We have survived another day. Our first attempt to continue on didn’t get far. After about 60 feet, we were faced with impenetrable darkness, that even the clerics didn’t want to face.
Doing an about-face, we decided to head the other way instead.
The first obstacle we encounter was a dwarven ‘meat grinder’ trap, similar to one we had seen yesterday. Ghelt was pretty sure that she could disable it, but we proceeded at top speed past it, just to be safe.
As soon as we were past, we found a large hall, which appeared to be a throne room... there was a throne on a raised platform, and all the walls were covered with tapestries. Unfortunately there was also an undead king and his undead minions.
Drusilia is getting good at this ‘turning undead’ stuff. She was able to take care of the minions, leaving only the king himself for Ghelt and Jonathan to finish off. (I helped with a few magic missiles, but I did so from a safe distance.)
After the fight, I discovered a passageway behind one of the tapestries, and Korin, Ghelt, and Jonathan proceeded through. (This was after Jonathan had scooped up an axe from the Undead King that was glowing with magic... he seems to REALLY like it.)
The room, it turned out, was trapped. Once all three of them had entered the room, lighting sparked through the air and all three were unconscious!! Luckily Drusilia was able to pull Jonathan out, and after reviving him with the last of her healing, he was able to rescue Korin and Ghelt.
So there we were, two of us unconscious, and the rest of us badly in need of healing. This is when Drusilia pulled out the sword! She insisted it would “heal” Ghelt and Korin, but she wanted someone to stab her with it first.
This seemed crazy to me, particularly since the late, great Trap had tried the same thing, and nearly cut his hand off! Thinking it would be better to remove the tempation until she had time to ‘sleep’ on the matter, I lobbed the sword throught the ‘lightning room,’ which I figured would keep it out of her grasp until morning.
Drusilia was quite upset, but eventually she settled down, and we were able to rest... for a while at least. During the night, we had to fight off two ochre jellies, using mostly magic missiles and acid arrows, but other than that, things were quiet.
In the ‘morning,’ we all managed to run quickly through the lighting trap without taking damage. Well, almost anyway. I had forgotten about the sword I had thrown the night before, and managed to land right on it! OUCH! or not OUCH, actually. It turns out Drusilia was right... rather than wounding me, it healed me instead. Oops. Oh well, it’s good to keep the clerics on their toes.
After this we continued into a large pit with a stairway around the edge. As we proceeded down the steps, Korin was muttering something about his ‘precious,’ but I ignored him as usual... it’s the only way to remain sane.
It wasn’t long before we heard flapping, and we wanted to head back up the steps. Unfortunately Korin was playing another one of his ‘games,’ and held us all at arrowpoint... refusing to let us back up the steps unless we gave him ‘the precious’... whatever in the Nine Hells that is! Realizing we didn’t have time to play his games, I cast Spider Climb on Jonathan, and Fly on myself, and we all held on as a swarm of bats flew past us. Luckily everyone was able to hold on.
After this, I immediately flew to the bottom of the pit, and Jonathan helped Ghelt and Drusilia get down safely. Korin climbed down on his own, still feeling wacky, I guess.
Now, wading through guano, we are continuing down a natural passage that we hope leads outside, and closer to our goal. I must admit I am a little concerned about Korin’s recent behavior, as he seems to be a little more ‘off’ than usual, and may be leaning towards violence. I don’t think we should let him stand watch alone.... I must be sure to tell the others, in case they haven’t noticed.
~=Fafnir Flamebrewer=~
Posted by Dave on April 26, 2003, 23:43 | Fafnir’s Journal