So this means I have to find another person to fill the seat which I hate doing. Luckily I had only done this 7 months earlier when we found Rik and at that time I had 3 other people who I had promised I would keep their information if something worked out.
One of the 3 was still available and we met him, he checked off the minimal amount of boxes I was looking for, and we offered him an invite which he was thrilled to get and will be here on the 9th to roll up his character and sit down with us.
As for the group, they finished a local exploration of Entrance 3 and decided to cut bait while they still had time on the clock. They really want to get the Chime of Exiting and are hoping to make that their direct destination the next trip in.
Write up follows:
The group spent a good amount of time looking over the remains of the trophy room, knocking the walls for secret doors and trying to get a feel for the chamber, meanwhile Avulstein was working on a raising the fleshy skeletal remains of the Ogre. Once the ritual was done it staggered to its feet and took a few instructions to get situated with its new place in life.
Once we were set we lit two more new torches and Sybil checked out the door back to hall. She heard nothing and we opened the door, torch light spilling out when she a gasp from down the hall and then breathing and running feet. She slammed it closed and let us know what was going on. We then waited a few minutes before she opened it again, the torches held away from the portal so her infravision could kick in.
Nothing was out here now and we risked some torch light along with the light already down the hall and then emerged with care. Something had disturbed the bloody area the ogre had been killed in and we came closer to further identify what happened. There were large bare footed bloody footprints running down the hall away from us to the north and along the wall a number of spears in the wall and gore of some taloned 3 fingered hand that was again, taller than us and larger than normal human sized.
We took a blanket and laid it across the blood to avoid trailing our own and Sybil, Connal, and Negan crossed the gore, Brading and Gryg stayed close, Darius and Avulstein (and the ogre skeleton!) watched the hall to the west to make sure nothing snuck up on us. There were three doors on the hall, two on the right, one on the left, and in the gloom it looked like there was a door at the end of the long hall.
The next door, some dozen paces down the hall also looked like it had been forced in the past. The scent of rot, salt, and a vinegary smell. We assumed pantry and decided to move on for now. The last door was on the opposite side of the hall. We gave a listen and heard nothing. That left the main door at the end of the hall. It was closed an according to out torchlight, whoever ran here (whatever!?) hit the door, fumbled for the knob, left bloody hand prints on doing both, and then most likely stepped through.
We decided we didn’t want to do that at all. We scattered a few bags of caltrops just to make sure and then went back to the middle door. We took our time and Darius who was keeping track of it for us, let us know we had time to look at one door only and then we should get the hell out of here. The door was opened and there were stone shelves filled with rotting stuff upon it. In a semicircle pattern just inside the door was a large dumping of salt and the walls and floor has some sort of olive green and red veined slimy coating upon it. We assumed slug?
Either way – we wanted nothing to do with it for now. So we shut the door, reconvened together, and began our walk back to the entrance, supposedly about 2 hours plus before the entrance would move if Darius and Brading’s estimate was good.
Back through the table room, back through the zombie room, and back through the long hall we stopped at the door and could hear voices on the other side. The same deep masculine sounding voices speaking a language we didn’t know, and the feral piping sound of goblin voices. Shit. How many? At least half a dozen, maybe more.
Ok, we listened for a bit and were able to deduce the goblins were talking to the other figures who were guarding the room on supposed adventurers and one of them was named Hrabi. We didn’t think they were leaving any time soon so we hatched a plan – we would cast silence on the ogre skeleton, send him in to attack anything inside there, and then while distracted, we would charge up the stairs and get out before the crap hits the fan.
We all drew weapons and got ready, Brading cast silence and the Ogre went in we waited until we could hear ourselves again and then charged in. It was 20’ to the steps and as we hit them and started climbing, we had the chance to see a dozen goblins and three 8’ tall almost naked blue skinned figures shouting (silently) and pointing. We ran, calling for the dwarves to open the door while whatever was giving chase emerged from the silence spell in the gloom behind us, its roars were rippling the air and we could feel it buffeting the group as we charged the doors.
They were opened and we all ran inside, the amulets doing their job as we cycled through the lock and the doors were shut and chained once more.
We emerged again a bit after 1 in the morning and were met with Kara and the dwarven guards once more. They let us know the blue creatures were Quillians and if they roar long enough, people fighting them become flustered and confused during the combat, swinging wildly. We went off to the Mess Hall where a round of beer and whatever foods were still available were eaten and discussed what happened and what our next objective was.
Besides going in and checking out Entrance One, the thought was to go back to Entrance Two and find out where the Glyph Gate to the Chime could be found. We knew enough that is was in that area. While discussing possibilities, Brading suggested just asking the two adventuring women we had met in the dungeon and the bar earlier today (Ketik and Abera) to at least eliminate some possibilities for us and offer to pay. We knew they were leaving tomorrow so we decided to switch to the Second Visitors Hall where they were staying and approach them in the AM.
We fell into an exhausted sleep and it was a bit after 8:30 that the two adventuring women woke us up with the sound of their packing. They apologized for their noises and we talked briefly about our 2nd trip in (still not a Foray) and what we had learned. We allowed the conversation to flow for a bit and shared our Ogre sized pipe with them along with some halfling’s weed while the party steered them around the conversation for a bit until we touched upon the Chime and how to get one.
At this point Negan excused himself to go to the bathroom and went outside to the lavatory where he called upon Odin to allow him to Read Mind – pushing his efforts through until he could settle on Ketik and then Abera who although the female fighter had been quiet, her thoughts were different and quite talkative, letting Negan know much about where they should go and what they should do. Meanwhile inside the Hall, we had offered a small pile of gold for some information on what to do from the 2nd Entrance and were told to go down the North Passage, the one with the archways – which Connal using his enchanted headband was able to verify was NOT a lie.
Eventually we thanked them enough and they left, we shared what we had learned and agreed that we should take a day to rest up and swap some spells around, then go back in tomorrow (around 3:30) to the 2nd Entrance and try to find the Glyph Gate. Negan did let us know that Abera had mentioned something about Brass bits so we were going to go to the Castellan and see if we can get some change for the time being.
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