04/05/745 A.E. Mid afternoon...
Sedoc looked at his new companions, still wondering at life's little fates that brought him here, and rather uncertain as to what he should do next. Though oddly, he felt better than he had in a long while. "So . . . , um . . . , Where do we go from here?" he asked.
Gillmesh checked over his equipment as he assessed the battle readiness of all present. "Well, we got another passage we kin take. Ah aint too happy aboot goin in there right nea," he said pointing to the illuminated poolroom.
Katsumi continued to marvel at the pools of liquid light, wishing she could investigate further as she had heard stories of magical pools before, but those damn piercers were looming somewhere overhead in the inky darkness beyond the range of her vision and the reach of her light. "Damn." At least this one little bugger won't get away. Directing her limited energy blast toward it, she hit it and it once again fell to the floor below where she proceeded to chop it, kick it, and perform some other heightened martial arts moves that would normally break stone. She began to hurt it. Gillmesh watched her do this for a time, quite pleased one more minor problem in their path was being taken care of.
Janjit continued to look over the new room, searching its walls for irregularities while he waited for some decision from the others. Then he saw it. Between the two copper-banded, wooden doors lay a third door, a secret one, so it would seem. He smiled to himself, thinking it would take more than that to stop a man of his skill. "Hey guys, this section of wall looks funny."
Both Sedoc and Gillmesh wandered over to Janjit, looking at the wall and seeing nothing. Trekken also strides across the chamber to have a look. Though he didn't see anything either, he didn't let that bother him since he dealt with the unseen things of life all the time. He simply had faith something would happen when he pushed with his holy musculature upon the wall in front of Janjit, and it gave way, revealing a small hall, perhaps 5 feet wide and 10 feet long, leading nowhere. Nothing. One-by-one they searched the hall leading nowhere, and one-by-one they failed to find anything. Very strange.
Katsumi Yuriko flew through the air, foot first, then at the last moment performed the snap kick, before landing daintily on the ground by rebounding off the piercer, its cracked, stone-like shell significantly breached and its dead form gracing the floor of the illuminated poolroom. Garren claps silently, "Impressive, Kat." Katsumi says nothing, bouncing on the heels of her feet, still in the Neko Ashi Dachi stance, prepared for trouble. Seeing none, she walked over to Garren and both of them went to see what the others were doing. Katsumi stands just a little closer to Garren than normal as they walk towards the group, a soft smile of satisfaction on her face.
Not finding anything is the little hall, the party had moved on to the last wooden door, its copper banding gleaming with reflected light. Trek the mighty, warrior of Thor, put his shoulder to the door, making a rather loud noise but failing to open it. He redoubled his efforts and gave it another heave and this time managed to get through, revealing another small room (20X30 feet), thick with cobwebs and what turned out to be a disassembled wagon (which, if so desired, could be taken out of the dungeon and reassembled, for it appeared to be a high quality wagon). Another door awaited at the back wall. Searches were made but nothing unusual presented itself amongst the harmless daddy-longleg spiders, and so the party continued.
Janjit, seeing nothing odd, moved away from the latest door to let Trek have his turn at it. Trek tried twice, and failed twice, his mighty efforts turning to heavy breathing and a sore shoulder. He simply frowned at it, "Hey Gill. You wanna try?" he panted, a bit breathless at his recent efforts. Taking his time, Gill prepared himself for a task he had already seen Trek fail at. The door was sure to be stuck, and hard, and it would take a massive effort to move the damn thing. So, with steel determination, he put everything he had into it and the wooden barrier gave way to his superior strength and determination. Anne marveled at all the muscle around her, glad to have it handy for more than one reason.
Before Gill, he saw a mirror, a large full-length affair resting in its wooden, golden inlaid ornate frame. If one wanted, they could spin the mirror on its two pivots, but the friction wouldn't allow more than a rotation or two on its horizontal axis before coming to a halt. Though many had heard horror stories of magical mirrors and had an immediate distrust of the thing, it later turned out to be harmless and non-magical when checked.
Broken crystal vials littered the floor, and a fallen statue of exceptional quality lay on its side near the southern wall. Righting it, and cleaning it up, it appeared to be of a middle-aged man with a grim look on his face. The workmanship was surprisingly good; in fact, excellent. Though that mirror was certainly worth a lot of money, this statue would fetch an even handsomer price, but the thing weighed nearly 450 lbs. and would not easily be taken home. Garren cast a Detect Magic spell but the statue and mirror were not. However, there were magical emanations from the corner of the room, and this revealed yet another secret door, this time, one with magic on it.
Garren eventually tries to open the door with magic upon it, and his reward is a strong electrical discharge, knocking him across the room as his muscles violently contracted. At least the door was open, but Garren had fallen. "Gods be damned! Garren!" cried Gillmesh as he rushed to his friend's aid. Janjit utters something unbecoming of any civilized being, but also rushed to the priest's side, demonstrating a more civilized quality after all. Trekken was soon at his side as well, kneeling over Garren's body and placing his hands on his head."Oh Great and powerful Thor, I call upon your graciousness to help a fallen friend," he prayed aloud. The holy warrior's Lay On Hands ability heals Garren, and seeing Garren was being treated properly, Janjit quickly hopped up to make sure nothing nasty had been lurking beyond that door, keeping his dagger at the ready while his new friends struggled to bring the priest back. He drew another dagger as he tossed his first one at the door, satisfied it was no longer dangerous when it stuck there without another magical discharge. Garren is restored and eventually sits up, a little shocked, but not too badly well off.
Anne moved into the small room now, followed by Janjit, both looking at nearly three score crystal vials in racks along one wall. They were quite excited until they found only four of them held liquid; the rest were empty, though the hand-ground crystal-fitted stoppered-vials were valuable (perhaps 1 GP each), and the 4 containing potions were obviously much more valuable. Actually labeled (an almost unheard of practice), the four potions were: Sunburst (3), Fire Resistance (6), Water Breathing (3) and Polymorph-Self (3). Later, while resting, Anne divided the doses up into 15 separate vials, seeing as quality empty vials were in abundance at the moment, and passed them around the party. Anne took 4 more empty vials for herself, and Janjit kept the rest with him for now. Katsumi takes the mirror apart, preparing it for eventual transport, should they ever decide to take it with them. The party rest here for a time before moving out.
Katsumi, who had been killing a Piercer before while others were more concerned with the funny, little hall to no where, now had a look at the hall, and she found a secret lever that everyone else had missed, and which opened yet another secret door. Trekken enters first, bravely leading the way into a small, 15X15 foot room with a heavy wooden chest in it. Janjit goes to work, the others backing him up and at the ready. "Nothing obvious, but these traps aren't meant to be obvious," he said after 10 minutes of careful inspection. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking at the locked chest. Cautiously, gently, he tries to pick the lock. "Damn!" he hears a sharp snap of brittle glass as a searing, acidic gas shoots out, engulfing him and filling the small room. Taking it full on as he gasped for air when only an acidic cloud offered itself, Janjit fell, his lungs and throat practically fried away, with what remained now weeping with blood. Such damage was well beyond normal first aid, and there would never be enough time to heal naturally from such a lethal attack. Everyone in the room took serious damage, and though some managed to partially ward off the poisonous cloud (thanks be to god), many were simply injured with external acid-damage and burns. Sedoc covered his faced and dragged Janjit to safety, his hands being helped by Anne as she, too, helped pull the rogue free of the room. Nearly dead due to internal injuries, mere moments away from leaving this moral coil, only divine healing magic commanded and directed by the clerics managed to save Janjit's life and prevented the rouge from drowning in his own blood. Garren and Trek use most of their resources to save the rogue and heal the others injured in this trap laid down decades ago in times long past. Close call, but no one died. Almost, though. Magic is, truly, what most mortals would describe as miraculous, and deservedly so.
The deadly cloud soon dissipates completely and Anne checks out the now harmless chest. 14 gems shine in her light, two of the better ones, gleaming green emeralds. "Oh, I love emeralds. I want these so I'll buy them with my share." The mage pockets the two emeralds, leaving the other 12 lesser gems on a pile of gold pieces that could choke a whale. Old coins, 50 years past, most of them with images of Ruby Truestone on them, the empress of 50 years ago, but a few had other, even older images on them, though no one really sat down to look at them yet. They did estimate their weight, and dividing by standard weights, it looked to be about 30,000 GP. Wow! 300 lbs. of gold coins. This treasure weighed a lot, even if it didn't take up much room; it was perhaps only a 1-inch layer of small, gold coins that lay on the bottom of the chest, the box itself only 2 feet in length and a foot and a half wide. Gold is pretty heavy stuff, but it was a burden they were glad to have. Between the gems and the gold, surely, they felt, this was the secret treasure of Sir Gerald and Mireus the mage, to which the journal had alluded. Both historic figures long dead now, probably, considering the treasure was still here and Mireus had not come back for it, and that pair having no further need of such worldly concerns, they took it, confident they had finally found what the original party initially set out to find, and practically certain no former owner would ever come looking for it - or them.
Janjit points out yet another secret door at the back of the treasure room (god, this pace is filthy with secret doors, but then, the journal did say the treasures were well hidden). Gillmesh, once again using mighty muscle and sinew, forced the secret door open into the new 15X25 foot room, Janjit's lantern light showing the way. A swirl of little flames could be seen, moving, collecting with others. Six impressive, leather-bound books rested on wooden stands at the back of the room, now illuminated by the collecting swirls of flame midway between the party and the books.
Concerned, and rightly so, Garren cast his one remaining Bless spell, blessing his friends for what lies ahead. Trekken gazes at the fire, looking for hostile intent, and finding it, his innate Detect Enemy ability going wild. "This fire is alive!!!" he utters aloud, though mostly to himself.
"Warning, intruder alert. Conspicuous absence noted. Warning," a bodiless voice calls out from nowhere, and the Fireman grew in stature as if in response to this disembodied voice (a Magic Mouth?). Several party members took this time to drink some of the 6 doses of Fire Resistance potions they were carrying, correctly anticipating what was about to befall them all, perhaps saving their lives.
COMBAT BEGINS:
R1: Anne, at a safe distance, cast her Magic Missile spell, hitting the fiery beast, its flames shooting out in anger at the missiles, but hitting nothing but empty air. Trekken readied himself and shouted, "Mighty Thor, guide my blades and may they strike truuuue!!!" and he charged in, slicing the fireman, a splash of flame catching him in return, burning the holy warrior. Janjit flipped in two daggers from beyond the room, both of them sinking into the beast, hurting it, but being consumed in the process. A pseudopod of flame strikes out at Trekken, but he effortlessly dances away, moving, turning, keeping his eye on the chaotic flames, ever at the ready to lunge in should the opportunity present itself. Garren lays a Sleep spell on it, making sure none of his friends were in the area of effect, but the ungodly creature seems unaffected. Gill cuts into the creature as it concentrated on Trek, again a splash of flame snapping back and this time hitting Gill, burning him. Sedoc slid in from below, pivoting with skill and grace, cutting upwards, slicing into it, spinning, he thrust his dagger forward as well. Wounding the creature, he also was greeted with the merciless and automatic consequences of erupting flame. The smell of burning hair and skin assailed everyone's nostrils.
R2: The Fireman picked up two of the books, which immediately burst into flames. Trekken missed it, but Sedoc hit it, a large section of the creature falling away and hitting the floor, its fire splashing outwards like a wave of fiery oil, burning whatever it touched. Gillmesh finds his footing, taking two, rapid, successive attacks, hitting it twice and being hit twice in return with licks of fire. But with that last hit, the creature falls apart, its flames spread out, falling, and the entire room is engulfed in a dying burst of flames. Everyone within is hurt. Only the fact many had taken Fire Resistance potions saved them. The books began to burn, but Anne runs in and grabs the two closest ones, rushing them out to safety and stifling the flames, saving them from an ashier fate, but badly burning her hands.
COMBAT OVER:
The wooden stands burn, four of the six books crumble into gray ashes, and the room begins to cool. The only undamaged thing around here appears to be one metal box, a small case with numbers and symbols on it. Three rows of numbers present themselves on its surface, the black sheen inlay of each row's first four numbers proudly and boldly presenting a string of numbers, each row continuing with lesser, golden numbers, depressed within the metal container. Wonder what this is?
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04/06/745 A.E Sometime after midnight.
SESSION ENDS:
© December of 1999
by
James L.R. Beach
Waterville, MN 56096