Summary XLI: Beyond the Ziggurat: Witchdoctor on the Offensive
Beginning with the party located at the Ziggurat, we setup camp for a
little while and cast some _Speak with Deads_ to try and find an entrance
to the Ziggurat. We found that there was a star shaped pendant
(pentagram) on the witchdoctor that supposedly opened the blocks. So we
spent a good deal of time finding all the real magic items on the loser
(he had some aura altering spell cast on virtually all of his posessions
so they appeared to be type 5 magic) so many dispels later we had his
holy symbol and the "key". Around this time, Alegra felt that we were
being scryed upon and almost immediately after that feeling the blocks to
the Zig opened. We took that as the cue to pack up and leave. We
figured that if the witchdoctor was going to fight us, we would rather do
it in the forest instead of his Zig.
So, later that night some distance away, the witchdoctor attacked by
drinking potions of firebreathing, spell immuning himself, and throwing a
silence over the area. It looked dangerous for a second (after Ceydric
had taken 60 points of fire damage) but our consistent damage won out.
He had lots of cash for a bugbear (probably just looted the Zig).
Anyway, we made it back to Middle and the downtime began.
When everyone got back in September, we headed out to the Zig once again
to see if we could finish the place (after the atonement, Lorm told Eli
and Xavier that he thought the treasure was easily recoverable). Upon
returning after 8 months, the place was still pretty deserted so we went
in and found that it was a really wacky place. First off, it wasn't very
big, most of the space was taken up by the large domed areas one on top
of the other (connected by a hole in the floor) with ramps connecting the
levels and hallways going to adjoining rooms. On the bottom level, there
was lots of soot and also an altar of some sort with a door beyond. Oh,
and I guess I should mention the Hell Hole in the center of that floor
where the "ancient one" sleeps. Something having to do with the Prince
of Fury and the bugbear god, but that is another story. On a mid level,
there were a series of seemingly glass boxes that had a couple of
skeletons in them. One of the neat items we had recovered from the
bugbear witchdoctor was a circlet of golem control, keyed to two golems
in the Zig. We did all our recon through their eyes and since they see
all spectrums, we soon realized that the glass boxes were actually walls
of force (permanent) that the golems could put things in and retreive.
The golems themselves were quite impressive. Initially they were melded
into the stone in one of the walls of a lower floor. They look like huge
gargoyles with beaks, spikes, four legs coming out of the corners of
their midsection, wings (I believe), glowing eyes, and rather deadly
looking hands. We tried to use the golem to open the door behind the
altar but I guess we hadn't perfected the control; the golem missed the
doorknob and instead twisted the door open, inflicting massive structural
damage and just obliterating it. Kinda neat :)
Anyway, so we recovered the gold and left, hoping to return to destroy
the ancient one in the pit at a slightly later date. I personally like
the Zig so hopefully we decide to wipe out the creature, clean up the
place, and set up residence :)
>Oh,
>and I guess I should mention the Hell Hole in the center of that floor
>where the "ancient one" sleeps. Something having to do with the >Prince
>of Fury and the bugbear god, but that is another story.
The Ancient One was "not to be angered" according to our speak with dead on
the first shaman. It appears that Ludo's token of boulder was probably
directly responsible for the "angering" of the Ancient One in the Dark Pit.
Hee hee!
Zack (and Kyle)