The Thrappled Lemmings visit The Deserted Village (Rangers of Shadow Deep)

 The door to the tavern slammed open.

"Ale, barkeep!" roared the ranger Aethelwyrd, "My companions and I have worked up a powerful thirst investigating that village you called us here to investigate!"

"Oh crap," thought the barkeep, "I've only just fixed the place up again after their last visit. And what idiot invited them to come and see what was going on here. I'm going to have strong words with the town council about this ... assuming there is a town by the end of the night."

Ash strummed a chord on his lute and coughed loudly. His finery was chewed and torn and seemed to be covered in rather more of his blood than was wise. He also had a peaky look to him, pale and not quite right. "Ho, citizens of this blessed town, I shall tell you a tale of derring do, the like of which will leave you astounded. A tale of the Thrappled Lemmings who fear no force of darkness and will stand up to any evil, no matter how small or large it is. Never fear, for the Thrappled Lemmings are here!"

"Yeah, right," thought the barkeep uncharitably, "Half of youse look like you can barely stand up at all right now, let alone stand up to anything."

Ash the Scop's commanding voice took charge of the tavern, and even silenced the barkeep's inner monologue. He launched into his tale, which may have resembled the truth of their encounter in limited and specific details, but certainly proved that he was no purist when it came to retelling the truth of events.

As the group approached the village, Diarmuid muttered, "It's quiet here. Too quiet. I don't like it."

He was right. The group gathered in the village square. Around them were bodies lying in the dirt. The villagers had been massacred. Suddenly, they heard chittering noises nearby and from further away low eerie moaning noises.

"Rats and Zombies! Quick, fan out and search for clues, then we can get out of here," commanded Aethelwyrd.

Aethelwyrd and Kalf ran towards the nearest giant rat. It put up a spirited fight that left Kalf wounded, but they eventually dispatched it. Diarmuid and Aelfwynn ran towards the largest house in the village. Spotting a giant rat, Diarmuid unleased a bolt of magical force at it, practically disintegrating the unusually large rodent. Onund ran towards the second largest building in the village. Meanwhile, Ash announced that he was "just going to look over here" and ran off between two nearby buildings. Zombies shambled towards the heroes from all sides.

As the zombies advanced, Onund, so proud of his muscles, tried and failed to force the door of the house he had chosen to investigate.Aethelwyrd rushed to join Ash, seeing a zombie close by. Ash was trembling and froze in fear as he saw the undead horror turn towards him. Kalf investiged a body near the field and found a Philtre of Fairy Dust. He put it in his pouch for later. The other zombies shambled towards Diarmuid and Aelfwynn. Diarmuid fought valiantly but was badly wounded and Ash was seized by terror in the face of the rotting corpses attacking his friend.

Diarmuid soon fell to the zombie's teeth and talons and Aelfwynn recovered his wits to start using his bow but to little effect. Aethelwyrd dealt a fatal blow to the zombie nearest her and raced to help Aelfwynn. Onund finally broke through the door of the building and found a cowering villager within. The others were racing around checking the village out and trying to hold off the zombies as they did. Ash picked the lock of the head house in the village and found a sack of treasure to take with him. But, as the zombies fell, more zombies started appearing.

It looked like the group were going to be overrun as first Kalf and then Ash fell, shortly followed by Aelfwynn. Fortunately, by this point they had completed their recce of the village. Aethelwyrd sounded the retreat as more giant rats and yet more zombies emerged. Pursued by the monsters, Aethelwyrd, Onund and the one surviving villager supported the rest of the group in getting out of there. All the while, Ash complained that he had lost the great treasure he had found.

So, the game lived up to expectations. I consistently rolled quite low, while the monsters scored half a dozen 20s while my group rolled a similar number of 1s, leading to my group going down fairly quickly. We managed to investigate all six clue markers, but suffered from the random events with two characters being seized by terror on the second turn and half of the group now being diseased for the next scenario. I probably made it slightly harder for myself by playing on a table smaller than the recommended size, but it still worked out. At least I lost no one despite four of the six figures being out of action at the end of the scenario. Aethelwyrd is now just five experience points short of the next level. I look forward to seeing how well the Thrappled Lemmings can do next time around.