The Ruined Keep, A Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel: Part 5

 

The Adventure Continues

The peasants continue to explore the aboveground ruins of the keep in their search for the Oracle.

Turn 15
They enter a long hallway with what look like prison cells on each side, doors hanging open. Suddenly animated skeletons start running out of the cells towards the peasants. "Archers, loose!" shouts Anebrius.
"Who do you think you are?" responds Tariad, sneering at him.

Sabenn, Ingol, Daga, Bara and Gifu all shoot at the huge crowd of skeletons charging at them. Strangely, all the other ones rush past the peasants and out of the room. The last one slams the door behind it and they hear the rusty sliding bolt moving back into place. The ones they shot at stay and carry on fighting while the tapping of bony feet fades away down the corridors. Luckily the peasants are able to smash the four skeletons up without much trouble.

Ibar the halfling vagrant runs to the door and pulls on it. "Oh no!" he cries, "We're trapped!"
"Oh do shut up you smelly little tramp, I'm sure we can hack down one old rotten door.", Tariad, his fellow halfling says.

Turn 16
They do indeed manage to hack the door apart, which takes them about ten minutes.

Turn 17
They go back to the crossroads room and then west into a long room. Anebrius's lantern light illuminates refliefs in the stonework, knights posing with swords and maces. The far western wall is damp to the touch with water pooling on the floor.

There is a secret door in that wall. Does anyone find it?
DC15 Int check.
Ibar: Success.

Ibar the vagrant while searching pulls one of the empty sconces and a knight on the wall swings open like a door.

Turn 18
Wandering monster check: Nothing.

They hear running water, and entering through the secret doorway see the glimmering of an underground stream in a cavern. Following the cavern downstream the eleven survivors reach the edge of a big chasm to the south. The remains of a rotten old rope bridge still crosses the chasm but it looks like it wouldn't support even a halfling's weight.

Is anyone stupid enough to try to cross the bridge? (Natural 1 on an Int check).
No.

"That looks about a twenty foot drop down there." Daga the trapper says. "I've got ten feet of chain in my pack."
"And I've got a grappling hook." says Bara the soldier. "Why don't we fix them to one of the bridge posts and use the chain to get halfway down then climb the rest of the way?"

No one has a better idea so they try it. The post has a 4 in 6 chance of breaking loose when weight is put on it. Who volunteers to go first? (Random order).

"Give me that." says Gifu the animal trainer, nodding at the chain and grapple. Bara hands it over and he wraps the end of the chain around the post, sticking the point of the grappling hook into the wood.

Gifu starts to lower himself down.

Does the post break? (4 in 6 chance)
Yes.

How far down the chain is he? (1D10)
4 feet.

DC15 agility check to grab hold of the wet rocky wall.
16: Success.

DC15 strength check to climb the rest of the way.
5: Failure.

Gifu takes 1D6 damage from the fall (6 is a broken bone): 5. Dead.

While Gifu is halfway down the chain the post suddenly get wrenched out of the ground. The others hear a shriek then the sound of a wet impact as he hits the ground below.

"Gifu?" Bara says, looking down. Anebrius holds the lantern out and they can just about make out his body in the shallow water. "Right." Bara says, "I'll try climbing down there. Anyone who wants to follow me is welcome to. We've got to find that oracle thing or there's no point going home again."

They begin climbing down the wet rough rock wall into the chasm. They use the full width of its wall to make it down faster.

Each rolls a DC15 Strength check to climb down. If they fall before reaching ten feet from the bottom they'll take 2D6 damage. Falling from less than ten feet is only 1D6.

Some of them make it all the way down, some fall only a couple of feet from the bottom and survive unscathed, but three of them crash to the ground dead. They are Sabenn the trapper, Olnod the wainwright and Tariad the snooty halfling moneylender.

"Ibar..." Tariad rasps from the wet ground. The halfling vagrant rushes over to him. "I'm... sorry." He says. The other halfling takes his hand and holds it tight as the light goes out from his eyes and he passes away. The survivors loot their companions' bodies and press on.

KIA:
Gifu the animal trainer
Sabenn the trapper
Olnod the wainwright
Tariad the halfling moneylender
Peasants remaining: Unclear, I seem to have lost count

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