Once the party returned to Wildehaven, they took some time to heal up and regain their calm. They attempted to enlist villagers to bring home the dead boars, but the fact that they had a dead comrade with them did not make the prospect very alluring.

Farin and Elyndor got along well with the mysterious village witch “Goody” Parry and learned of the prices of healing potions (high – especially for people who have to weigh character advancement versus shopping).

Speaking of high prices, the tavern wanted to charge rent for rooms, and more than the party could pull in from work, so Elyndor spoke with farmers until one let them stay in his barn for 2 gold pieces for the whole week.

One fine day they visited the tavern to discuss the treasure map on top of a proper wooden table, and so they met two new people: Rugg, a half-orc mercenary who had spent the past two years protecting trading caravans on the disturbingly dangerous and robber-fly infested trek between Wildehaven and Dark Moor … and Minig the Nimble, a happy young halfling thief who just got off a ship from the coast, hoping to make a name for himself through legendary treasure. Both of these had heard people talk about the rumored fights against undead creatures, and while most farmers thought these stories had to be bullshit, Rugg and Minig heard “loot!” and “adventures!”

The old hands explained the past adventures to the newbies, and they all decided to go out to the kobold lair again at the next sunup.

Crawlers

We entered the dungeon and spoke with the few remaining kobold guards; so we learned that most of the tribe had gone northwest, in search of a new and better lair, farther away from undead and humans, where a kobold could still live a truly kobold life.

The party traversed the first rooms and crawled through the narrow holes to the door where some crawling and rustling had freaked them out back weeks ago. And once again the fear was palpable! But Rugg suggested to drive back crawlers with fire, and Minig had oil, so Elyndor dared to open the door and we lit a patch of oil.

The darkness retreated and the fire revealed three dog-sized centipedes which hastily fled from the flames.

We dispatched them with ranged weapons and found an altar room with a scroll: Protection from Evil, a cleric scroll, which Farin took.

Treasure

To the west there were stairs up to a locked door – well known to the party. To the south was an open door into a treasure room. Mining checked for traps and asked to lend a 10-foot pole, but Rugg had no stomach to watch a halfling creep around for half an hour: he took off his backpack and threw it into the room: “That’s our ten-foot-pole!”

Indeed, no traps were present. The room was filled with massive amounts of silver coins and two gems, each worth 100 gold.

We decided to leave all those coins for now and pick them up on the way home – that way we could keep going without overburdening ourselves.

Level 2

We left through the iron door – where the silver key from the water pool turned out to fit. Then we went down the stairs, to the level that so far only Farin knew from his first foray.

To the west Willem and Rugg found the room with the pedestals, where Farin had met the zombies a week ago; now everything was quiet. To the east, there was a locked door. Farin listened and heard movement: more zombies! He decided that the best way to deal with them would be like last time: up on the stairs. So he moved back up there and suggested someone open the door.

Mining checked around the corner to the west, then went to check out the corridor to the south, just to make sure we would not get ambushed when we took on the zombies. Alas, the thief carelessly stepped on a pressure plate and a falling portcullis cut him off from his new friends.

Worse! There were heavy footsteps from the south!

The Halfling tried to hide in that narrow corridor, but failed. Elyndor called out to him and tried to open the portcullis, but even together they were not strong enough. Elyndor called the warriors for help, and with Rugg’s and Willem’s strong arms the portcullis could be lifted just far enough for Minig to roll through.

Not a moment too soon! A crystal-shaped humanoid statue armed with crystal shield and crystal mace turned the corner. Despite the massive thuds of its footsteps, it was surprisingly fast and agile. The crystal guardian rushed up to the portcullis! The warriors dropped it and the creature paused just beyond the bars. Farin suggested they all retreat out of sight, and so the party went back to Level 1 for a short rest.

When they returned, the portcullis was re-set, and the crystal statue gone back to wherever it came from. Farin made a chalk-mark to mark the pressure plate.

A proper wizard’s lair?

The party went into the room with the skulls on pedestals, and Minig spent a full turn staring them down and trying to figure out if they were triggers for some mechanism. There wer an orc skull, a skull of a human or elf, a skull of a halfling or child, and a weird fanged skull, potentially from a vampire. Minig dared not move them, convinced that they must be part of a deadly puzzle … alas, he could not figure it out.

Meanwhile Farin paced down the corridor to take extra careful looks at the flagstones we had traversed so far, just in case.

Rugg, an orc of action, got pretty impatient, waiting for the stragglers staring at stones. He wanted to go forward! The corridor to the north ended with a light source: a stone tablet bewitched with “Continual Light”; and beyond it beckoned a library! Obviously, the kobolds were neighbours to a magician, maybe even a necromant. No wonder they had troubles with undead!

Finally the party moved forward and staked its way forward, until they found a long corridor to the left, that terminated in a pile of rubble (red flag!) and some shorter corridors winding to the east, underneath the stairs.

As Farin finally entered the library he saw his dreams (starting a well-stacked bookstore and moving hundreds of valuable tomes) dashed: the elements were not nice to the books, most of them seem rotten. On the plus side that surely means that no living necromant remains in these halls.
Here we ended the session, discussing ways to move the skulls without anyone present in the pedestal-room, and other safeguards.

Not a great amount of progress: the party discussed risks more than it took them. The death of Merrick may have made the adventurers more timid. Let’s see if Rugg’s derring-do energy can soon fire them up again!

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