The Keep on Yeoldelands – Session 74 – There Could Have Been Snakes

Expedition 50c

03 Aug 2023

Koko (Cleric 5)
Mandras Stonefist (Dwarf 4)
Rarder Brete (Fighter 5)

The party continued on their way, popping their heads into rooms and clearing out some large spiders. Their plan was to head eastward towards where they believed the mountain peak, and the more powerful undead, to be. Finding one corridor heading in this direction, they followed it until it opened out into a great hall of a room. Rarder thrust out an arm and stopped them advancing further; he’d noticed several forms clinging to the room’s pillars, and closer inspection revealed the nearest to be a figure with wings, four arms and an aesthetically unpleasing face.

As the adventurers debated what to do, a raspy chuckle came from one of the figures and, when the party engaged with it, it offered them safe passage through and directions to bountiful treasure or some really smelly creatures if they would just take care of a little problem in the form of its rival gargoyle. Rarder counted sixteen figures across all the pillars and urged the party back away, cautioning against fighting these gargoyles or indeed a possibly stronger group of them further on. The figure cackled as they retreated, saying it could be patient.

Bereft of further east-heading options, the adventurers explored some of the other corridors, finding two secret doors at one apparent dead end. Entering a fancy room with detailed mosaics of goat-headed figures covering the ground, they crossed to a door on the opposite and found themselves having to deal with one of the mosaic figures rising from the ground and attacking them.

Working their way through that and the door, and pausing to fill their packs with some golden scarabs found mounted on a room’s walls, the party heard screeches and unpleasant laughter up ahead. Dwarves poking their heads around the corner saw a band of contorted figures with wildly exaggerated features – not dissimilar to several opponents the party had crossed swords with in the Caves of Chaos – torturing a giant rat.

Taking the element of surprise, the adventurers fell upon these torturers, cutting through them surprisingly easily but having to deal with significantly more pouring out of a nearby doorway. Koko’s retainer Zuhaitz took a bad beating, and she and Hats found themselves immobilised by one of the foes chanting a spell, but Mandras and Rarder weathered the blows and magic missiles flung their way to hack down the stubborn rabble. The series of rooms from which their opponents had emerged were underwhelming in comfort, but they would serve as a defendable place to draw breath and perhaps wait for their stricken retainers to regain use of their bodies.