This session was played on June 9, 2010, featuring Fardel, Halafa, Luc Triage, Percival the Merciful, Seth and Vassily the Scout. The party was later joined by Brother Varnius.
Summary
[Note: This summary was provided by naked_samurai, the player of Handsome Hans and Halafa. Some statements may not be entirely accurate.]
With barely the clothes on their backs, our first level motley crew left Malinbois to the Chateau. Only Halafa had any experience claiming the name of Crossed Swords, but they had hopes in their hearts and fingers nervously encircling their instruments of death.
Almost immediately upon entering the fell territory around the castle did Fardel run down a hill, flashing his great sword, attacking some skeletal workers in a crumbled vineyard. Percival, whose mandate by the goddess Trianoma is to vanquish the undead, followed, leaving the remaining party utterly flummoxed.
This nearly resulted in a TPK but they eeked it out. Fortunately a group of skeletal vintners were distracted by smashing the dead Fardel beneath their bone-heels into a grape-like paste and another cleric, Brother Varnius, appeared somehow shortly after his death to help Halafa and, briefly, Vassily, kill the rest of the dead.
The orcs of the Burning Brand, so familiar to the Crossed Swords A-Team, were suspicious of these new adventurers but let them into the Tower of Marseil to lick their wounds, before ushering them to the entrance at the Serpent's Tower.
Below, the company encountered another group of skeletons. Proving they learn fast, the clerics kept them at bay and they were dispatched without trial. A secret door was found hiding a small arsenal of nice weapons, later given to the orcs to gain their better trust, matching some D'Ambreville surcoats and chainmail later found in boxes. Only a quiver of arrows turned out to be magical and were split with the orcs. The party cheered a brilliant use of Seth's Floating Disk spell in getting these objects out of the depths.
A gelatinous cube was also encountered inside a closet. It might have been slowly starving behind the closed door, as it held inside its jelly innards very few of the valuables legends tell they sometimes scoop up. Burst-oozing out the door, they were able to swipe and squish it to dissoluble death after it absorbed Brother Varnius inside its jiggly mass.
Losses & Loot
The party defeated twenty animated skeletons and one gelatinous cube. They obtained a variety of weapons and armor, including a score of magical arrows, and some coins and assorted junk from inside the cube. Selling off most of these items to the orcs of the Burning Brand increased the party's total take to 600gp.
For creatures defeated and wealth acquired, each party member received 92xp.