Interesting Session Last night

Last night I DMed a 5 hour session of Barrowmaze with my usual group. It was a very interesting session for several reasons. To this point, my players have avoided bricked-up crypts for fear of provoking random encounters. Fair enough. After Sol, the human fighter lost a level to a wight deep in the crypts, they decided for this session to return closer to the main entrance and take out some bricked-up walls. Actually they criss-crossed the map looking for them and made out with some good loot. So it was a unique session from that standpoint (I was rolling poorly for random monsters which didn't help). The session was also interesting because at one point the party found two runic tablets. Sol and Serge the elvish fighter/ magic-user started daring each other to read them. Serge cut right though the playground politics and went straight for the deaded "Triple-dog Dare." Sol rolled a natural 20 and had his strength increased by one. Immediately on the heels of the natural 20, Serge rolled a natural 1!!! He failed his save versus death. His flesh immediately blackened and he died! I mean you just can't make this shit up. The player of Serge then rolled up a swanky new magic-user who on the next foray was pummeled by a Grey Ooze for 14 points of damage and he died too! I sorta felt bad. Sorta. He then rolled up a halfling thief and called him Snake Plissken. On cue, everybody who met him said "Hey, I thought you'd be taller." Needless to say, it was a very entertaining session. We'll get a more detailed report up on Red Box Niagara as soon as we can.