Ches 21
Ches 21, 1370:
High = 35, Low = 15
No precipitation
Wind gusting to 25 mph from the sea.
Darkly overcast.
Early in the morning, Darius, Denyae (Carol), Maanamere, Steve,
Henkles and Dexter walked out to Waterdeep harbor to see The Star
Chaser. It proved to be fairly easy to spot, as it was the only
all-black ship in the harbor and no other ships were moored near
it. It was a match for the version in a bottle that Arcturagana
had given to Maanamere. The party paid a visit to the Harbor
Master's offices and asked a clerk about the ship. He confirmed
that it's harbor fees were paid through Greengrass. He mentioned
that the ship made people nervous and very little had been seen of
the crew. Most of the things normally done on shore by the crew
were done by people hired by the 1st mate, who tended to be very
close-lipped about the arrangement.
The party then headed out to the harbor and hired a boat to take
them out to the are of a boat on the other side of the Star
Chaser. Once they were out in the water, they asked why the
captain was circling around the Star Chaser (100xp to Maanamere
for asking before I even mentioned it) and offered an extra
5gp to pass within 100' of the ship, with promises that they
wouldn't ask to go closer. When they got within range Dexter used
his Detect Undead ability and immediately started feigning
seasickness, having detected over 40 undead, 3 of them powerful.
However at that point the 2nd mate of the Star Chaser
hailed the boat and asked if "Captain Maanamere" was aboard.
Maanamere admitted he was there and was invited aboard. When they
explained that the boat they were on wouldn't come any closer, the
2nd ordered a rowboad lowered and sent for the captain
(the 2nd mate came with the rowboat). The party then
explained that they had to head for shore because Dexter was sick,
but the mate said that they would follow along and catch up to the
captain on the dock.
Back on the docks, Dexter explained how many undead were on the
Star Chaser (and the rowboat) while the rowboat approached. When
it arrived, the smell of decay was almost overpowering and at
least one member of the party got sick. The 2nd mate
introduced himself as Ormos Whitestorm and cheerfully discussed
matters with the party. He explained that there was a curse on
the ship that caused anyone who died on it to become a zombie
bound to the ship. The curse also caused the living to become
zombies if the ship fell below some minimum crew number "somewhere
between 35 and 40". Ormos has been 2nd mate on the
Star Chaser for almost 5 years, two of them while alive (his
status changed due to some "trouble with piracy"). The gunner's
story is similar. The 1st mate was added by
Arcturagana after she bought the ship in Skullport, where it was
registered at the time. She apparently made him into a vampire
herself. Ormos mentioned that the crew was expecting Maanamere
because they knew from the fact that the first mate could no
longer enter the Captain's cabin that a living person was now in
posession of the ship.
Maanamere asked where Skullport was and Ormos explained that it
was reached by sailing into a large sea cave a few miles away,
then through a large teleportal which took the ship to an
underground river which led to another teleportal to Skullport.
Ormos invited Maanamere and the rest to come aboard and inspect
the ship, but they declined, saying that they really needed to get
Dexter back home. Maanamere offered to come back that evening,
almost causing Darius to loose it in the process, and Ormos said
that the 1st would be waiting for him with the rowboat.
After that the party took their leave of the docks.
The party spent a few hours in various markets and dealerships
around town turning some of their recent loot into cash and
distributing it to party members. (This was meant to be
handled off-line and if so will be filled in later.)
Late in the afternoon, Darius, Denyae, Maanamere, Steve, Henkles
and Dexter met up from various of-line errands and found the
offices of "Skundelrunskuntunrun & Gulphogar - Independant
Brokers" on the corner of the Street of Bells and Cat Alley
(2nd floor). The purchasing agent for the mysterious
other creator of the Windchimes of Dusk was Ethraren Gulphogar, a
human of average build, conservatively dressed, with short,
graying, dark hair and brown eyes. He had a little trouble
remembering the matter in question, as he had been waiting to hear
from the party for some time, but did remember the chimes after a
few false starts and identified A.F.A.L. by name. He was friendly
and businesslike. He escorted the party into a small conference
room and they discussed initial offers while a clerk offered them
coffee.
Gulphogar's first offer was 5000gp. The party countered with
50,000gp. Gulphogar came back with an offer of 10,000gp, but the
party decided to take the chimes for independant appraisal and
discuss his offer with the full party before continuing. They
made an appointment to meet with him again at 2 pm on the 23rd.
After that the party headed over to the Yawning Portal a few
blocks away. There they met up with Staric and Deringa, who had
been hoping to join them in Undermountain. On the chalk board,
they discovered that the Silent Travelers had just left
Undermountain a few hours earlier. After that the party paid the
1gp/person fee from Party Treasure and got lowered into
Undermountain.
| Marching Order |
|---|
Henkles
Steve
Darius
Dexter
Denyae (on carpet)
Mrap-M'rap
Maanamere
Staric
Deringa
|
|
Dexter expressed interest in finding Xylianthaxarlin's moving
shop, but a consultation of his know schedule showed that they were
a few days off, so the idea was tabled until a later date.
The party headed off to the room containing the gate to the Silent
Traveler's' hideout that the party had found on Uktar 12 of the
previous year. When they got there something caught Henkles as he
walked into the chamber and started lifting him towards the
ceiling. Henkles managed to free himself and kill the Cave Fisher
that was trying to make a meal of him as the rest of the party was
rushing in to help him.
175xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere, Staric
and Steve for an ambitious Cave Fisher.
Once the Cave Fisher was dispatched, the party waited for the
lightning to arc between the pillars, then passed between them and
waited with their hands on the mirror until the lightning arced
again and gated them to the remote dungeon. The party headed for
the Silent Traveler's bolthole without difficulty, but
encountered several traps when they got there, including an
arbalest set to fire with a tripwire that probably would have
fallen apart when it did, that was also coated with contact
poison. A chest in that room exploded when opened, doing some
minor damage. At the bottom of the chest, inscribed in a metal
sheet, was the following note:
The party left a note of their own claiming that the traps were
ineffective.
The party returned to Undermountain and decided to do some
exploring near the null magic room. 
The first room they came to (1) had the skeletal remains of some
previous adventurer. A search of his body produced nothing of
value aside from an ivory scroll case (2sp value) containing a
scroll (C) of 2 Cure Light Wounds spells and a small map:
In the process of searching the body however, the party disturbed
a lone Stirge, which attacked with predictable results.
175xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere, Staric
and Steve for pest control.
The next room they explored (2) yielded some broken bits of
statue, which they left, and a hidden niche under the floor which
held a severed hand and 86ep.
The party continued south and spotted something on the wall at the
end of a short dead-end corridor (3). When they investigated, it
was a bunch of names and random words written on the wall,
followed by the sentence "If you're reading this, of course, it's
too late.". While they were reading this, they were engulfed in
blue light and were suddenly standing in two feet of water in
another room with something swimming towards them. All of their
continual light buttons were extinguished in the process, but
there was a dim purple light coming from a statue in an alcove
nearby. 
The creature swimming towards the party was a Giant Gar, which
managed to take several large bites out of Deringa before it was
dispatched. Deringa started to think that maybe exploring a
dungeon wasn't as fun as it had sounded from the outside.
2000xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for the one that didn't get away
The party left the room by the only exit and followed a winding
corridor. After several twists and turns, they were suddenly
blasted with six bolts firing from the wall. Henkles was hit and
while he was being bandaged a seventh bolt fired at him. He
decided to head further around the bend and was attacked by a
stack of boxes, which it turned out was being pushed by an orc,
named Saurogh, who was hiding in an alcove and had fired the bolts
through holes in the wall. Henkles made use of his new command of
Orcish to get Saurogh to surrender and the party took him into
custody and took his 6 crossbows.
15xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for taking on a new party member
(Game of 8/22/10)
Dexter went on deep rear guard (Dina getting more junk food for
gamers).
The party questioned Saurogh about the surrounding dungeon, but he
said that there was a dead end at the end of the south corridor
with drinkable water, a "sandbox" to the west, and that was the
whole dungeon.
A.F.A.L. explored the areas described by Saurogh, and everything
he described was there, but there was a corridor going south from
the sand-filled room that Saurogh seemed genuinely surprised to
see. The party headed down that corridor and turned west. They
came to a door shortly after that and as they were examining it
they heard a loud rumbling behind them. A brief examination
showed that a wall had come down, closing off Saurogh's areas from
the rest of the dungeon.
The party returned to the door and got it open. Beyond it they
turned south and ran into two ettins, which had been attracted to
the noise from the falling wall. The usual mayhem ensued. The
ettins had 53cp and 40sp between them.
7000xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for Ettins
Beyond the ettins was a large chamber with a secret door in it.
The door opened easily and the party proceded down the winding
corridor beyond it. About halfway down the corridor, a pressure
plate under Henkles caused iron bars to slam down around the
party, 500lb.s of garbage to fall on Henkles, and 5 Stirges to
wake up and attack. Sleep spells work on stirges.
875xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for big mosquitos
Between the slamming gates and the fight with the stirges, the
party had made a fair bit of noise, so it wasn't a huge surprise
when the party made their way south through the gate and a secret
door at the other end of the corridor only to find a lurker above
wrapped around something that had come to investigate the noise.
It was a surprise, however, when the bulette tore itself out of
the lurker a round later, still in good shape and ready to eat the
party. The party had prepared spells in the mean time though, so
they were able to finish it quickly. The party took the four
largest plates from its back for possible sale.
3500xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for a wounded landshark
Dexter came off Deep Rear guard as the party was deciding to use
Wife, Henkles magic spiked ball, to show them the simplest route
out of Undermountain. Wife lead the party north from the room
with the bulette. It was making a lot of noise, so two xorn
showed up to see how many coins and gems they could extort from
the party. It turned out the answer was none. The xorn used
hit-and-run tactics but eventually the party killed one and drove
the other off. Henkles used a Belt Dagger of Doom twice in the
fight in a failed attempt to stun the xorn.
6000xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for one and a half xorn
The noise from Ylgoth attracted a party of ghouls and ghasts, who
attacked just as the party was searching the xorn futilely for
valuables. The party managed to keep them in a corridor where
only Henkles and Maanamere, both well armored, were exposed.
3050xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for ghouls and ghasts.
The party walked out of the chamber where they fought the xorn and
ghouls and into a Wyvern Watch, which paralyzed Darius and
somehow attracted a pack of 9 small carrion crawlers that had the
trick of flicking their paralyzing poison up to 30 feet, but those
who were hit saved. The party collected the poison glands.
3780xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for spitting crawlers.
From there, Wife lead the party back around to the corridor below
Saurogh's area and past it to the west. The party got to a pair
of double doors and beyond it found a room with a statue of a
woman with a snake's head. They were too weary to remember being
there before, and were also immediately distracted by a Wand of
Wonder that started firing from the statue's mouth. The first
charge was a fireball which brought Staric to 0HP and Deringa to
-4HP. Saurogh the orc was killed instantly, possibly setting the
record for shortest lifespan with AFAL. The party retreated out
of the room and closed the doors just before they turned from
stone to flesh. Lots of healing was done, including using the
Cure Light Wounds spell that they had found earlier thad
day.
During the healing session, the party noticed that there were
candles floating in the corridor to the south of them, and this
plus the snake-head statue was enough information to let them find
their location on their original Undermountain map. They decided
to use their remaining healing spells and then head for the Shield
Room as fast as they could. This actually worked without a hitch.
It was well after dark by the time the party got back up to the
Yawning Portal and Deringa and Staric were in no shape to travel,
so the party paid 20gp from loot/party treasure for rooms for the
night and a bath for Henkles.
Elsewhere in the Realms: The Saffron Sashes, a band of
adventurers that attempted to travel to Hellgate Dell, but were
turned away by Turlang's Treants, report that trees are to be
found in what used to be open plains north of the Dell,
effectively forming a forest bridge from the High Forest, across
The Talons to The Far Forest.
