Below the Undercroft (Solo)
Below the Undercroft, Delve 1 - by Thamos Nov. 12
Recent reports of bandits led the mayor to offer a bounty for any that were brought in to face justice.
A couple of days ago, Jebrial (human fighter 1) and Dal (elf magic-user 1/fighter 1) spotted a suspicious figure descend into an old undercroft. The church's stones were pilfered ages ago for buildings in the surrounding villages. But the undercroft was otherwise intact. Jeb thought the man he had seen was a bandit and decided to investigate. They wanted some help and secured Rockmound (dwarf fighter 1/cleric 1) the dwarven cleric and myself (Thamos halfling thief 1). Olbert (human fighter 1) found out so we invited him along to carry a few things.
When we went into the undercroft it was clear that, not only had someone been using it, but a sink-hole led to a landing and a stairwell down. The sink-hole must have appeared recently. We expected to see signs of the bandits but, what we didn't expect, were ants the size of dogs. One of them almost ripped Dal's arm off and, were it not for Rockmound's ministering, he might well have lost the arm. We dispatched the creatures but saw no clear evidence of the brigands. Down one hall we heard some ominous clicking noises behind a door that were reminiscent of the giant ants, so we backed away. Most of the doors are old and stuck fast, needing to be forced open.
While resting at an intersection, another of the giant ants rounded the corner, clicked it's sharp mandibles at us and then wandered away down the hall. We decided to wait a few minutes to let the ant get some distance from us. This proved to be a mistake. From one of the halls we hadn't investigated yet, a group of 12 bandits spotted Dal's lantern and descended upon us before we could react. They wanted us to throw down our weapons but Jebrial would have none of that. I could hear Dal summoning his magics and Rockmound bark a holy command for the bandits to flee. Sure enough, one of them turned tail and fled. Jebrial immediately killed one of them while Olbert shuffled into the fray with his rusty old axe. The bandits were caught off guard and, before they could attack, Dal's magic, from a scroll he was holding, caused a phantasm of a hand to erupt. Although I don't think it did what Dal expected as the hand shoved him and Jeb stumbling into the mass of the bandits. I slipped around the corner and waited for a chance to strike. Fortunately the bandit archers didn't dare fire at us in such tight quarters for fear of hitting their comrades. Jeb and Olbert stepped forward and dispatched a couple of men wielding polearms while Rockmound blinded one of the crossbowmen with a word from his god. Dal, no slouch with a long sword, cut down one of the enemy but not before he took another nasty slash from his foe. Surprisingly, the cowards had lost their taste for battle and were trying to back away towards a stair at the far end of the hall. One kept screaming that he was blind, three of their leaders were cut down and one had fled. After dispatching a couple more, the remaining four surrendered. We bound them up and collected their coin and whatever gear we thought we could sell, then took them back to town to face justice.
We already decided that, once Dal has healed up, we would return. Perhaps with a guarantee of collecting a larger bounty if we returned with more of the bandits. I was mapping the undercroft so it should be easier for us to find our way next time.
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