Session 19  10/11

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After buying more alchemist's fire in Brindenford, and otherwise preparing for the fight with the Font's Guardian, the PCs returned to the dungeon. Plunging as quickly as possible back down to level two, they had no significant encounters. Once there, they worked their way down the eastern side of the dungeon, staying out of sight of the water as much as possible. To their satisfaction, they did not see the Vuldrog anywhere until they came out at the southern end, past Chaster's laboratories. (They did recover a scroll there, which Chaster had informed them they failed to find earlier. He was very pleased to get his spellbook and some other goods back.) Upon spying on the Vuldrog (with Jasper's mirror and sneak ability), they saw it was perched right in front of the Font statue, but seemed unaware of them. Sadly, he was too far away to throw alchemist's fire at. Elrohir stepped out and magic missiled it to begin their assault. It leaped to the attack, flying straight towards Val, who loosed an arrow at it, and so did Jasper. The Vuldrog lashed into Val, hitting with both claws and a massive bite, but it was not able to grapple and lift her away. As it flew by, Max stepped up and attacked, adding another blow. Elrohir lunged forward, striking with Serrestique's staff and delivering a 10' touch attack. He delivered a critical hit, massive damage, and set the beast on fire. About this time, two fish-men climbed from the water, and Val was forced to turn her attention to them. Rocky crept up and healed her from behind. She slew one Vesh with a single strike. Jasper shot two more arrows into the Vuldrog, and then the Vuldrog grappled Max. It was able to lift him up and start to fly away, but he struck back with a massive smite, slaying it in mid-air. The creature fell, plummeting them both into the font-water channel. Max failed his swim check and sank at once. Val and Jasper slew the second fish-man while Elrohir drank a potion of levitation, and fished the paladin out of the waters. Rocky healed Val again. They breathed a huge sigh of relief at how short, if devastating, the fight had been.

Using the remaining minutes of levitation, Elrohir and Max scooted along the ceiling to the font. Between Max bashing it with his magical heavy flail, and Elrohir blasting with several rays of Flame, they were able to wreck it in short order. They rescued the (impressive) pearl eyes. At this point, Rocky having used all his cure spells, and El being low on spells, they decided to retreat and rest in their secret room.

After resting, they investigated the stairs down near the font chamber. They spotted and recognized the rune of St. Azzaserah, indicating that he had placed the reddish magical barrier that sealed the stairs leading down. After a quick examination of the barrier, the party decided to investigate the other stairs, near the bakery Max had discovered. These stairs were clear, so the party descended cautiously, Max leading and with Rocky behind him. Just as they turned at the first landing, they spotted the merrow on the middle range of stairs. Max charged, and the merrow gained an attack of opportunity with his longspear as the paladin closed. It was a vicious strike, revealing that these water-ogres were no pushovers. The following fight was brutal, with both Val and Max taking serious damage, but with Rocky's healing, Jasper's arrow-fire and Elrohir's spells, the outcome was only briefly in doubt. However, the party was left without healing once again, and decided to retreat a second time and rest up. 

Again, they managed to reach their secret room without encounters, and rested another 24 hours. Returning, they investigated the room below the stairs. They quickly discarded the muddy boots, examined the carvings, and decided that the "glowy rod" looked more interesting than "sharp-toothed fish-men". So they went east. Jasper investigated the mushroom cavern mostly on his own, finding the hallucinatory spores, the gargoyle corpse, and the collapsing cave with the violet fungus. After a hallucinatory bout with a bat-like creature swooping down upon him, Jasper ended up wetting a cloth with water (from Glarias' fountain on level one), and tying it across his nose and mouth. This improved his saving throw immensely, and neither he nor anyone else has had any further problems (yet!).    After deciding they will explore to the south, next, we paused here.

Session 20 10/16/11

The exploration south became interesting as Val noticed words chalked on one cave wall "Look up". Doing so, she saw a wide ledge to the south, and Jasper climbed the flowstone up to it. He was attacked by the Cave Lion lurking there, and tumbled back down to the rest of the party. Val stepped up and attacked the Lion, and Max was also able to land a blow; between them and Elrohir's arrow, it was quickly dispatched. Val was able to strip away the pelt for Max, who wants to wear it around town to display his martial skill and strength. Moving west from there, they found a dead-end cave with a major collapse; beneath the rock Maximus spotted the remains of at least one victim. Digging out the bodies (there were four) took an hour, but revealed that they were dwarves, who had apparently been trying to dig down to a lower level of the dungeon. The group contemplated continuing their dig for a while, but eventually decided that finding the stairs might be slower, but would be more certain. Max took the magical handaxe, and Jasper donned the mithril chain shirt; he donated his +1 leather to the party to sell instead. He also took the goggles of minute seeing.

Moving back north, they came upon a wide room where they heard distant crying. Max tried to detect evil, and got no reading.  Jasper made considerable scouting trips, eventually finding where the crying was coming from, and also finding a northern cave with a strange obelisk in it, beyond a tunnel with a dangerous rift. He returned to the party and they decided to investigate the crying first. Moving west, they spied on the northern cave, and then turned south where the crying emanated. However, the passage to the west was making Jasper nervous, so he scouted it first (to be sure they wouldn't get ambushed, he says). He found that one branch reconnected to the southern cave that housed the skeleton pinned to the rock, and the other passage led to a cave inhabited by a darkmantle. It leaped to the attack, and Jasper again tumbled out of range, fleeing back to the party. One spell from Elrohir caused the darkmantle to burn up.

Turning back to the south, they quickly found a small  vesh toddler, with a wounded arm. As they sought to reassure him that he was safe, he began to shriek loudly, and Rocky was attacked from the rear by the gargoyle. It missed him, but then attacked Val. First Max, and then Val were able to land blows, but it was Val's critical hit that took it down without further ado. Once the gargoyle was dispatched, they soothed the child. Ghost-hound Hunter appeared and the fish-child bonded with him instantly.

They moved north  quickly, hoping the Vesh child would recognize some familiar surrounding. They almost went over the narrow stone bridge, but the toddler vesh was unresponsive. When it didn't recognize anything, they decided to double back, and go through the door marked with the fish-face symbol near the stairs. They soon discovered the large cave there, and found a chest cemented into the wall, among other things. It took quite a while to chisel it free, but everyone was quite pleased when they did so. They found a beautiful dagger and several other items there.

Moving to the edge of the lake, they discovered they had a watcher - in the cabin out on the water, an old woman hailed them, demanding to know who they were. Val began talking back to her, and Max detected evil (he didn't detect any)... She claimed to be "Cora", an old woman from Brindenford, come down to the dungeon to get "some peace and quiet". When Elrohir asked what she needed to get away from, she replied "annoying people who asked too many questions!". Finally, she told them two things; the Vesh live to the north, and that the skeleton to the East was once a wizard named Alghul. She implied that he wasn't very nice, and that he was killed by adventurers; when said adventurers came to her cave, she "drove them off", but she said it with much lip licking and smacking, leaving the PCs quite disturbed... they decided not to accept any lunch invitations from Cora. They did do her two favors; they at least temporarily fixed her sunken boat, and promised to bring her fresh vegetables, vegetable seeds (and magic to grow them with!), and soil if she needed it. They also told her they'd send the dopplegangers from level 2 down to talk with her. She agreed they might make good allies.

Eventually the party decided it was time to move on, and ventured north from the large cave. They found another river cave, with a wooden bridge across it. Max spotted four Vesh hiding on the far side, and decided to try diplomacy. Taking the toddler by the hand, Maximus led it to the edge of the river and urged it to cross, while making gestures of peace and friendship. The rest of the party backed him, by laying their weapons aside and staying well back. The vesh cautiously allowed them to wait while they retrieved the child; then a fifth Vesh came up from the river where he'd been lurking, and gestured at them to retreat. Not certain if they really wanted to break off contact, but without any common language, the PCs retreated for the time being. At this point, knowing they were low on spells and battered, they decided to retreat to town and rest up...

Session 21 10/30/11

Having retreated from the dungeon, the PCs took a long break. Valkrist and Jasper each had Aesa enchant armor for themselves. Max had nonmagical studded leather made for Mum, his wardog. Elrohir visited his cat, and checked on the renovation process. They all received a visit, at the Lost Shepherd, from Renitass, cat-folk rogue who works with Burr-buggle; he offered to sell them a map leading to the Stag-lord's bandit castle, but Jasper declined. Eventually he talked Ren out of the location of a Kobold lair some sixty miles from town, and a reminder that there was an old chapel to Glarias on the edge of Brindenford. Checking around town, Jasper learns that his old girlfriend Gayne, and her unsavory friends may be using the place as a hide-out. A quick investigation reveals that this indeed is the case. The place is burned out, but someone has found a secret undercroft, and is using it to hide sleeping gear, food, and "working gear". Jasper turns it all in to Sherrif Erro. He also hires a ranger from the Temple of Safreth to investigate three other buildings, further away from town, which might possibly also have a connection to Glarias.

After a three week rest, everyone is eager to go back to adventuring. After a brief debate about the worthiness of kobolds and bandits, Max reminds everyone that they promised old Cora to take her some more vegetables, dirt, and the magic that will let her grow plants underground. They also sent her a boat via the dopplegangers (who also brought Jasper his dungeon doors). The return trip to the dungeon was as innocuous as ever (the dm notes that she has never rolled even ONE random encounter on the way INTO the dungeon!). Returning to Cora, she was happy to accept their gifts, and in return shared a good bit of info about the Vesh, the history of Urlaster, and an old map some smugglers had left behind fifty or sixty years earlier.

Leaving Cora, the party advanced on the Vesh bridge once again, offering them fish, and reminding them of the child they had rescued weeks earlier. Eventually, the Vesh allowed the PCs across, taking them to their old leader; she is the only one who spoke common. She interrogated them a bit, and then told them she would let them "walk in", if they were willing to "SMACK" Salas, the evil frog-man who had come among them... the PCs quickly realized that "SMACK" was a euphemism for kill, and happily agreed without further ado. Led by the vesh guards, the PCs were able to confront Salas in his chamber with minimal warning. He had only a few seconds to cast one spell, buffing his armor class. The fight opened with Mum charging down the hall at Salas. Salas then threw a fireball past Mum into the party. Rocky failed his save, and went down. Max, Val and El all took some damage, but not enough to put them out. Max charged in as well, and then to everyone's shock, two monitor lizards emerged from hiding, flanking the paladin and his dog. A vicious fight ensued, wherein Elrohir critted the trog with a scorching ray, and Val used her bow to very good effect, as did Jasper. The dog took out one lizard, grappling it to the floor, and Max took out the other, though he nearly went down. Jasper brought Rocky back to his feet with a potion, and Rocky then managed to save the one Vesh guard who was caught in the fireball. 

Salas' notebook and his necklace were the only treasures they found; the notebook told them what the glowing "bloodline stone" was; since nobody in the party is of the right type, it was useless to them. From there, they went along the edge of the river, entering "Urlaster's Treasure Cave" (as Cora had informed them). They searched the bones, were made very suspicious by their burnt state, and found the iron key. Everyone but Jasper retreated from the cave when he cautiously twisted the key in the lock, thus teleporting himself, alone, into the treasure room. Sadly, though he fought valiantly, he was unable to defeat the tiger he met there, and Jasper died just seconds before the hungry beast was teleported back to wherever he had come from... Jasper's body also teleported out, back to his waiting friends in the cave, but there was nothing they could do for him. Sorrowfully, they retreated to Brindenford, mourning their lost companion.