Murtul 1, 1374, Undermountain

Since I had not arrived at the Yawning Portal with a pre-registered group to join the “treasure hunt” contest, I was partnered up with a rather diverse group: Kanelyth, a being with a hawkish appearance and big, beautifully feathered wings (she could be a priestess of Horus-Re, in look if not demeanor), Eleioni Di Giorno, an aasimar that was born outside of Mulhorand (I did not know the gods took mates from non-Mulan humans), Shoshiro Tanaka, a soft-spoken Shou (of any non-Mulan humans, the most likely to gain my respect), and a half-drow named Flic. Normally I would not waste my time with an elf, and especially not a drow elf, but he is a magic user so I will give him the benefit of the doubt as to his worth. If we win, not only will we have to split the 10,000 gold piece prize, but we’ll secure work as an established adventuring group.

Having signed up, we were told to retrieve a 1’ tall wooden idol of Mystra from the dungeon below, and we descended as a group 140’ below the building. Though several groups had gone ahead of us, no one else was in sight. The first chamber had a sandy floor so I grabbed a handful for good luck. We were soon exploring in no particular pattern, coming to a room of stone pillars, a metal disc gleaming on the floor in the center. Attempting to carry a magical torch into the room proved impossible; I attempted to detect magic only to learn that whatever prevented the light spell also prevented a detection spell from working. Shoshiro was examining a strange skull on the end of an ever stranger skeleton that was wrapped around one pillar. There was also some writing on one wall that translated from Old Thorass to “Certain Death” with an arrow pointing towards a tunnel where said Death must be waiting. A few of us went into the center of the room to stare at what turned out to be a just a coin, and a rat darted out of the room— Flic sicced his owl familiar on it.

That turned out to be somewhat costly attack when the snow white bird was spotted by a group of goblins, who in turn discovered us. While the males in the party chose to fight the dozen little creatures, Kanelyth and I decided to throw the coin out of the room, hoping it was the source of magic-dampening (which prevented Flic and me from casting spells against our attackers), but it didn’t appear to help. Stranger still, a small beholder came into the room just long enough to watch the skirmish, departing when the final goblin decided to tuck tail and run.

I healed people up as best as I could, and we followed a trail of blood left by the retreating goblin. Shoshiro found a secret door, thanks to the goblin’s trail, while Flic’s owl found a gelatinous cube heading in our general direction— we decided to follow the goblin. We found the goblin, dead from its wounds, a little way past the secret door. I had opted to attempt to detect magic as my companions explored. Shoshiro found a strange hole in a bench at the back of a tunnel— I could see a disc-shaped area of magic in the bottom, but wasn’t entirely sure why it was there. I tried to “dip” my staff into it, as I had a suspicion of what it was for. I was right, but the magical circle sucked the staff right out of my hands; I do not think I’d want to visit wherever that staff ended up.

Moments later, as we were exploring a bit further along, I heard Eleioni say “hello” and a started cry as he was attacked by something from the dark! The something turned out to be a manticore— and the ugly creature was obviously hungry for humanoids. It attacked ruthlessly, nearly killing Flic and his owl, and seriously wounding the rest of us. Shoshiro managed to sneak behind it and stab it between the shoulders— I think that was the killing stroke. I healed everyone up as best as I could while the Shou suggested checking the manticore’s lair. That paid off as we found two vials containing cure potions and 200 gold pieces. Eleioni took a potion immediately.

We are probably only an hour into the contest and resting already, but at least we won’t be coming out empty handed.