After a near three month hiatus, the fifth adventure in The Lost City campaign took place this past Sunday night. For those who need a quick refresher, the current party looks like this:

• John Masterson, 1st level Cleric (inducted into the Brotherhood of Gorm)
• Darien Drake, 1st level Fighter (associate of Gorm)
• M’Tilda, 2nd level Thief (associate of Gorm)
• Assim, 1st level Fighter (established member of the Brotherhood of Gorm)

We picked up right where we left off, with John in uncertain control of a group of seven undead skeletons after using a potion of undead control. Deciding to use them while he still could, John ordered the skeletons to follow the group while they continued exploring the fourth tier of the pyramid. The party headed west down a winding hallway which lead to a nobleman’s burial chamber, with scenes from his life depicted on the walls. Unfortunately, squatting by the nobleman’s sarcophagus was a pair of huge albino apes, who had apparently made this chamber their lair.

John was willing to leave the creatures be, especially after they started to make some threatening gestures towards the party, but bloodlusting Darien wanted to see just what kind of goodies were inside the sarcophagus, and convinced John to send his skeleton minions into the room to do the dirty work for them. John relented, and the apes were soon surrounded by a group of skeletons under the party’s command. For his part, Darien stood away from the melee and tried to peck away at the apes with shots from his bow. However, his aim was nothing short of atrocious and all the fighter really did was waste four perfectly good arrows as they shattered against the far wall. The other three party members stood back at the threshold, watching the battle impassively, save for one moment when it looked like the fight might go south, which prompted M’Tilda to fling one of her throwing daggers at an ape (unlike unlucky Darien, her missile attack actually connected).

It was a well-balanced fight, really. Seven 1 HD skeletons up against two 4 HD white apes. I let Jennifer do all the attack and damage rolls for her skeletons, which she dubbed the ‘Skeleton Crew’. She even went through the process of naming them, just for fun. So we had Frank, Frankie, Bill, Biff, JoJo, K.C, and Devante. I’m not sure why she named a pair after a horrible and hopefully forgotten R&B group, but that’s the way my girlfriend rolls sometimes. She’s weird. Anyway, the skeletons picked away at the apes with small amounts of damage, while the apes went berserk and started smashing skeletons to pieces in single swipes of their powerful arms. Down went Frank, Bill, and K.C. in just a couple of rounds, while the apes still looked to be in pretty decent shape. At this point, with only about three rounds left of her potion of undead control, Jennifer asks what will happen when the control expires. You have command of them for fourteen rounds and you’re just now wondering what will happen?! Needless to say, she was not amused by the implications.

When the skeletons did finally revert back to their own will, there were only two left. I think it was Frankie and JoJo. They had managed to kill one of the apes in the meantime, while the other ape had wiped out the other two skeletons. One of the skeletons continued to engage the remaining ape, while the other turned around and dived at Darien, who at this point had abandoned the short bow and was attempting to use his newly acquired halberd to slay the albino ape from afar. The other party members jumped in at this point, with John destroying a skeleton with his quarterstaff and the always reliable Assim landing the killing blow on the albino ape with his long sword. It was a formality that the last skeleton would be destroyed by the four mostly healthy party members.

Afterwards, the party forced the sarcophagus open, only to find a rather juicy looking mummy clad in a suit of plate mail armor and still clutching a sword in his right hand. John didn’t much fancy getting messy, but the armor would be a definite improvement over the iron chain mail he was wearing (and it was in better looking condition than the plate mail Darien had looted previously). While the party set up a camp for the night, John started the slow process of stripping the various pieces of the plate armor. Assim agreed to carry John’s chain mail for now, as it belonged to the Brotherhood and could be given to another recruit. For weight considerations, the party left the sword the mummy was holding alone.

In the morning (or afternoon/evening/middle of the night… they’ve surely lost track of time above ground by now), the party removed their spikes from the door and left the burial chamber (the ape corpses were starting to smell at this point). The party added a fresh flask of oil to their lantern and headed back towards where the skeletons were originally encountered and this time followed the hallway east, north, east, then south. They finally arrived in another burial chamber, this one belonging to a noblewoman of some stature. Her sarcophagus rested on a raised dais and was surrounded by four small jars emitting what appeared to be an everlasting flame. Darien tried to open the sarcophagus much to John’s chagrin, only to find that the lid flipped open easily. Too easily. The mummy inside had already been stripped of valuables. Apparently, some tomb raiders had been through here already.

Deciding to press on and continue the exploration, the party left through a door to the west, stepping out into a very long hallway that stretched to the north and south. The final party member out the door heard a slight ‘click’ sound from under their boot, having apparently stepped on a pressure plate of some kind. The party then heard a rumbling noise from up the hall, which grew louder and louder as the seconds passed. Little pieces of stone started to chip away from the ceiling, the floor started to shake, until finally it came into view – a giant boulder rolling directly towards them! I only gave Jennifer a few seconds to act here, to try and put her in the characters’ position. After a brief moment of hesitation, the party just bolted down the hallway – southbound – as fast as their legs would carry them. They managed to slip down a turn in the hall just as the boulder smashed into the wall behind them.

Unfortunately, the group was completely lost now. I had been helping Jen fill in the party map until this point, but the group had bolted so fast that they had virtually no time to get their bearings, and the boulder was blocking the way back north, so there was no way to retrace their steps. All the party knew was that they were somewhere in the southern section of the pyramid’s fourth tier. There seemed to be little choice but to continue exploring this area and hope to find an alternate route back or a complete map of this level.

The foursome headed west, then north, ignoring a couple of hallways branching off to the west. Unfortunately, the north hall ended with a west turn, so it looked as if they were heading that way no matter what (I think the goal was to move in a northeasterly direction to get back to where they were before springing the boulder trap). The party entered a room which Assim believed to be the burial chambers of the slaves that once belonged to the nobles buried in the pyramid. Indeed, every inch of the floor was covered with bones or bone fragments, as dozens and dozens of the slaves were most likely tossed in the room unceremoniously and slaughtered when their masters or mistresses died. The party spotted a door on the opposite side of the chamber and attempted to tread softly across the floor.

Continuing west, the party came upon a door and entered a room with a number of tables, a bin, and a scattering of pots and jars containing various spices used in embalming the dead. This was obviously the embalming chamber where all the mummies were prepared. A search of the bin revealed nothing but rotten linen, so the party decided to quickly move on, as an ill feeling seemed to radiate within the room. John briefly led the group southward, but the party heard the chittering sounds of beetles from down the hall. Recalling the difficult battles with the fire beetles and then the oil beetles that had killed Habib, John and Assim urged the group to head in a different direction and avoid conflict altogether.

The party retraced their steps and went down one of the previous hallways they had ignored. They found a door leading into what was apparently another burial chamber. Yet the coffin in this room was smashed on the floor, the remains nowhere to be seen. Six Cynidiceans with wounds that would be lethal to a normal person surrounded the coffin, a glazed, dead look in their eyes. The party had encountered ZOMBIE Cynidiceans! Hungry for some warm flesh this time, the zombies started towards the adventurers. Hoping to destroy these abominations, John urged his group to engage the zombies, and a brief but brutal melee broke out.

John took a few points of damage, receiving a claw to the side of the head. Meanwhile, Darien badly missed the zombies with his halberd, not even coming close despite his +2 Strength bonus. Assim slew one of the zombies with his trusty long sword. Unfortunately, M’Tilda missed a strike with her scimitar and fell prey to a wicked blow to the head, which knocked her out cold (she had dropped to 0 hit points; I rolled a 6 on Robert Fisher’s wonderful injury table for ‘classic’ D&D). As M’Tilda fell, one of the zombies found a weak spot in Darien’s plate mail and scratched him for a few points of damage. The fighter attempted to strike back, but was once again way off with his new weapon. John unsuccessfully attempted to turn the undead away, and poor Assim was getting double-teamed by the beasts. One of them nailed Assim with a brutal attack that resulted in a sickening crunch from the fighter’s left shoulder. Assim also collapsed to the ground, unconscious (he also fell to 0 hit points; this time I rolled a 7 on the table, which meant a broken limb… I rolled up a shoulder).

Deciding the numbers were definitely not on their side, John and Darien each grabbed one of their fallen comrades and fled from the room, slamming the door shut behind them. Trying to block out the unnerving noises of the zombies scratching at the door, John immediately cast cure light wounds on Assim to bring him back to consciousness. My on the spot ruling was that Assim would not be able to use his left arm until the broken shoulder healed, thus no shield (he doesn’t have one at the moment anyway), and that his maximum carrying capacity would be reduced by half, thus he had to drop the chain mail John had been wearing. Darien, the strongest, carried the still unconscious M’Tilda as the party retreated to the embalming chamber of all places and decided to make camp there for the night. Unfortunately, the place gave everyone nightmares of horribly shadow men stalking and attacking them, so the wounded only recovered one hit point instead of the maximum d3 with eight hours rest.

By morning M’Tilda had regained consciousness, and the party prepared to set off on more explorations, now starting to get desperate in their need to find a way back to safety. A slight diversion occurred first however, as it was discovered that Darien had brought no food along with him, no rations, no trail mix, not even a slice of bread or a power bar. I guess his lack of common sense in this regard kind of fits in with the already established character. At any rate, Assim loaned him some of his rations and the group eventually pressed on.

Moving south now that the beetles could no longer be heard, the adventurers followed the hall until it turned east, discovering a door leading into the burial chambers of an adviser or councilman, judging by the murals painted on the walls of the room. John noticed that part of the floor under the door had been gnawed on by something with a rather large set of teeth… and that the coffin contained three rather sizable holes that had been chewed clean through. Bravely stepping up to the box, John flung the lid aside to reveal three giant shrews who had burrowed into the room and made it their lair. The shrews immediately moved in to attack the invaders. Unfortunately, both John and M’Tilda failed a saving throw versus death ray and fled the room in a blind panic, dashing away as fast as possible to get away from the giant beasts.

Darien and Assim stayed behind to fight the shrews and were able to slay all three with only minimal damage (a minor scratch on Assim). However, Darien’s bad luck continued until the final round, when he rolled a critical and smashed the final shrew to pieces with a big overkill blow. The other two giant shrews were finished off by Assim (the one-armed warrior pulling more weight than big, bad Darien it would seem!), who discovered a scroll inside the bottom of the coffin. Neither Darrien nor Assim could make out what the thing said, so they decided to ask John if he could understand it. Unfortunately, John was not there…

We decided to call it a night there, with the fate of both John and M’Tilda as yet unknown. Makes it more compelling that way, I suppose. Although you would assume John is still alive and well, considering he earned enough experience to reach level 2 now. Whoo! Jennifer rolled a four on a d6 for 2nd level HP, so John is now up to 10, a respectable amount for a level 2 cleric.

When we play again, we’ll figure out just which direction John and M’Tilda ran, and assuming the party regroups, they will continue their explorations of the mysterious pyramid.