Ruinous Crypt

With the previous encounters of Cultists in the Crypt, the Solo Bunch decided to explore another Crypt. This time, it’s the Ruinous Crypt at the end of Stone Road, and the foot of Copperneck Mountain.

In the City, a robed Savvas merchant gave the party a rectangular black-and-white coin in exchange for some treasures that you have. The strange coin seems interesting but research at the Gloomhaven University failed to shed any light on the coin. That is, until an Aesther saw it and said that it’s the Temple of the Eclipse. Hmm... another location for the adventurers to seek out in the future. 

For now, the gang went on the road, only to reach a narrow valley with stones blocking the way. This sounds familiar and is not good news. The attempt to clear the path is hard work and pain, with the discard of 2 cards each. This will have an impact on the scenario.

Going into the Ruinous Crypt, the party was greeted by a bunch of Cultists and the Night Demon they summoned. The scene was so frightening that the party had to suffer another penalty of being Disarmed at the start of the scenario.


The enemies moved quickly and surrounded Brutus. It wasn’t easy to break out of the fight, but with help from Weaver casting spells outside the ring of enemies.

That didn’t stop one of the Cultists from summoning a Living Bones. Thankfully, Brutus’ Warding Strength was able to deal with it. It was a Critical Miss in the attack, but the Push effect killed the monster after it landed on a trap. It also cleared the way to the next room.

 

The next room is guarded by Flame Demons. Fighting them was not too tough. They had shields which gave them some protection, but some lucky card draws helped. Tinder also used the opportunity to jump forward to loot a treasure.

While looting the treasure gave Tinder extra gold, it meant that he was left far behind. Weaver and Brutus moved forward quickly into the remaining locked room and was greeted by Frost Demons. The only problem was that Tinder had a lot of catching up to do.

After Weaver opened the door, Brutus charged in with a combination of the 6 moves from Skewer, +2 Move from the Boots of Striding, and attacked with Balanced Measure. This killed the first Frost Demon.

By carefully making sure that Weaver doesn’t charge into the room and some careful use of cards, The Frost Demons were killed. THe final demon was dispatched with a Jump and Attack, and also allowed Brutus to grab the second treasure in this scenario.


The last few rounds was nail-biting. Tinder stayed outside the room and Healed Weaver because he didn’t want to activate the trap. He has the Diehard battle goal which means he has to try to not allow his HP to drop below half of his max HP value. Not stepping on the trap is therefore the preferred way to go. Weaver was almost defeated by the two Living Bones, with her HP dropping dangerously low. After being Healed by Tinder, she moved into the room for a final charge. Luckily, she also drew a Critical Hit card which meant the end of the last enemy.

Going into this scenario with  two disadvantage effects made this a very close game. Again, the party was near failure. But with some luck, they succeeded. The rift opened by the Cultists seemed dormant now and the party has two choices... to go into the Plane of Elemental Power opened by the rift, or going back to Hail the Aesther enchanter to find out more about it before proceeding any further.

Also, Weaver is one more step closer to her personal goal.

Altogether, 4 more locations were unlocked in this round of adventure... more places to explore then...