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Rel's Faded Glory Campaign (Thank You Old One!)
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<blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 940" data-attributes="member: 99"><p><strong>Into the Depths of the Glitterhame Redux</strong></p><p></p><p>Within seconds, the sounds of wings were heard above and Speaks cast his spell. He urged the party onwards since his spell would only last a few minutes. Although they hadn't determined what was behind the door that triggered the fire trap, they decided it wasn't worth finding out at this time. They went down the stairs.</p><p></p><p>As they reached the same point Ilrath and Krase had before, three more stirges flew out of the darkness and attacked before Speaks could cast his spell. Rhys sliced one out of the air as it attacked him, using his newfound magical rapier for the first time. Two more of the stirges flew at the unfortunate Krase. He wounded one of them slightly as it attacked him. But only one of them managed to successfully sink it's beak into him. Ilrath hurled a hand axe at the one that missed and did not succeed at hitting the stirge or Krase (although it was a near thing with Krase). Speaks with Stone used his long spear instead of his magic and missed the one that sat on Krase's chest. In an act of pure self preservation, Krase killed the one that clung to him before any more of his companions could stab or hurl pointy objects at him in an attempt to kill the thing. Ilrath then hurled another hand axe that came close to hitting Krase and connected with the last stirge, killing it with a single throw.</p><p></p><p>Krase glowered at his companions and said something along the lines of "Who needs enemies?" The group continued to descend the stairs and once on the cavern floor set out to explore and retrieve various items that had fallen during the melee on the stairs. Ilrath quickly found his hand axes. Speaks located one of the fallen stirges and stabilized it with his healing skills. He wanted to start a nest of them back in his home forest to provide protection from marauding gnolls and woodcutters. How he planned on keeping it alive until the return trip to Glynden remained to be seen. For now, he put it in his pocket.</p><p></p><p>The group quickly ascertained that a small stream flowing across the chamber must be the same stream that they crossed coming down the stairs. It flowed out of the south side of the cavern through an iron grate that had been placed across the passageway. Another passage to the southeast had, at some point in the past, been closed up with mortar and stone. The only unobstructed exit from the room was to the northeast and they cautiously took it.</p><p></p><p>Some 70 feet beyond was another irregular cavern. There were two exits to the south and one to the northeast again. The opted for the northeast corridor. There they found an area that had obviously been recently mined as evidenced by tailing piled on the floor and pick marks on the walls. They also spotted two separate veins of a silver metal in the walls. There being no other exits from the chamber, they returned to the previous one and proceeded through one of the southern exits.</p><p></p><p>It was quickly found that the two southern exits merged into a single southward passage after a short distance. On the west wall was another passage whose entrance had been 2/3 filled with mine tailings. They bypassed this passage and continued south.</p><p></p><p>As they proceeded, Rhys, who was out in the lead, raised his hand, indicating that the party should stop. Up ahead, he and several other party members noticed a faint bluish-green glow emanating from the passage. He crept forward to find himself looking out at a magnificent chamber filled with phosphorescent fungi.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the group formed up in the alcove and noticed a pathway of crushed stone made its way southward. Rhys offered to scout the path while the rest of the group stayed put. He and Tavis proceeded south until they came to a well defined east-west path. Looking beyond the new path, Rhys could see the continuation of the crushed stone path amid the tree sized mushrooms. He crossed the east-west path and continued. He soon found the path he was on curving eastward and then northward again, forming a large semi-circle and coming back to the east-west path. To the east, he spotted a dark rectangular passage.</p><p></p><p>He approached the worked stone passageway to find it blocked with a stout iron door. The door was built in such a way that the hinges were not exposed. He further noticed a lock on the door. Deciding to alert the party of his discovery, he sent Tavis back along the curving gravel path while he took the more direct east west path.</p><p></p><p>Moments later as he walked along the northern side of the chamber, he spotted a pair of large, snake-like creatures with multiple tentacles climbing down the wall toward him. True to his character, he ran west along the path to where it intersected the stone path, calling for Tavis to rejoin him. She did, catching up just as he ran north back to the alcove where the rest of the party waited.</p><p></p><p>He hastily informed them that he was being pursued by "snake things" as he scurried past them back into the narrow corridor they had come down. They didn't have to wait long for the snake things (gricks) to appear. They came up the path and engaged Ilrath. Krase immediately began to call for the party to fall back to the narrow passage where only one of the creatures could attack at a time. Speaks hurried up the passage after Rhys, followed by Krase. Ilrath disengaged as well and followed the rest of the party, but not before suffering a crippling series of blows from the eight tentacle rakes coming his way.</p><p></p><p>They reach a place where the passage began to widen again and Krase stepped in to hold the line as Ilrath rushed past. The first grick came up the passage and Krase slashed at it with one of his short swords. Although he struck it, he found that his blade would not bite into the rubbery hide of the creature. Then it flailed at him with its tentacles as he cried out that the creatures couldn't be beaten with the weapons they had. Again he called for retreat.</p><p></p><p>Hearing his pleas for help, Rhys offered Krase his magical rapier but Krase refused the weapon and indicated that he would only hold them back for a few more seconds and that they should run. Ilrath gulped down his healing potion and took the rapier from Rhys saying that he would fight on if he could get some more healing.</p><p></p><p>Speaks had already begun his retreat but hearing that Ilrath would stand and fight, he hurried back to the melee, pulling out his pair of healing scrolls as he went. Krase yelled in frustration as none of the rest of the party was obeying his order to retreat. Deciding that he could no longer hold back the impervious gricks, he attempted to tumble past Ilrath and Rhys who crowded him from behind. Unfortunately he mistimed his attempt and tripped himself leaving him prone in front of the grick. Rhys was kind enough to drag him out of harm's way.</p><p></p><p>The first grick slithered forward to engage the barbarian again, but Ilrath was ready and slashed mightily at him with the feather-light rapier, leaving a deep gash in the creature's rubbery hide. A moment later, Rhys let fly with a ray of frost that was enough to send the creature into unconsciousness. Krase, still feeling powerless to do anything fled back up the corridor some distance to await the outcome of the battle. Speaks cast one of the healing scrolls at Ilrath and bolstered his pitifully weak health.</p><p></p><p>And a good thing too. A pair of tentacle slashes brought Ilrath to the brink of unconsciousness. The rapier tip dipped toward the ground as darkness began to creep into Ilrath's vision. But a second later, Speaks cast the second healing scroll and Ilrath slashed the life from the final grick as the healing power restored strength to his limbs. He took a few moments to hack at the carcasses to assure that the fearsome creatures were dead. Then the group followed Krase back to the mine to hole up and consider their next move.</p><p></p><p>(GM Note: Speaks and Krase had a lengthy argument about whether Krase should be giving orders to the rest of the party or whether each member should act in the way they see fit. I won't relate the entire thing here and it did not detract much from the fun of the evening as the argument was entirely in character. But suffice it to say that the two of them have different philosophies about how combat decisions should be made in the party. Krase ultimately decided that he would not attempt to give orders any more and Speaks has some doubts about Krase's reliability.)</p><p></p><p>The party once again found themselves battered and bruised and generally unable to continue without risking certain annihilation from the first kobold to happen by. Rather than have to retreat back beyond the grand stair again (and face another possible encounter with the stirges) the group opted to remain in the mine area since it appeared free of any predators and had no other exits.</p><p></p><p>They spent another long afternoon and night resting and healing by the light of some phosphorescent mushrooms they had gathered and generally wishing they had brought a deck of cards. Ilrath expresses that although he does not wish to jeopardize any of their lives by pressing on when they are wounded, he is starting to become afraid that every day they rest brings his people a day closer to possible destruction. It is agreed that the party will make all due haste toward finding any surviving dwarves and striking a bargain.</p><p></p><p>When they were again healed and ready to go, they proceeded back to the huge natural cavern and again followed the path of mine tailings south to the east-west path. This time they went west looking for any signs of the dwarves in that direction. In the distance ahead they spotted a low cliff rising from the cavern floor and in the dim light of the fungi, they spotted some stalactite shaped forms moving around on the ceiling above the cliff. Speaks with Stone was able to identify these creatures as "darkmantles" and the party opted not to ascend the cliff to avoid an encounter that they didn't think would bring them nearer to the dwarves.</p><p></p><p>They also spotted a set of stairs rising into the southern wall and beyond the stairs could hear the sound of rushing water. Krase made an attempt to locate any tracks near the stairs and although he found some curious markings, unlike any tracks he was familiar with, they were definitely not of dwarven make. The party decided to go back and investigate the iron door that Rhys had discovered earlier, which seemed to hold the most promise of having dwarves behind it.</p><p></p><p>As they cautiously made their way down the east-west path again, they noticed that the cavern wall the gricks had climbed down from was in fact a 20 foot cliff that led to a ledge above. Rhys, never one to let a potential treasure elude him, sent Tavis climbing up the wall to investigate. She reported the mangled corpse of an orc and a few scattered coins. That was all the encouragement that Rhys required and he quickly cast his spell of spider climbing and went up the wall to the ledge.</p><p></p><p>He located the orcish corpse which appeared fresh and furthermore, in a brilliant flash of memory (Natural 20 Intelligence check) he recognized the orc as the one who had fled during the "Groin of Fire" ™ incident. It appeared the orc had escaped certain humiliation and death from the flaming phallus to a far more noble and heroic death as a grick snack. Wasting little time on such sentimental reminisces, Rhys set about looting the ledge and scraped together a fair few silver and gold coins, leaving the copper for the orc to pay his way across the Styx.</p><p></p><p>He descended the cliff to the waiting party and they shortly found themselves back in front of the iron door. Seeing no other way around it and with lock picking not being one of Rhys' strongest talents, they opted to simply knock.</p><p></p><p><strong>NEXT: Who iiiiis it?</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rel, post: 940, member: 99"] [B]Into the Depths of the Glitterhame Redux[/B] Within seconds, the sounds of wings were heard above and Speaks cast his spell. He urged the party onwards since his spell would only last a few minutes. Although they hadn't determined what was behind the door that triggered the fire trap, they decided it wasn't worth finding out at this time. They went down the stairs. As they reached the same point Ilrath and Krase had before, three more stirges flew out of the darkness and attacked before Speaks could cast his spell. Rhys sliced one out of the air as it attacked him, using his newfound magical rapier for the first time. Two more of the stirges flew at the unfortunate Krase. He wounded one of them slightly as it attacked him. But only one of them managed to successfully sink it's beak into him. Ilrath hurled a hand axe at the one that missed and did not succeed at hitting the stirge or Krase (although it was a near thing with Krase). Speaks with Stone used his long spear instead of his magic and missed the one that sat on Krase's chest. In an act of pure self preservation, Krase killed the one that clung to him before any more of his companions could stab or hurl pointy objects at him in an attempt to kill the thing. Ilrath then hurled another hand axe that came close to hitting Krase and connected with the last stirge, killing it with a single throw. Krase glowered at his companions and said something along the lines of "Who needs enemies?" The group continued to descend the stairs and once on the cavern floor set out to explore and retrieve various items that had fallen during the melee on the stairs. Ilrath quickly found his hand axes. Speaks located one of the fallen stirges and stabilized it with his healing skills. He wanted to start a nest of them back in his home forest to provide protection from marauding gnolls and woodcutters. How he planned on keeping it alive until the return trip to Glynden remained to be seen. For now, he put it in his pocket. The group quickly ascertained that a small stream flowing across the chamber must be the same stream that they crossed coming down the stairs. It flowed out of the south side of the cavern through an iron grate that had been placed across the passageway. Another passage to the southeast had, at some point in the past, been closed up with mortar and stone. The only unobstructed exit from the room was to the northeast and they cautiously took it. Some 70 feet beyond was another irregular cavern. There were two exits to the south and one to the northeast again. The opted for the northeast corridor. There they found an area that had obviously been recently mined as evidenced by tailing piled on the floor and pick marks on the walls. They also spotted two separate veins of a silver metal in the walls. There being no other exits from the chamber, they returned to the previous one and proceeded through one of the southern exits. It was quickly found that the two southern exits merged into a single southward passage after a short distance. On the west wall was another passage whose entrance had been 2/3 filled with mine tailings. They bypassed this passage and continued south. As they proceeded, Rhys, who was out in the lead, raised his hand, indicating that the party should stop. Up ahead, he and several other party members noticed a faint bluish-green glow emanating from the passage. He crept forward to find himself looking out at a magnificent chamber filled with phosphorescent fungi. The rest of the group formed up in the alcove and noticed a pathway of crushed stone made its way southward. Rhys offered to scout the path while the rest of the group stayed put. He and Tavis proceeded south until they came to a well defined east-west path. Looking beyond the new path, Rhys could see the continuation of the crushed stone path amid the tree sized mushrooms. He crossed the east-west path and continued. He soon found the path he was on curving eastward and then northward again, forming a large semi-circle and coming back to the east-west path. To the east, he spotted a dark rectangular passage. He approached the worked stone passageway to find it blocked with a stout iron door. The door was built in such a way that the hinges were not exposed. He further noticed a lock on the door. Deciding to alert the party of his discovery, he sent Tavis back along the curving gravel path while he took the more direct east west path. Moments later as he walked along the northern side of the chamber, he spotted a pair of large, snake-like creatures with multiple tentacles climbing down the wall toward him. True to his character, he ran west along the path to where it intersected the stone path, calling for Tavis to rejoin him. She did, catching up just as he ran north back to the alcove where the rest of the party waited. He hastily informed them that he was being pursued by "snake things" as he scurried past them back into the narrow corridor they had come down. They didn't have to wait long for the snake things (gricks) to appear. They came up the path and engaged Ilrath. Krase immediately began to call for the party to fall back to the narrow passage where only one of the creatures could attack at a time. Speaks hurried up the passage after Rhys, followed by Krase. Ilrath disengaged as well and followed the rest of the party, but not before suffering a crippling series of blows from the eight tentacle rakes coming his way. They reach a place where the passage began to widen again and Krase stepped in to hold the line as Ilrath rushed past. The first grick came up the passage and Krase slashed at it with one of his short swords. Although he struck it, he found that his blade would not bite into the rubbery hide of the creature. Then it flailed at him with its tentacles as he cried out that the creatures couldn't be beaten with the weapons they had. Again he called for retreat. Hearing his pleas for help, Rhys offered Krase his magical rapier but Krase refused the weapon and indicated that he would only hold them back for a few more seconds and that they should run. Ilrath gulped down his healing potion and took the rapier from Rhys saying that he would fight on if he could get some more healing. Speaks had already begun his retreat but hearing that Ilrath would stand and fight, he hurried back to the melee, pulling out his pair of healing scrolls as he went. Krase yelled in frustration as none of the rest of the party was obeying his order to retreat. Deciding that he could no longer hold back the impervious gricks, he attempted to tumble past Ilrath and Rhys who crowded him from behind. Unfortunately he mistimed his attempt and tripped himself leaving him prone in front of the grick. Rhys was kind enough to drag him out of harm's way. The first grick slithered forward to engage the barbarian again, but Ilrath was ready and slashed mightily at him with the feather-light rapier, leaving a deep gash in the creature's rubbery hide. A moment later, Rhys let fly with a ray of frost that was enough to send the creature into unconsciousness. Krase, still feeling powerless to do anything fled back up the corridor some distance to await the outcome of the battle. Speaks cast one of the healing scrolls at Ilrath and bolstered his pitifully weak health. And a good thing too. A pair of tentacle slashes brought Ilrath to the brink of unconsciousness. The rapier tip dipped toward the ground as darkness began to creep into Ilrath's vision. But a second later, Speaks cast the second healing scroll and Ilrath slashed the life from the final grick as the healing power restored strength to his limbs. He took a few moments to hack at the carcasses to assure that the fearsome creatures were dead. Then the group followed Krase back to the mine to hole up and consider their next move. (GM Note: Speaks and Krase had a lengthy argument about whether Krase should be giving orders to the rest of the party or whether each member should act in the way they see fit. I won't relate the entire thing here and it did not detract much from the fun of the evening as the argument was entirely in character. But suffice it to say that the two of them have different philosophies about how combat decisions should be made in the party. Krase ultimately decided that he would not attempt to give orders any more and Speaks has some doubts about Krase's reliability.) The party once again found themselves battered and bruised and generally unable to continue without risking certain annihilation from the first kobold to happen by. Rather than have to retreat back beyond the grand stair again (and face another possible encounter with the stirges) the group opted to remain in the mine area since it appeared free of any predators and had no other exits. They spent another long afternoon and night resting and healing by the light of some phosphorescent mushrooms they had gathered and generally wishing they had brought a deck of cards. Ilrath expresses that although he does not wish to jeopardize any of their lives by pressing on when they are wounded, he is starting to become afraid that every day they rest brings his people a day closer to possible destruction. It is agreed that the party will make all due haste toward finding any surviving dwarves and striking a bargain. When they were again healed and ready to go, they proceeded back to the huge natural cavern and again followed the path of mine tailings south to the east-west path. This time they went west looking for any signs of the dwarves in that direction. In the distance ahead they spotted a low cliff rising from the cavern floor and in the dim light of the fungi, they spotted some stalactite shaped forms moving around on the ceiling above the cliff. Speaks with Stone was able to identify these creatures as "darkmantles" and the party opted not to ascend the cliff to avoid an encounter that they didn't think would bring them nearer to the dwarves. They also spotted a set of stairs rising into the southern wall and beyond the stairs could hear the sound of rushing water. Krase made an attempt to locate any tracks near the stairs and although he found some curious markings, unlike any tracks he was familiar with, they were definitely not of dwarven make. The party decided to go back and investigate the iron door that Rhys had discovered earlier, which seemed to hold the most promise of having dwarves behind it. As they cautiously made their way down the east-west path again, they noticed that the cavern wall the gricks had climbed down from was in fact a 20 foot cliff that led to a ledge above. Rhys, never one to let a potential treasure elude him, sent Tavis climbing up the wall to investigate. She reported the mangled corpse of an orc and a few scattered coins. That was all the encouragement that Rhys required and he quickly cast his spell of spider climbing and went up the wall to the ledge. He located the orcish corpse which appeared fresh and furthermore, in a brilliant flash of memory (Natural 20 Intelligence check) he recognized the orc as the one who had fled during the "Groin of Fire" ™ incident. It appeared the orc had escaped certain humiliation and death from the flaming phallus to a far more noble and heroic death as a grick snack. Wasting little time on such sentimental reminisces, Rhys set about looting the ledge and scraped together a fair few silver and gold coins, leaving the copper for the orc to pay his way across the Styx. He descended the cliff to the waiting party and they shortly found themselves back in front of the iron door. Seeing no other way around it and with lock picking not being one of Rhys' strongest talents, they opted to simply knock. [B]NEXT: Who iiiiis it?[/B] [/QUOTE]
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