Note: this session opens up in room F in the map on pg. 330.

Having dispatched the vrock and their succubus hussy, we remained in the 30x30 room that wasn’t as blisteringly hot as the larger chamber. The party could feel oppressive heat emanating from the open door into the fire-room to the south. The current room was fetid with the reek of dead and dispatched succubus and dead vrock, along with now-dead sylphs and nymphs scattered around the room, where they had fallen from the dissipated energy cases which had melted away after opening.

The demons, too, had dissipated after the party slew them, leaving only steaming piles of black, oily ooze behind when they expired on this plane, along with the sulfur-like stench that accompanied them when summoned by that winsome whore from the abyss. Foul, indeed.

Cathal applied some healing ^{[From this point forward Cathal's *healing* ability refers to the non-weapon proficiency of that name described on pg. 28 of the *Dungeoneer's Survival Guide*.]} to Seamus. The party had made it past the demons relatively unscathed. Still, hit point totals were low.

We re-entered the large, painfully hot chamber with the green flame. The entire party took 1 point of heat damage except for the twat with the Ring of Fire Resistance. Cathal stated plainly that the idol and the huge ruby glowing at its center were evil and should be left alone. The dwarves grumpily disagreed, agonizing at the thought of leaving that huge gem unclaimed, but left the idol unmolested. Not wanting to tangle with flowing, deadly green lava probably had something to do with it.

We crossed the room, following the southern edges of the room around the pool of glowing green flame, and made for the double doors in the western wall, sweat soaking the party members, all of whom suffered another point of damage from the heat. As the bards Mogg and Way from the Kingdom of Many Isles once sang, it was too hot to handle indeed. The dwarves gazed longingly at the ruby as they passed. The double doors were very warm, even considering the temperature in the room we occupied. Flint could barely reach the handles on these doors.

Firmly convinced that the party had too many hit points, Cathal opened the doors inward.

• initiative loss
• an 18’ tall, giant black skeleton, launched itself through the doors, swinging a huge sword, both skeleton and sword bathed in green, glowing fire.
• Cathal, in the doorway, immediately got nailed by the sketal giant’s sword for 41 points of damage, his wounds both spouting blood from the giant slice, and the burning metal burning his wounds agonizingly.
• The paladin used a Heal spell from his sword
• Menka raised his holy symbol to turn the giant undead foe with the power of Thoth - the skeleton seemed to hesitate, and momentarily the power of the knowledge-god, even so far from his temples to the south, appeared to successfully turn the unspeakable horror away from the party, yet this hope was shattered when the cleric seemed to see tentacle-like shapes emit from the ruby, seemingly renewing the giant horror’s determination to destroy the heroes.
• Lycovyne took the opportunity offered by this cosmic battle to zap the skeleton with a Cone of Cold from his Wand of Frost, doing 25 points of damage by the dice, though the great skeletal warrior seemed more greatly damaged by the icy attack and the party felt a momentary wave of relief from the oppressive heat, which swiftly dissipated as the horrid heat returned.
• Menka, in a thought bubble, wondered if this was one of the King’s family
• Kyril chipped a nail
• Seamus launched himself at the giant foe, pummeling the skeleton with a natural 20 bolstered by a single charge from his Ring of Power, dealing 34 points of damage! He swung again, though his second shot missed.
• The fiery atmosphere of the room continued to blast the adventurers: 1 more point of damage to the party from the heat
• initiative loss
• Lycovyne threw another magical snowball at the skeleton, doing 16 points of damage that, once again, seemed to hit much harder than the dice roll
• The giant seemed to grin, his smile twisted into a disturbing grimace, and gesturesd toward the pit of fire in the middle of the room, and a tentacle of green fire lashed out at the party from that hellish pit in the center of the room, enveloping them and doing lots of damage to those in the path of the fire:
  • Menka took 12 points
  • Tim took 24 points (7/36)
• The party renewed its attack, and Gonchar heroically missed
• Cathal uttered a ribald celtic curse, swung, and hit the huge tottering giant for for 12 points, causing it to crumble, and the fire enveloping it winked out.
• Flint had snuck behind the skeleton for a back stab but made his dex check, leapt out of the way, and avoided the falling body
• burning titan, 119 hp

We found nothing of value among the black bones of the giant skeleton. Cathal provided healing for Tim and Menka, returning 2 points to each, praise Diancecht! Having fuck-all for healing spells left, we clambered over the bony corpse and entered the room, finding ourselves in a rough-hewn cavern with charred, blackened walls. A dead end, or perhaps an undead end. We took one more point of heat damage.

Looking to cool down, we left, to head back to frozen room with the warm black altar (B, pg. 330). We skirted the outer perimeter of the room with the swirling blades (D) and re-entered the small, cold room coated in blue ice, tentacles hanging from the celing. The party paused with relief, basking in the cold, while Kyril touched the the blue ice wall with his scrotum and made strange, elven-druidic sounds of unmentionable description while the party looked on, aghast and bewildered.

As mentioned, other than the non-ice-bound exits from the room on the eastern side of the room, a steeply-sloped passage entered the room - we entered the steeply sloped ice passage in the north wall of the room. It was roughly 10’ in diameter. Gonchar, Lycovyne and Seamus mounted the carpet and pulled Cathal behind up into the passage. Lycovyne returned alone and the party made it upward through the passage in lots. As the party ascended thusly, we saw black skeletal forms buried in the ice beneath us, and their eyes began to glow red.

Atop the 30’ long ice slope, the party entered a 30x30 room. Slime ran down into the room by way of a 10x10 shaft opening in the center of the ceiling, 20’ above the party. It flowed into a pool of thick, vomitous slime in the center of the room, surrounded by numerous 6" slugs which fed on the slime. They ignored the party.

We guessed (incorrectly) that gravity would be reversed and that to leap into that hole would be to fall downward. Cathal jumped to the center of the pool and then levitated straight upward, becoming splattered by falling pink slime as he did, and taking 15 points of damage in the process. The shaft was not a reverse-gravity affair, and extended 30’ higher through a 10’ wide shaft, which the paladin navigated upward as his skin burned with the acid from the slime.

Atop the shaft, the holy warrior found himself in another 30x30 room with a domed ceiling, this one with slime dripping from the apex at the center of the dome, down through the shaft to the grub-room below. After brushing the slime from himself, the paladin lowered the Rope of Climbing and Seamus ran and jumped up to grab it. He climbed upward and took 15 points of acidic slime damage as well. Clinging to the rope for 2 more rounds, he took 18 more points of damage ^{[According to the hit point table just prior, at this point Seamus was at -15 hit points and very much dead. Did he receive healing which was not captured in the notes?]} . Gonchar yelled upward to check their status and Cathal replied that we would take damage during the climb and that we would end up in a 30x30 room.

Lycovyne suggested a Cone of Cold up the passageway to freeze the slime and gave it a shot, telling the troopers at the top to stand back. The slime seemed to freeze, though in some places it immediately started to thaw. The rest of the party mounted the carpet and rose to the hole in the ceiling. Using the Rope of Climbing, we ascended safely without delay before the slime thawed out. Cathal handed the Rope back to Menka.

Menka and Cathal each cast cure serious wounds on Seamus, for a total of 31 points, and the monk took a pull from his mug for 10 more points. Cathal applied some battlefield healing to the monk as well.

Gonchar quaffed a Potion of Healing and the paladin cast a cure critical wounds on the dwarf from his holy sword.

Flint called upon his Periapt of Healing for 7 points.

We were in a 30x30 room with alcoves in the east, west and south walls and some sort of curtain or gate of energy in the north wall. The alcoves each contained bas-relief carvings on the floor - crowns in the east and west alcoves, a carving of a sword on the south alcove. Kyril cast dispel magic on the curtain but it seemed to have no effect. The elf then borrowed Tim’s Ring of Electrical Resistance and launched at the gate, bouncing off. He gave the ring back to Tim.

Flint began to search the alcoves, entered the south alcove, and swords appeared in the air before the party, attacking.

• party surprised
• Cathal got hit for 15 points
• Kyril somehow missed with a natural 20
• Menka got slashed for 10 points
• Gonchar got lacerated for 7 points
• Tim got hit for 15 points ^{[Per that same table, this dropped Tim to -6 hp here, killing him. The notes continue from here with the numbers I have in writing...]}
• Seamus got slashed for 15 points
• Cathal and Lycovyne each stepped into the east-west (crown bas-relief) alcoves, and the energy curtain seemed to dissipate, revealing a cavern beyond, with two statues standing beside a bridge
• Menka jumped through the portal and everyone else followed
• Lycovyne got slashed for 10 points on his way through

Cathal applied battlefield healing all around (Menka +1, Lycovyne +3, Gonchar +2, Cathal +1, Tim +3, Seamus +1).

Cathal cast two cure light wounds on Seamus, for 16 points.

Menka cast two cure light wounds on the paladin, for 15 points and one more on himself for 8 points. The priest also called upon a prayer bead to cast a cure serious wounds upon himself, getting him a further 15 points.

Upon crossing through the portal, the party found itself in a large, seemingly natural cavern, 200-300’ wide at its largest point, the ceiling at its highest point seemingly dozens or perhaps hundreds of of feet high, out of sight of the party’s light sources. The party appeared in the cavern about 30 feet from the entryway onto a bridge on the north side of the cavern, which was flanked by bronze statues of giant, two-headed warrior-kings holding large mauls.

Behind the party, the portal remained open, the alcoves and dripping slime still visible - but the dancing swords were no longer apparent. Beyond the portal, the far wall was 75-100’ distant, the ceiling on the south side of the large cavern reduced in height rapidly from hundreds (?) of feet above your head to a point when it meets with the south cavern wall at a height of mere feet. The party heard the rushing sound of water to the northwest, and a huge, thundering waterfall was visible, falling from above to a river below, which runs from west (where the waterfall descends) to east, much like the river you crossed earlier that day.

The north side of the cavern was cut by a cliff edge, the sounds of a raging river below, over which a crumbling stone bridge spanned. Two bronze, two-headed king-statues carrying mauls flank the entry onto the bridge, one on each side. On the far side of the 50’-60’ long bridge double doors stood just below where the distant ceiling met the wall.

Looking over the edge of the chasm we saw a ledge about 20’ down and 40’ east on the other side. We opted to use the carpet to get to the ledge and continue from there.

We made it across the chasm and down to the ledge without incident. A secret door in the wall was opened by Flint by pushing on the bottom of the door, causing it to flip downwards, and we climbed through, entering a round chamber with a sarcophagus in the center. Murals of the face of a beautiful princess-like woman covered the blue-stone walls, the ceiling domed above the party’s heads.

Cathal and Menka noted that some sort of evil pervaded the air in this place - the psychic stench of a place defiled, and both holy men felt that the powers of their gods were less potent here.

The sarcophagus and its stone cover were encrusted with 10 black opals.Flint checked the sarcophagus and its solid stone cover for traps, finding none. Lycovyne and Menka were able to lift the lid. The coffin was empty, though it smelled faintly of perfume, along with the foul stench of death. There was also dirt in the coffin, which the paladin promptly scraped out and threw into the river. No secret hatches or compartments seemed to exist in the sarcophagus.

Unable to restrain himself, Flint pried an opal from the solid stone lid and, immediately, all the women in the murals began to wail. Menka cast silence 15’. Smoke and mist began to fill the room and formed into the shape of a woman, her face similar to those carved on the walls, but bone white, her eyes red and glaring, and her red lips parted, revealing sharp fangs. This woman immediately jumped Flint and bit his neck for 5 points of damage. He made his save vs. death, praise Thoth! Menka was unable to turn the vampiric bitch.

• party surprised
• Cathal missed her
• Gonchar hit her for 34 points of damage
• Lycovyne sliced the vampiress for 10 points and she vanished into mist, hissing “bastard!” as she did so, perhaps missing the comforting earth of her home
• A huge, hulking fighter leapt out of nowhere, seemingly from the air itself, clad in plate mail. A large, red-eyed, pale-faced brute with fangs, wielding an evil-looking bastard sword, and attacked Lycovyne, slashing him for 10 points.
• Tim zapped the fighter with magic missiles for 13 and 15 points
• initiative tie
• Lycovyne zapped the fuck out of the fighter with magic missiles for 73 points of damage!
• the fighter dissipated into mist

The boys pried loose the remaining 9 opals and took all 10. They then pushed the coffin lid into the river. Cathal applied some healing to the thief and the elf (Flint +1, Lycovyne +1).

In the northern wall we found a secret door similar to the one through which we entered - triggered by pushing on the bottom, causing the door to flips downwards. Flint was able to open it with ease. The chamber behind this secret door, again circular and domed, contained another black stone casket, this one carved with designs depicting a physically powerful warrior, probably that of the hulking fighter just destroyed. We threw the lid for that casket into the river and did our right best to scrape out all the dirt and hurl that in as well.

An open hallway lead northeast for 20’ or so. There, it simply ended. No secret doors found at the end, other than what appeared to be a circle carved into the stone ceiling, surrounded by grooves. Returning to the chamber we found another secret door in the eastern wall. Flint was able to open this one as well (the same way as above). Behind the door, a 20’ long flight of stone stairs went upward. They opened into a large, 30x40 room, thick with dust.

Murals of the Two-Headed King, a glowing gem suspended above his head, covered the walls. Cathal and Gonchar stepped into the room. They had not gotten far when they noticed footsteps in the dust. Seeing no apparent threat, they continued forward through the room. The party followed a few paces behind.

A large portal in the eastern wall opened into a short hallway. The hallway was less dusty than the large room, and it opened into a larger, 20’ wide north-south room (or perhaps large corridor?) with large, 10x10 black and white tiles checkerboarded on the floor to the west. The room/corridor extended to the south for a short distance and ended in double doors carved with skulls. To the north, the large room/corridor extended out of sight. The party’s light sources seemed dimmed here, as they had in the smaller crypts.

Flint checked the tiles. He touched a black tile and took 5 points of electrical damage. Standing back, he followed Gonchar and Cathal who walked south. Promptly, the dwarf and paladin fell into a pit trap while the thief jumped backwards to safety . The paladin stopped his fall by levitating, and only Gonchar fell and took damage (8 points) and he successfully made his save vs. poison. This pit descended 20’ feet into a 20x10 room, which smelled absolutely wretched, and was filled with horrifying, hungry-looking creatures. Gonchar yelled back up for a fireball and Lycovyne promptly complied. All of the creatures were immolated, immediately, while the dwarf, who crouched beneath his shield took only 6 points of damage.

• 15 ghasts, 15 hp

Menka lowered a rope into the pit and Gonchar made his arduous, armor-clad way up the pit wall.

Note: the DM’s HP totals are markedly different than the notes, to the right.

• Menka 33/54
• Kyril 35/69
• Lycovyne 43/54
• Gonchar 80/100
• Flint 56/72
• Cathal 52/67
• Tim 35/36 (??)
• Seamus 46/71 (??)

end