Descending from the rope, the group decides more scouting is in order…the place is huge and they don’t want to wear out their boots shuffling to and fro – so Malchor’s glowing head graces the cavernous corridors and high-ceiling hallways. The head flits to and fro and eventually the group finds something they deem interesting and wander in that direction. Along the way, they encounter a group of fire giants bearing the livery of King Snurre. King Snurre? Oh yeah, we murdered him on his throne a few months back. Wonder what his peeps are doing here? Oh – that’s right…they’re dying. The chain lightning spells rip through the armored figures and the one that makes it within melee range is felled. The party migrates onward, eventually running into a large group of zombies. Justicar doesn’t make them all go poof, so the fighters have to spend a few rounds hacking zombies into pieces. They find closed doors and tunnels carved into the walls of the city-fortress.
They found a dumbwaiter and sent the head up the shaft. It eventually emerges in a corridor populated by large numbers of cyclops. Malchor’s head flies around, terrifying the masses and prompting a hurried retreat towards a spiral staircase. The head passes the crowds and flies to the top of the stairs – which looks like a large room, reminiscent of the volcanic domain of the fire giant king. Not wanting to spend too much time aloft, the head heads downstairs – prompting renewed panic among the one-eyed folk. The head detours into a strange apartment block, filled with decrepit clay houses and swarms of bats and other flying creatures before the spell runs out. Hmmm. Interesting things lie above. Time to deploy another head. The head heads out, investigating anything that seems interesting. Several large closed doors are interesting, as are a bunch of devils that the party slaughters.
One room in particular seems interesting. Inside it is a large bone yurt. The yurt has an occupant in an ornate chair. A handsome man with a brass jaw – well, not really, but his lower jaw has brass plates on it and they appear to be wired to the sides of his head. Malchor’s head scuttles off and the group wanders towards the yurt. They prep with spells a-plenty and make contact with an earth elemental. The yurt owner summons a bunch of spectres by smacking the butt of his spear on the ground. The spectres drain the elemental’s essence and while that is happening, the group attacks.
Once the brass man is dead, they investigate his items and give the yurt a good plundering. Then they resume investigating closed doors. One has an immense quantity of bones that apparently were carefully being pulverized, and another is a terrible slaughterhouse, with many dead and dismembered bodies strewn about. There are three figures suspended from chains by iron hooks and the lawful good human is rescued, while the rest are given a swift death. Malchor discovers shafts in the ceiling that lead to places unknown, so the head is sent up the chute to see what it can see. It climbs quite a ways and eventually finds itself at the bottom end of an oubliette. The unconscious victim is placed in Malchor’s sling chair and an unseen servant propels him along. An arcane eye is sent aloft and it discerns that the oubliettes are part of a larger prison complex located hundreds of feet above their location.
Some more bone rooms are discovered and they are mostly uninteresting in the grander scheme, though there is a question about the sheer numbers of bodies required to fill these immense chambers with such a large number of bones. They encounter a rust monster that Goldpiece charms with his mighty rod. Soon thereafter they encounter some sort of skeletal champion – which they promptly slay. They loot its glowing crown and proceed onward. They discover a large library – nay a record-keeping room full of books. The books are full of names and dates and causes of death…and resurrection dates. They move past the records room into a complex of cells and a body preparation chamber. Each of the cells has a key on an iron ring hanging outside of it – and inside there a myriad of stacked corpses – though there might be a few living things buried underneath all of it – but the group is over it and moves on, but not before Goldpiece ditches his rusty buddy by setting it to devouring the cell doors.
A narrow passage leads to a stone sarcophagus that the group pries open. Inside is a human male, apparently in the prime of his life. Goldpiece gives him a poke with the mace of disruption and that is the end of that. Malchor settles down to more remote sensing and the head flies onward, passing through a large room with a pool of slimy tissue and a somnolent imp parked on an island protruding from the wretched lake. The head makes note of this and flies onward – investigating tunnels and finding a chamber full of skulls adorned with a waxy seal, and one full of flesh golems – all standing at attention and waiting for something.
In the other direction is a well appointed living room and beyond that, a patch of graveyard dirt. The group schemes a way to cross the tissue pond, but is attacked by the offal elemental. Rather than fight, they opt for flight and make their way to the graveyard living room. The dirt is investigated and nothing is discovered. One of the armchairs turns out to be a mimic and tries to eat Elulyn, but dines on a few volleys of magic missiles instead. The group loots a shiny rock for their troubles.
The group doubles back and destroys the flesh golems and opens the door beyond them into what is presumably some sort of flesh golem control room. In the other direction they find huge double doors that lead to some sort of temple with a starfield that occupies the rear wall. Investigation reveals it is not an illusion and apparently leads to some region out in space. Spooky.
They move on to investigate a few more of the bone pit rooms and find one inhabited by a devil – which Malchor promptly disintegrates. A black pudding meets the same fate and they wander onward- marveling at the sheer size of this massive place. They make their way to a large room with a collapsed floor that apparently connects to hell, because they are attacked by a multitude of hell hounds that they quickly destroy. The walls of the place ascend for hundreds of feet and another head heads aloft to see what can be seen at the top. It looks like a large slaughterhouse and meat processing plant, with several large doors that lead out of the area.
At this point, everyone is tired and the rope beckons. Time for a nap and a strategy session.
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