Session #13

If you're reading this in the hopes of reading about a big fight, then you might as well skip the blog this week.

Jeff could not make it this week, so Valden was played by Brian.

Day 15, 3pm.

Map

The group finished their dealings with Wetoq in room E67 and returned to room E66 to find Augury floating there. They attempted to ask him a question, but no response was given. When they asked if "he" wanted them to follow, he flashed blue (for "yes"). So he floated off to & through the western door.

When the party opened the door, there was no sign of Augury.

Room E70: The party enters this room and finds a room decorated with skulls and similar combat trophies. Also, a 4 legged, winged, mechanical being (a zelekhut inevitable) stands in the room and immediately tells the party to leave his quarters. The party begins to question him. He responds by agressively moving towards the group. The party steps outside of the room, but do not close the door. The inevitable slams the door shut.
Dalron, thinking that forcing the issue would be a good idea, opens the door (while the rest of the party makes sure that the DM knows that they are taking a step away). When he opens the door, the inevitable responds with a couple of his attacks. The first misses, the 2nd hits and is a critical. The single hit did 33 points of damage (the crit did 2d6+10 +4d6 electrical). Dalron only had 30. The inevitable closed the door.
The 2 clerics, Krieg & Valden, use their orisons (0 level spells) to heal Dalron back to 5 hit points. After some discussion whether or not to leave him in that condition, he was healed further.

Room E71: This time the party knocks on the door. A less than stellar response is given. Something to the effect that "Presin, the Adjuticator has no interest in talking to fools". Not his specific words, but enough to get the party to move on.

Room E72: Dalron finds a trap on this door and is successful in removing it. When he listens at the door he hears a quick bit of motion and then a click. He checks again to find the trap reset. The party gets the feeling, once again, that they are not welcome here.

The party moves on and explores a little of the map until Thunderclease notices a secret door. At the other end of the hallway, Dalron is required to find the opening.

It opens up to a hallway, and Dalron immediately notices the secret door directly across from them. But the party explores the whole of the local area using a clerically cast Detect Evil. After nothing is found the party begins opening doors...

Room E105: This was a large library that housed many old books written in celestial, and appeared to be used not too long ago. The party, sick of books, moved on.

Room E100: (Actually room E104 - region E has quite a few map problems) The hallway leading to this room had a slight rush of wind and upon opening the door, it reaked of garbage. The room had a 20' wide hole in the floor and small bits of garbage everywhere. The party investigated the hole shortly, but thoughts of otyughs kept them away.
The hole actually was a strip of Knights of the Dinner Table in the making. Even though the players may read this, this room is probably not going to be visited again. 40' down the pit, a Disintegrate spell activates every minute. If you're down there you take 20d6 damage every minute (fortitude save DC15 for half).

Room E101: After some other map exploration, the party finds this room. Inside it appears as though a small tornado had attacked this room. Also, there is also a man with an air about him that screams holy. But the party totally did not think before speaking. They mentioned that they were looking for someone named Kelara. When he asked why they mentioned making deals with barghests. That effectively ended the conversation. The man ordered them out of his room. They complied and moved on.

Room E102: This room was almost 50% bed. One giant bed made up of several pushed together beds and pillows. The party did a cursory search of the room and left it alone (after not finding anything).

The group then investigated the secret door they had found earlier. But they could not find a door at the other end of the hallway, so they returned to...

Room E85: Torin likes this room, and due to his Chultish background (and his deity), was really hoping to find a dinosaur in this room. Not bloody likely. This room appeared exactly as before, storms off in the distance and things moving in the corner of your eye. The party moved along the perimeter of the room to finish the mapping, but then returned to...

Room E66: When the party entered the room this time, they found Augury standing by 2 lion headed beings arguing with 2 of the mechanical beings. The party heard one of the mechanical inevitables say something to the effect "I will find a way to supplant you Kelara. And when that happens, things will finally improve around here."
Then the party was noticed.
The two lion-headed beings introduced themselves as Kelara and Morkor, leonals and leaders of the garrison. The party introduced themselves and told a 30-second version of their story. They also found out that Augury's actual name was Spark (and Zorak took 2 points of smartass damage when he called him Sparky).
Kelara was furious with one of the inevitables when she found out that one of the inevitables actually had the all-door.
Morkor took possesion of the all-door from Senar and the party was led to Kelara's & Morkor's quarters. During the trek, the party filled them in on the remaining information they had to give them.

Room E106: Kelara let the party know that this blood coated room was a big trap meant to be used against creatures from the creatures that would attempt to escape from the dark creatures that attempted. Near the door to the north is a large silver glyph that Kelara explains is a protected ward that prevents the evil below from passing through the doorway, and there are multiple identical glyphs all along the northern doors to this region.

Room E109: Kelara & Morkor's quarters. The remainder of the session was filled by role-playing (information gathering) with Kelara.
Multiple storylines were filled in:
- The party handed over the 3 runed staves they found. Kelara was incredibly grateful. She only had 2. The inevitables have 2 as well. There are 8 total. Now that Kelara has 5 of the 8, it will make things easier on her. She explained that a ward staff allows a celestial to recharge the wards, but at a temporary cost to their health. The possession of only 1/2 the staves required a juggling act to keep the wards active. This alone was the biggest drain on the entire garrison. That meant that any (further) major problems could have ended the existence of the garrison.
- She was incredibly grateful for the return of the all-door. This allowed the garrison to gather some important supplies that were lost when the all-door was lost. As a reward she gave the party a hand ful of potions and gave Torin a pair of Boots of Elvenkind (more explained below).
- She informed the party that the inevitables in the garrison were no longer officially part of the garrison. After centuries of being in the prison, the inevitables had begun to lose bits and pieces of their mind (read as "their programming degenerated"). She considered it quite fortunate that the party had not given the ward staves to the inevitables, and that she was able to retrieve the all-door as well.
- She additionally thanked the party for disposing of several other problems (Morat and the shadow king).
- She would not agree to the deal that the party relayed to her from the barghest. But she would not do anything with the barghests as of yet and was content to let the barghests destroy themselves.
- With everything added together, the garrison is much better off.
- She informed the party that although she is now the commander of those who signed the charter, it would be cruel to force the party to stay for the remainder of their mortal lives. So she told them that they would probably help the garrison more by thinning the numbers of the evil things below.
- First she wanted the party to help the garrison return the wards to full strength. It was not possible for the party to recharge the wards themselves, but the party could take care of a few simple patrols and similar duties. That would allow the other celestials of the garrison the free time required to recharge the wards.
- She chatted with Torin about him being too close to a dark path, and that later he would have to make a choice.
- During that time the party met the other celestials of the garrison who all appreciated their help.

Two days later the party moved on to a new region. The party chose to head on to region I.

It was only 10 o'clock at the time, and I had not read much at all of region I, so we called it a night for the game. Now I probably should have read something of it because basically, region E was pretty much over. Doing anything else in the region would have been repetitive and boring.

So instead we watched the movie "The Gamers" that Aaron had just bought. Oh man was it bad. It was funny at the beginning, but man was it a pile. It's one of those movies you have to watch once if you are indeed a gamer. As bad as it was, it still was better than the D&D movie. But hey, even the D&D movie was worse than Highlander 2: The Quickening. (The worst movie of all time has to be Left Behind though. Man I would have chewed my arm off to leave that movie had I thought of it.)

Till next week!

Session #12

The entry this week will appear to have less done, but there was more role-playing involved.

Everyone was able to attend this session.

Map

Day 11, 4AM

We last left our group of, uhm, heroes (?) in the passageway at room/alcove E34.

Due to the loss of their paladin Dugan, the 2 clerics, Krieg & Valden, are each memorizing Detect Evil once per day.

At this point, Valden has a little time left for his Detect Evil, so the group is attempting to hurry.

They check the eastern hallway near room E34, but detect no evil. So they check the door to the north...

Room E52: Valden detects 6 points of moderate evil behind this door. The party retreats back and casts their prep spells. Dalron detects no traps, but is unable to pick the lock. A short while back the group found a wand of Knock and put it to use.
They open the door to see a barricade of furniture blocking their way. A rough voice speaks from behind the barricade.
Long story short: (Hey, there ain't no way I'm going to remember every role-playing moment and then type it all down. You all just get the jist of it.)
- The creatures behind the barricade reveal themselves to be barghests.
- They know who about the group.
- They know the group killed a greater barghest, named Morat, with relative ease.
- The garrison is led by someone named Kelara.
- These barghests were led by a barghest named Saraas.
- Saraas's lieutenant offered a deal to the garrison & the PCs: leave this area alone and the barghest's will leave them alone & they offer a "gift" in good faith. But if they PC's do not agree, there will be a big combat where many barghests will die, but the PCs will be utterly destroyed ... oh and we're sneaking up behind you.

The PC's agree and are informed of the whereabouts of the gift. A human who is near death at the other end of the hallway. And to hurry, he may die soon & who knows how long the barghests can refrain from a nice meal.

The group rushes to the spot where their gift is. A near naked, bound, and bloody human.

A few heal spells later and the poor soul was standing.



His name; Torin Malgroth.
His story; The same story as Valden. He was in the same party that Valden was in. When the explosion of monsters were killing their party, Valden fled, but Torin played dead. Since that point Torin was working hard to stay alive. At one he walked into a room, saw a blue-furred wolf and then everything went black. And that is all he remembers until now.
His attitude: Survival of the fittest.
Stats:
Human ranger (3) / fighter (2)
S: 14 D: 14 C: 12 I: 14 W: 14 Ch:9
hp: 39 AC: 16/14/12
Notable equipment: Mithril chainshirt, masterwork scimitar, masterwork kukri

Warning: Believability breach! (It's not easy making every single piece fit.)

Torin would stash his equipment before scouting around, just in case.
The last time he stashed it in room E16 (the fireball trapped portrait room) where the party had placed a door on the trap to keep it from resetting.

After some role-playing and recovery of items, the party was ready to continue.

They are off to find the wiza...uhm the garrison.

Room E7: The party did much exploration and filling in of the map.
When they entered this room they see several bodies and a makeshift throne. On the throne is a creature of shadow with angry glowing red eyes. Combat begins...
Round 1: Thunderclease waits for it to come to him, then he rips the thing a new one. The greater shadow then hits Thunderclease and drains him of 7 strength. Krieg attempts to turn, but something is hampering his ability to do so and he fails. The same happens to Valden.
Round 2: Thunderclease misses and loses 5 more strength, leaving him with 9 (5 if he were not raging). Continued clerical turning does nothing.

Side note: When Joe chose Fireball as his first 3rd level spell for Zorak, I warned him that since he never had any real training with that level of a spell, there would be a "drift" of the spell's center point. Now back to round 2.

Zorak cast his first Fireball spell. The drift had no real effect on combat and the greater takes some damage. Torin uses his skills to run into combat, swing and skip back out. Unfortunately he misses.

Round 3: The shadow barely misses Thunderclease. Four standard shadows pass through the door in the north. The party calls a general retreat. Thunderclease gets lucky again as the greater shadow's attack of opportunity misses him as he flees away. The clerics pull back and their turns still do nothing. Dalron assumes a position of protection to give the group time to flee (suicide or heroism? You decide.). Zorak tosses another fireball, this time into the new shadows. The drift brings it into Dalron's area. But Dalron's rogue ability protects him from all damage. The shadows do not fare so well. But all are still there.

Round 4: All the shadows converge onto Dalron. Out of 5 attacks on a level 6 rogue doing a full defense, only 1 hits. Dalron loses 3 strength. Zorak launches another fireball. The drift once again pulls it onto the party. It hits Dalron, Dugan, Torin, and all 5 shadows. After the smoke clears, everyone has taken damage & only 1 shadow still stands.

Round 5: Kiss that last shadow goodbye.

The party congratulates Zorak on turning a full out retreat into a victory.

(For the next hour Joe was still excited and had to be sedated with a hammer. Twice.)

The party now needs to rest, but the protection of their current safe room (E41) will not allow Torin to enter without passing the tests of the Charter. He passes the test, but refuses to sign the Charter, citing that his destiny is not bound to this piece of paper.

Room E85: After resting, the party finds a secret door at the end of a dead end hallway. Inside is an all too real forest (the room is over 200'x200') with clouds above and animal sounds. The group also sees moving "things" in the distance, but they care not to find out what they are, and leave the way they came. (At this point they have the whole room on the map, but are not allowed to act on information they don't have as they did not fully explore the room.)

Room E65: The party enters this room to find a very organized library and a golden armored clockwork humanoid writing furiously in 2 books while reading a 3rd. It spoke to the party in a robotic tone, introducing itself as Senar, Keeper of the list. He informs the party that he is the historian of the garrison. He proceeds to ask the party question after question. He also finds out that the group signed the Charter. This effectively allows him question everything the party had done since they entered the dungeon (He basically told the party that their refusal to tell him everything would be a violation of the Charter.)
Three days later the party is fully rested and Senar has finished logging everything. He informs the party that the 3 staves they have are powerful tools used by the Garrison to recharge "the wards". He then asks the party about the door they used to prevent the keep the fireball trap in room E16 from triggering. After their description of the door he insists that they lead him to it immediately.
On the trip to the door and back (sadly no wandering monsters...), he tells them that this is the "all-door". A powerful magic item that allows the garrison access to rooms not accessible any other way.
When they return to his room, Senar speaks the word "Illtherin". The door rights itself and floats a foot off the floor and then opens up to a room. Inside is an old library containing books from the history of the garrison to the present. Krieg, being the only one in the party that can read Celestial, also read the books for a good deal of time.

Room E66: This large & open room has a tree planted in the middle of it. It is dead and there are many leaves of it on the floor.

Room E67: This room contained a large store of many items, all set up in an orderly fashion by Wetoq, the Keeper of the Stores. The party chats with him shortly and then they get down to business.

The details of which are being worked out.

At that point we stopped for the evening.

Next week will probably happen, but the in-laws are coming into town. So that may complicate things.

Session #11

So many ways to start this entry.
I'll just lay it out one step at a time.

A sad thing was noted last week. Thunderclease, the stupid barbarian, has an intelligence of 14. The highest in the group.

Brian could not make it tonight. As is standard, his character Dugan was played by Aaron.

Map

Timejump: Since Justin wasn't able to be there for the signing of the charter, we allowed him to do so after passing the same tests. All of this was done within a short role-playing session.

Room E47: We ended last session with the party defeating 3 regular and 1 great barghests almost too easily. The DM promised to up the difficulty for this week.
But the combat did drain the party enough to warrant a rest.

They return to room E41 to rest and then return to room E47 after they realize they did not search the room. Upon their return, they find the bodies of the barghests ripped to shreds and partially eaten and the room ransacked.

Room E48: Dugan detected 6 points of evil behind the door to this room. Dalron found no traps but was able to hear some growling and snapping. The party cast some preparatory spells and opens the door. The 6 barghests on the inside heard the spellcasting and were ready.
Party buff spells: Bless, several Magic Weapon spells, and a Bull's Strength on Thunderclease.
(This combat lasted over 2 1/2 hours. The recollection below may not be perfect, but should be close enough. Hopefully won't be too confusing.)
Round 1: The 2 groups were about 30' from each other and this round was mostly closing and some standard attacks of opportunity were used.
Round 2: Thunderclease and his +2 holy greatsword wounded a barghest immensely. It fell shortly thereafter by other spells and attacks from the group. The barghests barely scratched the party (2 clerics & a paladin can be pretty sweet). A couple of the barghests were able to use their Crushing Despair ability to hinder the group. This was responded with by a Prayer spell from Valden.
Round 3: Thunderclease hurts another badly. Dalron, the ever impatient elf, sees and opportunity to do some backstab damage but it puts him a in position to be surrounded and ripped apart. Dalron successfully tumbles behind the wounded barghest and brings it down, but in doing so, he leaves his backside open. Two barghests rip into Dalron (including a crit with a bite). He drops with -2 hp.
Round 4: Another barghest bites it with a combination of steel & spells. Krieg heals Dalron to a handful of hit points. Dalron decides to play dead. Bad move.

(Side note: Barghests are evil outsider creatures who get more powerful by feeding off the bodies and souls of their victims.)

These barghests knew that this combat was not going their way, but they cannot pass up such an easy meal. The same two barghests rip into Dalron again. And again, he's back into the negatives.
Round 5: Another barghest drops. The last two flee. One heads down left side of the forked hallway, the other the right side. Valden heals Dalron.

Combat continues in...

Room E49: 5 barghests guard this room.
Round 6: Thunderclease, Dugan, & Krieg pursue the barghest that went down the left side. They do not yet know that the two forks lead into the same room. The two fleeing barghests alert the 5 barghests in this room. The rest of the party lags behind by about 30'.
Round 7: The barghests use their Rage spell-like ability (+2 to strength & constitution, +1 Will saves, no fatigue though). The party ends their round scattered between the left half of the fork and the T itself.
Round 8: Dugan enters the room, sees 7 angry barghests, and quickly backsteps into the hallway. Thunderclease steps into the room, but stays there and prepares for their entry (the magic weapon he has must be clouding his mind). Four barghests head to Thunderclease and rip him a new one. The other 3 barghests run down the right hallway.
Round 9: Krieg heals Thunderclease and steps back. Thunderclease brings down a barghest and steps back into the hallway. Barghests continue their attack on Thunderclease, but only 2 can now reach him (Conga-line-of-death works yet again). They all miss their attacks on him as well. Dugan attempts to hit a barghest with his Smite Evil ability. Words of warning, followed by the appearance of 3 barghests, force Dalron, Valden, & Zorak to form a rear guard.
Round 10: Thunderclease is healed greatly. He then greatly wounds another barghest. Their original prey now healed, and a paladin nearby making a show of himself, forced the barghests to attack a new target. The result is Dugan taking a pounding, leaving him with under 10 hp. The rear guard sets up and clash with the other barghests. Zorak throws magic missiles, Dalron fights but can barely hurt his target, & Valden fights.
Round 11: Thunderclease hurts another barghest. Krieg heals Dugan. Dugan misses his swing. Dugan and Dalron both take a pounding and a half each and both fall. Valden heals Dalron while in combat. While Dalron is on the floor, Zorak is able to safely shoot a Scorching Ray at a barghest, but misses.
Round 12: Thunderclease brings down the hurt barghest, but another takes its place. Krieg heals Dugan again. While on the ground, Dugan continues to be ripped up, but he is able to stand up. Dalron, learning a lesson from earlier, chooses not to play dead and decides to fight fully on the defensive, increasing his AC by 6. He is now fighting a delaying action. Valden further wounds the barghest that Zorak has hurt.
Round 13: Thunderclease hurts a barghest. Krieg heals Dugan, but with a lesser spell than before. Dugan is brought to -9 hp from 2 barghest attacks (even with using a reroll point). On Dugan's action he fails to stabilize, falls to -10 hp, and dies. Valden and Dalron continue their holding action. Zorak (I think), brings a rear barghest down.
Round 14: Thunderclease brings down the hurt barghest. Krieg runs to heal Dalron who is low on hp again. The final barghest up front eats Dugan whole, soul and all. The rear barghests try one last snap at Dalron. Valden finishes healing Dugan.
Round 15: Thunderclease kills the barghest who ate Dugan in one hit. The barghest's Rage has worn off.

The rest of the combat is a blur and inconsequential. Another barghest dies and the last one flees. It was the same barghest that the group let go last session...

The group rips open the barghest that ate Dugan. Even with the short period of time that Dugan was inside the beast, much of him (and his equipment) was in ruins.

The party returns to room E41 to rest and to give the final rites to Dugan.

Dugan was laid to rest in the candle room (E42).

Upon resting Zorak & Krieg level! (Why just those 2? Half xp for not showing to a game adds up)
Krieg adds a 6th level of cleric.
Zorak adds a 6th level of sorcerer. He now has fireball. (Joe has never played a caster before - this could go good or bad).

Out of game, while the 2 above were dealing with levelling up, I called Brian to let him know that his character died on a night he wasn't there. Not a fun phone call. He wasn't happy, but we believe that Aaron played Dugan close to how Brian would have played him. No clue what Brian will be bringing in on our next session.

After resting Zorak and Krieg were able to identify a few items (read the identifying magic items in the earliest post on this blog). One particular item was a wand of Knock. This prompted the group to return the barred room they could not get into before.

Room E32: In this large room were several dead ant/men creatures and a giant rotted ant/man creature. There was also a pedestal in the room that held a staff identical to the one found in room E20. A Detect Magic shows that it is just as powerful. A magical longsword & a magical shortsword was also found. Dalron kept them.

Room E49: The party returns to this room to get a better look. It is a room designed to look like a forest area from the world above.

Now the loss of Dugan has caused the loss of the party's greatest tool; Dugan's Detect Evil ability. Valden casts the spell at this point, but the duration is only 50 minutes and stops working when Valden stops concentrating.

Room E50: This room appeared to be a meeting hall from long ago, but was half ruined. The western door was barred and barricaded shut. There appeared to have been some inhabitants in this room less than a day previous.

The party investigates the northern area, but turns around when no evil is detected and head east.

Room E54: More of an alcove than a room. It contains another pedestal, but has no rune-covered staff on it. It is on the floor, amongst some litter of rocks and arrows. The party grabs it easily.

At that point it is late, so the DM decides to level the party (the party gains XP for some actions that are not listed on here...yet).

Thunderclease add a level of fighter (brb 4/ftr 2).
Valden adds a 6th level of cleric.
Dalron adds a 6th level of rogue.

Next week...who knows?

Session #10

I really thought I'd kill a PC this night.
But nooooo. We got a new player. And he just had to play a cleric.
I guess that means I'll have to up the difficulty settings on this module.

Because E-Tools has not been fully updated, I could not make the html version of the character sheet for our new player Jeff.
So here's his PC:

Valden Glitterlode the 5th level gold dwarf cleric of Haela Brightaxe (War & Luck)
S: 14 D: 10 C: 12 I: 10 W: 17 Ch: 12
Notable equipment: Full plate armor, masterwork greataxe, Wand of Cure Light Wounds (25 charges), 3 potions of Cure Light Wounds, a potion of Invisibility, and a Cloak of Resistance +1.

His story: Valden was part of an adventuring group that had heard of some ancient ruins from a captured Zhentarim member. When his group reached the entrance to the WLD, they found a group of Zhent's in the final stages of clearing out a rockslide. The group made quick work of the Zhents and then proceeded into the mouth of the cave.
That over 2 days ago, and the information they had received from the captured Zhent was not enough to warn them of the full danger. Most importantly, the inability to leave the way you came in. The group had not expected this and eventually it cost them.
At first they met little resistance, and handful of goblinoids and such. But then the "minor" earthquake came. Shortly afterwards various manners of fiendish creatures found them and came for them in near countless waves. The group retreated and all eventually fell save for Valden.
When he was able to catch his breath, he drank a potion of invisibility and began to search alone for a way out. What he found was a path of destruction, but not one left by the fiendish beasts that killed his friends. This path had been cut by blade and spell, not of tooth and nail. So he followed this path as best he could. But the nature of the dungeon alone caused him to lose his bearings.
He would have remained lost until some fell beast claimed him had it not been for a light that appeared just around the corner.
He followed the light as best he could for it was always just outside his vision; either around a corner or behind a door.
Until finally he opened a door to find a surprised elf, human, and 3 dwarves...

(I'd like to thank the Wizards of the Coast Player Classifieds forum for helping us find yet another new player - er vice versa rather.)

Justin did not attend this night. As punishment I let Dale play Thunderclease. But Dale did not want that burden, so Brian played him.

Now on to the meat of this thing!

Map

Room E20 (again): The party believes this to be a safe room. So imagine their surprise when an armed & armored gold dwarf appeared before them. But after some quick speaking on both sides (and a Detect Evil), the 2 gold dwarves in the party were quick to accept the allegiance of another gold dwarf, especially one who bears the holy symbol of a dwarf god of battle, Haela Brightaxe (there sure are a lot of dwarf gods of battle).
Valden told his story to the group, and they told theirs to him with apologies for the loss of his comrades.
Half an hour of role-playing (and some pizza) later, Valden was accepted into the group.

Room E22: The party returns to the room where they fought the 8 shadows and moves on.

Rooms E23-E30: Each room appeared pretty much the same; a hive-like barracks for some large ant/man creatures, all now dead. Some searching of the rooms turned up a potion and a ring.

Room E31: This room was made for only a single ant-man creature. And it lay dead amongst 8 other dead humanoids, with its magical bastard sword still impaled in one of the humanoids. Of course the party took the sword.

Room E32 (the hallway west of room E31): The party never made it into this room. It was barred from the inside. They decided to try to break down the door after Dalron could not open it with his abilities. Because the hallway was too narrow for 2 people, Thunderclease was handed the battering ram and set to work. With a run, he attempted to batter the door down. He was given a +4 to his roll for the ram and the run. But it was not enough. He slammed into the door with a great force, doing 10 points of damage to himself and breaking the battering ram. The door remained intact and sturdy.

The party moved on and did much exploring, finding empty room after empty room. Until...

Room E35: This room was full of rotted robes that were once once great quality. Over the western door were words in the celestial language. Krieg translated them to "Seek only the charter". This picqued their curiosity so they traveled on through to...

Room E36: This room was featureless except for a door on the easy, a door on the west, and a silver, gold, and platinum sword sticking out of the ground and it hummed with power.
The party investigated the sword thoroughly, but without touching it. The words "Seek only the charter" made them think this was a test of temptation. When they moved on to the western door, the sword disappeared and a word in celestial appeared over the western door.
"Temptation"

Room E37: This room had 2 doors and a man covered in blood begging for help. After a quick Detect Evil by Dugan, Dugan layed hands upon the man. The man then disappeared and a word in celestial appeared over the western door.
"Charity"
As far as the party was concerned, this was a test.
But for and of what?
"Seek only the charter" Dugan kept repeating.

Room E38: This room had 2 doors and giant spider-creature with cleavers at the end of its arms. With some hesitation, most of the party charged the beast, believing this to be another illusion as part of this test.
They were right. The beast vanished and a word written in celestial appeared over the western door.
"Bravery"

Room E39: This room contained a table and chairs. Inside the table, as if it had grown into the table, was a crystal with thousands of pin pricks of light shining out of it (like a disco-ball :) ). A word in celestial was already over the northern door, and above it was a symbol of the god Tyr. The word was "Knowledge". Runes of glowing silver wrought into the iron on the door said "To Serve" in magic.
Taking another chance, the party sat down.
The crystal drew them in and put them in a dreamlike state. It showed them demons, devils, and undead fighting angels of all sorts. Then the fell beasts were placed into this dungeon as their prison for eternity. The last vision being one of a giant beast of flame with eyes of burning hatred being locked up in the darkness.
When it was over, the party was blessed with an Aid spell and an Owl's Wisdom spell that would last the remainder of the day.
The party believed this to be the reward and discussed at great length whether or not to continue through the north door. Eventually the consensus was to go through the door.

Room E40: This room had a globe in the ceiling that emitted the light of a noonday sun. And set on a waist high steel pillar, was a very large scroll (5 pounds). Once again Krieg translated the celestial language.
Boiled down: Those who sign the charter take an oath to always do what is right, defend the weak, help your brothers in arms, and never relent to evil. And those who ever break those oaths are struck with a vengeance should they ever touch the charter again.
These reasons seemed noble to the ears of Krieg and Dugan, and attempted to sign it. But the pen burned into ruin and the ink never even touched the page. They searched the room in hopes of finding the key to signing the charter. But nothing was found.

Room E41: Their hopes of signing the charter dashed, they moved into this room. Inside they find a peaceful room meant for meditation. They also find the corpse of dog headed creature, barely more than dust and bones now. But they do find a silver/platinum quill and some dried ink. Mixing some fresh water into the inkwell Dugan signs the charter with the quill.
It fills him with a new sense of purpose and duty. Krieeg and Valden then sign the charter. All three are now bound to the tenets of the charter. They now have a +2 to Will saves and their alignment shifts one step towards good, if already good in alignment, it shifts one step towards lawful.
Thunderclease, Dalron, & Zorak decline.

Room E42: This room is full of tiny alcoves, each containing a candle. Many candles have not been lit. Many candles have lost their flame. Three candles have recently been lit.

Room E43: Thick rugs, worn bare in many places, cover this room. On the eastern wall lays an ancient, but ordinary longsword. On the western wall, a book sits alone on a small shelf. Dugan opens the book to find it to be a holy text of his god Moradin. Later when Zorak examines it, it reads to be a holy book of Mystra.
Although I should have not let it work, Zorak and Dalron then return to sign the charter.

Room E45: The door to this room was open and Dugan's radar popped up 4 moderate blips. So a couple buff spells were cast prior to entering. But the casting of spells let the barghests inside prep as well.
The combat lasted more than a few rounds, but the barghests could not overcome the power of 6 PCs (2 being clerics). If anything, this combat taught the group how to deal with barghests.

Room E47: The door to this room was closed. Dugans radar showed 4 blibs; 3 moderate and 1 greater. So the party turned around, cast many prep spells, and then the party pushed through the door and caught 1 greater barghest and 3 standard barghests unprepared.
Now simply, I thought that this combat would have taken forever because of the greater barghest and its abilities...
Round 1: The barghests would have won initiative, but the party got this round as a surprise round. One barghest was hurt pretty bad by the majority of the party and the greater barghest took 33 points of damage in one hit from Thunderclease (wielding a +2 holy greatsword, raging, the Power Attack feat, and the spell Aid & Bull's Strength).
Round 2: The barghests use a combination of attacks and their Crushing Despair spell-like abilities. The party does in the hurt barghest and severely hurts another. Thunderclease does 37 more points to the greater barghest.
Round 3: Thunderclease has now done 70 points to greather barghest who only had 89 hp to begin with. It's looking bad for the barghests. So the greater barghest uses it's Charm Monster spell on Thunderclease. It works and Thunderclease stands blankly for this round. When the 2nd barghest falls, it clears Dugan to attack the greater barghest. Using his Smite Evil ability, he does 12 more to the greater.
Round 4: The greater attempts to break for the door and fails to make in a flurry of free attacks.
The last barghest turns into a goblin and pleads for mercy, stating that it was only doing what it was ordered to do. It pleaded and pleaded and rolled a 29 on its bluff. The 3 puritan gold dwarves fell for it and told it to go try to pass the test that they just took. The group rolled nothing better than a 16 on their sense motive. So it got away.

Next week I up the danger.