The Ever Expanding Dungeon: Session 15

After their return home, the party opted to sleep in late before meeting for a late brunch at the Zealous Dagger. Over their meal, Perceval elaborated on his idea to hire a force to accompany them into the dungeon. They had, he explained, overlooked the fact that they had a substantial amount of gold between them after they sold off the jewelry the had acquired a few delves ago. They could use that to directly boost their ability to make inroads into the dungeon. 

The party agreed it was worth a try, assuming they could find anyone willing to ride to the surrounding villages, post the announcements and spread the word.

[Enquiry Table: Are there townsfolk willing to ride to the nearby towns and put up said posters? Fair Chance, 6 and 6, Yes And - There are 1d6+1 willing to do it. 1d6, total:3]

It took 2 days before three locals approached the party and offered to ride out to the nearby villages, for fair wages, of course.

Kroyden [he of the 18 charisma] handled the negotiations, although Perceval supplied the coin. The party offered 10 silver for expenses, 10 sp for their trouble, plus a weeks worth of rations. In addition, for every suitable candidate their effort brought forth, they would receive a finder's fee of 1 gp each.

The offer was too good for fairly poor townsfolk to turn down and they agreed to set out the next day.

While the negotiations were under way, Sister Linkat approached the town scribe to order 10 bills to post, nothing fancy. For 15 gp he could have it for her by the next day. How convenient for everyone.

As promised, the following morning, the riders set off for the other villages with the parchments in hand.

Soon after, Dleggit suggested that the group make a foray into the dungeon again - with all due caution of course - rather than waiting around for mercenaries to arrive. "Who knows how long it will take?"

[Here I used my group decision resolution method No one was outright against it, but i didn't think support was strong enough to merit an automatic yes. After all, it's no skin off my nose to flash forward x number of days or weeks. The end result was a resounding yes however, to my surprise - not only would they go in, but they would leave for the dungeon today, rather than waiting for the next morning]

Sister Linkat ran to find Waldu [Waldu was not a sure thing. Neither his availability, his willingness to go, nor his price were a given. Was he available? 50/50. Yes. ] while rest of the party went to retrieve their gear, and load the mule. Waldu, as luck would have it, was available and after some back and forth, he agreed to go on condition that he be provided chain mail.

In no position to negotiate that stipulation, with time being of the essence, Sister Linkat took him the nearest (only?) armor merchant. However, as it turned out, they had no chain mail on hand and wouldn't for 2 weeks [Enquiry table: Do they have chain mail - 50/50, 1 and 2, No and....] He agreed that studded leather armor would be fine and then off they went to join the party.

Once inside the dungeon, the party resumed the same course of action as the previous session, with Kroyden scouting ahead. When he got to the door to the gnoll shrine room, he checked for traps and found none He also found it had been locked. 

After bringing the rest of the party up to the door, he tried to pick it, failed and set off a trap. [Do 1st level thieves ever do anything thief-y successfully?]

In this case, it was an alarm [I created a table on the fly for the kind of trap. I decided the alarm would manifest as increasing the chance of wandering monsters this session, and also, if anything was in Room 31 - the gnoll shrine room - then they could not be surprised]. 

Realizing their chance for moving about the dungeon unnoticed had been thwarted, Kroyden dropped back and the party assumed door-smashing order.

[Contents: 32, Monster. Mythic, Gnolls? Likely. Yes] 

As Perceval kicked open the door, the two gnoll guards on the other side were already charging towards him and Dleggit.

The first crashed into Perceval - rolling a natural 20, dealing 4 points of damage and sending Perceval flying back past Sister Linkat into Kroyden. Dleggit suffered an unbelievably similar fate - another natural 20, but for 8 points of damage, and he ended up flying back towards Waldu.

Kroyden dodged out of the way [Save vs. Dex], but Dleggit and Waldu ended up in a heap on the floor.

This left Sister Linkat as the front rank. [That was the end of the surprise round]

[Round 1. Party 3, Gnolls 6]

The gnoll that attacked Perceval followed right behind him and attacked again - 8 more points of damage [he was down to 2!], while the other attacked Sister Linkat and hit her for 6 points.

This was not going well.

Perceval managed to score a hit on his gnoll, but rolled a 1 for damage With his strength bonus, that yielded a whopping 3 points. The gnoll laughed its hyena-laugh at him.

Kroyden, who had planned to rush to join Sister Linkat, stopped himself mid-stride [Dex check], turned and struck the gnoll attacking Perceval, for another devastating [that's sarcasm] 3 points.  

[I always declare, i.e. type out, my party's actions before I roll initiative and if they want to change during the fight, they usually have to Save vs Dex. This keeps me honest and means meeting an unexpected threat isn't automatic.]

Dleggit quickly extricated himself from Waldu [another Dex check] and charged the gnoll facing Sister Linkat. His dwarven blood pumped with rage and his war hammer caved  in the gnoll's chest. It gurgled it's final blood filled breath and crumpled.

Good fortune struck the next round, and Perceval killed "his" gnoll without anyone taking any further damage. He who laughs last, does indeed laugh best.

Immediately, Sister Linkat set about casting her 2 cure light wounds spells: one for Perceval and the other for Dleggit. Neither one was brought back to full HP, but Dleggit was at least close.

The decision to leave the dungeon for another day was unanimous.

[Except, it was time for a wandering monster check: Roll 1d6, 1. Crap.]

Before the party could exit the room, two more gnolls rushed in. Seeing the bodies on the ground didn't help the party's cause. [Immediate attack]

At least they weren't surprised this time and the gnolls didn't roll natural 20s to start things off.

This time the party opted for a fighting retreat - and the gnolls chose not to pursue beyond the room. [That decision was made by the dice per Labyrinth Lord]

As they dragged their weary bodies back to the Zealous Dagger, Dleggit observed, "Perhaps maybe it is not such a bad idea to wait and see how we fair hiring some men-at-arms."