The World of Telvar

OK, next day, 8:00 am we set of to base camp. We got there around 2 or 3
and decided that it would actually not be possible to get the mission done
tonight... so the Duke turned himself visible, and we began to wait for
the night. While we were waiting, Dari decided to scry on the room that
was right outside the bailey... um, small room with a door leading into
the garden. She didn't see anything at all interesting during this scry.

Next day, before dawn we get up... By dawn we've left base camp, with the
trackers going out to check the Behir path. I don't really know much first
hand of what happened there, but here's what Dari told me afterwards:

Canstin, Dari and Cassana went, for we didn't want to send the Duke
(we were afraid he would lose his invisibility). They got to the behir path
safely and checked out the path. Dari didn't know anything, and Cassana
and Canstin agreed that the behir had left the city. So they
headed off
to meet us. On the way, they ran into a giant weasel... rather rude
creature, but Dari charmed it then told it to leave. So they finally
caught up to us.

So, we got to the city and went to the building where the teleporter is.
We slowly crept in, and suddenly out of nowhere came this huge wasp! It
was unbelievable (Sahrak now quickly makes an illusion of a giant wasp,
somewhat bigger and scarier than what most of the party remembers). So, as
you could see, it was quite a powerful looking monster. That's the way I
remember it, anyway. But, and this says a lot for the strength of the
combined Stone Soules and Korel-Gesh parties, we actually decimated the
creatures. Canstin and Dark Eye immediately let off arrows, both of which
hit their mark, and Duke Charles, Cassana, and Faranin attacked and
finished the creature off. I was truly amazed. Made me feel a lot safer.

So on we went, carefully through the portal and up the stairs into the room
for which we were headed. Now we stopped for a few minutes and the six of
us that were going on went through our belongings, leaving magical items
that we didn't want stolen with the party. We then started trekking down
the path. Eventually, after passing the remains of the giant carnivorous
plant, we came to a crossroad, and took a right. This led to what Eli
remembered to be the Mite's door. So we turned around (we already knew
that door was there) and followed the road we were on all the way around,
until we eventually came to this huge set of double doors. Now when I say
huge, I mean HUGE. The damn things were bigger than... than... than the
way you described Molehill. They were also made out of pure gold, and Ludo
and I just couldn't resist going up and checking them out upclose. We had
been turned invisible anyway. So, after conferring for a moment, Dari hid
in some brush, Canstin got in shrubbery near the castle, aimed a shot at
the door, and proceeded to turn invisible, Eli hid somewhere invisible, and
the other three of us walked up to the door. There was a set of stairs
before it, at which we stopped and told Duke Charles to wait there. Ludo
and I listened for a moment, and I must say that I noticed that it was
unusually quiet. Not a bird in earshot. Ludo however mentioned softly
that he thought he heard a soft growling, but I for one could not make it
out. Later on, Dari told me she didn't hear it either. So Ludo and I went
up the stairs. Upon getting up there, we decided that we should check out
to see if the handles of the door were trapped. To that end, I boosted
Ludo up so that he could reach the handles, and he checked for traps and
found nothing.

So we had found our door. Ludo decided that he would quickly climb around
and look in one of the arrow slits surrounding the door, which he did, and
saw nothing inside. Upon arriving back, Ludo and I conferred for a moment
and were just deciding to head back down the stairs to go further and see
if there wa another entrance, when the Dari yelled out that there was a
monster... Canstin immediately turned and let off an arrow, hitting the
creature dead on as Eli started casting a spell. Ludo and I turned around
and saw this creature. It was a panther with 6 snakes coming out of it's
back. (Sahrak uses the visual aid of a golden statuette that actually
looks like a miniature panther in an attack stance with 6 thick snakes
coming out of it's back). At this point, it became hard to keep track of
what was going on. Here's what I saw. Eli was perfectly visible trying to
cast a spell, Dari was starting to run, and Canstin and the Duke were now
nowhere to be seen. As far as I know, Ludo was still behind me on the
stairs. The creature jumped about 30 feet towards us, instantly closing
the distance, and then opened it's mouth in a silent breath. With this
Dari fell unconscious to the ground. The creature then looked down at
Dari... it looked hungry... and gave a quick glance to Eli.

Looking at the sight before me, I thought quickly, guessed that Canstin and
the Duke were down in the same way as Dari, since neither was attacking the
creature, and I decided to blow the whistle for help. I blew the whistle
and immediately walked down the stairs and went into the brush next to it,
to wait until the rest of the party arrived and saved us. Their was
absolutely nothing I could do... If I cast an illusion, it probably
wouldn't have tricked the creature, and it definitely would have given me
away. The creature in fact looked right at me, butthen turned away.

Suddenly, Canstin appeared as an arrow flew out of nowhere and struck a
nasty gash into the thing's flank. I was shocked, and happily thought that
maybe we did still have a chance... The creature then jumped the 20 feet
to land on Canstin with a flurry of attacks, most of which Canstin
effectively blocked (I thought this rather amazing). However, the creature
had him pinned. He made a grab for it, but missed. Then it proceeded in
another group of attacked, biting at Canstin with all seven snakes and it's
own maw, and clawing at him. Canstin stopped moving.

I was truly scared at this point. I kept thinking, I'm too old for this.
Didn't know what to do. Suddenly a lightning bolt came out of nowhere
(from Eli) striking the monster and the limp form of Canstin. The monster
then turned and started running at Eli. Eli got rid of some extra weight
and started running away, with the creature right on his heels. He then
drank a potion, and just as the creature jumped at him, he began to float
into the air. Although it mangled his legs with it's claws and bite, Eli
got out of the reach of the snakes and escaped. Now the creature looked
around. Suddenly I noticed I could hear the rest of the party approaching.
Obviously the creature noticed too, as it turned and charged them.

What happened there, I later heard second hand. Here is what I heard:

So, Faranin as normal was marching the party up in formation to
take on a normal group of monsters. Out of knowhere the monster jumped to
stand right in front of Faranin. Faranin, as shocked as he was,
immediately yelled a battle cry and prepared to attack. It again openned
it's mouth in a silent breath, proceeding to take out everyone except Dark
Eye, Bland, Le'Tiae, Star, and Jaram, and Theo. Theo and Bland immediately
charged as Dark Eye started letting off a barage of arrows. Meanwhile, Eli
flew over and started to cast a spell. The fight was on.

Theo and Bland started attacking with a constant barage of arrows
from Dark Eye. Le'Tiae also attacked multiple times, the creature not
seeming to be phased. The creature attacked Bland for a couple of
routines, the turned attention to Theo and poisoned him with a snake. Theo
plopped to the ground. Meanwhile, Jarak had thrown oil on the creature and
Eli lit the oil with a burning hands spell, getting a bit singed himself.

However, Star proved to be the savior that day. He went to
Alegra's unconscious body and took out her scroll with a Flame Strike spell
on it. He then told the members of the party that were still standing to
lead it away from the group of people on the ground. They did so and He
struck it with the Flame, killing the beast.

Next they started dragging bodies back to the room in the outer wall.

Meanwhile, Ludo had checked Dari to see what was wrong, and I had found the
limp form of Duke Charles on the ground. Realizing that the creature
couldn't see invisible people, I left the Duke where he was and proceeded
to help Ludo hide Dari (who actually was alive, although not in too good
condition). I then checked the limp form of Canstin, finding him quite
dead. Eventually, Eli came back along with other strong people, and we all
dragged everyone who was unconscious (or dead) back into that room in the
outer wall.

After about two hours, everyone who was hit by that breath weapon of the
monsters had woken up, experiencing a horrible caughing sensation. During
those two hours, Jaram and I went outside and made sure the creature was
quite dead. Others brought all the unconscious people downstairs to the
transporter room.

After everyone had woken up, Eli mentioned that maybe we could track that
creature back to it's treasure hoard. Ludo and I decided that was a good
idea, and with the help of the refreshed Dari (Eli turned her invisible
this time), we went into the garden, to the place where we first
encountered the creature, and we followed it's tracks all the way back to a
section of the wall, where Dari pointed out a footprint to us that was half
in and half out of the wall. I quickly proved that the wall wasn't an
illusion, and we all searched for secret doors. Having found nothing, we
went back to the party to get help. As a group we all went to that section
of the wall and Jaram almost immediately found the secret door. Inside we
found a ladder that went up one floor easily. Inside that room, we found
these golden statuettes of the creature along with a lot of gems. Further
up the ladder we could see a trap door. Dari cast a detect magic on
everything and detected magic on only that trap door. We grabbed all the
valuables and immediately left to head back. On the way, we stopped by the
huge golden doors and took out the stutues, and Let'Tiae cast a detect
traps, finding nothing on any of those items. However he did see that
there were traps in the arrow slits. We then all went back to the
transporter room, and went through the transporter. On the other side we
found some rats, one of which Dari spoke to. It told her that there are
giant rats inside the castle. Finally, we traveled back to base camp, and
it's been a few hours now since we've been discussing what our next move
would be. Anyway, that's all for now. More to come with the next
adventure....

-Sahrak
The Traveling Story Teller