Plantmonth the 19th, 1:45 AM, 239 of the 29th age. The group was exhausted and fell asleep in the Hut. When we awoke the next morning (10ish), we broke our fast, grabbed some prayers, and were on the way and out the door right afterwards. We left the chamber with the dead ankheg and decided before we tried the two narrower passages here, to go back to the larger passage on the north and take it that way to the west. The clay passage went for some distance, curved to the left and ended with a mass of roots and a dry area with a single dead elf there.
Skin was papery, mummified. Female, wearing wizard robes. One hand in front of head (face down), other under its body. We took time and flipped her over. Glass shards fell from the front of her, caught in clothes and falling to the ground. She wasn’t cut by them, so it seemed. Had a component pouch, 5 of them – all the strings cut and contents missing. Also a wand case, same – cut and wand missing. Ceremonial robes, mages runes. A detect magic revealed nothing. Read magic had we looking over her mage’s robes.
Ramona Thistle of House Hamsveld. 6th Chair, Order of Water. Wasn’t exact but Nathanial’s elven girl, Kiara, was a mage. And he did remember the name of the house as an elven mage’s family. Shim let us know that the Wizard’s guilds in our time don’t specifically say, Order of …blank. Usually refers to a Tower type (same, earth, air…). 6th Chair? Obviously took her test and is pretty low in the pecking order.
Could not tell what specifically killed her (it was not the glass). But barring the mummified look of her, Connal was sure it was a decade. Maybe 2 tops. Not 250 years ago (when the tree fell). She had all her stuff taken from her, but inside her left boot in a hidden sheath was a silvered stiletto. We took it and gave it to Godric for now. Taking her robes with some idea of maybe finding family and returning it, we left Ramona here and moved on.
Leaving the dead end we went back to the Ankheg room and checked the 2 passages. Sadly, both of them dead ended after a dozen paces. Ok – it was back to the Starlight room and the chamber beyond that the summoned lizard man had died horribly in (by fire?) yesterday.
By 12:25 we were back in the crystal chamber, purple light illuminating it all. We walked around a bit to the west passage and the thought was once again to have Shim send something down there. A quick summon followed and he sent a zombie to head off. It walked slow and was gone about 5 minutes when we heard some distant quick combat and then nothing. Shim let us know the spell was over.
Ok, armor and weapons ready, the group walked off. Passage went south west, curved and went north west. 3 splits here. 1 to the north east and narrow, one to the north but up a 2’ ledge, and one curved along to the west. A weird smell was in the air. It was time. Another summon? We opted for 1 more – hoping to get something that could talk to us. This time an orc showed up, armed and ready. It was given instructions and went first into the west passage.
Big room. Dead Moose. Something coming. Heads. Lots of them. 5 of them! Some combat and then fire sound and over. Hydra. Group was ready, and we went in. Big chamber, passage west and north. Dead moose on the south end, about 1/4th eaten. Rotten and stinks. But a 5 headed hydra with a body like a tank came out of the north corridor and attacked the party, heads all over the place.
Combat ensued and we got bit up. 1 of the heads breathed fire, but the group had planned with at least 4 instances of fire protection and resistance on the front line people. So although it was a 12 hp blast, it danced off of us doing little if anything. We were prepared and it helped us to rip the hydra down, dropping heads one by one.
Nate tried to use his Seshele Trident, activating one of the dormant powers (had 20 – now it has 19), but it was not combat oriented. Instead, it gave him perfect 120’ radius view of every enemy in the area. The hydra yes, north and west, an 11’ tall honey eating cave bear, and going down into the earth some 80’ feet, was a strange creature with a stag body, lion parts, and a wicked beak like bony face.
We took some damage but it did end at long last with a final flurry of swings and the hydra fell over.
Win! We took a short breath and Shim and Godrick were up at the dead beast vials and flasks at the ready to get some blood. The party was discussing what to do next when at 2minutes exactly, the hydra shuddered, 2 more heads grew, and the now 7 headed hydra whirled on the party and attacked. 2 of the heads were now breathing and fire and Shim got caught right in the front by one of them, the gnome’s clothes going up and Shim dancing back trying to not get fried. Godrick tried to get a lightning bolt ready and the party once again poured on the fight.
Eoghan was yelling out that we had to burn the damn thing as soon as it died or it would come back again..and with more heads! The fight took longer and more damage was done, most of the front line fighters had taken quite a number of bites. But eventually the last head was put down. We then dumped 3 flasks of oil on it and Wilhelm set the damned thing ablaze. Combat over.
Nate filled us in on what was around us and how the Seshele Trident worked. We could go west or north. We opted north. Went to a “T” intersection. To the west we could hear buzzing, quite a lot of it. To the east? A wall of glass. Filling the entire passage. And from the distortion, a foot and a half thick. We pried a bit and figured the glass went into the floor, wall, and ceiling. Wilhelm could shatter it, but it was so thick, it might not do any more than a small section of the glass.
We opted to (after much discussion) leave it for now, go back to the Hydra room, and head on to the west from here. Once we got there, the thought was to go back OUT of the Hydra room (to the east) and check the 2 passages there first! Both were dead ends eventually, one with wet roots, one with dry. But nothing for it. So by 10 after 2, we were back to the Hydra room and plotting our way west.
We heard some tinkling like bells ahead, or chimes. The chamber opened pretty large to an area filled with colorful blue and red dwarf elm trees. Their leaves moved in an unseen breeze, ringing off each other, tinkling about the place. The leaves felt normal and they were able to be plucked. But their color faded to orange afterwards and did not have that metallic tinkling afterwards.
We chanced to move through, most of the room was pretty dense and we had to hunch low, filing through the middle. The sounds were soothing and about a third of the way through the group as one decided to just relax and just…enjoy the chimes (everyone failed their save). We sat there for an hour before we had gotten so inured to the sounds that we regained the will to move on.
So we crawled on to the end of the room, turning north, and through the diminishing trees – saw Nathanial’s bear. It was a frightening brute, scarred and bloody muzzle. It was tearing through a barrel of honey, stuffing its face. We decided fighting it was a death sentence (what is they say? Even 1 bear is 1 bear too many).
Wilhelm did a speak with animals with it. We learned the bear was…sad. Depressed. It had a haunted quality about it. It was lost here and it wanted to go home. Home to where there was sky. And trees. And freedom. A place that he was from. Wilhelm identified himself as an elf which meant a lot to the bear.
It had a fairy. A partially crushed fairy that it was sorry it had killed. Dust flew off of it as it shook it about. It hurled the barrel to the west and we decided to play extra nice. Wilhelm did say that he would do what he could and in all his power to get the bear home. That’s why they were going down. The bear admitted that it could not leave. It was limited to 1, 2, or maybe 3 chambers and then it had to stop. It was physically incapable of moving on.
We traded trinkets with the bear. Feathers and rocks and bits of whatever. It did not want treasures but we found other items it would take. Cat toys and slide whistles. Eventually we were allowed to all pass and the bear ambled off to the east to go sit with the bees for a bit, thanking Wilhelm for his words and giving him the time to just talk.
At the western passage, the ground sloped down to an almost 85 degree angle drop. We did the coin trick with light and it was a good 80’ down. We needed rope. Going back to the tree room, we tied a length there, walked back to the hole, and then tied two more lengths down. Captain Asher did a lighten Load spell on our equipment and Godrick did a levitate spell on himself. He then ferried two people down while the rest of the party made their way slowly and with care all the way down to the 4th level. Eventually it was a spider climb spell, untied rope, and by 4:50 in the afternoon on Plantmonth the 19th, 289 of the 29th age, we were all drawn up again and ready to press on.
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