Three Invade the Mad Overlord (S&W)

Another Swords and Wizardry session with +Erik Tenkar . We got off to a slow start, and wound up shooting the breeze for an hour. We check for potions and other interesting stuff, but there’s nothing to be had.

We only have three this time: +Peter V. Dell’Orto (Mirado Bluebeaten), +Tim Shorts (Minister the Pink Buster), so we decide that what we really need to do is kick down as many doors as possible. Of our three delvers, Rul Scararm (me) is a 6th level fighter with AC 18, a small golf bag of magic swords (his usual is a +2 longsword, but he’s got a +3 vs. undead that comes out when necessary), as well as a +2 bow. Mirado of the many names is likewise a 6th level fighter, prone to two-weapon fighting with one of his weapons being a severed ogre head he uses as a morningstar or flail. Finally Minister was a 5th/4th (after this delve anyway) Magic User/Cleric.

We don’t really have the oomph to take on deeper levels, since Minister is of somewhat limited in value for offense, and even two sixth level fighters are only so strong.

We decide to hit some areas on Level 3 and hit some doors we’d left. We get there uneventfully, and kick in the first opportune door, one of two. We actually surprise five Duergar. Mwa ha ha,

Mirado opens up with two kills and a wound. Not too shabby.  Rul hits but does not kill. That was the surprise round.

After the surprise round, two doors open from both the north and south, disgorging six more duergar from the north, all with light crossbows. In formations. From the south comes a Druergar in plate and shield.

Here we go.

Mirado hits and kills his wounded guy; his second attack hits the last remaining unwounded fellow, wounding but not killing. Rul takes out a single foe, and Minister throws a Sleep spell, rolling 12. Six fall asleep. He just put to sleep the entire formed rank of crossbowmen (crossbowdwarves?).

The Big Guy attacks Minister, but missed. We win initiative again.

Mirado misses, Rul steps up to the guy with plate armor, rolls a net 19, and misses (!) by a tiny bit. The duergar swing and miss, and now Minister casts Hold Person on the heavily armored guy, which pings off of a pretty good saving throw.

We barely win initiative again, and Mirado steps up to try and kill the wounded one. He hits solidly, for middling damage, leaving him still standing. Rul hits plate-and-shield for 5 HP. He attacks me back (AC 18) and hits for 5 HP – not too bad. Mirado’s foe hits as well for 3HP. So minor damage exchanged all around.

Minister kills Mirado’s foe with a melee attack, but can’t cleave due to distance. We once again split initiative: Mirado and Rul (both miss), plate guy (attacks Mirado) hits and does 7 HP. Minister misses too.

We trade blows for a few more rounds; the fighters score a few telling blows, and are missed in return. Minister eventually hits for 10 HP . . . and our foe starts to grow gigantic . . . and gets pasted in the nuts. He goes down in a bloody pile of misshapen goo. In plate.

Mirado uses his blood-drinking sword to heal himself for 6 HP. “I’m neutral; I’ll kill anybody to get HP back.”

We check the rooms. And treasure. 8 gems and 14gp. He’s got a standard hammer and shortsword, dented dwarven-sized plate, and 4 gems and 16 gp.

The crossbow guys had 20gp and 11 gems all told.

We head to the south, and check out the chief’s private room. Nothing there.

OK, so we keep going around the corner. We find a trio of dessicated corpses in a nearby room, and hear a tick drop from the ceiling (thanks to Minister). Giant bloodsucking TICK.

Minister gets ticked (see what I did there) and the tick starts to burrow into Minister.

Mirado hits for 8 HP, Rul misses, as does Minister. The tick burrows in for 1HP, and has to make a saving throw (at +1 for Mirado’s ring, and another +2 for a Cloak of Protection), and another +2 for Poison for something else he’s doing. He nets out a 10, but uses a Luck point to make that a success (taking +2 to the roll), so he only takes a few points of damage.

Rul crits, and kills the tick for 15 HP of damage. We pry the tick off of Minister, taking some flesh along the way.

We return to search the corpses. A pouch on one contains three gems, and another holds a very nice looking dagger. When grabbed by the hilt, it takes on a slight glow. Hmm. We decide it has a low battery and a proprietary charger.

We continue down the corridor, with many funky angles and choices. We decide to keep going, and we happen upon a Secret Door, which Minister finds by dint of elvish blood.

Natrually, we open it up. Mirado opens the door, makes a saving throw, and a 2.5″ circular spiked ball comes for his head (would have been 3d6 to the head), but Mirado cooly dodges out of the way.

Inside the room is a large, locked chest. Mwa ha ha. We look around for more traps, or duergar runes that say Front Towards Enemy.

We throw a loop of rope around it and drag it into the corridor. We scrape the thing across the ground, just begging for a Wandering Monster. Which we get.

We get the attention of a verlaang. Mirado and he attack each other at the same time. Mirado slams down 10HP and takes nothing in return. The verlaang laughs. Mister pulls out the 2′ copper disc with the lightning bolt spell on it . . . the resolution will be next round.

Rul hits for 8 HP with a bow; the verlaang misses. Minister fires off his lightning bolt, a 7th level spell equivalent – 28 HP, but he makes his save, only taking 14 HP.

Mirado kills him next round. In the monster’s luggage, he’s got 10 sp, 11 ep, and 25 gp.

Back to the chest, and Rul opens up the chest. Or tries. We all fail, actually. So we’ll have to break the lock open; Mirado has a pick. We open it up.

There are 8,871 sp in the chest – 89 lbs of silver. We check the chest for secret compartments find none, and then head on our way.

We hit a teleporter.

We continue down the only way we can, and then try and head back west as we can. We are metagaming the map, of course, and pass by a bunch of alcoves, which we search for doors, finding none. We keep going straight until we can’t, and then turn to the north. We find a spiral staircase going down, but bypass it for now, finding and opening a door instead – two of them, actually.

We find a way back to the exit, linking up to prior mapped areas. So we have a way out. We keep looking until we find doors to open. And we keep opening them.

There’s a red-skinned creature in a skimpy nurses outfit behind a desk.

No, really. We make succubus jokes.

Despite an offer to have an appointment with the doctor, we back out of the room instead. We keep looking around, and find stairs going up eventually. We note that, and find another door.

There are five skeletons on a small wooden platform in the middle of the room. They start playing instruments. These are undead, and Rul has an undead-slaying sword.

Well, that settles that. Mirado attacks the flautist, killing him, because, well flute. Rul misses, as does Minister.

One of the skels bashes Minister with his lyre; another misses Rul with his recorder.Another tags Mirado for 4 HP. We do a lot of missing, as do they, really.

Rul cleaves four times and kills the remaining band members. Everyone’s a critic. In the hat there is 8 cp, 3 sp, and one lonely ep.

We keep going, and find a door that sounds like the other side is nothing but drunken debauchery. We decide to go pick a fight.

In this room, we find two rows of tables, benches, and long firepits between them. There are a least 50 drunken berserkers in here. There’s an enormous vat of mead, and a never-dimishing slab of roast pork.

OK, maybe we won’t fight. We say we’re from the Jarhead clan, and drink a toast of mead and eat some roast pork. This is like dungeon valhalla.

We eat, we drink, we’re merry. We wander around a bit and find a magic mouth, who say

a chicken bone, an ivory throne, an orcs green thumb, a princely sum
a stirges wing, a golden ring, a dragon’s tooth, you’ll know forsooth!

We consider to wander. We kick down doors, look in alcoves, and generally check stuff out. We find a room decorated like Gothridge Manor, and then keep kickin’ down doors. We find a room with more rat droppings and holes along the base of the walls. We press on, and find more poop. This entire dungeon is full of poop. And 20 giant rats.

We close the door, and back out to where they can’t get out. There’s really no value to be had in fighting giant rats. Odds of finding a +3 sword in a pile of crap is low.

We look around quite a bit, finally finding three giant blue flies, which we attack. Mirado hits for a bit, and Minister takes 5 HP. Big ol’ fly. And a poison saving throw avoids paralysis.

Mirado kills one, wounds another. Rul misses, but Minister finally makes contact with his morningstar, and rolls 2d4 for two 1s, for 5 HP.

The last fly rolls a natural 20, does 8 HP to Minister, who saves again. Mirado acts first and kills some, while Minister finishes him off. Three giant bluebottle flies down.

We wander and kick doors, and find a bunch of ghoul, who surprise us. Rul gets hit twice for 12 HP, burning luck to avoid a failed paralysis save. Rul kills both. Each is wearing a piece of fine jewelry, and there’s a small chest in the room, with 841sp inside. 


We call it there, due to time.

***

5,215gp is the total value of the gems and jewelry. For rooms and combat, 5,300XP. Coinage and other haul totals 2095gp including the jewelry. So total XP is 8,504 including bonus for writeup and prime req.

This brings Rul to about 52,000XP, needs about 12,000 to get to level 7.