[This continues the story of Rogier the bard, a warforged called Gravedigger and a goliath paladin known as Uthmar Shatterstone. They are currently beyond the portal they entered in the manor house of the Viers family and exploring the tombs and chambers they have discovered here. Recently they have explored a bank-teller area and fought a clay golem.]
DAY 20 cont ...
After all the excitement they'd been having the men decided it was time for a rest. They went back to the teller area and set up camp. A watch was set and they rested for the remainder of the day, sharpening blades, fixing armour and eating rations. There was no sense of night and day here, but eventually they felt it was time to bed down and sleep, so they did so.
DAY 21
They arose early in the morning. Gravedigger and Uthmar had not rested well and Rogier reported that he had woken with a strong sense of dread.
Back they went to where they had left off and Gravedigger approached a door in the west wall of the side room they had passed through the previous day. He wondered if it might be a door to outside, then he noticed a window high up in the northern wall. He stood on a crate to look out it. He saw nothing but an ink-black void. Uthmar, who was a man of unlimited talent and knowledge, was also of course an expert in windows, and so he pushed Gravedigger aside so he could take a look.
The window was sealed in to the wall though, like a ship's portal and could not be opened. Gravedigger went to the door again and opened it. The next room was a study. In its centre was a finely carved table, and at the opposite wall a middle-aged man sat at a desk. He had a long beard and appeared engrossed in whatever it was he was doing.
Gravedigger went and sat at the table.
'Oh make yourself at home why don't you!' muttered the man.
Rogier went into his whole 'Wot!?' intimidation routine, but the man ignored him.
'Why are you here?' asked the man.
'We don't know how we got here, but we are just here,' answered Gravedigger, the only one of our three heroes that could interact with people like a grown-up.
'We came through a portal. What is this place?'
The man didn't answer. Instead he asked, 'Eh? A portal? How?'
'Pentagrams.'
'Yes! Pentagrams on the floor!' said Rogier, joining the conversation. 'In a house in the town of Everaska.'
'That's unusual,' said the man. 'Well, if you've not worked it out already, this is a pocket dimension.'
'Like inside a Bag of Holding?' asked Gravedigger.
'Yes, precisely.'
'Why are you here?' went on Gravedigger. 'Are you aware the place is full of mad cultists?'
Meanwhile, Uthmar was eying up the desk, probably wondering how much it was worth.
'My name is Gravedigger, who are you?'
'My name is Mal'keyth,' replied the man.
Gravedigger went on to tell more of his story of the events that lead up to them arriving in this place, the cultists, the missing townsfolk and their quest to find them. In return, Mal'keyth told them some more of his own circumstances.
'I'm not the first resident of this study. This was something that was set up before I came to be here. But wait... with regards to townsfolk passing through this place I might be able to offer some insight...'
He then reached for a book and flicked the pages to a passage.
'Yes, here is an account of some travellers. It says that they went through a green portal... ah, here it is. There is a concealed door in the tombs, back where you arrived. Go back there, find the secret door and follow the corridor to the green portal.'
'YEAH, WHATEVER!' butted in Uthmar. 'Listen, do you have any MAGIC ITEMS FOR SALE?'
Gravedigger rolled his eyes. 'Who wrote that?'
'I don't know,' replied Mal'keyth. 'The author does not reveal his name.'
Gravedigger and Mal'keyth went off to talk away from the annoying goliath and the uninterested bard. Mal'keyth revealed he had been in this place for some time, and (whether any of it was true or not) he said he was "just interested" in the place. He spoke Common and was from Tamar, on the Golden Way back in Faerune.
The children were getting restless though, Uthmar was banging his head against the door in the southern wall and Rogier was playing the opening bars of a sea-shanty on his lute over and over again.
Gravedigger opened the door and it revealed some stairs leading down, but they did not explore them and instead went back to the bank-teller area. They carried on through that to the garden and pushed through the dead bushes to the back of it and discovered a well. Uthmar unwisely dropped a coin into it and was immediately rewarded with a bunch of purple tentacles that shot out and started lashing about.
Uthmar was alone when that happened, but Gravedigger came over to help with the tentacle whacking. Rogier had wandered off. Despite not having instigated all this Gravedigger suffered the worst. He was grappled and crushed against the wall of the well, and pretty much stayed there until Uthmar and a late to the party Rogier killed off the tentacles.
Their scattershot exploration of the dungeon continued. They returned back through the teller area yet again then to the stairs and the corridor beyond.
They discovered an area of jail cells. In one of the cells was "one of them", one of the mysterious sort-of-humans they had been encountering. Rogier set him free. Another room was discovered that was full of smelly beds. No one had a huge desire to search through all the crusty sheets.
And so finally they went all the way back to the tomb that they had arrived in and searched for the concealed entrance that Mal'keyth had told them about. When it was opened they followed a long corridor to a big chamber.
Gravedigger had a good look about and he could see that there were signs of the passage of feet. A good many people had travelled this area.
The passage then turned north to a cavern that had a lake of poisonous looking green liquid in it. A rope and chain bridge lead across to a ledge on the other side. Wagon wheels were chained above the lake in many paces, all with human remains tied to them.
Once over the bridge they entered a passage way that led to a really big room where some golems were standing and the "Cultist Hyrophant"
'Come, follow me!' called out the Hyrophant, who then cackled and stepped through a portal right at the back of the chamber.
But then the golems all came stamping towards them.
'Talk about mixed messages,' muttered Gravedigger.
Behind the two golems was a zombie ogre. Maybe they were not aggressive thought Gravedigger who called 'Coo-ee!' and waved.
Gravedigger was very wrong of course, and so they fled back over the bridge. Rogier cast a Glyph of Warding at the north end, which may have helped make one of them fall into the lake. It could be seen in the faintly glowing fluid though, as it stopped up and started walking towards the southern shore.
Gravedigger had a plan. 'Shoot and move - and follow me!'
So they did just that, moving, then shooting off spells and missiles, then running off again as the golems and ogre lumbered after them. They went all the way back to the narrow window at the base of the garden and all squeezed through it. The dull-witted golems were too big to fit through and to dumb to do anything other than stick an arm through the window and lash it about. One by one our heroes finished off their enemies from a safe distance.
After that, they went all the way back to the big room with the sinister looking portal
in it, and without any other options presenting themselves, they stepped through it.
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