Golem Busting

Three

Moving cautiously deeper into the caverns, Kuticles leading the way, the party come to a large door, 11’ wide and a massive 17’ tall. This provokes Slippey to wonder about this being a home to giants rather than dwarves but Kuticles points to both a key hole 3’ from the ground in the door’s centre and the significant clue contained within glittering crystal: dwarven runes stating this to be the chambers of Z’Tpozz. While the hobb blushes, Idris listens at the door and, hearing nothing, casts Knock-Knock (INT check 4,2 – pass) but the door stays locked. Runeweaver is a little perplexed but casts Omnipotent Eye (3,2 – pass – WIZ cost just 1) and learns the door is Knock-Knock-proof. This allows Slippey to make amends and use his roguery talent to attempt to pick the lock.

Using pick locks and his Roguery talent (here, DEX +2), Faggends makes three successive saving rolls but it still takes 3 turns to work the heavy, unresponsive mechanism. No one is very impressed and now five turns have passed.

Four

When the hobb rogue finally here’s the long hoped for click and moves aside for the dwarf to open the door, the delvers see a 110’ by 70’ chamber with a 40’ high domed ceiling with the imposing feature of a lava curtain cascading into a channel over in the west. An opening can be made into through the lava. At the far end, just as alarming, can be seen an obsidian golem statue, 7’ tall and a bulky 10’ wide, armed with a huge spear. As they entered, its eyes glow red and it speaks in a low rumble: “You are not he. You shall not pass!”

The golem makes Sammy nervous – “I just know it’ll come to life!” As soon as Kuticles takes a step forward, the novice warrior is proved aright but when the dwarf retreats the golem backs off too.

Now conscious that time is ticking away, Runeweaver states his opinion that they either need to go further in the first cavern they entered or plan an all-out assault on the golem since any goodies must be beyond the lava-fall and the golem is guarding the way through.

The elf mage has recovered some WIZ by now and let’s rip with a L3 TTYF (INT check made, WIZ high enough); it costs him just 11 WIZ and does 90 damage. When he sees the sorry state the golem has been reduced to, Kutcicles and Sammy charge at it, the dwarf just using his kukri so as not to waste the Whammy on his war hammer. It is a piece of good judgement and the golem’s head explodes in a shower of powder and razor-sharp shards with only minimum force applied against it. Kuticles is convinced the shards must have some value but the fairy make sit clear that she, at least, cannot afford the time for a distraction and wants to know what they do about getting through the lava.

Kuticles considers borrowing Sammy’s shield and using it as an umbrella but Runeweaver thinks his Wink-Wing spell much safer – except that he would be dangerously low on WIZ… Then he has the bright idea (L4 INT SR with double 3s followed by the 1-2 combination) of deflecting the lava with the golem’s body, having it wedged in the opening diagonally. He has the CHR to persuade Kuticles to ge the job done and with STR of 50, the dwarf just needs a little guiding force from his sidekick, Sammy, to put the golem to good use. A sixth turn has passed.