half-remembered Caves of Myrddin news

So last week was the last of the Friday sessions for the Caves of Myrddin and today was the first of the Monday morning sessions.  I don't remember a whole lot about the Friday session.  I overslept and ran much of it only half-awake, this is why I moved to Mondays. 

Time Police: protecting the continuum
since 10⁻⁴³ seconds after the Big Bang.

My notes indicate that the party was Blixa the Infamous, Abe the Talking Dog, Pavel the Great (Wessex's nakedest halfling), Iderneth the Pale and Kelonius.  The heard some sort of rumor about a party of sea elves spotted entering the Wet Cave, but they headed for the Smoking Tower, which wasn't actually smoking.  Down there they [REST OF FIRST EXPEDITION REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE TIME POLICE].  Later, during the second trip down, Iderneth was killed by a critical strike from a giant rat to a major artery in his leg.

Iderneth's death finally replaces my previous Most Humiliating Critical Ever, which goes all the way back to the eighties.  My high school group was prowling around under Bone Keep and a lousy one hit die skeleton ripped the ear off of Tom Novy's ranger.  Even worse, if he had been wearing a helmet he could have avoided it.  Still, at least he survived.

Any dang way, I don't remember most of the rest of that expedition.  Iderneth was replaced by Brother Fortress, a cleric with what I must admit is a pretty badass name.  At some point the halfling funded a lengthy bender at the Blue Rabbit, everyone's favorite wretched hive this side of the Cornwall border.  Pavel the Great wakes up days later, his copious halfling chest hair shaved off and a sweet new tattoo in its place.  I don't think we specified the design, but I lean towards celtic knotwork framing a dragon.

Today's expedition starred the priests Ganlant of Escavalon, Brother Madyn and Geoffrey de Cornouaille, the magic-user Phandaal the Antiquarian and the elf Wælgar the Loveless.  Insufficient loot was brought up to allow for carousing (in fact, almost no treasure was found) but there's already been some loose lips on Google+, so I'll share a bit of what happened.

The saddest part, for me, was the death of Geoffrey de Cornouaille.  He was one of the original adventurers into the Caves, alongside Taurus Hell's-heart, Rump the Impertinent and Diarmud Duff.  But he drank from a magical fountain some 300 or 400 feet below the surface and failed his save versus poison.  Poor Geoffrey melted like a Nazi gazing into the Ark of the Covenant.  ("Beware the water that flows from the nipples of the Queen bearing the Five-Pointed Crown. It is highly flammable and not at all tasty.")  His bones remained and they were transported back to the surface for proper burial back at the abbey.  I'm thinking he would make a pretty decent local Patron Saint of Adventurers.

Ganlant of Escavalon had a rough go of it as well.  He nearly fell into a pit about 100' deep.  He teetered on the edge of it abit until the elf Wælgar caught him by his backpack and miraculously the straps held.  Visibility in my dungeon is normally limited to the 30' or so allowed by torchlight, so how did Ganlant know the pit was 100' or so deep?  Because of the flames of Hell and beckoning devils at the bottom!

Later the party was just starting to loot the tomb of some dead wizard when one of those (or is it the same one?) giant golden spiders showed up.  That they managed to hurt it at all was a pretty impressive feat, as that shiny carapace is tougher than leather.  They ended up fleeing, but not before the spider scored a crit on Ganlant's right hand, leaving him with a thumb and four bloody stumps where his fingers used to be.  Poor sod had to climb three ladders, one almost 50' long, to get back out of the dungeon.  Doing that with a full set of fingers doesn't sound like fun.

Pretty close to the only loot for the adventure (other than some meager gear off a dead 1st level cleric they found) was a glass sphere (4" diameter) with a hook on it, with continual light cast on the sphere.  I believe Brother Madyn ended up with that.