A Pretty Predicament

Murtul 2, 1374, Undermountain, continued again

And, we ran straight into a huge black dragon. I barely had time to say “run” before Shoshiro grabbed me and pulled me out through another door. And closed it! I immediately opened it and grabbed the first person I could reach— Kanelyth. I was going to try to grab Flic as well, but before I could, the horrid beast turned its baleful gaze on him— and a huge spray of acid shot from its mouth.

Panicked, I scooped up as much of the damaged Flic as I could with my skirts, and dragged him through the door. Shoshiro was gone, and with him our light source. Could things get any worse? Kanelyth was struggling with someone or something in the door, all the while telling me that Flic was alive; I attempted in vain to provide healing to and awaken what was left of the unconscious half-drow I’d collected in my lap. I was somewhat glad that I could not see what he looked like, but he felt... burnt. I was surprised that I wasn’t burning myself with the residual acid, when I felt a pain in my thigh. It felt more like a bite. I tried scraping whatever it was off of my leg when the door opened far enough for me to see that I was being attacked by a dire rat, and worse, there was a humanoid ratperson standing in the doorway, and Kanelyth was lying on the floor at its feet!

I did the only thing I could think to do— I cast a charm on the wererat. It looked me in the eye briefly, and then brought the filthy rapier it carried straight down— killing the rat that was attacking me. Grateful, I asked if it could help me and my two fallen comrades. The creature agreed, so I set about stabilizing the hawk woman, and waking up the half-drow. Slapping him in the face and saying his name didn’t work, but I knew a tried-and-true method priestesses of my order use— that worked quite well. The burned Flic was alert and on his feet again in seconds, and helped me drag Kanelyth towards the wererat’s lair— a 15’ dark area that was a “bubble” of protection provided by some faint glyphs of magic. I asked the creature (Amis, he calls himself) if he had any healing potions, as I was out of magic. He produced a vial of orange liquid. Having nothing to lose, I poured it down the hawk woman’s throat, and thankfully, it revived her. I asked Amis if I could buy any more of these from him; he rummaged around in his piles of treasure until he found three more. I was hoping that drinking one would somehow restore Flic’s now-misshapen features, but Kanelyth was now assuring me that Flic was completely uninjured, and that the black dragon was an illusion! I looked closer at him and, by Sharess, he looked fine! I’m sure he was almost as relieved as I was. Of course, he has no idea that I’ve decided to allow him to spend some quality time with me when we get out of this dungeon, but it simply would have been awkward if he’d come out of this horribly mutilated or dead.

But, back to the task at hand. While we were allied with this Amis, I figured we may be able to do business with him; judging by the sheer amount of stuff he had accumulated, I guessed correctly that he is a trader. Flic was able to detect magic on a few of the wererat’s wares; we bartered away some of my gold jewelry for a pair of magic boots, a 1’ ash stick, and some (nonmagical) rope. At some point during our trading with Amis, Flic decided to try on the silver circlet we’d found on the wight. It highlights his silver hair very nicely. Yes, I am quite certain I will spend some time alone with this half-drow when our treasure hunt is over, assuming something more interesting doesn’t come along.

Now, we decided it was probably time to find our other companions. Eleioni, of course, was still in the crevasse, so we went there next. There were some dead dire rats and goblins littering the area between us; I’m glad they fought each other instead of us! We tossed our newly-acquired rope down to him and he clambered up. When he got up to the top, he was wearing the bronze pendant that had been on the skeleton below. We asked him if he’d found anything else on the skeleton, to which he replied, “What skeleton?” He’d not bothered to check in all the time he’d been down there! Flic and I climbed down the rope to investigate, and we found an obviously-magical 3’ staff. I’m keeping hold of that for now.

We climbed back out of the crevasse and decided to investigate the area in and around the dragon illusion (which was still there), hoping to find our wayward ninja; in time we could hear some yelling in an obviously-Shou accent. We are off to investigate that....