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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8794890" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 9: BOAR'D TO TEARSPC Roster:Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 3             Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 3             Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 3             Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 3Game Session Date: 5 October 2022 - - -After all the time spent traveling, it was good to make the final turn in the road and see the Stone Keep just ahead.  The trip from Mitrek had been uneventful; not surprisingly, nobody really wanted to mess with a caravan of four professional adventurers when they traveled with a contingent of 20 clerics and fighters (all human) in the service of Saint Cuthbert, especially when accompanied by a cleric of considerably more power than even Father Barbados or Brother Scrimshaw.  But Father Kilkenny was a decent enough sort - and it was a good thing he was, for once the group made it through the gate and onto the Stone Keep's lands, it soon became apparent the new cleric would be taking over the facility, with Barbados kept on as his second-in-command.  The new security team was to bunk upstairs in the upper level of the Keep, and they ran up the stairs in the building's center to pick out who'd be sleeping in which bunkrooms."Farmer Stout's been by, just this mornin'," Father Barbados informed the adventurers once they had unpacked.  "I told 'im I'd sent ye all his way once ye got back - seems 'e's 'ad a bit o' bother with some sorta varmint gettin' into 'is crops, tearin' down 'is nut trees, an' th' like.""It's pretty late," Chaevaris observed.  "If we're to be hunting down a large animal, it might be best to get a start fresh in the morning.  Hunting large game can be considerably more dangerous in the dark.""I quite agree," Alistair added, although in his case it was merely because he relished an evening not spent in the saddle, if he could help it.  Adventuring could be dreadfully exciting and dashing and all, but darned if it didn't take a toll on one's bottom!  But fortunately, the others agreed and the four were allowed to spend the night in the Keep.  Chaevaris promised to wake them all up at sunrise.  And sure enough, the elf did exactly that, to the assorted grumblings of Ageratum and Alistair, at least - Harlan made no complaints, merely gathering up his armor and getting ready for another day spent aiding others in need.  They gathered up some food to eat on the road and they were off, sending their mounts running off in the direction of the Stout farm, an hour or so from the Keep at the speed of a good horse.When they arrived, they could see the devastation quite readily.  Trees were knocked over, fifteen at least, so the fruits or nuts from the upper branches could be more readily devoured.  And the gardens were a mess, with uprooted vegetables missing from their even rows.  There were deep hoofprints in the dirt around the gardens and large, smelly droppings - enough to let Chaevaris know exactly what it was they were dealing with.  "Dire boar," the archer declared.  "A large one, too.  And here, tracks of a smaller one as well, perhaps a piglet - but one the size of a fully-grown pig of the type you'd find on a farm.""Are they dangerous?" asked Ageratum."Very much so," Chaevaris answered her.  "They have exceedingly bed tempers and will often fight on after having suffered mortal wounds."  The archer squinted in the morning sunshine, looking at the trail of devastation the dire boar had left behind.  "Well, tracking it shouldn't be too difficult, at least.  Come on, let's go!"  Leaping back up onto Talkacha's saddle, the archer pulled on the horse's reins and set off in the direction the tracks led, the other three mounted heroes falling into line behind.After nearly an hour on the trail, Chaevaris held up a hand, signaling for the others to hold up.  "We're near," the wood elf declared quietly, nodding toward a clump of wild plum thickets.  The others strained their ears and were able to pick up what the archer's elven senses had already heard: a low grunting and squealing coming from the other side of the thicket.  Ahead, the trees thickened to the edge of a forest, leading up a slope to the hills above."Ambrose, if you please," Alistair told his familiar, who had been perched upon the young sorcerer's shoulder.  Without a moment's pause, the grackle took flight, rising up to where he could see above the thicket.  Alistair hadn't yet bonded with his familiar to the point where they could talk back and forth to each other, but he was well aware he'd be able to sense the bird's stronger emotions, like fear for his master if there was anything ready to pounce on him.  (While in Mitrek, Alistair had searched out a temple of Boccob, God of Magic, and had a nice chat with the clerics there about how exactly sorcerers worked, and as a result had a much better understanding of his role in the adventuring world.  It was, quite frankly, embarrassing to recall he had assumed he was a truly masterful wizard savant to be able to cast spells without need of a spellbook; it turned out sorcerers just were a more natural, instinctive type of spellcaster, not any better than a wizard but simply approaching spellcasting from a different angle.)The other side of the thicket, as Alistair found for himself as he urged Zephyr forward up the slope, was a mass of mud before a hillside - but one with an open door in the side of the hill, into which the sorcerer could see the back half of a boar walking as boldly as you please.  The door was of a normal size for a human, so Alistair had no doubt this was the dire boar piglet, not the full-grown model - which, as Chaevaris had pointed out from the size of the hoofprints left behind, simply would not be able to fit through a human-sized doorway.But before Alistair could dismount and follow the pig into the doorway, there was a crashing sound from further up the hill.  It was the sound of toppling trees, accompanied by snuffling and grunting; the dire boar had apparently become aware of the heroes' approach.  All thoughts of the dire boar offspring were left behind as Alistair wheeled Zephyr around to face this much more deadly threat.  Ageratum urged her pony Munson up beside Alistair, a kobold spear held before her like a lance, ready to stab into the dire boar as soon as it made itself visible - which, if the increasing sounds of trees being pushed aside were any indicator, would be any moment now.On the other side of Zephyr came Law, who stopped as his master unsheathed his flaming burst longsword and prepared it for action.  Chaevaris dismounted from Talkacha, an arrow already notched in the magic longbow and now being aimed at the sounds of the approaching, angry dire boar.With a final clump of trees being thrust out of the way by a pair of tusks larger than could be easily believed, the dire boar made its presence known.  Alistair's face paled; he'd heard Chaevaris describing the fearsome disposition of a dire boar but no words could give justice to the monster trotting before the young sorcerer.  But before Alistair could make a move of any sort, Ageratum sprang into action.  Her kobold spear went back and then was thrown with as much force as the little halfling could muster.  It hit the dire boar on the right side of its massive head, burying itself in the tough hide between a multitude of sharp-looking tusks that sprouted from the beast's mouth.  Chaevaris's arrow likewise went flashing by, but to the archer's disappointment it went bouncing off the monster's rough skin.Alistair finally found his courage, shaking off the trembling fear the creature's sudden appearance had caused.  Urging Zephyr a few steps back out of range - steps the light horse was more than willing to take - the sorcerer sent a magic missile spell streaking from his fingers, the twin darts flying across the gap and striking the monster boar in the snout.  Ageratum threw another spear, this one also sticking out of the boar's side like a harpooned whale, while she steered Munson back out of immediate harm's way.Harlan took a more hands-on approach; dismounting from Law a safe distance away (not wanting any harm to come to his pure white mount), he charged the dire boar from its left side, bringing his flaming blade down in an overhead arc that buried the blade deep into the dire boar's side.  But such reckless actions had consequences; while Chaevaris lined up another arrow, trying to hit it in a crippling area like an eye, the boar retaliated against Harlan's attack, butting him with a head that weighed more than the half-elf in his full armor, the strike simultaneously causing a half-dozen tusks to slash the Pelorian paladin.  Just that quickly, Harlan was down, out, and bleeding profusely - and it was only the magic aid of the Blood Mirror in his belt pouch that caused the deep gashes from the monster pig's tusks to close up and stabilize the paladin, a scant few moments from death's door.Alistair fired off another volley of two magic missiles, unerringly striking the dire boar's side while fervently coaxing Zephyr to approach the monster, hoping to entice the boar away from Harlan even if it meant providing his own horse as a (hopefully) more enticing target.  Despite his own self-image as a brave adventurer, Alistair found his left leg - the one closest to the dire boar - rising up Zephyr's side in an unconscious effort to prevent himself from being gored by the ferocious creature's tusks.Kicking Munson into action, Ageratum rode around the dire boar, keeping their distance from the maddened beast until they were directly behind it and out of its field of vision - and then she struck, bending forward and stabbing her magic short sword into the beast's hindquarters.  It squealed in pain at this unexpected attack.Chaevaris released another arrow, which buried itself in the creature's skull, midway between its eyes but a little higher than the elf had hoped for.  Still, the result of the shot couldn't be cause for much complaint, for the dire boar's eyes crossed, then rolled up in its head as it fell over to the ground, dead, with the sound of a fallen boulder crashing during an avalanche.In a flash, Ageratum was down out of Munson's saddle, pulling Harlan's head onto her lap and unstoppering a potion of cure moderate wounds.  Carefully, she poured the vial's contents down into the paladin's mouth, careful not to go too fast lest the liquid healing get coughed out in a choking fit.  But the potion did its work, healing up the worst of Harlan's wounds, enough that he was soon able to sit up on his own and use his innate ability to lay on hands, channeling a small bit of Pelor's healing energy into his own damaged body.  "Thank you," he told the little halfling, before applying a single charge from his wand of cure light wounds to finish up the healing Ageratum had started with her potion."Think nothing of it," Ageratum said.  "It's in my own best interests to keep our main source of healing from getting croaked!""I say!" remarked Alistair.  "Shall we see where the little pig went?"  He climbed down out of Zephyr's saddle and instructed Ambrose to keep an eye on the mounts for him.  But Chaevaris was already checking on the pig's whereabouts, walking through the doorway and stepping into a dimly-lit cellar.  There were eight barrels off to the right-hand side, two rows of four, while to the left was a pen of some sort filled with piles of straw.  A set of double doors stood on the opposite wall, but there was no pig to be seen.Alistair walked into the cellar beside Chaevaris and intoned, "Ogilvy, if you please!"  At once, the unseen servant Alistair now knew to be nothing more than a spell effect (but privately still felt like it could be the spirit of his childhood servant) manifested by his side.  Chaevaris passed over a bullseye lantern, which Ogilvy lit and held aloft, passing the beam of light from one side of the cellar to the other."There!" called out Alistair, looking at the dirt-packed wall on the far side of the room, past the barrels.  Dirt was spilling out of the wall, as if something were digging its way into the cellar.  "Keep the light focused right there!" Alistair ordered, readying another magic missile spell if the thing that popped out of the wall turned out to look menacing.  Harlan and Ageratum, in the meantime, examined the double doors to the north.  "I don't see any traps," the little rogue informed the paladin.  She reached up and turned the handle quite easily.  "Not locked, either," she observed.  Pushing the door open, she saw a short hallway, empty until the far end, which ended in a spiral stairway leading up to a higher level of the building - not surprising, given the room behind them was a cellar.  Judging by the slope of the hillside, Ageratum decided the building wasn't entirely buried in the side of a hill; the upper level - or levels - likely rose up out of the ground of the hill.  Unfortunately, with the growth of trees leading up to the edge of the hill, any such building was all but hidden from the muddy patch just outside the cellar door.Chaevaris backed up by the pen, arrow aimed at the dirt patch growing larger in the side of the wall.  And was it the elf's imagination, or did that look like a tentacle that popped out of the wall, before grabbing a clump of dirt and rock and pulling it inside the hole?  "Get ready!" the archer warned the others.Alistair, who had gotten bored waiting for some unknown creature to dig its way into the cellar, took the opportunity to pop the top off of the nearest barrel and peek inside.  That was a mistake, for the reek that came out of the barrel just about set the sorcerer's eyes watering and the gorge rise in the back of his throat, as the stench of rotting meat wafted across the room.  Slamming the lid back in place, Alistair focused his attention back on the emerging intruder from the cellar's dirt wall.  Ogilvy stepped onto a barrel to be out of the way, still focusing the beam of light from Chaevaris's lantern on the side wall.  Harlan, by this time, had returned from the stairwell (leaving Ageratum there to listen to see if she could hear anything from the level above), and positioned himself ready to strike with his flaming blade at whatever popped out of the wall.  Instinctively, he cast his senses forth to see if he could detect any evil coming from the dirt hole, but he picked up no such sensations.  Still, he knew full well a lack of evil did not mean a lack of danger; the dire boar they'd fought outside was a good example, for it had not been evil yet it had almost killed him.Ageratum, sitting on the bottom step, heard a whisper coming from upstairs.  "The real treasure's in the room to the west upstairs," it said.  "Just come take it."  But the words were too clear in her head to have been a whispered voice from the level above; Ageratum realized this was some sort of magic at work, and thus some sort of ploy - a trap to get her separated from the party, perhaps?The creature finally emerged from the hole it had dug in the cellar wall.  At first, Harlan thought it was a nest of snakes all writhing together, and the shock caused him to miss with his sword-strike.  He stepped back to avoid being bitten, and it was only then, in the light of Chaevaris's bullseye lantern, that the half-elf realized his mistake, for those weren't serpents emerging from the hole, they were tentacles attached to an insectoid head, which itself was mounted upon a greenish body like that of a giant cutworm.  Harlan had heard of such creatures: carrion crawlers, they were called, and their tentacles were said to contain a powerful neurotoxin that froze its victims into temporary paralysis.Alistair had never heard of carrion crawlers, but he didn't like the look of giant worm-creatures with waving tentacles on their faces and he let his magic missile spell cross the gap between them and blast into the head of the emerging beast as it crawled from the hole it had dug.  Harlan stepped up behind the creature and swung again at the grub-thing, but its many legs allowed it to skitter off to the side in just enough time for the sword-blow to come up short.  Alistair fired off another magic missile spell, knowing full well that particular spell was pretty much guaranteed to hit its target, and it did, this time blasting the creature in the side as it turned to face Harlan, tentacles writhing wildly.  Ageratum opened the double doors and returned to the cellar about then, not wanting to be the target of any more whispered spells, and saw the commotion with the giant worm-thing.  She stepped into the room just in time to see Chaevaris's arrow go flying across the side of the room, to miss the carrion crawler entirely and embed itself into the side of the dirt wall from which the creature had emerged.With a sudden burst of speed, the carrion crawler was upon Harlan, paralytic tentacles slamming into the paladin wherever they could.  But fortunately most of the tentacles hit nothing but Harlan's armor, and the helpless paralysis the half-elf had feared did not come to pass.  But then another pair of magic missiles came dashing across the room to bury themselves in the monster's flank, and with a final shiver, the carrion crawler fell onto the dirt floor of the cellar, quite dead."Well done, Alistair!" said Harlan.  "You managed to kill the thing on your own!""I reckon so," admitted the young sorcerer, pulling the light crossbow from his back and setting a bolt into place.  "I'm rather afraid, though, that was the last of the magic missile spells I shall be able to muster up today.  From here on in, it's crossbow bolts or my trusty rapier."  Before they moved on from the cellar, Alistair took a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose, then, warning the others, had Ogilvy open the lids to each of the other seven barrels.  One never knew, seven of them might indeed be nothing more than rotting meat but the eighth could well be filled with diamonds or something....  But no, all eight were filled with rotting meat, and the combined stench more or less forced the heroes over to the double doors and the short corridor ending in the stairs spiraling upwards.  It was the only way forward, Chaevaris not having found any secret passages in the cellar or stairway chamber."I say, whatever happened to that pig I saw entering the cellar?" Alistair wondered aloud.  "It couldn't have opened the doors on its own and there's nowhere else it could have gotten to in here."  Chaevaris looked inside the pen and there, laying in the straw, was the head of a chicken.  Bending down to pick it up, the archer noted with puzzlement it was made of solid stone, and it was either the work of a master craftsman or it was an actual chicken's head somehow turned to stone.  But there was nowhere in the piles of hay inside the pen for the pig to be hiding, so the elf dropped the petrified head back onto the straw and joined the others in the hallway leading to the stairs.Ageratum warned the guys about the whispered enticements she'd heard.  "It would seem there is a spellcaster about," Harlan declared.  "Let's see what the level above shows us."  He mounted the stairs, the other three following behind him.  There was a door at the top of the stairs; opening it, Harlan saw another door off to his left, a set of bookshelves along the northwestern corner, a broken summoning circle on the floor over to the right, a worktable along the southern wall, and a fireplace on the east wall on the other side of the summoning circle.  Other than that, the place was empty.  The spiral stairs continued on to the half-elf's left, rising up to another level above.After Ogilvy sent the lantern crossing back and forth across the room, Chaevaris went over to the closed door and gave it an attentive listen.  There were scratching noises coming from the other side, almost as if a chicken were walking around in the room beyond.  Motioning toward the others, and getting Ogilvy to hold the lantern towards the door so the light would spill into the other room once the door was opened, Chaevaris turned the handle and pushed the door open.  Inside, there was nothing but a series of crates, five in all, although there was a bird of some sort, with a comb like that of a rooster, behind one of the crates in the northwest corner of the room; the top of its head visible above the crate.  "Brrk!" the bird sounded in irritation, aware of the intruders.Chaevaris stepped up upon the nearest crate, readied arrow already pointed in the bird's direction.  Then Ageratum charged into the room with her magical short sword in hand.  She wasted no time, ducking behind the row of crates to the north and attacking the hideous bird.  And it was quite hideous, with a long, drooping tail of wilting feathers dragging behind it and features more reminiscent of a reptile than a bird.  The halfling's blade opened a gash across the side of the bird's head, ending when the weapon dragged across the bird's beak.  It squawked in pain and snapped ineffectually at the nimble halfling.  Then it moved across the room, escaping from Ageratum's blade and heading closer to Chaevaris.With Ogilvy shifting the beam of light directly on the cockatrice, Alistair sent a crossbow bolt shooting across the room at it.  Despite his best efforts, the bolt went high, darting over the beast's head and clattering off the side wall.  Chaevaris's shot likewise missed the beast by a hair.  Then Harlan was upon it, his flaming blade cutting deep into the creature's side.  While it spun to face the paladin, Ageratum ran up behind it and stabbed it just above one meaty thigh, just as its beak got a grip on Harlan, causing his hand to temporarily go numb at the site of the bite.  The half-elf could feel a sort of paralytic effect try to take hold of him but was able to shrug it off.  He didn't realize the cockatrice's major claim to fame was its unearthly ability to turn those it bit into stone; it had no doubt been responsible for the lifelike chicken head Chaevaris had found down in the straw-filled pit in the cellar.Fortunately, Alistair's next crossbow bolt was right on target, striking the cockatrice in the back of the head before it could try to turn any of the other heroes to stone.  With a final squawk of outrage, the creature fell to the floor, dead.  Harlan opened the nearest crate, finding nothing but dried-out herbs and the like.  There was also a door on the western wall; opening it, the paladin saw it led outside into the forest - it looked like Ageratum had been correct and the two-story house was in fact mostly aboveground, shielded from view by the thick forest of trees around it.Alistair returned back to the main room, casting a detect magic on himself, for he had seen a few vials of liquid among the books on the shelves.  A few of these turned out to be magical in nature: a vial of silversheen and another of stone salve.  But as nothing else in the room contained a magical aura, the group jointly decided to head on upstairs to the top level of the building.The top floor was one large, open room, with a smaller, closet-sized room sticking out from the middle of the south wall to break up the outer room into two distinct halves.  Harlan saw a four-poster bed with its draperies closed directly ahead, a desk and chair off to the left, and a fireplace along the eastern wall.  Mewling noises were coming from behind the bed-curtains, followed by the occasional yip.Ageratum strolled boldly into the room, heading directly for the desk.  She gave it a cursory check for any obvious traps and then, seeing none, she opened the bottom drawer.  It contained sheets of unused parchment and a bottle of ink, nothing untoward.  But from her vantage point she could see a vanity along the northeastern corner of the room, to the left of the unlit fireplace.  She wondered what all it might contain and decided she'd check it out after searching the rest of the desk.But then, stepping up in front of the fireplace from its resting place to the south (and out of view from those in the doorway by the stairs, for the smaller room blocked the line of sight), stood a gray-furred wolf.  It had a collar around its neck, from which dangled a pouch of black leather.  Ageratum's brow furrowed in puzzlement, for the collar indicated the wolf was some sort of pet but most pets didn't carry pouches around their neck.  Was it a pouch of material components and the wolf a shapeshifting wizard?  Worse yet, were they trespassing into the home of a werewolf?  In any case, Ageratum shouted out, "Wolf!" to her companions, pointing to where the creature had just appeared for the benefit of those still in the stairwell who couldn't yet see its location.Harlan stepped fully into the room, scanning for evil emanations.  Oddly enough, the wolf's aura had no source of evil surrounding it, although there was a definite miasma of evil coming from the bed's shrouded interior.  After Harlan pointed out his observations to the others, Chaevaris advanced upon the bed and pulled aside the draperies, using the tip of the longbow to do so.  Sure enough, the mewling and yipping sounds had come from a half-dozen wolf pups, newly-born by the looks of them.  And although they were as cute as any puppies the elf had ever seen, these could only be the source of the evil Harlan had sensed.Alistair held his light crossbow trained on the wolf, ready to fire if it made any sudden moves.  But it just stood there, looking back at the sorcerer as if daring him to fire.  Then, without seemingly have moved a muscle, the wolf somehow sent a wave of crushing despair flowing over Alistair, Chaevaris, and Ageratum; Harlan had been shielded by his position on the other side of the bed.  Alistair and Ageratum took the full force of the spell, whereas Chaevaris felt the spell's attack but managed to mentally fend it off.However, that was all it took for Alistair to continue on with his planned attack - he knew full well from a childhood of fairy stories that wolves were not to be trusted.  He shot the wolf with his light crossbow, but under the effects of the crushing despair spell the bolt went wide, hitting the fireplace interior and causing a puff of soot and ashes to be expelled in a little cloud.  The wolf didn't even move, but its lupine muzzle seemed to be laughing at the flustered sorcerer.  "I say!" Alistair fumed.  "Light up the wolf, Ogilvy, if you please!"  Ogilvy responded by training the bullseye lantern directly upon the wolf, putting a spotlight upon it in a way.It was at this point that Grubbins attacked.The imp seemed to suddenly materialize in the air behind Harlan, stabbing at the paladin with a scorpion-tipped tail stinger.  In reality, he'd been hanging on the ceiling, invisibly, directly above the doorway to the stairs when the heroes showed up, and thus had been behind Harlan when he scanned the room for evil.  Fortunately, the stinger hit Harlan's armor and was directed away, but the sudden attack alerted the half-elf to the imp's presence and he spun about, swinging his flaming burst longsword at the winged fiend.  The blade cut deep into the imp's side, causing him to screech and swear in Infernal.  Ageratum raced up and swung at the imp from behind, but missed - it was still in mid-flight and was currently too high up for the little halfling to reach.Still without moving a muscle but keeping its eyes glued directly upon Alistair's, the wolf directed a charm monster spell at the young sorcerer.  "I say!" erupted Alistair, having successfully fended off the mental attack and incensed at the effrontery of the wolf at having tried to make of him a mere puppet, to be moved around at the wolf's every whim.  But then the wolf finally moved, loping back to the south and out of immediate view, hidden behind the smaller room projecting into the larger one.Harlan channeled holy energy into his flaming burst longsword for a smiting attack, but the wounded imp managed to aerially dodge the blow.  Chaevaris sent an arrow shooting up at the little devil, but it too missed its mark.  Alistair, seeing the trouble the imp was causing the others, sent an acid splash spell its way, but he had no better luck and the spell hit the ceiling instead of the flying fiend.However, Grubbins didn't like his chances against four determined adventurers and called out in the Common tongue, "Wait!  I'll help you -- don't kill me!"  Ageratum tried hitting the aerial imp as he bargained, telling him what at least what her thoughts were on the subject.  Fortunately for Grubbins, her sword missed its mark.  But in avoiding her sword the imp had failed to keep track of Harlan's, and the paladin cut him down out of the air to fall lifelessly to the floor, its little torso cut nearly in half.  It was quite obviously even the stabilizing effect of the Blood Mirror wasn't going to do anything to keep Grubbins from death - the imp was already fully dead.  Just to be sure, though, Ageratum stabbed her sword directly between the imp's eyes, erasing any doubts on the matter.Chaevaris raced over to the fireplace, expecting to see the wolf there to the south, but there was only another vanity in the southeastern corner, a mirror image of the one to the northeast.  "It's invisible!" hazarded the wood elf, pulling out a handful of caltrops and scattering them on the floor directly ahead.Alistair pulled out his rapier and advanced upon the bed full of puppies.  "Show yourself!" he demanded of the invisible wolf.  "Or I shall start killing your puppies!"  To show he meant it, he allowed the point of his weapon to stab at the nearest puppy's unprotected chest; while he had expected the point to pierce the soft fur and at least bring forth a drop of blood for effect, the weapon was deflected away from the puppy's flesh by a hide much tougher than the sorcerer would have believed.Harlan observed the helpless puppy's tough flesh avoid damage from a masterwork rapier and suddenly everything fell into place.  "Barghests!" he exclaimed.  "That's not a wolf--it's a barghest!""Whatever is a barghest?" demanded Alistair."Foul fiends from the Lower Planes," explained Harlan quickly.  "They can take the forms of wolves or goblins!  And it explains the spellcasting!"But Ageratum wasn't about to let inherently tough fiend-skin stop them.  Pushing Alistair aside, she gathered up the ends of the blanket the barghest pups were lying upon and folded it up into a makeshift sack of squirming puppies, lugging the wriggling mass onto her back.  She wasn't sure what she was going to do with them just yet, but at least she had them all corralled together.  The puppies, in the meantime, seemed to think this was some sort of game and yipped and yapped in delight.The barghest suddenly appeared behind Harlan, biting at him with her powerful jaws, but they failed to close upon him as she had intended.  Harlan, for his part, was surprised at the barghest's sudden appearance from the stairwell, unaware that the barghest had never been invisible at all; once she'd been out of view from the others she had used a dimension door spell effect to reposition herself on the spiral staircase, out of sight.  Harlan instinctively swung his flaming blade at the wolflike beast, but missed.Chaevaris shot an arrow successfully into the barghest's shoulder, but was able to tell the creature's fiendish nature allowed her to shrug off the worst of the damage inflicted.  "Bitch!" swore the elf, realizing the word had two meanings in this case and both of them were equally applicable.By then, Alistair had belatedly recalled the stack of spell scrolls he'd purchased earlier, before their trek to Mitrek to fetch members of the Saint Cuthbertian faith to man the Stone Keep.  He kept them in two stacks, rolled up into one of two scroll cases, separated into "attack" and "non-attack" spells.  Unrolling the scrolls from the former case, Alistair read off the words to a magic missile spell and sent two glowing darts flying from his fingertips and into the barghest's side.  He was dismayed to see the words to the scroll were now gone; apparently that part of spellcasting was true, even for sorcerers from the upper classes.  Bummer!"Back off, or your puppies suffer!" Ageratum warned, swinging her bag of barghest pups into the wall for good measure.  She imagined any new mother would back off of combat to protect her own offspring, but in this supposition the halfling was sadly imposing her own views onto that of a fiend from the Lower Planes; the barghest cared only for her own continued existence and increase in power and any number of those puppies she'd recently birthed might very well have ended up as a future meal for her.  The puppies, in the meantime, thought this was all kinds of fun and squealed in delight with each blow from being slammed into the wall.With a growl of hatred, the barghest threw herself upon Harlan, biting him with her wicked fangs and raking him with her sharp claws.  The damage was enough to force the half-elf to momentarily step away from the fight, using a charge from his wand of cure light wounds to keep him in the fight long enough to see this beast destroyed.  Chaevaris sent a special sleep arrow - one of ten purchased in Mitrek - slamming into the barghest; while the arrow made its mark the sleep effect failed to materialize, the fiendish wolf-thing apparently able to shrug off the effects.Flipping through his attack spell scrolls, Alistair next tried a shocking grasp spell.  But the only shock coming about as a result was the one Alistair got when the still-nimble beast successfully avoided his outstretched hand long enough for the spell to fizzle away to nothingness.  "Oh, bother!" grumbled the sorcerer.Seeing her threats - and wall-slams - were getting her nowhere, Ageratum dropped the bundle of barghest puppies and pulled her magic short sword back out from its scabbard.  She swiped at the barghest with her blade, but missed.  The wolf-fiend retaliated against the halfling, snapping at her with her fangs and clawing at her as well, but the damage she'd taken thus far was starting to take its toll and only one set of claws went raking across Ageratum's armor.  And then Harlan finished it off with a second smite evil attack channeled through his flaming burst longsword, the flames erupting in full force as the strike hit true.  The barghest yelped in pain for the first time and then was silent - small wonder, the others noted, as her decapitated head went bounding across the room.  The barghest's now-headless body collapsed on the floor.Ageratum was there in a flash, easily pulling the collar from the stump of a neck and reaching inside to see what was stored in the leather pouch.  It was a diamond, about an inch and a half in diameter.  After casting another detect magic spell, Alistair confirmed the diamond had an aura of transmutation magic.  Intuiting the smaller room jutting from the south wall could very well hold the treasure of whoever lived here, the halfling opened the door and was surprised to see a sunken, marble tub in the middle of the room.  But Alistair confirmed the tub was likewise magical in nature, and the four receptacles along one edge of the tub's surface, each the proper size to hold the magical diamond, convinced her the gemstone she held in her hand was some sort of key.  Experimentation proved that placing the diamond in the blue receptacle caused the tub to start filling up with cold water, but once she removed the gem the water receded.  The red receptacle did the same trick, but with hot water; the white one caused water of room temperature to begin to fill the tub.  But while all of this was interesting, it was the black one that sent the halfling into paroxysms of laughter and unbridled joy, for that was the setting that caused the tub to open into an extradimensional space where the wizard who had once lived here - and who had been devoured by the barghest after a bungled summoning spell downstairs brought forth a different creature than the one intended - had stored his treasures.  Said treasures included a rod of wonder, an immovable rod, a ring of protection more powerful than the one Alistair wore, a set of bracers of armor identical in strength to the ones worn by both Alistair and Ageratum, and the wizard's spellbook - to say nothing of the coins and gems valued at a combined total of 20,000 pieces of gold.  "Wee hee!" chortled Ageratum, flinging handfuls of coins in the air."We'll need to pull all of this out of here," Harlan observed.  "And we'll probably have to return to the Stout farm to see if we can borrow a wagon to bring it all back with us to Ghourmand Vale.""Indeed," agreed Alistair."We'll need a large wagon and four heavy horses to get the dire boar back to the Stouts," Chaevaris added.  "And that's even after I field dress it, taking only the meat.""I imagine that's true," agreed Harlan."We'd best be about it, then," advised Chaevaris, making to join Ageratum in the extradimensional treasure vault to start hauling the valuables out into the bedroom."Hold up a moment," Harlan advised, placing a hand upon the elven archer's arm.  "Let's give her a minute or two to play with the riches first.""Whatever for?" asked Chaevaris, frowning and not understanding the reason for the delay."You know, I don't think I've ever seen Miss Purslane so happy before," observed Alistair, watching the little halfling joyfully throw another handful of coins in the air to watch them fall to the piles all around her."That's why," Harlan told Chaevaris, and even the practical wood elf had to agree. - - -This was a fun but frustrating adventure to run through: fun because it was well-written, had a few mysteries that were fully explained at the end (such as where did the "dire boar piglet" go? - it was the imp in an alternate form) and an opportunity to fight some creatures we'd never fought before; frustrating because about halfway through the session our players' dice all decided to universally betray us.  Seriously, we went through an awful lot of single-digit results in a row on our respective d20s, while Dan's dice were doing their best job of sucking up to the DM and providing him with successful crit after crit.  I was seriously concerned we might meet up with our first PC death when Harry's d20 suddenly had a "Wait a minute--what am I doing?" crisis of faith moment and provided him with a confirmed critical hit using his last smite evil attack with a +1 flaming burst longsword, which ended up dealing a whopping 41 points of damage in one attack.But the amount of treasure was well above standard, and on top of it we all made it to 4th level after the adventure was over.  (Alistair finally gets scorching ray - that's worthy of a "Wee hee!" from me!)  I'm thinking of taking Alistair's share of the treasure and purchasing a CL 9th wand of magic missiles - 50 doses of 5d4+5 points of force damage per round ought to (hopefully) hold him until he's powerful enough to do that much damage with the spell on his own.And yes, we drowned the barghest puppies in the tub once we had cleared out the vault.  That particular fact isn't likely to be mentioned in the bard songs Alistair hopes will one day be sung about this band of heroes (even if he has to write them himself); nobody wants to be branded as a "Puppy Killer," no matter how inherently evil the infant barghests might have been.We'll be skipping next week's session, as this time Dan will be out of town all week.  And there's a chance I'll be out of town the following week, so we'll have to see how things go.  It might not be until 26 October until our next Ghourmand Vale session.</blockquote>

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