22 - Raiding the Lich's safe house

Going down into the basement of the Lich's safehouse.

Drip. Drip. Drip. That hollow sound pierces the silence in this cave as water slowly falls from stalactites. Stale air fills your lungs as you take in the cave. A large, unworked stone column holds up the ceiling. Stout stairs leading up hug the column’s one side while a 5-foot high ledge appears along the other. Further back, faintly illuminated by a magical light a second set of stairs leads up to a stone door carved with a skull.

A face on the wall opens its eyes and begins to speak at your approach. The desiccated face is vaguely feminine and the voice is filled with the dry rattle of death . "Doumonde, I'm running an errand. This diversion should entertain you, Stay on the path to get rewarded."

The mouth disappears and then re-appears but this time the voice changes and crackles with evil and malevolence.

“During your epic journey into the tomb of the Lich king Acererak (Ack-er-ack) by mistake or foolishness you became trapped in his unescapable dungeon. A bone chilling howl shakes your soul as you are surrounded by a pack of ghoulish reanimated-werewolves, Arwoooo"

Then out of the darkness, two human skeletons clad in wolf hide jumped down from the ledge and moved to engage the group with clubs made out of desiccated wolf legs. The skeleton's ligaments and bones creak and twist in with unforgettable sounds even as the faint sound of howling continues from the magic mouth in front of the group. The party proceded to miss with everything they had and one of the skeletons almost dropped Freya but Celadon healed her up and the group rallied to defeat the skeletons.

The group comes upon a set of stairs up to a door with a face on it. The face looks vaguely draconic but as you approach it looks more and more human until it speaks.

"Such foolishness, you trespass and forfeit your soul. (normal voice) Dead end. Go back and checking shadows for more adventure... " The face stays vaguely human and continues to watch you expectantly.

Freya says, "To hell with this, stumbles forward setting off a pit trap she just walks through the illusion to the door which blasts her with necromantic energy." The face on the door mutters dumbass before it returns to metalic dragon and ina fit of pique Freya rips the door off its hinges. When lindle says good thing there we no traps and teh door wasn't locked. Freya looks at the door and says, "You couldn't tell it was because it was cheap human workmanship." before tossing the door to the side. The group then tromped up into a hallway lined with prison cells and Lindal caught a glance of a creature peaking out form one of the cells quite stealthily before having something enter his mind with a query of "Friend or foe". The group debated what to say and in the process pretty much revealed everything and the creature contacted Lindal again to offer help. With some probing Eddie eventually decided that this creature was a psuedodragon and was likely to have been the lich's old familiar. Buoyed with this source of help the creature eagerly tried to dump lots of information to the group but while teh creature REALLY liked Kylorin who fed it, it (Sepharoth?) eventually found that only Eddie could both understand it and keep enough images in his head to really communicate cleanly. (Needed a good Insight and Investigate to make sense of the various mental images it communicated in)

The party asked about treasure and the dragon, eager to help showed them through the fort leading them to fight a dark mantle, avoid a poison trap, and some animated weapons. Seph seemed rather disappointed that Eddie wasn't detecting magic and lectured him on the finer points of being a mage which was somewhat humiliating for Eddie.

Seph was able to lead the group o a treasure room but was not aware of the nest of spiders that had moved in. Luckily Lindal, Kylorin, and Eddie managed to spot them and attacked before the spiders could pounce. Eddie burnt one to death and singed another but that one chased him down and a single bite dropped Eddie from full health. The rest of the group managed to put down the rest of the spiders but due to Eddies paralysis the group was forced to rest there for an hour until he recovered. Freya knew the poison would wear off but was unable to really tell more. When Eddie managed to recover and the party looted the magically trapped chest and found 200 gold and the Lich's backup spellbook. The group rich with knowledge that they had obtained a read treasure. (The spellbock was made out of the flesh of her ex boyfriend and had spells up to ninth list.

The party earned 650 xp (140 each => 150 cumulative - Granted 2nd level anyhow ) 199 gp and the following gear:

• Scrolls -

  • Comprehend languages

  • Find Familiar

  • Unseen servant

• Spellbook - made out of Zaldara's ex-boyfriend's skin

  • alter self, antimagic field, dream, etherealness, Evard’s black tentacles, feather fall, fly, gaseous form, hold monster, magic mouth, major image, mass suggestion, phantom steed, protection from evil and good, telekinesis, teleport, Tenser’s floating disk, tongues, true seeing, vampiric touch, wall of fire, and wish

• Seph - a Psuedodragon traveling companion and his 1 gold coin and glowing rock