The Trap Room (04/25/2010)

The party started the evening by having moved back up the stairs out of the natural cavern area and into one of the empty rooms in the first level of the keep. During a brief respite the party discussed what to do next. The map was pulled out and the decision was made to go back downstairs to level 2 and go down the as-of-yet unexplored passageway that headed south. As to the fate of the Blue Slime ... maybe later.

The party then moved back through the Guard Room, and then down the stairs into the room with the floor runes. The party was able to detect that the magic in the floor runes was again activated, but they were able to navigate past them without setting them off. A quick peek inside the secret room revealed the stored booty was still there, and then everyone moved down the stairs to the second level.

The party then moved down the hallway to the east into the room that also had a well - going east from here led to the rooms were the hobgoblins had been quartered, but as planned the party took the passage south and moved down the hallway into a large, but empty, room. A passageway led west, with a set of closed doors sitting about 30 feet down the passageway. Another set of doors led south out of the room.

Oester moved up to the south doors, and hearing nothing, opened them. Nothing sprung out to attack, so the party moved cautiously into a darkened room. The torch lights revealed a huge statue of a titan in the middle of the room, the statue facing the west wall. Party members began to trickle into the room and as Krstic took one step towards the statue it swung its mighty sword in a sweeping arc, hitting Krstic and knocking him prone, and the door behind them swang shut and locked itself.

The rest of the party opted to stay out of the three square swing reach of the sword, moving left and right around its perimeter. To the left, in the northeast corner of the room was a dragon statue, facing east. This was avoided and all party members moved along the west wall to the south of the room, the titan making a vicious swing with his sword periodically.

In the south end of the room was a pair of cherub statues in a small passageway leading south. The party didn't detect any magic initially, but was resistant to moving past them initially. Oester moved west past the statues and saw that there was another dragon statue in the southwest corner of the room, identical to the one in the northeast corridor. Oester took one-to-many steps too close to the dragon statue and got knocked backwards by a mighty blow of dragon’s breath.

With the party ready for anything Eldred stepped between the cherub statues and immediately found himself suddenly magically sealed in the small room with two streams of water pouring from the pitchers that the cherubs were holding. The party tried hitting the magic wall to no avail, and the password they got in the graveyard did not work either. Eldred tried to open the doors in the south section of the room, but found that whatever magic wall had been erected wouldn't even let him get to the doors to try and open them.

At the end of one round the water was up to his knees, and with the party unable to find a way to undo the trap from the outside, Akta, and then Jenneth, were able to teleport themselves inside the room and along with Eldred began to beat on the cherub statues. One was finally destroyed, but by then the water was five feet deep – and suddenly the water stopped flowing into the room.

But as the water stopped filling the room the water began to swirl, creating a whirlpool, dragging Eldred, Akta, and Jenneth along with it. All took damage as they were tossed about, but despite the added difficulty the second cherub statue was destroyed. As soon as that happened the water stopped swirling and began to drain. The magic wall went away as well, the only evidence left remaining were the crumpled cherub statues and a wet floor.

The party took a quick break to let the water soaked members of the team recover. Oester opened the doors at the south end of the water trap room and were greeted with the smell of rotting death and the sight of a handful of zombies right in front of them. The initial set of Zombie Rotters were quickly dispersed, and a critical hit on a Zombie put him down to stay as well.

The party moved further into the room and were immediately set upon buy even more zombies, from the south and from the east. Krstic and Bogar sealed off the zombies from the east, while the rest of party dueled with the zombies to the south. From the south the party could also see a grand set of stairs heading down to the west, and two more zombies were heading up the stairs and at the bottom of the stairs stood a gaunt zombie with hands turned to claws – a ghoul.

Also coming from the south was an odd gargoyle looking kind of creature that appeared to be made of clay. His comical appearance was belied when it cast a spell of psychic damage that dazed several of the party members. Maive was able to keep the attackers hurting with her arrows, and the party members eventually were able to overcome the undead attackers.

Having said that it was Eldred who took the brunt of the attack this night, accruing a total of 55 points of damage done for the encounter, plus having got caught in the whirlpool trap earlier. Magic, bites and claws all found their way to his tender flesh, and despite being bloodied several times manage to keep himself alive by using his healing magic on himself. As the party looked around they saw:

15 Zombie Rotters

4 Zombies

1 Clay Scout

1 Ghoul

1 Destroyed Whirlpool Trap

The creatures wore no armor and carried no weapons, and the party has not yet had a chance to inspect the remainder of the room, but each member earned 225 XP from the combination of the encounters.

DM Note: The next time the group meets they will inspect the room, although that won’t be for two weeks as several members will be out of town this coming Sunday (05/02). The other party members will be doing a one night only Dungeon Delve, the details of which will be included in another post.