The World of Telvar

Shaken, we examined the “mummy.” It was completely unaffected by the fire, and we discovered that in fact it was a being encased in crystal. Balinor chipped away at it, and we discovered a magic iron bracer as well as other normal equipment.

In another passage, we thought we heard faint laughing, but a Detect Invisibility revealed nothing. This was in a large room with a “cow” skeleton in the corner. We moved to examine the thing, when once again the ceiling fell on Morgan.

This time some gray colored being had encased Morgan, slowly suffocating him. We stabbed it, but eventually stopped when we realized this was hurting Morgan badly. With Balinor’s hammers (which had greatly reduced effect against Morgan) and Donald’s Magic Missiles, we defeated the creature and rescued the barely conscious Morgan (who had used the Ring of Health to survive all the damage done by the fighters).

We identified the creature as a manta ray being, except one that exists in caves. I forgot exactly what it was called. The “cow” turned out to be a large minotaur skeleton. We found significant treasure after Balinor made an extra careful search. That left someone to deal with the unenviable task of searching the pile of feces in the center of the room. This distasteful task had no takers until finally Quentin did it, shoveling some of the stuff in the faces of the arguing Felix and Alduin. Point—druid.

We found five gems which Quentin pocketed.

We left some silver pieces for the “ecks” or pechs, or whatever they were, in one of the other passages. We’re not sure if they’re interested, but what the heck.

In another mushroom room, Balinor was levitated up a cliff and killed eight giant wolf spiders in melee combat, thanks to Slow Poison (though the fight was pretty close due to an early wound dealt to Balinor). And the fact that Balinor fumbled twice and dropped both his magical hammers into the guano below.

The spiders had a noblink body with a lot of treasure, strangely mostly in fire giant coinage and bracelets and such. This question was answered a bit later, sort of…

Behind the spiders was a small passage. Quentin checked it out as a mountain lion and discovered a raging underground river below, but nothing else.

Finally, we had to search all the bat guano and stirge guano. It was a demeaning awful experience, improved somewhat by Locate Object, Cassian’s suggestion. In the crap in the spider room we found a couple of dead fire giants (skeletal) and some stuff, though little was gained. There was nothing but a pair of dung encrusted shovels in the stirge room.

Finally we had checked every passage outside of the one King Ranore had gone down so long ago (the first right). We squeezed through the super thin corridor and then ran back when we spotted a million sleeping bats (literally!). We let them go out, and then we walked past. Beyond them we turned left and a found a strange area, where the river flowed into a lake, and there was a cave across the room. There is a cryptic drawing on our map that Balinor thought might correspond to the room, but it doesn’t work out very well. We left the lake crossing for later.

We went straight up the bat corridor, and were attacked by weird bat eating slug creatures that slid out of the walls and banged into Felix’s shield, then retreated back instantly.

There were several, and they were too dumb to talk to each other, but Kain convinced them as a group to stop it, that we were metallic and inedible. Only one was dumb enough to attack, and it banged its head on a shield very hard.

We passed by the dozen or so sluggies, and reached another set of corridors. Down one of these, something bizarre happened.

A puffball thing jumped from the ground and landed on Felix’s armored leg. He sliced it, and it popped loudly. We turned the corner and saw a large “bed” of these things. Donald shrugged and lobbed a Fireball, and bad stuff happened.

The fireball detonated only a few feet in front of the party, bouncing on something. The explosion did amazingly pitiful damage (only 17 out of a possible 48) and mercifully Chiaro saved and was still standing. We discovered that were Forcelike walls in front and in back of us, and a weird gas cloud was descending on us.

Cassian recalled an old tale about a weird evil dwarf that was served by puffball mushrooms that put people to sleep. This seemed amazingly relevant as sure enough a dwarf sized being with wings flew around the corner and grinned, while the army of puffballs advanced toward the Wall of Force, waiting to kill us.

Well, someone eventually dispelled the Cloud and the back wall, the front collapsed shortly thereafter and the puffballs advanced threateningly. Chiaro dropped a Hypnotic Pattern and suddenly 50 of the 56 puffballs froze in their tracks!

Everyone began spells to hose our dwarf friend, when in particularly bad taste the dwarf dropped an Ice Storm on us! It was a really quick, presumably mental, activation time, and every spellcaster except Quentin lost their spell. Again, the damage was pitiful (6 out of a possible 30) but Chiaro fell unconscious, the Hypnotic Pattern collapsed, and the puffballs began to advance once again.

Realizing that to allow another spell was bad, Balinor shot him with his crossbow but missed. Donald realized that no one could stop the thing, and acted.

Donald activated the Ring of Jumping, springing in the air and smashing full force into the dwarf, whose wings suddenly vanished, and both smashed hard to the ground, taking crushing wounds!

Way to go Donald!

Alduin leaped over the puffballs and charged, as did Albee. Morgan tried to follow suit, but once again the result was catastrophic for the poor elf. Three puffballs latched onto Morgan, and one bit him, and Morgan collapsed to the ground, buried under a dozen puffballs.

Kain lobbed a flaming oil flask, damaging Morgan, but killing his assailants. Alduin stabbed the downed dwarf, nailing him for huge damage and three wounds. Albee kicked himself (fumble), and then stabbed the guy with a spear. Felix and Balinor just gawked at the carnage being wreaked by the thief, monk, and wizard, and realized they probably wouldn’t be relevant.

This was made patently clear when Quentin finished his Wall of Fire, blowing all the puffballs and Morgan to kingdom come, clearing the room. He then dropped the spell and advanced to save Morgan.

Meanwhile, the dwarf stood no chance. He tried to stand up and draw his weapon, but with five wounds this was a painful action. Alduin stabbed him again, and he reeled. Donald decided not to move and further injure himself. Finally, Alduin stabbed the guy again, and he went down, dead.

About ten healing spells brought Morgan up to consciousness, but he was amazingly unlucky once again. The puffball that infested Morgan’s leg suddenly exploded, nearly killing the elf. He was saved only by the pair of Cure Serious spells from Cassian and Quentin. It was clear that Morgan’s leg was all messed up, and Quentin, the walking hospital, used his Cure Disease to fix Morgan up.

Next time, the remaining passages will be explored, and we’ll see if we can rack yet more problems. To take stock:

Felix—cursed, down 20 hp, no helmet
Balinor—cursed, down 18 hp
Chiaro—one mangled arm
Morgan—roasted by his own party repeatedly, damaged elven chain, diseased, no helmet

Whee.

Joel/Balinor