Dungeon 3 Turn 50
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Kamau switches back to his heavy armour and charges into the midst of the skeletons to block all of their attacks. Ricki leaves behind one of her thieves’ tool kits for now, grabbing the rope instead.
Ricki darts past the skeletons again and returns to the room above.
She also gets a vaguely ominous feeling, but has no idea what might be causing it.
Ricki: Tie the ropes together, use it to move down 2 floors (grabbing your lockpicks on the way). Go first and get the bats’ attention if they engage.
Kamau: Go up ladder and down the rope Ricki ties. Let Ricki tank the bats on the way down.
Don’t want Kamau to take damage from Bats and Skellies on same turn. Ricki can handle the bat’s attacks.
Here’s hoping whatever happened wont find us for like 3 more turns…
I agree with the strategy, but I think we can squeeze a little more out of this turn. I did ask for Kamau to step away from the skeletons after blocking them and there’s no mention of that, hopefully we can avoid being hit by skeletons and bats in one turn. Attacking is only supposed to stop you from leaving the room, but I could see this getting a rules patch to discourage hit and run.
Ricki: Tie rope to the end in this room. Climb up to grab the thieves tools in this room, then climb down into the room below, to the bottom floor with the bats.
Kamau: Having ended turn away from skeletons, equip leather armor and climb down the rope Ricki sets up to the bottom floor, and jump from the right to land on the platform on the left in the room below where you used the treasure chest to climb up. Continue to the left, to the dark room with lots of doors. (If you need to get away from the skeletons too, then keep heavy armour.)
I suspect that whatever was in that fifth grave might have woken up. Hopefully having one flower left behind means that it won’t be as bad. I’d like to get Kamau to the entrance and Ricki to the chandelier lever, then we can figure out what to do next.
It would be a memorable thing to see all graves dug out, a huge building-sized skeleton which just stands in the middle and wonders how to fit into the normal-sized backyard entrance, and has a flower embedded in its skull, and falls apart thanks to its flower when Ricky holy-balls it.
…but I expect a group of skeletons being very close to the entrance, and maybe several ghouls without mitres. Do we have TheHolyBallGrenade at hand? I checked and we left that. But we still have holy water, when in pinch, and it lasts some turns.
Ricki’s path really shouldn’t cross any glass… But Ricki, watch out for glass! The last thing we need at this point is trap damage.
Guesses for what has gone wrong?
I think it’s the fifth grave in the back. I also think that if we hadn’t disrupted the undead congregation, then they would be moving out and either insta-sealing the dungeon or searching for us. The sun sphere gives us an out there, it could blow up a big group.
It will take two turns to get the rope from the ashen skeletons since we need to unlock the door first, but then we can tie the top and bottom on the same turn (Ricki starts in winch room, Kamau enters winch room and boosts her up, she ties the rope while tanking bats, Kamau climbs down and ties the bottom to the winch while tanking the sun-head), then next turn crank. If boosting Ricki up is an action, then Kamau can still distract with the solar armour while Ricki ties to the winch, then crank on the same turn. From there… We’ll see how much of a hurry we’re in.
There could be something different up top, too.
The guard last time was also an opportunity. If we had a tricky way to get their equipment, then we could’ve used it to finish the rest of that dungeon.
Alternative: Lohk woke up in the middle of the day and is chasing down Ricki to pull her out of here by the ears.
The alternative seems realistic tbh
@Alternative: I don’t think Lohk would try to do that. Just like she was all grumpy and gruff towards Kamau, but helped him in the end with his wounds and shared a meal with him, she is probably all “this is dangerous” and otherwise complain-y about Ricki’s dungeon crawling, but secretly condones it (at least now that she has Kamau to help her). Her telling Kamau to keep Ricki save towards the end of the intermission (but timely BEFORE Ricki comes back, soe she doesn’t hear it) is just a covert way to give her approval.
Dungeon cralwing, after all, is a way for Ricki to help contribute towards both their (Lohk and Ricki’s but from now on Kamau’s as well, if he decides to stick around. We don’t know if he has friends or family, possibly out of town, who might welcome him, even if he is a fugitive. Perhaps we will be able to learn more, once the bond betweem him and Ricki increases further.) survival, and it’s better than stealing. But since Lohk wants Ricki to come back in one piece, she has to instill how dangerous such dungeons can be sufficiently in Ricki and if that means she has to go all “mommy dragon” on her, then Lohk is going to do that.
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I also have the distinct feeling that the last grave might be active now (as reason for Ricki’s omnious feeling), and I can’t say I’m looking forward to finding out what is/was in there…
It might be “just” a super strong skeleton (maybe a giant or some kind of “monster”, perhaps even one that would retain some of the abilities it had when it was alive, making it extra dangerous to deal with) or a different kind of undead (zombie, lich, vampire – although one of those would probably have trouble with the direct sunlight – wraith, banshee to name a few) or even a necromancer? Undead necromancers are scary.
But the bit with the sunlight makes me think: how many “turns” are there in one day? Or how much time did Ricki and Kamau spend in the dungeon 2 – it was 53 turns, but how much would that translate to in “real” time? Obviously it was enough for one of the guards – with doggy – to find them, but not enough to turn the night into day.
Because I get the feeling that once it turns dark outside, this chapel would turn into an even less hospitable place….
I couldn’t see a turn lasting longer than a minute. By D&D standards, one action and movement lasts 6 seconds (10 turns to a minute), but we have a bit of conversation and exploration to go along with that.
Probably the skeletons are escaping and the dungeon is going to be sealed soon. Gotta go fast.
Kamau suggested that we’d know if any skeletons escaped and failed our secondary objective. They could’ve just started moving, though.
“vaguely ominous feeling” — time to check what’s going on at the entrance!
(also, it’s turn 50.. a towering skeleton boss just dug itself out from all 5 graves at the same moment?)
Tie the rope on. Both go down to the bottom ASAP, and pick up the lockpicks on the way. Fast. Now. Go. Block or kill any skeletons trying to escape.