Session 60 - More Ogres & Skeletons

The adventurers take out Ambro and his band of ogres, destroy a black skeleton, find a stockpile of building materials and clean out a giant rats’ nest well before lunch time.

This write up is based on Kay’s notes from our June 25, 2025 session. Since our group is scattered around the country, we use Discord for our voice communication and Roll20 for our virtual tabletop. Thanks to Kay for the proofreading.

Continued from: Red Robes

Location: Ambro’s Base, Rappan Athuk

Date: Thursday, June 16, 3517  

8 AM
The ogres around the corner had spotted Elron. The elf ran out of the tunnel back toward the group. About 5 ogres were coming up the tunnel, chasing him. Artie moved out of Sinis’s way and disappeared from our view. Sinis moved up to catch the ogres chasing Elron. 

Blaze moved into position and backed up a bit in the main area and cast lightning bolt, catching three of the ogres in its line of fire. Rocky ran to Breena. Elron brought out his sling and all three shots hit the first ogre in the line, killing it, finishing off what Blaze started.

Breena moved up so she could look around the corner down the tunnel, and could see the dead ogre and the others approaching behind it. The ogre leader moved up, shouted something in Giant that sounded like an obscenity, and swung his club at Elron. Luckily, Elron’s armor absorbed the damage. A third ogre stepped up behind their leader and threw his javelin at Breena, hitting her. The fourth ogre moved up the line. Artie disengaged, moved to the side wall and blended into the rock. 

Sinis cast Erupting Earth, a 20 x 20 square foot area damaging the three remaining ogres. Blaze and Artie managed to keep their balance; Elron and Breena weren’t so lucky. A piece of the ceiling fell on the ogre’s leader and the one behind him was hit with a rock. Blaze hit them all with another lightning bolt; the leader and one of the other ogres survived the damage, the third one did not. A fifth ogre ran up from behind all the others and the leader said something to him. Elron’s hit the leader twice with his sling before killing him.

Breena looked around the bend in the tunnel and saw one ogre climbing over his dead companions. The still living one couldn’t retreat at this point and advanced, swinging his club at Breena, nearly crushing her from the blow.

Artie moved into line of sight on that one and hit, killing it. 

Sinis heard another ogre coming up and moved up to cast acid splash, doing little damage, but every little bit helps.

Parahelia saw how badly Breena was hurt and dragged her out of the way.

 

Blaze cast witch bolt on the last ogre, who ran away down the tunnel, breaking the link. Elron gave chase, climbing over the dead ogres blocking the tunnel. Breena asked for healing from Parahelia, who obliged. Concerned, Rocky ran to Breena.
 
Elron stealthily followed the ogre, who didn’t notice him. Elron noticed money on the floor of the room as he passed. Blaze ran down the tunnel following behind.

The ogre ran to a door, went through with difficulty due to its size, and continued running. We knew we had to stop him from sounding an alarm to others.

Elron caught up to the ogre and hit him from behind with a sling stone and the ogre collapsed to the floor, dead. Blaze caught up with them. Elron pulled the ogre around the corner into the north hallway out of sight of the door.

On the floor of the room were 3 rows of 100 cp each. The first row was all heads, the second was all tails, and the third all heads again.

We searched the leader’s sack and found a human skull and a hunk of uncooked meat, an empty sack, and a silver ring.

Loot from all ogres and room: 83 gp, 114 sp, 300 cp

1 silver ring, human sized

Human skull and meat

1 empty sack. 

In a second room to the south, we found 4 ogre-sized bedrolls, with fleas and ticks.

Through the door on the north, we were at the corner of two hallways, one going west and the other going north. The north hallway had no doors that we could see. The west hallway had 3 doors in the north wall. We couldn’t see the ends of either hall in the distance. Artie started at the easternmost door first; checked for traps; no trap. It was locked and there was a sweeping sound beyond the door. Artie unlocked it but it was stuck and we decided to check the next door before going into this one. 

Artie tried the second door going west. It was quiet, locked, and stuck; no traps found. He had more trouble unlocking this one and spent about 30 minutes on it. While he worked, Blaze used one of her healing packs on Breena’s wounds and Elron listened at the third door down the hall. He heard sounds of giant rats. On his door he found no traps, it was also locked and stuck.

Finally, the second door was unlocked but stuck, so Elron did the honors and pushed hard. The room was empty except for a large box with carpentry tools for making coffins:

128 – 8-ft-long, 2-ft x 4-ft wooden planks (2 by 4s)

Inside a Box:

• 3 hammers
• 2 saws
• 1 axe
• 1 chisel

A bag containing 10,000 rusty iron nails

We left everything here but noted its location. The wood was in good condition, not rotting.

Elron tried to open the first door that had the sweeping sounds; inside was a neat pile of smashed furniture with a broom that continued sweeping, no one was using the broom. We closed the door.

After we positioned ourselves around the third door that had the sound of giant rats, Elron opened it. The smell hit us first. It was a rat’s nest. There were three giant rat adults and 33 babies the size of large adult normal-sized rats. It’s a room that has a gnawed-through, small-diameter rat tunnel going north; rags and debris covered the floor. The 3 big ones hissed at us. Standing at the door, Breena cast sleep at them and stepped back. All but one of the 33 babies fell asleep, and the one left awake ran to the tunnel and disappeared.

Giant Rat #1 tried to bite Elron but bit his armor instead. Giant Rat #2 ran to the door and bit Elron’s armor.

Blaze fired up her flaming sphere, created it in the room behind the giant rat still in the nest, and hit it, killing it and six of the sleeping baby rats. 

Elron moved into position and shot Giant Rat #3 which died. He moved to aim at Giant Rat #1, and killed it. All three of the big ones were dead, and Blaze used the flaming sphere to kill the rest of the babies. The one who disappeared down the rat tunnel got away, as the tunnel was too small for us to fit through, not even Artie or Breena.

Sifting through the room’s trash, we came up with 66 cp, and a blood-covered doll that had a garnet worth 20 gp sewn into in the hem of its dress.

Back in the hallway, Parahelia warned us that she heard human-sounding footsteps coming down the hallway we left the dead ogre in; it sounded like one person. 

We saw a figure turning the corner; it was a black skeleton coming at us. Sinis cast acid splash for some damage. Elron’s sling missed the first shot, but the next two hit.

The black skeleton ran up to Elron and hit him twice with a shortsword for massive physical damage and drained his strength again. Artie moved up, cast fire bolt and missed. Breena moved and cast witch bolt which also missed. Blaze’s witch bolt missed.

Sinis hit with burning hands for some minor damage. 

Elron’s next try with the sling caused it to rip and he needed to switch slings.

Parahelia moved up to hit it with her longsword, but missed. The black skeleton swung at Elron but missed, and then at Parahelia.  It hit her, causing physical damage and draining her strength.

Artie moved up to cast fire bolt which hit and killed it. 

9 AM
It’s only 9am and we’ve had two or three major encounters, and could use a long rest, but we can’t yet; and we just heard something from the west moving toward us.

Continued in Session 61 - Ghouls & Wererats