In our last session, the party defeated an Ogre at the cost of
Ambrose's life, and returned to Frostmark. The party first visited
the Temple of Soldra, where Patriarch Sunamel agreed to raise
Ambrose for a donation of a mere 1,200GP. They scraped the money
together and soon enough, Ambrose was back (DM note: He made his CON
survival roll). A rest was in order, and during the next week Imric
crafted a sleep scroll while the rest of the party stocked up on
supplies and bought some horses. The party headed back to the caves
on the morning of the 7th day in a dense fog.
During the overland journey, the party ran into a band of seven
Orcs. Roger was able to lead them astray on his horse, then loop
back in the fog and attack them from behind. He was soon joined by
the others, and together they had no problem dispatching the Orc
patrol.
The next morning the party approached the caves from the south
again, and this time the entrances were partially blocked by rock
piles and men (bandits?) on high alert with crossbows. A frontal
attack was (surprisingly) almost successful – the party killed all
but one guard, who escaped into one of the caves. Ambrose, Gruk and
the meatshields ran into the cave in pursuit, but ran headlong into
four men coming to investigate the alarm. They engaged in melee,
while outside the cave Thom, Imric and Asher were surprised by four
more men, who snuck up on them, firing crossbows. They managed to
kill the four men, but Thom was gravely wounded and Asher narrowly
avoided death (DM note: Thief's luck roll).
Back inside, five more men joined the fray! Arrows, hand axes, and
oil flew, and eventually all but two of the attackers lived. Those
last two fled, and with nearly everyone wounded, the party decided
to hole up in a locked room to heal. Roger applied his healing
poultices to the worst off, and they continued on into the cave
complex.
This time Asher scouted ahead, while the rest of the party waited in
a darkened corridor. Asher spied a head peeking from around a corner
about 100 feet away from him, to the north. He headed back to tell
the others what he saw, just as a group of men was coming out of a
nearby door. Then, from the north, a robed spellcaster rounded the
corner! Imric cast sleep on the group of men, catching all of them
unaware. A hail of arrows felled the spellcaster before he could get
even a single spell off.
Meanwhile, in the rear of the order, Sturdoon suddenly fell
face-first to the floor! The party turned its attention his way,
only to see an Elf standing over the body, holding a bloody
sword. Rolgrim and Gruk turned and attacked the evil Elf, while
Asher attempted to sneak in behind the melee. In the resulting
battle, Gruk also collapsed, but Rolgrim and Asher were able to
finish off the Elf. Searching the first group of men, Imric
discovered a suit of magical chain armor. A search of the room they
came out of revealed a map with trade and caravan routes, and a
strongbox with gold and silver. There was no sign of the
spellcaster's spellbook. The party tended to Gruk and Sturdoon,
gathered up their loot, and returned to town.
## Referee Notes:
The zero-HP table gave Sturdoon and Gruk their lives, at the expense
of some grave wounds. I ruled they had lost some appendages (a leg
for Sturdoon and an arm for Gruk), so we retired them after the
party returned to town. But it all seems a bit too fiddly for me, so
this will be the last game where we use the zero HP table. Also, as
we all know, the sleep spell is quite effective at taking out large
groups of humanoids, and the Holmes scroll creation rules mean the
Elf is starting to amass a collection, so I make a mental note to
change things up for next time.
