A new power is rising!

Catchy title huh?

No game this week.
Too bad too. I was ready for some interesting stuff to happen.

We've been through this dungeon for over 6 months now and the group is about 35-40% done.

I've been reading ahead a little bit into the next region the group will probably be going into and eegad man... TPK is very likely if they take some bad steps.

Another game will be under our belt next week. Stay tuned until then.

But for now I'm doing some minor touching up on the layout of the blog. Bodycount pages are now webpages instead of blog entries. I've also had to take the maps and other pictures and make them "Map" links. But in doing so it makes the links move up to the top of the screen. And all of the newer links and map pages will pop up a new window rather than move your current browser there. Soon I'll make some player and PC pages as well.

Session #19

Alrighty!

First, soon I'll be removing the "Body Count" entries, and replace them with a link to a bare bones web page for it. In case you don't know I keep updating the body count blog entries, but it those entries remain where they are in the blog order, so I'll just create my own simple html pages for them. AND I figured out how to create permanent links on the blog main page. They are now in the bottom right of the page. I'm going to try to move them to the top right some day. But not today. Because...

Last night was possibly the most productive night for this group in a long time. And it wasn't just the "no pizza" rule and me being a militaristic evil DM...but that helped. :)

This is gonna be a looong blog entry.

Everyone got to do a little something tonight. And everyone showed as well.

To make things even better, the DM rolled an absurd number of naturals 1's the whole evening.

We usually stop at 11:30pm, but this night we pushed on until 1am. And it was well worth it. Last week the players got a 5% bonus XP gain. This week they fully earned the 10% bonus. Almost everyone was exhausted when the game was over.

There will be no game next week (Good Friday). We've played several sessions in a row, so it's time for a break anyway.

Now let us begin.

Map #1

The group had just left the combat with the drow and are still desperately searching for Eight Strikes Fang, the 2-bladed sword that they've been told can truly hurt Madness and Anguish. Their list of areas to explore is small. So they returned to the screaming skin room, I59. And from there they move on to...

Room I62: A cube-shaped room blackened with soot and stinking of a foul chemical. Krieg attempts to identify the substance, but fails. Searching turns up nothing of interest.

Room I33: This room was slime free. But it did have lumps of charred and dried flesh. It also had a stone door with a 3 ringed symbols on the door eerily similar to the 3 ringed symbols on the southern wall of room I30.
Dalron & Torin entered the room. When he began searching the symbols he triggered a trap on the floor. An Evard's Black Tentacles spell was triggered and grabbed both of them.

Only some damage was dealt to the two before they finally were able to disable that trap.

Next they searched the rings. Dalron found a trap and was able to disable it with Torin's help after a couple of Dispel Magics failed.
Then he searched again and found another trap. He was unable to remove the trap the first time, or the 2nd. Ok, I've lost count, but with Torin aiding him and Valden casting a Guidance spell.
Then he searched again and found another trap. This time he botched the removal and ended up triggering it upon himself. The spell was Touch of Idiocy and I rolled good on the damage. Dalron lost over 12 points combined of intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. The effect wore off in an hour, just in time for their next situation.

While Dalron and Torin were playing games in the room, the rest of the party watched the entertainment from the hallway. When Dalron got his eldritch lobotomy, the rest of the group heard a voice from the shadows.

"Why are you investigating Siglinde's fake door so heavily? You do realize it is fake do you not?"

That woke the party up. The voice claimed to be a drow told them that he could assist them in finding Eight Strikes Fang if they did something for him. There's a drider that he wants them to kill. Simple as that. BUT they must be blindfolded while he leads them to the location. At first they really don't like the idea, but they find out that the drow is not bluffing. So they reluctantly agree.

Torin, making his Survival check, is able to estimate that they walked a little over 1000 feet overall, directions north, then west, then south.

Map #2

When they were told to take their blindfolds off, they heard a noise in the distance and they were surrounded by drow that were blocking all avenues of escape other than a door to the south.

The voice spoke again, "Now quickly, go through the door and kill the drider. Our distraction will not last."

The party opens the door and enters the room.

Room I68: This room was full of 2 things. Thick green mosslike foliage, and lots of webs. The moment they were all in the room, combat began, in spite of them not being able to see their opponent. This was the DM's favorite fight of the evening.

Round 1: Every single PC rolls horribly for initiative. A spell of Solid Fog fills the center of the corridor with a radius of 20 feet. The spell prevents the PC's from moving more than 5 feet in a round (and prevents use of the 5' step tactical move), and limits vision to no more than 5'. So the PC's are now blinded to any opponents or allies who are not standing next to them. But the drider is not. He is hanging upside down in the eastern alcove and is able to "feel" where the PC's are through the webs in the room. The drider was also prepared prior to combat (frequently using the clairaudience/clairvoyance spell to aid it in its hunting). It had already cast shield, mage armor, displacement, and greater invisibility. Zorak was able to cast Haste on Krieg, Torin, & Dalron because he could see them. The party moved further into the room with the hasted individuals able to move a whole 10' now.
Round 2: Thunderclease, obviously the heavy hitter of the group from his weight, fails his saving throw versus a hold monster spell. The party still sees no sign of their foe. Zorak Hastes the remainder of the party. At the end of his movement, Torin sees a drider at the southern edge of the fog and lets the party know.
Round 3: Valden, the 2nd heaviest, succeeds in his saving throw versus another Hold Monster spell. Thunderclease breaks free of his Hold Monster spell. The rest of the party moves towards the southern edge to get to the drider and light small fire items to begin setting fire to the webs (thus blinding the drider). Torin attacks the drider and it disappears, only being an illusion.
Round 4: The drider has really moved to the northern end of the hallway and casts a lightning bolt down the hall. It severely wounds Valden and Zorak, leaving them very low on hit points. Torin is able to dodge the spell successfully, taking no damage.
Round 5: The drider casts another Hold Monster spell on Thunderclease, but Thunderclease saves, so it prepares to climb back up the wall. The party does a 180 and head back to the northern area of the hall. Valden has to spend the round healing himself.
Round 6: The drider attempts to physically attack Thunderclease, but misses on all attacks. This spells the doom for the drider, because now the party can make out an area of displacement in the fog. Although it is harder for them to hit it, it only has 61 hit points. That may seem like a lot, but average damage from 1 of Thunderclease's hits to and evil creature is about 30. Then add a hasted party, and all of the protective spells in the world are only going to delay the inevitable. (There is a funny part of the combat where Zorak casts Scorching Ray at the drider and first has to roll a ranged touch attack and hit, then has to break through the spell resistance of the drider, and then has to make a 50% roll to break through the displacement spell - and somehow he still hit once.)
Two rounds later and the party is arguing over who gets to cut off the things head.

The party emerges from the room with the head of the drider. The voice, still in the shadow and sounding pleased, tells them to put the blindfolds back on.

The party is then led away somewhere less than 500' to the north.

Room I????: When they are told to remove their blindfolds, the party sees themselves in a meticulously clean 20'x20' room. Standing before them are 2 drow elves. One is an incredible old and blind drow male. The other is a big male drow elf with a 2nd left arm.

The old & blind elf querries the party about their aims. "You seek Eight-Strikes Fang to defeat the abominative twins, do you not? I will help you. It his hidden in a secret cache that lies at the dead-end of a northern hallway in the southern area of the Halls of Flesh. But first you will need a key."

At this point, I swear that Dalron actually holds up the iron key and said to the old blind elf "This key?"

"Is this the idiot you warned me of Lorath?"
"Yes.", in a familiar voice coming from the 3-armed drow.

"No. You need this key.", the blind elf holds out a small onyx statue cut into the shape of a drider.

"Take this key and leave now. You do not have time to stand around and chat."

With that the party puts back on their blindfolds and is led over 500' to the south and are left alone back where they started.

The party returns to region E (the dead-end to region I) to rest and prepare.

During their rest, while Dalron was on watch, the inevitable Dubar reinforced the ward near the group. He then informed Dalron that the party should return to the Garrison soon. Something very interesting is about to happen.

The party now plans their day for secret door and trap finding.

Map #3

Room I4: The party had previously searched the dead-end and did not find a secret door, but did find 8 small impressions in the wall. Dalron compared the legs of the drider key to the impressions in the wall and found them to match. So he placed the 8 legs of the drider key into the holes. He heard the sounds of a beginning to open and then the 8 legs of the key reach around and grasps Dalron's hand and the mouth bites into his hand injects a venom. He fails his saving throw and takes 1d8 points of constitution damage. The 2 clerics attempt to aid him in removing the venom before the secondary damage hits. But they fail and Dalron fails to save again, so he takes 1d6 in dexterity damage. But with 2 clerics around, the damage is temporary at best.

Dalron then searches the door and finds no trap. But there is one and it creates the effects of a Repulsion spell. Everyone in the group fails the DC21 will save. A little over a minute later the spell expires and the party tries again. This time everyone except Valden and Dalron fail their saves. So those 2 enter the room and begin searching around. The room is totally bare (except the standard evil goo everywhere), but Dalron's searching (a nat 20) turns up a hidden compartment.

He checks the compartment for traps, and finds one. He attempts to remove it. He fails horribly and the acid fog trap goes off. It only does 2d6 damage but lasts for over a minute. Dalron leaves the spell's radius and waits. By the time it ends, the rest of the party is able to make it through the repulsion trap.

Then the pathetic hilarity ensued. Follow by pathetic sadness because a joke is only funny for so long.

With Torin aiding (usually), and many spells improving chances, it took Dalron 16 times to remove the trap. Thirteen of times he failed and set off the trap. Approximate damage was around 70 (lower than average, but the DM was on a low rolling streak). Yet again, 2 clerics helps...

Finally the cache is untrapped and the door to it is unlocked. Inside, lying on its side, is a clean and bright two-bladed sword forged from cold steel. It's 2 blades are so sharp it seems as if they were cut from ice.

Zorak then does a complete identification of the sword. One blade is a +1, the other blade is a +2 axiomatic shapeshifterbane.
Axiomatic = It does 2d6 additional damage against a chaotic creature. Anyone chaotic wielding the sword gains a negative level for the duration.
Shapeshifterbane = the blade's bonus becomes +4 when attacking shapeshifters and deals an additional 2d6.
So if the wielder were using Eight Strikes Fang against a chaotic shapeshifter it would be a +1/+4 attack bonus and deal 1d8+1 (avg 5.5)/1d8+4+2d6+2d6 (avg 22.5) not counting other bonuses.
But it is an exotic sword, and no one has the feat to use it. After much discussion the group decides that the weapon is best in Valden's hands for now.

The group now needs to find and fix the shredded pages of the Ritual of Unmaking. This is when Torin lets them know that he hid them (the word we used was "keistered" for humor purposes).

Since it's also confession time, Dalron informs the group of his cryptic conversation with Dubar.

That makes the group happy (ok, fake happy because they already knew about it).

So now the group changes plans to return to region E to rest and prepare for the ritual. They also intend to investigate what Dubar was talking about.

The first thing the group does when they return is to find Kelara, leader of the Garrison. In her quarters they do not find her, but they do find her mate/2nd-in-command, Morkor. A quick conversation points out that Kelara left but an our ago to investigate some new insanity that the inevitables doing with The Redeemed.

The PCs never met The Redeemed, so Morkor fills them in. Dubar, like all of the inevitables, has become more and more "off" over the centuries. And he has a recent experiment in finding a way to replenish the ranks of the Garrison. Recently a group of various humanoids were captured and "reformed" by Dubar when they fled from region A. He calls these captured humanoids The Redeemed. As far as Morkor is concerned, they are no more reformed now than the day they were captured. Kelara chose to let Dubar continue with the experiment.

The PCs were split over what to do. The DM informed them that they could only take 1 path right now. So they were put to a secret vote. They had to choose region E or region I.

The votes were tallied, and here are the results:
1 vote region I.
1 vote region E.
That's 1 vote region I & 1 vote region E.

Ok, ok. The players thought it was corny too.

Final tally: 4 votes for I, 2 votes for E.

Zorak studied the Ritual of Unmaking for more information. He found that required a 9th level arcane caster or any arcane caster that held Eight Strikes Fang (8SF from now on). Multiple spell components were required as well, but could be obtained from Mahir's cache. A chunk of flesh from the twin to be unmade is required as well. Once the ritual begins, it will take an hour to complete, 10 minutes less for each caster that aids and has 5 ranks of spellcraft. When the incantation begins, the primary caster would require a DC15 spellcraft check. Then another check at +5DC was required every 10 minutes, to a maximum of DC30.

Once the ritual has begun, the targeted twin is helpless, but the other twin will come rushing to his aid at full speed.

And finally, if the primary caster fails to maintain concentration or fails to roll a spellcraft check, something horrid will befall him.

Note: the module states that the ritual should work only once, but I ignored that. I'm ready to move on to another region.

The party spent much time deciding on which Twin to start with, what spell to take, what tactics to use, and other minutae.

It took much real time for them to plan it out, but they decided to enter the area they avoided last time, room I98. They strongly felt that Anguish was in this room. But weren't 100% sure.

Here is the list of buff spells they had cast just prior to entering the room.

Dalron:
- Darkvision (now a breakfast spell* from Zorak)

Torin:
- Darkvision

*Breakfast spell: any spell consistently cast in the morning that usually will last all day. Such spells usually have a duration of 1 hour per caster level.

Krieg:
Owl's Wisdom

Zorak:
- Mage Armor
- Darkvision
- Spell Immunity: Confusion & Touch of Idiocy
- Resist Energy: Fire

Valden:
- Freedom of Movement
- Magic Vestment
- Aid
- Enlarge
- Align Weapon: Lawful (on his greatsword)
- Bear's Endurance
- Protection from Fire (96 points)

Thunderclease:
- Spell Immunity: Confusion & Touch of Idiocy
- Freedom of Movement
- Magic Vestment
- Magic Circle vs. Evil
- Protection from Fire (96 points)
- Aid
- Enlarge
- Align Weapon: Lawful (on his +2 holy greatsword)
- Bull's Strength

With that they enter...

Room I98: A very long (380') and wide hall, once possibly a great feast hall now lays in utter ruin. Walking along the edge of the room will cause half movement, but the hall itself is at least 50' high.

Dalron and Torin split from the group and hide along the side walls. The party, led by the 2 giant combat freaks, creaps down the hallway, keeping an eye out for anything.

Torin and Dalron see a 3 headed creature gliding silently down the hallway on a direct path to the lead party members. Torin, seeing that the party does not see Anguish, gives up his hiding to warn the party.
The combat begins:
Round 1: The main party is warned. Thunderclease and Valden ready their actions for the approach of Anguish. Zorak casts Haste on everyone except Dalron (who he can't see). Krieg casts prayer. Anguish knows that he's been spotted, so his tactics change. Instead of a direct flyby attack, he nears the party and his bronze dragon head emits a cone of repulsion gas targeting Valden and Thunderclease. Valden saves, but Thunderclease does not. He is now effectively out of combat because has no ranged weapons and cannot get within 30' of the chimera. After breathing, he flies straight up and grabs onto the ceiling.
Round 2: Anguish breathes lightning directly onto Valden, hurting him, but not heavily. Zorak tosses a Fireball at Anguish, but barely scratches the beast. Torin attempts to shoot an arrow at Anguish, only to have it bounce off the beast's tough fiendish hide.
Round 3: Zorak casts another Fireball at Anguish, doing a whole 1 point of damage. Anguish begins to fly towards the other end of the hallway. The party gives chase, but in a spread out fashion.
Round 4: Torin is the farthest out of the group, so the chaotic & insane Anguish sees an easy mark. He lands almost on top of Torin. The rest of the party, save Dalron and Thunderclease, swarm to the location.
Round 5: Valden hits Anguish with 8SF. That got Anguish's attention. Valden takes much damage from that. Krieg heals Valden. Dalron sneaks behind the beast and gets a sneak attack, hurting it. Torin and Dalron now flank the beast and both are able to use their full sneak attack abilities.
Round 6: Another round of frenetic combat ends with Valden finishing the beast off.

The party quickly cuts off a chunk of his flesh and flee to their safe room.

Room I9: This was among the first rooms the party found. It was store room that had some sacks with some poison and such, but it only has 1 way in (and only 1 way out if you're a pessimist). The party spikes the door shut, knowing that Madness will make his appearance to the party soon.

8SF is handed over to Zorak, and he begins the ritual alone, with the rest of the party forming a protective circle around him.

Side Note: Zorak has maxxed out his spellcraft and taken the feat focus: spellcraft simply to aid in the identification of magic items (see one of the earliest blog entries for the mechanics of it). It just happened to work out really well for this event.

Round 1: Zorak begins, and easily makes his spellcraft check. Two loud screams can be heard. One not even 200' away, the other over 500' away. The flesh from Anguish coats 8SF in a creepy "Poltergeist pork chop" manner.
Round 2: The fleshy walls begin vibrate and pulse, in a resonant manner with Zorak's chanting.
Round 3: The flesh on the walls develops eyes.
Round 4: Madness appears, not through the door, but manifests through the slime on the wall.
Round 5: The party moves to protect Zorak and engage Madness.
Round 6: Madness breathes out a lightning bolt targeting Zorak, dealing 27 to him and all in the path. Zorak gets no dexterity bonus to his save and fails. Needing a natural 20 to succeed in the casting, he fails his concentration check and the Ritual of Unmaking is disrupted. The ritual backlashes on Zorak causing a mere 1 damage to wisdom and 2 to intelligence.
Round 7: Madness is now free of his blind rage, and remembers these targest he's fought against before. So he knocks Krieg into negative hp. But when Valden grabs 8SF and strikes Madness with it, Madness focuses solely on Valden.

Aaron: "We're driving Madness crazy!"

Zorak is now free to cast spells and his choice is Haste. He then joins Torin at the back of the room while Torin begins removing the 5 spikes from the door.
Round 8: Thunderclease and Valden begin wailing on Madness, but most of their buffs had worn off long ago, thus ruining some of their effectiveness. Dalron pulls Krieg from combat and dumps a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds down his throat. Madness severely wounds Valden, but thanks to Valden's Freedom of Movement spell, he cannot be engulfed.
Round 9: Valden is dropped. Thunderclease's Freedom of Movement spell protects him from being engulfed as well. Krieg rushes to Valden's aid with one of his last healing spells. Dalron rushes into combat simply to be a distraction. Torin removes a 3rd spike. Zorak casts a Magic Missile spell.
Round 10: Thunderclease puts down Madness for the 3rd time in his short career.

The flesh from Anguish was ruined during the fight, but there's plenty of Madness flesh to go around.

So the ritual is begun anew. This time Krieg and Valden aid Zorak, reducing the required time to 40 minutes.

Ritual 0-10 minutes: DC15. Easily made.
Ritual 11-20 minutes: DC20. Close roll, but he made it.
Ritual 21-30 minutes: DC25. A failed roll, but he succeeds in regaining his concentration and gets a 2nd chance, making it this time.
Ritual 31-40 minutes: DC30. A failed roll, and a failed concentration check. The DM allows him to use his only "re-roll point" to try again. He succeeds.

Anguish's body seems to writhe, and then it separates into its base components, and finally it disappears altogether.

The party cheers, but do not waste any time running back to Anguishes body to grab another chunk of his flesh.

Ritual #2 0-10 minutes: DC15. Easily made.
Ritual #2 11-20 minutes: DC20. Easily made.
Ritual #2 21-30 minutes: DC25. Close, but successful.
Ritual #2 31-40 minutes: DC30. Failed, but he retains his concentration and makes another spellcraft roll. It is successful.

The small chunk of Anguish's flesh repeats the same series of unmaking that occured with Madness.

That ends the session.

Next session...the fallout and the Garrison.

Session #18

Ok, where to begin?

Number 1 - Brian could not make. Then Dale could not make it because he has no immune system. Then Jeff had to leave half an hour into the game. He was sick too. This left Joe, Justin, & Aaron to play 2 characters apiece. Joe played Dalron. Justin played Torin. And Aaron played Valden.

Number 2 - The past week I went insane. We are supposed to get started between 6 & 7. But as time went along, the game got started shortly after 7. Then when we started consistently getting pizza, that time became 8 o'clock. Then add in the amount of time we bs in the evening and we stop around 11:30, that leaves 3 hours, maybe, of gaming. When 5 of 7 of our group have only 1 day to game, this matters.

So I started thinking about, and then sent an e-mail to the group that was a tad shy of a tirade, but worded better. As the week went on feedback from the group came in, and I cooled off, the following are now in effect (they're not hard rules, just a kick in the butt) :
- No more pizza. Bring your own dinner and have it done by 7.
- At 7pm, bs'ing stops and dinner had better be done. All books not directly related to the game are to be put away and out of arms reach.
- At 7pm, the game begins.
- XP rewards will be given to the group as a whole. Up to a 10% bonus XP will be granted for the night. The amount will be based on how well the group acted as a whole to keep the game going. This is probably better than the 10% for everyone or -25% for one. Usually this would be a roleplaying bonus, but we all know that roleplaying in the WLD is limited.

Everyone in the group accepts this. It reads much worse than it actually is.

Map

Day 20, 5am

The party had retured to region E to rest and investigate the large book.

A conversation with Kelara led them to believe that the book as a whole was evil and should be destroyed. Further investigation of the book showed that only one section of the book was evil. Zorak and Krieg combined their efforts to understand this part of the book.

They discovered that it was a dark ritual that was to "unmake" something and required an arcane caster of at least 9th level. It explained nothing more except for the quote in Undercommon on the first page: "Do not call up that which cannot be put down again."

The group decided to take the book to the Charter Room and leave it until they better understood the tome. But when the glyphs on the door attempted to destroy the book, the consensus was to destroy the ritual. Thunderclease (& Torin - both played by Justin) objected, but was outvoted 4-2.

After a few spells to remake the spellbook and repair the damage, the ritual was removed. Attempts to destroy the pages by fire failed. Torin then was volunteered to destroy the pages physically. The DM made a secret roll for Torin to make it appear he was destroying the pages while he was actually hiding them and destroying regular paper.

Afterwards the party rested and then returned to region I.

Room I57: The party was returning to room I56 to continue their search of the chaotic muscle-walled region. In the hallway to that room, they were in for a nasty surprise. The chaotic movement off the area distracted half of them from looking up and seeing a flying ball of flesh, goo, eyes, and mouths descend upon them.

When it landed, it split the party up to prevent buffing. And since it was the same gibbering mouther they fought before, it knew them and was ready. They were not.

Surprise round: It lands and is able knock Dalron into negative hp and engulfs Krieg.

Round 1: Torin's attacks prove useless when compared to its damage resistance. Zorak cast Haste. Valden runs to heal Thunderclease. Its main attacks now focus on Valden. Thunderclease begins his usual cuisinarte activity. Krieg tries to free himself from the thing (it gets 12 attacks per round that deal 1-2 damage - and he can't act).

Round 2: Thunderclease misses on all 3 of his attacks. Dalron and Torin can do nothing but protect Zorak and be his meat shields. Zorak tosses a Scorching Ray into the beast, hitting with each of his 2 rays. But it has fire resistance 10, so the damage was small. Valden runs to buff and heal Thunderclease, but it gives the beast an attack of opportunity which is enough to knock him into negatives. Krieg almost escapes, but still fails.

Round 3: Thunderclease is now the sole target for the mouther's external attacks. They take chunkcs out of each other. Krieg fails again to escape. Zorak casts Enlarge on Thunderclease (it's a ranged spell). The mouther uses its gibbering attack. It only effects Dalron.

Round 4: Krieg finally escapes and tries to heal Valden, but he failed to "cast on the defensive". Dalron stares blankly and gibbers during the round. Torin runs up to the mouther to offer a flanking bonus to Thunderclease. But Thunderclease is then engulfed by the mouther and has to spend his regular action breaking free, only giving him a single attack. Zorak casts Magic Missile doing some minor damage.

Round 5: Dalron's confusion from the mouther causes him to attack Torin for some minor damage. Krieg is at 5 hit points. Thunderclease has 22 hp including the rage hp. The beast does 19 hp in damage to Thunderclease using all of its attacks. Thunderclease is able to put it down. (Aaron then gives a huge sigh of relief.)

A rapid succession of healing spells is cast on Valden & Thunderclease. The party then cleared out of the room so Zorak could drop 2 Fireballs on it and then cast Magic Missile on anything large enough to be targeted.

The party spend less than 1/2 hour in region I before having to retreat to region E again.

On the trek back to region E, Thunderclease is receiving the weird automatic healing the region gives everyone. But this healing comes at a cost. For Thunderclease the cost is his brain to get bigger. He gets a +2 to intelligence and wisdom. That doesn't sound bad does it? Nah. But he also gets a -6 to charisma. His charisma is normally 6. He collapses onto the floor into a coma. The party has to drag him now.

It takes a full day for the effects to wear off.

(This has happened before to the party, but the effects were minor and left out of the blog.)

Room I57: The party returns to the room to verify their suspicions that the beast would only return to life if it was in it's own room. They were wrong. It saw the party. The party saw it. They ran for their lives and got away.

Room I52: Dalron found no traps on the door, but he noted that the door was quite warm to the touch. Inside was a pyromaniac's dream. Twelve casks of flammable oil and 6 vials of alchemist's fire all neatly labelled in Undercommon.

Room I59: The walls of this room were made of a translucent crystal that was coated by a thin layer of flesh. Dalron investigated the room and determined that the skin was able to make noise and that faster you moved, the louder its noise would be. The party lightly tread through this room to move on.

Room I58: This room was thick with vegetation and fallen rock. The opening to the other side was so overgrown that it would be a tight fit for the party. The party thought that this screamed "assassin vine" and turned around.

Room I30: This hallway intersection had at a door at 3 of its ends and a weird symbol at the southern end. The party chose to ignore the symbol because nothing good could come from that.

But when they investigated the door to the west their Detect Evil spell detected a source of moderate evil. The door was also locked. Before Dalron was able to open the lock, a raspy voice came from the other side.
It gave them much information:
- It had been watching them. For how long it did not say.
- The gibbering mouther's name was Madness.
- It had a chimera twin name Anguish.
- They were created by the sorcerer Mahir.
- They can not be killed unless Mahir's caches is found and something known as "Eight Strikes Fang" is also found.
The party told the voice that they had found Mahir's cache. It wanted to know if they found the "Ritual of Unmaking". When they told it what they did, it responded with a tirade of insults and told them to fix what they had done.
And when they were ready, the voice would arrange for a diversion. Diversion? One of the requirements for the ritual is a fresh bit of flesh from the twin to be unmade, and once the ritual is started the targetted twin is helpless but the other will come rushing to destroy the ritualmaker. That is was the diversion will be for.

Before leaving the party asked what was beyond the door to the north. It responded "Entertainment."
"Entertainment for whom?"
"Me. Now goodbye."

Room I117: The party ended up having to use the Wand on Knock on this door because the lock was beyond Dalron's abilities, and they were dangerously close to Madness's home.

Inside the room were 4 drow and a cloaker. Combat was quick and sad.
Thunderclease kills the cloaker on round 1 with 2 hits (leaving it with -39 hp on a crit).
One drow fled to the north, another to the west. The two that remained didn't last long. Then 2 more tried to sneak through to get Thunderclease, only to be spotted by him and then summarily slaughtered.

Then a voice from the corridors spoke to them in a pleasant tone, asking them to cease their aggression and leave or they will be forced to use their own mages. They know the party can kill many of them, but it will gain them nothing. The drow will be the diversion that the voice, Siglinde, talked about.

Then the voice changed and became darker and more forceful, telling the party to leave now!

So the party left.

More unfolds next week. They believe that Anguish lies behind the burnt doors that they found early in their exploration of the region.

And now they have a goal.

We stopped a little early because we were all tired, and were about to start something kind of big. Plus playing 2 characters can be a little rough if one of them is not yours.

Session #17

This adventuring started off slow tonight. At some point everyone got sick of the slow pace, so the DM pushed things along that were pretty much the same stuff the players had seen already, but nothing major or anything plot-related.

Over 30 points of smartass damage was dealt to Justin & Joe tonight. Munchkins.

Brian was unable to make this night. Justin played Torin. Brian will probably not be able to make this coming week either.

Map

The group last spent the night back in a safe-room in region E. After finding out that the celestials knew nothing about the room beyond the north door of room I41, the party returned to that point.

Note: The DM does roll for random encounters, but the party takes direct routes on their travels from region I to E and back. The random encounters are either nothing, something that would not fit, or monsters that the party have easily destroyed before. The creatures in region I may be evil and chaotic, but they're not (that) stupid. Accordingly, the party receives a wide berth in the southern section of region I.

Room I41: Detect Evil still showed a faint evil beyond the norther door. Dalron's investigation of the door gave the same results; a very complicated, but even more fragile, trap. Clerical buffs increased his skills, but the die roll was insufficient.
Crunch: the gears of the trap were broken.
Zorak used his Wand of Knock.
Click. The lock unlocks.
Dalron investigates the door.
No traps are found but there's another lock behind the first. Even more complicated and just as fragile.
Dalron attempts to pick the lock.
Crunch.
Zorak uses his Wand of Knock.
Click. The lock unlocks.
Dalron investigates the door.
No traps are found but there's another lock behind the first. Even more complicated and just as fragile.
Dalron, yet again, attempts to pick the lock.
Crunch.
Zorak uses his Wand of Knock. Now down to 30 charges. (The wand was found in the room where the party had to fight the fiendish dire wolverine.)
Dalron investigates the door.
No traps are found. The door is totally unlocked.

Room I42: The winding hallway had some interesting grafiti on the walls. To Dalron, Torin, & Zorak saw nothing beyond some odd colored stones. To those with darkvision, Krieg, Valden, & Thunderclease, the grafiti had a much more profane appearance. It was a series of depictions of atrocities that would make a Nazi scientist cringe in horror.

Then to make it worse, the group could faintly hear the screams and anguish of the beings in the display. And the party could see the pictures moving out of the corner of their eyes. Although creeped out, the party moved past the hallway.

All they found was a column of stone in the middle of the room. As always, to an adventuring group, finding nothing means you've found something, it's just hidden. "No one protects nothing with 3 locks".

Dalron searches the room (nat 20). He finds something hidden at the top of column, designed to appear as though it was connected to the ceiling.
He's pulls out a 20 pound book that is about 5'x5' when open and has at least 300 pages. This is what is radiates the evil. The markings on it indicate that it is a spellbook, but the evil from the book means that they aren't opening it.

A spellbook that big means some sweet gold.

Room I43: Detect Evil showed nothing beyond the door. They open the door to find a surprised drow elf sitting at a table full of alchemical materials and such. Torin's Detect Evil suddenly registers moderate evil. The half surprised drow talked to the group for about 2 seconds. Only Dalron and Thunderclease realize that the drow is about to ...
Throw the table over causing the chemicals to spread a nasty gas out of the room. Dalron, Torin, & Krieg failed their saves and each took 1d4 wisdom damage.
The combat involved the party rushing the drow and doing almost 100 points of damage in a matter of 2 rounds. The drow simply tries to flee.
It gets the door open and moves out of sight.
When the party enters the room they find nothing but another bare room.
A new casting of Detect Evil finds nothing.
Combat is over. It got away.

What really happened (this had to be explained to the party so they wouldn't cry foul - and it's easier to gloat when mor than just you know what's happening):
It wasn't a drow. It was a shapeshifter.
The room was under a temporal stasis effect. That's why Detect Evil showed nothing.
When it escaped, it simply changed shape and climbed onto the ceiling.
The 2nd Detect Evil spell did not get the square that it was in.
All spot checks failed.
Two rounds later, I deemed that it had escaped.

Then the secondary effects of the alchemical poison hit. All 3 saves failed.
2d6 points of wisdom damage.
Krieg took a whole 3 points of wisdom loss.
Zorak had a wisdom of 3.
Dalron had a wisdom of 0 (actually -4 but eh, the rules say no lower than 0).

After some discussion of what a sorcerer with a wisdom of 3 might do, the party returned to region E. Apparently when the DM said that a sorcerer with a low wisdom would have trouble with wise decision making during combat. It was all I could do to keep from having/letting the guy go "Steve Buscemi in Armageddon" crazy.

Nothing else of interest was found. Everything of interest was only the drow.

The party spent 24 hours resting and healing up the wisdom damage. The celestials inform the party that the drow may have been Mahir, or at least looked like him.

Room I24: The party prepares themselves before entering this room. The last time they entered this flesh-choked room, they caught some diseases that they cured.

Room I26: This room was almost identical to room I24, flesh and slime are thicker here than in other areas of the dungeon. Their searching only finds a drow that has died and now his body has been half-absorbed by the walls. They pull on the drow's body but only pull his upper torso out. The only thing of value on the drow was a simple locket worth 5gp.

Krieg & Valden both get a particularly nasty disease, the Demon Fever. But before it has a chance to take hold, the 2 clerics have cured themselves of it.

Room I25: This room is a temple to Lolth. Everything in the room is ruined and burned to cinders. The party finds nothing and moves on.

Room I45: After further exploration the party decides to investigate the more ruined areas. And this ruined area was more than they asked for. The further they went through the broken passageway, the more foul smelling and ichor filled it became.

Evenatually they came to the northern room I45. The chamber walls pulsed like a heart. It time is pulsed, fluid that could be described as bile gushed out of the flesh. It formed into a small rivulet that flowed into the central I45 room. There it joined up into a puddle that combined with similar fluids from the other I45 rooms.
North room: Black Bile
South room: Yellow Bile
East room: Blood
West room: Phlegm
Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Tasty.

The grossed out party wanted to see what a fireball would do. Zorak complied. The gas that spewed out of the room caused everyone make a fortitude save. Everyone made theirs. Dang.

Not wanting to investigate further, the party got out of there.

Room I53: Further exploration led the party to this interesting room. There is no flesh, living or dead, in this room. The walls have had sheets of iron hammered into the walls to in fact become the walls. And, the room is utterly silent. Magically induced silence. The party makes note of this and moves on.

Room I57: This room caught the attention of the party. The walls of this room are more flesh than slime. Veins, arteries, and muscles can be easily seen. The whole room itself seems to roil and squirm both aboth and belove the surface. Additionally, Detect Evil shows light evil everywhere, instead of the standard faint evil.

As the party slowly walks along the room, they discover that the room gets more agitated the faster they move.

Valden, out of curiosity, decides to stab his sword into the floor. Well that made the room angry. Ropes of muscle and sinew shoot from the floor and grab at Valden. Once he's been grappled, the floor itself attempts to "swallow" him. If he can't get free he will be suffocated by the room.

The party is able to save him in time. But now they have a new level of respect for this room.

The group then moves through the hallway to the east. Dalron searches the southern door. He rolls a natural one. So he found a horrid trap that would cause the floor to fall out from under the area under the door, then the ceiling would collapse into the pit. The party said "screw that" and moved on to...

Room I56: Detect Evil says that there's something of moderate evil inside the room, in addition to the light evil "background radiation". When Dalron attempts to listen at the door, a loud anguished scream comes from inside the room.

So the buffs begin: Prayer, Bless, Haste, Enlarge on Thunderclease, Zorak casts Invisibility on himself, and Valden casts Divine Power on himself.

The party busts into the room and finds a room in chaos. The walls have eye and mouths that begin screaming at the party's entrance. The whole room heaves much worse than the rest of the local rooms. In the corner they a much larger and more focused mass of goo, mouths, and eyeballs.

Round 1: Thunderclease, Dalron, Krieg, and Valden are able to enter the room 10'. The room conditions prevent them from moving along any further unless they want to deal with the grappling of the room.
The pile of goo, mouths, and eyeballs erupts in a wail of insane caterwauling. It is a gibbering mouther, and everyone had to make a Will save or become confused for d2 rounds. Dalron and Zorak fail their saves. Then the mouther spits acid at Thunderclease and disappears under the slime.
Zorak, in his confused state, runs away...at full speed. So Zorak is now being swallowed by the floor and is unable to do anything about it. But Torin is - he'd rather save the sorcerer than be stuck in a combat room he can't move around in.

Round 2: Thunderclease readies his action to wait for the thing to appear. Krieg casts Fire Shield. Dalron stands dazed and babbling mindlessly for the round. Valden casts Detect Evil, hoping that it will help him locate it. It worked. It was moving behind Thunderclease. When it appeared, Thunderclease beat the living daylights out of it. But it was still quite healthy and hit him with a Lighting Bolt breath weapon. Zorak became lucid and was able to break free with Torin's help.

Round 3: Thunderclease continued to punish the gibbering mouther. Dalron was still in his confused state and this time the confusion chart result was "attack nearest creature". The nearest creature was Krieg.
Well I have not seen Dale roll that well in a long long time. Dalron was hasted and duel-wielding his longsword +2/short sword +2. He hit once with the longsword +2, and critted with his short sword +2. It was the most damage Dalron had ever done in 1 round. Luckily it didn't qualify for sneak attack damage.
Now that part is both funny and sad. But it got funnier when Aaron rolled the Fire Shield damage against Dalron. 30+ dealt by Dalron. 20+ taken by Dalron.
The mouther hit Thunderclease with all 7 attacks, but 4 of them did no damage. But 4 mouths were able to grapple him and would allow it to attack 15 times next round. Valden pounds the thing a couple of times.
Zorak and Torin begin their slow trek back to the combat.

Round 4: Thunderclease breaks free and gets a swing in. Valden pounds it a couple of times and it stops moving. The walls stop screaming.

It's dead.
Note: "It" was a fiendish, half-dragon, gibbering mouther.
Message to Jim Hague (the author of region I): Get some help man.

Dalron decides to check the mouther's insides for loot. And surprisingly comes up with some nice magic items that the group is able to identify later:
- Warhammer +2
- Composite shortbow +1 (+2 str)
- Pearl of power (2nd)
- Lens of Detection
- Scroll of Delayed Blast Fireball (inside a sealed scroll tube)

The group is happy.

Room I46: This room has the same muscular floors and walls as before. Investigation of the eastern door discovers a trap, but is unable to disable it. So they move on.

Room I55: Dale's on a rolling streak tonight. This room is just like the other local rooms, but the room seems even more agitated than the others. Dalron is able to find a backpack amongst the insanity (another natural 20). Inside are 2 25' ropes, a couple vials of oil, 4 torces, a potion (later ID's as a cure light wounds wounds potion). And hidden inside a secret compartment in the backpack is an Immovable Rod.

Room I54: This room was even worse than the previous and it was filled with fog. Dalron was sent in to investigate. The moment he entered the room he seemed to move in slow motion & got another odd look on his face. When he started babbling incoherently, the party threw a loop of rope around him and pulled him back in.

They returned to region E to rest.
They leveled!
Thunderclease went up a level in barbarian (barb 6/ftr 2)
Krieg is now a level 8 cleric.
Zorak is now a level 8 sorcerer.
Torin went up a level in rogue (ranger 3/ftr 2/rog 2)

More next week!