No matter where you go, there you are.
Dearest Grun,
I’d have to actually say that, no pun intended, things have gone seriously downhill in our adventure. I’m really worried about Korin, and I have to wonder with what degree the rest of the party are now regarding each other with suspicion. Yet, we’re still alive, still moving, and maybe we’ll get out of here, yet!
We started off down the hallway I’d chosen, and almost immediately came to a wall of darkness. Even I could not see through it or into it. We glimpsed a shadow coming through a nearby wall, too, which made us decide to check out the other passageways before attempting this one.
The next hallway we tried was the one leading in the opposite direction. It sloped down, which made me think of the meat tenderizer... so I looked up. Thank Moradin that I did! And, thankfully, I had taken the precaution of tying Korin to a rope again before he roamed ahead. I hollered and he stopped, having NOT set off the trap that was right above my head!
Korin came back — carefully! — and I found a lever in the wall that I hoped would deactivate the trap. We were none of us too confident that this was so, so after Fafnir flew down the hall (literally), and Jon walked with great confidence, the rest of us ran down it as quickly as we could just in case it went off. Korin and I raced the last.
There was a T junction at the end of the hall, with passages in one direction and great double doors to the other. The doors were what we checked first, opening into a big throne room with tapestries and dwarven skeletons.. which came to life and attacked us. Korin, for some reason, decided to try to turn the things.. to no effect.
Drusilia turned them, except for the “king” skeleton, and we did kill it in the end. It had a magical axe, which Jonathan decided to take and try to learn to use. We looked around the room, discovering an archway into another room with four dwarven statures in the corners. Jon, Korin and I walked toward the arch at the other end, but made it halfway into the room and Wham!
I woke up back in the other room. Drusilia had bravely reached into the room and dragged Jon out, he being closest to the door. And Jon had actually volunteered to go back into the room, knowing he’d be hit by lightning bolts, to rescue Korin and myself before we bled to death. We were all very weakened by it, however, and decided to rest and sort ourselves out before going any further.
One of the things I did was let Korin borrow my mithril waraxe. He won’t touch the magic sword now, and had lost any other hand-to-hand combat weapons. It was hard to give up... but he needs something to fight with! Drusilia wanted to try out the healing properties of said sword, which unnerved Fafnir to the point that he actually flung it across the lightning bolt room to end the argument and get some rest. Fafnir’s gotten short-tempered, too...
Partway through the night, we were attacked by oozes from the lightning room. They came right under the door I had slammed shut, and we were reduced to dragging Jon away while Fafnir and Korin fought. One ooze nearly got Korin, but Drusilia rescued him. Finally, we dispatched the creatures, and got some rest.
Waking up the next morning, we got the chance to pray and heal our party. We attempted the lightning room with several theories, ranging from throwing tapestries over the statues to trying to pull one over with a rope. My rope is now shorter than before... Finally, everyone began simply racing across the room for dear life. Fafnir even got the sword stuck in him for a while (which he ignored for some time - made a strange picture)! Once Fafnir and Jon were across, they immediately headed down a hallway and attmpted the door at the other end. Korin went berserk — shouted about his “precious,” raced through the lightning bolts and tried to steal Jon’s new waraxe! I guess that’s his new weapon of choice...
I was the last to try the room.. and nothing happened when I walked in. When alone, the statues seem to leave me, the dwarf, at peace! If I’d only known!
The hallway opened onto a pit with a winding, crumbling staircase downward. We decided to descend, reached a gap in the stairs, which I tried to leap and failed. Just not much for jumping, eh, Grun? Luckily, I still had the other end of the rope tied around me, and Jon’s quick reflexes saved me from a bad fall. As Jon pulled me back up, though, we heard flapping in the distance. Oh, no...
So, we turned around to go back up, and found a crazed Korin at the top of the stairs waving a loaded crossbow at us all. He demanded Jon’s waraxe, again! This is really going too far. Instead of caving in, I got Jon to lower me (in a controlled fashion) to the next level of steps, while Fafnir passed out potions to help everyone else climb down safely. We left the halfling to think over his actions while we tried to get out of the way of whatever was flapping toward us, which luckily was just a huge flock of bats... no flying heads this time.
At the bottom of the pit is a huge cavern, and it seems we’re going to explore it. While Korin climbed down the wall, I talked to Jon about letting him take the axe for a while. It’s just Korin’s usual habits — he gets obsessed with a weapon (remember Modge?), then tires of it and goes on to another. Jon was not willing to let it go, though, which considering Korin’s recent behavior makes a lot of sense. At this point he’s keeping as far from Korin as he can. So, I tried to talk to Korin, and got nowhere. He keeps changing the subject rather than think seriously about the consequences of his actions! It really makes me sad, because he’s going to get in trouble and who’s going to bail him out when he’ll just be threatening us again later?
Well, we’re all ready to go again. Off to see where these caverns lead!
With love,
Ghelt
Everston Estate:
2 small monstrous spiders
4 goblins
2 lemures (mostly avoided)
15 zombies
6 zombie rats
8 skeletons
2 ghouls
3 monstrous centipedes
colony of piercers (mostly avoided)
Dim Forest:
1 piercer (“Spike,” collateral damage)
6 small monstrous spiders
10 spider goblins
1 aranea
Smallville:
6 stirges
Goblin Caves:
12 goblins
1 ogre
Camp (aka wandering damage):
bear and bear cub (avoided)
4 monstrous spiders
pack of wolves (avoided)
Orc Slave Mines:
21 orcs
Four Feather
Witch Lord’s Tower:
75 orc zombies
2 elven wights
1 mentally-challenged “lich” (7th level sorceror/bone creature template)
Kobold Caves:
4 kobolds (collateral damage)
The Mule
Hill Giant Area:
6 hobgoblins
1 hill giant
1 hill giant (mostly avoided)
3 hobgoblins (mostly avoided)
Trap
Harpy Lair:
2 harpies
Camp (aka wandering damage):
5 worgs
Ettin Lair:
1 ettin-wight
4 grimlocks
Barraktor:
27 shadows
1 wraith
6 vargouilles
1 poltergeist (we couldn’t find it)
16 zombies
2 shadow demons
7 skeletons
1 bisected ochre jelly
swarm of bats (avoided)
4 rust monsters
5 abyssal centipedes
4 abyssal maws
Arun-tosa:
16 ghouls
1 allip
2 skullduggers
4 wights
4 dretches
1 shoggti
Jonathan
Markus
Fry
Korin
36 plague zombies
1 lich, Arkon (ran away from!)
2 vampires
4 wraiths
Arun-tosa, central tower:
5 necrophidia
2 flesh golums
2 wraiths
2 vampire spawn
1 vampire, Kartharsis (fled)
Arun-tosa, catacombs:
9 wraiths
2 wights
8 shadows
Arun-tosa:
6 bonebats
3 allips
Arun-tosa, catacombs:
1 ghoul, Urkel (by his request)
8 vampire spawn
40 dire rats
10 wraiths
1 vampire, Kartharsis
Arun-tosa, Chamber of the Heart of Nerull:
4 mummies, spellstitched
4 vampire spawn
1 half-golem, Korin
1 ghost, Jonathan
1 lich, Arkon
Under Smallville:
The Smallville subterranean terror (ousted!)
1 bisected black pudding
1 death pike
3 large monstrous spiders
1 drider, Kalanaar
Hellfurnaces:
1 huge red dragon (ran from)
1 magma ooze
1 lich, Arkon (parlayed)
1 roper
1 patch of shriekers (avoided)
12 duergar
1 mind flayer/illithid metropolis (ran from)
1 gelatinous cube
1 beholder
1 beholder, Xorn
1 umber hulk
2 illithids
Temple of the Void
4 ancient warrior statues
3 human monks
1 clay golem
1 flesh golem (ignored)
1 stone golem (ignored)
1 Void Monster (got away)
City of Greyhawk
2 chaos beasts
1 assassin
Redcastle
3 phase spiders
1 greater medusa
1 stone minotaur golem
1 dark tentacles
1 huge water elemental
1 greater basalisk
1 large fire elemental
1 large earth elemental
1 large water elemental
1 large air elemental
1 mirror Pockets
1 mirror Aramil
1 mirror Drusilia
Pockets
Aramil
Jacob
4 human assassins
glabrezu
Durll, balor (left our plane)
Well, we headed down the corridor for awhile, and when I noticed holes in the floor the first thing I thought about was, “it’s a trap.” Ghelt said it was only for a track, so I figured it was okay. Then we encountered a rust monster. Great. I hit it with a javelin of lighting, and my companions helped me to scare it off. We continued on.
After a little while, two of these monsters came at us from behind, and one ate Korin’s armor. We killed one, and left the other preoccupied. One more came at us from the front, but we dispatched it quickly.
We walked faster, and came to a large cavern. Here were a bunch of freshly slain rust monsters. The rails that were originally on the track started again in the middle of this room, and the thing refused to follow us into here. There were 5 other paths not counting the one we left, so we went straight ahead. We traveled for awhile, and came to a rift in the floor. Korin tried to go in, but I stopped him. He then went for my axe; this guy is obsessed by it. I took it back from him, and backed up as something came out of the crevice. I couldn’t leave the little guy to do it himself, so I went back up, and helped him fight. We killed them all, and Korin climbed over himself. Fafnir cast spider climb on me, and I carried everyone else over. After awhile of walking, we heard slapping behind us, and we turned to see a large mouth with several feet attached, it seemed to roll at us. Fafnir cast lightning bolt at it, and fried them all, then the lightning followed the rail back at us, just not a strong. it did no damage to me anyway.
Eventually, we came to a set of stone doors that were broken out. Who or what ever did that didn’t even take the time to remove the lock. We then entered a large cave and I SAW DAYLIGHT. There was a cave opening, and it overlooked Arun-tosa.
We slept there for the night, and in the morning went to the city. Korin ran on ahead and was lost from view. We decided to go to the temple, and at that point Korin yelled about seeing dead people again, and we ignored him. Then he came yelling at us, and I thought that he was going to attack me till he doubled over and puked. I then saw three figures coming after him, so I went to protect him. I felled the first in one blow, but the others were more difficult. My companions helped, and we dealt with them.
Korin was apparently paralyzed, so Drusilia tried to heal him and he crumpled in front of us. I was horrified not knowing what to do. Fafnir talked Ghelt into healing him, and Korin came back to life. Then Ghelt backhanded Fafnir. She told me it was an illusion, and Fafnir said something about a joke while laughing, so I slapped him too. He then sent a lightning bolt at us, and ran away laughing about it also being an illusion. I want to kill him, but that would be bad since it was only a joke. A very bad one at that. Something like that could really destroy what little bonds we do have, and I think we will be in a lot to trouble if we don’t start to work together.