| Session Date | April 15, 2023 |
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| Base XP Gained | Carry Over |
| Player Notes | ZZ's Notes |
Well rested, the party left the secret room. They passed the tinkling ice tree and moved north, only to run into a pair of Yetis coming out of an adjacent door. The two abominables turned and fled, slamming the door shut behind them. Sirius cast invisibility on himself and Hans moved to open the door for him to pursue while the rest of the party moved north to cut them off via secret doors an the Mimic room. Sirius’ pursuit was somewhat hampered by the fact the Yetis moved faster than he, but he remained on their tail. Meanwhile, the rest of the party took a blocking position between the expected Yeti path and any ways off this level. Seeing their way blocked, the Yetis charged the party (and onto Burt’s glaive-guisarme). One Yeti broke its paw striking at Dane and they were soon cut down. After some discussion about Yeti pants, the dead creatures were dragged to the adjacent room with “Archy” and the gore cleaned up to hide the evidence. The Mimic thanked them and mentioned that the Yeti were used for bulk labor down here and might be missed.
The party now continued to the east to explore, soon coming to a large, round room with whitewashed walls, brightly illuminated by a crystal or glass globe inset in the center of the floor. Dane could sense evil within but could not ascertain a source. Deaglan stuck his head in to look above the door but saw nothing. He also threw a marble at the globe, but it just bounced off. Finally, the party settled on taking two sheets of canvas they had, giving them to an unseen servant, and covering the light. Though some light leaked through the canvas, doubling it over brought the light level down significantly. This done, Hans and Deaglan entered the room and began to circle around in opposite directions to explore. But, suddenly the canvas burst into flame and quickly burned away, restoring the light and casting vivid shadows of the two explorers. Worse, other, demonic type shadows appeared though no source for them could be seen. The shadows then attacked the adventurer shadows and were able to cause harm in this weird way. The two retreated out of the room and were no longer under stack, though the demonic shadows remained. ZZ tried turning them to no effect and then used a wand of negation, also without effect. Sirius cast passwall under the globe and it merely stayed in the exact same spot. Not wishing to risk this weirdness, the party retreated and Burt wizard locked the door behind them.
Continuing to the south, the party discovered stairs going up and a room with columns of ice. They did not explore this yet and went east where Deaglan heard noise at a door. He was unable to pick the lock so Dane burst in the door and the party discovered a torture chamber with an oubliette in the center and a dwarf skeleton at the bottom of it. At one door from the place Deaglan could hear elevated breathing, so the party took ropes and secured the two other doors in the place to prevent them easily opening. Suddenly, one of the doors burst open and a somewhat alien-looking human with blue skin rushed out and attacked Dane. He was moving very fast and landed some blows before the party could pile-on. Hans and Sirius blasted him with magic missiles, Burt with a ray of enfeeblement, and ZZ with a suggestion to drop his weapon. All worked and the apparent jailor gave up fighting. The party then tried to bluff him that they’d been sent by “the master” to retrieve a prisoner, any prisoner, as he was “in a mood.” That made the jailor suggest the lone dwarf he still had alive. He opened a cell for the party, which took the dwarf and then locked the jailor in! He’d “been replaced” but surely he’d be let out sooner or later. The jailor, who seemed none too bright, didn’t resist. But the party had second thoughts and released him, only to have Deaglan backstab him, Jarrik tear a ringed finger from his hand, and Helga finish him off. Most of the cells proved empty, an Ice Imp, a Troglodyte, some skeletons, a Dwarf corpse that had apparently cut his own throat with a stone and scrawled messages in blood on his cell, and one with a Wight that tried to poke Dane when he looked in.
The Dwarf proved to be pretty incoherent and had apparently been there for quite some time. He’d been part of the Petty Dwarf force that attacked the Ice Wizard’s palace over a year before and been crushed. He’d survived that and made it home, only to later be taken captive when his clan’s hall had been attacked and demolished by Stone Giants and Ice Imps. He referred to the Hooded One as “an elf” though admitted he’d not seen his face and had never actually seen an elf before.
The party continued exploring and came to a tremendous gulf that opened up above and below them, blocking their way. Sirius, Deaglan, and ZZ took the flying carpet and began to explore the rift. Across from the ledge the party was on was another landing, this one of finished stone with two weird spider-headed statues flanking a bronze door covered in spider motifs. They ascended but soon saw three immense blue-white spiders climbing down the walls. One hit Sirius with icy webs while the other two tried to leap onto the carpet – and missed! They fell far below, one hitting solid and one causing a splash. The third was soon slain and the carpet riders found the top of the rift about 100 feet above. It was heavily jagged and might contain all manner of lurking and not visible things. Below they found the river cavern of the level below.
The party decided to explore elsewhere despite the temptation of the bronze door. They returned to the ice columns which exuded a great coldness. Dane tried burning hands on one but it did absolutely nothing to it. The party then searched a nearby corridor for secret doors when suddenly a section of wall came alive and attacked Mordecai! The wizards blasted it with magic missiles and Jarrik was able to slay the great Mimic they’d been warned of previously. They did not find a secret door but they did find a room covered in inches of ice with skates hanging from the wall.
In another room encased in thin ice, Deaglan sensed a secret door. Dane burned away the ice and the party discovered a room with two very heavy stone chests. Both were trapped, one magically. Deaglan disarmed the mechanical trap but it took attempts form both Sirius and ZZ to disable the magic one. Between them, the two chests contained a hefty treasure with numerous magic items. As per standard operating procedure, ZZ tasted the potions. Unfortunately, the second one seemed to have a very ill effect on him, as the Dwarf simply stopped talking or moving and his expression turned to one of dull stupidity. Mordecai tried dispelling magic but without effect. Given the seemingly catatonic, drooling Dwarf was not going to recover soon, the party decided to close the secret door and rest here…