We continued uphill. Encountering a web, Gonchar’s Flame Blade made short work of it. His Flame Blade illuminated tentacles ahead, hanging from the ceiling to the floor. The tentacles seemed to emit no heat per infravision. Mouths on the tentacles dripped ooze.

A large wound in the creature still contained the broken bottle that created it. Gonchar and Cathal approached the tentacles and made dex checks It seemed to be some sort of many-tentacled black tree, and Cathal sensed evil all around it.

The cavern beyond the creature headed west. Within, we found a stream running south, with broken barrels scattered about. On the other side of the stream, rows of shelves stood in a long chamber, laden with barrels as well. The ceiling was 30’ over our heads.

We took the carpet across the stream and continued west. The shelve continued all the way to the ceiling, 30’ above, laden with barrels. Huge, too big to be moved, some of the cracked ones leaked a foul, black ichor. Cathal once again noted that the whole area was awash in stinking evil. Flint did manage to snort some lovely wine from one of the barrels.

We continued on. Reaching an intersection, we followed a much younger looking passage south, paralleling the stream. It seemed to be a natural tunnel, which had at some point in the past been made wider for easier passage. We proceeded south along this tunnel, and the dwarves noted the ceiling at some points was held up by crumbling wooden beams, and at other points was collapsed.

Kyril is always right. It’s a curse.

After some progress, the party noticed that the crumbling passage opened into a natural cavern at the end of the corridor. However, before this, north of that cavern, the dwarves noted that a large amount of dirt was piled along a wall in a sorry effort to make it look like a natural cave-in. The party averted their eyes while Tim probed the pile of dirt with his staff. Kyril would re-visit the area later with a detect magic in flight. We noted an indentation in the pile - something was obviously hidden and decided to start digging. As we dug, Cathal noted a smell, a stench, if you will, emanating from behind the pile, bringing with it great evil!

Casting the dirt aside, we discovered a short 10’ tunnel heading west. At the end of the tunnel we found a bricked-in door or passage. Believing there to be a 7-Eleven on the other side, Kyril cast stone shape on the bricked-in passage and was immediately disgusted by the reek of rank stale air that issued forth though the hole. We entered, finding not a 7-Eleven, but a large room with a huge mural of a snow leopard on one wall\footnote{See \emph{Lysios’ letter to Melampos}, Session the Forty-Third}. The remains of ancient tribute lined the floor along that same wall.

After long and preposterously lame series of failures by nearly the entire party to locate secret doors, Seamus leaned against the wall and found a hidden switch. This switch revealed a door embedded within the snow leopard mural. Beyond this door a tunnel lead to a second bricked-up portal. This tunnel was lined with a painting of a snow leopard as well. No switches were found in the tunnel. Upon the one wall was scrawled:

Break not this seal, lest ye release that within and thereby cause great destruction.

Bracing for the worst, Kyril cured Cathal’s lighter wounds and the cast \spell{protection from fire} on him for good measure. He then stone shaped a passage through the bricks and mortar into what appeared to be a burial chamber. A small shrine occupied the vault, with bottles scattered around it. In each corner was a snow leopard statue, covered in white gold.

4 creatures appeared from the shadows, with burning eyes, shrouded in black evil.

• Tim cast fireball into the room and Cathal got some of it, taking 13 points of damage, while the wights took 27 if they didn’t save.
• Cathal wrecked the surviving wight with his holy sword.
• 4 wights (29, 27, 26, 22)

Cathal laid hands on himself, after mending up, getting him back to 66 points. Tim detected magic beyond the wall, behind the shrine. Lots of it. Gonchar threw his hammer at the plaster wall, shattering part of it and revealing a second wall, behind. Menka chipped away at the plaster with his mace, revealing a door buried in the masonry. It seemed to open “in”.

Cathal pulled the door open. A deep purple barrier hung down on the other side of the door, Cathal barged in and the purple barrier dissipated. Something arose from the tomb, beyond…

• Menka, Lycovyne and Gonchar shat their armor and ran like hell, filled with a sense of hopelessness
• A long dead human in purple, tattered robes rose from the crypt. Seemed to be an ex-Dionysian priest. His blackened skin contained 2 flaring, red eyes
• Tim, sage as ever, hurled a fireball into the small room, searing Cathal for 15 points (what about the protection from fire?)
• Cathal hit the undead human for 12 points
• The undead cleric spoke the word pain as a spell and a symbol appeared in front of him
• Cathal hit him again, then got with the pain, suffering -4 to hit, and -2 to dex
• Tim cast dispel magic - it had no effect on the human, dwarf and elf
• Kyril got hit by the Symbol of Pain as well, suffering 4 to hit, -2 to dex
• Cathal got hit with a harm spell, knocking him down to 4 hit points (4/67)
• Flint, invisible, attemped to drop behind the undead cleric and backstab him
  • he succeeded but rolled a 1 for damage, doing 15 points
• Cathal skipped his second attack and used his sword to heal himself (65/67)
• Tim cast a large number of magic missiles at the undead cleric, doing 58 points of damage
• Cathal hit it again for 12 points (?)
• Flint and Seamus missed
• Kyril slugged a potion of fire breath and spewed fire at the undead cleric, doing 30 points of damage, immolating it, but not before it touched Cathal again, harming him and knocking him down to 2 points (2/67)
• lich, 138 hp (no phylactery??)

Cathal tore the Elder Sign from the lich’s neck and mended himself. Kyril hit the paladin with some healing, as did Menka and Cathal himself, getting the paladin back to 64 points. Tim hacked its skull off and re-immolated it. The burial chamber was hewn from living rock, occupied only by the party and a solid stone coffin. We needed to rest, but maybe out in the chamber. Cathal did note that the evil seemed to have dissipated from the area with the destruction with the lich.

All the watches passed quietly, except the one manned by Cathal and Gonchar. Not sure what happened, or if we want to know what really happened, but something happened.

Rested and recuperated, we searched the area for loot. Flint got stuck with a poison needle while picking the lock in a wooden box, but made his save. He did manage to pick all the locks, though.

• Lich loot!
  • along the east wall stood 5 huge, 3’ tall golden vases, flanked by 5 pitchers
  • along the northern wall, a wooden chest with a silver lock and a wooden box
    • wooden chest
      • 21 gems and over 3,000 gp
    • wooden box
      • old clothing
      • very nice leather armor (magic)
      • silver spear (magic)
  • along the west wall
    • long, plain box
    • 3 bejewelled silver (plates? plaques? flanges?)
    • golden sickle and bowl
    • staff with a pine cone on top
  • snow leopard statue, stuffed with large sapphires, with great gems for eyes
  • in the south room
    • solid white gold of a snow leopard, worth a lot of money
  • wooden table in the shrine
    • silver platter with a silver lid
    • silver pitcher, full
    • persian rug (magic below or within)
    • rolled up within we found a small box
    • 12 scrolls within, 3 radiate magic
      • flame strike
      • speak with monster
      • (see below)

Several of the scrolls were non-magical, including a mulled wine recipe and detailed instructions for fertilizing grapes, as well as some general religious texts. Two of the scrolls contained spells, as detailed above.

While Menka examined the third scroll, he was transported directly to the surface, above the temple, apparently in the form of some species of stinging insect. The party only saw him disappear and watched his armor and other gear crash to the floor.

A Brief Trip To The Surface#

Menka found himself flying high, far above a massive, burned out, utterly destroyed temple. In the surrounding forest he heard the tree-breaking shamblings of very, very large creatures, perhaps several, somewhere out of sight. Flying down toward the temple, he saw what must have once been a lovely fountain, now defiled and running with foul, bubbling purple goo. At the northern cardinal point of the fountain, he saw what looked to be a Elder Sign shaped socket.

Flying lower, he noted that the surface around the fountain was broken and cracked. Some of it looked passable for an insect so he flew into one of the openings and found himself in an absolutely massive cavern room, possibly worked and/or enlarged by human? or perhaps or dwarf? labors, stacked with wine crates. He saw massive creatures with leathery wings flying around, though they did not seem interested in so small a meal as him.

As a small insect, the cleric could make few observations of the huge cave, but noted that a stream ran south through the huge cavern (a common theme) and flowed into an underground passage at the southern wall of the cave. Menka was able to fly just above the river, downward. He emerged in another, much smaller (yet still large) room with a stream flowing through it. This one he recognized - he knew where he was.

He began backtracking to the party’s location through the partially collapsed corridor. It would take a while to get there on such small wings. However, he soon found himself compelled in that general direction by preternatural forces and really began to fly with all his might.

As it happened, Kyril had cast summon insects in an effort to draw Menka to his location. Somehow the druid changed Menka back into a human priest of Thoth and, as the priest donned his gear, he relayed his remarkable story to the rest of the party.

end