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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Menexenus" data-source="post: 4031347" data-attributes="member: 8951">Session 52:  Thorash's Even Worse Day6th of Fireseek.  After a bit of discussion, the party decided to clean out all of the pyramid's unopened exterior doors before opening the silver double doors on the far side of the acid pool.  They moved past the lead doors to the a single, plain stone door.  Upon opening it, they found a narrow hallway filled with stone rubble from another collapsing ceiling trap, like the one they had found the previous day.  Above the level of the collapsed stone, the party could just barely see the top of an oak door at the far end of the corridor.  The party spent two hours hauling stone out of the room in order to clear a path to the door on the far side.  In the process, they discovered the decayed body of an adventurer in full plate armor carrying a bastard sword and wearing two rings plus a gold amulet with a spider motif.  Killick examined the adventurer's bones and determined that they were not elven.  When the corridor was finally cleared of its rubble, the party sent Alees forward to check the oak door for traps.  She quickly returned dejected and informed the party that it was merely a false door leading to nowhere.    The party turned the corner of the pyramid and started on the next side.  First up was an ornate stone door covered in carvings of animals.  Alees easily detected and bypassed a poison needle trap and then found the hidden button that unlocked the door.  Beyond the door was a short corridor filled with stone rubble exactly like the one they had just excavated.  The party thought about simply bypassing this corridor, but the lure of possible treasure caused them to spend another two hours excavating this hallway.  This time no corpse was found beneath the stone.  However, the door at the far end of the corridor was not false this time.  Alees opened it and found what seemed to be a sculptor's room full of statues in various stages of completion.  Alees spent a while in the room looking for secret doors and compartments.  As she looked at the statues carefully, she determined that each of these statues had an imperfection of some kind.  She concluded that these broken statues were cast-offs from some sculptor with exacting standards.  Eventually, under a piece of broken stone, she found something of value - a flute made of black metal.  When she brought it out to show the rest of the party, Thorash said that he thought the metal was the same as that used to make Katawan's Amulet of the Dark Sun.  Alees tried to play the flute.  Although she had no particular experience playing flutes, her notes had a beautiful tone that was pleasing to the ear.  Suddenly she found that she felt warmer - more comfortable - than she had before.    The party left the dead-end room, exited the pyramid, and prepared to open the next set of double doors crafted from steel.  Alees detected that the door was trapped with a poison gas trap of some kind.  She attempted to disarm it, but she dropped her implements and exactly the wrong time and set the trap off by accident instead.  A puff of blue smoke caused her to start coughing and turning red.  After the coughing was over, Alees found herself seeing strange lights and hearing strange sounds that she quickly confirmed from the rest of her party mates were not really there.  However, after a couple minutes, this effect passed and Alees seemed none the worse for wear.  Alees picked the lock on the door which opened into a magical laboratory.  The ceiling was about 3 times higher in this room than in all the previous rooms they had seen.  A large ornate circle was set into the floor just beyond the entrance.  Past the circle was a long workbench with a single bottle on it.  Past the bench was a wall of shelving containing many bottles and lots of glassware.  As the party entered the room, everyone was careful not to break the circle set into the floor.  Alexander walked across the floor to the workbench.  He saw that the bottle on the workbench had an ancient note stuck to it which read, "Only one wish left.  Don't push him."  Alexander determined that this room could be used as magical laboratory suitable for the creation of magical items.  He cast Detect Magic and found that the bottle on the workbench as well as 15 other opaque stoppered bottles on the shelves radiated magic.  The magical bottles were all collected in one place on the workbench.    Alees called out that she had found a couple secret doors, one at each end of the far wall containing shelves.  The party entered the secret door on the left first.  After following a short crooked passage, they discovered an ornate gold door glowing with a strange magical light.  Alees found no traps on the door and then unlocked it.  Beyond the door was a small room with small chairs and dust-covered cushions lining the walls.  In the center of the room was an amazingly life-like statue of a woman in full plate armor swinging a large sword in both hands.  Alexander determined that this woman had been the victim of a Flesh to Stone spell.  Tarric and Thorash looked closely at her armor to see if they could find any symbol which would reveal her allegiance.  They found none.  The party decided to leave the statue for now, but Alexander pledged to return when he had the correct spell memorized necessary to free the woman.  The party entered the other secret door, and after another short crooked passage, they found a room full of shields.  Seven shields were mounted on the walls and one more rested on a pedastal in the middle of the room.  All of the shields were identically decorated - red enamel paint with a black circle in the middle.  In the black circle was painted a stylized image of the face of a snarling carnivore with mouth open, about to bite.  It was impossible to tell whether the beast depicted in the shield was supposed to be feline or canine.  Sensing that the new-found room might be dangerous, Alees went back to the workbench and put all of the magical bottles into a sack.  She moved the bottle with the note on it to the room with the life-like statue.    Thorash tied grappling hook to a length of rope and threw it into the room in an attempt to pull the shield down from the pedastal.  After a few attempts he was successful.  However, as soon as the shield fell to the ground, the snarling beasts seemed to jump out of the shields and into the room.  All of these beasts had 6 limbs, tentacles, and seemed blurry somehow.  While all of the beasts crowded into the room were large and ferocious looking, the one in the middle of the room was significantly larger than the others.  The one in the middle as well as the two that were nearest to the doorway attacked Thorash, causing him damage.  Katawan called out to Thorash telling him to get out of the way so he could cast a Fireball from his Ring of Spell Storing into the room.  Instead, Thorash cast a spell protecting himself from fire.  Katawan stepped in and cast the spell.  A loud explostion caused 3 of the smaller creatures to fall dead, but Thorash was significantly wounded from the blast as well.  Then the huge beast in the center of the room struck Thorash multiple times with tentacles and claws and finally ripped the dwarf's head off with his teeth.  Thorash's lifeless body slumped to the floor.  Katawan pulled Thorash's body back.  Seeing that the party seemed to be trying to withdraw, the huge beast closed its eyes and it disappeared - only to reappear in the large circle set in the floor of the main room.  Suddenly the party found itself flanked, down one member, and unable to run.  Tarric ran forward towards the huge beast, taking swats from its claws and tentacles all the way.  Killick moved back to deal with the remaining smaller beasts.  He cast a Flame Strike which killed all the rest of them but one.  And he defeated the last, twice-singed beast with his quarterstaff.  Meanwhile, Tarric sliced large chunks out of the huge creature blocking the exit while Alexander cast volley after volley of Magic Missiles into it and Alees moved around into flanking position and stabbed it in its vitals.  Although the creature delivered a great deal of damage and had a lot of staying power, it eventually succumbed to the party's might without taking any more lives.    After surveying the party's resources, they found that they had no scroll of Raise Dead to return Thorash to life.  Killick proposed Reincarnating the dwarf in a new body.  Alexander raided what was left of the magical laboratory and produced the necessary oils and unguents.  Killick cast the spell and 10 minutes later an entirely new human body had grown from the remnants of Thorash's corpse.  Suddenly it breathed, and Thorash had returned.  He inspected his new body and did not seem to like what he saw.  He seemed most humiliated by his paltry new human beard.  But he suffered in silence, having no room for complaint.  Alees announced that while Thorash was being reincarnated, she had found another secret door in the hallway near the mouth of the shield room.  Given Thorash's recent experience with death and reincarnation, the party decided to not forge ahead immediately.  The party decided to rest, rememorize spells, and deal with the living statue in the other room.  Alees grabbed the bottle with the note on it before the party left for the night.     7th of Fireseek.  After the party was refreshed and Thorash became more accustomed to his new body, the party entered the room with the statue.  Alexander cast Stone to Flesh and the stone became a disoriented woman who was in the heat of desperate combat.  After calming her down a bit, they asked her why she had been fighting.  She described a battle between the denizens of the temple and the hosts of Pelor.  They asked her which side she had been on.  She replied that she had been among the Pelorian host, fighting to destroy the temple.  She asked if her army had been successful.  Alexander replied that it had been a draw.  The army of Pelor had not succeeded in destroying the temple, but they had succeeded in trapping all of its minions inside.  Alexander asked her name.  She said her name was Dourala.  Alexander offered her food and drink which she accepted gratefully, saying that she felt a hunger like none she had ever known.    Suddenly, Dourala raised her sword and pointed it aggressively at Alees.  She asked frantically, "This one just tried to cast a spell on me.  Is this your hospitality?"  Before she could choose whether to swing her greatsword or not, Katawan punched her three times in the face.  Having been attacked twice, Dourala swung her sword at her alleged attacker, Alees.  The attack cut Alees slightly.  Alexander was confused by what had happened so suddenly.  He cast Slow on both Dourala and Alees and commanded them both to stand down so that the dispute could be resolved without violence.  Alees seemed unaffected by Alexander's spell, but Dourala was noticeably affected.  She held her sword at the ready and called out a challenge to Alees to face her in ritual combat.  Without reply, Alees stuck her sword into Dourala's neck and sliced off her head.      As the woman's head fell to the ground with a wet thump, there was silence amongst the group.  All eyes were on Alexander to see how he would respond to Alees's disregard of his instructions.  Finally, Alees broke the silence by moving forward to begin looting Dourala's body for valuables.  Alexander warned her in a furious tone to leave the woman's body alone or face his wrath.  Alees backed off, but scanned the rest of the party for supporters.  She announced that Dourala had been lying, and she added that the whole party saw the fighter attack her.  Katawan and Thorash seemed to have no problem with what Alees had done.  Killick and Tarric were not quite so sure that what Alees had done was honorable.  Alexander asked Thorash if he would raise the woman from the dead.  When he refused, Alexander pledged to keep watch over the body until such time as the party could teleport back to Greyhawk and have it raised.    After some time passed and tempers cooled, the party agreed to explore the final secret door before resting and teleporting back to Greyhawk.  Alexander reluctantly consented to aid the party.  They filed into the secret door beyond the shield room and found a crossing corridor going in two directions.  The party tried the right first and found only an empty store room.  To the left the party discovered a heavy lead door.  Alees was able to determine that something magical would happen when the door was opened, but she couldn't disarm it and she didn't know exactly what would happen.  She stepped back and let others try to open the door.  When Killick opened the door, he saw a room with lead walls and ceiling.  At the far side of the small room was a crystaline being standing sentry in front of a large chest.  It made no move against the party, which was fortunate.  Because at that moment, a large bug-like devil appeared behind them in the hallway.  It was clearly cramped for space, but it still seemed able to wield its spear effectively.  However, rather than stab at the nearest opponent, it instead summoned a Wall of Ice to close off the secret door and cut the party in half.  Upon seeing the creature, Alees ran screaming into the empty store room.  Alexander grabbed Thorash and Katawan and transported them magically into the store room where Alees was cowering.  Katawan reached in his bag and produced a potion for Alees.  Tarric, who was undaunted by the sight of this bug-like fiend stepped up to the creature, taking an attack of opportunity as he approached. [To be continued...]</blockquote>

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