Min's Journal

Closure
Closure is not something we expected as we went back into the ziggeraut to loot whatever we could find, but as we went through several sarcophagi, one was opened only to discover Lucan, with a stupid grin on his face. I had a feeling of frustration that we had yet to really end this task, yet relief that if we did, we would be able to claim the body. Lucan, however, did not seem in the mood for combat. Supremely arrogant, he addressed us, thanking us for releasing him from the power of the sword that we took. It would seem that the negative power of the sword controlled him while he had it. He told us how he was working undercover for the Dark Lanterns in the depths below Sharn and how the demons there controlled him. While this disturbed me, I was feeling very focused on getting something out of this adventure, so I was all ears when he suggested a proposal, or trade. He knew the Dark Lanterns would not stop pursuing him until his death was proven, so he gave us his Dark Lantern signet, and the location of the treasure horde in the ziggeraut. He continued talking as to what he might do himself, but other than not coming back to Sharn, I didn't really care.

We cleared out the treasure found, then headed back for a 16 day overland journey. We served as guards for a caravan for 2 gold pieces. I gave my gold trinket payment to Sheaf, who didn't seem to mind collecting them.

Our biggest concern, when we arrived in Sharn, was convincing the Dark Lanterns of Lucan's demise without getting caught by any truth spells. I must say, it goes against my personal nature to lie as well, but I was fed up with Lucan and the Dark Lanterns, thus my caring of the truth was, sadly, waning. I was more interested in getting the maximum reward possible. I think perhaps I should spend some personal meditation time to reflect on these feelings of which are not proper. Perhaps I left the monastry too soon and was not prepared for these feelings in the real world.

The Dark Lanterns did not seem to be highly concerned about the actual incident, but looked favourably on the return of the signet, and especially the sword. I was glad to get the sword away from both my and the party's presence.

Sal, Xander and Anvil plan to make their own separate ways into the world, so I hired Sal to make several healing and mage armour potions, as well as an peripet of consitution to assist me when I am in battle. I also bought some bracers of armour...for someone who does not utilise magic, I seem to be covered with magic with my amulet, ring, shirt, bracers, and belt. I most certainly appreciate the benefits of magic! I appreciate Xander and Anvil's strength in combat, but Sal has been most helpful in assisting me magically in combat. I shall miss all of them as the rest of us adventure together...

Friday, April 15, 2005

Party Mutt Death
We offered to have a service for Aeschere, such as a barbecue, but Sheaf refused us the opportunity to respect the death in such a fine way. I think I was initially suspected of killing Aeschere since we have had a tumulteous relationship in the past (such as my desiring it's absence from our party by whatever means necessary), but sadly, I cannot take credit for such a fine kill. The bat bites on the dog implies that Lucan finished it off...clearly Lucan was not all evil.

Final Showdown
I left off the last entry with the centipedes because our next discovery was Lucan. We immediately withdrew for final showdown preparations. We were all sick of chasing this loser vampire all over Khorvaire. I was now fully ready with mage armour, owls wisdom tap, healing, and undead baned hands. The others apparantly prepared in their ways too, but I was a little focused on myself for obvious reasons. I was pretty determined to come out of this alive, just to spite Lucan. I was chosen as leader for the rush-in (for reasons I'll never be clear on since I still needed a lot more healing), and the archers would follow with undead baned arrows...so I rushed into an empty room. I did stop halfway in, fearing the hole towards the end of the room. Sheaf rushed in past me right to the hole. He successfully located the tip of Lucan's sword. While it was helpful for the purposes of locating Lucan, his technique of search is a bit rusty. Perhaps the wolf should have not been left in the circles in the other room and pitched headfirst into the hole. Then two mighty purposes would have been served...Aeschere's death and Lucan's location.

I digress.

It did not take Lucan long to turn into gas, but a major difference in this particular combat is that we obviously managed to injure him BEFORE he turned into gas, instead of simply being bored with us. He came back into shape briefly, then gas, then went down the hole. Xander, fully sick of Lucan, simply jumped into the hole after him, apparantly supremely confident that his potion was feather fall. Fortunately, for his sake, it was Feather Fall. Tic cast the same spell onto herself, Sheaf and Sal, and jumped down - while Duval, Anvil and I beat it down the stairs and around to where the room below the hole was. Another battle ensued with the human form of Lucan, where Duval managed to snag the sword, which turns out to be quite essential...another battle with Gaseous Form, and suddenly, Xander's last touch of the cure wand caused the gas cloud to dissipate. We were all very angry and frustrated by this point because we needed his body for the biggest chunk of the reward. We had the sword, which was packed away with great care, but not the body.

What a bust.

Ziggeraut
The ziggeraut that could be seen at a distance seemed to be our destination, as it seemed like a likely place for Lucan to go...it was on a lake island, so Sheaf did some track investigating before we committed to crossing the lake. He did locate some tracks of which both of us when followed - only to discover a small hut with a small elderly woman that lived there for many years, but avoided the "haunted temple with much evil." She seemed very kind, and fed us, so we returned to fetch Tic and leave her in the woman's safe keeping until we concluded our business...once and for all.

Anvil walked across the lake (or rather, walked on the lake floor) while the rest of us got over in a boat. Sal baned my hands for undead and Sheaf tapped me with the wand of owl's wisdom, so I was ready to destroy anything that came my way, especially undead. Our first encounter involved a rather nasty cloaker, of which proved somewhat difficult to destroy. I took a final one-two punch on it, but was struck with fear as it fell on Sheaf. I think we all froze in place before we realised that it had fallen on him...dead.

We started investigating the rooms after that...there was an alter room with demon frescos, ran into a rotting bull bent to kill us, and then upstairs to more demonic fescos with circles embossed on the ground. This is apparantly the centipede room, and the place were Sal decided to play fire tricks that involved greatly injuring me. THEN the centipedes bit me, slowing my reflexes greatly....between the two, I was limping around the room like a wounded puppy on his last leg. Sheaf had to use a lot of wand taps on me once Anvil finished off the dreadful little buggers.

Train
It would seem that this task requires the use of every type of transportation in existence. We went through the wreckage to find a young child that Xander and I took a partiality to in order to ensure he would be all right. While Duval, Xander, Sal and I worked to free him, the others successfully battled air elementals. Anvil, Duval, Tic and Sal decided to join me when I took the boy, Timmy, to the nearest town, which turned out to be Sturm's Gate. I took her straight to House Jorasco and left them the silver we found in the wreckage. The next morning I bought a keg of ale and beef for the others still at the wreckage. After everybody finished burying all of the bodies, we all headed back to Sturm's Gate together.

The following day Xander and I followed up with Timmy and got supplies. Since the air ship crashed, we decided to continue onward to our destination on the Lightening Rail, thus another type of transportation to experience and possibly blow up or destroy. We were denied passage even though we had tickets by the ticket collectors, but they also had a "glaze" over them that made us push through and get on anyway, through their dead or unconscience bodies. We suspected that Lucan would also need another form or transportation, thus the train, so we tried to speak to everybody on the train, but there was no sign. The caboose was locked, and Gerald, the engineer up front seemed quite unconcerned about the locked door.

Suddenly, we saw horses galloping alongside the train, with riders looking to board, as well as smaller creatures swooping down from the air with halflings riding them. A fierce battle with warforged ensure throughout the train. I nearly died from the battle, but my life was saved just in time from the wand of awesome. We decided to initiate a room by room search after that incident, using the battle as an excuse to check the rooms, despite the House Orien policy of extreme privacy being extended to all passengers. Xander and I had gotten through a few cars in this search, when the train started slowing unexpectantly. Anvil and Sal went to investigate...we had left Tic to watch Gerald, but the door was locked and Tic was not responding. While I ran back to wake Duval, Sal went over the roof only to see a new engineer in an apparant trance slowing the train while Tic stared blankly. Sal then went underneath the car and opened the door. It would seem that Lucan had been posing as the engineer, and was now gone, so I removed this engineer from the controls and Duval proceeded to knock everybody out since we did not want the train to start without us as we disembarked to pursue Lucan.

I grabbed Tic and we disembarked to head off to hopefully finish this task once and for all...

Thursday, February 17, 2005

The Great Air Battle, and Round Three
Around dusk, we saw another ship coming towards us. The liklihood of another ship this close seems remote, so we readied for attack as we watched four skiffs leave that ship. Not responding to our hails, we had to assume defensive positions. I proudly destroyed 6 foes, but took immense injury. I was more than irked that the mangy mutt took a bad hit, and then Xander healed him while I remained barely alive. I grudgingly understand since Xander did not see me, but still, waste a healing on a mutt? Sheaf does seem rather attached to him though; it might snap him to lose Aecshere. Tic had created quite the battling atmosphere with the sea shanty, Repel all Borders...that helped me keep going.

As I blinked in pain, Lucan stood there before me. It was like he suddenly appeared, or my sense were dulled from the pain. He did not whisper sweet nothings or tortures in my ear this time, but rather seem annoyed at my presence. Since I was a size larger with my magical belt of growth given to me by Sal for saving his life two times over, I decided to yet again grapple him...if nothing else but to hold there so Sheaf could "heal" him, or rather damage him, since he was undead, with the wand that he was carrying. Unfortunately, Lucan again decided that my presence bored him as Grilsha laid magical pain through my body. When Lucan disappeared as a gas cloud (how uncreative - he did that once already), Sheaf did heal me enough for me to function.

Grilsha, who was floating around at this point, floated back to her ship, and we then noticed that the other ship was on a collision course. This couldn't be good since the Captain was dead, and none of us had any proficiency with navigation. Could that be Garrow at the wheel? My brain tried to not accept the fact that the two vampires had somehow made an alliance. Xander and I tried, but failed utterly, just as we felt the shuddering crash of the collision. I grabbed one of the knocked-out shipmates, as Sal and Tic cast feather fall on all of us for a safe landing.

Meanwhile, the air and fire elementals that formed Clouds Destiny battled it on the way down, finishing in a gigantic explosion near us.

Getting to Round Three
This is beginning to feel hopeless. The battle did cause injury to Grilsha, but nothing of which she couldn't heal herself, and the loss of Lucan for the second time was leaving a feeling a frustration, at least to me. The Ambassador, of which I suspect Sal was getting infatuated with as he guarded her with such care throughout the battle, came out of her hiding, anxious to speak to us. Before the scuffle broke out, it seemed noticable that the Ambassador and Lucan had slight crushes on each other, but with our explanations of his changes, she started putting the puzzle pieces together and agreed that he must be stopped. She sold us silversheen potions that might aid our weapons against him, sent a trustworthy friend of hers with us (another warforged named Pious), as well as the password to the skyport, where she thought Lucan to be going. I ensured that she would stable our mage horses for us, and we were off to the skyport, for yet another round with Lucan.

One airship was in dock: Clouds Destiny. Although we had the password, the gnomes at the airship drew weapons. As I neared, I recognised the telltale glaze of charm that Lucan tends to leave behind. It was clear that talking with these gnomes would not resolve anything, but we could at least not kill them. They were quite valiant, and fought bravely. As I was knocking one out cold, Sheaf suddenly came out of nowhere behind me, fully shifted, flying over all of us, and over to the airship, knocking off a half elf, who was in process of retracting the gangplank. I was most impressed. He tried to grapple the other half-elf, so I started my jumping and tumbling routine to get across to Sheaf and assist. I became petrified as I nearly fell over as a gnome tried to knock me off of the boxes where I was currently standing. I was most distracted, and in retaliation, I jumped on his sorry little half pint butt.

We all finally got across the gangplank, and Tic diplomatically and desperately explained to a very irrate captain our concerns and of the Ambassador's blessings. He grudgingly staked us passage on Clouds Destiny. I drank a lot of ale and immediately retired to the room of which was assigned to both Tic and me. The following day involved many inquiries about an intruder in the hold around midnight. I initially thought it might be Lucan or Grilsha, since the captain knew nothing of them when we enquired, but the sheepish looks on Tic and Duval's face tells me to not bother asking.

Round Two
The inability to capture Garrow, our first encounter with a vampire, probably didn't leave us much encouragement as we were unable to capture Lucan as well. Once in Trollenport, I visited a local temple to follow-up on the box of dirt, where it was confirmed that a vampire would consider that a source of life, but unfortunately, he could just re-create another box, so using ours as bait would probably not work. Following up on the Krell clue gave Tic the ability to discover that Ambassador Krell was hosting a masqerade party...a perfect opportunity for the likes of us to get a word in with the Ambassador. Tic got a beautiful dress, and I wore a sexy noble costume, as well as Sal. Duval went as a footman, and the rest stayed outside in case of trouble.

I left my weapons, but kept a potion of healing and mage armour for any potential issues. Duval tried to sneak several weapons in, and surprisingly, they only found one dagger. I went immediately to the bar and drank enough for both Sheaf and my sakes since he was unable to come in and enjoy the fine wine. I think he would have passed out from claustrophobia anyway. I did pick up a dance partner, but it didn't last too long; although I didn't feel badly when I saw how fast Tic and Sal lost their partners. Clearly we should all practice our dancing as we slay mighty foes. The Ambassador was finally spotted, with Tic and Sal quickly stalking her for a quiet word. I decided to babysit my brandy and watch for trouble. I must say, watching Duval trying to fit in as a servant was quite amusing. Suddenly, I saw a handsome man on the dance floor yell out, "you would charm me woman!?" My heart started beating harder as I realised we had our second chance for the capture of Lucan. I tried to get in to throw the holy water that Sheaf had given me earlier, but like an idiot, I lost my balance and it flew off, missing Lucan. Another battle ensued, only this was far more confusing because the dancing partner of Lucan and her monk friends that suddenly appeared seemed bent on hurting our party, as well as Lucan. She seriously scrambled Xander's brains, who had come rushing in as the crowds went rushing out, that lasted for what seemed an eternity.

Oh yes, you guess it. Lucan disappeared again, although he did get more creative and decide to form into a bat instead of a gas cloud. Bravo Lucan.

Another Vampire
Haven't we had enough of vampires? It's bad enough that we couldn't take down Garrow, but it would seem that we are tortured with yet another vampire. The discovery of his possible vampirism took place when we finally sighted the carriage. Our strategy was to run past the carriage, and have Sheaf entangle the carriage, which was successful. We moved to surround the entangled mess of horses and wood. I enjoyed some acrobatics by jumping onto a horse, then jumping to the next horse, and then finally jumping onto the carriage roof. As I moved around the roof, I saw Duval struggling with Lucan at the back of the carriage, so I jumped Lucan and grappled with him for awhile, only to have him whisper tormentingly in my ear that "it's been fun, but I've got to go", and then leaving me to eat dust as he moved off in the form of a gas cloud. What is it with vampires? Garrow liked whispering in my ear annoying little tidbits of torture as well.

Sal had managed to literally fry all of the horse traces with a fireball, and he tried to fry the gas cloud, but with no effect. His sister simply disappeared. We did discover a box of dirt or ashes left behind by Lucan, of which my religious background told me that he would need it almost as a life support, which led to the suspicion of Lucan being a vampire. We took the horses, and Duval had fun burning the carriage...then we moved on to Trollenport of Zilargo - the land of the gnomes.

Riding Hard
The next few days involved the hardest riding I have ever endured. We discovered that Lucan escaped in a stage, so as we went through towns, we questioned the passing of a stage. Towns confirmed the stage, and the presence of a red-haired lady, but nothing else. We assumed that Lucan and the sword was in the stage. Our first night in the open involved a conflict with a giant chicken, thanks to Aecshere's stupid wanderings. Sheaf should keep that mangy mutt closer to him. I don't particularly favour dogs, and I haven't noticed any loving from Aecshere to change my mind. The chicken squawked into camp, and we all watched dumbfounded as the chicken took several hits. No chicken should have that much constitution. I suspect a breed of chicken more deadly than a farm beast. Finally, Xander decapitated him. Perhaps Aecshere has some good by warning us.

As we ran through towns, we discovered we were only mere hours from the carriage. Since we had to rest at night, Anvil elected to run ahead while we rested since he did not require rest. While catching up to them always seemed just out of grasp during these 600 miles of riding, it was looking hopeful.

The Ape Test
Although I am unclear of the details, we were summoned to a person named Viorr. He seemed interested in hiring us for some task, but first wanted to test our abilities (I suspect) by bringing in the free roaming ape alive from his beautiful gardens. He did not seem to mind blood, but death was not acceptable. I rather painfully lured the ape to the others by unfortunately taking an attack by the ape before I could get going. Just as we were starting to make headway subduing the ape, we discovered the presence of a second ape. Eventually, both were subdued, and we gained Viorr's trust to share the task ahead of us.

Viorr shared the little known event of a stolen magical sword by one of their own of the Dark Lanterns named Lucan. Unfortunately, Lucan seems to be of much higher magical powers, including no effect by attacks and walking down towers like a spider. Since he did not have these abilities before the stolen sword, the Dark Lanterns believe the sword to contain evil. Viorr gave us a letter proving we were weorking on behalf of the King, and provided mage horses for a fast travel to Trollenport, the city that he suspects Lucan to be going...Krell was the only clue he could provide, as well as Lucan's stronger abilities of combat finesse, espionage, and disguise. Also, Viorr provided Lucan's sister's name, Grilsha, but we later found out that she was gone...most likely with her brother.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Returning
The party got back together again to return to the sewers for the mysterious recently made wall. Sheaf disappeared for a couple of days, only to return with a wolf! This confused me initially, but he explained that he was calling out to nature for a companion. He named her Aeschere; hopefully Aeschere will be friendly to the rest of us....

My biggest concern with the mysterious wall was that Demise had gotten into it, but it was untouched. It would seem that Demise did not take advantage of the information we gave her, thankfully. Sheaf found many tracks, and Duval recognised them as carrion crawlers, which may be the reason for all the missing bodies we left down here. Sheaf and I started digging through the wall immediately while Anvil watched our backs. The others wanted to search - I'm supposing for the owner of the tracks. A little later, Duval came running back to tell us that the others were attacked by a carrion crawler. Somehow that didn't surprise me since they went deeper in the tunnels. Sheaf and I ran hard to get back, but the battle seemed under control at least. I missed my first attack, but made a good blow on him as he ran past me. Sheaf ran ahead and finished it. Apparantly there was another one, but it was dead. I am assuming that the absence of the crawlers satisfied the others since they returned with Sheaf and me to help finish the dig.

Sal kindly infused Anvil's hammer with a sonic ability, which saved us many hours. We finally broke through and I headed through the opening first. I had stepped into a tunnel...I walked forward to find a room with a some kind of trap since all the floors sloped toward the middle, where a large pit lay. The others were there, and we decided to hold Sal tethered to a rope to search for traps. He discovered that the floor was false, and collapsed the trap. The pit seemed to lack any interest, as well as the rest of the room. I was very disappointed. Duval fried the moss that was in the pit, but that was the only activity.

A day wasted, but curiousity satisfied, we headed back to the surface. We heard a scream of agony or fear on our way back, and we chased it to a room with a pool. Something was slipping into the pool just as we arrived, so our archers shot into the pool. Personally, I was afraid that they were shooting the wrong thing, such as the screamer being dragged into the pool or something, but nothing came of it anyway.

I'll be glad to be on my way to a fresh adventure.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Resting
Getting out of the sewers was thrilling for me. Getting to House Jorasco for a couple days of healing was even better. Sheaf and Sal stopped by the House also to receive healing, but didn't stay as long as I stayed.

Xander, Sal, and Tic did go turn in the prisoners that we found in the sewers (I didn't mention them previously), but nothing seemed to come of it. Sheaf and Anvil went to the shoppe to tell of the worker's demise, but their report did not show any remorse or caring from the foreman. I was sad that he cared so little, but rested assured that the workers would be relieved to hear that the kidnappers are gone.

I discovered later that Duval had a lead box made for the amulet so that a scrying spell would not locate it in the interdimensional haversack. I wasn't sure of the need, but then I don't have experience with magical abilities. The best news of the whole resting period was that Sheaf found a moderately strong wand of healing with most of the charges still available. The entire party scrimped and saved to get it, and we did manage to barely afford it. That will make a huge difference in our future adventures. I was saddened to sell my ruby rimmed goblet, and to give up all of my gold, but it was well worth it for a wand of healing. That was after I had commissioned Sal to make me an amulet of natural armour. So I'm definitely completely out of money. Fortunately I do not focus on the accumulation of wealth; although it is helpful when one needs an amulet of natural armour or a wand of healing!

The Kidnapping Episode
Sharn is quite large, but it apparantly still takes a lot to entertain us because it did not take long before we felt the need to get involved with another adventure. We decided to investigate problems of people disappearing in the sewer. I wasn't thrilled at the mention of Sharn's sewer's again, but Sheaf and Anvil seemed very partial to taking care of the situation, especially after visiting the workplace that experienced the disappearances. Meanwhile Xander introduced us to Duval, somebody he met at the bar. I don't usually take things at face value in a bar, but he seemed to have some good qualities, and he was well armoured with leather and spiked chain, giving me the impression that he was also experienced. He wanted to be a part of our little adventure in the sewers, so we'll see his qualities first hand, I'm sure.

To make a rather lengthy storey short for such a short adventure since I left my ink above ground and could not possibly remember all of the details, we did find the kidnappers, but the victims met their fate in death, so we had nothing to save, except to wreck vengence on their behalf. Nearly at the cost of our lives, we did wreck considerable vengence. It was quite the maze down in the sewers; something that was not conducive to my above-ground-nature-loving-self, but I must remain open-minded in order to learn, according to my Monk Master.

We did find something of interest in a chest, besides the gold. It was an amulet with an inscription and a crude map. The inscription said: Three turns right, three turns left, One right, push, click. I wasn't horribly impressed, but it's difficult to be impressed in this dank environment. Tic believed that the map was from Xend'rick, which immediately piqued my interest since I have been wanting a boomarang from that region. Since Xend'rick is an entire continent south of Khovaire, it has the promising sound of plenty of adventure and new knowledge.

Before leaving the sewers, Sheaf really wanted to break down a spider web close to where we'd depart, so we did do that, only to discover an apparantly recently built wall. I was pretty bored with the whole idea of the tunnel behind the spider until the discovery of the new wall. The party as a whole was pretty determined to return as soon as possible given our sustained injuries, but Sheaf and I swore to return. Unfortunately, on the way up, we bumped into a party where the leader, Demise, described the amulet and map we had found that she was wanting. Since we knew nothing of her history, we did not trust her with our new possessions, but instead told her about the new wall, and that perhaps some clues will be there. I'm not happy about that imparted knowlege, in retrospect, because I was hoping to find something there. We shall see later if she found anything of value, when Sheaf and I return.

The Mighty Battle & Return
I put off scribing our last battle until we safely returned to town, then we headed off to a quick episode in the Sharn sewers. Unfortunately, I left ink behind during that episode! So, I must recall the mighty battle with the vampire, then scribe the adventure of the kidnappers.

The Mighty Battle
I notice that the my last entry has two zombies dead while we heard more shuffling. Meanwhile we were desperately trying to get everybody and the wolves up through the tunnel. Four more zombies came into view that met their demise quickly. We then heard the vampire calling us. We stepped up, as Xander called out that we'd be at peace if he accepted Rumtar has his god. That was cute. Quite expectedly, the vampire was not interested in peace or gods, but rather the schema. I can't remember who cast the first spell or plunged the first sword, but there was a long battle that ensued.

Cal's life ended as his tried to take out the vampire, by either one of the vampire's cronies or the mage hand. I was too busy in my own battle alongside Anvil to take too much notice of the battlefield. All of us suffered much injury, but the best battle I endured was with Buff Bitch. I do not normally condone such speech, but she is worthy of the name. She nearly ended my life, but I prevailed, thanks to Sal and Sheaf's help. Sheaf had to dump healing potion down my throat before I could come around to take Buff Bitch's set of daggers as a trophy. The vampire ended up leaving the scene, but not until most of his cronies died, including his right hand woman, Buff Bitch, and his left hand mage, who happened to be shot through the eyes by Sheaf.

The Return to Sharn
We returned safety with the schema and the cart to Rhukaan Draal. After selling our wares found in the Mournlands, we met the Lady at the Wild Habiscus, which seemed like a higher class establishment in comparison to the typical pubs there. Xander bought us a round of ale for a toast to Flop and Durrock. The Lady met us there and Tic gave her the one schema and device that we found with it. She told the Lady about Garrow, the vampire, and how we believed he had one already. She confirmed that the Emerald Claw had one schema, and after more discussion, Tic slid out the duplicate schema, which seemed to confuse her more than help her. We then took a sea ship back to Sharn, escorting the Lady. I only threw up once.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Our Underground Journey
I had some time between arguments and rests to sketch out the map below of what we've explored so far. I may be wrong, but it's as close as I remember.

Finding the Schema...and Other Things!
Before we took on the room that somewhat obviously contains the schema, Sal wanted to infuse something, so we shut the door to wait. Sal's infusion was the Shield of Faith, which he gave to Anvil. He also enabled Cal to give Anvil Resist Energy. The extra magical "armour" makes him the obvious choice for "point". We walked into a room of four fire elementals. We were suucessful with their demise, mostly thanks to Anvil's new magical gifts, and Anvil searched quickly in case there was more fire while he had resistance. A chest was found, and was cool to the touch, so Anvil kicked it open. TWO schemas were in chest, along with other interesting items, including a disk that had something to do with the schemas. Sal found a level to move the ceiling, thus opening it and cooling off the room, which had grown in heat intensity immensely. The ceiling moved to view the outside world and several people were wearing the Emerald Claw uniform. We essentially ran. Tic fell. Sal and I got her to Anvil who held her until she woke.

We went back to Rorsa that our enemies are here. Since we found two schemas, Cal started examining them. Based on Cal's examinations, I suspect that he wants to give or leave one schema, which makes us nervous. Our fear is that they'll be waiting once we get up with the dogs, but they don't seem to be down here. We decided to rest and I took care of the wounded as they slept. Sheaf and I were elected to scout the main entrance for activity. The party and wolves waited in the hall for the All Clear. Sal and Tic join us and we found four zombies. I grappled one who seemed dead, but Sal torched him anyway. We wounded one very badly before a strategic retreat to return with Anvil, Xander and Cal. Upon our return, I killed the one I wounded the last trip. I felt it my duty to finish him off properly. We quickly killed the other two with Sheaf watching our backs, but we heard rumblings of more coming...

Drinking and Adventure
Once Rorsa and the others returned from the cart, we discovered that Falen turned the cart into stone and come back down with them. We went to explore some more, particularly the brown corridors from the first Moving Room that was discovered. It was locked, and Sal picked it eventually. We discovered the motherlode when it turned out to be the wine storeroom! I refilled all my wine bottles, and Sheaf managed to drink himself into a drunken stupor with his goblet he found back at the Rose Quarry. I had quite a bit as well, so we stayed in the room as the other went back to the Moving Room to the second brown corridor. Later, I found out that Xander killed a half orc. We are all very confused as to why the half orc was there, but they apparantly didn't have time to ask since he rushed them without comment. Too bad...perhaps he would have made a good addition to the party in our quest against all these zombies and undead of the Emerald Claw. They found several blue keys and a brown one. That room was apparantly boring since I didn't hear much about it. The conversation mostly stemmed around the crazy half orc.

The next morning we went back into the third Moving Room to tackle the hot door that is in orange's corridor. As Cal put in the key to orange, The Moving Room tipped Anvil, Cal, and Xander into water after a nice fast flip of the Moving Room. Sheaf and I managed to hold on within the Moving Room. I started unsashing my clothes to help them climb up (please note that I did not completely strip). I pulled up Cal since he was treading water, and others remained to be seen. Xander finally surfaced and I yelled for him to grab it with success. There was still no sign of Anvil, but he doesn't need to breathe, so I wasn't hugely concerned. He finally returned to say he found Xander's armour, etc. that was shed in order to avoid drowning, and was retrieving it. Eventually, everybody and everything was retrieved, and the Moving Room was righted. Our wizard deduced that the red key was actually a control device since he had used it previously before going to orange, and we didn't have this reaction. We returned, inserted the red key, then inserted the orange key with much better success.

Once we got to orange's door, Sal picked the lock. It didn't work. He re-picked the lock. It worked. Hmmmm. I'll try and reserve judgement.

Opening the door showed the same room that Xander and Sal described in the other orange hall. It would seem that our "adventure" with this room is inevitable.

Another Moving Room
We decided to leave the dogs in the kennels until we were done exploring. Our intent was to leave together, and it would be easy to get separated. We continued to explore the green area, and yes, we found yet another Moving Room. This family was very much into mechanics and intrigue, it seems. We have a red key, but couldn't find a keyhole until we found this Moving Room. Cal tried to use it, but it did nothing. The other two keyholes were for purple, yellow, and orange. We had the orange key, but upon opening it, we saw a "hot" door at the end of the hall. Our last escapade with a "hot" door led to a close encounter, so we decided to return to the second Moving Room we found and finish investigating the orange hall there.

The door seemed safe there, so we went through. A light started descending, and Xander opened the door on the other side of the room. After that door was opened, Xander went into that room, and opened yet another door. Lots of doors around here. Meanwhile Anvil got the bright idea to "attack" the light. Unbelieveably, the light was trying to hurt us. This went against all my knowledge in science. The light moved toward me, and knocked me down. My reaction was pitiful, but was I supposed to lob a shuriken through it or something??? Tic and Cal went down next, and Sal managed to destroy through means not familiar to me. These adventurers seem to have a lot of knowledge between all of them. Next thing I knew, I was being pushed by Sal and Xander out to the hallway to explain a scary fiery room that possibly held the schema. The magic brains of the party suspected a trap or illusion of some sort. I was still dazed a bit to even think straight.

Nobody knew quite what to do, so some of us ended up taking Rorsa up to the cart and introducing her to Falen. When in doubt, take a dog for a walk!

Monday, October 11, 2004

The Wolves
Sal, Cal, Tic and Anvil went to seach the other, and last, passage. It's quite impossible to get us all in the Moving Room, so we have to go in groups. The Moving Door returned to pick Sheaf, Xander and me up...only to meet two large wolves that spoke very clear Common. Rorsa was very courteous, and seemed relieved with our civility of not killing them on sight. Apparantly these wolves were subject to laboratory testing, but could not escape even after the human's deaths because of a Stone Plated Wolf that is keeping Rorsa and the other wolves hostage. She offered her help and the use of another coloured key if we could help them escape. Once the party finished looting the end room, and two other rooms (toilet room and bedroom), we headed to the Stone Wolf.

There was a huge uproar as to the strategy of attack. Should the more stealthy, yet weaker warriors go in first to get into position, or the strong warrior go crashing in and have us (stealthy fighters) follow-up? I was definitely not a front-line person, but could sneak around quite well, so based on the decision that the sneakier people should get into position first, I found myself on the first ride over to the Stone Wolf's passageway. There was no problem getting into position, and once the whole party was in position, we attacked with success. The Stone Wolf was extremely powerful, and even gassed a few of the party members, but Anvil finished it's stalking with a sword through the heart.

Long Story Short
So much has occurred during these past couple of days that it's difficult to put on paper in much detail; however, I will scribe the highlights of our "catacomb discovery". We started searching the mine inside entrance and come across a passage of stairs. There were many passages, and once those were scouted with no major impact, we proceeded down the stairs. Another split of passages was at the bottom of the stairs with an usual hatch at the end of one passage. Apparantly (I didn't visit them), the end of the passages upstairs had the same hatches, but Salshar determined that these were fake hatches. The final passage at the base of the stairs showed a locked door that was not fake. Cal opened it with some sort of rod that he had acquired over our journey. The other side of the door was pure darkness, but we discovered a room that flips from tunnel to tunnel if Cal's key was used properly. There are other tunnels seemingly available based on the colours that we see, but we do not have all of the keys. One passage end showed a library with a lady's corpse. She looked as though she recently died, but that was a phenomena that was common among the Mournlands. There wasn't any certain way we could determine the time of death. We went back into the Moving Room to the opposite side only to discover a wash room and linens that were stacking themselves. I found that particularly weird, so I moved back into the passageway.

The third passage via the Moving Room showed us a glowing door at the end and bones throughout the passageway. We backed up and Sal arrowed the door to see if it bounced, which it did. Anvil walked up the side, and to his right there was an unlocked room that had some water and other items. I was in the Moving Room, when suddenly we rotated away. Cal must have started it since he has the key. I feared for my companions during our absence, but upon our return, we saw a melting goo of fire and Sheaf reciting a poem about his prowess with fire. We were quickly filled in as to their battle with a fire elemental of some sort. It would seem that Sheaf did an excellent Fire Dance as the party watered it down. Xander was particularly angry about our disappearance. I had to explain that I did not realise that we were going to rotate. Peace finally came...

Journal

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Friday, April 15, 2005

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Monday, October 11, 2004

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