We burned away the moss clinging to the front of the misshapen pillar. Cathal said the pillar and the altar were redolent with evil. The pillar also seemed to be suppressing the light from Cathal’s sword. Tim’s detect magic highlighted only the altar and the pillar and nothing else. There seemed to be no magic in the cave beyond as well.

Tangentially, the party does have a torch that absorbs light.

Flint walked over to the pillar and attempted to decipher the runes thereon with read languages but was able to scry nothing beyond the fact that it was unholy and horribly wrong. He considered touching the runes but a custom saving throw convinced him otherwise.

The dwarf then climbed onto Cathal’s shoulders and examined the pillar higher up, looking for traps. Finding none, he started chipping away at the rock around the giant diamond eyes. The two diamonds would make us rich. The two were immediately set upon and enveloped by 3 shadowy creatures.

• Flint took 5 points of damage and lost one point of strength
• Cathal took 2 points of damage and lost one point of strength
• initiative loss
• Flint took 4 more points of damage and lost another point of strength ^{[strength drain for 2-8 turns??]}
• Menka effortlessly dispelled the evil creatures, destroying them utterly, praise Thoth!
  • 6 shadows, 25 points each

Cathal lathered up and bound his own wounds and Flint’s as well, getting them each back 2 points. Flint went back to chipping away at the diamonds. He touched the pillar while chipping away and one of the stone mouths carved into the surface bit him for 3 points of damage. The he \emph{saved vs. something}, the wound burned and hurt badly. He was able to free one of the diamonds though. He freed the other diamond, taking 3 points of damage again. Both times, Cathal bound his wounds and cast cure disease. Kyril hit him with a cure serious wounds, bringing him up to 52/55. The dwarves estimated the diamonds to be worth 6,000-9,000 gold, each.

Worms Of The Earth#

The dwarves burned away the remaining moss on the pillar, though we refrained from examining it further. We formed a marching order and headed into the next living cave. There seemed to be no pillar “guardians” in this cave.

As we entered the cave we heard a crackling noise inside a cricket. There were what appeared to be a handful of desiccated, mostly long-dead giant crickets on the floor of this chamber, and one near the far end of the room that seemed more recently dead, the corpse twitching and shuddering, crackling sounds emanating from within. Expecting it to be worms, Lycovyne zapped the area with a cone of cold and Kyril did not seem to mind. He engulfed the cricket and immediately 2 6’ long caterpillars with massive mandibles crawled out and attacked the party.

• initiative loss
• Gonchar got hit for 6 points and saved vs. poison
• Cathal got hit for 13 points and failed his save, taking another 26 points of damage, knocking him down to 33/67
• Tim nailed one with a magic missile for 14 points
• Flint hit the same one for 18 points
• Seamus hit it for 17 points, then again with a natural 20, killing it, but his fists became impaled by the poisonous, barbed spikes on the creature’s carapace. He failed his save vs. poison and fell to the ground.
• Flint killed the second one, itself already damaged by the cone of cold
• 2 tenebrous worms (66, 64)

Kyril immediately cast neutralize poison on Seamus, stabilizing him. Cathal bound his wounds as well as Flint’s, and Kyril cured Cathal’s more serious wounds, bringing him up to 51/76. Immediately, the party was set upon by a giant moth-like creature.

• initiative loss
• the giant moth missed
• Cathal leapt to attack it, using the Ring of Jumping, hitting it twice, once with a natural 20, for a total of 26 points
• Gonchar hurled his hammer at it, hitting it for 28 points, killing it
• gloomwing, 36 hp

The dwarves noticed that both the worms and the gloomwing had ivory mandibles, and the mandibles on the worm looked quite valuable. They set to hacking the mandibles out of the creatures.

• 4 tenebrous worm mandibles
• 2 gloomwing mandibles

Flint explored ahead, sneaking. He found a big nest and a freshly dead cave cricket. Near the cricket he saw a small alcove with tunnels leading down into darkness. The party decided to destroy the gloomwing’s nest to keep them and their tenebrous offspring from attacking us again. We found nothing inside it, no corpses or bones or spoils, just nest. Still, we burned it to ash.

The tunnels leading away from the alcove, three extending northwards, one eastward and down, seemed to be of natural origin, though they had been extended by some exploratory mining. We ignored the northern passages, formed a marching order and headed into the downward sloping passageway. We were walking on a carpet of fungus. The passageway leveled out 60’ down and was filled with crickets. They were large and while harmless alone, in this group they could easily stampede us into greasy bits. Tim pounded all the crickets into dust with an ice storm and, again, the druid did not seem to mind.

• 8 cave crickets, 8 hp each

We moved forward, still descending. Once again we found ourselves confronting a large group of crickets. Kyril walked forward to see what the crickets would do. They were jumpy and jostled him, emitting loud, high-pitched chirping noises which filled the cavern with sound. Kyril’s cloak prevented him from taking any damage from the jumping, panicking giant crickets. Cathal and Seamus were not so lucky and got buffeted for 5 and 2 points of damage, respectively.

Menka, in sanctuary, walked through the group of crickets unscathed. Tim, using his spider’s cloak, climbed the walls and went overhead. Once we were through, Cathal killed one of the crickets and panicked the rest, causing them to flee back up the fungus-carpeted slope, back the way we had come. He then bound his own wounds as well as Seamus’, getting them back one point each.

Dragon Attack#

The tunnel continued downward, getting narrower and steeper. We were forced to march single file. The passageway got even steeper forcing us to make and fail dex checks. Eventually, after a series of Three Stooges tumbles, we made it to the bottom. Cathal, having been knocked off his feet by a falling, plate-mail ensconced cleric, turned to berate us all and was able to see his breath. The dragon was near!

4 crickets at the bottom of the passageway started chirping. Cathal, Gonchar and Lycovyne leapt among them, cutting them down before they could make too much noise.

It was indeed getting chilly. We considered resting in the total darkness but decided against it, preferring instead to heal and buff up and deal with the dragon. Flint hid in shadows to scout forward a bit. More crickets heard him and started chirping.

Kyril shape changed into a (bird? insect?) and Flint carefully applied some dust of disappearance to him. The druid then sallied forth in search of the dragon. He returned in haste, telling us that the dragon was already aware of our presence.

We used all our remaining healing spells getting the party back near max hit points. Menka cast aid on Cathal and Seamus. He also cast bless and then endure cold (from a scroll) on Gonchar. Lycovyne cast strength on Cathal and ready a fireball. Gonchar slammed a potion of speed. Tim cast protection from evil on Gonchar, as well as quicken on Cathal.

We began to group outside the dragon’s cavern (see picture). It had set a trap for us, and fired magic missiles at the stalactites overhead, raining them down upon us. Tim, Cathal and Flint all took damage.

• initiative loss
• Cathal, with quicken, won initiative
• the initiative loss prevented us from softening up the ice dragon with a fireball….
• Cathal hurled himself at the dragon, hitting it for 14, then 11 points
• Flint, Menka and Kyril were around the corner, specifically out of breath weapon range
• the dragon let loose with his breath weapon
• Cathal failed his save and got knocked down to 7/67!
• Tim (who should not have been exposed) failed his save and was knocked down to zero hit points
• Gonchar, shielded by the endure cold, was unaffected
• Seamus was also unaffected (???)
• initiative tie
• Cathal cast heal, bringing himself back to max hp only to be hit by the second breath weapon, he saved, but was knocked down to 49/67
• Gonchar saved but got knocked down to 57/88
• Flint pulled Tim out of range
• Lycovyne nailed the dragon with magic missiles for 8 and 12 points
• Seamus hit it for 9 points
• Gonchar hit it for 56 points, killing it
• ancient white dragon, 56 points

Menka administered the Elixir of Life to Tim, getting him back to 1 hit point. Cathal threw all his remaining healing spells at him and Flint used his periapt, getting Tim back to full hit points. Menka then used the Staff of Curing on Cathal, getting him 18 points.

The dragon had a chain around its neck with a large gem in it. A later detect magic showed it to be very, very magical. Menka acquired a vial of the dragon’s blood for later use as a magical ingredient.

We scouted around and found a freezing room filled with magic and coins.

Loot!

• white dragon’s necklace with a gem in it
• 4 very large gems
• a magical flail, praise Thoth!
• a small crystal item, a sexualized figure of an elven woman, magic
• a magical drinking flagon
• a pile of armor and broken weapons, not magical
• 4 magic arrows
• 2 potion bottles, magical
• 1 magical wand
• vial of white dragon blood (Menka)
• white dragon scales for a shield (Gonchar)
• white dragon teeth for Seamus

Menka picked up the flail, finding it to be very well balanced.

Cathal picked up the flagon and words appeared on it. He read the words and wine appeared in the flagon, filling it. Upon consumption, it was very good-tasting, albeit weak, wine. The words glowed on the side of the flagon when it was empty and could be activated.

Lycovyne picked up the arrows, finding them to be very nice. One arrow seemed to be more powerful than the other 3.

We planned to rest, here.