Labor Day Weekend and my daughter wanted to sit down and play some D&D. So we continued with Lina and Thimbles in the elusive search for the goblin general and to bring him to justice. We were in the crypt still and she wanted to stay and check out all the doors to make sure we didn't miss anything. Plus it would be fun. Her words, not mine.
I think I saw tears when Thimbles went down at -4 hit points. Scared the hell out of her. She was so proud when her next blow was a 15 and she rolled a 7 for damage - doing 9 points (+2 to her str checks due to a 17 str) of damage to the 5 hit point skeleton that had just killed her friend, companion, and father. High fives followed and she was beaming.
It was in the fight with the boss undead fighter guy that she asked, "Why did you roll the 8 sided dice 3 times for hit points instead of once?" I was showing her what went on on my side of the screen and rolled all the hit points before the first blows would fall of the baddies we would be fighting. I explained the undead warrior was more powerful than a regular skeleton (3 hit dice) and would have better hit points and better ability to hit us.
She thought about it briefly, noted that the undead warrior ended up with 15 hit points, and said, "Then lets make sure we hit him more often than he hits us! Let's roll for initiative!" she grinned with the bright yellow 6 sided dice in her hand.
I cannot tell you how proud I am and how great she is.
Write up follows:
Lina and Thimbles looked further down the corridor, noting more doors on both sides of the hall. They approached the next one and it was with a stout should and firm push that the elven warrior was able to shove the heavy stone door open.
The back of the room had four alcoves set at 1 foot above the ground and then 2’ successively above the former, in each cubby was the skeletal remains of some humanoid being with heavy skulls. Otherwise the 10’ square chamber was featureless. Lina wanted to check out the alcoves but the two friends were a bit nervous about doing so. She approached the lowest one and poked the body inside with her sword twice. Nothing happened.
After that she began sweeping out the bones, the clattering noise filling the room and echoing faintly down the corridor. Once it was empty we looked inside – nothing. She wanted Thimbles to check the next alcove but the Halfling archer wanted little to do with that. So Lina once again began sweeping bones out and onto the floor.
It was amidst the clattering of bones that Thimbles held up his hand and asked, “Hey, did you hear something?” He glanced into the hall and gave a squeak of alarm as 4 wandering crab spiders were clack-clack walking their way towards the noisy crypt the two companions were in.
Thimbles got a nasty scrape against his leg but his armor held as Lina pulled him back from the door and blocked it with her body, sword, and shield in order to keep the oversized arachnids out of the room and at bay. Her blade rose and fell while Thimbles shot at the closest spider. It was a few short strokes later that she split the crab spider almost in half and it slumped over with a guttering squeal. The ferocity of the blows and sputtering fire from Thimbles torch must have stolen the fight out of the other 3 spiders as they turned away and scuttled down the corridor, fleeing the fight.
We waited a few minutes but the spiders did not come back. Feeling safer, Lina went back to the alcoves and finished number 2 and 3 – coming up with nothing in either. The last alcove was 7’ off the ground. She braced herself on the bottom of the 1st one, using it like a ladder, and pulled herself up to prod the skeletal remains in the top cubby – when the figure within grabbed her sword blade and stopped her.
She jumped down, pulling her blade free, avoiding the walking skeleton that dropped to the floor and pulled a rusting short blade with him. Thimbles was first and ready and fired a sure shot – the arrow hitting the skeleton in the chest. And doing nothing what-so-ever. “Damn, Lina,” he groaned, pulling out his own shorter sword, “I think we have a problem.” As he was trying to get it ready though the undead pulled back its arm and thrust the Halfling full in the chest. Thimbles groaned and fell over, bleeding terribly as his breath grew weak and still. Then the undead turned to face the red faced and furious elven warrior.
As for Lina she ducked the skeleton’s directed blow, wound up her hips, arced her sword over her shoulder and uncoiled. The heavy sword swung around like a steel pendulum and smashed the skeleton to pieces in a single blow! She then dropped to her knees, used one of her healing potions on her friend to stabilize him and another from his pack to bring him back to life. As he coughed and choked and she helped him up she said, “No problem, Thimbles!” with a cheery voice. We checked over the wreckage, the skeleton had nothing on him of value, the sword was badly rusted and pitted, but in the alcove it had resided in Lina did uncover a large brass key.
We left the crypt and went back to the hall. There was a 4th crypt that we were able to open but outside of an old sarcophagus holding nothing but the remains of some long dead person there was nothing to keep our attention.
We had a problem with the next two doors; the ancient crypts long unopened did not budge from our efforts regardless of anything we tried. Giving up for now we went on to the last door. It was unlike any of the other crypt doors, situated at the end of the corridor. There was a carving on it of an angelic figure with its arms raised and a sword in his hand, fancy designs cut into the edge of the door frame. We tried to open it but the door refused to open.
Lina looked over the door carefully and between the angel’s carved hands was a deeper hole – shaped like a key hole. She took out the brass key and turned it. Long unused tumblers clattered in the lock and the great door opened.
The crypt was larger than any of the others. A heavy stone chair sat on the far side of the chamber, a skeletal figure sat in it, clad on moldering chainmail and its bony claw holding the hilt of a silver tinged sword. Offering crates and boxes were on either side of it. Neither companion wanted to enter. “Shoot at it,” Lina said.
“Why?” Thimbles asked. “If it is alive, my arrows don’t do much against skeletons.”
“If you shoot it and it moves, we’ll know it’s alive. Also it’s not like the other skeletons we fought – it’s wearing armor and has lots more flesh on it.”
Unsure at first, Thimbles drew back his bow and fired. Dead shot. The arrow hit the chainmail with a sharp report, and sure enough the skeletal warrior DID stand up and hiss at us, storming over with little red flames in its eyes and its silver sword shimmering in the air. It made a nasty humming noise and the two companions were momentarily stunned as it stalked closer and struck at Lina.
Thimbles backed up a step and shot, his arrow hitting the undead and making it hiss again. Lina struck, solidly slicing into the horror. But unlike before her blow did NOT drop the walking dead, only made it stagger back and come forward swinging.
The two friends sweated a few close hits with the undead until it connected twice on Lina, cutting her forearm open on one blow and mortally wounding her on her upper chest with a second. Thimbles risked getting brained to pour a healing potion down Lina’s throat, blocking a few of the undead warrior’s blows with his own sword until his friend was able to stand once again.
Then the two of them struck the undead figure again and again until it fell over and the fires in its eyes went dim and guttered out. As for the sword it was wielding, it glowed faintly on the floor, silvery light coming from its blade. Lina bent down to pick it up, reading the words “Silvercut” written across its mirrorlike surface. She smiled as she slipped it into her belt.
The two friends looked around the chamber for a few minutes, sat in the throne once or twice just to see, and decided that enough was enough. They were going after the ‘General’ in the goblin area next after eating some dinner. We still had Lina’s unused sleep spell and she also had a web scroll that we could use to help even the odds should we need. So we squared our shoulders, took out our trail rations, and sat down to a meal before heading off to bring the ‘General’ to justice.
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