AtD: 030 The Pit of Despair

Thonn rushed into the chamber and hacked at the unfinished statue. His attack did nothing but awaken the statue—which was quickly identified as a half-finished golem of sorts.

Bodrum recalled non-magical attacks were ineffective against the creature—something Saeldur quickly confirmed with a barrage of missiles. In desperation, Balasar hurled his javelin of lightning at the statue, but this attack also did nothing; in fact, the creature’s stony body attracted and absorbed the electrical energy!

Luckily, the party had several magical weapons at their disposal and Thonn, Gromm and Harald began enthusiastically hacking at the creature. Cracks began to appear throughout the golem’s body, and although it succeeded in badly injuring Gromm, it was eventually destroyed—reduced to nothing more than a pile of rubble.

With this foul threat eradicated, the party fell to searching the surrounding rooms. They found no treasure or secret passages and decided to push on to the south.

Retracing their steps, the party dared the long and straight passageway that had for so long hinted at unsought foes and unclaimed treasure lying to the south. As they advanced, nicely silhouetted in Harald’s lantern light, two arrows flew from the darkness—clearly foes lay beyond!

Harald shouted “Charge” and prepared to battle his enemies. Many of the party enthusiastically followed suit. Rushing down the corridor, they discovered a small shield wall and archers arrayed behind it. Saeldur’s devastatingly effective archery began to whittle down the numbers of foes as quickly as they could be replaced from around the corner beyond which the characters could not see.

Then as the heroes began to bring their martial prowess to bear against the shield wall, disaster struck. The ground opened below Harald, Gromm, Thonn, Balasar and Bodrum dropping them into a five-foot deep pit with a chute at the bottom. The pit was inescapable, and all five disappeared, sliding quickly out of sight!

Seeing this, Saeldur and Ozloc fought on for a few more rounds, but after Saeldur got caught in a hail of arrows, the two wisely ducked back around the corner to discuss their next move…

Below

The five hapless adventurers slid down a long, smooth slide that took them ever deeper into the bowels of the hill below the monastery. The heroes slid downwards for almost 30 seconds before falling—one after another—into a natural cavern. Eight exits pierced the cavern’s walls.

Picking themselves up, the party took stock. There was no doubt they were now deep, deep underground. Thonn theorised they had slid in the direction of the waterfalls he had explored several weeks ago during the party’s almost ill-fated exploration of the caverns below the mausoleum.

Several of the heroes were injured so the two clerics used their divine powers to heal their wounds. It was lucky they did, for at that moment, two scaly humanoids, their hands ending in long claws and their heads topped with frilled crests, burst into the chamber. As they charged the party, a hideous stench swept over the heroes…