NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7947262" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 13: DUNGEONS AND DUERGARPC Roster:Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 5             Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 1/fighter 1             Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 5             Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 5             Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 5NPC Roster: Eri'dia Jalamir, drow sorcerer 1Game Session Date: 18 March 2020- - -The morning began with a primal scream of rage, which woke the five sleeping arena slaves.  After having been debriefed yesterday about their "abductions" and subsequent "escape" from their "unknown assailants," Calish had removed them from their temporary duties and had them return to their former slave quarters.  Now they leaped up in the darkness of the room - for it was earlier than the normal time for waking and thus the slave-light torches had not been remotely activated - the non-dwarves among them grabbing for and activating their slave-light cloaks to provide some illumination.  "Is everyone okay?" asked Cramer.The scream that had awakened them all was followed by another, this one recognizably that of a woman, and seemingly caused by pain instead of rage.  Hurriedly, the slaves gathered up their weapons and put on their armor, anticipating another attack upon House Jalamir.  But if this was another attack it was by the most polite drow forces imaginable, for rather than their door being kicked in there was a tentative knock upon it.Cramer, being the closest to the door, headed over to open it.  Before he could get there the politeness had apparently been extinguished, for a woman's voice called out regally, "Let me in!"  Looking to see the others were all armed and ready, Cramer opened the door - only to see a young female drow storm into the room, cradling her left wrist.  This was someone with whom they were familiar, if not anyone they'd had any personal dealings with: Eri'dia Jalamir, youngest daughter of Matron Jalamir, the Noble House's leader, and little sister to Calish the slavemaster.  Jhasspok had no idea of the personal link that existed between the two of them: it was Eri'dia who, having gotten sick by some bad clams gathered by the fisherfolk slaves, had insisted Jhasspok be sent to the arena for the Festival of Blood, having mistakenly identified him as the culprit who had gathered up the bad shellfish.  (Jhasspok, however, with his aquatic maneuverability, had been solely a procurer of actual fish; after all, anybody could hunt down a clam or oyster!)"Heal me, slave," Eri'dia commanded to Cramer, holding her broken wrist out to the little gnome.  Cramer glared in dislike at being ordered about but realized no good would come of disobeying a direct order from a drow, let alone the daughter of his House's leader.  "This may hurt a little," he advised her, pulling her hand out and causing her to wince in pain; the process absolutely wasn't necessary for him to apply a healing spell but he was fairly sure she wouldn't know the difference and he enjoyed making members of the haughty drow race suffer a little when he thought he could get away with it.  "How did this happen?" he asked, casting a cure light wounds from one of his scrolls to deal with the injury."My shunaji brother," she snarled, using an obscure drow word for the end of the excretory canal.  "He's all pissed that somebody stole his hard-earned drow pleasure slaves and is venting his frustration on anything and everyone he can.  Just because I'm still two years away from my Ascension to Adulthood ceremony, I'm an acceptable target for his tantrums."  She moved her healed wrist around, ensuring it still had full mobility after Cramer's ministrations.  The thought to thank him for his handiwork never even crossed her mind.Then, looking around at the five arena slaves, the Jalamir daughter came to an instant decision.  "It would be best if Calish had something to take his mind of his missing pleasure slaves, and I'm thinking a sizable hoard of treasure would do the trick.  Fortunately, I know just where we might be able to get something along those lines.""'We,' Mistress?" asked Marlo."I don't plan on hanging around here for him to smack around," Eri'dia replied.  "My own slaves were working in the mines and accidentally broke through a wall, into what looks to be a duergar tomb.  There's no telling what all might be in there, but the duergar often put a considerable amount of treasure in their burial vaults.  You're all combat fighters: you ought to be able to handle any traps they've left behind to prevent looting.  Come along.""Now?" asked Khari - he'd been hoping they might get a bite to eat before heading out.  But that was apparently not to be, for such considerations were nothing to the spoiled drow royalty.  "I'll even let you each keep a trinket from the tomb, if it proves to be as rich as I think it is," she said as way of enticement.  Then she exited the room, expecting the five slaves to follow.They all knew their place in the Overreach hierarchy: they followed, Cramer casting a longstrider spell upon himself to help him keep up with the other, longer-legged members of the group.  Jhasspok, seeing the spellcasting and assuming it was time for such things, offered Marlo a slave token to cast a mage armor spell on him.  She smiled and complied, taking the proffered token not because she needed it but because it would make the lizardfolk happy to have successfully used money.  (He was still struggling with the concept.)  But Marlo also studied the Jalamir noblewoman they followed; if Marlo understood drow society, two years from being an adult would put Eri'dia at 48 years old.  It also explained her garb; unlike nearly all adult female drow, she was not dressed as a priestess of Lolth but rather in a loose gown of dark spider silk.  Perhaps two years hence she would begin her training in the dutiful worship of the Spider-Bitch.  And then Calish wouldn't dare to lay a hand on her in anger - not and be allowed to live, anyway.A brisk stride through several side tunnels at the far edge of the Underdark city led the group to the mines, where Eri'dia unerringly took them to the newly-unearthed chamber.  An elderly dwarven slave in mining gear met her there.  "We've touched nothing, as per your orders, Mistress," he reported."Good," replied the drow.  "You may get back to your duties.  I and these slaves will take it from here.""Yes, Mistress," replied the elderly dwarf, looking pleased to be able to leave the vicinity, but whether from the unknown forces potentially lurking inside the duergar tomb or the spoiled drow princess herself was difficult to pin down.Khari approached the hole in the wall, seeing an open chamber beyond.  There was no illumination in the tomb but that didn't matter to a dwarf; the Hammerslammer's darkvision allowed him to see perfectly fine nonetheless.  "Four statues of duergar inside," he reported back to the others, "an' a bunch o' carved inscriptions in th' walls.""What do they say?" demanded Eri'dia.  She would never have wasted her time learning a language of the lower races."Sumpin' ' bout a duergar hero, name o' Rurgath Stoneaxe," Khari answered, reading the carved runes in the Dwarven language, shared by dwarves and duergar alike.  He leaned into the room as far as he could to read the rest of the inscriptions without actually stepping foot into the tomb; he might not be the smartest of his people but even he knew stepping into a potentially trapped area was not a good idea.  "Huh.  Says here 'is greatest deed was t' cause the disappearance o' the kingdom of Brunniir."  That, he knew, had happened some fifteen hundred years in the past.  He pulled out his infrequently-used longbow, ready to shoot down anything that might try to approach from the tomb beyond.  Seeing no obvious threats, he gave the four statues a good look-over - he wouldn't put it past the sneaky duergar to have them come to life and attack.  Unfortunately, the dwarven fighter was too far away from them to be able to give them more than a cursory examination, to tell whether they were likely stationary or not."Well, if they're gonna attack us if we go in there, let's get 'em going!" said Utred, scrambling past his fellow dwarf and stepping into the tomb.  Sure enough, Khari's fears were immediately realized: these were animated statues, part of a trap to prevent looters from advancing further into the tomb.  But Utred got in the first blow with his greataxe, noting sullenly the stone statues resisted some of the strength of his swing, although he was pleased to see he at least carved a chunk of the statue free with his first strike.  Khari's bow shot had less of an effect, the arrow plunking harmlessly off the statue he shot.Marlo cast a magic missile spell into the room, hitting one of the statues in the back of the tomb as it moved closer.  After some apparent internal struggle, Eri'dia did likewise, demonstrating she was not only an arcane spellcaster (as Marlo had guessed) but one with less training and experience than the human sorceress had, for while Marlo was now able to send a trio of missiles shooting forth from her fingertips, the drow could only manage one.  Still, Marlo reasoned, any amount of spellpower would be welcome and if Calish's little sister was a sorceress or a wizard, at least she'd be likely to want to stay well behind the others and out of immediate harm's way.  Marlo did not want to have to tell the easily-angered slavemaster they'd gotten his little sister killed, even if it was on a mission she herself had insisted upon leading.Cramer chose to beef up one of the two dwarves already at the front lines; scrambling over the open hole in the wall, he cast a spell upon Utred and then stepped back out of reach of the approaching duergar statues.  Utred grunted in appreciation of the shield of faith spell; anything that kept the dwarven barbarian in the midst of battle was very welcome!Jhasspok leaped through the opening in the wall and rushed up to the animated statue threatening Utred.  His battleaxe came swinging down in an arc that landed upon the statue's head but it was deflected by the curve of the statue's carved helmet, looking to have dealt no damage at all to the magical construct.In a wave, the statues surged forth, three of them surrounding Utred in an arc and the fourth approaching Cramer.  They struck out with the stone weapons carved in their hands.  The little gnome easily avoided the blow headed his way, ducking beneath the swinging axe, but Utred couldn't ward off all three incoming attacks and one of them drew blood.  That fired the flames of rage the barbarian kept just under the surface at most times, fueling the power of his attacks that much more.  His own greataxe chipped further grooves into the first statue's stone form.Switching to his trusty dwarven warhammer, Khari climbed into the tomb and attacked one of the statues targeting Utred.  Marlo cast another magic missile spell at her initial target, all three blasts striking true, then held back any comments when Eri'dia followed suit again a second or two later with her own single missile of reddish energy and caused the statue to topple over, all traces of an animating spirit gone.  The drow congratulated herself on having slain the construct; Marlo just rolled her eyes.Cramer stepped back away from the construct attacking him and cast a bless spell encompassing all of the arena slaves and, after a moment's thought, the drow sorceress as well - after all, she was helping to fight their common enemies, no matter how small her own personal contribution to their collected efforts.  The spell didn't help Jhasspok's next attack, though, which did no noticeable damage, but then again neither did any of the three remaining statues' follow-on strikes.  Khari had a little more success with his next hammer-strike, causing a series of cracks to appear from the point of impact on the chest of the construct he hit.  And then Utred finished that one off with another blow of his greataxe, leaving only half of the attacking constructs still up and about.Marlo cast another magic missile spell at one of the two remaining statues and was a bit surprised when Eri'dia failed to follow her lead.  But the drow had already used up half of her daily allotment of her most powerful spells and wisely decided to let the combat slaves take care of the rest of the animated stone warriors; they seemed to be doing fine on their own (even if she had taken care of one of the duergar statues herself).Cramer swung his light mace at the statue stepping his way.  The blow struck but didn't seem to do much damage, but then Khari gave it a good slam in the back with his warhammer.  Jhasspok attacked the other one, this time managing to cut a sizable chip in the stone of the construct's shoulder.  Utred's greataxe cut a much deeper groove in the thing's arm.  For their parts, the animated statues fought back but had much less success in taking down the intruders in the tomb.  Marlo finally finished off one of the last two with another trusty magic missile spell while Jhasspok had the satisfaction of cutting down the last one by enlarging the "wound" he'd created in the statue's shoulder with a follow-on strike that sent the crack diagonally all the way through the thing's body, causing it to fall to the tomb floor in two pieces.And as quickly as that, there was silence in the tomb once again.But this was apparently just the first chamber, for a heavy-looking set of stone doors to the south promised even more tomb to explore.  With the lizardfolk's help, Utred shouldered the heavy doors open, revealing a set of stone steps leading down to a wide tunnel that paralleled a square opening below it to the east; the steps were twice as big as they needed to be and Utred realized they were likely scaled to the size of an enlarged duergar, for the gray dwarves were known for their invisibility and their ability to expand to twice their normal size."Likely more traps in here," Marlo warned, pulling the stopper from a potion vial and drinking down the liquid, activating a fly spell - she wasn't about to step foot into any of the rest of the tomb if she could help it!  Eri'dia stepped up behind her and sent a dancing lights spell down the corridor ahead; the slaves noted her spell consisted of four bright red globes - the same color as the drow's eyes and her magic missiles, Cramer realized belatedly.  Squinting in suspicion, Cramer stared at the woman's white hair and, sure enough, he thought he could detect a bit of red along the roots.  But what did this mean?  Was she a sunborn drow, perhaps even a member of House Ky'hulcressen?  That seemed unlikely, given Eri'dia's status as a high-ranking member of the Noble Family of House Jalamir.  Unless, the gnome mused, she was a plant, a secret infiltrator to the House?  This bore some further thought, that was for sure."I have an invisibility purge spell ready to cast," he announced to the group.  "Utred, how about giving me a ride on your back?  You're the fastest among us, you could carry me further into the room that way and we could make sure we don't have any invisible duergar waiting, ready to strike.""Sure, sounds like a plan - hop up."  Cramer cast his spell and then clambered onto the dwarven barbarian's back, settling himself down upon the top of Utred's backpack.Jhasspok strode purposefully down the stone steps and along the passageway, looking down into the lower room as he approached it.  The floor was some 20 feet below him, with a step pyramid in the middle of the room holding an obelisk on its highest level and four niches carved in the north and east walls - two in each wall - inside which stood what looked to be more duergar statues.  But the dancing lights spell didn't light the interiors of the niches very well, so it was hard for the lizardfolk to see much in the way of details.Utred raced down the stairs, passing Jhasspok and making it all the way to the far corner of the platform, where it made a right-angle turn to the east along the southern edge of the square chamber.  A second set of oversized stairs led down to the chamber's floor.  Khari raced behind his fellow dwarf, nowhere near as fast as the speedy barbarian - even with a gnome perched on top of his backpack.The floor the dwarves and lizardfolk had run over was apparently not trapped but Marlo decided she'd take no chances - she flew down the first stairwell and out into the open chamber as soon as she could.  From her vantage point, 20 feet above the chamber's floor, she could see another two niches carved into the wall beneath the corridor to the west, each also filled with a duergar figure.  But of more immediate interest were the two murals on the western wall, each a mosaic made from different-colored gemstones and precious metals.  It looked like Eri'dia had been right: these duergar had buried a fortune in the tomb!But she doubted such a treasure would be easy to gather without first dealing with the next wave of tomb guardians; no doubt these six duergar statues were also going to animate and attack.  The sorceress decided to beat them to the punch and fired a scorching ray spell at one of the gray dwarf figures in a niche along the northern wall.  It hit the duergar in the chest and set it ablaze.It also caused it to animate and stagger out into the larger chamber - along with the other five the slaves had already spotted.  All six - even the one on fire - raised a crossbow and aimed at the human floating 20 feet above the floor, hovering between the northern wall and the obelisk in the middle of the chamber.  Six crossbow bolts went flying through the air and six crossbow bolts embedded themselves unerringly into Marlo's body, causing the sorceress to cry out in pain, pass out, and fall forward, the magic of her still-active fly spell causing her to drift slowly to the floor - and eventually into the reach of the animated figures the other slaves could now see were not statues at all but the desiccated remains of once-living duergar warriors.Eri'dia advanced cautiously down the corridor, not sure of what to make of these undead forms in the chamber below her.  She looked at Marlo's slowly drifting form without concern.But Cramer was concerned; he leaped down off of Utred's backpack and started running back the way they'd come.  He couldn't get to Marlo to apply a healing spell to her unless close enough to touch her and the way things looked there was no way he'd make it to her in time before the undead corpse creatures were upon her.  So he raised his holy symbol of Fharlanghn and channeled a blast of holy power through it, sending a cone of turning energy upon the undead forms.The creatures who had just stepped out from the niches below Cramer were the first to react; they began to flee in terror.  To the gnome's surprise, his turning attempt also affected two other undead figures he hadn't even seen were there: a pair of corpse creatures hidden within the illusory obelisk at the center of the chamber.  They, too, fled from the holy symbol in the gnome's hand, clambering down the steps of the pyramid in their haste to get away.  Their desire to get as far away from the gnome as possible had them each ending up in the abandoned niches on the eastern wall where they cowered in place, unable to get any farther away.Jhasspok ran down the southern stairs, as did Utred, the dwarven barbarian heading straight for the corpse creature nearest him - one which, he noted, was wearing a better set of armor than the others of its kind in the chamber.  That would have been no surprise had the dwarf realized this was the animated body of none other than Rurgath Stoneaxe himself.Khari saw a corpse creature in the chamber below him and leaped from the overlooking corridor, hoping to land on the undead thing and bring it crashing to the ground.  Unfortunately, the only thing crashing to the ground was Khari himself, having missed his target completely.  Fortunately, the corpse creature had already been successfully turned by Cramer and thus had no thoughts for attacking the downed dwarven fighter in its haste to flee.  And over to the north of the pyramid, Marlo continued falling, her pace that of a feather; by this point she was about 10 feet above the floor, almost within range of the undead on the chamber floor below her.Eri'dia decided to cast another magic missile spell, sending her single, red bolt of energy flashing across the chamber to strike the corpse-thing already blazing away in flames.  It collapsed, destroyed by this second attack spell after having been most burned away by Marlo's scorching ray.  But the drow congratulated herself on another fine kill; she was apparently destined for this line of work!The three undead not already slain or turned by Cramer reloaded their crossbows and took aim at Khari, the closest intruder still in combat.  Three bolts went flying across the chamber and three bolts went whizzing past the dwarf's ducking head - a much-preferred outcome for the fighter and a better deal than Marlo had gotten (but then what did she expect when she opted not to wear heavy armor like he did?).Jhasspok felled a fleeing corpse creature as it raced right in front of him in its haste to get away from Cramer.  The other one from the western wall niche raced to the north of the pyramid and ended up cowering in one of the eastern-wall niches, unable to get any further away from the gnome's holy symbol.  But then Cramer called down to Jhasspok: "Catch me!"  The lizardfolk ran to the western wall and held out his arms (momentarily dropping his battleaxe to do so), the gnome leaped off the edge of the platform, and Jhasspok caught him as easily as he would have caught a thrown fish.  He set the gnome down on the floor beside him and stooped to retrieve his weapon; the cleric was already running in Marlo's direction, for she was almost within reach of the corpse creatures below her.  Seeing that, Jhasspok ran over to Marlo and then caught her as well, setting her unconscious (but still breathing) form on the stone floor at his feet.  He debated whether he should pull out the crossbow bolts sticking out of her body from all angles and looked to Cramer for guidance, but the cleric didn't seem concerned about that at the moment.  Instead, he cast his most powerful healing spell available on the sorceress's unmoving form, and as the spell caused her wounds to seal up it had the side effect of popping the bolts out of her like watermelon seeds being spit out.Rurgath began climbing the southern set of stairs in an attempt to maximize his distance from the gnome cleric and Utred chased after him, slamming his greataxe into the undead thing's body.  Khari sent his warhammer crashing into one of the undead duergar over by Jhasspok and Cramer, while Eri'dia - still up on the wide corridor overlooking the chamber below - sent the last of her magic missiles for the day slamming into another of the remaining undead.  Khari and Jhasspok found themselves under physical attack by the corpse creatures, each of the strikes of their duergar warhammers hitting true.  Jhasspok retaliated with a hit from his battleaxe but while the weapon's blade bit deep it didn't seem to bother the undead creature much.  He snapped at the corpse creature with a mouth filled with sharp teeth and found he didn't much care for the taste - he'd long believed "meat is meat" when it came to food, but this particular meat was no longer edible.Rurgath made it to the corner and spun about, putting Eri'dia into his sights (the drow hesitantly cast a ray of frost spell his way but failed to hit anywhere near him), but then he was taken down by another axe-strike by Utred.  Then, surprisingly, the cowering undead duergar in the eastern niche stepped completely through the stone wall of the alcove and disappeared from view, until he popped back out of the wall at the southeastern corner of the room.  He began climbing up the steep steps towards Utred, forcing the dwarven barbarian to run back down the steps to intercept him - he was certainly getting a workout in this fight!Two of the undead fell almost at the same time, one succumbing to Khari's warhammer and the other to another scorching ray spell from Marlo, back to fighting trim if not full power.  Those still remaining continued their attacks upon Khari and Jhasspok - at least, until Cramer held forth his holy symbol and turned them as well.  They proved to be not much of a threat after that, concerned only with fleeing the gnome cleric, and they were quickly taken down by the close-quarters combatants among the arena slaves.With combat over, the slaves began the process of looting the bodies of the corpse creatures they'd destroyed.  Eri'dia came down to the lower chamber now that it was safe to do so and examined the murals.  She was clearly surprised by what she saw.  The first mural showed what looked to be a mass of black tentacles rising up from the ground; the tips of several of them were a silvery color, apparently caused by the touch of a man in silver robes.  The second mural had a giant, pink worm in the foreground; it had four tentacles coming out of its mouth and it faced a group of five individuals: from the looks of them, a pair of armored dwarves, a gnome, a slight human woman in robes, and a lizardfolk.  They stood between the monster worm and a pair of enormous black tentacles rearing up behind them.Brows furrowed in puzzlement, Eri'dia looked from the second mural to the five slaves gathering up weapons from the downed corpse creatures.  Cramer met her gaze and looked over at the murals himself.  "That's an odd coincidence," he said, hoping to dampen any theories the House Jalamir drow noble might have about the reasons their arena slaves were depicted in a mural in a duergar tomb.  But he was mentally recalling the three prophecies written in the tome N'zorthal had taken from them: "The metal man reborn from Hell shall seal the Dying One in an eternal prison"; "The dark champions shall stand before the worm"; and the third one which the goblin doing the translations could make no sense of.  It seemed the duergar could make no sense of the third prophecy, either, given they had left space for a third mural but never designed it.However, Utred and Khari, using their innate dwarven sensitivities to all things related to stoneworking, discovered a hidden chamber beneath the illusory obelisk and inside were tens of thousands of gold coins and a few magic items.  That served to distract Eri'dia from putting too much thought in the murals.  She pulled a black handkerchief from her gown, unfolding it and placing it flat upon the stone floor.  "Place the loot in there," she commanded, not bothering to do any of the grunt-work herself but watching intently to ensure none of the slaves thought to pocket a coin or two for themselves.  (She did, however, honor her agreement to allow each slave to keep a "trinket" for themselves.)  The slaves were amazed that the black cloth, when unfolded, had become the opening to an extradimensional space; Cramer claimed he'd heard of such things, called portable holes.  The drow didn't bother validating his claims; what were the musings of a slave to one such as she?"Do you want us to pry loose them gemstones?" asked Utred once all of the other loot had been dropped into the portable hole.  Eri'dia's gaze had wandered back to the twin murals once the hidden loot from beneath the pyramid had been stashed away."...No.  Not right now," Eri'dia answered absently - in her distraction by the images on the mosaics, she had failed to note the dwarven slave had failed to address her by her honorific.  "There's no rush, after all - I think I'll have some of our House scholars and diviners study it before they get dismantled."  But then her brooding ended, replaced with a more positive expression.  "Besides, the coins we've unearthed will no doubt brighten Calish's outlook considerably!  Come - let's get back to him at once!"Sure enough, upon their return to Overreach and subsequent turning over of the loot they'd amassed, Calish's attitude changed from anger over his missing pleasure slaves to amazement at the riches before him.  The arena slaves were casually sent away while Eri'dia basked in her brother's change of attitude.Back in their chamber, the group discussed among themselves about the possibility of Eri'dia being a sunborn drow, a secret member of House Ky'hulcressen, or possibly even of Greenvale.  (Jhasspok liked the idea of her being a "secret double drow.")  But it wasn't anything they could ask her directly, in case she was firmly a House Jalamir supporter.  After all, she might very well be a sunborn drow captured by House Jalamir and set in place as one of their nobility for reasons of their own.  Cramer decided it would be best not to mention it to her at all (for how could they explain their own knowledge of Greenvale's biggest secret?), but to get word to House Ky'hulcressen and let them figure it out.  The gnome volunteered to do just that; at his size, he was best suited for sneaking about the city.The next day, while visiting the House Jalamir slave market (and noting the "Closed Until Further Notice" sign on the "Punch-a-Drow" shop), the arena slaves met up with a House Ky'hulcressen agent.  They asked him if there had been any kidnapped sunborn drow children 48 years ago or so.  The agent replied he didn't know of any such occurrence, but 48 years ago the House Jalamir Matron Mother led a surface raid herself.  Since the only requirement to be a sunborn drow was to give birth on the surface while exposed to the sun, it was entirely possible Eri'dia was an accidental sunborn drow.  The agent certainly had no information indicating Eri'dia was anything but completely loyal to her own House.Curious, Cramer made sure to be in a position to walk past Eri'dia the following day while going about one of his chores, giving him the opportunity to cast a detect evil spell upon her.  If, as he suspected was at least possible, she was a Greenvale ally, he'd expect she wouldn't read as evil.  However, the results were inconclusive: while she certainly detected as evil by his spell, she was nowhere near the level of evil of a standard, run-of-the-mill drow.  She was certainly the least evil of any member of House Jalamir the gnome's surreptitious spellcasting had yet detected.Interesting, the gnome cleric mused to himself.- - -We each got a "trinket" from this adventure, as follows:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cramer ended up with a lesser strand of prayer beads</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Jhasspok took the battleaxe used by Rurgath Stoneaxe - it's a +2 variable aim battleaxe, allowing the wielder to reallocate one or two points of its overall +2 bonus from damage to the attack roll (kind of a Power Attack in reverse)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Khari got the +1 earth glide warhammer, which allows him to pass through solid rock or earth like an earth elemental as long as he starts and ends each round outside of such barriers</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Marlo took an iridescent spindle ioun stone, allowing her to go without breathing if necessary</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Utred took a +2 amulet of health, granting him a 21 Constitution and a whopping 76 hit points as a 5th-level PC!  (He also got Jhasspok's hand-me-down +1 battleaxe.)</li> </ul>In addition, we're now close enough to 6th level that it's practically a shoo-in that we'll level up at the end of the next session.</blockquote>

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