AD&D Session 6: The Cursed Cellar

This session, three of five players' characters are occupied (traveling or training), so three new adventurers turn up in town: Maraké the Druid of the proud tribe of Katu (the tribesmen we encountered last session), Johnny Joestar the Ranger, and Caicai the Fighter. They join Dirty Derrick the Assassin, Zelda the Fighter, and Q the Magic-User at the tavern of the village of Trilo.

Maraké, who knows Longuria's Common language along with his own tribal language (Katukai), tells the group that his village was raided and destroyed by marauding Orcs, and that whatever is left of his tribe is seeking a new place to resettle and from which to organize for revenge.

Our two returning characters have not been enormously busy, having mainly chilled out and enjoyed the holiday season. Dirty Derrick had been courting Tiffany the banker/thief, but she expressed only about 45% interest. Zelda has been painting every shield, shop sign, and suit of armor she could find in the village, for a nice limner's wage. As a result, everyone of Trilo's soldiers has exquisitely painted shields. Zelda did kinda exhaust the village's demand for limning though.

All this established, the players discuss what to do next. It is decided that the cellar of the abandoned pirates' hideout from session 4 will be explored. So our heroes make preparations and set off on foot. It is January 18, and the journey eastward takes the party two days through hilly terrain, with no interruptions. The on-foot journey was deemed safer than the waterborne one because Maraké foresaw that the seas will be troubled with Strong Winds (Predict Weather).

Little did they know they were being followed...

The party arrives at the ruined tower, and finds giant broken eggs inside. A bit of searching reveals the entrance to the cellars, stone stairs going down in the dark. The party establishes a marching order, lights a torch, and goes down the stairs, arriving at a square room with several exits. The cellar is cold and dry, and this room contains what look to be empty racks for holding bottles.

They enter another room and see a wooden barrel resting on a rack attached to a wall, and a small slab of marble in the center of the floor. On top of it, a sword colored with shades of red. The room contains stalactites and stalagmites here and there.

Caicai moves to grab the sword and Zelda goes to check out the barrel while the rest of the party hangs back. Caicai feels a surge of magical energy upon grabbing the sword! But two enormous stalactites drop on Caicai and Zelda, but fortunately either miss them by a hair or glance off their helmets.

The stalactites are actually alive! They are able to jump with supernatural force and try to skewer our heroes again after their first failed attempt. A few rounds of melee are fought, and the situation already looks dire. One of the Piercers pierced Caicai, knocking him clean out, sword in hand. Johnny Joestar the Ranger heroically moves in so that Zelda can retreat safely. He takes four d6 of damage! But since he rolled his own damage he was able to channel his skill at rolling low from last session and made it out ok.

Dirty Derrick moves in and goes directly for the barrel, hoping to find something useful or flammable in it while the monsters are distracted. Unfortunately, a third Piercer drops on him! He is instantly KO'd.

These things are very sturdy and hard to damage, so the party changes strategy and opts to retreat. Fortunately the doors are too big for the two big ones to pass through, although the small one might. So, they maneuver: Maraké attemps to save Caicai by lassoing him with a rope. Johnny retreats and withstands the free attack against him. Q runs back to retrieve another rope, which the party had tied to the trap door at the entrance of the cellars for some reason.

Unfortunately this gives the Piercers enough time to finish off their victims. Pour one out for Caicai and Derrick, who bravely challenged the dungeon. The Piercers also reveal some distastefully carnivorous tendencies, so the party falls back and closes the door. Then, they reopen the door and fire arrows at the Piercers and a flaming arrow at the barrel. The barrel catches fire, but the Piercers are again unharmed. Then the creatures jump up and vanish from line-of-sight from behind the door. The party closes the door and retreats.

Meanwhile, Q retrieves the rope at the dungeon entrance and encounters Green Gary the Druid, who had been following the party. But little did he know that he was being followed himself... by Kai the Druid!

So, everybody joins forces again in the entrance room. They decide to explore another way and come to a labyrinthine set of passages. Upon hearing noises coming from the end of a narrow passage, the party sends Maraké to investigate. He decides not to use light and go forward by feeling instead. As he approaches he can make out high-pitched humanoid voices, speaking a Language he does not recognize. He goes back to relate this and the party decides to trace their steps back and approach the Piercer room from another angle, from a side door.

They find the door and look carefully inside the Piercer room. The barrel is now burning and lights the room: the Piercers and their victims are gone. The sword was returned to its marble slab. Maraké grabs the lasso and tries to catch the sword with it. He succeeds! A Piercer drops down aiming to sever the rope. It misses! The sword is dragged into the party's custody, who makes it out of the cellars and starts going back home.

The uneventful journey lasts two days, during which Q Identifies the sword by grinding 100 GP into fine powder and saying a spell. It is a magic +1 sword, +2 vs. enchanted & magic-using creatures. The group decides to sell the sword upon arrival and divide the profits equally. Total score: 3000 XP.

Until next time, Kai will talk to Xenia the blue-robed village woman to find out what her deal is. He will then attempt to recruit normal soldiers for further adventuring. Green Gary will be out in the forest looking for material for his Druidical spells. Zelda will go on daily hikes to explore the surroundings of Trilo as much as possible with minimal risk. Maraké will depart from Trilo northwards reach the ruins of his village and try to find survivors of the Orc raid. Q will rest, study, and also talk to Xenia. Johnny Joestar will look to buy a horse (Warhorse?) and try to negotiate a 10% discount in exchange of some sort of sponsorship.

As for Sir Goldborn and Pocco, they will go back to Borgogazze and stay at the Pentagonal Fortress, if they are accepted back.

Another very exciting session where it felt like not a whole lot happened but also actually a lot happened. I'm definitely eager to see what our heroes will do next.