It's mid-morning of day 20 of Planting and we've just had a rest after our fight with the wooden golems. Everyone who had been injured was healed and we decided to retain our marching order from earlier. Therefore, Arnd and Armaziti are in the lead, followed by Lhoss and Kyro. Gnorcia and I (Tatania) are next with Adelbertus and Yldarb in the rear. The dungeon master made some provocative comments, so just to be on the safe side, Gnorcia checked in the bag of holding and looked at the leather bag that had that creepy skull in it. She was worried about her leather bag, and wanted to make sure the skull didn't gnaw its way out. We don't know what it actually does, aside from being labeled "paralyzation" (according to my glasses of translation), but everything looks the same as before. She hangs the bag from her belt to keep it in sight.
We continue to explore this hallway, and the next alcove has another skull sitting on a note of some sort as well as a fancy jeweled gold chalice. The skull looks like an ordinary human skull and the note has a burnt edge. Lhoss pushes the skull off with her dagger to read the note. It appears to be a crudely drawn map of the Temple of Nerul but has no new information to us. Lhoss wants to grab the chalice, since it is so pretty and sparkly, but everyone is being cautious. Arnd uses his new sword, Bonesplitter, to nudge the chalice and dust billows up. I decide to cast my "Detect Magic" spell and have Gnorcia get close so that both skulls and the chalice are in range. Both the new skull and the chalice are inert, but Gnorcia's skull is definitely magical in nature. Lhoss quickly grabs the chalice and comments that she wants to "taste that rainbow" but decides to wait until mealtime to do so.
The next three alcoves appear empty but the final one has something moving in the shadows. Lhoss bravely (or perhaps foolishly) enters the alcove and finds that it is a swarm of beetles; fortunately, they are normal in size. Thinking quickly, she pulls out one of her oil flasks and sticks a wick in it, lighting it on fire. When she throws it, the flask shatters and the oil splatters over the swarm. Many of the beetles burn to death but some are still alive. Arnd steps up and bashes the survivors with his sword, ending the potential danger. The reek of burning beetle chitin is horrid, but luckily nobody ends up vomiting.
Lhoss enters each of the empty alcoves to ensure they really are empty, which they are. Kyro has stayed on guard in the hallway the entire time so nothing could sneak up on us, but suddenly a loud disembodied voice yells out, "Grave Robbers!" which startles everyone. We all look around and don't see anyone or anything new, and I yell back, "We're not grave robbers. We're just hunting nasties!" The others laugh at me, telling me that I'm in denial since we are most definitely robbing graves. I reluctantly have to agree, even though I'd prefer to focus on the noble portion of our adventuring. Since we're exiting back through the Temple of Nerul, Lhoss compares the map piece to reality and it appears to match. She even holds up the map piece against torchlight to see if there's anything additional hidden (perhaps this is why the edge was burnt?) but nothing shows up. We look to see if the birdlike creatures were still there, but they have gone away.
As we're leaving the area, Lhoss notes a door that we haven't opened and is struck by the need to open it now. She tries but isn't strong enough so Arnd opens it for her. I think I can safely say that we all immediately wish he hadn't. Inside the room is a bunch of cobras, and not just any cobras but spitting cobras. Or at least the three in the front immediately spit venom towards us while the other three slither forward menacingly. The spitters aimed for Lhoss and Arnd, and lucky for my friends, the first two miss them completely. Unfortunately, the final one hits Lhoss in the face. It burns at her eyes before she can wipe them clear again. Harming Adelbertus is the goal of the moving snakes, which is kind of ironic since as a dwarf he has resistance to poison. Not one of the three succeeds in biting him.
Arnd swings his sword at one of the spitting snakes but somehow misses it. Lhoss also tries to hit a snake, using her dagger, but the damage from the venom in her eyes probably messed up her depth perception as she also misses. Adelbertus has much better luck and severely injures the center snake with Oddwood, his magical staff. Yldarb swings his spear, Falstaff, only to find that what he thought was a lucky +3 spear is actually cursed; if you attack unsuccessfully with it, it will take damage out on you instead. He falls back, angry and injured. Armatzi pulls Melissa out and attempts to smash a snake with her but it wiggles out of reach before he can manage. I fire a magic missile into the injured center snake and flay the flesh from its bones, killing it. Kyro fires a pair of arrows from his short bow. The first skewers a snake, eliminating it, but his second arrow crashes into the dungeon wall harmlessly. Gnorcia has a trio of darts that she attempts to use. The first misses completely, and then the second and third hit the rightmost snake, causing a lot of damage but not finishing it off. The left side snake attacks Adelbertus a second time and successfully bites him while the injured right side snake misses Arnd a second time. Adelbertus bashes the snake that bit him with his staff, pounding it into paste, but then falls to the ground as the poison courses through his system. Resistance to poison doesn't mean immunity to poison, unfortunately.
Arnd switches his sword for his snake-handled mace, hoping that it will give him luck against this foe but misses again anyway. Armaziti comes to Adelbertus' rescue and casts his Slow Poison spell. We are very grateful for this since nobody else can do anything to help.
Yldarb wants nothing to do with the cursed Falstaff now and tries to put it away. He thinks he is pulling out his sword but discovers to his dismay that the curse on the spear won't allow him to put it down. It turns out that the backbiting aspect of the curse only kicks in if an attack is unsuccessful. Fortunately, the attack he pulled was successful and the spear slices the snake in half, proving that the +3 stat was true as far as that goes. Since I don't have any further ranged attacks, I stay back out of the way. We are down to two snakes now, and Gnorcia goes after the larger of the two, easily slaughtering it with her magic dagger. Lhoss fires her magic missile and the final snake explodes in a shower of gore.
Yldarb is frustrated and disgusted with his spear. He again tries to intentionally set it aside, but despite going through the motions, it remains in his hand. Armatzi remembers at this point that he has a potion of neutralize poisons and he hurriedly gives it to Adelbertus. The potion works its magic quickly and when Adelbertus is completely healed, he goes ahead and heals the backstab wounds on Yldarb while Armaziti heals the poison burns from Lhoss' face and eyes. Gnorcia take the opportunity to search the snake room but comes back empty-handed. What a waste of time! In annoyance, we toss the snake bodies back into the room and shut the door again.
Yldarb really wants to get rid of the spear now, so we go back to the burial alcoves where he found it. It's no use, he still can't release it. Somebody, I don't remember who, came up with the idea to use one of the heavy metal doors that were controlled by the three switches that we'd encountered earlier to trap the spear so maybe Yldarb could walk away from it. Everyone agrees this is as good an idea as any, so we go and place the spear on the floor under the open door. I try to hold the spear in place so that Yldarb's fingers aren't underneath the spear when the door comes crashing down on it, but it seems that the spear has more of a mental hold on him than we'd thought because as soon as the switches were thrown to close the door, Yldarb snatches the spear out of the line of danger before it can be hit. It is decided that the best chance we have of getting rid of the spear (or at least the curse on it) is to head back to Orlane.
By this time, everyone is feeling a bit hungry. We decide to go to Polis's shrine to have our lunch. On the way, we clean up the mess of dead froglings that were left in the hallway, placing them in some burial alcoves but without any ceremony. When we get to Polis's shrine, Lhoss uses a bit of her water to rinse the fancy jeweled chalice clean and then uses it for her drink with the meal. She says that she feels very Queen-like to have such a sparkly cup. As we finish our lunch, we hear voices in the hallway outside speaking in common. As a quick precaution, everyone takes a turn standing on Polis's plinth to gain his blessing of +1 to hit.
It is fortunate that we took that precaution because when Gnorcia (being fastest) exits the room, she finds that there are 9 members of the Black Hand coming toward us. Four of them attack with short swords, two of them hitting and two of them missing. The other five band members stay back to watch and wait. Kyro and I jump out of the room and attack, him with his long sword and I with Sylvia (my magic silver dagger). Despite our enthusiasm, we both miss our targets. Lhoss tosses her second magic missile but it does minimal damage. This is all disheartening, but Yldarb swings his cursed staff and luckily hits. Adelbertus barrels into one attacker with his shield and bashes him into another Black Hand member. The guy that was hit initially had several bones break and the other guy was beat up pretty well too. Arnd throws a flask of burning oil at the back flank, killing two immediately, leaving a third incapacitated and cutting the final two off from their mates. They watch as Armatzi defeats one of the remaining four in front of the flames using Melissa, and they run away from the battle, abandoning the others. The three that are left apparently decide they want to get away too, so they try to retreat. Armatzi and Melissa take care of one, Gnorcia gets the second, and the third is so scared that he foolishly attempts to run through the wall of flames, immolating himself. He never had a chance. Finally, there is nothing left to do but loot the corpses. OK, fine. I admit it. I'm a bit of a grave robber, although this isn't technically grave robbing since these guys were never buried to begin with.
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