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Adventure Log VII
From the Journals of Lexington Cheshire:
It was the next day before I caught up with my companions again. After morning services, I came upon Maze and Kessan making their way to a particularly seedy section of this overall seedy town. They had
claimed the ring of the purple-haired bounty hunter, determined it was magic and were following a tip to find a shopkeeper that could identify the ring's properties.
The shop was Vermillian Pawn, and the old man
that ran it (after proclaiming his shop closed at the beginning of the business day) agreed to ID the ring, for a price that was only slightly less than exorbitant. We three pooled our funds and gave the coins to
Vermillian's man, "Crippler". I use the term Man loosely, it seemed more to be a golem-like construct of some kind.
As we weren't far from Voodian's shop, I wanted to stop in and check this man
Vermillian's references. We had already entrusted him with the ring, and this could be a case of closing the stable door after the horses escaped, but I still wanted Voodian's experienced opinion of him. Voodian's
shop was open and he welcomed us in, but those monkeys of his affected Kessan in a most odd way. It seems Voodian wasn't lied to, those monkeys did disrupt mind powers like Kessan's. A valuable thing to know.
Voodian had kind enough things to say about Vermillian, enough that I was as confident as possible he wouldn't steal the ring and replace it with something else. We stayed the hour with Voodian, and he gave me a
half ounce of his choice herbs and Maze picked up some that aided healing. Back at the Pawnshop, Vermillian told us the ring was enchanted to allow the wearer, once attuned, to sustain himself on virtually nothing:
less sleep, less food, less everything. As it attuned itself to an individual, we decided Kessan would be better served by having it, it would help with his mind powers.
There were little demands on our time then. It would be dawn before we would head out again to the Monastery of the Fire Opal. I returned to the Church for service. Maze came along, but despite my efforts
Coacilia still refused. His choice, his destiny. At the Church Father Bob was beginning to show signs of wear and stress. Father Cassius has been gone a long time and Father Bob is growing more and more
worried and feeling out of his depths.
Through the day we caught up on some of the news. A battered caravan reported how strange boneless bodies had been found along the roadside. There's been almost no
caravans from the east at all. A displacer beast was said to be haunting the area. Kessan met up with a giant of a caravan guard named Muntant (a "Giff", some type of humanoid I'd never seen before), and
was out-drunk by the mercenary guardsman. Amazing! Maze and Coacilia announced they had begun training themselves in the wild arts of Rangers. Good -more good sword arms in a group like this never hurts.
At dawn
the next day we readied to set out. Coacilia had taken the skull of the purple haired bounty hunter and fashioned it into a drinking cup. He offered each of us a drink from it, to take the enemy's strength, but I
believe we all, even the half-orc Grolsch refused. Where he got this idea I cannot imagine. Obviously it isn't a religious belief of the Church of the Sacred Axe, as the Grolsch wouldn't take part. It isn't an
elfin tradition, as Maze refused. Nonetheless, Coacilia seemed certain of its appropriateness.
Grolsch had acquired a map of the region and we plotted a course west then north. The hike was a welcome
bore at the beginning. I thought I saw a ship in the sky, we found evidence that there was a bonesucking something wandering the area (for one thing, the body of the bounty hunter was now boneless.). We found tracks
that may have been a displacer beast, and that night we heard cattle howling across the river and odd flapping sounds. The Bonesucker? There was no way to know, the what-ever-it-was left us in peace. The next
morning the two new rangers noticed the trees were getting strange, more malicious looking. As if in agreement to such ill tidings, we found the corpse of a horse floating in the river, the remnants of a pack still
attached. The horse was a type I'd never seen before, some perversion of nature with spikes. Shortly before noon we found and followed the path up to the Dabberden. These were the creatures my Uncle Cardelle had
told me about, and said that their community was a safe spot to lie low. What he didn't explain was that the Dabbers, short fuzzy humanish beings, were mind speakers with no sense of property rights. They
attempted to take what of ours caught their eye, including Kessan's precious crystal. There seemed to be no maliciousness on their part, they just don't understand the idea of proper ownership. When we came face to
face with them, after enduring some teasing, they were quite nice and friendly to us. They mentally conversed with us, confirming that there was a displacer beast around and telling us how they'd been bothered by a
baby dragon in the past. In fact they had hoped we were here to end that threat, but they had little more to tell us, they were even (not surprisingly) unsure of exactly how long ago it was they'd been troubled. One
of them told me I was familiar, so I suppose one of my relatives has been this way before, likely Uncle Cardelle. We lunched there with the dabbers and I promised that if they left all my belongings where they
were I would give them something interesting before we left. They did, although some of the other weren't so lucky, and as we began to march I handed over the half-ounce of herbage Voodian had given me. The Dabber I
handed it to seemed very appreciative and showed us a shortcut to our destination. The monastery was a burnt out ruin. A walled complex it once had some four buildings and the main one. We camped outside the walls,
seeing nothing more than a dire rat and stirge fighting, and entered the complex at dawn. The main gate was locked, but the secondary one had long ago been forced and lay open. Our initial exploration found evidence
where something had burrowed under the north wall, and found a fountain that still had water in it. The latter was our first clue that there had been evil lingering here, Holy Water poured into the fountain water
caused a great hiss and flash of steam. This would prove only the first clue.
In the ruins of the main building we found an access hatch to a cellar that proved to be the beginning of an underground complex as large as the walled grounds above. Lighting a Sunrod, we entered. This was the place
where Jalizar Saul said the partial map he gave me was of, so I pulled it out to have ready. To my surprise the map was of the very area wherein we had entered. Suspecting undead, Grolsch wanted to explore the
immediate area shown on the map before we began opening any doors. Heading forward, east, down the long hall, we were ambushed by two giant spiders. We made short work of them, but webs obscured the room ahead. More
spiders awaited us there, but these had webs that carried a sort of lightning energy across them. We killed those as well and entered that first big room. In the corner was a webbed bundle with a humanish figure
thrashing about within. Someone alive? Maze cut the web open while I covered her with my new crossbow and what was within was nothing alive. Grolsch's suspicions of undead were wholly accurate, this was a ghoul. At
once I shot it and Maze sliced into twice and it fell over destroyed before even struggling all of the way out of its webbed prison.
The map indicated a secret door built into the east wall of this room, but we
weren't opening doors just yet. We backtracked and found another hall going east, and off the map. We walked it down to the room at the end, crunching over what looked like oversize scorpion tails with strange runes
carved upon them, as well as the skeletal remains of several gnolls. After making our way to the far east wall of the room at the hall's end, we discovered what those tails had belonged to. As we discovered and
opened a small hidden wall-vault in the chamber, three of the six doors along that hall opened and animated skeletons of some hellish humanoid beasts complete with scorpion tails ran to attack us. After
a brief melee we destroyed them, not without taking some hits ourselves however, and then exploring what we'd found: a potion and a scroll with what Grolsch said were two arcane divination spells. Nothing to clue us
on the history of this monastery's fall, but the skeletal guardians had provided clue enough. There was no other exit from this room, which seem to go against what the map said, but it's possible the person that
drew up this map made errors. Again we backtracked, then headed further north and off the map again. The corridor turned east and led to a widened pillared hall decorated with bas reliefs. These depicted monks
engaged in ceremonial combat, one of which was being overseen by those two masters of Quasqueton. As we studied these, hoping to get a better feel for the first masters of this place, our presence was discovered.
More ghouls came after us from where we had been. There were only three of them, but these we could examine. They weren't gnolls, they wore the now ragged clothing and beads of a monk. Black beads at that. I am
beginning to doubt the morals of the monks that called this monastery home. Though we'd only been in the halls for a little over an hour, the fight with the ghouls had hurt most of us pretty significantly. We
were considering where to hole up for the rest of the day when Maze heard a noise from further east down the hall. She snuck up to take a peek around the corner ahead and suddenly we had a very big problem.
There was a dragon on the other side of the corner looking at Maze. She screamed that fact to us and we dashed into action. Most of what happened next is a fire-colored blur. I remember the dragon was small, as I've
heard dragons go, but it was the color of blood and lightning.
The others scattered into positions, I remember attacking up close and I think I may have struck a good blow once or twice, and I remember noticing
Maze throwing the magic dagger and it flashing green when it struck. Mostly I remember the fire breath. I had hugged the corner wall when approaching but the cover wasn't enough when the dragon spat a cone of fire
at Grolsch and myself. I was showered in a hard jet of flames, and was wholly engulfed in the dragon fire a moment later. The second brought me down, and almost all the way home to the Creator. Once again I woke to
Grolsch's face. I am grateful that his temple respects warriors. As we made ready to leave, a door in the north wall opened and two nervous looking lizard men poked their heads out. Knowing we were in no condition
for another fight so soon, I shouted at them: "Your master is dead! Are you NEXT for us?" Immediately the door slammed shut. We spiked it to make sure it stayed that way. Then we left, backtracking
to the room where we'd entered the underground halls. Their Grolsch attuned himself to detect undead. My first choice for shelter, the room the map indicated had a stream, was housing a single, but very powerful
undead creature. The half-orc cleric checked the two long room to the west and found northern room free of undead and the southern with two weak undead creatures. As the north room was filled with
all manner of algae and molds we (with me remembering the deadly garden in The Quasqueton Dungeon) decided we could manage two weak undead, especially with the clue the map fragment provided. The map
showed how there was a secret passage in the southern room that lead to a secret, isolated room. We made a loud entry into the southern room and found nothing awaiting us. Clever undead, they were preparing ambush.
Grolsch performed some healing miracles, and we feigned sleep. Soon a panel opened up in the ceiling and two ghouls jumped into the room. We slaughtered them in two heartbeats. A search of their lair yielded some
gold (270 pieces, we later counted as we camped), a magic scroll with 3 spells Grolsch was too tired to identify, lots of bones, several rusty daggers, and one passable hand ax that Coacilia claimed. We
rested in that cramped little room for two days. By the time the third day began we were more than ready to get moving again.
The first order of business was to track down whatever treasure the dragon had. We had noticed passages out of the beast's chamber, but were too wounded to risk more exploration. Of course we found nothing. The
spiked door had been forced open from within and the lizardmen were nowhere to be found. Before we even got that far however, while walking, Coacilia suddenly yelped in startled pain. We all turned in time to see
the vanishing form and laugh of an imp. An imp who had apparently just teleported among us to sting the elf on his behind and then vanish. This happened another three or four times as we explored the next few
chambers. Almost always Caoacilia, and rarely were we quick enough to strike back before he vanished again. The room of the lizardmen was nothing but a vault housing an oubliette. The door to that pit was so massive
it took Grolsch, Coacilia, and myself to pull it open. All we found was a deep pit with chains to dangle prisoners with. Quite a foul thing for a monastery of monks to have. Especially when we found evidence that
those tortured in this place were monks of other orders. My doubts about the monks who once lived here, as well as the one who presented us with this task, are growing stronger. The dragon's chamber bent around at
the far corner, and we chose that as our next direction. We still hoped against hope to find something of a dragon sized treasure. What we discovered was a series of rooms that had once been a meditation
chamber, a tool storage room, and a closet that stored literally hundreds of tiny alms boxes. The few we checked were loaded with copper pieces from various regions. Examining all the boxes and carrying twice
our weight in copper is of course an impractical idea, but perhaps if we can clean this place out, we could spend a few days hauling and counting and then use those tools to melt them into bars. I wonder if we could
just bury them and come back with the wagon. All questions for a later time. It was in that Room of Alms that we were again pestered by that imp. This time however, we were fast enough to slay it. However, as we
continued down that passage, which had turned now to the west if my mapping is accurate, we discovered there was more than one imp. Another appeared and croaked that we had killed his brother, only to vanish before
we could react. As we approached the next door we could hear faint chanting. The lesson that chanting is bad had been well taught and we made ourselves ready for a fight. I burst into the room and only had time to
glimpse it was a spartan study of some kind and empty of people before I was struck directly in the face by a large bat! When the bat smashed into my nose I felt a chill run through me, feezing me to the bone and
making me a little weaker. But not so weak that I couldn't react. Stunned by the hit and the magical harm it'd done me, I made the desperate move of going after the bat with my mouth. To my continued astonishment I
was successful. I clamped my teeth over the bat's neck and had its stubby head fully in my mouth. The feel of a bat's leathery wings smacking furiously about one's face is a sensation unlike anything in the
world. The others were streaming into the room and wanting to know what had happened and I couldn't open my mouth to tell them. The looks on their faces ranged from shock to outright amusement when I turned to show
them.
My companions quickly searched the room, there was a cot and other obvious clues that someone was still using the place, but there was no sign of the someone. Not until I killed the bat. I killed the bat in
the surest way, grotesque as it was, and when my teeth separated head from body we heard a shriek in one corner of the room. The next moment was a blur as we all did our best to located and attack the
source of the cry. Our progress was impeded by even more imps blinking into the room. I don't remember who else struck true against our unseen foe, but I was blessed in hat my acquired scimitar bit into her.
For it was a her. Our foe had fallen unconscious and her spells eroded away. She was demon looking thing, brown-red skin and horns at her forehead. Grolsch identified her as a Teifling, a cross breed demon and
human. I have heard horror stories of such creatures. Thank the Creator I was able to kill what must have been her Familiar and weaken the teifling wizard or we might all be dead. The womanling was bound and healed
to the point where she was conscious. We had hoped to get some information about this place from her, but received no cooperation. A search of her room yielded more. We had taken possession of the teifling's
wand and cloak, as well as the potion, scroll, and spellbook she'd been carrying, but her notes proved more valuable (as well as providing comforting proof that she had indeed understood what we'd been saying, for
the books were written in the common tongue. This wizard had been doing research on the bas-reliefs in these halls, most likely to deduce the secret of the Fire Opal. Her notes on the history of this monastery
revealed that it had been a single monk to betray this place to the gnolls, who proceeded to destroy it but nonetheless failed to find the Fire Opal. More will require more in-depth study, which we have decided to
peruse. We loaded all the teifling's notes and books and hauled them back to the room where we spent the past several days. This room will make a fine, secure rest area, I was grateful to find ink and blank
parchment. Mine was destroyed when I'd been engulfed in dragon fire.
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