Barrow of the Forgotten King 2

Last week in the Swords & Wizardry campaign the players continued through the Barrow of the Forgotten King adventure. As usual, the players went through it a little quicker than expected. But it does appear I will get almost 3 sessions out of the adventure. We had a new player join and he played one of the NPCs. We made this decision since explaining the presence of the new adventurer so deep into a rarely explored dungeon would not make a lot of sense.

Session 74: Barrow of the Forgotten King part 2

Lakima (human magic-user), Eathwund (human fighter), Aashdoshan (human necromancer), Alonso (human fighter), Lantosh (human fighter NPC), Fenris the Filch (human thief NPC), Domago (human cleric), and Vervork (human fighter).

After their battle with the skeletons, the heroes discuss resting. Fenris in particular is laboring, clutching an open wound in his side. Looking about at the chamber strewn with more than a dozen skeletons they decide to push on. But first Domago prays for healing for Fenris and Alonso. After the healing, Fenris tells them he can go on.

Fenris lets them know that the exit from the chamber is a rough slide that descends at a steep angle. He scouts ahead with Lakima’s Glow Minion in the lead. They find a large cavern filled with water. The other adventurers make it down the slide one at a time using a rope. At the bottom of the slide, they stand on a ledge forty feet above a flooded cavern floor. Fifteen feet away they can see a pillar of stone rising up out of the water to about their height. A hemp rope stretches from the ledge to the pillar. Fenris checks the rope and tells them that it is new and sturdy. The Glow Minion and Fenris make their way across to the rock pillar. Fenris shouts back that there is another pillar twenty feet further away in the cavern but fifteen feet lower than the first one. Another rope is found that connects them.

The rest of the delvers begin to make their way to the first pillar. Not having the agility of Fenris they string two more ropes across to make it easier. First Lakima, then Eathwund, and Alonso cross successfully. To make room, the Glow minion and Fenris move down to the second pillar. Vervork makes it across to the first pillar and is followed by Aashdoshan. But halfway across Aashdoshan loses his grip and plummets into the water far below. They hear a splash and then some sputtering. Alonso pulls up some of the loose rope and tosses it down to where he can hear Aashdoshan splashing about. Aashdoshan calls back up that he is not going to be able to climb up the rope so Alonso tells him to hold on and he will pull him up.

As Alonso works on pulling up Aashdoshan, Fenris spots a large dark shape out of the corner of his eye. Spinning about he ducks and yells as he sees an enormous black, leathery shape glide down from the darkness overhead headed for him. The creature looks like an enormous black leathery kite. Seeing the danger, Lakima casts Lightning Bolt striking the creature. It veers off from attacking Fenris and tries to get away, Eathwund fires two arrows into it from his longbow. As it glides by the first pillar, it is hit by more missiles and crashes into the water far below. Fenris calls back that he is okay. He also yells that there is another rope but it is cut. He can just make out a ledge twenty feet away and fifteen feet down just above the level of the water. He suggests that he climb down and swim across, but Lakima tells him that they do not know what might be in the water. Lantosh and Domago are still back at the first ledge so they begin to move across. Domago loses his grip and falls into the water. His heavy armor immediately drags him under and he drifts down in pitch darkness. Domago remembers the Book of Protection from Drowning and he casts a charge to get water breathing. The spell is successful and he finds he can breathe underwater as he drifts down to the floor of the cavern in complete darkness. He hears a splash and a rope with a rock tied to the end drifts down to him. Alonso, and Vervork drag Domago out of the water and up the side of the pillar. Now that everyone is exhausted Lakima advocates that they rest so he can recover spells including Luminous bridge.

The party decides to rest. The Glow Minion, Eathwund, and Fenris are on the second pillar and the rest on the first pillar. Shortly after they settle down to rest, Lakima and Lantosh who are on the first watch hear someone making their way down the slide from the chambers above. Lakima quickly wakes the rest of the adventurers on the first pillar. He moves right to the edge of the pillar and extends his glowing staff so that he can just make out the ledge and the tunnel entrance. For a few seconds, he sees a humanoid shape in the darkness of the doorway. He shouts out a challenge, and the shape vanishes. They hear the sound of someone going back up the slide. They are not disturbed for the remainder of their rest.

After several hours of rest, the group is ready to move on. Lakima casts Luminous bridge all of the ways from the first pillar to the ledge on the far side of the cavern. They make their way down the bridge to an archway in the side of the cavern. A man-made tunnel extends away into the darkness. This tunnel soon enters into a maze of stone corridors only five feet wide.

Lakima again summons the Glow Minion and he sends it and Fenris into this crude, stone maze with Alonso close behind. They encounter a few dead ends. Alonso checks down one passage and triggers a magical trap. A Manticore is summoned and appears almost right on top of Eathwund. The Manticore appears confused by its surroundings and Alonso and Eathwund manage to strike it before it can react. But once it gets its bearings it leaps upon Alonso clawing him once. Working together, Alonso, Eathwund, and Lantosh do most of the damage to the Manticore with Lakima supporting by throwing darts at it. The creature falls dead and Lakima retrieves his darts. Lakima uses the Wand of Secret Door detection but does not find any. Then he uses the Arrow of Direction to ask for the quickest way out. They try to move in the direction the arrow indicated but the halls do not always allow movement in that direction. A second magical summoning trap is triggered and this time they fight off a Sabre-tooth tiger. The creature is killed when Lantosh smashes in its skull with his ax. Alonso asks if there is time to remove a tusk but the rest of the group tells him they need to move on.

They consult the Arrow of Direction again and arrive in a large cavern flooded with water. On the other side, forty feet away they see a continuation of the maze. With no clear way across they follow the “shore” around to the north where the distance to cross is short. Fenris scales across by climbing up the wall of the cavern. At that moment they hear a distant rumbling sound and a high wave of water runs up the cavern drowning the area above water. The water soon recedes without harming anyone but in its wake, they see a weed-covered mummy stagger up out of the water. The mummy makes its way toward Lakima’s glowing staff and is fought off by Alonso. Domago tries rebuking it with his holy symbol and Aashdoshan tries dominating it but both fail. Eathwund and Alonso manage to chop it down and it sinks under the water. Fenris briefly considers swimming after it to see if it had any treasure.

Before going forward, Domago prays to St. Aleena to allow him to detect traps. Domago now takes the lead of the group with the Glow Minion. As they make their way, he spots the outline of a pit trap on the floor of the tunnel as it enters a room. Eathwund and Alonso leap over the pit and are attacked by two animated statues. Eathwund switches weapons to a hammer to help smash the statues into pieces. After the statues are dealt with, they see another, pit trap that has already been triggered. Fenris steps to the edge and looks down and tells everyone there is a human corpse in the bottom of the pit. He climbs down to investigate. As Fenris moves to check the pockets of the body in the pit, it is revealed to be a woman who is badly injured but still alive. She grabs Fenris by surprise and tries to bargain for food and water. Fenris manages to struggle free (and out of the pit) after giving her his waterskin. The woman, who tells them her name is Leera, admits to being one of the tomb robbers but claims she had nothing to do with the poisoning of Vervork’s nephew. She names the other members of the tomb robbers including the leader Xeron. She asks to be pulled up and set free.

Lakima asks Vervork what he wants to do with Leera. Vervork responds with. “Let her rot here in the pit.” Domago immediately objects and argues that they should take her into custody. Eventually, Domago manages to convince Eathwund and Lantosh as well. It is put to a vote and they decide to haul her up but bind her hands behind her back. Vervork says he will stay close to her and watch her. While the discussion about Leera was ongoing, Fenris scouted ahead. He returns now and tells them that there is a makeshift barrier ahead with several hobgoblins behind it. The Glow Minion is sent ahead to illuminate the area. The hobgoblins react excitedly to this and call up more reinforcements. Lakima peaks around the corner and then hurls a fireball just past their barrier. There is a loud explosion and the walls of the dungeon shake for a moment. When Fenris scouts ahead again he reports six dead hobgoblins. The group proceeds into what is clearly a camp the hobgoblins have set up. The stone lids of a pair of sarcophagi have been broken and used to create barriers at both exits of a pair of chambers. From the far exit, they can hear the sound of a waterfall. In the camp they find a backpack holding some treasure and they find a magical brazier. Leera tells them that one of the hobgoblins is their leader. But she does not see the thief Teryl, the hobgoblin shaman Krootad, or their “human” leader Xeron.

The exit from the hobgoblin camp leads to a large cavern. A stream of water enters from one corner and falls forty feet down to the floor. The exit leads out onto a ledge, thirty feet above the water. The ledge appears to lead around behind the fall of water. Lying on the ledge they find a dead hobgoblin with no marks of violence on his body. Just as Fenris moves forward to the waterfall the adventurers hear a loud voice call out, “So many visitors in recent days. Tell me, why came you here?”

Lakima immediately calls out that they are chasing tomb robbers who murdered the brother of one of the members of the group. A creature of water and mist emerges from the waterfalls. It is very large being about the size of a hill giant. The creature examines them for a moment and then tells them that they may pass. The adventurers quickly make their way around behind the waterfall and out of the cavern as the ledge leads to a stone passage. That passage ends in a stone door that is slightly ajar. Fenris checks the door and declares it safe, so Eathwund and Alonso take the lead and shove the door open.

The door opens into a room with a stone-tiled floor which is unlike any other area of the dungeon so far. The walls are covered in thick spiderwebs that undulate and drift in the breeze. The webs reach all the way up one side of the chamber. In the center of the chamber is a web-covered statue of a king on a throne. Lakima asks Leera to look at the statue and she tells them the story of the Forgotten King and the Betrayer. Eathwund and Alonso move up to the statue and as they near it a mummy, covered in webs, emerges from its shadow. As it moves to attack Alonso, hordes of fist-sized spiders emerge from the webs and swarm all of the heroes in the chamber. Alonso, Eathwund, Lantosh, Vervork, and Domago all find themselves stepping on and knocking off spiders. The mummy strikes Alonso twice but only raises some nasty bruises. They do manage to destroy the creature but as it falls, another horde of spiders erupts from its body. Now hundreds of spiders spread across the floor of the chamber. Lakima summons a skeleton and sends it forward to stomp on spiders to help Eathwund, Alonso, and Lantosh. After several tense minutes of stomping, they eventually squish everything that moves in the chamber. Looking about they see a web-shrouded set of stone steps leading up to a balcony.

Fenris leads the way up the steps followed by the fighters. The steps lead to a chamber that overhangs the area below. Again, the walls are covered in webs. Three large web sacks hang down from the ceiling. Just as Fenris moves forward into the chamber, an enormous spider drops out of the webs covering the ceiling. The spider has long legs and is about the size of a horse. Its coloring matches that of the webs. Eathwund and Alonso move to attack and Lakima hurls darts past them at the spider. The tomb spider leaps at Alonso and attempts to get a poisonous bite past his armor but it fails. Eathwund and then Alonso each strike it in the abdomen with their swords and kill the creature. Fenris enters the chamber again and cuts open the web sacks. Two contain dead hobgoblins but the third holds the body of a dead halfling. Leera identifies the body as her friend Teryl. The trap finder for the tomb robbers. Helpfully she points out to Fenris that Teryl wears magical leather armor. Fenris strips the corpse and also finds a sack of treasure.

The group decides they need to rest again but first they move into the next chamber which is not covered in spider webs.