Session recap, 4/6/2011

THE CAST:
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Mongo the Fighter (level 2), and his henchmen Rogar the Elf and Melzgar the Elf
Gutboy Barrelhouse the Cleric (level 3), his henchman Serlo the Elf, and his dog Rufus
Justin the Dwarf (level 1) and his dog Bailey, and (briefly) his henchman Borgonar
Netal the Elf (level 1) and his dogs Moe and Bitey

The party moped around the city of Denethix for a few days, trying to scare up some kind of bleeding-edge weapons.  The reports of a dog plague slaughtering all the available war dogs depressed the canine aficionados, and Netal's search for a grenade launcher was stymied when he discovered grenade sales were regulated by the Unyielding Fist.  Justin's search for a silencer for his rifle only got him blank stares from the gun merchant.

Mongo's shopping trips went much smoother, and he was able to buy 3 futons and have them delivered to his rented apartment.

Justin then began bar-hopping, looking for a drunken tough to recruit as a henchman.  The first bar he entered, he saw a likely candidate - a skinny fellow with a shifty look.  The fellow twitched madly as Justin introduced himself - uninterested in pursuing this clearly defective henchman, Justin turned around mid-sentence and walked out the door.  Trying a few more bars on the Street of Worthy Servitude, he found only day laborers having a liquid breakfast - so he decided to head up to the Street of the Alien.  In the Prospector's Inn, a dwarven bar, he announced "Anybody looking for gold, jewels and adventure?"  An older dwarf stood up, squinted at Justin, and said he was in.

Justin: "What's your name?"
Borgonar:  "The name be Borgonar.  Do you be having any lanthanides?"
Mongo: "Lanthanides?  What's that?"
Justin: "Heavy metals.  Uhh, no I don't."
Borgonar:  "Arrrr, tis a pity.  Well, I come from a long line of adventurers.  My many cousins Rollo were adventurers, all dead sadly."
Justin:  "Oh, a relative of mine.  Welcome aboard!"
Gutboy: "You're related?"
Borgonar:  "All dwarves are related.  We don't like to talk about it.  It's complicated."
Gutboy: "Huh?"
Borgonar:  "There be only one dwarven woman born a generation.  We have to share."

Not knowing where to take the awkward conversation from there, Justin & Borgonar left to equip the older dwarf with splint mail and weapons.

The rest of the party visited the Temple of Science.  At the entrance, Gutboy confronted the attendant (presumably named "Moe", as that was the name tattooed across his forehead).

Gutboy:  "Ahh, Science!  I have news!"
Moe:  "Oh, you're that priest.  What can I do for you?"
Gutboy:  "We have bad news.  Phil is no more!"  - and then with a flourish, Gutboy whipped Phil's rotting severed head out of his backpack to display to Moe
Moe: "AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  PHIL!"
Gutboy: "Yes, he's dead!"
Moe: "AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Gutboy: "Have you heard we rescued Brian?  Hey guys, is Brian with us still?"  (the party completely ignored poor Brian after arriving at Chelmsfordshire, and he returned to Denethix on his own)
Moe: "I did hear.  Look, I'll get Head Scientist Gregory... and something for Phil's head..."

As promised, Moe returned with a burlap sack and Gregory.  Gutboy dropped Phil's head in the sack, and Moe ran off with it, retching as he went.

Gregory (frowning):  "It is good that you rescued Brian.  I am not pleased by the desecration of Phil's head, though."
Gutboy (oblivious to the implied criticism):  "Yes, those goblins chopped his head off and left it on the stairs!  Anyhow, Bob's probably dead, so..."
Gregory:  "I do not think so.  Brian said that Bob was taken away.  All the rest were butchered in front of him, but Bob was led away."
Gutboy:  "I think the goblins killed him."
Gregory:  "I think he still lives.  You must look for him still."
Gutboy:  "Well, if he's been led away, it's probably to a deeper level.  Much, much more dangerous.  It's going to cost more to get him back."
Gregory:  "700 gp."
Gutboy:  "750"
Gregory:  "Done!  Now, I must go."
Gutboy:  "Wait!  There's lots of scientific stuff down there.  Do you want to some guys with us?"
Gregory:  "All our team was slaughtered.  This place is Very Unscientific."
Gutboy:  "No, it's scientific!  There's lots of things that spark, and machines..."
Gregory:  "I don't think you know what the word Scientific means."

And with a frown, Gregory departed.

The party then met up back at the apartment, and began the long journey back to the dungeon.

Arriving uneventfully, the party made their way back uneventfully to the secret room full of expensive mahogany furnishings.  With no easy way to remove the furniture, the party wandered around aimlessly for a bit, trying to figure out where Bob might have been taken.  Eventually, they came across a room full of goblins - and battle was engaged!  This time, the goblins struck first, and Borgonar the dwarven henchman was stabbed multiple times.  He went down with a sigh in a puddle of his own blood.  Netal cast a sleep spell upon the goblins, and they were rendered unconscious and slaughtered ruthlessly.  The bloodlust was too thick to permit any notion of interrogating a goblin or two as to the location of Bob.  Netal gutted every single goblin corpse after the slaughter, seeking gold in their entrails, but found only the fingerbones of unfortunate Scientists in their stomachs.

After the butchery ceased, Justin convinced Gutboy to cast a single cure light wounds spell upon Borgonar.  This stopped Borgonar's bleeding, but he was still unconscious.  Gutboy lamented wasting the spell, wondering if it was worth wasting such powerful magic on a lowly henchman - he then assured Serlo that it's only Justin's henchman that it would be a waste on.

Wandering about some more, they came across a room with a rotted wooden floor, and a mirrored ceiling.  In this room were four of the strange yellow-and-red horned spongy monsters they had seen on several previous occasions.  Battle was quickly engaged - but with the party confined in the doorway, the four creatures had the advantage.  Melzgar's sleep spell did nothing to the monsters, so sword and arrow were employed.  The hounds took several gorings, and Rogar was knocked to the floor with serious injuries.  Still, the spongy things went down, one by one, until just one was left, strangely squatting over Rogar's prone body.  Finally, the battle was over, but Rogar was bleeding.  A feeble attempt was made to bandage Rogar, that looked like it would delay the end a few hours, but Gutboy refused to waste his precious divine magic.  While Rogar was pointedly ignored, Netal took the opportunity to chop apart the monsters, looking for treasure in their spongy flesh - but none was to be found.

Dragging the bodies of the battered, unconscious henchmen, the party explored a bit more, finding a doorway leading out into the long 30'-wide-hall that they had come across at several points.  Outside the door were old bloodstains, a terrifying reminder of a previous expedition's horrible demise.  As they contemplated this, screaming came closer - more screaming freaks had found them!  Justin and Gutboy once again began arguing about the map instead of paying attention to this obvious threat, but Mongo got their attention, and the party arranged themselves in battle formation.  As the creatures arrived, the dogs lunged at those within reach, and Netal threw a flask of oil at one of the creatures, soaking it.  Mongo tried lighting it up with his flamethrower, but disappointingly, the freak was just out of range.  Not wanting to risk hand-to-hand combat, the last sleep spell was expended.  The creatures fell to the floor, waking them up, but not in time to save themselves from the blades of the bloodthirsty crew.  Netal once again went to work, slashing open their stomachs, but these creatures had not eaten any gold in the near past.

Wandering aimless again, making directional choices largely based on whether their map would reach the end of the paper, the party came to a large room, with gray, rotted tapestries hanging from the walls.  At the end of each tapestry were silver tassels - there must have been over 100 of them.  The floor was strangely dust free, and in the center of the room were four goblin skeletons, completely cleaned of flesh and covered with tiny scratches.  Puzzled, the party decided to ignore this warning, and Justin grabbed one of the tassels.  As he lifted it, the wire it was attached to lost tension, and stones at the bottom of the wall lifted up, releasing tens of thousand of two-inch-long carnivorous beetles into the room.  The beetles swarmed over the unconscious forms of Rogar and Borgonar, and Melzgar fell screaming to the floor, trying to get the beetles off him.  The rest of the party fled for their lives as the beetles crawled up their pants legs, biting them in their most delicate areas.

The beetles were quicly left behind, and several hundred feet down the corridor the party stopped to catch their breath.  Mongo and Justin argued for going back to the room and trying to kill the beetles, while Gutboy adamantly refused to go inside.  They were able to convince Netal to join them, though, and the party left the dogs with Gutboy and Serlo while they went back to deal with the beetles.

Inside the room, the swarms of beetles were crawling all over the bodies of the three deserted henchmen.  Mongo gave the flamethrower to Netal, and then Mongo and Justin tossed oil at the nearest swarm.  Netal tried to fire the flamethrower, but unused to the device, the flames shot harmlessly over the beetles.  Enraged, the beetles began swarming towards the party.  Justin bravely turned and fled out of the room, leaving only Mongo and Netal.   Mongo grabbed the flamethrower from Netal, and Netal tossed the only torch at the beetles - sadly, he missed, and the torch snuffed out as it hit the ground.

Netal's elven eyes guided him in the darkness, and he abandoned Mongo to his fate, wishing him luck as he sped away to safety.  Mongo grimaced as the beetles began swarming over him, but a blast from his flamethrower briefly lit up the room, and he ran towards the exit the light revealed.  The beetles were left behind, and ahead in the darkness he saw the light of Gutboy's torch, and he made his way back to the rest of the party.  The blatant cowardice exhibited went unremarked.

Defeated and broken, the party made their way back to the surface, and returned to Denethix to lick their wounds, three henchmen short.