Session 48: Return to Orlane, days 12 - 18 of Planting

 After a long day followed by a bad night's sleep, the 12th day of Planting began when we rose at 6:00 am. Because of the incident with Lhoss and her sanity, it was an unanimous decision among the group of Lhoss, Gnorcia, Ronan, Armaziti, Calbach, Adelbertus and myself (Tatania) that we should head back to Orlane post haste, although Ronan expressed some sorrow that we couldn't finish exploring just a bit more. However, the safety of the group needs to come before gold or glory, so we turned back to the dread Temple of Nerull (which is what we decided to name the area of the crypt where we found that malevolent statue of same). That place is just creepy.

As we walked toward the north entrance/exit, a screeching noise surprised us all and we looked up to see baleful eyes glaring down at us from the dark ceiling.  The ceiling is probably about 30 feet high, and unnoticed by us before, there's a ledge about 20 feet up that is apparently an ideal roosting spot for Barrowmaze-dwelling avians.  Aside from the screeching, the birds didn't act aggressively, but we all know how quickly that can change.  Ronan and Adelbertus both quickly whipped their shields overhead, just in case.  Huddled under that meager protection, everyone inventoried their weapons, specifically looking for arrows or darts that might be effective if we had to fight off the birds.  We peeked out carefully to observe the birds.  They were unfamiliar to all of us, appearing to be rather reptilian in nature, with large, leathery wings and vicious-looking claws and beaks.  It was suggested that they could be Rocs, but there was no way of knowing, and it didn't really matter much anyway.  Ronan held up his arrowhead that he'd found that featured the symbol of Nerull, on the assumption that since the birds were in Nerull's temple, it might make them leave us alone.  The birds were completely unimpressed, but didn't make any moves against us either.

In an effort to distract the birds, several of us took the meat portions of some of our rations and placed them in a pile.  We then backed away; as soon as the offering was revealed, one of the birds descended in a flurry of wings and began feasting.  The rest of the birds, realizing they were going to miss out, swooped down enmass and attacked the meat voraciously.  That was all it took for our group to move out with alacrity.  We hurried to the metal doors that guarded that area of the crypt and closed them securely.  Then, we continued to the maze entrance as rapidly as we could while still being as safe as possible.  That half hour was harrowing, but fortunately, nothing else happened while we were still inside.

Outside the dark cave that enclosed the Barrowmaze entrance, we could hear haunting howls from the North-West, sounding like wolves.  We looked around, but the swamp mist tends to keep visibility to only about 150 feet, so we didn't see anything.  We exited the cave cautiously and could hear movement, like the wolves were approaching but we still couldn't see them.  The uncertainty kept our travel brisk until we stopped for lunch.  There were no further encounters and we reached the Slumbering Serpent by midday.

As expected, Orlane and the Slumbering Serpent were both much busier than they have been on past visits.  Still, there was an 8-person room available that we decided to take, at a cost of 8 silver per person per day.  Everyone was pleased to be able to clean up and take off the heavy armor that several of us were wearing.  Since there were still a couple hours before dinner, we decided to go and have our treasure evaluated.  It turned out to be quite a haul, and most of it was sold.  We exchanged some for 50 gold piece-valued gemstones, so that if Armaziti has to cast his spell for regaining sanity again, we can afford it.  These gems were stored in the Bag of Holding.

Speaking of the Bag of Holding, we discovered that Armaziti was lugging around multiple gallons of water on his person, which was affecting his speed and stamina badly.  He was convinced to store most (if not all) of it in the Bag of Holding since much of the weight would be negated by the spells on that bag.  I wonder what other foolish decisions we are each making that will be discovered later on?

Once we had our money, we talked about who could and wanted to level up.  It's kind of silly to say it like that, since I think everyone would want to level up, but the only ones who could were Calbach and Lhoss.  Calbach obtained level 3 as a Ranger while Lhoss had to borrow from a few friends to be able afford to get her Level 2 Magic User.  Armaziti decided to make a trade from his Scale Mail armor to Banded Mail as it gives improved protection as well as weighing less.  Good choice, Armaziti!