As we prepared to engage the rats in battle, Ronan and Calbach materialized alongside us. The rats charged and attacked Feno and Chalkboi, but of course they both avoided their attacks and Feno continued to taunt them. With their attention on Feno, Lhoss cast magic missile at one, exploding it in a ball of fire, and I jumped on the two nearest me, killing them both instantly. Kyro ran up and shot an arrow, but it flew poorly and broke on the Barrowmaze wall. Feno swung his longsword, Icing Death, instantly killing three and nearly killing a fourth. Filthfang then raised his dirty little paws and cast a spell. Instantly, Kyro, Zraith, Ronan, Feno, and myself felt like we were covered in biting rats and collapsed to the floor, screaming and writhing! Nikki tried to drag Kyro out of the way and was stabbed by one of the arrows he was holding.
One of the giant rats moved forward and bit me as I was incapacitated on the barrowmaze floor. Lhoss attacked and killed another, but Filthfang again raised his nasty paws and cast an incantation, summoning six additional rats behind us. Niki then turned and killed three of them and as another rat tried to attack her, suddenly Jack started meowing and the rat was raised up into the air! Calbach shot an arrow through another, killing it as another rat took a biog bite out of Chalkboi’s side. At that point, the spell cast by Filthfang wore off and those of us who had been affected jumped up, angry and ready to do some damage to the rats.
Lhoss then cast continual light, blinding Filthfang, and Feno swung and connected with the evil sorcerer rat, who suddenly disappeared in a poof of purple smoke, leaving only the smell of brimstone. It was as if he wasn’t even there at all! I began to suspect that there was some advanced illusion magic going on. Feno angrily screamed, “Coward!” as Kyro swung and killed another rat. I angrily lashed out at the first rat I could see and killed it instantly, and Feno swept his sword across the remaining rats, obliterating them.
Lhoss had the sudden urge to open some doors so I followed behind her in an attempt to keep her from getting hurt. Feno declared he actually wanted to kick down some doors, so Lhoss checked the first door in the hallway for traps and (finding none) Feno kicked it down, revealing a pair of carnivorous flies. One of them immediately flew at me and bit me with a nasty bite. Seeing the flies coming at us, Zraith began to sing a strange little song of penguin courage. It seemed to be mostly about fish, but it still filled us all with courage to fight. The other fly tried to bite Feno but couldn’t get past his armor and Feno immediately squished it. Lhoss then smashed the other one with her staff.
Feno and Nikki went into the room, sweeping the floor as they went. At that moment, Zraith heard a commotion down the hall and called it to our attention. Chalkboi used lay on hands to heal me and I snuck quietly down the hall, hiding in shadows, and peered around the corner. I could see two mongrelmen torturing a giant rat. Going back to the others, I suggested we go down and investigate further, but the group decided instead they wanted to open the door at the other side of the room Feno and Nikki just entered. I was going to sneak back down and watch the mongrelmen from the shadows, but Kyro insisted he was going to go with me. Not trusting his ranger skills to keep him hidden like a thief, I decided not to go. Kyro was a little put out by that, as he wanted to tell the mongrelmen to just kill the thing, but he came into the room with us and I closed the door.
Lhoss then picked the lock on the other door on the south wall and Ronan and Feno went in. They reported that room was filled with burial alcoves on the west and east walls, but the entire east wall was also covered in nasty and dangerous yellow mold. The rest of us who had previously encountered yellow mold refused to even go in at that point. Lhoss decided instead to re-memorize her spells. (Armatzi tried also but was too exhausted and nodded off for 15 minutes instead.) Her memorization complete, Lhoss then entered the room and cast continual light on the mold, turning it to a pale grey. We then began to search the alcoves. Someone found a pouch of gold, Lhoss found a finely-crafted holy symbol of Narul (made of silver) and a diamond ring, and I found a platinum cloak clasp. We divided the coin between us.
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