The World of Telvar

We put the book away for later identification. Next, Quentin explored the lake as a crocodile, finding several other beaches and streams leading out of it. Every so often something would fall from the ceiling near Quentin, splash into the water, and sink like a stone, but there was little Quentin could do about it. It seemed that these might be the “ceiling slugs” from the journal of the dwarf, who encountered them when flying over a lake on his way here.

One of the slugs finally caught Quentin on his way back to the party, impaling him and wounding him. Quentin swam back, and Morgan pulled the slug out of his back, but not before the slug bit Morgan on the hands. The slug was killed in short order, and pulled out of Quentin.

Using a Flying Felix to clear out the piercers/ceiling slugs ahead of us, we Waterwalked under Cassian’s power to the other beaches. One beach led to a nest of cockatrices, which were defeated in short order after being Webbed by Donald. The rest of the party actually fired missile weapons and killed them before they could get out, although Bogomel contributed heavily with his spear.

Down another corridor we were extorted by some xorn (creatures that can walk through stone), though all they got were some of the thousands of silver pieces we had been accumulating. They also gave us some tips like: avoid the flaming monster with the heads, or you can bribe it for extreme amounts of money. The xorn lived in what was referred to as “The Gem Room,” which should give some idea of how tempting it was to ignore their warnings, but we stuck to it for now.

We headed down one of the swiftly flowing rivers and found a natural bridge, and then a manmade bridge. On one side of the bridge were two corridors—one led to the many-headed beast that spoke in many languages, which we ran away from at the sight of it. Just to note, the room with the many-headed beast contained all sorts of stuff, with weird colors and gems and other features that I can’t describe well from memory.

Down the other corridor, we came to a place appearing idyllic in nature. There were fine rugs and pillows and bowls of fruit and the works. There was also someone there. He claimed to welcome us to “The Garden of a Thousand Earthly Delights.” NOT “The Garden of TWO Earthly Delights,” mind you. One would never get bored, and would sacrifice only fame for a life of eternal bliss. Several party members wanted to go in, most prominently Morgan, Quentin, and Alduin. Several party members felt that the trade-off was bad: Felix, and Albee. Others were neutral. Balinor and Cassian didn’t believe the place was real, and were so dubious that they left. Balinor stuck his hand in a bowl of fruit, attempting to disbelieve it, and got his hand smeared with banana.

However, upon leaving, Balinor sniffed the “banana” and discovered that it smelled more like… oatmeal? It didn’t make sense.

Quentin engaged in a philosophical discussion with the caretaker of “The Antechamber” as the place was referred to. In the end, Quentin decided that he could likely return upon retirement if he wished, and the place would probably still be open, though “it could not be guaranteed.”

The party left and checked out the other corridors, finding little outside of one final dead end: one of the small streams lead to a cavern that had no landing outside of an entire island of gems. We stared at it suspiciously, and Morgan tied a string to a cup and began reeling in a few gems, when a loud booming voice came at us. It warned us to leave (“foolish mortals”) and that though we would be stupid and stay, tough luck, we were going to die, and this was a dead end, blah blah blah….

We backed out and went in again, this time prepared. Kain had a Prayer running, and Protection from Evil, while Cassian had a Detect Lie for the voice, and Donald had a Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Chiaro had Wraithform, etc.

As we began piling the gems into the bags, six undead things came out of the water, and the voice boomed the same thing again, apparently a recording of some sort. The undead things were identified rapidly as Cassian’s strength plunged at the sight of them.

They were the same things we had fought under the Phaulkonian Church (Summary #60), some sort of elder ghoul beings. That time we had a Crossbow of Disruption and had only fought one at a time—this time we had lots of spells. The results…

Felix was paralyzed instantly after a single attack, though he hit his opponent. He was covered for by Albee, and after that no one was paralyzed. Slowly Balinor, Morgan, and Alduin killed their opponents, while Cassian Turned two of them away at key points in the battle. Four were defeated, even more quickly once Quentin joined the fight with his Flame Blade, as did Kain, and Alduin drew his daggers. Balinor was saved from paralysis by one of Cassian’s Aid spells.

The carnage was complete when the other two rose up, and were killed. Kain Removed Felix’s Paralysis, and he was up for the second combat, which was short and brutal.

The gems turned out to be on the order of 1 gp in value, which was reasonable for now, and though the island was not solid gems (only about a few inches thick in gems), we still found several thousand and carted them off. Donald suggested that the REAL treasure might be somewhere else, and we searched under the water with Waterbreathing spells, and this revealed a small cave with lots of gems and gold and other stuff.

Clearly, we don’t the ability to carry all this and move fast, but we’re accumulating stuff!

All that remains now is to pass by the many-headed beast or the Ecks (pech?) of the original six corridors. The lower levels of the dungeon are dangerous and lie beyond the beast, so we hesitate, but we will have to decide this.

The Ecks may be pleased to receive all these mineral gems.

Joel/Balinor