hakanson@orstcs.UUCP (11/05/83)
#N:orstcs:28500004:000:4062 orstcs!hakanson Nov 4 15:48:00 1983 Yep, I finally found the time to write about an adventure that I may never forget.... It was not a terrifically interesting adventure, just a group of characters rummaging through a dungeon; the average level of the party was probably 4 (oops, sorry -- this is AD&D, folks), and we were just winding down, searching a bunch of empty rooms with obscure articles in them. In one room we discovered a small box made of some kind of thick parchment, with strange runes on the side which spelled out M-A-R-L-B-O-R-O, a meaningless word in a forgotten tongue. I was running one of my favorite characters, Sciata, a druid. She was doing her usual thing, which is trying to keep alive, as the rest of the party checked the box for traps and opened it up to discover some small cartons with tiny paper tubes in them. At first, we speculated that they were scroll cases for pixies, or something. Most of the party had fun thinking up cute purposes ("Dwarf tampons! THUNK -- Shut up, you &%@!!, etc.). Then our brilliant magic user made the statement, "I say they are miniature Wands of Orcus." Dead silence. The rattle of the GM's percentile dice. A cry of glee from his direction as he reached for the Monster Manual. Sciata thought to herself, "Oh, brownies!" and began to compose a doozy of a prayer (she does that in times of trouble). The fighter mentioned sacrificing the MU to the Big O, and we all started checking our meager lists of magic items (mine was empty). Needless to say, things picked up rather suddenly. The room grew very hot, and we couldn't open the door. Sciata Stone-Shaped around the hinges, and the door fell out into the Abyss, where there were all kinds of flames. Meanwhile, a whole pack of skeletons showed up, and the cleric turned them. Whew! Then came the zombies, which were also turned, and then came the shadows. Oh well, my prayer was effective enough that 'ol Silvanus enchanted my scimitar to be +1 and +2 vs. undead. Yay! So the poor wimpy Sciata with armor class 7 had to get in there and slug it out, but we all finally beat up the shadows. Resting, healing, and then -- you guessed it -- vampires. Out came the garlic, and we thanked the cleric for that Protection from Evil spell, so everybody without garlic hid behind him! And through all this, do you know what the poor paladin was doing, him with the 18/ugly% strength and +2 holy sword or whatever? The poor guy was dumbfounded, just standing there, cowering behind the cleric. It seems the player was sure we were all going to die, and didn't know what to do. Gees! Somehow, none of us lost any levels. And although Sciata got charmed once by the vampire she was hacking on, she managed to shake it off (high wisdom is good for something, after all), and even killed one of those four nasty vampires. Luckily, we finally got the paladin to start hacking on them, and we somehow overcame the rest of the vampires. Again luckily, the Big O was tired of toying with us, and evidently we'd made a good enough showing of ourselves that he spared us from roasting or slavery or whatever. Perhaps some 1st level character showed up for a Kill Orcus contest, or something. Whatever it was, we were suddenly returned to the dungeon amid thunderclaps, etc. which brought poor Sciata from the 2 hit points she had left down to 0. Boy, was that hairy! Ever since then, Sciata has had quite an abhorrence of undead creatures. They're so ... unnatural & all, you know. At least nobody teases her about not fighting anymore. She's sixth level, now, and nobody much teases her at all -- obviously you can see that our campaigns tend toward the lower levels, with not much magic floating around. In fact, she is my highest level character (unless you include the NPC's in MY world). Well, enough for now. Perhaps later I'll tell you another druid story -- I call it "The Battle of the Network Druids." Stay tuned, and keep those stories coming. Marion Hakanson {hp-pcd,teklabs}!orstcs!hakanson (Usenet) hakanson@{oregon-state,orstcs} (CSnet)