# Dwimmer Deep



## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Introduction

I've never posted a story hour before.  But I've been keeping a log for our home game for a bit more than 10 months now, it's been a fun campaign to date, and I figure it might be enjoyable to post it here.

Many here will recognize that the name of the campaign, "Dwimmer Deep", is rather similar to the "Dwimmermount" game by Autarch and James Maliszewski.  The only similarity here is I liked the "Dwimmer" part of the name, and borrowed that.  I've never read the Dwimmermount adventure, though perhaps I will some day.

I created this game with a few goals in mind.  1) To playtest the 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons rules (we went through most of the playtest docs, simply shifting characters as things changed); 2) To get a regular online game going to replace our in-person game that had lapsed due to people moving (we use Roll20); 3) To allow for flexibility in players coming and going (minimum 3 players for a session, maximum 6); 4) To create a somewhat sandbox mega dungeon on my own (something I had not attempted before); 5) to see if 5e D&D could hearken back to some old school dungeon crawl experiences I used to enjoy; 6) to create that dungeon as I go, rather than all in advance.

That last point was pretty important to me. In the past I felt the need to be over prepared for whatever the players do.  But, my life has changed since those days, and I have a child and a lot more work responsibility.  I had seen great GMs wing-it on gaming several times in my life, and I wanted to finally take the plunge and let the game go where it may, and work on making it "seem" planned while really being mostly spontaneous on my part as the DM.  I am thankful to say that's been a success, and it's made DM'ing an even more enjoyable experience for me, and I think my players as well.

Most of the adventure is original, but on occasion I would borrow things from other adventures.  There's a bit from two of the most recent (as of this writing) 5e adventures in there, recognizable I am sure to those familiar with those works.

As we are playing on Roll20, I've made use of some rather colorful maps most of the time.  The theme of the Dwimmer Deep is that a Mad Wizard is teleporting in sections of dungeons, and their occupants, from elsewhere around the world (how he is doing that is part of the mystery to be unveiled during the campaign).  This gives me the flexibility of simply grabbing whatever I find interesting as I go and inserting it into the game. I don't need a good explanation for why Drow are living next to Orcs that are living next to Medusa living next to Lizardmen, or why their lairs all look so different.  They were all brought there against their wills suddenly and at different times, agreed to become residents or risk not having access to food and water (which the Dungeon, which is effectively alive, would cut off for them if they did not agree to become residents and thus be trapped within the dungeon), and are looking for a way out themselves while often fighting their neighbors.

When I have the time and inclination, I hope to insert some screenshots of what the players were seeing at the time.  The monsters won't be there - once killed I delete them from the map. But at least you can see some of the map areas, which are often nice looking thanks to the hard work of others who uploaded them to the web at different times allowing me to grab them for use in this game.


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Backstory

You currently reside in the town of East Gantrick, a free city nestled beside a forested mountain range. While a majority of residents are human, all races are welcome, provided they don't make trouble for others.

Rumor is that in ages past, East Gantrick was ruled by a ruthless mad king from some crazy skull-fortress in the mountains.  He was defeated, his stronghold sealed up, and peace reigned (or at least, that's the rumors you've always heard).  These days, the town is ruled by a peaceful council and priesthood that is corrupt, but otherwise not too bad.

You're poor.  Damn poor.  You have enough to afford some daily gruel to eat, and a (leaky) roof over your head, but not a much else.  Maybe you were born that way, and maybe it's just a matter of bad luck and circumstance that brings you to this moment.  

You've gotten to the point where you're pretty desperate for some money.  Maybe your family-member needs money to pay a cleric to heal a disease.  Maybe you owe some nasty guys for a gambling debt.  Maybe you need to impress a potential spouse with wealth.  Perhaps you're a hedge wizard who accidentally blew up a building and needs to pay recompense or go to prison.  Maybe you just want a better life.  But whatever the reason, you've gotten to the point where you're willing to take some major risks, and hope it pays off with gold.

Recently, some pretty incredible events happened in East Gantrick that might just provide the opportunity you're looking for!

Turns out, that ancient mad-king's skull-fortress is sealed no longer.  Some other desperate souls out foraging went and checked it out, and finding it open they ventured inside.  A few of them managed to come back (fewer than left to begin with) with bags of ancient coins, and stories of monsters and traps and mazes of underground tunnels and rooms.

Word got out pretty fast (which tends to happen when peasants start spending gold like it's going out of style), and some professional adventurers headed out to explore, followed by some amateurs, and then some more amateurs.  Some of the professionals came back alive, but most of the amateurs didn't.  Those that returned told similar stories of wealth, and danger.

Enterprising locals figured it was about time to get some organization going.  They started an adventuring guild, and invited interested folks to apply.  It's free to join, and only costs 10% of any treasure you recover.  Members receive the following benefits:

1) The use of some basic adventuring equipment;

2) Rumors, news, and potentially maps from fellow members;

3) Escort to and from the old fortress mountain;

4) In the event of the death of a member or members, the Guild will send one group to recover your body, returning the basic adventuring equipment back to the Guild (along with the 10% share of treasure), and your remaining possessions to your family/next of kin.

5) Opportunities for the occasional Guild-sponsored mission, which comes with a separate additional payment.

6) For more advanced members, opportunities to buy and sell in the Guild market.

You signed up at first light, along with a bunch of others, and they accepted your application!  Some fellow members you recognize, others not.  During the outfitting process and basic instruction, you got to know a few people, and they seem all right to you.

They also gave you a strange necklace, with the symbol of the Guild on it.  They told you to never take the necklace off, as it's used to magically find you should you get lost, trapped or ... worse.

You've been assigned an adventuring group.  Maybe you're friends with some of them, maybe you're just getting to know them now.  But, you've got your basic adventuring equipment, and it's just about time to get on the wagon coach running out to Skull-Mountain.  

Off to adventure!


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

The Characters

I don't have the backstories for most of the characters.  Some was done in emails prior to the game, some was done verbally.  I do have at least a couple written out, which I will post below.  I will see if I can gather more at another time and edit this entry then.  I put in a short entry for most.  There is also a bit in the first adventure entry, below this post.

Hollin: Human Fighter (Noah)
Milo Wigglesworth: Halfling Wizard (John)
Slink: Half-elf Thief (Matt A - Slink was originally an NPC buy Matt A took him over in session 2 I think)
Father Rivers: Human Cleric (Max - who joins a bit later taking over this character that was initially an NPC)
Bear: Bugbear Ranger (Jason)
Luther: Bugbear Fighter (Matt B - though he quits the game shortly thereafter due to life issues, and Luther becomes an NPC usually run by Jason)

DM Note: Bugbears are not normally a playable race, but the players really wanted this pair for the game.  So I too the half-orc write-up, tweaked it with the Bugbear bestiary, and came up with a race that I think is pretty well on-par with the Half-orc.

Meet Luthur. 

Luthur was the juvenile orphan-survivor of some more-or-less random, unrecorded confrontation between bugbears (or the bugbears' masters?) and drow. He was initially given to the drow gladiatorial-industrial comlex as arena-fodder, but he survived several matches and eventually became a crowd favorite. So the drow started to actively train Luthur and put him in real, competitive contests. He continued to survive for several character levels.

But the thing that set Luthur apart was the fact that he was taken slave while he was still a "cub," meaning he was still in the developmental critical period when bugbears bond to their social groups through olfactory cues. Being thrown in with humanoid captives (humans, elves, dwarves, et al.), he bonded to them by scent, rather than to his "fellow" bugbears. Furthermore, one of the first humanoids to be kind and compassionate with Luthur was a captive cleric of one of the good gods (Pelor?).

As a result of these influences, Luthur became instinctively attached to "fellow" humanoid gladiator-slaves and fought fiercely on their behalfs in the arenas. This amused the drow arena-audience, who enjoyed watching him competently defend humanoids against aberrant, beastly, and other conspicuously non-humanoid arena-foes.

One day there was an epic confrontation between some high-level PCs and the drow of the particular Underdark region where Luthur was enslaved—and the drow lost. Arena-slaves were triaged as to whether they were friendly, slay-on-the-spot-worthy, or of uncertain moral character. Luthur was initially one of these "on the fence" prisoners, and was eventually identified as being positively disposed toward humanoid PCs in the service of Good. So Luthur was set "free"—in fact, he was put in touch with a network of good-affiliated PCs who could guide him (cuz let's face it, he takes orders well but he's pretty dumb) on a righteous path.

This is how I initially conceived Luthur finding his way into an adventuring party. My initial idea was to have Luthur travel with the divine party member wearing what appears to be divine shackles or restraints with a glowing glyph of the Good god's insignia emblazoned on the chestpiece. Thus, as he travels around with his "master," he plays along in pretending to be a shackled, divinely-mind-controlled servant of his divine-classed colleague. The idea was that this subterfuge would get the adventuring party smoothly through most soical encounters in which having a hulking member of a goblinoid sub-race present would otherwise cause panic or alarm.

DM Note: To tweak it to match this new campaign, I am open to suggestions but here are my initial thoughts.  Since all the PCs are presumed to be pretty dirt poor and desperate enough to risk venturing into a nasty dungeon, that part matches well with this back story.  As for existing higher level cleric that both Luther and Bear are "attached" to, guiding him on a better path, that I think could work as follows:

From the existing campaign back story: "...some professional adventurers headed out to explore [Dwimmer Deep], followed by some amateurs, and then some more amateurs.  Some of the professionals came back alive, but most of the amateurs didn't.  Those that returned told similar stories of wealth, and danger.  Enterprising locals figured it was about time to get some organization going.  They started an adventuring guild, and invited interested folks to apply..."

So since the dungeon, Dwimmer Deep, has already been initially explored by some professional adventurers, we'll call one of those adventurers The Cleric.  I'd be fine saying that the higher-level Cleric is one of the higher-up leaders of the Adventurer's Guild (one of the enterprising locals, who was also a member of the initial professional adventuring party).  

This would give the party a contact with the Guild, and also work with the backstory.  

So, "High Level Cleric" (we will need a name for him) found Luther and Bear in a Drow city at some other location, brought them back out, travelled with them to East Gantrick town, dropped them off with the local temple in town temporarily while The Cleric adventured in Dwimmer Deep for a short while, and then The Cleric helped found the new Adventurer's Guild and brought Bear and Luther into the Guild as new members.

_____

Bear

The easiest way would be to turn all of the above references to "Luthur" into references to Luthur and Jason's tribe-mate, age-mate character. Perhaps the tribe-mates were separated upon capture, Jason's character having been given over to training as "hunting dogs" to some bad-ass clique of drow ranger-scouts. This would provide a plausible reason for Jason's charatcer to get ranger training rather than arena-fighter training (Needless to say, his Ranger's nature skill would be Dungeoneering rather than Nature).

---

Bear, a Marauder Ranger. Rolling Bear into Luther's backstory it would seem to work just fine, with perhaps a slight twist on the turning-point: say his hunting party was massacred by some gnarly Otherling on a rare outing to the surface; Bear played all-dead (easy, as he was mostly-dead) and was rescued on the brink of extinction by... that same captive cleric of Pelor, having escaped in the confusion of the raid, or perhaps by the same party that executed the raid on their way back to tavern.

If we can get these two to synergize in an effective way, I think this is a capital way to proceed.

---

Slink

Slink is a bit mysterious.  He was a thief by profession, but then something happened to him, which he does not talk about much.  He became smarter, and more aware of the arcane world.  He took up the profession of a sage, along with remaining a thief.  As of this adventure he's remained a thief, but he often has a high degree of interest in all things arcane.

---

Father Rivers

Fahter Rivers is an acolyte affiliated with the Cleric of Pelor mentioned in Luther's backstory.  He was sent along on this adventure to watch after the party and make sure they come back alive.

---

Milo Wigglesworth

This lightfoot halfling is quite a rascal, often getting the group into some trouble in his pursuit of arcane items of power and knowledge.

---

Hollin

Hollin really just wants to kill things and take their stuff, in the most legal form he can.  He's not here to negotiate, he's not here to solve riddles, he's here to kick butt and grab a sack of gold.  Why does he want the gold? He's not talking...yet.


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

[A brief note on session reports - some days I took the time for a full entry.  Other days, often when I was exhausted at the end of a session, I simply wrote a brief summary, and once I had to go back and write one from memory of the week or two before.  None of this has been edited from our log entries kept in Roll20.  I may go back and edit some at a later date to make it flow better.]

Session One
July 11, 2013

During the events described in "The Background Story", elsewhere the affairs of men and Drow were having some dire or auspicious consequences, depending on one's perspective.

As detailed in the background stories of Luther (Matt B.'s character, a bugbear Fighter) and Bear (Jason's character, a bugbear Ranger), a party of powerful adventurers rescued those two brave survivors from the ruined undercity of the Drow and their brutal gladatorial arenas.  Amongst those powerful adventurers was a follower of the good and righteous deity sometimes known as The Lifegiver.

Setting aside their formerly somewhat wicked ways, Bear and Luther joined the religion of their rescuer, and turned to the side of the light and the just.

On return from their successful foray into the distant dark-elven deepness, those same powerful adventurers went on to be amongst the first to explore the depths of the newly discovered Dwimmerdeep.  On their homecoming to town, they were appalled to hear that other amateur adventurers had also ventured forth, and met their maker within the stygian depths of the skull mountain, in their quest for coin and glory.

Concerned that others would follow such an ill-advised path and meet similar fates, the group helped sponsor the founding of the Adventurers Guild.  

Hoping to follow in the adventuring footsteps of their mentors, Bear and Luther immediately signed up with the Guild.  Therein, they met fellow adventuring hopefuls, Milo (John's character, a halfling Wizard) and Hollin (Noah's character, a human fighter), who had joined for their own mysterious reasons.

The newly formed amateur group were well equipped by the guild, in exchange for a small stake in any treasure found within the dungeon.  They were escorted through the wilderness by fellow members of the guild, and led to one of the many openings along the face of that sinister skull mountain.  

While most of the escort left for town, intent on returning in a few days to check on the adventurers, two members of the escort force remained behind: Father Rivers (a human cleric of the Lifegiver, and apprentice of that powerful cleric who had helped rescue Bear and Luther), and a mysterious man named Lionel (a human rogue), who the party overheard called "Slink" by his fellow escorts.  Father Rivers and Lionel offered to stay within the entry chamber of the dungeon, and provide succor to the party should they require assistance in their quest.

Within that same entry chamber, the party found some torches and oil, and then conversed at some length with a Talking Door (see picture in dungeon).  The Talking Door seemed rather sinister, and somewhat cagey, though it did offer to provide some information concerning the Dwimmerdeep, one time.  The party asked what they would encounter should they open the Talking Door, and the Door replied with a riddle (see party Handouts - Door Riddle 1).

Working through the riddle, the party determined that a deadly cockatrice, able to turn hapless adventurers to stone, likely stalked within the next room.  On advice from the Talking Door, which was later discovered to perhaps be somewhat misleading, the party feared that the gaze of the beast was just as deadly as the claws, and shielded their eyes before hazarding forth.

There they did find such a beast, and slew it well and truly dead, with sword and spell.

Beneath an old barrel within, they found a scared goblinoid creature named Uglug.  Interrogating the cowardly soul, the party discerned that Uglug had also spoken with the Talking Door.  Uglug's group had asked how they could make some money, and the Door had suggested that they trade cockatrice eggs with some Bullywug creatures that could be found deeper within the depths, and described where such eggs could be located.  However, the Door had not warned the goblins that a room full of deadly cockatrice guarded the eggs, and most of the group had been turned to stone (seen as statues now within the room), with poor Uglug hiding within the barrel for a couple days until the party rescued him.

Vowing to devote his life to the adventurers, at least until he could find a cure for his companions, Uglug accompanied the adventurers thereafter.

The wizard Milo then gathered some cockatrice eyeballs and eye-stalks that he thought may have some value as a material component for an advanced spell, and the party journeyed onward.

The party then briefly encountered a pit trap within a hallway.  At the bottom of the pit, after one member accidentally fell in, they discovered some valuable coins of an ancient vintage, and a rusty short sword (which they gave to Uglug).  

In the next room, the party found a terrifying huge chamber, the floor of which appeared to be completely covered with deadly snakes and serpents.  An old chain bridge seemed to have previously traversed the chamber, but it had fallen in long ago, and there seemed to be no safe way across.

After some experimentation, mostly involving explosive conflagrations crafted by Bear using some oil and vinegar barrels previously discovered, the party eventually discovered that most of the serpents were illusions, and only a relatively few of the snakes were real.  Carefully climbing down and probing with their staves and weapons, the party made their way safely across.

The next passageway contained some difficult-to-spot green slime.  But, the sharp eyes of the party picked up its sheen, and dealt with it handily with fire.

Following along further to the north, the party stealthily opened the next door to find a huge chamber, filled with water to the west and a large temple to the east.  The water was occupied by a large crab-like sea creature of some sort, while the temple was well populated with the frog-like beings known as the Bullywugs.  Doors exited to the west and north, but both could not be accessed without encountering the Bullywugs.  

The party decided to parlay with the swampy temple dwellers rather than fight them, to some success.  The Bullywugs revealed that they had been abducted by the Dwimmerdeep itself, their swampy lair having been suddenly absconded whole along with their tribe into the dungeon.  They had agreed with the Talking Door to become residents of the depths, a decision they appeared to regret.  At war with a nearby tribe of Kobolds, the Bullywugs were working to escape the dungeon. They had concocted a mysterious plan to leave, which apparently required cockatrice eggs as a component.  Though they would not disclose the details of their escape plan, the Bullywugs did offer safe passage to a magical well not far beyond their lair, if the party did them but one simple favor.  They warned though that, beyond the well, some wicked harpies made their lair in the caverns above.

The favor was of the choosing of the party: either help the Bullywugs kill the vile Kobolds that were vexing them so (and who had tried to eat their pet giant crab), so that the Bullywugs could be freed from their guard duties to go and retrieve the cockatrice eggs they needed themselves.  Or, the party could simply obtain the eggs and bring them to the Bullywugs, bypassing any need to deal with the Kobolds.

The party, desiring to obtain access to the magical well which they hoped would cure Uglug's companions of their stoney state, agreed to undertake a task for the Bullywugs in exchange for safe passage.  They would attempt to retrieve the eggs, rather than combat the kobolds.

The party returned to the room where they found Uglug, after dealing with some lingering snakes in the snake room, and prepared a plan to attack the remaining cockatrices.

On opening the door to the cockatrice lair, the group found that the old saying of no plan surviving contact with the enemy to be sadly true.  As the cockatrice's flew in to attack, chaos ensued.  Party members were going down left and right.  A fortuitous flaming spell from Milo did manage to stave off the attack before all was lost, but Bear went down to the cockatrice's stone-causing claws, and the rest of the party faced a dire fate as their resources dwindled and situation turned urgent.

Fortunately, Uglug managed to find his courage at last.  Well, he did, after he ran away to retrieve help.  Fleeing to the next room, Uglug summoned the aid of the Father Rivers and Lionel, who came charging to the rescue.  After a brief pitched battle between the hallway separating the cockatrice room and the main entry chamber to the dungeon, wherein Uglug did take a whack at one of the monsters, the group along with their escorts managed to slay the wicked cockatrices.  

The battle was not without its casualties, however. Bear remained a stoney statue, victim of the deadly cockatrice attacks.

In addition, after comparing notes, it was discovered that the Talking Door had been a bit misleading in its information concerning the cockatrices.  While their gazes could be deadly, they were far less deadly than their claws.  And, by attempting to avoid the gaze of the creatures, the party had perhaps put itself at such disadvantage that the wicked birds had gained the upper hand for a time.

On searching the lair of the vile avians, the party did find some sacks of treasure, and more than a sufficient number of the desired cockatrice eggs.

But what to do about Bear's stoney state? The group rested and planned, hoping to trade the eggs for safe passage to the rumored magic well that might cure him, along with Uglug's companions.

To be continued, next session....


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session Two (and three?):
Late July 18 or 25, 2013

Brief update:

[There seems to be a session report missing here, I will see if I can dig it up but I think it's because Roll20 was new to us and we were not sure we wanted to keep the log there yet.  The party first escaped a pit trap, then crossed a snake pit infested room that turned out to mostly be illusions.  Finally they found a Bullywug chamber, with mysterious rituals going on and a full lake and temple.  They negotiated with the Bullywugs]

You found 102 GP, 35 SP, and 12 cockatrice eggs, all in the cockatrice lair.

John harvested the eyes and eyestalks from the 5 additional cockatrice corpses.

You talked to the Talking Door again, and heard about Harpies, and concocted a plan to deal with them involving wax in your ears.

You brought the cockatrice eggs to the Bullywugs, giving them 9 and keeping 3 for yourselves.

You negotiated your way past the Bullywugs.  They took the eggs to some sort of underground watery cavern.

You encountered the well, named Elemrodel.  It said it was a guardian of this place, put here long ago along with other guardians elsewhere, to protect the good against the evil that is the Dwimmer thing that lurks in the walls, and which is perhaps in some way related to the mad king.  It enchanted your Guild amulets (or in the case of Slink, his wet left boot) to allow you to open doors in the dungeon as if you are residents.  It also gave you sufficient magical waters to cure petrification, assuming the water is applied within 1 hour.

You de-petrified Bear, and the goblins.  The goblins thanked you profusely and promise to bring you treasure from their lair, which is 3 days away.  Slink also gave them 8 gp (2 gp each) as a token of alms for the poor.

You ventured up some dark stairs, and encountered first 5 stirges, and then a nasty telepathic Spinagon spined devil, all of which you slew.  The devil had a tiny forked trident device in its hands.

You hear screeching in the distant caverns.

[So far, each of you have earned 200 experience points, leaving a mere 50 experience points before you level to second level.]

Snake Chamber

Bullywug under-temple pool

Bullywug temple and lake

Angel in the Well chamber


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 3
August 1, 2013

[Max played Bear, John played Luther]

You inspected the golden small trident from the small devil-like creature you slew last time, and could not determine anything much about it's origins and purpose.

After exploring for a bit you found a secure small cavern to rest in for roughly an hour, where Milo re-memorized his magic missile spell.

You then traveled north, towards the sounds of flapping wings, wax secured in your ears.  Slink snuck ahead, silent and hidden in shadows, and spotted some harpies in a cavern.  Agreeing to try and draw the harpies down into an ambush, the rest of the party secured positions in a tight cavern corridor, while Slink loosed an arrow at a Harpy.  The shot went wide, but got the disgusting creatures attention.  There appeared to be three harpies in total, two which looked smaller, dirtier, and more bent over, and one that moved with a bit more grace and length.  There were also two human figures, who appeared to be trapped in cages, to the east of the cavern.

The Harpies took the bait presented by Slink, and flew down the corridor after him.  The ambush worked well, and the party made short order of the two smaller harpies, though Hollin did have a close call with some sort of nasty screeching attack from one of the smaller Harpies.  The larger one fled, and a pleasant siren song could be heard in the distance, even through the wax in your ears.  

The party pressed on, and discovered that the remaining harpy had enchanted the two humans in the cages, and set them free.  But between Milo's magic missiles and the swords and bows of the party, the remaining harpy went down pretty quickly.  Slink then hit one of the human warrior's cages with a lucky shot, shutting the cage door, while Hollin slammed shut the other cage door, trapping the enchanted warriors before they could attack.

The battle was won.  Within about a minute, the minds of the captures warriors seemed to clear.  They told a sad tale, of how they were some of the earliest peasant explorers of the dungeon, before the Adventuring guild was established.  They had entered through one of the eye-sockets of the skull mountain, and immediately fled further into the caverns, away from spiders and flying things in the dark, only to be captured by more harpies to the north, and stuck in these cages.  The food they had been fed was vile and barely edible, and their remaining companions had not been seen in weeks and were surely dead.  They just wanted out of the dungeon, and didn't want to go back the way they had come for fear of being eaten, or worse.

The party agreed to escort these scared men out of the dungeon, back down the stairs, past the Bullywugs, and out the front entrance in the mouth of the skull.  Thankful, the men hopped they could deliver the party a reward from their families as a gift for rescuing them, and promise to meet the party at the Adventurer's Guild in the future.

Resting overnight in the first dungeon room with the three doors, the party recuperated from their various wounds, and memorized spells.  

The night, and the return to the upper caverns, was uneventful.

Picking up with you left off, the party decided to travel down a rough cavern corridor that led east. There they found some spikes set firmly in the  ground, though Slink was able to remove one with some effort.  The spikes seemed to serve no apparent purpose at first, since they were not attached to any trap mechanism, and reached most of the way to the short ceiling in this area, but otherwise could be fairly easily navigated by you humanoids.  Bear speculated that perhaps they were put there to keep some large creature penned in.

Passing the spikes, the party came to a fork in the corridor, and snuck slowly north while the wizard took up the rear.

Surprise! You stumbled on a massive, green writhing Carrion Crawler! It's wicked tentacles and sharp teeth were even at that moment crunching on some detestable substance.  Hollin and Bear attacked, and the thing struck back, paralyzing Bear with it's long tentacles! 

Meanwhile, a cry from Milo revealed a second Crawler! It came from behind, down a corridor to the south, and the party appeared trapped between the two creatures in a narrow tunnel.  Milo was immediately paralyzed and crunched-on by the creatures sharp teeth! 

Luther and Hollin continued to chop away at the first Crawler, while Hollin defended the wizard with ranged attacks to the south.  Luck was with the adventurers, as the tide finally turned with the death of the first Crawler.  Milo managed to shrug off the effects of the poison from the tentacles, and fled away, took a wicked wound from a bite from the creature as he ran.  Meanwhile Luther took up a defensive position next to Slink, as the second creature approached.

While Bear remained paralyzed, the party hacked away at the foul worm, and with some effort, the creature was finally put down.

After a while, Bear was also able to shrug off the paralysis.  Using his cure spell, he healed Milo's nasty looking wound, and the group searched around the immediate area to see what could be seen.

Discovering two short corridors, one to the north and the other two the south, the party found three bodies.  Two of the bodies contained identical, small figurines that seemed to have some religious significance.  Some gold and silver coins were also found, along with some mostly-disintegrated ordinary weapons, shields, and armor. 

Traveling a bit further east, the passageways turn north, and south.  The northern path seemed to go on for some distance, while the one to the south makes a turn.  

[Note: The party gained a level after the Harpy battle.  Hit points were rolled.  The rolled hit points can be re-rolled by the individuals who own the characters who were played by others tonight.  Max had rolled a 6 for Jason, while John had rolled a 3 for Mathew B. ]

Note 2: A full count on the silver and gold found is forthcoming].


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 4
August 15, 2013

Venturing further into the caverns, you passed another set of spikes set in the cavern floor, presumably the other end of the carrion crawler lair.

Beyond those spikes, you discovered some spider webs, coating from ceiling to floor the entire passageway.  Using some torches you found on entering the dungeon a couple days ago, you burned these as you continued onward.

Suddenly, Bear was struck by webbing shot from somewhere to the darkened north! This of course marks the third time in a row Bear has found himself frozen (first turned to stone, then paralyzed, and now restrained by webbing), so he didn't look surprised at all to find himself unable to move once again.

The party moved in and attacked what turned out to be a giant spider lurking on the ceiling.  It took a bite out of Bear, but otherwise went down fairly quickly.

On burning away more web, you found a couple of semi-mummified corpses, wrapped in copious amounts of web.  Cutting away the wrappings, you discovered the bodies had some rotted weaponry, and a few pouches of coinage, which you pocketed to count later.

Moving further north through the webbed passageways, you were again surprised by what this time turned out to be not one, but two additional giant spiders.  One was a giant brown sucker, and the other an even more terrifying black one.

Bear got another bite taken out of him, but the party managed to take down the black spider, as the brown one fled from your slings and arrows.

Coming across a rail track that led from east to west, which appeared to be a mining path of some sort, you found yet more giant spiders.  The two new ones, which were eventually joined by the wounded prior spider that had fled, ganged up on Bear once again.  Wounding him graciously, Bear withdrew as Luther and Milo filled the gap in the battle lines.  Arrows, slings, and spells flew north as the spiders attacked back with their deadly mandibles.  Finally, Milo's thunderwave spell seemed to take the fight out of the creatures, blowing their webbing back, slaying one and heavily wounding the other.  The remainder of the spiders died quickly thereafter to the clean-up sling shots and arrows of Luther, Slink, and Hollin.

The battle won, the party continued to clear out the webbed caverns, and discovered more semi-mummified to the east and west, with one batch somewhat wealthier than the other.

Returning to the rail tracks, you peered to the west and found the tracks carried on into the distance, while to the east you found an abandoned empty mining cart.  Then suddenly Bear spotted a Kobold in hiding to the east.  Sly dog that Bear is, he played it cool, not giving away that he had spotted the Kobold, and informed the party quietly of his discovery.

The group quickly conceived a plan involving a bluffed vacating of the area and heading south.  The Kobold did not take the bait, so the bluff was further reinforced with mentions of abandoned food.  Finding the Kobold was determined to not follow, you eventually opted for the more straightforward approach.  Luther led the way, as the party charged in to the east, past the mining cart and into a further chamber...

...Only to find a room full of creatures!

There stood the Kobold on guard, backed by two shadowy flying creatures to the south that appeared to somewhat have the shape of Kobolds, but also seeded to be made of shadowy somewhat insubstantial material.  To the east there stood a shamanic-like Kobold, and behind him, up on a pedestal, glared a Spinned Devil, rather similar to the one you fought earlier, down to the golden trident grasped in his claw.

[Out of Character, we discussed adopting the new playtest packet rules, properly leveling everyone up to second level, and Max making his own character some time this next week.  For the next three sessions Jason is likely out, and otherwise Max, Noah, and John are in for next session.  Treasure for this session, and the prior one, will be listed early next week, I hope].


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 5

August 29, 2013

Hardest Day Yet!

Two tough battles, where the party barely scrapped by.  Well OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but it was rough going there.

The party heard the telepathic angry cry of something (presumably the Demon, but perhaps something else), commanding his minions to capture "the bodies we need". The Kobolds and Demon attacked at once.  Luther went down quick, helpless to defend against his foes overwhelming numbers.  Fortunately for him, the final blow appeared to be intentionally aimed to knock him out, rather than kill him.  If not for that, perhaps he would have perished.

Hearing his cries of distress, the rest of the party moved in.  As the black flying demon hovered above the prone Luther, the party took down the smaller Kobolds, in an exchange of blows.  One of the shadowy flying Kobolds tried to drop a glob of black-something on the party, which fortunately missed and dissipated on contact with the ground.

Suddenly, a shamanic-like Kobold threw a glass vial of some sort into the room, exploding in a yellow mist throughout.  Milo, drawing on his knowledge of arcane lore, determined that it was protective in nature.  He let loose with his magic missiles, and combined with the swordplay of Bear, Hollin and Slink, felled the Demon and his remaining allies.  As each of the two shadowy kobolds fell, their bodies disappeared.  The other three kobolds, however, left behind perfectly normal corpses, as did the Demon.

Leaving the stabilized and unconscious Luther under guard, they searched the room.  The group found some gold (including a platinum piece) and three potions.  One was black, one light blue, and one brown.  Milo was able to read the black one, which had been on one of the Kobolds, and he thought the Draconic text on it implied poison or death.  He could not read the infernal tongue on the other two, which had been found on the Demon.  Another small golden trident was also found on the body of the Demon, along with a map.

The map appeared to display a path through the cavern levels the party was currently on, back down the stairs, and all the way back to the original dungeon entrance, and then through the ordinary door to the west, that the party had not tried yet.  It was unclear who drew the map, though the handwriting was fairly crude.  And it was unclear what it led to, as there was no indication of what might lay in that direction.

To the south Slink found some more coin-based treasure hidden amongst some rubble, including some valuable common precious stones.

Deciding to rest for some hours, Bear and Hollin discovered two barriers had been erected to the east and north.  Each appeared to have been built from the other side, to seemingly prevent things from leaving, but the smell of fresh air was detected from somewhere behind each.

Meanwhile Milo checked out the two pillar-like structures in the room.  Each was movable, and reached to about waist height.  He cast detect magic on the pillars and other objects in the room. First, he found that the black potion was not magic.  The Light Blue potion glowed with the glow of Conjuration, and the party speculated it could be a healing potion (or perhaps not).  The other glowed with the glow of Transmutation.  The pillars themselves were not magical, but Milo detected the faint aura of necromantic energy atop them, as if some evil ritual or rite had transpired there at some time in the not too distant past.

Luther came too after several hours, with a headache but otherwise none the worse for wear.  The group decided to spend the night in this area, and built a barrier on the one otherwise-unobstructed passage out of the room.  The barrier consisted of the altars, the rubble from the south, and an old overturned mining cart.

Refreshed and rested, the party found their sleep had gone undisturbed.  Taking some additional time to rip down the barrier to the east, the part followed along a gradually lightening winding corridor, and finally came to an exit from the dungeons.  Looking out over the valley below, they found themselves in the left eye socket of the great Skull Mountain, and speculated that perhaps the other barrier they had not tried earlier to the north led to the right eye socket.  Below, they spied a grey rocky trail that led precariously back down to the valley, which would otherwise be fairly difficult to spot from below.

Returning to the dungeon the way they had just come, the party decided to follow the mining car tracks rather than retrace their steps to the south through the former spider web and carrion crawler regions.  The tracks led on a twisting and turning path until it finally reached a large cavern.

Though they tried to approach with stealth, Bear gave away their presence when he slipped on a loose stone, and the party could hear the screeching of something in the distance.  They knew they had been discovered, perhaps by the vile Harpies they had previously fought!

Slink took cover behind a cavern wall, but Bear, Luther, and Hollin charged in to the cavern.  There, they found Harpies laying in wait.  Luther became charmed by their alluring song, and strode off after one of the, with a hypnotic loving gave on his face. Soon thereafter a queen Harpy revealed herself, perched on a rocky area in the middle of the room.  The Queen charmed Bear as well, and it seemed things were not going well for the party.

Some further blows were exchanged, as Milo discharged his magic missiles while Slink, deciding that stealth was no longer useful, moved on in and made some sneak attacks on the nearest Harpy.

As Luther stared enthralled at one of the Harpies, Bear managed to break the charm and pursue the queen.  Meanwhile, Hollin too fell under their charm, as Milo and Slink continued to battle with the lesser Harpies.

Bear pursued the Queen across the rocky cavern floor, dodging screeching attacks, claws and clubbings alike.  Luther broke the charm as well, as dark Harpies took advantage of Hollin's enthralled state to assault him ruthlessly.  To no avail! Despite 4 attacks with clubs and claws [8 actual rolls, as they had advantage] only one minor hit was struck with a club.  Hollin was able to retreat out of there mostly unharmed, thanks to his armor.

But all was still not well.  Slink went down to the onthrust of Harpy attacks, and started to bleed out.  Milo struck down two Harpies with another flurry of magic missiles, and then rushed to Slink's aid, stabilizing his bleeding.  Meanwhile the renewed attacks from Hollin and Luther brought down more Harpies, as Bear continued his dogged pursuit of the Queen Harpy.

Finally, it came down to two foes left.  Hollin tried to strike at one of the dark harpies that had retreated to a perch on the higher rocky central area, while Bear tried to locate the Queen who had retreated into darkness.

Hollin was able to finally strike down the remaining dark harpy on it's perch, with some help from Luther's sling shots.  Milo then cast a Light spell on a copper piece, and successfully tossed it into an area of the room that revealed the hiding place of the Queen Harpy, who had burrowed herself into a huge nest to the northwest of the cavern.

Bear renewed his pursuit, and with Hollins help the two took the Queen down finally, to screech no more.

Exhausted and bleeding, the party gathered to assess the situation.  Nothing else is heard, except the quiet of the cavern, and the echoed hard breathing of the party.  Surely treasure awaits a search, once Slink is back on his feet.

[I have the treasure lists from the last few sessions ready, along with this one.  The only non-coin/jewels treasure found are the three potions, so far, plus another golden trident off the Demon.  John, Noah, and Max all said they would likely be able to make next Thursday's game, and Matt A said he would as well (by text).  Matt B, who had intended to play tonight, had his car stuck and was unable to make the game, but hopefully can make next weeks as well.  Max wants to create a Cleric, or play the existing pre-built Cleric (Father Rivers), for next session.  He may invite his friend Robert to play Jason's character for next week.]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 6

Sept 5, 2013

This was a very short session, with Max, Matt A., and Noah (for about 30 mins or so).

The party conducted an initial brief search of the room where the Harpy Queen and her minions fell.   There was a stack of mis-matched treasure in one corner which looked to be from a variety of different sources, along with some pouches on the dead harpies themselves.  You didn't take the time to count every coin, but it looked like around 2,300 copper pieces, 190 silver pieces, 80 gold pieces, and four potions in small vials, between the pouches and the treasure pile.

Two of the four potions had labels.  One was clearly labelled "healing" in the modern common tongue.  One was labelled in broken Orcish, which Luther translated roughly to say "What the Spiders do". The other two potions were not labelled.

The group then carried the unconscious Slink back the way they'd come to gain healing from the cleric, along with the newly acquired sacks of treasure.  A brief discussion was had concerning the possibility of heading out through the mountain-skull eye-socket and back down the mountain, but it was decided that path could have unknown dangers, and it was safer to take the known path back down the stairs, through the Bullywug lair and illusionary snakes and cockatrice lair.

Slink was healed by the cleric, and the entire party (including the cleric, but leaving Bear behind to guard the entrance to the dungeon) headed back out to conduct a more thorough search of the Harpy chamber.

On the way there, however, the party noticed that the Bullywugs did not seem to be present in their lair any longer.  Taking a quick peak at the watery cavern beneath the Bullywug temple, the party could see no Bullywugs.  Slink took a brief dip in the water to examine the cavern closer.  There, he spotted a roughly circular burnt section on one wall, and a small cavernous passageway never the back of the cavern which the party hadn't spotted before.  Slink looked quickly at the cavern, but it ended in a dead-end and he decided to re-join the party and make note of it for later.

On returning to the Harpy room, a more thorough search was conducted.  Within the Harpy nest, Slink discovered a longsword.  The sword was unrusted, and not dinged from battle, but otherwise bore no visible markings.

On closer examination, Slink felt he recognized the style of blade from somewhere, but he just couldn't place where.  He didn't get a sense it was of monstrous manufacture, but he couldn't quite remember what people's made such blades.  And lacking a detect magic spell at the moment (which the Wizard, Milo, had previously cast already), the party decided to try and figure the blade out later.

The group then took a quick look around the caverns, found that they had likely been almost everywhere, and returned to the main chambers on the entry level of the dungeon.

While the rest of the party rested in the front room (Milo studying his books), Slink and the Cleric decided to go check out that watery cavern of the Bullywugs one more time.

Wading over to the newly discovered short passageway in the rear of the cavern, the Cleric discovered that a smooth surface was there, but obscured by the build-up of many years of corrosion, dirt, and mineral layers.  The two party members hacked away at the corrosion, revealing an ancient doorway.  There, the Cleric peered with determination, and discovered some ancient common carved into the door, which seemed to say something like, "Our Honored Dead".  Putting his shoulder into the door, the Cleric was able to barely move it [Edit - Rolled a natural 20 on his strength check!], and with Slink's help the two were able to open the ancient door.

Behind the door was a very dark passage leading south, and another door directly across from the one just opened.  Slink could neither hear anything behind that door, nor did he detect any traps in it.  The ground of the passageway south looked untouched for ages, covered with dust and no footprints.

However the Bullywugs left, it did not seem that this was the path they took.

The two then returned to the party at the front entrance, and the group plotted their next move.  The Cleric explained that it might be time for him to head back to town and report back to the Adventurers Guild, but another Cleric would be along shortly to replace him.


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 7

September 12, 2013

Milo began the evening attempting to discern the exact nature of the sword discovered from the harpy lair.  By hefting the weapon, he found that it seemed half as light as it should be for it's size, and felt hollow but otherwise very solid.  He cast detect magic and found that it was definitely magical in nature.  He then performed the Identify ritual, spending a crushed pearl, feather, and some wine, combined with an elaborate dance and cant.  At the completion of the ritual, he declared that the sword was of elemental origin, hailing from the plane of air at some time in the distant past, and that it would do more damage than a normal sword, not age or become worn.

Hollin asked if perhaps he could carry the weapon for a time, as his focus was on the longsword and the thing appealed to him.  The party agreed, and he spent some time contemplating a proper name for the elemental airy weapon.

The party then rested for a long spell, recovering their health and magical abilities, as Milo studied his books.

After the rest, the group decided to explore the recently discovered secret door, beneath the Bullywug temple.  Slink opted to stay behind this time, counting his gold...and guarding the entrance, of course.

The secret door revealed a corridor heading south, and another locked iron door directly to the east.  Bear stealthily checked the southern passageway, finding an ordinary but old wooden door at the end of that hall.  The entire corridor seemed old and undisturbed.  Listening at that door, he heard nothing.  On opening it, as the rest of the party caught up, the hinges creaked loudly from disuse.  Another short corridor lay beyond, heading east from the door.  At the end of that new hallway was what appeared to be a secret door, if it were viewed from the other side.  From this side the door was obvious, with a handle that pulled the door inwards.  But based on how flush it was against the wall, it seemed like it would be pretty difficult to spot from the other side.  No peephole could be found, however.

Opting to save that hidden door for now, the party returned to the locked iron door.  Lacking the thief, it took some time to jimmy the lock, and the bugbears contemplated simply bashing the door in.  But finally the Hollin managed to pop the lock with a lucky twist.

Behind the locked door was a steep set of stairs heading down fairly far, beyond the darkvision of the bugbears, into the depths of what was presumed to be another level.

Deciding that perhaps another level of the dungeon could wait, the group returned to the unhidden side of the newly discovered secret door.  Father Rivers carefully opened it, and stepped inside.

A crypt lay on the other side, with six stone slabs within, three to each of the north and south.  Also on the south was a glimmering tray on the ground, and a grate with hot air coming from below.  Finally, a few urns lay scattered about, and an old prayer rug lay at the entrance to the room.

Oh, and some skeletons.  One on each slab.  Those to the north seemed laid out a bit haphazardly, while those to the south seemed more orderly.  

Milo detected magic on the room, and the entire crypt emanated necromantic, with particular malevolence from the skeletal remains.

As Father Rivers stepped forth preparing to pray over the corpses, the skeletal remains began to animate.  Limbs began to attach themselves to the torso, and the constructs started to rise, with a wicked glow to their hollow eye-sockets.

Before the skeletons could attack, however, Father Rivers called forth the power of the Lifegiver.  Half the skeletons disintegrated at the booming voice of the Believer.  One tried to flee, as two more resisted the challenge and prepared to attack.

Bear ran in, guarding the exit from the room, as Hollin and Luther engaged in melee, dodging the frosting rays from Milo. Bear took down the fleeing skeleton, as the others made quick work of the remaining two, though Luther was injured by one.

On inspection of the crypt, the group found the names of the departed carved into their burial slabs: Lord Smyth, Sylvester, Reginal (who fled), Koofus Krumbley, Snarkly, and Sir Jackson Riffle (the only one to take a real swing at the group, doing some damage to Luther).  Some gold and gems were also found amongst their remains.  The donation tray was also found to be made of gold and silver, and had some value.  The treasure was stowed for counting later.  Father Rivers healed Luther.

Moving further on, Bear found a short set of stairs to the south to a slightly lower level, a passageway to the north, and another room to the east.  Approaching the room to the east, he saw two additional corpses, slumped against the wall, with sickly white flesh beneath their old leather armor.

Father Rivers entered the new room, and the sickly Wight's rose and attacked.  Luther charged in, and swung at the beasts as they attacked in return.  He took a chunk out of each of them, though he was frustrated that his blows did not seem to do as much damage as he expected them to.  Fortunately he was able to dodge three of their four returning slashes with scimitars and longswords.  However the one that did strike true carved a mighty wound in Luther's side, and he retreated away from the thing as others moved in.

Hollin took a swing, but missed despite his new magical sword.  Not so with Bear, whose blows landed true, though again without as much impact as intended.

Milo's voice range with arcane words, as he called forth a thunderous wave of sound.  The sound seemed to warp around his allies, preventing them from feeling the brunt of the deadly soundwave, but struck hard against the Wights, blowing them back against the far wall of the room and damaging them deeply.

The Wights responded with a joint attack on Bear.  One had dropped his longswords when blown back, but landed a meaty blow on Bear with his wicked, dirty claws.  Bear screamed in terror, as he felt his life force drain from him! [-5 to maximum hitpoints until he has a long rest or receives special magical healing of a curse removing nature].  The two scimitars from the other Wight also struck true, and Bear went down, unconscious.

Seeking revenge on his fallen ally, Hollin charged in, his magic sword sinking deep into one of the Wights.  Whatever resisting force prevented the Wights from feeling the full brunt of earlier blows did not seem present against the magic of Hollin's new sword, and the Wight looked to be nearly back to being dead again.

Luther, in his weakened state from the earlier blows, opted to attack from range, and damaged one Wight.  Milo then wiped them up, thundering down on their heads yet another wave of sound, which finally knocked the necromantic energy from the corpses, which fell to an inanimate state once again.

Father Rivers laid hands on the fallen Bear, who was able to stand again after receiving the "Spare the Dying" cantrip form Rivers.  The group did a quick search of the room, and noted the Wights they had just defeated had once been known as Sir Robert of Norry, and Sir Fistival of Lativia, based on the inscriptions on their tombs.  Gathering some items they felt were valuable, the party retreated back to the hidden hallway to lick their wounds and contemplate their next course of action.

[Treasure and XP to be posted later this week.  All reported they will be available for a further game next week.]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 8 

September 19, 2013.  Talk like a pirate day.  Ahrrr!

Bear, feeling crispy from the creeping wound left by the wight's sickly attack, begged a rest from the party.  Holing up in the corridor between the long-abandoned secret doors, the party held up for 8 hours licking wounds and plotting strategy, to the mumblings of Milo memorizing his spells in the corner.

Healed up and ready as best they could be, with Bear still feeling a bit off (like butter, spread too thinly over bread), the group opened the secret door and headed back north down the creepy crypt corridor.

Slink discovered a silver door to his right down a short passageway.  The door had writing on it, in an ancient common tongue.  He had some trouble reading it, but best he could tell, it said "Here lies Sir John Hawkins, he was the best of us."

Slink opted to attempt to unlock the door, and after a few tries managed to pop the lock open before the party could discuss the matter in full.  Hearing the concerns of the others, Slink agreed that perhaps it would be safer to deal with whatever evil might lay to the open left-hand passageway before venturing to the right-hand one, as cloth-wrapped corpses were visible to the darkvision of the bugbears in that direction.

Slink, hoping he didn't just release something from behind the silver door, tried and succeeded at re-locking the door.  Father Rivers speculated that, perhaps, the door was made of silver and locked to keep something from getting out.

Venturing down the right hand passageway, a tad incautiously, the group awoke the previously-still corpses of a rather large number of zombies.  The zombies tore through their aged wrappings, and looked ready to consume the living. 

Father Rivers, prepared for such an eventuality, brought forth his holy symbol of the sacred deity of Life, and commanded with a supernaturally booming voice that the foul creatures return from whence they came.

This worked rather wonderfully, as four of the eight zombies disintegrated in terror, their shadows permanently emblazoned on the walls behind them as their tortured cries lingered in the air.  Three of the others clawed and scrambled over the broken funerary wrappings to get away from the cleric, as only one zombie remained fearless of the commanding clerics clarion call.

[Editorial Comment: It should be noted here that each of the zombies had names.  Their names were those of real life pirates, in honor of Talk like a Pirate Day. Their names were: Nicholas Alvel, Samuel Axe, Abraham Blauvelt, Hendrik (Enrique) Brower, Thomas Cavendish, Jacob Collaart, Baltazar de Cordes, and Jan Jacobsen.)

The party made short work thereafter of the remaining four pirate-zombies, though they did frequently get back up after being knocked down.  It took the fortuitous critical head-severing skewering of Bear [Wherein Jason rolled TWO NATURAL TWENTIES IN A ROW!] to truly help put these zombies down for the count.  But after some time, down they did go.  Only Luther received a wound, which Father Rivers healed for him.

Having dealt handily with the mass of zombie horrors, the party looted their remains, and pulled forth numerous bags of coins, jewels, a silvered hand-mirror, an ancient carved jade deity totem, and various other and sundry items of some worth.

But the treasure was not enough, so a-tomb-robbing they shall go!

Returning to the silvered door, which Slink could barely contain himself before opening once again, the party moved on.

Behind the door lay a short passageway, with a large opening into an even larger chamber at least 75 feet long or more. Two short sets of stairs, separated by a small landing, were between the party and a very large sarcophagus.  Atop the sarcophagus lay a gleaming polearm of some kind. Along the walls stood a series of funerary urns.  And, as Slink was to see later as he entered the room and peered further with his half-elven eyes, the back of the room contained a large chest, along with some more urns, and a ruined portion of the chamber strewn with rubble and a broken urn.  

Slink made his way towards the sarcophagus, but didn't get very far.  Almost his first step into the large chamber triggered two darts to fire at him, one from each side of the chamber, apparently fired from the urns that lined those sides.

"I found a trap guys!" he called back.

Moving to inspect the urns, Slink determined that they each contained more darts, possibly poisoned, possibly not, but definitely aimed in multiple directions and trigerable from multiple angles and areas of the room.

Making his way down one side of the chamber and then the other, Slink eventually managed to disarm them all.  He did however get hit one to many times, and once by a poisoned dart, causing the cleric to have to call on his God's power to rejuvenate his health.

After disarming the traps, slink inspected first the sarcophagus, and then the chest behind it.  Both appeared to contain a trap, either of which seemed linked to the sarcophagus itself.  Father Rivers speculated that likely either or both could cause something to rise from the tomb if disturbed.

The party made ready, as Slink prepared to attempt to disarm the trap connecting the chest to the sarcophagus.  Meanwhile, Milo detected magic in the room, and found that the tomb radiated necromancy, the weapon atop it was magical but drowned out by that same necromancy, and perhaps something was magical within the chest in the rear of the chamber.

He carefully used one tool to hold to portions of the wire together as he snipped between those portions, hoping to then nail the taut end of the wire connected to the sarcophagus to the ground to prevent it from being triggered, thus freeing up the chest-side of the wire to be opened without concern.

Alas, the wire slipped from his tools, and disaster struck!

The lid to the sarcophagus, along with the weapon atop it, exploded up and out.  A giant mummy rose from the tomb, waves of terror and anguish radiating from it's tortured visage!

Milo and Hollin froze in fright, paralyzed by their fear of this gigantic horrid creature from the netherworld.  Fortunately, the rest of the party held their wits, and attacked.

Bear charged the thing, and though both his weapons struck, neither seemed to do as much damage as he hoped they would.  Meanwhile Father Rivers called forth a sacred flame, lighting the mummy aflame with the light of his God.  It screamed in anger, clearly more harmed by the flames than normal creatures might be, as its wrappings turned to cinders.  

Slink tried to open the chest, hoping some magical weapon inside could avail them. Luther and bear continued to hack at the thing, as Father Rivers rained sacred flames across the creature's path.

Alas for Bear, he got close one too many times, and though he struck the beast a sound blow as it came charging at him, using the magical polearm that he had picked up from where it has flown off the sarcophagus, the creature struck him back even harder.  Bear reeled from the blows, fighting off the rotting filth disease that radiated from the creature as he fled the reach of the beast.

Fortunately, the continuing onslaught from Luther and Slink managed to bring the beast down, just as Hollin and Milo managed to regain their senses and were prepared to join the fight.  The giant beast had fallen.

Licking their wounds, the party eyed the chest in the rear of the chamber, and the treasures it contained.

[Loot and XP to follow.  Matthew A and Noah are not available next week, however John and Max may be, and Jason said he will attempt to make the session if possible from his away-location]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 9

September 26, 2013

Present: Jason, John, Max, each playing two characters.

The Glaive recovered from the Mummy chamber turned out to be magical. It bore Elvish design, with a variety of leaf-like patterns along the blade. It seemed lighter than expected, and a bit more flexible than a normal glaive. Along the hilt was the symbol of a known Elvish mage known as Marian Darksbane. Luther also discovered a small word carved into the weapon, "Áre". When spoken, the glaive would light up, with bright light for a 10' radius and an addition 20' of dim light.

Having collected the remaining treasure from the chest of the Mummy formerly known as Sir John Hawkins, the party rested for a bit and then returned to the main pain and headed to the unexplored areas to the north. There they found a short set of steps leading upwards.

Slink scouted ahead, and with the aid of a copper piece alighted magically by Milo, he spied a 50' x 50' sunken chamber with a balcony path formerly an L shape on the south and east side, leading to more steps back down to the chamber in the north east. Within the chamber stood five sarcophagus, numerous funerary niches, and some randomly scattered wrapped bodies.

Moving cautiously, the party threw the glowing coin at a body. Finding it unmoving, they started to enter the chamber as Slink inspected the first niche.

Shockingly, the thing came alive and lunged at Slink, as Slink hurriedly backed away and tried to take a swipe at it! The thing had rotting flesh, was raw pale and discolored from necrosis. It's lips and eyelids were absent, and noses was completely rotted off. It appeared feral in nature, and hunched over. It's claws and teeth were disgusting, and sharp.

The party responded with missile weapons, as Luther tried out his new magical Glaive.

As Hollins stepped forward, he was surprised to find a second of the creatures had suddenly come out from hiding just beneath his step on the stairs. The thing struck at him with claws and teeth, doing some damage but fortunately not paralyzing him.

Bear was not so lucky. As tradition would have it, he was quickly paralyzed by the bite of an additional beast, as three more of them charged into the chamber from various hiding places within some niches around the room.

Father Rivers stepped forth in response to this dire predicament, and called forth the power of his God to banish these foul creatures. One of them fled in terror, but the remainder held their ground and responded with more attacks.

Several party members were injured in the ensuing battle, and Hollin required a timely cure wounds spell from Father Rivers at one point, as the front line held their ground on the stairs with melee weapons while those on the balcony continued with their missile weapons and spells...except for Luther, who was able to strike at the creatures from the second rank using his new polearm.

Bear finally managed to shrug off the effects of the paralysis, as the party shot arrows and spells into the last of the beasts cowering in the corner away from the Cleric.

But the battle was rough, and about half the members of the party bore nasty wounds. The party opted to rest and search the room while Milo began his hour long Identification ritual. Luther stood on watch.

And watch he did, as about a half hour into their rest and recuperation, a patrol of skeletons marched into the room from the only entrance!

Still wounded from their battle with the Ghouls, this unexpected company was most unwelcome. As the skeletons attacked with short bows and long swords, Father Rivers and Hollin held the front line against them as missile weapons and cantrip spells were cast from the back ranks along the narrow balcony.

The skeletons started to go down, only to replaced by those behind them, as they marched on. The front ranks began to get overwhelmed, as bloody was splashed from numerous wounds. Rivers and Hollin had to make a strategic withdraw as Bear and Luther took up the role of front liners. Even Slink took a pair of nasty arrows from his position near the back, and what should have been an easy fight turned into a tough matchup for the previously wounded and exhausted party.

Finally, the last skeleton fell to the flames of the Cleric and the twin weapons of Bear, and the party was able to withdraw back into the chamber to plot their next move. Wounded and exhausted, it was clear a retreat to the safe area behind the secret door was now in order.

[All six members of the party are now at 625 XP. Treasure still to be listed. All three of Jason, John, and Max said they should be available next week to game.]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 10

October 3, 2013
Present: John, Jason, Matt A, Noah, Max

After retreating from the arduous battle with the ghouls and skeletons, the party rested for about 8 hours or so in the ancient hallway between the two secret doors they had discovered nearby, and planned their next move.

Feeling refreshed after some sleep and a meal, the group headed back to the sarcophagus room, and gave it a thorough search. Some bits of treasure and other valuable art objects and gemstones were found, but nothing magical or particularly noteworthy. 

The group then traveled south, up a short set of stairs in an unexplored section of the crypts. The stairs let to a small chamber with numerous secluded niches, and one door exiting the area further to the south. Searching the niches and sarcophagus therein, the party did not find anything worth writing home about, and moved on

Through the exit, a small chapel was revealed. Father Rivers sense that the oppressive necromantic energy that had infested the remained of the crypts did not seem present here. The chapel was otherwise empty, aside from benches and an empty altar.

Moving on down the last remaining unexplored hallway, the party found that it ended on the other side of the unusual door they had first seen on entering the first room of the entire dungeon. While it was locked with a complex lock from the other side, Slink was easily able to open it from this side, and the party re-entered the beginning chamber once again, breathing in the fresh air that wafted down from the nearby stairwell out to the wilderness of the mountain.

Seeing that the door they had just existed was about to close on it's own, Father Rivers moved a bed into the doorway, propping it open for now, in case use of the chapel was needed later.

The final unexplored door from the first chamber was a plain wooden door. Slink listened at the door, and could again hear some faith chanting in the background, which had apparently been going on for some days.

The group arranged themselves for a raid, and Slink quietly slipped the door open and stepped inside. There he found a short hallway leading to another door, with obvious chanting coming from behind it. The party then charged in!

As the door went crashing open, three Kobold shamans were found, chanting around a triangular shape carved into the floor which contained a huge shadowy creature! 

Fortunately, the foes were surprised, and unprepared for the devastatingly effective attack that was about to commence. Arrows flew as combatants danced amongst their foes with flashing swords. The Shamans went down quickly to the barrage, as the shadowy creature fell to the magical sword and polearm of Hollin and Luther. It was all over within a matter of seconds.

The group briefly retreated to catch their breath, and then moved back in. Hollin was surprised by a pack of kobold warriors on re-entering the room, but he suffered only a minor scratch as he and the others dispatched the warriors quickly.

Some wounded surviving kobolds remained, and the group put them to the question. After a short and heated interrogation, one Kobold was intimidated into revealing their devilish plan. The Kobolds, finding themselves prisoners of the dungeon and trapped by The Thing Within The Walls, and hatched a diabolic plan. 

One Shaman had a pact with a small demon. Joining forces with the demon, the Shaman enacted a horrid ritual wherein the souls of a kobold could be ripped from the corpus, assuming a shadowy form. The shadow was then placed within the living body of a captured adventurer. Assuming control of that body, the kobold was then able to leave the dungeon and escape.

The plan, which had been somewhat successful to date, was to have the demon and it's fellows lure adventurers down to the kobolds lair, where they would be captures and further bodily occupations commenced. The captured Shaman could not recall how many had been successful, but he was sure a number of his compatriots had escaped this way, and more shadows were waiting nearby for new adventurers to control.

Disgusted by the vile acts of the kobolds, the party slew the remaining prisoners quickly, and moved on, intent on putting an end to the remaining shadows.

And end them they did, though not without a tough fight. The next room contained quick a number of the foul entities, which flew about and tore into the party. Though a seemingly effective battle line was drawn up, the creatures took advantage of their flighty powers, and flew right over the assembled party. Five of the creatures initially attacked, doing some damage to Bear as Hollin defended him from behind. They fell back into the Kobold ritural room, as the creatures poured in after them. In response to a nasty Ray of Frost, two creatures came after Milo, damaging him badly as he fell back seeking refuge behind the rest of the party. Meanwhile, three more of the shadow creatures arrived, and it was all the party could do to try and keep them all at bay.

Finding that only magical attacks damaged the things properly, though all attacks seemed to take something out of them, Milo in desperation Thunder Waved a large group of the things, hitting three of them, putting one down and knocking two more.

Bear then went into what he deemed "beast mode", taking down two in one turn, and a third the next moment.

Meanwhile, Father Rivers bravely held off numerous attacks, as the things had trouble getting past his armor and natural protections. Aside from a scratch, he remained mostly unharmed.

Slink continued to shoot his arrows at the creatures, scoring several precise hits at them that did as much damage as non-magical arrows could do. All the while, Bear kept chipping away at the shadows.

Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, all the foul beings went down.

Afterwards, Slink snuck into the lair of the shadows, and there he found a small cave system. In the caves, he located a small rickety chest which contained some valuables worth taking back to the group. 

With just one more door remaining in the Kobold series of rooms, the party fell back to rest a bit and contemplate their next move.


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 11

October 17, 2013
Present: Matt A., John, Max, and Noah (except for end of night)

Summary:

Kobold Lair
12 Kobolds
Slink picked lock, and with coordination between him, Milo (casting light spell on Hollin's shield) and Hollin (charging in), lifted the bar on the other side of the door and Hollin burst in, surprising the kobolds.

Took three Kobolds down before they could react, including sleep spell on two more (though you didn't see the second guy hit by the sleep until your light radius reached that far).

The Kobolds then formed up, with the guy to the right always imposing his shield to protect the guy to his left, and all of them feeding off the pack mentality of those next to their prey. 

The battle was far more difficult than expected, as the formation of shields made hitting them very difficult, while the frenzy had them hitting Hollin, Bear, and Father Rivers repeatedly, requiring healing to Bear and Hollin and retreat by Rivers.

Only once their battle lines were broken down, by clever tactics of the party having weaker attacks go first, and always on the Kobold at the end of the line, and then stronger attacks, only then did the Kobolds really begin to fall.

After a long and difficult battler, which was a fairly close call all around requiring multiple heals, the Kobolds were finally defeated.

A chest was in the room, and though it was trapped and a poison dart went off, the poison on the dart was very weak and easily resisted by Slink.

After a long rest, the remainder of the area was searched, and it was found that the door leading out led around to the Bullywug lair. The level was now clear.

Heading back to the ancient stairway leading down to the darkness of the level below, the party found the opposite end of another secret door. Hollin burst in, glowing shield in hand, an orc guard at the end of a corridor.

The guard went down fairly quick, but not without enough noise to alert others nearby. Suddenly Slink was struck a nearly killing blow by the wicked great axe of a huge orc who burst in from the door to the south.

The party formed ranks near Slink, with blow after blow finally taking down his assailant as Father Rivers healed Slink's still and bleeding form.

Alas, three more orcs were in the room, and they attacked. The first was another brute, while the second wielded a wicked barbed whip, and the third had curious blood red painting all over his body, and wore a small skull on a necklace. The third orc screamed "For the boneskull tribe!", seemingly inspiring his allies forward....


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 12

October 24, 2013
Present: Noah, Jason, John, Max


The tough looking orcs, for all their bravado, went down quickly. With keen aim and deadly brute force, the party cut through them like hot knives through butter. With barely an opportunity to retaliate, the three remaining orcs were dead.

Milo then detected magic in the room, and found that the belt the chief orc was wearing, which bore a small skull as a buckle, glowed with magic. As did two potions, one in each chest in the room, which appeared to be red goopy liquids of the evocation school. He presumed the potions were healing potions, and focused on the belt.

But before he could fully identify the belt, some additional orcs came by outside the room, and knocked on the door. The party took up battle positions but did not reply. After a short while, the orcs wandered off rather than try the door, and Slink overheard their conversation, which was mostly composed of arguing over who was going to open the door.

The party waited, and the orcs left of their own accord. Slink then snuck out and examined the long hallway, finding two doors. The first, the door the orcs exited from, was to the west. The second, in the eastern portion of the hallway, was to the north. He then listened to each door and confirmed there was orc-sounding noises behind the door to the west, and not much behind the door to the north.

The rest of the party caught up, and planned to assault the orcs to the west. Unfortnately, Hollin made a bit too much noise in his clunky by effective armor, and the orcs were altered to the presence of the party.

A pitched battle ensued in the halway. Bear was shocked to find that the door to the north did not lead to an unoccupied room, as a guard on the other side of that door slammed it open and attacked - the door knocking Bear to the ground in the process. Hollin intervened with his shield, just in time as the orc's wicked looking battle axe came crashing down just shy of Bear's intimidatingly handsome Bugbearish head!

More orcs poured into the hallway, as Hollin, Slink, and Luther knocked them door. One orc with a crossbow went for an alarm drum, but Milo was able to put him to sleep before he could raise the alarm. Between that spell and a second dose of sleep, Milo took down four orcs, and 6 more eventually fell to the coordinated attacks of the party, and Father Rivers healed Bear, giving him chance to regain his feet and rejoin the battle.

Before long it was over, and 10 orcs laid in heaps across the hallway, leaving quite the bloody mess.

It turned out the two doors connected into one larger area, which itself contained four doors. One to the south had additional orc sounds behind it. The door to the west sounded something like wind. The doors to the north and east (in the northerly portion of the room) did not have any sounds.

The group contemplated resting, but opted to press on instead, hoping to catch the orcs by surprise.

And they did! Opening the door to the south, the group found four orcs hiding behind a barrier facing the west, and two more orcs guarding a door to the west. They orcs seemed shocked to see foes entering from the north, and were caught quite off-guard.

Luther charged in and took down one guard, and then the other. Meanwhile Hollin and Bear went to climb the barrier, as Slink and Milo hit the remaining orcs with ranged attacks and Father Rivers backed people up with healing. 

Hollin and Bear made it over the barrier as Luther got caught-up in it for a time. Most of the orcs behind the barrier fell fairly quickly, but one did get away by running through a door to the east. As bear pursued, he was shocked to find that the orc was not fleeing, but was instead summoning the help of first one, and then a second rather beefy looking orc! The two were dressed in chainmail, well equipped with greataxes, and looked mean.

Hollin charged in to accompany Bear, but Bear went down to their blows anyway. Father Rivers quickly revived him with a spell, as Hollin started to take a beating. Meanwhile, the escaping orc reached the end of the hallway behind the door, perhaps gaining more aid. The situation started to look a bit grim, as the two nasty looking orcs wailed on Hollin and Bear with their greataxes....

[left off at the top of initiative]

[Assuming the party survives this battle, you will all have achieved 3rd level]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 13

November 7, 2013
Present: Jason (half evening), Noah, Max, John
Table Discussion: Proposed moving game night to Monday night, starting November 18. Jason will send out an email to discuss further.

Picking up in the desperate situation where we left off, our valiant adventurers found themselves a bit overextended. With two leaders of the orc tribe beside Hollin, and Bear nearly dead, the predicament looked grim.

Hollin held the front line, as Father Rivers aided Bear in a temporary retreat. Milo and Slink continued to assail one of the two leaders with ranged attacks, as Luther and Hollin harried the same fellow with their melee weapons. While damage was dealt, Hollin started to wear down as well.

Meanwhile, one of the orcish archers that had escaped earlier summoned yet another tougher lieutenant orc, who charged down the corridor to join the battle. With three stalwart orcish ruffians on him, Hollin's impressive defenses started to fail. Though he was able to withstand the onslaught for a time, eventually he too fell, and Father Rivers was forced to revive and withdraw with Hollin as well, as Luther held the doorway.

A few lucky shots from Milo and Slink finally brought down one of the two orc leaders from afar, but the third thug took a chunk out of Luther, and it seemed even the last doorway defender would need to withdraw along with the party. Luther continued to cover the exit as best he could, as Hollin and Bear jumped the barrier to join Milo and Slink on the other side (as Bear drank the one potion Milo thought might be a healing potion, which fortunately it was), leaving just Father Rivers and the wounded Luther on the side with their foes.

Praying for a miracle from the God of Life, Father Rivers summoned all his courage and might, stared the remaining orc leader in the eye, and boomed out in a commanding voice with all his Thaumaturgical might, "Stand down, or we shall slay you all!"

The orc paused. 

[Max rolled a 15 on intimidate, with a +2 bonus from the Thaumaturgy spell to make it a 17, and the orc rolled a 17 - a tie]

The party held their collective breaths, delaying action to see what the response would be.

With nary a sound, the leader stared Father Rivers down, and then slammed the door shut, leaving the party in temporary peace.

The party heaved a sigh of relief, and started to retreat north with their wounded. As the left, Slink quickly devised a plan to mislead the orcs into thinking the group was retreating in a different direction. He listened at a nearby barred door, and hearing only wind on the other side, he opened the bar, and picked the lock to open the door. On the other side he briefly glanced a chasm, with a narrow bridge crossing it, and darkness beyond. Leaving that door wide open, he followed the rest of the party in their retreat.

As the group slipped back behind the secret door from which they had initially entered the orc lair, Luther tried to cover their tracks quickly.

Retreating back up the hidden stairs to the passageway between the two secret doors upstairs (between the necromantically infested area, and the Bullywug temple), the party settled down for a rest, though worried that the orcs would find their lair and seek revenge.

No sudden attack followed, and rest was had by all. Milo was able to identify one of their remaining potions as a potion of Spider Climb. In addition, he found the belt from one of the prior orc leaders was a Belt of Orcish leadership (+2 bonus to all interactions with orcs). 

[The party at this point gained a level, to level 3. Various choices were made, and hit points rolled. Some would be left to be dealt with off-line this upcoming week. Jason took his departure at this point].

After recuperating, the party returned to where they had left off, in the orc lair. However, apparently 8 hours brought some changes to the orcs. Slink slinked around to check out the situation, and found the remaining orcs were now all dead, and their lair was completely ransacked. 

Milo speculated that perhaps the enemies of the orcs, seeing the door that Slink had opened as a sign of something, had finished off the orcs after the party left. But, confirmation of that theory was not to be had...at least not at the moment.

Heading north, the group briefly checked another door in the northern portion of the lair that faced west, and fond it had traps, but the traps on the door were aimed towards the other side of the door. Something, it seemed, was a threat to the orcs from that other side. They group moved on.

To the north, the listened to a great iron door, and heard noised but were unable to identify what they were. Bear and Hollin together opened the door, though it made quite a bit of noise in the process and was rough to open. On the other side stood a large chamber with a raised platform, and two lizard-like creatures - one with fangs and claws, the other dressed in shamanic robes and wielding a staff. The party attacked!

The first lizard warrior was quick to drop to the onslaught, while the shaman managed to get off a silence spell and tried to run to an exit, before the group attacked him with a combination of ranged and melee attacks, until Luther severed his head in one foul slash of his polearm (crit for 23 damage). The party had successfully prevented the lizardmen from seeking aid, but for how long?

[next session scheduled for next Thursday, possibly our last Thursday session]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 14

November 14, 2013
Present: Max, Noah (and then Jason briefly)
Game called due to lack of quorum

We did discuss the following:
1) The room we left off in, with the two lizardmen, also contained a table with some magical ingredients. It also had about 2000 copper pieces, about 110 Electrum pieces, and about 130 gold pieces. In addition, there were two scrolls. They have not been examined yet.

We discussed future dates for gaming. Noah made it clear he is NOT available for Monday's. Both he and Max are available for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

We'll talk in emails about date planning, but for now we will plan on playing next Thrusday as normal, until we decide otherwise.

As for Jason, he will choose for his spells for third level Cure Wounds, and also either Hail of Thorns or Hunter's Mark (unsure which of those last two).


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 15

December 5, 2013
Present: Matt A., Max, John, Noah

After a brief negotiation over the possibility of traps on the scrolls, Milo dove in and opened them. No traps, but one Arcane Lock scroll, and one divine scroll. Father Rivers determined the later to be a Remove Curse spell.

Though the lizardfolk had tried to flee east, the party heard something hitting the ground to the northwest, and decided to head that way. Opening the door, they surprised a troop of lizardfolk soldiers at rest, playing dice with some rather large stone dice, and copper coins.

The party ripped into the soldier lizardpeople with wild abandon. Slink assassinated one of their two leaders with a single deadly arrow to the neck. As the rest swept into the room, the soldiers had little chance to retaliate or run for help, though two of them did manage to mildly wound Hollin.

But as the last one dropped another door opened to the south, and more lizard soldiers moved in. Father Rivers healed Hollin, which was fortuitous as he took yet another wound from the incoming new creatures. Meanwhile Milo cast sleep, dropping two of the things. Bear, Luther, and Hollin swept through the soldier lizards, as slink and Milo hung back with ranged attacks and Father Rivers made sure to keep everyone standing. Their tactics sound, the party prevailed without much concern.

After briefly checking for secret doors in this new room, the party found nothing of much interest aside from another door to the south. Slink listened at it and determined that the windy sound he heard surely led to the cavern he had seen earlier from the other side, or something near it. Hollin argued that the party should fall back and rest before continuing, but he was outvoted, and Bear slammed the door open to finish the debate.

That....was unfortunate. In their haste to overrule Hollins reluctance, they group was out of position. On the other side of the door they did find a cavernous room, with a flimsy rope bridge crossing it. But on their side of that bridge were some more lizardmen.

But this group was different. Their skin was purplish-violet, and had a slight glow to it. As they moved to attack it was obvious this was a much tougher breed of the lizard creatures.

Bear went down almost immediately, taking five separate blows from three creatures that swarmed him. Slink followed him quickly, taking a nasty couple of attacks from some thrown tridents. Before they knew what had happened, a third of the party had already dropped.

Desperation made for a quick plan. Milo cast a web spell on the creatures, hitting them all...but without knowing which would be able to break free and which would be stuck in the web. Meanwhile, Hollin ran in and grabbed the prone and limp body of Slink, pulling him out of the way. Then Father Rivers followed, grabbing the body of Bear and pulling him from the cavern room. Finally, Luther slammed the door shut, and with Father Rivers they put their shoulder to the door to keep it shut until Milo could cast his newly acquired Arcane Lock on the door, praying that they would win the contest with the lizardmen over the door.

The door briefly slammed open again but Luther desperately put everything he had into it and was able to keep it shut, all as the arcane words of Milo flowed forth, and the door was finally magically sealed.

Father Rivers then revived the two downed party members, and healed them both, as the party fled. As they were leaving, they could hear the sounds of wood chunks being ripped from the door as the lizardman tried to break it down.

Moving fast, the party was able to make it back to their secret staircase and back up to the safety of their hidden corridor. There, they would lick their wounds, and contemplate the near disaster they had just escaped.

[Next game scheduled for next Thursday, Dec 12, 2013]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 16

January 16, 2014
Present: Noah, Max, John
[Did not play on Dec 12 as planned, due to various holiday festivities]
[Matt A says he is out of the game for the foreseeable future [DM Later Note - he returns]]

OOC: Discussed what to do with Slink and Luther. Decided that, as the party was well honed including those two characters, they should be played as NPCs for now, and we would try and recruit some new players for the game. Mark said he would contact Robin, JD, and Todd W. and see if they are interested.

IC:

The party, having fled to their bolthole, rested for 8 hours and recovered from their ordeal. Milo and Father Rivers prepared their spells once more, and the group ventured forth to seek revenge on the weird purple toned lizard men.

Slink scouted ahead, and found little had changed from their last expedition through the formerly-orc region. However the entry door to the Lizard region was now closed. Slink also listened to a door to the east, and heard a great deal of chatter there in at least two different languages.

Opting to leave that new area alone for now, the party opened the door to the known lizard area.

Immediately Slink heard a hiss from the northwest, as apparently a lizardman guard was on duty there. Bear charged in, and could see with his nigh vision that there was indeed a guard, who was retreating through a door. The party moved up to attack, but the lizardmen closed the door behind them.

Hollin bravely opened the door and found quite a pack of purple-toned lizardmen there, their mutated muscles bulging. Milo cast a web spell on them, blocking their retreat, as first Luther and then Hollin took up the front ranks.

Luther took quite a beating, but Father Rivers poured on the healing and kept him on his feet. Milo cast a devastating flaming ray at three of the creatures, both damaging them directly and then indirectly as the web they were stuck in caught fire and started to spread across the rest of the webbing.

Slink and Bear laid down the ranged attacks, until finally Luther had taken enough of a beating and stepped back for Bear to fill his place in the front line. Meanwhile Hollin withstood blow after blow, his heavy armor and shield able to deflect most attacks.

Though they mutated lizardmen had started the battle thinking they had lured the party into a trap, things went quite differently for them than the first encounter, and they slowly started to drop from the oncoming barrage of attacks, most benefiting from the blessing of Father Rivers. It took a long time to drop them, but other than Luther, no party member was in serious fear of being knocked unconscious this time. Instead, between the repeated thunder-waves from Milo, missile attacks from Slink and Bear (and later polearm attacks from Luther), and sword/scimitar attacks from Hollin and Bear, the party slowly but surely cut through the ranks of the lizardmen until the last one fell.

After the battle, Milo cast detect magic on the bodies, and found they had been subjected to some sort of transmutative magic, likely responsible for their overly muscular physic and purplish hue.

Meanwhile, Slink and Hollin found a treasure chest, and hauled the coins and treasure out for examination later in the bolthole.

Which is exactly where the party returned to, after having cast almost all their spells, for some well earned money-counting and recovery.

[Next session planned for next Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 at 7:30pm. Max may not be able to make it, depending on the health of his fellow thesbian]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 17

January 23, 2014
Present: John, Noah, Jason, and eventually Max.

Earlier in the day, this Treasure So Far table was sent:



The party returned to their hidey-hole behind the ancient secret door and rested, and then made their way to the front entrance of the dungeon to await the Adventurer's Guild escort back to town.

The return to town was uneventful, despite rumors of bandits in the area, and everyone made it safely back to East Gantrick, entering the walled town through the south gate, known as Squallgate by most residents (being located in the part of town known as The Squall, a poorer part of town).

Traveling quickly to an area that might buy some of the lesser items from the party, everyone walked to the part of town known as The Odie (for the Odium theater located near there) and sold a variety of items to a fair merchant in used light and medium armor. Bear sold his Hide armor (5gp), Hollin gave his Scale armor to Bear (for a fee), Luther sold his Leather armor (12gp), River's his chainmail (37.50), and the party sold some miscellaneous valuable items they had found along with their precious gems.

Splitting some gold between them fairly, with a few loans to a couple of people to upgrade to more expensive armor, the party then briefly split, agreeing to meet back at the Dirty Hippogriff Lodge for dinner and further discussion, which is a tavern the group all knew was located across from the Adventurer's Guild within the Foreigner's District of town.

Hollin, Bear, Luther and Father Rivers left for the northern part of town to purchase more expensive armor (traveling from The Odie, through the Foreigner's District, briefly through The Bowl (known for it's Arena), and into the border between Sanctuary and North Gate, skirting The Palace and it's inner walled keep). Hollin and Father Rivers each bought expensive Splint Mail (500gp) using all their gold and a small amount of the party's as well, while Bear and Luther bought/acquired Scale Mail (50gp).

Meanwhile Milo and Slink entered negotiations with a friendly gnome named Bonkris Sprywhistle. Bonkris is a fellow adventurer, and member of the Adventurer's Guild who lived near the Guild. He was willing to sell Milo two scrolls, one of Find Familiar (100 gp), and the other of Flaming Sphere (200gp). He also sold Slink a vial of Alchemists Fire (50gp), and Milo some components necessary to scribe the scroll into his spellbook (100gp). Bonkris made it clear the prices for the scrolls were not the norm, and he was being generous as he had recently acquired the scrolls and did not have any immediate use for them. Milo then obtained a room at The Galleon, and Inn near the Adventurer's Guild known for it's reasonable rates and clear but minimal rooms, where he got to work scribing the Flaming Sphere spell into his spellbook, while Slink went off to unknown parts of town.

On their way back to meet at the Dirty Hippogriff Lodge, Father Rivers made a stop in the Sanctuary neighborhood and visited the temple of his God. There he purchased on behalf of the party four potions of healing (200gp total), bringing the party to a total of six such potions, one for each member of the group.

Meeting back at the Dirty Hipp, Milo informs the party that he has successfully identified the remaining potions they had found. They are: Resistance, Speak with Animals, Climbing, Healing, and Disguise Self (one Healing potion had been used by Bear). These are added to the known potions of Healing, Poison and Climbing which were previously identified, along with the scroll that was previously identified as Remove Curse, and the Belt of Orcish leadership (+2 bonus to all interactions with orcs). 

After gold is re-divided and debts are noted, the party agreed to split the remaining items (for now) as follows:
Bear takes the poison potion for his blowgun (adding to his existing 3 doses, for a total of 7 doses);
Slink takes the potion of climbing (and now also has a vial of alchemist fire, and whatever else he secretly bought/acquired in town);
Milo takes the potion of Disguise Self, the Belt, and the Speak with Animals potion (and holds on to the two golden tridents for now);
Father Rivers takes the potion of Resistance, and the Scroll of Remove Curse;
Luther keeps the magical Glaive;
Hollin keeps the magical Sword.

Each party member now also has a potion of healing.

Business dispensed with, the party sleeps the night at The Galleon, and returns the next day (along with escort) to the Dwimmer Deep dungeons.

The Dungeon's entry level remains empty, and the group has no trouble returning to their hidey-hole and down the stairs through the secret door in the now-cleared Orcish lair. They find the Orcish lair remains as before, but the doors to the Lizardman area are again closed, and bodies from their previous battles have been removed.

The group decides to enter a new door, to the west of the entry-room where they first found the Lizardmen. That entry-room (as a reminder) appears to be an altar-like platform room complete with a table of magical elements and components, along with a treasure chest, all of which the party previously looted.

Bear carefully moved up to the door to listen, and found a new gash in the door revealed some light from the other side, and could be peered through with little difficulty. He put his eye to the gash in the door, and was shocked to see an eye starring back at him!

[OOC: Initiative rolled]

Shouts could be heard from the other side of the door, as Hollin stepped in and yanked the door open. Lizardmen immediately poured into the doorway as spells went off from within. Before the party knew what hit them, Luther had been struck with a necromantic Ray of Enfeeblement, wounding him mightily and nearly sapping his strength. Then silence fell on the party, as another spellcasting Lizardman dropped a Silence spell on them, while a third blessed his allies. Their two leaders also fell back, one running for a rack of weapons as the other disappeared somewhere to the south.

That Blessing was indeed useful, as the Lizardman warriors pouring into the doorway began to strike Hollin and Bear with accuracy, wounding them both. Both tried to hit back but were unable to maneuver well, and fell back away from the door. Meanwhile Rivers and Milo stepped back out of the Silence aura, and each concentrated on longer lasting magical attacks. Milo sent in a Flaming Sphere, while Rivers sent a Spiritual Hammer. But with half the party already wounded, and tough foes ahead including a spellcaster, would they be enough? And what had happened to one Leader-looking Lizardman who disappeared to the south, was he circling around to strike from behind, or bringing more allies, or himself fleeing?

Find out next week, in our exciting adventures in the Dwimmer Deep!

[OOC: Top of initiative order starting next Thursday at 7:30-8:00ish]
[Also, Max sent this spell list for Father Rivers, in case he does not make it next week

Spell	How USED

Spare the Dying	Cantrip
Sacred Flame	Cantrip
Thaumaturgy	Cantrip
Turn Undead	Channel Divinity
Restore Health	Channel Divinity
Bless	Domain Spell
Cure Wounds	Domain Spell
Cure Wounds	1st Level Spell
Cure Wounds	1st Level Spell
Cure Wounds	1st Level Spell
Detect Magic	1st Level Spell
Prayer of Healing	2nd Level Spell
Spiritual Weapon	2nd Level Spell X
items
scroll - remove curse
restoration
healing potion


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 18

January 30, 2014
Present: John, Jason, Noah

The battle continued against the mass of Lizardfolk, their spellcasters and leaders.

Things were looking pretty grim there for a while. The four warrior lizardfolk moved in and chewed into the front ranks, both literally and figuratively (biting and clawing their way through). Milo's sphere of flame hit them repeatedly, and eventually helped take them down along with some well placed blows from Bear, Luther and Hollin. But not before everyone took damage in the process.

Meanwhile, the two enemy spellcasters started to zap the party with inflict wounds, severely wounding several party members.

Fortunately, Father Rivers came to the rescue, casting "Prayer of Healing" and healing up the entire party.

Refreshed, everyone began to retreat south, away from the narrow entry of the doorway and towards the hallway.

Bear was the first to make it into the hallway, and on his way to trying to flank the enemy through another door, he was surprised to find the Lizardfolk leader was already there, apparently intent on doing the same thing to the party!

Bear took some truly nasty gashes at that point, and perhaps has a scar to show for it. The Lizardfolk leader spiked him with his trident as another spellcaster zaped him with necrotic energy. After a few heated exchanges like this, Bear fell once again. 

Back to the north, the warrior Lizardfolk fell, along with a witch doctor with them, most of whom were damaged by a thunderwave from Milo combined with assaults from the others. This left another Lizardfolk corporeal, along with a spellcaster in the main room.

Father Rivers ran to Bear's side and healed him, while Hollin took Bears place and went toe to toe with the Lizardfolk leader. With Slink sending arrows down the hallway at the Leader, the battle finally started to turn to favor the party. But just as things were turning their way, the spellcasters from the foes ranks struck again, doing yet more necrotic damage, and almost felling Bear once more while Hollin took some blows. Father Rivers cast "Prayer of Healing" yet again, restoring people to a healthier state. 

That did it. With their newfound health, the combined blows of everyone brought down first the Lizardfolk corporeal, then a spellcaster, and finally the Leader followed by the finally spellcaster. The battle was won, but at the cost of a great deal of spellpower and strength on the party's behalf.

Searching the bodies, the group found each had a pouch, as follows:

The pouch contains 12 Copper Pieces, 7 gold pieces, no gems or art, and no magic items. 

The pouch contains 14 Silver Pieces, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items. 

The pouch contains 20 Copper Pieces, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items. 

The pouch contains 21 Copper Pieces, 9 gold pieces, no gems or art, and no magic items. 

The pouch contains 13 Copper Pieces, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items. 

The pouch contains 5 Silver Pieces, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items. 

The pouch contains no common coins, no rare coins, no gems or art, and no magic items. 

The pouch contains 17 silver pieces and no rare coins and no gems or art and 2 potions.

The pouch contains 7 silver pieces and no rare coins and no gems or art and no magic items.

The pouch contains 15 silver pieces and no rare coins and 2 ornamental gems worth 15 each and 1 potion.

They also retrieved a set of Banded Mail from one spellcaster, which Hollin put on as he gave his Splint mail to Luther to wear.

All that remained to be searched was one large chest, and one smaller one that appears to contain clothing.

[Everyone said they are likely available for next session]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 19

February 06, 2014
Delvers: Noah, Jason, John, and eventually Max

The nasty battle with the lizardfolk ended, and the chests were looted. Besides some clothing and rudimentary items in one chest, the other chest contained a nice bit of treasure (see below).

Moving on, the party decided to return to their hidey-hole to rest and recover from their injuries and fatigue. On the way back, Bear noticed something wrong near the secret door that leads to the stairs up to the hidey-hole. He wasn't sure if something had entered the secret door or not, but he did not something had been moved near it. There were no other traces of anything, and a quick search of the neighboring rooms did not turn up anything else unusual.

The rest in the hidey-hole was uneventful, and the party returned to the orc lair to decide where to go next.

The party was faced with a choice of four doors: A northern door near the lizardfolk lair, a north-western door also near the lizardfolk lair, a south-west door that leads away from the orc lair over a crevasse, and a southern door near the orc lair.

The southern door was explored first. Slink found it to be locked, and barred from the party's side of the door. It was a thick iron door, did not appear to be similar to the normal interior doors found elsewhere in the orc or lizardfolk lairs, and nothing could be heard on the other side.

Bear thought about whether or not the door might lead to the outside of the mountain, he decided based on his keen directional sense that no, they were deep inside the mountain now and nowhere near an exit. Whatever was on the other side of that dark iron door was not escape from the Dwimmer Deep.

Deciding that perhaps that was not another section of the orc lair and was instead some other area, the party then left for the northern door. They were surprised to learn that this door was rather similar to the orc door they had just left, similarly barred from their side, similarly iron and quiet.

Deciding they really wanted to finish clearing out the orcs and lizardfolk, the party turned now to the door that leads to the crevasse and bridge.

Bear led the way, and on entering they party found a larger room with a deep crevasse leading down into deep darkness below, along with a stone bridge across it. In addition, in the south-western corner of the room was a semi-circle of pitch blackness - a blackness so deep that even the darkvision of the bugbears could not penetrate it.

As they moved closer to the bridge a door could be heard to open and close, and the darkness temporarily vanished.

Assuming the worst, the party charged into the room intent on pursuit of whatever had that darkness. Father Rivers cast Bless as the party charged forward.

Unfortunately, Bear charged ahead a bit heedlessly across the bridge, triggering a trap near the center of it. A section of the bridge fell away, on hinges, and Bear barely escaped falling down into the darkness, balancing with one leg on each side of the hole as he screeched to a stop! Thank goodness for the bless, and the favor of Rivers' deity.

The darkness returned with the sound of a door opening again, and the darkness moved closer to Bear's position. The party realized they had awoken more than one angry being on the other side of that bridge within the deep darkness. Bear took a small crossbow bolt in the shoulder, and almost succumbed to a powerful sleep-inducing poison. Realizing that, had he fallen asleep, he would have fallen through the hole and likely to his doom, he again sent up a quick prayer to Father Rivers' deity who had aided him with his blessings.

Speaking of Father Rivers, something in the darkness could be heard to cast a spell, suddenly Rivers began to glow with a sickly, bright violet light. He felt no harm from the glow, but he knew it made him a rather obvious target now.

Undaunted, Milo returned fire, launching a spell into the center of the darkness as others took up defensive positions and encouraged Bear to retreat. 

Bear then launched a ranged attack at the center of the darkness, combined with the chanting of a hail of thorns spell! Something cried out from the darkness, and he knew he had struck home. However, as he retreated off the bridge, he heard an ominous clicking sound!

More darkness spread across the party, blocking all vision in the room and snuffing their light spells.

Deciding that their tactical position was no longer tenable, the party retreated out of the room and slammed the door shut behind them.

"Well, that didn't go as we'd hoped!" said Milo. "Maybe we can wait out that Darkness spell?" asked Father Rivers.

This caused Milo to consider the arcane quandary of the matter. When the darkness spells had happened, he had heard no familiar ring of arcane magic being cast. And, now that he thought on it, there was something odd about that darkness spell. Wasn't it a touch spell? And...how did creatures within the darkness see them well enough to target them with attacks? Something was odd here. Something odd indeed.

The party retreated further into the orc lair to consider their next move carefully.


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 20

February 20, 2014
Present: Max John Jason Noah

Backing off from the drow territory, the party decided to explore the north-western door, blocked by a portcullis.

Bear and Hollin decided to lift the gate together, the plan being that Hollin would hold the portcullis up while Bear pulled the door back to block the heavy gate once it was lifted so that it would not fall again.

The plan worked, but alas as the portcullis was lifted the clicking of a counter-weight could be heard, and guards were alerted to the presence of the party. Suddenly from around the corner of the door appeared two dark dwarves, the Duergar!

The two dwarves started to grow in size as they attacked, swiping at Hollin as he stood between the gate and the flagstone floor, war picks slamming into his heavy armor.

Fortunately for Hollin, the armor held well, and the two dwarves were overwhelmed quickly by the glaive attack of Luther and magic attack of Milo, as Bear and Hollin were able to finally move into attack position after lifting the portcullis onto the door edge.

Grabbing a couple pouches of coin off the two dead dwarves (copper in one, some silver and a bit of gold in the other), the part moved into the complex.

The passageway headed north into the distance, and also split to head east through a door. Deciding it was best to protect their read and make sure everything was cleared as they went, the group opted to try the door first. Bear opened it and found it led down a short hallway to another locked door, with some hissing sounds behind it. That door was easily opened by Slink, you truly made the door his bitch as he crit'ed his thieves tools check ("unlock that lock? I invented that lock!"). Bear moved back into position and opened the door.

Inside was an armory, and a giant lizard guarding it.

The lizard quickly climbed onto the walls and then ceiling, but it was no match for the party as Luther stabbed it with his glaive and Bear smacked it hard as well. It went limp and fell from the ceiling onto Hollin.

The room was well equipped with arms and ammunition. After lengthy discussion about what to do with the loot, it was decided the lock would be jammed by Slink and decisions would be made later about how to dispose of the armory.

Moving further down the hallway to the north two stone double doors were discovered, as the hallway continued north to a room with a statue. The double doors were tried first, and behind them was a well decorated hallway with the depiction of dwarves (not Duergar) fighting. Something odd was up with this complex - as if the Duergar did not belong here. The room had another set of stone double doors to the east, which the party opened.

In the next room was a long table with high backed chairs, and more friezes of dwarves, along with more fireplaces, and a door to the south.

Bear moved in to listen at the door, while Father Rivers moved to the north-west corner. There, he found a strange brass nozzle/hole, and above it a darkened small window, neither of which Bear had spotted when he first entered. Curious, Father Rivers peered at the nozzle and then window, and started to back off.

Too late! Fire shot from the nozzle and doused Father Rivers and a couple of the rest of the party!

Putting themselves out quickly, the party bashed in the door to the south.

There, they found two Duergar priests, and two more warriors.

Bear, Hollin and Luther attacked and retreated, but Father Rivers decided it was time to enter the room. Unfortunately for him, he was quickly surrounded, as one priest cast Inflict Wounds on him, and the other tried to cast Hold Person on him. Only his keen skills prevented disaster at this point, as he was able to shrug off the Hold Person.

The rest of the party moved in to his rescue, and the Duerger warriors and priests fell fairly quickly.

In the room, the group found some maps and plans to renovate the area. The maps showed plans to remove a statue nearby (briefly seen to the north in the hallway the party entered from), and also a pressure-plate portcullis trap further in the complex. Some treasure was found in the room as well, including a silver plate and some gems.

Meanwhile, Bear started to search the room with the long table, and unfortunately for him he discovered yet another brass nozzle, which spewed a stream of fire at him.

Patting his clothing down, after searching a bit more and finding nothing the group left to head north again.

To the north was a room with a Dwarven demi-god hero, which Slink and Father Rivers recognized. They sensed, on examination, that a presence was with the statue, though not a negative force. They felt a token of defeated Duerger, a symbol of them, should be brought as tribute to the hero statute. Luther quickly ran and grabbed a banner from the small room that the priests had fallen in, and placed it at the feet of the statue. The eyes of the statue glowed, a voice cried out in a dwarven battle cry, and the banner caught fire in twin flames. Suddenly the party felt the aid of a demi-god! (Aid spell, plus Bless in their next battle)!

Quickly searching a looted storeroom nearby, the group headed north further, stepping over the portcullis trap they were made aware of from the maps found earlier, and opening a door to the east.

Finding there a barracks, with three Duergar in it, they attacked. Two fell quickly, as the third backed away towards a fourth down the hall, and some of the party pursued.

Alas for Luther, he chased to far, and found himself surrounded by TEN Duergar, including a plate-armored leader of the group! He took many blows but was still standing, as the battle raged on.

[top of initiative next session - everyone thinks they will be available for it]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 21

Feb 27, 2014
Present: Max, Noah, John, Jason

Quick summary (due to flood preparation)

Fought the mass of Dueger, through multiple rooms as they did a strategic withdrawal, then rested, then followed mining tracks to a storage room, an arcane circle room, and a room with a big pit. 

During the fight Luther and Hollin were variously injured but nobody went down.

Everyone is level 4.

[For those curious, further details of this battle was discussed in the general D&D forum in threads expressing my concern for the move-attack-move rule, which seems to be the new norm for combat, and how that impacts the game in some ways which can result in a horde of creatures all getting an attack on a PC by dancing in and out after drawing just a single attack of opportunity]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 22

March 6, 2014
Present: Noah, Jason, Max, and John (late)

From last session...

The party past through a strange magical circle trap. Milo adeptly disarmed both ends of it, one above the entryway, another above the exit.

Beyond the magic circle was another room with a deep, deep, DEEP pit. Many tracks littered the room, perhaps coming out of the hold, perhaps going into it, it was unclear.

The party moved on to the south, found a caved-in area of the complex, and then moved to the west to explore a corridor that has three doors, south, west, and north. The southern and western doors were silent to Slink's perceptions, but the one to the north definitely had the sound of some movement.

The party burst in, surprising two Duerger guards who were, apparently, not much on the lookout.

Both went down pretty quick, but another door down the corridor to the west opened, with a well-armored foe on the other side. The room he stood in had many Duerger with him.

The party moved to attack, and found more foes were waiting for them beside the door.

A pitched battle ensued, with the party squeezing into the room and taking attacks as they went.

At one point, one of the wounded Duerger overseers turned invisible. 

Milo cast Sleep, dropping two of the warriors in the room.

Then, a devil-like half-Duerger sorcerer of some sort came into the room from a further western door. He cast a scorching ray at the party, striking Slink and Luther, and barely missing Father Rivers. 

Bear, not wanting to stand for such an affront, charged the devel-dwarf. Unfortunately, he accidentally ran smack into the invisible overseer. Bear tripped, and fell prone!

The devil-dward then struck again, turning the glaive in Luther's hands to a firey heat! Luther screamed in pain, dropping his weapon as he fell unconscious. Nearly simultaneously Slink also went unconscious from the attacks of the second overseer. Things were starting to look grim for our heroes.

In came Father Rivers to save the day! Casting a potent healing aura that surrounded the party in the loving embrace of the Deity of Life, both Slink and Luther staved off death, and everyone else breathed in the life-giving positive energy. 

This managed to be the turning point in the battle. After some hits to the devil-dwarf, Milo ran into the room and cast an enhanced magic missile, dropping the fiend. Bear, Luther, Slink, and Hollin then swept up the remainder, taking care of the two sleeping warriors as well.

After the battle, a search of the room turned up the following items of note: a magical silvered battleaxe, which Bear took, and some casks of beer of dwarven (not Duergar) make.

(Looks like everyone is on for next week, and we will level our characters. Jason is thinking of taking Dual Wielder for Bear, and Polearm master for Luther. John is thinking of Lucky for Milo. Max and Noah are undecided. Nobody has chosen for Slink yet).


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 23

March 13, 2014
Present: Noah, John, Max
Absent: Jason (and next week as well)

After the battle, a short rest was taken where folks recovered some of their stamina and gathered themselves, and then the party pressed on to explore the room behind the short corridor to the west.

After listening and hearing only snoring, the party charged in expecting trouble. No trouble was to be found however, as the only living thing in the room was a beaten up dwarf chained to the wall.

The party talked to him, and found his name is Jekk, and he was captured here by the Duerger. Through a long conversation, the following information was discovered:

1) The demon in the walls pulled him and the Duerger who had captured him, about a week ago.
2) Prior to that, this place had been raided by the Duerger, killing all the dwarves who lived there. Jekk, who lived in a nearby village that was mostly composed of humans, went to check out the dwarves and was captured by the Duerger. The Duerger then raided the human village and captured many villagers. They had planned to mine there, but then the entire lair, along with Jekk and the prisoner humans, was transported here along with the mine and lair itself. This was about a week ago.
3) Jekk believes, based on overheard conversations between the devil-like Duerger (slain last session) and the "demon in the wall", that the wall-demon brings creatures to this place using the energy of "slain residents". Jekk believes that killings the party did about a week ago were used to bring Jekk, the prisoners, and the Duerger and lair all here around that time. He also believes that all the other deaths the party has caused of residents of this place were used to power the transportation of further creatures here. He understands there was no way to know this, and the party was just killing evil things (something Jekk in general agrees with, being a good fighter himself).
4) Jekk was able to point out where the spell book from the Devil-Duerger was at, and also asked for his girdle and earrings back.

In that study, the party found the following items (which milo first magic detected, then read-magic'ed, and finally identified, where necessary): Three scrolls (cause fear, gust of wind, and sound burst, the last of which was used by milo later against the spider-riders), two potions (unidentified so far), a pearl of power (Milo will hold it for now, but any spelcaster can use it including Father Rivers and Bear), Jekk's girdle (given back to him), a silver bowl (75gp), a silver chalice (50gp), a wooden box containing cheese, dried meat, and bread (the later prisoners had some of this), three flasks of Alchemist fire, three flasks of acid, a portable alchemist's lab (left behind for now), a cask of strong dwarven beer, clothing, bedding, a writing kit, 280 gp, 345sp, two gold earrings belonging to Jekk (he took them back), three yellow topazes (250gp each), and a spellbook. Jekk also explained the battleaxe now wielded by Bear used to be his, but Bear can have it as thanks for freeing him and his fellow prisoners.

The spellbook contained these spells: cause fear, detect magic, gust of wind, identify, mage armor, sound burst, suggestion, mage hand, prestidigitation, shocking grasp, burning hands, magic missile, shield, levitate, and scorching ray.

After cackling in glee all the magical loot, the party rested another hour (used for the identify and some minor healing), and then headed north up an unexplored passage behind a door.

There, they found three guards who were guarding 12 human prisoners tied together in a chain gang set to mining. One guard turned invisble and whacked Bear a bit, but they otherwise went down quickly.

Jekk welcomed his fellow villages, and the group went back to the study to eat some of the found food and drink some beer, and then they all planned to make their way to the armory and arm themselves.

Heading west down a cavernous passageway the party came on a large cavern with many smaller tunnels going off in all directions. Suddenly, more Dueger appeared, and several were riding Spiders!

The spiders proved nasty critters, as they could crawl along the ceiling and drop down on the party, as their riders attacked from their backs as well.

It looked grim for a short while, as Luther was surrounded, and Bear took some hits. But the tide turned quickly, as Slink shot his arrows quite true, and then a timely Sound Burst spell from Milo's scroll took out many foes. At that point it was mostly a sweeping-up operation as Hollin, Bear, Luther, and Rivers moved in and took down the Duerger and their Spiders.

Water could be heard to the south, a smooth manufactured passage ran to the east, and many smaller cavern passageways ran north and west.

[Everyone except Jason expects to be present for next game]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 24

March 20, 2014
Present: Noah, Max, Jason
Absent: John

Leaving the room with the water behind, the party explored further to the west. There, they found a series of small caverns, each of which must have once been part of a mining operation but had since been converted into cages. Of the 20 or so niches of cells, about 1/3 were filled with more prisoners, mostly of human and halfling lineage. 

Wanting to secure the area prior to releasing the prisoners, the party moved on to the south. there they found further evidence of abandoned mining operations, along with a strange statue. It portrayed Hekga Brightaxem however a strange helmet had been placed over her head, and whatever inscription had been carved below the statue had since been removed, with a new inscription in Dwarven which read, "Queen of the Invisible Art". The helmet was of a squid-faced humanoid-ish creature.

Explanations failing, the party kept the helmet to quiz the Jekk and his band of released prisoners about it later, and moved on.

A stairway climbed up to the south, and Bear recognized the placement of the stairway as one which likely matched one of the stairs seen earlier in the Duerger lair which went down. In addition, there was a stairway going down to the west.

Slink carefully climbed down that stair, intent on searching the dead-end wall and the bottom. Unfortunately for him, he failed to search the flat area at the bottom of the stairway, and a pit-trap fell in! Luck was not entirely absent from his fortune, as he was able to leap off the pit just as it collapsed in, and clambered up the steep pit before falling to his doom (or at least his injury).

A further worked passage left to the east, and the party then followed that corridor to find a door. behind it lay a smaller store room (with some more dwarven beer!), and further on the hallway that led to the room they had found Jekk in earlier. 

Proceeding to Jekk, the party found him and his band of released slaves holding up well so far, better fed than they had been when found thanks to the dwarven beer and cheese. Bear and Father Rivers conversed with him about the new inscription below the statue, and Jekk seemed rather disturbed by this news. He explained the new inscription was a reference to the Deep Duerra, the duerger goddes of conquest and psionic powers. He speculated that perhaps this was a link to why the duerger had attacked the hold in the first place, but came to no conclusions.

Bear then entered into negotiations with Jekk concerning the armory earlier discovered, and struck the following deal: Jekk would lead his band of prisoners, and the new prisoners just found, along to the armory. There they would carry all the things in that room out with them, and as escorted by the party to the exit from the Dwimmer Deep dungeons, they would wait for the Adventurer's Guild escorts and travel with them back to town (East Gantrick). In town, they would find buyers for this equipment, and keeping a 10% finders fee for themselves, would turn over the remaining profits from the sale to the party when the party next returned themselves to town. This, Jekk agreed to, and the plan was put into place.

Meeting no resistance on the way out, Jekk and his now merrier band of refuges made their way out, their arms and backs burdened by the common loot from the armory, waiting for the escort back to town.

Exploring the remainder of the Duerger lair, nothing further could be found, and the party eventually made their way out of that lair and back to an unexplored door near what had been the Lizardfolk lair.

Carefully listening and searching at the heavy locked iron door, Slink heard nothing, and after several attempts managed to open the complex locking mechanism of the door.

The other side appears rather different from anything seen in the Dwimmer Deep thus far. A dark cave passageway was carved to the north about 60' in, with strange half-light continually glowing lights attached here and there to the rough hewn stone walls. Along the ground were two brass or copper metal plates depicting some sort of face sticking it's tongue out. In the distance they could see a pool of silvery glowing liquid in a basin on the ground. And...a dark...presence...could felt along the cavernous passageway, unseen but noticed out of the corner of the eye as dust stirring in the air, or the flicker of a red glow.

Slink proceeded cautiously into the passage, and found between two glowing lights a line across the ground, with arcane writing along it. Milo knelt beside him and carefully examined the text with a read magic spell. Alas, even with the powerful aid of his spell, all he could make out was the alien writing originating from another plane of existence, and a reference to elementals.

Preparing their weapons, the team proceeded cautiously forward. Slink checked for traps as he went, with Luther nearby to protect him. However, unseen in the corridor, "something" attacked!

Whatever it was remained unseen, as a stir in the air was the only warning. Slink managed to dodge out of the way, but Luther took a swipe from the thing in the air. Milo launched three quick magic missiles a the thing, which glowed when struck. The thing was made of solid air!

Slink shot some arrows, which did little damage. Bear and Luther charged in, as Hollin's blade rung true against the area where the thing had briefly appeared, while Father Rivers began to chant his Bless spell. Finally, despite the difficulty of striking the thing, it seemed to dissipate to the combined magical might of Luther's glaive, Hollin's sword, and Bear's new battleaxe.

But airy trouble remained, as a new, far larger air creature appeared next to Bear! It spun as if in a whirlwind, and Bear was nearly knocked down by it but managed to dodge out of the way at the last second. Milo let fly more magic missiles, as Hollin Bear and Luther took swipes with their magical armaments and Slink futilely assailed it with more arrows. The thing briefly tried to dodge back towards a bridge reaching over some strange boiling green water to the east, but the magical assault was too much for it, and it too dissipated into mist. 

Hollin proceeded to examine first briefly the silvery pool, and then the green boiling water. The silvery pool appeared impenetrable to the eye, but the boiling greenish one appeared to contain an iron chest, which lacked any sign of a handle or other means of getting it out without diving in and lifting it.

Not wanting to touch the boiling green water, Hollin then put a cup into the silver pool. He was able to remove some water, and as he did his cup glanced against something stone in the water. Bravely reaching into the water, he could feel what might be the head of a statue in the water, unseen beneath the silver.

Not wanting to dive in and explore further, Hollin left the silver pool alone.

The party cautiously moved across the bridge, spying a blue pool in the next area of the cavern, along with another metal plate.

As they crossed the bridge and stepped into the stone area on the other side, an earthquake hit! And there, rising from the earth, stood a huge rocky creature with menacing red eyes.

The party attacked! Milo hit the thing with a thunderwave, and struck true. Indeed, he struck more than true, as the thuderous clap of the spell seemed to do even more damage than he expected it would, and the monster was flung back against the wall of the cavern. Hollin, Bear, Luther, and Father Rivers attacked, as Slink stood back and shot it with arrows. Many of these attacks did damage, but not enough to stop the thing from diving back into the earth as if the ground were but water to it. 

Weapons raised, everyone readied for another attack. Wise this was, as the monstrous rock creature plunged back into the room from the ground beneath Luther and Bear's feet! Bear took a mighty beating from this, while Luther was able to leap to safety from the assault. Everyone's readied attacks then went off, and took huge chunks of rock and soil from the beast. Finally, Hollin moved in and dealt the killing blow, as the magically animated rock collapsed back to the ground from whence it had come.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Bear tended to his wounds while Hollin explored the new bluish pool. There, he discovered that it was not necessarily liquid at all, but appeared as if it might be a sheet of metal atop the region instead. How odd.

Looking further to the south, another watery area could be seen. This one, however, could not be easily crossed by a bridge, and a precarious balancing act would be needed to cross along the ledge beside it, if one did not wish to enter this new pool of seemingly ordinary water. And what was that at the bottom of the pool?

It appeared to be an ordinary chest, this one with handles! Hollin got out his rope and grappling hook, as Bear's eyes gleamed just a tad much at the site of potential treasure.

Hollin and Luther managed to hook the chest with the grappling hook, and haul it out of the water. 

Just as the chest cleared the water, something made a huge splash in the pool. A huge watery creature arose from the depths, and it looked pissed!

[Need to roll initiative on starting next session. Noah says he will not be able to play, but Max and Jason are in, and hopefully John is as well]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 25

April 10, 2014
Present: Noah, Max, John, and Matthew Atherton (Yea, the rogue returns!)

The battle was on with the massive water elemental from the clear pool!
Not wanting to get too close, at least initially, most of the party attacked with ranged weapons. Rapidly it was discovered that ordinary weapons did little to harm the creature (though still had an effect) while magical ones seemed to do more damage.

Meanwhile, Sling grabbed the dropped end of the rope and started to haul the chest further away from the water.

As the chest slid by, Hollin jumped out of it's way as he slashed away at the elemental. To his shock, three more smaller watery creatures arose from the pool! These ones looked different than the behemoth, appearing as floating jelly-fish creatures with water tentacles.

Fortunately for Hollin, his nigh impenetrable armor held out well, as he soaked up (literally this time) attack after attack from the water things.

But the huge elemental didn't seem to be taking much damage. Frustrated, Milo decided to bring out the big guns - three gouts of flaming rays struck towards the thing, with two striking true! Steam poured off it as it reeled under the fiery attack. 

Father Rivers followed up with his own smaller flame attacks, as Bear, Luther, and Hollin chopped it down to size. Finally, it sank into a pool of sickly gel-like water, immobile at last.

But it's littler jellyfish friends remained, and the battle continued. Slink considered throwing some alchemist fire into the fray, but thought better of it and opted to pick the lock on the chest. POP, as the lock slid open so easily from Slink's quick manipulations that it was as if Slink had made the lock himself. Inside he discovered two items: A human-sized set of leathery armor covered with many shells across the torso and pinkish coral at the seams, and a well-made leather waterskin with similar pinkish coral at the cap.

Meanwhile Milo hit one of the jellyfish creatures with a frost spell, and it momentarily froze! Taking advantage, Luther struck the thing with both ends of his glaive while Bear attacked with both his battleaxe and simitar, and the thing shattered. Similar attacks, along with Hollin, brought the final two creatures down, and the battle was finished.

The group took a breath and recovered their strength, while Milo concentrated to identify the two items which glowed magical under his examination. It took some hours, but eventually he was able to determine that:

The armor was indeed magical (+1), and it also floats well, and the wearer is able to swim well in it (advantage on any Strength: Swim checks while wearing it). However, for some unknown reason, the armor also makes it's wearer more unduly confident - feeling a sense of invulnerability while wearing it (though such a sense is not overwhelming and still subject to normal logic - like being hit as a sign it's not indeed invulnerable). Slink decided to put the armor on, and felt exceedingly confident with it.

The wineskin is an everfull wineskin, and always refills (within one hour) with tasty wine. Milo asked for that, but Slink and Father Rivers thought maybe that was not such a good idea at the moment.

After the identifying was complete, the party moved on to examine the blue, still pool. Milo and Slink took point on this, as others held back. Slink eventually noticed that it was not in fact water at all, but instead a sheet of some sort of metal. Milo explained that it was magical, but he was not sure what was magical about it.

After some testing, Slink determined it was a thin metal sheet, and something was hollow below it. Father Rivers examined it was imbedded in a slightly raised section of very hard rock, and flush with the surface in a circular sheet. Slink then placed a cup of silvery liquid, then the boiling liquid, and finally the clear liquid from each of the other pools, on the surface of the blue steel sheet. In each instance, the water removed from the other pool turned to plain clear water on removal within a couple of seconds, and had no effect on the metal.

Slink and Father Rivers tried to lift the sheet of metal, to no avail. Slink shot an arrow at it, and it merely bounced off. The party opted to move on for now, and come back to the metal another time.

Moving on to the south, Slink took point, in his new confidence. In fact he was so confident he just kept going, until a giant fire elemental arose right in front of him from another of those brass face-plates embedded in the ground!

The party moved back into the clear pool (which was shallow enough to stand in) and tried to lure the fire elemental into the pool. It stopped at the edge and did not enter. Meanwhile first two more, and then a third and fourth, fire elementals appeared over their own brass face-plates further back into the room. But these were different from the giant, appearing as almost floating bonfires in the air. Sometimes the bonfires would simply disappear, and Milo Slink and Milo speculated that they seemed to be disappearing and reappearing between our prime material plane, and the plane of fire.

Luther and Bear didn't seem to care one way or the other, as they pressed the attack along with Hollin.

Magic worked well against the creatures, but mundane weapons seemed to again struggle against them. Water seemed to do a bit of damage, but not a particularly large amount. Father Rivers was able to fight fire with fire - but only because it was divine fire, and not the real stuff.

The battle was a bit tougher than the water elemental encounter, but still the fire creatures fell to sword, axe, and glaive like any other. Slink got a few sneak attacks in, as Rivers blessed the party and Milo fired magic missiles into the things. Stepping back into the water seemed to help, as none of the creatures would voluntarily cross the water, and the party was well able to control the battle that way by holding the creatures just where they wanted them. Before you knew it, the battle was won, and the party moved to the far shore to see what they could see.

There, they found two more pools, and a cage.

The first pool was a syrupy golden liquid with a burnt odor, churning slowly, with swirling black oily substances sunken throughout it.

The second pool was a luminous and opaque blue liquid, the depth of which could not be discerned visually.

The cage held a white angelic-looking statue. The statue could be seen to move and was talking, but could not be clearly heard from this far back in the chamber and would need to be approached for communication.

[Everyone should be present for next week, with hopefully Jason back as well, and possibly Matt Atherton again as well]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 26

April 17, 2014
Present: Jason, Noah

Short session this time, and restricted to non-combat only due to lack of actual quorum.

Having defeated the fire elementals, the party explored the large cavern previously occupied by those fiery creatures.

Bear slowly approached the talking statue in the cage. Quickly he learned that no sound was coming from the statue, though it appeared to be talking and moving about in a slow manner. It's outstretched finger rose, pointing at the door and the lock therein, a pleading look on it's face as it appeared to plead through silent lips.

Slink examined the lock, and concluded it was beyond his means. Milo then stepped forth and studied it with a keen eye and a brief consultation of some notes, along with a detection spell of some sort. He too concluded that opening the lock was beyond his means, but speculated that perhaps a magical key might be the thing to do the trick. But no key, magical or otherwise, could be seen.

Leaving the cage behind, Bear then approached the blue opaque pool, as Luther approached the fiery blackish red one.

Bear could discern that the blue pool cooled the air above the surface. Breaking of a branch of roots from the clear pool area, he dipped that in the blue opaque pool and found it cool to the touch, and perhaps the bark was a tad eaten away from the experience. Nothing more could be determined, as his 6' long branch failed to reach the bottom, and he was reluctant to touch the pool with his hand.

Luther had more luck with his. As he peered into the swirling depths, a black oily substance within the pool swirled and formed these words, "Guess what treasure I contain". Perplexed, Bear joined Luther, and Hollin considered possible answers from a ways away. 'A key!" answered Hollin. "Wrong fool guess again," answered the pool in black, oily letters that floated along the surface of the golden red liquid.

Luther contemplated further, as Bear fretted about potential treasure within. Finally, in desperation, Luther said, "Can you give us a hint maybe?"

To his surprise, the pool responded!

Men kill
For love of me
Easily beaten
Never free

"Ah ha!" said Bear. "It's gold!"

The ground trebled, as the liquid ebbed away through some hidden drain. Slowly, revealed along the bottom of a 10' deep pit that once contained the reddish gold liquid, could be see a pile of gold coins!

Bear licked his lips and smiled at his accomplishment. But alas, the surface of the sides of the pit remained covered in the black oily liquid. No matter. He rapidly went back for the rope and grappling hook that had helped the group retrieve the chest from the clear pool, hooked it to the side of the pit, and slowly lowered himself down. 

Success! On the bottom were indeed about 1500 gold pieces, each bearing the devices of ancient kings and queens. Bear, controlling his greed for now, gathered only a small portion at a time, that which he could safely carry back up, and climbed carefully out of the pit. Dropping off the coins, he made many trips this way, and was able to remove all the coins from the bottom of the pit. One more pool had been solved.

Moving now to the boiling greenish water, Luther, Bear and Hollin contemplated this new task. The iron chest in the midst of the pool could be plainly seen, 10 feet down. But how to get to it with no visible handles or hinges?

Bear decided to ferry water from the clear pool to the boiling one, using the now-empty chest from the clear pool to carry said water. Hours were spent at this task, as the water level slowly rose within the boiling pool. Bear tested the water finally, and found it was indeed still scalding hot, but perhaps a bit cooler than it had been before. Still - perhaps too hot to go diving into!

Moving finally to the metallic not-pool, Bear and Luther each took whacks at it's surface with their magical weapons. Each bounced of the surface, though admittedly no perfect hit was achieved in their experiments.

And so four pools remained of the six - the Silvery, Boiling, Metal, and Cold. And where was the key for the angel? 

[Jason and Noah thought they would be available next week. Happy birthday John!]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 27

May 15, 2014
Present: John, Matt A, Noah, and Max

The party set out to solve the mysteries of the remaining four pools.

After some experimentation with the cold pool, the party returned to the first pool they'd found - the silvery one.

Buoyed by the confidence instilled in him by his new armor, Slink simply dove right into the silvery pool. Feeling around the statue, Slink determined it was in the shape of 6 foot tall bearded human wizard wearing a pointy hat, holding a wooden staff. After a lot of feeling around and diving and experimentation, Slink determined that the staff might break if pulled, or the arm of the statue my break of, but he thought maybe he could unscrew the staff counterclockwise, like a giant corkscrew.

It took some time, but eventually he managed to free the staff. As he did, the liquid was replaced by poisonous gas! 

Fortunately Slink had been healed by Father Rivers prior to diving in, as the poison filled his lungs and burned his eyes, leaving him almost disabled. Rivers was able to help him out of the pit and make sure Slink was able to move on.

The staff has the head of a snake, with two silvery-gold eyes. After an hour rest Milo cast Identify on the staff and discovered it is a Staff of Charming, with 10 charges. It is able to cast Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, or Command with one charge.

The party next moved to the boiling water. Milo suddenly remembered he had access to a spell of levitation! It took him an hour to memorize it from his spellbook, but it took almost no time to cast the spell thereafter, levitate the chest from the boiling water, and Luther simply moved it across the air above the pool to land on the ground again.

Slink then took over, search the chest for traps and locks. He determined the lid would spring open once the lid was opened, and so he wrapped rope around the levitated chest first, and then opened it. The lid tried to spring up but failed to do so thanks to the rope. He then loosened the rope enough to peer inside, and Milo cast a Light spell on a coin which he tossed in the chest. There, he could see many electrum pieces, and three scrolls wrapped in a red ribbon. Opening the lid fully, the electrum pieces numbered 500 in count (a fine treasure in itself), and Milo determined that the scrolls were Spider Climb, Divination, and dispel magic. These were powerful spells, and some were perhaps beyond the skills of the party members to cast.

Moving next to the metal pool, a plan was eventually devised. Slink wrapped his bedroll into a long rope-like shape and placed it across the metal lid. Milo then repeatedly cast Ray of Frost at it, adhering the bedroll to the metal with freezing temperatures. Luther and Bear then pulled on the bedroll. With great strength, they managed to just barely tug up the lid! A vortex was beneath, apparently the force holding the metal lid down, and it pulled on the party members near the metal pool, until the lid slammed shut again and the bedroll ripped!

Knowing now that it could work, the plan was re-worked. A rope would be used this time. Slink would prepare to jam his dagger into the gap between the metal and the stone surrounding the lid. Bear and Luther would pull again, one on each side of the rope, as Hollin aided them. Milo would step back to cast the rays of frost, while Father Rivers stood back with healing prepared in case it was needed.

It took a while, a lot of freezing, tugging, and preparation. But eventually, the plan succeeded! The lid lifted, Slink and Hollin were pulled towards the vortex but were able to resist, and Slink slammed the dagger home between the lid and the stone surrounding it. There was a creaking sound, and then a ripping sound, and the lid shattered! As the tiny shards of metal were sucked into the pit below it, the vortex subsided.

Within the pool appeared to be nothing but the metal shards of the broken lid. 

Slink, confident as always, dove into the empty pit, and searched around. After a couple tried, he discovered a hollow at the bottom of the pit, surrounded by some loose stones.

He removed the stones, revealing a wooden casket, the lid of which is carved and painted to resemble a gaunt, pale-skinned man wrapped in a black cloak. The figure looks to be asleep, and close inspection reveals he has fangs.

Everyone woke up at that! Slink put the stones back in place, Milo began casting detect magic, while Father Rivers and the Bugbears began whittling wooden stakes, preparing for a vampire attack.

No magic could be detected. Father Rivers then prepared detect Good and Evil, and after some time his deity granted him the Sight. There, he could sense neither good nor evil within the casket.

Considering the possibility the casket might be a ruse, Slink opened it.

Within, he found the brittle skeletal remains of an alien-looking humanoid. Milo recognized it as the remains of a doppleganger, long deceased.

At the skeletons feet was an unlocked black wooden coffer. With care, Slink touched it, and felt it to be a normal coffer. Opening it carefully, he discovered four potions.

Handing them back up to Milo, Slink searched a bit more, found nothing, and left the pit.

Milo identified the potions as potions of healing - but with something odd about them. He was not sure what was odd about them - no other aura was on top of the healing one, it was just something different about these potions that he couldn't quite place.

Stowing them away for experimentation later, the party moved on to the remaining pool.

This one was the cold pool. It was determined earlier by Father Rivers that his sacred flame spell was able to make the waters every so briefly clear, and a chest had been spotted for a moment at the bottom of the pool.

A ray of frost was sent to the pool, and more ice was created by it, but not enough to do much. The party thought about maybe turning it all to ice and then lifting it out like a giant Popsicle, but given it was ten feet deep nobody thought they could lift it out.

Finally Milo decided to cast a ball of flame in the pool, hoping to burn it away faster enough.

The plan worked! Enough water was burned away that they group could see the chest. Milo then paused, and declared he would need to memorize levitate and his flame spell once more after a night's rest, and then once he saw the chest he could levitate it out like he did with the boiling water chest.

The party agreed, and after a nights rest it was put into practice. The pool burned away again, refilling at a slower rate that it was burning away, and the chest was revealed again. He then dismissed his flames and quickly cast levitate on the chest. It worked! The chest rose out of the pool fast enough, and was placed on the ground beside the pool.

After a quick search, it was opened. There was found an aspergillum of exorcism, a magical holy scepter tipped with a metallic orb. Milo was able to determine with his spells that when the scepter was shaken, harmless water sprinkles from it, and once per day a cleric attempting to turn under gains a +10 on their check.

In addition, a small silver key with wings on it was found, obviously the missing key to the angel's cage.

After handing off the scepter to Father Rivers, Slink opened the cage with the key, and the angel could finally be heard.

The angel, who had once been named Pettiln Devilbane, explained that long ago he was a member of the party that trapped the mad king. He had volunteered to stay behind and guard against the mad king's escape. The wizard of the party had cast a powerful spell turning Pettiln to animated stone, as it had been determined the mad king was vulnerable and blind to the base elements of earth, air, fire, and water. His companion he knew had been turned to water as well, in a higher level of the dungeon (previously encountered).

He warned the players that the mad king was summoning life forms and locations to the Dwimmer Deep, and using their spent life forces to turn himself from a spirit form to a material form again. Long ago he had been trapped, by use of the base elements, but now he was somehow escaping his imprisonment in spirit form by occupying the walls. It is vital that the mad king be stopped before he obtains his material form once again, for the mad king conquered a huge region enthralled in his madness last time.

The party then discussed how they might defeat the king, and wondered if perhaps they could use the scroll of divination to ask the deity of Father Rivers for advice on how to defeat him. With the help of the stone angel Pettiln, they were able to do just that. And in the mind of Father Rivers, the voice of his God spoke, and told him, "Turn the thing to fire, water, air, or earth!".

Thinking on that answer, the party talked about different ways that could be done. Someone mentioned "If only we had a Gorgon or Medusa or one of those cockatrice's we found earlier". The stone angel perked up at that, "Medusa you say? Well, we encountered some of them years ago when we first entered the Dwimmer Deep. We avoided them really, but there were several. I do not know if they are still here or not, as things have changed much down here since the king started summoning new places and moving things around."

Well, at least the party had the beginnings of a plan on how to defeat the mad king. The stone angel explained that last time, the King had been trapped by fields of fire, water, air, and earth. Perhaps turning his physical form to one of the base elements would be needed to destroy it utterly, if the elemental fields could be traversed and his body found.

With that vague plan formulating, the party finally moved on out of the elemental vaults. Alas, the stone angel could not follow, as he could not leave the vaults, but he would remain there in case the party needed any further advice from him. Perhaps some day he would turn himself back to flesh and walk the world again, if the party defeats the Mad King.

[Everyone thinks it's likely they will be available for next week]


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## Mistwell (May 23, 2014)

Session 28

May 22, 2014
Present: Max, Noah, John, Matt A.

Leaving the realm of the elemental caves, the party discussed the possibility of attempting to charm one of the dark elves to gain passage to to the region beyond the bridge, but opted instead to explore the remaining door in the lair previously inhabited by the orcish warriors and their evil clan.

Slink listened at the door and examined it for traps. Hearing nothing, he did find a small panel that raised to view past the door to within the chamber beyond. Peering through, Bear could see nothing but a stone pillar in the way of his view, about 15 feet in, and otherwise it appeared to be a large dark chamber.

Slink then oiled the hinges on the door (which were on his side), and a plan was devised. They would open the door, and first Bear would look within, identify what he could, and then close the door again to revise the plan.

The door was carefully opened silently, and Bear slowly stuck his head within the chamber.

And there, atop a glittering pile of coins, deep in the darkness on a raised area within the large chamber, lay a dragon! It was difficult to identify the color with darkvision, but it was perhaps red!

He closed the door. Quickly.

The party started to sweat. A dragon? Could they handle a dragon? "Of course!" said Slink! But, he'd been acting like that since he donned his new armor, so what did he know?

"Could it be an illusion?" speculated Milo. "Maybe it's an illusion put there by the drow to fool the orcs?" answered Slink.

"There's gold. Keep that in mind, lots of gold. We should investigate further," said Bear.

The party reluctantly agreed, and a new plan was devised.

The two bugbears, who could see in the dark, would lead the way. Slink would follow, keeping contact with the shoulder of one bugbear as he went, while Milo held the arm of the other bugbear. Hollin and Father Rivers would stay within the orc chamber waiting to charge in at the opportune moment. Luther held a copper piece in his hand with a Light spell cast on it by Milo, covered entirely in his palm waiting for the signal to throw it and commence the attacks on whatever might lay within. Milo, casting Detect Magic from the orc chamber, held his concentration and would determine if any magic items were within the pile of treasure. If there were, the dragon was likely real, and he would give the signal to throw the Lighted coin and attack.

The door was once again opened, and the party stealthily and slowly crept in. Bear and Luther eagerly peered into the darkness, attempting to discern any movement or warmth within. The dragon stirred, but still lay still on the pile of coins. Milo, blind in the darkness, could nevertheless sense points of magic beneath the dragon, perhaps several. It seemed to be real. "REAL!" he cried, and the coin was thrown and the assault was one!

As soon as the chamber lit up the dragon awoke, but too late to act before the stalwart heroes. Immediately Milo and Slink recognized that this was of the dragon family, but not quite a full fledged dragon itself. Instead, they faced a Wyvern - a deadly creature that could fly rapidly, and strike with deadly accuracy with a spiked tail that contained a potent poison.

Slink, who had been awaiting the signal with his bow drawn and an arrow ready, focused on his foe with the calm of a trained assassin. Zeroing in on the things vulnerable neck, he let lose an arrow that struck home perfectly! With a roar the Wyvern reared back, thrashing as the arrow opened a wound that spouted dragonblood across the chamber.

Bear then charged and attacked, followed quickly by three deadly flame strikes from Milo two of which struck home. Luther attacked with his polearm as Father Rivers tried to char it with his own holy flame but missed as the thing thrashed under the horrible series of attacks it had just suffered. Finally, Hollin charged in and struck a hard blow to the already injured neck of the creature, severing it through! 

The Wyvern was dead, and before it had even gotten off a single attack!

Carefully dragging the body from the pile of treasure, the party made a quick count of the treasure (with Bear leading the way) as Milo first detected magic and then Identified any magic items.

The treasure horde turned out to include the following: 1600 copper pieces, 300 electrum pieces, 80 gold pieces, 10 platinum pieces, 13 citrine gems worth 11 gold pieces each, three potions (climbing, speak with animals, and disguise self), and a Black Dragon Scale Mail (AC 15 +2 Dex Modifier). 

The black dragon scale mail is made from midnight-black scales which fit together perfectly and move with the smoothness of a slithering serpent. The suit of this armor usually has a matching helmet that incorporates a dragon’s horns. While worn, this armor trails a ghostly darkness resembling a dragon’s folded wings and tail. When the wearer is agitated or attacked, this shadow cloak flares and spreads, suggesting outstretched wings, as the tail thrashes behind. The wearer would be immune to acid, and once per day (renewed at dusk) the wearer would be resistant to slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage, for up to 5 minutes. It may have some additional properties which Milo was unable to determine with his spell.

Bear decided to take the scale mail for now, as the party stowed the remainder of the treasure, and moved on to the door to the south.

Listening at the door, Slink could hear mutterings of someone who seemed to be talking to themselves in alternating dwarven and common.

A similar sneaking plan was devised, but this time Milo would charge in and cast a charm spell from his newly acquired staff at whatever was within. The sneaking proved unnecessary, as the thing within was a mad dwarf who was convinced the party was one of it's hallucinations. Milo's spell did charm the creature, who said his name was Arthur (though he had trouble remembering his name for a bit). 

Arthur explained he and his party had come down through a chimney, using potions of diminution to do so, after having fought some harpies. The party had then avoided the dragon, and explored the chamber further to the west past a now-barricaded door. There, they had found creatures that could turn you to stone, with perhaps snakes for hair. All the rest of his group had perished to the snake-stoning people, and only he had escaped. He had been here in this smallish chamber ever since, which was a very long time.

How did he eat? Why, ale of course! One of his barrels (of which he had many) was a magical ever-ful barrel of ale. That, along with a bit of food (though not enough of it) had held him over to now. But trapped as he was, and without an additional potion to escape back through the chimney or further down the hole (which had since been converted to a latrine), he had remained trapped here for a long time.

The party convinced Arthur they were real, and escorted him to the exit of the dungeons. They also, though painstaking planning and hauling, managed to eventually carry the magical barrel of ale back to the exit. Slink hoped Arthur could start a bar with the ale (and the previously found everfull waterskin) creating an endless supply of product for their future bar.

Traveling back through the dungeon to Arthur's prior chambers, the part stopped briefly to recover some shards of steel left over from the broken steel lid from the elemental caves, to use as reflective surfaces to peer at the potential Medusa without risking stoning.

The party slowly, carefully, opened the door to the west, and crept inside. The bugbears could see very long corridors to both the north and the west. They also saw a statue, an apparent victim of the Medusa.

Slink crept north ahead of the party, as Hollin had light cast on his sword again. Slink peered around corners with his shard of metal, and was able to identify further corridors, twisting and turning like a maze.

And there, squeezing through a small opening and turning his shard of metal to see further around the corner, he spotted a creature with it's back to him! He crept back to the party, to discuss a plan of attack.

[Everyone except Max should be available next week]


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## Mistwell (Sep 17, 2014)

*Season 29*

June 12, 2014
Present: Kyle (first time), Matt A, Jason, Noah, John

[I do not have a full record for this session.  This is a brief summary]

The players slowly entered the lair of the medusa, moving as quietly as they could and checking for traps and creatures as they went.  They had decided on an elaborate plan to have Slink disguise self with potion of disguise, as statue.  They would then web the southern corridor, and lure the medusa in to kill it. 

But fist, the party revived two statues with water from the magic well (see entry around August 1, 2013).  They were one ancient human female, and one modern dwarf. From these two, they were able to discovery there are at least two medusa in the room.

They put the plan into action, and it almost worked.  However, Slink missed his assassination attempt! Slink was nearly turned to stone, but Father Rivers' blessing saved him.  

The party managed to dispatch the medusa, and formulated a new plan for the second one. They would send Slink to run down the hall, and lure the medusa into an ambush.

However, it turned out not one, but two basilisks showed up!

Slink damaged one, dodged the gaze of the other, as the party moved in.  With the basilisks killed, the plan to lure the second medusa began again.

While Slink moved down the hallway however, the rest of the party noticed something moving in south-eastern corridor, that seemed to be cleaning behind it.  Someone else then spotted something moving in south-western corridor as well, a yellow oozing thing on ceiling.

With the Medusa likely coming from the west as Slink ran back, the party realized they were quickly being surrounded.

Stopped there for the week.
[Should be good for next week]


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## Mistwell (Sep 17, 2014)

*Session 30*

June 19, 2014
Present: Kyle, John, Jason, Noah, Matt A

[Another Summary]

The combat against the Medusa and her allies continued!

The party was in a tight spot, with a medusa known to be to the west somewhere out of sight, an ochre jelly on the ceiling to the west of Hollin, and a possible Gelatinous cube somewhere to the east.

Hollin and Luther split the jelly.

The Cube surprised Hollin and engulfed him!

Milo sent a flaming sphered at the jelly.

Slink assassinated the medusa, but was surprised by a second medusa (third total). They both charged him, turning him to stone as he cried out a warning!

Hollin split the Jelly again, before getting trapped in the cube. The flaming sphere took out three of the four jellies.

Hollin got himself out of the cube, taking some acid damage in process.  He hit it, and retreated.

Father Rivers engaged the medusa, along with Bear, after Bear took a whack at the cube.

Milo too out the last Jelly with the sphere and concentrated the sphere's attack on the Cube, followed by three flame jets.

Father Rivers and Bear, then finally Luther, took down one medusa as the other fled.

Hollin took down the Cube, then moved to help with the last medusa.

Bear and Luther took down the last medusa.

The party found a chest containin 2700 Copper Pieces and 180 silver pieces .  There was also a flame tongue longsword, and a scroll of hold person (cleric) and a potion of climbing.

Hollin got the longsword, and the party went to unpetrify Slink.


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## Mistwell (Sep 17, 2014)

*Session 31*

July 24, 2014
Present: Max, Noah, Jason

Very short session tonight. Talked a lot about Basic edition, Starter Set, and Alpha playtest document, and plans for altering characters to conform to the new information (or not).

Noah, who took the flametongue sword, traded his remaining +1 Sword with one of the NPCs rescued from petrification for a magical wooden mace that changed form every time he used it, in subtle ways, and had some ancient inscription on it from some lost ancient human kingdom that he could not read.

The party created a plan to raid the drow, and were about to do that when we left off. Plan included surprise, a medusa head, and trouble!


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## Mistwell (Sep 17, 2014)

*Session 32
*

July 31, 2014
Present: Max, Noah, Jason, John

The night of the epic battle against the drow!

The plan, as conceived last week, was for Slink to unlock the door, and everyone to run in with as much stealth as they could muster, taking down any guard seen, leaping the chasm to avoid the known-trap where possible, and turning anyone to stone with the head of the medusa held by Father Rivers, hopefully.

The plan was put into action, and it went rather well! Everyone except Father Rivers got the drop on the one guard in the chamber with the chasm. Bear and Luther leaped over the chasm, clearing 15 feet with ease. Hollin ran in, but hesitated prior to the bridge, as he did not want to jump the chasm in heavy armor, and as unsure exactly where the trap might be. Milo and Slink also held back on the far side of the chasm.

Bear and Luther took the guard down, but not before the guard could yell for help. Unfortunately someone was on the other side of the door from the guard. The door opened, and darkness dropped on the half of the group on the near side of the chasm.

Father Rivers finally moved in, as Slink uncovered the trap on the bridge and Hollin and Milo moved across.

Bear managed to spot some unusual dark headgear with glass in them over the eyes of one of the drow, before the darkness hit. He grabbed it off the dead guard, found a trigger button on it, and found he could see in the deeper darkness spell with the glasses on!

He moved in and took down the next guard, while grabbing more glasses and trying to get them to Hollin. Meanwhile Father Rivers, moving as best his memory of the surroundings could guide him, ran to the wall and using his Thumaturgy and medusa head, attempted to turn one of the drow to stone.

It seemed to be working, though Rivers couldn't tell, blind as he was in the darkness.

Hollin managed to grab the glasses from Bear and trigger them, and he moved in as well, all while Slink lite a torch and Milo tried (and failed) to dispel the darkness with a light spell.

Many more drow could be seen down the corridor now, and one of them hit Bear with a poisoned crossbow bolt! Bear felt like he was starting to drag his feet a bit, but was able to press on.

Finally, the guy who Rivers had attempted to turn to stone did, indeed, turn to stone. And with that, his concentration broken, the Darkness spell fell. Yay everyone could see again! For now...

Everyone moved in, with Bear, Luther, and Hollin in the lead, followed by Slink, Milo, and Rivers. Several more drow dropped to the combined attacks, as another further back let loose against the party with twin hand crossbows. Bear survived the onslaught, and charged down the passageway after the drow who had just shot him, with reckless abandon at his hatred for the drow! Luther, not to be outdone, followed him.

The twin-crossbow drow did manage to pound on a door to his north before falling to Hollins flaming sword, as Bear challenged a drow with flaming eyes further down the cooridor. That drow didn't last long, while Bear caught someone opening the door to the north. With a cry of rage he smashed into the rapidly opening door, knocking down the drow behind it!

With a quick slash of his weapon, he dropped that drow and moved further into the new room. This room seemed to be full of drow wizards of some kind.

Luther followed him in, as did Hollin, and Slink, while Milo and Rivers stayed in the passageway. Hollin made short work of another guard with his flaming sword. It was obvious to the remaining drow wizards that death was soon to be on them.

Suddenly, in an act of savagery and revenge, one of the remaining drow wizards let loose with a fireball, in his own room!

BOOOM! Both remaining drow were instantly incinerated. Slink dropped as well, as Bear, Luther, and Hollin did their best to jump behind furniture and dodge the deadly blast. The room's walls were charred as flames licked across every surface.

Knowing the sound made from the blast would alert more drow nearby, everyone held their guard. Rivers started to heal the fallen Slink, as Luther and Hollin steeled themselves for the coming onslaught (second wind). Rivers cast another healing spell, as Milo hid behind the newly minted statue of a drow, and everyone else prepared in the now-charred room.

A door opened further down the corridor, as six more drow wizards came charging in a pack to the sound of the fireball. The party readied for further battle...

"I'd love to just charge in, but then these guys will cast 'ray of hatin life' and such, so maybe not." -Noah

[Most people think they will be available next week, though Jason is iffy)


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## Mistwell (Sep 17, 2014)

*Session 33 and 34*

August 14, 2014 AND August 21, 2014
Present for 14th: John, Noah, Max
Present for 21st: John, Noah, Max, Matt A

The pack of six more drow wizards ended up being pretty tough. They tended to cast Hold Person, Magic Missile, and even a fireball again (which again burned up some treasure, much to the chagrin of Bear). This time, some Darkness was added to the mix as well, and the party discovered that the magical glasses that allow one to see in magical darkness have charges, and the charges seemed to be running low for the day...or perhaps were out entirely.

Once the six were killed, a seventh was spotted to the north down a long passage. That guy was killed quickly as well, but not before he began to pound on the door he was next to that led to the east, alerting his allies to the presence of foes.

After killing that guard, the party decided retreat was called for, as everyone was burnt, and wounded. Milo did cast detect magic on the way out, grabbing a magical dagger, two magical stones, and two magical potions.

Back at the hidey-hole, Milo identified the Dagger as follows:

+1 Dagger, dark blade with ancient human script on it in some forgotten dialect. The bearer is immune to the effects of temperatures from 0 degrees to 120 degrees (Fahrenheit). However, anyone wielding the dagger also feels constant low-level pain in the join of the arm holding the dagger. It's not enough pain to interfere with it's use, but it is noticeable.

The potions were: healing, and disguise self.

The stones are message stones. Each can send one short message to the other once a day, and receive one short message once a day.

During the rest, Milo finally perfected the Fireball spell he'd seen the drow cast, while Slink finally grew into his magical powers, becoming adept at Magic Missile, Color Spray, Silent Image, and a number of cantrips. (Note: Everyone is fifth level now. The fighters got multiple attacks, everyone's proficiency bonus is now +3, hit points were increased (Bear rolled a 1, for 2 total additional hit points), etc.).

On returning to the drow lair the next day, the bodies of the drow were gone, and the hallway door remained closed.

Slink inspected a door to the south, and found it radiated heat. It also bore an inscription in the Primordial language, one of the rare languages he does not speak nor read, but which he and Milo knew was spoken by creatures such as elementals. Slink deduced that perhaps the Mad King prison testing area was to the south, given it's proximity to the western door from the Medusa lair and the information previously gathered from a revived ancient prisoner from that lair.

The party moved north, opening the door. A drow was on guard at the same door that the prior one had been pounding on (though this time the door was open a bit). Father Rivers cast bless, as the party moved in. Slink let loose with magic missile, as Hollin and Bear attacked, and the drow dropped before he could react. Arriving at his door, the party found a very large room full of more drow wizards.

In that room there was a large pool of water, many tables with a variety of books and arcane implements, a small secondary pool to the north, a raised area, some small fires and crucibles, and a variety of other arcane paraphernalia. And, there were five drow wizards, aware of the party, and clearly preparing spells to cast.

Rivers started things off with a Silence spell, cancelling his Bless spell to try and take out some of the wizards ability to fireball the party. Luther moved in to attack one to the north, as Milo fireballed four of the five drow wizards.

BOOM! Massive damage was caused to the four, though two were able to dodge some of the effects.

Meanwhile Slink presented the head of the Medusa, "Here guys look what I found!" Heads turned, but most (though not all) were able to avert their gaze in time.

One of the drow ran out of the Silence area, and retaliated with his own fireball! BOOM! The entire party became crispy. Hollin, Luther and Father Rivers all took the blast full in the face, as Bear, Milo, and Slink dodged some of the blast in a mad scramble to escape the heat. That was followed by a Hold Person spell on bear, and a magic missile to each of Bear, Luther, Hollin, and Slink. Things were looking grim, but at least one of the drow seemed well on his way to turning to stone from the Medusa head.

Luther, deciding that he didn't care what cooler heads might think about retreat being the better part of valor, decided a good offense was the best offense. So he attacked, wounding the drow wizard to the north mightily. Hollin moved in to finish that one off (the only one who had entirely been outside Milo's fireball spell). Father Rivers added some much-needed healing to the mix as well, as Slink moved mumbling a new spell under his breath.

Milo then decided screw this, time to end it. So, he fireballed again! BOOM!

That did it. Some drow were left as nothing but steaming boots, while others were merely really quite dead. Tables were on fire, steam was pouring from the pool of water in the center of the room, arcane devices clattered to the ground with some metallic thuds and shattered glass, the room was a mess.

"Hey guys, I found a secret door!" said Hollin, outlining a shape on the northern wall.

[Everyone things they are available next week]


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## Mistwell (Sep 17, 2014)

*Session 35*

August 29, 2014
Present: John, Max, Matt A, Noah

Found on the bodies of the spellcasters from last session were 5 pouches, with a total of 62 silver pieces, 11 electrum pieces, 56 gold pieces, a scroll of Tasha's Hideous Laughter, a scroll of Water Breathing, 3 star quartzes worth 10 gold pieces each, and 6 red spinels worth 40 gold pieces each.

Breathing a sigh of relief from a battle well-fought, the party rested for an hour to recovery from their burns and other wounds. Hollin and Slink carefully examined the secret door that Hollin had found in the northern wall, and finding nothing of consequence Hollin tried to open it. It did not yield easily, and he had to put his shoulder to it, but eventually the door did open.

On the other side was a musty room, decorated mostly in wood, with a number of tables. In one corner a flame came to life with the opening of the secret door - which turned out to be the other side of a bookcase. Three green skulls lay at rest on tables in the room, and a book was left on the ground. The whole room seemed to have a thin layer of dust, and smelled of long disuse.

Slink and Milo examined the room carefully, as Rivers detected magic. The skulls radiated some form of magic, though they were not sure what type. Nothing else seemed to be magical in nature.

Slink carefully entered, examining everything as he moved through the room. Picking up the book he found it to be written in an unknown language, which was a surprise to his usual polyglot self.

Others started to file into the room, as Slink, feeling particularly invulnerable and daring, lifted the central skull in the room to examine it further.

Suddenly, green flames sprouted from the eye-sockets and dome of the skull, and the think flew into the air! The other two followed, and a green beam of flame jetted across the room in all directions as the party came under surprise attack.

Luther took the first scorching hits, and cried out in pain. Finally reacting to the shock of the formerly inanimate bone, everyone focused their fire on the skull the furthest to the west, knocking jaw bones off and caving in an eye socket.

More flames erupted, carving painful lines across a variety of party members, before Father Rivers raised up his Symbol of the God of Life, and commanded the creatures to return to the dreaded land from whence they rose.

The skulls appeared terrified of his words and the divine might they represented, and started to flee. Hollin managed to smash the western one to bits despite it's sudden blurriness, as fire was focused now on the central skull, while the eastern one fled into the corner.

The central skull tried to retaliate with more green flame, but was no match for the combined might of the party, and was brought low. Finally, the one in the corner was damaged in an attack, and faced down it's terror at the divine might of the cleric, and retaliated with a powerful series of five magic missiles at Bear standing next to it. Milo, Slink, and Rivers returned fire, and it too went down in a bout of greenish flame and shards of bone.

Panting at the exertion, everyone sank to the ground and tried to relaxed from the adrenaline of the battle. After nothing further seemed to move, and a thorough search of the room turned up not much more than dust and boring books, Slink listened at the door to the west and heard nothing. So, he opened the door.

On the other side, he found a medium sized room, with two fleshy, extremely muscular creatures within. Each stood on a platform, and they opened their eyes at the opening of the door. He also managed to ever so briefly catch sight of some symbols on the ground.

"Flesh Golems, shut the door!" someone hollered. And so he did. And he waited for the inevitable smashing of the wooden door.

Everyone held their breath, but the inevitable did not arrive. Nothing but silence could be heard, beyond the party's own heart beats.

After a while, everyone started to relax, and a discussion was had as to what was to be done about the situation. Across the way was seen another door, and a third door was to the north-east. Slink hadn't caught a good enough look at the symbols to know what they meant, but he didn't seem to have a good feeling about them, and he thought they might have been intended to be obscured and not obvious.

After a while, everyone agreed to hold attacks, prepare for battle, but to not step on the symbols and to attempt to cross the room to the door to the west without antagonizing the golems, if possible.

The door was re-opened, and Slink daintily crossed the room, followed by Bear, and Hollin,e ach avoiding stepping on the circle of symbols Slink pointed out.. The golems eyes followed those who passed it, but it did not move to attack.

Slink listened at the door but heard nothing, as Milo explained he felt the symbols would trigger the golems to attack.

After still others moved into the room, carefully avoiding the symbols, no aggression from the golems was to be seen. It was then agreed that Slink would open the western door.

Surprise! Two trolls were in the next room! They moved to attack.

"Retreat to the skull-room, and maybe they will trigger the golems!" said Slink. And everyone followed that keen idea, slowly withdrawing to the skull-room and firing at the nearest troll as they went. Milo let loose with a fireball in the troll room as well, carefully protecting his party members, Bear and Hollin, while also preventing the nearest golem from taking damage.

The trolls howled in rage at the flames, and attacked! One charged Bear, clawing through his armor. The party retaliated, but continued to withdraw into the skull-room.

Finally, one of the trolls, enraged by the onslaught, charged heedlessly forward towards the party. It was unclear if the troll was aware of symbols, or simply so angry it wasn't thinking straight, but trigger the symbols it did.

Down stepped the golems from their platforms, as they attacked the nearest troll. The things screamed, as one fled back into it's lair, and the other was slain outright by the golems.

Carefully avoiding harming the golems, the party tried to stay back in the skull-room. Bear was pounded by one of the golems, though he was standing right next to one. He considered retaliating, but instead opted to take a step back into the skull-room himself, leaving nobody beside a golem, and nobody stepping foot in their cooridor.

The golems stood at the threshold of the skull-room, glaring menacingly at the party, but declining to approach them further. It was a standoff.

To be continued next week.

[Everyone said they thought they were available next week]


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## Mistwell (Sep 17, 2014)

*Session 36*

September 4, 2014
Present: John, Jason, Noah, Matt A.

Hoping that the Flesh Golems would reset and return to their platforms, the group closed the door (remotely, thanks to Slink's handy new Mage Hand spell), and took an hour rest to plan.

The decision was to check out the door with heat radiating from it, down to the south. On arrival, Slink had a great deal of trouble with the lock (Jason gave Matt his inspiration die, and that with Bless was enough to do it, barely).

Behind the door was....another door!

But this was was familiar. The grim, rictus face of the demon in the walls peered back at them from it's copper plated visage, in a door virtually identical to the one seen in the first room of the first floor of the dungeon.

"We beseech you, speak to us," said Father Rivers.

"I am amazed you've gotten this far. Yes, please, come in, come in."

"What will we find behind this door?" asked Rivers.

"Oh, nothing you can't handle," said the door, leaving no doubt in the minds of the party that something dire lay behind the door.

Some discussion was had at this point, but it lasted but a moment as Slink said, "Well open then!"

And it did, with a wide grin on the door's face.

Behind the door was a very large chamber, split in two between fire and ice. The entire fire was covered in a glass-like substance. Beneath the western half was roiling flames and lava, and beneath the eastern half was turbulent icy air. Slight heat radiated from the western half, and cold from the eastern portion.

In the middle of each half, stood an elemental creature. To the west was a Fire Elemental, flames roaring from the faint outline of a giant humanoid shape. To the east was an Air Elemental, though with icy undertones, whirling like a tornado but with a giant face billowing from within the form.

The two creatures did not seem to move with the opening of the door, however.

Also in the room were two more doors, one to the east which apparently led back to the Medusa lair, and one to the west leading to an unknown locale.

Slink created an illusion of himself walking into the room, to see what the elementals would do. They did not react, so Bear tossed a coin into the room.

That got their attention!

The fire creature charged into the party, smashing into Luther and Hollin and lighting them on fire. Hollin chopped at it, his magic sword doing damage but the flame appearing to add nothing to his powerful hits. The creature then smashed at Luther and Hollin, as Luther backed up and Bear and he tried to strike at it. Their strikes did some damage, but each time they attacked from near it the flames overcame them and they inhaled hot air enough to sear their lungs. Luther backed up further and swiped with his glaive, and that seemed to help.

Meanwhile, the air elemental went flying past Luther, Hollin, and Bear. Holling and Luther each took swipes at it as it passed by, and it finally arrived at Milo and Slink. It smashed into them both and spun like a tornado, tossing milo into a nearby table, knocking him prone and harming him. Slink however was even worse off, as most of his blow was absorbed by his body slamming against a nearby wall, and he fell to the ground almost like a rag doll, clearly badly wounded by not out for the count just yet.

Father Rivers raised his holy symbol and chanted the breath of life back into his allies, and every suddenly felt quite a lot better. Unfortunately for Rivers, he was standing right next to the air creature, and the thing took two massive slams into him. Rivers screamed in pain under the barrage of attacks, and was even more wounded than Slink had just been, as blood oozed from a dozen wounds.

BOOM! Milo set off a fireball, sparing Slink and Rivers in bubbles of safety from the explosion. The air creature reeled back, wounded by the flames, and angry.

Back in the southern portion of the hallway (all of this taking place in the hall outside the elementals room), Bear, Luther, and Hollin continued to hack away at the fire elemental. None of the three opted to try and suppress the flames spreading across their armor, and Bear and Hollin continued to take additional damage from being so close to the thing as they attacked from right next to it, but they did make progress in ripping chunks of fiery mass off the creature with their magical weapons.

Back to the north, Rivers limped away from the creature, as Milo and Slink stood up and assailed it from range. Slink tossed his one magic dagger at the creature, followed by another...

BOOM! As Milo let loose with a second deadly fireball attack, flames deadening gusts of icy wind across the creatures surface, though it still stood.

Slink, out of magic items and spells, shot an arrow at the thing, lightly wounding it but mostly deflecting the attack. Milo followed with three bright beams of flame centered on the mass of the tornado, and that finally brought the creature low, as air was briefly sucked from the area while the mass of the tornado disintegrated.

The battle in the south raged on however, as Hollin, Bear, and Luther continued to chop at the fire elemental. Flames continued to lick across all three, but finally their focused attacks brought this elemental down as well.

Hollin, Bear, and Luther began to pat each other's flames out, as Slink coughed up some blood and marched into the elemental lair with little fanfare and much courage or stupidity, depending on one's perspective.

The ground turned out to not be glass, but instead the surface seemed a bit tacky to the touch, and quite warm but manageable provided one did not stand in place for too long a period of time.

Slink made his way to the eastern door, and found it to also be identical to one of the doors in the entryway to the dungeon, this one being the large unusually locked door which he had failed to open weeks earlier despite his best efforts, and which contained unusual writing.

Slink returned to the party and let them know what he had found, and they all returned to the nearby library to rest and recuperate. Slink tried to check out the Golem room first, but Milo convinced him to rest for am evening before continuing on.

The next day, Slink drank a potion of spider climbing, and marched into the golem room walking on the ceiling. Fortunately, the golems did not trigger. He walked north, to check out the door to the east, which abutted the northern wall. Using his mage hand, he picked the lock on the door. Carefully listening to the door, he heard the sounds of growling, roaring, and rending and crunching sounds.

He then, perhaps foolishly, opened that door while he also remotely closed the door to the rest of the party.

His hope was that the creatures within would rush out and try and attack him, triggering the golems symbols on the ground, and the rest of the party would be spared the golem attack as he would remain safely on the ceiling.

However, behind the door was a pride of unusual, unexpected creatures. With bodies of lions, but bat-like wings, four manticores could be seen ripping into some dead bodies and meat in their lair. One walked to the door and spotted Slink on the ceiling. Growling, it's wings started to move.

"Ah damn, they can fly...I wasn't expecting that" said Slink, perhaps for the last time.

Roll Initiative everyone, though only Slink and the Manticores can act this first round, as the rest of the party is effectively surprised due to the closed door.

[Everyone thinks they are available next week]


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