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PREVIOUSLY - CAMPAIGN DIARIES 14 - MORNING DECISIONS
Day 43 Continued - Uncharted Territory
Day 43 Continued - Uncharted Territory
Vald leads the group past the doors they had past, now open where dozens of Chitines can be seen cowering and living in squalor. They return the way they came, back the the room of mists, and Vald tells them, in his closed-teeth way, "Stay close to the wall, there are traps." They pass a door, make a turn to the right and approach another door, which Vald opens. As he does, he also purposely steps on a trap door, which opens, revealing spikes below, but there is enough of a narrow ledge to make it to the door. He does so, and the rest follow.
They are in a long hallway, completely dark, but the party and accomplice Vald can see without light. He stops them and they gather. "When we were driven up into this strange place from the Chitine city below, we came up a stairway to the east. I am sure it is guarded. If the guards raise the alarm, we will have to fight back many Chitine. We do not want this. There is another staircase that comes up from below, a long tower of stairs, but we do not know where. It was said to be dangerous, so we stayed away. Since we came from below, we have avoided these rooms to the west - strange creatures dwell and appear here. Some we eat, but most we avoid. We can go to the east stairs, or search for the other stairs to the west."
The party thinks for a moment and quickly decides to move to the west, searching for a secret passage to lead them below. They find it mostly ancient and undisturbed, with dusty floors and rotting plaster walls depicting scenes almost indiscernible any longer. One image jumps out though, a skull holding a sideways-eight in its mouth, and both Immeral and K'ronk decide it is the symbol of an ancient civilization obsessed with the pursuit of magic, usually to malevolent ends. They spend the time to search the room for secret passages, but find none.
They swing north, following the western wall, and they find an empty room. They search for passages in the first room, but find none. Across from the room is a short hall and alcove, with a beautiful pegasus statue, but it has fallen into disrepair. Nothing turns up in a search, so they continue north.
"Why do you search away from the southwest?" Vald asks.
"We search behind us so nothing can attack us from behind." Nowhere replies.
"Hmmm." Vald rebuffs, with a stern look. They move on.
They open a room that sits empty, but has webs with a unique phosphorescent glow. Nowhere asks, "Do you know what kind of spider made these webs Vald?"
"No, but I did not make them, my webbing does not glow." the humorless fellow remarks. They move on.
Another room turns up empty and devoid of hidden passages and they find another alcove where a statue once was. Here they do find a secret passage, and after nearly falling into a pit trap, they find a room magically preserved, filled with casks. They open the casks and find them to be filled with a fragrant wine.
"What is wine?" Vald asks with a knitted brow.
"The juice of a fruit, fermented for some kick." replies K'ronk, drinking heartily as the team fills their skins. "Try some" he offers.
Vald tries. "It is good." he states. "It has a fragrance like mountain flowers that gives way to a palette that is a blend of icy water, manaberries and the north wind."
Most of the party's jaws drop, trying to process why that just came out of Vald's mandibles.
All drink except Immeral, who had a previous incident with delicious wine. They feel empowered, with renewed vitality, not quite strength, but something in the wine has made them better than before somehow. Despite the desire to rest and drink, they move on.
Back down to the dark corridors to the south they open some more doors and find empty rooms that reveal no secrets, they then hear a shuffling from one room, but Vald holds them back. "We have birds in here. We eat them." They continue past and check another door.
This room has glowing webbing, but it also has a door within that it cracked open, with some sounds coming from beyond. Nowhere peaks in, and faces a fearsome-looking horse-sized lizard-bird with clawed wings and feet and a massive beak with sharp teeth embedded.
It springs to attack, and Nowhere tries to slam the door closed, but it bursts through, as does two more of the creatures. The party attacks, and the great creatures are quickly cut down with barely a scratch. After the lizard-birds are vanquished, their room is examined, but nothing is found, even after searching for secret passages.
"I have not seen these bird-lizards before." Wald states through his teeth. "The evil magic is creating strange creatures. I wonder if you can eat them?"
"Do you need fire to cook them?" Immeral asks.
"Cooking is nice, but not necessary. I would eat it if there was time, but there are too many feathers. We should continue."
Dain does take a moment to cut the beak off one of the birds, but decides it will rot and moves on.
The team backtracks a bit, wanting to be thorough and not missing a lead. They open a doorway to a long corridor with many niches along the passage. Rubble is strewn about and each niche seems to have a broken statue in each. Whether time or other forces have influenced the decay of the statues is not clear, but the team does not spend much time examining the statues, they move on to the room at the end.
Some time while they are searching this complex, the effect of the wine they drank earlier seems to lessen, the vitality they felt fading away. They seem no worse for the experience, and the team seems to gain no benefit from the wine in their
There is an unlit place of worship here, an octogonal room with an altar at the southern end and doors to the left and right. The party fans out, finding little of interest, but as Immeral and K'ronk go to examine the altar, they find it covered in strange, ancient-looking runes. The language is not understandable, but as they prepare to cast a comprehend languages spell, the runes start moving and changing shape, and in short order they re-order to elvish, and Immeral reads the words aloud to the group. "Who seeks to recall life's past light, walks with sufferance to the right. Who seeks a test from those bereft, walks with reticence to the left."
They ponder the riddle for a bit, deciding that the left likely involves undead. Even so, they open the door to the left for a look. There is a small room with a dirt floor and little else to see. Still, they do not enter. Instead, they venture a look beyond the right door, and here there is a longer hallway that is again filled with soil, with an opening to the north near the far end.
K'ronk decides to walk to the end and look north, but takes the precaution of tying their magical rope to his wrist, while letting the others hang on to it for safety. He proceeds cautiously, then looks north into the room. There, more phosphorescent webbing glows, but he also sees an unnaturally dark shadow in the room. He decides to use a fire bolt, and aims it at the wall nearby. When it strikes, the dark spot comes alive and unfolds into a trio of giant spiders. He runs, and the party quickly closes the door behind him and flees back to the north.
"What kind of spiders were they?" K'ronk asks Vald.
"Describe them." Vald asks.
"They were big and dark."
"They sound like big dark spiders." Vald answers enigmatically, frustrating the party to no end.
The group returns to the west to check one final passage, a room or wide hallway that is featureless and seems to have no purpose or exit. While searching for secret passages, Immeral triggers a trap in the floor and nearly falls into the spiked cavity. Below, he notices a small passage to the west, and he calls the others over.
They ask Vald if he can climb down there, and he tells them "Easily" and starts to do so, but they stop him and have him hold the rope so they can all descend. They do so safely and Vald sticks like a spider to the pits walls and handily descends to them. They move on.
The small tunnel widens into a normal 10' wide corridor that extends as far into the distance as the party can see, even Nowhere with her supernatural darkvision. They do see three passages to the north, so they head into the first. It is barren, and they spend a few moments searching for secret passages, but find nothing. They step back out into the hallway, but stop when they hear a tapping/clicking sound. Before them, out of the next passage, two massive spiders appear. They seem incredibly fast for their size, and they start towards the heroes and fade away - turning invisible! The party prepares and strikes out into the darkness. K'ronk starts the attack with his breath weapon, and lightning flashes from his maw down the center of the corridor, striking both of the 8' wide spiders and illuminating them with sparking energy.
The others press the attack and strike with arrows, bolts, fists and axes. Dain strikes one of the creatures soundly, and it starts gushing green phosphor blood around the area while losing some of its invisibility, becoming thinly visible, yet still attacking. Races along the wall above the heroes and drops onto the spiders, hitting both with attacks from his strange-looking sword. The others dodge and parry invisible attacks, but Vald takes the worst of it, one of the spiders locking on to one of his arms and tearing the flesh off while injecting poison at the same time.
The team presses their attack and with a Cone of Cold, Immeral kills one, but before Dain can dispatch the last one with his battle axe, it strikes at Orryn and does some biting and crushing damage to his side, but luckily the poison has little effect. Seraphina steps up and gives Vald a half a ?????? potion, which seems to suppress the poison, although one of his four arms is badly injured. Will they use some precious healing magic on Vald? Will they find the stairway to the lower levels? Can they sneak by the "bad" chitine or will they have to fight an army of the fierce warriors?
NEXT - A VOICE IN THE DARKNESS
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