Silver, Centipedes, and Sticky Doom

Fee Fie Foe Fum... squared.

In the last installment of our campaign journal, our heroes were offered a chance to help a pair of ettin-mauled dwarves, Arda and Delath, reclaim an ancient silver mine in the mountains southeast of Frostwyk. The prize? An even share of any treasure found within AND a split of the future mineral rights.

Knowing a good thing when they saw it, they readily accepted the offer and soon discovered that the same ettins (brutish and smelly two-headed giants, if'n you don't know what those are) who had attacked the dwarves were also holed up in the "abandoned" mine... along with a nasty array of centipedes, fire beetles, and other vermin. There was a lot of "ewww"ing and "yuck"ing at the table that night.

On the bright side, a particularly hairy encounter also led to the formation of my group's new Old School D&D-themed metal band and our soon-to-be-released debut single:

Props to +Sam Ferguson for the cover design and the name of the group.

In good time, the ettins were dispatched, the bugs got squashed, and everybody gained a fair amount of treasure and XP. Yay!

Spit, stick, fling, repeat.

In the course of clearing the top level of the mine, the party found an ultra-heavy-duty dwarven secret door leading down to what was once the main living and working area of the complex. A steep spiral stair descending into darkness, it was also the lair of a family of cave fishers who had turned the center of the stairwell into a tangled mass of amazingly-sticky webs.  While clinging to the walls, the fishers proceeded to snatch up the characters one-by-one and fling them down into the webs where they had to make very difficult Strength checks to break free. At this point, thanks to the element of surprise and some not-so-great die rolls on the part of the PCs, there was nearly a Total Party Kill. In the end, it came down to severly-injured halfling Fil Fairbarn and one cave fisher. At the very last second, Fil managed to stab his short sword deep into the creature's belly and then slowly cut the rest of his (largely unconscious) party free.

At the bottom of the Stairwell of Sticky Doom was another massive door, this time made of iron. The party gave it a cursory look and, upon discovering the words below etched into its surface, decided that a couple days of vigilant dungeon camping (i.e. healing up) would be a good idea before going any further.

Here entombed is Mjothvitnir

228 - 453

Lord of silver

Master of mithral

Mighty in battle

Wise in craft

Taken With his kin

Nar

Blain

Motsognir

Nyi

Suthri

Nain

An

Onar

Ai

Vigg

Vindalf

Thekk

Vit

Sviur

Frar

Aurvang

Fraeg

Nyrath

Jari

Hlevang

By walking darkness roused 

from deepest depth below

the very bones of earth 

Let forever 

these doors be sealed

leave the dead to their slumbers

and the ichorous dark  to itself

Yeah, I'd sleep on it, too.

NEXT TIME: Frog-Men, Oozy Spider Gods, and a Cleric Named Bob.