Session 59: Day 8 of Flocktime Continues with Some Very Bad Skeletons

Before we continued searching the Barrowmaze, the party paused to discuss how the strange trash-covered creatures came to be, and Tatania wondered out loud if they might be the results of some unethical magic going on in the Barrowmaze. Tatania then sat and memorized spells while the rest of us ate some lunch and quietly considered the foreboding oppressive sense of evil in this place.

We started down the hall to the west of the room with the strange creatures—Tatania munching on hard tack as she walked—but seeing more hallways with questionable rubble in them, we reconsidered and returned to the unopened door in the previous room. Lhoss examined and then opened it to reveal a seemingly-empty room with yet another door. Opening that door, she discovered a skeleton on the floor and a glowing ball that started, somehow, throwing bits of burial urns at us all!

As clay pieces crashed around us, I cast color spray on the glowing thing, but all it seemed to do was to paint it and make it more angry. It continued tossing bits of clay as Lhoss stepped forward and swung at it with her staff, but she missed. Arnd then squeezed through and swung Bonesplitter at it, hitting it square in the center. The creature instantly vanished and in the process sprayed back magically-colored paint on Lhoss and Arnd.

Examining the room further, we discovered it was lined with many burial alcoves. We began searching and found a few coins but not much else. As we continued our search, we heard steps coming down the passageway to the east. We couldn’t see anything yet, but we quickly prepared for whatever might be coming. Arnd, Armaziti, and Kyro took the front line facing the hallway and Armaziti cast a blessing on the group. Soon we could see a faint blue light and a sense of dread came over us all as we remembered previous encounters with glowing creatures.

The creatures approached and we were troubled to see they were skeletons with glowing sapphires in their foreheads—something we have met before. Two approached Armaziti and Arnd. Armaziti swung and hit but Arnd swung and missed. Tatania fired a magic missile at the skeleton in front of Armaziti and Lhoss quickly finished it off with a second magic missle. I then ran up and easily catapulted over Arnd to land on the back of the skeleton in front of him, but the skeletons behind them advanced, one moving up to face Armaziti and the other behind me, hitting me hard. Armaziti swung and destroyed the gem of the skeleton in front of him as the skeleton I was clinging to swung and hit Arnd. Arnd returned an attack but missed and I was tearing up from the pain and couldn’t hit it properly either.

As we battled, Lhoss, Hilja, and Tatania grumbled amongst themselves about how they wished they had some vials of holy water that they could lob over the top of the fighters in the narrow hallway ahead of them. Of course the cost of such a holy weapon was more than the group could afford earlier, so we had dismissed the idea.

At that point the battle began to rage in a flurry of fighting. Lhoss targeted the skeleton in front of Arnd and hit it with a magic missile. Tatania did the same, destroying it right under me and I leapt down as it crumbled, turning to face the evil creature behind me. Armaziti swung at the skeleton in front of him again, hitting it with a loud crack as Kyro swung one of the sledgehammers into the gem on the crumbled skeleton.

Both Arnd and I attacked the last skeleton and damaged it but it was still fighting and hit me again, knocking me out so I missed the rest of the fight, which was recounted to me later. As I fell, Hilja moved in and swung at the skeleton on Armaziti, who also swung and hit it again, crushing it to dust with his hammer. Arnd swung and hit again as Hilja then turned to bandage me before I lost any more blood. Kyro smashed the third gem on the skeleton that Armazi had downed, as Lhoss ran forward and swung her staff at the last skeleton, destroying it. Tatania then sprung forward and destroyed the last gem.

Whew! Everyone breathed in relief as they looked around at the rubble of skeletons and Tatania carefully collected shards of the blue gems in a bottle. Armaziti healed me but I was exceptionally exhausted from the battle and we retreated to one of the rooms we had just traveled through to rest and re-memorize spells.

 

Session 58: Day 8 of Flocktime - silliness ensues

 The party of adventures (Ronan, Yldarb, Gnorcia, Tatania, Calbach, Arnd, Adelbertus, and Armatzi) decided to go back south and explore there some more. After consulting the map and discussing, the group entered through a room they had previously gone through, and then examined a room with graffiti written on the back wall in chalk - "They are coming". This proved to be true, as a group of skeletons attacked the party from the east. The party managed to defeat the threat. 

Searching around some more to the east revealed a secret door with a latch. Tatania used her dagger to open the latch, which revealed a small, inverted 'L' shaped room. In the room were found two backpacks full of coins, and a variety of other equipment. The party took all of this. 

The party then explored a bit further to the south, and did some resting in the halls, Tantania deciding that was the best place to rememorize her spells. The group split in two, checking some different doors. One revealed a room full of rubble, fungus, trash, and other oddities. This wasn't immediately investigated, but Calbach came back to it after some vagaries that occurred. This caused several misshapen abominations to drop their disguises (which were literally trash) and flee. The party half-heartedly called after them, but they fled out back the way the party had come from. 

That proved to be more then enough for Yldarb, who was very tired. 

Session 57: Day 28 of Planting through Day 8 of Flocktime: Lingering in Orlane

Our group (Ronan, Yldarb, Gnorcia, Tatania, Lhoss, Adelbertus, and Armaziti) thought our stay in Orlane would be a short one, but I think that we find that the cheerfulness of the town makes us look for reasons not to head back to the gloom of the tomb. At any rate, the group (save Armaziti, who was under the watchful care of priestess Misha at the temple) woke to an early lunch at the inn. We noticed that the town gets busier each time we return, with the only arrangements available to us being the common room of The Slumbering Serpent. In fact, all three inns (The Slumbering Serpent, The Golden Grain, and even The Foaming Mug) are filled with visitors. Truly, Orlane has returned to prosperity.

We headed over to the temple to check in on Aramaziti and found him snoring lightly. Misha had been able to lift the mummy's curse, but the cost would be substantial - 1,000 gold pieces. Many in the party balked at the price. Misha, sensing the burden and seizing on an opportunity presented an alternative: a holy sword named Caliburn is rumored to be in the barrowmaze. It is a lawful good intelligent sword and a holy relic of the order of paladins dedicated to Merika. Knowing our reputation, Misha offered a loan against the healing for the return of the sword. Some in the party suggested that the sword may be worth more than the 1,000 gold we would essentially be trading it for. But Misha intimated that such a sword would not respond well to back-alley dealings. It was decided that this noble side quest was a good trade to have our dear Armaziti returned to us in full health. As a show of his usefulness and gratitude, Armaziti used his gauntlet to remove the fear from our party.

Armaziti was healed, but still too weak to travel, so we decided to visit our friends in town and sell off some of the trinkets we have acquired. Unfortunately, Llewelyn and Dorian were off adventuring; Lhoss was longing for some elf company. Fortunately, Vilma is always welcoming with warm bread and hot gossip. Ronan went to the shop to stock up on oil and found that the price of oil had gone up due to increased demand. He also attempted to sell some weapons that he had taken from the slain followers of Orcus and Set. But as they were emblazoned with their wicked insignias, the shopkeeper didn't want them. But the blacksmith would take them off our hands for scrap. Better than hauling them around. Ronan also sold an arrowhead that was attributed to Hern the Hunter. It fetched a good price, so he next tried to sell an arrowhead affiliated with Nerul. Not only was the shopkeeper not interested, he appeared disgusted and almost offended at having been offered it. Lastly, we sold off the gold headband and scepter recovered from the mummy which were quite valuable! Feeling flush with gold, we determined that two in our party should get additional training, which meant another week in Orlane. Well, if we have to...

The morning of day 8 of Flocktime (or Violets if you're an elf - isn't that so much prettier?!) we headed back to the barrowmaze with Gnorcia a newly minted cutpurse and our priest Armaziti. It was an uneventful and pleasant enough hike until we settled into the oppressive gloom surrounding the foreboding burial grounds. Studying our maps, we decided to go to an area that was as yet unexplored. We found a room that held nothing more than a statue with no way in or out. Suddenly we were set upon by six clattering skeletons! 

Yldarb engaged first with his cursed staff. Luckily, he hit and did a nice bit of damage. Ronan missed with his swing while Tatania connected with one of her magic missiles exploding the enemy. With these three gathered around the doorway that separated us from the skeletons, there was no way for the rest of us to engage in melee. Sensing Gnorcia's desire to join the fray, Lhoss offered her a boost to get over and into the scrum. It was not a great hoist, but Gnorcia's dexterity allowed her to land in an advantageous position that she was unable to capitalize on. Adelbertus attempted to use a spell to turn the undead, but was unsuccessful. Armaziti, however, calling upon his advanced skill was able to conjure the spell and the skeletons began to flee. Taking attacks of opportunity, Gnorcia missed, while Yldarb and Ronan hit. Unwilling to let these creatures survive, we pressed our attack until we had crushed every last one. Smashing skeleton skulls? Just another day in the barrowmaze.

Session 56: Day 27: A Dreadful Evening Battle

We ate a quick dinner and determined that we needed to head out and back to Orlane for the night. As we paused to make a final survey of the room, Adelbertus noticed a light coming from the west and Calbach whispered that there was a large group of people approaching that looked like Band of the Black Hand. We quickly retreated inside and closed the door, which shut with a convincing click, and we could no longer hear anything outside the room. The darkness seemed to close in and shadows on the walls danced a little higher in the torchlight. As we sat to rememorize some spells, we were distracted by the gloom of the encroaching dungeon walls and it took a little longer than usual. “Safely” locked in there, we considered spending one last night in the Barrowmaze but eventually decided that would be foolish after the recent warnings not to do so. We determined to get back to Orlane. Since it was now over an hour since we had spotted the group with the torches, we used the key and Tatania’s knock spell to reopen the door. Peeking out, we could see what we thought to be a torch light reflecting off the walls to the east, but nothing else.

As we began filing out of the room in our marching order, Armaziti heard a sound behind him and turned to see a group of beetles with glowing antennae coming up quickly from behind. We all began to run and in the rush there a was a bit of confusion about where we were going. The rest of the group headed through the room to the west and turned down the hallway to the south, but Arnd and myself went past that hallway and were quickly overtaken by four beetles. I attacked one with my dagger, Vengeance, and did some damage, but Arnd swung and missed. More beetles had turned down the hallway following the rest of the group and Tatania hit one with a magic missile, Lhoss hit another with her dagger, and Armaziti quickly destroyed one with his warhammer, Melissa. Ronan swung at one but slipped in beetle gore and missed. Fortunately, Calbach shot an arrow that swished past Ronan and killed it. I swung at the beetle in front of me again, slicing its head right off, and this time Arnd connected as well. Some of the others then came back and began to attack the beetles that were on us. Calback shot another arrow and hit one as Lhoss swung and missed.

Just then, Armaziti yelled out that he could see yet another light coming toward us from the east. Anxious to take out the beetles quickly, Adelbertus slipped on some gore as he attacked, but Tatania shot another magic missile and destroyed the beetle he missed. Just then a large group of the Band of the Black Hand came running in, swinging their short swords and screaming that they were going to take everything we had! I counted eleven of them!

One attacked and missed Adelbertus but another hit him as two more attacked Tatania and injured her. Another entered the hallway where Armaziti was lurking, but missed him in the dark. Another pair of them jumped in to help that one and one hit the cleric as he was beginning to cast an attack spell, interrupting it. Tatania tried to hit the one in front of her and missed just as one of the two beetles that were attacking me managed to get in a bite and did some bad damage. Angry in the pain, I stabbed right through its chitinous head, killing it. Arnd—using what he keeps claiming is now his signature move—sliced the belly of the beetle in front of him, gutting it. Lhoss attacked one of the band with a magic missile and Calbach shot two arrows at the same but missed. Adelbertus quickly spun around and attempted to bash the two band members that were on his back, but also missed. One of them then hit him with their sword, knocking him unconscious as two of them attacked and hit Tatania, knocking her out as well.

The band pressed their attack, taunting the rest of us as they did, and we felt a fearful gloom settle in. Were we going to make it out of there alive?!? One of the band hit Armaziti, but those that attacked Ronan, Arnd and myself missed their attacks. Ronan threw a burning vial of oil and it hit a dungeon wall, splashing back and burning some of the Black Hand. Armaziti swung and missed one of his attackers just as I swung at the last beetle, slicing its head off. Arnd missed his attack yet again but as he did, Hilja, Kyro, and Adalaen suddenly appeared behind the band members we were fighting!

Encouraged by the sudden appearance of friends, Calbach grabbed his short sword, swung around, and attacked the bandit that was on Arnd, slaying him in one hit! Hilja immediately cast Faerie Fire on the three who were attacking Armaziti, bathing them in a purple glow and making them more vulnerable to attacks, and Adalean began throwing darts, nearly killing one of that group. Kyro quickly ran forward and bandaged Tatania, stopping her from bleeding out.

Armaziti swung and missed again, but Adalaen threw yet another dart, slaying that band member. Kyro then crawled over and bandaged Adelbertus, who was bleeding out in the middle of the hallway. As he did, Ronan backhanded one the the guys on him, then hit him in the head with his cudgel. Hoping to turn the tide of battle, I did my best to conjure a terrifying phantasm but apparently it wasn’t quite terrifying enough and none of the band believed my illusion. Curses! Calbach attacked the last guy on Arnd, killing him, and Arnd leaped forward in an attempt to kill one of them that was attacking Lhoss, but slipped on one of the beetles and missed his attack.

Back in the hallway, Adalaen continued throwing darts and hit another of the remaining two attacking Armaziti. The cleric turned to hold his shield against his attackers, but it was too late. They hit him and knocked him unconscious! The two attacking Ronan both managed to hit him again, but the two on Arnd and Lhoss missed. Adalean cast a magic missile, hitting one of the attackers on Armaziti just in time for Hilja to step forward and take him down with her staff. I screamed “Vengeance!” as I leapt on the back of another bandit that was pressing an attack on Calbach. The dagger plunged into the man's shoulder, taking him to his knees. Lhoss swung and missed just as Arnd attacked the other, finally scoring a hit with his broadsword, Bonesplitter.

His attackers vanquished, Ronan ran into the hallway to bandage Armaziti, and didn’t fail to notice Hilja there. He took his time, flexing as he twisted the bandages around the bleeding cleric and barely noticing another enemy who was still there and who took a swing at the distracted warrior. Ronan tried to retaliate but missed as Adalaen stepped forward and got in yet another hit with a dart.

Back in the other hall, two attackers remained standing, one on Lhoss and the other on Arnd. Lhoss took a final hit and fell, unconscious, as Kyro ran forward and attacked the other, hitting him from behind and taking him down. Angered to see Lhoss fall, I leapt on the back of her attacker, killing him. Calbach then sprinted out to Ronan’s defense and finished off the last of the band of attackers.

Exhausted from the battle, we dug through the bag of holding and used our one recently-discovered healing potion on Adelbertus. He immediately recovered but it appears his right knee is now so damaged that his ability to walk has been permanently slowed. Adelbertus in turn healed me, Tatania, and Lhoss, who also has a nasty gash in her side that looks permanent and will likely affect her ability to swing her weapon.

Anxious to get out of the Barrowmaze before anything else could attack us, we hurriedly built a stretcher for the bandaged but severely-injured and cursed Armaziti. He was beginning to mutter and twitch as if tortured by the undead. Terrified and running out to the dungeon entrance as quickly as we could, the group felt a shadow of fear come over us. We dragged ourselves and Armaziti as quickly as possible (which wasn’t all that fast) back to Orlane and over to the Temple of Merikka, arriving just before morning.

The guards must have been sleepy as they thought at first to turn us away, but we reminded them that we are the Saviors of Orlane and they scuttled off to fetch Priestess Misha. She soon came gliding out of the temple, looking a bit disheveled and sighed deeply as she examined poor Armaziti. Listening to our tale of the mummy’s curse, she pronounced that this was an untimely curse that would be a costly heal, but to leave him and come back tomorrow. I wondered if she was just irritable at being awakened so early, or if maybe she had been entertaining the Witcher in her quarters, but held my tongue.

Session 55: Day 27 Planting Afternoon

 The session began after lunch in the sacred room of Polis. These adventurers were present (in marching order): Yldarb, Ronan, Gnorcia, Tatania, Lhoss, Calbach, Armatzi, Adelbertus, and Chiki. The group examined some maps that Ronan and Gnorcia had worked hard on, and determined to go back to the door that had the trap that had poisoned Gnorcia. After Lhoss skillfully removed the needle, and examination of the door occured. The group remembered that they had forgotten to get the blessing of Polis, and they went back to get that blessing. Coming back to the door, Armatzi had a vision of a bat like figure in the room. Ronan attempted to use all the keys that Gnorcia had on the door without success. This was followed by some failed lock pick attempts by both Lhoss and Gnrocia. Armatzi, fearing some bane, cast protection from evil on himself. Tatania then cast knock on the door, and it opened. 

The group entered the room and found what appeared to be a horrible statue with bat-like wings on the north wall. There was also a sarcophagus on the southern wall. Armatzi opened the sarcophagus, and a horrid mummy pressed its attack on the group. The mummy took many hits from the group, and returned with several vile and powerful attacks on Armatzi, who was found to have become afflicted by the dread mummy curse. After several magic missiles and somewhat effective hits from magical weapons, fire was attempted, which proved effective, especially when combined with oil. The vile mummy was reduced to cinder after the application of oil and torch. 

Two valuable items were recovered: a gold scepter embedded with black opals, and a gold headband that had been on the mummy's head. The scepter had been left in the sarcophagus as it fought. Out of fear of the unknown, the party destroyed the bat like figure with a sledgehammer. It was demolished with one good swing. 

The group then came around to a section a bit to the west where they expected a room. They found a door with a picture of a book on it. They were ecstatic to find that, as Gnorcia had a key with a book on it as well. Interestingly, there were two key slots, and after close examination, the key holes did not look like normal keyholes - there were no grooves or cylinders, thus it could not be picked. In fact, the key was extraordinary as well. The key fit in either slot, but it would not turn. 

While this was all going on, some torchlight was seen moving at the west to the north. The group ignored that. A bit later, Calbach noticed a bag of something piled up against the wall of an adjoining open room. It was lumpy and full of something. Emptying it, he found weevils and old biscuit that smelled bad. During this time, some prayer and spell memorization occurred. Tatania attempted a knock spell and at the last moment, Gnorica decided to turn the key in synch. This was fortunate, as the door opened with the combined effect. 

Inside was a pedestal with a skull and a scroll. The room was filled with bottles of every shape, size, and color. The scroll proved to have 4 magic user spells: magic missile, rope trick, clairaudience, and tongues. Tatania's magic glasses of reading magic proved to be very useful in this case. The group started to search the bottles, and after a long an extensive search, several potions were found (and identified by old labels written in old common or other languages). They were poison, two poison antidote, a tincture of strength, oil of slipperiness, and healing. When the group first started searching, a phantom appeared and said "search ye for my treasure" and dissipated. Further searching attracted a small group of skeletons that the group quickly defeated. 

Session 54: Days 21-27 of Planting: Rumors and Rest Before Return to Action

Our weary band of adventurers spent a week in Orlane recovering and bolstering their spirits. Lhoss especially needed to recover from the fear that is instilled by the horrors of the Barrowmaze. As many of the group have formed trusted friendships with townsfolk, they were able to pick up several snippets of information and rumors, including:

• There is a rumor that there are mutated people in the Barrowmaze that enslave humans. There are also undead encroaching on the mist and farmland nearest to the tombs.
• We have been fortunate to be able to travel back and forth between Orlane and the Barrowmaze, since we have learned travel is nearly impossible during the seasons of late fall to early spring. Being on the brink of the season of Violets, even frequent travel should not be too difficult.
• Allen Clayborne expressed his great surprise and distress at learning that we regularly sleep (or attempt to sleep) in the Barrowmaze itself. He warned us that it is far too dangerous a place to spend the night. We balked at traveling 8 hours each way every day, but Allen and his wife informed us that there is a more direct path we could take that would cut the hike down to 4 hours.
• Dorian Llewelyn informed us that through his scouting and adventuring he heard of an elven maiden who had been freed from the Barrowmaze and returned to her clan. We have not encountered other noble adventurers in the tombs, but it is good to hear of others who seem to be engaged in a similar righteous cause.
• We heard a rumor from the land of Furyondy (a great kingdom to the West) that the prince has been kidnapped. The lore is that the lands of Furyondy, Verbobonc, and Veluna (whose people worship St. Cuthbert) banded together and combined armies to defeat the vile temple of Elemental Evil. But it appears that the temple was not destroyed and something was left behind. There is talk that the capture of Furyondy's prince is a counterstrike.
• Whisperings of a strange organizing of hill, stone, frost and fire giants. It is highly unusual for giants of different sorts to work together. There are stories of these giants raiding lands in the West.
• We hear more details about Nerul, the evil presence we have seen represented so much in the Barrowmaze. Apparently, Nerul was previously defeated by his two sons, Set and Orcus. Their followers, the acolytes of Orcus and the necromancers of Set, are bitter enemies who are centered in the Barrowmaze. There is a reward for information about these two groups.
• Lastly, Aramaziti had a possibly prophetic dream that the goblin we most recently encountered in the tomb has moved...

So our group of Ronan, Calbach, Gnorcia, Aramaziti, Adalean, Tatania, Arnd, and Lhoss stocked up on supplies and departed Orlane early on a clear summer morning, day 27 of Planting. 

Allen Clayborne led the group out of town and pointed out the new path we should take. It was clear that we would need to do a fair amount of bushwhacking, so we made a hasty trip back to buy two machetes. Rotating the lead so no two persons get overly exhausted, we spent 5-6 hours cutting through brush. Within another two hours, we were at the outskirts of the Dim Forest, 500 yards from where we had previously descended into the tombs. While this first trip took 8 hours, we can tell future travels will be much shorter.

Returning to the gloom of the Barrowmaze, the party retraced its steps to the place Gnorcia was poisoned. Armaziti suggested we look to see if his dream was true. In fact, the goblin was no longer posted in front of the door. Piercing the unnerving silence that is generally observed, we heard the sounds of battle coming from behind the door. Eager to see if we could lend a hand to what we hoped would be another group of adventurers, we all pressed forward. What we saw was a puzzling sight.

We came up behind a group that seemed to be led by a cross-bred orc. Gnorcia's query of "do you need help?" was met with an annoyed grunt. The group was facing off against combatants that included some zombies, so at first the thought was to fold into their ranks and aid them in the attack. But Armaziti quickly and keenly identified one side as cultists of Set while the other side were followers of Orcus. They were both our enemies! There were already casualties on both sides, but we were in the enviable position of being able to backstab the acolytes of Orcus and lob attacks at the necromancers of Set all while they battled each other. The battle did not take long once we set ourselves to our task. Both enemy groups were quickly defeated with Lhoss falling to a vicious attack from the zombies. She was restored by Aramaziti, but suffered an injury to her right hand that will continue to hamper her in attacks going forward.

Looting of the corpses produced some coins, a spell book, a chain with a skull symbol, and some various, unimpressive armaments. The bodies were tossed into a deep pit that was already the final resting place for some other poor souls. The group decided to retreat to the room of Polis to heal and rememorize spells.

Session 53: Day 20 of Planting continues

Party members who needed to re-memorize spells did so in the room with the plinth, and the rest of us moved the Band of the Black Hand bodies into the room where Tatania had previously spent a lot of time searching and finding nothing, and we went through their pockets. Ronan and Calbach had also reappeared and rejoined the group. As we prepared to leave and head back to Orlane, we were surprised to find that Yldarb had changed his mind and no longer wanted to go back. He seems to have established a psychic link with the spear, and worked out a way to use it. It was all a little confusing, with him mumbling to himself as we questioned him, but eventually we decided that would be okay. We all stood again on the plinth for a blessing from Polis, then headed east down the hallway.

Lhoss soon got quite excited because she could see doors ahead that we had not opened before. We passed two rooms that we had been in before, and the doors were still cracked open. Beyond that, we found a hallway to the north and a portcullis that was down. Looking through, we could see a dingy old curtain, yellow in color, hanging from a bar, and possibly something behind it. Six of us worked together and we were able to slowly lift the portcullis and move into the room.

As we moved toward the curtain, we recognized the yellow as yellow mold. Ronan—who had been closest to the gap in the center of the curtain—suddenly vanished! We couldn’t see him anywhere and couldn’t hear or find him anywhere in the room. We all decided to move carefully through the curtain to see if we could find Ronan. Lhoss managed to bump the yellow moldy curtain as she passed it, and a piece broke off and fell to the floor, but thankfully no one was damaged by the mold.

In the room, we found that there was a large mirror and inside it we could see two Ronans, fighting! We could tell which was the real Ronan because the other appeared to be undead, with rotting flesh. As we watched in horror, they battled and Ronan eventually vanquished his foe and reappeared before us as the mirror shattered into pieces. He fell to one knee, panting from his psychic battle with himself, and clearly hurting. Armaziti healed him and we turned to look at the rest of the room. There was nothing there except the curtains and the now-broken glass.

As Armaziti rested and rememorized spells, Chiki set Chick-Chick outside the curtain and then seemed to be making strange moves toward Yldarb. It was as if he was trying to behave like a thief, and failing miserably. I shook my head at him.

We moved back out of the room and beyond the portcullis, to the east. Lhoss spotted a door and was excited to open it. I also got excited because the door had a lock on it and I wanted to see if any of my keys opened it! As I inserted the first key, a needle appeared, pricking my finger and poisoning me! I immediately slumped and everything got very confusing.

It seemed as if Armaziti took off my boots and rubbed a bud of garlic on my feet before casting slow poison. That was certainly odd behavior, and the smell of garlic was strong. Then Lhoss wrapped me up and carried me over her shoulder like a bag of potatoes as everyone ran out of the barrowmaze and up through the marsh and the Dim Forest. It seemed warmer than our previous march toward the barrowmaze, but maybe that was just the poison in my veins. I dozed most of the time because otherwise everything was swirling. Later, the group told me the following story of their adventures while I was poisoned.

A couple of hours out of the Dim Forest, I started twitching and appeared more sick. Armaziti stopped the group and rememorized the slow poison spell, casting it again, then rememorized two slow poison spells. In the meantime, everyone ate dinner before continuing the hurried march back to Orlane. About an hour out of the Dim Forest, I appeared even more sick. Armaziti cast another slow poison spell on me, and again when we were about 3 hours away from Orlane. It was the middle of the night when we got to the town and the group headed to the Temple of Merikka and started pounding on the gates. A guard approached and hurried to get Priestess Misha, who came running to the gate, grabbed me, and ran into the temple.

The party then abandoned me to my fate (certain that the priestess would cure me, of course) and went to the slumbering Serpent. They were surprised to find it was full, but were allowed to sleep in the common room. Everyone slept deeply from the march and did not awake until 11am. After breakfast, they returned to the temple and found me sleeping on a cot, snoring loudly. That part I know was a lie because my sisters all snore but I most certainly do not! Priestess Misha said that I nearly died, but she was able to heal the poison and would only charge 200 gold pieces for her services, and I would sleep for another four hours.

The group then headed to the jeweler’s and he offered 1305 gold for the Gold pendant with a large pearl and the Golden chalice with multicolor gems. Ramne was also summoned and he agreed to cast a spell on the skull that I had been carrying on a small leather bag on my belt. The group paid 100gp for him to evaluate it and learned that it can be used 12 times and when the magic word is said, it will cast a beam of light and potentially paralyze whatever creature it is pointed at, and it can only be used by magic users. The shopkeeper offered 4500gp for it and only Armaziti wanted to keep it, so the party voted to accept the offer.

Flush with money, party members with outstanding loans to each other quickly passed on the owed coins. When I finally recovered, I also repaid my party loan, as well as the 200gp for the cure poison potion used to save me. Overcome with regret for my impetuousness, I tried to give away the keys to prevent future mishaps, but the party insisted I keep them.