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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xaltar" data-source="post: 2314" data-attributes="member: 480">-------------------------------------------Session 2, Part 3: A foul smelling apparition...-------------------------------------------Once out of the sand-filled deathtrap, the party regrouped and began to regain their composure. The all watched as Borghin's eyes brightened, as bad joke-tellers' eyes often do right before they dip into their plethora of bad one-liners. "Y'know... that wasn't an ant hill... that was an ant HELL. ...Hah!!" Deciding that they couldn’t take another joke like that, they quickly returned to following the stream. From this point the water split off into two directions, and the party followed to stronger of the currents to the southwest. About thirty feet downstream was a wide and shallow pool where the water stopped.Peering into the water, they noticed that it was unusually green and murky. Pooling their combined knowledge, Drexel determined that the water appeared poisonous, and Borghin’s dwarven understanding of rock formations indicated the bottom didn’t appear to be either man-made or properly eroded.Not wanting to mess with poisonous water, the part shifted its focus to searching the surrounding area. The walls were very unusually formed, with many crevices, and within each was a bottle of wine. The party mused at the clever use of a wine rack only to notice with shock as Roughner began drawing a picnic cloth from his pack, and from within his hearty sized stein hanging at his side, he drew forth a very delicately stashed wine glass.As the rest of the party stifled their laughter and the dwarf added a few snide comments, Holden grabbed for a bottle of wine and heard a hiss as he pulled it from the shelf. Evident that there was a large snake in the makeshift wine-shelf the party began peering into the holes from a distance. It could be seen that the snake partially coiled covered at least 5 feet of the shelf.Holden decided that he would move up to investigate the shelf closer. Minutes later, the head of the large viper sprung forth and sunk its venomous teeth into his outstretched arm. Reeling in pain he took a step back, while Borghin jumping to the rescue, drew his sword and chopped the snake’s head clean off.Now that the snake was taken care of, Holden was starting to notice how badly the poison was affecting him. He hobbled over to a nearby corner and took a seat. Meanwhile Spiderfang and Roughner raided the wine rack. Roughner, even with his daintiness, managed to break about as many bottles as he saved.Holden, feeling very weak, easily convinced the party to make camp here for the night. This wine shelter appeared to be safe and Spiderfang confirmed that there were many layers of untouched dust on the remaining bottles of wine.As the group took settled down for the night around their cozy campfire, Ziona and Drexel took first watch. After Ziona had finished praying to her goddess during the rising of the moon, Drexel decided it was time tell her about his secret. He began the discussion by talking about how Ziona’s goddess Eilistraee believed that all races could live in peace. With a little twisting he got onto the subject of his own history, as a tiefling who had escaped from Thay. The discussion ended with Drexel removing his enchanted hat of disguise and revealing his true form to her. Having always been different from those around her, Ziona was very accepting and felt good knowing that Drexel had chosen to confided in her.Very shortly after their conversation, as if waiting for them to finish, a wavering ghostlike voice resounded through the cavern asking, “Whooo Goooes There?”Ziona quickly worked to wake the others while Drexel gave Spiderfang a light kick. Not hearing a response, the voice angered, “What do the living seek in the sepulcher of Galath the betrayed? Betrayed by small-minded men, glory seekers and snivelers!”Drexel replied, “We are humble adventurers avenging the wrongful deaths of the keep guardians.”“Is that so,” the voice questioned. “If you are truly heroes then know this, leave my resting place, and I will leave you unharmed. Furthermore, there is a winged-beast dwelling above that taunts my existence. If you bring me it’s head, I will reward you with one-tenth of my legendary treasure.”The party began waking up and gathering their belongings. They were not incredibly anxious to start trouble with an ethereal entity, and Borghin was extremely apprehensive about encountering a ghost.Yet Drexel was still a bit suspicious of the so-called ghost and listened intently to focus on the source of the voice and determined that it was coming from the pool of murky water. Amidst the commotion of the others picking up camp, he was able to call upon arcane magic to detect the presence of magic auras. While focusing in the direction of the voice, he noticed three such auras at the bottom of the pool.“It’s a hoax,” he shouted.Dropping everything but their weapons, the group began to ready themselves against the invisible threat. Drexel was the first to react, using his magic to pull one of the items from the pool. Spiderfang witnessed a wand fly from the water past his head and into Drexel’s grip.Holden, still weak from his poisoning, managed to move away from the camp and hide within the shadows just before the center of the camp filled with a noxious vapor. The stench was horrible, driving everyone out of the area. Drexel, Roughner, and Ziona made it out unaffected, with Borghin the pushing as fast as his short legs would take him, gagging and spitting up the whole way to safety.Spiderfang, also deeply affected by the choking cloud, decided that the fastest way out of the affected area was by wading through the pool of green water. In the meantime, Holden had noticed something swim up stream and past him, something resembling displaced water.Minutes later as the fumes dispersed, Spiderfang was found still gagging on the far side to the murky pool. When he regained his composure, he stated that the pool wasn’t poisonous, but that the air sure was.When Holden told the party that he thought he saw whatever it was swim away, Spiderfang had no qualms about going back into the water and seeing what was really down there. The party worked into the night dredging thousand of corroded coins from the pool. They also found the corpse of a long decade dwarf with a longsword and a scroll case containing arcane inscribed scrolls. Feeling even after looting the ghost of Galath’s hidden treasure, the group decided that it was best if they spent the remainder of the night above ground.As the group returned to the sinkhole, they noticed that the rope was still hanging. Everyone glanced around and realized that they had left Hunter VonLeer on his own. Borghin made a statement that unnerved the rest of the party, “What if there is just an arm left up there still holding onto the rope.”Cautiously Ziona stepped forward and tugged on the rope, thankfully finding it was still attached to something larger then a severed hand. Hunter jolted awake as the party called out to him. He had actually fallen asleep while standing and wasn’t exactly sure how much time had past. The party guiltily took advantage of the situation, and began to setup camp on the surface.Although reasonably dressed for the season the party still found the night chilly, but Spiderfang had made several trips into the brisk water and was now starting to develop a nasty cough.-------------------------------------------Still more to come...-------------------------------------------</blockquote>

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