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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 216711" data-attributes="member: 150">Spire 4: Dwarf-Tossing with the ApesSpire 4: Dwarf-Tossing with the ApesWe left off the previous session with the party about to charge ahead to try to catch up to the Mummy who had teleported away to try to get that Helm of teleportation.  They really wanted it badly.  They charged out the door, following the bear’s nose as he tailed the previous Party (Anathe, Eldgrim, Brottkill, etc.).  The hall took a sharp turn, and the Ulric/Bear barreled around it and . . . dropped out of sight, falling through a trap door in the floor.  Before the others could react, the floor closed up behind him, and there was no sign of the Bear.  The tried listening to the floor –figured out what the dimensions of the hole were so they could avoid it themselves, and then tried to figure out how to open it up.  They pulled a oak door over, one that the Bear had knocked off it’s hinges, and tried to open the trap door and use the oak door to prop it open.  The door opened, Irk shoved the wooden door into place, and the trap door swung shut again, with enough force to splinter the oak door.  While the door had been open there, for a few seconds, those who were in position couldn’t see anything that looked like the bottom of the shaft, or the body of a bear – just a chute that dropped down into darkness.  While they picked splinters of wood out of their hair, they tried to sort out the next plan.  They went back to the room full of sarcophagi and found an iron one.  Their first idea was to try to use the iron lid to prop the door open, but then Uri got a funny look on his face.“We could ride down in the coffin.  Like a sled, or a log flume ride.”The others looked around at each other for a moment, most showing obvious misgivings.  Then Pah spoke up.  “That sounds like FUN!”Within moments Uri and Pah were sitting in the iron coffin, begging someone to give them a push start, while the rest of the party chewed their lips and tried to come up with a better idea.  Soon the others had to step to one side so they could hear each other over the chant “push, push, push” coming from the coffin.  Then, suddenly, Pah grew silent, and placed a hand over Uri’s mouth.  “Listen,” she whispered.  In the distance, back up in the upper levels of the dungeon, they could hear a distant squawk.  There was some sort of bird up there, and it seemed to be making a lot of noise.  Pah quickly pulled out her pistols and covered the passage behind them.  Eli was in position, bow ready, and the others were making similar preparations, but Crys whispered to them.  “Be careful.  It may be a friend.”A few minutes later an Eagle hopped through the room full of sarcophagi and sidled up to Crys.  “It’s Ulric.”Ulric, later, in human form, would explain that the pit trap was actually a razor-lined chute that dropped him outside the spire, and he would have falling well over a hundred feet to his death had he not shape-changed into the Eagle form and managed to fly to relative safety. While he had been gliding to safety he had heard an apparently disembodied voice whisper to him “Be more careful.”   He would also tell them that he had heard the sound of musket fire coming from the area where they had left Nikolai and the Dragoons with the Mystery Machine.  “Goodbye, Nicky,” said Pah, almost managing to be wistful.  Eli grimaced.  “It’s going to be a long walk back to Dyvers.  We need that Helmet.”Pah and Uri were disappointed that there was no reason to try the coffin ride down the pit, but it was clear that they could move on. It was decided that they should check out the rest of this level before following Anathe’s tracks down the stairs to the third level.There was one door which was carved with a cacophony of eyes and mouths – a truly gruesome portal that drew Pah’s attention immediately.  She and Eli opened that door, and saw a small room, with what looked like a big iron pressure cooker built into the floor.  And standing next to the pressure cooker was a slim humanoid figure, with big fangs and an even bigger bow. And the figure had an arrow nocked.  Before they could duck out of the way, it fired, taking Eli in the shoulder.  The arrow carried with it a charge of cold, and little frozen blood drops hit the ground at Eli’s feet.    They jumped into action – Eli fired off a couple of arrows in return, but before they could act the vampire archer turned to gas and drifted away, out of sight, through cracks in the wall.The rest of the party charged into the room, looking at Eli, who was poking a toe at the blood icicle on his tunic.  The group was quickly distracted from concerns about the return of the Vampire Archer by the contents of the room.Set in the floor was what looked like a 5-foot wide iron pressure cooker.  Given the carvings on the walls and the doors in the area, many of the party members were reluctant to open it.Pah wasn't reluctant. Of course, the lid was trapped, and touching it felt a bit like taking one's favorite toaster into the tub for a bath.  Bolts of lightning passed through her and into the wall behind her, leaving her panting, standing over the iron lid, hair standing on end, but somehow still alive.  “Hey, Irk,” she said. “C’mere.”The protection spell spent, Irk was able to touch the lid safely and force it open,  This revealed something they didn’t really want to see – a Gibbering Mouther slobbering all over itself at the bottom of a long Iron tube. This looked like it should have been difficult, but Irk simply walked down the side of the tube – his slippers of spider climb making the wall very much like flat ground for him.  Despite the close quarters he was able to slash and bash away at the thing enough, with the help of a few magic missles (the only spells or missle weapons at the party’s disposal that could find their target past the embattled Dwarf.There was, of course, the wrinkle of the Mouther’s vampirism, but that was quickly dealt with as well.  Wanting to press on rather than take their chances sleeping again, they pressed on down to the next level of the spire.  At that level they found themselves faced with a choice of two doors. The one they chose led to a huge room that looked like it had once been the workroom of a stonecutter. the room appeared to be empty at first, but as they entered the room they spotted a pair of Girallons – huge, four-armed, vicious Gorilla things.  The girallons bellowed and attacked the party.  Uri slowed them down a little with some web work, while Irk raced forward to meet them.  The rest of the party moved into the room, preparing to back Irk up.  Irk, in the first round, discovered just how deadly the Girallons could be – the pummeling and rending he took that round was enough to make him think seriously about backing down.At about the time Irk was figuring out that he didn’t like getting hit by the rending attacks of the Girallons, things got a bit worse.  The other door they had seen at the bottom of the stairs flew open, and another six Girallons – bellowing an answering call to their compatriots – charged towards the rear of the party.  Behind them, leading from behind, was the Mummy-monk they had fought earlier, looking for trouble.Things looked pretty grim.  Irk was taking a homeric beating.  Ulric couldn’t help much, as he was in human form and unable to shapechange anymore (he was used up for the day).  Pah moved around the edges of the fight, but wasn’t able to turn the tide on her own.  Minimonk prepared to throw minself away to protect the spellcasters, but it was the spellcasters, Uri and Crys, who saved the day.  Uri started out by slowing things down with a couple of web spells.  It was disconvereting to watch the Girallons rip through the web fairly easily, but it was slowing them down, and that much helped.  Crys pulled out her Staff of Charm and started trying to make friends with some of the Girallons.  In the end, Uri cast both of his remaining Evards Black Tenatacle spells on the Girallon reinforcements, which worked quite well to take many of them out of the fight – the first spell slowed many of hem down, but with the addition of the second spell, the handful that were getting caught by tentacles were each being held by several.While the rest of the party fought the few who were not being held by the web and the tentacles, or those who had broken free, Uri spider climbed around over the top of the fight, scrabbling along the ceiling into the room that the mummy had just been in.  There he saw a Mohrg coming out of another room to join the fight.  The Mummy and the big Alpha Male Girallon were not in the room when Uri got there.  They had taken around route around the fight, and at about that time they appeared on another flank, charging the remains of the party.  Irk met the Alpha male’s charge to buy the party some time, but was ripped apart – literally – when all four arms of the huge beast grabbed his limbs and ripped him literally limb from limb.  Crys’s charmed Girallons were able to get there the next round and save the rest of the party, teaming up to pummel the Alpha male, then turn their attention on the mummy.The Mummy did it’s best to avoid the powerful crushing blows from the charmed Girallons, but was getting hit some, and he wasn’t going to be able to stand and fight.  Uri, who had scrabbled into the main room again, still on the ceiling, managed to make a flying leap, diving at the Monk’s head and trying to grab the helmet off it’s head.  His fingers grasped it momentarily, but as he tried to pull the Mummy pulled his head away and Uri missed.  Then, in a flash, the Mummy was gone.  The Girallons made short work of what was left.  The Morgh was torn to bits, the last few Girallons squirming in he tentacles were ripped up, along with the tentacles that were holding them.  Then, on the off chance that the Mummy had returned to his sarcophagus room, they charged back up the stairs, Girallons in the lead, and found him there, panting, his wounds already half- closed from the battle a few moments before.  The Girallons charged back in again.  This time the Mummy-monk was not able to teleport away before he was torn to pieces again.  The party, with two dead members (one dismembered member) gathered around the torn bits of the mummy and picked up the helmet. Uri put the helmet on anyway, grasped hands with the other party members, thought really hard about the Dragoon compound in Dyvers, and repeated the word they had heard the Mummy say both times he had teleported.  Nothing happened.  There were three stones on the helmet, which some of them remembered being lit with an inner glow when they first spotted the Mummymonk.  Now they were all dim.Pah, Uri, Minimonk, Crys, and Ulric, all battered, bloodied, and spent, looked at each other, holding hands in a circle, clinging to the forms of their fallen comrades, and listened to the creaks and groans of the Spire.Until next time . . . .-rg</blockquote>

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