A Dark And Stormy Knight (Part 2)

Moving into what appears to be a cave at the base of Hightower tor, the PCs discover that the space beyond is huge. Unlike the three Elven companions, Xera needs to light her lamp in order to see the room, but even this proves to be inadequate.

Cavell, being practical, wants to tie up the horses so that they don't wander away. He gets frustrated as he cannot find a single thing to which he can tether the horses. He decides, in the end, to get a bunch of heavy saddle bags and tie a single horse to that with the rest tied to each other.

As GM I asked if anyone has a mapping skill, no one does, so I simply give descriptions and the players have to draw a map themselves. If someone did have cartography, I would be drawing the maps for them so that they are accurate.

Shashari and Xera wander over to a stone door to the left and both listen at the door, they hear nothing. Kodos, Asmodeus and Rikku are over with Cavell and the horses.

Moving onto the next door on the opposite wall to the entrance, Xera and Shashari once again listen.

Shashari, "Ah, I think I heard something. Hmm, maybe it's from all that noise behind me."

Shashari casts her listening spell so that her "ear" is ten feet on the other side of the stone door. Nope, can't hear anything - too bad.

"Squeak"

Xera, "What's that?"

Shashari, "It's a giant rat."

The two women of the party shriek with terror and run around the room in circles, looking for a chair to stand and scream on.

Oops! Actually that isn't quite accurate. It would have been more accurate if I said, Xera and Shashari both draw their weapons and move forward towards the giant rat twenty feet away at a small hole in the wall. The rat comes forward and tries to attack Shashari but misses.

The storm must be scaring the rats from outside because now another three come charging out of the small hole and try to attack Xera, they all miss, luckily.

Hearing the commotion, Asmodeus, Rikku and Kodos move to attack the rats that are over sixty feet from their position with the horses. See, I told you it was a HUGE room! Cavell is nonplussed since there are plenty of people to take care of the rats.

Xera backs off from the three rats attacking her and Shashari follows up from behind them to give her a better chance to hit, considering they are distracted by Xera. Oh no! Another three rats charge Shashari from the hole with a fourth staying at the hole entrance. No damage is done by anyone or anything as yet.

Now, Rikku, Asmodeus and Kodos are able to reach the rats. Rikku kills one outright by using his two weapon attack ability and splattered Xera with rat blood in the process. She really hates that! Asmodeus prepares to cast Minor Pain, a spell that will reduce a rat's hitpoints by 25%. Kodos draws his weapon and attacks, doing no damage. Realising his new friends are now outnumbered by the rats, Cavell heads on over to the battle. The PCs vanquish their foes and watch as the last rat, that stayed at the entrance, turns tail and skitters back into the hole it came from. Ahhh! Nothing like a little exercise. Experience too!

Rikku and Kodos decide they are going to search the room for themselves while Shashari plugs up the hole with dead rats. It's a messy job, but she feels it needs to be done. The two men find nothing.

Deciding the need for more action than just listening, Kodos, Asmodeus and Rikku try to pick open the locked stone door in the wall opposite the entrance. No luck there. Not happy with the men taking the lead in the task they set themselves, Shashari and Xera head on over to the door on the right of the entrance. Again they hear nothing. They decide to try and pick it open just like the men are now doing with the locked stone door on the west side of the room. No one has any real success, however, just as Asmodeus (I think it was him) gives up trying to pick the lock, he hears a click. He was sure he hadn't gotten it, but something he did triggered the lock. The same thing happened to Xera and Shashari's door. Now that both doors are apparently unlocked, they decide to firstly open the Western door where Rikku, Asmodeus and Kodos are. The door opens easily with the sound of scraping rock.

As GM, I ask for a marching order and we get the brave Cavell leading the group, followed by Rikku and Kodos, then Asmodeus and Shashari, with Xera bringing up the rear.

The PCs move down the long corridor, Xera's lamp washes away the darkness around them. They stop as the passage opens into a room. The only object of interest in this chamber is a statue at the far end. It resembles a sarcophagus standing upright, except that the head of the figure carved upon its lid looks distorted and seems to have tendrils instead of hair. A pair of bat-like wings extends from its temples. Suddenly, its eyes open, revealing the glow of green flames, and the head flies forward to attack!

A Lesser Vargouille, this D&D3.5 monster I converted to RolemasterFRP using the guidelines supplied by ICE for conversion. This little beastie turns out to be a Level 2B creature with 20D hits and a 30SBi attack along with its shrieking. The 'B' in the Level and 'D' in the hits allow for spur-of-the-moment adjustment of the values based on the Level Chart and Constitution Bonus Chart respectively. These can be found in Creatures and Monsters (ICE #5802). The PCs dispatch this obstacle easily. Shashari and Xera take off the lid of the sarcophagus and find only dust at the bottom.

"I'll search for secret doors in the sarcophagus." - Shashari

"Why don't you search the dust?" - Cavell

Shashari ignores Cavell.

"No luck, just the dust you are standing on." - GM

Others decide to search the room with no luck. Xera gets a second chance at searching because she felt she missed something the first time. This was the result indicated by the Static Manoeuvre Chart.

Success! Xera finds a silver ring in the dust at the bottom of the sarcophagus, hiding amongst the footprints left behind by Shashari. Good call Cavell!

The PCs are getting hungry and decide to stop for dinner and rest. They bring the horses down to this western chamber and make camp in it, knowing that any monsters that wander in will come down this single passage. They have a restful and uneventful night.

The morning routine follows and the PCs find the storm continues unabated outside. Rikku believes this is an unnatural storm and that someone or something has driven them inside this tor.

The eastern room has yet to be searched and this they do eagerly. The door opens easily and they head down the corridor to another room. This room is empty save for dust and a single, small, stone chest in the centre of the floor. Evidently no one has disturbed this chamber for many years.

Rikku, Cavell and Xera search the chest for traps while the others search the room. Bumbling Rikku sets off a trap, firing a fusillade of darts at the three of them around the chest. Cavell and Rikku are unhurt, however, Xera is lightly wounded and is bleeding at 2 hits per round. Cavell attempts First Aid and fails to stop the bleeding. He spends three rounds doing so and Xera loses another 10% of her total hits. Since Cavell couldn't get his act together (maybe he gets nervous when touching women?? or maybe it is just because he is level one and not very skilled in first aid yet) and fix her up, Xera decides to pull out some of her own circulatory repair herbs and stops the bleeding. It will take one day for her to heal the wound and so is restricted to walking speed and no sudden movements such as combat otherwise the wound will reopen.

The party return to the entry chamber and prepare to open the last of the three doors.

Thus ends a three hour gaming session. See you in a fortnight.