Stirge attack overnight, dealt with very well. The party has learnt that sleep is very effective.
The party headed to Old Owl Well. They sent in a scout who saw a tent and a big pile of bodies.
So, the party headed straight in. The zombies animated and beat down Rufilim, who had charged ahead. Yay, bard tanking!
The owner of the zombies appeared, and yelled something to the effect of "oi!". After a bit of tense back-and-forth, a truce was arranged.
The mage, a Red Wizard named Harmun, was an archaeologist. The xombies (including an ogre zombie) were simply his labourers and draft animals. He wanted help getting in to a blocked passage and asked the party to help, in return for 2/3 of the treasure and a good cooked meal (Harmun couldn't cook for shit, so when oskar started serving up delicacies, he was very happy).
In the first room, the party's combined engineering skill soon rigged a pulley system to remove a large rock blocking the stairs.
Baleon detected undead below.
Rofilim, the Bard, goes first into the steep, dark, narrow stairway down. Yay, more Bard tanking.
The ghasts, free for the first time in hundreds of years, swarmed up the stairs, overrunning the poor, paralysed Bard. The narrowness and steepness of the stairs was a significant disadvantage in teh attack - the ranged attackers just couldn't get a shot it. Well, except for Harmun, whose sole contribution to the entire fight was to magic missile to dead a ghast that Oskar and Sheepstrangler had (after a mammoth effort) got to 1 HP. Kill stealer!
GM Note: According to the XP, this should have been an easy to moderate encounter for six level 3 characters. The terrain worked to the ghasts' advantage.
GM note: Some seriously bad dice rolling. The gods of the dice were not with the party tonight. They were, however, with the GM!
After the battle was won, the party discoverd Harmun had scarpered with his zombies. He did leave behind his tent and brandy, so it was not all bad.
Stirges: 60 XP each, total 1866 XP.
Zombies: 60 XP each, total 1926 XP.
Ghasts: 225 XP each, total 2151 XP.