We're HOME!

My beloved Kiril has got a bee in his turban. He is carrying that scroll very close to him and is refusing to allow even Alma the opportunity to examine it; something to do with the spirit that is within his sword.

He knows what he is up to, so, while it may seem that he is being obstinate about releasing it, I have faith in his judgment, and, I trust that Connie and our new friend, Al, will have patience and belief in my husband’s intuition.

I suppose, with the cost so high, and his near death experiences, he has earned the right to have a little mystery surrounding him.

Yes, the journey was a ruse, and we are delighted to have turned the tables on that Zay…Zayfid? Imagine, a Jinni unable to locate and acquire a simple papyrus.

But what a difference a few weeks makes! We’ve been gone only three weeks, twenty five days at most, and the town is beginning to resemble a major city! (And, indeed, Alma informs us she is going to have Kalmarane rival Kapesh as a trading centre, “Minus the shipping trade,” she sighed disappointedly.)

Still it’s exciting! The tents, and bright colours! “Oh, how I miss the colours! It’s so wonderful to see the city growing. But, along with that comes the pitfalls – thieves; corruption; murders.”

o0o

A bump in the road...

Having found our goal, it's time to get this done. We, get ready to make our trek back to the inevitable clash with Zayafid. Arriving back at the chamber with the fruit trees, we rest.

After we ascend and then arriving at the resealed portal to the main corridors, my beloved again casts her sand scouring spell as I yell out "Open!" It works and we gain egress from this hidden section.

And what do we see? Two hulking Unchosen. This meeting is not exactly cordial and soon erupts in conflict. At the end of this lay two very dead brutes.

Unfortunately, the fight caused enough noise to draw in more threats. The threats in this case involved two normal, though thoroughly repugnant Gnolls, which are accompanied by a pair of monstrous Hyenadons.

This conflict is brutal, but in the end no more of consequence than the last. Yes, we took some damage, but the beasts are now no longer an obstacle.

But of course the main event is next. Having no appreciable time to gather our breaths, Zayafid makes his appearance. And once again, a fight could not be avoided. He demanded the Scroll, I refused. He demanded again, and seeing no end to this impasse but one, I attack.

Now we have a true threat. But he too, falls. He nearly killed my wife, my beautiful Spring, but perhaps this is what powered my final blow, as it nearly cut him in twain.

So now, we have but to heal, and navigate our way out of this so aptly named House of the Beast..

o0o

Spider's do NOT have nine legs...

As if destroying an octopus like creature wasn’t bad enough, which, mind you, nearly destroyed US! Thank the stars for my newly acquired ability to call that wonderful searing bolt of electricity and control its direction to burst upon the evil not upon us.

I would have torn it apart with my bare hands if I’d had to. Watching helpless as it squeezed Kiril, my beloved, right in front of me? Well, let’s say it got off easy only being killed – for what it tried to do to Kiril, I would like to have planned a long and painful death.

I’m not sure if the wisdom I felt at the touch of this new dude, Al, worked very well, where my husband’s life is concerned, I tend to become extremely focussed.

When that creature exploded, releasing my love I almost fainted with relief. I wanted to both scold Kiril and hold onto him forever! I’m sure he knew that as I squeezed him tighter than any old Ganesha could. My tears wetting his chest.

Anyway, as if that wasn’t bad enough, we enter the next room and discover a freakin’ spider symbol with nine! NINE, not eight like an NORMAL spider, not this depiction shows NINE freaking hairy bent legs.

Sorry. I apologise as without thinking, just instinctually, I toss a web up in the tunnel with the symbol hovering menacingly above the entrance.

I hate spiders. Don’t tell me I live in the climates spiders enjoy most. I have a deal with them and their overlords, if they stay out of my way, I promise not to step on them, or, more truthfully, I promise not to have Kiril step on them. But, well, we’ve all seen the instant Ninja – you know, the one who walks down a path a spider has strewn a web across? Instant Ninja, just add spider’s web.

I’m sure my husband was frustrated. I think probably Connie and Al might have been as well, but all I envisioned was a giant hairy spider waltzing out of that tunnel, and I did NOT want to be spider food. That multi-armed freak show in the other room was spider enough for me.

I didn’t even want to enter the other tunnels, but, well, the pesky quest we had to complete in exchange for Connie’s life, was incentive enough and we strolled through it. I say through because we wound up, by going straight, back in the same room we started from.

With much cajoling, I was finally convinced to remove the web I strung across the opening and we proceeded down the tunnel, which, apparently is filled with dead bodies. Sacrifices to the Spider King? I know not, but that sarcophagus, that scared me a lot! I though tiny spider swarms were going to erupt when Kiril slid the heavy lid off and onto the floor with a loud thud.

My husband is so clever. Inside the coffin was the very scroll we sought. Now, how to appear as if we are returning it when in fact, we are definitely not…

*~*~*

Boo...

We find a chamber at the end of the corridor that lead from the mystical garden . In the chamber is a a cage like inverted bell shaped structure made up of stone bars. There are also strange runes seemingly carved into the floor of this chamber. The bands have plenty of room for individuals to pass through them. Spring does just that.And as she steps in, the ground begins to shake. Now what?, I wonder. Also, due to her study of the tome that we had acquired earlier, Spring believed this chamber to be one known as the Pit of Screaming Ghosts. An ominous name to be sure. 

Calling on those flashes of memory I see Vardishal casting a wind based spell and a opening appearing in the floor. I pass this information on to my wife and after casting an appropriate spell that contains elements of both air and earth, the image from those memories is in fact before us. A stairway goes down for some distance, into darkness.

Lighting a torch, we descend, So, a room full of treasure. Well that's the view we see as we reached the bottom of this long stairway. I cannot believe that the treasure is real. Yet I am not sure. But though my inability to see beyond this wealth is shared by Connie, not so by either Spring or Al. They claim that it is but an illusion. As this dovetails with my hunch, I have no problem with this. They say that there are pillars that rise out of a water filled room. I am instructed where to walk to move on the pillars, and while I initially progress well, not so with Connie. Our Priestess of Iomedae finds her footing somewhat off, and a foot slips into the water. Now two things happen. Neither are welcome. First, hidden by the water is a green slime that starts to dissolve her metal footwear, and doing some bit of damage to her flesh as well. But while she deals with that, The rest of us are being confronted by the attack of four ghostly figures. I see that the name of this place is warranted.

So while Connie tries to remove her boot clumsily using her shield so as to avoid spreading the caustic slime to more flesh damaging areas , the rest of us fight the moaning Undead. Fireballs and flashing steel from my wife and myself are used, while Al changes to a eagle. Spring's magic is effective as is my magical blade Tempest. But our newly added party member finds that, in this case anyway, his shaping ability is less than effective, We find out something else too. As I slay the first one, if that is, you can kill that which is already dead, it explodes in a minor dispersal in damaging energy. And yet a second one is destroyed, once again causing all of us to face the energy damage before Connie is finally able to bring about her link to the Divine and force the last two to move to the far end of the room. Now that they are restricted to the far end of the room, we are able to eliminate the threat of these creatures and without suffering the damaging energy explosion of the their demise.

Further good news, the fireball apparently burned up most, possibly all, though I don't want to test that surmise, of the slime. But on a more ominous note, the touch of those ghosts harmed not only the body, but for some of us, but also drained the life force itself. But Connie says that she will be able to remedy that with spells that she has available, after resting. 

So we move out of this chamber and take up residence outside the closed doors of the next room, which a quick look appears to be some kind of temple. The floor is composed of sand. and on a pedestal appears to be a statue of some many tentacled large beast.We decline to investigate at this time. As a matter of necessity, we camped outside the doors long enough for two rest periods. One for Connie to pray for the required restorative spells to correct the spiritual damage suffered from the hands of the Undead, and the second for her to pray for spells more suited to other possible, and more likely threats.

Now we are getting ready to pass these doors. What awaits I wonder...

o0o

More from the babbling brook of verbiage...

Well, that was one wicked fight! I can’t believe I fried Val – again! This time though he didn’t recover. I feel so worthless. I don’t know for certain that my spells killed the proud monk, but his crispy corpse gives me considerable verification. I may need to take a sabbatical – I don’t know if I’m worthy to be a sorceress – killing my companions, and all. Maybe my husband is right to despair of me using the incorrect incantations...


When Connie also succumbed to the vile beast’s onslaught I thought we were goners; but when it attacked my husband, I saw red. Taking action and tossing whatever I had left at the beast, forcing it to fall and wither, but that Zayfid – when he entered, clapping his hands? Well, let’s say he is fortunate I was so deprived of useful spells or his soul would have exploded in the intensity of my blitz.

I never liked, nor trusted the foul liar, and now my senses have been validated. I can’t wait to rip his limbs from his torso and watch as he dies an agonising death. Currently he wants us to retrieve this scroll? For him? His offer to resurrect Connie or Val in exchange for Kiril’s and my word that we will seek, find and bring the scroll to him leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

I bristle as my husband, without discussing it with me first, tells this foul devil that he will accept the terms. I turn to my husband, hands on my hips as Zay works his invocation over Connie, giving her breath and animation once again.

While Zay does his magicks I see the glint in my husband’s eye and know he has no intention of handing over the scroll. I wrap my arms about his figure, planting a big kiss on his lips, then, as I hear Connie scoff and tell us to get a room, I turn and run to her, hugging her fiercely.

She is baffled and her eyes widen as she hears the terms of her resurrection; she’s all for running her axe through this bastard, but agrees to adhere to the terms. To show he’s not an all bad fellow, Zay provides a well laden table and encourages us to rest well before we begin our journey. “Take all the time you need,” says he. I’m tempted to stay for a week or more to piss him off, but, alas, even I cannot stand to hold a grudge.

We rest well, eat hearty and rest some more. Connie still is ashen in the morning, so we inform Zay we will not be travelling this day. As we are partaking of our breakfast a commotion in the outer hall causes us to swing our heads and moments later a large bear comes loping into this cavernous space, foamy spittle across its muzzle and blood between its claws.

Unwilling to have our breakfast interrupted, as I am standing near the door at the time, I wallop the creature on its cranium and it stumbles to a prone position on the floor in a shimmer of dazzling glitter the man now laying there rubbing his head exclaims, “’Ere now, wud ya go an’ do that fer?”

The words barely from his lips when my husband’s blade lay at his throat, “Who are you and what is your business here?” he growls, his free arm nearly knocking me over as he pushes me behind him. (I tell you, he is protective...)

The man seems nonplussed. “I was captured by these Gnolls and have just escaped. Who are you, or,” his eyes go to the blade at his throat, “am I not permitted that courtesy before you run me through.”

“Oh, Kiril, let him up, he seems harmless.”

I know it is only my pleading tone that allows Kiril to let his guard down and permit the fellow to sit up and join us.

A discussion reveals two things: First? This fellow has a strange accent, or voice; like he’s speaking through a straw. And, second, this Zayfid is a right ass. I welcome Al to our group, as does Connie and, begrudgingly, my husband, Kiril.

We talk for several hours, breaking only to eat, use the latrine or rest. As morning rolls around, Zay peers his ugly mug in the room, “You start today, yes?”

We agree that, yes, today we start to seek the scroll he is so interested in and willing to go to such great lengths to obtain. Whether we will be successful is any ones’ guess, but what I do know is, Kiril has no more intentions on giving the scroll to Zay than do I. We shall see if we will be able to withstand the gifted wizard. He has chosen to let us fend for our own breakfast this morn. I am all for Gnoll shish kebab, but alas; I fear it would turn to food poisoning in our stomachs.

We enjoy our hard tack and dry cheese washed down with some pretty potent wine before setting off, the new fellow following me as I follow Kiril and Connie brings up our rear. Zay has control of the Gnolls for now. He has promised to have them stay out of our way.

He’d better make good on his word.

The hidden underground garden was a pure delight, even excusing the crickets we needed to rid the place of. I suppose we should have requested a Gnoll troop to follow along - better their deaths than ours.

o0o

Tricked into doing the dirty work...

So the huge Unchosen moves in towards us and combat is engaged. Using my bow, I put a well aimed shot into the beast's chest, but his armor deflects my arrow effortlessly. Val, apparently not considering the likely actions that Spring will take, moves in to engage the brute, and misses the strike he attempts.  Then my beloved does what she is doing so well now, she encases both combatants in a sticky, obscuring mass of webbing. Poor Val, once again, he seems to be as a fly caught helplessly in the spider's trap. Connie. For her part, calls upon the power of her Deity. 

Not being able to see or get to our foe due to the web, I pull, and then quaff a potion of healing as I was still sorely wounded from the previous encounter with the gigantic vermin we had slain. I feel a little better.

Now I don't know what happens inside that mass of silken webs, but next I hear a sickening sound of something cutting deeply into flesh, as if a butcher was cutting into a cows carcass. This is followed by silence from Val, but a deep chuckle from the voice of the creature. And as Val fights primarily unarmed and the Gnoll-thing had a greataxe, I fear the worse for Val.

I don't have a target yet, but I'm prepared. But soon enough the target is revealed when Spring releases flames from her hands, causing the webs to burst into flames. The slightly singed Unchosen is exposed, but then so is the horribly hacked corpse of Val. I hope my mela doesn't think her flames killed him, as it is plan to see from my eyes, which has already seen too much of the cruel damage that weapons can do to mere flesh, that the wound that Val has suffered from what must have been the axe, would have been a mortal blow. 

Then Connie moves in to engage it directly. While she does strike it, it seems to have minimal effect. I then move behind it, striking it deeply and soundly in its back. Then Spring casts some damaging bolts of force at it, but again, he seems to ignore the damage. Then it swings at Connie, doing incredible, horrible damage. Connie falls, nearly cut in twain. That quickly, our party is reduced to just my wife and myself.

Once again, Spring casts her magic, but this time she casts a new spell upon herself. Bless her, she is trying to protect herself. A renewed number of copies of herself, and in greater number than previously , are there to confuse the eye.

In desperation I move to get in front of our foe. I must draw its attention away from Spring, but my tumble goes awry, and it strikes me as I pass by, hitting me a grievous blow. My wounds are accumulating to a critical level. I fear one more blow, and I will fail to protect my wife.

I swing at this twisted mutant, and... miss! Wait, no, I did connect after all, and well. It was that Tempest passed through so cleanly that no opposition to my swing was felt. It wasn't until I saw the blood spill that I realized that I had indeed hit it, and strongly. But not well enough, as it not only still stood, but took this chance to attack. 

But he doesn't attack me, instead it lunged at my Spring! And even with five false images intermingling with her actual self, this thing managed to land a strike unerringly upon my beautiful bride. But though brought almost to death's door from the blow, she is not down. And in return, she once again lash's out with her magic, inflicting yet more damage to this horrible caricature of a Gnoll. 

Now I move once again, moving this time flawlessly past it, to stand beside Spring, and I bring Tempest around in a arcing strike, A hit! And a powerful one at that. This time, I managed to hit something vital, and it falls, It won't be rising again.

I quickly grab the next to last healing potion that I have, thrusting into my wife's hands. I breath a sigh of relief as the elixir heals practically all of her wounds in a blink of my eyes.

Then we hear... clapping?

At the entrance that the brute entered the room by, is a orange haired human, or at least humanoid, where the now deceased monster first made his presence known. He is clapping and telling us “Well done”. He slowly approaches us, and I ease my safe somewhat in front of Spring.

“And you are?” I ask. 

“We have met before, but I wasn't wearing my own face then.” he replies. “I am Zayfid. And you killed the Carrion King, Well done!”

Ah the traveler. So should I then assume that this was all a ruse for use to do your dirty work for you?”

And he acknowledges that this indeed the case, and continues with “I have the ability to bring back one of your companions, but will only do so if you agree to find and bring something to me. Do you agree?”

Remembering the drawing of the scroll case on that bit of cloth that was found earlier, I immediately make an intuitive jump and ask “Do I take it we need to find a scroll?”

As he agrees that yes. Its a scroll that must be found, he asks again if we, I, agree. My wife gives me a look that says watch myself, and she has most likely has no intention of giving him anything without him first making good on his promise.

“I think, since we took care of your problem, that you already owe us.” I state. He does not agree, asking again if I agree.

“I will try to find this scroll, and bring it back to you, but you bring back the plate mail wearing female before I start. And we will need to rest for awhile and regain our strength as well.” I finally say while gesturing to Connie's body. I've known her longer, and felt closer in friendship with her. Besides she was the one to say Spring and my vows of marriage...

“Agreed” replies Zayfid as he brings forth something resembling a gem, which he then crushes as part of some spell, and Connie sits up, whole of body. Helping her up, I then move to embrace my wife. Zayfid, before departing, states that he will feed us, and with the help of more magic, creates a full, if somewhat bland meal, complete with water. He will also post a guard to assure we don't try and sneak away. As he is leaving, he puts a hat on and his form changes to that of the scrawny Gnoll I had first seen running out the door when the Carrion King made his entrance.

I whisper to Spring “I promised to bring the scroll to him if I find it, I never agreed to give it to him.” She smiles, nods affirmatively, and whispers back “I know.”

As the three of us eat, I fill in the new twist for Connie's benefit. Including the whispered statement about not actually agreeing to hand it over.

We move to a cleaner, non corpse ridden part of this large room to sleep and regain our wits and strength.

Then an odd thing happens the next day. A brown bear wanders into the room from a different entrance than that which is guarded by our Gnoll guard. Could we escape? Perhaps the others, but I will uphold my word to find this scroll. 

Anyway, back to the bear. Spring had been wandering past the doorway as the beast enters, and in a surprised reaction, she swings her staff and thunks it firmly on the head! And surprise the “bear” shifts into a make elf and blurts out “Ouch! Why'd you do that?”

After a initial suspicious meet and greet, he says his name is Alri Lafrallin, and he is a Druid who was captured while sleeping in the mountains. He shifted into a bear when he was finally in the presence of just a single guard and managed to wander in here. After explaining what we are presently up to, and who we are, Alri, or Al, as he says we should refer to him, agrees to join up with us, at least for the present. There is, after all, power in numbers. I also made it a point to introduce , just so there would be no potential misunderstandings,the beautiful Half Elven Sorceress by my side as my wife!

We rest a second rest period, and now are healed, albeit with several more scars to reflect our experiences, and our ready to start on the search. Soon Zayfid shows up, not seeming in the least that we picked up a new member for are little troupe, seemingly out of thin air, to guide us to where he believes we should be starting our search.

I almost immediately feel a pull to a certain area, and searching, a hidden stone lever in the apparent natural stone floor of this chamber. Detecting no trap, I pull the lever, and a grating accompanies the opening in the floor that reveals a staircase descending into a lower, lighted area.

Descending, I find fruit trees. Fruit trees underground? With no sun? How very strange. Yet the air is fresh, the fruit smells delicious, and a pristine, clear pool of water resides in the center. There are also four stone statues, each at a cardinal direction around the pool. I call the rest down.

We sample the fruit and verify that they are indeed delectable, and the water is fresh and pure. But we have mere moments to enjoy the repast before a new threat is thrust upon us. From the mouths of the statues flaming ash spews forth, and with it materializes a insectoid creature from each statue. So a brief skirmish ensues. Thankfully they aren't quite as dangerous to us as their appearance suggested they would be. Its a relief to not be hard pressed in every encounter...

o0o