The World of Telvar

We continued through and managed to explore all of the non-secret areas of the dungeon, revealing little but more traps and secret doors. We then decided to check out the secret doors.

We first chose one that by our map we had determined led into another already mapped corridor. Felix inserted the key while everyone else was around the corner. There was a huge THUD and Felix was crushed under the door as it fell on him.

Incredibly, Felix sustained 38 points of damage AND a 6 TIMES WOUND!!! Fortunately, he was saved by four Cure Light Wounds, plus a healing check, though he was forced into unconsciousness, and lost 2 hp and 1 constitution point permanently. This also took Felix out of the adventure.

We continued to explore the other doors, this time using extreme precautions involving our ten foot poles plus string and various apparatus to ensure that no one was anywhere near the door when it opened. Fun stuff happened-- some doors crushed and shattered like the one Felix had encountered, but others were visually more impressive.

Several doors opened to reveal catapults of flaming pitch or something, which just blew up whoever was standing in the door (though the arc was high enough that if Perry opened the door, it would have missed him!). Another couple actually traveled down the corridor at high speed and violently pushed the victim into a pit trap farther down the corridor.

One appeared not to do anything, but in fact as we stood there waiting, a zombielike fanged creature burst around the corner at Drew, missing. Balinor roared, and he and Morgan attacked it. Unfortunately, normal weapons appeared ineffective. Scowling, Balinor attacked, and FUMBLED WITH BOTH WEAPONS...

He damaged himself with Maiden Basher, then his big whiff with Blunt allowed the creature to crack him in the side. Suddenly, Balinor was 1st level. Uggh.

Morgan drew his silver longsword against what was clearly a wight, and Perry and Cassian frantically shot it with silver arrows. The wight beat down Balinor again, dropping him to 0-level and onto the ground bleeding. Fortunately, at that moment, Cassian and Perry finished it off.

A few days later, Balinor had regained level 1, but had lost his second level permanently.

The final door we checked was quite interesting. After having bypassed about 6 traps in the corridor, we made it to the door, which opened into a large room where the mist was FINALLY dispersed. There were two iron pillars-- in fact the whole room was iron. Detect Magic actually worked in this room, revealing that the pillars were magical.

We needed to find out if the key for the secret door was on the other side, and so Drew went onto the other side and waited for the door to open. It opened, to reveal Drew getting clobbered by some sticklike iron golemish being!

Apparently the right column was actually this golem in disguise. It moved incredibly fast and had a large number of appendages, but fortunately could only use two of them against a single opponent.

The party ran about in confusion. Grimly, Balinor moved to block the monster and swung, damaging it with Maiden Basher. He yelled for everyone to get out as quickly as possible, intending to sacrifice his life, and took a vicious hit. The party was fleeing behind him, but Cassian refused to abandon him, instead curing him of damage as fast as it came at him.

Balinor growled and began a slow withdrawal in hopes of reaching the thinner doorway, where it could swing once at him. Fortunately the creature was slow. Balinor continuously crushed it with phenominal attacks, while Cassian continued curing him at an astounding rate. After blasting the creature and never missing on six attacks, it crashed to the ground, just as Cassian used her final cure. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, the party returned.

Worried about the door shutting during our exploration, we actually broke it by jamming it with a Stoneshape preventing the door from closing. This made it considerably easier to run in and out of the room.

The room still had one pillar remaining. Cautiously we poked at it, but it didn't respond. We then noticed three of the secret panel indentations at different heights.

We used the key and discovered that there were three stone jars, with magic lids, in the three compartments. Assuming the worst, we used an enormous number of precautions, including astrology readings, Slow Poison, Protection from Fire, Protection from Evil, and Bless all cast on Quentin. Quentin Stoneshaped a hole and we scooped out... treasure!!! We did it!

All told:

We got about 8000 gp, scrolls of Slow Poison/Neutralize Poison, Cure Light Wounds x 2, Detect Lie/ Know Alignment, and RAISE DEAD! There were four travelling spellbooks-- two were clearly beginner books (one mage and one illusionist), but the other two had: Levitate/ Shatter/ Web, and Haste/ Monster Summoning I.

There were 7 potions: Healing x 3, Extra-Healing, Flying, Climbing, and Gaseous Form.

There were two permanent magic items:

Some weird lenses that grant strong resistance against, arrghhh, gaze attacks... and a druidic staff! +1 club for druids, and by using charges can manipulate plants and trees!

We kept: Raise Dead scroll, druid staff, lenses, Extra-Healing, Healing x2, Flying, Climbing, Gaseous Form, and scrolls of Cure Light Wounds x2, and Slow/Neutralize Poison. And 5000 gp.

Quite a nice haul! Now at least there's another magic weapon in the party! As for the lenses, we hope to be able to trade them to maybe a government, perhaps for another magic weapon or armor. In the meantime, we now have a ton of one-shot items, and a really nice Raise Dead scroll if we need it! And money.

Finally, it appears that Cassian will undoubtedly get 2nd level, and feasibly but not likely 3rd level. Drew will undoubtedly get 4th level. Balinor will regain 2nd level, and possibly get 3rd level as well.

A resounding success at last!

Joel/Balinor