find their secret exit we heard about.

Also not a deep level… but the exit would be worth it.