Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Earthday, Wealsun 6, 592 CY

Shortly after we sat down to rest, a little clarity came to me and I realized I could transform the elf in the cell back to flesh. We went and did so. Unfortunately, though he transformed back, he was apparently dead. I cast “speak with dead” on him, more or less to find out who he was and how he’d come to be there. His name was Thereval, and he had been a high elf ranger from Greyhawk. His party had been killed fifteen miles south of Redcastle by orcs, who for some reason, dragged him back to the ruins. Already dying, the last thing he had seen was the surprised looks of horror on the faces of his captors as they met their fate, and of course, the gaze of the medusa. Asking him if he wished to be raised, he said that he did not— he was at peace.

Our night was uneventful and we tossed around ideas on how to pass the stone minotaur during our breakfast. We then tried several things: Pockets used marbles, and then a weasel from his bag of tricks to distract it (all flattened by the golem). We wanted to get it out from the stairs it was guarding so that Fafnir could disintegrate the floor under it. It refused to budge. In the end, Ghelt just kept hitting it with her sword (while I kept healing her wounds from the monster’s retaliatory punches) until it finally crumbled and fell. I found an iron key in its hand, which I gave to Pockets. He immediately chose the door across from the stairs. I suggested, since the Medusa did not seem to phase Aramil at all, that he be the one to look first. Aramil reported that he a saw another stairwell going down.

We followed the stairs down into a small hallway with three benches and two torches, and a door with no hinges. Fafnir plopped down on a bench while Pockets looked at the door. We heard a “click” from under Fafnir. Pockets saw mechanisms under each bench— before we could figure out if they were a trap, Fafnir had moved and sat on each of the other benches. They both “clicked,” and then the door clicked open as well.

We moved through the door and into a passage with an iron plate covering a good portion of the floor. Pockets deftly leapt over the plate— unfortunately, the trap was the stone on the opposite side. It tipped and dropped him below the plate and onto several spikes. Fafnir flew over and dropped Pockets’ “everburning rope” down to him to climb up. Pockets looked severely drained. I did what I could for him, promising to heal him completely as soon as I could.

Apparently the damage to Pockets was more than physical— his wits seem to have departed as well. We came to a door which he opened— the room contained a few columns, and a tentacled creature sticking out of a well in the center. Fafnir cast a spell at the creature, and Pockets spun around and shot an arrow at Fafnir! I was worried that Fafnir would retaliate, and Aramil and Ghelt realized that Pockets was not thinking clearly— they kept him occupied while we finished off the creature, at which point Pockets was in control of his faculties again. He climbed down the well and found a spear. I cast a detection spell on it— it radiated magic, as did the bow we’d taken off the medusa.

His confidence returned, Pockets led us into a small room through a door off this room. As we followed him through, he tested the door on the opposite side of the room— the door we had walked through was cut off by a divider that dropped behind us (with Fafnir still on the other side), and the room began to quickly fill with water. A huge water elemental appeared as well, and hit Ghelt so hard I saw her going under. In a panic, I yelled to Fafnir and he destroyed the new blockage. Rather than try to find Ghelt under the still rising water or risk the water elemental hitting her again, I used a word of recall to take us safely to the temple of Pelor in Greyhawk. We appeared soaked as gasping in the vestibule. I helped heal Ghelt, and asked for the clerics to restore Pockets’ wits. They hesitated, as Pockets is not a worshipper of Pelor, but he quickly donated 500 gold pieces, which the clerics greatly appreciated— they restored him on the spot. I must say, that’s not how we help people in Smallville, but I suppose in a bigger city it is expected that one would seek help from their own church. I asked for Tomas, but he was down in the catacombs. Fafnir wanted to get back to that water creature apparently, as we were suddenly teleported back to Redcastle, the gnome grumbling that we had to walk all the way back down to that chamber. We noticed that the floor was damp throughout that level.

Oddly, as we walked back in the water elemental’s room, Pockets did the very same thing to the door as he had the past time, and the water started to pour in again, along with the water elemental. This time, I cast a banishment spell on it, which thankfully worked— though I am not sure if it was the fear of Pelor’s sun symbol, or of the bar of soap I was brandishing, that allowed me to dismiss it. Here is hoping that tampering with the door won’t produce an endless supply of elementals, as I’m not equipped to deal with another, and swords and arrows don’t seem to do too much damage to a water creature....