DELVE 2
The party entered down the main staircase, weaving through cleared rooms and corridors. The rogue noticed a secret door in a long, gently sloped corridor. The door led into a huge room. The centre of the room had fallen away, and the southern end (across the chasm) was full of lines and lines of corpses laid out. As they stood around, a demon statue rose from an alcove and proceeded to laugh and shoot flames in a pyrotechnics display. As it began to skip back into the floor, the party jammed and broke the sliding door and climbed down the shaft to get below.
From there they uncovered a seemingly abandoned part of the complex. The walls here were bare stone, and stalagmites had formed over the years or even centuries. They found themselves in a sort of hall or temple. The walls here were covered with paintings of reptilian priests, as well as a large winged reptilian person that appeared in many of the wall paintings.
Here they unlocked a door to the ethereal plane (and prompting closed it, not before one of the characters threw and eldritch blast through it), uncovered a concealed room containing a golden mask, and then climbed out to call it a day.
DELVE 3
The party returned to the large room with the lines of bodies, crossing the chasm and looting a chest they could see on the other side (the chest belonged to a priestess of the Dark One cultists). Many of the bodies began to rise and attack the intruders, who retreated as more bodies rose up. A couple of Thakian hoplites appeared to see what all the noise was about, telling the party that they should leave their cemetery alone.
They left the large hall and began descending to the 2nd level, though the path ahead was blocked by a large construction, seemingly a hodge-podge of several statues. They ran back up, but some disagreement over whether they should run or fight led them to stop and enter combat with the statue. The fight turned south very quickly, with the fighter being knocked unconscious, the rogue getting killed in a valiant attempt to rescue them, and a gnoll retainer being knocked unconscious. The rest of the party then fled, returning to drag out their companions and to resurrect the rogue.
DELVE 4
The group for this delve was rather large, with seven players and two retainers (with two of the players being new). They went down another entrance this time, a southern one to speak to the Dark One cultists. After a lot of talking in which the warlock offended the cultists and began generally causing them grief, one of the rogues decided to take the Dark One's blessing. The rest then left, deciding they had outstayed their welcome. They ran into some gnolls on the surface, but there was no more exploring that day.
DELVE 5
The rogue, who had been punched to death by the statue and then resurrected, was now in debt to a local crime lord. The crime lord, Puzur, agreed to foot the bill for the bringing the rogue back, but in exchange they had to perform a task for them; an adventurer had cheated the Puzur, for they had made a deal involving a magic crossbow, but the adventurer had taken the gold and the crossbow and ran away. Spies said they'd seen the adventurer as well as several others enter the caverns.
The party was focused this time, quickly finding the dwarven adventurer and, after a brief scuffle, "convinced" him to give up the crossbow. The adventurer revealed his plan to sell it to the gnolls, thus getting paid twice, and as the conversation finished up a war party of gnolls was heard approaching. The two parties fled the scene.
The party found themselves in a frost covered room they had visited before. While searching the walls for any secrets, the fighter found part of the wall that was in fact a mimic. It had a necrotic vapour that nearly killed them, though the party was able to extract them and kill the mimic. This revealed a passage beyond, with one way leading to a large hall filled with 10 rich statues, all with gemstones set in their eyes.
However as they began to remove the stones, part of the wall opened up and a huge statue made of red stone walled out, pointing to those who carried gemstones. The party gave up the stones, and the moving statue returned them to their places. The party decided not to fight, given their previous experiences with moving statues.
They continued through another door, a room and corridor covered with alcoves containing skeletons. Of course, the skeletons came to life and attacked. While most of the party hung out around the door, one of the rogues (not the statue punched one, the one who has the Dark One's blessing) ran into the midst of the skeletons, which promptly got him stabbed multiple times and killed.
However, it was at this point that one of the players reminded me of the Dark One's mark. This prompted several frantic messages back and forth as the rogue, dying on the stones, saw a tall lithe figure above them, with slender arms and features and either tears running down their face, or several eyes. It was the Dark One, and they offered the rogue life and power in exchange for service. The rogue accepted, the skeletons disintegrated around them, and the fight was over.
So one rogue had their debt erased, and another found themselves in the service of a shadowy god of death and fate!
DELVE 6
A slightly different delve, as instead of the usual suspects, I ran it for a couple of my French friends. They followed pretty closely to the previous delve in terms of where they travelled. They met a band of Thakians heading to the 2nd level to fight gnolls, followed them, then ambushed two survivors when the gnolls shot them down and sent them running. They caught the leader and killed them, and let the last hoplite alive and freed them.
They also found the room with statues with gemstone eyes, also locating the door the large red statue came from. They also found the remains of the skeleton battle, with destroyed skeletons littering the room and splatterings of blood from where the rogue had sort of died.
They managed to enter the room of the red statue, coming face to face with the red statue in a dormant state. While they tried to remove it's jewelled crown, the statue came to life and proceeded to punch one of them, and they decided to escape for the day.
It was also after this session that I decided I needed to be more proactive with my restocking and faction interaction. Until now, I was rolling for each cleared section, with it being repopulated on a 1 out of 6. However, I feel that lower level parties still need something easy to obtain on the first level, without having to go far and wide.
DELVE 7
The latest delve, in which the normal party decided to continue exploring the dusty temple where they had found the golden mask. They fought some undead that were patrolling on the upper level, and while exploring the temple uncovered some well preserved urns. They also found an alternative entrance to the red statue room (finding the remains of the previous delve's brief scrap with the statue).
Going further into the temple, they stumbled into a sepulchre piled with coins and treasure. However, there was also a large reptilian there too, now a skeleton but very much alive. It blinked out as they entered, and the party proceeded to shove as much gold into their bags as possible.
Not that their victory lasted for long, as they met the large winged skeletal lizardfolk in the main hall. It summoned an earth elemental to block their way, and counter spelled the warlocks's attempt of teleporting away. The creature introduced itself as the Immortal King, and ordered them to drop the gold they had taken and bring "my people" (the lizardfolk) to this temple so that he may rule over his empire once again. Agreeing to this task, the party left.
So that is where we are for now. The game is still going on, and I have ideas on ways to expand the dungeon beyond the Caverns of Thracia (both in downward levels, but also different areas full of different foes and rewards).
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