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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8710692" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 32: GHOULISH AMBITIONPC Roster:Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 7             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 1             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 3/paladin 4             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 5/rogue 2             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 7Game Session Date: 23 July 2022 - - -That night, in the Dreamlands, Zander explained all about the nibish-riule to Alewyth and Wakuren, who had missed all the excitement right before the other three made it to sleep.  They were astonished (and Alewyth more than a bit repulsed) at the thought of this extradimensional creature living inside their elven friend.  But it didn't seem to be doing him any harm, and Wakuren saw no alteration to Zander's aura, so they decided not to worry a whole lot about it.  Thurloe, however, decided the next chance he got he'd try to do some research on these nibish-riule things, to see if there was some way to get rid of it.  Dismissal was always an option, as was banishment, although both of those particular spells were currently beyond his ability to cast.  Still, it bore checking out, just in case....The moogles had no information on nibish-riules, claiming they didn't seem to dream.  In fact, while Zander was able to talk to the worry-wart on his arm and it extended and retracted at his request, he was well aware that this was just a dream and he was merely dreaming the worry-wart's actions.  There was no actual telepathic communication going on; apparently the nibish-riule couldn't contact Zander while the elf was sleeping.  But it did seem to like the concept of dreams and it certainly enjoyed poring through the elf's memories of past dreams, for the occasional strangeness of dreams was much more like the chaotic Far Realm from which the extradimensional creature hailed."We should probably check out the next dream-victim's dream," suggested Wakuren.  "We should hit Portersville late tomorrow morning.""Right this way, kupo!" exclaimed Mogo, hovering at eye level to the half-orc and opening the door to the dream.  Without being right there by the dreamer's side - and without being able to place a dreamstone upon the sleeping victim's brow to aid in the process - Wakuren well knew they wouldn't be able to conquer this dream and free the dreamer, but it would at least give them some idea of what to expect.  He stepped through the doorway, the other four dreamwalkers following behind him.They now stood in an alley, with a half-orc dressed in rags and holding a bloody short sword standing over the dead bodies of a well-to-do human woman and a rakish-looking human man.  A trio of human guards rushed down the alleyway and wrestled the half-orc to the ground."I think there's more to this dream, but he keeps going over this part again and again, kupo," observed Mogo, who for once had entered the dream with his trainees.  Indeed, as they watched the half-orc was suddenly standing over the two dead victims once again and the trio of guardsman started running down the alleyway at him.  The same sequence kept looping over and over."Not much point in hanging around here, then," decided Thurloe, stepping back out of the dream.  "So we're probably looking for a half-orc, then.  Good to know."As expected, the group pulled into the small town of Portersville shortly before lunchtime.  As had become their custom - because it so often bore fruit - they hit the taverns, asking if anyone had heard of somebody in town having been unable to be awakened from their sleep for a matter of days or weeks.  But this time, to their surprise, the well was completely dry: all they got for their efforts were puzzled looks and questioning stares.  Some even accused the heroes of making up nonsensical tales.  "Well, this approach isn't working," Xandro observed.  "Let's go try the town hall and see if we can talk to some of the guardsmen directly."The guard station was of little help, as nobody there was able to recall anybody being trapped in a sleeping state.  Thurloe took a different approach, wondering if perhaps there was a guard who hadn't shown up for work in some time, for he reasoned it was entirely possible the dreamer wasn't the half-orc being arrested but one of the officers taking him into custody.  But that didn't get him anywhere, either - they hadn't had any no-shows among their duty roster."Do you have any half-orcs currently in custody?" Wakuren asked, and was told they'd have to go check at the prison.  The guards they were talking with gave them directions to Bleakstone Prison, on the outskirts of town.Bleakstone Prison was ringed by 12-foot-tall stone walls that had but a single opening: a thick, wooden door set into the front wall.  Naturally, this door was locked, but there was a bell hanging on a pole that could be rung to alert the guards inside of visitors.  Wakuren pulled on the bell-rope and after a minute or so, a sliding door at eye level opened in the door and a voice called out from the other side, "Who's there?  What do you want?"Wakuren briefly explained why the group was there.  The guards, however, replied there was nobody inside the prison who'd been asleep for weeks, whether guards or inmates.  Thurloe said they wanted to talk to the prison administrator and hinted at a surprise health inspection; the guard told him to wait while one of them went back inside to see if Administrator Morbhen was willing to see them.  Closing the peek-hole sliding door in the meantime, he waited for his partner to return and this gave the heroes a moment to whisper quietly to each other."Health inspection?" hissed Wakuren.  "Why are you always so quick to lie to people?""Because it works!" Thurloe hissed back.  "You watch: they're going to let us in, and I'll bet you anything it's because the Administrator doesn't want to get in trouble by failing to allow health inspectors in to check out his facility!""But we're not health inspectors!" replied Wakuren.  "He'll see right through us!  If you stick to telling the truth, you don't find yourself in positions like this!"Any reply Thurloe might have been about to make was cut off by the return of the first guard.  The sliding eye-level door was opened back up and the other guard told them, "Administrator Morbhen has agreed to let you in.  But normal rules apply: no weapons, no contraband, horses and wagons stay outside the fenced area.  Let me know when you're ready to enter, and you will be searched before being allowed access into the prison areas, so don't try hiding anything - we know all of the tricks."  Then he closed the window again and awaited notification that they were ready to enter."No weapons?" asked Alewyth, hefting her dwarven warhammer Sjondra.  "That'll make things more interesting if we run into any trouble.""No weapons, Hell," answered Thurloe, putting a hand upon the magic lamp and signaling for everyone to gather together.  When they were all in contact, he said "eintret" and everyone teleported into the entry dome in the lamp's extradimensional interior.  "Leave everything we can't take into the prison here," he said."So you're planning on--" began Wakuren."--taking the lamp with all of our stuff into the prison, yeah," answered Thurloe for him.  "We might need this stuff - better we've got it at hand.  They might make us leave the lantern in a holding area or something, but it'll be a lot closer than outside the walls in the back of the wagon."  Wakuren took a deep breath to calm himself but left his shield on the floor as the rest of the group disarmed and left most of their gear behind."Are we keeping our armor?" asked Alewyth."Sure - why not?" answered Thurloe."All health inspectors wear full armor during their no-notice inspections," Wakuren pointed out sarcastically.  Thurloe just ignored him.  But he noticed the half-orc had opted to keep his gauntlet of Cal on his hand rather than leave it behind, no doubt thinking he might be allowed to wear it inside the prison, and its ability to hurl javelins of lightning could indeed prove to be useful in a fight.Once everyone had divested themselves of items they didn't think they'd be allowed to bring inside the prison, they returned to the Material Plane and informed the guards they were ready.  The door creaked open just enough to allow them to enter the outer courtyard around the prison building one by one, then the guards pulled the door shut again and locked it with a key on a large ring.  "This way, then," said one of the two guards, walking them across the open area and up to the front door of the prison, which required another key to unlock and open.  "Step inside," the guard told them, "and empty all pouches, pockets, and the like.  Then line up to be frisked."  Alewyth couldn't help but notice both guards kept darting glances in her direction; she finally chocked it up to the fact they probably didn't get a whole lot of women inside this men's prison.  It still didn't help her feel any less uncomfortable about their frequent stares, though - and she wasn't particularly looking forward to the frisking to come.One guard held open a visitor's log and had each of the five write their names in the book, then they started the inspection of their items.  Wakuren and Alewyth were allowed to keep their holy symbols and the half-orc was pleased to note they didn't have any means for detecting for magic items; as a result, he got to keep his gauntlet of Cal and similarly Thurloe got to keep his torc of the titans.  But all potions had to be stored away in boxes, as the guards pointed out the glass vials could be broken and used as a makeshift dagger or such.  Apparently such things had been tried before.As the others were being searched, Xandro took a moment to look around.  In the right corner as one entered the prison, there was a holding cell with metal bars reaching from floor to ceiling; the cell was 10 feet on a side and was currently empty, with benches along two walls and a hole in the floor that could only be a public latrine.  The two guards each had their own desk and chair, and there was another narrow desk with a rack of shelves where the heroes' items (including, Thurloe was sad to see, their magic lamp) were temporarily stored in boxes.  The spellsword made a point to memorize which box the lamp had been placed in, if they should need to quickly fetch their weapons.Once the guards were satisfied the items the group was being allowed to bring into the prison were harmless, one of them unlocked the door in the back that led to the mess hall.  "The administrator's office is in the back," the guard said as the other one relocked the door they had just passed through.  Along the way, they saw a rather bored-looking cook behind the counter where apparently the meals were served, and then three long tables and benches where the convicts ate their meals; currently, there were only four other guards sitting at one of the tables, playing cards.  The convicts were no doubt all in their cells, which were presumably behind the closed and locked iron door on the right side of the mess hall.Arriving at the appropriate door, the guard rapped twice and received a curt "Come in" as a response.  There, sitting behind his desk, was Administrator Morbhen.  He opted not to rise as the five visitors walked into his spacious office, and Zander and Alewyth took the two seats facing his desk.  The other three, having no other options, chose to stand.Wakuren started explaining the whole story about the Nightmare King and the dream sickness that was spreading across the land, and although the administrator said nothing and tried to keep a neutral expression on his face, Wakuren got the distinct impression that the high elf did not approve of half-orcs in the least.  Still, he pressed on and then asked if there was anyone at the prison who had been asleep for a matter of days or weeks and who was unable to be awakened."Certainly not," replied Administrator Morbhen.  "I run a tight ship here - any employee missing work due to excess sleeping would have been terminated on the spot.""What about the prisoners?" asked Alewyth."They likewise have their daily schedules to maintain.  They are awakened, their cells inspected, receive their mandatory exercise," - and the administrator's face let out a hint about what he thought about that particular policy - "and fed their meals.  There is no one in this facility asleep for longer than they should be.""Do you have any half-orc prisoners?" asked Thurloe."No.  Our prisoners are all humans.  Given the human predilection for crime and depravity, this is perhaps not too surprising."  He managed to glare at both Thurloe and Xandro, as if trying to determine how long before either of them would end up behind bars."But you've had half-orc prisoners in here before?  Recently?" Thurloe pressed."We have had a half-orc prisoner in here recently, yes," agreed Administrator Morbhan.  "He is no longer with us.""Rehabilitated?" guessed Wakuren."Dead.  He was stabbed to death by a human inmate who managed to smuggle a spoon into his cell and sharpen it into a crude blade.  Humans can be rather clever when it comes to doing what they do best.""You don't seem to hold that high an opinion of humans," observed Thurloe.  "And yet all of your guards are human.  Why might that be?""One does one's best with the tools at hand.  You'll notice Portersville is predominantly made up of a human population.""What happened to the half-orc prisoner who was stabbed here?" asked Alewyth.  "Was he buried here at the prison?  Is there a prison graveyard?"  She had a sudden premonition that the half-orc might have been buried alive if he was in a dream-induced coma and gave every indication of being dead.  If that had happened, they'd have to convince the administrator to allow them to dig him up to see if he could be revived - a prospect she could see would take some doing.Administrator Morbhan's disdain for his visitors didn't seem to apply to the dwarven priestess or the elven sorcerer.  As such, he answered her directly without any sneering or looks of distaste at having to deal with a member of a lesser race.  "Bleakstone Prison has no graveyard, Miss.  The body was taken away by the town councilors, to do with what they normally do in such cases.  Cremation is most likely, I believe, if the former inmate had no immediate family at hand."  He turned his head to address the entire group at large.  "Now then, I believe that answers your questions.  I'll have one of the guards escort you out."  He dismissed them with a glance and Xandro took the hint, opening the door and stepping outside."Thank you for your time," Wakuren said pleasantly as he and the rest of the group followed Xandro and the guard who had brought them here, who had been waiting outside the door during their visit."Tell me you did a reading," Thurloe said to Wakuren, and the half-orc knew exactly what he had been referring to: the administrator's aura."Exactly as you no doubt would have expected," Wakuren replied, not wanting to broadcast "He's evil" in front of the guard leading them back the way they'd come.But they only made it halfway across the mess hall when there was a commotion at the door leading to the in-processing area.  With a fumbling of keys, the other guard who had stayed in the front area burst open through the door, a panicked look on his face.  The reason for this was immediately behind him: a menacing form made up of a filthy sheet, which floated several inches above the floor.  The linen had no doubt once been white, but now it was gray from lack of recent cleaning with streaks of what looked - and smelled - like fecal matter covering it in rough stripes along its length.  A pair of glowing, greenish eyes glared out at the guard as he stumbled through the doorway, eager to escape the sheet phantom approaching him with evil intent.Thurloe rushed forward, instinctively reaching for the bastard sword that was no longer on a scabbard on his back.  "Clear the way!" called Wakuren, and Thurloe and the guard both stepped to the side, giving the cleric-paladin of Cal a clear shot when he summoned forth a javelin of lightning into the gauntlet of Cal he wore on his right hand.  Throwing the bolt of electricity across the room, it blasted into the sheet phantom and burned a hole in the front part of the sheet - revealing there was nothing underneath the sheet, even though its shape conformed to that of a person wearing a sheet over his body.Most of Xandro's bardic powers and spells required him to play music, and the Dardolian lute had been left behind in a box in the front room - after all, it could be used as a blunt instrument by a prisoner looking for a convenient weapon.  So he used a spell he'd never had the need to cast before: summon instrument, which caused a non-magical lute to appear in his hands, summoned from who-knows-where.  But Xandro Silverstrings began the first chords of his song of inspirational courage, knowing his partners would need every advantage they could get, what with just about all of their weapons having been stored away in the room just beyond the open door - and which was now blocked by a filth-covered sheet phantom.The guards who had been playing cards rushed up and drew their weapons, as did the one escorting the heroes back out of the prison; the one fleeing from the sheet phantom took refuge behind Thurloe, although what safety he thought the unarmed spellsword could provide him, only he knew.  However, Thurloe provided nothing less than a perfectly good target for the sheet phantom's attack, as he was now the closest living person to the undead sheet of soiled linen.  It swooped over at Thurloe, its sheet spreading out like a net to try to encompass the spellsword, but Thurloe managed to drop low and dodge beneath the attack.  He then took the opportunity to run through the doorway, over to the box where he knew the group's magic lamp was stored.  He called out "eintret" as soon as he got his hands on the lamp's surface, and found himself inside the extradimensional interior, where he grabbed up his bastard sword and potion belt, plus Sjondra for Alewyth and Wakuren's magic shield, both of which he knew their owners would find handy to have on hand.Alewyth was stepping forward to see what she could do to help when the administrator's door slammed open.  "What's going on out here?" the elf demanded, hearing a ruckus in the jail he insisted upon keeping on an even keel.  He saw Wakuren make a few gestures with his hands and suddenly there was a greataxe floating in the air above the sheet phantom, which flew down at the undead thing and cut it into two pieces.  Ripped nearly in half by the power of the spiritual weapon, the sheet fell limply to the floor."It rose up out of the latrine hole in the holding cell!" the panicked guard replied in answer to his boss's question.  "Flew right at me from between the bars!"Thurloe popped his head around the doorway and saw the angry administrator glaring at the guards for allowing this calamity to occur in his prison.  "Would you be all right with us bringing weapons into the prison now, sir?" he asked."Get out!" demanded Administrator Morbhen, fury turning his face red.  "I find it curious that we are attacked by this...undead thing during your visit!  Guards, I want them out of here at once!""Yessir!" the guards replied, and they made all haste getting the heroes their gear and taking them back outside the main gate, where their wagon and animals awaited them.  Once they were all outside the fenced area, the guards closed and locked the gate once again."Well, that was a bust," Zander commented.  "Now what?"<That was at least a bit of excitement on this boring plane of yours,> piped up the nibish-riule living partially inside the elf's body, but Zander told him now was not the time for this discussion."Now," answered Wakuren, "we go right back in again, but we do it in a way that they won't even know we're there."  He outlined his plan to the others, who agreed it was their best bet to see for themselves what all was going on inside the prison, given they hadn't been allowed to see the prisoners for themselves.  For all they knew, there was a half-orc inmate asleep in his cell for the past few weeks, and Administrator Morbhen was lying to them about it...his aura certainly indicated the elf was evil, although part of Wakuren wondered if that was the sort of person who'd want to run herd over a group of killers in the first place.  Perhaps it came with the territory.Part one of Wakuren's plan involved the other four heroes safely inside the lamp, ready to pop back out on his signal...which would have to be when he popped back inside the lamp and told them so directly, for they had no way to communicate between the dimensions.  But once they were all inside, Wakuren picked up the lamp, activated his ring (which turned him invisible, along with everything he was wearing and carrying).  Then he cast a gaseous form spell upon himself and became a cloud of vapors, which was still covered by the invisibility effect of his ring.  As silent as a cloud, Wakuren forced his vaporous form over the prison wall and along the right side, fully expecting to see some barred windows leading into the cell block.And in that Wakuren was not mistaken.  Drifting up to the windows, the half-orc was surprised to see the 15 or so inmates - a quick count showed 18 different cells, of which only a few were unmanned - were thrashing about on their bunks or yanking on the bars of the cells, trying to free themselves.  But it was obvious to the half-orc that none of the inmates were still alive; their pale, pasty skin and yellowing eyes gave that initial impression and the fact that none of them was breathing sealed the deal.  And even though the half-orc's body was currently an invisible mass of cloudy vapors, he could still pick up the scent of death, commingled with the unmistakable odor of ghoul stench.  Somehow, the prisoners had all been turned into either ghouls or ghasts.One cell in the southeast corner contained an unmoving corpse who - unlike the ghouls, who wore prisoner garb - was dressed in the uniform of one of the prison's guards.  He lay on his back, eyes bulging out in frozen terror, with a mass of stringy webbing hanging on his face and clothes.  If this had been the work of some giant spider, Wakuren couldn't see any other evidence of the arachnid's presence.Flowing underneath the iron door, Wakuren entered the mess hall, where the four guards had taken their card game back up.  Wakuren spotted the administrator's door and studiously ignored it, wanting instead to check out what was behind the other two doors in the corner of the mess hall.  The door to the south led to a 30-foot-by-30-foot open chamber with 12-foot-tall walls but no ceiling.  A large circle had been painted on the stone floor and at first Wakuren assumed this was some sort of magic circle, but closer inspection revealed no runes or glyphs along the circle's circumference; this was likely nothing more than an exercise yard, where the prisoners could be marched around in a circle for some fresh air and exercise - neither of which was of any benefit to a ghoul.  Wakuren seeped back into the mess hall and drifted over to the other door, squeezing his vaporous body underneath its bottom edge and into an unlit hallway with stairs leading down into darkness.Fortunately, darkness posed no hardship for a half-orc, even one currently under the effects of a gaseous form spell.  Wakuren spilled down the stairs, which ended in a T-intersection veering off a short distance to the east and west.  Each ended in a solid door.  Choosing the west door at random, Wakuren oozed under it and saw a circular chamber just beyond, with a circular pit in its center that dropped down a good 20 feet.  Standing at the bottom of this pit was another ghoul or ghast, this one with runes covering his arms and chest.  He was studiously scratching his ragged fingernails - claws, really - in the side of the stone pit, working on carving away grooves deep enough to allow him to climb out of the pit.  But Wakuren could tell he had a long way to go still and thus ignored the spell-stitched ghast for now, realizing he posed no immediate threat and wouldn't for some time.  Instead, he backed out under the door and checked out the door to the east.  He wasn't the least bit surprised to find it a mirror image of the other chamber, with an equally deep pit of the same dimensions.  Wakuren was likewise not that surprised to find a half-orc lying motionlessly at the bottom of the pit; it seemed Administrator Morbhen had indeed been lying about the half-orc prisoner having been slain and his body taken away - this, no doubt, was the dreamer for which they had been looking.Wakuren drifted over to the side of the pit's top edge and deactivated the gaseous form spell, returning to a more physical form.  Then he likewise deactivated his invisibility, so that when he set down the lamp and entered its extradimensional space to brief his friends on his findings, they'd be able to see it was him.Xandro Silverstrings exited the lamp and went to work on the door with his lockpicks; in assuming solid form Wakuren had committed them all to having to find another way out of the prison, for he had no second gaseous form spell prepared.  Fortunately, they could still have one person walk out of the place invisibly, carrying the lamp in which the others all hid, but they'd have to do so on foot - and Xandro would need to work his magic on the locked doors.  While the bard got the door open, the others used the rope of climbing to have Thurloe go down to the bottom of the pit and fetch the sleeping half-orc, tying one end of the rope around his chest so the others could drag him back up.  They opted to bring him into the extradimensional space inside the magic lamp and leave him there - after all, they could perform the dreamwalking ritual at any time; right now it was more important finding a way back out of the prison and putting a stop to whatever plan Administrator Morbhen had hatched that required over a dozen criminal ghouls and ghasts."You're our quietest guy," Wakuren told Xandro, taking off his ring of invisibility and handing it over.  As an added bonus, Thurloe also passed over the ring they'd received from Mrs. Picklemeyer back in Snail Valley, which allowed the bard to cast a silence spell centered on himself.  "That ought to help with any squeaky doors," the spellsword advised, before returning to the lamp's interior with Alewyth, Wakuren, and Zander."Here goes nothing," said Xandro, picking up the lamp and activating both rings.  Now both invisible and inaudible, he picked up the everburning torch Zander had left on the floor for him, which allowed him to see what he was doing as he climbed back up the stairs and when picking the lock to the door leading back into the mess hall.  Once he felt the lock unlatch, he packed away his gear, put the everburning torch into his backpack, picked up the lamp, and then reactivated the ring of invisibility (as he'd deactivated it so he could see what he was doing when picking the door's lock).  Then, fully invisible and inaudible once again - and with no illumination spilling out from an unseen source - he opened the door just enough to step out into the room.The four guards were engrossed in their card game, as the bard had hoped would be the case.  He shut the door to the lower level - leading to what he assumed were solitary confinement pits - without drawing their attention, and the bard allowed himself to let out an inaudible "Whew!" of relief.  But his silent celebration was premature, for although the guards had paid no attention to the door opening and closing on its own, the action had been observed by the invisible quasit in centipede form - Administrator Morbhen's familiar - perched in the southwestern corner of the mess hall where he could observe the whole room (and make sure the charm person spells his master had cast upon the human guards showed no signs of wearing off).  Instinctively, the quasit used its inherent ability to detect good and got a "ping" in an area right in front of the door leading to the lower level.  He immediately upchanneled this information telepathically to his master, and within seconds Administrator Morbhen had dashed out of his office and was staring more or less in Xandro's direction, demanding, "Who's there?"Xandro was spooked and instinctively made a dash for it, silently voicing the command word "eintret" and teleporting into the lamp's interior.  (Fortunately, the silence spell, although preventing his utterance from being heard, still allowed the command word to take effect; apparently the lamp accepted the command word mentally as well as verbally, so long as the lamp was in physical contact with the person saying the word.)  Of course, Xandro entering the lamp meant he was no longer holding onto it, so it became visible at the same time it crashed to the floor of the prison's mess hall."Guys!" Xandro called to the others once he'd removed Thurloe's ring of silent spells so they could hear him.  "The jig's up!"Zander called "On it!" and stepped upon the disk in the middle of the floor of the central hemisphere of the lamp's extradimensional interior, calling out "Aussteig!" and disappearing from view.  He ended up next to the lamp, as usual, but it was now in the hands of Administrator Morbhen, who had bent over to pick it up and was looking at it curiously.  Well, that's no good, the elf thought to himself, for he'd planned on grappling with the Administrator and teleporting with him back into the lamp where they could take him with five-to-one odds.  He lunged at the evil elf but Morbhen wrested free from the sorcerer's grasp - but not before recognizing Zander as one of the five visitors from earlier that day.  Zander touched the lamp, said the command word (hopefully in a low enough voice that he wasn't overheard by any of the others), and returned to the interior to report his failed plan to the others.  "Yeah, I'm not so on it after all," he admitted.<That person you grabbed had ears like yours,> the nibish-riule observed telepathically to its host.  <Was that some sort of mating ritual?>"Not now!" Zander shooshed him."Now what do we do?" asked Alewyth."We'd better get out there," Wakuren said, stepping onto the disk."Not so fast!" Thurloe replied, putting a restraining hand upon the half-orc's shoulder.  "If we're going out there, we'd better be ready for a fight!"  The spellsword began casting a mage armor spell upon himself, following it up with a shield spell from his wand.  Zander cast a mage armor spell upon himself and a haste spell upon the assembled group, while Alewyth went with her traditional bless and magic circle against evil spells, the former on everyone and the latter centered upon herself.  Xandro pulled out his Dardolian lute and started his song of inspirational courage, while Wakuren came up with another of his spur-of-the-moment plans."Everyone back off the disk!" he called, and they stepped back to give him room.  The half-orc then cast a summoning spell that brought a celestial bison across the planes and onto the metal disk; the shaggy beast took up most of the space on the platform.  He then placed the ring of invisibility back on his finger, activated it, stepped onto the disk, and called out "Aussteig!" - and he and the bison were gone.As usual, they re-entered the Material Plane adjacent to the magic lamp, but a few things had changed during the time the heroes had remained inside the lamp, making plans and casting "getting-ready-for-combat" spells upon themselves.  For one thing, the lamp had been placed upon one of the mess hall tables - and one that couldn't handle the sudden weight of a full-grown celestial bison.  The legs gave out and the tabletop crashed to the ground.  Wakuren materialized on one of the benches, which survived the sudden addition of his weight just fine.  But the other change had a greater impact: Administrator Morbhen, recognizing the intruders as the earlier visitors and deducing they were here to stop his plans, decided he should implement them immediately while he still could.  As a result, he was now over by the iron door to the cell block, which was wide open, and he'd activated the master switch which unlocked all of the cell doors at once.  Already, gibbering ghouls and ghasts were spilling out of the doorway.  "Slay everyone but me in the building!" Morbhen called, knowing the guards - mere humans, after all - had always been an expendable part of his plan.With a snort, the celestial bison charged forward, horns lowered to smite the evil Administrator Morbhen.  Wakuren, nothing more than an invisible voice at this point to the guards (who, as an unseen consequence of Morbhen's orders to his undead forces, were snapping out of the charm person spells they'd been under), called out "Touch the lamp and say 'eintret!'"  The startled guards needed no further prompting, and the metal platform inside the lamp suddenly became very crowded, for the other four heroes had stepped into place, ready to exit the lamp themselves.  "Go!  Get off the disk!" Thurloe yelled at them, and then told one of them to give him the key to open the door to the front rooms of the prison.  The guard hurriedly complied, asking no questions.   Thurloe then called out "Aussteig!" and just like that, the heroes were gone."Where the Hell are we?" one guard asked the others.  "What's going on?"  But none of them had any real clue.When the other heroes suddenly teleported around the lamp, the mess hall was already a place of chaos.  Three ghouls were attacking the celestial bison, who swatted at them with its massive horns.  Xandro continued playing his lute, but stepped off to the side, out of the way, giving himself some distance from the undead monstrosities that had once been prison inmates.  Zander cast a summon swarm spell and suddenly there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of spiders crawling over Administrator Morbhen and a few of the nearby ghouls; the elf sorcerer noted with a bit of disappointment the spiders didn't seem to want anything to do with the undead flesh of the foul-smelling creatures and abandoned them almost immediately.  But Administrator Morbhen likewise didn't appreciate being covered in hungry spiders and cast a dimension door spell that landed him in the relative safety of a hallway in the cell block.  The dead body of the web-covered guard shambled by him; unbeknownst to the Administrator, there had been two sheet phantoms created by dying prisoners, and while one of them had hidden in the sewers connecting the various prison toilets the other had slain a guard, whose body had been stuffed into an unused cell for the time being.  But the sheet phantom and the slain corpse had merged, resulting in a sheet ghoul; Morbhen had failed to notice any of this since neither he nor any of the living guards had been in the cell block for over a week before today.  That had been the plan, after all: after charming the entire prison staff, he'd slain an inmate, carved him up, and presented it to the cook as ham to be used for the prisoners' next meal.  Once they'd each been coaxed into unknowing cannibalism, they'd then been locked into their cells and starved to death, for Morbhen - an inspiring necromancer with a burning hatred for the human race that had first showed up on Armaturia's shores two thousand years earlier and who had in those two millennia driven the elves from their lands and proclaimed one of their own race as Emperor of the entire continent - well knew that those who had eaten the flesh of their own race (or possibly the flesh of any intelligent race; details differed in the necromantic texts he'd studied) would rise as ghouls and ghasts upon their deaths.  Once the whole inmate population had succumbed to undeath, he'd unleash them - led by the spellstitched ghast he had created downstairs - upon the unsuspecting populace of Portersville, confident that when the undead had taken out the humans, the elves would be able to take out the ghouls and ghasts in turn, with the end result a purging of the hated humans in at least one of the many human villages.  And Portersville was merely a test case; if this worked as planned the concept could be replicated in other villages, and even in the bigger cities.  Administrator Morbhen dreamed of a day when the hated humans would be extinguished from the land, in much the same way the gnome population had all but died out when the humans were first making their appearances on the continent.Alewyth stepped forward, channeling positive energy through her holy symbol of Aerik, which blasted two of the ghouls directly before her into nothingness and caused a ghast just coming through the doorway from the cellblock to turn around and flee in terror.  Thurloe grabbed up the lamp and made a bee-line for the kitchen, where the cook was hiding behind his serving line.  "Quick!  Over here!" Thurloe called to him.  "Touch the lamp and say 'eintrat' if you want to make it out of here alive!"  The cook wasted no time doing as the spellsword said and soon found himself inside the lamp, surrounded by four prison guards.Wakuren followed Alewyth's lead and channeled a blast of positive energy through his own upraised holy symbol of Cal.  He wasn't as powerful a cleric as the dwarven priestess, but he managed to turn three ghasts, sending them fleeing.  Then, upon his orders, the celestial bison stamped on a bunch of spiders while moving over to place his shaggy body to block the doorway to the cell block, making it more difficult for any more of the undead to enter the mess hall.  The ghouls advanced, clawing at the horned beast with the glowing horns.Xandro continued playing his inspirational song, hoping to buoy his friends' combat abilities with the power of his magical tune.  But then the celestial bison froze up, paralyzed by the claws of a ghast trying to scratch its way out into the mess hall.  The bison could no longer attack but at least it had a solid, four-footed stance and didn't fall over or anything as a result of his paralyzation; in this manner he was at least serving as some sort of impediment against the approaching undead.Zander moved into position such that he could see Administrator Morbhen from between the bison's legs.  A look was all it took to lock on a magic missile spell and send a quartet of glowing bolts of energy streaking through the open doorway to hit the enemy elf.  Morbhen snarled and cast a protective spell on himself, still brushing off the occasional spider from the swarm Zander had summoned earlier, but which were now spreading out - some of them heading over toward Wakuren."We ought to go back out there and help," said one of the guards, feeling a bit guilty over hiding inside the magic lamp in safety while the strangers fought off these ghouls who had somehow made it into the prison.  "Anybody remember what word the sword guy said to go back out?"  One of the other guards recalled the word "Aussteig" and just that quickly they were back in the kitchen with Thurloe.  The cook, not surprisingly, decided he was just fine with staying inside where it was safe.Administrator Morbhen cast a false life spell upon himself to boost his combat capabilities.  As about the same time, his familiar popped back into visibility when it struck out at Wakuren, clawing and biting at him with a ferocity that outpaced his small form.  Alewyth sent another blast of positive energy through the doorway, causing more ghasts to flee; they were too tough for her to be able to cause their undead bodies to explode into dust, but she'd take forcing them away from combat as a win.Thurloe had by this time run over to the front door and unlocked it with one of the keys on the ring the guard had given him.  "Out!" he indicated to the guards.  "We've got this!"  The guards looked back at the combat, saw the fleeing ghasts and the celestial bison who had been summoned out of thin air, and apparently saw the wisdom of the spellsword's statement.  As one, they headed for the door, where they met up with the two guards in the front station, surprised to hear all the ruckus with the door wide open.The celestial bison was now as much an impediment to the heroes as it was to the undead so Wakuren dismissed it from service and it shifted back to its home plane as the half-orc dodged the quasit's attacks and stepped away from it.  Almost immediately, the cleric-paladin of Cal summoned an air element hippogriff in its place, giving it orders to keep the turned ghasts at bay.  Then the half-orc stepped through the door, entering the cell block and looking to put an end to Administrator Morbhen.  Xandro raced forward, setting aside his lute for his magic longsword and swinging it at the flying quasit, catching the little fiend in the side with his blade.  At the same time Zander targeted the demon familiar with a lightning bolt spell, but that happened to have been one of the weakest castings in the elven sorcerer's adventuring career, for there seemed to be very little electrical energy behind it.  The quasit survived both attacks, but it seemed to be on its last legs.Alewyth turned undead for the third time that day and sent another group of ghasts fleeing.  By this time, most of the spiders from the summoned swarm had all just about gone their own separate ways as well, making them hardly a nuisance.  The way clear, Thurloe raced back to the cell block and entered, finding himself behind Wakuren, who was facing down the sheet ghoul; behind that strange creature stood Administrator Morbhen.  Wakuren slammed his shield down upon the sheet ghoul, who belched forth a stream of caustic acid in turn, burning the half-orc's face and giving him an even fiercer appearance than normal.Xandro pierced the quasit through the belly and watched as it died on his blade.  Zander then focused his attention back on Morbhen, hitting him with another magic missile spell.  The elven necromancer retaliated with a cloudkill spell, sending a billowing cloud of choking vapors to encompass the sheet ghoul, Wakuren, Thurloe, and Zander in turn.  Being a walking corpse, the spell had no effect upon the sheet ghoul, but all three of the living targets began coughing and retching as the vapors took their toll on their bodies.But Alewyth was out of range of the spell thus far and was able to toss a holy smite spell through the open doorway such that she could pretty much guarantee Morbhen would be within its area of effect, even if he was currently obscured by the cloudkill spell.  The spell's holy energy took a toll on the elven necromancer and dealt a fair amount of damage to the sheet ghoul as an added benefit.  Thurloe was able to step past Wakuren and slay the sheet ghoul with a single blow of his bastard sword.  And then Wakuren brought his shield down - hard - upon the necromancer's head, breaking past the stoneskin spell he'd cast upon himself for protection and still crushing the elf's skull with the power of his blow.After that, it was a fairly simple matter to pick off the remaining ghouls and ghasts one by one, as most of them were still trying to flee from the clerics' holy energies in a room with no other exits.  By then, the guards had made it outside the prison's gates and assuaged their guilt a little by setting themselves up as a reserve force, ready to attack any undead monstrosities that might make it out this far.  But there were no undead remaining in their freakish semblance of life by the time the heroes met back up with the guards, after Wakuren popped back inside the lamp to tell the cook it was safe to come out now.  "We'll leave the cleanup and the explanations for you," Thurloe told the guards, handing the one back his ring of keys.  "Bottom line, your boss was an evil wizard who turned the inmates into ghouls and was planning on sending them against the citizens of your village.  You're welcome."The guards, fortunately, retained their memories now that the charm person spells had been broken and were able to recall what all Administrator Morbhen had done.  They had no trouble allowing the heroes to remount their animals and drive their wagon out of Portersville."What about the half-orc prisoner still trapped in his dreams?" asked Alewyth.  "We should try to wake him up.""That can wait," replied Thurloe.  "I want to put some miles between us and this town in case they get it into their heads that we need to be brought in for questioning or anything."  But an hour down the road he deemed it safe enough, so Wakuren brought the mule-driven wagon to a halt and everyone tied up their mounts to a bunch of trees on a side road that looked like it didn't see a whole lot of traffic.  Then they reconvened inside the lamp, where they placed a dreamstone headband upon the half-orc and sat in the customary circle around him, each dreamwalker wearing his or her own leather headband."Ready to wake this one up, kupo?" Mogo asked as he once again opened the door to the half-orc's dream, this time with the expectation his five students would be able to put an end to the dream running on a seemingly endless loop.  However, perhaps because of the presence of the dreamstones, this time they got to see the dream in its entirety.  It began with the half-orc, staggering down the street in a half-drunken stupor, shake himself to a state of semi-sobriety at the sound of a woman's scream.  Looking over to his left, he saw a roguish young man dragging a wealthy-looking woman into an alleyway, no doubt with intentions to rob her of her riches - or perhaps even to do something even worse.  "Hey," slurred the half-orc.  "Hey!"  He followed the two deeper into the alley, where the man had a short sword aimed at the woman's stomach as she fearfully removed her necklace and rings.  The man spun at the half-orc's approach, stabbing the woman in the stomach in the process.  She fell to the ground of the filthy alleyway, a pool of blood spreading slowly from where she lay.  The thief whirled on the half-orc, who put up a defense that cost him a slice on his raised left forearm.  But then he got his right hand over the thief's and the two struggled to gain control of the blade.  They wrestled back and forth, and eventually the tip of the blade found its way in the thief's own belly as the half-orc grabbed it from his grasp.  "You okay, lady?" he asked, staggering over to the woman's now-cooling corpse, which lay where it had fallen.  But there were cries over from the street and the half-orc turned to face them: it was a trio of guardsmen racing at the half-orc, who stood over the bodies of two humans with the bloody blade that had killed them in his hand."This is where we came in last time," Thurloe said as he stepped in front of the half-orc and used the blade of his bastard sword to parry the first strike of the closest town guardsman."He's innocent!" Wakuren called to the security forces, blocking the second guard's blade-strike with his shield.  But Thurloe shook his head at the half-orc's naïve insistence of trying to get others to see reason.  "This is just a dream, remember!" he said, sending his blade stabbing directly through the heart of the guardsman he was fighting.  "We're not hurting any real people," he said as he lopped the head off the third guardsman, who had stepped up to take the place of the first one Thurloe had slain."Good point," said Alewyth, bringing Sjondra crashing down to crush the skull of the last remaining guardsman.  As he fell to the ground, quite obviously dead, the drunken half-orc blinked in surprise at this sudden turn of events and then looked in puzzlement as the walls of the alleyway started dripping away like spilled paint."He's waking up," Xandro pointed out.  "We'd best do the same."Six figures came to full wakefulness at about the same time, inside the extradimensional space of the night hag's lamp.  "Are you all right?" asked Alewyth."Think so," said the half-orc, looking around in confusion at his surroundings."Do you have any family in Portersville?" asked Wakuren."Family?  No, I got no family.""What's your name?""Scarlie Besker.""Well, Scarlie, considering you were sent to prison for a crime you didn't commit and we more or less broke you out of Bleakstone Prison, do you have any objections to traveling with us for a bit?  We can pay you to take care of our mounts and draft animals, if you're of a mind.""That sounds great to me," replied Scarlie.  "Say, I don't suppose any of you has anything to drink...?" - - -And with that, the PCs hired their first full-time NPC hireling in this campaign, which I surprisingly did not see coming as I had tried setting them up with someone (Jingo Pebblebrain) who could take care of their horses, mules, and dire goat while they were off adventuring and they didn't want any part of it.  But after this adventure was over I did up some quick stats for Scarlie Besker and found an image I liked so I could build him an initiative card, so now should he ever get involved in any of their adventures he's all set to go. - - -T-shirt worn: My white "Walking Dead" T-shirt, since that's what Administrator Morbhen was creating out of his prisoner charges.</blockquote>

Verification