The World of Telvar

In this chamber were many stone statues lined up on the walls all at attention, though tossed around creating a great density of them. This was fairly disturbing, but even worse was when a voice spoke from an unclear location, in Common, saying that we were doomed by the god of the troglodytes.

Naturally we decided that this cavern should be added to our “points of interest” list to be explored later, but it was not to be. Balinor and Nakumanu at the back of the party turned to leave, and found themselves facing more magical wall. There was no way out.

But perhaps there was. Chiaro cast Wraithform and poked his head out the other side, whereupon he saw something quite terrible.

There were perhaps 30 troglodytes outside, conducting a ceremony of some sort, all eyes trained on the wall, which Alduin discovered was somehow the wrong side of a secret door. Several were chanting, and there were incense candles in front of the door.

This could not be good.

There was a lever on the other side. There was one way it could be opened. If Chiaro could decloak on the other side, and pull the lever before getting killed, perhaps we could all get free. This plan was rapidly scrapped however. It seemed unlikely to work.

Spellcasters began to dispel the door, hoping that since it was obviously created and separate from the rest of the dungeon, it could be dispelled. Donald’s Dispel failed.

At this moment, Felix collapsed in a heap, clearly comatose or dead, his lifeforce draining out of his body slowly but surely. His mind was being attacked by something.

Kain’s Dispel failed. Cassian dropped a Death’s Door on Felix, which seemed to have no immediate effect.

Albee dropped dead as well.

Cassian dropped a Prayer on the party and began casting again. Her Dispel never got off, as she dropped as well.

The party was panicking by this point. The front party members were being picked off every four segments by some unknown force, having their souls drained. What WAS this?

Bogomel dropped. Nakumanu collapsed, but finally was able to shout, “It’s over there.” His gesture was in the direction of about eight stone statues.

Balinor took a shot with his crossbow, but nothing happened. He activated his items, including the bastard sword Little Thoughtless, which included a Mindblank, and his Ring of Protection from Evil.

Quentin Dispelled the door. He began a Transmute Rock to Mud.

Kain dropped a Prayer on the party.

Donald collapsed, but was able to gasp, given extreme effort, “It’s that one!”

Now we only had two targets, and one was on top of the other. Balinor put away his crossbow, activated his strength, and sprinted across the room, Morgan in hot pursuit.

Just before Balinor and Morgan reached the creature, the statue animated and pulled a spear from behind its back. Kain took the cue and launched a Sling Bullet of Concussive Force at the thing, blowing it back and inflicting large damage to the creature.

Quentin melted the door with a Transmute Rock to Mud. At this point the troglodytes would perhaps have charged the front line of Quentin and Alduin, but fortunately Chiaro pulled out the Scroll of Solid Fog and dropped it on the creatures, sealing them in the outer room.

Morgan somehow managed to parry the spear on an incredible save, but missed. Balinor was not attacked and smashed Maiden Basher into its side, injuring it. The creature’s eyes flicked open and stared at Balinor.

However, Balinor had done something right. The Mindblank effect disrupted the creature’s ability to attack his soul directly, and the suddenly lucky fighter resisted the effect!

The creature couldn’t understand when Balinor smashed it again.

It was at least a 13th level fighter specialist in the spear, of course, and stabbed Morgan for a wound. The elf was forced back, but Balinor continued to crush it. He yelled, “If you open that eye, I’ll bash it out!” The creature responded by staring at Balinor again, but he somehow resisted the second effect.

The creature stabbed Morgan for a second wound, seriously injuring the elf. Alduin appeared and stabbed the creature with his daggers, injuring it badly, and Balinor finished it off with a final hit.

The thing exploded, the minor blast hitting all the combatants, and it was gone.

But everyone else was still dying.

Felix recovered to normal unconsciousness, as did Cassian and Donald, but Albee, Nakumanu, and Bogomel were all dying, and worse, their souls appeared to be vanishing into the Nine Hells or some such place.

Donald had a Remove Curse scroll, but unfortunately only he could read it. We tried everything to save the dying members, including Cure Disease, Cure Serious Wounds, Healing checks, Slow Poison, holy water, everything. Nothing seemed to work.

Alduin discovered a back passageway at the end of the room. There he discovered many bodies, and of particular interest, a number of scrolls. We grabbed the scroll of Heal, Raise Dead, and Remove Curse and hastily cast the Remove Curse, and Albee was saved.

We pulled the Scroll of Protection from Possession and read it, shielding the two dying henchmen. The victory was bittersweet; although Nakumanu and Bogomel still perished, their souls remained safe.

The troglodytes had fled the outer room, presumably upon the death of their god, and we gathered up the treasure and left the room.

The creature was a Bodak, a very bizarre demon thing, and there was an elaborate tale that Cassian related about an evil fighter named Bodak.

In conclusion, that was certainly the nastiest opponent we’ve ever fought. This convinced us that it was perhaps time to leave. At least to get the first wave of treasure out.

We used two of the three Raise Dead scrolls that we now had, saving the two henchman. This hurt, but since they could carry treasure this wasn’t a total loss. We hauled out all the platinum pieces, and remaining gold, and gave the 1 gp gems to the Ecks so that they could begin a project to kill the Chossos, using an elaborate tunnel to collapse the ceiling on the creature.

As Kain said, “Chossos is sitting on my new temple.” (referring to the pile of gems and coins under the thing)

We pre-emptively paid Lludd, which pleased him as much as a chaotic evil behir can be pleased, and made it back to the dwarven settlement ALMOST without incident.

First at a rockslide we encountered a pair of stone giants, who were just hanging out until the dwarves paid them to clear the rocks. They sold us a scroll for 3000 gp which had Shocking Grasp and Bigby’s Grasping Fist (the 7th level one!). We happily added it to the treasure list and continued. We reached a crossroads and had no idea how to get to the Dwarven Vale from there.

We used a blindfolded Morgan to choose the path, banking on Thunderstruck’s luckblade effect, and set off. Right into a gnoll ambush, as it turned out.

However, we saw them first. This made it quite fun.

Two Call Lightnings, a Hold Person, several crossbow and arrow shots, and a Fireball hit the gnolls, scattering them and wiping out all but 12. Two more were taken down by Albee and Alduin from their hiding positions.

The last ten were captured when they fell unconscious when hit by Chiaro’s second “Fireball.”

We asked them for directions, saying that the first one that spoke up would live. One did, in Hill Giant, and it turned out we had gone the wrong way at the crossroads. We thanked it and let it free on the condition that it warn the others not to bother us again. It ran away. The others were executed summarily despite some party protests for bringing them to justice in the Dwarven Vale.

Well, we were true to our word.

We reached the dwarven valley, an outpost fortress and an entrance to Shabrund. We took up residence in a cabin and dined heartily for two weeks on the treasure, although it took a little while before the cautious dwarves let us in.

We took a five week downtime during which a number of things happened.

Bogomel and Nakumanu trained to 5th level, gaining 6 and 2 hp to stand at 47 and 32 respectively (a 2 and a 1 on the dice, ouch).

Morgan’s damaged elven chain was repaired. Our single scroll case was remade into a dual-scroll case for encumbrance and coolness. Our items were identified, revealing a host of possibilities, including:

We got:

About 12 longbow arrows+1 and first-flights +2
Magic camping stove
Ring of Warmth
Dagger +2 but treated as a shortsword (uses dagger proficiency) for damage, length, etc.
Spear of Wounding +2 (extra wound added)
Boots of Silence (literal Silence spell on user, to a limited extent)
Umber Hulk armor, AC/AT 3/3, wearable by ANYONE
Tome of Something—turns user into whatever he most desires, think Monkey’s Paw, if blown twists user into worst nightmare in some sense
Potions of Extra-Healing, Healing, (did we get the Polymorph?)
Brooch of Shielding, 20 charges
Wand of Magic Missiles, FULL 100 CHARGES
Scrolls including such spells as Maze (lv. 5 illusionist), Bigby (lv. 7 mage), Heal (lv. 6 cleric) and much more
Bracers AC 5/10
Banded Mail +2

Given up:

Battleaxe+2, +4 vs. undead and protects against level-drain, “Unbloodletter”
Potions of Vitality, Levitate, Climbing, Diminution
Bracers AC 6/10
Military fork+1 (horseman’s)

I don’t remember what happened to the Cloak of Camouflage, I think we gave it up.

All in all, an awesome treasure, not to mention the 70,000 gp in gems, pp, gp, and jewelry.

We immediately spent a huge chunk on identification, training, food, etc (about 10,000). We also researched Felix and Balinor’s ailment.

It turned out that they needed to be healed through something as simple as Cure Light Wounds, but only from a 12th level caster. Fortunately, the Combine spell exists precisely for this purpose and all we had to do was round up the local high priest (still several days from the vale, but…) and pay him 3000 gp, and Balinor and Felix were back to full health for the first time in more than a month.

Chiaro’s arm is mangled to the point of either a Heal or Regenerate, though it is unknown if half of an Elixir of Health would do it, which is probably our cheapest option. As Chiaro is not particularly hosed by his disability it will be left until we return to Lendore. Archbishop Aware of Nevron there can cast Heal if necessary, and perhaps we can arrange a reasonable rate as well.

We paid our money and set off back to the dungeon to finish it off; after all, we had promised a Lludd a second cut for our second trip!

Joel/Balinor