Mines of Moira, Final Delve

Our adventure started off with a quick jaunt down a broken mineshaft, in which Ignatius (our cleric) fought bravely against the force of gravity but was in the end forced to meet the Earth in a less than dignified fashion. The rest of the party, learning from thankfully-not-deadly mistake, took the slow route down via rope. At the bottom of the mineshaft we found an icy cave, with a fountain and a great hallway blocked by a large chunk of ice.

As we worked at clearing passage through the ice, a single Ghoul came slithering out from the fountain, peering at Norman (my soon-to-be Level 2 Blackbelt) and eventually trying to ambush the party by springing up from the fountain and proclaiming "bwahh! You killed my family!" (we had, in fact, killed their family). Since the ghoul was apparently an orphan, though, we just kinda noped on out of there once we were able to get a hole cut through the ice (thanks to the handiwork of Schotz and the ever-preparedness of Æthelred the Loathsome {He's actually a pretty okay guy, no idea why he calls himself the loathsome}).

After the PS4 finished loading the next part of the map, we found ourselves at a fork, with one icy passage heading south and another icy passage heading north. Still fearing the singular orphaned Ghoul, we decided to kill some time exploring the northern and southern passageways in hopes it would get bored and go mourn its family. The southern passage opened up into another cave with a central pillar which contained the noises of jubilation that typically belong to a very large frog.

This ribbiting revelation prompted the group to head north.

The northern passage opened up similarly, a central pillar. This time, there was no frog, but a crawlspace, which we promptly utilized to, as is common parlance in the adventuring business, Get the fuck out.

Norman was chilly on the way up through the passageway. If you could quantify the feeling, it would be about 1HP worth of chilliness. He tried to save his warmth but failed.

At the top of the crawlspace was a chest, which, when opened, contained some golden goblets and some loose change. Norman double-fisted the golden goblets while the party picked up the change. Then we kicked in a wall to reveal that this small chamber connected to the original mineshaft room!

Deciding to call our deeper expeditions to a close, we doubled back to a long hallway we had left previously unexplored due to rumors of giant snakes. Looting the various side rooms, we came away with a painting of a Dwarven maiden, some loose change, and a chest with a leaking gas trap. In a spark of genius, one of the players suggested using the chest as a fumigator for the giant snakes in the dining hall. Enacting this plan caused several giant snakes to come slithering out of the dining room and directly towards us! Thankfully, our quick thinking allowed us to duck into one of the aforementioned cleared rooms to avoid them as they went slithering by.

Returning after the gas had dissipated enough we looted the dining hall and found... not much! There was a magic ring inside the chest that one of Norman's compatriots got a hold of first. The party set their sights on the big door in the northern part of the room.

It was at this point that Norman's Spirit/Controller decided to disappear to the Great Bathroom Beyond for approximately five minutes.

When He (I) returned, the party had entered the great door and then immediately lost their point man to the grip of a sloped floor trap, which had dumped him into a pool of Evil Fish. While we frantically tried to reopen the trap, our point man Ignatius busied himself swatting away the Evil Fish that were attacking his holy garments in the dark waters beneath. His struggling attracted the attention of the 7 snorkeling Dwarves who promptly saved him from the Evil Fish and, after a minor miscommunication, proceeded to try and take him hostage to interrogate him about the doings of the Derino soldiers (who we had been helping out for the previous two sessions). After some more miscommunication, all 13 of us willingly went to the secret lair of the snorkeling Dwarves and ratted out the Derino soldiers.

In exchange for our secrets, we were allowed to leave. Turns out that the entrance to the Dwarven hideout was at the end of the hallway past the trap!