First!

4 Kuthona 4709
Old dwarven monastery

… and then Candal finds a spiked pit trap by falling into it. I glance up, trying to determine if he needs help removing himself from the pit, and see an ettercap skitter across the rooftop across from me and drop into a hole, and further into the courtyard I notice that my mammoth is trying desperately to fish something out of a well with her trunk.

I pull Candal out of the pit he’s in, as he’s still alive. I have no time to get to Kasa before we are attacked by three big spiders and three ettercaps, and a rather poisonous battle ensues. We are eventually the victors and I can then go see what my mammoth is so interested in. We can see that the spiders have left two good-sized cocoons in the well and fish them out, and it’s clear that at least one of them contains something live. As we slice open the cocoon, with Candal at hand ready to smite whatever creature comes out, Rogar wanders into a tower at the corner of the yard, which in turn collapses on him, and as near as we can tell, crushes him. The shield he carried, if it is still capable of speech, has been rendered mute. Salma runs to try to rescue him as we discover Kasa’s gnomish sorcerer friend Liake is inside the first cocoon. The second holds a dead human she does not know, on whose body we find a magical staff and a bit of coin and gems.

Seeing that Liake is unharmed and Kasa has no further interest in the well, I turn to Salma who declares that Rogar is dead under the pile of rubble. Candal is quite happily trying to pry Rogar’s magical items out from under the debris, and then attempts to put a rather bloody enchanted helm on our horrified cleric.

I must point out, that Tythe is quite good at finding traps and pitfalls, if only the males (now single male) in our party would be good enough to let her pass through an area first.

Dragging Salma away from Rogar’s remains is tricky, as she wants to dig out his body for a proper burial. Candal explains to her that he is already buried in the proper dwarven fashion under rocks on dwarven land. As I learn more about human interaction, I find myself wondering which part of me, my orcish or human side, is the better half.

We eventually wander into the monastery itself, and come to a headless dwarven statue. Ghostly tones of a male minstrel echo down the halls, and though we do not find the musician, we pass through an armory, find a “secret” door with cells and an office beyond, discover chewed bones of humanoids and animals, and come to a stairwell, parts of which have collapsed and since been cleared. I note that bootprints of what look like hobgoblins lead down, and with that, Candal stomps ahead of us to follow the stairs down….

Stayin’ Alive

4 Kuthona 4709
Old dwarven monastery

We came to a room with carved walls and an obsidian obelisk in the center. Around the obelisk were some broken tools and six dead kobolds. We got as far as deciphering “Droskar” from some carved runes before we were attacked— by the kobolds. Thankfully Salma’s attack was first and successful— we saw that the kobold zombies were exploding as they were destroyed— no doubt that we did not want to get the toxic materials on ourselves. Tythe and I finished them off from a distance.

Another room further on showed a large pool and was filled with a misty vapor. Though we could see that there were double doors on the opposite side of the pool, we opted to pass this room by. Soon, we came to a room filled with stone beds. Candal enjoyed hacking at some already-dead stirges that were on the floor there. They stayed dead.

An extremely clean dining area and kitchen were beyond this, reminding us all of the gelatinous cube that we’d encountered recently. Liake was able to detect some magic in the kitchen and retrieved some potions before we moved on again.

Another hallway lead to a cold chamber dripping with water, with an iron anvil at one end and niches as far as we could see that held dwarven skeletons. Of course as soon as Candal crossed the threshold to the room, the skeletons began to move towards us and attack. The skeletons were easy to defeat thanks to divine magic, and we began to enter and explore the area.