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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2179640" data-attributes="member: 1210">Deeper and DeeperThe hideous monster, knee-deep in near-boiling water, roars as the party reacts to it.  A volley of arrows falls around it, many shots hitting and barely harming it, and a swarm of crystals bursts forth with a tinkling sound from Naomi.  A scorching ray from Beau bursts ineffectively against the monster.  Zeke casts magic weapon on his silver battle axe as he grimly watches the arrows rebound from the monster’s nasty skin.  Then, as he watches, Achtung bravely flings himself forward into the fray, attempting to use his newly enhanced claws to rend the monster!  Unfortunately for the urd, the only result is that the bonedrinker’s tentacles pluck him out of the air.  One wonders if the bonedrinker is about to earn his name by, somehow, drinking the bones of Achtung.  “I will drink his bones,” the hideous monster intones.  Its grin widens, revealing six-inch teeth- and suddenly, it sinks those teeth into Achtung’s screaming form.The poor urd!  The monster is earning its name!Achtung writhes in indescribable pain as he feels his skeleton begin to ache deeply.  He shudders and struggles to break free, to no avail“I can’t get a clear shot!” Thelonious cries.*  Our heroes are stymied from a direct assault by the scalding water that the bonedrinker is wading in. “Take the shot,” groans Achtung.Martini and Thelonious let fly, and by some miracle, Thelonious hits the bonedrinker twice and Martini thrice!  Then Ezeekiel bravely lunges into the scalding water, gritting his teeth against the pain, and strikes a mighty blow at the monster, which rips its teeth free of Achtung, who has now sunken into unconsciousness.  It roars, but then another flurry of arrows hits it and it staggers down... and collapses!  The good part of that, of course, is that it collapses.  The bad part is that unconscious Achtung falls into the scalding water, heading straight for that unique of indignity of death by drowning and fire damage simultaneously.  Fortunately, Hortense and Ezeekiel manage to scoop him out of the water and apply some healing just in time. ***7/13/369 O.L.G., 10 a.m.After a night of resting, our heroes are in pretty good shape, including Achtung (thanks to Hortense’s tender ministrations).  So they return to the cave where they fought the bonedrinker, and to get around the scalding pool Achtung puts his new improved physical abilities to work.  He quickly digs a tunnel around the scalding pool.  The halflings are most impressed.  “It’s kind of like a gopher,” muses Sandy.The bonedrinker’s lair holds some interesting treasure, including a very pretty, sequin-covered silk dress, a warhammer of remarkable quality, 21 silver arrows, a wand, a silver dagger, a tanglefoot bag and a small wooden jewelry box holding 3 cheap silver rings and a single hoop earring.  The silver arrows and the wand radiate magic; it is later discovered that the wand is a wand of tongues.Back to the room of the scalding pool our heroes go, and from that chamber they enter another exit so far unexplored.  This one is about 15’ wide, and they follow the dripping cave about 100’ before it splits again.  Each split leads to another pool, one giving off a faint blue glow, the other radiating a weird violet color.  Bathing in the blue pool, several of the party members take on short-lived fiendish, draconic and celestial traits.  They fade after a few days, but meantime our heroes find the changes in themselves unsettling.  The violet pool seems to fortify and improve those that bathe in it, but again, Achtung demonstrates that getting greedy is a bad idea: it leaves him aching, easily tired, with less endurance and generally lesser health.  “Dammit!” the urd exclaims piteously.The party reins in their enthusiasm for their explorations.  “I can still barely see,” complains Beau.  “These pools are great,” Martini comments.  “Hey, didn’t we miss one?  The one with the spores around it?  Let’s go back there.”  “I think we’ve checked out just about everything else here, short of whatever’s beyond that room with the elementals,” nods Federico.“Except that passage over there,” remarks Naomi with a gesture, indicating another exit from the sloping room, but Martini has already hurried out.  The party follows him back up the slick steps, noting another two passages yet unexplored on the way.  “All right, so I was wrong,” the kobold whimpers.  “We haven’t explored everything.”When the party returns to the room with the spores, Martini carefully edges around the dangerous fungus, strips down and settles into the warm water of the spring.  He sighs.  This feels good, he smiles inwardly, and proceeds to soak for a while, thinking about his life.  Thinking about his attitude, thinking about his behavior- thinking about how much he has changed since donning the helmet.  Slowly he realizes that he has been influenced by it for quite some time; but now, he casts off the curse of the helm and returns to his former identity.  Beau’s going to try to pull his antics again, Martini notes to himself.  I can’t let him get his hands on the helmet again.  When Martini emerges and dresses, he is a changed man- changed back into the nice, caring halfling he once was.  The rigid, rule-making Martini who cared only about himself is gone.  He has shriveled like a raisin, leaving the true Martini behind.***2 p.m.The other unexplored passages prove mostly uninteresting.  Two natural descents are treacherously slick, one ending in a deadly hot pool and the other in a more tepid pool.  This one holds the soft corpse of an elf, which our heroes determine must have been a victim of the bonedrinker, for it surely has no hard bones left within it.  The party gives a collective shudder.  “It tried to do that to me,” squeaks Achtung.Returning to the sloping cave, the group explores the other passage that Federico had earlier indicated.  It leads to an old refuse heap that gives up a nest of giant centipedes, easily slain.  ”These items are probably the garbage from that dwarven campsite,” Martini muses.  “I wonder what happened to the dwarf.  I wonder if we’ll find his body,” Naomi mutters to herself.***7/14/369 O.L.G., 11 a.m.After rising in what they think to be the morning- it’s hard to tell without seeing the sun- the party moves back to the chamber of the elementals, figuring that they can at least look around the room since the elementals hadn’t responded to their presence previously.  “Maybe there is something that will trigger them,” Federico suggests, “and as long as we don’t do that thing we’ll be fine.”This may be the case, but if so, whatever they aren’t supposed to do, Naomi must have done it; because as soon as our heroes enter the chamber the three large elementals rushes towards her.  She squeals pig-like in horror and initiates her energy retort even as her friends move to her aid.  Half-blind Jawbreaker engages the fire elemental immediately while Hortense buffs Ezeekiel with a bull’s strength.  The paladin then rushes in, taking on the earth elemental.  As usual, a considerable number of arrows whizzes into the elementals from the two rangers’ bows.  Thelonious exhorts our heroes to flee.  “These things will kill us!” he cries.Perhaps he is right.  Sadly, the elementals seem to resist at least a part of every blow our heroes land on them.  Pressed back, the wall of halflings protecting Naomi falters, and the fire elemental, intent on cooking up some Naomi burgers, lashes out at her!  She shrieks as she waddles back, a severe burn on her chest now.  She gasps for breath and fires a swarm of crystals, not caring that she catches Chief Jawbreaker as well as the elemental.  She has to get it to back off!  Jawbreaker slices into it from behind, and this time his mighty blow finishes it!  His axe whizzes into the water elemental as well, cleaving through.  Soon he has torn it apart with his great axe.  Jawbreaker howls in triumph.  The earth elemental, meanwhile, has forced Martini to discard his bow and switch to the sword.  Its pounding fists deal punishing damage to the little ranger, whose blows are partially turned by its rocky exterior.  The others pile on it, now that it is the only remaining opponent.  Beau hits it with a ray of enfeeblement and it shudders; and then a final blow from Martini finishes it off.“Whew!” exclaims Naomi.  “They were coming right for me.”“I wonder what you did to piss them off,” Beau says.“I didn’t do anything!” she protests.**The large chamber has two exits that our heroes have not yet explored, both natural descending stairs.  Our heroes search the chamber before leaving it, and to their surprise, they find a secret door. “This is the first manufactured thing we’ve found down here, isn’t it?” wonders Naomi.“No, there was the rock wall and altar in front of the pool in the next chamber,” replies Sandy.  “Hmm... I bet the best stuff is behind here,” Naomi says enthusiastically.  The party opens the secret door to reveal a hewn staircase spiraling down.  “Who built this?” wonders Hortense.“Could it have been the dwarf?” murmurs Beau.“There were no signs of digging tools or anything in the refuse heap or at the campsite,” Martini comments.Jawbreaker snorts.  “We go see.”The stairs drop about 60’ before opening into a huge chamber, 100’ long and 120’ wide.  The stairs are set against one wall; the other walls each bear a door with a symbol.  More dramatically, a looming figure strides towards our heroes, glowing with a pale light.  It looks like an anthropomorphic bull dog with a set of ram’s horns atop its head.  Our heroes are startled to hear its voice boom in their heads: “Greetings!  Please, tell me- who are you, and why have you come?”Cautiously, our heroes introduce themselves.  “And who are you?” Naomi asks querulously.  “I am the Guardian of the Secrets,” the figure intones telepathically.  “Hey, can you cure my blindness?” Beau asks.  “Blindness!  Sadly, I cannot,” the Guardian of the Secrets demurs.  Our heroes draw this strange figure out into conversation.  It does not seem to want to fight them, but rather seems like a somewhat lonely guardian creature of some kind.  When the party asks who he serves, he declares, “The Enigma Lord.”  When they ask him what is beyond the doors, he sadly tells them that he may not say; and furthermore, he informs them that, to pass through any of the doors, they must first answer three riddles.“What if we fail to give you the right answers?” asks Sandy.“As long as you answer one correctly, you may pass, but I may give you more assistance for each correct answer.”“And if we don’t answer any correctly?”“Alas, then I must destroy you.”“I see... well then.”Our heroes mull over this interesting situation.  Continuing to engage the Guardian in conversation, Naomi discovers that he has seen a dwarf about a century ago.  “He came here several times, but was stymied by the riddles and left, never to return.”  The three doors are all made of stone, and each is graven with a different image.  One shows a stylized skull and crossbones; the second a circle and the dwarven rune for water; and the third, what seems to be stylized gems and coins.After discussing things for a while, Sandy says, “All right- ask your riddles!”Next Time: Riddles galore!*Remember, when you fire into a grapple you roll your target randomly.**Actually, peeing in the pool was what did it.</blockquote>

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