Serpents of Chaos - Delve 2 - Buried Treasure

Spoiler Alert: If you are playing in the SoC dungeoncrawl, turn back now. Spoilers be ahead.

In downtime between Delve 1 and 2, there were quite a few things that happened. Partly this is due to the length of time between each delve, which is two weeks.

 Corvus the Ranger started fletching arrows, trapping outside town, and learning Kobold from his captive. Enkidu the Fighter visited Kazgor's Rock, a tavern exclusively for dwarves and hears that there are some shaggy ape-men wandering the lands to the south of town. Buddy the Cleric angered his god, Sylvonia, by hanging around the vile ruffians that frequent the Nomad Guesthouse, and subsequently lost access to protection from evil and detect evil.

The group added one more to their party, Nil the Monk, for the second delve. The hirelings Gelanos, Burke, and Gerald also accompanied the adventurers.

Nils immediately took point once they spotted a kobold sentry keeping watch outside the entrance. He snuck up on the "demon-dog" and attempted to backstab. The roll went poorly, even with the +4, and the kobold ran off into the cavern below.

The party chased after it but couldn't see anything once they got inside. The entrace cavern, cleared last time, was still empty. Going southwest, they retraced their steps into the room that previously held the sabertooth tiger (which they had released). Before ascending the staircase leading up to the door, Enkidu the dwarf saw that some stone steps had been replaced. They tried tapping and throwing stuff on the new steps, but nothing triggered.

I rolled a wandering monster check, and... nothing. The first of many checks during the night which would have resulted in a very bad turn of events. If the monster came up behind the party and forced them up the stairs, there would have been losses. In fact, not a single one of my wandering monster checks came up positive. Fortuitous for the adventurers, for sure, who were able to escape with quite the haul!

Next, the party moved back into the stalagmite cavern and encountered an ambush hiding in the shadows. Only two demon-dogs, which were dispatched quickly with some arrows and spears. These kobolds wore bronze arm bands with two snake heads.

They picked up the armbands and two spears, then ventured southeast into another cavern. This one had a pool in the middle of the large cavern, backed by a huge rock. A few tall, emaciated, white-furred ape-men dropped the lotus flowers they were harvesting and disappeared into a tunnel in the floor. Lying around the pool were four kobolds langouring in a lotus-fever. The group searched the cavern and found a mouldering chest. Nils, the monk, opened it and managed to resist the noxious spores inside. They discovered a few thousand copper and silver coins, as well as a handful of gems. Leaving the treasure in its chest for now, they drowned the four kobolds in the pool and kept exploring.

About this time, Tom the fighter enters the dungeon and joins the adventure.

Heading down a tunnel that continued east, they came to a "T" and went south, arriving at a locked door. Nils listened but heard nothing. Further east down the tunnel, a few kobolds were busy trying to kill off a pair of fire beetles. The party let them duke it out. The kobolds ran away and the adventurers killed the beetles. Where the beetles had been rummaging around was a scree slope climbing southeast. A skeleton arm was jutting up through the scree. Nils, once again taking point, climbed up to the arm. This caused the scree to spill to the northwest (downhill). This forced an extra wandering monster check, to no result.

And a veritable treasure-trove was uncovered. A skeleton wearing an ornate onyx and silver necklace, masterwork banded mail, a scabbard with Altyric runes, and a finger in its mouth. In between its clenched teeth: a ring. Seemingly, this person was trying to remove the ring. Enkidu snaps off the finger easily, the bone being brittle. The party decides to search some more and finds a clerical tablet (scroll) underneath the skeleton.

The group debates a bit, then deides to head back to town with a hefty haul of about 4500 gp. They sold everything except for the banded mail. About 900 xp was awarded to each player.

Alan Langford