| Session Date | February 20, 2015 |
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| Character's in Attendance | |
| Base XP Gained | 1730 |
Pyx - Bird-headed wizard (name found in session #21)
The party had not been resting long when they heard banging on the outer door of the room complex within which they were resting. However, it seemed that the pile of toad-man bodies was holding fine. Some additional banging was heard a little later, but then all was silent once more -- until the door of their resting room was opened by a squad of four toad things.
A brief melee erupted as the party's rest was disrupted. However, three of the things were quickly slain and a fourth captured and knocked unconscious. Looking out, the party saw a strange sight. The pile of bodies against the door was undisturbed. Rather, the wall to the north of the door appeared to have vanished, leaving a passage around the door and out into the main corridor. Outside, the party could see a swarm of the frog things surrounding something taller, and even more bizarre:
This rather unlikely fellow, informed the party that it wished to parley; Rowan went out alone to speak to it. It claimed that it saw no reason for further bloodshed, especially of its folk, many of whom the party had slain already. They were in the wrong, it claimed, and it made a rather simple proposition - either the party pay a ransom of magic or wealth, or it would blast them asunder. Rowan claimed the party lacked any worthwhile magic items. The creature countered that a ransom of 5000 silver coins or the equivalent would buy their lives, provided they also agreed to leave and remain clear of its portion of the dungeon. This was agreed to, as the party felt that taking on a powerful sorcerer-bird-thing in their current state was a poor idea, so they handed over a good deal of wealth they'd acquired recently. This done, several of the toad things escorted the party to the north, where they came to a sphere of darkness. The party was not pleased by the directions to pass through it, though when one of the toad-men went first, they followed. The toad-men departed and the party soon found a nearby room that looked safe enough to camp in, though it did smell slightly of smoke.
As they rested, however, the party was again disrupted, this time by a number of ghouls that burst into the room. Havak quickly turned them, and the party was able to return to their rest, spiking the door with a dagger and finally finishing the night without further hindrance.
Next morning, or what passed for such, the party took a passage east. They explored an empty room or two (one containing old bones), and were continuing on when Adoward and Aldeberon spring a pit trap (Drogo was leading but had neither noticed it nor sprung it). Aldeberon managed to avoid falling but Adoward did not. The fall shook him up, but no sooner had he checked to ensure that no bones were broken when a pair of weird monkey-like monsters tore into him, clawing and biting madly. He screamed for aid as the party dropped a rope to him and managed to pull him out; he was nearly dead from his wounds.
The party now decided to exit the dungeon altogether to rest somewhere safer. They were not ready to return to town, having a little more food remaining (NOTE: You are in the process of using your 7th day of food; I'm thinking your rations are running low). Luckily, the stairs up to the ruined keep were nearby, and the party soon slipped from the dungeon and the ruined fortress. They made their way back down to the woods where Havak's glyph of warding remained intact. Here they rested a day and night. Early on, they spotted a pair of Ogres moving southwest down the nearby path; that night, three Trolls were seen in the moonlight moving the opposite direction on the path. More importantly, between Havak and Rowan's healing, the party was able to get back on their feet and return to the dungeon.
They made it back without incident and soon began exploring to the south, hoping to probe the limits of the toad-and-bird-man territory without provoking a response. In one room they found what looked to be a font or basin set in a pedestal, surrounded by columns, though pouring water in it and otherwise examining it revealed nothing. A little further on they ran into a few of the toad-things, which seemed fairly non-hostile, though they did move to block a diagonal passage, which the party took to mean was off-limits to them. A south corridor was not blocked, however, and they took this.
This corridor led to a strange, oddly-shaped room. Inside was a statue surrounded by eight pillars that glowed with a weird iridescent shimmer. The floor here was of a black stone, with red arrows pointing to the eight columns. Oddly, the party realized that each of them saw a different statue, some male, some female, some human, some otherwise. However, all saw a pair of rather normal-looking dice sitting before the statue. Lune, immediately took them up and rolled, only to find himself suddenly aged about 7 years. One of the pillars ceased glowing, as well. Aldeberon tried next, and suddenly was transformed into a chicken. Fortunately, Havak was quick to cast dispel magic which worked to quickly restore the rather addled warrior. Adoward tried next and was healed of all his wounds lingering from his previous near-death experience. Lune tried a second roll, only to be afflicted by a powerful curse of sluggishness (-6 DX).
The party now began to poke around, checking a door nearby. The small, empty room beyond had some graffiti in it that read "I will try the test again – this time all will be well. RF" It appeared old. Iban now decided to try a roll and found that he had been granted a Wish. There was much discussion on how to utilize this, on wealth, a map, information, and the like. But, in the end, Iban went with the crowd and wished for greater skill and experience for the party, and it was granted (in the form of 10K XP for the party to divide up). This done, the party departed back to the north to explore further.
They found little until they came to a large, round room with doors at 90-degree angles. In the center was a pile of skulls, surrounded by writing in an unknown tongue. As the party examined this, the four doors opened and from each stepped a tall figure hooded and robed in heavy black. The figures did nothing hostile, but were clearly watching the party. They opted to depart immediately lest the black figures attack.
Nearby, they came to a door beyond which Rowan could sense evil. They threw the door open to a corridor at the end of which was a room with four Ogres. The party fired a few arrows ineffectually and then the Ogres were on them. The fight was not long, but the Ogres struck many blows on Adoward and Aldeberon in the front rank, and they both had to fall back to allow the second rank to step up. The Ogres fought on, and Drogo understood them to be saying that they assumed the party they were fighting were those that slew their leader and they could expect no mercy. As the second rank fought on, Iban went down unconscious and sore hurt. Fortunately, though, the last Ogre fell shortly after him, and Havak was able to cast a healing spell to stabilize the big warrior. Still, he was sore hurt and would be too weak to fight for a few days.
The Ogres proved to have a little treasure. However, Parker sensed a secret door in their room. They opened it to find an obviously long-forgotten treasury with three chests. Drogo managed to find and remove poison needle traps on all three (one he did the hard way, but the poison was weak and did no harm). Inside the chests they found nearly as much wealth as they'd handed over to the bird-thing.
Given that this room was obviously unknown, they decided they would camp here for the night to allow Iban time to recover; in any case, he was in no condition to travel the rest of the day.