Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tor Bladebearer" data-source="post: 571078" data-attributes="member: 4939">(Run 4 begins) March 24, 295 YF Camped in the mouth of the crawlway, the party debates whether to press onwards, or risk going back across the larger cavern of bats and risk another attack to camp in the more defensible areas near the ratmen. Given that they are out of spells and fairly wounded, they conclude that an immediate fight against the giant bat would be suicidal. Moving back out into the main cavern, they hear the sounds of agitated bats, but are unmolested as they return to the long-neglected corridors. Return through the area where they first encountered the ratman, they hear signs of activity up ahead, and then the sound of clawed feet scuttling away. The party also discovers, unsurprisingly, that the captive ratman they had left tied up before has since been freed. The party opts to make camp in the abandoned room they first arrived in, and assembles makeshift barricades out of the debris piled there. What tiny amount of healing they have left is used, and Tala uses her magics to summon a large gourd full of fresh water. Once their defenses are set, they choose watches and try to get some rest. During the middle of the “night”, a lone ratman approaches the barricade, clutching a parchment and advancing cautiously. All of the non-spellcasters are roused, and Milo goes out to encounter the ratman. The creature proffers the scroll, and as soon as the message has been delivered, he flees back into the shadows.   Scrawled in very messy script, almost illegibly: YU COM TALK TO KING OF ALL IN PLACE. WE NO KILL YU IF NICE. YU KILL BAD FLAPS AND MEBBE ME HELP YU NOT DIE TO BONY MEN IF LEAVE. -KING Although they suspect a trap, the party (at least the awake members of it) leaves a note out in the corridor, held down with a small pile of rocks, accepting the “king’s” offer. The rest of the night passes uneventfully, although the party’s sense of time is sufficiently off kilter that it is actually a good while after the party is all fully rested before Tala and Jakob sense that they can perform their morning rituals of restoration. March 25, 295 YF When morning comes, Fargo is a bit miffed that half the party decided to accept the offer without talking to the other half. Another round of healing spells is cast, leaving the party without much healing magic again, but at least in better shape. Tala also takes the time to cast a pair of Mend spells on Torix’s boat, to begin to repair it. Leaving the safety of their barricaded room, the party discovers that where they had left their note the night before is now one of those strange, melted and twisting small tunnels. There is no sign of the note or the small pile of rocks. The party conjectures as to what might be making those tunnels, but doesn’t reach any conclusions. Reaching the room where they had been ambushed by the ratmen before, they are confronted with 4 of the armed ratmen, standing guard over one of the corridors. Fargo tries to communicate with them, waving the scrawled note, and the guards back away to let the party pass. The room beyond is heaped up with giant piles of garbage and debris. It completely lines the room, piled up to shoulder level all around the edges. It appears to be a room similar to the one they arrived in, with the same distinctive shape and stonework. At the far end of the room, there is an especially large mound of junk, with a “throne” of sorts fashioned at the top. Sitting in the throne is a very large ratman, who surveys the party with beady eyes and then asks them whether they accept his deal. The ratman king tells the party to go into the cavern with the “flap flaps” and kill the “big flap flap” and return with one of its wings as proof. After some interrogation by the party, he reveals that the other person like them came through before them, went to the cavern and got killed by the “flap flaps”, but got them all angry and now they are attacking his people. After some discussion among themselves, the party verbally agrees to the king’s terms, though amongst themselves they still haven’t decided whether they really intend to follow through or not. Without the ratmen attacking them, the party continues to explore further in the corridors first, to see if they can find the way up for themselves. Indeed, shortly they find a staircase leading upwards, into a room piled with all sorts of bones. At the edges of the room are very ancient looking armored skeletons, lying at rest with arms folded. Each has a sword atop them, in funeral style. At the entrance to the room, on either side of the corridor, is a stone plate with a 5-pointed star carved upon it. The party decides that these are probably the “bony men” the king was referring too, and they decide they aren’t up to facing whatever dangers may lurk there without whatever boon the king has promised. Instead, now that they are fully rested, they intend to go and take out the giant bat, and at least see where the corridor beyond that leads. Travel back through the corridors and into the large bat cave is safe, but when the party attempts to re-cross the bridge again, they are beset once more by a flurry of bats. This time all of the party is caught on the middle of the narrow and slick bridge, and both Torix and Milo nearly plunge into the water of the river below. On the whole the party is better organized to fight off the bats this time, and they do so with fairly minimal damage. Milo’s first attempt to use thrown rocks as a weapon winds up with him landing a shot squarely on the back of Torix’s head. Well, at least it didn’t do much damage… With the first wave of bats defeated, the party takes a few moments to heal and regroup. Torix complains about being healed by Tala, since it involves those ill-tasting roots. She makes sure to slip him an extra-foul “special” root (and indeed, it only does a few points of healing). Prepared for battle, the party goes through the crawlway and back into the smaller cavern with the very large bat. There is still light coming through the entrance high above, though it is no longer a direct beam of sunlight. Once the first few party members are through, Ug lets out a mighty shout and charges across the cavern! As the party crosses the cavern towards the far tunnel, and the giant bat, the bats spring into action. A large cloud of bats descends on the party from above, surrounding the party and making life very difficult for the spellcasters. Several party members are whittled down severely by the cloud of bats, and since the bats are all mixed throughout the party’s lines, it becomes nearly impossible for anyone to move without incurring many attacks of opportunity. Fargo neutralizes several of them with a good Color Spray, but his next two spells are lost due to broken concentration. The large bat with the 40’ wingspan (dubbed “Mister Flappy Flap” by the party) is slow to rouse, but then dives into the combat with a vengeance. Ug manages to get in a solid blow, but is himself taken out in one bite from the giant creature. Ug: Yes, Flappy Flap, Ug has come for you!! The large bat dishes out some serious damage, but the party lays into it with everything they’ve got. Mighty blows from Tardok and a volley of Magic Missiles from Anathor eventually take it down. Once the large bat is defeated, the other bats begin to freak out, and then shoot upwards, out through the hole in the roof of the cavern. A few moments later a similar rush of bats comes spewing out of the crawlway entrance, filling the room with a seething torrent of bats! Most of the party is able to get to the edges of the room, but Tardok is caught in the middle and is slashed by the frenzy of fleeing creatures. With the bats all gone, the cavern is eerily quiet, their constant agitated chittering gone. The party stands battered, with Ug down, Fargo clinging barely to consciousness, and everyone else badly injured. They decide to explore the immediate environs further and then camp here before exploring further or going back to the ratmen and possibly having to fight them as well. Tala discovers that the small passageway the large bat was guarding was previously a nest of some kind. Scorched and dead baby bats (and very large baby bats) are everywhere, along with the charred remains of nesting material. The walls are marked with soot and ash. The party concludes that Lazarus must have come this way and destroyed the bat nest in the process, thus causing the bats to become so aggressive. There is a further tunnel out of the nesting area, but the party decides not to pursue it until after resting. In the main cave proper, the party hacks off the two wings of the giant bat, and briefly discusses other potential uses for them, like creating a makeshift sail for Torix’s rowboat (an idea he meets with much skepticism). Milo spots a human skeleton in the center of the cavern, covered under many layers of bat droppings. Scraping away some of it, he finds a pendant still intact on the skeleton, with an image of an animal paw cut by a jagged slash. Although it has been but a few hours of time since they set out from their last encampment, the party prepares to rest and recover again. While camping in the cave is far from pleasant, the time passes uneventfully, and the party has soon recovered all their spells and healed the worst of their injuries. Two giant bat wings in tow, they set out to continue to explore. March 26, 295 YF Following the tunnel out past the nursery, it winds upwards for quite some distance before putting the party out in another large cavern. Shortly after entering, the party encounters a large stone monolith, perhaps 9 feet tall. On the “front” face, in the upper left hand corner, there is an embedded Rakalith crystal, illuminated from behind with a deep red light. The monolith is faintly humming. The party debates whether or not to try and remove the stone or otherwise mess with it. Fargo is adamantly against the idea, while Anathor wants to give it a try. Fargo: “You shouldn’t go messing with things that are thrumming with magical power!”Anathor: (unimpressed) “Hey, I’m thrumming with magical power!” The party explores around the edges of the cavern to map it out, and finds a few other passages leading out of the cavern, as well as a small corner of the cavern cut off by what appears to be the same river that flows into the cavern below. They also note more of the strange small melted tunnels, including one natural tunnel which is practically riddled with them. As they explore the cavern, they also find more, many more, of the strange stone monoliths. Each is identical to the first, with a red-glowing Rakalith crystal embedded on one face. They roughly estimate that there must be at least 50 of the monoliths in the very large cavern. Exploring one of the tunnels that leads off into the cavern, the party gets back into constructed corridors similar to the ones the ratmen inhabited. They find what appears to be the far side of the bone chamber they encountered earlier, as well an abandoned dining hall and kitchen. One area is caved-in, and blocks their further progress. The party decides to skip the tunnel that is criss-crossed with the small tunnels (or the “tunnel of doom” as they refer to it) and instead follows a large natural stairway further upwards and out of the cavern. At the top of the stairs, it connects into another series of corridors. Exploring the corridors, the party finds that this level has been heavily looted just like the levels below, but does appear to be in somewhat better shape. They explore several abandoned rooms, most of which have nothing of value. In the ruins of an abandoned office or study, they find another scroll, this one written in Ophidian, similar to the first scroll that Milo took off of one of the dead Ophidians trapped in stasis. One room is locked, and Milo detects and disables a trap on it. The party hears a splash on the other side, and strange sizzling noise. Busting down the door, they see that some sort of nasty acid was sprayed onto the doorway. The room itself is filled with cabinets and some sort of complex apparatus, which Anathor recognizes as an alchemical lab. Unfortunately, all the supplies for it have already been removed, with only the large immobile pieces of equipment remaining. In one cabinet, the party does find a box with five small vials of a greenish fluid, as well as a small bag of powder. Fargo casts Detect Magic and discovers that the vials are magical, with a weak Conjuration field upon them. The scroll, powder, and pendant are determined to all be non-magical. As the party continues to explore, they see ahead the familiar and comfortable glow of natural light! Stepping out into an open circular room, dominated by a large statue in the center, they can see light spilling out into the corridor on the far side of the room. Unfortunately, the room itself appears to offer a barrier to their progress, for radiating outwards from the status in the center are 8 lines of magical glyphs, not unlike the ones the party encountered in their last battle with Lazarus. The large statue in the middle of the room is of an Ophidian in robes, with a closed book held in one arm. The other arm lies broken on the floor. There is a small plaque with Ophidian writing at the base of the status. The lines of glyphs converge on the statue, and above each line a faint shimmering can be seen in the air. They all seem to converge on the statue, four lines that go all the way across the room. At both the entrance to the room, and at the corridor on the far side, are a pair of stone pedestals, one one either side of the corridor (for a total of four). The pedestals each have a closed book on them, also carved of stone but of incredible detail. Milo cautiously approaches the statue to examine it more closely, and is very careful not to cross any of the lines of glyphs. Anathor tries to open one of the books, and while he succeeds, a searing brilliant light shoots out of it, burning into his mind and blinding him! Fortunately he recovers from the blindness after a few minutes. Unsure how to cross the room, the party goes back to finish exploring where they can. They return to a series of four doors, each marked with an Ophidian symbol, that they had passed over before. Moving more cautiously after seeing the trap on the alchemical lab, Milo carefully searches each door for traps and listens as it. All four rooms appear to be long-abandoned barracks or dormitories of some kind, thoroughly looted. However, the party does manage to find a small wooden carved book hidden amongst the debris. There is some discussion about whether the book might be the key to the getting through the statue room, although it does not match the size of the books on the pedestals there (nor does it appear to open as they do). The light from beyond tantalizes them with how close to freedom they may be… (Run 4 ends)</blockquote>

Verification