Day 14 of Patchwall.
Rough notes from Arnd's scratches:
We moved into the next room, with the large obelisk. As Armatzi came in, we could see that he was holding the Fount of Law tightly and it seemed to be shaking in his grip—and the obelisk shook as well. After a few minutes of this, the obelisk suddenly crumbled to dust!
We decided to go south into the hallway, and as we moved down the hallway the Fount of Law became slightly dimmer, so we decided to turn back and go north.
We marched along the hallway, watching the walls and floors. Going through the double doors at the end of this hallway, we turned right and entered a room which previously had a statue. Armatzi noted that it is an ancient avatar of St. Cuthbert that has been defaced and beheaded, and the fingers partially broken off one hand.
To the south side of this room were two doors that we couldn’t remember if we had explored or not. Lhoss investigated and couldn’t determine if they were trapped or not. They were different than the usual dungeon doors and had some ancient runes on them so we investigated and tried to read them, but could not. We decided to open the left door and Armatzi opened it, revealing a group of terrifying Huecuva crawling from burial alcoves.
One came straight at Armatzi. Feno went running in and immediately destroyed one. I (Arnd) decided to go in after Feno and attack the one that was engaged with Armatzi. Armatzi then cast “turn undead” and affected some of the huecuvas. Two of them then attacked me and another attacked Feno. Kyro then attacked the huecuva that Feno was facing off with. None of us or the huecuvas made effective swings and there was no damaged to anyone or anything until Lhoss took aim with some magic missiles and took out two of the creatures. Niki came into the room and attacked one, damaging it with Mister Paws. Each time the Huecuvas attacked Feno, their large claws made horrible scratching sounds down his armor. Feno then swatted two of them down to dust. Armatzi stepped in and destroyed the last huecuva. Lhoss noticed that one of them had been wearing a pouch. Opening it, she discovered three gems, and obsidian, oriental emerald, and oriental amethyst. For a moment, Jack suddenly appeared on Niki’s shoulder, looked around, and let out a quick “Meow meow!” before taking the grape-shaped amethyst and vanishing. Niki blinked and looked around in confusion.
Armatzi decided to pray for some spells. While he did that, the rest of us searched through the burial alcoves, finding some silver earrings and a bag that felt weightless, but which contained 120 gold pieces. We immediately named it the baby bag of holding and poured in all of our gold, electrum, and silver pieces, plus 16 copper from the bag of holding. Altogether that meant it holds 500 coins or 50 pounds and 30 cubic feet.
Moving back out to the larger room, we approached the other closed door. Just as we opened it, we heard a low, growling noise from the west, down the hall. We then moved into the room, which contained 69 more burial alcoves, and began yet another search for treasure. We found 51 electrum pieces and a whole lot of gnawed bones.
We left the room and headed east, finding a room with an arrow made of ugly yellow teeth, pointing west. We searched around that room, which contained burial alcoves, and found a bunch of platinum. Jack also reappeared, exclaimed, “These grapes can’t be eaten!” and handed them back—slightly damp—to Niki before vanishing again.
Heading north, we found another room with a pyramid-shaped pile of stones and graffiti on the wall saying, “Something is following us. Beware the eyes in the walls!” We could hear something from behind a door to the east, which sounded like an old lady saying “Help!”
Lhoss checked the door for traps and didn’t see any.
Armatzi decided to open the door, since he was holding the protective Fount of Law. Inside was a creature that appeared to be part tiger, part louse, and part ant. Also on the floor was a lot of treasure! Another mongrel-man was a mixture of a lobster and a mouse, and another was a mixture of different breeds of dogs. They quizzed us to see if we were necromancers of Set, and Armatzi convinced them that we were not. We entered the room and noted that it was filled with coins on the floor. They told us that they had escaped from the necromancers. We gave them all some rations and they took them eagerly. They then said they wanted to escape to the west and we moved aside so they could leave. They ran out the door and down the hallway toward the south. We then picked up the coins on the floor—also discovering 4 emeralds—and pocketed them all carefully. It was a lot of coins! We went north, “Star chamber room” and the elves wanted us to move out. We then investigated the eastern wall and Lhoss discovered a latch on the wall. Another star chamber room. The two elves, Lhoss and Feno, went in and closed the door behind them. After a few minutes the door opened again and they invited us in. They had found another door! We went through that and out into another hallway, Heading north we sorted through some rubble in the hallway and west into another dirty room. Moving north a bit more, we found ourselves in a section of the Barrowmaze that we had recently visited, where we battled the Band of the Black Hand. We decided to go back to Orlane from here for the evening, and headed out west through the rooms we had previously visited, finding that we had finally linked our way through the Barrowmaze from one entrance to the other.
We left the marsh, went through the dim forest, and as we entered the farmlands found a large bull staring us down. We cautiously moved down the trail, avoiding looking at the bull, and passed it without instigating its territorial instincts. Returning to Orlane at dusk, we found a delicious hamhock, rice and bean dish being served, and hungrily ate our dinner. Jack had two servings and ignored Niki while he ate. She interrupted him to ask about the teleporting and he said that he had discovered he had the ability to teleport to his favorite pets. He then teleported over to Armatzi and then back to Niki, then went back to his food as Niki exclaimed about how he was her pet and not she his. The bantering continued and the rest of us calmly polished our armor and chuckled quietly as Jack ordered Niki and Armatzi to eat some dinner, saying it would put hair on their chests. He then snapped his paw and a bespectacled little man came up and explained that Sir Jack was paying him from a wealthy account to write his memoirs. As Niki became more excited, Jack turned her over to Lhoss with the instruction to get some sleep, then sauntered out, saying he had a date waiting.
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