Uktar 29

Uktar 29, 1369: (half moon, waxing)
    High = 60, Low = 40
    No precipitation
    Wind gusting to 44 mph from the prevailing direction.
    Cloudy.

    Narthan arrived back at Fair Winds from an uneventful night of
    grave watching at 6:00am.  Dexter and Stewart then cast Endure
    Heat or Endure Cold on each party member (except Gumsha) who was
    headed into Undermountain that day and Darius used his Nap ability
    on all four of them to allow them to sleep and regain spells by
    8:00.  (Darius took advantage of the extra sleep cycle to create
    additional Continual Light beads that morning).

    While the party was getting ready to go, Ursula received a letter
    from the Guildmadam of the Elegant order of Hostesses, Hosts and
    Escorts, inviting her to consider joining the order.  She showed
    it to the party and asked their opinions.  General opinion seemed
    to be "more allies is good".

    The party, consisting of Cassie, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Gomsha,
    Henkles, Narthan, Steve and Stewart were lowered into
    Undermountain from the Yawning Portal around 8:30am.  (9gp from
    Party Treasure.)

    While they were waiting for Dexter to be lowered, a strong smell
    of decay alerted the party to the approach of a group of mixed
    monster zombies.  There were 3 hobgoblins, 3 bugbears, 2 minotaurs
    and an ettin zombie.  Stewart was able to turn all but the ettin,
    which the party made fairly short work of.  The two larger ones
    wore silver holy symbols of Bane, which Stewart insisted they
    destroy.  The sight of the ettin zombie fighting the party as he
    was lowered into the room unnerved Dexter so much that he went on
    deep rear guard immediately.
        5020xp to Cassie, Darius, Denyae, Dexter, Henkles, Narthan,
            Steve and Stewart for stinky monsters

    The party proceded toward the labrynth entrance but when they got
    near to it, Denyae requested that they make a brief detour.  She
    led them to a nearby room where there where small fountains (is
    there a word for this? font? fount?) set into three walls.  One of
    them was not working and Denyae revealed that by pouring water
    into its basin, a secret closet behind the fountain was opened.
    In it, they found a bow which Denyae identified as hers, and a
    scroll case which she identified as belonging to Dedre, a
    spellcaster from The Band of the Blue Shield - Denyae's former
    party.  Denyae explained that when the party was cornered in this
    room by a band of minotaurs, they stashed the women's equipment
    and tried turning them over (with plans to rescue them later) to
    buy the lives of the men.  It didn't work - the minotaurs took the
    women and then proceeded to slaughter the rest of the party
    (although Denyae suspects the thief survived, as her purse was
    missing from the stash).  At Denyae's request, they left the
    scroll case behind in the faint hope that Dedre was still alive to
    recover it.

    After that they went down the stairs into the labrynth and
    retraced their steps towards the nearest area that they hadn't
    explored yet.  While making their way through the labrynth, they
    ran into a combined band of minotaurs, ogres and St. Elmo's
    hounds.  The group was apparently a patrol and worked in a
    coordinated fashion.  The ogres were all wearing tunics emblazoned
    with a light brown hand, palm forward, thumb, index and middle
    finger extended, other two folded, over their armor.  While wiping
    them out, the party got to see Denyae in action with her bow, it
    was impressive.  They looted 21sp, 30gp, 6 claymores, 4 longbows
    and 40 sheaf arrows from the bodies.
        5165xp to Cassie, Darius, Denyae, Henkles, Narthan,
            Steve and Stewart for mashing mixed monsters

    The party set about systematically exploring avenues they hadn't
    visitted in their previous forays into the dungeon.  This got them
    trapped by a sliding staircase in a room with a very hungry
    minotox.
        2000xp to Cassie, Darius, Denyae, Henkles, Narthan,
            Steve and Stewart for a hungry minotox

    They extricated themselves from that and proceded further down.
    They passed the ooze/pudding/jelly they had encountered int the
    past but avoided it carefully.

    Shortly after that, they encountered a strange monster that
    appeared to be a minotaur or minotox made of shadows.  Turned out
    it could still be killed though.
        2220xp to Cassie, Darius, Denyae, Henkles, Narthan,
            Steve and Stewart for shadow boxing (& hitting &
            stabbing)

    The party continued on to what they believe is the lowest room in
    the labrynth, as it is marked as the edge of the clan's teritory
    and leads into the second main level of Undermountain.  In that
    room they encountered 4 minotoxen, one of whom, most
    uncharacteristicly was using range weapons - a giant variety of
    darts.  All four of them were also armed with massive morning
    stars.  The party took heavy damage in this fight and made use of
    one of the chardalyn that Darius had cast fireball into (he had to
    cast Alternate Reality during the fight to get decent
    damage.  They managed to kill the minotaurs without any fatalities
    on their side and collected the 4 giant morning stars and 12 giant
    darts.  Horns were also collected.
        9000xp to Cassie, Darius, Denyae, Henkles, Narthan,
            Steve and Stewart for well armed minotoxen

    At that point AFAL decided that they needed to retreat for the
    day, as they had taken heavy damage and were running low on
    healing spells.  (9gp from Party Treasure.)  On their way through
    the Yawning Portal, they learned from other patrons that Feldyn
    Goadolfyn, proprietor of the Old Monster Shop, was offering money
    for giant humanoid corpses.  This was an unusual development, as
    Feldyn was not usually in the habit of buying dead or even damaged
    monsters.

    Dexter deduced that there was a good chance that this was related
    to Rabairnil and his habit of animating giant skeletons.  He and
    several other party members headed over to Feldyn's shop for a
    little chat.  Unfortunately, Feldyn was unwilling to even discuss
    whether the corpses were for a specific client, although that
    seemed obvious.  The party passed the information on to Marthraren
    Urmbrusk, the magistrate, who said he'd look into the matter
    further.
        300xp to Dexter for good thinkin'

    While some of the party were off talking to Feldyn and Marthraren,
    the rest took care of selling the loot.  The 6 claymores, 4
    longbows, 4 giant morningstars and 12 giant darts raised 293gp.
    Henkles bought one of the giant morning stars and 4 giant darts
    himself.  They kept the 40 sheaf arrows, this combined with the
    cash they had collected and minus the 9gp cost of leaving
    Undermountain gave them 316gp and 1sp for the day.

    Narthan had been badly wounded and needed to recover spells, so
    Maanamere took a turn at watching the City of the Dead.  It turned
    out to be an uneventful evening.