and decided that it would actually not be possible to get the mission done
tonight… so the Duke turned himself visible, and we began to wait for
the night. While we were waiting, Dari decided to scry on the room that
was right outside the bailey… um, small room with a door leading into
the garden. She didn’t see anything at all interesting during this scry.
Next day, before dawn we get up… By dawn we’ve left base camp, with the
trackers going out to check the Behir path. I don’t really know much first
hand of what happened there, but here’s what Dari told me afterwards:
Canstin, Dari and Cassana went, for we didn’t want to send the Duke
(we were afraid he would lose his invisibility). They got to the behir path
safely and checked out the path. Dari didn’t know anything, and Cassana
and Canstin agreed that the behir had left the city. So they
headed off
to meet us. On the way, they ran into a giant weasel… rather rude
creature, but Dari charmed it then told it to leave. So they finally
caught up to us.
So, we got to the city and went to the building where the teleporter is.
We slowly crept in, and suddenly out of nowhere came this huge wasp! It
was unbelievable (Sahrak now quickly makes an illusion of a giant wasp,
somewhat bigger and scarier than what most of the party remembers). So, as
you could see, it was quite a powerful looking monster. That’s the way I
remember it, anyway. But, and this says a lot for the strength of the
combined Stone Soules and Korel-Gesh parties, we actually decimated the
creatures. Canstin and Dark Eye immediately let off arrows, both of which
hit their mark, and Duke Charles, Cassana, and Faranin attacked and
finished the creature off. I was truly amazed. Made me feel a lot safer.
So on we went, carefully through the portal and up the stairs into the room
for which we were headed. Now we stopped for a few minutes and the six of
us that were going on went through our belongings, leaving magical items
that we didn’t want stolen with the party. We then started trekking down
the path. Eventually, after passing the remains of the giant carnivorous
plant, we came to a crossroad, and took a right. This led to what Eli
remembered to be the Mite’s door. So we turned around (we already knew
that door was there) and followed the road we were on all the way around,
until we eventually came to this huge set of double doors. Now when I say
huge, I mean HUGE. The damn things were bigger than… than… than the
way you described Molehill. They were also made out of pure gold, and Ludo
and I just couldn’t resist going up and checking them out upclose. We had
been turned invisible anyway. So, after conferring for a moment, Dari hid
in some brush, Canstin got in shrubbery near the castle, aimed a shot at
the door, and proceeded to turn invisible, Eli hid somewhere invisible, and
the other three of us walked up to the door. There was a set of stairs
before it, at which we stopped and told Duke Charles to wait there. Ludo
and I listened for a moment, and I must say that I noticed that it was
unusually quiet. Not a bird in earshot. Ludo however mentioned softly
that he thought he heard a soft growling, but I for one could not make it
out. Later on, Dari told me she didn’t hear it either. So Ludo and I went
up the stairs. Upon getting up there, we decided that we should check out
to see if the handles of the door were trapped. To that end, I boosted
Ludo up so that he could reach the handles, and he checked for traps and
found nothing.
So we had found our door. Ludo decided that he would quickly climb around
and look in one of the arrow slits surrounding the door, which he did, and
saw nothing inside. Upon arriving back, Ludo and I conferred for a moment
and were just deciding to head back down the stairs to go further and see
if there wa another entrance, when the Dari yelled out that there was a
monster… Canstin immediately turned and let off an arrow, hitting the
creature dead on as Eli started casting a spell. Ludo and I turned around
and saw this creature. It was a panther with 6 snakes coming out of it’s
back. (Sahrak uses the visual aid of a golden statuette that actually
looks like a miniature panther in an attack stance with 6 thick snakes
coming out of it’s back). At this point, it became hard to keep track of
what was going on. Here’s what I saw. Eli was perfectly visible trying to
cast a spell, Dari was starting to run, and Canstin and the Duke were now
nowhere to be seen. As far as I know, Ludo was still behind me on the
stairs. The creature jumped about 30 feet towards us, instantly closing
the distance, and then opened it’s mouth in a silent breath. With this
Dari fell unconscious to the ground. The creature then looked down at
Dari… it looked hungry… and gave a quick glance to Eli.
Looking at the sight before me, I thought quickly, guessed that Canstin and
the Duke were down in the same way as Dari, since neither was attacking the
creature, and I decided to blow the whistle for help. I blew the whistle
and immediately walked down the stairs and went into the brush next to it,
to wait until the rest of the party arrived and saved us.
OK… So this is the full extended version, for party members, so we all
know what happened.
First let’s review… It was midnight, and we had just finished the
commune. We had a ton of questions, namely what to do about the LE force
and how to take them on. So we talked for about another hour and finally
decided on a course of action. We decided that we would launch a recon
mission of invisible characters (or darn close to invisible characters) to
find the best way to get into the castle. Everyone agreed with the idea,
so we decided who this party would consist of. After a short time we
finally decided that it would consist of Ludo, Dari, Canstin, Duke Charles,
Eli, and myself. We figured that these people could hide pretty well (Eli
and Canstin could be invisible in the shrubbery surrounding the castle, and
Dari is a thief… the other three of us would be invisible. Finally we
turned Duke Charles invisible, and we all went to bed.
Continue reading “Stone Soules Summary II: Reconn on the Great Ones”
