Session 79: Afternoon of Day 22 of Flocktime

The group moved north again up the hallway to where there were some stairs and a closed door. Lhoss, Feno, and Armaziti went up the stairs and found a wall at the top, which appeared to be well-made masonry. Thinking that there was either something really worth hiding behind it, or something really worth blocking off, Lhoss said she wanted to get through it at some point. I (Gnorcia) suggested that with our small numbers we shouldn’t be making a lot of noise and should consider the unopened door instead. Everyone agreed and after Lhoss, Feno, and I all checked the door for traps and found none, Lhoss opened the door.

Behind the door we discovered seven skeletons rattling toward us. The room had water dripping down the walls and it seemed to have calcified their bones, making them tougher. Feno and I ran in and attacked the first skeleton but both failed to hit it. Lhoss hit it with a magic missile, and then Hilja and Arnd both attacked another, damaging it. The other skeletons closed in on us and Feno took quite a bit of damage, and another hit Hilja. I managed to destroy the first one and Lhoss incinerated another with magic missiles, but one of the skeletons hit Hilja again and she fell. Lhoss bandaged her and Feno finished off another. We battled back and forth some more and eventually Arnd took out another one, though he and I both took some damage. We all then managed to get in some good hits on the remaining skeletons and they all finally fell.

Armaziti healed poor Hilja, who had to eat a double-portion of rations to get her strength and color back. He also partially healed Arnd, Feno, and I. Lhoss and Armaziti then prayed for spells while two of us guarded and the other two searched through the many alcoves in the walls all around the room. In the search we found a diamond ring and 58 gold pieces. Hilja was quietly disappointed that Ronan wasn't with us.

Armaziti healed Feno again and then Feno led the group into a small room behind some rubble. Armaziti then re-memorized his spells while the rest of us searched the room and carefully examined all the walls (though we found nothing of interest.

We then gathered outside another door and it opened to reveal three horrid blood spiders racing at us! One attacked Feno and another attacked Arnd. I ran and got behind one of them, backstabbing and pinning it to the ground. Hilja ran into the back of the room and attacked the third spider. Lhoss then hit that one with magic missiles, nearly killing it. The spider attacking Feno managed to do some damage and then seemed to go mad at either the sight or smell of blood, latching on to him! Lhoss and Hilja attacked the one in the back again, taking it out, and then Lhoss finished off the last one as well.

Session 78 Day 22 of Flocktime: More chaos, but also a strong burst of law

Feno, Armaziti, Gnorcia, Dwerom, Kryo, Arnd and I (Tatania) were in the Barrow Maze, on day 22 of Flocktime, after playing around with the magic pools we'd found. Mixing and drinking unknown potions is a very bad idea. You never know what might happen. Nevertheless, after Gnorcia had drunk a potion with a positive result, the lure of increased stats was too strong for me to resist, so I'd done so as well. It was after my intelligence increased to super-human levels that I noted that the "correct" combination of Red-Black-Purple depleted the pools more than would be expected for how much fluid was removed, even though the other combinations seemed to have no effect on the levels. Definitely mystical forces at work there. That should have clued me in enough to prevent Hilja from being pressured into drinking the combination that proved poisonous. I'll probably feel guilty about that for quite a while. What good is being intelligent if you don't have the wisdom to use said intelligence? I'm determined to find a way to increase my wisdom so I can hopefully prevent such tragic events in the future.

So, we were standing around and noticed that even though we'd emptied the pools completely, they were slowly refilling. In a completely unexpected move, Feno mentioned an interest in drinking a potion. Considering how Kyro had been physically prevented from drinking a vial (although not by Feno), I was surprised. I didn't think that anyone else would want to try. Still, I mixed up the correct combination and handed it over. Again, my lack of wisdom kept me from thinking things through completely, and Feno's lawful alignment reacted poorly with the chaotic potion. I should have known that would happen! I'm supposed to be smart! Fortunately, Feno's convulsions from the interaction only resulted in some bruising and nothing permanent. I hurried over to check him as best I'm able. When he declared that he'd be fine, I foolishly offered to give the potion to anyone else who wanted to try it. What was I thinking? I think I was still affected by the euphoria of having my intelligence increased like that. It was quite a rush!

After a bit of discussion, we figured that the ones who benefitted from the potion were of either chaotic or neutral alignment. Armaziti decided he wanted to try the potion but since he is lawful (just like Feno), I felt it wasn't a very good idea. He was wiser than I in that he mixed Holy Water in with the potion before he drank it. It turned a golden yellow and granted him a huge increase in his hit points as well as a bit to his wisdom. I admit I'm rather jealous of his now-level 18 wisdom and I could have really used some additional hit points.

Feno expressed a desire to break down a brick wall at the end of the passage, and Kyro volunteered to help. Together they used the sledge hammers to bring it down. Gnorcia pulled out some crackers from her rations and nibbled on them while she watched the destruction. Since there was so much noise, I kept an eye on the approaches, to guard against intruders. Gnorcia and Dwerom joined me in guard duty, although Gnorcia also continued to eat. Armaziti and Arnd plopped themselves onto the floor and ate lunch with admirable dedication, considering how unappetizing the rations are compared with the great food we've been having at the Foaming Mug.

Kyro entered into the passageway found behind the brick wall and carefully walked to the north. There was a skeleton in a decayed shroud, holding a small gold box. Kyro nudged the box with his sword and it fell from the skeleton's hand. There was an arrow attached to the top of the box that was wildly spinning. I determined that since it was spinning it was either clockwork in nature, or magical. Considering how long it had apparently been there, clockwork would have long ago wound down, so magic was most likely. Feno suggested that someone should cast "detect magic" and Dwerom said he could do so. Unfortunately, "detect magic" doesn't identify what kind of magic, or what its effects are. Still, his spell affirmed what I'd supposed. Dwerom does have an "identify" spell, but didn't have the necessary components to cast it.

I entered the new passageway and noted that there was a statue to the south. It didn't seem important enough to investigate immediately, but I heard Lhoss behind me. I like Lhoss, and was glad that she was with us. I was curious about the box Kyro had discovered, so I went up to see it. I picked it up, the arrow immediately stopped spinning, and pointed to the north-east. I placed the box in my pouch while I went over and inspected the wall it was pointing at. It was just a boring wall with nothing unusual I could spot, so I decided to eat my lunch right there.

Meanwhile, Feno and Lhoss went south to inspect the statue. Feno mentioned that Arnd liked to wander a bit, and someone compared Arnd to Hodour and how much more the dwarf was easily distracted. I commented that maybe explained Hodour's affinity to squirrels. Dwerom took time to examine the skeleton, hoping to find anything of note. All he discovered is that it was a standard human. Armaziti still seemed a bit dazed by his stat increase and was looking at the wall in the corner. The sword was a large granite likeness of a knight, holding a double-handed sword. Feno bowed in respect to the depicted warrior, while Kyro saluted it with his sword and pronounced, "Well met, fellow Warrior." I figure it must be some warrior thing, so whatever. The statue remained unmoving, just a statue.

Armaziti continued to inspect the walls, without finding anything of note. After I finished my lunch, I went over to the stone slab that the skeleton had been lying on. It's plain and quite normal, so I decided to arrange the skeleton's bones respectfully on it. Kyro decided to eat his lunch then and I pulled out the gold box again and walked down toward the statue, looking to see if the arrow changed at all. Somewhere on my journey, the arrow did a 180 turn and started pointing south south-west. I didn't really see where it changed, but had an idea. I concentrated on the box and tried to mentally instruct it to point me toward treasure. It doesn't respond at all. Since everyone else seemed busy eating or inspecting the wall, I verbally ask the box, "What are you pointing at, Box?" It continued to ignore me (assuming it has any sentience) and didn't change its direction again. I decided to retrace my steps back up to where I picked the box up originally, but the arrow stubbornly continued to point SSW. I don't know what caused it to change, and it's rather frustrating to me.

The walls continued to be unexceptional despite how many of the others were looking for anything interesting. Eventually, we grew bored with that and I thought that maybe it would be a good idea for Feno to take the holy water-enhanced potion. I assumed that the pools would have filled at the rate they had been, and I was shown to be accurate in that assumption. I made the correct blend and took it to Armaziti, wanting to minimize the variables in how the golden potion was made. Dwerom offered a vial of holy water that Armaziti mixed with the potion, resulting in the same golden potion he'd made before. Armaziti passed it over to Feno, who drank it and gained supernatural strength of 19 and +1 dexterity. Feno said that Dwerom ought to have some of the golden potion as well, since it had such a good effect on him. I wanted the wisdom boost, but feared that the holy water addition would be unlikely to help me, especially since I have no particular affiliation with any diety.

We discussed alignment for a while, and how the potion pulled people toward chaos if they weren't already so aligned. I am very much chaotic aligned, so it had pretty much no effect on me that way, and I understand that the same applies to Gnorcia. Lhoss was truly neutral before taking her potion, and now leans slightly chaotic without being actually chaotic. It was a bit confusing, but we worked toward a general understanding. Dwerom debated taking the potion himself, and eventually decided to try it. I mixed the potion for him but he mixed the holy water in himself, not waiting for Armaziti to do it for him, and luckily got the same result. He drank it down and had his strength and intelligence increase by a point each. Arnd followed with his own holy water-enhanced potion, gaining 4 hit points and a point of strength. Caught up in the excitement, I foolishly made me another potion and (eschewing the holy water add-in) chugged it. I wanted the wisdom increase so much, it made me incautious. Unfortunately, I didn't get it. I didn't get any increase with the second dose. I just began running in circles and ended up passing out, exhausted. When I came to after a few moments, I internally cursed myself and agreed with the others that we were done with the pools. At least I didn't do myself any permanent damage.

After a moment, we decided to see if we could follow the arrow on the box I still had. There was a passageway a bit to the east that went south that we took and at the end of it was a standard dungeon door. Lhoss graciously relinquished her door-opening duties to Feno. Feno easily opened it and found a room with a raised portcullis in it. There was a passageway beyond where the portcullis would drop that had a couple doors off of it. Feno and Armaziti went down to the first door and Gnorcia got worried that opening the second door might trigger the portcullis to drop. She felt a bit familiarity about the area but couldn't explain what or why. The box continued to point south-west, so Kyro and I joined Feno and Armaziti by the unopened door. Everyone else moved down past the portcullis area before Feno attempted to open that door. Once we were closer, we could see there were several doors and the sense of de ja vu grew stronger with the older members of the party. The first door opened to a room that had been recently explored, including footprints that match Gnorcia's, giving credence to the thought that at least some of us had been here before. Lhoss noted that there are footprints that match hers as well, assured that this is not a new area for her. Each of the rooms are opened in turn, proving empty and showing more of the tell-tale prints. It was rather anticlimactic.

Finally, the passageway turned toward the west, and the arrow on my box obligingly turned to point down that way. We gathered at a door that somehow is too tough for Feno or Armaziti to open. Lhoss gave it a try but was also unable to open the door. I gave it my all and amazingly the door opened for me. Inside were three huge green scorpions. EEEEWWWW! I hate scorpions. Fortunately, I hadn't relaxed enough for them to be a surprise but, unfortunately, I was up front and in range to be attacked. 

The scorpions were extremely fast and took advantage of that speed to attack both myself and Feno. Feno was hit by the stinger of one of the scorpions and fell, gagging from the poison. The one that attacked me hit me with a claw but didn't hit me with its stinger. Gnorcia did an amazing vault over Feno to be able to attack from behind, but her sword just skittered off the carapace of the scorpion. My magic missiles slammed into the face of the scorpion that was attacking me, doing some damage but not quite enough to kill it. Lhoss threw her own magic missiles at the foe attacking Feno and singed it. Feno was shaking from the effects of the poison and was unable to do anything in his own defense. Armaziti dug a "cure poison" vial from the bag of holding for Feno to take while the third scorpion crept up on Gnorcia and attacked. It hit her with its claw and also its stinger, poisoning her too. Dwerom advanced with his sword since firing his bow into the scrum would be too hazardous to the rest of us. Dwerom hit the scorpion, dropping it down to a single hit point. His attack gave Feno the clearance to escape from the foe and take the potion from Armaziti which he quickly drank. Kyro tried to hit the scorpion that had attacked me but his sword bounced off harmlessly. Let me say again, I HATE SCORPIONS!

The nasty thing attacked me again, knocking me unconscious but not poisoning me. Gnorcia was flailing from the poison and a scorpion managed to knock her unconscious as well. Lhoss hits that scorpion with her magic missiles, leaving all three scorpions near death but still extremely dangerous. Feno, having recovered from his poisoning, smashed into a scorpion with his sword, obliterating it completely. Gore splattered everywhere. Kyro used Big Stabby to flail about uselessly, unable to hit anything. Arnd attacked the weakest of the two remaining scorpions, splitting it lengthwise with ease. Armaziti poured the second "cure poison" potion down Gnorcia's throat and she immediately began to breathe easier and her color improved greatly.

Dwerom went after the final scorpion with his broadsword, dealing it some damage but not quite killing it. It struck back at Dwerom, hitting him repeatedly with its claws but missing with its stinger. Feno hit the scorpion viciously, turning it into paste. Lhoss came over and bandaged me up while Armaziti healed Gnorcia, although she ended up with a weakened left arm. Fortunately, she is right-handed, so her fighting shouldn't be affected. Armaziti then came over and healed me with no lasting effects. 

Back behind the dead scorpions there were three corpses of members of the Band of the Black Hand as well as a large pile of coins. Lhoss scurried over to the corpses to desecrate them as best she could, shredding their Black Hand badges and grinning wildly.  She REALLY dislikes the Band of the Black Hand, you know.  Kyro and I count up the treasure and divide it up amongst the group, making us all a lot richer.  We also find three unidentified potions (a dark grey with white speckles, a bright translucent green, and a dark opaque green) and two pearls. The potions went into the bag of holding along with the slightly smaller pearl, while Dwerom took the pearl that was slightly larger in the hopes that it will be adequate for his "Identify" spell. I wish him luck in getting that spell to work.  Also, I made a note that we need to be sure to buy more "cure poison" vials as soon as possible.  Without those, we would have been in a huge amount of trouble today.

Session 77: Chaos Reigns

On the morning of Day 15 of Flocktime, Lhoss and Feno counted up their gold pieces (and borrowed a few from team members) and found they had enough to train to become a Conjurer and Swordsman, respectively. The rest of the party spent a pleasant week in Orlane, with some living large and extravagantly and others living frugally, according to their tastes. Kyro finished his duties at the temple and was free to rejoin the group.

Day 22 of Flocktime dawned beautiful and clear. Lhoss, Feno, Tatania, Armaziti, Hilja, Kyro, Gnorcia, and Arnd ate an early breakfast and got a jump start to the Barrow Maze. Upon arrival, the group encountered a zombie. It was quickly dispatched by a magic missile from Tatania and a blow from Gnorcia's sword, Vengeance.

The heroes pushed further into the underground tunnels, trying to find more unexplored territory. Lhoss came upon a closed door and immediately tried to open it, to no avail. One by one, each of the party tried to open the door but it was stuck fast. At last, the strongest of us (Feno) gave a mighty yank and the door creaked open. Inside was a room that was familiar to some in the party, but a new curiosity to our newer members.

The group beheld three circular pools that were approximately 3 feet in diameter and fed by faces carved into the walls. One was deep purple, another red, and the third pitch black. Feno was keen to experiment and noticed some bones in the room. He tossed an arm bone into the red pool, where it was enveloped with a gurgle but nothing else appeared to happen. With a splash, another bone disappeared into the purple pool with seemingly no result. The same experiment was repeated in the black pool with the same outcome. The group seemed to be at somewhat of a loss about what to do next until Gnorcia's eyes lit up with a spark of inspiration: she felt strongly that the liquids should be mixed.

Lhoss wasted no time in asking around the party for an empty glass vial. Tatania produced one which Lhoss filled in equal parts first with black liquid, then purple liquid, then red liquid. It produced a drab green fluid. As Lhoss eyed it skeptically, Gnorcia volunteered to test it. She said she would try just a sip, but to the group's horror, she downed the entire contents. Gnorcia gagged slightly and mentioned that it tasted like dirty water. Armaziti and Feno expressed that they were not on board with this endeavor, but did not intervene. Ever the scientist, Lhoss mixed black, red, then purple from the pools. A slightly different shade of green tempted Gnorcia, but again it tasted like dirty water. The mixture of red, purple, then black produced a violent orange that Gnorcia proclaimed to be the worst yet. When mixed in the order of red, black, then purple, a bubbling blackish liquid with tints of red and purple was produced. Gnorcia declared this one to be disgusting but drinkable. At first she looked ill, but it became apparent that the potion had increased Gnorcia's dexterity and intelligence! Lhoss immediately recreated the concoction and downed it in one. It was disgusting, but she fought off the flood of discomfort and found that likewise she had improved dexterity and intelligence.

For some unknown reason, Lhoss decided to see what would result from another combo. Feno was not impressed and walked out, not wanting any part of the proceedings and commented that "drugs are bad". Lhoss mixed purple, black, and red then offered it to Hilja in a somewhat chaotic disregard for her wellbeing. She drank it down and it was soon clear that she had been poisoned. Luckily, there was a poison antidote in the bag of holding; Hilja was saved but unconscious. Tatania prepared and drank the red-black-purple potion, and immediately vomited blood. She recovered quickly but was slightly disappointed to find she had only improved her intelligence. Feno called from just beyond the door "vomiting blood? Not good." At this point, Armaziti was vehemently opposed to what was going on and tried to persuade everyone to leave. Tatania prepared a dose of r-b-p and attempted to give it to Kyro, but Armaziti slapped it to the ground and shattered the bottle. It was evident that there was only enough liquid for one more potion. Tatania prepared another dose and Arnd moved to drink it, but Tatania gave it to Kyro who drank it down quickly. Immediately, Kyro spun 360 degrees and dropped unconscious, but nevertheless gained strength, intelligence, and wisdom. 

The pools empty, Armaziti and Feno looked on as Gnorcia, Lhoss, and Tatania moved erratically, jumping, spinning and rocking. The trio also spoke in gibberish with moments of lucidity when they uttered profound truths. Armaziti carried out Hilja and Feno ushered the women and a dizzy but alert Kyro out of the room, sensing an increase of chaos among the potion-drinkers. As a plus, Armaziti found a copper piece on the ground. Lucky!

Session 76 Day 14 & 15 of Flocktime

Participants - Feno the wood elf fighter / thief, Armatzi the human cleric, Gnorcia the gnomish illusionist / thief, Dwerom the high elf fighter / magic-user,  Tatania the human magic-user, and Arnd the dwarvish fighter

The group remained in the chamber with the statue of Merikka. After a little discussion, Gnorcia offered up a prayer to Merikka. As soon as she said the name "Merikka", a conversation echoed through the chamber of four different voices. The group quickly deduced that they were the past voices of the four dead adventurers in the room. Apparently the group fought some "demon bats" just after the conversation and were presumably defeated by them. 

The group then went into the other chamber, and Feno began to pry out gems, retrieving a malachite in about 2 minutes work. The group did a quick estimation - they could quickly remove all the gemstones, decreasing their value, or they could remove them all carefully, but spending more time and making just as much noise. The group decided on the second option, however something was alerted, and Gnorcia could see something around the corner from the pit before it disappeared. 

Gnorcia snuck silently along the edge of the pit and peaked around, but she was expected, grabbed, and quickly bound and gagged. She got out a quick scream before this occurred. Most of the group cautiously crossed the pit, but Arnd was enraged, and charged across, holding onto the rope. The party was dismayed to find that they again faced off against the dastardly band of the black hand. However, the group was able to defeat them, in large part to the impressive prowess of Feno. Three members fled successfully, and the group only half-heartedly attempted a pursuit. 

The remaining gems were removed, a total of 40 gems. The group then moved west through the previously discovered secret door, and found what looked like an obvious trap: a small pile of gold pieces and a rock. After examining the area, Feno prodded with the ten foot pole. This triggered a plate, which dropped a heavy portcullis, shattering the pole. The grid of the portcullis was 3 inches wide, keeping even tiny Gnorcia from squeezing through. 

There were some burial alcoves observed behind it, and the group was eager to plunder those, so most of the group tried lifting the portcullis, to no avail. Finally, Gnorcia lent her help, which proved the last bit needed, and the portcullis was pushed back up into the ceiling. 

After searching the alcoves, the group found 25 platinum pieces (as well as the 5 decoy gold pieces) and 3 pearls. The group then decided that was enough, and headed back to Orlane. The trip went without event, and they enjoyed another excellent meal at the Foaming Mug (a delicious meal of letelorye (a kind of custard), seasonal fruit, and beer). 

The group then had a well earned rest, and the next morning after breakfast, sold all the items recently acquired, with henchmen gaining about 191 gold, and the main party members 382 (Lhoss was voted a share despite not being in attendance, do to her efforts to gain the bulk of the treasure). 

Session 75: In the Barrowmaze, Day 14 of Flocktime

Arnd and Hilja suddenly appeared, and Arnd’s growling stomach brought the topic of lunch to our attention. We stopped and spent a few minutes chewing on some dry rations, which have been tasting worse every day since we’re getting used to eating the good food in Orlane. Lhoss suggested we open a door farther east down the hall but as Feno approached the door he discovered a glum-looking goblin limply holding a sign that read, “Go away. Come back later.”

Instead, we headed west, carefully avoiding a pit in the hall, and peeked into an empty room with some rubble all over it. Feno poked at the rubble a little but decided it wasn’t interesting enough to explore further. We approached the doorway at the west end of the hall and Lhoss attempted to open it, but couldn’t quite manage. Feno stepped in and quickly had it open, revealing a large room with some sort of rubble in the corner. We all agreed we had been here before but we weren’t quite sure when or what happened. We decided to continue down the hall and around to the area near the scrying pool.

As we moved through a few rooms in that direction, we heard a skittering sound and noticed a reddish light moving in our direction. Suddenly four fast-moving beetles appeared and ran toward us down the hall! They appeared ravenously hungry and immediately attacked Arnd, Armaziti, and Feno. One of them managed to get its pincers into Feno, who was instantly very angry and completely smashed the creature into the ground. Despite some hits that glanced off the creatures' hard carapaces and a nasty bite right through Armaziti's armor, we eventually destroyed them all. I (Gnorcia) pinned the last beetle to the floor where it twitched a few times and finally lay still. Hilja, Lhoss, Arnd, Feno, and I all picked through the antennae and gathered up the few that weren’t totally smashed by Feno. They make great lightsources in this dark place.

We continued down the hall to the east, toward the hidden door there. As Feno and Armaziti went through the door, they sensed that there was something nearby. They then noticed a pile of rags on the floor and Feno reached out at it with his sword. Suddenly the rags rose up in the shape of a creature that appeared to be several different types of creatures stitched together. The strange-looking thing cried out, “Don’t hurt me! Don’t turn me over to the necromancers!” Lhoss stepped up and attempted to comfort him, and in the process somehow named him Grumblecakes. She offered him a ration, which he eventually agreed to take. He then retreated, crying, to a corner, as she questioned him about the necromancers, collapsed in a heap, and soon began snoring. He was amazingly difficult to see while asleep like that. We left him there and moved through the next two rooms into the hallway where we had previously done battle with a group of skeletons.

As Feno and Armziti entered the hallway, they were surprised by four zombies lurking there. One attacked me and managed to hit me. I tried to hit it back and completely missed in my anger. Feno swung his sword and unsurprisingly obliterated the zombie in front of him. That guy can smash stuff! After a bunch more swings and misses and a vial of oil that went awry, we managed to destroy them all in a rather disgusting manner with heads bouncing and smooshing and one zombie exploding. The area suddenly smelled even worse than it had before.

We then noticed a glint of something shiny and discovered four goblets encrusted with diamonds, which the zombies seemed to have been carrying around. We collected them in the bag of holding.

Turning to the door next to us, Lhoss inspected it for traps and attempted to open it. Feno then stepped up, rolling his eyes a bit at her apparent ineptitude, and discovered he couldn’t open it either. Armaziti then tried and got it open, revealing burial alcoves covered in dust and cobwebs. Feno barged in and immediately began rummaging through. We searched through burial alcoves and memorized spells, eventually counting up 150 silver pieces and a tooled buckle that Arnd had found.

 

Lhoss announced she wanted to open the door across the hall and Armaziti pre-emptively cast a blessing, expecting the worst. Lhoss’ attempt to open the door failed again and literally everyone else—including Feno—failed as well. Finally, Tatania used her knock spell and the door swung open, revealing a hallway. As Armaziti and Feno led the group down the hall, Armaziti stepped into a trap! He fell through and the floor closed again behind him! The rest of us could barely hear him shouting.

Feno then spotted something strange on the wall to the west, and went to investigate. It was a lever, but he decided not to pull it. Instead he went back and investigated the floor where he saw Armaziti fall. The rest of us had been too far back and didn’t see what happened, and couldn’t see anything unusual about the floor where Feno said Armaziti disappeared. Eventually Lhoss and Feno managed to find a fine line marking a trap door opening. I suggested the lever might have something to do with the floor so Feno pulled it, but instead of the floor opening, a hidden door opened in the wall, revealing a large room. Ignoring that discovery, we went back to helping Armaziti.

Lhoss and Feno used a pole from the bag of holding and probed the area, soon revealing Armaziti standing sheepishly about 10 feet down in a pit. Hilja used a rope and pulled him out of the pit, and it closed again. Feno then decided to try to get to the door on the other side of the pit, but failed at crossing along the edge and fell in. He did manage to jump up and hang from the mechanism to open the trapdoor, popping the doors open and we were able to pull him out with the rope.

The party then discussed how we might create some sort of rope bridge across the pit. Armaziti tied one end of the rope to the door pull handle, I tied another rope to make it longer, and then tied it to the pull handle of the door we had just come through. Lhoss then tried the rope crossing and was able to do it easily, so the rest of us crossed as well. Feno opened the door and a large gust of wind burst out at us. Fortunately, we were using the beetle antennae instead of torches.

We discovered a room with a low, 6-foot ceiling with gems embedded in it. Turning the corner in the room, we also noticed a broken-down door with a room behind it. There were two sarcophagi, four shriveled corpses on the ground, and a large statue of Merikka. I stood on Arnd’s shoulders and along with Lhoss ad Tatania began to investigate the gems for possible traps, finding none and noticing that our comrades had moved into the next room, we began to investigate the bodies there. They were well-equipped but obviously dead adventurers, and we inventoried their belongings and distributed most of them between us all. They were:

An elven thief, female, wearing leather armor, dagger and scabbard, and a backpack. She was carrying 8 candles, a crowbar, a grappling hook, a mallet, 1 iron spike, some well-wrapped dry rations, a large sack, a small lens, a tinderbox, a waterskin, and a whetstone, plus a belt pouch with some coins.

A human female magic user with a dagger and scabbard, and a backpack with a bottle of writing ink and quill, 5 parchment, 2 scroll cases, a spellbook, a hand mirror, 1 week of rations, 6 torches, a tinderbox, an empty glass vial with a cork stopper, and a belt pouch containing more coins.

A human male wearing chain mail with a shield and a bastard sword in a scabbard, and carrying a backpack with chalk, a grappling hook, hemp rope (2x50ft), a hooded lantern, 3 flasks oil, a small 1-man tent, and a belt pouch with coins.

A male dwarf wearing scale mail and carrying a battle axe and backpack with the same items as the human male, along with yet another belt pouch with coins.

Tatania looked at the spellbook and found it contained the speels ventriloquism, light, jump, message, and read magic. Arnd claimed the scale mail, Hilja claimed a dagger and scabbard, and Tatania took a scabbard for her dagger. Feno took the last dagger.