Charlie, who plays Chewie the as-we-left-it-last unconscious rogue was absent this week. Bad luck or secret plot to emerge from the keep alive? We'll never know.
The rest of us began the game with the daunting task of rescuing Chewie... or not. We were, as a group, fairly undecided. However, Jet Skee, our resident monk, had a daring plan.
Actually, it wasn't much of a plan. Really, it was this: run back into the room with the horror really fast, grab Chewie, and run out again. There was a bit more to it than that. Jet had some oil he'd applied earlier to himself earlier that made him really slippery. Since the horror likes to grapple, he felt he could risk getting nabbed because he could escape.
It worked, though the horror got a lick in before the oil kicked in. I did my part by summoning undead (my character is a necromancer, did I mention that?) to sort of hem the horror in so he couldn't effectively chase us. This also worked and we ran away, Chewie in tow, and headed to town for some needed R & R.
We dropped off Chewie at the local Pelor temple, regained our composure, learned a few spells, scribed a few scrolls, and went back to the keep to give the horror some what-for.
Since we knew how to beat the thing now, it was not too tough a task to dispatch it and we did. We took posession of it's treasure (two wands, some gold, and some trinkets) and headed further into the basement.
We ran into a girl. A girl, GM Brad said, with context. However, that context was the Samaradan girl whom we'd sent to stay in town. We told the girl to blow off. We don't trust any girls we meet alone, standing over slain adversaries, in the dungeon of a keep filled with deadly monsters. I think that's a fair rule of thumb. We'll get her context later.
No sooner had we sent the girl packing than we were attacked by a group of undead. They had the power to fascinate with gay pride inspired rainbow apparitions. This worked all too well on much of the party. I had escaped the issue by using invisibility prior to the encounter. I was happy to sit in the back and send in my own undead minions to do my dirty work. This they did and, as the party slowly rescued themselves from their stupor, we took the field.
More exploring. Pit trap in a kitchen. Some actual empty rooms. Then, just as we were ready to call it a night, some swarms of ice elemental bird things. They're bad news. Tough to kill without area effect stuff we don't have and they do pretty good damage. I'm invisible still and I've dispatched some zombies to, hopefully, soak up some damage, and use their bludgeoning attacks to make some of their own. We ended the night full in the middle of the combat.
Death becomes me...
I'm really enjoying my necromancer. At fifth level, he's really coming into his own. I'm concentrating on summoning undead and, next level, I'll stock up on spells to buff them out and make them even better tanks. Via a feat, I now have access to Animate Dead but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. Soon, I hope.
The party has come to rely on my talents (even our cleric of Pelor) because our barbarian tank (who also missed game night) is usually late so we are often within a high-damage-output meat-shield. Though my minions can't replace the damage output, they do take up space and create opportunities for other characters to maneuver and generally stay out of harm's way.
I will miss this guy when we make the jump to 4e. I'm already pondering what a 4e necromancer might look like.
