After our terrible failure and the loss of two comrades, we took their bodies and retreated into an empty room. Apoqulis dragged the dead Trogs to the one stabbed Trog we found in the storage room. We holed up, blocked the door with a heavy table, and spent the night in hiding. All night we heard traffic outside, doors opening and closing, but in here we were safe. In the morning we ate dry rations and explored the three doors close by.

We discovered a long dead elf amid heavy explosion damage, and letters from one elf to his son, mentioning interesting details: Stillness as a shield, control flames through their name, and dwarf-king Houghnir.

And then we met Thippet Shadetoe: A halfling who hid under a table. Turned out he was recruited by Vaeva on the way to Morgansfort and came here all alone with nothing but a will to help and a dagger, now understandably a bit spooked after sneaking around in this harsh place. Credits for getting in here unnoticed and hiding in corners like a ninja, even though Darion is kind of disappointed that Vaeva recruited just one guy and not 100.

Apoqulis immediately thinks practical and wants to send the little sneaky guy to scout these door-noises.

Infernal Tunnels

We set out to explore the westward corridors, and find big metal double doors, smashed dwarf-statues, and stairs downwards, as well as an open entrance to a room full of piles and piles of bones.

Thippet and Aretain move onward into another room where they encounter a freakish creature with horns and a stinging tail. As Darion follows and sees the monster, he calls: “Down with you, Infernal!” and swings Endbringer – alas, the devil dissolves and is gone. Darion suspects it is still there, just invisible, and strikes where he suspects it, alas, it isn’t, and he destroys a shelf.

The creature tippedi-toes past a confused Apoqulis and a confused Aretain. They see nothing, and Darion uselessly hisses: “Kill it! Kill it!”, while it passes unhindered. Finally Apoqulis understands and pulls a pack of flour from his pack – but then he hesitates, fearful of wasting it. Instead of shaking it out to raise a cloud of it, he uses it like a pillowfight-tool and waves it back and forth to physically touch the infernal. No luck. Finally he throws it after all, and half of it spills out on the floor, but too late: The horned creature has fled away – presumably to tell Azequia what it has seen.

Disorder

We made a lot of noise, so we hide in the bone room to see who comes. Nobody comes.

Behind the piles of bones we find another room with a basin and a lever: pulling the lever opens pipes that fill the basin with water from somewhere above. At least we won’t die of thirst in here.

We attempt to push open the big doors but fail at them all.

Finally there is a noise at the foot of the stairs, and we go to look at it. Darion is in front, but hesitates. What is it? He sees little and asks the others to bring more light.
Then shadows peel off from the wall: Troglodytes! A whole bunch of them. They have waited here, adapting their skins to the wall colour like chamaeleons, to ambush us.

“Fire bomb! Fire bomb!” calls Darion, remembering their terrible stench. “Even one Trog is one too many!” But no fire bomb is coming: Instead, Apoqulis casts “Hold Person” on the front Troglodyte, blocking the corridor with the ugly form.

“Magic Missile!” Apoqulis suggests to Aretain, pointing at the second Troglodyte in the row. But no Magic Missile is coming: Aretain shoots a slingshot at the Held front Troglodyte, pinging it against his head.

The Troglodytes fail to push through and instead move off through another corridor to the north. “Retreat!” suggests Maetrius, but Darion storms forward, into the close proximity with the Troglodytes, where he promptly retches and pukes onto the held Troglodyte’s feet. To the left are two corridors, but they are dark, and Darion sees nothing. He staggers back.

Amid all this chaos Troglodytes, moving north from the blocked corridor, open and close doors somewhere. At least now we know the source of that sound.

Much too soon Maetrius and Apoqulis notice that the northern door we were unable to open is rocking: Someone tries to push it open from beyond. The Troglodytes? How are they so fast? Apoqulis blocks the door with his mace and calls for retreat. We gather, and Darion’s wits return to him. He rams two iron spikes under the doors to free up the mace: “They are cheaper!” he says.

With the door blocked, Apoqulis decides to throw that fire bomb after all, lights up an oil flask and throws it down the stairs – alas, it spins sideways and smashes against the wall, doing not a lot of good. In retrospect we are lucky that he didn’t throw that back when Darion called for it.

War

We run away, past the pile of rotting Troglodytes from the previous day and back to the big hall, with one more double door that we didn’t open yet. Darion wants to try that: “We must find Azequia! That is all that matters! This is the center.”

Alas, center or no, this door does not budge either. It is locked, even!

Thippet reveals hidden talents: He produces a thief pack and starts fiddling with the rusty lock. Aha! That’s where his second name, “Shadetoe” comes from. He is not only a sneak and a sniper, he is also a thief!

And yet, the lock is hard. He tries, once, twice, thrice.
Darion walks up to the statue to inspect it. Maybe twisting it, or something.

Thippet tries a fourth, fifth time. As he fiddles a sixth time, our time is up, and five Troglodytes spill into the room. Just as the lock clicks, and the door opens!

“Get in, get in!” yells Darion, “lock the Trogs out of there!”

Everyone except Maetrius and Darion runs in, but it is not one big central room but several smaller ones. They spill into different rooms, and Apoqulis comes face to face with another giant Black Widow! “YUCK!” he yells in disgust.

Maetrius covers their retreat as he cooly stands his ground, levels his crossbow with his steady hand and caps the first Troglodyte right in the brain pan.

The other four sweep the room, two attack Maetrius, and wound him grieveously! Two more rush up to Darion but it is too far for them to attack still. Darion shouts heroically: “CLOSE THE DOOR!”, whacks the first one and slays him with one deadly swing from Endbringer, the magical Two-Hander. Then he wins initiative and goes on to slay the second one with a critical hit!

Obviously, no one listens to his heroics. Instead, Thippet comes out again to backstab one of the Troglodytes on Maetrius. He hits – but due to the wicked fates he does zero damage! Aretain also comes back out to shoot at Troglodytes. Nobody listens to anything here! Adventurers are such contrarian individualists. They have to be, else they’d never even go into such places as this.

Apoqulis turns and runs back after the others: “I prefer Troglodytes over spiders any day!” he yells. Alas, in his haste he leaves all the doors open behind him. The spider quickly follows him and as he stops in the doorway to survey the situation, it rears up and stabs him right through the back. A critical hit, even, doing double damage, and rolling maximum, to deliver a deadly blow of 24 hit points!

The mighty cleric gurgles and falls on his face, which quickly turns purple as the venom boils his blood.

Outside only one Troglodyte remains, and Thippet whirls around to avenge Apoqulis. Alas, he misses, and the spider retaliates. Thippet’s lifeless body collapses on top of Apoqulis’. Aretain stands right next to the spider and tries to whack it with her staff, but misses.

Darion is too far away to make it in one. So he pauses halfway to strike at the last Troglodyte, which just stabbed poor Maetrius again – and once more he slays the creature in one fell strike. If only he had hit like that yesterday, then Heidel would still live!

Luckily, now the spider is lower in the initiative order.

“Fry it with magic!” yells Darion, and Aretain agrees: She casts Magic Missile and zaps the Spider with a force it cannot dodge. As the creature hesitates, Darion storms at it and strikes — but noo! He finally misses, and stands there in front of it, the perfect target.

The spider stalks at him to lash out – Natural 1! A fumble. The terrible beast impales itself on Darion’s sword. It dies! All foes are down.

Survival

It is time for Death Saves: In Basic Fantasy RPG, 0 HP requires a Death Save to see if the character falls or recovers. Thippet Shadetoe rolls – and makes it; with his Halfling bonus he makes it easy. Gurgling, the little sneak comes back to his senses, death in his first session avoided, 1 HP back.
Apoqulis plays it more on the knife’s edge: The dice roll exactly at the required number to keep his soul bound to this mortal coil. He too coughs and retches up the spider venom, returning to 1 HP.

Now Aretain feeds Apoqulis a potion and restores him to 4 HP.
Darion feeds his own potion to Thippet, adding 6 HP to the 1.
Then we tend to Maetrius’ wounds.
And the session ends.

Too Cool To Kill

After this tense fight we stayed and talked things over. How does Azequia survive in this terrible dungeon? Do the Troglodytes work for her?
We don’t think so.
I mention the dead Trog we found first, the one with the single stab wound. My theory is Azequia met these stinkers and established dominance by one-shotting the first Troglodyte that looked at her weirdly, and now they leave her alone.

But the infernal we saw – he must be working for her. Or at least for her contract partner.

The picture we get from our foe is puzzled together from various sources, as we have never met her. We have learned she is a former druid, now turned anti-cleric; a wielder of powerful magic who is well known in Druid circles. Her name rang bells when we mentioned it. We are unsure if she is a child of man or elf.
She made a deal with Jezgotha, who styles himself “King of Hell”. True title or flight of fancy, it is no mean feat to deal with one who calls himself so, and we know from Hezeroth that Jezgotah is a heavyweight. And with him she negotiated for a seat at his high council “for all time”, with the rank of “Eldri”.
When she came to the Keep she asked the orcs to be let through. They did, once she proved that she was “strong”. The scene when she brazenly walked up to the Keep and proved her strength to a tribe of orcs must have been epic to see. They gave her space after that.
Then she riddled her way past the dwarven barriers and crossed through the obstacles, and now she lives here in this terrible murder-dungeon for who knows how long, waiting for Hezeroth. She will awaken Xugrod the Infernal and use her new spell to open an interplanar gate to Hell itself.
Say what you will, that’s a path that demands mad respect. It is sad that we must be enemies.

The other players voiced like opinions: Apoqulis’ player called her “Badass”, and “Almost Too Cool To Kill.”
Almost! Because we must. And we can’t even hesitate. Too high are the stakes. We can’t have interplanar gates to Hell.

Oh — and I level up now, as we must settle down to lick our wounds.

More Morgansfort