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No Way Out

So our band of unnamed adventurers found themselves fighting the might hoard of 8 bullywugs down one fighter this week.  The gnome sorceress Ally took up position about ten feet from the door to heal the half-elf rogue/druid Felix who had taken several arrows.  The former paladin fighter Rodar flanked the door to take out incoming frog dudes with his double-ended sword.  Corrail, the elf ranger, grabbed a position 25 feet straight back and continued to pump arrows into incoming.  The bard found a back corner out of the way to play inspiring music.

Slowly but surely the boggard tribe marched towards the doorway.  Magic missles flew from the sorceress.  Arrows from the ranger took down champions.  The bard enchanted a rope and was able to tangle up one of the lesser frog men.  Felix's spiked chain ripped at the incoming.  After several rounds and a brief attempted fight between the bard with a broken glass bottle and a frog, the hoard was stopped.

Again the sorceress started her whining about stopping to rest.  The rogue, fighter, and rogue's tiger continued down the hall looking for traps while the rest of the party contemplated perhaps resting or moving on.  A large rumble came and the dungeon shifted again, as it apparently had done before in the past.

The blood drained out of the bard's face and he gasped out, 'We're leaving.'.  The pull of the amulet stuck on his neck gave him insight into a great undead force beneath the level where they now stood.  It was an undead force so large that it could only be explained by the stories of the thousands, perhaps ten thousand, dwarves lost in the lower levels of the mine when the dungeon of ruins first became a ruin.  They all knew the stories of the collapse of the lower levels.  "An army of more zombies than you can imagine, " the bard restated.

They clamored quickly back to the room where they had entered.  The tunnel was collapsed and covered in thick stone.  They estimated the location from the map of the original entrance.

Blundering down the hallway at a run, the bard foolishly passed the rogue who was searching for traps, and found a trap of his own.  A fireball rolled from the floor and left the bard singed but not too much worse for wear.  The party slowly gathered nearby in safety.  The rogue went in.  Felix disable the first trap, then the second, and then found the entrance room filled with more traps and a collapsed entrance.

Trapped.  No Way Out.  The gnome was panicking.  After having previously casting the Scroll of the Desert, the party had no water, and perhaps had only enough healing potion to keep them alive for a few days.  In any case, digging through solid rock was not going to be a fast enough option to save them before lack of water took them.

Down the next hallway they went, remembering that this dwarf processing level had a hallway that hooked it to the mine.  There might be a way out there.  And some of the group realized that with a mine, there might be riches... jewels... adamantium... mithral.

The first room they found a tower shield, several bottles, and a belt hanging on the wall hooks.  The rogue attempt to grab the belt, but blue fiery sparks from the belt, giving his three points of damage and forcing him to drop it.  The fighter picked it up without incident and put it on.

The fighter became female.  Shock rolled through the party.  The bard called out the name of the belt -- the belt of gender change.  The fighter tried to pull off the belt, but it would not be removed.  After a moment, after the initial shock of the change, she spoke, recognizing the opportunity of the situation.

"This is what I want.  Rodar is dead.  Tell the tales of how he died in this dungeon saving the party.  Let the shame of his paladin status lost die here."

The bard would have no part of the telling of lies until a wand to the neck by the gnome gave hime incentive and a wicked burn.

"You can just call me River now.  River, a fighter, that you found along the way."

The next room had old rotten chests and moldy bedrolls along with a stack of firewood.  It was an old sleeping quarters with a hearth where perhaps someone had recently stayed.  Corrail search the room and found some odds and ends gold.  The rogue check the hearth for an escape route but found only collapsed rock.

The next room had a stuck door that the fighter forced open.  Pushing it open, the rogue saw a brown-black cloak.  A dog emerged from a nearby hole in the wall and began barking at the door of the room.  "Bark.  Bark.  Bark.  Bark."  The range spoke to the dog and he seemed to be worried about some sort of danger.  The only description he could make out was bat.

Felix rushed in and grabbed the cloak, thinking it was the cloak of the bat that he had been searching for.  As he pulled it around him, the cloak itself animated and pulled itself tight around him, engulfing him.  Sure enough, it was a cloaker, and the rogue had just willingly fed himself to it.

The ranger and fighter tugged at the cloak, and with a 24 strength check, the fighter pulled the cloaker off the rogue. It flew to the ceiling.

There was much speculation as the cloaker floated above.  Was it going to attack?  Could we just leave it behind?  Can we make friends with it?  A lucky roll left the cloaker currently with no appetite so it cowered away.  The dog, once calmed by the ranger and fed, stopped barking.  Using diplomacy and good judgement with the creature, the bard was able to befriend the cloaker and thus a cloaker cloak. (Whoa! -- CR 5 companion)

Meanwhile, Felix wandered into the next room, a dwarven library, to be attacked by 4 animated books.  Written across then was the title 'Dwarven Library Defense', with volumes 1 through 4.

The fighter ran in and attacked with her double-ended sword, slicing the books to paper shreds.  Looking about, she found 5 scrolls.

Felix entered the library office only to be then startled as a brain ooze dropped from the ceiling.  Corrail entered the room as Felix fled.  Corrail was under attack after launching an arrow at it.  It hit him hard and missed the neural pulse that would have drained 1d6 intelligence.

He ran for the door, and after two more misses by the creature, they were able to close the door to contain it.  (Three GM rolled 1's let Corrail get away with no neural pulse damage -- it was a moment of great luck for him.

Talking to his dog, Corrail learned that a group of clerics had been through the dungeon this way, but they were dragged away by ogres, presumably to be eaten.  In addition, the dog seemed to think there was something going on beyond the ogres, but he hadn't seen exactly what.

Next week, we shall see the group finds its way out or if they too shall become part of the legend of the dungeon of ruins.

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