The fight

The beast was all fury and hate, flashing claws and deadly spikes. A Manticore.
Gildrid went down first from swipe of its massive claws. Nemon's brilliant armor was pierced by poison spines. Gruffydd and Gustav rushed forward to drive the beast back from Gildrid's fallen form.
Mellion loosed bolt after bolt into the manticore with little effect, while Miss Adventure put on her magic boots.
Another swipe of the claws and Gustav fell. Miss Adventure was gone, with only the drifting dust to show she had left. Mellion was fumbling with a broken string on his crossbow. The dwarf, Gruffydd, stood alone.

Not dead yet.

Sorry for the lag in our story. My only excuse is life. Hope to post soon. The gang is getting back together end of the month for new stories.

A New Face

The room was quickly filing with noxious fumes. Gruffydd turned to nearest door and began smashing it with his hammer. Meanwhile, Miss Adventure sprinted to the far door and began to work its lock. The others were crashing to the floor, unconscious.
With a "sprang" the halfling's door opened. The gas stopped pouring out. Miss Adventure and Gruffydd began dragging the others out of the room. Most coughed up a green, slimey flem, but were otherwise unharmed.
They were in a hallway that ran south, but had a branch to the left not too far away. While the others recovered, Miss Adventure checked it out.
Beyond the hall was a room with a three branches. The far branch had a reinforced door. The north was hall headed back the way they came. To the south was a large double door. It showed terrible damage. Something large had clawed at the doors, trying to open them. More importantly, outside the doors were two columns. The bodies of two goblins were impaled on the pillars by long, black stakes.
"What's up?" Miss Adveture nearly fainted.
While her attention had been on the corpses, Gildrid and the others had walked up behind her. She pointed.
After a few moments, Gustav said, "I think we should head back that way," he pointed down the hall. "Maybe it links to where we came from. I'm exhausted and we are short on Healing vials."
There were nods of agreement.
Not far down the corridor a door appeared on the right hand wall. Unlike the rest they had seen, it was not reinforced, boarded, or even damaged. Miss Adventure started to pick the lock, but found it open. A quick listen reveal nothing.
After they readied themselves, Nemon pushed the door open. It got stuck but he shoved harder. It seems the door got stuck on all the silver coins covering the floor.
The light of their torches reflected off the the thousands of coins jewels filling the room. No one breathed.
Before they could set foot int the room, a dark shape moved from the doorway opposite. In a blur of motion a huge beast lunged at them!

Angel of Death

No one seemed particularly excited in finding out what was behind the door.
Gruffydd was the first to speak, "We either go down those steps, deeper into the dark, or we see what's behind this door."
There were more nods of agreement than nos. The dwarf began the smash at the boards and lock with his mighty hammer. The halls echoed with the banging.
A few minutes later the door swung open. Beyond was a long hallway. Nemon lead the way, torch in one hand, sword in the other.
The hall was finished stone, ten feet wide. A dozen yards into the hall and they came upon another door on the south side of the wall. It too was locked.The hallway still went on farther into the dark.
"I don't know if we should go forward, with an unexplored door behind us," Gildrid spoke. The rest of the group responded with raised eyebrows. Gildrid urging caution?
Miss Adventure was already at work on the lock. The door swung open to a large room.
It too was of finished stone. Another door was on the wall opposite. It was empty except for six large statues carved in relief from the walls. They were or robed, winged skeletons, each bearing a carved stone sword. Morr's Angell's were not an unusual sight for a crypt, but still, Gruffydd urged haste.
They were all busy searching the room when the door slammed shut! Immediately a foul smelling green gas pouring from the statue's mouths...

Locked Away

The little halfling prepared herself. With her magic boots she could easily run past them, but what lay beyond? There were four undead that she could see, but could there be more?
The zombies shambled ever closer. There was a noise behind from the rock slide, but she dare not look. Just as the lead zombie was almost upon her, ..."Thunk"!
An arrow was now sticking out of the eye socket of the closest zombie. It dropped to the ground. A quick look behind her revealed Gildrid had squeezed himself halfway through the a hole between the top of the rockslide and the ceiling.
"Thanks, Skinny", Miss Adventure said before she sprinted behind the furthest undead. Slash! Her short sword dug into the creature. It swung around to face her as the rest took interest in Gildrid.
The elf was trying to squeeze himself through as the zombies moved closer.
He had let loose another arrow, but it went wide. Suddenly he slid forward and smashed into the floor. Nemon, the old mercenary, had shoved Gildrid the rest of the way through.
Gildrd, crumpled at the bottom of the pile of rocks, was set upon by the zombies.
He slashed furiously as they pummeled him with rusted cudgels.
One of the zombies dropped when a large chunk of rock crushed his head. Nemon was halfway through the hole using rocks as missiles. Meanwhile, Miss Adventure had finished her undead foe, and was working on another.
On the other side of the collapsed tunnel, Gustav and Mellon were digging out the remains of Gruffydd. Finally an ankle appeared. Mellion began to tug. Gustav grabbed the other leg. With one last effort they pulled the dwarf free. He groaned.
"Still alive!" Gustav yelled. He grabbed his holy talisman and began to pray.
Nemon, Miss Adventure and Gildrid dispatched the last zombie in time to see a strange glow come form the other side of the rockslide. "What's going on back there?" Nemon shouted.
The weak voice of Gustav responded, "He's alive, but he's going to have a headache".
The rock pile was cleared. Everyone rested. All but 2 vials of the Tears of Shehalla were drank. The zombies had yielded little in treasure. But they had guarded a stairway down.
At the bottom of said stairway was a chamber. It showed damage from a massive brawl. There was dried blood, broken weapons, gouges in the masonry, and strangest of all, long spikes embedded in the walls.
The was another stairway down, but the party's attention was drawn to door. It was boarded shut.

Between some rocks, and a hard place

MIss Adventure jumped when she heard the rocks fall behind her. Dust filled the small passage. She took a few steps back, coughing, into the chamber behind her. She was about to run to Gruffydd's aid when she heard a low moan, and sensed movement behind her in the chamber.
When she turned, she saw 4 shapes rise from the floor of the room. There was the clanking of armor, and the low moans again.
"Ahhh, not zombies....."
She was trapped.

Rocks

"Aaaaaaaahhhh!" Gruffydd gave a shout as he charged the ghoul. His hammer smashed the creature in the arm. But the ghoul slashed with his claws. The dwarf was scraped, but the ghouls paralyzing toxins had no effect on the sturdy Gruffydd.
Nemon attacked with his mighty blade. The ghoul moved with an unearthly speed. He dodged the blow and wounded Nemon. The warrior soon felt the icy cold overtake him. Gildrid took his place in the fray and was also paralyzed.
While the ghoul was bust with his attackers, Miss Adventure had snuck behind him. She drove her short sword into the thing's back. With a howl it stood straight and flailed at his unseen attacker.
It was then the other finished him with quick hammer blows and arrows.
Gustav quickly went to the aid of his frozen fellows. Calling upon his god, he healed them, but he was exhausted by the feat.
In the ghouls den they found piles of gold. The creature had been waylaying adventurers that entered the cave. He must have been one himself long ago. The party found silver bracers and a heavy key around his neck. Much searching found no lock to match it.
Resyed a bit they moved further down the passage. The way became smaller. Miss Adventure and Gruffydd, being the smallest went first.
The halfling moved through easily enough, but as Gruffydd entered the passage, the ceiling above gave way with a crack. It was if the whole mountain came down on him...