Vault of the Dwarves

ROCKY and IVAR, natural-born dwarves, explain the Dwarven Deeps to the Valerians. They have a map of their domain, which has been entirely overrun by monsters from deeper down. Frost Giants, mostly, but also some other horrors.

VESUVIUS the magician sneaks into the room where the Frost Giants lair. BJERN rolls a sphere of mordite, concentrated essence of death, which he stole from Fabulus Calamus' country estate. One of the giants picks it up, and poof, he's dead.

The others are scared, and one fires a ten-foot arrow into the darkness where the Romans are hiding. Retarius blocks it with his shield, which shatters, but saves everyone else.

The skeleton of the dead giant gets  up, shedding his skin, and attacks the other giants. The skeleton has turned solid black, as though it had become solid mordite itself. Another giant dies, and his skeleton comes out, too. It's getting bad.

Vesuvius ducks into the next room along with ARISTOCLES the magician and VERITY the cleric. They meet a Rock Worm whose skin is harder than stone; they can't kill it, so Aristocles puts it to sleep and it falls into a pool of clarifying acid.

Then they encounter a hallway with statues of ancient Dwarven heroes. They come alive and menace the Romans, until Vesuvius gets them reminiscing about the good old days. They're happy to talk to him endlessly, especially when he asks leading questions. Problem solved. As long as the nice young man seems interested in their stories, they don't even mind if his friends go deeper into the dungeon.

Meanwhile, DECINQUE and BJERN jump the remaining panicked giants. Decinque almost kills one with a massive surprise attack, and BJERN tries to knock him over, which fails completely.

Then they pursue the fleeing giants into the tunnels. A rat bites BROTHER AQUILA, causing chills and fever, but he doesn't drop in his tracks, so it must be okay.

Back in the Hall of Heroes, our heroes encounter the Machine Beast, a robotic steam-powered dinosaur with a flamethrower and rock-breaking drill. Aristocles distracts it with an illusion, and they dart through, finding a room with a giant stone box. Breaking it open reveals a mirror-bright sword blade with no handle. Verity uses her cross as a handle and it lights up, revealing eight white-clad fighting men surrounding her.

One of them, who speaks a stilted form of literary Latin, says they are the Legion of the Cross, Christian warriors drawn from throughout time to defend the Faith. Verity sics them on the Machine Beast, and Shiro, a spacesuited jump trooper from the 22nd century, shoots it out with him. Only his plasma charges only hit armor, and the Machine Beast stabs through his armor with its rockbreaker!

One experience point is awarded.