Rescue Ongoing
So welcome back, you join us lost in this labyrinth of teleports and lightning ambushes. After healing and spell recovery we headed east down the secret corridor behind the bed. Now Mr fancy pants the ranger claimed to detect two pits in this corridor, but I was blowed if I could see what his sorcery was telling him. Still no harm walking round where he said they were I suppose.
So we found another secret door at the far end and emerged into another bedroom. This was slightly more crowded than the last: In the bed a sleeping girl; around the walls of the room which was lined with fur, half a dozen zombies; but opposite us a plate armoured figure with a staff and at his side a female, both of them chanting as they began spellcasting and you could bet it wasn’t going to be cure light wounds.
Zunee started an incantation of his own but the magic user got her spell off first. She instructed Zunee to attack the rest of us, but fortunately he resisted the charm attempt. Our wizard now fired magic missiles hitting both of the figures, but even as he did so he was frozen in place by the Hold Person spell that was directed at all of us except Bernice. Zunee’s silence spell now took effect: There would be no more spells coming our way for a bit but Malakai was out of it. The female magic user realising this retreated through a curtain at the far end of the room.
The zombies now attacked us and although they were quite ineffective Zunee’s efforts to turn them were quite pathetic, twice his efforts affecting just one of the undead. The cleric attacked with a powerful staff injuring Zunee* before falling at last and the monk finished the last zombie before the turn wore off. Under the bed we discovered a mace which Zunee took and two scrolls, one of which seemed to have no purpose when our mage read it, the other had several clerical spells which Zunee also took.
*I had to waste some of my precious diamonddraft to bring him round and that ain’t cheap.
We managed to bring round the unconscious girl who proved to be one of the missing village maidens. Her name was Breeanne and she spoke of cells and an ordeal at the hands of the cleric and Magic user. She remained behind in the room as we moved on through the curtain and into the corridor beyond where we spotted the magic user. Bernice rushed up to her and knocked her out with a single blow and we trussed her up and gagged her to prevent her spellcasting.
Malakai spent some time interrogating Priscilla who proved a very unpleasant young lady fanatically dedicated to ‘The Master’ and not a little upset at us for killing her friend. We left her imprisoned in one of the pits that turned out to be genuine and moved on. The wizard took custody of her natty little wand. We found another door and moving through it we discovered a mortuary, complete with bodies in coffin like racks. Then an ogre with prominent gold teeth entered the room and we struck up a conversation with him using knowledge from our interrogation to appear to be legitimate visitors.
The ogre (Zaphod*) showed particular rapport with Zunee as he speaks ogre and he spoke of treating Zombies with something. He took us through the next room where a number of zombies appeared to be having a sauna. He then tucked himself up in one of the coffin mortuary drawers. Moving on we discovered a room with a pool of blue liquid and a wretch in a loincloth chained to the wall. We rested up to recover spells and Malakai took to interrogating the luckless prisoner.
*Though he appeared to have mislaid his hitchhikers guide and one of his heads.
Now Zunee had spoken of healing the poor man once he had recovered spells, but Malakai was more impatient and tried soaking some bandages we found in the chamber with the blue liquid and applying it to the prisoner. Which drove him into a berserk rage. He broke free of his bonds and attacked in a frenzy badly injuring the wizard before my axe put him out of his misery. Zunee then questioned the corpse using his speak with dead scroll found earlier but we learned little. The sum total of our knowledge was that his name was Jacob, an alchemist and he was being tortured for his secrets, principally by Priscilla. He was the inventor of the blue liquid that was used to make the zombies tougher but there were unspecified side effects. He described the Master as ‘skeletal.’
Zunee then discovered a small red vial concealed in the heel of his boot. He seemed very keen to drink this which I felt was foolhardy given that the vial was small and the blue liquid was for external use. He decided to apply it externally but it seemed to have no effect when he did so. We continued west entering a lab filled with test tubes strange equipment and two stitched together golem like creatures on two slabs, connected to the ceiling by wires. We avoided touching anything but Bernice checked a pool at the bottom of some stairs where she was attacked by a lamprey but she killed the bloodsucker.
Zunee subsequently searched the small shallow pool and discovered a ruby earring. We now continued to search and discovered that we had looped back to find ourselves back at Priscilla’s boudoir. This left us with one unchecked door and we looped back to the east side of the complex and we burst it open to find a group of courtesans playing cards. On closer inspection these were actually a group of male bandits disguised in skimpy female clothing. They attacked us and we killed four before the remaining four broke and fled, exiting up a stairwell to the surface accessed by a secret door concealed in a cupboard.
A search of the room revealed around 40 gold pieces worth of coin and baubles, there was nothing in the adjacent sleeping quarters. Puzzled we returned to the west side of the dungeon and discovered another teleport at the end of the corridor. This took us to a long east west corridor with a single door on the north wall.
13.11.21
Experience awards
Malakai
Mapping 50
Magic Missiles 30
Reading the first scroll 100
Bandit treasure 12
Wand 4500
Characterisation and roleplay 50
Total 4742 +bonus = 474
Requires 14,567
Zunee
Zombies 60
Silence spell 200
Cleric 100
Mace 350
Scroll 400
Fraternisation with Zaphod 200
Discovering Jacobs heel vial 200
Earring 150
Courtesan bandits 60
Bandit treasure 12
Interrogation of Jacob 50
Healing 50
Characterisation and roleplay 50
Total 941/941 + Bonus = 941/1035
Required 18,741/4,115
Bernice
Zombies 60
Cleric 100
Staff 6000
Courtesan bandits 60
KO on Priscilla 300
Lamprey 46
Bandit treasure 12
Total 6,578
Reqd 18,242
Varamir
Zombies 60
Cleric 100
Courtesan bandits 60
Bandit treasure 12
Total 232 + bonus = 255
Reqd 34,558
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