Saturday Group Catch Up
it's been a busy couple of weeks; we've only played twice, because I was busy for a couple of weeks with a play. Last session, the Saturday group encamped for the night, with the firenewts stripping off their armor to make a faster pursuit. A body of firenewts attack, but the party suspected the danger and left a heavy guard, with Lucius and Thistle mounted and with lances. The firenewts inflict injuries, but fail to slay anyone. The party retreats South through the mountains, coming across a party of mountain men - but suspecting danger, leave them alone. They reach a village and rest there a few days before returning to the dungeon.
On their return to the dungeon, the party wipes out the rest of the firenewts in a single battle, seizing their Flame Tongue long-sword for Thistle the Ranger, and giving her original sword +1 to Edith the Thief. then explore for a little while, finding another quantity of silver and 9000 debased (half value) Imperial gold coins. The party searched around the dungeon a while and found a secret door in a room with a pool in the middle, leading to a short passage and a spiral stair.
The spiral stair descended into a great dome-shaped chamber, formed of packed bones and supports faced with tiles of gold. At the North side of the dome was a great black curtain, before which six piles of bones and robes sat. Rachel, the paladin, detected them as evil, and a great evil behind the curtain. Audrey, the magic-user, sat on the staircase as the rest of the party descended, their way lit by Thistle's new flaming sword. They smashed the skeletons and heaped them into a pile, but Rachel still detected them as evil. Thistle slashed the curtain down into a heap of burning cloth, revealing a statue of an ugly, hunch-backed man clutching an executioner's ax and iron wand. The statue's mouth opened and smoke issued forth, forming into the form of a wraith - six more lesser apparitions formed from the nearby corpses. Further, the statue's hand tilted its iron wand toward Audrey the magic-user. Audrey dropped behind the railing of the stairs to seek cover, Lucius the fighter tried to rip the statue's wand-arm off, Serenity the cleric tried to turn the wraiths, and Thistle and Edith tried to fight with their magic swords. The great wraith was wounded by Edith's sword, and Audrey took a little damage from one of the lesser ones which had flown up to her perch. In the second round, the greater wraith was killed, Lucius ripped the statue's arm off, and the lesser ones were Turned by Serenity.
After this, the party took the iron wand and exited the room through the only apparent door, coming by surprise upon a group of 3 Wights, which they failed to kill but managed to Turn. Following them forward, they found a great furnace which Thistle surmised was used for heating the water of the main pool where the Water Weird dwelt, a room full of crates, firewood, and Yellow Mold, and an abandoned wine-cellar. From the wine-cellar there was a secret door into a library that had been opened by the fleeing wights and another door, with evil presences behind it. They shut the secret door and hefted a barrel to barricade it, but were attacked by a group of Large Spiders - however, the party stomped on them (using the Pummeling rules, which are way better for this purpose than normal attacking,) and made all their saving throws. That was the longest combat of the session and we ended things there.