The Abandoned Tower - Part 2 - Labyrinth Lord Solo Adventure

This week I continue with the recap of my Labyrinth Lord solo adventure, starring Darien the Elf. This is the second of the six sessions that took me to complete this adventure; if you haven't yet, you can check out part 1 here. Enjoy!


 

THE ABANDONED TOWER

 Part 2

Darien approaches the door at the end of the room and gently checks it, finding it unlocked. He slowly opens it and [1-2 on 1d6 for a random encounter: 1! 1d6 to see what he meets: 4 = 1d6 giant rats: dangerous] in the same moment one of the two doors at the other end of the room slams open and [1d6:3] three giant rats swarm in! [Dex check: 5, success] Darien immediately backs out of the room, closing the door and using his own weight to keep it shut as the rats claw at it from the other side. [Would he know that giant rats are terrified of fire? Int check: 5 again, success] He quickly develops a plan, so he unsheats his longsword and, while holding firmly the torch in his right hand, jumps away from the door while turning, pointing the torch in front of himself, so that after a few moments, when the first of the rats barges through the door, it finds itself only a few centimeters away from the live flame [morale check for them: 2d6 vs 8: 7, success], enough to make it stop but not to make it flee. [Initiative: PC: 6+1 / Rats: 4]
The distraction, though, is enough to let Darien try to strike first [needs 12: 19, 1d8: 1, no damage, fray die: 3 = 1 damage], the rat manages to dodge the sword, but Darien immediately pushes the torch into its face, making it fall to the ground with a sizzling sound and a burnt steak smell. Two more rats are now squeaking at him. [Initiative: PC: 6+1 / Rats: 5]
Darien charges at them [PC attack: 4, miss, fray die: 2 = 1 damage] and plunges his sword into the one on his left [rats attack, need 15: 10, miss], while keeping the other one at bay by swinging the torch in front of it [Initiative: PC: 3+1 / Rat: 4, draw], but it is now desperate and it jumps towards him as he frees his sword and swings at it [PC attack: 4, miss, fray die: 6, 2 damage / Rat attack: 2, miss], cutting its head off in mid-air.
It was intense, but Darien got out of it unscathed, so he carefully re-enters the room and studies it for a moment: it is littered with bits and scraps of cloth and leather, all rather rotten looking. At the other end, as he briefly saw earlier, there are two doors: one just closed itself again after the rats passed through it, while the other one seems to have some sort of writing scrawled on it. He walks towards it to see it better in the torchlight [Int check to decipher it: 18, fail], but it seems to be written in a language unknown to him. He had found a Scroll of Read Languages in his previous adventure, but unfortunately he left it among the stuff Miles, his hireling, is keeping for him back in town. [This is me remembering about the scroll only after I progressed more in the adventure, and not wanting to retcon a whole chunk of it]
Now Darien has to decide which way to go, and neither choice seems safer than the other: one because monsters just came from behind it, the other because of the mysterious writing [odds for rat door / even for writing door on a d20: 5, rat door it is]; hoping the dangers from that direction are now gone, he chooses to see where the rats came from.

This session was a bit shorter than the first one, but the combat went really smooth (although only thanks to the fray die, since Darien didn't hit with his sword a single time). What lies beyond that next door? Stay tuned for the third session, coming in the near future. 

This is all for this week, see you next Sunday for my next post!

May your dice never betray you,
Kirhon

 

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