Cauldron Adventures

Life's Bazaar - Part 2: Desmona was dead.  Minolos was not himself; he seemed like he was a different person entirely.  Aram still lay unconscious.  Paithan and Osthryd had finally come around, and Grifor watched over them all.  They were in a stinking, filthy lair of an ogre, the major domo of someone named Kazmojan.   Minolos and Grifor learned the ogre's name was Xukasus.  They negotiated with the ogre, who wanted to eat the cold corpse of Desmona, for escape. Xukasus was insistent upon bringing them to his boss.  They further learned that Kazmojen's loyal servitor was an otyugh polymorphed into a gangly ogre by a magical trap.  Xukasus laired there in that horrible room, devouring his garbage, gathering waste from other areas of the fortress to replenish his supply, and haphazardly guarding the locked iron chest at the back of his room.
        Grifor snuck out of the room during the negotiations to make his escape.  He brought down the elevator room, and the stone spike was still there, and it attacked.  The others joined in and battled it and destroyed it.  The battle brought out the ogre/otyugh and they fought and killed him as well.  They took his treasure chest and escaped back up to the gnome's key store.  Desmona was returned to her temple for burial, and Minolos, still not himself, left the group to follow another path than that of his life-long friends.
        After resting and getting healed of their wounds, the remainder of the party, Paithan, Osthryd, Aram, and Grifor returned to the locksmith shop and descended down the stairs.  This time they went past the well-hidden secret door and into the Chamber of the Giggling Masks. In here, twelve tarnished copper masks were mounted on the walls.  The masks were two feet tall and were four feet off the floor.  Each one was a smiling gnome face.  The noises of giggling, leaves, wind, etc. came from them. The mask to the left of west tunnel had a magic mouth on it that said: "Welcome to Jzadirune – behold the wonder!  But beware, ye who seek to plunder.  Traps abound and guardians peer Beyond every portal, behind every gear." They noticed that one of the gear doors to the south was propped open with a piece of stone.  
        That room held a dozen small cots and chests, and cobwebs blanketed most and tiny spiders scurried about.  Rough hewn tunnels breached the room.  A one foot long iron rod lay in center of room, shedding light, casting shadows.  Two naked skulks were feasting on the spiders in the room when the party's lantern alerted them.  They hid, but Grifor saw them.  The skulks, the ancient descendents of Angustian untouchables, separated and fled down different tunnels.  One went south, and the other went east to alert the dark creepers.
        From there, the party returned to the room with the masks, then traveled down the T corridor.  They saw the gear shaped doors, but knew that to try to open them without the keys was inviting danger.  Still, they hit a trap, and Osthryd fell into a twenty foot pit filled with spikes and a dead skulk.  Grifor lodged the trap open, and rescued Osthryd.  They entered the map room at the end of one corridor and found an illusory wall concealed the north entrance of the room, making the wall look like an unremarkable stone wall.  Carved into the south wall was a large map showing various interconnected rooms and corridors.
        Unable to go further, they returned to the room with the masks, and then into the room where the skulks had fled.  They decided to try the more-recently dug tunnels.  They went west and found a skulk den. The room was filled with dead rats and other debris. A barely lit lantern sat on a wooden chest in the center of room. A cot rested against the northeast wall. a cloaked skulk, an ancient Angustian untouchable, was asleep on the cot. The party killed the sleeping skulk quickly and quietly.
        They found that the wooden chest was unlocked and contained two dark robes, bundled and tattered, three sunrods, two flasks of oil, two tindertwigs, one thunderstone, a ceramic mask portraying the sad visage of an anguished gnome with rabbit ears, a silver ring shaped like a serpent with tiny azurite gems for eyes and shadow empire script, and a silver ewer adorned with dancing dryads and set with moss agates.  The skulk had a rapier, light crossbow with 20 bolts, a dark cloak, and three skeleton keys on a silver ring.  
            From there, they traveled back through the rough tunnel to the south, and entered the Hall of the Dancing Lights.  Flickering light spilled from this great hall, and they could also hear the sound of trickling water from within. Eight marble pillars supported the thirty foot high ceiling.  Pillars were carved to resemble gnome artisans and warriors standing on each other's shoulders, bracing the vaulted roof with their collective strength.  The walls were adorned with faded murals depicting gnomes in reverie – playing pipes, dancing, performing acrobatic stunts, drinking wine, and so forth. Above the pool was a gnome face with water spilling from its wide grin.  Four bright lights illuminated the hall from end to end, flickering and dancing like torchlight and drifting aimlessly about the hall, changing altitude and direction on a whim.  Three skulks lurked naked in the room, with rapiers, light crossbows with twenty bolts, and a thunderstone.  Frightened by the intruders, the skulks remained hidden.
            They went quietly through the long hallway to the west and scrambled up the stairs at the end, barely noting the cracked floor of the landing between the stairs.  The room at the end was empty.  They returned to the Hall of Dancing Lights and went through the south western hall to the theatre.
            From behind a black stage curtain, a baby black bear (a gnome in costume) took center stage and said, "Night hath fallen in the magic woods and while myriad woodland creatures dream, Willowbough and her faerie friends frolic beneath the sorcerous moon!" The bear curled on the stage and a female gnome with briars for hair materialized on stage and began dancing and solemn music played as butterfly winged faeries appeared from back stage.  All was illusion.  A choker lurked under the trapdoor, but they slew it.  Osthryd broke through the stage door in an impressive maneuver and killed it.  There was a masterwork mandolin  and an unlocked wooden chest that has a small locked spellbook, a wand of secret doors, and a 5 inch long steel rod with an engraved rune.  The spellbook contained the following spells: change self, color spray, detect magic, ghost sound, invisibility, Leomund's trap, mage hand, minor image, misdirection, Nystul's magical aura, Nystul's undetectable aura, read magic, and silent image. 
            The party passed through another dug tunnel to the north and they found the lair of a skulk. Dead rats, bits of furniture, and other debris filled the room, and a torch burned in a sconce.  The skulk had found a potion infected with the Vanishing, and the other skulks now shuned it.  It had nearly faded away and appeared ghostlike.  It wore a black ceramic wolf mask and a thick wolfskin cloak.  From this skulk, the party learned much about the doings and goings on of the place. It told them that the skulks were descended from a caste of Angustians known as the untouchables. The skulks raid the surface for slaves and hand them off to some hobgoblins, who take the slaves to a place called the Malachite Fortress.  The skulks work with a  band of dark ones led by the dark stalker Yuathyb.  They all work for a slaver named Kazmojen.  Kazmojen pays them a share of the proceeds from his sales, and the skulks and dark ones keep whatever they pilfer from the surface.  
            Allowing the skulk to live, the party then proceeded through the tunnels dug by the dark creepers to the King's hall.  Here, the pillars were sculpted to look like petrified trees.  An elderly gnome wearing a silver crown was slumped in the throne, softly snoring (illusion).   A thirty foot fresco behind throne depicted a complex array of gears.  A cherubic gnome's face carved into west wall of landing. When the face was investigated, it said, "If you wish an audience with the king, place your finest coin in my mouth!"   Doing so, they found that the king illusion said,  "Betrayed we are by our own magic, One by one we fade away.  Jzadirune's lost!  Oh, how tragic!  We curse the vanishing day."  The king's throne had a compartment with 75 gp and two 5 inch steel rods.
        They explored a few more rooms, and found the skulks' treasure room.  They found a few more traps, and a room filled with spiders.  Eventually they made it to the weapons room where the caged rat, the familiar of the gnome, was kept.  The room was filled with empty weapons racks. A chest in the middle of the floor held a small silver cage with a rat with a white star-shaped splotch of fur on its forehead.  It gripped the bars and squeaked excitedly. Under the cage was a friendly mimic.  The mimic negotiated with the party; for six days of tasty rations it gave them the rat and told them of the secret door in the room, and told them where the leader of the dark creepers and stalkers could be found.  They returned to the surface to give the rat to the gnome.

Aram - Bob Probst, Swashbuckler
Minolos - Bob Probst, Wizard
Grifor - Allen Myers, Monte Cook Bard
Osthryd - Chris Bradley, Holy Warrior of Wemusa
Paithan - Charles Darlage, Archer