Summary:
After dividing up the loot that the party had acquired from their previous foray, the Lost Boys felt themselves much bolstered in experience to the point that many of them found that they had new abilities that they could bring to the party. Soromon practiced using his new magical helm by reading the thoughts of Raogataj from around the corner about 50 feet away. As Soromon, altered his direction, he received an unfamiliar thought saying “wait!” coming from down the stairs in the southwest corner of the dungeon. Baralas listened keenly down the stairs and felt like he heard some type of conversation among multiple people down the stairs, but he could not make out the details. Not yet wanting to go downstairs, the party opted to spike the door closed and Soromon heard more thoughts saying “move them up” from down the stairs.
The party then decided to go past the tracks of the small lizards to the door in the northeast of the passage. The buzz continued to come from the wall to the north. Downlo searched the door for traps and found none, so Baralas opened the door. Soromon sensed thoughts behind the north of the two western doors in the main room and received a maelstrom of thoughts as if there was a horde of minds behind it. The party then went back through the eastern door in the main room and took the passage to the north at the T-junction only to find a dead end. After looking for secret passages, the party determined that there was none. Wanting to clean out the first level before going down the stairs where the ambush awaits or through the trapdoor, the party discussed ways of fighting the ravenous creatures behind the northern of the two western doors. Downlo then readied the cask of pitch and Hendel prepared to open the door.
Once everyone was ready Hendel mightily wrenched the door open after a nod from Downlo and it exposed a hallway continuing to the west, then turning north, and then east again. The sound of the creatures seemed to still come from the south, as if coming from inside the wall between the two western faced corridors. Baralas discovered a false panel that did not appear to be of mabden construction on the south wall. Not wanting to explode the cask of pitch, Downlo defused his “tar bomb” by tamping out the fuse. Discussion was then had as whether to pass the panel or to open it and fight what lay beyond it. It was decided to open it, but then how to proceed with the battle was the next discussion. It was decided to back into the main room and have Hendel cast Bless upon the party before the battle began. Then Roric creeped down the hall and easily pushed the panel back to see a swarm of fat bat-like creatures with long proboscises that flew at him. Roric counted at least seven of the creatures and he retreated to the main room where Downlo was readying to light the fuse again.
Roric shot two dead and another pair came out from behind the now open panel. Baralas moved forward to attack and missed even with Clangeddin’s blessings. Hendel moved up and scored a magnificent hit on one of the creatures and then hit another, killing both of them. Soromon wiggled his fingers and fired a Magic Missile down the corridor and killed another one of the mysterious beasts. Downlo moved up into combat and merely wounded one without taking it out fully. One of the beasts attacked and hit Baralas and began sucking his blood. Raogataj was then hit as well and the bat-like bloodsucker began sucking his blood in turn. Incredibly, the last of the surviving creatures attacked and missed Soromon who sighed with relief as he knew his physical resistance to such attacks was minimal at best. Baralas grabbed the creature on his neck, threw it to the ground, and stomped it to death. Seeing that Hendel then grabbed and killed the creature on Raogataj and Downlo with his sword dispatched the last beast flying around Soromon.
The party then applied bandages to the wounded and Roric identified the vermin as horrid creatures known as stirge. The party soundly defeated all nine of the stirges and Raogataj, assumedly for some wizardly purpose, stuffed all of them into his backpack. Roric then investigated the area behind the panel and found the bodies of two mabdens dressed in what appeared to be desert gear. The party gathered the small horde of four gems and a large sum of gold pieces (2 gems worth 100gp each, 1 gem worth 500gp, 1 gem worth 1,000gp, and 335gp in coins). The party found a hole that seemed to have been bored in the ceiling that looked like a stirge could potentially get through it if it squeezed. Searching the south wall, Raogataj found another secret door that connected to the southern of the two western facing passages. Raogataj went around to investigate the status of the spiked door and saw that the previously spiked staircase door was now wide open and that the spikes were gone. Soromon could not detect any more thoughts in that direction.
Not wanting to get flanked by enemies, Raogataj suggested that the party search for the foes from down the stairs and Downlo and the rest of the party agreed with him. The six Lost Boys then made it to the top of the stairs where Soromon wanted to sense thoughts and he did, but not down the stairwell, instead it came from the east towards the room where they had previously discovered the dead priest outside the room with the nasty beehive. He actually now detected about three to four minds in that direction. These thoughts seemed very anxious to Soromon and once the party went around the corner looking to the south, they saw the door open to the dead priest room and they heard the noise of angry bees apparently in combat with someone or something in the room. Baralas decided to walk quietly towards the door in the eastern wall of the south leading corridor. When he peered around the door, he saw two humanoid lizard looking beings with massive clubs and a third with a blade fighting two bees by the door on the east of the room. A fourth with a seashell club and a skull helmet with feathers coming out of it saw Baralas and its eyes bugged out as he saw the ranger. Roric, however, reacted quickly and pulled the door shut in the massive lizard creature’s face. Unfortunately, the door slammed into the tail of the reptiloid as Baralas hastily ran back down the hall towards the party with a concerned look upon his face.
The lizard creature then stepped out into the hallway followed by the trio of saurian warriors and the pair of buzzing bees. The plumed helm wearing lizardman seemed to be a shaman of some sort, nonetheless, Roric shot his bow twice at the shaman and they both impacted on its scaly hide, however, the arrows seem to slow as they hit him indicating some abjuration dweomer was upon the shaman. Raogataj then slung a pair of bullets at the large spellcasting lizardman and they both hit it for some more damage. The lizardman shaman then attacked and took two shots at Roric but luckily missed the mabden ranger. One of the lizardman men-at-arms then threw three darts at Roric and hit all three times causing serious wounds. Fortunately, the bees attacked the lizardmen and one died immediately from the bee’s poison much to the party’s delight at the downing of a foe and their horror at the puissant nature of the bee’s venom. However, the party was able to take the initiative after seeing that and Soromon hit the lizardman shaman with a Magic Missile both disrupting his spell and killing him dead on the spot. The remaining lizardmen warriors then howled at the loss of their holy one and they ran back towards the eastern room where the bees came from originally.
Raogataj used this as a chance to defeat the bees as he then charged one with his longsword and hit it. Downlo decided that he could not let the opportunity of having a back presented to him so carelessly go unpunished and attacked one of the fleeing lizardmen from behind. Baralas agreed with others that the bees and their deadly venom presented the greater current threat so he then attacked a bee, killing one with a hit and missing with his other attack. Roric then moved up and shot into the room at the fleeing lizardmen, wounding it just in time for Hendel to then run into the room and slay the now wounded lizardman. The last remaining lizardman turned back on the party after not being able to get the door to the beehive open and it attacked Downlo with two claws and a bite. Finally, Hendel stepped up and hit the last remaining lizardman with such great force that he nearly took it out with just two blows of his battle-axe. Baralas poured into the room and missed with his assault and Roric approached with his longsword, but missed as well. Downlo, fresh off his backstab and being attacked in turn by the lizardman’s comrade, turned on the nearly dead lizardman and hit it with a final blow, laying it low.
Triumphant with a victory, the party was quickly put on edge as, no sooner than the last lizardman died, a large thumping noise came from the eastern door where the bees came from. On top of that as the party investigated the shaman for any items or loot that it had on itself, the shaman regenerated and came back to life for a brief second until they were able to put an end to it for good. Not wanting to see any more lizard-folk regenerate, Hendel put a final end to their scaley lives by hacking off their heads with his battle-axe. On the bodies the party discovered a belt pouch full of dust that was later detected as magic. They also found a bottle of magical liquid with a skull on it, a wide variety of teeth from various different creatures, a handful of corn, some seemingly worthless clay coins and some very valuable platinum coins, and a loop shaped component that the magic-users said was a component for the spell Armor. The six also discovered a club of petrified wood that the shaman was using like a mace and a dozen darts, a couple of morningstars, as well as a pair of daggers, and a longsword with interesting jagged edges. The shaman also had a helmet made of the skull of some creature and a vile and disgusting spellbook made from the flesh of mabden and it contained Charm Person, Tenser’s Floating Disk, Hold Portal, Darkness, Protection from Good, Shield, Sleep, Ventriloquism, one higher circle spell that neither Soromon nor Raogataj could identify.
The party rested for ten minutes and then Raogataj memorized Read Magic and identified the spells in the spellbook. Thankfully, the thudding against the door to the east stopped after the ten minutes of rest. After resting and identifying the spells, the party decided to go back to the north and see what was down the passage to the east. There they saw a door to their right and the passage itself turned to the south just past the door. Raogataj listened at the door and heard deep breathing as if someone was sleeping in the room. Soromon used the helm to sense its thoughts and he realized that it must be a sleeping spellcaster of some sort. Raogataj looked at the door to see if it was locked and it was not, but when opened the room appears to be a room full of bales of hay, some fresh, some not so fresh. Upon a stained bale of hay was the form of a woman in strange black armor with spider-like motifs and it was readily apparent that she was bleeding. Once the door was opened, Soromon quickly realized that there was a second intelligence in the room somewhere upon the woman’s form. Raogataj quietly climbed the bale and made it right next to her and she did not yet move. At the peak of her helmet he saw a large tarantula that was just sitting on her face looking up at Raogataj with its multifaceted eyes. Shaken but not deterred, Raogataj examined her wounds, but he could not make it out as to what caused them, so Downlo began to move up as Raogataj retreated back towards the party. At this time, however, Soromon used his helm of telepathy to rouse the sleeping woman and the wizard got a sense of anger followed by one being and a sense of puzzlement from another.
The woman slowly sat up, her two violet eyes blinked open and she stiffly moved to a more tolerable position and she sheathed her fantastic short sword which was held in readiness across her breast as she slept. At this point the group also noticed that she had a rare buckler of exquisite design at her side. Conversation was begun and when asked she said that help is warranted and she moved forward off the hay bale towards where the party stood in the doorway. Some of the party offered to heal her while others, like Hendel, simply scowled at what he thought to be a dark elf. In a dismissive manner she referred to Hendel in derogatory terms such as dog and other unmentionables and she stated that she indeed needed help for she no longer has “Karla,” not that the party knew what that meant (perhaps cleric or companions). Downlo began to question her in Elvish and asked her why she was in this place to which she replied that she has been searching for something. She mentioned that she was sent by the “higher.” Still not fully understanding her vague manner of speech, Baralas tried to question her but to no avail. That was when she turned to Soromon and in regard to the subject of the ones in charge of this place she said, “seeing how you are wearing his helm; the point is moot. I think the temple is unguarded.” Soromon continued to question her and she explained that she was ambushed by the lizardmen, including a very powerful one clad in armor. She says that she and her party were surprised as they went searching for somewhere called the Chamber of the Magi.
The back and forth questioning continued and she said that she needed a book and that she was not used to seeing spellcasting in such a low and wild race as the lizardmen. Raogataj asked her more about the Chamber of the Magi to which she replied that there is a temple below us as well as a way of chaos. The dark elf woman then said if it is navigated successfully one arm leads to the Chamber of the Magi and the other leads to the temple of the lizardmen. At this point Downlo offered to heal her and instead she asked just for bandages. Downlo persisted so she gave a warrior symbol of nonracial equals and Downlo cast a spell to cure her wounds. She then tilted her helmet back and pulled out of her head the spider which Raogataj saw and Soromon sensed earlier. Hendel noted that her short sword was a very well-crafted blade with a self-sharpening scabbard. Downlo also gave her bandages and she put them away and, when asked, she indicated Dane’ as how she is hailed. Dane’ said, when asked, that she came up the main stair after navigating the chaos but then she used the secret way and that was when the armored lizardman took out three of her comrades in a single battle. She said that she will continue to go down into the level below and that she was willing to show the party some choice treasures for a fair share of the spoils. Dane’ then took off her vambrace and sliced her forearm in a ceremony with Soromon who did the same with a dagger. She then offered to teach Soromon and Raogataj second circle magic, Silence, Invisibility, Web, or a combat spell, all the while Hendel sat in the corner grumbling about not having used the advantage of her sleeping and wounded to take out a very high potential threat. The party then took their rest in the hay bale room alongside Dane’ in preparation for the third day of adventuring since their abrupt awakening at the inn…
Affixed by my hand, Hendel Bolaf – Hell Forged for TARP 2020
