January 20, 2007

After dinner, the party went to bed. Leiralyn found a note left by someone whose party was also "rescued" by the Duke. All of their party members began to get sick while staying with the Duke. Snow and Leiralyn tried to gather all the party members to share the discovery, but Malouf was missing.

The party broke down the door to Duke Alucan's room. It didn't look like it had been used in a very long time. Alana felt vindicated in her suspicions of the Duke. The group found a trap door. The room underneath had some strange statues in it. The walls and floors were covered in some sort of oozy, squishy material. The party tried to touch it as little as possible. The room had 2 doors. One doorway led down a corridor. The second was sealed off with no visible mechanism for opening it. The party went down the corridor and found Alucan casting some sort of spell on Malouf and his sword. The room was full of zombies and skeletons. Snow managed to disrupt the spell, waking Malouf, while the rest of the party took care of the zombies and skeletons.

Unfortunately, the Duke turned to mist and escaped, but he left a ring behind. Brecaryn was charged with keeping it safe until the party could get it to Beeblebrox. The ring was the key to opening a door in the first chamber. More ooze, more statues. The party found themselves in a chamber. To the left was a corridor. Up ahead was a stairwell that led up. The corridor contained a series of doors. Brecaryn opened one. Suddenly 3 other doors opened and Brecaryn, Leiralyn, Flerm, and Alana got sucked into each room. The doors slammed shut, locking each of them inside.

Brecaryn, Leiralyn, and Flerm each faced and defeated powerful skeleton champions. Alana faced and defeated a cat.

At the end of the hall was another door like the one the party encountered in the first chamber but this one didn't respond to the ring. The party could hear something on the other side. Each of the rooms contained a lever, but one was behind a force field and the other 3 could not be moved.

The group tried to explore the other side of the chamber, but then they went up the stairs instead. At the top of the stairs was a statue of a woman. On either side of the room was a force field protecting some armor and weapons. Also, through the ceiling, a small shaft of sunlight came through. Where the sunlight hit, no ooze was present. Speculating the ceiling was made of glass, Malouf smashed it. Thankfully, none of the party members sustained injuries from the shards of glass that came crashing down.

As soon as the light hit it, the statue came to life. The woman looked at the group and stated that their weak minds would make them well-suited to serve her. She then instructed them to take the weapons and armor before disappearing. The force fields disappeared. The ooze began to retreat from the sun.

Against the cautions of Snow, Brecaryn, and Josy, Leiralyn, Flerm, and Alana took the armor and weapons offered. Returning to the chambers with the levers, the party was now able to access the fourth lever. With one member in each room and the rest waiting in the hallway, they opened the door.

A beast charged out of the room and attacked everyone in its path. The party killed it. Entering the room it had come from, the party found one halfling sized opening and a second corridor. Josy bravely entered the smaller opening and single-handedly killed 2 giant rats.

Down the second corridor, the party found a room with a coffin and a chest of magickal items. Malouf, sensing magic, smashed the contents of the chest before he could be stopped. Freed from the jar confining it, a monster with a mouth for a head approached some of the party members demanding they give it their gems. Snow tossed a few gems into the coffin, hoping the monster would take care of Duke Alucan for them. The monster immediately went after the gems. A scream could be heard from inside the coffin before a mist floated out of, stopping to hang near the ceiling. When all of the party's gems had been given to the creature, it left without further incident.

The vampire eventually returned to its coffin. The group was able to tie it shut and carried it up the stairs to expose it to the sunlight. Holy water was sprinkled on the ashes for good measure.

Remembering they still hadn't explored some part of the dungeon, they walked back down the stairs. At first, the party could see nothing. Then Flerm and Alana screamed and collapsed. The rest of the party was finally able to see the creature before us. Spanning the length of the floor was some hideous monster made up of mouths, all spewing forth the ooze that had covered the walls and floor. Giving the order to retreat, Snow and Malouf brought up the rear to protect their escape.

After leaping through the opening in the ceiling, Snow was able to lower rope down for the rest of the party to climb out.

The party rested before returning to the hut where Leento had stayed. He was not there. After resting some more and stocking up on supplies, the party decided to start traveling towards the cave marked on Duke Alucan's map. They hoped the cave might hide a way through the mountains. Malouf attempted to track Leento. Failing to find him, he left markings to indicate the party's direction to the druid.

Along the way, the party camped, foraged, and killed a dinosaur. And everybody had dino burgers!

Upon finding the cave, they saw flowers and food had been left in tribute. Camping nearby but staying out of sight, the party watched as natives left more offerings at the mouth of the cave. Entering the cave with some trepidation, the party saw skeletons, armor, and weapons strewn across the floor. Several openings with steam coming out of them were scattered around the cavern. As the party passed by these openings, giant snakes came out of them and attacked. When one of Brecaryn's acid arrows hit one of the snakes, a bellow could be heard from below as the remainder of the snake sank back into the hole. The party pressed on, fighting some more snake creatures.

Finally, at the bottom of the cavern, the secret of the snakes was revealed. It was a hydra they were fighting. Knowing the creature regenerated two heads for every one it lost, the group tried to slay the creature without attacking the heads. It soon became obvious that this tactic would not work so instead the heads were chopped off while Brecaryn used her fire wand to cauterize the wounds. The hydra died.

Back to the bullet points