May 19, 2024
Beggar 18, 5043 (cont)
We retrace our steps to
the west side of this eastmost ridge and
spend the night.
Beggar 19, 5043
We go toward the fog,
the city, the beach to see
what’s up with all the fog.
(9:00AM)
Fog can be seen through
to 100 yards. The fog is not providing
concealment. We continue in trying to look
for the
portal. We are moving 2 mi./hr. as the fog flows around us.
There are an increasing number of ruins.
(3:00PM) The ruins
become more like towns than isolated
farms.
(4:00PM) we arrive at
the ruined city in the fog.
(5:00PM) we see alleys
and multi-story ruins. The road we are on
has widened and we see
what remains of overpasses above our heads.
As the debris increases we must walk two by two and carwl
over rubble to continue forward. Arden
searches for a more defensible place to night over.
We find a spot. Beari
casts Secure
Shelter. W are safe through the night.
Beggar 20, 5043
Hypnotic gays are much
harder to turn no matter what kind
of rave you take them to.
(9:00AM) We continue on
and see
our first complete overpass. Arden climbs
to check it out. There is less rubble on
the overpass, but it
is not sturdy enough to support traversing.
Arden climbs back down, reports, walks into shadow of overpass,
fades
away. We walk forward holding
hands. We don’t see Arden; the sun
jumps an hour ahead in the sky; Arden reappears and we move on. Beari & Ben
seem to remember a theory about time portals but don’t know any
more.
Moving on the road is
even more blocked. We see another overpass. We discuss going over it rather than
under. Arden goes up to
investigate. This overpass seems to be
in better condition than the last. We decide to go through all together. The sun jumps forward again, but we feel no
effects from it.
The road ends at the
ruins of a palace with the sea
beyond. Zora
looks at her mental encyclopedia and sys within the palace there is a
shrine
and we will find the portal there. Ben
casts
Control Weather to try and dissipate
the fog. It is successful and there is no
fog for 2
miles.
[Directions to the
Shrine: Go into the throne room. Turn
right.
Look for the first available left and follow to the shrine.]
(11:00AM) We climb to
the foyer.
The room is full of rubble and the
passage we need to continue is blocked.
Init: Zora, Beari,
Arden, Ben.
Round 1:
Zora and Arden hear and
enticing sound
ahead. They both save. Zora checks here mental encyclopedia and thinks
it might be
a Siren Spinster.
Round 2:
Beari and Ben her the
Siren’s
song; both save.
Zora tells us Siren Spinster
lures
victims to web, paralyzes, wraps in strands, eats later.
We decide to leave the
spider alone and move on.
We reach a very large
room with a temple in the
middle. Shrine. Zora’s mental
encyclopedia tells us: thick walls, strong
roof, older than the palace. Hidden room
by the alter (door in the floor) missing its ladder.
Below is a puzzle to solve and then a crazy
labyrinth with levels and puzzles. Wrong
answers will collapse the tunnels around us.
Halls are 3’ wide, 6’ tall.
We arrive at the shrine.
Arden moves to the altar and beings to search for the hidden
door in the
floor. Arden finds the door, opens the
lock, opens the door, sticks his head in and sees a lever.
Arden jumps in, examines lever, checks for
traps, finds none. Decides to pull
lever, after everyone else joins him in the room.
Pulling the lever causes
everyone to be moved to a
nearly-identical looking room except that there is no lever, and there
is an
opening to the north.
Welcome to the Catacombs.
(12:00 Noon) Cautiously
move to the
opening to the North and move
through checking for traps and things. (See map.)
Round 1:
A long narrow hallway
with a Rust Monster at the end. We know
that its antennae destroy –
rust to dust in seconds – metal that they touch; that like many
reptiles
it can spontaneously move about even after it is dead; and that it
should have
arms only 5’ long, whereas this ones’ are 15’.
It touches Arden’s
rapier and Zora’s
sword. Neither one rusts to destruction,
but instead each of them loses any magic “sheen”. Beari, observing
this, and using Spellcraft, realizes that
this only looks
like a Rust Monster, but is instead some variant which eats magic. It drains all the magic from any item it
touches and uses that to gain HP for itself.
The drained magic returns to the items after three to four hours.
Beari casts Delayed
Blast Fireball –
Maximized – with a delay of zero.
Arden attacks, moves to flank. Zora does the slice
and dice and the monster dies.
XP:
48
We wait until it stops
moving and poking doesn’t
trigger it. Then we move past it and
continue on.
Left, 90’
straight, 90’ left, 90’
straight, 90’ left, 90’ straight, 90’
We think we solve the
tic-tac-toe puzzle and choose
corridor 3, but opt to wait in the lobby until everyone’s metal
magic
items reboot.
(4:00PM) Arden leads us
into the
passageway, lots of twists and
turns, stairs up and down, with the occasional branching – he
selects
straight for where to go first – checking for traps and secret
doors at
each stair. Somewhat over a mile in he
finds a secret door at the top of a stairs [having gone
past three unobserved
secret doors earlier]; however that side passageway is
only 100’ long
before reaching a dead end. Back in the
“main”
passageway, he leads us for another uneventful third of a mile before
declaring
a halt and asking for suggestions. (See map. Purple
trace starting on the left side of the passages.)
(6:00PM) Ben says
he has a spell
which could help. Ben casts Find
the Path (FtP)on
Arden. FtP
nudges Arden back the way we came (purple trace on the right side of
the
passages) until we arrive about 300’ from the entrance. FtP wants Arden to
go through a solid wall to his left, so he checks and finds a secret
door. He finds no traps and opens it. Down that passageway (green
trace [honestly, I expected youall to use FtP from the
beginning -- this way was more amusing]) 100’ to
a stairs going
down. 400’ later FtP warns him of a Glyph of Warding, and tells
him that the
safe passage word is “carriage”, which he uses. 100’ to a stairs going down. 200’ to a left turn.
300’ to a stairs going down.100 feet to
a right-hand side passage which FtP
ignores. 400’ later FtP
wants Arden to go through a solid wall to his right.
He searches for and finds a secret door,
finds no traps, opens it.100’ to a left turn.
100’ to a right turn. 100’
to a left turn. 200’ to a right
turn. 200’ later FtP warns Arden of
a Blade Barrier trap, with a safe
passage word of “hook”. He
uses it to get all of us past that trap. 100’ later FtP
warns Arden of a Crushing Wall trap and provides him with the
information of
how to disarm it, which he dexterously does.
100’ later we find
a lizardfolk
waving a spear.
Rounds 1 through n:
Arden tries to talk the lizardfolk
into just letting us go past him, explaining that we don’t want
to hurt
him. To no avail: he finally attacks and
Arden kills him.
XP:
0
We turn right. 100’
later we turn left. 100’ later we
encounter an Athach filling the entire
passageway.
Round 1:
Zora steps in front of
Arden, hits it
several times but it is still up..
Arden cannot tumble past
it, steps back instead.
Athach tries to beat on Zora but can’t.
Beari decides that Zora
has everything under control and just watches.
Ben also just waits.
Round 2:
Zora kills it.
XP:
0
We turn right. 200’
later we find the chamber with the lever.
We pull it.
END OF RUN
