The ‘First Session’:
We were introduced to three heroes.
The Elven Wizard Illiastre, the Halfling Fighter Bartleby, and the Human Cleric Carmine. Each had their own reasons for currently residing in Helga’s Glenn. In any case, a recent flood had exposed a long lost ruin within the side of a bluff up stream from the Glenn. Nadia, the village wise woman and the true power behind the council of elders, asked for volunteers to explore the ruin and alleviate or deal with what many of the villagers feared would be there.
The villagers feared that it was a hide out of Ole One Eye, an ogre bandit extraordinaire whose crew terrorized the area in days past. The nearby tower of the Wizards R’hus Order, the same place that trained Illiastre, new it to be home to a doorway sealed for unknown reasons by their founder long ago.
The heroes found themselves facing the ragged openings of the complex from across the still raging creek that had carved it’s way through the scree of the land slide. Crossing proved… problematic. The waters moved far swifter than they appeared and the scree below was still loose and very unstable. Needless to say, the three were thoroughly soaked by the time they reached the secondary opening thirty feet down the way.
As Illiastre assisted in dragging Carmine to the shore with her staff, Bartleby noticed two skeletons come down a set of stairs with bows at the ready. They stood at the top of a set of rough earthen tiers the party would need to climb to reach the stairway. Bartleby ready his trusty spear he found years ago in the LeanBriar Forest that stretches the length of the south side of the creek. He manged to deflect one of the arrows, while the other grazed the wizard’s thigh as she finally got the cleric into the shallows. Illiastre turned and destroyed one of the undead bowmen with her magic missiles. Carmine got his feet set under him and called upon his deity, Rah (“Rah, Rah, he’s our god, he’s the sun god, he’s the fun god! Hurrah!!”), to turn the last skeleton which promptly fled back up the stairs.
In short order, the heroes found the entire complex was over run with undead: Skeletons, ghouls, and a morgh that had been a one eyed ogre in life. The morgh and its skeleton guardians stood before a large arched door made of unknown stone. The door and each stone of the arch surrounding it were covered in magical glyphs and runes that glowed a steady azure hue.
The ensuing fight was short and bloody. Illiastre hung back taking out the skeleton bowman with her own magic missiles while the Carmine and Bartleby faced off with Ole One Eye the Now Undead. Carmine spent much of the fight getting in the way of both the fighter and the morgh, managing to do little but annoy both. Ole One Eye managed to land a few blows on both its adversaries before Bartleby managed to skewer its guts from the front, roll between its legs, and eviscerate the thing with a powerful dancing spin that ended by splitting the back of Ole One Eye’s skull in two.
As Carmine began healing himself and his fellows, he drew Unwanted Attention from the Sealed Doorway. The group soon found out that it was quite active as the glow of its glyphs and runes flared and the cleric’s skin began to itch and crawl. The wizard realized that it was the door, in an effort to prevent it being opened, that had turned Ole One Eye and his crew into undead minions that it could command.
The heroes wisely fled the room. After clearing the last few rooms of undead, they returned to Helga’s Glenn triumphant!
And a good time was had by all ;-}