Part 5: Randomness

The Party:
Gortek (Orc Orc Warrior 3) [Orc Warrior class can be found at http://www.orcs.ca/]
Cyrus Uan (Xeph Psion 4)
Oswald Birsoon (Gnome Wizard 4)
Silverstar (Elven Rogue 3)
Sigmund Ringede (Human Fighter 4)
Albie (Halfling Rogue 1/Cleric 3)

Leaving the chapel, the party decides to continue deeper into the dungeon. Though Longtail was obviously a threat, he was equally as obviously not the great evil they were sent to stop. They head west to a door they had passed before. Inside they find a wide hallway that loops back on itself to make a square. The only door in this hallway is the one they arrive in, and the only feature in it is a large crescent mark on the floor. Albie touches the mark and disappears. After a few minutes without his re-appearance, Silverstar touches the mark, disappearing as well. The two find themselves in a square room with a couple of dead orcs and a severe lack of air. Searching the room, they find a mark identical to the one in the hall, and touching it, they return to the hall. The party quickly leaves this area, again scratching their heads at the thought processes of the Celestials that built this dungeon.

Heading south, they pass through a couple of rooms that appear to have once been trapped, but the traps were either spring and rusted in place, or duds, as nothing happened to them. Continuing south, Silverstar discovers a secret door. The party goes through the secret door to find a long room that has several spheres of swirling color floating about the room. Gortek enters the room to investigate, and as soon as he does, the spheres being to congregate together, forming what appears to be a portal similar to the one that Longtail was using. Quickly, Oswald and Albie use their mystical energies to close the portal before it can fully open.

Exploring south some more, they find another round, square room, the floor of which is covered in fog. In the fog are little sparks of light. Curious, they enter the room, only to find themselves being shocked by the sparks. Confused as to why such a fog would even exist, and finding nothing else of interest in the room, the party moved on. They find a long corridor that appears to go to a separate section of the dungeon, and decided at this point that they were done with this region, and took the long corridor to the west and the next region of the dungeon.

Part 4: Longtail

The Party:
Gortek (Orc Orc Warrior 2) [Orc Warrior class can be found at http://www.orcs.ca/]
Cyrus Uan (Xeph Psion 3)
Oswald Birsoon (Gnome Wizard 3)
Silverstar (Elven Rogue 2)
Sigmund Ringede (Human Fighter 3)
Albie (Halfling Rogue 1/Cleric 2)

A last minute search of the room before moving on revealed a map! This greatly relived Silverstar, who had been given the task of mapping for the party upon joining. Leaving this room, the party decides to follow the corridor around to the large rooms their new map shows is at the end. At the door, the party can hear some kind of squealing noise as well as the sounds of combat. Rushing inside, they find a little goblin being attacked by more of those flying squid things. Gortek recognizes the goblin as Stitch, who acted as a servant of sorts to Orghar. Quickly, the group moves to attack, fighting their way through the magical darkness these creatures use. Reluctantly, they allow Stitch to tag along, but make it clear that Gortek is responsible for her.

Continuing north, the party finds two more rooms containing the flying squid things. After two grueling fights that results in many wounds and tiring the party out, they search their surroundings. They luck out, and find a sack containing 23 small, polished pearls, worth roughly 100 GP each. This excites the party, not because of the value of the treasure, but because it allows Oswald to cast identify on the numerous magic items they have found. After resting, and finding out what is what, and redistributing the treasures, they continue on north.
This leads to the largest room they have yet visited, inside of which they find six of the largest flying squids they have yet encountered. Though the monsters work with an intelligence not yet encountered, and several mishaps that result in Sigmund nearly hitting Gortek, they overcome and defeat the monsters. Several doors exit this room, so after resting, they start to search them. The first is an open door with the half-melted corpse of a flying squid, which causes the party to fear a trap. However, if there is one, it has been disarmed, as the doorway is safe to pass through.

Other doors lead to corridors, leading north and east. They decide to head east, entering the single largest hallway any of them have ever seen. Looking at their map, Albie finds that he is sure is a secret room, so they go to investigate. Between the halfling and Silverstar, they do find a secret door that leads to a long, straight hallway. The hallway ends in a large chamber covered with trash and garbage, and issuing a stink so strong Silverstar flees. Albie braves the garbage, refusing to believe that this is a secret dump. All he finds, however, is three fiendish rat swarms, who quickly start heading his way. Feeling back to the secret door, where the reminder of the party is waiting, the rats follow. Cyrus uses a new power to blast two swarms away, while Gortek and Sigmund take care of the third before anyone is seriously hurt.

Disappointed, the party moves back to the large hall. There, Albie recalls that the wererat sorcerer who brought Gortek’s tribe to the dungeon lies in the northwest somewhere, so the party heads in that direction. After searching through a few empty rooms, they eventually come upon an open door, behind which is a large creature that has the basic shape of a bear, but is covered in feathers and has a hunting-bird’s head. It is tearing apart a flying squid, while a second one flies around in circles in a blind panic. Oswald recognizes this creature from his arcane studies as an Owl Bear, though this one is more fiendish looking than what he saw in his books. Leaping into the fray, the party takes on the Owl Bear, and though he turns out to be tougher than they expected, they do manage to defeat him.

Drawn by a red glow at the end of the hallway just outside the Owl Bear room, the party moves into a large thin room filled with pillars that looks like it was once a church. At the northern most part of the church is a pulsing red and black portal of some sort. While watching the portal, a fiendish dire rat appeared and started to run away. Sigmund quickly killed it before it got away, but the party now had their answer on where all the fiendish rats and flying squids were coming from. Studying the portal, Oswald and Albie realize that if they concentrate their magical energies on the portal, they can close it. They do so, and manage to close it 1/4 of the way. At this point, Oswald is stung in the back. Looking around to see what happened, the party sees a raven flying around near the ceiling. After Silverstar fires at it, it disappears. A few seconds later, Oswald is stung again, this time passing out due to some sort of poison. While the rest of the team tries to deal with the Raven, which they are sure is somehow linked to the stinging, Albie rushes to Oswald’s side to take care of the poison.

At the same time, however, a new figure enters the room. This one is roughly humanoid, though his face is that of a rat, and his legs are also those of a rat. It’s the wererat sorcerer Longtail! He quickly starts casting a spell, which Albie recognizes as sleep. Gortek and Sigmund rush to his position to try and stop the spell from being cast. Meanwhile, the rest of the party tries to take down the raven. Another sting comes at Oswald, only this time, Silverstar, who was ready, spots a small creature, with a hooked nose, horns and bat-like wings. This creature quickly changes into a raven just before the elf gets his arrow off, hitting the creature square before it had a chance to disappear again.

Meanwhile, Gortek and Sigmund manage to get to the wererat. They can’t stop his spell from going off, but thankfully the rest of the party seems unaffected by it. At the urgings of Cyrus, Gortek and Sigmund both grapple the sorcerer, preventing any further casting. While grappled, Longtail lashes out, biting Gortek on the shoulder. Though he struggles, he is no match for the combined might of the orc and human warriors, and is finally pinned. While pinned, Sigmund manages to slip a blade into the wererat’s throat. With his death, the raven reappears, turns into the creature Silverstar spotted before and falls to the floor dead. With their enemies defeated, Oswald and Albie return to shutting down the vortex, which they successfully do. Searching out the area, the party finds the room Longtail was using as a base of operations, and decides to rest here, recovering from the battle. While resting, the party keeps a wary on Gortek, wondering if he will become a wererat after being bitten.

Part 3: The Plot is Revealed

The Party:
Gortek (Orc Warrior 2) [Orc Warrior class can be found at http://www.orcs.ca/]
Cyrus Uan (Xeph Psion 2)
Oswald Birsoon (Gnome Wizard 2)
Silverstar (Elven Rogue 2)
Sigmund Ringede (Human Fighter 2)
Albie (Halfling Rogue 1/Cleric 1)

After resting in the rooms with the Kobolds, the party moves on, exploring the dungeon. They move through several corridors and rooms they had previously been through in order to get to new territory. Eventually, they find a corridor that leads to four rooms, each appearing to have been bedrooms of some sort long ago. The two northern most rooms, however, house more of those flying squid creatures, leading to a battle. The party stumbles at first in the darkness, and Cyrus find himself attack from more of the creatures behind him. However, drawn to the sounds of battle, an orc comes up the corridor and attacks the creatures, saving Cyrus and aiding the party. Not quite sure what to do with an orc that just aided them, the party raises weapons, ready for him to attack, but waits for him to make the first move. The orc, for his part, just stands there, staring them down. Eventually, Silverstar, the only member to speak orc, asks who he is and why he’s here. The orc, named Gortek, says he speaks the human language, though he speaks in a broken common.

Gortek relates a strange story. He is an orc that has grown tired of the orc way of constant fighting amongst themselves for position and authority. He left his tribe in search of a new way of life. Eventually, he finds himself with a group of other outcast orcs, all lead by a large orc warrior named Orghar. Orghar, in turn, followed a wererat sorcerer, who promised the new tribe riches in a great dungeon. Along with the orcs came kobolds and troglodytes, as well as two lizardmen guides. Entering the dungeon, they found themselves just as stuck as the party, but that didn’t bother anyone, as they begin searching for treasure. The wererat, however, took a small group of orcs and headed to the northeast part of the dungeon, and no one has seen him since. Eventually, the groups split, and fighting between the orcs and the combined kobolds and troglodytes starts. Gortek, realizing this is just like normal orc life all over again, became disgusted, and left his fellows. About that time, the strange flying squids and fiendish rats begin to appear, and Gortek was forced to seek a defensible room. That was about four or five days ago, just before the party entered the dungeon.

The party then tells Gortek that they are here seeking a great evil, which is located somewhere deep in the dungeon. Gortek asks if after defeating this evil the party will leave the dungeon, and they say that’s the plan. Gortek thinks on this for a second, and then says he will aid them in defeating this great evil. A little surprised, but feeling they are in need of muscle after the loss of Brak, the party reluctantly agrees to take Gortek along.

Exploring on northwards, the party eventually finds a series of large rooms with four pillars in each of the corners. The first room has water falling from the pillars. Before anyone can examine the pillars very far, however, a large ogre leaps out from behind one, ready to attack. Gortek, however, recognizes the ogre as Bragdor, who entered the dungeon as part of Orghar’s tribe. Bragdor is willing to leave Gortek and his friends alone if they leave him alone, and the party agrees. The next room is empty except for the pillars, but after some exploring and a detect magic spell, they discover that the room is some kind of illusion chamber, capable of conjuring detailed images of whatever a person concentrates on. The next room is encased in magical silence. A little creped out and confused by these rooms, they eventually leave.

They explore some other, empty rooms, finding only a latrine, before Albie and Oswald convince the rest of the party to return to the room with the stirges in it, to find out what that green glow is. Sticking to the doorway, the party taunts the stirges, who attack in small groups. Though it’s tough going even this way, the party manages to defeat every last stirge in the room. The glow, it turns out, is coming from a gold ring. The ring radiates not only the green glow, but also a comfortable warmth from it.

Searching the hallways around this room, they eventually find a secret door. This door leads to yet another hallway, down the ways of which is a door. As the party starts to move towards this door, they see an orc poke his head out of the door, spot them, and move quickly back in. They then hear other bodies in the room, apparently reading armor and equipment. After discussing this for a few moments, the party decides to just charge in the room before the orcs get a chance to attack them in the hallway.

Gortek is the first into the room, seeing several orcs in a blocking pattern, preventing him from charging in too far. Behind these orcs, he sees a larger orc whom he recognizes as Grak, an orc barbarian and Orghar’s lieutenant. A fierce battle is fought, and even though many of the orcs are wounded already, the do not go down without a fight. Gortek manages to take down Grak, and the rest of the party makes their way through the rest of the room. Flush with victory, Albie moves into the room and around the corner only to find a large orc sitting cross-legged in the next room, staring into space. Leaning against the wall, out of reach, was a large battleaxe. If he saw Albie, he made no notice.

After much debate over what to do with this orc, the party decides that a quick charge into the room to try and catch him off guard and hopefully get him before he could to his battle-axe. The only argument anyone has is even if he didn’t see Albie, he had to hear the fight with the orcs, and know they were there. His non-reaction to this is disturbing. Despite this, the party moves and attacks anyway. As arrows fly into him and attacks from Gortek and Sigmund strike him down, the large orc doesn’t react in the slightest. Gortek recognizes this orc ad Orghar, and frowns in disappointment, for this is not the type of action he expected from the mighty orc chieftain.

Feeling down from the empty victory, and concerned that something more dangerous could be in this dungeon that could do this to a strong orc warrior like Orghar, the party moved on, more cautiously. Traveling through more hallways (causing much questioning about who built this place), they eventually came across an armory. Weapons of every conceivable type were here, all marked with tags written in dwarven, labeling the name of the weapon, it’s type and race the weapon was built for. Excitedly, they catalogue the weapons, cast detect magic on the whole bundle, and begin to divide the spoils.

Part 2: Dangerous Territory

The Party:
Brak (Dwarven Barbarian 1)
Cyrus Uan (Xeph Psion 1)
Oswald Birsoon (Gnome Wizard 1)
Dorn (Dwarven Rogue 1)
Sigmund Ringede (Human Fighter 1)
Albie (Halfling Rogue 1)

Deciding that it would be best to leave the strange mosquito-bats alone, the party moved on. Continuing north, the party finds an empty except for a pillar with a steel box on it. Carefully approaching it, they discover it’s insides are covered in a yellow mold, spouting spores that caused even Dorn to get sick from them. Finding a way to safely open the box using Cyrus’ powers, they discover inside a ring that gives off a magical aura. Cyrus puts it on, but they have yet to learn it’s powers.

Continuing on, the party travels through a series of seemingly useless and senseless corridors until they finally reach a door. Cautious of this door, both Albie and Dorn thoroughly searched the door, finally declaring it safe. Brak moved forward to open it, only to find that the door was not safe. A ball of magical fire burst forth, engulfing Brak, Dorn and Sigmund. Brak, unfortunately, was killed by the blast, his chard corps still standing holding the door. Sigmund and Dorn, while still alive, were only just barely so, and only with the ministrations of Albie did they survive. Shocked at the loss of their companion, they bring Brak’s body back to the room with the pillar. There, they spiked the door shut, and spend the next couple of “days” resting and healing from the burns suffered by the blast, as well as paying their last respects to the brave barbarian.

After they had all healed, they decided to make this room Brak’s final resting place, and sealed the room. They then decided to backtrack a little, filling areas of their map that were empty (and hopefully less dangerous).

After moving back west, they eventually come across a room who’s door is partially opened, but being held there by the crumbling ceiling. Dorn looks it over and says he can shore it up with the materials at hand, but it will take at least an hour to do so. The party agrees to go ahead and do this. During the process, several of the large mosquito/bat things appear, and attack the party. Though it was hard fought, the group defeats the creatures, and finishes shoring up the door. Inside, they find a set of five metal batons that emit continual flames. Those without darkvision are overjoyed.

Moving on, they pass several empty prison cells and more rooms damaged by the continual tremors that wrack this area of the dungeon. One room, however, contains the flying squid-like creatures the encountered before, who quickly enshroud the room in darkness. One latches itself to Dorn, strangling the dwarf to unconsciousness. Taking a chance, Sigmund decided to try and hack at the downed beast still clinging to the dwarf, in a hopes of killing it. Unfortunately, blinded as he was in the darkness, he hit Dorn, killing the dwarf. At that point, Cyrus managed to take down the one that had cast the darkness, allowing the remaining party to kill the final beast quickly.

Taking stock of their surroundings, Oswald hears a moaning from an adjoining room. Upon entering the room, they find a severely wounded elf who’s long sword is bloody. Nearby is the body of a flying squid. Albie’s faith, stronger now than ever, allows him to finally complete his training to be a priest of Brandbobarus, and he heals the elf magically. The elf is a rogue named Silverstar. He had traveled to this place with a party of 12 dwarves, who had heard of the treasure kept by the titan guardian outside the dungeon. Unfortunately, the flying squid things ambushed his party, and only Silverstar survived. Grateful for the healing, Silverstar agrees to aid the party in their quest. Taking time to rest and re-memorize spells (as Albie can do so now), the party continues through the maze of hallways and rubble-strewn rooms.

Finally, they arrive at a room guarded by a band of kobolds, including one lion like creature. Silverstar quickly enters the room with his bow at the ready, only to be hit by a magic missile spell. As the rest of the party rushes into the room, Sigmund leads the charge, pushing his way past the kobolds and crude wall to the spell caster in the back. Meanwhile, the lion-creature pulls the skin around it’s face back, revealing bone and muscle as it let loose a great roar. While this freaked everyone out, Oswald was especially shaken, to the point that he was headed out the door when Silverstar’s arrow took the beast down. After a fierce battle, the party eventually wound up victorious, with little damage taken this time. Oswald loots the spell book off the kobold spell caster, and the group prepares to move deeper into the dungeon, looking for their destiny.

Part 1: Decent into the Unknown

The Party:
Brak (Dwarven Barbarian 1)
Cyrus Uan (Xeph Psion 1)
Oswald Birsoon (Gnome Wizard 1)
Dorn (Dwarven Rogue 1)
Sigmund Ringede (Human Fighter 1)
Albie (Halfling Rogue 1)

It all started with the dreams. They appeared suddenly, and featured a great evil trapped in a vast underground dungeon built by the gods. This evil was escaping, however, and should it manage to do so, it would destroy the world. The dreams also told how those having them would enter this dungeon and find and fight this evil, to prevent the world’s destruction.

With the dreams also came a mark on the skin in the shape of a tower, and an irritable pull to the north. There were six people that had these dreams and marks, and each made their way north, eventually meeting each other. First was Sigmund Ringede, a human warrior from Impiltur specializing in the bastard sword, and Dorn, a dwarf raised in a human city. The two instantly recognized the other as a part of the dream, and quickly decided to travel together. Shortly afterwards, in the city of Waterdeep, they met Oswald Birsoon, a gnome wizard who claimed to be studying the ways of necromancy. Continuing north, they ran into Cyrus Uan, a member of a race of brown skinned humanoids from far to the east unknown to the rest of the realms. Next the group found Albie in the Silver Marches, a halfling rogue worshiper of Brandbobarus and working on becoming a full cleric of that god. Finally, the group arrived at a town called Last, the last bastion of civilization and further north than any had heard of before. Here, they met Brak, a dwarven barbarian from the region. With Brak added to the group, they knew they had their last companion. They decided to take this last night in civilization to celebrate and get to know one another before moving on.

The going was hard and cold, and they traveled for two weeks in the mountains with no sign of another living creature to be found. But still, they headed north, always north. Finally, they discovered a hidden mountain monastery housing a collection of dwarves, humans and elves. Though the party was not surprised to find the monastery (believing it to be their destination), they were surprised to find they were expected. The monastery was founded several human generations ago, by a man who had a dream similar to that the party had been having. For generations, the people living in the monastery waited for the heroes that were to enter the great dungeon below. The people here were friendly, and provided the heroes with food for up to two weeks, fresh supplies and water, and even a donkey. They knew little of what lay ahead, except that the dungeon was created many centuries ago by the gods to hold some great evil, and that the entry was a little less than a day north. Gathering their wits and spending the night in the warmth of the monastery, the party awoke the next morning refreshed and ready for whatever lay ahead.

About a half days march/climb, they party came to a plateau with a cave. Lying on the ground in front of the cave was a large creature that looked exactly like a human but for his truly large size. He was obviously dead and had started to decay, though the body was still in good shape. There was no sign of struggle or cause of death, and other than his armour and weapons, he carried only several thousand scraps of paper. There was writing on the paper, but in a language no one recognized. At a complete loss, the party decided to leave the body and head into the cave.

The cave lead down for quite some time, deep under the nameless mountains they now found themselves in. It was obvious to the dwarves that this cave was dug out and not natural. Eventually, the tunnel led into a large room of worked stone. The room, though large, was empty except for two doors, one north and the other east. Deciding to search the eastern door first, they open it only to watch the door disappear into a pitch darkness that neither torchlight nor darkvision can penetrate. Slowly, the door opened until the entire thing had vanished into the darkness. A little daunted by this, they investigate the northern door only to find the same thing.

Brak decides to put his finger into the darkness to see what happens, only to find that once he has he cannot pull his finger back. The decision of which door to enter having been made for them by Brak, the rest of the party follows him into the darkness. They enter the first room, shrouded in darkness, but this is a normal darkness, as the two dwarves and Cyrus are able to see. A cough in the distance leads them to three very beaten and tired looking orcs, which they promptly slaughter.

Moving on, the party finds a room covered in a stench so bad that even Brak gets an upset stomach over it. Leaving that room alone, they moved to the next door, where they found a dead orc. Continuing on, Brak opens the next door, only to be shrouded in darkness and attacked by a flying, black squid-like creature! After a quick battle, the party manages to pry the creature off Brak and move on. The next room was empty, but before they could get far, a large swarm of rats came running out of the hallways and into the room, swarming over Sigmund biting him all over before they were run off. Investigating the bodies of both the rats and the squid-creatures, Albie concludes that these creatures are fiendish, coming from the lower plains.

Beaten and wounded from the past few fights, the party decides to rest in this room. Despite the echoes in the room (even when everyone is still) they get a decent amount of rest. During this time, they can hear another rat swarm outside the door, but it eventually gets bored and moves on. Awakening (though no longer sure of actual time in the eternal darkness of the dungeon), the party cautiously moves into the hallway that the rat swarm came from. Rounding the corner, the party finds a single, small skeleton lying in the floor before a door. Moving through the door, they find a room that appears to have once been an office. Searching it, they find a secret door that is trapped with a scything blade. The door leads to a room with several tables and chairs in it, and another door.

Continuing on, the party opens the door only to find another rat swarm, which runs out the door, over several party members and on out the room, as if they were running scared from something. The door lead to a covered in large chunks of rock and ceiling. Slowly picking they way across this room, they enter a hallway the leads to another couple of rooms covered in rubble. In the second rubble strewn room they find a secret door that leads to two rooms separated by an archway. They are less damaged than the previous rooms, and are home to another rat swarm that the party quickly disperses.

Moving through another hallway, they discover another rubble strewn room where there are several skeletons shackled to the wall and a spike in the center of the room. Investigating the spike, a couple member of the party briefly re-experience the torture and suffering of the people the skeletons used to be. Quickly retreating from that room, they move down the hall to another large room.

This room has a soft, green glow in the center of the room and four broken furnaces in each of the corners. Also, flying and fighting among the room, are approximately 20 large creatures that look like a cross between a mosquito and a bat. The group hesitates at this door, as the creatures, even after spotting them, seem to ignore them, but no one is quite sure if they will sure the party enter.