A.F.A.L. on Tarsakh 28, in the Year of the Tankard

Maanamere, Steve, Denyae, Tristan, Staric, Henkles, Brogan, Dexter and Elvis (not Mrap-M'rap) start the day by heading into Undermountain via the Yawning Portal. (9gp from party treasure.) Marching order: Gargoyle Ag (invisible) Maanamere Tristan Steve Staric Dexter Denyae Elvis Brogan Henkles The party comes to a curtain of darkness and Henkles decides to use Silver Strike's ability to dispell darkness on it. The power is expended, but the curtain remains. Steve sends a grgoyle through and discovers that there's a nasty 100' pit with increased gravity on the opposite side. The gargoyle is teleported back to the party after impact, barely alive (thanks to its wings) and Steve dispells it and summons a replacement. Dexter went on DRG at this point. At the base of the Long Dark Stair, the party finds a secret door into a small room from which a dozen orcs could observe (and fire apon) the Stair. Everyone took some Snilloc's damage while the orcs were eliminated. 118 cp, 82 sp, 44 gp, 12 shortbows, and 12 scimitars collected. Crates bearing the "H" logo were noted in the room. 180xp to Maanamere, Steve, Denyae, Tristan, Staric, Henkles, and Brogan for 12 orcs

Nearby, we find a placid pool in a 2' rim, with a reflection on the 18' ceiling. Staric tosses a rock into it. Something that might or might not be a water weird starts coming out of the ceiling, and the party moves quickly away.

The party found a 12' length of chain in an otherwise empty room and took it. The party wandered into a room that some ghouls and ghasts had likewise wandered into. Dexter came off DRG for the chance to smash some undead. One ghoul had a purse with 5ep and 3 toals. 1700xp to Brogan, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere, Staric, Steve, and Tristan for 6 ghouls and a ghast Ag came off DRG at this point. Strength was cast on Maanamere bringing him to 18/00. Strength was cast on Henkles bringing him to 18/93 (5 hr duration). The party found a Wizard Locked door and couldn't leave well enough alone. Inside they found 8 hammocks, a barrel and 4 crates (with the "H" logo, but empty) being used as table & chairs, some tin plates and a smelly bucket in the corner that Elvis found fascinating. Henkles stole the hammocks and the tin plates. The party explored their way down to the second level and then stopped by the smoke powder smuggler's lair. There was a trap on the secret door, which missed. Ag reset it and added a note which read "GOTCHA!". Exploring north of the smuggler's lair, the party found a staircase behind a secret door they had opened previously which lead up to a large room with two exits 30' above the floor. Some experimentation revealed a combination of antigravity and feather fall areas that allowed access to the upper corridors. Then the party discovered that these were filled with gelatinous cubes and much chaos ensued. The area beyond the antigrav areas was a mesh of corridors just wide enough for the cubes, so eventually the party had filled almost every possible point of advancement with dead cubes and they turned back. One cube had 2 iron spikes in it and two had 3gp each. Denyae and Dexter were on DRG for part of this. 11050xp to Ag, Brogan, Henkles, Maanamere, Staric, Steve, and Tristan for 17 gelatinous cubes 1300xp to Ag, Brogan, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere, Staric, Steve, and Tristan for 2 gelatinous cubes

Present are Mrap-M'rap, Henkles, Steve, (Denyae), (Staric), Tristan, Brogan, Dexter, Elvis, Gargoyle The party wandered into a room where some saint elmo's hounds were feasting on the remains of two bugbears the hounds growled at them and went back to their dinner. The party took the hint and left. Denyae and Staric came off DRG at this point. Moving North, the party came across a room whose floor was set in 5'×5' black and white squares in a chessboard pattern. In a black square near the center of the room was a pedestal with a lever sticking out of it. At this point Dexter cast Find Traps and the party was unsurprised to learn that the room was a magical trap. Henkles decided to skip the whole thing and Jumped to another doorway. He then wandered off East and explored two rooms beyond (fortunately the second room was a dead end, so he had to return). The second room had some old crates in the SW corner. After he rejoined the party, Henkles used his Ring of Telekinesis to move the lever over to the other side while everyone hid in the next room. The checkerboard room was filled with lightning (E-W and N-S bolts every 5') and Henkles caught the edge of a bolt coming down the corridor. After that he left the lever in the upright position and the party headed in a different direction. Dexter reported that once the lever was upright, the room no longer appeared trapped to his spell. Some time after that, the party came across a room where a tattered skeleton was constantly running back and forth across the room diagonally. Apparently repeating the same actions over and over. Dexter reported that the skeleton, while obviously animate, was not undead. The party experimented with tripping it and blocking it with the gargoyle, but it seemed determined to keep doing the same thing over and over, so they left it to continue. 254xp to Ag, Henkles, Steve, Denyae, Staric, Tristan, Brogan, and Dexter for 7 hobgoblins The party then came to a 30'×30' room with a 20'×20' alcove in the east. There was something written on the east wall of the alcove in small letters, so the gargoyle was sent over so that Steve could read it. He just had time to read "When are you not going to fall for this?" before the gargoyle was teleported to somewhere cold and dark. The gargoyle felt around enough to learn that it was beside a 60-ish foot wall before it stumbled back to the spot where it had arrived and teleported back. Around a corner and down a corridor from that room, the party found a metal ring set in the floor to act as a trap door. Moving the stoon trap door revealed a 2'×2' shaft that descended more than 60' into darkness. A continual light button dropped down seemed to dissappear into water around 100' down. The party did not explore the shaft further. Ag went on DRG at this point. The party spotted some glowing lights ahead and discovered that they were five small glowing creatures that looked like fist-sized clumps of hairy caterpillars and crawled around on walls and floors. They were attracted to light and started following Brogan. Eventually they caught up to him and started crawling around on his shield. They seemed quite content there and didn't add much to the weight. Not long after they encountered three more of the creatures (which would eventually be identified as deepshine, but which the party took to calling "eeps") which pursued Staric because of his continual light items. They made him nervous and the party squashed them. This did not prove difficult and the only resistance they put up was an "eep" noise.

The next encounter is with another horde of Eeps, or three of them, anyway. Staric tosses a light button, and they fight over it. He wants to get the button back, so he flips off the eep with a dagger and moves away quickly. The three chase Staric, so Brogan and Tristan kill them. They smear with slowly fading luminescence.

The party found a room with a chest in it. The chest had a false bottom which was easy to spot because something was glowing inside it. This proved to be a stone with Continual Light and two more deepshine. The party left them there? Mrap-M'rap, Dexter and Denyae went on DRG at this point. The party distracted 4 deepshine with a light button and a torch:

Another set of eeps fools Henkles into hurling a light button down a corridor, smashing it accidentally. We run, and they give chase. Henkles lights and throws a torch; the eeps dance around this new impromptu campfire.

The party entered a large chamber in which stood a 30'x30' wooden lattice constructed to hold up a temporary platform just below the ceiling in the center of the room. While the party was checking out the room from the doorway, Dexter came off DRG. When they approached the platform, the party discovered that 17 crawling claws were perched on the top. 595xp to Henkles, Steve, Staric, Tristan, Brogan, and Dexter for crawling claws On the top they found some pots of dried paint, brushes, and a corpse. To the south and west of there they found a stairway going up 30' to a corridor going west. 10' past the top of the stairs the corridor was blocked by a portcullis. Beyond that the party could see that the corridor ended at a 'T' with a N-S corridor. They turned back.

As we wend our way to the ziggurat room, Brogan casts log of everburning and frisky chest on the torch that the eeps are clustered around. Hilarity ensues. We also stop back at the room where the St.E's Hounds were snacking and pick up normal-size scimitars from the dead bugbears. Then we go toward the crates noted earlier, near the electric trap room. Henkles goes to set off the traps -- there are areas of magical darkness in the black squares. The white ones are safe. Elvis thinks the crates are fascinating, and the party is less impressed. Instead of oranges, we find many fuzzy grey greens that used to be oranges (and limes). There's one crate of tallow candles; Staric bags the few non-moldy ones and Henkles is less choosy.

(That's 2 bloody scimitars and a half dozen tallow candles plus 12-ish moldy ones. The St. Elmo's Hounds were gone. The party works out that the trap is disabled if the lever is in the upright [middle] position.)) The party walked into a room with a metal tripod suspending a cauldron above the bare floor (no sign of fire). When Henkles used the Ring of Telekinesis to lift the lid, a spring-loaded mechanism inside went off, banging around inside the cauldron and making a terrible racket. Soon, a band of ghouls arrived to see who had set it off. Dexter turned most of the ghouls and the party made short work of the others. However some of the ones that were turned had been wearing plate armor, which suggested that they might have treasure, so the party ran off, using Elvis to track them. Mrap-M'rap came off DRG at this point. The ghouls ran through the checkerboard room and when Elvis stepped in the party discovered that they knew how to reset the trap. Elvis took 9 points of damage. Henkles leaped to the lever and deactivated the trap again. After that Elvis tracked the ghouls into a room where he disappeared. After some milling about, the party recovered Elvis and the party continued their pursuit through the teleport. They caught up with the ghouls not long after that. The combat included lightning, so the scrolls that one was carrying were ruined, but the party recovered a Toal, a magic ring (presumed Shocking Grasp based on experience) and three suits of full plate armor. 2975xp to Henkles, Steve, Staric, Tristan, Brogan, and Dexter for ghouls Dexter and Brogan go on DRG at this point. The party returned through the teleportal to the known section of the dungeon and decided to circle around through the room with a bridge that can teleport people to Nesme. They discovered that when you aren't being teleported to Nesme, the bridge is trapped to drop you into the sewage below when the first person passes the halfway point. They also discovered that there were living mud creatures in the sewage, which attacked them. With Tristan using the Fly spell in his magic dagger and another Fly spell, they managed to get the (small) party out of the muck and then, with help from Dexter coming off of DRG at the right time to shoot from the doorway, kill the mud men. Then they discovered that there were skeletal monsters with corrosive touch under the muck as well. Henkles and Dexter killed one of those. He also explored a pipe near the ceiling and recovered a sack containing 236gp, and 6 silver trade-bars (worth 25gp each). 1670xp to Henkles, Steve, Staric, Tristan, and Dexter for 8 mud men and a corrosive skeleton Dexter convinced the party that that was enough fun for today and they should find someplace to camp and clean up. The party headed back to the smoke powder smuggler's lair to camp for the night.

We lost the tripod-cauldron-alarm into the mud, alas. We made it back to our new lair and settled down for the night.

The party set a trap inside the secret door and a second tripwire at the illusionary wall to cause some damage and a lot of noise. They camped in the room where the trolls and smoke powder were kept. They didn't notice the smell from the trolls this time. The gargoyle was stationed outside of the room with the presumed gate, and a Continual Light button was placed in that room. Steve summoned a second gargoyle to send it out exploring while the party slept. He rolled 1 for the damage, putting down 18 (30 out of 48HP). 1000xp to Brogan and 350xp to Henkles for log assistance.

During watch, the party experimented with eeps a little. They learned that they were also attracted to water and that they seemed to be pretty mindless. Staric learned that they taste terrible and make you feel nauseous if you eat one, but he managed to keep his dinner down.

Steve summons a second gargoyle to do some remote exploring during the night. He finds a room with some climbing spikes, a privy, a room with water running down the wall and pooling on the floor, etc. He finds a room with five statues (ettin, naga, umber hulk, beholder, and something that might have been the many-armed creature that gated it's arms and mouths around the party and lost a magic mace on Tarsakh 7) but he backed quickly out. He found a curtain of darkness but didn't pass through. Then he walked into an apparently empty room and Steve lost contact.

After about eighteen minutes, the teleport circle near us starts glowing blue. As Brogan wakes up Denyae, Henkles and Maanamere, a man in a black embroidered cloak (looks expensive) and a helm appears in the circle. The helm is open; the man appears human (tan face, middle age, frowny brown eyes). He faces the invisible gargoyle, says “Zer haar no laffs for ju heer!” and dismisses the gargoyle. It’s a Dalelands accent. Steve’s vision of the gargoyle disappears, and a moment later, the tripwire trap goes off, making plentiful noise. Brogan, Henkles and Tristan charge off toward the trap. Brogan sees fading infra footprints inside the circle but none leaving it, meaning there was a living creature there but it didn’t leave on the floor.

The speaker's accent was Mulani, an ethnic group from the far side of the Dalelands (primarily Mulhorand and Murghôm), not the Dalelands themselves. Steve didn't recognize speaker (using Legend Lore).

At the door, Brogan hears activity on the other side of the door and suggests that Tristan goes back for help. A rogue is picking the lock. As our group rounds the corner (with Dexter knowing alignment), the door opens and Brogan starts casting a summoning spell. There’s an adventuring party, evil-leaning and well equipped. Four are visible. Dexter also sees a chaotic good invisible thing and says, “Invisible guy -- duck!” Tristan sees some minor magical arms and armor. Henkles says, “Hi there!”

Chaos ensued, but no major harm was done. When everyone calmed down some, the two parties talked through the door. AFAL learned that the othe party was the Awoogha Troopers and that they knew nothing of the figure who had appeared in the circle. They leave after a short chat.

However, one invisible blob of Chaotic Evil alignment fails to leave with the group. It’s on our side of the door. It refuses to speak with Dexter, who confirms it’s not undead. Henkles keeps an eye on the door. Tristan levitates a rock to that space, and it goes “clck” like stone hitting stone. Steve pokes the spot with the back end of a javelin, and a suddenly-visible gargoyle pushes it back at him for 5 points of damage. Steve starts to disengage, Brogan shouts for him to dispel it, and Henkles charges with a Wife attack, dealing 14 damage. Wife believes that this really is a gargoyle, not a shapechanged guy in an embroidered black cloak. Maanamere rushes up and deals 13 more with a longsword, finishing it off with a magical poof. Steve resets our trap. Brogan binds his wounds for 3 and casts cure moderate wounds for 7 more. Steve summons yet another gargoyle, taking 2 damage. We go back to rest while the gargoyle watches the teleportal. The night passes uneventfully. We get a hit point back apiece.