The Captain's Room

Mace Blackstar (Chris L.; Human Fighter)
Wilbered The Silent (NPC; Human Cleric)
Castor Bean (NPC.; Human Bard)
Trygvie (NPC; Elven Wizard)
Kane (Al G.; Human Monk)
Ryneh (Tom S.; Human Rogue)

The players had entered the guardsroom at the end of last session and slaughtered the four guards.  Trygvie had noticed a secret door in the hall outside, so after performing a perfunctory search, they investigated the secret door.  The door led to a tiny secret chamber filled with cobwebs and the skeleton of some sort of animal lay at the far end.  Mace and Ryneh both spotted some treasures beneath the remains and both greedily grabbed for them.  Rhyneh managed to grab two amethysts and Mace got a small potion flask.  Upon investigation, Trygvie determined the potion flask might hold a healing potion.

Yhey returned to the room of the cardplayers and investigated a door which led to a small armory outfitted with weapons and armor for the guards.  Wilbered selected a new suit of chainmail while Rhyneh picked the lock on a cabinet.  The cabinet held five arrows and Rhyneh suspected magic, but could only get Trygvie to agree to cast detect magic by bribing him with one of the amethysts.  "Easy come, easy go," seemed to be the philosophy... but Trygvie always had a fondness for gems and the fact that he recently had to pay all of his money in order to bail himself out made his greed seem more reasonable.   The arrows proved to be magical.

The players proceeded North into unmapped and unexplored portions of the dungeon.  They entered a dirty and dark room with several exits and were promptly attacked by shadows once again.  Mace got drained of strength once again before Wilbered could use up two of his turn undead in ridding them of the creatures.  Shaken, they retreated and used a Restoration spell to return Mace to full Strength.

After short deliberation, they decided to proceed to the location marked on their map as "The Captain's Room."  Opening the door, they found a 30x30 room with a sturdy wooden door in the center of each wall.  A large mushroom stood in each corner.  As  they entered the room, a loud, earsplitting shriek began to be heard --- the fungi were emiting a loud shriek.  Mace charged over and began hacking up one of the fungi with his sword, Darkcleaver, and most of the rest of the party followed suit.

A slot opened in the west door and a with some arcane words, a tiny pellet was shot out of the slit and into the center of the room, where it exploded in a burst of fire -- a fireball!  Everyone was pretty badly scorched (with the exception of Rhyneh, who was out of the room, and Kane, who is very skilled at dodging and avoiding damage), but Mace ran up to the door and attempted to force it down.  Kane attempted to open  the door on the north side of the room while the persons behind the door fired out spells and crossbow bolts.  A ray of pale greyish light sprang from one of the arrow slits in the door and Mace was paralyzed.

Suddenly the door to the east creaked open, seemingly of its own accord.   Kane, expecting a flank attack, charged into the open door and attacked a strange creature, that looked like a mass of vines and slimy plants.  Almost instantly, the plant-creature reached out two arm-like tendrils and engulfed the monk, slowly crushing him.  Despite being dogged by a Flaming Sphere spell,  Wilbered stepped forward and cast inflict light wounds on the plant creature without effect.* 

At this point things seemed to be going from bad to worse.  Rhyneh picked the lock on the door, exposing himself to some attacks from inside the door, but whomever was on the other side managed to hold the door shut and relock the lock before they could force the door open.  Trygvie attempted to hurl a flask of acid through the slot and only managed to smash his acid flask on the door frame.  Meanwhile, Wilbered was casting cure spells on the monk while the monk slashed away at the plant monster, finally killing it with some help from Trygvie's spells.   Mace spent the whole combat lying on his side, paralyzed from some spell effect.

Trygvie ended up being the hero of the day by exposing himself to attack by stepping up to the arrow slit in the door and tossing two fireballs inside.   Wilbered, of all people, charged the door, and, using one of his "feats of strength," managed to force it open.  Trygvie slapped himself on the forehead, finally remembering the dispel magic spell he had memorized earlier in the day, and cast the dispel on Mace, freeing him from the magic paralysis.

Now that the door was open, they saw a 30x30 foot square room, a dead fighter in fire blackened armor, a dead creature that was still smouldering beside him and a tall, pale skinned and white haired elf who stood at a desk in the back of the room.  The elf had just finished drinking a potion and smashed the empty flask on the floor and began firing arrows at the group with amazing speed and accuracy.  Ryneh, Mace and Wilbered all got hit.  Finally Kane entered the fray, ran up to the elf and killed him with a single heavy blow.
 
The adventure ended here.

character/player:	class/level:	XP at start:	XP award:	bonus:	XP for next level:	XP at End:
Mace (Mike D.)	human FTR 8th	29,599	1,526		36,000	31,125
Wilbered (NPC)	human CL 7th	26,067	763		28,000	26,830
Castor (Steve B.)	human Bard 6th	20,801	763		21,000	21,564	7th level!
Trygvie (NPC)	Elven MU 7th	22,150	763		28,000	22,913
Kane (Al G.)	Human Monk 7th	26,596	1526		28,000	28,095	8th level!
Zuran (NPC)	Human Fighter 4th	8,727	-		10,000	-
Rhyneh (Tom S.)	Human Rogue 5th	11,212	1526		15,000	12,738

*The DM ruled that since inflict light wounds was described in the PHB as affecting living creatures, that it would have no effect on a plant, since a plant, although living, is not, by this DM's definition, a creature (an interpretation that not everyone agreed with).  I don't think my ruling was correct insofar as the rules as written (although I still think my understanding represents a possible interpretation).  It didn't end up making or breaking the game, however.