A Monster And A Squirrel Named Charlie

Under the Drink, the adventurers hear guards from the kitchens above. But the cavern past the snakes looks like a dead end! However, a closer inspection they notice that the rock wall does not look as convincing as it could. Despite the herculean efforts of the two gargoyles, they could just barely get it to budge. The rogue Billy took a look, and with a bit of experimenting they managed to open the secret wall. An obvious lever on the other side rapidly closed the door behind them. Billy, also being a naturalist, easily noticed the two green slimes up ahead, ready to pounce. Unfortunately for the slimes, they cannot eat the thick skin of a gargoyle, who rapidly shredded them.

And a 4 way intersection, they decide to go right, and found what appeared to be a small cell, with a pile of rags. In the space around it was a saber, hammer, and a well-used set of chainmail. While Billy decided to see if the chainmail would fit, Thade, our Elf vampire, decided to see if anyone was in the cell.

"Oy, yah, there be me in this cell. Me being Olly. And whatcha doing in me armor?" I grabbed a semi-random card from the set of characters we had from the Kickstarter. I had the prisoner in case my friend's son decided to come along and play and we would stick his character there. He did not, so now they have a meat shield, err, NPC companion. 

The gargoyles, Tecton and Argon, let the disheveled man from the cell, giving him back his rapier and hammer with the assurance that he would help them out. Of course, they do not trust him as he did mention he had crossed Derig Goldensunder, the dwarf proprietor of the Drink that they had just killed. 

Looking back at Billy in his chainmail, Olly takes the lead, and the cross to the other side of the intersection. Argon and Tecton batter down the door, and there they find what looks to be a small office. A ledger is found with varying amounts of money listed, and a list of names. All crossed off except for Ollie. A giant vault door stands before them, and, digging out a key that Billy looted from Derig, they find it opens the vault. Inside is a pile of gold in the corner. Warily they enter, checking for giant spiders, slimes and whatever may hang from the ceiling. Nothing is there.

Olly pokes at the treasure with his saber, which rapidly reveals itself to be a large mouth with large teeth!

so I have this mimic bed....

A fight ensues, the creature never quite hitting any of the adventurers, and the quickly slay this beast. Seeing bones, they surmised Derig used it to dispose of his enemies. Unknown to our crew, Derig had named it Charlie, and kept it well fed. Charlie was as fond of the dwarf as a mimic can be. Raised him from a mimic pup, he did. 

Finding a few pieces of real gold and silver, they head back. Billy relented and gave Olly back his armor. Which is good as Oly managed to fall into a pit trap in the corridor, but only suffered minor damage to his pride. Getting pulled out, the others  managed to get across without incident. A cool draft was coming from the corridor in front of them.

Opening into a larger room with two columns holding up the ceiling, they decide to investigate what looked to be a library. They find an odd collection of what looked to be romance novels of some sort, but also a scroll of weapon scalding (a magic scroll). There is an upstairs room they visit, complete with a bear skin rug, and a romance novel on the bedside stand. This appears to be where Derig would sometimes live. Being a Dwarf he did prefer being in a proper stone hold rather than some flimsy building above ground. Argom, with his excellent hearing, heard what sounded like the guards coming into the underground complex. Knowing that going forward was the only way, they continued into what turned out to be a frozen room.

Everyone but Thade slipped on the slick ice. That is when they saw the two ice snakes, clear as ice, slither across the ice. The battle was fierce as they had to often fight from the ground, unable to stand up. I really should have read the slippery floor rules, but I ended up making it a 4D against DEX to get up, and 4D against DEX each turn to stay up. And if fighting the snakes from a prone position, 4D instead of 3. But eventually (and much later than I expected!) the snakes were killed.

And that is where we left it: the guards are getting closer though one did fall in the pit trap. Is there an escape ahead or will it be a dead end? Why is there a frozen room under the city? What do ice snakes even eat as there cannot be enough adventurers coming down to feed them? And why was Charlie named Charlie?

I think they had fun, and I got to use a lot of my terrain and things. Of course, with a weekly cadence I need to figure out things faster. And I do have answers for all the above actually:

1. Yes, there is an exit ahead of them. Somewhere. 
2. The frozen room was there because I wanted something different and I had this ice room. In the game world, an ancient ice spell was used in this area in an arcane attack. The spell became permanent. Derig was using it to keep some of his food stores cold. Though it could also be an opening to a frozen plane of existence. There are gates in this world...
3. Ice snakes eat from the stores of food, Derig figured it was nice to have guard snakes.
4. Charlie was the name of my stuffed squirrel from when I was little. I still have it 50+ years later...

Charlie