Barrowmaze #30-31: Down Nergal's Throat

DM Commentary
The party has the "Fount of Law", they are mostly 5th level and they know of the Pit of Chaos.  But they search blindly, ransacking a room of burial crypts here or there.  And this is only the mid game of the dungeon.  What next?  If they succeed in a goal do I offer them another dungeon?  Perhaps the Abbey of St Clewd or the Croaking Fane?  Do they then enounter a mad harpy escapee raving of the deathly serpent within the eastern tunnels while waving an enchanted gauntlet?  We will see.  Lucky for me my two players (playing three characters each in my home brew Uncommon ruleset seem happy enough to grind through a couple rooms every week.  Suits me fine!

Barrowmaze Saga
Two recent explorations of the undersprawl: the discovery of a new entrance, a bronze door depicting the horned visage of Nurgal lead to a dark pool.  A spell of Water Breathing and a deep dive later saw the party soaking wet and descending a stair beyond the pool to the dungeons below.  The exploration was careful, fastidious.  Crypts were uncovered.  Gold gathered.  Then a passage was traversed quickly and two stalwarts fell into a spike filled pit.  Grack the Half Orc took a spike through the knee.  The group retreated only to return two weeks later during a heatwave.

The small town of Helix was busting with activity.  The duke's men under Sir Dangar has roused the populace to fell nearby trees from the Black Dolmenwood in order to construct a palisade, while the duke's son Korthos remained resolutely drunk despite his mandate to strength the town defense.  Rumour trickled in to taverns telling of a zombie massacre in Bogtown to the south.

Helix was a bummer and dame Merde was not doing much better so the group rounded up their two dwarves and Helga the Elven Cleric and returned to the Underworld.   Many burial tubes ransacked, two secret doors discovered, the hunger of stress and burnt torches, finally pushing one step beyond, then, breaking into a long sealed chamber, a pair of putrid grub infested living corpses are discovered, two Sons of Gaxx, full of hatred for the living, lunge forward their very presence inspiring such revulsion and fear that both clerics and the wizard flee piteously while the warriors are left behind to hack at the writhing mess, chopping and burning both the wights and them selves until the undead and writhing grubs both are snuffed.

The horror!