Nightal 28

Nightal 28, 1369: (half moon, waxing)
    High = 18, Low = 10
    No precipitation
    Wind gusting to 43 mph from the north.
    Cloudy.

    Dexter begins training up to 6th level Priest and Moogh begins
    training to 5th level Fighter, to be completed on the evening of
    Hammer 7th.
    
    
    Events of the day as related by Henkles of Iriabor over ale:
    Next day decide to sell a sapphire to pay for spell, put leftover
    money into the pot.  Maybe pay for upkeep on house.

    Me, Steve, Denyae Stalker, Darius and Misery go into undermountain
    in search of money.  Theo with us to start working off his debt.
    Figure he owes half of healing spell.  Party'll pay the other
    half.  Theo heard two thugs talk about stashing something in a
    secret room north of falling stair.

    [I gave a Continual Light bead to Theo. -- Darius]

    See five ogres coming the other way.  Ogres throw nasty darts,
    do even more damage than I do.  Stalker has no armor to speak of,
    nor do magic users.  Charge to tie them up, let Stalker and Denyae
    shoot them.  Loot: 5 flails, 15 darts, 4+8+10+6+6 sp, 4+6+6+7+2 ogp,
    gold bracelet.
        1350xp to Henkles, Steve, Denyae, Theo, Stalker, Darius, and Jan
            for Ogres

    Make it to falling stare.  Go north near Dragons tale.
    Attacked by ghouls/ghasts from behind.  Misery paralyzed at once.
    Steve lightning bolts them, Darius snowball swarms them.  Denyae
    shoots the survivor.  I get to watch from the front, can't do
    anything.  Fight's over before I can use the ring to jump over the
    others and join the fun.  Theo summons a monster, gets party of
    adventurers from a bar ("The Fearless Foragers").  We give them
    OGP from ogres, they heal up Misery a bit.  Hope they aren't too
    pissed at us.  Already have enough enemies.  Ghouls have no loot.
    Bummer.
        3050xp to Henkles, Steve, Denyae, Theo, Stalker, Darius, and Jan
            for Ghouls and Ghasts

    Find corridor that makes a loop with a 30x30 space in the middle.
    Find secret door into suspicious space.  Darius' sword still useful.
    Stalker and Steve look for traps.  Why doesn't our other ranger look
    too?  I dunno.  No traps.  Stalker tries to pick the lock.  Magic
    Mouth says "Never be found, always be still, for whispering cloud
    obeys wizard's will."  Door unlocks with a click.
        200xp for chronicling to Henkles
        400xp for roleplay to Henkles
        250xp for roleplay (24th-26th) belatedly awarded to Steve

    At this point, Theo went on deep rear guard.

    Looking into the doorway, the party saw a 30'x30' room lined with
    packed bookshelves.  In the middle of the room on a table on a
    rug, was a skull with spectacles.  Above it near the ceiling was a
    small dark cloud.  Jan was the first to enter and as soon as he
    spoke the cloud moved over him and stayed above his head.  When he
    tried to speak again, the cloud enveloped his head and cut off his
    speech, as well as draining a spell from his memory!  The next
    time he tried to speak he lost the other spell he had memorized
    and didn't make a sound.  After that, everyone kept quiet, except
    for Darius who slipped up once and got the cloud hanging over his
    head until he left.  The party spent hours searching every book
    and came away with a tapered wooden stick that radiated magic, a
    fat book of recipes outlining everything an inventive cook can do
    with freshly killed stirges, and two spell books:

    

    The party was a little nervous about taking items out of the room,
    but eventually did so without ill effect.  (Darius wanted the
    cookbook.)  After everyone else was out of the room, Jan, who had
    been guarding outside for a while but returned to pass items out,
    touched the skull, which exploded, harming only Jan and only
    slightly.

    After that the party decided to make another attempt at following
    Darill's map.  They
    passed through the Cooking Room without incedent and continued
    along to the Menagerie - a room filled with life-size statues of
    basilisks, manticores, sphinxes, nightmares, hippogriphs, and a
    unicorn.  The statues appeared to have had gemstone eyes, but they
    had been removed.  Although the map seemed to mix up its
    directions again (it was technically correct though) the
    party was able to find the secret door indicated and from there
    proceded past some fire beetles to the double doors.  There was a
    brief sidetrack when Henkles discovered a spear-firing trap and
    then the party opened the double-doors and found the statue of
    Mask in the room beyond.

    The statue had an outstretched hand, a sword in the other, and a
    dagger in his mouth.  Both scabbards had real slots that a blade
    could go into so the party reasoned that sticking a real blade in
    one of the scabbards was called for.  At this point, the party
    discovered that the two serpentines they had taken from Elsibet
    were the only ones in the party!  (Darius was sure he had
    squirreled some away at some point in the past.)  They tried
    sticking Stalker's longsword in the sword scabbard and placing one
    (100gp) serpentine in the outstretched hand.  The stone vanished,
    and when the sword was withdrawn it had a purple glow.  They tried
    the same thing with Darill's sword and the stone vanished but
    there was no visible change in the blade.

    After that, they left Undermountain without incident (everyone
    crossing the Cooking Room together) and went to the D&D brewery to
    report on what they had found.  Darill was pleased to hear about
    their success and questioned them extensively about the details of
    the route on the map and the effects of the statue.  Darius
    returned the sword to his uncle.
        1000xp to Henkles, Steve, Denyae, Theo, Stalker, Darius, and Jan
            (story bonus) for completing the task set by Darill

    The party decided to try looking up the Fearless Foragers on the
    way back to the house and stopped at a tavern to start asking
    around for them.  They were surprised to learn that the Foragers
    were the news of the day.  Apparently it was generally believed
    that the Foragers had tried to get out of paying for their drinks
    by all turning invisible and when the barkeep of the tavern they
    were in had all the exits blocked, they reappeared with some
    cock-and-bull story about being magically teleported to
    Undermountain and back and tried to pay for their drinks with bad
    gold that "the other adventurers gave them".  They were now
    preparing to spend the night in jail for their hijinks.

    The party was distressed to learn this and decided to try to do
    the right thing.  Jan, Theo, Moogh and Darius went to the local
    Watch House and talked to Anmaren Crystalsblood, the officer they
    new best, about what had happened.  When he stopped shaking his
    head and rubbing his temples, he took the group to speak to the
    magistrate who had heard the case.  Who listened to their story
    and Anmaren's accounts of their known exploits and character and
    then ordered that the party be held in a side room until he called
    for them.

    So as the afternoon progressed into evening and then night, the
    four party members waited.  And waited.  Finally the magistrate
    summoned them and they saw that the Fearless Foragers had also
    been summoned.  The magistrate said that although the story
    presented to him was far fetched, it was consistent with the one
    fact he'd been able to verify independantly - that AFAL had been
    in Undermountain at the time of the incedent - so he was going to
    give the Foragers the benefit of a doubt and let them go.
    Afterwards the Foragers, somewhat curtly, but sincerely, thanked
    the party for speaking up for them.

    Since it was after dark, the group was unsure what to do, but
    eventually decided to hurry home in the hope that Arcturagana
    wouldn't have any way of knowing they were out.  They made it home
    safely.