11/27/2010
Players: Kathi, JC, Chris
Characters: DM & Salaisee, Elendil & Jolley, Billi
After breakfast, we return to the cauldron doorway so Salaisee can cast her Wall of Stone over the doorway. Leaving the traps activated, Salaisee casts the spell which completely covers the door making it appear to just be a blank wall.
We return to the other area and descend to finish our investigation. Billi spends a good bit of time searching for secret doors and fins one, a circular section that rolls away to the side. Jolley pushes it aside and Billi proceeds in with the rest of us following.
The passage turns into a hallway with many alcoves. In each alcove is a pile of bones with a skull. Each skull has three lightning bolts emblazoned on their foreheads.
The center alcove on the south wall actually contains a doorway. Billi checks for traps, finds none and opens the door. Within is a collapsed room. As he is looking in, all the skeletons on the north side of the passage pop to life.
MELEE
Jolley begins to fight the skeletons. When a skeleton takes damage the glyphs on their foreheads in explode in a concussive blast. The nasty part is that they affect each other and there is a small chain reaction of explosions in which Jolley is caught smack in the middle and takes some serious damage. Thanks in part to this nasty defense and Elendil's ability to turn them to dust, they are quickly dispatched.
Salaisee provides a cure for Jolley. Billi checks the door at the end of the hall for traps and then to see whether it is locked. The door opens into another octagonal room. Lightning bolts adorn the walls. There is a spherical creature floating within. It has a single central eye and several eyestalks.
Billi closes, then reopens the door. The creature appears to be made of metal. It looks like a beholder. It seems to have a glistening metallic carapace.
Billi allows his earlier Detect Magic (cast in the previous room) to reach examine the metallic sphere and discovers it is magical.
Elendil discovers a hatch in the bottom of the creature. Billi checks for traps and announces there are none. Elendil opens the hatch and looks in. Billi then crawls in and finds many mechanical control levers and pedals.
In examining the metallic beholder, we discover each of the eyestalks is fitted with a wand, and Elendil and Jolley remove the wands from the eyestalks.
While Billi takes time learning how the metal beholder works, Elendil casts Read Magic and determines the use of the wands from the glyphs.
Billi figures out how to make the sphere fly and there is some discussion about what to do with and hot to get it home, and if we did, how to keep it relatively concealed.
Jolley and Elendil start digging through the rubble in the northern passageway. After an hour or so they've made enough progress to see that beyond the rubble is an open area and a room.
Salaisee goes up to check on the horses and get some food. When we break through, we find a 40' room in which is another large metallic creature. This one is shaped like an umber hulk.
Billi again tries to learn how to use it. We spend the rest of the day with Billi removing the stone covering the stairway with the digging "umber hulk" machine. Then he returns to the beholder machine.
We lock the Beholder behind the secret door and put the umber hulk machine back in its place. Sadly they are too big to travel with and would rust if left outside.
We decide to stay one more night so Salaisee can cast another Wall of Stone to cover the entrance down into the ruins where the two machines are. We also note we will have to remember how to get into this valley. We divide up the 10 wands as noted in the list above.
Returning to the surface, we make sure the campsite is still secure and settle into our normal watch schedule. We take care of the horses, and eat dinner.
Salaisee's watch is quiet. Elendil's watch is quiet. Jolley's watch is quiet. Elendil spends the early morning hours in communion while Salaisee casts another Wall of Stone covering the lower area.
We start back out of the valley following our fabric markers back to the trail and then following the trail back out of this small side valley.
Shortly after we set out, we encounter five pegasus wheeling in the sky. They're being ridden by Mounted Sky Ponies, one of the Uthgardt barbarian tribes. They descend and converse. They two elders are taking the young ones on a quest.
They speak of looking for more pegasi. We tell them that we saw a couple teaching a young one to fly several days ago and indicate the general direction. After the encounter we stop for lunch, then continue on into the afternoon. Travel is uneventful and we come out of the valley and much warmer temperatures. We find a good spot to camp.
During 2nd watch, Elendil hears a strong loud whistling sound that is intended to be music. A dwarf rides into the campsite on a small pony. He has two pack mules as well. Rumple Barley is his name. He was made to leave Auvandell.
He tells of encountering a farm with orcs in the barn and that they appeared to be there with the knowledge of the couple living in the farmhouse.. He stopped over at the inn but was asked to leave when he was accused by the man at the farmhouse of causing a disruption. He actually recommends we not go to Auvandell because there's something funny going on there.
The rest of the night is quiet and in the morning, the dwarf adds several large eggs to the breakfast. He then heads off towards Silverymoon. Traveling on in the other direction we get to the outskirts of Auvandell.
End of session.
Next sessions: 11/27/2010