After restocking in Brazenkragg, the party headed back to the dungeon to plunder more of its riches. They stopped to chat with the lumberjacks in the lumber camp, and discovered that the charcoal burners had been acting strangely lately. They were all secretive and "their faces were stained with guilt." The party shrugged and headed off into the forest to find the dungeon entrance. But tarrying in the camp had given a group of bandits their chance to sneak up on them. After a few rounds of combat, they fled. K'rizzt struck down one with a single stroke while Márta weaved between the arrows their leader tried to rain down on her. OSE's random treasure table for bandits yielded nothing on the bandit's corpse, so they continued.
After standing in the statue garden for a few minutes, running through their mental inventory of unexplored corners of the dungeon, they decided to head for the sealed hatch on the second floor. K'rizzt spent a dungeon turn jumping and slashing away at the strangle mycelium sealant until it was sufficiently degraded. Then he climbed onto Márta's shoulders to push open the hatch. Greeting him were two mushroom headed corpses coated with fungus. They cautiously adjusted their grips on their spears but Master Tri'Orgen lashed out at one of them with his sword, cleanly bisecting them. The remaining guard vented a cloud of spores into the air and ran off to get help. K'rizzt scouted ahead while the rest of the team started to crawl up through the hatch. However, after squinting through the darkness and cloud of spores to see a crowd of people shuffling towards him, he hurried everyone back down to the lower floor.
Expecting "them to drop down just like Dark Souls enemies," K'rizzt readied his skull-sword and spammed Windup. Unfortunately, the fungus people preferred to stick their caps through the hole, ventilate the room with spores, and awkwardly poke at anyone directly beneath the hole with their spears. Lucky rolls and improvised masks protected everyone from the spores. After killing one fungalith only to have him pulled back and replaced by another and failing to pull another down by their spear, the party retreated. To their relief, rather than dull thumps and shuffling noises, they only heard a creak and the slam of a hatch closing behind them.
Márta suggested descending to the next dungeon level via a sinkhole they'd found in their last visit to the dungeon. With K'rizzt's grappling hook, the party was able to safely descend and start examining a room filled with dwarven machinery. Intrigued by the massive axle running through west wall, the party ventured out into the hallways to see where it might've gone. They ran into Dario, the bartender, who asked if they'd seen any nice furniture around. K'rizzt Tri'Orgen froze. His player recognized the name from Fallin' Down, which he'd run. "What, what if I just randomly got some really bad vibes from this guy?" Márta and Octavia's players knew something weird was going on, but had no idea what. "Look," Márta whispered, "if you want to beat him to death because he's Italian, I'm all on board." Octavia was more hesitant, "He looks like some dude, if he's survived down here, I bet he's really powerful." K'rizzt whispered back to the rest of the party as he snuck up on Dario, "Look, here's the plan, we're going to kill–we're gonna be so rich once we–just follow the plan, okay?" and then he sneak-attacked Dario.
Finally, it was time to use that vampire statblock I'd written for the WIP Begone, FOE! bestiary. Three rolls for special powers and two rolls for weaknesses later and Dario sprung to the ceiling with lightning speed. K'rizzt beat Dario's initiative roll by one point and flung his dagger at him. Unfortunately, it missed and Dario caught it before it could even embed itself in the wall. Then he leapt from the ceiling and knocked K'rizzt to the ground. No messing around with biting the neck, the 'getting hit' table said Dario went straight for the heart. Márta and Octavia backed up in shock. K'rizzt tried to swing his sword one more time, but Dario slurped hard enough to deprive his brain of blood-oxygen and he passed out. Márta's player broke out his classic skill of talking his way out of sticky situations, asking Dario "You've had your drink, what about ours?" After a few tense moments and a good reaction roll, everyone headed off to Dario's bar.
As a good janissary, Márta ordered something non-alcoholic while Octavia asked for "the most alcoholic thing you have that won't kill me." Dario poured Márta some cave-cranberry juice and Octavia a glass of dwarven whiskey. The three of them discussed probable locations of treasure in the dungeon, which Dario was happy to speculate on. After all, they were interesting customers and had provided him with someone to drain dry, which he hadn't had a chance to do so in a while. Master Tri'Orgen had rolled a result on Begone's version of the Death and Dismemberment table that placed him in limbo between life and death. He opted for death, plus he had some sudden out-of-character obligations so it worked out fine.
The surviving duo passed up the train station's vault as Dario had warned them it was probably trapped, and they didn't feel confident with their 'thief' dead. Instead, they opted to follow Dario's directions to The Citadel. A lavishly decorated carriage sat on the tracks, but the the glint of something reflecting the torchlight in the darkness caught Márta's eye. Four enormous statues of dwarves wielding axes stood at the corners of this massive cavern slash room. And set in each of their faces were massive fist-sized rubies. Octavia figured each one was worth 250 SP on the open market, so Márta climbed up to pull them out. Unfortunately, they were set in too tight. Fortunately, their late thief was carrying a crowbar. Octavia ran off to fetch it while Márta studied the statues. When she returned, Márta pried out a ruby and held it aloft triumphantly. Then the statue started to move. Márta frantically scrambled to the ground while Octavia backed up in confusion. The giant stone dwarf swung its axe, half blind, at Disadvantage but rolled two twenties anyway. A single Soul Die turned what would've been a crushed femoral artery into...some nebulous injury that only put her leg out of action for a day. Probably heavy bruising combined with dislocation.
Ruby in hand, the two of them stumbled back to Dario's bar where they fashioned an improvised crutch out of K'rizzt's stuff. It was smooth sailing to the surface thanks to some barren random encounter rolls, but as they were making their way to the lumber camp, they ran into a group of bandits, the two survivors! The leader with two bandanas and a bow took down Octavia before turning her focus to Márta. Fortunately for Márta, the bandit's arrows only found homes in her shield. Samshir versus shortsword was not a fair match-up and she easily overpowered the male bandit. However, with one of her companions down, she opted to hold him hostage. "I swear to the Lord above, if you notch another arrow, I will slit his throat." There were a few tense moments, but she stood down and Márta released the other bandit.
When they arrived back in Brazenkraag, Octavia's player asked if there were any scrolls or potions to buy. I figured that since one of the trade wardens, Hiram Xavier, was a magic-user, that yes, there were.
POSTGAME THOUGHTS
Another success! Everyone said they had fun and actually got to level up. The spare change Márta and Octavia looted off K'rizzt's corpse plus the ruby was just enough to push them over. Márta took another point of BODY because she wanted to mess around with Crushing Blow after learning it could reduce someone's AC below base. Octavia went with another point of MIND because while her player still wasn't convinced that magic-users were good, he wanted to at least be able to prove me wrong.
As for me, I think I am done using Begone's normal random encounter tables. You're supposed to roll every hour or half hour or whenever based on how dangerous the dungeon is. But when there's different rates on each floor and you can't even rely on the party's torches because those only track hours and can go out early due to shenanigans it's just too much. Yes I realize how hypocritical this makes me forcing the players to count their torches. Anyway, I'm going to switch over to the optional rule I wrote into Revision 10. You roll every dungeon turn, but the individual chance of encountering a monster is reduced. I think it still works with ANGUISHEDWIRES because as you go down, the monsters do get more dangerous. We'll see how it works.
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