The World of Telvar

We trekked past and into the valley with the noblink, prepared for a battle royale. Instead, when a group of noblink appeared out of the bushes (noblink are primitive hobgoblins who look apelike), we realized that we could placate them at absolutely no loss to us, and we gave them the remainder of the day’s Created Food and Water (we had been using that since we got to Cromwell since we couldn’t afford to do otherwise). They snatched eagerly at the food and we moved on.

We then encountered a group of Northerner tribesmen. Balinor spoke with them (he is a Northerner) and we traded them 3 quality crossbow for some useful information. There were wyverns here and we should camp in caves, they told us. They also said that if we laid down an offering to Lludd immediately and praised him, we could get off with half as much loss. They finally said that the Horn of Iguilve was in the same mountain where Lludd lived, though he did not live in the Horn (the cavern) itself. There was also a cave, once occupied by giants, that is no longer occupied by them (instead something more hideous that no has ever returned to tell about).

They also offered shelter at their village out of respect for killing the hobgoblin tribe.

We thanked them and moved on. An interesting note: many Northerners despise the ones that live here, as they work as vassals of the dwarves and farm for them, and are not fully independent.

We camped in caves for the next few days and after a few weeks of total travel in the mountains, we reached the Horn of Iguilve, an almost stereotypical evil dungeon cave. The entrance did look suspiciously like a fanged mouth with eyes. We went in.

Inside was a wide corridor that stretched to a long stairway. We descended into a corridor. To the left was a room full of stirges, which we eliminated with a single Fireball. Unfortunately there was no way we could search the room then due to the level of guano and dead stirges.

Up ahead was a room with six additional exits. There were faces in varying states of sorrow (diseased, sad, grumpy, etc.) above the doors that seemed to move their eyes when you looked at them out of the corner of your eye. Tricks with a mirror revealed nothing useful. The entire place detected as Alteration, and as a trap.

Using our poem (from Kaal Na Ka’s journal) we came up with all sorts of wild conjectures and wasted a great deal of time. Eventually we tried backing into the passages while looking at all the faces. Each time we attempted to go into a passage, all the other faces looked at the nearest face, which opened its mouth (revealing a gem on its tongue) and spoke in the native tongue of the nearest person, saying, “Turn back. This is not the way,” over and over again. When all were attempted simultaneously, the voices said the same thing in a garbled chorus.

We even searched for secret doors on the walls of the previous corridor, and found nothing.

Finally, we decided that there was nothing to do but head through one of the passages. We mapped out the beginnings of a few, and three of them lead to thin corridors, thereby making them less attractive.

One corridor had a number of voices screaming in many languages. We picked out dwarven, yelling, “Shut off the light! You morons!”

We chose first to go down the diseased face corridor. After some turns and other corridors we came to a room with two daggers, a bastard sword, and a battleaxe on the floor. Unfortunately, Chiaro’s Detect Invisible had run out long ago, and so we got hosed.

As Felix entered with Donald behind him, part of the wall detached in the shape of a humanoid and flew at Felix with unbelievable speed. It slammed into Felix, inflicting a triple wound, and nearly pinned him to the floor. He rolled out of the way and Quentin hit it with his spear+1, which had no effect.

Morgan hit it with his longsword+2, which also did nothing. Balinor charged forward and got clocked, but hit it with Wrath, which actually affected it!

The hammer+1 (Maiden Basher) affected it as well, and Kain dropped a Cure Light on Balinor to keep him going longer. Quentin dropped a Cure Serious on Felix, but mysteriously it didn’t heal most of the damage.

Donald cast Transmute Stone to Flesh out of the Circlet and the thing was suddenly softer and hittable by sharp weapons! It was greatly reduced in effectiveness and Felix, Morgan and Balinor cleaved it apart.

Unfortunately, there were two things that happened as a result. The Book of Infinite Spells flipped (on an 07) from Transmute Stone to Flesh, to Magic Mouth. Whoopee.

Secondly, Felix and Balinor’s damage done by the creature when it was stone REFUSED TO HEAL. Uggh. We eventually determined that they were cursed, and that even Cassian was not powerful enough to remove it.

So Felix is now at 50 hp, and Balinor is at 52. By the way, one dagger was magical.

After a spellshift during which hundreds of bats flew out, pasting Felix, we checked out the corridor with the voices. We swapped to Starshine, which is a sad spell that produces a light half as a bright as a dead firefly. It was still enough to annoy the creatures. We learned that they were pech, earth elemental kin creatures that search this plane for mineral wealth. We agreed to go away.

We saw few options and continued exploring. Balinor’s suggestion to touch the gems in the faces was tried, and it was discovered that the jaws were really nasty as they shut. A twig was made into sawdust!

We checked out the rest of the diseased face corridor and completed it. Another corridor led to an area of a mushroom forest, where some toads lived. In a nearby section, we bumped into a troll den, as four of the creatures ran out of the cave, obligingly one at a time. They were easily cut down by Morgan, Felix, Balinor, and Nakumanu (Balinor had the acid dagger and Nakumanu had the regenerator hating falchion). Quentin and Albee helped keep them down while Balinor killed them with the acid dagger.

In their lair were some potions and money, which we took.

We continue the exploration next time!

Joel/Balinor