Moving On...

Dearest Grun,

Well, we’re about to be on the move again. It’s been an eventful couple of hours, so I’ll catch you up while we’re catching our breath!

We worked our way across the chasm this morning, which would have been much more difficult if not for Fafnir and his potion of spiderclimb. We had a nice setup with a couple of ropes to walk on and to grip, but the top rope kept coming loose and nearly pitched a couple of members headlong into the deep (insert much arguing about rope-tying skills, here). Finally, as I watched, I discovered that some malevolent force was untying the top rope’s knot! Of course, no one else saw it, but Korin announced that a dwarf ghost was laughing a lot next to me. How that squares with the ghosts “being happy to see me” before, I don’t know! Still, between Fafnir bringing the rope back over a few times, and Jonathan using a third rope as a safety line, we did all make it across in the end.

Korin sounds a lot more stressed since he started using the sword. At first he was thrilled with it, but now he keeps hollering at us and accusing us of not listening to him. The problem is that he shouts his ideas very fast, and gets impatient when we try to ask him to repeat it. When I tried to explain this, he stomped off ahead of us. He also punctuates his demands for us to follow him with statements like, “I’m not giving you my sword back!” Sound worrisome to you, yet? Poor Drusilia, I really do respect her god, but that sword... hrmm.

Korin also told me he wished to be a dwarven paladin. I wonder if it has anything to do with all the dwarves’ souls he feels he’s liberating — does he think someone’s giving him guidance ala Trap?

We walked up the passageway, finding a (sprung) meat tenderizer trap, many undead dwarves and Jon’s tendency to use new magic items “just to see what happens,” in this case a javelin that turned into a lightning bolt. Startling, to be sure; lucky for him it missed me! The new urgrosh isn’t a bad weapon at all, although I do love my mithril waraxe best.

Jon later found a pit trap, which we all either had to jump over (or be thrown across, in Korin’s case). I jumped IN, argh. Not my best moment. On the other hand, when the next room we entered came alive with shadows, and I destroyed them all, that was a very good moment! Unfortunately, two more showed up, and possessed Fafnir and Jon, and caused Korin to drop his sword (!) and run screaming away. Drusilia and I were immediately attacked by the rest of our own party! I tried using the damned sword, Grun, thinking it might drive the shadow out of Jon, but it didn’t work. Hope it didn’t do anything odd to me. Eventually we figured out that if we knocked them out, the shadows would leave their bodies, and we managed to fight them off. Lucky for us that the shadows couldn’t make use of Fafnir’s spells while possessing him! Jon nearly killed me, as it was! Korin returned in the middle of the fight, trying to help hold Fafnir, but got in the way enough to get knocked out, himself. Now he’s refused to take the sword back. I think I’m relieved...

We found that this room has several doors, leading to rooms and passageways. I think I know which one leads towards the City of the Dead, and since we need to keep moving, we might as well pick a goal. I know we don’t have much firepower left at this point, but when these things can pass through walls there seems to be little point in barricading ourselves into a room and resting here.

Wish us luck, Grun!
Love,
Ghelt