Sarenith 10, 4709 AR
Abandoned Dwarven Monastery, Darkmoon Wood

We hastily closed the door to that hallway and opted to continue wandering through the maze of chambers, eventually coming to a room with a large, hot obelisk In the center— water poured down on it, producing a continuous cloud of steam. And, though we thought we heard a splash, we could see nothing through the misty atmosphere, so we quickly moved on.

Next we found a room with dozens of statues in it, depicting two armed groups of dwarves in rows facing each other— one group looked like normal dwarves, while their opponents had twisted features. One of the uglier statues had a dead kobold impaled on a spear. A door was visible on the other side of the room. Keth decided to check the room for traps, and managed to get halfway across the room when he found one. With the sound of a clicking gear, the room spun 90°, dropping Keth onto the spears of the ugly dwarves, while the statues from the other end of the room shot forward, crushing him between them. Thankfully he managed to pull himself out and find his way to the far door. As we pondered how to get him back to us without killing him outright, the room lurched and reset itself, pulling the row of crashed statues back to their original positions.

Still contemplating this latest development, Biff and Thorab chose to cross the room in a different spot, hoping to avoid the trap, but when they reached the midpoint the trap sprung again. Luckily, they were anticipating this and were able to avoid any real damage to themselves. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a dwarf move that quickly!

Liake and I were waiting for the room to reset again— I planned on carrying her just in case the trap sprung, hoping to hold her up above the clashing armies. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance. Our male counterparts were “exploring” the room ahead, and accidentally alerted an allip to our presence. As soon as I heard the muttering and whining of the undead creature, I yelled to my friends to cover their ears, but all four of them were affected, and all stopped in their tracks to stare blankly at the incorporeal creature. I quickly grabbed Liake and faced her into a corner of the room, hoping it would break her trance more quickly, then I hurled myself across the trapped room, leaping over the spot I hoped was trapped.

I managed to survive that without mishap, catching the allip in a wave of positive energy as it drained Thorab of his senses. The creature turned on me then, draining me as well, but I kept it busy long enough for my friends to shake off the trance. Liake managed to get across the trapped room to provide help, and I cast a spell on my morningstar, as only magical damage could hurt the allip. I was loathe to get too close to the creature, but Keth grabbed my weapon and hit the creature hard— between his attacks and Thorab’s, the creature was finally put to rest.

I feel a bit handicapped by whatever the allip did; I pray to Pharasma that it is not permanent, but I fear that it is. Poor Thorab looks as though he can barely put two thoughts together; I may rely on my own senses rather than the dwarf’s till we get out of these ruins.

As we considered going back through the trapped room, Keth found a concealed door, so we went in that direction. We came to a modestly furnished room, complete with an anvil with a massive maul rigged to hit it, and a smashed dwarven skeleton resting on it. It appeared that the dwarf was some sort of mage, as his familiar, an 18” tall winged monstrosity, stood by the body and said “Leave my master in peace!” to us. Thorab must not have liked the little creature, as he charged across the room and smashed the creature before it could utter another word. Biff was quite irritated, as he had some questions for the creature. My friends then became more interested in the skeleton, as it was wearing some rather nice slippers (Liake said they allow the wearer to climb walls as easily as a spider) and a blackened gauntlet on the dwarf’s twisted left hand. Liake wasn’t sure what that did, but we found out quickly enough— Biff shoved his hand into it, feeling excruciating pain as it contorted his hand to fit into it, only to discover afterwards that it would not come off. We believe he’ll want to be switching from mandolin to some sort of percussion instrument until we can find someone to remove a cursed item. For the moment, he seems impressed with the thing.

In addition to these bits of equipment, the crushed dwarf held a half-finished obsidian statue of an owlbear, and an obsidian tablet, with a lament to Torag about how his people had lost their way. I hope the dwarf found peace in the afterlife, but I’m left wondering if the allip was his tormented soul.

We left this room and found our way into a chapel. The chapel was already occupied, and unfortunately it was occupied by kobolds. Biff attempted to speak to them (in an intimidating fashion), but he apparently doesn’t speak draconic, so it was a moot point. My male companions all charged at the six kobolds, while one began to chant and then engulfed them in magical fire. Liake, who hates kobolds, ran into the room and cast a spell, stunning several of the kobolds with a spray of color, while I took out the spellcaster before he could harm my friends again. Within moments, four kobolds lay dead at our feet. The other two got away, yipping off into the distance, but moments later, we could hear the sounds of answering yips getting closer….