| Session Date | June 18, 2022 |
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| Base XP Gained | Carry Over |
| Player Notes | ZZ's Notes |
The party examined the 5' high carving of the face (flanked by female elf warrior statues). The mouth was a void so the party told the Hobgoblins to go see if there was anything in it. They were none too happy about that, with one complaining that it was adventurer work. The other, however, grumbled about cowardice and stuck his arm full in. After a moment he shrieked, then withdrew a perfectly fine arm. He and the other laughed at the lame prank. Unfortunately, the noisy duo apparently attracted trouble. The door behind the party burst open and a weird...thing...emerged. It appeared to be a dozen snaky stalk intertwined, each with a large eye at the upper end. Worse, the eyes began to shoot beams at the party. Each had a differing power. One hit a Hobgoblin and weakened him greatly. Another shot cold, a sonic blast, one turned ZZ's manacles to rust; and there were other ill effects. But the tentacles or stalks were cut down one by one until the thing lay dead. The room from where it emerged was empty and quite clean (as was the rest of this level).
Moving on, the party came to two doors, one of which was heavily barred from the party's side. They went to the other first, finding a spiral staircase leading up. Standing before it was a statue of a powerful warrior in platemail, hand held outward in stern warning. Not wishing to go up yet, the party now went to the barred door. Beyond it they could hear heavy movement. There now began a rather long parley. The thing beyond the door proved capable of speech (with a very deep and booming voice). It claimed to be a prisoner and wished to be released. The party questioned it at length and soon came to mistrust its intentions, prisoner though it seemed to be. The party eventually withdrew a short way and discussed using a detect lie scroll (since know alignment would not work through the closed door). They returned and Mordecai cast the spell. However, the thing beyond the door became very evasive when answering questions, avoiding direct answers that might be detected as lies. The party grew frustrated and the thing beyond the door grew angry, eventually throwing a very great bulk into the barred door. Finally, they left to a string of curses and threats from whatever lay behind the door.
Moving west, the party discovered a rather neglected storeroom, the food and other items there clearly old and long spoiled. Though there was a path across to another door, they returned to the westward explorations, where they ran into a large number of Giant Rats. Jarrik took control of them with his ring of mammal control and led them into the storeroom, where they began to gleefully feed on the rot. The party shut them and continued back west. They soon came to a room with a pool in the center. It seemed bottomless, but soon an image of a sad woman appeared int he water, apparently looking up at them though there was no apparent source for the image. Most of the party remained just outside the room, but Hans went for a closer look - and promptly swapped places with the sad woman! She said her name was Almira, a wizard from Manston who had come with others to kill Gold. When the party told her the year, she sadly claimed that she had been trapped for 80 years in the pool. She claimed her memory was faulty from her ordeal and knew almost nothing when asked questions. The party was more concerned with rescuing Hans, but Almira said that the magic of the place was such that another would need to swap places with him, but this could not occur for a year and a day. At the sudden shift to very specific knowledge, Bel expressed distrust of Almira. Upon hearing this, Mordecai decided to cast know alignment on her, but she strenuously argued against it. Needless to say, this only made casting the spell more urgent, and Mordecai announced that she was chaotic evil, strongly so! Suddenly, the woman struck at the party, baring vampire fangs. Happily, the party silenced her (as she had said she was a wizard) and eventually cut her down.
ZZ tied up the body as the party continued what to do about Hans. They decided to search for secret doors in the place and spent a good deal of time doing so, without success. But they were apparently in luck. The weakened Hobgoblin and his comrade did not assist in the search and were skylarking around the pool. Suddenly one cried out and vanished, and Hans reappeared. Apparently, the magic of the pool had reset and the Hobgoblin had looked in. This seemed fair enough for the party, and the remaining Hobgoblin had no real interest in sticking around to try to rescue his comrade. The party decided the caught one was perfectly safe and thus they had not violated their deal.
Continuing to explore now to the south, the party found a second spiral staircase. The Hobgoblin said that he recognized this area as the one they'd come down from the castle above. These stairs led directly into the castle above. The party now told the Hobgoblin that he was free to go, having fulfilled his pledge; for his part, he claimed he would honor his agreement to say nothing of the party. Instead, he would claim his comrades were slain (by something, I forgot what he said). But Jarrik demurred. If the Hobgoblin went above and was questioned under magic, his word would mean nothing, and the party would be in deadly danger from a fully alerted castle garrison. Jarrik suggested killing him for their own safety. A brief debate followed (in and out of game) until the Hobgoblin finally suggested an alternative option. Rather than either, the party could spike him into a nearby empty room they'd recently found. If the party gave him a few days food and water, he would sit there quietly until eventually someone came to rescue him. It might be days, which should be plenty of time for the party to do what they needed to do. Everyone agreed to this, and the wise Hobgoblin was duly locked and spiked into a room with some iron rations and a skin of something to drink (I hope).
Explorations continued turning now back to the east. The party found a series of three barred doors, albeit less stout than the last one. They also found a hall with faded frescoes depicting an underworld location with human worshipers all facing east. At that end was a statue of Maelentir, god of evil magic. The party did not explore this hall and turned back, only for Bel to sense a secret door. his they opened to reveal a 5' wide corridor. At the end they came into a small room with a strange sight, a 6' tall a slightly anthropomorphic owl. it seemed more curious than concerned. Finally, it beckoned them into its crowded lair where it began to brew them some herbal tea. It did not speak for a time but would nod as if it understood their speech. After a bit, it suddenly blurted out "There is war coming, greater than any in a thousand years. Prepare yourselves!" After a while, they came to realize that the owl was a bit of an oracle and would randomly blank out and say things like "The dark people will remain dark no more" and "The Pirate Queen rises. Who shall put her down?" IN return for the tea, the party asked if the owl liked giant rats for food. It grew immensely excited and said it did. The party then dutifully retrieved Jarrik's rats and gave them to the owl. It was immensely pleased and became much more talkative, even offering the party to rest in its secure lair. meanwhile, it told them it knew little of Gold as it's lair's exit in the cliff face was below the castle and flying near it was dangerous because of Gold's flying demons or some such thing.