Game Report: The Tunnel Inspection Team

The group, after leveling up in a rat-infested hole, is ready for more action, and tries to figure out if they should once more dive into the thick of it and try to get past that insect queen, or just hightail it out of there. After a long argument and discussion of just how ghost sound would work, they head towards the kruthik lair only to find that the kruthiks don’t really want to play, and have blocked off the tunnel while they slept. Jerks.

So, it’s back to the surface, past all the interesting corpses they’ve created, only to find a couple of lizardfolk are trying to box them in from the other direction as well. After approaching the situation carefully, they decide to bluff their way to the surface. So, they step forward, claim they are the tunnel inspection team, and the lizardfolk, a bit confused but not particularly smart, let them through. A move that wasn’t exactly advantageous for them, because when they try to tell the same lie at the top of the stairs, they find themselves squeezed between a rock and a hard place.

Apparently a lot has happened in the little temple while they were underground. In addition to the lizardfolk downstairs, a tiefling and a dwarf have moved the horrible statue and replaced it with a dias, as well as taken a human hostage. These events incise the party, and they charge forward, prepared to handle this situation. Only problem being, there’s a dwarf in the way, and the five of them are trapped in a 3x2 room.

The spellcasters each have a teleport ability, so they blink outside, allowing a bit more room to maneuver, but the dwarf, fat as he was and with an absurd AC, managed to keep the doorway blocked for our martial and divine characters, who were pretty much trapped as the lizardfolk made their way up the stairs. That along with an imp bampfing around the room led to a real potsticker of a fight.

Amazingly, it didn’t turn out that bad. The tiefling ended up being absolutely useless; his every ranged attack missed and he teleported away the second things got rough. The dwarf held off really well, until the players shifted gears and managed to burn him down. The lizardfolk didn’t stand a chance, their attacks unimpressive and their armor minimal, and the imp got caught by the wizard’s newly acquired burning hands. The only real surprise was the crocodile, who came storming up the stairs at the same time that the dias was activated by the tiefling, which lead to a few players expressing concern that they now had a demon to deal with. The crocodile got stupid, however, getting himself squeezed into a doorway and beaten to death by our intrepid adventurers.

In the aftermath of this level 4.5 encounter, the fighter goes a bit catatonic (the activation of the dias involved coup de gracing the human hostage, and the fighter blames himself for the death), and the rest search around trying to figure how these guys got up here. They find a crate with a magic amulet of health, which the fighter claims, an ivory statue of Erathis, which resembles a man-tower, and a crapload of gold. They also find a small chalkboard that reads “Found temple. Set up dias. Ready for transfer.” As they read this, the words disappear. The wizard finds some chalk and writes something, only for the words “Who is this?” to appear. The wizard bluffs “Ars,” the supposed name of the leader of the bad guys. The board responded, “Bullshit, Ars is here,” then immediately breaks. They realize that this dias must act as a teleportation pad, and then decide it is definitely time to leave. They bury the human body and quickly get out of dodge.

They get about ten miles until they come across a ruined tower. As they step forward, a giant spider jumps from the top of the tower onto the fighter, knocking him down. Three more spiders show up and perform the same series of tricks, but a few ray of frosts slowed them down, and some fantastic maneuvering by the fighter allowed for two to go down to opportunity attacks. A real easy fight, made only slightly annoying but the jumping, but really proving that if all goes well, this group of adventurers can really perform. T, N, and M had to be up damn early the next day, so we called it after that.

Lessons learned: The group can handle more than I thought. When they are running on full tilt, remember their action points and abilities, and make decent rolls, they can take on much more difficult opponents. Now that they are comfortable with their characters, I need to start pressuring them more. I’m also getting a sense of our new player’s motivations, and need to adjust to keep him interested. I also did a little too much railroading, which I regret, and will watch that in the future.