Moonday, Erastus 7. Still.

So we returned to the room we’d come to call “Scribbler’s room” since it was the last room we’d seen him n. This room had more of (we presume) Scribbler’s graffiti but there seemed to be few rooms down here that didn’t bear witness to his literary efforts. There was a door to the north, but Rigel proclaimed it was not trapped nor locked.

And thus it was opened, revealing, of course, yet another fog filled corridor.

It was pretty much fate that decreed Sabin, Takkad, Rigel, and Rallo would enter the corridor before me. Well, maybe not fate for Rallo, because he was going to blow the fog free again. But we sorted out later that much as I had been subject to some sort of fear spell earlier, they now fell victim to a spell of suspicion. Each felt the others had been turned against them.

Rallo reacted with a couple of scorching rays, which missed but were our first clue something was amiss.

Takkad responded by creating a wall of stone to separate him from everyone but Sabin. This was our second, although rather enigmatic, clue.

Sabin responded by doing a dimension door to a different room so that he could escape Takkad and the area in general. Since Rallo had NOT cleared the fog, nobody had any idea he’d done this .. he just disappeared into the fog and then dd’ed out.

And Rigel .. just turned and ran, pushing past me as she did so.

Those of us remaining (Avia, myself, Nolin and Kane) immediately assumed some sort of foul magic, although we weren’t quite sure what kind at first. However, our friends had also made a few utterances that led us to believe they thought we were enemies now. (We didn’t realize until later that they also considered each other enemies too!) I turned to run after Rigel, while Kane, Avia, and Nolin tried to figure out how to neutralize the magic without having our companions hurt us.

Rigel, it turns out, is faster than I am but also was running a little bit randomly, and I was able to corner her. Fearing the worst, I put a mirror image on myself before approaching her and that proved to be a very good idea. “Stop!” I told her. “I need your help to fight the others!” I said with all the charisma and diplomacy I could muster. She viewed me suspiciously for a moment before striking at me with her dagger. She hit one of the images, and started to move away. I attempted to wrestle her to the ground, but was unsuccessful.

Catching Rigel is a bit like catching a cat. You don’t ever catch a cat without injury unless it wants to be caught. I’d guess Rigel was going to swipe at me everytime I cornered her. Sigh. I ran after her.

Meanwhile, Avia had entered the corridor and was apparently unaffected. She successfully wrestled Rallo to the ground. This, of course, just reinforced to him that his former friends were indeed out to get him. Not wanting to spend her time sitting on him, she just tied him up really really well. He sat and struggled.

Takkad, having sealed himself into a corridor, was trying to decide what to do next when he discovered a door to the east. He quickly determined it was locked and could do nothing about it. There was no other way out. He’d created a spacious prison cell.

Kane tried to dispel the compelling magic, and failed.

Takkad decided to break down the wall so he could battle his former comrades. It was pure irony that he then cast protection from evil on himself to aid him in the coming battle. And upon doing so … discovered the compulsion and certainty he’d had moments ago faded. He’d cured himself, and suddenly realized that although his goal was still the same – break down the wall – his motivation was now completely different.

Sabin, it turned out, encountered the Scribbler again. But he curried no special favor with Sabin, so Sabin attacked him. By all accounts, Sabin beat him up pretty good before Scribbler teleported, dimension doored, or went invisible. He wasn’t dead, though, when he left.

I was still playing “catch the prickly kitty” with Rigel. She too had decided she needed to exit and was preparing to leave the area when Avia, Nolin, Kane, Takkad, and Rallo caught up with us. Once she entered the area of effect for protection from evil she too realized she’d, uh, misunderstood.

We managed to submit Sabin to the same sort of protection from evil and suddenly all our party but Rallo was sane again.

I used a gust of wind cast from the staff of spell storing to see if we could find Scribbler, but we could not. Depleted, now, of many of our spells, we decided to return to the surface. We were cognizant of the fact that the paranoid compulsion was held in check by protection from evil but not dispelled so we walked in careful formation.

Upon reaching the surface, we made haste to Father Xanthus who was able to dispel the charms. It took, however, several scrolls of dispel magic, and I wonder if we ought not replace them.

We decided to set up camp in the sinkhole to make it less likely anything might exit it overnight. We are here, after all, to protect the town.

Toilday, Erastus 8

As soon as everyone had sufficient rest to recover their spells, we mustered our group again to go deal with Scribbler. Sure, he’d had a chance to heal too but we were much better informed about what to expect and all of us against him was a battle he’d lose.

We checked first a few of the doors/rooms we had not inspected before, figuring he’d retreated to “his” room to rest and recover. Nolin seemed to enjoy using his “unlock door” spell – that is, his adamantine sword – to clear the way for us. We found some more fog-filled areas, some that the clerics vehemently objected to due to Lamashtu influences in the interior decorating, but no Scribbler.

Finally we reentered our corridor of altered alliances, but under protection of evil this time so it did not affect us. Instead, we ran into noxious fumes that, fortunately, did not harm us (though I believe they were intended to). Nolin “unlocked” the locked door Takkad had found and we found a small room full of graffiti again. As we were puzzling over this, Avia announced there was evil behind us in the fog.

Instantly, Sabin used dimension door to move himself, Nolin, and Takkad next to the evil, which was, of course, Scribbler. He was a bit surprised at finding himself engaged in battle so quickly and it left him no choice but to fight with weapons rather than spells. He did put some hurt on our fighters, and managed to fire off one spell to bring a couple more of the mastiffs to distract us. For my part, I used a wall of force to cut off Scribbler’s physical escape, but everyone was too close to use a fireball without subjecting the group to friendly fire (!).

Nolin got hit by Scribbler’s falchion and found himself weakened by it. Not surprisingly, it had some additional enchantments on it.

Suddenly, in a flurry of holy wrath, Avia pummelled Scribbler into small bits and it was over. Well except for the mastiffs, but Nolin had fun taming the puppies. Nolin had definitely developed an attitude about this area.

Scribbler left some diamond dust, a cloak, and some armor behind. We will evaluate these later. The danger to Sandpoint is, we think, largely dealt with (although the clerics still dislike the remaining influence of Lamashtu that lingers here.)