Meet 19, Adv 10, 5/28/22

Not wanting to leave just yet, we opted to wait in the secret room for now until we could hear the gargoyles pass by. We discussed what we’d like to see happen next (locate stairs down) and figured we had 2 hours or so tops as per Shimlagesh (who also reminded the party that he was running low on spells). It was some 10 minutes later that we heard the heavy treads of the returning ‘Goyles…and we waited another 10 minutes just to be sure.

Finally we emerged and looking both ways, decided to head north. The passage opened up to a decent sized chamber with a 6 count of wide trunked but shortened subterranean trees growing from the stone floor and hitting the ceiling 20’ above, twisting around and growing back down. The floor was a mix of crushed rock and thick soil. And numerous prints had gone through it – the latest seeming the ‘Goyle’s prints as well as some ogre prints. On more alert, we opted to continue onward, eyes peeled. We lit another torch here and refilled the lantern as well.

“We should get torches when we get out of here,” Brendon suggested.

“Maybe an eventual trip back to Paxian would be in order I would think,” was suggested.

We continued north here where a door at the end of the hall looked like it had been beaten in, the passage turning left. Thon went close enough to let us know there were no heat sources in the chamber and it smelled a bit …caustic? Leave it for now. Let’s go left.

The passage ended some 30 paces later at a “T”, running north and south – with north having the faint echoing noises of ogrish voices talking. “Do we want to face Ogres?” Asher asked.

“The Captain has a point,” Darius agreed, looking at his map.

“ “Map” “

“Who said that?” The slinger asked, getting a number of blank faces in return, the gnome touching his nose and saying, “Not it.” Shaking his head, he rolled up his paper and said, “South might lead us back in the direction of Entrance 2. I suggest that way.”

We went down to a chamber that had a double thick reinforced door – showing many signs of an attempt to bust it open. A good listen let us know it was quiet on the other side, not trapped, “And the door opens away from us as well as not being locked, “ Thon added.

“You’re being real helpful these last few days,” Asher noted, getting a blank smile and shrug from the half-orc. “Ok, let’s see if the door is still held closed from the other side.”

And Connal turned the knob…and it opened; making the monastic laugh.

It was some sort of bedroom private chamber. A look around reminded the group that it might have been a safe single room like “V” has near the bugbears. But it had been ransacked in the past. On the back of the door in chalk, someone had said that the room can be used as a safe chamber but to put the bar in place – it’s repelled ogres in the past. Sure enough the back of the door had a deep iron set of clamps set up and there was a 5’ long 4” x 6” length of wood that could be used as a brace. Nice.

We spent some time looking for secret doors, finding none. So we decided to head back as it was already 11:30. Thon went ahead relying on infravision but the half-orc (WMC yes and successful listen check) thought he heard something around the corner near the caustic room and we all hissed, “Grue?” bringing the lantern and torch up fast. And sure enough, flapping heavy feet retreated away. We turned the corner and looked and infravision did pick up really big bare foot prints on the floor. “Yep, Grue.”

“We are good,” Darius said, “Put Thon in danger and then immediately got him out of it.”

“Um…thanks?” The Fighter thief said.

“Our pleasure.”

“So horrible.” Asher was looking around and sighed. “Let’s let the Grue get a bit ahead. Shall we check out this chamber then?” he asked, pointing at the door on the north wall. A review of the chamber’s door showed that it had been most likely busted open from inside the chamber out to the hall. “Someone really wanted to leave.”

Still sure it was ok, we entered with care and looked around.

“Yeah. Not for us,” Darius muttered.

There were remains of 7 adventurers in here, skeletal, the bones and equipment melted looking in places. There were also the skeletal remains of a 60’ snake in here, mixed in with and around the adventurers. We spent some time looking about and came to the conclusion a few things. The Snake was most likely squirting some sort of acid. It was also a constrictor and evidence by at least 3 of the adventurers crushed under the coiled bones. And this was a terrible terrible fight.

“Ok, new rule. Any room with giant acid spitting snakes is not a room we need to clear. Hands?” Pretty much everyone agreed.

Asher was rubbing his chin. “Door is busted out of here, right? Like someone was escaping?”

“Yep,” Thon agreed.

“Bet he didn’t make it far.”

“Let’s move it people,” Darius pointed out the room. “Time to go.”

The group went south through the tree room, to the secret door, through that room and out the other secret chamber to the dwarven god’s room. From there Shim cast an Open spell on the one way secret door and we all stepped through heading down the hall where normally a slow burn torch would be burning. But wasn’t. It was out.

And then we heard someone walking up slowly and chatting with someone else. One was slow and spoke simply, the other was obviously smarter and spoke eloquently. And then they stopped as we stayed there in the dark. Some sniffing followed and the smarter one said, “We can smell you, yes? Half elf, gnome, dwarf, half orc, humans. We don’t want to fight with you, ok. We’re on a schedule and honestly don’t want any issues.”

“Um, ok?”

“Adventurers! How exciting, it’s been weeks!” And coming around the corner was a giant sized head, and then another. They saw us and waved and said, “Now don’t be alarmed.”

And out stepped an Ettin. Walking a bit hunched over, would be a notch around 11’ tall, and well over 2,000 lbs. Its clothes were split between well made and tailored on one side to seriously worn out and filthy on the other. “My name is Horatio,” the smarter head said, pointing to its opposite side and added, “And this is Grunt.”

“HI!!!!” Grunt said.

Using a sparker, Horatio clipped the top of the torch on the wall where the burnt section seemed to regenerate and then lit up. “Well, now that that’s done. Let’s get a look at you all.” Followed was a strange conversation with a 2 headed monster whose job it is to light all the torches on the 1st 3 levels of the Terror Dungeon. They wouldn’t give anything away but Darius did manage to trick it to revealing the stairs down were to the south of the Gargoyle room. Nice. We did share some alcohol with it and it let us know that if we wanted a bit of renown and notoriety, we could take out the Gargoyle King. He’s a bit undead now and has an enchanted axe, and the other gargoyles have him trapped in the room marked with the “pain” sign. Brading was excited for the chance to go there and we had to convince the young dwarf that we’d get there. Soon. Not today. Soon though.

Horatio and Grunt moved on and we wished them well, the Ettins continuing on their way to light the next torch. We pressed on to the Entrance 2, ran up the stairs, and rang the Chime – spinning the exits about until it settled above us. We knocked, the doors were opened , and we left the Terror Dungeon at 12:20 AM.

Success.

We checked in with Mara, and then made our way to the Visitors hall. We banked the fire, stripped down, and went to much needed sleep.

The next day, Restmonth the 22nd, had us wake up and feel good. We wanted to go back in, using Entrance 2, and head off to the stairs down. We prayed, studied, and ate breakfast. Darius went over the books with Kira and they narrowed down the dead humans we took from the over to either being hirelings from the Chosen of Asgard or the Warriors Four. He wrote a missive that would be brought back via post eventually to Agrosility and given to Pha-iyr Carom. We did some shopping, paying a bit of a premium but getting a few needed items (torches!) and Brading having his battle axe looked at and fixed up.

“If we were to kill the Gargoyle king I could save some money and just take his magic axe. You know, thinking ahead.”

“Not yet, Brading. Soon.”

“Ready when you all are.”

It was 11:30 when we all once more reconvened at the entrance and went down again, Coming in to the dungeon around Entrance 2. There was a cold current of air running from our knees down. And the smell of manure was pungent as well. We moved with care through the area, coming around where the giant sundew in the pit was (lots of dead flies here as well – killed by the cold?), and then through the 1 way door. From there it was to the secret room and then from there to the other side.

“Ok, Gargoyles. Talking? Fighting? Or what?”

We discussed options and decided on just walking through. Confidence. Like we were supposed to be there. Last time we were furtive, unsure, and backtracked. So we squared up and did just that, walking through the gargoyle chamber with almost a swagger. And it worked.

Once through we went to the far end, turned south, smelled more manure, and saw 3 huge long piles of it. 6’ long, 2’ wide, and maybe 8” deep. Ugh. The room beyond here was pretty big but there had been signs that some sort of major fight occurred here. Lightning score marks, at least 5 or 6, were burned in the floor. A portcullis on the west end of the room had been torn open. The reek of ozone had been burned into the stones. Another passage went south but we went to the portcullis area to check it out.

And saw more lighting bursts had occurred in this smaller chamber. 2 of them were so intense, they burned a shadow in the wall of at least 2 different figures. Seeing nothing else and no stairs, we avoided the shit piles and went south, looking around as the passage turned west, and from there…more manure and then a passage of steps going down!!

It was a bit before 1 and we decided to go…just to take a look, you know? So we went down the stairs some 60’, until it opened up to a chamber down here. The room was pretty big and we could see a passage north. But something was in the room here and we were not sure what it was. So we came up with a few ideas, eventually settling on Shim summoning something to go and look.

And a Lizardman appeared! He had it go around and to the south and then tried to go under the stairs, where there were LOTS of whipping noises and eventually the lizardman stopped moving. Ok. Go back? Go on? Whatever was down here sounded like it was eating. So Connal chanced entering the room, heading NORTH, and avoiding the back of the stairs going right for the exit and then looked back.

And saw 3 Carrion Crawlers had paralyzed the lizardman and were eating small circles of flesh from its legs. There were also a half dozen plus boxes and crates here to be shipped either up or down throughout the dungeon. As long as we didn’t approach the Crawlers, they seemed content to leave us alone. We all joined the Monastic in the hall and looked both directions. We settled on heading east and then north – as there was a faint odor of alcohol in that direction.

We went a short distance to a room with a few doors set up on sawhorses, a few benches. Some chipped and poor looking bottles and cups, a spike in the floor with a 6’ ragged rope attached to it. 2 other ways out – East and north. As we entered we could hear really poor ghostly slow and pathetic tavern music coming from somewhere. There was a stone bowl on the table with the word “Tips” on a sign above it, and a single copper piece within. Taking a chance, Connal dropped a copper in and a cup lifted wobbling in the air and made its way, so slowly to his hand. He took a drink. It was some really poor tasting ale. But it did get better as he drank it.

Asher did the same, getting a glass of wine, and Darius eventually got a mug or beer. As you drank it, it started off really poor but got better as you finished it. There was a crude dart board on the wall and 3 darts spilled out of the air. When someone else mentioned they’d like to play, another 3 darts absently fell out of the air. We threw it at the board, and there were some real anemic “yeas” in the distance. The entire thing was ghostly, quaint, and also sad in some way.

By this time Connal was looking around for more to possibly do when the rope lifted off the ground. He took it, looked up and said, thanks, and then pulled it.

And we all felt a jerk and jump, sliding through a dimensional rift and appearing in the exact same room – but MUCH better and livelier. The proprietor was a hulking ogre sized individual with a huge long brow and eyes set at each end like a hammerhead shark. “Bout time you all made it,” he smiled. “Welcome to the Terror Tavern! I’m the Tavernkeeper and you are all welcome here!

There were ogres and bugbears here as well, all drinking and laughing. Someone was playing a lute real well. The bar wench was a hideous looking ogress but the rest of the tavern patrons thought she was attractive. This was a safe area and there was NO fighting here. Limit to 1 hour and then the hour glass runs out and you return to the Terror Dungeon. The Ogres were happy to chat with us and the bugbears thought Asher was almost a demi-god, his exploits legendary. We joked and laughed and drank – the food and alcohol was really good. But at the end of the hour as others had left and then it was our turn, we emerged back in the Terror Dungeon (it was a bit after 2 PM) with the knowledge that once per day, if need be, we could come to here and get a moment of respite.

Meet 18, Adv 10, 5/21/22

Stepping into the Mess Hall after bathing the worst of the dungeon funk off of us, we managed to squeeze in at a table and then got some of the stew and venison that was at the buffet style kitchen. Some of the locals got to chatting with us, and we got a full lesson on leatherworking and tanning of hides. There was a point where they tried to talk to us about getting some green slime samples but we quickly demurred and then learned that they were taking bets on which of us might come out with burns and scars from attempting to take a sample. At the end of it though it was genial and by 7 or later we had gone back to the visitor’s hall and made ourselves ready for the next foray.

“We’re going for the fountain, right?” Shim asked, fingering his missing ear and scarred head.

“Fuck yeah, we are.” Connal agreed.

“Hoping to get lucky?” Darius asked.

“It worked for Grygmiir,” the gnome shrugged. “It should work for me?”

“Who?”

“That’s what I wanted to know,” Captain Asher chuckled. “I think he’s the new guy.”

We went back to the entrance hall and spoke with Kira again before the passage was opened and we descended again into the Terror Dungeon’s depths. This time the stairs travelled in a straight line down, heading east and it was a bit before we emerged at the entrance chamber again. Unlike the other chamber, the floor here was a ragged mess of old equipment busted and smashed. 4 doors were here, north, south, east, and west. There was a chlorine smell to the air and Thon commented that it most likely went towards the gas chamber – which would be the south door.

But we had a mission and that was to head east. We opened the door there and moved down the hall that turned left and then split. “That way is a trapped door,” Darius said pointing down the north passage, reviewing his map.

“ “Map” “ Asher muttered.

“You say something?” Darius asked. The Half elf shrugged and looked around absently.

The group went east and the fountain room showed a variety of figures around a stylized Yggdrassil tree that was the central focus of the font. The water shimmered slightly. We took out the horn and the group then went round robin, sipping the fountain water from the Bandersnatch horn. Shim did indeed get lucky and had a healing pulse run through him, regenerating his many scars and missing bits of flesh, making his skin baby smooth. Darius had the same and the fighter was horrified at his callus free fingers. “No!”

“You can always make more calluses,” Brading offered which did little to appease the fighter. Once everyone had taken a drink (Rhygar actually doubling all the coins in his pouch!) and Shim filling his skin with the slightly chocolate tasting water, we discussed our next steps. The thought was to proceed through the area, see if the mass of green slime was still there, and if not, move on and see if we could get to an area where this entrance would join up with the rest of the maps.

So we headed back to the main room, Thon listened to the north door, hearing deep male voices talking. “Quillians,” Darius whispered, “Let’s leave them alone.” He pointed west. “To the zombie area? We heading there?’

“Fuck yes, we are,” Connal agreed. Thon once more gave the door his blessing and Connal opened it up. The passage went south, jogged east a short spell, and went south again. It ended at a door that we pretty sure knew led to the zombie area. With care we opened it up and looked in. There was an almost 20’ area by the door of filth that had been piled up on the left and right wall, with a slimy path running through the middle. 4 sodden couches were spaced about the room, each with a 3 count of dead human, bugbear, lizardman, and ogre on it. A few large crates were in here as well, the monk giving them a scowl.

“Do they come right at us?” Darius asked.

“No,” Brading replied, “If you mess with them or anything in the room, they “awaken”.”

“Really? I don’t remember that.”

“Yeah, last time through we figured it out.”

“Ok then,” the fighter agreed. “We’re just going to go right through.”

“Fuck yes, we are,” Connal nodded, kissing his fists left and right.

“Anyone else getting a weird feeling from the monk?” Shim asked.

“Yeah,” Captain Asher said. “Thon, too. They’re both rather agreeable today.”

“Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth,” Darius said, frowning and looking around quickly. “Weird…a horse pun. Anyway, let’s go.”

The group indeed did cross the chamber and we watched the zombies carefully, but none of them got up or came at us. At the end of the chamber the passage turned east and we went by a slow burning torch, eventually coming to the chamber with the floating table. The table was here, 3 candles lit, 1 not, the entire thing leaning a bit over. The tapestry that had been burned off the wall had been replaced with another copy, a bit less refined than the last one. Still showed 3 women at the same table, eating grapes.

Thon checked the north door (Yep! Still smells of methane), noting that someone had installed a leather flap at the bottom of the door like a sweep to keep the gas that sieves through to a fraction of what it was before. “Bunch of Ogres blowing up might make the dungeon safety board react to things like this,” Shim shrugged, looking under the table. There was some spell work under it, and being small enough, he could feel the waves of repulsing energy coming off. As for the tapestry, Asher and Brading not sure who the women were. One might be Sif, but the other two were not Freya nor Frigga – the other 2 main goddesses in the pantheon. The thought was this might not be any gods.

We then moved east. At the corner was a chamber that could be locked within, some sort of trophy room. It was pretty trashed right now, but a viable safe room should we need it later. We then moved on north, lighting another torch (lantern was still doing ok) as we did so. The next room has many holes along the bottom and middle, gnawed and kicked. Some of the classroom maybe, but there was a 15” glowing crackling yellow sun like ball in the center of the chamber, spinning slowly.

“Moving on,” Darius said, pointing at the chamber. “Not for us.” We waited a second for dissenting opinions but none came and the party pressed on north.

The next chamber was the slime room. The fact that there was none in the hall so far meant that others had taken care of the menace. The door was missing and the room was scrubbed clean except for a 5’ semi circle of salt on the far east wall where a patch of green slime sat unmoving. We did note though that if we stayed at the doorway, the slime could sense us and made some attempt to either cross the circle or climb the wall. Backing away calmed it down and returned to its inert/dormant state. The group agreed to move on from here with care and not dawdle.

There were 2 doors left, one on the left and another at the end of the hall. Once upon a time there had been an Ogre guard here but that was 2 and a half ye…at least 3 months ago. “Didn’t we tie those 2 doors together once upon a time?” Shim asked.

“Yeah,” Darius agreed. “What did you say?”

Thon went forward to listen to the left door, holding his hand up and eventually letting the group know, “There’s something in there. Skittering sounding? Maybe? Hard to tell.” He also ran his fingers across his chest. “Also, feels a bit like, I don’t know. Electricity? A charge maybe?”

We talked about options and eventually ended up with Connal going in to look around. We opened the door, not seeing anything right now, some dry goods, boxes, fat sacks. The Monk was ready to enter when Darius held his hand up and said, “Hang on. I think we’re doing this all wrong.” He looked at Shim, “Can’t you summon something instead of sending in Connal?”

The gnome smiled and began casting. “Yes I can.”

“Fuck yes, we are,” the monk agreed.

At this point a large badger appeared, skittering and snarling. Shim pointed into the room and then we shut the door. Which followed a host of snarls, screams, whipping sounds, crashed, some sparking, strange hooting calls and eventually the badger dropping dead. When it eventually quieted down Asher nodded slowly and said, “That was horrible!” He then proceeded to take a stick of chalk and write the word “Horrible” on the door in large capital letters. “No reason to ever go in there.”

The group agreed and we then turned our attention north. Thon eventually gave the thumbs up and Connal cracked it open. There was a large table with the smashed remnants of alembics, alchemy tubings, and the like on the far end of the room. There was a door on the right hand side of the room and a lever in the down position. But on the left hand side were three sarcophagi, each stained with verdigris from possible submergence in water. Each was a bit open, and each had a mummy within. Two humanoid, one lizardman. Each mummy had the odd arrow sticking out of it as well as some cuts. Currently they were all just lying there, on their back, looking straight up.

The discussion to fuck with them or the lever was short and even though the group joked briefly with Connal about looking at them, the unanimous decision was to TOUCH NOTHING and get the hell out of here.

“Fuck yes, we are!” Connal agreed, heading east to the other door out of here.

“He is sounding very repetitive,” Asher noted.

“Mayhap, but let’s move on,” Darius was anxious. “We are FINALLY getting to an area we’ve never charted before!” The passage east ran at least 12 paces, ending at a “T” intersection lit with a slow burn torch. The smell of refuse and squeal of rats was nearby. From here, we could head north to an eventual turn to the east, a short step north to an eastern passage (where the reek of garbage and many rodent sounds were coming from) or head south a short distance and then head east. We did not want to face any rats for now so since the south passage was closer, we went that way.

We followed along, walking slowly and with care. The passage was a good 30 paces and eventually opened up to a strange room roughly 30 x 20, with a few 45 degree angle walls. Two statues of orcish warriors in armor, 10’ tall and running from floor to ceiling like a column, were set up opposite one another, fingers pointing at each other and snarling angrily. The group did not feel good walking between them and it was eventually discovered that there were some prints in the grit BEHIND the statues. It would be a tight fit for any dwarf or orc, but we each took turns walking around, making some scraping noises as we did so. But after a short while we were on the other side without passing between the statues for now.

Another torch was lit and we pressed on. From here the passage went on to a very large chamber, at least 50’ x 30’. The ceiling was 20’ tall and was covered with 30 to 40 lizard like humanoid figures holding on to the roof and hanging down, looking around at the floor below. Dim light revealed a passage running south in the south east corner of the room, and north of here was another passage sunning west in the north west section. On the north wall was an alcove and door with a large heavy wooden sign on chains above that read, “Do not proceed beyond here on pain”.

We discussed options. The door was not attractive to us and Darius wanted us to try the south east passage as it might lead to another missing part of the map. With no other reason not to, we went single file, hugging the south wall. At the corner Thon looked around to see a short passage that opened to another chamber. There were old burn scars and the scent of ozone was baked into the stones here.

Not wanting to mess with any potential lightning traps, we figured we would back up and head to the northwest passage instead.

And that’s when 4 gargoyles dropped from the ceiling above and hit the group in a concentrated surprise attack. With multiple claw swipes, a goring rip with their horns, and a stony bite, they shredded the group quickly, striking the party and their spread out positioning. Asher and Shim took the brunt of the blows, the gnome activating his ring of shields fast following up with a summon spell getting 3 giant rats to stand in front of him. Darius found himself in melee as the gargoyles continued their assault, the party trying to concentrate their attacks on just a few of the gargoyles. Their stony skin made hitting them difficult but their blows against us buckling armor and scraping up shields.

A Troglodyte joined the fight with a 2 handed morning star thanks to Shim and the party was rocking from the impacts. Healing was doled out during the fight and Darius had a chance to finally get his sling in play. Bullets and stones flew and the gargoyles continued their attack, but we managed to finally fell one of the rocky monsters. A morale check followed and the 3 remaining one decided they did not want to fight, flying to the northwest passage to escape. We managed to strike one of them running away, doing enough damage to it to drop it from the sky and forcing it to run instead. And it had a heavy pounding gait and stride that Darius identified as the same noise we had heard from the other side of the secret room we had hid in earlier that day that we thought might be golems.

We healed up and waited a bit longer before heading to the northwest passage and moving on – ready to see any of the gargoyles that might be here. The passage moved west, then north, then split – west heading to the smell of garbage and sound of rats (most likely the other side of the same passage we had noted 20 minutes earlier), or a short jog east and then north. We went north.

And it was here while looking around that Shim found a secret door on the west wall! We shoved and pushed at it till it opened and it was the OTHER side of the secret room we had been in earlier! Success! We filed within and Darius spent some time matching his maps up and showing how Entrance two and Entrance three do eventually get together. With more of the map now in place and the time was a bit after 10 PM, we discussed where to go next from here.