Found out that another long term player at my table is moving - this time to Pennsylvania. Sigh. So, I will be looking for two - one to replace Kate who replaced Kelly, and another to now replace TJ who will be leaving in July. I don't mind doing it, but it's a lot of work and effort and after the entire Kate thing, I will admit I'm a bit more bummed. But gotta be done! As it is, the group is still working the missing pieces of the Terror Dungeon at this time.
Follows:
We decided to keep exploring for a few more hours after our time in the Terror Tavern, and checking the two other halls, opted to head east. Passage went a dozen feet and turned south, with a door on the north wall. A check of the area showed that the ground around the door and part of the hall was trapped – and opening the door most likely triggered it. Thon had us back off a bit and we figured to leave it alone for now, heading south instead.
Shim offered to cast a spell to open it and we took the gnome up on it. The portal opened and sure enough, a pit opened up both in the hall and the room – all one large area. And in the bottom of the bit, 10’ down, was a 10’ gelatinous cube.
Great. The room beyond seemed to have some symbology to Tyr in it but we couldn’t be too sure. Brading tossed his almost spent torch within and Captain Asher was more confident it was some sort of shrine to the one handed god. But without an easy way to jump in, we figured to leave it for now. Also, there was no obvious way to close the pit, so we left it open behind us and hoped it would close on its own later. We went south.
The hall was real clean, evidence that at some point the cube must have gotten free. No dirt or grit. There was a single door on the opposite far end of the room. Yeah. We didn’t want to risk being here with a gelatinous cube at our back (Asher agreed!), plus it looked like the cube in the pit was shimmying back and forth in an attempt to climb up and out. It seemed to be attracted to our presence.
So let’s leave.
We went back to the Tavern and from there went north. Passage ended at a door and after Thon gave the ok, Connal opened it – revealing a room with pale grass growing DOWN from the ceiling 15’ up, waving in some gentle breeze, with only 3’ clear space on the bottom. Looking across the passage continued north across the room (along with the bleating of many sheep), and there was a door on the west side of the chamber.
There was some crawling to check it all out, plus we were concerned with the grasses – but at the end of it all, we decided it was ok to cross the room. From here we could see a passage heading north, open archways on both sides, at least 2 sets.
We wanted to check the door first and after clearing it, Thon had Connal open it – showing a short hall (20’?) that ended at another door. And through that, we could hear a LOT of monkey sounds hooting and hollering. We debated the merits of opening it and decided not to, heading back to the grass room and checking north.
The 1st opening on the right was some sort of crude cell area. Some sheep droppings, small bugs crawling about, tiny fast lizards eating the turds. Crude pallet, rug that had been eaten, small chest on a stone platform and a noose hanging from the ceiling.
From here we could look across and up the hall to the next room – and there were some 400# really angry sheep in there. Their coats were made of coarse steel wool and they sported canines and fangs as well. And it looks like they had trampled and partially eaten some sort of baboon to death. (That must be what was in the hooting room).
We whispered about the merits of gathering some steel wool, knowing that someone at the GRSAG really wanted it, but just going in and whacking the sheep seemed foolish. Attention was turned back to the box and Thon was sure that there was some contact poison on the lock – no way to pick it without a key or touching it. We cast a Delay Poison on the Half-Orc and feeling good, he picked the lock, getting the poison on his hands AND getting an aerosol puff from the chest opening. But the spell protected him for now.
The chest had a set of large shears made of some meteoric iron, and 26 over sized copper coins/disks. One side said “Loser” and the other side said “Kill yourself”. Yeah, we took none of them. We shut the chest and decided the shears were good enough for now. We didn’t want to fight the sheep yet, so instead turned and went south again. And it was past the grass room in the hall to the tavern, that 3 Gargoyles encountered us and we fell to combat.
Like above, the stony creatures were difficult to combat and we went through quite a number of hits. But not being surprised and having the narrow hall prevent them from hitting the party from multiple fronts kept us in the fight longer and with more effectiveness than before. We still had to shuffle the line a bunch and Brading and Asher did their part with a number of healing spells at the combat’s end.
We talked about options and went back to check on the gelatinous cube – the pit was closed and the cube was once again trapped within. Alright. So the group went to check out the room again..and the far door. There had been something scratched into the door but it was pretty worn smooth most likely from the cube passing in front of it. But we did read:
ARNIN
We talked about what it could be and figured the 2 outer letters from each row must be missing. Warning, made the most sense for the top one, but the bottom we went over a few times and came up with either Glow Time or Slow Time.
It was time to open the door. The hall was long here, easily 50’, and light seemed to behave strangely in it, scintillating and moving like a wave. That gave us the thought of Glow Time. We threw rocks…nothing special but weird dust contrails when the rock hit. Apples did the same thing. Hmm. Thon really wanted to check it out. So we roped him up and he went down, testing the area as he went. It was about 20’ down that we noted he was moving very slow and to him, everyone as talking really fast. Also, pulling him back was VERY hard as momentum was working against the group.
But to him, he heard around the corner deep rhythmic breathing, snoring, like something REAL big. Eventually he was coaxed out and getting a conversation with him was rough as he was moving and talking slow. It took at least 10 minutes before he “sped” back up to our speed. Nah, we didn’t want to go there now or just yet.
There was another hall outside the Carrion Crawler chamber that went west and smelled like dog. So we went back north to the Tavern, then south and around to the Stairs up…and THEN some more west and then north. Smell of rotting meat was getting more noticeable. Passage turned west and there was an opening to the north and a door some 20’ past that at the end of the hall. The opening had an odd shaped chamber with old straw and bits of dog, cat, and even the hind quarter of a horse. All ripped apart and eaten. Grues? Maybe. There was a door in here going north and Darius suggested it linked up maybe with the Baboon/Hooting room.
We opted to go west to the end of the hall and Thon checked out the door. Once sure it was ok, we opened it up…and there was a moaning sound, a gust of wind, and 5 damned horses came through! They were startled and scared and we backed up as they trotted past us and moved down the hall – making a LOT of noise and heading away. Carrion Crawlers? Grue? Sheep? We waited 5 minutes and then decided we should make for the first floor and the exit for now.
At the Crawler room, the crawlers had paralyzed one of the horses (others kept going?) and we decided to sneak past them. Looking under the stairs we could see the boxes and barrels were marked from the Bugbear clan above and said “Property of Zandark”. The famed barrels that had been missing some 5 months ago…
The barrels were filled with hundreds of onions and the boxes had huge bolts of burlap. And some bugbear alcohol! Thon wanted to take, and Brading a few as well. We hatched a plan to take some of the stuff back to the bugbears to prove we were here to help. And then we noticed the pulsing egg sack under the steps with LOTS of time carrion crawlers there.
Oil and fire. And then we ran around and up the stairs and the Crawlers came to investigate. Once on the first floor we had a few horses milling about. So we led them through the gargoyle room and Darius wanted to test out the Orc statues and get one of the horses to pass between the huge statues. And it made a bolt of hot electric plasma shoot out and score the horse in the neck, upsetting it and making it run away.
The others were not happy and we followed them up and around to the north where at the secret door we went through and left the horses behind. Most likely to either fight and face an ogre, a gargoyle, or a Grue. As we also said, not our problem.
On the other side of the secret door – was the horse that had been burned! Wow. He was skittish but stayed nearby as Shim Open/Closed the one way door and we got through, coming around to the Entrance 2. And it was at 5:30 on Restmonth the 22nd that we finally climbed up and out of the Terror Dungeon, back in Bork Keep again.
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