Hell Continues
So we move into the corridor running north from the torture chamber that once passed as the late illusionist’s bedroom. As we advanced, suddenly two skeletons leapt from concealed alcoves and attacked. One of them clamped on to Saladin and began to heat up his armour using some mysterious arcane means. The other attacked me and I quickly withdrew having taken a nasty hit.
Zionestes, having tried to turn unsuccessfully at first now struck one of the undead creatures and it fled to the end of the corridor where we finished it off. The other fell too, and it dropped off Saladin in a pile of bones. Ever anxious for handy spell components I took a couple of pieces into my custody, for research purposes of course. I had to move fast as I’m sure that Alan* had his eye on some of the choicer pieces.
*Eldras’s cute pet war dog
We were regretting sending Barakor back to the entrance to check if our thievish escort was still on site as his turning ability and combat skills were sorely missed, but hey, spilt milk and all that. At the end of the corridor the wall had a magical inscription – Allerzoi text with instructions on opening a panel there; use of a special key was required it seemed, and a quick inventory of our resources indicated that we were fresh out of such items.
We returned to the temple and decided to check the northern illusory wall, our new quest: to find a golden key. Beyond the illusion we found a peacefully resting armoured figure wearing a golden helm, the body laid out like a church sarcophagi. We decided to be cautious and carefully checked the whole room for secret doors and traps, somewhat intimidated by the huge spider design of the décor. Ironically it was Holly our resident spiderphobe who discovered the secret door.
She and Eldras entered the room and were immediately attacked by a phase spider that appeared from nowhere. Eldras survived a bite from the fearsome beast and dragged the monk clear pursued by the spider into the antechamber. Zionestes was bitten next, and he fell, poisoned by the venom of the fell arachnid.
I pulled the cleric’s body clear as the rest of the party fought the horror and slew it; our two thieves in particular contributing with some backstabbing action, but we were in dire straits now as with the cleric was our only healing resource with Barakor absent. Eldras though remembered his Sweetwater potion and a precious dose was administered to Zionestes. Meanwhile a search of the room produced much cash and amazingly, a golden key. I meanwhile salvaged some spider venom and fangs at some personal risk.
We rested up and looked to the body again. Sadly, this proved to be another illusion, another lure. The importance of Holly’s discovery of the secret door was demonstrated when Saladin, reaching for the golden helm dispelled the illusion and triggered a web spell which entangled us and opened the secret door. Had the spider emerged with us so incapacitated, it would have been a massacre, as it was it took several minutes of hacking and cutting to release us all from the sticky mess.
Rather puzzlingly I thought, we then decided not to go and try out the key but moved south to check another unopened door. This proved to be guard quarters with stocks of food, drink and five bunks. There was also a mysterious dial that could be set from 0-20. We changed the setting from 9 to 20, but could discern no effect.
We then checked an adjacent corridor and discovered stairs. Proceeding up them, we joined a corridor running east to west, from the west, female cries could be heard. We hastened in that direction and rounded the corner closing on the screams, but then a portcullis dropped ahead of us barring our route.
Attempting to lift the portcullis collapsed the ceiling on us and the weight of the roof collapsed the floor beneath us in turn. We dropped into a sandy chamber, mostly keeping our feet and largely unscathed, only to find ourselves sharing the cavern with a huge spice worm, some thirty feet or more long.
The worm was sensitive to our every movement and its vast maw quickly swallowed Alan, even as his master rigged a rope with his trusty grapple to try and flee the monster. Zionestes and Saladin were left to fight alone as Roscoe and Holly shinned up the wall and I followed Eldras up the rope, albeit at the second attempt. The enormous beast had a tough carapace and Zionestes and Saladin were making little headway.
Saladin actually decided that the old ‘enemy within’ ploy was the way to go, after all, the inside couldn’t be so heavily armoured could it? He actually tried to get the worm to swallow him and succeeded, following Alan down its broad gullet. I was literally throwing rocks from above after wasting my sleep spell on it whilst Roscoe actually hit it with several throwing daggers, but they might as well have been pinpricks. Eldras, incensed at Alan’s loss leapt back down but in his fury could not land a decisive blow.
Zionestes, who has had better days, was now swallowed too and joined the internal attack. Eldras was swallowed too but finally Saladin’s blade bit home decisively and the three comrades emerged bedraggled and stinking having cut their way clear of the dead guts. For Alan though, it was too, late, crushed suffocated and semi digested, the plucky pup was no more.
We retreated back in the other direction the taunting female cries still ringing in our ears. Ignoring a set of doors we headed north again, then west as the corridor looped back on itself. Eldras then noticed a grille high on the corridor wall and boosted Roscoe up to examine it with a lantern. Sadly the grille was emitting an explosive gas and the lantern unluckily triggered an explosive flashover injuring the thieves.
We continued west again leaving the ruined lantern behind and found ourselves presented with a large column filled chamber containing a strange glowing orb that illuminated the room. The walls were lined with bricked up arrow slits and instead of a ceiling, a layer of swirling smoke concealed whatever ceiling there was.
Using his Find Traps spell Zionestes determined that the columns could form prison cells as in the smoke shrouded roof space were a large number of metal plates that could drop to create enclosed areas. There was also a portcullis above the threshold. Eldras using his trusty grapple hook tried to climb through the smoke layer but found himself reaching the ceiling without clearing the fumes. He was also struck several times by an unseen assailant(s), both cut and scorched.
He managed to retain his grip on the rope and withdrew into the safety of the corridor for healing. Saladin meanwhile decided to surf into the room on his shield and after doing so found himself imprisoned in a phalanx of steel shutters just as Zionestes had predicted. The portcullis also dropped, together with another vision-obscuring steel plate and though Eldras managed to lift it eventually and the shutters rose of their own accord, Saladin had disappeared. We tried changing the dial in the bunk barracks room, setting it to 0, but it had no effect on the room that we could see.
Short of spells and with wounded we all fell back to the barrack room to rest and recuperate. It took me many hours to get my spells back, but checking another room we had previously by-passed, we found a cell block. The floor was covered with six inch iron spikes so we had to pick our way across to the cells, one of which contained a skeleton, and one of which contained Saladin.
He reported that he had found himself in a corridor after being rendered unconscious by the smoke. He had followed it to some stairs guided only by the faint light of his magic pick. He had discovered a room containing two zombies which he had wisely not engaged and the zombies had not followed him. He had then found a room with four floor trapdoors.
The peephole equipped trapdoors were secured from his side and looked down into four rooms below, one containing a skeleton. With no other options he had descended to find himself in a cell where the rest of us discovered him. I freed him using a knock spell to open the doors.
Having reached a dead end ourselves we decided to deal with the zombies and ascended through the cell roof and moved north in the direction Saladin had already scouted. Finding the room, we entered and attacked, Zionestes failing with his turn attempt yet again. We got into combat, our thieves unable to backstab as they saw via an eye painting on the south wall, something we only realised later.
Zionestes, striking one with his mace managed to turn it at last and we hacked them to bits. Holly then discovered a secret door in the centre of the eye and in the chamber beyond, Holly and Eldras found an amulet and another ascending stairwell. We proceeded up them, accompanied by impressive murals. In the room at the top, also bedecked with murals, there was an obvious exit but Holly found another secret door and we took that one instead. The secret corridor brought us via another secret door, (found by Roscoe this time) into a large chamber lined with tapestries.
As we proceeded west through this chamber with a group searching each wall, two giant lizards attacked the group comprising Zionestes, Eldras and Saladin. One lizard was on the floor, the other on the ceiling, but we made short work of them. There are vast stone doors at the end of this room which we’ll examine more closely after we’ve finished stashing the large amount of gold that the lizards seemed to be hoarding.
Kravaine
Mapping 20
Heat Skeletons 60
Harvesting bones for possible use 20
Translation of room 11 inscription 20
Phase Spider 165
Harvesting spider venom and fangs 30
Spice Worm 250
Super zombies 50
Lizards 180
Total 795
Eldras
Heat Skeletons 60
Ordering the search of room 5 250
Rescuing Holly from Phase spider 25
Phase Spider 165
Using Sweetwater on Zionestes 300
Locating Golden Key 50
Setting up rope area 13 30
Spice Worm 250
Harvesting liquid from Spice Worm 300
Scouting 15 20
Reserved award room 8 20
Super zombies 50
Amulet room 18 1750
Lizards 180
Total 3450
Holly
Heat Skeletons 60
Secret door detection room 5 500
Phase Spider 165
Deflecting roof collapse 20
Spice Worm 250
Super zombies 50
Amulet Room 18 1750
Lizards 180
Total 2975
Saladin
Identifying text Area 11 as Allerzoi 25
Heat Skeletons 60
Phase Spider 165
Adopting Attack from inside tactic v Spice Worm
500
Spice Worm 250
Not engaging zombies alone 25
Super zombies 50
Lizards 180
Total 1255
Roscoe
Heat Skeletons 60
Phase Spider 165
Spice Worm 250
Super zombies 50
Lizards 180
Total 705
Zionestes
Healing 50
Heat Skeletons 60
Turn one heat skeleton 30
Phase Spider 165
Spice Worm 250
Detecting Traps room 15 25
Turn one super zombie 30
Super zombies 50
Lizards 180
Total 840
Name Class 2nd Class B/F Cumulative Target Current Level
Kravaine MU*
875 8147 9022 10000
(4) 3
Eldras T*
3795 6174 9969 10000
(5) 4
Barakor F*
0 C*
0 7149/
7149 7149/
7149 8000/
13000
(4/5) 3/4
Holly M
2975 8305 11280 22500
(5) 4 (3)
Saladin F*
1381 8328 9709 18000
(5) 4
Roscoe T*
776 7634 8410 10000
(5) 4
Zionestes C*
924 7302 8226 13000
(5) 4
*EP Bonus applied
9.11.13
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