Since our attempt to rest had been disturbed by the Grimlocks, we were still a mess. Kyril cast dispel magic on Flint to bring him back to his usual short size with no apparent effect. Cathal took a pull from Seamus’s mug, getting back 8 hp (31/67). Cathal bound everyone’s wounds.

We setup a new watch order that was shockingly similar to the previous one. We had no healing magic left to use, so the healers rested first. The watches passed without incident and we applied as much healing to the party as we thought prudent.

During the last watch (Menka and Tim) the party looked around. They noted that a horde of carrion crawlers had made their way to the scene of the grimlock battle. They did not seem interested in us at the moment, so the scouts left them alone.

Kyril cast dispel magic on Flint again and this time it worked. The dwarf himself rose from the floor in front of us. He thanked Kyril heartily and re-acquired the Net of Entanglement.

Halo of Crickets#

We headed north towards another massive verdant cavern. Kyril had explored the area previously. We did not see a pair of massive, gateway pillars. We were however wary of the presence of shriekers, ropers and piercers. Stalagtites hung everywhere, while stalagmites rose from the cavern floor like teeth. A river flowed westward through cavern. The grimlocks could have forded the river.

Giant crickets wandered everywhere in annoying clusters. Kyril positied that, in addition to being food, they served as an alarm for the dragon. We pondered fireballing the lot of them, but refrained. Kyril cast repel insects on his staff and, from that point forward the crickets kept their distance.

Mist arose from the river and deepend the closer we got. We walked to the far western end of the cavern, following the water. The ground fell away abruptly, and the water fell into inky darkness, far below us. Another entrance to the Underdark, perhaps?

We decided to head north and east and try to get out of the cavern. We had much bigger crickets to fry, elsewhere. Lycovyne put on his taxi driver hat, we mounted the carpet in shifts as necessary while the paladin levitated. Traveling thus we made it to the exit and left the cavern, following the tunnel left behind by a long-dried river.

The riverbed was solid and dry, though water dripped from the ceiling 20’-50’ above our heads. On foot, we walked uphill for a quarter of a mile. Somewhere ahead we heard recurring clicking, clacking sounds. Kyril launched forward with Gonchar hot on his heels, and the duo went to the kitchen with the DM. You get your experience points your way, and they will get theirs their way.

A few moments later the druid came running back, in the shape of a giant skunk. A giant skunk that had just ripped one off at whatever they found up ahead. Gonchar yelled to Cathal (from up ahead) to run up and join the fray and the paladin leapt into action. Seamus beat him to the fight, though.

The party followed, to see the Gonchar doing battle with a monstrous creature with and exoskeleton and hooked arms. The hooked horror missed Gonchar, but the dwarf nailed it twice, killing it. The other hooked creatures had fled. The dead creature reeked from Kyril’s skunk spray, contaminating the area.

• hook horror, 35 hp

While Gonchar bragged about his 4’ victory, Cathal detected no evil in the area, only animals. And stinking skunk reek. We formed a hurried marching order and headed east. The tunnel was 10-20 yardsd wide and the skunk stink dissipated as we left the scene of the battle. Kyril still maintained his polecat form.

We reached a point where the river split itself in 2, with one stream flowing southwest while the other headed south. Kyril changed back into his elvish form and suggested we head south, saying he believed the hook horrors had fled in that direction. Seamus said he smelled wine to the southeast. If we traveled north we would be going uphill. The dwarves said we were still quite far underground.

We explored around without going too far in any specific direction. First we found a tunnel, the walls of which were filled to bursting with uncut gems of several varieties. It seemed some mining effort had stopped here, where the riches were the greatest. The dwarves slavered.

So we had 3 choices:

• Southeast: possibly more hook horrors.
• South-southeast: wine
• South-southwest: gems

Kyril shape changed into a bat and checked things out. He found a bar to The south-south-east. It seemed to have been created specifically for the use of the party. To the southeast he found water falling from high above. The tunnel it fell from could not be ascended, it was too small. To the north the bat-druid found a whole group of grimlocks in a village, farming and scratching a living from the cavern floor. Due south he spied the remaining hook horrors attempting to clean the skunk stink off themselves in a stream.

The Gem Mines#

The dwarves very much wanted to return to the tunnel packed with gems. Indeed, Gonchar walked over to the mining area. Lots of emeralds stuck out of the walls. And a small, dug out room contained dwarf-sized furniture, all destroyed by time. Flint and Gonchar looked around the area and, hearing a low groaning, they were forced to make a save vs. poison. Both saves were successful, though both dwarves felt uneasy and returned to the party.

The Bar#

We walked southeast 150’ toward the bar. The floor and walls were bone dry. Notably, there were no sleestaks present. At the end of the corridor we found a large, circular room, 30’-40’ in diameter. It was a gorgeous bar, with seating for 8, exactly. A statue stood behind the bar - a man with a staff capped by a pine cone. Perhaps Bacchus? Behind the bar and statue was a pool of clear water. The whole room had a slight luminescence.

A corpse sat propped up against a wall. It did not look long dead, though we did not recognize the man. The human male corpse was surrounded by torches and held a wooden cup in his hand. Upon him hung a dagger and a bastard sword, and he had a satchel on his back. Thsi man died not long ago. Why was he in the area? We will have to speak with him about that, later.

Cathal detected no evil, and the room smelled strongly of wine and other spirits. Indeed, there were three large wine casks setup behind the bar.

Flint poured himself a drink from the rightmost cask. That cask poured a gorgeous whiskey. Strong, fragrant, delicious. One draft healed him to max (55/55). Flint filled his water skin with this whiskey.

Seamus placed his flagon below the spigot in the middle cask and poured himself a pint of the best ale he’d swilled in a long time, possibly ever. The ale healed him for 8 points! (60/64)

Tim availed himself of the cask on the left. It poured a luxurious red wine, the scent of which permeated the room. Tim was at full points at the time, so we are unsure of the wine’s palliative properties.

Cathal tried some of the water in the pool behind the statue of Bacchus. Fresh, cool and clean but did not seem to provide any healing.

Gonchar poured himself some of the ale. It was delicous but only got him one point back (78/88). May be sensitive to alignment? He poured himself a second glass and became formally hammered. Not wanting to be left out, Flint had another drink of whiskey and became hammered as well. Seamus joined the party and quite soon, all 3 were debilitated, literally.

We looked at the poor, dead sod heaped up against the wall with a wooden cup clutched in his hand and decided a third drink may not be such a good idea. The rest of the party remained abstemious.

Celia’s Party#

(From the handwritten notes: “dwarves, dm notes, Amara Gilgamesh wtf”)

Menka prayed to Thoth to request permission to speak with the dead man propped up against the wall. The keeper of all knowledge blessed Menka with this ability, and the party spoke with the corpse.

• Who are you? Why are you here?

  • He is Finn O’Toole, of Hibernia. He was with a party of adventurers: Ciela, a cleric who worshipped the elven goddess of love, two warrior-dwarves Gilgomesh and Gimlus, the wizard Maclean, the Elf fighter Legolla, and a Northern Barbarian, Amara, who always looked after Ciela. They came here to find an ice-dragon, who the cleric said was guarding great treasure, including an idol sacred to her love-cult.

    They entered this cavern just down the hill from an abandoned temple, which he thinks was once devoted to the Wine-God. It was a dangerous journey, the cave down from the service had some parts that were very steep and slippery. He recalls they fought some really big bats, and also a tentacled creature that nearly ate MacLean. They made it past a big underground lake which he was sure had something in the water, and came to this large, long cave, which seemed to go on forever.

    At one point some stalactites fell from the ceiling and hit the barbarian, who chopped them to pieces. They had a big fight with a group of many savage, blind underground humanoids, which none of them had ever seen before, and killed several of them before escaping to a slimy side-cavern. The humanoids wouldn’t follow them there. There were some disgusting slime-men which the wizard drove off with a fireball.

    The last thing he remembers was entering a large cavern entry on a rocky hillside, and traveling hundreds of feet into the earth. There were various side passages, and her companions and she fought a giant, strange-looking cave insect that covered one of her companions with a sticky web and drew him close.

    They then continued their descent and came to a large, unusually cold cavern covered with icy stalactites and stalagmites. He recalls something causing stalactites to fall from the ceiling, harming the party, and then the wizard was slain by a blast of what seemed like icy wind from behind them. We were all hurt by this, and the falling ice. Stalactites fell and cut them off from Ciela and the barbarian. Maybe they were killed too. The dwarves said they thought so. We couldn’t see them anywhere though.

    The dragon was huge, and we retreated, because one more blast of his ice-breath would have killed us. We ran, it chased us, and we eventually found this strange cave, with the bar and all these drinks. Before that they fought some giant, bird-like creatures with huge single claws. We killed one and got away. By now Legolla was very sick, making no sense, eating all his food, asking for ours, and he looked greenish and very ill. The dwarves thought it was something we could catch and thought maybe we send him away, and he seemed to want to leave, said he was going to look for food, and never came back.

    Finn started drinking the ale here, and it made him feel much better. He and the dwarves rested here, unbothered, but they refused to drink, and convinced him to leave. They wanted to try to get to the surface. They talked him into going and they did. They found a passage, not far from here down hill, which had raw gems filling the walls, the dwarves cursed the fact that they had no tools and could not harvest them.

    We eventually turned back the way we came. Near a field of stalagmites they fought a big group of the dark savage blind men, and there was something else with them, something worse, something he didn’t see, but then Gimlus told him to run, Gilgomesh was killing the savage men one after the other, and he leapt at something and both dwarves turned to stone. So Finn fled, and ran back here. This is the only safe place.

    He drank and drank and drank and woke up on the Island of Arawn, where there were many pubs and forests full of deer and beautiful, red-haired women. Until you brought him here. He wants to go back.

• Where did you come from?
  • We traveled to this area a long way, from Celia’s temple, in the Vinewood.
• How do we get to the temple of the wine god?
  • North, past the savage blind men. A natural cavern with a natural pond. Beyond the pond climb up, up, up. Cave climbing. It isn’t easy. Up above, the temple is on the surface. I think it was once a wine-god temple like the one in the Vinewood, but smaller.

So Celia and the barbarian are possibly still down here. And of good alignment?

Meanwhile, the drunks were yammering on about killing off the rest of entirely neutral, animal hook horrors. Not to be dissuaded, they ran off in a generally southeastern ramble in search of battle. Menka managed to hit them with a bless as they left, including the rest of the party. We attacked the hooked horrors iun their nest at the side of an underground lake. We saw a small island in the distance.

• initiative win
• Kyril cast faerie fire, ensorceling 7 hook horrors up front
  • +1 (bless) +2 (faerie fire) = +3 to attack rolls
• Flint fired off his Wand of Wonder, again. This time he got a 6d6 lightning bolt that did 19 points of damage. He hit 4 hook horrors with one bolt!
• Lycovyne called down an ice storm upon their heads, doing 16 points of damage to those hit
• Seamus hit one for 8 points with his flagon
• Menka hit the same one for 10 points with the Flail
• Cathal hit a semi-frozen horror for 14 points
• Tim softened one up by 10 points with a magic missile
• Our enemies missed Gonchar and Cathal, praise Thoth!
• Or not, as Cathal got hit for 7 points, then hit him again for 3 (50/67)
• initiative loss
• Menka got hooked twice for 12 points (33/54), though a smaller enemie missed him
• Tim hit the same horror with another magic missile for 14 points!
• Menka hit one of his assailants for 5 points
• Kyril nailed one for 7, killing it
• Cathal hit one for 9, killing it as well
• Gonchar hit one for 15 points
• Flint hit one for 9
• Seamus hit one for 6 more
• Lycovyne met requirements and hit one for 6 points
• initiative loss
• The biggest hooked horror hit Menka for 3 more points (30/54)
• They rest of the beasties missed
• Gonchar hit one twice for 33 points, killing it, splattering guts in all directions
• Menka and Seamus missed
• Cathal nailed one twice for 28 points, but the creature stood its ground
• Kyril hit one again for 7 points, killing it
• Lycovyne also hit one for 7 points, killing it
• 10 hook horrors, 35 hp, plus one leader with 45 hp

Hook horror loot!

• Lots of coin
• Broken chain mail
• Huge pile of glittering My Little Pony stickers

Menka cast cure light wounds upon himself and Cathal bound his wounds, getting him to 48/54. Cathal bound his own wounds as well, getting him to 53/67.

Having tended to our wounds, we turned our attentions to the island. Not trusting ourselves to the gentle ministrations of the creatures living underwater in the lake, we decided to take the carpet over to the island and investigate. Lycovyne, Kyril and Menka mounted the carpet and pulled Cathal across the water to the island. On our way over, we noted large creatures in the water. Large, indeed.

As we got nearer we saw that the island was indeed small and seemed to hold a collapsed structure of some sort. Scaffolding, 10’ high, had collapsed around some unrecognizable structure. A pile of debris was heaped on top of the collapsed scaffolding.

We touched down and rummaged about. Cathal detected strong evil in the area, but too late. A rotted corpse rose from the debris and attacked the party. Wearing plate mail, it attacked with a moaning sword!

• initiative loss
• One swung at Cathal, hitting him for 4 points
• Cathal hit back, but missed
• Tim fired a magic missile from the shore, hitting one for 11 points
• initiative loss
• It hit Cathal again for 8 points! (41/67)
• Lycovyne hit it with a magic missile from the shore for 10 points
  • The rotted corpse fell to the ground
• Kyril approached the felled corpse, and it rose from the ground
• The party saved vs. fear, including Cathal’s immunity to fear aura (???)
• Menka wasted a stumble
• Kyril summoned insects, semi-successfully
• Cathal missed
• Menka got hit for 5 points (43/54)
• initiative loss
• It missed Menka
• Menka nailed it back for 10 points, praise Thoth!
• Kyril hit it for 6 more
• Cathal hit it twice for 26 points and it dropped to the ground, again
• The paladin poured holy water on it, and smoke arose from the corpse - it seemed to destroy it
• super coffer corpse, 60 hp

We searched the area for treasure and found a large bag, tied with a rope.

Rotted corpse loot!

• Bag of Holding, a new one!
  • Funerary trappings
  • coin, clothing, rotted food
  • flask of wine
    • enchantment of a different sort, keeps altering, shifting holy enchantment
    • divination magic - chaotic, though
  • boots
  • small wooden rack containing 4 flasks (radiated magic)

end