Four brave adventures delved into the underground beneath the ruins. None of them appreciated the amazing foundation that prevented the swamp flooding the dungeon level, though.

This week’s characters:

• Tapio of Gareth, human fighter (lvl 3), 1488 XP
• Dargoth the Daring, human fighter (lvl 3), 1563 XP
• La Fleur (lvl 3), human wizard, 1001 XP
• Roderick Clearwater (lvl 3), human rogue, 934 XP

Within the cellar, the air is stale, and the only breeze can be felt directly next to the entrance from the tower. Dargoth takes some parchments from a secretary in the room, afterwards the group presses on. A zig-zagging tunnel leads them north, at a T-crossing the group hears irregular sounds from the north.

Roderick sneaks ahead, passing three tunnels before finding the sound’s source: A ragged prisoner throwing pebbles out of his cell. When the group approaches him, he considers them just another ‘mind game’ by someone named Belgor, and only reluctantly gives his name (Ywain). Roderick attempts to free him, but finds that the door has no visible lock to pick. They learn that only the torturer can open the doors, but Ywain does not know how he does it.

The group sets off to find the torturer and get his keys.They find him a little to the west, in a archetypical torture chamber. He had noticed their coming, and awaited them ready for battle and with his latest victim’s head between the jaws of a wolf. Dargoth hopes the werewolf girl the group holds captive might be able to control the wolf, and thus the groups (angered by the torturer’s haughty behaviour) decides to attack. The captive is killed by the wolf in the first round, but otherwise, torturer and wolf do not pose a threat. Quickly, the group annihilated them, which ended with a dead wolf and an imploding torturer.

Somehow, half of the group thought torturer and wolf would be other werewolfs, and the other half thought they would be an ordinary wolf and a human. Both were wrong. Furthermore, I rolled very poorly, which is why I could not use any of the special abilities wolf and torturer had. Only Tapio was shortly afflicted with one of the special abilities, but at that time, the fight was almost over.

The group found a couple swords, three bone chips, and a smithing hammer, but not the keys they were looking for. La Fleur identified the bone chips and found them to be induced with painful magic, thus she decided to smash them, which succeeded.

Spoiler: The bone chips were the keys.

The group returned to the cells and investigated the doors a little further, La Fleur attempted to identify them as well and found the cells lock was somehow connected to excruciating pain. They decided not to smash the door though, and instead asked the werewolf to lead them to something interesting.

The werewolf lead them into a storage cellar and up a ramp. Dargoth opened the trap door at the top of the ramp, and they ended in the big storage room on the upper floor they had seen earlier. Directly in front of them, they saw a mirror floating in mid air. When investigating, they found a line protecting the mirror, which dissolved anything it came in contact with. Finally, the group decided that La Fleur and Dargoth will fire bolt the thing while the rest of the group hides back in the cellar.

This worked rather well. The line came rushing after them, though, and after some examination Roderick concluded it would be a transluscent Gelantinous Cube which ingested a mirror. The group decided to lure the Cube toward the tower, drop oil on it and set it aflame. On their way, La Fleur and Dargoth continued to harrass it with Firebolts and Rays of Cold, which finally brought the cube down.

It also made a lot of noise, which attracted the attention of other inhabitants: Just as the cube stopped moving, the shadows started to grow darker and almost substantial. A hideous laughter sounded through the tunnels.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XaHEHlVMNyg

Most of the players are now convinced that their enemy is a wimpy illusionist, who pretends to be a dangerous monster. Still, they play it safe.

La Fleur and Roderick fled, Tapio had some success in thinning the shadows with a silver butter knife and Dargoth cast Protection from Evil to retrieve the mirror from the Cube before their opponent could appear. Alas, in the darkness, he could not see anything and found that his massive weapons were not good for such a task, as he accidently smashed the mirror.

I had the player roll an attack roll to retrieve the mirror unharmed, and he failed.

He did retrieve the mirror, but it was partly splintered and dented. Nonetheless, La Fleur attempted to identify it and learnt that it indeed was magical. When attempting to learn more, she heard countless rhymes overlapping each other, but any answers were lost in clinking.

With that, a somewhat frustrated group ended the session.