Oathday, Erastus 19, 4712 afternoon
Brinewall Castle
I feel chilled to the bone.
We are under the castle, in some vast natural cavern, and below us, deeper in, lies the gory remains of our foe. Our victory came at a cost, at least for me, and the weakness, or sickness, or whatever it is that the bloated flying thing set to work against me is slow to pass.
Just a few hours before we were out in the bright sunshine, heading toward the wooden structure that leaned against the northern wall inside the castle bailey. By tacit agreement I would open the door, and Sparna would step inside.
“Spiders,” he called out, “and something else… I think it’s an ettercap.”
We mostly held back, waiting for them to come to us, but Etayne was overly enthusiastic and charged past our front line. She received some venomous bites as a reward. Quickly we killed the spiders and their keeper. Back out in the sun Etayne looked a bit sick, and her skin had a greenish pallor. Ivan handed her a portion of Lesser Restoration, which she quaffed.
With all of the above ground parts of the castle explored it was time to descend to the castle basement, and we chose the stairs in the troglodyte room as our point of entry. Once again Sparna led the way down, with me at his back, and after a turn there was a closed door, which Sparna opened.
In the flickering shadows from my light I could see a large dining hall full of troglodytes, who were just finishing up lunch. They advanced, and we backed up the stairs with the intent to lure them singly into the room above where we could set upon each en masse.
Kali whispered, “I have an idea… let me known when Sparna has cleared the steps. This should be good.” A moment later I heard her complete a spell, the result of which was that the first troglodyte slipped on the now greasy stairs and fell back down among his companions. Others attempted the climb, and many of them slipped and fell as well. One made it into the room, and was summarily killed.
We all had a good laugh, but the troglodytes retreated back down the stairs, and in fact fled back into an inner chamber, where they joined with more of their kind, and their leader.
Upon hearing the tactical details of the situation, Kali and I glanced at one another and grinned. This briefly took me back to happier times when we were girls growing up together in Sandpoint, always on the prowl for mischief; hatching silly plans and working together as one to see them out.
Using a combination of Obscuring Mist, Sound Burst, and Color Spray we made a significant dent in the health and morale of our confined opponents.
Suddenly a very large Sparna (a seven foot high dwarf?!) ran past us through the mist and into the room. The rest of us followed and within a minute all of the troglodytes, including the rather largish leader (whom Sparna had hewn in half), were dead.
Kali and Ivan had explored the adjacent room while the fighting was underway, and discovered an armory with useful items, which when combined with the troglodyte leader’s magic morning star provided us with a valuable haul.
[231] bone dice
[232] +1 cold iron morning star (from troglodyte leader)
[233] half plate
[234] master work heavy steel shield
[235-238] heavy crossbows
40 crossbow bolts
[239] case: 10 flasks of Alchemists Fire
We returned to the dining room and after Radella determined the wide double doors were neither locked nor trapped, we opened them and entered the castle’s kitchen complex. The floor was dusty, and a regular trail of prints led to one off to our right. Doors were set in all of the walls.
I sniffed the tracks on the floors and could easily tell that both troglodytes and ogres had passed through. We opened the first door on the right and saw the stairs that led down from the ballroom. A set of double doors next to the stair door led to a large circular room with a cistern in the center, flanked by four columns. Another pair of double doors was east, but they were closed and so we returned to the kitchen.
The door in the eastern wall led to a natural cavern.
The door to the north opened to a small hallway that ended with another door, but it was locked and Radella was called over. After a few moments of fiddling with the mechanism she grunted, took off her pack and pulled out a complex set of tools carefully wrapped in a leather pouch. She quietly worked nearly half an hour before I heard a soft click followed by a snort of triumph from Radella. She opened the door, beyond which was a large natural cavern with stalactites and stalagmites reaching down and up toward one another. Sparna and I wandered through the cavern, where I found what looked like a secret door cleverly hidden in the west wall. Radella once again spent some quality time with the lock, but in the end it yielded to her skillful fingers. She opened the door, which lead to a natural cave.
We followed this tunnel to its entrance on the shore of the northwest corner of the peninsula upon which the castle was built. There were no signs of recent activity here, and so we went back to the kitchen, locking the door behind us.
The western door was also locked, and this too took Radella some time to pick. Beyond this door was a passageway leading down.
Before moving on to another level we thought it prudent to finish exploring this one, and so we returned to the cistern and I listened at the door and heard the sound of large creatures snoring loudly. We arranged ourselves for a quick and quiet entry, and I thrust them open.
The room was a dungeon/cell complex that had been converted into a torture chamber, and two ogres were slumped against one another near the far wall. The larger one opened an eye and grunted, “You not supposed to be here.”
Really? How could it know that? I figured it couldn’t and with a little fast talking managed to bamboozle him into thinking we had been sent down to offer them something to eat. We were getting along famously when an arrow whizzed by my ear and stuck into the ogre’s chest. It looked stupidly at the quivering shaft sticking out from its shirt before yelling loudly at its companion to wake up.
Apparently Ivan was bored by the conversation and decided to initiate the inevitable sooner rather than later.
It was a short fight, made all the more short by a Hold Person cast by yours truly upon the larger ogre, who had just been hexed by Etayne. The smaller ogre lasted a few seconds longer before tottering over on its side and releasing a large volume of gas, and judging by the dark stains on its trousers, it had released the contents of its bladder and bowels as well.
Looking around the chamber we saw a woman’s pale blank face staring out from one of the cells. She was tall and blond and had the physique of a warrior. We asked her a number questions — all at once, which seemed to overwhelm her. I pointed at a nearby pile of rather nice looking adventuring gear and asked if that was hers. She nodded, and as Radella unlocked the cell door (the large ogre had the key) I indicated she should take her equipment.
She seemed to relax some after that, and said her name was Kelda Oxgutter. She and some friends had come down from the north (Kali seemed to know the kingdom from which she came, naturally) to see if there was anything left to plunder in the castle. They got down to the basement level before being overwhelmed. Her friends had been killed, but she had been knocked out and locked up.
She was suffering from some sort of stigma about not falling in battle, but when Ivan and I agreed to accompany her back to her home once we were done with the castle, she perked up a little and agreed to help us. Star in particular was happy to have another fighter on board, and passed on her appreciation to Kelda, who for some reason seemed confused. Maybe she does not like mice — it takes all kinds.
One of the ogres had been carrying a few interesting odds and ends in a sheep stomach pouch, which we took.
[240] master work dagger (Kali)
[241] elemental gem: when crushed, smashed or broken a large earth elemental appears under the control of the breaker
shiny river rocks
77 gp
sheep stomach pouch
The northern door opened onto an east/west natural corridor, which led back to the kitchen to the west, and on to a small chamber hewn from the rock to the east. An intricate iron screen blocked the way east, in the center of which was a door with the painted image of Pharasma upon it. Peering through the screen I could see a crypt, with the ceiling partially collapsed at the far end.
The door was locked, but the iron key from the lighthouse unlocked it, and we walked through. Alcoves lined either side of the crypt, but the sarcophagi had been toppled over and smashed, and the bodies were missing. Where the ceiling had collapsed was an opening to a vast natural cavern, and the missing walls from two of the southern alcoves led down into the space.
I had walked down a short distance when Kali called me back.
There, hovering in the large opening of the crypt was an image of Pharasma — exactly the same as the painting on the door. This seemed too much of a coincidence, but I felt it best to be cautious, and so I bowed and asked, “What may we do for you, my lady?”
“This place is holy to Pharasma. Lay down your weapons and enter the cavern below in peace.”
This seemed an odd request, and when I pressed her for details she responded with some sort of twisted dogma that might fool some people, but it was clear to me this was an imposter.
“This is not Pharasma,”, I stated matter of factly and strode out of the chamber and into the cavern below. The image blustered on with some sort of reply, but I heard Kali say, “Bullshit!” and she came down by my side. Most of the others soon joined us.
It was not dark. There were odd speckled motes of light drifting through the air, like dust lit by a sun beam, and these illuminated the cavern in a dream like haze. The walls were covered in paintings of four winged humanoid shapes. Pazuzu again!
Kali was scanning the ceiling, as if looking for something specific (she later explained how the Illusion spell worked) and grabbing my arm she quietly whispered in my ear, “There, circling that large stalactite, that’s our foe!”
A large, shadowy creature that looked like a ten armed octopus drifted among the shadows of the irregular ceiling.
The thing rippled and we were blasted by an Unholy Blight. I cast Cause Fear upon it, which angered it enough to drop down and touch me, bleeding off some of my health. Star and Beorn snarled with fury, while the rest of my friends offered soothing words.
Kelda was standing near enough to slash it with her long sword, but the creature’s wound immediately healed.
Kali summoned an archon lantern (I didn’t know she could do that!), and it began to shoot shafts of light at the creature, which roared wrathfully in pain.
Others shot arrows or threw weapons at it, but it was difficult to tell if these attacks were doing much, if any damage.
I struck it with Touch of Idiocy, and it was not happy. It sent a Scorching Ray back at me, but Sparna shoved me aside and the rays hit him instead.
It was clear thing did not like light, but it also seemed vulnerable to anything with a divine relationship. Its focused attacks on me also implied this same weakness. I called out, “Use divine magic, or call upon the faith of your diety to aid in your attacks.”
The creature swooped in again, and I bashed it with my flail, the ball of which served as my primary holy symbol to Groetus and was glowing with divine light. The beast screamed in agony as my companions acted similarly, and it retreated to the ceiling, calling out, “Father, help me! Pazuzu!”
I recast Sound Burst centered on the creature, and it exploded in a blast of ichor and pulpy flesh.
Unfortunately the affliction caused by the thing’s touch continued to work its way upon me for a while longer, and my health and resistance to illness felt depleted somewhat. Drinking a Lesser Restoration potion has helped some, but I am not fully recovered. Perhaps when we return to the cemetery tonight Spivey can offer assistance.
