Plantmonth the 20th, 10:20 AM, 239 of the 29th age. After making sure all the purloined mercury was stored away, we traveled back to the “Y” intersection and explored the southwest, and last, passage. The ceiling, floor, and walls had these strange grooves running in them, a few inches to a few feet long. They were triangular in shape, and deeply gouged the passage.
Eoghan and Wilhelm gave further look and discovered very fine flaky rust particles in the grooves. In addition, there were indents in the floor here and there, maybe 30 in total down the entire length, something needle point had pushed into the ground – spear like but way too fine in diameter.
We crept on. After some time the passage turned more south and opened to a largish chamber. The light was not shining too far, but we did see a pair of very rusty metal boxes, barely a notch over 3’ square. Nate wanted to get closer and the rest of the group hung back as the brave fighter approached the box, and stabbed it with the point of his halberd. It went through the side easily. He pulled it out and turned the box. The side spilled open, showing just fine smattering of badly rusted parts within.
However the light beyond here showed three more boxes – about 5’ square. And then another two boxes past that – these were 6 and a half feet square. But those also had badly rusted articulated metal spider legs on each. We backed up again and discussed options. Throughout it all ,we kept hearing a strange musical trilling deeper in the darker part of the room. Captain Asher cast Deathwatch and the group inched forward again.
And he got a ping. Not from the now 9’ tall box much less rusty and with 8 more big spider legs on it – no from something just past it. We came closer to another box, hoping to open it, but made too much noise and the trilling stopped.
We all backed up hard and Captain Asher’s spell picked up…5 creatures. And closing. They were big and alien looking. The bottom part was a 4’ tall wolf spider, colorfully dyed in weird places. And on top of it was what seemed to be a 4’ tall moray eel – big teeth, vestigial eyes, undulating and looking about. They crawled on boxes and inched closer, trilling as they did so.
So Shim cast Comprehend Languages and the figures all turned to Shim and ran forward. Two of them leapt from boxes, slamming into Darius and Connal who were plugging the exit of the chamber with their bodies. The monk tried to dodge but failed, getting stabbed by the sharp legs and then bit – and the bite was poisonous! He was affected as if by a Slow spell, moving half normal speed and resolving last in the round.
Darius’ new armor got pretty beat up, new holes appearing in the banded mail. The battle was joined and we poured on the fight. Seeing another one readying the jump, Nate and Ryhgar held their tridents and spears at the ready while the rest of the group fired arrows and magic missiles into the mess. The alien creature did get hurt but could take quite a bit of damage.
Indeed the back one on the box DID jump – and the two fighters skewered it out of the air, killing it before it could land. Wilhelm called out a summons and a hippogriff appeared in a flash! It kicked and bit the nearest one, cutting it to half hit points. Then another died, and another. The last ones were very hateful (according to Shim’s Language spell) and were going to keep attacking. So we hacked, cut, and attacked and finally the last ones died.
Connal’s poison expired in a few minutes and he was able to move again at full speed. We looked over the rest of the chamber. A nest was here, 5 eggs in it, all cracked. The last big box we figured out how to open up and it was filled with spikes, gears, gyros, gizmos, and other strange things. A glow was from the back. It took Darius a few tries to get under the stronger struts in the machine before he could finally grab a handful of pretty screwed up, but still functioning manastones.
We headed off and there was the hole heading down to the next level. We tried the light coin on the wide trick – the descent was large here. 80’ vertically, 120’ by distance. We tied off the rope to the big box and spliced three together. Connal and Shim went down first securing the bottom – then Godric did a levitate, ferrying himself and two others down. Darius and Captain Asher tied rope to others and lowered them safely one at a time, and then they went down, the last one hitching a ride with Wilhelm who cast Spider Climb – noting he was down to about half his original complement of spiders for spell components.
It was 12:30 PM at this point and we followed the passage as it “S” turned a bit, Darius anxiously looking for dead ends.
About 15 minutes of walking and we found an area where rain was falling in a 15’ diameter area, colorful rain that hit the clay floor and was instantly absorbed. Not wanting to risk it, we summoned…a kobold. It was commanded to step into the multicolored rain where everything about it – skin, hair, belongings, all turned monocolor – tan. We then had it come back through and it happened again – turning black.
Godric meanwhile admitted he had a Waterbane spell – allowing him to make a 4’ diameter sphere of water repulsion around up to 3 targets per casting. So we paused here, allowed him to restudy his spell, and then chose the three tallest party members – casting it on each of them. They then acted as a shield, ferrying 1 person each, went back and got the rest of the group. We took the Northwest “Y” passage here and it went on, curved east, then south, then west – doubling back on itself again.
“Counts as a dead end,” Darius grunted. We ferried everyone back through the colored rain again, Godric’s spell still in force, and took the south, southeast section of the passage. It “S” turned a few times and them spilled out to a smallish chamber (15’ diameter) with a southwest passage and a northeast passage. There were 2 dead mummified elves here.
We looked them over. One was older, male, clad in the manner of a priest. However any identifiable markings such as symbology or the like were removed from his clothes and belongings. The other was a young elven girl, 7 if she was human. She had a sad look on her face and was clad in homespun and peasant wear. In her dress pocket was a stuffed toy dog. Eoghan took it. It was about 10 after 3 so we opted to go southwest. The passage went sa bit, curved back to the east…and dead ended.
Lots of roots here but another dead end. It was 3:20 on Plantmonth the 20th.
No comments:
Post a Comment