Marpenoth 28
Marpenoth 28, 1369:
Cassie was not feeling well and elected to stay home.
The party discussed what to do in Undermountain and decided to
continue following the path. Stewart, who wanted to fight the
metal spiders instead, left for the Yawning Portal early to get
very drunk. When he arrived, he discovered that there was a crier
outside the door wearing the arms of the House of Jhansczil. The
crier was anouncing that a reward of 1000gp was being offered for
the safe return of Dagar Jhansczil, whose party of "adventurers",
the Shining Sons, had entered Undermountain the day before and not
returned. There was a lesser reward of 250gp for the return of
his remains. Stewart considered trying to prevent the party from
hearing about this, but could find no feasible method, so he just
proceeded to get even drunker.
When the rest of the party arrived and learned about the reward,
Darius asked around and learned that the Shining Sons had indeed
gone into Undermountain the day before, apparently in search of
"The Reverential Coronet of Extroversion", whatever that was. The
person Darius talked to, Valririn Dendithar, was of the opinion
that the Reverential Coronet did not actually exist - he believed
it to be a form of "Snipe Hunt". He said that the Shining Sons
had been trying to get information from the patrons of the Yawning
Portal to help them in their search, but had only managed to talk
to "The Last Four" - a group of four patrons who more or less
permanently resided at a table they had carved a map of
Undermountain into. Valririn indicated that Dagar and the other
Shining Sons had "really put people off with their snotty
my-chamberpot-smells-of-roses attitude".
A.F.A.L. decided to stick with their plan of following the white
path and headed into Undermountain. They paid 8gp from party
treasure to be lowered down. Stewart brought a hand keg down with
him. They sent the slower moving party members ahead to the
one-way secret door they had discovered near the puzzle-locked
trap door, which would allow Maanamere to avoid the climb. Once
they had given them enough of a head start, Dexter did his little
dance and activated the path once more. The party regrouped at
the secret door without incident.
Proceding to the magical fountain chamber, the party discovered
that the fountain had benn damaged, presumably by someone using a
stone shape spell. Most of the water was now being drained out of
the basin onto the floor and the water coming from the merman
statue is now blocked from even entering the basin by a tongue of
stone coming up from the damaged basin wall. The party
nevertheless followed the steps to lower the secret staircase, but
found that it took much longer - about 20 minutes - to go down.
The party picked up mapping where they had left off. Shortly
thereafter they came across what turned out to be the remains of a
fight between hobgoblins and troglodytes. In searching the
bodies, Stewart uncovered some huge centipedes, which he chased
away by getting sick on them.
50xp to party for heroic defeat of such fierce monsters
The next room had four entrances, one centered in each wall, all
20 feet above the main floor level. There was a raised walkway
creating a cross between the four entrances, with tunnels going
under it to connect the four quarters of the room. On the floor
below were 8 zombie-like creatures that had no eyes and constantly
flailed about, wailing horribly. The walkway was slippery and
sloped slightly toward the outside, so the party strung ropes
above the walkways to help people keep their feet. Attempts to
fire on the undead proved ineffective, because they just clustered
in the tunnels for shelter. Stewart or Dexter did manage to turn
some of them, but they just clustered on the other side of the
room. Maanamere and Dexter were both a bit nervous about passing
through this room, but overcame their fears.
A little while later, the party found an animal/monster skull with
a candle holder under it. Stewart put a lit candle under it.
After that, they came around a corner apon a room filled with
shriekers and other fungi. While the front line folks tried to
kill the shriekers with range weapons, Jan, in back, suddenly
found himself being dragged straight up the corridor wall.
Darius, and eventually Dexter, then others, saw what was happening
and people grabbed his legs to keep him from being dragged through
a 3x3' square hole in the corridor wall 10' above the floor. They
spotted a man sized creature resembling a cross between a spider
and a lobster in the hole and managed to kill it with range
weapons. After the creature fell on them, the party managed to
free Jan. However, while they were examining it, a second one
caught Darius and the whole process had to be repeated.
1300xp to party for three exciting varieties of 3HD creature
After that, Henkles got bored and decided to charge ahead. After
a short while he came to a large semi-humanoid creature blocking
an intersection. It told Henkles that it was hungry, so Henkles
gave it some iron rations and it let him pass. Henkles dashed on
through several empty rooms and passages before coming to a room
with manacled chains hanging from the ceiling, where he was
blocked by a locked door. He pulled out his chisel and started
removing the lock. In the mean time, the party bought their way
past the huge semi-humanoid (at considerable cost in food) and
eventually caught up to Henkles as he was finishing off the lock.
That door opened on a short corridor which ended in a doorway to
the side. The party came around the doorway and found themselves
facing a lich in his laboratory! He seemed pleased to see them
and touched a wand (one of several) to a mural on the wall, which
caused a porticullis to slam down behind the party and a second
one to close off the other exit from the lab. Stewart threw rocks
at the lich, so it cast a spell at him and he vanished. The lich
then started ordering everyone to do lab work for it, which noone
felt like protesting too much, so for a while everyone just
followed orders while the lich puttered around.
The lich finally finished it's experiment, which resulted in a
bowl of greenish liquid. It took some out in an eye-dropper and
fed it to a giant rat which it grabbed from a nearby cage. Then
it took a meat cleaver and wacked away at the rat, which it was
still holding by the tail. The rat did not seem to be bothered by
this. The lich was absolutely gleeful and ran to write down his
results. When that was done, it sighed with satisfaction and
colapsed into dust - robes, rings, wands and all. Jan and Darius
looked over the lich's notes and determined that it was working on
the formula for a Stoneskin Potion. As near as they could tell,
the bowl of green liquid was 4 such potions.
2000xp to party for playing well with others
About this time, Stewart, who had been trapped by a maze spell,
reappeared. He was a little upset. Darius and Jan filled vials
while the rest of the party tried to puzzle out the mural which
controlled the porticulli. (Fortunately, that wand had remained.)
Eventually the party figured out how to control the porticullis
blocking the second (western) exit, and one down the corridor
beyond that, so they continued.
The party entered a room that was divided in the middle by 4
columns, between which stretched a web of frost, snow and icicles,
which blocked the path. When they tried to break trough the ice,
several balls of snow suspended in the lattice burst open and white
furry spiders, about the mass of a man burst out and attacked.
There were 11 of them in all, and the party quickly discovered that
they had a frost breath weapon, which didn't do much damage but did
add up, given the number of spiders. The fight ended with the
spiders dead but a lot of cases of localized frostbite amoung the
party. Afterwards the party quickly continued down the path.
3300xp to party (minus Cassie) for squashing bugs
The next room the party entered had a door with 7 Gargoyle faces,
similar to the 6 faces on a trap door earlier along the white path.
The party determined that this was the same type of lock as the
last one and worked their way through it. Henkles recorded the
following behavior for the switches:
Switch 1 toggles switches 1, 2 and 3
Switch 2 toggles switches 1, 2 and 4
Switch 3 toggles switches 3 and 5
Switch 4 toggles switches 2, 4 and 5
Switch 5 toggles switches 5 and 7
Switch 6 toggles switches 1, 3, 4 and 6
Switch 7 toggles switches 3, 4, 6 and 7
After passing some more corridors and rooms, one of them garbage
filled, the party found a room with many crates and barrels and a
strangely glowing patch of floor. They ran through and ignored it.
The next room was vast and was spanned by a flight of stairs
descending 20 feet. In the opposite wall were 4 doors, one 30'
above the floor. When they opened the door the path led to, an
arrow trap fired from one of the steps behind them.
Two rooms after that was a 30 by 30 foot room with two doors, in the
center of opposite walls. Each door had 7 gargoyle heads on it,
some upside down, like those encountered in two previous rooms.
Around the walls of this room were 30 metal hemispheres, mounted
near the ceiling, 15 in each doorless wall. The party tested the
doors and learned that the gargoyles wouldn't turn unless both
doors were closed. They also learned that each time a gargoyle was
turned, one of the hemispheres slid away to reveal a metal dragons
head with a soot-blackenned pipe sticking out of its mouth. The
party tested each head in the far door, getting these results:
Switch 1 toggles switches 1, 2 and 3
Switch 2 toggles switches 1, 2 and 7
Switch 3 toggles switches 1, 3 and 5
Switch 4 toggles switches 2, 4 and 5
Switch 5 toggles switches 3, 5 and 7
Switch 6 toggles switches 1, 2, 4 and 6
Switch 7 toggles switches 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7
They were able to solve the puzzle in the usual manner without too
many of the dragons being exposed. The dragons were all covered
again when the door opened.
The next room the party came to was the apparent end of the white
flagstone trail. The trail terminated in a grand sealed door,
covered in runes, topped with an open-mouthed face, and sealed with
three huge ornate seals with no obvious openning mechanism. The
door, seals, and surrounding archway were covered in magical runes
and there was a Binky-shaped indentation in the double doors, right
were they met. At first glance, nobody could tell much about the
runes, except that they represented powerful abjuration and
evokation magics. Careful examination of the seals showed no way
to open them and additional runes on the door beneath them.
At this point, Narthan wasn't feeling well, so he adopted a deep
rear-guard action.
Stewart attempted to cast dispel magic on the whole setup. He was
immediately zapped with lightning from the top seal, mini-fireballed
from the middle seal, mega-magic-missiled from the bottom seal, and
sprayed with acid from the mouth. He made lots of saves and
survived, but it hurt a lot.
After that, Jan decided to see if the release for each seal was the
spell it represented and tried to magic missile the lowest seal.
He got mega-magic-missiled for his efforts.
After that, the party copied down as much of the runes as they
could for later study and decided to leave. While the mage-types
were transcribing, Stewart and Henkles did some side exploring.
They found a room with a trapped door and "Skiz was here." burnt on
to the ceiling and a corridor with a pit trap.
On the way back, near an intersection, they encountered Grundning,
a minotaur dressed in a robe and wearing a claymoore and a blast
sceptre, just like the one used by the drow priestess. He wasn't
looking for a fight and in fact bought some rations from the party
(4 iron rations for 9.5gp). The party expressed some interest in his
blast sceptre, and he expressed some interest in silver strike, but
it was obvious that neither item was going to be sold. He went on
his way and the party on theirs.
When they returned to the puzzle lock room with the metal dragon
heads, the party tested each gargoyle only once before confirming that
both doors worked the same way and solving the
lock (in three moves).
When they got back to the huge room with the stairs spanning it,
the party was attacked by a band of urds (flying kobold-ish
creatures) that flew out of the doorway that was 30 feet up the
wall. They flew above the party dropping rocks and stink bombs on
peoples heads. Darius managed to web the doorway and prevent any
more from coming out after a few rounds (and caught one
retreating). In the mean time, the party discovered that there was
a set of invisible walkways in the room, 30 feet above the floor at
all points. The urds were aware of the walkways and made good use of
them for cover, but the battle was fairly one-sided anyway.
Eventually there were only three remaining and they were forced to
surrender. The bodies were searched and 50cp were recovered.
780xp to party (minus Narthan & Cassie) for flying kobolds
After the three urds surrendered, Maanamere suggested that they be
made to carry some of their fallen comrades as food for the hungry
creature that the party had passed on the way in. Each prisoner
was assigned one body.
250xp to Maanamere for good (if gross) idea
The next room was the one with the strange shimmering surface and
the crates & barrels. The party prodded one of the urds into the
room to take a closer look while they watched from the doorway.
The urd, Steve & Jan (who were watching too closely) were all
hypnotised by the shimmering surface, which turned out to be some
strange moss, and stood motionless. At that moment, a group of
kobolds, who had been hiding in the crates and were wearing crude
sunglasses made from broken glass, attacked. It seemed like a nice
plan when they came up with it.
84xp to party (minus Narthan & Cassie) for kobolds
The room was searched and the party recovered 1 bloodstone, 5
malachite pieces, 10 moss agate chips, a partial barrel of molasses
and a giant centipede, which Maanamere dispatched.
35xp to Maanamere for squashing a bug
Next the party stopped to search a room full of garbage, which got
them very smelly. Oddly enough, a short time later they were set
apon by a huge swarm of rats and giant rats. The party retreated
into the second puzzle lock room and breathed a sigh of relief as
they latched the door between them and the rats. A moment later,
the door was opened from the other side and the rats swarmed in.
A Snilloc's Snowball Swarm killed 15 of the rats and 31 of the
giant rats and caused enough confusion that the party was able to
flee out the far door and begin spiking it shut.
570xp to party (minus Narthan & Cassie) for rats
While the door was being spiked, Dexter went around the corner to
the frost spider room to make sure the party wasn't attacked from
behind. He discovered that the room now contained 4 more of the
spiders the party had fought before, plus one that was 10 feet
tall! Dexter informed the party of the situation and dropped to
one knee. Stewart charged into the room to protect Dexter. As
Stewart was running by, Dexter fished a scroll of Protection from
Frost from his backpack and read it! The fight was brief after
that, as the spiders breath weapons, even the more powerful one of
the mother, were useless.
250xp to Dexter for intelligent scroll use
1900xp to party (minus Narthan & Cassie) for spiders
At this point, time was taken to search the rest of the "cocoons"
that hadn't burst open. To the party's relief, the contents were
not more spiders. They were in fact the bodies of previous
victims, apparently adventurers. The bodies were searched and
some treasure was found:
- A human male dressed in leather armor (with several large
holes chewed in it). He has a longsword, a dagger which is
strangely inscribed with the word "Mother" in Thorass, two
other daggers in his magic boots, , and a purse
containing 18gp, 12pp, and 6 toals.
- A human female in plate mail, armed with a magic scimitar.
She had a backpack, but it has been chewed away so that no
much more than the straps remain. A purse hanging from her
belt contains 13sp, 16ep and 2 Harbor Moons
- A half-orc male wearing plate mail and armed with a hand axe
("Elf Hurtr", listed below). He has bracers on his arms. His
backpack has also been eaten away, but he has a belt pouch
containing 9cp, 49sp, 24ep, 25gp and 16pp
"Elf Hurtr" is a rather crude looking hand axe with a single
50gp garnet bead dangling from a 2" leather strip tied to the
pommel. The name has been roughly carved in the handle in
Thorass.
Returning to the Lich's lab, the party settled down to some
serious looting. Maanamere wasn't feeling well and went to join
Narthan, but before he went, he cast mount to summon a mule for
the party. The mule was loaded up with whatever lab equipment
Darius could fit on it that didn't look too fragile. In addition
to general equipment to use in a future lab, the party found the
following items of value in the lab:
o A tiny gold scale, 10gp
o 2 silver candelabra, 12gp ea.
o 3 small obsidian cylinders, 14gp ea.
o A finely crafted hourglass, 25gp
o A tiny silver whistle, 12gp
o A small coil of platinum wire, 10gp
o A vial of quicksilver, 10gp
(Values were added later when the stuff was sold.)
The party also experimented with the wand that worked the mural
that worked the porticullises and figured out how to raise the
other gates. In the process, they discovered that the mural could
be made to slide back and reveal a 3'wx3'hx8'd crawlspace with a
chest in the end. The chest contained the following:
o A Ring of Protection +1, +4 v attacks from Andarol
Gutreaver
o A Dagger, +1, pommel will glow enough to read map @ will
o A Potion
o A Scroll of Prot.-Normal Missiles
o A Magic User Scroll:
4) Enchanted Weapon
4) Magic Mirror
6) Globe of Invulnerability
o 638ep, 317gp, 49 toals, 11pp, and 2Harbor Moons
o A vial of diamond dust, 100gp
o A vial of powdered emerald, 60gp
o An umber hulk claw, 150gp
o 4 sets moldy fine clothes w/robe for a tall thin man
o 6 50gp moonstones
o 2 100gp rose quartz gems
(Values were added later when the stuff was sold.)
Later, they passed the interesction blocked by the creature the
party had taken to calling "The I'm Humgry". As Maanamere had
hoped, they were able to use slain urds as the price of passage.
The party was interested in finding a path out of the dungeon that
avoided the pit full of undead and the flooded room, so they began
exploring side passages. After eliminating several possibilities
and exploring several basically empty rooms, they found a
promissing looking long corridor heading east (towards an earlier
section of the white path). Unfortunately, as they were heading
down it, Stewart disappeared. Stewart found that he had been
teleported to an open space that was filled with magical darkness
that his continual light buttons couldn't penetrate. He
cautiously explored his surroundings and discovered that he had
appeared in the corner of a 30'x30' room with exits going east and
west. When he had worked his way back to his starting point, he
was teleported back to the corridor he had sarted from.
In the mean time, the rest of the party was trying to figure out
what had happened to Stewart and what to do. Once "celebrate and
cross this corridor off" was ruled out, Dexter suggested that they
tie a rope to the urds and he hold the rope and lead them forward.
As luck would have it, the lead urd reched the spot that triggered
the teleport, takind the other urd and Dexter with him due to the
rope, at about the same moment that Stewart teleported back. This
led to some confusion as Dexter and the urds appeared to "turn
into" Stewart. Eventually the whole thing was straightened out
and Dexter & Co. returned.
At this moment, Henkles horrified one and all by revealing that he
had "a plan". His plan was to ask his spiked ball to show him the
"shortest route to the surface" (or some similar, syntactically
equivalent word choice) and then follow it like a duckling
following its mommy. The party quickly reviewed their group name
and decided to go with it. Naturally, the ball started by leading
them through the teleport. From there it led them east, through a
door carved with the likeness of Baal, a dead god. The party
later learned that this door was known as "the Grim Door" amoung
local explorers. Then the ball lead the party across a pit trap,
which Stewart found the hard way. He managed to stay conscious
long enough to kill the giant centipedes at the bottom.
64xp to Stewart for squashing bugs
The next place the ball lead them through was a pair of steel
doors that slammed down, trapping the front 20 feet of the party
between them. A 10'x20' trapper had taken up residence in the
space in between, and said hello in the usual manner. Darius was
outside the trap and cast a spell which surged into the area,
causing several strange eel-like monsters to appear in the trap
and fight alongside the party. It is unclear whether this helped.
Nevertheless the party did manage to kill the trapper. The party
dogs and Maanamere's mule died in the fight though. Under the
trapper they found 16cp, 32sp, 8gp, 4pp and a twisted but still
sealed vial of liquid.
2000xp to party (minus Narthan, Cassie & Maanamere) for killing
a trapper and some innocent Waterdhavian's mule
When the party had recovered, the ball lead them on. Shortly
therafter, they heard a cave-in up ahead and, rounding a corner,
came apon a stairwell that had just been caved in, blocking it
entirely. Darius got very excited, explaining to everyone that
this must be the famous "Falling Stair" - one of the best known
landmarks in Undermointain and the start of his uncle's map.
While Darius was explaining this, the ball reached the skeletal
remains of a black dragon's tail just north of the stair and then
suddenly doubled back! As the party watched, the ball bounced pas
them all and then turned east down a side corridor. The party
followed it until it bounced past a brownish, oozing glob that was
coming towards them and then around a pit. The party managed to
discourage the glob and then, much to their surprise, watched the
ball double back past them again and stop.
250xp to party (minus Narthan, Cassie & Maanamere) for
discouraging some goo.
Fortunately, the party connected the poem at the bottom of Darill's
map with the ball's actions and theorized that they had to
follow a fixed path to get out. Henkles and Jan tried their best
guess at the path and disappeared along with the ball. The rest
of the party considered their actions for a few minutes and then
followed suit.
In the mean time, Jan and Henkles had appeared on a grassy
hillside amoung a herd of sheep. Jan had the misfortune of
appearing on top of a sheep, which didn't make either one of them
very happy. The sheep panicked and fled down the hill, as did the
shepherds and some pilgrims who were picknicking nearby. Henkles
had time to look at the road that passed the hill and stretched
off into the distance and observe that perhaps he should have been
more specific and requested a route to Waterdeep, instead of just
the surface, before the rest of the party appeared and somebody
pointed out the walls of the City of Waterdeep behind them.
The party legally entered Waterdeep for the first time ever, and
went home.
Darius (5) cast identify (at 6th level) with the following results:
o Boots from frost spiders - fail
o Bent metal flask from trapper area - Healing P. (2d4+2)
o Bracers from frost spiders - fail
o Ring of Kobold Summoning - 3 more names: Fraick, Frunk, Phack
Cassie (5) cast identify with the following results:
o Boots from frost spiders - Boots of Elvenkind
o Bracers from frost spiders - Bracers of Initiative, low
strength (later dermined to be d8)
o Ring from Lich treasure, failed
o Potion from Lich treasure, failed
o Ring from the Vanishing Tower is a Ring
of Magic Missiles, functions as the wand of same
Darius gave the moldy clothes to Mrs. A. to see if she could
salvage them.
