The Sunday night group is intact again, although some of the players are still recovering from the colds they got in San Francisco the previous weekend. They have promised to endeavor on, so the adventure continues.
The party had finished the last session by taking out a large host of Zombie Rotters, Zombies, a Clay Scout and a Ghoul. With the silence following the battle suddenly restored, the party investigated the rest of the room. The southern portion of the room revealed nothing else, but in the southwest corner a small-to-medium size tunnel was found. It looked to be crudely hewed out of the wall, maybe 20-30 feet long. The occasional groaning noise emanating from the northwest corner of the room has some of the party members concerned as well.
Jenneth and Oester investigated the tunnel, finding that the small room at the end of the tunnel was likely a storage spot for relatively freshly dead bodies. Mostly tattered clothes and rusted bits of metal were found among the bodies, but Jenneth waded through the carnage to find a Bag of Holding containing 280 GP.
Just about the time this was going on the groaning outside resulted in a section of wall collapsing, revealing another swarm of zombies. The party was quick to respond to the slower moving zombies and soon had them pinned back in the secret room. Although late to the party Jenneth was able to nail four of the minions in one burst, but other than that the party did it's usual "turn one minion into a superstar while we kill everything else" routine. At the end of the combat the party found:
10 Zombie Rotters
4 Zombie Soldiers, each wielding a long sword.
No magic or secrets were found, although 28 GP, a jade belt buckle (45 GP), a silver necklace (50 GP), and a silver signet ring (25 GP) were found among the belongings, and each party member earned 125 XP.
With the quiet once again resumed, the party took a quick respite to recover and to the discuss the plans going forward. There are still some sections of the dungeon that have yet to be explored, but the lure of the large doors at the bottom of the grand staircase was too tempting, so the decision was made to move ahead.
The party moved into position, a mage hand opened the doors, and a fifteen foot hallway was revealed with another set of doors. The mage hand opened the second set of doors and a grand site greeted the party - a large underground cathedral. Four pillars glowed with a bluish light to provide some illumination into the hellish chamber - streaks of blood flowed from an altar to a grate that surrounded a pit in the middle of the room. A single individual in dark robes intoned ugly incantations at the altar on a raised dais across the large room, but closer to bear were two human fanatics, mumbling their fervent prayers to Orcus.
The party quickly moved into to strike only to find they were surrounded by a flurry of Vampire Spawn that joined the Human Berserkers to fight to the death against the invaders. Several party members took serious damage, especially Bogar who seemed to always find himself surrounded (and often bloodied). The Orcus Underpriest from across the room had moved up to be near the fight and while he didn't directly engage, the Vampire Spawn and Human Berserkers often seemed to receive some benefit from his presence.
Just when Bogar seemed especially in danger a small black cloud appeared and flashed a dagger at him (DM note: And this was the exact moment when the DM's dice went dead. D-E-A-D. dead.) but Bogar managed to fight the Dark Creeper off several times to hang on. The Underpriest took this opportunity to do some damage of his own (DM Note: or not) but by this time the party had begun to get the upper hand and was able to concentrate attacks in his direction. As the last berserker fell the party looked around and saw:
9 Vampire Spawn
4 Human Berserkers, wearing leather armor, wielding a greataxe, and carrying two handaxe's
1 Dark Creeper, wearing black garments and carrying five daggers.
1 Orcus Underpriest, wearing dark cloth armor and wielding a mace.
The party has not had time yet to inspect the room or to look for secrets or magic, but each member earned 220 XP for the encounter.
When we resume next time the party will have time to inspect the remainder of the cathedral, and maybe see why there are blood-covered chains hanging down into the pit.
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