Slain by Elf

After the rockfall, we appear to be trapped. Exploring this way and that finds slimes and what-not, but no exit, beyond water beginning to pour through a widening crack in the rock ceiling at one dead end. But in one direction is an area of worked rock, with rooms up a staircase. The only problem, for one of us, is that there is a sarcophagus in there, a very ornate one.

'Okay, let's close the door and go the other way.'

'Don't you want to open the sarcophagus?'

'To find a vampire, mummy, lich, or, at the very least, a dead body, in an area with no exits? No, strangely not.'

My colleagues are not convinced, wanting to loot a corpse more than escape the Drow that we continue to run from. And with no obvious way out of this area, they are convinced there is probably an exit through the sarcophagus. Kronk convinces Muffin to learn Augury, which they cast.

'Great Deity, what will be the results of opening the sarcophagus?'

'WOE'

'Quelle surprise. Can we go now?'

I head off in the other direction, to start breaking through the weakened rock to swim out of here, our mushroom friend sending out its spores to let us communicate telepathically at a distance so that we're not entirely separated.

Muffin and Kronk explore the other room, which has four coffins. Surprisingly, one of them is on rollers, which allow the coffin to be moved to the side, revealing a ladder leading to another room. 'Charmandrathrax, come back! We've found an exit!'

I go back, happy to have finally found an exit, only to learn that they haven't, in fact, found an exit, but they are tempting me with another dead-end room holding an even more ornate sarcophagus. 'Oh, no way, no! I'm going back to break that ceiling with water coming through as quickly as possible. Nothing good will come from this!'

'But it could be ladders all the way down!'. But I'm not buying it, and leave them to their undead investigations. And, of course, they open the sarcophagus, and, of course, a spectral figure appears.

'Ah, the living! You can free me from this prison... with your lives!'

Our telepathy is still working, which is handy for both groups. 'Come back and help us!'

'Nope, I knew it, nothing but trouble. I told you. I said from the start that this was a bad idea. I'm not coming back to die with you.'

'If you come back, we'll let you say 'I told you so' as often as you'd like!'

'No, that's okay. I can say that to you new characters too.'

'As you move down the corridor, a strange sensation comes over you, and you realise that the very ground you are walking on is starting to tremble. The tremble turns to shaking, a mighty rumbling comes from every direction, and you realise that the whole corridor is starting to collapse around you! Small rocks fall first, but as the shaking gets worse larger stones begin to fall, as you dodge and dive to escape the rockfalls, which threaten the very integrity of the cavern you are in.

'Make dexterity saving throws.'

'Okay, I cast Guidance first.

'You don't have time to cast Guidance.'

'But you've been talking for ages.'

We are escaping a Drow compound, and have come to a vast chasm, across which stretches webbing, as far as can be seen. As we ponder our options, a couple of goblins appear and, once I convince my colleagues not to just slaughter them, the goblins offer to guide us across the webs to the other side of the chasm. For a few coins, that seems like a fair deal.

'As your guide goes over the webbing, everything is fine to start with. But as Charmandrathrax the Combustrous goes over it, the extra weight...

'First of all, how dare you.'

'...snaps the webbing.'

It's not a big problem, just a few strands of many, and with a moderate dexterity save we are able to stop ourselves from falling. Kronk is particularly dextrous, rolling a natural 20 to gracefully avoid the breaking webbing. 'Yes, I sensed that about to happen from half-a-mile back!'

'Well, thanks for the warning, douche.'

Blank-R jumps in to the vat of Hot Fun, for reasons that make obvious sense.

'How hot is it?', asks Kevin-R.

'I'm disappointed.'

The Computer hears this, as The Computer hears everything. 'Why, Troubleshooter? Is it neither Hot or Fun?'

'Not really. It's more Tepid Fun, Friend Computer.'

'Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Troubleshooter.' The heating elements in the vat are turned up as high as they do.

Blank-R manages to surface as he feels his skin sloughing off his body. What will be his last words to his teammates?

'Come on in, it's fine!'

+25 XP, and a new clone to Blank-R.

'The mayor gives you but a paltry reward.'

'That's okay, I like chicken.'

'Coming towards you is a man-shark! It's bigger and meaner-looking than the one you saw in the village!'

'To be fair, the one in the village was already dead.'

Moving around to a different side of the sewer has us approaching a different boss with their own faction of goblins. We're pretty sure they have their own small goblin army, because we've spotted some of them hiding in the rubble ahead of us.

'Can I take a shot at them, take them by surprise?'

'They're waiting to ambush you. They know you're there.'

'But they don't know that we know they're there.'

We meet the notorious Slimy Jack, in his throne room. He is missing an arm, sort of, having an octopus tentacle in its place, and has quite a retinue of mutated goblins. 'Adventurers! Come in, come in. Sit down.'

'He seems nice enough.'

'I'm thinking about firing an arrow clear across the room, piercing him and pinning him to the wall, and taking over the place.'

'It's a good plan, and would be quite spectacular, but I feel like I should remind you that you just missed a goblin at 10 feet.'

We find a young girl in the sewer, who we learn has been separated from her mother. Quite what her mum was doing down here with her daughter we can't say, and we don't know where she is anyway.

The girl is from the town which is two days' away from the exit, and we can't really take her there without abandoning our mission to find the source of the fish fever hitting the village. We can't really take her to the village either, and not just because of the fish fever, we may not have time to trek all the way to the exit and back again. We suppose we have to take her with us.

We press on. As we head further in to the sewers, we hear some clanking noises ahead, much like the sounds of a sluice gate opening. Sure enough, a wave of poo comes our way. We brace ourselves and shelter the girl as much as possible, and although we are able to withstand the force of the stinky water hitting us, the girl loses her grip and is swept away, presumably towards the sewer exit.

'Well, that problem's sorted itself out.'

We're in the sewers, feeling at home. A little girl is rather more desperate to get out of here, though, which has something to do with a sewer monster somewhere around here. 'You will protect me, won't you? You won't let the creature eat me like it did Timmy, will you?'

'I won't let it, no, no.'