We played the twenty-fifth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.
The roster for this session was as follows:
- Llombaerth, CG elf thief 4 (Adam)
- Mirkle, N human fighter 3 (Maya)
- Rhonodel, NG elf cleric 1 (Jack)
- Rory the Small, LN human fighter 2 (David)
- Zommernar, CN elf fighter 3 (Nael)
- Egbert, human necromancer 1 (NPC)
- Brazile, halfling hound master, his dog, Ripper, and the party's three war dogs, Huey, Dewey, and Phooey (NPC)
- Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)
- Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)
- Lendeborg, human porter (NPC)
Last we played, the party took Gruda, their ogre captive, in search of the remaining ogres prowling the halls of Quasqueton. They explored a passage which was new to them, where Gruda said the ogre Rugg had gone. They found a room with a desiccated husk on the floor and two insects with batlike wings clinging to the ceiling, but decided not to engage. Beyond that, they found a door and, trying to open it, triggered a trap door which dropped the player characters and Gruda down to the lower level into an icy cold pool of water.
Once they climbed out, they found Rugg waiting for them. Gruda told Rugg to kill them, then fled. Llombaerth and Zommernar teamed up to quickly bring the ogre down. The party then chased down Gruda, who Zommernar slew as well.
Since Rhonodel and Zommernar had not yet benefited from the magic rock that either kills you or does something good, they spent some time trying to relocate the rock, but got lost and turned back.
As the party made arrangements to climb out of the pit with the help of their hirelings above. Another ogre threatened the hirelings up above, but was torn apart by the party's war dogs. Regrouping at the top of the pit, the party returned to the entrance corridor and found a gigantic, 7' long weasel hunched over the body of Yamda the ogre, hissing and snarling at them.
We picked up there. The party discussed what to do next, and how to deal with the weasel. They wanted to find Quasqueton's library again. They hoped that there would be some information there about Zelligar's past apprentices. They wanted to fact check Lambrecht's claim to being Zelligar's rightful heir.
They believed that the library was down the corridor to their right, which was just 20' in front of the defensive weasel. They decided to try it, with Mirkle, Rory, and Zommernar forming a wall in the front and the men-at-arms in the rank behind them with their spetums. The weasel was defensive and irritable, but didn't want a fight. It allowed them to come close enough to duck into the passage without attacking them.
The corridor went straight ahead 60' and then turned right. Around the bend, they could hear faint growling and wet ripping and tearing, and could smell blood and animal musk. Llombaerth crept ahead, but failed to move silently. Rounding the corner, he found a second giant weasel feasting on the carcass of the ogre they had killed near the back door to the kitchen. The weasel hissed and snarled at Llombaerth, but did not attack. He stumbled back to rejoin the party.
The party decided to deal with this giant weasel more directly. Llombaerth, Mirkle, Rory, Zommernar, and the men-at-arms would surround it while Rhonodel, Egbert, the porters, and the dogs stayed behind in the corridor to watch for the other giant weasel at their back.
They launched their attack against the giant weasel. Mirkle hit the weasel with her spetum for 5 damage, and Rory hit it with his halberd for 6, bloodying it. As they fought, the men-at-arms spotted a third weasel, which emerged from the secret storeroom at the party's back and fled down the corridor away from the fighting.
The weasel which had been eating Yamda's corpse also came around the corner to attack the party's rear, as they had expected. Brazile loosed the dogs on it. Huey and Dewey hit the weasel for 8 total damage, which also bloodied it. The weasel seized Huey, the runt of the litter, in its jaws and dragged him to the ground, slurping down his blood as he kicked and thrashed, then fell limp. Rhonodel charged into the fray as well.
Both weasels' morale broke. The one fighting the party turned its back and fled, opening itself to attack. Mirkle and the men-at-arms all struck with their spetums, killing it. As Llombaerth ran to reinforce Rhonodel and the dogs, the weasel that had killed Huey made a fighting retreat, the dogs chasing after it. Llombaerth caught up with the dogs and grabbed them by the collar, allowing the weasel to flee down the corridor towards the trap door leading to the water pit.
With a successful Wisdom check, Mirkle recalled that giant weasel pelts were greatly valued. They would sell for 1,000 to 6,000 gold pieces each. The party eagerly skinned the first giant weasel, then went to track down the second. They found it with its back to the open trap door. Llombaerth, Mirkle, and Rhonodel formed a line and fired upon it with their bows as it leapt at Llombaerth. Mirkle scored a critical hit, shooting it through the eye for 10 damage, which killed it. They skinned it as well.
At this point, is was 11 pm in game time. The party had spent five hours on the boat, seven hours hiking up to Quasqueton, and four hours in the dungeon. They were exhausted and would need to rest. They left the dungeon to make camp out front of the entrance. There was a full moon.
Around 4 am, Rory was on watch when he noticed a family of badgers rustling around in the undergrowth, scavenging for the party's camp leavings. Bilodeau, who was also awake, remarked how they could club the badgers and sell their pelts as well. Surely someone would pay something for them. Rory declined, and Bilodeau grumbled and returned to his bedroll to sulk.
The rest of the evening passed without incident. The next morning was cloudy and warm. Rhonodel spent 45 minutes rememorizing his spells - referring to this section from the 1e DMG:
At the intersection, to the left was a 20' wide corridor which went back and to the left at a 135 degree angle. To the right was a pair of parallel 10' wide passages. The closer of the two went 40' ahead and turned left. The further of two went 30' ahead and turned left as well.
Zommernar was confident that the 135 degree passage to the left would lead back to the library, so the party headed that way. About 30' down the passage was an opening on the right. The passage continued for another 20' or so beyond the opening and then turned left. The party heard rustling from the room to the right.
Investigating, they found a roughly 30' by 30' room filled with construction materials - wooden beams, blocks of stone, doors, coiled rope, boxes, sacks, and the like. There was also a dead ogre on the floor. In one hand, it clutched a giant centipede it had crushed. Another two centipedes were crawling over its corpse, feeding on it.
Once again, Llombaerth, Mirkle, and Rhonodel lined up and loosed a volley into the room, easily slaying the centipedes. Rory instructed Llombaerth as he carefully extracted the centipedes' venom, giving the party three doses of venom to use as they wished.
The party searched the room and found:
- A 200’ coil of heavy rope
- A box of 50 iron spikes
- A box of metal nails
- 80 10’ x 6” x 6” wooden beams. 2 giant centipedes nest among the beams, attacking if disturbed.
- An almost empty sack of building mortar
- A stack of 400 6” x 6” x 12” stone blocks
- Six wooden doors
- A large box of assorted hardware (locks, hinges, clasps, handles, bolts, etc.)
- A jug of dried glue
They cut off a 50' length of rope and took some spikes and the dried glue. Zommernar emptied the sack of mortar and took that as well. In their search, they noted that the door to this room was constructed like other secret doors in the dungeon. They searched for other secret doors, but didn't find any. There being no other exits, they returned to the corridor outside.
They followed the passage as it turned left. The passage went another 50' or so straight ahead, then turned right at a 45 degree angle. Beyond the turn, the passage narrowed to 10' wide, continued straight for 40', then gently curved right at a roughly 90 degree angle. They followed the curving passage for 50' or so, whereupon it curved sharply to the left at a roughly 90 degree angle. 40' beyond that, the passage straightened out again. The party was pretty sure at this point that they were not heading towards the library.
The corridor beyond went straight ahead for 100', then turned left. 70' beyond the turn there was a door on the left. Beyond the door, the passage continued for 40' and turned left. They checked beyond the door. It opened onto an upside down "T" intersection. To the left, a corridor went 60' and turned right. The corridor straight ahead went at least 60', beyond the light of their lantern. To the right, the corridor went 30' and turned left.
They stepped back out into the hallway before the door and decided to continue down the corridor and take the left, thinking that it might bring them back to the dungeon entrance. After the turn, the corridor continued 30' and ended in another door.
Past the door, the corridor went 10' and turned left, then went 10' and turned right. 70' beyond that was a 10' deep alcove. 60' beyond the alcove, the corridor turned right. They concluded that the alcove must contain the secret door leading back to the entrance corridor.
They searched the alcove thoroughly, but didn't find anything until Bilodeau, exasperated, leaned against the wall and pressed a stone block into the wall. A secret door in the back of the alcove opened, and the party found themselves back at the dungeon entrance. They spiked the door open and we ended the session there.
The players got pretty lucky with those giant weasels, which never hit any of them and only killed their weakest dog! Giant weasels are scary. The players went from wanting nothing to do with them to hunting them down as soon as they found out how much their pelts were worth. And there's still one running around somewhere in the dungeon!
This was also the first session in a long time where the players spent a significant portion of time actually exploring a new area of the dungeon. It was a great delight to sit back while they studied their maps and tried to figure out how to get back to an area they had previously visited. It's been a long time since they were in the library! I'm looking forward to seeing where they go next time.
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