| Session Date | June 15, 2019 |
| Start Date | 7 Greenmonth, 1272 |
| End Date | 11 Greenmonth, 1272 |
| Starting Location | Party quarters, Kazakh |
| Ending Location | Eburnean Vaults |
| Player Characters | |
| Base XP Gained | 7000 |
The party rested two nights in the city to fully recover from their last forays. While there, they met a human adventuring cleric named Mordecai who offered to join them, which the party accepted. As they headed out, Iban cast invisibility 10' radius on everyone, thus the party entered the dungeon stealthily. As they neared the arched room, ZZ cast augury to determine if their search plan made sense...it apparently did. Cadwallider slid forward first, casting detect invisible, and quickly determined an invisible Hobgoblin was lurking in the room, a horn at the ready. Cadwallider paralyzed him with a wand then shoved him into a bag of holding ("does this bag say 'dead Hobgoblin storage' on it?").
This accomplished, the party proceeded due west to the area they wished to search (the northwestern an central-western part of the known dungeon), and ZZ began to use his Ring of the Earth Dragon to search for minerals. At the corner of the 20' wide corridor, he got the hint of something just at the edge of his range to the southwest. But, after a long search of the area, the party failed to find a secret door. ZZ suggested that it was possible that the treasure location was accessed from above or below, not from this level at all. Shortly after this, the party detected a trio of wererats in the area, moving towards the previous location they'd fought several. The party evaded them by dousing lights and slipping into a secret room to wit them out (they did hear them rummaging in the room where they'd fought the others, as well as the mind flayers). Iban used this time to scry the evil cult priestess, but she was merely in her quarters resting or meditating.
Further searches for secret doors were fruitless. So, Cadwallider volunteered to take a high risk and dimension door to it. He cast the spell to put himself just past the treasure...and found himself facing a wall a mere 3 inches from his face! (that was close...we rolled it to determine exactly where he ended up). He cast detect magic, noting both chests radiated magic, while he also detected magic in the direction of the party. He then went to where a secret door likely was, found it, opened it, and was blasted by a glyph of warding (fire). There was door and he soon opened it to let the party in. Dimbul detected traps on both chests, one magical and one not. He disarmed the latter, though it took two dispel magics to affect the first. One chest contained a huge pile of silver coins; the second a plethora of magic items. ZZ tried a potion and immediately turned insane, attacking Iban until he could be subdued, at which point he went catatonic. Meanwhile, Cadwallider opened up a large manual -- and was blasted by it (losing 10k XP). As this was occurring, the foreign sorcerer Zinush appeared. He seemed slightly surprised and disappointed to find the party there. He admitted that his Wizard's Eye had spotted them in the area and he was merely seeing what they were up to (it was clear he must've seen them searching the area very thoroughly and probably hoped to pick up whatever they were having trouble finding, but he was a few minutes too late). The party asked him if he knew anything of the potion ZZ had consumed; it had turned foul smelling and he proclaimed that it was an elxir of madness, and only powerful magic could cure the victim. He left shortly thereafter; Cadwallider cast detect invisibility once again and noted the sorcerer's Imp spying on the party - as soon as it realized it was spotted, it yelped and ran away.
The party now headed back to the dwarf city, making their way out without further incident (and presumably dumping the Hobgoblin en route). Back in the city, they took ZZ to the chief cleric of Moradin, the most powerful cleric in the city. He offered to cast heal on the dwarf fight-cleric for a discount (2500 SP) and did so, which cured the madness. For the next two nights the party rested in the city, casting identify on all the other magic items they'd found. The most valuable proved to be the book that had blasted Cadwallider. It was a Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms. As there were three fighters in the party, there was a longish discussion on who should read it for its benefits, but in the end ZZ backed Aldeberon reading it.
Rested and ready, the party returned to the dungeon, invisible once more. As they neared the bottom of the long entry corridor, Dimbul slipped ahead to use his infravision, and ran into a glyph of warding (fire). He retreated quickly to allow Mordecai to heal him. Cadwallider now used his wand of conjuration to summon five Hobgoblins. These he sent forward to detect further runs, which they did, one at a time, dying quickly. This successfully cleared a path through the glyph-field and allowed the party to slip north and then west, their destination the stairs down to the second level (they'd debated doing this or taking the Lolitar cult head-on, but decided to hold off on that for now). As they neared the stairs, they got tangled up with a number of hunting spiders. Though invisible, they knew the party was there and attacked blindly. The party did not fight back but instead pushed to the stairs down, only turning visible to fight once on the stairs. The spiders did not last too long at that point.
Once down the 60' stairs, the party hit a T-intersection and headed west. They stayed that direction for along ways, eventually coming to a natural cave that continued that direction. They opted instead to try some side corridors, but first ran into a large group of Bugbears. ZZ noted that they looked similar to those that they'd seen on the level above. There was some slight trash talk, but the creatures did not otherwise harass the party and moved off to the south. In one room, they were attacked by spiders that kept appearing and disappearing. The party lit their webs on fire and departed.
Back in the long east-west corridor, they found alone figure standing int he center of the hall, perhaps 4' tall and heavily cloaked with only a bit of long nose showing. Cadwallider asked if they could pass, and it said yes in a squeaky voice. The party went to either side of it and ZZ passed it a small gem as a present; it took it but did not otherwise react. But, once a little past the figure, the hall grew suddenly dark as their light coins were extinguished. There was a slight bit of confusion and Mordecai felt someone tugging at his purse without success. A dispel magic restored the light and the party found they'd been robbed, ZZ of a magic battleaxe and Cadwallider of pretty cash. Just east, where the cutpurses had apparently gone, they found a large amount of oil spread across the floor to inhibit pursuit.
The party turned north now and found a huge room, one that seemed to have seem a great deal of activity, judging from trash and debris in it. Off one side room from here the party found a pair of Black Puddings. Cadwalldier hit them with alighting bolt, but that split them into four creatures! ZZ cast spike stone on the floor before them, which seemed to be effective in slowing them, so the party shoved the door closed and moved off to the north...