I knew that they were crossing the bridge, and there had to be something on the other side that they didn't like, and which didn't like them. I thought that this would be a good place for spiders. Then I realized that I have four gates (areas 41, 43, 44, 46) that I haven't decided what to do with yet. I combined the two, and decided that those are four gates to four pocket realms. One of them (we'll say 43, since it's closest) is to a pocket realm of shadow. A bunch of spiders came through, the gate closed again (it opens and closes on the whims or Moridis - but the fellowship at some point may be able to get a key or password or spell to open it). The spiders came through, got stuck, set up a little fortress, and started scheming. Okay then. Their entire abode includes areas 26-31, with a trapped hallway they've set up at 23.
***
I added a door to 22, since I decided that the goblins have locked a gibbering mouther in this room to provide a barrier against the spiders (who still crawl in through other ways). The mouther had come in via the waterfall a while back, and they managed to fish it out of the pool and wrangle it into this hallway (after losing a few goblins in the exchange). The fellowship was not able to recover the key (no idea where the bugbear had hidden it), so they had to force the door open. Indar is immediately overcome by the wailing, but the others move on unimpaired. The whole group is badly injured in the battle, and they have to rest.
They move into 23, the fog-filled hallway. They've got a bad feeling about this (rightully so), but then remember the levitation properaties of the roots growing in area 16. The could levitate through the chamber - or even better, bypass it altogether by levitating across from 19... they could go to the bridge and into 25, or directly to the webs at 31 and cut their way in through the back door to the main chamber. This would be tricky... but it's the path they choose.
And things then went totally off the rails. The arachling heard them and set a trap, which they walked right into. They ended up sandwiched between the arachling and an addercap (that it had called to help), with 7 cellar spiders as well. A sleep spell helped, and Alari's use of a glimmering weapon on Firik's hammer offset the lost edge from darkness, which was huge. By the end of the battle, Firik was the only one standing with 3 hits remaining (all the others had dropped), and the addercap and three cellar spiders failed a morale check with a 1, so they fled. This gave Firik 5 minutes to figure it out. He grabbed the amulet from Indar and yelled an order across the water for the goblins to eat some of the root and come to their aid. A minute later, 13 goblins were gliding across the chasm and floated in to provide aid. Firik had pulled apart the nest to find 2 healing potions, the spider blade, and some coins. He had five minutes to rally the troops, and between the two healing potions and Alari's magic, the team was almost at full by the time the spiders returned.
They picked a corner of the room to defend, putting the archer and mage at the back, with a rank of goblins and the two fighters up front. They made short work of the 9 cellar spiders, 2 addercaps and 1 tomb spider that arrived, cutting through them in about three rounds with minimal damage.
They charged on through the level (since only 2 goblins had died, the goblins were very hyped), and arrived at 28, where they faced the vault spider and its 2 assistants, and they ripped right through it (in 2 rounds) without suffering any damage.
The eggs they find are given as a reward to the goblins, who begin eating heartily, and start gathering them for later. The fellowship searches to see if they find the secret door in 27. They all fail, but one of the goblins finds it as they are scouring the level, and points it out. That will be where they go next. They also use fire to burn the two swarms of spiders in the temple area (26), burn all webbing, and recover the silvered spider statue from the altar. All told, for this section they earned:
43 gold and 5 silver in wealth
2 potions of healing (already used)
Boots of spider climbing (going to Indar)
The enchanted longsword vs. spiders (going to Alari)
They found 2 healing potions in a silvered chest as well.
52 XP (so 13 each; but for Galazan this doubles to 26).
In the interim, I also realized I never used the number 20 on the key... so I still need to add that number somewhere. Oops. Probably will use it for the eastern bridge over 25.
***
Analysis of XP:
Okay, this feels like enough to have earned level 2, but they are still only one third of the way to level 2... this is one of the things I struggled with in building the game. Because it only has six levels, I want progression to be slow, because otherwise the game is over in a flash. Right now, I have progression at x3... but if I bump things back a tier, I would end up with going to level 2 @ 30 XP, level 3 @ 100, level 4 @ 300, level 5 @ 1,000.
They have gone through quite a bit of dungeon and had several experiences. They've learned a lot. They have been battle tested, and taken on a variety of foes. They have explored about 20% of the dungeon... so if this pace of xp was to continue, they would end the whole level having earned somewhere around 150 XP. The threats deeper in will be more significant, so it's not unreasonable to round this up to maybe 200. They should, without a doubt, finish this level well into level 3. The revised XP progression above puts them on that path.
I'm going to house rule that now, and revise the tiers for level progression. This means that all characters move to level 2, and are ready for greater challenges... which is good, because there's a dragon not too far away.
Alari will take the point in Mind. She now has hits 14.
Indar will take the point in Reflex. He now has hits 14.
Galazan will take the point in Mind. He now has hits 10.
Firik will take the point in Might. He now has hits 28 (!). He is going to be hard to take down.
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