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Tuesday Night Runelords

So here is this week's report from Ranier:

We started with breakfast at the Red Rusty Dragon.  It was exploring day for the newly opened tunnel below the glassworks.  I stopped in at the temple to talk to Vasque.  He didn't seem to know much of anything about ruins that could be below the glassworks.  He pointed us at the man that lived left of the lighthouse.

Strange thing happened... I noticed a glint off of this pillar in the temple as we were leaving.  It turned out to be an ancient Thassilonian pillar.  The point the glinted had a small stone spot sticking out slightly, perhaps.  I pushed on it, and a little golden fly ball appeared.  It floated about and then touched the paladin and oracle both on the foreheads and they disappeared.  After a moment even the gunslinger disappeared.  I tried talking to Vasque about it, but he seemed skeptical at best, and perhaps though me crazy.  While leaving the temple, Jericho reappeared.

All through the day, Dante and Pajar seemed to remain gone unless we mentioned their names.  Then they would pop in for a moment and then back out again.  It was very odd.

We went to the man's house near the lighthouse.  He didn't know that much more about the lighthouse than anyone really, but he had a few documents and seemed to think it was a great war weapon.  In any case, he didn't really help us at all with the tunnels below.

So in we went through the glassworks.  Axle spotted an interesting collection of colored vials.  Trying not to let on too much, I suspect they allow magical elemental attacks to be changed in elemental type.  My suspicion is that it will work with a fire spell, but I didn't mess with it while the others were around.

Guards were everywhere in the glassworks, even dead outside the tunnel.  Very unfortunate.  They had large holes through their centers as if from some of large bladed weapon... perhaps a bastard sword.

Into the tunnel, heading north, we went and spotted off in a side tunnel to the right a sin spawn, as Axle called it.    Axel took to hiding and Jericho was fiddling with his stick, so I charged in with my scimitar.  Luckily Axle tossed in a torch so we could target the ugly beast.  He had some sort of long pole-style weapon -- a ranseur -- as well as claws and a nasty bite.  With Axle and Jericho's help, we were able to drop it.

The creature on it had a vial of silver stuff, that I recognized as silver sheen, in addition to an unknown potion, some jewels, gold, and the large weapon.  We split the goods, with me taking the silver sheen and potion and a bit of the gold.  Maybe I can get the potion identified in the town, or at least, find a place to sell it.

We moved on down the tunnel to a room with a large red marble statue holding a heavily decorated ranseur, presumably of Lemashtu, the mother of monsters.  The thief wanted to take it, so Jericho and I waited some distance away while he snatched it up.  Luckily, there were no immediately bad consequences.  Axle thought we might be able to get 400gp pieces for it, that we could split later.

We snuck back to check a lone corridor to the right we had skipped.  It lead to a storage room that connected back to the statue room.

At the end of the corridor, there was a door, and suddenly we were in the midst of two more sin spawn, speaking some language that one of the others identified as Akklo, a dark sylvan language.  The room itself was filled with cells, and the area we entered was a raised wooden floor.  Axle and Jericho moved into position as the sin spawn spotted us.  I pulled out my longbow to try to provide support.  Suddenly I found myself alone as Jericho ran one way and Axle ran the other.  Sin spawn came at me and I had to switch to my scimitar.  Axle snuck in behind one of them to attack, while Jericho was able to pick off the one biting at me.  I was hurt pretty badly, and Jericho tended to me before we finished off the second sin spawn.

We found 2 ranseurs which they had used against us, some jewelry, and gold that was stamped with Lemashtu's image.  I grabbed up a scroll and potion.  The potion could make someone invisible.  The scroll I was unfamiliar with.  We split the gold.

We were contemplating returning to the town above, since I was badly hurt and we had no healer.  Luckily, about then, Pajar appeared from the ether and healed us before blinking out again.  Odd, but very lucky.

If only we could master this blinking during battle... to be there when it was time to attack and disappear when the enemy attacks.

We went off the the right until we found a room full of torture implements.  Behind it was a set of doors holding skeletal remains behind them... monstrous skeletons with extra or wrong parts.

We moved on, eventually coming to a room full of 5' square pits, perhaps 20 feet deep, covered with old wooden covers.  Looking in to investigate the sounds, we found that each one contained a single zombie.  Suddenly a 3 armed goblin appeared, which I later surmised to be seven tooth tribe hero know as Korvus, confirmed by the magic sword he carried with him and the markings on his head (seven tooth tribe).  I charged at him, jumping successfully over/off the wooden covers as they collapsed below my feet.  The thief attempted to move into flanking position as I heard Betsy click with no explosion.  I attacked with my scimitar, Jericho shot the corner off the goblin's shoulder, and the thief got in behind him to stab at him with a dagger.  Eventually we finished him off, split his treasure between us: Axle got a magical weapon (dagger?), Jericho got a silver weapon as a bayonet, and I got a very well made (masterwork) handaxe.  It could be handy, or I could sell it perhaps to pay off my anytool.

Continuing through the door to the right, now heading south, we found a very odd study of some sort.  There was a dead bird (raven?), a wand, a book, some wine, and a scroll attached to the bottom to one of the chairs.  The walls were magic and flashed terrible abyssal words, and runes I did not know. The book was a prayer book for Lamastu (not surprising).  The wand I took and kept, but could not identify.  I tried not to let on that I knew the scroll was a burning hands scroll.  Tonight I will copy it to my spellbook when I am alone.  The wine was elderberry, and Axle took it.  The prayer book I stuck in my pack.  It might be useful, or perhaps valuable.

There were a set of stairs that went lower, but were collapsed in.  Perhaps we should come back and clear them some day.  My bet is that even older artifacts lie below, perhaps Thassilonian.

We backtracked through the dungeon to another corridor near the storeroom from the statue room.  There we found a simple water altar.  None of us dared to touch it.

In the room we found a quasit on platform at the top of two stairs overlooking some skull-decorated pool.  The quasit cut herself and its blood hit the pool on the platform near it and a sin spawn appeared.

Axle and I moved with one mind, him hiding on the shadows beneath the stairs on the left, and I hiding on the right.  The sin spawn went for Jericho, who stayed near the door.  I switched from scimitar to bow to attack the flying creature and then back to scimitar.  It was attacking with a returning dagger.  For some reason it summoned a frog, which I ignored.  All three of us hammered away on the creatures near us, Jericho on the sin spawn, Axle and I on the quasit, until the room was clear of the monsters.

There is one corridor yet to explore.  My hope is that this mysterious flying golden ball will release our comrades before we venture farther,  My expired magic and damage frame isn't going to take much more of this place.


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