Shackled 08 - Malachite Fortress or "They Have A Cave Troll!"
General Summary
I am back on the material plane as my business elsewhere ended one of the other parties I was watching; and so I come back to seeing how my Motley Crew is doing. Since Naldon did a decent job of continuing to recording their triumphs I have left them here, and just updated it with some more flair as I saw from my point of view. But most of the words are his and I will let you read one more entry from the journal of Naldon Amakiir...
We head back to the church and meet up with Lysikor, who is now awake. Skullgrin, Lars, Lysikor, and I (Naldon) decide we need to keep searching Jzadirune for the children. We talk about how all of us have gained experience over the last while and feel more confident that we can take on what is needed to find the children. Lars has even gained an animal follower, and I can now try and call a my own small magical companion.
We go back through Ghleve’s (we are pleased that the city guards still have a watch setup here) and down through one secret doot to another. We look in and find just a small empty chamber; but since the darkling leader told us that this is the way, we start searching for where we get through it. Lars eventually finds a switch on the east wall of this cubby which opens a doorway to a large octagonal room with no floor but a large wooden octagonal platform that takes up the whole room. Large iron chains reach up into large gears that disappear into the darkness above.
Oh, and two hobgoblins!
They attack upon seeing us, throwing their Javelins, one of which impales Lars. They then pull out wicked looking swords, and move forward. Lars returns fire with his longbow, and hits one, impaling them right back. Skullgrin runs over, and in standard Skullgin fashion, misses with his maul. As that hobgoblin is avoiding Skullgrin, Lysikor (trying not to laugh at Skullgin) flanks and attacks with his shortbow, getting a sneak attack! Because of the angle, he gets a critical hit, the arrow penetrating the armor and striking the hobgoblins neck, which then proceeds to empty the contents of his vines on the plateform and then promptly dies. I move up (NOT laughing at Skullgrin, NO, I said I was NOT laughing) and cast Chill Touch, geting a critical success, and finish off the second hobgoblin. We search the bodies and find 75 silver, 40 copper, two Long swords and two sets of banded mail. We did not bother to take their amour, first off, very bloodly and no need to haul that around.
Lysikor backs off, fires an arrow but misses the animated armor, and runs back to us in the octagonal room, telling us he got in trouble again. Lars moves to the door; gets a bead on the animated armor and lets fly an arrow to get a solid hit. He then moves back out of the way for me. Skullgrin moves out through the door and throws his handaxe at the animated armor, but in true Skullgrin consistency, it flies past into the dark. I attack with my chilling cantrip as the Statue moves toward Skullgrin. The Statue attacks with its fists, misses with the huge left but hiting Skullgrin with the right, smashing into his shoulder. Lars & Lysikor take their shots, but miss, and Skullgrin winds up and attacks twice, finally getting a solid hit with his first strike, but then just misses on the back swing.
While this is going on, the door at the end of the hallway opens and very deep voice booms out
Spliting The Party, Always Wise!
We had a full nights rest, but as I got up, I found that some of the party had headed out on some errands in the city, so I decided to ask Lars, & Skullgrin to help me to check out Jasper’s house. Jasper Drundlesput is my old gnome mentor who also taken with all these disappearances. His home is just west of the Bluecrater Academy, so we walk over to see what we can find. As we head over, we all hear a loud "Boom" along with a number of smaller booms that seem to be coming from near the potion shop. As we entered Jasper's place (I was given a key), Skullgrin was able to quickly determine that it was tossed just for fun. Lars was able peice together that only Jasper lived here, and that only he was taken. In our search, we also discovered that Jasper had one of the Jzadirune Keys, "Z"! I wonder how he came to have that?? After Jasper's, we decide to check out what the loud noises were, and head over toward Weer's Elixers, which we find out is the reason for the loud commotion. Vortimax Weer is testing out new mixes and powders. We find him putting things back on shelves through a thick haze of smoke that permeates his shop, although the large hole in the side of the shop is greatly helping clear the air.Just a little too much black powder at the wrong time. I'll just have to add more of the black powder before, I add the liquid metal, yes..yes, that is it!!He confirms the identified potions are correct, and has a fit when we tell him we found them in Jzadirune. He is not impressed, and will not touch anything we show him. Between telling us we are stupid going there and even dumber going back, he then gives us a better history lesson of Jzadirune than we have gotten from anyone else yet. After getting berated (again), we double check Weer’s prices again and decide not to buy anything as the prices are just too high.
Malachite Fortress
The whole octagonal floor seems to be an elevator, with a lever in the NW corner; there is nothing else that we can see. We pull the lever and the floor slowly drops. It takes about one to two minutes to bring us down to the bottom of the elevator tunnel. Looking up, it is a long way up, hundreds of feet; I can't even see the top anymore. Here, down at the bottom, there is only one door out. Lars checks the door and the wall by the door, and finds no traps, triggers, or switches. Strange, how do we get back up?? Or better yet, how do the other guys get down? Guess that is a question for later... Lysikor gets stealthy, and starts searching the area out past the door. He stalks down a hall that bends left and turns into a rectangle shaped room. It seems to just end here, but there is a door near the end of the hall area off to the left. The room area here has two large metal cages hanging from the ceiling about 5 feet from the floor. A person could fit in them if they were forced to sit with their legs folded up and their knees up to their shoulders. But they do not have locks, just simple latches to keep the door closed. In the centre between the two empty cages is a statue, and nothing else. As Lysikor walks past the statue and while we are still coming to join him, it wakes up or is triggered as an animated suit of armor!More carrion for my larder! Very nice.It's an OGRE! And it stomps heavily up the hall towards Skullgrin. The animated armour is made of solid stone which makes it resistant to my Firebolt that I just tried to burn it with. It then moves between Skullgrin and me attacking us both! I quickly cast shield and block some of the damage. Because the statue moved, Lysikor is able to get a shot off and slams an arrow into the same spot that Skullgrin damaged causing the spell that animates the Armor Statue to end, turning it into a pile of stone. Lars heals Skullgrin, and Skullgrin getting his second wind screams and runs to meet the Orge headon, smashing the orge's chest with his maul with a sicking crunch. The ogre attacks back and misses as Skullgrin dodges. I am able to cast a scorching ray and aim getting two rays off successfully. Lysikor shoots another arrow, hits high on the ogre’s chest settling deep in it's lung, you can hear the air going in and out as he breaths slower and slower. Lars is right behind him landing another arrow, this time into it's shoulder. Skullgrin readies his maul again, roars in challenge and hits again with his maul completing the job his maul did the last time, and caving in the ogres’s ribs, killing it. Skullgrin's seeming curse in hitting anything ends with a vengence (hopefully). We move down the room to the doorway the orge came out of. Lysikor tries to enter but the vile stench wafting from the room causes him to get violently sick, having to back away and empty his breakfest. Lars and I try next; we are grossed out by the absolute filth and stench, but are able to visually check the room, and only find a single chest in the SE corner. Skullgrin thinks we are all just weak, walks in and drags the steel banded chest to the hall. We clean off the surface of the filth; tossing all that back in the ogres lair and start trying to open the chest. Lysikor and Lars both fail unlocking the mechanism, and Skullgrin just starts smashing the lock because he is impatient. Out of the hole he smashes into the chest we can see a LOT of coins Using our insight we are able to count
- 2248 silver
- 6000 copper
- a few green gems
- a moldy potion vial
The Motley Crew
- Eolas (Human Cleric of St. Cuthbert) - MIA
- Lysikor Stickyfingers (Half-elf Rogue)
- Lars Dino (Woodelf Ranger)
- Naldon Amakiir (Eladrin Wizard)
- Ragnarock (Human Barbarian) - MIA
- Skullgrin Bonesnapper (Half-orc Fighter)
- Graye Damyrus (Tiefling Druid) - MIA
