Adventurers
- Firstleaf (Elf 1)
- Khadgar (Magic User 1)
- Milo Thistlethorn (Halfling 1)
- Sanctimonius Xanti (Cleric 1)
With the distressed retainer Pinchy bursting into the village inn and telling of a scruffy gentleman overwhelming the previous party, several new adventurers banded together and asked a bit about the history of the gatehouse. The townsfolk weren’t able to give much more than the general gossip about its old owner, Lord Jarlath, being a bit of a creep and who disappeared nearly a century earlier. Some dwarven merchants muttered something about a dwarf engineer, Copperbeard, who centuries earlier had been hired to work on the building by someone or other, but who had also cursed in whatever he did. They spat at his name and huddled around their ales. Deciding to explore further, the makeshift party pooled resources to hire additional retainers, and then headed north for the ruins.
Descending the brick steps again, they set up an ambush for the ratlings they could hear down a corridor, luring them in with sound and a torch then sandwiching them. Caught entirely by surprise, the rodents were butchered and the last survivor fled. Letting it go, the adventurers pawed through a pile of rubble piled up against a wall to unearth a small hole in the brickwork, a bit tight for most adventurers.
Hoping to avoid trapping themselves in with any hidden monsters, and having spotted a secret door in the corridor while scouting pre-ambush, they tried that first to see if it was another way in, but only found some old pieces of (admittedly valuable) artwork. So they sent in Milo to find lots of silver pieces and a ring.
Slipping the protective ring on, Sanctimonius Xanti took point as the party made their way down some more stairs to a stone-panelled dungeon level. There was a greater degree of humidity down here and the smell of plant life. They edged into a room lined with moss and mushrooms, and poked around the well in the centre. They could see it went down beyond torchlight, just about making out a fancy satchel nestled in a spider’s web. Firstleaf’s infravision reached down a bit further, noticing clusters of bats along the well’s walls, but still not seeing the bottom.
As they were investigating, they heard raised, angry voices on the other side of a door, and kept tabs on it. When it turned to clashing metal-on-metal, indicating a fight which by their reckoning involved double figures of combatants, they decided that they still probably wouldn’t have the manpower to take on the losing side so edged quietly back out of the room.
Deciding to quit while they were ahead today, they returned back up to the secret room and, having divvied up the silver coins between them, decided to lug the art treasures back upstairs in the chests most of them had been stored in. It was slower going, but it ensured they were able to get all the delicate items back to the village intact.