The World of Telvar

Balinor then managed to hit it with Thud, the silver hammer. Amazingly, this injured it! "Attack it with silver!"

Quentin had already used a charge on the Rod of Thorns to make it a +2 shilelagh, but was having difficulties hitting the creature, and so we never actually found out if +2 weapons affected it. (Quentin�s note: Dammit!) Morgan stopped his desperate unwrapping of Thunderstruck, the magic longsword, and swung his silver one at it.

It turned and knocked Balinor down with a double chill wound. Fortunately, between the efforts of Alduin, Narahn, Morgan and Kodo, it fell. Quentin threw a Cure Serious on Balinor, and all three shivering people recovered in a few minutes.

Donald realized it wasn't a wraith, but rather some negative material creature.

Feeling gutsy, we tried it again. This time Balinor pressed both the symbols. Then he fell over shivering again. The second negative thing went down under a hail of silver arrows, silver coins from coin slinging Quentin, and silver swords. Everyone recovered, again.

Then we tried just touching the moon (after some debate). The door opened, and an 8 foot diameter tunnel of swirling mist opened up. Twenty feet down the corridor was a room lit by some sort of magical light. There were 6 beeps, and it closed after thirty seconds, violently spitting out the rock we had tossed into the tunnel.

The door vanished completely.

Right on with Quentin's prediction, though, it reappeared 24 hours later.

Felix ran through the corridor the next time it opened, and took a quick look around, then ran back. There was a 10x10 room with completely smoothed walls, and a single corridor leading out.

Over the next week or so, we tried various experiments:

We left two rocks in there, Continual Light and normal, and they ended up in different places, but were generally shifted around. A chalk arrow we drew was smeared all over the place. Sand we dumped in was also scattered. Iron rations vanished, packaging and all. A note with different languages on it vanished, along with a bag.

We decided that since nothing over there was communicating, it would be better to go for the gusto and send a party through. The restrictions were that only five people could safely cross in there in 30 seconds. So we decided to send Cassian, Balinor, Morgan, and Alduin in.

On an inspiration we cast an Augury with our remaining component (from the Garroten affair)-"Would it beneficial for these people to head through?" This of course required a 24 hour stay unless there was a way to open the door from the other side. On an 01 result, we got this: "Phenomenal failure will result unless minor changes are made."

Disturbing, but also encouraging. However we could not guess what minor changes to make. Eventually we decided to send in Donald in addition to the four, with Web, Sleep, and Magic Missile.

Judging from the result, I don't think this was what the Augury guy had in mind.

The portal snapped shut from the other side, leaving a blank non-magical wall. The walls were entirely smooth, but we had the elves do some checking around. Alduin noticed that there was a 3x3 hollow space in one of the walls. About this time, Balinor heard a voice in dwarven say, "One minute remaining."

Oh boy. We took that as a bad sign-apparently we were in a dwarven trash compactor or something! We ran to the tunnel, and discovered a magical door with three locks on it. Uh oh.

Alduin began frantically attempting to pick the lock. Despite being low-level, he actually managed to pick the first lock and began work on the second. Then there was a humming noise, and the 3x3 panel opened and something black slithered out. It was some sort of collective creature with a whole bunch of legs that oozed around.

Managing not to panic, Donald calmly informed us that the thing was almost certainly a black pudding, a creature he had thought restricted to the Adventuring Reserve. They are apparently impervious to just about anything. You're not supposed to attack them, since slashing at them may split the constituents of the creature and have us facing multiple black puddings with all the power of the original.

In short, we were dead unless Alduin opened the door. Miraculously, Alduin picked the second lock, and went on to the third, but the creature was approaching. Morgan tossed a silver piece at it, and noticed that the thing slithered toward the coin and dissolved it! We started using our coinage to lead the creature in a bunch of trips around the room to buy time. If we could do this for twenty-four hours, we would be ok, but we only had a few hours of stuff.

Then the $#!+ hit the fan. Alduin was unable to pick the third lock. In desperation, Cassian threw a Dispel Magic at the door, but failed, and it relocked. Although Alduin could unlock the two he had done before, the third would elude him forever. The door was too hard for Balinor to knock down.

We saw our doom approaching.

Balinor hollered for it to stop in dwarven, yelling obscenities and anything else he knew, but we suspected that the dwarven voice had been automated in some way.

We continued playing with the silver pieces, but it looked like the creature was having less and less interest in the stuff. Then we switched to dried rations, but that eventually became uninteresting as well. Finally we came up with a plan.

We lured the creature back into it's opening with the coins, and Balinor and Morgan slammed the door shut. This worked, but it was apparent that the creature was much stronger than Balinor and Morgan combined. Cassian, Alduin, and Donald ran to help them, and everyone dug their heels, but could only hold it for a few minutes before we had to run from it again.

We were dead unless we could kill it, so we tried everything. Taking out her soap, Cassian threw pieces at it, AND INFLICTED 0-1 DAMAGE. Finally, it became apparent that the whole bar together would work better, and Cassian threw 20 coin weights of soap at the thing, inflicting some damage. We cast a Web at it, which had no apparent effect. Then we lit the web on fire with the two torches we had, and this definitely injured it. Not a whole lot though.

We tried lighting objects and tossing them at the creature, including Cassian's sleeves. This did some minor damage, maybe. Finally, we tried to superheat one of Morgan's greaves, and threw it at the creature. We then discovered that it is not the heat, but simply the flame that injures the things, something that no one else knows.

Well, we would be glad to share that information, but didn't think we would be around long enough to do it.

Seeing no other option, Morgan went up to the creature with a torch and swung, injuring it somewhat. It struck back, but even black puddings are affected the Morgan Magic, and it missed. He ran back.

We were up against a wall, with no options left. The banzai attacks that have always led the Defenders to great things spurred us on, and we began our last stand.

Balinor and Morgan ran at the creature with torches blazing. It was already somewhat injured, and a few of the colonial creatures were a weird gray color. Of course, our armor did nothing to protect, and the thing could attack as soon as we gave it an opening. Balinor and Morgan attacked, and together we were able to shield each other enough that Morgan was harder to hit than usual. Morgan hit and Balinor missed, and then the creature struck back, doing 15 points to Balinor, but (surprise) actually fumbling while attacking Morgan. Morgan took his free attack against the slime monster and hit it. Cassian threw a Cure Light Wounds on him, and we continued the attack. Donald threw a Sleep spell, which had no effect. The Wand of Paralysis may have had some infinitesimal effect, nailing one of the colonial creatures, but nothing significant happened when Donald used it.

This continued for a little while, Morgan nailing the creature and dodging attacks, Balinor missing and getting pasted. Cassian cast all but one of her Cure Lights and an Aid, when it became clear Balinor was about to fall. She used her scroll, throwing two Cure Lights on him in time to bring him up to some hit points. We attacked it again, and both missed. The thing struck back, missing Morgan AGAIN (it needs something like a 6 to hit Morgan, a 2 to hit Balinor), but knocking Balinor to his knees (2 hp). Finally, Balinor and Morgan both hit for the first time. Cassian began her final Cure Light Wounds, and it went off at the same time as the creature counterattacked.

It hit both Morgan and Balinor. Morgan remained up, but the Cure Light was only a drop in the bucket for the brutalized Balinor. He fell backward, dying on impact, though he managed to fling his torch back to Cassian as collapsed. The creature slithered to start disintegrating the fallen fighter.

Cassian picked up the torch and charged with Morgan. Incredibly, they both hit and pasted the creature, ACTUALLY KILLING IT.

Balinor's armor had shielded him long enough that he was still intact, but quite dead (-12 instantly). Cassian tended Morgan's wound, and they sat back to wait.

24 hours later, the door opened again, and everyone rushed through. I suppose in hindsight that the minor change would have been more torches or Quentin with a Flame Blade.

It was clear that there was no Raise Dead for Balinor that be cast in time. Cassian realized that the only option was for her to use the scroll of Raise Dead. Using Speak with Dead, Balinor indicated that if there was no other option and everyone else thought he was worth it, he would like Cassian to use the scroll.

On an incredible series of rolls, Cassian successfully cast the spell, and despite a -80% to the system shock roll, Balinor was raised with no permanent damage. (Would have been comeliness!)

He recovered for a day, and more expeditions were planned. Balinor and Donald would wait outside in case they were trapped and needed to open the door again, and the rest of the party would investigate inside. The bluish lockpicks turned out to be mithril, with a +5% to the chance, but even with the improvement, Alduin couldn't successfully open the door.

With Alduin helping, the strong people tried to bash the mechanism. Felix failed, then Kodo failed, then Balinor failed, then Morgan failed, but ironically, Cassian succeeded.

Looking embarrassed, Balinor claimed he was still a little disoriented from being dead. Kodo muttered something.

Beyond the door was a weird metallic room with a number of small caskets in it. There was a secret panel Alduin discovered, which had a button and a lever in it. The button and lever operated the door and black pudding panel. Incidentally, as long as the door was open, the portal remained open as well. As a precaution, Quentin Stoneshaped a section to keep the door open.

We checked out the stuff in the room, which included 54 gems, three scrolls and three potions.

Having found everything we thought was there, we simply packed up and left.

We headed for a nearby town in Sark called Canterbury. The leader there was very reasonable, but he had learned much of what had happened from the miners who had complained. He told us that Traywick was wanted for some minor things like evasion of salvage tax, but generally was disliked and suspected of much worse. He pointed out to Morgan that the sword was one of the common ways of identifying him in wanted posters, and that he should be careful.

In addition, we had created a slight mess. If we had known about Canterbury, we would have come here and asked what was going on beforehand, but of course we didn't know. The leader understood that, but was hoping we would pay at least the cash salvage tax to him rather than using our powers as deputies to delay payment until Restenford. He would have to pay reparations to the families of the dead people, and we understood his plight. He also pointed out he could have us detained for a month until it was all sorted out.

We saw his point, and not only paid the 25% salvage tax, but gave him an extra 6 gems. He found this quite generous, and provided us with rooms at the inn, some mules, and a nice traveling route to take back. I think it restored some respect in his eyes, and he stated that he would take that into consideration when dealing with Baron Grellus' men in the future.

We got back to Restenford just barely in time as the ports closed. We had spent a full month in the cave!

Balinor trained to level 5 and gained 7 hp to stand at 50.
Narahn trained to level 2 and gained 4 hp to stand at 11.
Kodo trained to level 2 and gained 6 hp to stand at 30.

In addition, Alduin and Donald will train (to 2nd and 4th respectively) when the ports reopen in March.

Balinor donated his personal share to the Phaulkonian Church in thanks for Cassian's effort. He also purchased a bar of soap which he carries at all times ("just in case a black pudding shows up"), and has mixed feelings about the soap bugbear head.

Treasure:

1. Three scrolls: Protection from Elementals (all types-very cool scroll)
2. Protection from Weretigers (wacky)
3. Scroll with 2nd level mage spell Shatter-Donald will learn this.

Potions:

1. Potion of Diminution
2. Extra-Healing (on Dark Helmet)
3. Invulnerability
4. Elixir of Health (all three are totally awesome)
5. A weird bottle-probably has something like an efreet in it...

Other stuff:

1. 7 permanent +1 arrows
2. +2 small shield
3. Thunderstruck
4. Bracers AC 7/7

Quality Items:

1. Bastard sword +1/+1
2. Composite Longbow +1/+1
3. Scimitar +1/+0

54 gems at 250 gp apiece, and some money...

Salvage tax took about 20 of the gems. The Baron's cut removed another 15 or so, and relieved half of his debt to us. Magic items salvage tax took the "genie bottle", scroll of Protection from Weretigers, half of the Elixir of Health, the Potion of Diminution, and the bastard sword.

What happened to the other stuff?

The Elixir of Health is a kicking item that can cure basically ANYTHING. Permanent insanities, feeblemind, you name it. We used half the potion to cure Donald's deafness, and he can now hear normally! Congratulations, Donald!

At least 5 of the 7 arrows are going to Drew as his parting share. Quentin took the scimitar, and Morgan took the composite longbow. The bracers were given to Alduin. Cassian is using the +2 small shield.

Then there's the sword. This is a Morgan weapon:

Thunderstruck is a +1 longsword that if you yell out the name, once per day it can do tons of damage and possibly stun an opponent, as Balinor can attest to. In addition, just wearing it has two effects:

Negative: You take extra damage from lightning, since it draws it to you like a magnet.
Positive: It acts like a LUCKBLADE. For Morgan, this is just totally disgusting.

After training expenses have been dealt with, I would guess that the party will have around 5-6000 gold remaining (in gems and such), in addition to about 3000 owed by the Baron and large hunks of Barnacus training credit still remaining.

Slightly tragic, but ultimately successful!

RIP Lynore, a brave half-elven thief whose luck didn't hold...

Final status:

Felix, 5th level fighter, 53 hp
Balinor, 5th level fighter, 50 hp
Cassian, 5th level cleric, 31 hp
Kodo, 2nd level woodsman, 30 hp
Morgan, 5th level fighter, 27 hp
Quentin, 6th level druid, 25 hp
Donald, 4th level mage, 16 + level hp
Narahn, 2nd level fighter, 11 hp
Alduin, 2nd level thief, 6 + level hp

Aaron's new character will be a 1st level halfling hairfoot thief with 5 hp. He is a master locksmith (x5) and is named Haladir.

We won't be playing next week, so the adventures resume July 11th!

Joel/Balinor