| Session Date | March 16, 2019 |
| Start Date | 20 Sunsback, 1272 |
| End Date | 20 Sunsback, 1272 |
| Starting Location | Party Quarters, Kazakh |
| Ending Location | Party Quarters, Kazakh |
| Player Characters | |
| Base XP Gained | 2817 |
After a week of rest in the city of Kazakh, the party decided to hire a thief prior to returning to the dungeon. They found one, Dimbul the Dextrous, willing to join them. After some negotiations and eventually agreeing to an equal share, the party returned to the dungeon via the newly cut entrance made by the Dwarves (who were still working on fortifying it to prevent another breakout like had recently occurred.
After traversing the long passage, and entering the dungeon where the stone turned to an ivory or cream color, the party made their way to the east and north, back to the 20' great passageway they'd taken before. Shortly after reaching it, though, they were set upon by four Carrion Crawlers. Dimbul was paralyzed, but before the things could eat him, they were all slain, and their explorations continued.
Further south, they came upon a room with a number of dead Hobgoblins, all slain a week or more past. The party exited this room...and into a party of live Hobgoblins! The party retreated back into the room with the dead, but the Hobgoblins assaulted it from two directions (there were two doors). However, the Hobgoblins were no match for the party and cut down rather quickly, but not before shouting that the party had killed their comrades and clearly seeking revenge.
Exploring further, the party next encountered a weird man who turned out to be a member of the so-called torture cult they'd heard tell of already. He was a bit of an outcast, it seemed. His lair was full of paintings that he said he'd done himself; all were uniformly horrible, depicting scenes of terrible torture and other terrors. He waxed eloquently on about the aesthetic aspects of torture and pain, a fascination that seemed to be the cause for his schism from the cult. He did provide some information about a horde of spiders dwelling not far away, and seemed interested that the party had attacked the gamemaster -- they'd made a lot of enemies by doing that, he warned. He was non-hostile, but certainly not a pleasant fellow, and the party was happy to be quit of him.
The party's explorations continued along the wide passage to the south. At one point, they found a raised area with a huge statue of a skeletal or demonic rider atop a dead horse, in a field of skulls. Approaching it, the party could feel a faint breeze reeking of death and decay, and the slight sounds of distant battle. They explored the platform for secret doors, but were set up by a group of three Minotaurs wandering the wide hall. These proved to be tough foes and not inclined to retreat, even when the party began to get the better of them.
No secret doors found, the party followed the wide hall as it turned west; they bypassed a side passage for its foul smell, surmising it was the spider lair. They instead took a southern branch passage and soon ran into a pack of werewolves, who proved to be stout foes and uninterested in retreat. Happily, they possessed a small sack of silver coins. Moving on, the party came to a small shrine or hall with a statue of a woman they thought must be Lolitar, the goddess of pain (the whip and dagger in her hand were likely a dead giveaway). The statue seemed to sneer at them despite being immobile, and seemed to focus on Aldeberon, Iban, and Rowan who felt that it somehow recognized them.
Following another southern passage that wound for a long way, they came to a door with a sign that read "knock quietly, please." Rowan sensed a slight evil behind it and the party knocked hard, bursting it open to reveal a single Ghoul sitting in a chair with a book, reading by candlelight, in what appeared to be a library. He barely was able to say "didn't you read the sign?" when the party set upon him, slaying him rather quickly. His library had an impressive collection, mostly histories of Imperial Lormyrr, but also containing a number of magic-user scrolls.
Throughout their explorations, Cadwallider had been casting detect invisibility via the Book of Infinite Spells. As they returned to the wide corridor, he finally detected something, four men who appeared to be invisible mages of some sort, watching the party. The party stopped to simulate a discussion and argument, as Cadwallider blasted them all with a lightning bolt, killing them all. They had a few magic items on them, and a few that the lightning blasted, but no signs of who they were or what they were up to. The party now headed back east from where they'd recently come, and found the Lolitar statue facing them (having turned 180 degrees); it retained the same hostility, especially towards the three fighters.
In one side room previously missed, the party found a large object under a heavy cloth. They sent in their new thief to examine it with a mirror and found that it was a large mirror itself, facing the entrance to the room. Without looking into it, they turned it around to face a blank wall to the north. The party was now back at the foul-smelling corridor. Having recently healed up, they decided to risk attacking the spider lair. So, Cadwallider cast wall of fire and the party made their way up under cover of the spell. They came into a very large room, or what they took to be large, as it was choked heavily with webs which now began to burn. After a short time, a number of Giant Spiders jumped through the fire to attack. They struck fanatically, almost suicidally. A brutal melee ensued, and the spiders continued to come in small numbers. One eventually struck Cadwallider, breaking the wall of fire spell. Others bit various members of the party, but only Dimbul succumbed to the poison (he was saved by ZZ with a slow poison spell). As the fire fell, a number of smaller spiders rushed in to attack, but all of the spiders were eventually slain by sword and spell, save one. After the fire was extinguished, a huge black widow of enormous size came at the party from the south. It did not get far, however, as Iban and Cadwallider cut it down with various spells. As the webs burned away, the party found a rather large treasure.
Pleased with their haul, but knowing themselves to be very low on spells, the party decided to fall back to the dwarf city to get Dimbul help against for his poison. They returned the way they'd come, but in the 20' wide great passage Cadwallider once again detected invisible spies, this time a wizard eye. The party continued on their normal way but Cadwallider used his wand of illusion to make an image of the party going off in a different direction to mislead the thing; they did not see it again, and exited the dungeon safely. In little more than an hour, they had returned to Kazakh and safety.