Tatania, Arnd, Feno, Lhoss, Gnorcia, Sergius, and Armatzi found themselves in the common room of the Foaming Mug in contemplation about what the day would hold. Gnorcia made a quick trip to the Temple of Merika to check in on Priestess Misha's findings about the rotten samples from the Dim Forest. Unfortunately, Misha has been quite busy and had no updates. The group decided to travel to the Barrow Marsh. Interestingly, the corruption in the forest hadn't seemed to progress significantly in the eight days since they had last visited.
The idea was to find the room in the Barrow Maze where the Beholder was defeated and search it for treasure (it was not exhaustively explored in the past). The problem was that the group had originally found the location with the help of the Font of Knowledge, and had no memory of its exact location nor any help in finding it now. For several visits, they have been wandering somewhat aimlessly and have not struck upon the location. Even approaching the Barrow Maze, the group was somewhat at a loss as to which entrance to start from. Tatania decided to meditate and use her compass box to divine some direction. The golden cube responded thusly: it spun, pointed northeast, shuddered, then exploded! Tatania was devastated. The group decided to honor the tool's last piece of information and made their way northeast, in the direction of Eliwin's barrow.
They found two barrows: one was deeply covered in earth and sod and the dwarves indicated that it would take many hours of digging to uncover. The other was a collapsed mound. The group moved on and saw a third mound with an embossed bronze door covered in verdigris. It could not be made out what was depicted or written on the door. Lhoss cast a clean cantrip and the group was able to see a vile skull of Nerul and pentagram designs. There was also a small keyhole. Gnorcia pulled out and examined her collection of found keys, but none seemed to match the keyhole. Armatzi cast detect magic on the lock and discovered that it is highly magical. He tried to dispel the magic with a spell, but he found that it was protected by deity-level powers and Armatzi was unable to affect it. That was enough of a warning to get the adventurers to move on from this place.
They found a fourth mound that was sealed, but would only take a short while of bashing to open it. Feno and Sergius used sledge hammers and broke it down. No undue attention was attracted, thank goodness. They uncovered a five-foot staircase descending into a dry stone crypt. From the base of the stairs, the party could see five eight-foot stone statues of beautiful women set around the perimeter of the room. Arnd noticed that their shining red eyes, while startling at first, were actually gems. He swept the floor with the 10' pole and the rest of the party moved in to look closer. Niki and Armatzi cast detect magic on the statues, but they were not magical. Armatzi also cast detect traps on all the statues and indeed found one trap on the statue at the far end of the room. It had opals for eyes, where the rest seemed to have rubies or garnets. Gnorcia climbed up the trapped statue to examine it further and noticed a small pipe set into the mouth, possibly a vessel to expel poisonous gas? Niki cast stone shape and blocked off the pipe. Lhoss, Feno, and Gnorcia then went to work to pry out the gems, eight rubies and two black opals.
Tatania keenly spotted a latch. Arnd opened it to find a horde of giant rats. Lhoss climbed above the doorway and dropped a vial of oil and then a lit vial on top of the oil splatter. The result was a conflagration that killed six rats. Arnd then threw his mighty hammer and killed another one. The rest scattered and by the time the fire had died down, there was no sign of the vermin. There were a few coins in their rat nest as well as a sealed arcane scroll tube with a tantalizing blue luster. Tatania looked at it with interest, but contained her desire to inspect it. Lhoss, on the other hand, grabbed it and opened the tube with a sort of reckless abandon. She identified three scrolls with magic-user spells: magic missile, floating disc, and web. Lhoss was particularly interested in the web spell and decided to share and give the floating disc spell to Tatania. The group retreated back to the marsh and looked for another mound to explore. They came upon a sealed mound and decided they would bash it in. That is where my vision of events fades to darkness. I will be sure to follow and report on what is found within, for I am your humble storyteller,
Vilma
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