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Adventure Log III
Continued Exploration of the Orc Fortress
Scribed by: Pilfrey Stolenjule
We awoke this morning feeling much better than we have of late. My companions and I seem much more rested after our fight with the Orc Shaman. We have agreed to take this opportunity to
study and practice our chosen paths in hopes to become more skilled in our abilities before delving into unexplored terrain. The spell casters of the group are working on their chemicals and funny
words while Lexington and I keep guard, after all, who better to protect the group than a supra-genius halfling and the Ogre-Magi King, Lexington??? After learning how to talk funnier and mix very smelly
items together the spell casters offer to watch the camp while Lexington and I do more important things like tumble around the room and wrap bandages on our party member’s arms and legs. Well, ok,
Lexington had to play with his sword a bit, but you know how lonely it gets in the dungeon.
Oh and by the way, Lexington and I went to go find the Orc handmaiden prior to all of this, but she had run away or gotten eaten... we found several scales around on the floor, might be a baby
dragon, but it smelled worse than one. I trapped the door with some nasty perfume on the way back to our safe haven, in hopes that would be intruders would cause the glass to shatter and we'd hear them coming.
Orc #1, as he has so proudly named himself, groveled up to Orge-Magi King Lexington and humbly informed him that Musha had disappeared while we were busy training. He was not punished, as we want
him to feel comfortable telling us when strange events occur without fear of repercussions from his master. We figured Musha headed back to the wagon, as he has been very edgy and intent on getting out of this
really cool place we have found here. We decided to head back as well to check on Gunter, who was injured a few days ago and stayed back at the wagon to rest. Due to our excellent mapper, we found our way out
without incident, oh yeah, that was me.
We dug up our barrel of the black foul smelling powder (that I acquired from Musha's wagon) and made Orc #1 carry it, and we returned to our original camp site only to find Gunter passed out on the
ground, and that wasn’t the meat of it. Someone had put a bucket of piss water just outside the reach of one of the mules and it hung itself to death trying to get a drink. The other hadn’t been fed or
watered in days and was looking more like the Orc Shaman after Sinclair, or Corbin as he calls himself, zapped him with one of those funny words he says. Nookie, the ferret was dead and his head was tied around
Gunter’s neck. No great loss, that little bastard bit me a number of times, but I hate to harm animals, and he was more of a nuisance than a threat.
We roused Gunter and he started babbling about how Musha came back and wouldn’t give him a straight answer as to where the rest of us were. Gunter got aggravated with him, Gunter doesn’t excel in
patience, and slapped Musha. Then Gunter said that Musha looked like himself (Gunter) all the sudden and hit him with the sword and knocked him out cold. I immediately asked Gunter if he had been skimming some of
that ale from the Drawfs in the back of the wagon and he insisted that he had not. I checked the wagon and all that was missing was the water. Gunter said Musha stole the crystal we had found a few days back when he
left. We suspected a doppelganger had attacked Musha, and then Gunter.
Most of us got the impression deep down, although we didn’t voice it loudly that Gunter may have taken pleasure in torturing the mules and poor Nookie out of boredom. He may have even gotten some
sick pleasure out of it, we may never know.
Crystal seemed concerned as she seemed to believe that the crystal was important, but with a name like Crystal, I guess you would feel that a crystal was important huh?
We all had a heated discussion as to what to do with the mule, the wagon, and ourselves, whether we should try and find Musha, or whatever he is, or go back to the Orc fortress and explore further.
Lexington was passionat about returning to the fortress, most everyone else didn’t care as long as we didn’t have to go back to Avalon, and Musha had quite a head start on us, so we opted for the fortress.
Then came what to do with the wagon and the remaining mule. We discussed leaving it here, but there’s no food or water. We discussed bringing it up to the spider lair near the fortress where there was food, but we
weren’t sure there was water. Lexington wanted to take off a wagon wheel and carry it with us to keep the wagon from getting stolen, but then decided we’d just leave it where we left the mule. We took the mule up to
the spider lair and found a spring nearby where we tethered it with room to roam a bit and left it plenty of hay, along with the wagon wheel. On that note we traveled back into the unknown. Lexington wanted to go
back to the room with the pink pool and get some more healing, in fact we all did, but this dungeon is so nifty, I kept getting side tracked, and most of my side tracks sort of inadvertently required that they
come assist me with my endeavors because I kept getting sleepy and dozing off in the middle of the hall, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
On the way to the pool room we tried out another secret door that Crystal had found in our initial fight in the main corridor a few days ago. They told me to go look ahead and see if it was
dangerous and then we’d go back to the pool room across the hall and refill our flasks with the comforting healing power of the pretty pink pool. I was excited. I took a turn to the left, wandered a few feet, took a
turn to the left again, unbeknownst to me, Orc #1 was informing Lexington and our merry crew quietly that the little halfling should not go down there. "Nothing ever comes back from down there he said." I
found a door and a trip wire and was just about to deftly disarm it when I felt an itching feeling in the back of my neck and fell asleep. (Guess I’ve been exploring too hard lately). A second or two later I
awoke with the aftertaste of that pink liquid in my mouth. Gunter was lying on the floor next to me, as was Lexington, and Orc #1. Wow, it’s a slumber party. I was a little groggy but I could just make out in the
darkness Crystal and Corbin motioning for me to be very careful. Crystal was pointing to tons of little holes in the wall along the hallway. It was then that I noticed my fallen comrades had small darts sticking out
of them from various places... OH, but Lexington!!!!! Had literally hundreds of these darts sticking in him! He looked just like a porcupine! I was told later that Gunter had run down and hid behind him, then picked
him up and tried to use him as a battering ram to open the door I had fallen by, only to trip the wire I was about to take care of earlier. Fungus spores had descended in mass from the ceiling and put him to sleep
like a little barbarian baby after wrestling a wild bore. Crystal, suddenly started making ghostly barking sounds that appeared to permeate the walls around. The creatures behind the wall were obviously
disturbed and fearful as we could hear them scurrying around clumsily in a vain attempt to locate the sounds nipping at their ears. I took the opportunity to very carefully tie a rope to Lexington’s ankle. Crystal
and Corbin reeled him in. It was a lot like fishing, with someone under the water hooking the fish for you. It was really fun! I would crawl back and get the rope then crawl back and tie off the next snoring
fish and they would reel him in. We continued this until everyone was back safely out of reach of the little blow dart holes. I stayed at the end and got the door open, apparently Gunter had unknowingly done
all the grunt work, as it easily pushed open on the first try. I quietly looked in, about the time the rest of the party came running like a pack of buffalo down the hall into the door. So much for stealth.
We turned to the right and headed down a fairly long hallway with a doorway on the right hand side up ahead. I was just about to check it for devilish harmful devices when 4 cobalts rounded the
corner ahead complete with a miniature catapult armed with some kind of fungus covered rocks. We sprung into action! Crystal sprinkled some stuff in her hand and pointed at one of the cobalts. A little bolt of light
shot from her finger and dropped the creature like a bad habit. I grabbed a flask of oil, lit it, and the little bugger slipped my grip and I threw it right into the wall next to Gunter. He glared at me,
obviously annoyed and then started foaming at the mouth and his eyes narrowed. I thought he was going to slap me like he did Musha!!! Just as I was about to try and talk some sense into him he charges down the
hall like a crazed banshee and bats the cobalt working the catapult clear into the back wall. His head smashed on the stonework and looked not unlike a crushed egg thrown by children. The rest of his body was
scattered about the hall in pieces. All I could say was, WOW! Corbin said a funny word, and all the sudden the fungus covered ball that was loaded on the catapult floated up in the air and fell on the ground
at the cobalt’s feet. Lexington charged into battle cleaving yet another cobalt into several pieces. Getting angry I demanded that the other cobalt surrender!!!! He dropped his weapons and turned tail to run, but it
was too late. He was immediately cut down by Gunter and Lexington before he could lift his boot to turn. The battle was over, and we got a new toy!!!! A catapult, what fun this shall be, I thought to myself.
We opened the door that was midway down the hall and wheeled in our wooded wagon of wacking. I decided the catapult was a bit slow and decided to run ahead and see what was going on down the hall.
I’ll be darned if I didn’t get sleepy and take a little unplanned afternoon nap in the middle of the hallway again!
I was told later that I didn't return so one of the fungus balls was placed on the catapult and Crystal made a funny gesture at it and it began to glow brightly. They shot it down the hall in an
attempt to find me. They saw me snoozing in the hall as the glowing fungus ball overshot me and landed in the large room beyond. It exploded into hundreds of tiny firefly looking pieces floating around the
room. It looked like the room was a fungus garden! There was a huge mushroom creature with tentacles and other unidentifiable plants and animals running about trying to escape the light.
Next thing I know, I’m being hurled through the air, by Lexington, who is falling to his knees. As he hits the ground, Crystal notices a small dart protruding from his ankle. Damn those
darts! Lexington had risked all, to try and retrieve my body and took his last breath to throw me across the threshold to the party. Lexington is a true friend, he should have been a halfling. Crystal and Gunter
convinced Orc #1 to go retrieve his master, contrary to his better judgement. He managed to pull Lexington back without incident. Gunter, I told you he was lacking in patience, had had enough! He lights up a
flask of oil, puts it on the catapult, and Crystal throws the switch. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, a group of cobalts were just emerging into the hallway when the flask ignited atop the middle
monster’s scaly head. Flaming oil splattered against the walls, ceiling and floor killing the group. The remaining cobalts scurried into the fungus garden. We caught a glimpse of the mushroom plant grab one with a
tentacle, and devour it as it vainly attempted to dodge the starving plant.
We backed away to allow the smoke from the oil to subside. Lexington, yet again, made a plea to return and fill our flasks with healing... But Gunter and I had something else in mind.
Gunter pulled out another flask of oil intent on finishing off the pesky little vermin, but before he could place it on the catapult I retrieved a rather large bag of the black powdery substance we
had found in the barrel. I looked at Gunter and said with a chuckle, "Crystal and Corbin said you shouldn’t put this near fire..., I wonder what it would do?" Gunter’s eyes widened. The rest of the
group quietly began to back up down the hall, knowing we were up to no good! Crystal, must have some halfling in her, she couldn’t back all the way down the hallway, she had to stay fairly close so she
could watch. She’s a swell little elfy! Gunter gave me the flask of oil, I tied it securely to the tight leather bag of powder and inserted a make shift fuse. Gunter made ready to light the fuse as
I manned the catapult. We grinned at each other, the rest of the party cringed at the thought of what we about to do. I flipped the firing lever just as Gunter lit the fuse. "Incoming”, we screamed
in unison! The oil/powder projectile landed nicely inside the garden. The impact ignited the oil as we had hoped and then the black powder. There was a blinding flash of light and, KABOOM!!!!!! The
walls of the dungeon shook, black smoke billowed into the hallway. Massive screaming and shrieking could be heard throughout the room and the surrounding walls. Jets of flame poured from the dart
holes along the hall. Debris and body parts rained into the hall ahead. Just as Gunter and I high fived our successful plan, a group of screaming cobalts rounded the corner. They were running blindly
down the hall, literally. They had been watching through the dart holes when the bomb ignited, leaving only black incinerated sockets where their eyes once peered. They ran in agony down the hall eventually
collapsing into a smoldering pile of death at the end of the dead end hallway.
We waited for the burning apocalypse to run it’s course and then explored the once decadent garden of fungus. Most everything was rather well-done, but we did find Gunter some fairly well
preserved chainmail. For some reason he didn’t seem to want to put it on yet. I guess he is shy about changing clothes in front of Crystal, I dunno.
We continued exploring the hallways around the garden and yet again got side tracked away from refilling our healing potions. It seems we wandered down a crooked hallway for hours. It seemed
to travel north into unexplored terrain. Crystal found a secret door just down from a 3-way fork in the hall but couldn’t seem to get it open, while they looked at the door and banged on it I decided to
take a peek down the left fork. I found a really cool trap I just had to show everyone. It appeared that if you opened this door, the entire ceiling would smash what ever was there. It was really quite ingenious,
must have been invented by halflings. Anyway we were smarter! Corbin said his funny word again and used this invisible hand magic thingy to turn the door knob while I pulled a rope tied to the handle. The
ceiling fell and completely destroyed the door. As the stone reset it’s position, I crawled into the room. Everyone else timed their way in as well. It was a library! The mages were so excited. You’d
think they had found a ferret dropping or something! I looked around and found a book on lip reading, that could be cool. But they found books on making potions and stuff, again, they almost wet themselves in
excitement. I don’t get it, but I’m not as smart as them with chemicals and stuff. Lexington found some history books, he seemed mildly interested, but not as excited as Crystal and Corbin. The real exciting
room came earlier when Gunter and I stumbled upon a supply room that contained, glue, nails, spikes, hinges, and nails. Now there is some useful stuff.
We wandered on down the hallway and found a funny little room. Crystal, Gunter and I went in to look around, it was empty and the door shut on us. We opened it back up and looked out and
Lexington, Corbin and Orc #1 had left. How rude! I walked outside and looked for them and got the funny feeling that I wasn’t facing the way I thought I was. I walked back in the room with Crystal and
Gunter and we shut the door and looked back out, and still no Corbin, Lex or Orc... Hummmm, I thought, this isn’t a very funny joke!
Gunter, Crystal and I continued on down the hall. We scratched arrows in the wall with the nails we found to inform the rest of the crew where we went in case they decided to come back... maybe
they left to go get some healing potions since we kept getting side tracked? We walked down a really long zig zag hallway and turned the corner only to see these really ugly scaly lizard men looking creatures.
Oh my God, did they stink! Smelled like a walking three week old carcass that had fallen in some Umber Hulk dung! I couldn’t stand it... I started having that heaving feeling, and so did Crystal. Gunter
thought it was funny and walked down the hall to smack them, but Crystal and I were vomiting all over ourselves, it was horrible! One of those nasty bastards hit me while I was vomiting, can you believe that?
Talk about taking advantage of someone! I ran down the hall and ran literally right into Lexington and Corbin, oh yeah and Orc #1. They were staring at me like I had passed gas, but I assured them I had
not! "Crystal is sick and Gunter is beating up funky lizards I screamed as I vomited on Lexington’s boots. He gave me a bit of a pink potion and we hurried back to the scene of the fight. We turned the corner
just as Gunter landed to fatal blow to the second foul creature. He was cut up pretty bad. I haven’t seen him hurt like that since the spider he tried to hump a few days back. I gave him two doses of healing
and he seemed better. These must have been the scales we saw earlier in the day when searching for the handmaiden. It smells like it!
Gunter immediately asked where our catapult was. Lexington regretfully informed us that the catapult would not fit through the door that brought us here so they had to leave it behind.
I spouted, "I can't believe you left it!!!" Lexington replied, "What did you want me to do, dismantle it and bring it a piece at a time?" "Yes!!!", I replied, but due his size and
my good nature, the issue and we continued on our merry way.
We found a few “guest bedroom” looking rooms along the left hand wall. One had a door on the back wall that looked like it might go to a closet. I picked the lock, but couldn’t seem to get it open.
I’m pretty small so I asked Lexington if he might put a little shoulder into it. He reared back and barreled full force into the door. The door splintered, as I knew it would against his force. But then
Lexington screamed in agony. His shoulder was crooked and his arm hanging unnaturally backwards. He fell to the ground screaming in pain. It wasn’t a closet at all! There was a brick wall behind the door with
some common scribbling indicating, "Jokes on you robber!" I tried to set his arm using my bandaging techniques I studied this morning, but it seemed to not help much, he screamed louder at my
attempts to set it than he did when he sumo wrestled the brick wall initially. I think he just has a low tolerance for pain, I’m sure I did it correctly... I fed him a pink dose and his screams subsided slightly but
his arm still did not look usable for a while. I constructed a sling and wrapped him up and we continued on.
We followed some narrow stairs and the hall turned to the right a couple of times. We found a room that must have been used for battle training at one time. There were weapons strewed about that
were many times heavier than they should be. I couldn’t even pick one up. Orc #1 tried but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to carry along with the load we had bestowed upon him, especially since he couldn't pile
it all on the catapult and roll it. There were some battered shields obviously used for practice, and from the looks of them, several orcs probably had crooked shoulders like Lexington after playing war in
this room!
The hallway continued turning to the right over and over like we were walking in a circle until we finally ended up at a door. We went inside and it was a 10 x 10 room with a door on each
wall. We opened the northern door to find the same, however the door we came in originally did not have the same looking hallway on the other side that we remembered. We held open the door to the north and Gunter
axed down the remaining doors, only to find rooms with more doors behind each one except the south. We decided we had better take the door to the south to avoid getting hopelessly lost in this maze of changing doors
and rooms. For a faint moment it seemed we heard cursing cobalts and doors opening and closing over and over in the distance. One of them must be lost in the passages, better him than us, we’re out
of here!
Crystal being the observant type just keeps finding those doors none of the rest of us can seem to find. She found another hidden door down the hallway. We opened it up and again the spell casters
seemed really excited!! This appeared to be a laboratory of some kind. There was a huge glass sphere in the center of the room housing an aquatic animal that resembled a troll. The creature seemed to be alive but in
some sort of stasis. The magic containing the creature seemed faded and moisture beads were apparent on the glass. The creature seemed to want us to approach but even I resisted the urge of my insatiable curiosity.
Crystal was really excited once she started digging through the cabinets, she started dumping out chemicals and chanting and stuff. As soon as Corbin heard her he started doing the exact same thing! It
sounded like a magical "row row row your boat", in unison, but one was slightly ahead of he other... you know how it goes. We also found a cat in a glass encasement. It was alive as well.
Gunter kept tapping on the glass trying to aggravate the cat. Lexington released the cat. He was hoping for a new pet, no doubt, but Crystal had just finished chanting and the cat seemed to just really take a
liking to her. I guess it thought she was cuter. Corbin must also have some halfling in him because he got really curious about this smoked glass bottle that was corked on the table and had to go and open it.
Personally, I would have left it alone being the responsible type and all, but some people... Smoke poured out of the bottle, and all the sudden everyone got the punch line of a joke but me, Gunter and Lexington?
They were laughing and rolling on the floor, even the cat was laughing. I didn’t get it. What was their deal, they could at least share the punch line with the rest of the group. Maybe they were delirious from the
smoke. I covered my mouth and put the cork back in the bottle and put it in my backpack. This could be fun one day I thought. I picked up the cat. Gunter icked up Crystal, and Lexington picked up
Orc #1, and we left, as it appeared the creature in the glass was pounding on it and it was starting to crack. We got outside, jammed the door with a dagger and heard the glass shatter. Water seeped under the door
and we prepared to continue on, but then we heard laughing. Oh no, what have we done? We forgot Corbin!!!
See also: Zelligar's Journal found in Wizard's workshop.
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