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="Rel" data-source="post: 4780826" data-attributes="member: 99">The group camped on the top of the butte and it was a restless night with the distant cackling of hyenas, Gnolls or both echoing across the Badlands.  In the morning after a cold breakfast they made their way the short distance to the entrance to the Fortress.  It was down in a pit-like shallow chasm with clear views of archery galleries along the sides.  It was obvious on the sandy floor of the chasm that there were recent tracks.Inside stairs descended to an intersection passages going left, right and straight ahead.  They could see some dwarven runes carved onto stylized hammers on the walls down the side passages and they took the time to cast a Comprehend Languages ritual.  While Zanne and Mialain focused on this, Eshik noticed that there was not a speck of dust on the floor other than what they had tracked in.  Curious but perhaps a sign of habitation.  If so there was nobody guarding the door.  The runes turned out to be the names of dwarven heroes.  They further saw that the passage on the right ended full of cobwebs and guessed that that must not have been the direction that the group ahead of them went.  They went left instead and were several paces up that hallway before they heard a noise and the hammers carved into the walls began to spin.  The trap both battered and pushed those caught within it and most of the group escaped with some bruises.  Eshik was stuck in the middle of the trap but managed to use his bedroll to jam the mechanism of the hammer closest to him, allowing him to wait for the trap to wind down before charging ahead down the corridor to see what wait in the room beyond.Instead of ending up in the room he ended up smacking into the translucent side of something Gelatinous. The rest of the group rushed up behind him, hoping to get into the room before the trap reset itself.  Zanne teleported behind the Cube into the room and began unleashing her magic on it while Eshik escaped its acidic grasp and Astavian and Mialain got enveloped.  The Cube continued to grab new victims as the old ones escaped but they eventually hacked and burned it to the point that it lost cohesion and dissolved into a puddle of goo.  Inside they found an enchanted dwarven hammer that they tucked away.  The room turned out to be an access to one of the archery galleries that overlooked the entrance chasm and did not lead deeper into the fortress as they'd hoped.Returning to the intersection, intending on taking the center passage, they found themselves under ambush by a group of arachnid humanoids.  Several party members found themselves bound to the spot and then came under attack by axes and thrown javelins.  The Ettercaps began a fighting retreat in two directions, down both the right and center passages, that pulled the party into two groups.  But in the end the party overwhelmed them and it was the Ettercaps who suffered more from not being in a single group.The party decided not to pursue the Ettercaps into their presumed lair down the passage full of cobwebs on the right and instead went straight and found themselves in a large room that was clearly a sort of entry hall.  Two imposing looking stone doors blocked their way with no apparent method of opening them.  The room was otherwise empty except for a 15 foot high statue of a dwarf holding a hammer and shield.  However they did discover a circle  drawn on the floor in front of one of the doors.  Zanne was able to determine that the ritual circle had been used to do some kind of Teleportation magic.  This pretty well confirmed to them that some member of the Arcanon Confederacy had gotten inside ahead of them.  Very possibly the Guildmaster who had questioned them on their journey.Seeing no other way inside for the moment they backtracked and decided to try the right passage in the hopes that there was another entrance through the Ettercap lair.  Zanne burned away the spider webs that blocked the passage as they went and they suddenly found themselves looking into a large room, similar to where they had fought the Gelatinous Cube.  In it were a pair of Ettercaps standing beneath a HUGE spider with legs at least ten feet long with her bloated abdomen supported by webs affixed to the ceiling.The Ettercaps hissed and charged forward to defend their queen...</blockquote>

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