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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 3099510" data-attributes="member: 5675">The next morning, cold and slightly hung over, we returned to the Whispering Cairn. It looked gloomier and far less inviting than it had the previous night, and there was a bit of an argument over whether we should go back in. Treasure won out, and we decided to go through the hole under the green lantern and see where the bugs had come from. There was indeed another network of caves and rooms below. In one room lay a corpse atop a stone bier in a room whose central feature was a statue which gave out waves of a strange, sapping energy. Morgan muttered something about gaining ‘spirit sight’, and it then surprised none of us when he announced that the statue was magical.Having fought off a giant bug, Dave insisted on stripping the dessicated corpse of its red leather armour. The armour itself was salvageable, and was marked with the crest of the ‘Seekers’, a group of tomb robbers who operated out of Greyhawk about 50 years ago. The next room contained a gunge-covered fountain. And bugs. Lots and lots of creeping, crawling, acid-secreting bugs. Thousands of the little swines rushed us, whilst a single massive bug lumbered towards us vomiting forth fire. We pulled back, laying down a hail of stones, arrows and fiery oil-flasks before it was safe to approach and let Torvig finish off the swarm. The last room at the end of the corridor was down a set of steps. And was totally immersed in water. This caused us a considerable problem, which Dave circumnavigated by tying a rope around his waist and diving into the pitch-black water. Whilst most of us stood there aghast at his impulsiveness, Morgan was quick to follow him. He dropped his pack and dived into the water at the foot of the steps. Whilst we spooled out the rope to allow Dave safe transit through the water, we were treated to the sight of a splashing, spluttering Morgan trying to make any headway at all through the water. It quickly became apparent that he simply didn’t know how to swim – by the time Dave had gone 30 feet, Morgan was still figuring out basic doggy-paddle.Then the rope jerked once, twice, and went still. We hauled in fast, 3 of us running back up the corridor towing the rope and dragging a soaked and heavily bloodstained Dave out of the water. Initial fears that his skull had been crushed were false, as Torvig cast his almost his entire day’s allotment of spells on the elf, restoring him to an almost fully-healthy state. Once healed, Dave made every sign of jumping back in immediately, a plan which Torvig and I thought was foolhardy to say the least, but we clearly lost the argument when he dived back into the water, swam 25 feet before pulling frantically on the rope to get back out again. We towed him out (still conscious this time), and then had a brief argument as to how foolish it would be to go back into the water a third time.“But we can beat it,” stated Dave confidently. “It’s not a very big thing.”“Not a very big WHAT?” Torvig and I demanded in duet. “What does it look like, apart from being able to stave your skull in?”“I don’t know – I couldn’t really see anything in there. It just looked like the water was trying to hit me.”“An elemental?” Morgan spoke briefly. “Fascinating. I’ve never seen one in its natural state. Mind you, mother and I tend to study rather more… mortal concerns.”“Wait – a water elemental, which can breath underwater and swim properly? Forget it.” – I was liking this plan less and less.“Yeah, but there’s bound to be something pretty tasty down there.” Dave must have seen something during his conscious periods. “Maybe if we just held our breath and all went in…”“Not safe. I’m wearing full armour, and so’s Doug. Neither of us can swim, and who’d pull us back out if something went wrong?”“Who’s talking about swimming? I reckon if we all just go in and walk along the bottom…”It took a while to experiment, but the plan seemed to work, somehow. Carrying heavy armour or with pockets filled with stones, the others went back into the water and slugged their way along the bottom of the water-filled room. I stayed at the top to light a fire and hold the four ropes which they were trailing. I gave them a brief encouraging speech, and then they slipped into the water, taking the ever-lasting torch with them. From my end, the ropes payed out for a little while, then there was some twitching, then the four returned unscathed.Dozens of other trips were necessary to properly scout out the water-filled room, apparently Torvig dispatching some form of undead with only the assistance of his God’s might and Doug’s sword-arm whilst they were down there. On the last trip, Dave resurfaced clutching his prize – the red lantern..oOo.We returned to the room above, and lit the red lantern. Once in place, there was a whooshing noise from above the indigo lantern, where the wind-blowing head had nearly killed several of us the previous day. Emboldened by our successes, we climbed back up, and looked around, to see that the face at the end of the corridor had disappeared. The corridor now led into a strange room.The room itself was part-filled with a massive number of iron balls, each about the size of an apple. Above them was a 3 foot wide walkway, from where we stood to a door on the other side. The walls on either side were covered in a strange honeycomb pattern. Dave was the first to leap into action and dash across the walkway for the temptation of the door opposite.He was no more than halfway across when a rumbling noise came from the wall to our right, and a hail of metal globes hurtled out of the hexagonal shapes, hurtling past him and slamming into the opposite wall before falling to join their fellows beneath us. Dave stopped moving and looked around, muttering something about ‘trigger plates’ and ‘ratchet-switches’, before fishing out a small set of tools and using them to… well, to set the trap off a second time. This time, the hail of metal balls slammed straight into him, breaking several ribs and re-opening the head wound from the water room. The last of Torvig’s spells were poured into him to set him properly back onto his feet, before he and Doug (shielding both of them with the large steel shield he carries) returned to the walkway. His misadventures from earlier had clearly taught him something, as he was able to disarm the trap swiftly and efficiently. His triumphant announcement was drowned out by a giggling noise, before a spectral voice announced to the room,“I thought you’d be goners there.”“Who’s there?” Dave’s hand shot to his weapons as he looked around him trying to spot the source of the voice. To all of our horror, a ghostly and translucent young boy materialised, hanging in the air. His head lolled to one side, neck clearly snapped – he looked like he was hanging from an invisible rope. Morgan and I recognised the boy from his description at the same time – Alasta Land, lost some 60 years ago whilst entering the Whispering Cairn on a dare like so many other children before us. Bravely, Morgan spoke to the spirit,“Alasta?”“You… You know my name?”“Of course. You went missing years ago. What happened?”“It’s my punishment. The trap kills people. Adventurers mostly. I fell here.”“Lad,” Torvig spoke up. “Would you wish us to give your remains a proper burial?”Alasta gazed at us in longing at this suggestion. “Yes! Please bury my remains. You see this door? I can go through it.” He demonstrated, passing his whole arm through the solid door surface in a way which made my spine crawl. “I’ll open the door if you bury my bones with my family.”As Alasta directed us to the place under the metal globes where his body lay, he had one more helpful word for us. “There’s a creature there. Longer than you are tall. It’s greeny yellow, and has tentacles for a face. Oh, and it kills adventurers and drags the bodies to its lair to eat them.”Doug and Dave, who’d jumped down and started digging, suddenly went pale. Their colour didn’t improve when the huge green slug-like body of a grick pushed its way clear of the metal globes and attacked. And none of us were smiling when our blows simply bounced off it, it lashed Doug brutally with its tentacles, nearly bringing him to his knees, and finally Morgan chanted and pointed at the monster, sending a torrent of smoky spirits hurtling at the monster. Once clustered around it, they latched onto cuts and abrasions and tried to worsen its wounds by pulling them open.His second spell was just as disconcerting, the same dark eldritch ray which seemed to pull something out of the monster-slug; still, practically all our blows seemed to simply bounce off the thing, leaving only the tiniest few scratches in its thick slimy skin. Starting a chant of encouragement, I leapt down to join the others, standing behind Doug and infusing him with a spell of health, mimicking actions I had seen Torvig doing when healing the others. I then drew my sword reluctantly and stepped forward.Spear, sword and rapiers flew, and finally… finally, only when Morgan unlimbered and fired his crossbow, the slimy beast fell. The tiny bones were recovered (along with a few handfuls of gold we found whilst digging), and we clambered back onto the walkway. Carrying the body, we left the complex and headed for Town, bickering amongst ourselves as to whether Morgan was a necromancer, or merely (as he maintained) an extremely spooky and sinister mage. .oOo.After actually managing to lift a few ales with our tired arms, we rested for the night, and headed to Alasta’s family farm, where he had told us the bodies were buried. To our absolute horror, we found the gravestones, only to see that they had been dug up recently. All 4 of the bodies were missing. Wheelbarrow marks could be seen petering out in the packed dirt, whilst footprints led both to and from the dilapidated farmhouse. We moved over there, noticing that the entrance was littered with fleshy chunks, and heard the growling of a large beast inside. Careful glances through the broken windows showed a massive sleeping bear-owl, scarred from a recent battle. Thinking that the body of its latest kill might have some form of clue on it, we made preparations to combat it, taking positions to fire every weapon we had available at the beast when it awoke. Dave crept into place, raised his sword aloft, and simply killed it in a single blow, stabbing through the eye and into the brain of the creature. We all breathed a heavy sigh of relief. We then turned to the grizzly duty of searching through the farmhouse for a clue. It came in the unpleasant form of a piece of arm-flesh with a tattoo on it; a gang tattoo of some of Smenck’s most loyal mine-workers.We buried Alasta’s small body in his mother’s empty grave. Torvig carried out the service, I gave a short eulogy, and Dave performed what he called the “elven death prance”. We then returned to town carrying the massive owl-bear’s body – Morgan insisted on this “as a gift for my mum”. Carrying the huge body through the town, I couldn’t resist telling the tale of our ‘heroic fight’ with the monster to the people we passed. I’m confident that they were impressed..oOo.We had decided that we should re-unite the family before returning to Alasta – more through some feeling that he might know if we hadn’t buried him as he wished, than any real sense of obligation. We therefore headed into the Feral Dog bar, where the others immediately started a noisy game of knife throwing whilst I headed to the bar; I had noticed a clutch of Smenck’s cronies. A few drinks and a willing ear was all it needed for them to open up. They were clearly uncomfortable with their recent orders, including grave-robbing and making deliveries to a necromancer on the edge of their own home town. This ‘Filge’ already had at least two skeletons with him up at the town Observatory.I managed to get these thuggish men well and truly on board, and I left the bar seriously concerned about Smenck’s plan to possibly create undead miners, and his encouragement of the evil arts in our town.These summaries cover the first three sessions of our campaign, seeing us discover our first quest and subquest, and reaching level two. Our to do list consists of:- Go through the door Alasta’s sitting in front of waiting for us.- Defeat the necromancer and recover Alasta’s family- Go back through the yellow ‘lift’ and see what there is there – if there’s time before the professional adventurers catch up with us.</blockquote>

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