by Quest 4: Prince Magnus' Gold (Third Time's the Charm)
After taking a few weeks off due to the holidays, last night we finally got back together to get our game on.
When last we left our intrepid Heroes, they were twice routed from the dungeons of Gulthor, the Chaos Warrior who was leading the band of thieves that stole the Prince's gold.
As once again we were slated for a full roster to plumb the depths of this dungeon, I was notified in the afternoon prior to starting that this game would be the last for our Elf player unfortunately, as his work schedule had changed so he would not be able to make it in the future. So this would be his last hurrah before handing the reigns over to a replacement.
Thankfully, I knew of someone who had called dibs on an open spot if one should open up (thus saving me the trouble of open recruitment within my circles and various communities). Nevertheless, I invited him to join us as a spectator, and it's a good thing I did.
Fifteen minutes past starting time, we had a no-show with the Dwarf's player so I went ahead and appropriated control of the Dwarf to "the new guy" (even though he's a long-time HQ veteran and is working on a HeroQuest side project of his own, too). So that meant we actually had a complete party. Huzzah!
A short introduction to a couple of the houserules in place as well as a refresher for everyone else, and off we went!
As seems to be par for the course, the Elf cast Light of the Moon* again thus rendering any traps and secret doors to the revealed. But even with that, it seemed the traps wasn't going to be a big hindrance, since the first three or four treasure card pulls were all Wandering Monsters in a row. Fimirs galore! So much so that they started referring to it as "searching for monsters" instead of for treasure.
The Fimir were slowly bringing the pain and between them and the other monsters they were fighting, they had to burn some healing and a Potion of Defense. The one Fimir in the northern hallway in the first picture was trying to be sneaky by running back and forth around the corner to try and lure them into the spear traps, but the Heroes proved smarter and were able to kill it before falling for the traps.
Shortly afterward, however, our Wizard player said "brb" but later dropped out and a couple turns had passed with no Wizard participation. When he dropped, I gave control of him to anyone who wanted it, and we continued on.
Through a mistake on my part, I forgot to reveal the secret door by the bottom of the map (in the room with the decoy, empty chests!), which funnily enough made the Heroes go through the other corridors and rooms to try and find a way forward. As a side effect, this made the Dwarf have to try and disarm two pit traps and he failed a couple times before finally succeeding.
After making their way through the secret door, they came upon Gulthor at last and also found the real treasure chests with the Prince's gold. The Wizard cast Genie on the Chaos Warrior and was almost successful in dropping him in one hit, but the roll just wasn't good enough (he had 1BP left after the Genie). In retaliation, he tried getting the jump on the Wizard at the door before any other Heroes could get in the room, but was dropped quickly afterward.
The Wizard was particularly shining at the last battle because he then blew a fire spell at the Fimir (which he was unable to defend) and dropped him in one hit as well! That left only the two Goblins, who were dispatched pretty quickly, and the entire party survived and brought the Prince's gold back, earning their reward of 240 Gold, which they split amongst themselves.
And then they went shopping for new stuff!
All in all, it was another great evening. And although I am sad to see Tim leave, I thought this was an appropriately good send-off as his final game.
What new dangers will Mentor have for the Heroes next week? We will have to wait and see.
*This spell will really need to be reworked, I think. It's too powerful.
