Uktar 12
Uktar 12, 1369:
High = 35, Low = 15
No precipitation
Wind gusting to 38 mph from the north.
Cloudy.
The next morning, Marraba Jhansczil, Dagar's older sister, arrived
with some servants who had brought clothing for Elvis to sniff.
Marraba was a rather haughty and self-assured woman in her 30s
with the first grey hairs showing in her short, dark blonde hair.
She was wearing a robe with some jewelry and accessories that were
tasteful, practical, and obviously expensive. The party noticed
that she also had a wand case (jeweled velvet) and dagger at her
belt. The dagger was notable in it's rather stark, businesslike
appearence and Narthan noted that it was magical. Marraba
questioned the party in detail about where and how the remains of
Gulthraask were found. Her questioning indicated a more detailed
klnowledge of Undermountain than that of the other lords. She
also questioned the party about what Dagar thought he was trying
to do down there, saying that all she knew was that he was doing
something at his older brother's request.
Maanamere and Henkles were still wounded and not feeling well, so
the party headed for Undermountain without them with the
understanding that they would catch up later if possible. They
entered the dungeon via the Yawning Portal and made their way into
the labrinth and back to the room with many exits without trouble.
At this point, Strength spells (some of them kisses) were cast on
Narthan (+7 STR = 18/50), Dexter (+3 STR = 18/10) and Jan (+4 STR
= 18/30).
They found a door leaving that room that was magically locked,
which Stewart dispelled, but there was only an empty area behind
it.
Narthan then cast locate object to look for Dagar's shield. He
was able to pinpoint it as north and slightly west of them. While
he was doing this though, 7 grell floated into the room from the
corridor to "Room 7". The party watched them carefully and got
ready to attack, but the grell, on seeing the party, just headed
out the next exit. Several people noted that the grell were
already wounded.
The party went to the base of the stairs to "Room 7" so Narthan
could triangulate. He noted that the shield was now north and
east of them. The party went back to the previous room and Darius
searched the north wall for secret doors, but had no luck. The
party decided that the best direction to take was down the stairs
the grell had taken 20 minutes earlier. These stairs led down to
a landing from which two stairs went down to east and west.
Taking the east branch, they came to a room where 4 minotaurs were
eating someone. Darius led with a Snilloc's Snowball Swarm which
misfired and hit the party, but he corrected it with an alternate
reality spell the next round, so the party doesn't know that.
Ursula used one of her magic hand grenades and things went poorly
for the minotaurs after that. The party collected 40sp and 39gp
from the bodies. The corpse they were eating was examined and
determined to be that of a half-ogre, so they ignored it.
5600xp to party (minus Henkles & Maanamere) for hungry
minotaurs
The party tried to work their way north from there, following
Narthan's spell, but ran into several dead ends. Suddenly, Elvis
started whining and refused to advance down the corridor. Dexter
cast Speak With Animals and learned that there was a horrible
chemical smell that was disturbing him. The party advanced to the
end of the corridor, where there was a door. At the door,
everyone could smell something and they deduced that the room
beyond was probably a tannery. They positioned themselves so that
Dexter and Stewart would be able to fire into the room while
Narthan stood up close, and Narthan kicked the door in.
Unfortunately, the minotaurs on the other side had also positioned
themselves carefully. Two of them had 20' whips. One managed to
pull Dexter's bow into the room while the other tried to do the
same with Stewarts arm. The whip missed Stewart though. The
other two minotaurs then stepped in to make close range attacks.
After that there was the usual free-for-all ending in 4 dead
minotaurs. The party collected 40sp and 33gp from the bodies.
5600xp to party (minus Henkles & Maanamere) for slavedriving
minotaurs
The room was indeed a tannery, with many untanned and partially
tanned hides and several huge vats of chemicals. There were 5
humanoids in chains attached to hooks high on the far wall. Three
of them were humans, two of which some members of the party
recognized as Yanrask Silmerhelve and Staric Ammakyl. The third
one, they learned, was Ramach Rareth, the Shining Sons' torch
bearer. The other two humanoids were a pair of short gnolls.
Stewart asked the Sons where the rest of their party was and they
explained that they had last seen Dagar and Yanrivar a few hours
ago in the slave holding area, however they did not know how to
get from the tannery to the slave quarters. The party was
discussing returning to the surface when one of the gnolls spoke
up in Common and said that he new the way to the slave area.
He explained that his name was Yark-Huf and that he had a companion
back in the slave area as well. He and Stewart made a
mutual-non-agression arrangement and he agreed to show the party
the slave area in exchange for help rescuing his friend and
getting them all out of the labrynth. He and his companion, who
he introduced as Har-Gar, joined the party (near the front) and
Stewart loaned Yark-Huf a mace. The humans were put in the middle
of the party and told to stay out of trouble.
At this point Henkles and Maanamere caught up to the rest of the
party. Maanamere whined until he got several healing spells, just
because he was down more than half his hit points from the day
before.
Stewart gave Ramach, the torch bearer, a light button and told him
he was back on the job. Stewart did his best to be polite to the
torch bearer while being fully obnoxious to the Shining Sons.
Yark-Huf began leading the party further into the labrinth
(although they started by going back to the room where Narthan had
cast Locate Object). As he was leading them into a large room, a
group of 4 minotaurs wandered in from another stairway. Ursula
tried another command word on the Wand of Small Fires and learned
that function seven is Flaming Sphere. At the same time, Henkles
decided to charge the minotaurs while everyone else decided to
hang back and use range weapons for a while. Henkles ended up
taking some hefty damage, but the minotaurs were all defeated. A
search of the bodies produced 35sp, 44gp, one oversized claymore
and 3 normal ones.
6200xp to full party for wandering minotaurs
Afterwards, Har-Gar went up to Henkles and said a great deal to
him in gnollish, then gave him a woven hair cord that was hanging
around his neck. Yark-Huf translated the speech. An abbreviated
version follows:
This necklace is made from the hair of my great-uncle,
Hurk-Gar, who in the "Battle of Many Dark Smells" stood
single-handedly against 20 orcs when the rest of his band were
slain. He held firm in battle and took fully 12 of them on to
the Final Slaughter, leaving the rest wounded and
disheartened. We make these cords to honor the heroism of
those they come from, and they are given to the bravest
warriors so that their deeds will further honor those who have
gone before. I present you the honor-cord of Hurk-Gar, for I
have never seen a warrior fight more bravely or fiercely than
you and it is only proper that you should wear it. Please
accept this honor cord as a testament to your prowess and bear
it with pride in the memory of the brave warriors who have
fought before you.
The actual speech was a lot more long winded.
1000xp to Henkles for keeping the spirit of Hurk-Gar alive.
Later, as Yark-Huf lead the party further in, they came to a room
where they saw a strange grey blob moving along the wall.
Maanamere threw a torch at it to see what would happen, and it
came after him. It moved slower than the party, but was still in
between them and where they wanted to go, so some difficult
maneuvering followed. Eventually they led it to a larger room
where they could safely run around it.
Shortly after that, they came to a room where 2 adult minotaurs
and 3 young were pulling kobolds out of a wooden cage in the
middle of the room and then pulling them apart, apparently for
fun. Ursula experimented with the Wand of Small Fires again and
learned that function 2 was Fireball Barrage. Cassie managed to
use a sleep spell on one of the young minotaurs. They followed
with a Malison/Sidewinder/Snilloc combo that was reasonable
effective. The rest of the fight was handled in the traditional
manner (Henkles charged). Afterwards, there was some discussion
about what to do with the sleeping minotaur, with several people
leaning towards stuffing him in the kobold cage. Cassie quickly
slit his throat to keep that from happening. 24 goodberries were
used afterwards. 19sp, 20gp and 2 claymores were reposessed.
3610xp to whole party for slaughtering a day-care center
500xp to Cassie for kindness to animals
After that, Yark-Huf lead the party to a series of interlocking
T-corridors that had been painted in wild patterns with a wide
paintbrush (all in white). The patterns were mostly repeating
geometric designs, but varied from place to place. The whole area
had a sense of madness to it. There were many secret doors and
dead ends in this area. One of the secret doors led the party to
a room where a huge statue of a minotaur-like creature with horns
coming out of its arms was set in a depression in the floor. The
party guessed that this was the minotaurs god.
Just beyond the painted corridors, Yark-Huf brought the party to
the slave pens. Here they found a group of corridors with doors
that Yark-Huf said led to "breeding pens", where human women were
used for breeding minotaurs, and a wall where several humanoids
were chained outside the slavemaster's door. The humanoids were
identified as Dagar Jhansczil and Yanrivar Silmerhelve, the two
missing lordlings, and Brak-Rak, the third member of Yark-Huf's
small band.
Stewart got Yark-Huf and Har-Gar to support him on their shoulders
while he picked the locks that were holding the prisoners on the
wall. Unfortunately, while he was freeing Brak-Rak, the door
beside him swung open, leaving Stewart eye-to-eye with a huge
minotaur. This led to a rather complicated fight while both sides
sorted themselves out and fought through a doorway in a corner.
Yark-Huf fought quite bravely and was gravely wounded before
someone from the back worked forward to take his place. While the
fight was going on, the unarmored and mostly unarmed lordlings
backed off to the end of the corridor, which turned out to be a
pit trap. They all sustained minor damage but remained conscious.
The fight ended with no losses on our side.
4800xp to party for slavemaster and assistants
With the fight concluded and Brak-Rak rescued, the gnolls and AFAL
parted company amiably.
The party searched the slavemaster's quarters and the storage room
in back while the Shining Sons recovered their equipment. In the
slavemaster's quarters, the party collected 32sp, 33gp, 2
claymores, 1 oversized claymores, and 3 full wineskins. The
storeroom in back was apparently for dumping anything taken from
slaves that the minotaurs weren't interested in. The party sifted
through the heap for a while and found the following items of
semi-interest:
An oak staff or walking stick in decent condition,
A shorter ash walking stick with a brass knob on top,
3 Short Swords, one with a spiked pommel,
2 Longswords, one broken,
A Halberd, decorated with multicolored ribbons woven about the
shaft, maypole style, Narthan suspects it has never seen combat,
7 Daggers, one with a hidden compartment in the pommel (empty),
A Heavy Crossbow and 17 normal bolts,
A crossbow bolt that appears to turn into a grappling hook after
firing and 75' of very high quality silk line,
A broken bow that Narthan says was probably magical once,
12 normal sheaf arrows,
4 flight arrows that Narthan identifies as +2,
1 flight arrow which Narthan believes is enchanted to cast Darkness
15' radius when it strikes its target, but which he reported to
the party as another +2 arrow,
A bag holding 33 normal sling bullets on top of 4 similarly shaped
citrines,
3 Helmets (basinets) in useable condition,
A Great Helm with a well painted, wooden mallard mounted on top,
sized for a small head,
A suit of halfling-sized bronze plate mail, embossed with a sandwich
and a flagon on the breastplate,
2 suits of leather armor, badly damaged, might make 1 useable set
between them,
A medium shield covered with what appears to be Green Dragon hide,
3 suits of plate mail, one of them has a nasty puncture hole over
the heart which has been patched by soldering a mithril piece
(unknown origin) over the hole,
A buckler painted with a yellow smiley face,
A medium shield with a canvas lining which appears to cover some
strange runes on the inside surface of the metal,
4 broken bottles, a whole one containing greyish liquid and a large
whole one containing swirling greenish gas,
4 servicable backpacks, one containing 2 scrolls wrapped around a
large, multicolored candle, and one containing a greyish cloak
and a bag of caltrops
A thin belt with a small, attached pouch in the back (fanny pack)
containing what appears to be a 3' wide circular throw rug
covered in a crude slipcover made from a sail, with some of the
ropes still attached,
A large belt pouch containing a bronze die, a small chunk of sulfur
wrapped in a rag, a pillbox containing 3 dead fireflies, and a
small lidded basket filled with poison ivy leaves,
A small pouch containing a piece of rawhide with a buckle
attached and two glass lenses,
A sack containing a 45' rope ladder, a wool blanket, a small
shovel and a bundle of candles,
3 lengths of heavy rope: 30', 60' and 20',
2 wool blankets,
A pair of very heavy dwarvish boots with steel toe and shin guards,
A small drum with a wide top on top of a narrower body (sort of
mushroom shaped),
A bronze holy symbol of Lathander.
Everything else was too damaged to be worth noting.
Cassie tested everything for magic using her Glim Gauntlet. The
following items tested positive:
The oak staff,
The 5 flight arrows that Narthan said were +2,
The shield with a canvas lining over some strange runes on the
inside surface of the metal,
The bottle containing greyish liquid,
The large bottle containing swirling greenish gas,
Both scrolls from the backpacks,
The thin belt with a small, attached pouch in the back (fanny
pack),
The 3' wide circular throw rug that was in it (but not the
slipcover),
3 Potions that were under the throw rug in the fanny pack.
The party collected the following items and took them:
An oak staff or walking stick in decent condition,
A shorter ash walking stick with a brass knob on top,
3 Short Swords, one with a spiked pommel,
1 Longsword,
A Halberd, decorated with multicolored ribbons woven about the
shaft, maypole style, Narthan suspects it has never seen combat,
7 Daggers, one with a hidden compartment in the pommel (empty),
A Heavy Crossbow and 17 normal bolts,
A crossbow bolt that appears to turn into a grappling hook after
firing and 75' of very high quality silk line,
12 normal sheaf arrows,
5 flight arrows that Narthan identifies as +2,
A bag holding 33 normal sling bullets on top of 4 similarly shaped
citrines,
A medium shield covered with what appears to be Green Dragon hide,
A medium shield with a canvas lining which appears to cover some
strange runes on the inside surface of the metal,
A whole bottle containing greyish liquid and a large
whole one containing swirling greenish gas,
2 scrolls
A thin belt with a small, attached pouch in the back (fanny pack)
containing what appears to be a 3' wide circular throw rug
covered in a crude slipcover made from a sail, with some of the
ropes still attached and potions,
A sack containing a 45' rope ladder, a wool blanket, a small
shovel and a bundle of candles,
2 wool blankets,
A pair of very heavy dwarvish boots with steel toe and shin guards,
A bag of caltrops.
They left the following in a bundle (in the cloak) too possibly
collect later:
3 lengths of heavy rope: 30', 60' and 20',
3 Helmets (basinets) in useable condition,
A Great Helm with a well painted, wooden mallard mounted on top,
sized for a small head,
A suit of halfling-sized bronze plate mail, embossed with a sandwich
and a flagon on the breastplate,
3 suits of plate mail, one of them has a nasty puncture hole over
the heart which has been patched by soldering a mithril piece
(unknown origin) over the hole,
4 servicable backpacks, one containing a
large, multicolored candle, and one containing a greyish cloak.
The party started getting ready to rescue anyone in the breeding
pens and return to the surface when Dagar insisted that his party
was continuing on to the second level to find what they came for
in the first place. AFAL tried insisting that the Sons would have
to allow AFAL to escort them out of the dungeon, but Dagar was
adamant and his party supported him (the torch bearer was
studiously neutral). Stewart attempted to use Hold Person on
several of them, including Dagar, but a gem set in a cage in his
helm began to glow and he was unaffected. Dagar then spoke some
command word (he mumbled it to quietly to be heard clearly) and a
blue glow radiated out from him to encompass the rest of the
Shining Sons, after which they were also unaffected by the spell.
After that, Ursula decided to bring out the big guns and cast her
Fascinate spell, finishing it with a quick striptease. While the
Sons clearly enjoyed the show, they were completely unaffected by
it. Ramach, the torch bearer, was outside of the blue glow and
completely affected.
At this point, Stewart prepared to try to destroy the helm (or at
least the gem), but Darius argued strenuously in favor of avoiding
A) possible bloodshed and B) possibly damaging complaints to the
Shining Sons' parents, because either might lead to them getting
paid less or not at all and "that would piss off the naked chick".
Dagar also reiterated his belief that the Reverential Coronet was
only two rooms away and wouldn't take long to retrieve. AFAL
eventually agreed that escorting them there and then back was the
simplest course, but Stewart placed a strict time limit on the
side trip. He insisted that Ramach begin using torches in
addition to the light button, stating that the side trip was not
allowed to go past the fourth torch.
The Sons then made use of some healing snuff that Staric had to
heal their most serious wounds and offered some to those in AFAL
who were most wounded as well.
After that, the group went to the rooms where Yark-Huf had said
women were being held for breeding. Of the four rooms, one held a
woman who had been beaten to death, one held a badly battered
woman who could barely comprehend she was being rescued, and two
held women who were obviously pregnant. Stewart made an inquiry
into their condition which cannot be quoted directly here, but
which meritted a roleplay bonus by popular aclaim. Ursula and
Cassie assumed responsibility for the ladies and went on deep rear
guard.
350xp to Stewart for living down to his Charisma.
The party headed back down towards the low point in the labrynth,
which was believed to be the entrance to the second level of
Undermountain. As they were passing through the area of
T-intersections that was painted with strange designs, they came
apon a huge minotaur who could only be the tribal shaman. He was
heavilly tattoed, with some of the patterns mirrored in the walls
around him, had beads and feathers woven into his fur, his face
was painted, and he was waving some strange wooden, beaded sceptre
with two tiny horns. As Stewart was insisting that if they were
following the Sons then this was their fight, the shaman sniffed
the air, looked directly at Stewart, and his eyes turned red. He
began casting a spell, clearly targetted at Stewart. Sadly, the
party's range attacks interupted the spell, so the party never
found out what he was trying to do. He died a round or so later.
The party kept his horns and the sceptre.
3500xp to AFAL (minus Ursula & Cassie) and The Shining
Sons (minus Gulthraask) for minotaur shaman
They reached the bottom of the labrynth without further trouble
and discovered that it did lead to what seemed to be a new level.
Following Dagar's lead, they came to a large room, in the center
of which was a cage. In the cage was what looked like the
Reverential Coronet on a pedestal. In front of the locked gate to
the cage was a stone bench, on which sat an ogre, facing away from
the party. The ogre was instantly pincushioned by the party and
collapsed off the bench. Henkles then charged in.
Henkles charge quickly alerted the party to the large number of
piercers which were waiting on the ceiling and proceded to drop on
Henkles. There followed a rather interesting conflict in which
piercers rained down on Henkles for about ten to twenty minutes,
but were frustrated by his armor class, Henkles ran around slaying
helpless piercers, and the rest of the party used arrows to reduce
the number of piercers on the ceiling before they could reach
Henkles.
2000xp to Henkles for taking all the risks
6940xp to AFAL (minus Ursula & Cassie) and The Shining
Sons (minus Gulthraask) for a piercer-fest
Having cleared the room of attackers, the party climbed over the
bodies to get to the cage. There was some concern that the cage
might contain additional hazards, although a detect traps spell
revealed nothing. At Jan's suggestion, Darius used the Ring of
Kobold Summoning and called forth Fraick. Stewart opened the
gate and Fraick was sent in to retrieve the Coronet. It turned
out that the pillar and Coronet were actually a mimic, and Fraick
was no more. While the party concentrated on killing the mimic,
which had no problem attacking through the bars, the second mimic,
which was masquerading as the stone bench, attacked them from
behind. Damage was taken, but both mimics were finally slain.
Afterwards, the ogre was examined and proved to be stuffed, as
several people had guessed.
4400xp to AFAL (minus Ursula & Cassie) and The Shining
Sons (minus Gulthraask) for killing an enslaved kobold
the hard way
The corridor leading from this room to the one Dagar wanted to go
to was filled with thousands of bones. The party presumed these
to be the victims of the mimics and piercers. At the end of the
corridor, Stewart detected a tripwire, which he set off safely.
It released both a deadfall and several javelins fired down the
corridor.
At the far end of the corridor was a room, at the far end of which
was the archtypical locked chest. The chest had a deadfall trap
in front of it, a poison needle trap in the lock, and was filled
with poison gas. The party had Stewart and Yanrivar. Inside the
chest was a glowing magical coronet, which the Sons presumed to be
The Reverential Coronet of Extroversion, 1000sp, and an old sock.
4000xp (story) to all of AFAL and The Shining Sons for finding
the Coronet
The party retraced their steps back to the first level and around
the path to the entry rooms without further incedent.
600xp to Steve for mapping that mess
When they entered the null-magic Pillar Room, they discovered
another party of adventurers blocking the corridor to the Yawning
Portal. They were:
A Human Man in full plate armor with morning star, magic
dagger and short bow,
A Human(?) Man(?) in full plate armor with magic bastard
sword and short bow,
A Human(?) Man(?) in plate mail with longsword, magic
dagger and short bow,
A Human Man in +2 leather armor with longsword, magic
dagger and short bow,
A Human or Half-Elven Woman in robes with longsword, short
bow and rod,
A Human or Half-Elven Woman in +2 scale mail and +1 shield
with morning star, whip and sling,
Three males, two human and one dwarf in matching splint
mail (and buckler) with awl pikes, short swords and
short bows.
Narthan recognized the daggers as being the same style as the one
worn by Marraba Jhansczil when she came to Fair Winds that
morning.
The first man addressed the party, saying that they were there to
escort the Shining Sons to their parents, who were very concerned
about them. So if AFAL would just leave the Sons with them
everyone could be on their way. Nobody from the Shining Sons
recognized these guys, and nobody was getting a warm fuzzy feeling
from them, so the party started to back out the way they came.
The new party, hereafter referred to as the bad guys until their
name is learned, started firing at AFAL. They used the tactic of
concentrating all their fire on one oponent, and reduced Henkles
to 1 HP before the party backed around the corner and up the steps
out of the Pillar Room.
The party regrouped at the top of the steps and tried to prepare
for the bad guys coming around the corner after them, which would
put the bad guys in the no-magic area and AFAL/TSS outside.
Unfortunately, the bad guys instead appeared in the corridor
directly opposite them across the room. Steve reasoned that they
had used a secret door which he had learned about in the Yawning
Portal, but never mapped, to circle the Pillar Room. Since
neither party wanted to enter the no-magic area, and both groups
believed in the value of range weapons, there followed several
rounds of exchanged arrow and sling fire.
At first, only the two plate armor wearers and the three guys in
matching splint mail were visible, as that was how many of them
could shoot at once. They concentrated their fire on Stewart,
while Stewart concentrated on throwing sleep gas bombs at them.
They brought Stewart below 0 hit points, but three of their
number, including one in plate armor, fell in the mean time - two
from sleep gas. The next round, the bad guy in plate mail and the
one in leather armor stepped in to fill the ranks. They filled
them exceptionally well, because the on in plate mail was now nine
feet tall! The party concentrated their shots on the guy in
leather armor, and actually killed him. They also knocked the
last guy in splint mail below zero.
Once that happened, somebody on the bad guy side shouted "Cover!",
and a moment later they were lost from sight in magical darkness.
Stewart, who had just been brought back to conciousness, but was
too weak to do anything, had a fit. Henkles charged. Not to be
outdone, Dagar charged too. Maanamere charged after Henkles,
cursing. Yanrask charged after Dagar, cursing louder.
When they got into the darkness, the fighters were surprised to
learn that the floor had been scattered with caltrops, but they
pressed on. When they got to the enemy line, they were further
dissapointed to find only the three men in splint mail lying
there. They were in a four-way intersection at that point.
Maanamere charged to the right, into the room that Steve had
theorized they came through. He discovered that passage through
the room was blocked by a large wrought iron gate with a demonic
face set in the middle of it. Maanamere thought the face was
watching him, but also assumed that the bad guys would not have
had time to cross the large room if they had gone that way. In
the mean time, the rest of the party advanced to the Pillar Room,
where they could see that nobody came through the supposed secret
door.
1500xp to AFAL (minus Ursula & Cassie) and The Shining
Sons (minus Gulthraask) for beating the bad guys
The party searched the bodies, finding nothing worth taking, and
regrouped in the Pillar Room. From there they went to the bottom
of the shaft from the Yawning Portal and banged on the shields to
be brought up. Nothing happened.
After waiting for a while and deciding that they really weren't
going to get a response, AFAL sent Mrap-M'rap up to see what was
wrong. While they were waiting for him to come back, their
Strength spells wore off. It took a long time for Mrap-M'rap
to return, and the party nearly decided to head for another exit
without him when they spotted him returning. He was flying rather
erraticly as he approached. This turned out to be because he was
drunk and carrying a small bottle of mint liqueur. He reported
that there had been a fire, mostly on the street, although some
damage had been done to the Portal. The bar was still evacuated
and the fire was still being fought outside, but he felt that it
was too smokey to stay and empty the rest of the abandoned drinks.
The party decided that they would have to leave by another exit.
But first they planned to go wake up the sleeping guy in splint
armor and question him.
At this point, Narthan, Gomsha, Maanamere and Steve joined Cassie
on deep rear guard, while Ursula came forward.
The party returned to the area of darkness, but discovered that
the fighter who had been gassed by Stewart had already recovered
and fled. They removed the following from the remaining two
bodies:
2 bucklers
2 short bows, 1 for STR 18/03
2 short swords
Dexter used a speak with animals spell to explain to Elvis, his
giant basset hound, that he wanted to track the two women (and
probably the dead thief), and they were off in lukewarm pursuit.
The party spent the next 3 hours tracking and mapping their way
north through undermountain. Not much happened on the way. They
passed a few dungeon anomalies (a hole dug in the middle of a room
and some corpses apparently felled by a trapped chest) but pushed
on. They did manage to connect their main map of Undermountain
with their map from their first day in Undermountain.
Eventually, they came to a massive room:
|
The room was occasionally lit up by bolts of lightning arcing
between one of the eastern columns and one of the western ones,
there were torch sconces throughout the main area, and there was a
large oval mirror (6'wx12'h) set in the wall at the northernmost
point. Elvis indicated that the women had headed north in this
room, but was reluctant to follow between the pillars.
Henkles, not so much.
Henkles advanced to the mirror and, assuming it was a gate of some
sort began looking for a trigger. After searching all around the
thing for buttons, levers, loose stones or whatever, he tried to
touch it gingerly with his sword. At that moment, lightning
flashed across the room, obscuring the north wing from view. When
the flash cleared from everyones eyes, Henkles was gone.
The rest of the two parties stood around discussing what to do for
a while, but eventually held a vote in which " Let's go
after him." was the clear winner. Unfortunately, at this point a
lightning flash alerted the party to the approach of 6 dogs of
unusual size from the west.
As they approached, AFAL could see that they were large hounds
with white fur tinged with light blue. They identified them as
St. Elmo's Hounds and shouted a hasty explanation to the Shining
Sons as they all pelted the dogs with arrows. At the same time
Ursula cast a powerful charm spell at them and managed to charm
two of them and Darius managed to imobolize the largest one out of
range with a Maximillian's Stony Grasp. The rest managed a
lightning breath attack which harmed most of the party, Elvis
included. Ursula then tried another number with her wand and
learned that function three is Sidewinder Fireball I. Staric used
a Snilloc's Snowball Swarm from a scroll imediately afterwards,
which was reasonably effective. After that melee ensued and the
dogs were eventually slain, including the large one, with arrows,
just before it broke free.
5775xp to Dagar, Darius, Dexter, Jan, Staric, Stewart, Ursula,
Yanrask and Yanrivar for killing the poor doggies
Somewhere around this point, Maanamere came forward from DRGA to
go through the gate with the main party.
The two hounds that Ursula had charmed seemed quite happy around
the lightning emitting columns, and absent of instructions from
Ursula, ran up to them and started licking them, sparks flying in
all directions. The party watched this until the next large bolt
of lightning. Then they headed for the north of the room and
Ursula called the hounds to her. Everyone looked for buttons or
triggers for a moment before it was recalled that Henkles had
touched his sword to the mirror to activate it. Everyone tried
touching it at once, but nothing happened, so they wisely kept
touching it for four minutes until the next lightning bolt
triggered the gate.
Meanwhile, half a subcontinent away, Henkles had found himself
standing in a fairly featureless 20' wide corridor. He lit a
lantern. He had noticed that this corridor (and the rest of the
dungeon that the party saw after that) was carved from solid rock,
unlike the usual stone block construction of Undermountain. He
marked his arrival point on the wall with some chalk, then
explored west to a set of double doors at the end of the corridor
with a smaller gate beside them in the south wall leading to a
flight of stairs going up and east to a four-way intersection.
Then he wisely returned to his starting point and waited for the
rest of the party.
When the rest of the party arrived about 10 minutes later, they
all started following Elvis again, who took them through a large
conference room with a huge insignia that the party didn't
recognize on the floor and north wall. Elvis stopped at a locked
door in the side of that room, and either Yanrivar or Henkles
"managed" the door. Henkles immediately stepped through.
Unfortunately, that meant that the Wyvern Watch just beyond the
door immediately got to strike at him. Fortunately, it missed.
Unfortunately, the Hold Person that was cast on him from behind a
rapidly disintegrating curtain a few seconds later didn't.
Moments later, a hail of arrows and a Color Spray knocked out
Dexter and, adding insult to injury, Henkles.
Ursula sent her hounds in next. One was paralyzed by the Wyvern
Watch an the other was badly wounded by arrows, but managed a
lightning breath through what was left of the curtain. Meanwhile,
Maanamere was affected by an Insatiable Thirst spell and drank his
Healing Potion while Ursula threw a "Holy Hand Grenade" through
the curtain. Then it appears that Darius and the opposing cleric
simultaneously decided it was time for desperate measures, because
an Obscurement spell filled the room with thick fog at the same
moment that Darius's Reckless Dweomer spell managed to heal the
entire party (except the hound) of all damage and allowed
Maanamere to recover from his thirst and (eventually) Dexter to
wake up.
Maanamere rushed into the room, followed closely by Dagar, who
used a charge from his Helm of Beefy Will to free Henkles and the
hound from their respective Hold spells. Maanmere saw someone in
the south portion of the room (where there were no visible exits)
and shouted for everyone while attacking. His opponent, the plate
mail wearing member of the party AFAL/TSS had fought in the pillar
room, shouted "You bastards had better come back for my body and
get me raised!" and fought back. He was quickly overcome though
as Maanamere was joined by Dagar, Jan and Yanrask. He wisely
surrenered.
While a few people tied up the prisoner, the rest rushed south,
but found no door. They yelled for Darius, who quickly found the
secret door using his Uncle's sword and the party sent the hounds
through and then ran after them. They caught up to the hounds in
combat with the two fighters in plate armor. Both of them focused
their attacks on Dagar, but without much success before Maanamere,
who had grabbed Ylgoth (or maybe Urgoth?) from Henkles's
unconscious form, started attacking with it (two hits) and stunned
most of both parties, allowing the fighters to be captured.
2600xp to Dagar, Darius, Dexter, Jan, Maanamere, Staric,
Stewart, Ursula, Yanrask and Yanrivar for beating these
guys again
A great deal of cajoling, threatening, coaxing, bargaining and
otherwise persuading later, the captured members of the Silent
Travellers, Gurugh, Marrin and Thadidon, agreed to sing like
canaries in exchange for Dexter's promise of safe conduct out of
the dungeon, preferably not to Waterdeep. They did not want to
return to Waterdeep because they revealed that the Traveller's
were sponsered by Dagar's sister, Marraba Jhansczil, who had sent
them to make sure that Dagar did not return alive. Dagar refused
to believe this. They also revealed that the dungeon they were in
was a basement in Myth Drannor, the infamous ruined city in the
Dalelands. They only knew of it from the two female spellcasters
in the party (Marraba Minarmas, a MU/Thief, and Mirima Thadodarin,
a Pain of Loviatar) who had discovered it before they joined the
Silent Travellers. They did know how to get back though, and
agreed to show the party. They did not know where the two women
ran to after the obscurement went up, they had not come through
the secret door.
The party returned to the Silent Traveller's hideout and searched
their stuff, including stripping the body of Relask Radon, their
slain thief. After that they decided that the best course of
action was to return to Undermountain and from there go to Nesme
to regroup and recover.
Taken from the Silent Travellers:
Leather Armor, +2
Bastard Sword, +1
2 Daggers of Hurting (+0 to hit, +3 damage, speed 1, strikes
as magic weapon)
22sp, 17ep, 23gp, 12 toals
7 tiny emeralds
bedrolls, etc.
At this point, Dexter and Ursula switched to deep rear guard to
help watch the ladies.
The party decided to have Darius check the rest of the area for
more secret doors or compartments and discovered another secret
door, of high quality, in the north wall of the Silent Travellers
hideout. They opened it and found a winding stairway going down.
Henkles charged, of course.
Henkles came around the corner and almost ran into a ball of
darkness and sparks with eyes and tentacles. He rolled under it
while other party members ran down to surround it. The creature
turned out to be a xeg-yi, a negative material creature with the
ability to make items, even magical ones, decay and fall apart -
an ability it demonstrated with Narthan's armor and new dwarf
boots. They managed to wear it down some and then Cassie finished
it off with a magic missile (her first kill!) - which was when the
party learned that these creatures explode when they die, wounding
people and decaying items. Destroyed in the blast were Narthan's
shirt, Henkles' sporan & some cash, Jan's new magic dagger
(ouch!), Maanamere's longsword, and Dagar's shield.
1400xp to Cassie, Dagar, Darius, Henkles, Jan, Maanamere,
Narthan, Staric, Steve, Stewart, Yanrask and Yanrivar
for a costly fight
Just as the xeg-yi was exploding, a swarm of stinging insects
started coming up the stairs at Henkles from behind. He rushed
back up the stairs and Steve used a flask of Oil of Fiery Burning
to eliminate them.
That appeared to be about the limit of the spellcasters tricks
however, as the party was able to convince them to surrender
shortly after that. At the bottom of the stairs was a single
small room with a table and chairs, a chest and the final two
members of the Silent Travellers: Marraba Minarmas, a female
half-elf MU/Thief, and Mirima Thadodarin, a human female Pain of
Loviatar. They were taken into custody, bound and questioned.
1625xp to Cassie, Dagar, Darius, Henkles, Jan, Maanamere,
Narthan, Staric, Steve, Stewart, Yanrask and Yanrivar
for hearing the lamentation of the women
By a mix of questioning the spellcasters, Cassie's glove, and
Narthan's talents, the party identified and temporarily
distributed the following magic items:
2 Rings of Protection, +1 - Steve and Narthan
Medium Shield, +1 - Dagar
3rd Dagger of Hurting - Narthan
Rod of Caltrops - Stewart
1 Unidentified Magic Ring - Darius' backpack
Ring of Possibly Water Walking - Darius' backpack
Wizard Scroll of 9) Phesult's Sleep of Ages - Darius' backpack
They also found 4 orbalines and 3 corstals.
Narthan cast Cure Moderate Wounds from a scroll on Henkles.
Maanamere went on Deep Rear Guard.
The silent Travellers led the party to the mirror gate back to
Undermountain and explained that like the mirror gate in
Undermountain, this gate would not return them to their starting
point. They were able to identify the spot on AFALs maps - the
middle of a long corridor near where the Drow were first
encountered - where the party would arrive. Henkles, Jan, Cassie
and Steve volunteered to be the first group through.
Unfortunately, due to a freak temporal backlash, when the four
arrived they were attacked by 3 goblins that the party had already
killed on Eleint 19. They killed them harder this time,
collecting 18 heavy crossbows and 24 heavy crossbow bolts.
46xp to Henkles, Jan, Cassie and Steve for reruns
After that the rest of the party came through without incident and
Dexter came off deep rear guard. They blindfolded the Silent
Travellers and then the assembled group of 25 creatures proceeded
north through the first level of Undermountain.
When they reached the room containing a chest surrounded by
blasted corpses that they had ignored earlier in the day, Dexter
decided to investigate the scene. He wisely used his detect
undead ability and determined that the corpses were in fact
animated skeletons and attempted to turn them. He turned 7 of the
8, which caused the last one to attack. With Perditor
Mortua, he had no trouble staving in the skeletons skull.
Unfortunately, a vial of Oil of Fiery Burning had been concealed
therin and Dexter got lightly toasted for his trouble. After that
the party opened the chest and found a sack and three disembodied,
animated hands that liked to leap at peoples throats. The hands
were dispatched and the sack opened. It held 4 yards of linen,
two surgical needles and thread, a bottle of whiskey, a jar
containing what Dexter identified as an herbal salve for treating
frost damage (+1hp to bandaging, 10 doses), and a fourth hand,
which was also killed.
660xp to Cassie, Dagar, Darius, Dexter, Henkles, Jan, Narthan,
Staric, Steve, Stewart, Yanrask and Yanrivar for assorted
frisky body parts
After that the party headed downstairs to the second main level
and headed toward their favorite magical gate. As they were
coming down a corridor, a barrel suddenly came bouncing toward
them out of the darkness. The party noticed that there was a
burning rope sticking out of one end, burning with curious speed.
Darius wisely chose to use a Feather Fall spell to halt the
barrels approach and the party ran back the way they had come and
got around a corner. Seconds later, there was a huge explosion
where the barrel had been. This was all considered curious by
some.
The rest of the trip to the bridge/gate was uneventful. They cast
faerie fire around midnight and proceded into the gate as they had
previously.
