They pause just beyond the entrance of the cavern and spend a few days cataloging the various and sundry treasures they have collected. Ioun stones are handed out and various items change hands and once this is done, they resume their journey. This end of the large cavern seems to be the scene of much mining activity with pesky goblins swinging picks and collecting ore – which explains all the ore they found in the troll’s lair.
They decide there is little profit in chasing goblins about in the dark and cavernous regions of the underground, so back onto the river they go. They steadily row upstream until they reach a large underground lake. There, a giant pike surfaces and nearly capsizes the boat in which Kingsley, Goldpiece and Malchor are seated...
Category The Tormentors
Reaching the top of the stairs, the group pauses at the edge of a large…’beach’ – a sloping section of pebble strewn cave floor that borders another swiftly moving river. Venturing onto the beach invites attack by a flight (squadron? gaggle?) of manticores who shoot tail spikes at everyone, but only manage to wound the mage.
As they swoop around after making yet another pass, the mage dispatches one with a fireball and the rest scatter. The party ventures along the beach and has to deploy the boats in order to get around a corner and land on another beach.. Darn handy, those folding boats.
Turns out, this beach is private as well, occupied by a bunch of angry trolls. Goldpiece unlimbers the flaming holy sword and smites them mightily, rending limb from limb...
On second thought, the risks of teleportation – although small – are potentially lethal and so the group decides to travel overland instead. The journey is lengthy, but the arrive at the ferry landing and quickly depart for the Mouth of Doom.
Following the paths they have traveled before, the group traverses the purple worm cavern and descends to the Temple of Orcus. There a day is spent reinforcing the protective spells that ward it and the group prepares for the next leg. They pass though the vast graveyards and through the portcullis that leads to the corridors of mazes. This time, their passage is not so swift and they spend two tendays wandering the hallways. It is a good thing they have a cleric, or someone would be salami by now.
They investigate and poke around, eventually encounte...
Once the way out has been established, it is back to investigating dark corridors and apparent dead ends. One such trek leads to a room with a secret door that leads to a secret room with another secret door and a deadly trap. The secret door from the first secret room leads to a second secret room with a second secret door and a a second deadly trap. The third room is different in that there are no secret door s and no deadly traps, but there is a large chute that evokes ideas of corpse disposal.
Ropes are deployed and the lad is lowered into the sloping chute. He reports an intense smell o rotting flesh and gags vigorously. The mage seconds both the smell and the vomit reflex...
Following the unlocking of the podium and the retrieval of the Ring of Wizardry – with the accompanying loss of many points of intelligence on the part of Goldpiece – the group cavalierly vaults into teleport after teleport. They discover that the shifts are not random and may in fact be mapped!
Getting the lay of the land, the group starts investigating hitherto unexplored areas and run into a kennel of hounds. Not just any ole hounds, but hounds from the pits of hell! Hounds that breathe fire and brimstone, that deliver savage bites and bay at ear-splitting volume. Luckily, the group is possessed of a paladin – a paladin that is immune to fiery breath – thanks to a nifty cold sword – and protected from the savage bites of the creatures...