GOLDEN ORE, BURNING BRIGHT

In the midst of battle, three duplicates manage to surround Dante. Panicking, Mary casts Sleep on all of them, rendering the duplicate monsters and Dante unconscious. Instead of then concentrating on killing the main monster, our hapless adventurers decide to kill all of the duplicates almost at once. Mary uses Tensor’s Floating Disk to move Dante out of the pile of unconscious monster duplicates (something which, had Dante been awake, would have been grateful for). She then wakes him up and he’s understandably quite cranky. As a result, he contemplates releasing the demon again, this time on the entire party, save himself. Instead of giving in to temptation, he agrees with the others and together they manage to slay all of the duplicates

Afterward, the battle resumes with the original monster. Seeking something to replenish his hit points, the monster absorbs the forgotten unconscious duplicate just outside the shack’s door.

The battle continues onward.

Soon, Dante and Keiron are feeling the effects of constant fighting, their hit points falling to 22 and 18 respectively. Out of desperation, Dante tries a daring plan. He remembers the green goo he’d saved after some of it had fallen on his head in the catacombs. He grabs some of it from the waterbag he’d stored it in and hurls it at the monster’s feet. Then he tells Mary to quickly cast Scorching Burst on the monster. She does so, burning the monster for a decent amount of damage, leaving his flesh ravaged by the effects of the burst. At the same time, the burst lights the green goo on fire, and it continues to burn at the monster’s feet, dealing it 1d6 worth of ongoing damage until it manages to leap away from it.

Unfortunately, the still-on-fire green goo sets the dry wooden floor underneath it on fire. The flames slowly spread and all the creatures in the shack, human and monster alike, are quite alarmed. Now only seeking escape, Dante distracts the monster so the others can run from the burning building. When the monster is distracted, Keiron runs to the storeroom instead of toward the open doorway leading outside. The storeroom contains nothing of importance or worth and the rogue is hugely disappointed. Dante decides he’ll do some looting himself, leaves William to distract the monster, and inspects the office in the shack. He finds a half-written letter reading:

To His Highness Eric the Destroyer of All Evil:

There has been no sign of the Eladrin. Your mother, brothers, and sister remain missing. We presume they are dead, as we found evidence of a cave-in at the Valley entrance. The gold taken from the mountain thus far has proven plenti—

Dante pockets the letter and then starts running from the building, followed by William and Mary. Keiron brings up the rear and falls behind when he stops to check the corpse of one of the miners just outside the storeroom door (ironically, the corpse was the one the monster had been munching on). Keiron finds a +2 pickaxe. He stows it in his portable hole, tosses the portable hole into his knapsack, and starts his own run from the building.

Three of them (Dante, the ranger, and the wizard), run behind a nearby shed. Keiron, the last one out, runs to the doorway of the shed instead of joining the others.

He looks in the doorway. Sees nothing, hears nothing. Creeps in…and finds 50,000 GP worth of gold ore.

He pees himself, closes the door, and then bars himself in. Then he begins hurriedly scooping all the ore he can into his portable hole.

In the meantime, the party is now searching for his ass.

They find some dead bodies outside the shed (which keiron rifled through on his way past to look for treasure). Keiron, being somewhat short-sighted, forgets that one member of the party, William, is a ranger. William tracks Keiron’s footprints to the shed’s door.

Dante shouts to him.

Also, by now, the house, only ten feet from the shed, is practially entirely engulfed in flames.

Keiron begins scooping gold into the hole for all he’s worth. He tells Dante that he can’t get the door open, that it must be magically sealed or something.

William, being quite strong, says he’ll just bullrush the door to break it down.

Keiron freaks and tells him to try to break the wall isntead

William and Dante, with the flames ever-closer, say “fuck that.”

Keiron throws a table in front of the door.

William rolls a 20 and breaks down the door, including the table. So now they’re in a pile on the floor, Keiron, covered by a table and a door, and William on top.

Dante discovers the gold as the others sort themselves out

Keiron says he had no idea it was there. (He successfully makes his bluff check, so dante falls for it). And then nicely tells Dante that they can split the gold ore evenly between them.

Dante agrees and they pile more ore into their backpacks (Keiron can’t use his portable hole anymore since Dante would discover the extra ore.)

The flames start licking at the shed.

Dante, William, and Mary make a run for it

Keiron stays until the very last second scooping ore into his backpack. He bolts when the shed is halfway on fire.

However, he wants to make sure he hasn’t missed any treasure. So he makes a pit stop at the stables (twenty feet from burning house and now-burning shed). He cajoles Dante into going in with him. They come face to face with the same monster they’d just run away from (because the monster, not being stupid, also ran out of the burning building).

The monster has regained all its hit points, while Dante only has 22 hit points and Keiron 18. Since the monster (and his newly-summoned duplicate) got the drop on them, they attack first, taking Dante down to 11 hit points and Keiron down to 13.

Obviously, they bolt again, and run their little scared shitless legs off until they’re twenty miles away. There, they make camp. And, because Dante is a very trusting soul, he has Keiron take the second watch after Dante has only stood watch for an hour.

Dante goes to sleep, leaving Keiron the only one awake. He isn’t quite paying full attention (perhaps gleefully thinking of his gold ore stash) until a royal guard party has them surrounded.

Keiron, realizing that the approaching party might take his gold ore, decides that he won’t wake up his companions first.

Instead, he takes a moment to shove his portable hole up his ass so that no one finds it, and then wakes up the rest of the party.

They’re caught by the guard party and don’t fight them. Instead, they’re arrested and placed in manacles. Very strong manacles. Then they’re stripped of all their gear, including weapons, and are escorted towards the nearest city, Tessares Crossing. They stand accused of the murder of the miners in the camp they’d just abandoned.

Halfway there, as the party fords the Vandig River, Keiron bolts, ditching his companions. He’s unencumbered by armor and can run fast.

The guards, in plate armor, can’t catch up. All the party can do is set trackers after him. In an incredible stroke of luck, Keiron manages to escape from his manacles and sets his sights south on Twin Falls. He hopes to pick up horses and goods so that he can free the rest of his party from jail.