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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 723259" data-attributes="member: 151">FIRST UPDATE (ANOTHER TOMORROW)Day 18:  After a slow breakfast, and a building up of courage, we returned to the portal.  This time, we brought a larger group with us, including four rangers of my order to safeguard the kasirs that would travel with us.  Perhaps this time, the poor beasts would fare better than our last set.  We could only hope.  Unlike our previous journey, I was filled with dread.  The adventure of exploration has always been something I saw as a reward…but the previous expedition had ended much differently.  I understood the necessity, but it no longer held the same joy for me.I was the first to pass through to the portal, and emerged into the now more familiar wooded hills, some half-days travel from what we had taken to calling the Chamber.  Once more the lake area had changed.  It was now Hallowed, the evil effects of before gone.  We were on the lookout for various creatures, as we made our way towards the general vicinity of the caves.Our first fear was that the chamber would have been tampered with.  It was not.  Still secure, we examined the location, and found that it was still relatively safe.  Alden’s desire to use the device is almost palpable, and it’s clear why he agreed to return.  We verified that it was unmolested and secure.  However, we then agreed to secure the rest of the cave system.  After removing the darkness effect enshrouding the remaining passage, we investigate.  Some searching down the remaining deeper passage occurs, and Casparo reveals that there are some sort of small insect creatures that have taken residence amidst the collapsed rubble of the tunnel.They are clearly animal-like in intelligence, and are weird bestial insects, reminiscent of giant ant-lions.  We prepare, and then move forward to engage them.  They are capable of spitting some poisonous goo that is also caustic, but the effects are swiftly shrugged off, and they are dealt with swiftly.  Amongst their nest, we discover items that they have hoarded from the complex, none of which must have been much use other than as wattling for the nest.  We chose to name them Sandts.These included 12 discs of Oriculum (which would have been a rare find, by themselves), a cloak, a poncho, a bracer with an orb of occularum inset, a series of potions of multiple colors with gems IN the potions, a large sword and a unusual halberd-like weapon.  The weapons were all made with Occularum, as well.  Rali claimed the halberd-weapon as her own, and decided it would be called a Balderk (which I think is Dwarvish for ‘mighty cleaver’).  Casparo joked with her that it should be called a Slurm.  She was amused with this as any dwarf is, when you laugh at their weapon.   Which is to say, NOT AT ALL.All the items but the discs were magical, and would take careful examination on the part of Alden and myself.  My spirits rose at this.  They would descend appropriately later.Alden finally demanded we check the Chamber, and I saw no reason to deny him or Delwyn.  We were careful, though.  Each time they attempted to use the device, we monitored them closely, in case of danger.  I trust the device less than anything else.I was so upset during our previous journey, that I forgot to mention a curiousity on our previous return trip.  The standing stones where we first battled the tuskers now looked more like teeth thrust up through the earth, and in the center of this now VERY evil area was a deep hole dropping into darkness.  We were loathe to enter it, then.Delwyn attempted to send one of the sphereials down into the gaping pit.  They REFUSED.  They would fly to it, but no further.  Delwyn investigated some other things, but I’m not sure what.Alden, however, chose to investigate much more.  His first inclination was to use the spheres to scout the surrounding territory, rather than waste our time doing so.  I hadn’t even considered the possibility.  We made short work of the task, gathering data of the area for several miles.Then Alden discovered that there were several more caves in the area.  Using the spheres, he investigated each by proxy.  In one, he found…something.  His memories of it are sketchy, and his description simplified matters…but something was in a sealed chamber here.  It was clearly undead, and I think he said it bore a crown.  It was powerful, and it grasped the sphere in one hand and crushed it.  The act caused Alden to become disoriented and he blacked out but we think it is securely trapped.  Further, the area it is in is unreachable, being submerged beneath an underground river.  Not that I have any desire to meet it.  Against my better judgement, but at Delwyn’s advisement, Alden used the device again.He then decided to do something that was either very wise, or very foolish.He decided to test the limits of the spheres understanding, and asked the sphere to show him ‘the enemy’.  And so it did.It transported him a vast distance away.  He sensed it would take hours to travel there by even normal magical flight.  I don’t recall how long it took, but it seemed it was four hours in the waiting.I cannot describe her, other than that she was a giant, a sorceress of some kind, and powerful.  She appeared to be demonic, and bore chains.  She was currently flinging bolts of eldritch energy at some sort of castle, much to the terror of it’s inhabitants.  She appeared to be floating in air, at first.  At least, until the eyestalk waved past.It was the thickness of a small birch tree, but green and wiry like a vine.  At first he thought it was lashing in the wind, until it descended around the giant, and he could clearly see the eye mounted at its end.  It looked astonishingly like the eyestalk of a beholder…but that was nonsense.  For that to be a beholder’s eyestalk, it would have to be…COLOSSAL.  As Alden got a sense of scale of the terrifying thing, one of the eyestalks turned and unleashed a beam of destructive force against the castle.  A wall fell.  Alden went in for a closer look at the she-demon, or whatever she was.  This merely caught her attention. She laughed an infernal laugh, and then flicked the sphere away, as you or I might swat a speck of dirt, and the sphere was sent flying for hundreds of miles.  Alden nearly sicked up, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the disorientation of the sphere, or what he had seen.  I didn’t feel very good myself.We need to tell the elders.Day 19:  We prepare for another return trip.  The rangers were attacked by toadlocks while we were in the chamber, and while hurt, no one was lost…not even a kasir.  There’s something in the lake though, and I tell them to avoid leaving the cave.  I feel the unhallow effect returning.  It vexes me.We were attacked last night, and if I hadn’t been paying attention and blessed with Fharlangan’s help, we might have been killed.  While the rest of the group slept, we were attacked by plants.  At first, it was just a creeping root, animated on it’s own.  Then several appeared, then a few dozen.  As I roused the others, they bound together in some sort of group mind, and created humanoid like ‘wicker men’ forms, and then attacked.  Their lashing attacks were painful, but we were in no mood for such things.Delwyn’s chain lashed out, destroying one.  Alden summoned a construct while I used a soundburst to disable them.  Rali delivered a terrible blow to another with her new weapon, shredding it.  In short order, they were destroyed.It is now dawn, and we prepare for to leave, our mission complete for the moment.Day 20, 21, 22:  Travel back to Avonshar.</blockquote>

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