Oathday, Erastus 3

We decided that the ‘doggies’ would be at our back if we didn’t take care of them now, so we set out to either free them or kill them (which, if one is at all religious, really is another way to free them, but I digress.)

We arranged ourselves, and opened the door we presumed led to the doggies. But no puppy appeared. We shut both sets of doors, and went to the door at the far east. Kane had thought he’d heard voices in this room. Rigel checked for traps, found none, and Sabin led, using his dark vision.

Somebody called for everyone to come in and shut the door. When you think about it, that instruction isn’t very clear. Really, you should say, “Everybody come in and the last person shut the door behind them.” I was thinking, much like in an aviary, we wanted to close the door behind us so nothing could scoot out. The next person coming in would But no puppy appeared. We shut both sets of doors, and went to the door at the far east. Kane had thought he’d heard voices in this room. Rigel checked for traps, found none, and Sabin led, using his dark vision.

Somebody called for everyone to come in and shut the door. When you think about it, that instruction isn’t very clear. Really, you should say, “Everybody come in and the last person shut the door behind them” if that’s what in fact you meant. I was thinking, much like in an aviary, we wanted to close the door behind us so nothing could scoot out. The next person coming in would then be cautious about making sure nothing got past them. Anyway, it wasn’t very clear and several people got upset when I closed the door behind like I was told. Apparently they wanted it held open until everyone was in, and then shut. But they weren’t very clear on that.

Knowing they hated fire, I wanted to fireball them but with so many of the party already in the room and starting to engage them, I couldn’t very well do that without seriously annoying some of my party. So I confined my ‘fireballs’ to flaming spheres, which indeed did cause the critters to dance about. One of them somehow caused Avia to bleed profusely although I swear it didn’t even contact her there. The dogs tended to blink about — I don’t think it was teleport but I could be wrong — but we managed to kill two of them. The third blinked out of site, and never came back.

We looked at the western door, and nodded. Odds were good that Mokmurian was in that room. We aligned ourselves and approached the door.

“Magic!” said Rallo, and after a short bit of study we realized we’d lost the element of surprise. There seemed to be an alarm spell here on the floor, and now it was triggered. Shrug. Might as well head on in then.

Upon entering, we caught a glimpse of a celing that had to be 100′ high if it was an inch. Then fog enveloped us. Fortunately we had experience at this too. I whipped out the special wand of spell holding, and called up a gust of wind.

Mokmurian proved surprisingly easy to beat up. Now we didn’t defeat him (this time) because (in hindsight) we were too passive. But after pounding on Nolin pretty good, MM got seriously cut up by Nolin and Avia, and he winked out. Probably a teleport; maybe a dimension door.

On the other hand, this gave us an excellent opportunity to look around the room we’d found him in. Indeed, it was messy, and journals were strewn about. Spell components and what appeared to be spell books lay open. Various pieces of equipment lay askew.

I went to the alarm trap and (presumably) tripped it several times to simulate our leaving. Maybe he’d teleport back in if he though we were gone. Takkad inspected to the west but found nothing; some rubble again.

But there was a chest! Traditionally such things hold great wealth and I do believe Rigel was actually quivering 🙂 It was not trapped, but was locked. That is, momentarily. The chest appeared to have thousands of gold pieces, hundreds of platinum pieces, and a few items:

[913] an amber/sapphire necklace
[914] ivory runestones
[915] a magic scroll

We decided to leave a detailed accounting for later, and returned to the corridor. There was one room we had not yet inspected and we though MM might have gone there. Rigel really wanted to inspect the chest better, and so stayed behind (Sabin and Kane stayed with her.) That left me as one of the more observant ones, so I checked the door for traps and, finding none, proceeded to cast a knock spell upon the door to unlock it.

This elicited the strangest reaction. The door changed color to orange, then yellow, then bright yellow. It was blinding. Literally. By this time, Rigel, Sabin, and Kane had returned. Some sort of being appeared that was just too bright to look at — and it screamed, too. Loudly. Persistently. And then the bastard hit me. I was blinded and apparently on fire which, if I was going to be attacked, was one of the better things to attack me with, at least. The damage was minimal, but I was blind. I’m told Avia and Rallo both got a good hit in before Kane managed to banish it.

A few minutes later, everone’s sight came back. Phew.

We entered what appeared to be an auditorium or at least large echo-ey room. There was a shaft in the middle of the room that looked like it would require feather fall or fly to avoid being seriously hurt. And a mechanical creature of some sort approached and announced “Welcome to the Therassic Monastic Library. There are over 24,000 volumes, scrolls, and manuscripts.”

This could prove useful. Not now, perhaps — MM didn’t appear to be here — but later. When we need information.

So we returned to the room we’d last seen him in, and discussed the situation. We agreed that he’d probably come back with help, and discussed how best to deal with that. If he arrived with mundane help (that is, on foot) we’d make them come through the doorway one at a time and we could surround and pick them off, one at a time. If they all just appeared, however, we might have to just make do in a much more adhoc fashion.

Suddenly we heard voices. It sounded like he may be returning. We arranged ourselves as we’d discussed and waited for the first to cross the threshold. Some protective spells were cast, like protection from fire.when

Imagine our surprise when the first was Conna, who subtly gestured to us to back up. She clearly had some sort of plan, but .. what was it? Nolin jumped forward and appeared to do battle with her, but losing ground in the process. We all backed up with him. Conna seemed exasperated. She whispered for us to get up on the stage and look scared. Well, this wasn’t what we’d had planned at all, but we did trust her. We gave up our advantage and did as she said. In the meantime, though, the giants entering were being attacked by party members that she could not talk to without being noticed. As we all moved to the stage (“TO ESCAPE THE FEARFUL GIANTS I HOPE THEY DON’T HURT US”) Conna nodded and waited. Among the last to enter was Mokmurian himself, still looking somewhat injured but looking very pleased with himself. “Now!” he cried. “Attack the little ones and we’ll –”

“No!” cried Conna. We have lived under his tyranny long enough, have we not? We must throw off this oppressor and take control of our own destiny again!” And with those words, a little better than half of the giants hesitated, and started attacking the giants alongside them.

We? We went for MM. I personally threw a fireball at him, and despite the fact that one of his few surviving supporters was three steps behind me, threw a fireball at me in return. I was protected against fire, so I took minimal damage. “I’d always wondered what that looked like from the inside,” I mused. Turning my attention back to MM, I saw Rigel shoot one last arrow into him before his eyes went vacant. Man, she always gets the killing blow. Not fair!

But although life left him, his body nevertheless housed a force or spirit of an old Runelord. I don’t remember it all, but something to do with we were worms, Karzul would soon have an army, every death brings me closer to my gola, yada yada yada :)_

And then his eyes closd for good. Takkad was going to collect another head, but realized Conna might need it to convince the others that Mokmurian was indeed dead. Sounds of fighting were still coming from the next room over, but by the time we got there to help, Conna and her troops had things in hand. We stayed somewhat out of sight so that she would not seem to be associating with mere humans. After the others had left, though, she came over to talk and mentioned that we shuld probably stay low for a few days while, she hoped, the various camps broke camp and left.

An inventory of what we found:

[916] wand of Bear’s Endurance [15]
[917] +1 great club, defending + spell storing
[918] bracers of armor +4
[919] Robe of Runes. Crimson silk, +4 to INT and wearer recalls up to 4 spell levels of spells cast that day, once per day.
[920] bag of holding, holding spellbooks for virtually every spell less than 7th level.
[921] curious key (to library:)
[922] 500 gp of diomond dust
[923] goggles – careful polished goggles wearer can see through fog and mist.
[924] ~25,000 gp
~2420 up

additionally, while idly perusing the maps the robot had brought us, we found a map that had 4 x’s on it.

One of them was the old lighthouse at Sandpoint, while three were out in the ocean. What did they mean?

Must ponder.