A Journey From the Center of the Dog.

Today we had what turned out to be a fairly strenuous session, especially for those accustomed to the 15 minute work day.

We started off where we last left off, with the party standing almost fine amongst 4 huge unconscious dwarves. Unfortunately these unconscious guys began getting up almost immediately after the party started celebrating. They had very little health, so were brought down again quickly, but this did not bode well, as they had no real permanent way to bring theses guys down.

Soon after the big bad came clomping his way up, really all he was was a higher level version of what they were fighting, but that didn't stop them from freaking out. So he comes calumphing, which I declare to now be a word, down the hallway, and they all begin worrying. Things are especially bad because the party dragon shaman rolled a 1, which in my group means we reach for the 100 sided die.

See I have a table from one of the dragon magazines giving very interesting results in the case of a critical fail, this being one of them. Unfortunately for the party he rolled high, and managed to critical hit himself, bringing him from a little under half to -6 and dying. Now at this point the boss guy is still down the hallway, so they have a chance to heal the shaman and get out of there.

At this point the bard has only one level one spell left, and the druid only has his magic stones. This is bad, but what is worse is the bard's healing brings the shaman up to -1, 1 less than what he needed to get his healing aura up, healing the entirety of the party. Then things got worse, as the boss charged and brought the party knight down to -1, leaving all the parties meat shields disabled, and a bard, druid, and ranged ranger to fend for themselves.

So the bard challenges the big dwarf to melee, and with a snowflake wardance he manages to charismatically do some damage, especially combined with inspiring courage and some rapid shots from the ranger. And the druid threw his stones. They actually do manage to bring him down, though he brings the party bard to 1 health. Lucky him.

So now they have a very limited amount of time to bring their two heaviest party members away from this place, and up the newly discovered staircase. They manage it with some pulling and pushing, but the party ranger gets brought down to 1, leaving the party's health at -1, -1, 1, 2, and 3, the druid having the most health.

They drag everyone up the stairs, and meet a large centipede, who they manage to defeat without taking a hit, again lucky them. They then go exploring, find some dwarves who give them one healing spell, bringing the dragon shaman up and allowing him to heal them all. So everyone manages to get to half health, and they find the exit emerging into the city proper. They retreat back to the guild and call it a day, though the knight gets fed up and goes to buy 5 healing potions, just in case.