Chapter the fourth; Pretty crawlers Inc.
As we begin this, the fourth update, the party is finally reaching the dungeons of ancient Myth Drannor. Our heroine's agoraphobia finally starts to recede as she finds herself in a world she can understand the logic of, a world entirely made of corridors and crossroads and rooms and defensible chokepoints and riddles and secret doors and traps and loot and, like, stuffies and thingies. She's so happy she could cry, but given they are surrounded by two orcs and an orc leader she decides to leave getting emotional for later.
Our heroes, however, have the advantage and this they use to place themselves in a more convenient way. Doggy places himself against the wooden wall dividing the room in two parts, Glorfin places himself in the middle of the room, and both Aislinn and Ramon place themselves on the westernmost corner.
Things go south pretty quickly. One of the orcs run up to Glorfin and hits him for 8 damage, and then the orc leader joins him but misses. The last orc runs all around the battle trying to get to Doggy, but he no longer has any time to attack him. Yay.
With thingies like this Aislinn decides to try another one of her new clerical spells: Bane, which would give a minus one penalties to attack rolls and will saves. It takes effect on all of the orcs, and then Doggy goes and attacks the orc that ran up to him just now. Somehow the game decides his attack qualified as a sneak attack even when he was attack right from the front and stuffies, and thus the orc gets cut in twain.
Finally, Ramon runs until he is just behind the orc leader and tries to backstab him, but misses. Yeesh. The remaining orc then attacks Glorfin for 8 damage, felling him.
I should have been a Dwarf.
Then the orc leader attacks Ramon for 9 damage, leaving him almost dead too.
Things are quite of serious so Aislinn runs just south of Ramon, given the orc can't use an attack of opportunity against her if there's another character in the way, and casts
shield of faith on him, in a kind of desperate push to increase his survivability against the burly ugly thingie.
Good Doggy then places himself behind and to the right of the orc leader, meaning above and to the left of him from the camera's position, and sneak attacks him for 12 damage, attack that somehow the orc leader survives! Ramon attacks him next, and just like before his attack counts as an sneak attack even when fully from the front and stuffies, which makes me believe maybe the Bane spell is somehow related to it. The orc dies.
The remaining orc is killed and stuffies, whatever. Glorfin is at minus one HP so Aislinn only needs a single cast of
Cure Light Wounds to save him. Then we loot the room: The loot pile on the corner is actually just a notched black steel bar, the key of the dead. In the chest just next to it, meanwhile, Ramon finds a +2 Sling, a +1 Shortsword, and notched silver bar, the key of the living. Ramon keeps the shortsword and the keys, Aislinn gets the sling.
Given the room has turned green upon our victory we just go ahead and camp in here.
Once we are well rested and stuffies we check out the doors. The one to the south east has nothing special about it, but the one to the north east...
Mh. Look at those marks.
Something has been clawing at this door. The undead?
Probably.
Before going through the door Aislinn casts
mage armor on herself, Ramon, and Doggy. Then Ramon unlocks the door with the key of the dead and opens it.
You sense a vast underground city stretching out before you, and overhead and underfoot as well - the legendary dwarven dungeons of Myth Drannor.
I'll asume we are going in through the service entrance and move on.
The city seems alive, but these days its citizens are plunderers and usurpers and evil things that crave the dark.
We move beyond the door and before long we are faced by a new group of enemies: One skeleton waits to the south east of the entrance and three more arrive by a corridor to the north east. However, they seem to be unprepared to face us and we get a free action.
To make the most of our situation I tell Doggy to defend, Ramon to switch to his bow and attack the lonely skeleton, Aislinn to cast
shield of faith on Glorfin, and Glorfin to advance towards the three skeletons. Next turn, however, Doggy gets to move before the undead and thus runs to the lonely one and hits him for 2 damage, followed by Ramon shooting the same skeleton again, and again missing, and Aislinn doing the same for the same result. The lone skeleton attacks but misses Doggy, while the other three do the same with Glorfin. He then tries to counterattack but also fails.
Next round Doggy attacks his own skeleton but misses, Ramon does the same for 2 damage, and then Aislinn
turns undead again.
They are all affected, and thus what follows is just a quick mop up.
I'm so, like, totally bloody awesome. And stuffies.
Aislinn casts
light on Glorfin, then Doggy goes and smashes those stones in the northern corner with his axe. He somehow breaks them, but finds nothing inside.
They follow the corridor for a little while, coming to a new area in which more enemies are. Given they are in a corridor they lack a bit of mobility, so Doggy wastes his turn because the girl controlling him kind of fails at moving around. Then Glorfin defends, Aislinn delays, one of the zombies moves up to Glorfin, and then Ramon runs next to the paladin and shoots this zombie to no effect. Then the rest of the zombies move up to the paladin. Aislinn decides to go for the easy win.
Screw this game.
Doggy runs behind the zombie just north of Ramon and kills him. He gets to attack again thanks to his cleave thingie but misses the attack against the zombie north of Glorfin. Glorfin himself kills him once his turn comes up, and then dodges the attack of the other one. Ramon misses his shot, Aislinn passes her turn, and then Glorfin and Doggy gang up on the last zombie.
They leave the corridor and move into the room they just cleared.
Those barricades seem quite new.
And shoddy. We must be approaching the orcs' territory.
Whatever. That old priest said their leader had claimed for himself an area far to north and to the east, so we should only find small fry around here.
Wasn't it to the north and west?
Yes, to the north and west. Far to the north and east was the cell from which they said the voice of some crazy guy obsessed with collecting jewelry and killing orcs gave them advice.
We should leave the orc chieftain for the last.
Zud, wasn't it?
Yes. The same guy those brutes outside mentioned.
A bit further into this room, or maybe wide corridor, they notice a strange section of wall, different from the ones around it. Doggy smashes the stones before it and then Ramon searches it for secret entrances, yet they both find nothing of value.
They move to the end of the corridor, finding a wooden screen beyond which they can't go. One of the sheets, however, seems particularly ramshackle and flimsy, thus Glorfin smashes us a path forward.
Beyond we get kind of ambushed: A skeleton charges Glorfin but does not get to attack after such a long move. Then a zombie joins it, and Doggy delays his action until all of the enemies have taken action. The two remaining undead, a zombie and a skeleton, advance also towards the paladin, who is right now kind of surrounded.
Aislinn retreats a little bit given she's within range of this last skeleton's attacks of opportunity. This triggers an attack of opportunity, anyway, yet the skeleton misses and now she's able to use her magical skill thingies without fear of being interrupted. She uses
turn undead and all but the first skeleton are affected by it. Yay!
Glorfin kills the zombie south west from him, and Doggy moves to a position from which he can kill the skeleton that just now did attack Aislinn and then cleave through to the remaining zombie. And during the next round Ramon and Aislinn kill the remaining skeleton.
They now move to the south and west, and come to find two square wells from which Ramon loots some coins, eight and five.
Now they return to the demolished barrier and move now to the north and west, finding a dry fountain in which five more coins they find and another strange wall in which Ramon looks for secret doors without finding anything. A bit further they find a new room to search.
This was once a great library, but now only flecks of ash and shreds of parchment remain.
They find nothing of interest in there, but as they are walking through they notice something going on just behind the opposite door: A small band of orcs and some undead are fighting!
We take the chance to prepare ourselves and take good positions, yet once the battle is over we find ourselves surprised as the two surviving orcs are not only armed with melee weapons but with bows, too.
So we break formation: Doggy rushes to the door and takes cover at one of the sides, and once the next round begins Glorfin does the same but his movement ends a bit before reaching the door.
Both orcs shoot at him but miss, just like they did at the end of the previous turn, and then Doggy takes advantage of his position to jump out of cover and rush the nearest orc, slaying him. He is too far away from the Orc Leader as to take advantage of his cleave, though.
Both Aislinn and Ramon try to shoot at the remaining enemy but miss, given the great distance and stuffies. Then, as the next round begins, Glorfin rushes the orc even if he will not have the chance to strike him. The orc attacks him but misses, and then Doggy moves to the side of him, slightly to the back, and tries to attack but also misses.
Aislinn and Ramon again miss their attacks, even when they are moving closer as they shoot. Glorfin defends, given I expected the orc leader to once again attack him, but the enemy attacks Doggy instead for 8 damage. Then Doggy himself slays him, yay.
I don't really understand how it comes that counts as an sneak attack but whatever, I'm not going to cry as long as the orcs are the ones suffering through it. Our reward is a +1 Spear which Doggy takes. No one has really any interest into it yet we aren't going to leave stuff we can sell behind, and the spear itself will later be quite useful during an emergency.
Before advancing any further we return to the room in which the stairs to the outside are to be found, the one with the two locked doors, and rest for a while. Then we return to the site of the battle between undead and orcs and move to the north west, where we find nothing but a gate into another room.
As we position ourselves outside, waiting for an ambush once the door is opened, Ramon tries to get a good look of what's in the room beyond.
Six skeletons? It does look like a trap, indeed. Ramon places himself against the wall at the west from the gate and Doggy does the same to the south east. Aislinn remains to the north of it, and not very close, and it falls upon Glorfin to open it. He does so and enters the room carefully and slowly, and just as expected the skeletons begin to wake. They do not do so all at the same time, however.
The first one to awake runs up to him and hurts him for 3 damage, for a nice start. Aislinn runs up to him, making sure to keep the paladin between her and the skeleton, in case he needs help to tank the enemies. Then another skeleton awakes and run to the paladin, but misses the attack. Doggy runs to the right of Glorfin and attacks this second skeleton, but misses.
Ramon then tries to join the fray but the pathfinding makes him waste his turn. Yay. I love pathfinding issues. Glorfin then decides to make me happy by killing the first skeleton with his next attack.
During the next round the remaining skeleton attacks him but misses, and the same thing does one who just now awoke close enough to the paladin as to stand up, walk up to him, and attack in the same turn. Doggy attacks the same skeleton as before, again, and again misses, and then Aislinn, noticing in the initiative order more skeletons are going to wake up and charge just after her turn decides to cast
shield of faith on Glorfin.
A third skeleton then joins the fight against the Paladin, but again misses. Ramon now moves to the left of Ailinn, to her right from the camera, and shoots the third skeleton to awake for 2 damage, and then Glorfin attacks the fourth skeleton but misses.
The next round begins with the second and fourth skeleton attacking Glorfin but doing nothing at all. Aislinn then casts
Protection from evil on Glorfin, Ramon shoots the third skeleton but misses. That same skeleton then attacks Glorfin but fails, and a new one joins his friends, but this one can't attack in the same turn he moves. Finally, our turn to attack: Both Doggy and Glorfin go against the fourth skeleton to awake. Doggy misses, yet Glorfin manages to kill it.
The next round begins with the second skeleton attacking Doggy and missing, and then Aislinn casts
turn undead for massive awesomeness.
They are all affected, and then the guys mop up. Inside the room, however, there's nothing but a bed. Glorfin smashes it into little pieces, but nothing was hidden in it. Whatever, we return to the place where orcs and undead fought just a little while ago and now move to the south and the east. Before long we come to a bifurcation: To the south is one of those corridors blocked by the orcs' kind of improvised barriers leading into one of the first areas we explored and to the north west we find a room with another group of two orcs and an orc leader keeping watch, as well as a wraith next to a body. Glorfin moves to the door, trying to block it so once the battle begins we can control how we fight them, but they won't attack us.
Wait! Let's see what they do.
They won't attack nor parley.
They are just kind of there and stuffies.
Weird.
And that undead creature looks strong.
Very much so.
Let's not push our luck. We'll return later, well rested and with a plan.
And thus the party returns, once again, to the first room and set up camp. Then, after casting the basic spells and stuffies, they decide to now go and explore beyond the other door, which is opened by means of the Key of the Living. They find themselves rushed by a lot of orcs.
Doggy gets into a defensive posture, and then three of the four orcs shoot their bows: Two against Doggy, missing, and one against Glorfin, wounding him. My mind somehow seems to have a hard time with the idea of Orcs doing anything other than blindly rushing and thus I always act like they were going to do exactly that.
In any case Glorfin then charges against the two rightmost orcs to force them into melee. Aislinn then advances slightly and casts
bane to give the party an extra advantage and Ramon shoots to one of the orcs of the lefmost group but misses. The last orc then moves, shooting Aislinn but, again, missing.
Doggy starts the next round by charging the orc closest to him and killing him, but the second orc of the leftmost group is again too far from him to be cleaved. The orc itself attacks him but misses, and then the orc facing Glorfin completely ignores the paladin and instead shoots against Aislinn, again missing.
That's cheating, you jerks!
Glorfin attacks the orc after running around the pillars for some reason I cannot fathom, and misses.
Aislinn then decides to run all the way back to the door of the living, and Ramon switches to his +1 shortsword and tries to backstab the orc fighting against Doggy, with no success. The orc from the rightmost group that is not engaged with Glorfin runs up to Doggy and hits him for 3 damage, followed by the orc both Doggy and Ramon are engaged against striking him critically and sending him to the floor with an ouch.
As the next round begins Glorfin is hit by the orc he is fighting against and only barely survives. Still, he manages to kill the orc with the next strike.
Aislinn runs from the door to place herself just behind Ramon, in case he needs help to weather the two orcs against him. Ramon himself, then, manages to backstab the orc who felled Doggy. The remaining orc, however, completely ignores him and goes against Aislinn, slightly wounding her.
You are no gentleman!
Glorfin runs to assist his two companions yet is too far away to even reach them. Aislinn goes into a defensive stance and Ramon decides to play it safe and use an unguent to stabilize, and maybe revive, Doggy. It works: Doggy stands up with a single HP! And then the orc's attention goes from Aislinn to him.
Fuuuuuuu...
Glorfin charges the orc but misses. Aislinn keeps defending. Ramon moves behind the orc and tries to backstab him, to no effect. The orc then attacks Glorfin, and I was already going
noooo! but somehow misses and then the paladin slays it. Yay, that was pretty close.
Aislinn heals Doggy until he can walk again and then they return to the first room for some rest and decadence.
Next time we meet our heroes will continue exploring the Main Halls, the first of the many dungeons they will have to face and loot. And somehow things will start getting better for them as they get through some pretty tough looking situations with nothing but a couple of bruises and an anecdote or two.
@ Mrowak
I'm glad you enjoy it. :3
And about the patience, like, those thingies and stuffies are important on a dungeon crawler, isometric or blobber or whatever. So, like, there is really no point in doing a dungeon crawler Let's Play thingie if all the interesting battles and encounters, regardless of them being interesting by design or chance, aren't covered. That would be kind of doing an adventure game without detailing the puzzles and, like, stuffies.
That's how I see it, at least.
@ Miss Bee
You'll make me blush!
@ Erebus
I did not notice that. It's kind of weird: On one hand it's a waste of controlling the party as individuals at all times, yet on the other hand it kind of works as it did on most of the older dungeon crawlers, where the party was only divided at battle, if at all. It's one of those weird situations where it makes sense from an old school point of view, yet it's completely retarded at the same time.
@ Cassidy
Hell yeah!
@ Malakal
That fighter level really made Glorfin start kicking some ass.
On the question, what Vazdru said. I love those stat thingies. If some day I decide to do a blind run of the Icewind Dale games I'll show those at the end of every update.
@ Ronery V
Since it's basically a turn-living thingie.
I'm already in love with it just by reading that description, yay. :D
@ GarfunkeL
If I do a game where you can add characters to the party everytime someone gets sent to the great beyond we will have to do exactly that... With elves!
And that song wasn't as awful and sexually confused as almost all other Manowar songs I heard. It even was kind of enjoyable, I'm impressed.