A.F.A.L. on Tarsakh 29, in the Year of the Tankard

Tarsakh 29, 1370: High = 60, Low = 40 No precipitation Calm. Cloudy. When they set out from the smuggler's rooms, Tristan cast Strength on Maanamere, raising his strength to 18/00. The party went to the room where they lost contact with Steve's gargoyle the night before. They found it sitting in the room watching them, but unresponsive to commands. They decided to not enter the room and leave it there. After that, they explored the teleport that the gargoyle had gone through the night before. It led to a large (70'×70') chamber with exits west and north. Going through the north exit, they followed a short corridor past a branch west to a door, which the discovered was Wizard Locked. A Knock spell later, they opened the door into the SE corner of the main portion of the Ziggurat Room. The party systematically opened all of the other doors in the Ziggurat Room except for the double doors to the south and expanded their maps. After that, they checked on the spot in the wall where they had hidden the smoke powder. They discovered that in place of the rough wall that they had created with a Stone Shape was a perfectly smooth stone wall (possibly from a Wall of Stone). They used another Stone Shape to create a small hole in the wall to look through and saw that the barrels had been replaced with a note:

The door in the NW corner of the Ziggurat Room leads to a single 30'×30' room, which has a spicy smell. Coming around a bend in a large room, the party sees a fallen fighter who seems to still be alive. They go to help and a beholder-kin that was hiding around the corner attacks them. The creature is a gauth, and in the battle that ensues, both Maanamere and Brogan are feebleminded and a sphere from Henkles's Necklace of Light and Darkness gets drained. 6000xp to party (sans Darius) for noodly piñata busting With the gauth dead, the fallen fighter recovers somewhat. His name is Orrask, recently of the Portal Plumbers, but they apparently left him for dead when the gauth drove them off. The party plus Orrask head back to the Yawning Portal via the 1-way secret door (Henkles goes around). On the way, Orrask mentions encountering a vampire ambush near the entrance on the way to the null-magic room. When Henkles (the first up) gets to the Y.P., he finds Lin waiting for him. Lin is happy to hear that they are back and asks Henkles to ask the party to blow on a whistle which they toss down. This lets two associates of Lin's know that they can stop watching the null-magic room and come up.

Lin says that the Portal Plumbers encountered a vampire group with charmed fighters earlier today; the vampires were waiting for somebody or something just inside the entrance. The Plumbers dusted one and dispelled the charm on one fighter, who made it back to the YP. She spoke to the authorities, who may have gone to Fair Winds after that. Lin knows where to find the formerly charmed fighter.

The rest of the Plumbers are still in Undermountain, but Orask came back with us.

Lin admits that this group might be the General’s minions -- he guesses that the General was not with them. It seems likely that the vampires didn’t read the board at the Yawning Portal.

The updated navigational charts for the Star Chaser are available for pickup at the Zoarstar. Tristan & Henkles pick them up. The party tracks down the gnomish woman who escaped the vampire party (The Lieutenants [formerly Pelor's Fist]) - Gymtlbyplgon "Gem" Pentetendrptusn Skundelrunskuntunrun. They manage to catch up with her before she signs up to guard the first caravan leaving town.

Gem waxes informative: Almost a week ago, her party was celebrating a fine adventuring workday. Milithar went to the privy and didn’t come back, so Gem went to get him, and next thing she knows she’s waiting beside him blankly. Dufus Marverpaw gets charmed and drained, and we take off with the body. We watched over the coffins for a day, but then Dufus came out a vampire too. The next day we grabbed the rest of our party. He turned all our spellcasters and charmed the rest. We were waiting for AFAL in Undermountain when that other party attacked, and I must have been dispelled because suddenly I wasn’t so loyal to “The General” anymore. Counting her, 7 charmed and 5 made into vampires. Gem thinks Millithar might not have survived the fireball.

The General went off to his coffin after six hours of waiting. He has a lair connected to Undermountain; Gem can’t remember exact directions. She does give us the address of his apartment in town.

Dexter tries to convince Gem to join the party in fighting the General, to no effect.

Gem tells us Tarthan was placed in the Yawning Portal to tattle on us, and he did so. Apparently Gem’s party wasn’t aware of the one-way secret door that allowed us to get out safely, though after our conversation, she now *is*.

Gem describes her party’s appearance and abilities for us. She starts off with the 10th level barbarian wizard. We take notes, IC. The General is about six feet, curly brown hair, scary grey eyes, pockmarked face, uses plate and a blank shield and an obviously magical one-handed mace.

Gem and the city watch went to Fair Winds to warn AFAL of vampiric danger. They talked to Darius, and he said he’d pass the info along.