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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark Chance" data-source="post: 2657607" data-attributes="member: 2795">While I have no unusual monsters today, there is an update. The party's situation has gone from well-off to troubled.After being hired by the wood elf prince of Oakvein, the party descended into a vast cavern system to eventually encounter a mob of derro. In the pitched battle against these evil creatures (plus their pet gibbering mouther), Maerek the Cleric was slain, and Vaulta the Barbarian and Ebon the Monk were seriously injured. So, the party retreated to recuperate.Fortunately, Kala the Cleric had a scroll of raise dead, and so was able to restore Maerek to life. Many potions were consumed to heal wounds. Many hours later, refreshed but lacking useful supplies, the party returned to the derro lair. Behind the derro caves, they discovered a long-abandoned, ruined temple to Incabulous, the dark lord of pestilence, destruction, famine, and nightmares.A search of temple turned up little, but it what it turned up was disturbing. First and foremost, there was the swirling disc of mists that was a portal to the Gray Wastes. The party decided to not pass through the planar gate. They did, however, rescue three individuals, including their halfling gofer Gilbert, all of whom were being held in cages.In a ramshackle library, the party also found diaries that once belonged to a mystic theurge named Kval. The diaries chronicled Kval's failed romance with a nameless woman who committed suicide rather than submit to Kval. This was not acceptable to the power-mad Kval, and so he divined the location of his love's spirit, built a portal to the Gray Waste, and set off into the underworld to force her to return to the land of the living in order to be his wife.Upon returning to the surface, the party discovered the Festival of Life had abruptly been cancelled. The prince of Oakvein and his family had been murdered. Several festival-goers had been slaughtered. The wood elves had locked down Oakvein, and refused the party's requests for an audience with whomever was in charge. The party then washed its collective hands of the wood elves.The first night camped in the woods near Oakvein led to a disturbing development. Vaulta, tossing in the throes of a nightmare, called out, and suddenly the entire party found itself in a wide, long corridor garishly decorated with paintings over plaster walls and ceilings. An investigation of the hall found several pit traps, an arch of swirling mists bearing the symbols of Incabulous, and a gigantic iron skull affixed to the farthest wall.Careful exploration found a secret door at the bottom of one of the pits. Following the crawlspace beyond this door, the party eventually found another secret door, this one in the ceiling. Passing through, they entered a room holding three chests: one of gold, another of silver, the third of oak.Inside the first chest was an explosive poison dart trap. Gurmi the Dwarf suffered minor injuries and resisted the poison easily. The second contained a hellwasp swarm which very nearly killed Kala and seriously injured Ebon before it was dispatched. The third chest summoned an ettin skeleton, but Maerek had the foresight to send the party out of the chamber and only opened the chest after warding himself with protection from evil.A narrow, winding hallway led from the three-chest room to another wide, long hallway decorated with demonic animals bearing colored discs in their mouths. This hall had no pit traps, but did have another archway, this one without mists. There were also illusory walls hiding corridors. The party took one of the corridors, which wound down and around to a stout door.Upon opening the door, there was a flash of light and the party found themselves back in the woods, several yards from their original campsite. A divination about these strange goings-on warned that the "touch of the Black Rider" was upon the party and that only "by his fane" could the party be free from his curse. Also, in addition to the injuries sustained by other party members, Vaulta bore a hand-like welt on her face and had become noticeably weaker.</blockquote>

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