Rift City Session 9

I've left it too long to be able to provide much detail on this: what I can remember is that the party was composed of:

Cnut the Fighter
Galen the Elf
Gene the Fighter
Gibbet the Thief
Karensa the Elf
Shazam the Elf

and we were joined by a new player, who was running Marl the Halfling.

Oh, and Shazam's Charmed Orc, who is called is called Keith, not Barry.

The party wanted to get to back to the area with the good corridors, where the Orcs were. So, they headed back that way. In the room of sarcophagi, where previously they'd encountered Skeletons, they came across some Ghouls. There seems to be some malign influence in that place that keeps bring back Undead. The party doesn't seem to have noticed, but maybe a spring-clean with some Holy Water might keep things quiet for a bit. The Elves went point and took out the Ghouls, due to a general immunity to Ghoul-paralysis. Someone was injured, but not paralysed (can't remember who it was now).

Scouting a bit further the party came to the room where Keith had been stationed as a guard. As there were now only two guards there (Keith's old mates) they rapidly surrendered rather than face the wrath of 7 PCs and their henchorc. Searching about the party found another door. It was the Orcs' privy, occupied by a few more Orcs. A quick fight and it was all over. I can see I'm going to have to beef up some of the encounters in this area, I think they're more geared for parties of 3-5. 8 (or even 7, Keith is basically a torch-bearer) is just tending to overwhelm the monsters.

That part of the dungeon done the party headed north from the room with the Orc/Ogre corpses and big pit. They found a room that had most recently been used an armoury, but the majority of weapons had gone. Certainly those that were left looked mostly broken or at least rusty, except one. Karensa took that, a sword. There was also a chest with a false bottom that contained a small amount of treasure.

North of this room they encountered a meditating Elf who had barricaded himself in and was attempting to regain his spells, having been separated from his adventuring party, made up of some Dwarves.

The party did find the Dwarves, who said it was the Elf's fault he'd got lost.

On the way out, the party ran into some Fire Beetles, which were quickly defeated, and even though Polly the Magic User wasn't there, the PCs harvested the usable glands to take back to Guisintha at Rift City. They've been trained well.

One of the players produced this lovely sketch of the day's shenanigans:

Session 9 by Cnut Cutlet - clockwise from top: Keef the lantern-bearing Orc, a dwarf, a Ghoul Rising, a Fire Beetle and a Ghoul Attacking