Nightal 22

Nightal 22, 1369:
    High = 25, Low = 10
    No precipitation
    Wind gusting to 50 mph from the prevailing direction.
    Partly cloudy.

    Early in the morning, Jan, Henkles, Dexter, Steve & Darius headed
    of to the Yawning Portal and into Undermountain (5gp from party
    treasure).  When they got to the anti-magic room, the found "AFAL
    are a bunch of losers!" chalked on the wall.  They did what they
    could to obscure it.

    The party headed off in the direction of the Falling Stair and
    then began following Darius's Uncle's map.  Steve suggested
    checking the doors they came to for traps before openning them.
    The next three doors the went through were trapped to drop holy
    water, acid, and alcohol respectively on those passing through.
        250xp to Steve for checking for traps at just the right time

    The party passed through a room where a huge spear was pinning a
    bat skeleton to the wall.  They detected for undead but otherwise
    left it untouched.  As they were leaving that room, Moogh and
    Mrap-M'rap caught up to the party (-1gp from party treasure).

    The party came to a flight of stairs going up to what the party
    presumed was the "Cooking Room" mentioned in Darill's Map.  The
    corridors on either side of this 50' by 50' room entered from 30'
    above the surface of some brown liquid (which turned out to be hot
    oil) and the room was filled with 5' diameter columns that ended
    level with the corridor floor (except for a 5' square platform in
    the center of the room which only came up 4 inches above the oil).
    

    The party quickly learned that magic only worked in the room
    directly above the columns.  Henkles began leaping from column to
    column to cross the room and discovered that each column
    teleported you to another one when you leapt to it.  A great deal
    of experimentation followed, which involved Henkles missing one
    jump (and getting badly burned), Moogh going to his rescue and
    then Henkles going to Moogh's rescue.

    Eventually the party mapped out the full set of teleports and
    learned that most paths led to the center platform which sinks 1
    inch per minute with weight on it but teleports occupants back to
    the starting column after three minutes of occupancy.  It also
    takes 10 minutes per inch to rise back up again.  Jan surmised
    that if you use 1=south, 2=W, 3=N, 4=E, then the two number
    sequences on Darill's map would almost be the correct
    sequences of jumps to get to the other corridor (1st
    sequence) and to get to the as-yet untried SW corner column.
    However each sequence was wrong in one place.  It was unclear
    whether this was accidental or deliberate.  [Really.  I've been
    racking my brain trying to remember if I meant to do that, but
    it's been 10 years and I'm just not sure. -- Ian]

    The party elected to play it safe and wait until the center
    platform was back up to full height each time, so the full
    exploration took hours.  Eventually, Henkles tried the second path
    listed on Darill's Map which ended with a jump to the SW corner
    column.  When he landed on the final column, he vanished and did
    not reappear elsewhere.  The party waited for a little while but
    then decided that they had to follow him, so they all took turns
    leaping along the correct path and vanished.

    Henkles, and eventually the rest of the party reappeared on a
    rocky shore blocked by open ocean on one side and a high stone
    wall on the other.  Exploration quickly resulted in being spotted
    by a guard on the wall, whereupon they were all taken into an
    attached guard tower to speak to a captain of the Waterdeep City
    Guard.  It turned out that they were on Deepwater Isle, a
    military base on the outside of Waterdeep Harbor, which civilians
    were prohibitted from.  Fortunately, the captain was familiar with
    the gate from Undermountain, as this had happened before, so the
    party just had to spend the night in jail and pay a 5gp/person
    fine this time (taken from party treasure).
        600xp to Jan, Henkles, Dexter, Moogh, Steve & Darius for
            solving the Cooking Room maze

    Those that were not in jail that night heard a fight that night on
    the grounds beyond the carriage house.  Investigators in the
    morning found signs of a scuffle, many footprints, and blood that
    must have been cold when it hit the snow - implying that this was
    a vampire matter.