The Damn Dirty Apes Explore the Ruins
This session was played on Friday July 4th, 2014 from 8pm pm to 12:15am.
The fifth expedition to the Lost City included:
Shintzella the Amazon (Andy)
Gareth the Halfling (Rob)
Gerard the Boy-wizard (Darren)
Nigel the Fighter (Eric H)
Shiv McCutty the Halfling (Greg)
And the merry band of hirelings:
Medwin the man-at-arms
Corgash the man-at-arms
Rothdue the torch-bearer
Mr. Sinister the war-dog
Grub the man-at-arms
After familiarizing themselves with Bogtown, the party decided the would explore the ruins to search for treasure. They heard the local magician, Mazzahs the Magnificent, would pay good coin for historical artifacts excavated from the Lost City. Nuff said. Onward to certain death adventure!
While investigating a strange ruin with a level that activated illusionary torch sconces, the party drew the attention of a pack of Giant Rats!
Corgash was slain almost immediately. Gerard the Boy-Wizard, who was standing well behind the party for fear of the illusionary torches, was attacked and reduced to an unconscious state. The next round a large black rat jumped triumphantly onto of Gerard's body and ate his liver. Medwin the Mighty also dies in the battle.
As a result of the carnage, Shintzella the Amazon and her trusty sidekick Grub fled into the forest.
Eventually they defeated nine rats, the other two fled, but the victory came at great cost.
The group then lifted tail and fled back to town (but not before looting the bodies of their fallen comrades) and were awarded 35xp each. A new all-time low had been reached.
The sixth expedition included:
Gareth The Giant the Halfling (Rob)
Nigel the Fighter (Eric H)
Shiv McCutty the Halfling (Greg)
Drundell Durnik the Dwarf (Darren)
-Gerard the Boy-wizard [(Darren)-
-Shintzella the Amazon (Andy)-
And the merry band of hirelings:
Raik the man-at-arms
Moragg the man-at-arms
Colmar the man-at-arms
Rothdue the torch-bearer
Mr. Sinister the war-dog
Medwin the man-at-arms
Corgash the man-at-arms
Grub the man-at-arms
The adventurers decided to investigate a largely intact white stone structure careening out of the forest. The ruin included four elaborately carved pillars. They took their time trying to decide the purpose of the structure and how they might investigate further. After much debate they noticed a similarity when standing in the centre. It appeared that there were four panels, one on each pillar, about seven feet off the floor. They hoist Gareth up who managed to open the panel. Inside he saw an arm hole, surrounded by metal, and at the end of the whole was a lever that could be pulled from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock. They uncovered two more secret panels exactly like this but the fourth would not open. Unsure of how to proceed, and not wanting to stick their arms in either, they decided to find an old statue arm from a previous ruin and use it to pull the lever. They managed to do so, but the lever could only be moved to the 11 o'clock position before a crushing trap was sprung and destroyed the arm. Drundell astutely noted that the levers would need to be pulled in unison. Another lengthy debate followed. They finally decided to pull the levers and the fourth panel popped open revealing an ancient scroll with strange writing and images that seem to suggest the instructions for the creation of a unique longbow. They decided to take the scroll back to town for further study.
In the midst of debate they were attacked by a group of Turtleneck Barbarians. The barbarians, worked into some sort of battle frenzy, divided into to groups of three and charged the party position. Wisely, the adventurers answered by creating choke-points and holding their ground.
Following the discovery of the longbow scroll, the party sought to explore…wait for it…just one more ruin before fleeing the lost city. They noticed a large structure with a collapsed roof and a large tree that had grown up and through the centre of the building. They proceeded in with without scouting and all of a sudden, BREAK, BAM, CRASH! — a huge Carnivorous Ape landed on the ground, beat its chest repeatedly, and moved to the attack.
Gareth the Halfling was hit twice by the Damn Dirty Ape. The Ape rag-dolled the poor halfling back and forth before slamming him against a wall where Gareth slumped unconscious against the wall. Luckily, he revived to one hit point later in the combat. With several party members badly wounded, the decided to take 10 minutes to bind wounds (1d3hp, however this incurs a random monster roll).
While the PCs pulled their bandages out of their backpacks, a group of eight hyena-men yipped and barked at them from the west. With the party already wounded and no cleric in sight, another pitched battle began. Nigel called out to his fellow adventurers to form a spear wall. Those with ranged weapons followed.
After peppering each other with ranged attacks, a small group of gnolls attempted to flank the PCs. It was up to the lesser fighters to hold the breach!
The party ultimately defeated the gnolls but poor Nigel had payed with his life. In addition Cormar, Rothdue, and Moragg panicked and fled into the forest. Their whereabout to this day are unknown.
The party, bloodied by their battle, still managed to sort through the bones and refuse at the base of the ape's tree. They found a bag with 10 metal sling bullets, and three pieces of valuable jewelry. They quickly check the bodies of the gnolls and high-tailed it back to town. Fraktus, the last survivor of an adventuring group the party found earlier in the expedition, returned with them back to Bogtown.
