DAY 264 (30 Uktar)(November) continued ...
The Moathouse and its dungeons were still deserted so they had no problems finding the yuan-ti snake gate.
There was a sign placed beside it that Dwerry translated:
Mind how you go
Stone men have sore stomachs
Make signal to *gibberish*
In the maze follow the moon
Rather cryptic they all thought, but Durz an Veddic put their best foot forward and stepped through the gate ... and fell down a fifty foot shaft into a spiked pit.
Dwerry was next and managed to keep her footing and step to the side. Billi tumbled out of danger and Arahel simply turned into a gargoyle and flapped to safety.
She chose this form as she, and the others that hadn't fallen, noticed that their were six gargoyles watching the portal which then attacked them.
Gargoyles can be tough customers, but the party was much tougher, so despite their initial disadvantage they felled one gargoyle after the other. Arahel lifted Veddic out of the pit and he, thinking that perhaps these gargoyles had been left by good forces to attack yuan-ti, offered a parley. Durz was still alive as well after his fall but was having trouble getting out of the pit.
The fighting stopped and one of the gargoyles that remained on his feet said,
'Very well guv'ner. How about me and my mates just walk through that door through there and say no more about it eh?'
Veddic was unsure as he thought perhaps they would then just ambush them later. One by one he could see that some of the gargoyles were edging towards the southern door and scampering off anyway and in the end he just had one to deal with.
'How about I cast a zone of truth on you?'
'No problem guv'ner, I am a truthful fellow after all.'
Veddic however had not prepared Zone of Truth that day so he attempted to bluff the gargoyle into thinking that he had cast it.
The gargoyle didn't fall for it though and said,
'Oh I can do that sort of magic as well!' and wiggling his fingers he pointed at Arahel and said
'You are now a giraffe!'
To his utter amazement Arahel then turned into a giraffe (using her own abilities of course!) and the gargoyle looked down at his fingers and said, 'Bugger me! I didn't know I had it in me!'
Veddic, tiring of the pantomime just let the last one go. Two gargoyles were dead anyway and two more had been carried off unconscious. After a minute or two of the door closing tp the south they heard rumbling from that direction.
The door had been locked by the gargoyles as they left the portal chamber but Durz applied his 'key' to it (his axe) and soon had it open.
They saw a ten foot wide corridor with a recent rockfall at the end of it. Two of the gargoyles were trapped here too, but the one healthy one picked up its injured mate and flapped through the portal as quickly as it could to avoid the party and Durz's angry snarls.
The area now reasonably secure they rested for the remainder of the day in the northern part of the corridor, mainly so the spell casters could get their magic back.
DAY 265 (Feast of the Moon)(December)
They were not entirely left to sleep though. One of the gargoyles that had gone through the portal returned to keep an eye on them and had to be chased off.
Later, fluids poured down near where they were resting from a grate in the ceiling the first of which was was urine.
An hour later about a barrel of beer came down the same way. Durz tried it and declared it was very good stuff!
Finally, a while after that a thick brown gloopy substance trickled down the grate into the pools of beer. Durz tried it and pronounced it to be barbecue sauce.
The corridor they were resting in now smelled like the alley behind a tavern in Waterdeep!
In the morning though, they were rested enough to move on and tackle the rock fall. This was done by the good old Druidic method, namely the Stone Shape spell and Arahel tunnelled a small passage through the top of the rocks big enough for everyone to scramble through.
They now found that the corridor ended in another set of double doors and Durz applied his 'key' to this one as well.
The next room was much larger, contained a table and chairs and many chests scattered about. There were also three of the gargoyles skulking around and a tall statue which came to life as they entered.
This statue was a real threat to them as they found out when attacked them. It had the power to turn people against their allies and this caused chaos, as you can imagine, as they party were suddenly fighting amongst themselves. This it did by spraying them with blood from the weeping runes on its head (it had no face).
Not only that, but anyone struck by it ran the risk of being confused.
Durz did battle with his axe, Veddic cast spells and healed people where it was needed and
Billi tumbled about and using his mental powers to fire arrows right into the most sensitive
areas of his enemies. Arahel turned into a rhinoceros and Dwerry used magic missiles.
[Dear reader, from the description above I have deduced that this thing was a Rogue Eidolon and luckily for Veddic and his fellows not a fully powered one which would have been much more deadly.]
The Eidolon couldn't take them all on though and once the cowardly gargoyles had once more exited through a door to the east, the weight of numbers of the party managed to beat it back. Arahel again over-reached herself in the fighting and brave though she was, was struck to the floor and came within one more blow of being killed. She turned back to her normal form and played dead and luckily for her the Eidolon ignored her to concentrate on the threats from Durz and Billi.
It was struck down with one last mighty blow and the battle was over. Veddic healed them all with his clerical magic and they wiped the dreadful Eidolon blood from their arms and armour.
No comments:
Post a Comment