The party (Mainly Gorgalach) runs the Gauntlet.
This session was played by:
Dan's Halfing thief character,
Xan, 2nd level fighter,
Gorgalach, 3rd level Half-orc fighter,
Kleego Saltpounder
and Ziggy the mage.
The party started off by trying to turn the mage Ziggy back from a squealing pig, into his original form. Only, Kleego had survived the room with the pit (sans Ziggy) and thus reccomended they find a mage to restore, well their mage. They found a strange wizard in two, who demanded an exorbitant fee for reversing Ziggy's condition. the party scraped together almost all of the 6000 or so gp fee, and promised the mage an artifact of power from Ziggy's collection once returned to his original state. The mage agreed and when Ziggy was returned he took from him a staff that could paralyze folks on command by exclaiming "dlohnoitisop" He had found much earlier in their adventures. With that out of the way, the party returned to the Moors in effort to investigate more mounds. The party made their way to the same area as before and saw a large ring of vultures flying over some place. the party debated investigating and decided they'd make their way there later. first they found an open mound with stairs leading down into the darkness. they made their way down and found it had been looted except for a nice gold ring found upon a mummified corpse. there was no encounter or traps here otherwise. Then, the party headed towards the circle of vultures.
As they made their way to the great circle of vultures, several harpies and gigantic vultures (they didn't look that big from above) swooped upon the party. Gorgalach was rendered immobile by the loud screech of one of the harpies. The rest of the party managed to dispatch them rather quickly. they had a fair bit of luck when rolling their attacks as it were. The remaining harpies fled in terror of the party. In this area a great hole lay in the ground, it appeared as if a barrowmound had fallen inwards into the earth, leading to some forgotten sub terrain chamber. The party didn't want to deal with this yet, and lugged their paralyzed friend over to a mound they found previously emptied. As the party waited out the half-orc's paralysis, they were beset by other tomb-robbers. Ziggy took them out quickly with a sleep spell, and all was well. After checking for loot and finding little, they headed over to an unopened mound.
The party pummeled their way in with sledge hammers and lo, a great chamber was found, long and narrow. As the party entered, they could see a shining jeweled horn and an urn upon an altar on the far wall. they could tell the floor was strange here. Each tile was stamped with a symbol representing various elements, so sayeth Ziggy the mage. the party tested each carefully, and found one type of symbol to set off a fusillade of darts from the walls. The party carefully navigated their way forward and found similar tiles, this time with no markings. As Xan pressed forward with a ten foot pole, huge scything blades, three in total began to slice back and forth from the walls, each were about 3 to 5 feet from each other, making navigating between them difficult. the first to attempt the leap forward was the thief (the halfling one, played by Dan). the thief failed, and received a deep gash from the blade. he lay their bleeding (though alive). Gorgalach went next. he deftly darted between the scything blades, and I believed he was nicked just once for minor damage. After he cleared all three, there was a new patch of floor, each having 1 inch diameter holes across it. Gorgalach tested the floor, and found that jets of flame would surge upwards if the floor was pressed (also he singed his foot). The stupid brave Gorgalach opted to run full tilt along the wall and try to outrun the flames. he could not, and was nearly burned to death but he survived.
As he approached the final strip of floor (about 10 feet I believe) he tested the ground. A crossbow bolt shot out from behind him and struck the forward wall, as he was too close to the wall for it to hit him. He did notice though, strange scraping pattern along the floor, forming a type of "path" down the center bereft of scrape marks. gorglach thought to walk upon the floor with nor markings. Though, when he did this, the walls from either side shot out and slammed him between them (now the party new where the scraping patterns came from). Gorgalach died there a heroic death, and the party thanked him for it. Xan, then, found out Ziggy had a potion of spider climbing, and opted to drink it, and thus bypass all the traps. He did this, and retrieved the loot from the other side (and Gorgalach's more important items). Once this was done, the party collected the halfing thief who had suffered a grave wound, and went back to town. the party payed the same mage to identify the horn as the horn of the dead. the word "Draugr" engraved upon its side. Apparently when this horn was blown by a warrior of some measure, the spirits of the dead would rise and aid the wielder in battle. This sounded dangerous to Xan so he opted to save it for a special occasion.
All in all, it was pretty dumb to send Gorgalach through the gauntlet of traps, especially realizing the ease in which they could be bypassed with spider climb. All is well that ends well though, And Gorgalach's player experienced his first pc death. here's hoping it's one of many to come.
