Session recap, 11/17/2010

Here's the recap email I just sent for tonight's session:

Gentlemen,

Here's a recap of tonight's (tragic) session.

The party, having decided to spend the night in the dungeon, was disturbed by loud screams during the night.  At one point, the screams were right outside the spiked-shut door, but they fortunately moved on.

With their spells recovered, the party stepped outside the room, and were greeted by the sight of their dwarven comrade Rollo Jr. heading down the stairs.  Gutboy, his elven henchman, and his two dogs greeted Rollo Jr., and ran upstairs to head back to town.  After this tag-team maneuver, the party headed back towards the throne room they had discovered the day before.

The throne was pushed out of the way, and Rollo descended the ladder to see what lay below.  A rough-hewn stone corridor extended south as far as he could see, with torch brackets lining on the walls at 5' intervals.  The rest of the party climbed down the ladder, and they headed south, following the corridor to its end, where a set of stairs led up to an oaken door.

Opening the door, they found themselves in a large room, empty except for a black metal circle on the western wall, 10' wide.  Within the circle was a gigantic, slitted eye, with a black pupil and deep purple iris.  The eye watched the party as they entered the room.  Rollo used his 10' pole to poke the eye, with disastrous results.  He was filled with a deep hatred for all living things, and rushed at Too with his sword drawn.  Fortunately, he missed, and after a few minutes regained his senses.  The group decided not to further disturb the eye, and continued on through a tunnel on the far side of the room.

This tunnel led up another set of stairs, into a room empty of all but a thick layer of dust.  As P.W. listened at one of the doors exiting this room, a swarm of six large beetles, two and a half feet long, with glowing lights upon their heads and in their bellies, entered the room from the corridor they just came from.  The beetles were not hostile, and remained at the entrance to the room.  The group considered attacking them, but decided to leave the room through a door in the northeast wall, and closed it behind them so the beetles could not follow.

Heading southeast, they came to a door that opened into an alcove off a long 30' wide hall.  This hall stretch to the east and west as far as could be seen by the feeble torchlight, and was lined with 10' wide alcoves on the north and south sides.  Exploring these alcoves, the party found rotted furniture, small heaps of ash, jewels pasted to the walls, animated skeletons, and a sarcophagus containing a single animated skeleton and a jeweled spear under a false bottom.  The skeletons were quickly dispatched, and the loot taken.

The last alcove investigated had a door, with a humanoid skin nailed to it.  The skin was white, and covered with patches of gray fur or hair.  Behind this door was an empty room, with an equally empty closet.

The party kept moving eastward down the corridor, stopping to briefly examine an archway in the southern wall, with a smiling, bearded face sculpted into the arch at its apex.  They ignored this opening, and continued hundreds of feet onwards as the corridor turned north.  As it turned, they found three doors on the south wall.  Stopping to measure and make sure the map was correct, the party was surprised by six corpses emerging from the gloom.  The walking dead had knives pushed through the backs of their heads, with the blades emerging from their eyes.

The horrid creatures began carving through the party.  First Rollo, then the Claw, and the henchmen Zarak and Dingo were killed, the creatures attacking with swords and head-butting with the blades protruding from their skulls.  P.W.'s attempt to douse the fiends with holy water failed when he accidentally spilled it all over the ground.  Overwhelmed, Too, P.W., and the henchman Fast Eddie ran heedlessly down the corridor, frantically looking for the door to the north they had used to enter this passageway.  They accidentally ran past the alcove, but saw a door in an alcove to the south.  Running through this door, they slammed it shut and ran down a southern passageway, bursting through a door at its southern end.

A horrible sight faced them:  a hideous creatures, with an egg-shaped gray body, eight spindly legs, and a 5' long prehensile neck that ended in a strangely goblin-like head, with massive jaws and giant black eyes.  The creature extended its neck and bit Too's head off.  As it began to consume the rest of Too's body, P.W. and Fast Eddie ran for their lives back north, and out into the 30' wide corridor.

The undead were nowhere in sight, so P.W. began checking the alcoves to see which one had a door leading north.  He quickly found it, and the duo made their way back to the surface.  They made their way back to town, and Fast Eddie proclaimed his loyalty to P.W., deciding their narrow escape must be due to P.W.'s good luck.