Loaded for Bear

The party takes a few moments to savor their victory, and then sets about the enjoyable task of collecting loot. It is discovered that the bulk of the hoard - coinage, gems, and finely wrought objects and weapons – can fit into Morgan’s Handy Haversack or Modisto’s Bag of Holding. Naturally, a Detect Magic is used, and several choice items are plucked out of the pile of treasure for special attention.

A few of these items include a wooden ring, a metal ring, a blackened long sword in a ruby-encrusted sheath, a barbed spear, a silver-edged short sword, and of course the plain-looking censer that is the party’s primary goal. Combined with the loot previously collected in the area, the total represents shares that even Morgan may have a hard time spending.

Considering the poor shape the party is in, it is decided that experimenting with any of the magical items is best left for a safer venue. Instead, the party sets about butchering their latest foe. Salla has a notion that some type of armor can be created using the beast’s scaly hide, and Snake declares that “there is no way this is getting left behind”, as he tries to force the dragon’s enormous head into a large sack. While hide and claws are stuffed into other sacks, Modisto discovers that raw dragon flesh is a tasty once-in-a-lifetime treat not to be missed. Morgan and Snake also try some, but are not nearly as impressed with its zesty, spicy, oh-so-delicious flavor.

With the bulky, heavy, and somewhat moist and nasty dragon-parts secured, considerable caution is used on the way out of the caves - but not so much that any loot is left behind. In the party’s earlier haste to prevent spells from expiring, several potentially valuable objects were passed by. Therefore, on the way to the surface the dragon-statue’s large, matching ruby eyes are collected, along with a dozen or so large crystals from a dead-end cavern that was only casually searched on the way in.

Not surprisingly, the group of mold-covered lizard-zombies are encountered in the same area where Salla last turned them. He once again calls upon the power of Kord to banish his foes, and three of the four shuffle off into the darkness. Burdens are dropped, missile weapons readied, and the fourth is treated to a large helping of bolts, arrows, and magic missiles, each impact sending up clouds of yellow spores. Its broken form still manages to shamble forward a few steps before Salla calls instead upon the power of a thrown hammer to “banish” the creature in a more permanent manner than its brethren.

The heavily-burdened group moves on, finally emerging into the remaining daylight. Pausing only to attempt a bit of vulture-molestation – which is for some unknown reason thwarted by the capricious gods – they make their weary (and wary) way back to Whitefang. There they find their invisible mule still alive and grazing contentedly, and even more amazingly, a peaceful night’s rest is achieved.

The morning dawns bright and clear, a fine day for travel, but the group finds that the heavily-burdened mule can only be pushed (or pulled) so hard. Dusk finds them still two hours from their objective - the ruins of the first dwarven fort (where the ogres were fought). It is decided to push on through the twilight in order to camp within what little protection those ruined walls can provide. Some small amount of healing magic is performed, wands are charged, and another night’s rest, praise the gods, passes uneventfully.

The party sets off in the morning, at a similar slow-but-steady speed, but this is not to be another uneventful day of travel. An hour or so after the lunch break the road begins heaving in the throes of a violent earthquake. The group is caught between a steeply rising slope on one side, and a perilous drop on the other. Stones on the upper slopes are knocked lose by the quake and come rapidly bounding down towards the road. Most of the party is pummeled, though miraculously all survive. Jon’l of course, dances among the crashing boulders as if it were a daily occurrence, but the normally nimble Snake, not willing to risk losing the bulky Dragon head, takes more than one solid blow from the flying boulders.

The gods are cruel, but not without a sense of humor. Somehow the least-protected members of the party - Modisto and the mule - both come through the hail of stone completely untouched. The consensus is that Modisto threw the 0-level spell “Meat Shield” (i.e. he took cover behind Chul). Since both he and the mule were invisible at the time, and neither is talking, the accusation is impossible to confirm.

The day is not over yet. Loose, piled stone and missing chunks of road caused by the earthquake make the going extremely slow. To add insult to injury, about three hours outside of Cauldron, the party is ambushed by a dozen bugbears. Strangely, although hiding right in the rocks upslope, the bugbears do not seem to have been damaged by the recent earthquake – capricious gods indeed. Six charge and attack the party via melee, while the other six fire longbows from further upslope. Thankfully, Modisto and Jon’l are invisible, so avoid being overrun or pin-cushioned in the initial rush. However, the party is in poor shape from their hard push into the dragon’s lair, and the earlier avalanche, so the outcome of the battle is by no means certain. Even worse, it is soon discovered that the attackers – bearing shields marked with a white bull’s head – are well organized, trained, and equipped.

The battle proves much like a dwarven maiden – ugly, short, and brutish. Jon’l makes his way upslope in preparation for a sneak attack while Chul ties up two attackers who mistakenly expect to gut his unarmored form in seconds. Morgan adopts his usual tactic of wearing out his opponents by absorbing their blows with his body, as Snake reluctantly drops the prized dragon head and clashes with an opponent. Salla wisely and immediately “Holds” one of the two attackers facing him, and Modisto calls for reinforcements by casting a previously unused spell – Summon Monster. Suddenly there are five bearded-axe-wielding hobgoblins gleefully chopping at the bugbears’ backs.

The battle continues with much hacking, sweating and cursing. The bugbear leader is identified upslope directing the devastating missile fire. After firing a fireball at the archers, Modisto is almost killed by one such volley, saved only by his shield spell and the hasty use of a second invisibility spell. Jon’l successfully sneak attacks, uses a Tanglefoot ball on three archers, and then bravely closes with a fourth. Salla uses a Cause Serious Wound wand to great and grisly effect, while Chul, Morgan and Snake eventually pound, hack, and slash their opponents down. Even the summoned hobgoblins manage to both inflict and absorb a decent amount of damage before disappearing.

Jon’l manages to hold his own in one-to-one melee combat with one of the archers, and eventually four of the remaining five, including the leader, are forced to close into melee with the party. Morgan, facing two opponents and rapidly nearing the point where he will have absorbed more punishment than even he is capable of withstanding, tries a desperation move. Reaching into his haversack he withdraws and quickly unsheathes the blackened long sword recently discovered in the dragon’s hoard. He is as surprised as his opponents when a gout of flame bursts forth, enveloping the entire blade, along with his arm up to his elbow. Fortunately for Morgan the flame causes him no harm, and in the brief respite, Salla is able to provide him with some healing. Unfortunately for the bugbears, the searing flame is far from harmless to them, charring flesh, fur, and armor with equal ease.

Meanwhile, now that the archers are otherwise occupied, Modisto gets back into the battle from behind the solid cover of the mule. Acid Arrows begin shooting into exposed bugbear flanks with deadly and painful accuracy. Snake lives up to his namesake, somehow (perhaps with the judicious use of a Potion of Shield of Faith) avoiding blows from two circling opponents and eventually dispatching both with help from Modisto’s well-placed artillery. Chul moves up to support Jon’l, unleashing a flurry of stunning blows and dodging arrows from the final still-entangled archer. Finally, the last bugbear goes down with an Acid Arrow literally catching him squarely in the ear – an outcome not at all displeasing to Modisto.

Never once, even with their leader spilling his life-blood onto the rocky slope, did the bugbears show any signs of failing morale. This group using the sign of the white bull, whatever it is, is a force to be reckoned with - the party count themselves lucky. The creatures are searched, but only their equipment is found. The leader’s body is loaded onto the already-burdened mule for later “interrogation”.

The party limps the remaining three hours to Cauldron without further incident, only to find the town guarded by half-orc mercenaries dressed in the colors of the Blue Duke. While disconcerting to the Tears, the troopers simply do their jobs and offer the party no trouble (yet). Apparently the city is now hiring mercenaries to supplement the town guard, and they are doing a creditable, if unenthusiastic job.

Before resting and gathering news at the Drunken Morkoth, the party drags their stinking, bloody, dirty selves around town to make some priority stops. Magic items are dropped off for identification with Skye and the censer is delivered to Maavu before something untoward can happen to it. Finally the party cleans up, eats some hot food, and gathers rumors before rolling around in gold coinage and gems and turning in for the night.

The next day sees various errands taken care of, including the interrogation – via Speak with Dead – of the Bugbear leader. Apparently he is part of a mercenary band that has done work not only with the Blue Duke, but also with the Necrocants (whom they do not love) and the Ebon Triad. Their female minotaur leader, Gau, and some troops are apparently located in a nearby mine, helping control the non-human workers there. Modisto reveals that he has seen this minotaur in a strange dream he had, and his further research at the Blue Crater academy confirms that her mercenary band is both well-known and powerful. She apparently serves a master known only as Dyr’ryd.

All signs indicate that an evil noose indeed appears to be tightening around (and even within) Cauldron…

…but there is loot to be split and spent, ale to be quaffed, and wenches to be comforted - such is the adventuring life.

Killing a God

Chul spider climbs down the sinkhole and discovers a room full of the green floating spores. While above, the rest of the group is interrupted by one of these large green spores floating toward them. Snake takes a shot at the spore with his crossbow. The creature is hit and explodes with a massive burst that echoes through the cave painfully loud. Chul climbs back up and shares what he saw. Snake is tied to the endless rope and lowered down the tunnel where he takes a shot at one of the passing spores in the room. There a large chain detonation as massive explosions go off in the room, deafening Snake and causing stalactites in the larger cavern above to come loose. The rest of the party is caught in this hail of stone, but manage to only suffer minor bruises.

They find a second attached cave below, the only feature being a rotting corpse. This time it definitely is the same sort of creature as the "eye tyrant" they saw in the Malachite Fortress. Morgan runs over and begins stabbing the rotting corpse, despite the awful stench. The rest of the party, of sane mind, see a second smooth circular tunnel, but it appears to have caved in from the recent explosions. Salla notes that this whole area is very unstable. Also, smaller circular holes are found cut throughout the room for no obvious reasons.

With no other options coming to mind on how to continue the party heads back out of the sinkhole and continues to try and follow Salla's locate object spell. They come to a large cavern, a ramp leads from the tunnel entrance to the floor below, with a side passage off the ramp. Investigating the side passage, they are attacked by two creatures that blend in perfectly with the rough rock of the cave. These squat humanoid shaped creatures have abnormally large hands that they use to smash and grapple with. One of the creatures is quickly dropped, the other withdraws, speaking in low rumbling noises. Since Morgan cant understand what the creature is saying he kills it.

In the meantime, Salla has spotted a large 0puffball of fungus rolling about the cave floor below, inching closer and closer. Chul and him descend down the ramp and on to the cave floor, and are suprised as the puffball picks up speed and charges at them, rolling over Salla and crushing him. The puffball discharges a cloud of spores into the air around it, causing Salla and Chul to cough and choke and effectively blinding them.

As this new battle erupts, Snake does a 10 second loot of the room Morgan and him are in, grabbing a leather case and a glass vial containing a citrine surrounded by some sort of gas. Modisto throws a number of acid arrows at the puffball, while Jonl's arrows seem to just pass right through the creature. It seems the acid arrows are effective as the creature retreats after being hit with a few of them.

After making sure everyone is ok and that none of the temporary pains will become more permanent, they continue on, following a tunnel east out of the large cavern.

They arrive at a natural stone bridge that crosses a deep ravine, 80 feet below a fast flowing underground river moves to the east. Snake is tied to the endless rope once again, and he begins to cross the stone bridge. Stalactites from the ceiling above are actually ebony-colored creatures similar to giant bats. They leave their resting areas and swoop at Snake, four in total. While Snake dodges and evades, the rest of the party on the side of the ravine take the creatures down with missile fire. After the last of the creatures plummets into the river below, the rest of the party follows Snake across the bridge.

Again, they follow the tunnel as it heads south then turns east and opens up into another cave. The river they saw before crosses this room, creating a small lake in the majority of the cave, except for a five foot ledge that surrounds it. In the middle of the lake sits a dead tree, its bare branches drooping. Morgan, as the paranoid psychopath of the group, fires a shot at the dead tree. The tree begins to move toward the party slowly, its branches no longer drooping, but waving wildly about. Finally, Morgan recieves affirmation that his belief that inanimate objects are not what they seem is true and correct. There is a place in this world for mustached sword-wielding psychos. Err, back on topic. The rest of the party joins in the gunning down, and promptly the tree is floating in the lake motionless.

Modisto throws a detect magic to see if maybe a past victim of the tree had something valuable. He detects a magical aura in the bottom of the lake. Snake, already wet from retrieving the corpse of the tree, does some diving to collect an ivory tube with a divine scroll inside, and manages to also gather a few quartz crystals and some gold.

Moving on, they finally arrive at a T-intersection. To the north a bit is a statue of exquisite workmanship, a lizard-like humanoid attempting to defend itself from some unseen foe. Further up the northern tunnel is a second statue of a similar creature in the middle of swinging its club onto another unseen target. The party decides its best to avoid this tunnel for now, having heard tales of creatures with the ability to turn victims to stone.

The southern tunnel opens up into a enormous cavern, the largest yet. Water falls from the river flowing above, crashing into a huge lake. On the side with the tunnel is a sandy beach, with a constructed stone bridge crossing to another beach on the other side. The cave extends out of sight on the far beach. While Salla is scouting out this room he detects a trap in the middle of the stone bridge (he has his handy detect traps spell running).

For the fifth or so time, Snake is tied to the endless rope and he is sent out to scout around the enormous cavern. Snake makes it the beginning of the bridge, when the monstrous form of the indigo-colored lizard creature that visited them in Whitefang emerges into the light from the other side of the beach. Before Snake can react the monster shoots forth a bolt of lightning, striking Snake. With all abandon, Snake leaps up at the monster plunging his sword into it. He attempts to hold on, but can not and falls back down to the far beach below (for those who dont know, Snake has boots of striding and springing). The monster bears down on Snake, between the enchanted shield he has borrowed from Salla and the shield of faith spell active on him, he only manages to suffer some minor damage from a glancing claw.

The others have moved out into the cavern now, Morgan hits the monster with an icy bolt from the crossbow. The monster speaks, in Draconic, ancient words of power and a translucent shield of energy flickers into existance in front of it, saving it from being hit by further missile fire. Modisto, with only a lightning bolt at his disposal, does some quick thinking and shoots his lightning bolt at the stalactites above it. He knocks a number of them loose, two large ones strike the monster. Snake can see it now has a broken leg and is badly beaten and bloodied from the rocks. Snake leaps to the side of the monster, attempting to bypass its magical shield, the monster snaps it jaws as Snake leaps over. Snake twists away from the bite and brings his sword down on the monster's neck, cutting through muscle and bone the head of the monster flops down on the beach, lifeless and no longer attached.

After everyone stares in dumb silence, Jonl disables the trap on the bridge, making it safe for the rest of the party to cross over to the monster's dead body. Further in the cave, a large stash of shinies is discovered, and, after a long journey, the censer they seek.

Spit In Your Eye

Our heroes receive little rest in the small chamber, when the sound of footsteps is heard up through the tunnel above. After waiting in the dark for some time, a humanoid lizard creature (zombified) comes sliding down the tube and into the chamber, covered in yellow mold. Swings are taken at the creature, knocking the mold into the air. Those unfortunate enough to be next to the creature breathe in the loose mold, coughing and gagging in great pain. Jonl is the worst off, the pain almost too much for his body to handle.

During this skirmish in the small chamber, Chul spider climbs up the tunnel ceiling and spots 5 more of the lizard creatures (these are living) and webs them up. The lizard creatures spend a few rounds helping each other out of the web, three escape while Chul manages to slay two of them.

The party decides to exit the small chamber and return to Whitefang, at great haste. Camp is made in the great hall of the stronghold.

On the first night, the party is awakened by the sounds of lightning crashing against the side of the tower. Two strokes strike the tower before they return to resting.

On the second night, again, two strikes of lightning crash against the side of the tower, knocking out a whole section of the outer wall. A few seconds later, the door to the great hall starts tearing apart, large massive claws smashing through it. The party runs up to the balcony area, hiding and praying to their gods. When barely any of the door is left standing, the long neck and head of a giant blue-scaled lizardish creature snakes it way into the great hall. Chul tosses a javelin at the creature, it sticks in the neck. The creature ignores the javelins and sniffs about, then speaks in the tongue of Dragons. Modisto explains it wishes to speak to him, and he climbs down the stairs into the great hall. But it seems the creature will not discuss such matters with an invisible foe, and requests to see Modisto. Modisto says no, and hides behind a wall in the kitchen. The neck and head slide out of the room and back through the doorway, the sounds of the creature leaving (flying away) soon follow.

The next day the group returns to the caves, at the crossroads they discover a magical glyphs has been placed on the ceiling. Jonl manages to disarm the glyph.

It is decided to take care of the threat that the lizard creatures pose and to wipe them out. So they proceed down the tunnel where they last saw them. They arrive at a large cavern with the entire southern wall decorated by a giant mural of a dragon munching on various humans and demi-humans. Lazing about the cavern are groups of the smelly lizard creatures, clustered around fire pits. The creatures pick up their makeshift clubs and charge at the party. Battle ensues in the tunnel. The stinking creatures are able to climb the walls and ceiling easily and naturally, they also have an acidic spit they attempt to blind their opponents with.

As the battle rages, various reinforcements arrive. Suddenly the area around the party goes silent. Snake decides that the latest reinforcement in the shadows of the tunnel further on needs to be taken care of, and hops down the tunnel. This lizard has intricate designs painted on to his body. He scratches at an eye painted on him and Snakes vision goes black. While the main battle rages in the middle of the tunnel, the lizard shaman manages to also enchant Morgan so he is held in place, effectively out of the battle for a time. Chul manages to stun the shaman a couple different times, while Salla dances about attempting to keep everyone alive. Even blind, Snakes proves to be a decent fighter and manages to slay the shaman.

After looting, it is decided to return to Whitefang, there is general concern about the level of the party's resources after this battle.

Strangely enough, two days pass very peacefully. For the first time since leaving Cauldron the party has some peaceful, serene moments with the nice weather in the high mountain area.

Once again, they return to the caves. They continue along the southern tunnel from the intersection, past the small chamber where they attempted to rest originally, and into a large cavern where they fireball a deceptively odd "pool of blood".

They continue heading south and down into the earth. Salla screams in girlish joy as he senses the censer to the southeast. They come to a stretch of the hall where another mural is painted along the tunnel, showing the lizard creatures they just killed feeding captives to what appears to be a large scaly lizardish creature (much like what they encountered at Whitefang). Below the mural it is written to not proceed further, or they will suffer the wrath of The Scaly God. Past the mural is a stone statue of large scaly lizard. Laying about the area are more of the animated dead lizard creatures covered in yellow mold. Salla praises Kord, and the creatures run in fear.

The party continues along the tunnels attempting to follow in a southeastern direction. A cave of giant crickets is discovered, but left alone. A huge cave is found, the slightest sound causing the loudest of echoes. They explore the area, and run into a creature that at first they believe to be the same as the tentacled floating ball ("eye tyrant" as Ferrix researched) that manhandled them in The Malachite Fortress. But they discover it has no eyes and is of a green color, only sharing the same general shape as the eye tyrant. The creature slowly floats toward the party, but they continue to move around the cave exploring it. A loud BANG is heard in the darkness about them, but when they investigate they only find what appears to be a stalactite that has fallen to the ground. Finally, they find a sinkhole, where a circular hole descends into the earth. Discussion is had of what to do.