[Back to my chronicles of my own adventures - against the Unseen on Midpoint Island.]
DAY 488 (4th Flamerule) (July) cont...
And so myself, Corum, Sylvia, Irritator and Jiggles entered the blue crystal cave that lay up in the mountains of Midpoint Island.
The blue crystals in the cave would have meant death to us, without the talismans that each of us wore around our necks.
Magic did not work well in here, we quickly established that. If you didn't concentrate or you were just unlucky, then the crystals in the walls would absorb the magic and the spell would be spent with no result.
We were nervous, but at least we had a means of escape if things went wrong - teleportation from the Spellbook of Irritator and the boots that Jiggles wore. Jiggles also had a pair of goggles to see invisible beings with. True Seeing magic items were very expensive, but Sylvia could cast that spell if need be.
When turned into a dog, though, my nose had got pretty good at sniffing out dopplegangers.
The cave lead down into the mountain and at the first small cavern we came to had two prisoners chained to the wall. One had some Blue Phage on him, while another seemed more or less fine. I talked to him, but he just smirked and put his head down.
When I noticed their chains were unlocked we began to get suspicious. Sylvia threatened to stab one of them to see the result. Nothing.
We then went to take them out of the cave, but at that point they revealed themselves to be what we suspected them to be - dopplegangers! Once these creatures are detected they are easily defeated thankfully, and both were killed in the fight.
There were two exits from the cavern and we took the southern one, which lead to a somewhat larger cave containing four human prisoners - real humans this time.
Corum recognised one of them as a young lad from Waterdeep and the other three adults were probably from there too. Sadly, although they were alive, they were beyond our help and we left them to their final rest.
Going back to the first cavern we chose the next passage which lead us to another small cavern where we found two more dopplegangers. They cried, 'Master! They are here!' and fled further in.
Around the corner to a larger cave we saw six prisoners chained to the wall. As we entered though some powerful mind control from unseen enemies hit us and almost all of us were stunned. Irritator - as had been arranged beforehand - teleported us all out to the cave entrance. Jiggles, being also unstunned, teleported out too.
She said she heard mocking laughter as she left, but they'll be laughing on the other side of their faces when we come back tomorrow!
Anyway, we are camping here, outside the cave tonight. I need to do a little bit of reading up on Mindflayers, as I think that is what we just encountered.
DAY 489 (5th Flamerule) (July)
So the tactics we came up for today seemed to work well, or certainly better than I expected anyway.
We carefully approached the cave where the dopplegangers and prisoners were and we summoned in loads of Dire Bats (who are famous for being strong willed) and Dire Badgers.
We then, more or less, stood back and watched the chaos as the two mindflayers that lived in there tried to contend with the mass of wildlife that suddenly appeared.
On a side note:
These spells I use are called 'Summon Nature's Ally' in the secret Druidic Texts. And from what I remember the Texts read 'The animal will attack your enemies to the best of its ability.
I have learned through many uses of the spell that generally speaking, who an enemy is, is pretty clear, as by the time the animals are summoned the combat is already under way.
In real life a dog (for instance) could quite easily get confused and bite someone friendly by accident - but with the spell, the animal seems to 'know' who to attack - which I assume is part of the magic.
Now - summoning animals 'around corners' - is a hot topic with Druids and other casters that can do this, but in general I've found that if someone keeps their head down (i.e. like the six prisoners also in the room) then the summoned animals will not attack them.
If a prisoner had been foolish enough to attack an animal though - I think at that point even the magic of the spell would not stop the animal from attacking someone who is not technically an enemy. Unless I was there to tell it to stop, and maybe not even then.
So far I have not put this to the test and I am happy to report that the many animals savaged the mindflayers to bits while leaving the prisoners alone. They then disappeared, as they always do, after a minute.
And it was just as well! As when we went in to survey the wreckage I found that the prisoners that remained alive were my father, Gharlie, Giselle and Eno!
They were all alive, although confused. Only Eno was badly harmed - with a missing hand - and appeared to be even more deranged than the last time Corum had seen him.
The other two were sadly dead, one I recognised as a man who worked on my father's estate.
So this meant that the person I had seen in the cave all those days ago had not been Gharlie at all, but a doppleganger that only appeared to be her. Why they had done this I have no idea. I suppose I should have checked more thoroughly, her being a doppleganger herself and all, but (in this case alone anyway) alls well that ends well.
We healed them and fed them and asked for some of their story. Apparently my father had been captured six months ago and Gharlie three months ago, but only recently had they been transported to this cave on Midpoint Island.
We returned to the cave entrance and I turned into a giant owl to transport them back to the boat for safe keeping.
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