The group was pretty weary at this time. But we wanted the chance to go into Entrance One, and maybe hit the Vault of Lathandar. So we hit the Mess Hall, made our way to bed, and eventually fell asleep early. We eventually woke up in the wee hours of the night, ate a breakfast, prayed, studied, and by quarter after 4 in the AM on Restmonth the 23rd, made our way back to the Terror Dungeon Entrance and descended into the depths below.
The stairs took us down eventually emerging at the wreckage and mess of the main entrance hall. The floor was damp and there was a salty scent to the air. The damp areas were regularly spaced out, the party assuming they were footprints. Door on the east wall had the lock smashed and bored out and a listen there had some deep humanoid sounding voices within. We guessed Quillians.
South door was partially ajar, and the thought was the wet foot prints went through that door as well as originated from it. So we went there, pushed the door partially open, and something on the other side of the door was hit and grunted.
Fuck..Fuck.
Eventually it was revealed that some 9’ tall poorly dressed wrinkled grey skin humanoid talking a language that Shim said was faintly related to giant. We rolled some copper towards it and it allowed a few of us to pass. An attempt to give it silver had it grow irate and threaten to eat the gnome. But copper allowed us to pass. The thought was maybe…troll? Sea troll? Darius went over the map and there was a section with a very wet floor. So we assumed it was coming from there.
Once we were allowed to pass, the group continued south down the long hall, past the everburn torch, and then eventually around to the room with the sloping wall and destroyed sleeping area. We entered and the door on the east was set in an alcove, and the passage to the west turned a bit and then sloped up.
We did find a bear trap (set!) near the closed door and the sound of bugbears on the other side led us to believe that either bugbears set the bear trap to catch monsters…or some monster set it to catch wayward bugbears. During all this the sea troll (Scrag) wandered into the room, gave us a wave, and then went up the slope before moving on. We waited a bit for it to get ahead and then we climbed up the slope (thanks to Darius and Connal) where we stopped at the “T” intersection, door on the north wall.
Opening the door revealed a small room and then the Glyph Gate. The party talked about all the bits that they remembered navigating the gate before. Pig’s blood was needed . We lit a new torch and then Connal walked forward, touched the presenting gem on the lintel and it went red, absorbing the blood before the gate opened and a countdown began.
We all came in to the small 10’x10’ room, door on the east and west. Door on the east had been marked that this was the right way but we had also written on it that “this is bullshit” – remembering the banshees on the other side. So we went west.
It was a seraglio with pillows, some music from somewhere, and a column going up to the ceiling with elven faces carved in it, all of them with the eyes scratched out. Door on the north wall had 3 oversized wheel locks numbered 0 to 9. Shim and Thon remembered about finding the one set of eyes that was not scratched out and the gnome on the half-orc’s shoulders climbed up to the one set and looked through the glass lenses in the eyes there and read the numbers seen.
1.0.2.
Spinning the dials to that combination we opened the door to show a smallish room and hall, choked with skeletons with shields, helms, and spears. A thin path wove through it. We made it through to the hall beyond. We know the vault was locked and the key was behind the door here on the east wall. But there were undead in there. So Brading cast Invisibility to Undead on himself, Asher, Connal, and Thon – the monk and fighter/thief being the two who would go in and get the key.
We unbarred the room and it had what looked like 8 steamer trunks, 4 of them with a light coming from it. A dwarf was sitting on the far end of the room, chain and key around his neck, guts spilled out around him. Connal and Thon each went in around the north and south end of the room, walking slowly to the dwarf on the chair. At this time 2 zombies were disgorged from the trunks and being invisible for now – they ignored the 2 men. The approached the dwarf and using a set of pliers, lifted the key free, making the guts squirm, and then yanked it off.
And the dwarf’s guts reached out like mad, dragging the dead body with it, as they tried to get Thon. The zombies were sort of blocking the way so Connal leapt up onto one of the trunks and flipped over the dead guys and then everyone ran into the hall, slamming the door closed and barring it. Hooray.
We went down the hall to the vault, used the key, and entered – but doing so woke up the army of the dead – and all the skeletons started coming down the hall to us. We shut the door from this side, locked it, and looked around. The thought was to leave something here and get something for one of us. So we left Connal’s chainmail shirt and took a medium metal shield for Rhygar.
And then BAMPF – we were back outside the room amidst a spray of dust, wind, and grit.
And the Scrag was walking past the area frowning, holding a really large picnic (pickinick) basket and a checkerboard red and white rolled up blanket. It grunted, shook its head, and kept going south.
Realized we still had time on the clock, so to speak, we decided to go right back in. So once more we presented another vial of pig’s blood and did the gem thing and ended up back through the Glyph Gate.
But things were not quite the same. There was no music. Doors were open, and we could hear the skeletons in the hall getting back in place. Eventually when the area was once more “in place”, the doors all closed and the area was fresh again! So we did everything again, only faster and with less issue, making our way through once more to the Vault, blocked out the skeletons trying to get in, and Brading put one of his hand axes there so Connal could get his now silvered magical chainmail shirt.
And once more back in the hall. So from here we decided to explore south. There was a closed door that we knew had some sort of deadfall behind it, kept going. Big room with trees growing from the floor, unharvested for a while. Secret door led us to the area to rest in and we then went back to the hall and kept going south. There was a door that was closed and we thought might have some Grues behind it? Either way we felt unsure.
Big area down here had an Ogre tribe marking standard and a big slope down. So we sent the rope down and shim scooted down the slope to a decent sized chamber.
Where the Scrag was having a picnic with 4 Ogres. Everyone was just staring at one another as Connal pulled the gnome BACK up the slope and we all beat feet north all the way back up and around and down the other slope and to the room that had the bear trap.
We wanted to make contact with the bugbears and give up the information about the barrels, continue the idea of Captain Asher, and try to make some relation with Zandark. We knocked and a few bugbears there were swayed that the half elf was Captain Asher (it had been seen in other places that Captain Asher was and was not a bugbear). They had been watching some monsters in cages (one was a damned ghoul!), but Captain Asher indicated that he wanted to speak with Zandark and everyone with him were his slaves.
We made our way through to the large central bugbear concentration where it was split as to believing if we were on the level but luckily the Ettin Horatio and Grunt admitted to knowing us and yes…that was Captain Asher. Which swayed every other bugbear there. We made our way to Zandark and had much conversation with him. We gave him the barrel stave marked as his, and the bugbear beer. We wanted the chance to get the rest of the barrels back.
Asher was pushing for a strike squad to come with us but Zandark went on about another group of 6 that never came back. Filthy Ogres must have killed them. Did offer us a wheelbarrow to help get them back we thought it seemed like a terrible idea. Even offered to give Captain Asher a potion of Polymorph that would turn him “back” into a bugbear permanently…which the Captain fast talked his way out of doing.
We did settle on maybe going through the other entrance near here, going through the 2nd level, back to the other side, and then up again. It was rather lame but the idea was sold with passage for us to get through. The slaves were also given names like the Fist of Asher with Connal punching people for the Captain. But the breakout one was the Sex Slave which Thon classified Darius to be…and sadly the bugbears and the rest of the group ran with it. No he was not used or abused, but it was strongly hinted that that was his purpose. Darius did not take it well, but kept silent.
We made our way through and to the south, Connal giving the last guy a punch for good measure, and from there walked to the crossroads and turned west where there were 2 doors at the end of the hall – north and south side – and the north side the floor was very wet.
No comments:
Post a Comment