So, there we were. Having survived the night, our party of intrepid looters... uh, I mean “adventurers,” decided to continue exploring. After Ghelt lifted the trap door we had discovered the night before, we all climbed down a long ladder in what seemed to be a burial chamber... nothing in the first part but a bunch of old corpses. Continuing onward, we found two descending staircases...

Deciding to check out the foul smelling staircase first, (Drusilia REALLY likes smelly dead things, it seems), we proceeded down. Once we were down there, Ghelt and Drusilia dispatched some zombies (both human and rat). Not much of interest really... just a bunch of broken caskets, and a room sealed with the symbol of Pelor. After much discussion, we convinced Trap not to open it, and went back to explore the second staircase.

Upon descending the second staircase, we found a large door with the symbol of Nerull on it... what’s with these people? Nerull in one corridor, Pelor in the other!? Trap found that the door was trapped, and the trap had captured a victim already... a Duergar at the bottom of a pit, impaled on spikes. I tried to convince the party to lower someone on a rope, to search the body (after all, he didn’t need the stuff anymore), but no one was interested.

After closing the door (and the pit), Trap proceeded to ‘disarm’ the trap. From my vantage point, this seemed to involve jamming hinge pins into a hole in the wall. To demonstrate his prowess, he then immediately ‘tested’ his fix, and dropped himself into the pit! Ouch! At least he searched the Duegar while he was down there. (Finding a sling, some gold, and a Mithril(!) axe.)

Giving up on disabling the trap, we all proceeded to climb over the pit on a rope.

Entering the next room, we found an evil looking alter and statue. Drusilia used her clerical abilities to sense that there was a magic ‘line’ on the floor. After pointing this out to Trap, he proceeded to step over the line, to see what it would do.

What it did was release a group of skeletons! Drusilia immediately called upon Pelor and scared the bejesus out of them! After that, Ghelt and I were able to destroy most of them. (Mostly Ghelt, of course!)... while this was happening, Trap decided to try and knock one out with his backpack.... it didn’t work, and we had to kill that one too.

At this point I was getting really sick of unDead things, but there was more to come! proceeding down a hallway we discovered some more cells, where a four-armed zombie nearly killed Ghelt! Then, when we looked for a place to rest, Drusilia found a secret door that led us to the worst thing possible.... more UNDEAD!!!

I am not sure how to describe this one, other than to say he was CREEPY! Black robes, green skin, and he was praying at another black altar! I tried to stun him with a dazzling display of light, but it had no effect! Drusilia tried to scare him off, but again.... NO EFFECT!!!! Luckily Ghelt waded in, axe swinging, to give the guy something to think about! Then Trap, in a rare moment of brilliance (or desperation), threw his lantern on the guy, and set him on fire! The thing burst into flames, and soon was nothing more than a pile of ashes.

We destroyed the evil thing’s altar, and found some gold in the process! (yay!). We also found a wand which looks very evil, and we will need to find some way to destroy it.

Even though it has been only several hours since we last rested, we are all ready to call it a day, and try to recover some of our energy (and spells!). Ghelt needs healing, Drusilia needs to pray, and we all need some rest. There’s more exploring to be done, and we will need to be in top shape before we continue on.

~Fafnir~