Let's see how things go for the party, shall we?
Round One - Enemy Initiative
As Locky calls his warning, the creature shifts position, legs (?) splay out and it leans its conical body forward, stooping over the downed Dwarf. More limbs swing forward to grasp and lift, and a streak of blackness appears in the creature's... chest? Everyone hears the thing's gurgling laughter-noise again. The thing slides lower, like a great stone tipping over. There is a sudden scrabbling followed by a series of crunches, and then it whirls and... it's gone! "What the..." Locky watched the whole sequence, but he's not sure what he saw, only that it happened fast! At Maro's call for retreat he stumbles back down the hall and through the doorway, mumbling "He's gone, he's gone!"
Rawon, a bit unnerved by Locky's reaction, pulls his bow and peers around the corner, but sees nothing. "Locky, where did Grit go?" he calls, but too late. Locky is out the door.
Maro rushes forward, slinging his bow so he can prepare a spell. Raúguey takes position in front of the doorway, while the others pile into the narrow hall. Ohwatoo positions himself at the rear. "What a bother," he says, half to himself. "Maybe this will teach Grit not to run ahead."
Nissa overhears the remark. "Only a Dwarf. Good riddance," she says, still watching the passage that leads to the surface.
"There's nothing here!" shouts Rawon. Indeed, the only sign that anything has been in the hall is a slightly darker patch on the floor near the limit of vision allowed by the weirdly translucent fog. Blood? Something worse?
Maro looks at Rawon. Rawon looks at Maro. Both elves turn and look at Raúguey, who looks puzzled, as usual. Durego peers out of the doorway, looking south, but there's no sign of movement in that direction either, just the glowing golden fog.
After a hasty discussion Maro and Raúguey, backed by Rawon and Durego, lead the party to where Grit disappeared, further into the tunnel. As they advance Maro notes there is more light coming from ahead, where the corridor widens into a chamber. "Look to the left," he whispers, "another door."
Everyone creeps forward, all in the big corridor now. "What the heck is that?!" Raúguey points to the NE corner of the chamber, where an eight-foot wide bowl-like depression is cut into the floor, its interior surface a mesh of glowing orange and red. Floating above this, head-high, is a polished orb of glowing reddish... stone? metal? It's hard to say.
"There's more ahead," says Maro, taking a few steps forward. Another of the weird bowl and globe arrangements fills the NW corner. In the center of the room, there are two huge stone figures laying face-up on the floor, each about fifteen feet from head to toe. They look mostly human, but they have too many fingers and toes, and their skulls are curiously elongated at the back. The stone figures appear to be carved out of mundane granite, but the stone has been colored an unnatural shade of red.
Rawon stoops where Grit fell, examining the glowing floor. "There's blood here, but nothing else. By the forest!" Rawon scrambles back. "Did you see that?!"
"What?" asks Locky, who is standing nervously nearby, lantern in hand.
"The blood, it... moved. Look!" Locky edges closer and Mordikarr peers over the little guy's head. As they watch the blood seems to writhe and shrink.
"Not move. Floor is drinking it. See? Blood go away." And Mordikarr is right. The blood slowly vanishes, absorbed by the yellow, glowing floor.
Meanwhile, Ohwatoo has moved to the nearest glowing globe. "What do you make of that?" asks Ingvild, who is peering at the door, which is identical to the one you entered through.
"I... have no idea. It's clearly magical, but what it is, I don't know. I'd advise..."
Whatever Ohwatoo was about to say is suddenly interrupted. There is a sudden flash of movement, and the thing leaps back into the room!
Locky's first impressions were mostly correct, the thing is big, its body and many limbs armored in something reddish and smooth, like polished stone. Those in the front rank are close enough to see that its conical body is segmented, almost like a centipede. Its many limbs, which are long and many-jointed, are larger at the base, and lined with jagged spikes. A dark line runs up the creature's body, and as it rears back to strike, Durego is horrified to see that this line is a *mouth*, edged with inward-pointing spine-like teeth. A tuft of bloody brown hair is caught in the slit.
[Round One - Enemy Initiative]
The creature lashes out with a pair of long, jagged limbs, one aimed at Raúguey, one at Maro, The first slashing blow hits Raúguey [5 damage], but Maro dodges aside!
With a roar of anger, Raúguey slashes at the creature, trying to cut it in two with his buzzing sword. His blow strikes home, cutting through the thing's shell and releasing a torrent of black ichor. [5 damage right back at ya!] Maro follows Raúguey's lead, but aims low, hacking into the creature's body [7 damage]. Durego swings his mace, but the blow goes wide.
With a big target to aim at, those further back waste no time. Rawon, Ingvild, Locky, Dagmarten, and Mordikarr fire/sling/throw various ranged weapons, but only Rawon's shot strikes home [5 damage]. At the rear of the party, Nissa starts to edge closer, then shouts a warning, spins and fires back down the hall toward the still-open door. "ANOTHER!" [6 damage, a palpable hit!] Mordikarr turns just in time to see another of the creatures leap forward out of the glowing golden glow!
[Round Two - Enemy Initiative (you guys need to roll better)]
Dagmarten prepares a spell!
Ohwatoo prepares a spell!
The creature nearest the trio at front rears to strike again, this time taking aim at Durego and Maro. A sharp claw slams into Durego, nearly driving him to his knees [8 damage - ow!] Maro once again dodges aside. At the back of the party, the creature facing Nissa strikes twice with devastating results! [18 damage] Nissa drops like a stone.
Mordikarr shouts, "Pointy ear woman hurt!" and dives forward, drawing his two-handed sword as he does. Ingvild runs to Mordikarr's side, dropping his sling and pulling his blade as he goes.
Dagmarten casts his spell, and Durego feels a rush of healing energies [7 healing - nice].
Ohwatoo casts his spell, and a dart of magical energy strikes the front creature [7 damage - nice again!]
Both Locky and Rawon turn to fire at the new threat, but both miss. Rawon debates switching to melee, but after seeing Nissa fall, decides discretion is the better part of valor.
Raúguey, Maro, and the renewed Durego all strike at the beast, which is looking rather wounded. Raúguey misses, but both Maro and Durego hit [5 and 4 respectively]. Maro slices off one of the thing's many limbs, and Durego's blow slams into the center of the creature's face — if you can call it a face. The thing twitches for a moment, then its limbs convulse and it falls to the ground. Its jaws jerk and judder open, revealing the crushed and twisted remains of what was once a dwarf within. A final convulsion, and then complete stillness.
Meanwhile, at the back of the party, Mordikarr and Ingvild strike at the newly arrived enemy, trying to draw it away from Nissa's still form. Both swing and Mordikarr hits! [8 damage - the kid is pretty strong!]
Round Three - Party Initiative (finally)
Maro prepares a spell!
Ohwatoo prepares a spell!
With the threat at the front eliminated Raúguey bellows something unintelligible and charges toward the new threat, hoping one of the pair fighting the creature will move aside so he can attack. Durego follows in his wake. Ingvild seems to have a second sense about such things; he ducks and dives to the far side of the beast, leaving an opening for the new arrivals. Raúguey's shout has had the (possibly) desired effect, and drawn the creature's attention. Dagmarten stoops to pick up his sling, and then joins Rawon and Locky in firing a volley. All three missiles skitter off the creature's shell. It is not, however, so lucky with the magical darts that follow, one from Maro, one from Ohwatoo [5 and 4 damage respectively]. "All out of spells!" calls Ohwatoo.
"Kill it now!" shouts Durego as he and the other combatants close with the second creature. He swings, along with Raúguey, Mordikarr, and Ingvild. The cleric and the beastmaster hit, [wimpy 1 and mighty 11 damage respectively]. Durego's light blow is enough to draw the creature's attention, so Mordikarr gets a clear shot at its back. His blow almost cleaves the thing in two, and it drops, twitches, and goes still...
"Keep watch!" yells Durego as he falls to his knees next to Nissa's still form. He incants a healing spell and touches her shoulder, but it's no use. The elf-woman is dead.
Creepy! The whole thing with Grit. With Nissa and Grit dead, does that bring the death toll to three pc's and one hireling?
ReplyDeleteThree PCs, no hirelings (yet). Gorvil has been taken down in one shot too many times to count, but always manages to hang on to a thread of life. I play with the house rule unconscious at 0 HP, dead at -1/2 CON, so down isn't always gone.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest Grit and Locky are the only two characters I can ('could' in Grit's case) tell apart. The rest kind of all blend together for me. Although Mordikarr having come late to the party is fairly easy to identify, with his cave man speech.
ReplyDeleteI just downloaded the Labyrinth Lord core rules today with the idea of perhaps playing a solo game to learn the rule set. Although it looks like LL may not have random labyrinth generation tables.. :S
Yeah part of the problem of reading turns is that you're getting my interpretations / rewrites of player actions, so characters blend together a bit.
ReplyDeleteAs for random dungeon generation, you're right. AFAIK there isn't one in LL anywhere. :(