| Session Date | April 20, 2019 |
| Start Date | 1 Greenmonth, 1272 |
| End Date | 2 Greenmonth, 1272 |
| Starting Location | Party quarters, Kazakh |
| Ending Location | Eburnean Vaults |
| Player Characters | |
| Base XP Gained | Carry Over |
The party once more departed the Dwarf city and made their way back to the Dwarven defensive position and into the dungeon. They explored to the north, were they encountered a trio of Orcs. After killing one, the other two surrendered and were questioned by the party. They were deserters from the force that had been led by the hooded figure to the surface (and had been slaughtered by the Dwarves and their own dragon ally). They were loathe to return below due to the "dangerous levels" between here and their home. The Orcs were servants of the Troll Kings, two levels below (they did not mention that they might be in danger returning home as they were deserters). They knew little of the path they'd taken, but were aware that the "Dark Market" was on the level below, to the south. Having learned little form them, the party debated the fate of the two Orcs for a time, but eventually let them live.
Further exploration uncovered a shrine to chaos in an out-of-the-way corner of the dungeon. The shrine consisted of a statue surrounded by eight glowing pillars, with an eight-arrowed red symbol of chaos; stop the symbol was a pair of old dice (note: you never asked about the statue, but everyone saw a completely different one). ZZ, still wearing his jester suit from the last chaos shrine, tried the dice. Immediately, one of the pillars ceased glowing, but poor ZZ found himself cursed with bad luck for three days. Cadwallider next tried and was showered by hundreds of gold coins (and the relevant XP!). Iban tried third and found himself screaming in terror, but fortunately nothing was attracted by the noise. Dimbul tired next and shrunk by 7 inches, making him short even for a Dwarf. Aldeberon tried and found himself more dexterous. ZZ tried twice more, first being afflicted by a berserker mania and then receiving a wish, which he immediately used to restore the lost experience he'd suffered from touching the Book of Infinite Darkness a few months previous. Iban tried twice more, first screaming again in absolute terror for a few minutes then being cursed with permanent bad luck. With that, all eight pillars had ceased glowing and the party departed.
After a brief fight with a trio of wandering Gargoyles, the party found a very large room filled with well over 100 zombies, all pushing mindlessly to the south from where they could hear a slight chiming sound. Iban levitated to the ceiling and pulled himself along to investigate, finding a small gold chime in a raised alcove, towards which the zombies were moving. A detect magic spell showed that the chime was magic but nothing else here was. Iban returned and, after a brief discussion, the party decided to demolish the zombies to ensure they did not have to deal with them later. Cadwallider started with an ice storm that pummeled the majority of them, packed in as they were. This caused the chime to cease and the zombies turned to attack. But, as they filtered into a narrow passageway, they were struck by successive lightning bolts, killing those that had survived the ice storm. The party then recovered the chime and Iban identified it to be a Chime of the Dead. The explored the room for secret doors, during which time a group of Hobgoblins came into the room and watched them, but did nothing hostile and soon departed.
The party now moved to depart the dungeon to recover spells. En route, they sensed being watched and a detect invisibility revealed a wizard eye again watching them, though they could not detect the source. The party simply outpaced it and departed. They camped the night at the Dwarf defensive position, where ZZ ground up some gems to share with the local guard force, much to their pleasure. (The Dwarves seemed happy the party was there, perhaps both for companionship to relieve the monotony of their post and also as additional strength in case of trouble).
The next morning they returned to the dungeon, making their way to the room with many doors. Each door proved to open to a 10x10 room with a humanoid skeleton that screamed very loudly when the door was opened. The skeletons were easily smashed to stop the noise, but the resulting noise attracted numerous wandering monsters during the process of exploring each one. First, the strangely urbane ghoul they'd met a few days before popped in. He was quite vexed with the party for slaying his friend, though the party denied having done it, and he declared them to be "disturbers of the epace and a general nuisance." He was also wroth with them for plundering his "most excellent library." After some additional argumentation and disputation, the ghoul bid the party a gruff "good day" and turned to depart, but ZZ turned him successfully and he screamed out "I said good day!" as he fled.
A second encounter during this time was a bit more disconcerting. The double door to the room of many doors opened silently to reveal a female Drow Elf and companions. She named herself Vorlissa, leader of the Dark Reiver adventuring party. They'd heard of the party's presence and were unhappy that surface adventurers were "poaching" on their turf. She warned the party that they would not stand for such activity. There was some further discussion and she told the party to proceed no deeper or suffer their wrath. Her party, they noted, further consisted of a male Drow, a half Orc, a human fighter, and a group of Bugbears and Trolls. The Drow's group then departed as the party continued their own explorations of the screaming skull room, during which time they were attacked by a group of Bugbears (but not the same as the ones with the Drow party).
At one point the party tried opening multiple doors at once, but the sheer noise deafened Iban for an hour or so. Finally, giving up on this area, the party left, running into a trio of Cockatrices that fortunately did not petrify anyone (though a close call for Sir Rowan). The party now went and explored around the pit fighting area, finding a Bugbear barracks that had been abandoned. Form this room, Iban scried both the Drow wench and the urbane ghoul -- Ironically, both were in the same place, a dark tavern-like area adjacent to a marketplace. The party now considered their next action -- explore south of the demarcation into the torture cult territory (and some other areas near it) or descend to the level below and risk the wrath of the Drow adventurers.