No matter what, we wanted to make sure we were not trapped by the green slime. So there were a number of plans thrown out there. A sturdy tree branch or the like to entice them to fall? That was something we could do. Elmo was right on it. Albert wanted to restudy while we had some time to kill waiting for Pestle to wake up. We also knew we wanted to have some torches set so the party went through our inventory making sure enough light and fire sources were there to go around.
But the big thing was to get the further slimes to work their way to us. And for that we would need Wynter. So with only 2 minutes on the clock, just before we were ready to go back down, Rowan cast Speak with Animals and had an intense conversation with his giant albino spider, impressing upon him what he wanted him to do and the amount of time to get it done. The arachnid seemed like he got it and we all gathered at the stairs, ready to go down.
Once there Wynter climbed the wall and then onto the ceiling and skittered off in the dark to goad and coax the slime up there to move towards the stairs where Elmo and Aredhel were waiting with torches. The rest of the group were looking over the mass of furniture, bags, barrels, and the like on the west wall. Eventually they unearthed a few bags of sillage, the leftover found when winnowing grain and the likes. Coupled that with the VERY large earthenware jug of oil that Pestle brought down from the pantry area, made us pretty much ready as the slimes drew closer.
They didn’t seem to respond much to the branch, one of them dropping and getting burned to cinders for the effort. But the other 2 slimes had oozed together and were not being enticed to drop, instead trying to settle over Elmo’s position. So Albert called out a short summon and a field mouse showed up. He gave it explicit instructions for the rodent to follow, calling it Guiseppe. The mouse seemed to grin and then ran off into the large chamber.
Where the huge slime slammed down upon it, devouring it instantly.
“Light it up!” Elmo called out, jamming the torch into the green slime.
As it proceeded to burn, the Ranger backed up long enough for Pestle to hurl the jug of oil into the slime, further spreading the fire. One of the bags of sillage added to the mix as well, spreading the flames. And then a Fireburst spell roared out and the slime was consumed in a massive conflagration that had the party back up and watch and wait for a few minutes until sure that all signs of the green slimes were gone. Hooray!
We decided to check out the wall on the west, dig through the furnishings and material there for a while, while Pestle wandered off to the east to keep watch for a while. We gave ourselves a 20 minute window and worked on stripping off barrels boxes and bags. The gnome did let us know that she did spy in the distance and to the south, a figure that was radiating room temperature but still milling about slowly. Undead. Most likely a zombie. We altered our plans to just look and then get out of here. Pestle would let us know if the figure moved at all.
We did discover that behind the wall of trash and boxes were two doors. And based upon the age of the locks and the amount of rust and dust, they hadn’t been opened in years. One of the doors was able to be opened, the other was still covered by trash. Taking out his crowbar, Elmo worked at the door and lock, twisting the metal back and forth until the metal gave way under the warrior’s might and snapped off. We waited…nothing was coming. Opening the door (difficult!) we had a chance to see the original manor house’s weapon room. Pikes, spears, guisarmes, and a case or arrows and crossbow bolts. A few of us topped off our quivers but we guessed we were running light of time.
We talked about it and wanted to get a lot of these back to Hommlet as they would get us a pretty penny but also help arm the town if need be. But we would need our wagon and horse. And if Lareth was indeed down here somewhere, we didn’t want him or his followers to get them. So we closed the door and stacked the stuff in front of it. We suspected the other door was the armory and hard armor items within – again, for another day.
We went to Pestle and noted the zombie was now heading our way. So we drew up into a battle light, light was laid out, Pestle backed up to the stairs to sling stones with her hoopak, and the one…two zombies drew close. There were 5 doors to cells on the western side of the room and from the closest one, two more zombies came out. We also noted that piercing weapons were mostly useless on the undead so it was blunt and slashing weapons.
The zombies were slow and we hit them first, Elmo’s battle axe leading the way. We wanted to hold Opehlia’s turning until it was best so we plied sword, club, and spell for now. And after we were hit, we readied to return the blows. But another set of doors opened up and two more zombies came out, staggering towards us. Ok that was a bit different. Albert summoned a giant ant, named Antony, and Aredhel poured through a spell or two before taking Elmo’s crowbar and smashing zombies.
And then Ophelia went down from a series of undead attacks. Rowan dragged her back and rocks were hurled, the druid getting the cleric back up in time to Turn undead! But the power of Athena faltered and the zombies came onward, now 7 of them engaged! Elmo hit again and we had three down at this point…but Rowan dropped next! Damn it!
Ophelia got Rowan back to his feet, the druid staggered but fighting on. Albert ran out of spells and we were calling to flee but kept waiting one more round. We had dropped 5 of the zombies at this point and we noted a queer thing, the later zombies we dropped were in poorer conditions than the first ones which took a lot of effort to bring down. So we opted to try and ride it out. Elmo and Aredhel had a bad run of misses and Pestle had churned through half her rocks. Albert eventually took to hurling daggers to help out and Ophelia fell again!
We were down to dregs for spells and 10 rounds in…the cleric was brought back to 1 hit point. Elmo was given a precious healing potion, the ranger a mass of bloody wounds and bruises. It was getting pretty bad. And then Ophelia fumbled and hurled her magic sword across the room. Damn it. She drew her standard broad sword and fought on but was hit hard AGAIN, and again dropped to 0! With only 2 zombies left we pushed on and Rowan raised the cleric again back to 1 hit point as we tore through the last zombies and finally, 14 rounds later, ended the fight.
Exhausted and with no healing left to dole out, we made sure no one had paid attention to us, and then bandaged our hurts while a few of us looked in the cells. While that was going on, Pestle, Ophelia, and Elmo went to the end of the larger chamber and looked in the next. It was a torture chamber, both long ago used and recent usage could be seen. 2 5’ wide columns went from floor to ceiling and the party was looking around. In the cells we did find a few hollows with gems in them, and Pestle wanted to use her last spell, Detect Secret Doors. There were none in the cells...but while panning around (spell ends fast) she DID note some sort of the brief hint of a secret door on the central column!
We checked it out and eventually opened a section of it that revealed a shaft going down maybe 30’ into the gloom. It smelled of death and corruption, rot. Ladder rungs were set in the wall. “No time, people. Let’s go.”
We worked our way out of the room, back to the first floor, and then at 2:15 or so, set ourselves up behind the door to Ortti and the Brigand’s hideout, discussed possibly studying and then heading back to Hommlet. Jaroo had promised to help us if need be. We hoped.
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