Adventure 06: Into the Undercity
Date: Thursday November 8th , 2001
Characters
Adventure Details
Having defeated the pirate leader, Yorin, the party quickly loots his palace and then leaves before any more trouble is caused. They return to their inn and gathering their gear go to leave but are turned back at the only gates as the city has been locked down. So they go back ot the tavern and barricade themselves in their room.
It isn't long before they hear angry voices down stairs so decide to beat a hasty retreat via the window, but only just in time as the locked door to their room is bashed in by ogres.
Garet uses an audible glamour spell to divert the guards on the walls and the party then sneaks off back up the coast to where they have hidden a rwo boat. There is however no sign of their vessel which was supposed to be waiting for them.
Early the next morning they hear the sounds of pursuit (tracker dogs) so take ot the sea I their row boat and once more escape their pursuers.
Two days later they are picked up by a Drenarian warship and taken back to Sudenport in Druthnia where they rest up. At this point Garet decides to stay in town and train while Piskie, Serena and Song Do book passage oon a ship and return to Stormhaven to report to their superiors and then they too train.
Almost three months pass before the party reassembles in stormhaven and is once again ready to adventure together. The Winter Wolves Adventuring Guild has by now heard of the adventurers escapades in Talon's Gate so hires them to infiltrate the Slavelords, an evil band of slavers operating from out of the pirate city. Of course the party agrees, especially since the Hon family still have some unfinished business in STalon's Gate.
Arrangements are soon made and the adventurers book passage south once more on a merchant ship. After a two week journey they are deposited on a lonely part of the coast and make their way back into Scrape.
It doesn't take them long to find the Slavelords temple hide out and to launch an attack. Garet uses plenty of spells against minor opposition and the party makes good progress in the upper temple until they reach the courtyard. Here they attack several orc guards but the mission almost comes to grief when Garet uses a flaming sphere spell on an primitive flame thrower (which had just fried half the party) with almost catastrophic results. The flame thrower explodes with a mighty roar. No party members are killed but they are all very injured and Serena's necklace of strangulation (picked up from the body of Yorin) is destroyed in resulting conflagration. Needless to say she isn't impressed.
At this point the party heads back to an abandoned mausoleum they'd discovered earlier in the cemetery to rest before starting to make their way down into the dungeons beneath the temple...
Thursday November 15th
The party continued into the dungeons beneath the temple. The
didn’t get far before they spotted an insectoid creature
approaching and rapidly planned an ambush. Garet went invisible
while Serena and Piskie hid in shadows and then leapt out and
backstabbed the hapless creature that succumbed to their blows
without raising an alarm.
Pressing onwards they soon reached a large chamber dug out of rock, four of the ant-men creatures and five giant ants were busy in the room. Garet decided to cast another spell to clear the room, fireball. Little did he realise the powerful force that he was about to unleash. All the creatures and the party were caught full force in the blast. Although none of the adventurers were slain they were all sorely hurt in the explosion and several magic items, including Garet’s prized staff and Serena’s Cloak of the Bat, were destroyed. Garet fled blindly up the corridor pursued by 2 of the creatures, which although damaged were still alive, while Serena and Piskie finished off the third. The fourth insect-man disappeared down another tunnel.
Garet was soon cornered and forced to drop a lighting bolt, which killed one of the creatures and badly hurt the second. The final insectoid was killed with a magic missile. The party then regrouped and fled to the surface and hid out in some ruins in the orc quarter for a few days.
At this point we ended for the day.
Now here’s what really happened:
Garet’s player (Michael) had a family heirloom when the game began. It allowed him to cast 3 magic missiles per day as well as acting as a staff +2. Nobody else in the party wanted magic items but Michael insisted so I let it go. Of course I've been waiting for a failed save ever since.
So anyway as a result of his fireball he rolled and failed his save for the staff then said he was rolling for his sword AFTER the initial result, despite my clarifying the roll first. I let that slide even though 20 seconds before he'd said it was for his staff! So I accepted it and then made him roll again, this time we made sure everybody knew it was for the staff. He rolled a 5 but the die was on a slight (about 10 degree) angle so he said it because it was on an angle it wasn't counted (again it let is slide) and he rolled again. Another 5! BOOM!!!!
The party fled the temple and Michael sulked and refused to continue with the adventure. After almost an hour he was still sulking and I was trying to run a stand in adventure from an old dungeon Mag to appease him. When I went to get another book one of the other guys said something to him and he left, so we decided to stop for the day. He returned an hour later and apologised but still wasn't happy about my fireball ruling.
I’ve since spoken to several other DMs on they all read it like I do. Outdoors it creates a 20’ radius blast but indoors it fills up an area of 33,000 cubic feet (or 33 10x10 squares) unless it is contained in someway (a closed door for example will stop it).
This was the first time he'd tried to cast a fireball so wasn't really aware how hazardous it could be underground at least in my games.
The moral of the story: Don’t cast a fireball
indoors unless you really have to!
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This page was last updated on
Monday, 22 April 2002