| Forgotten Realms Campaign 2001 9 July, 2001 |
Player Characters
Mills decided to spend the day in camp, recovering from the mummy rot disease he had picked up Kesefehon's crypt.
[It was Jason's birthday, and he had a date, we let him have the week off... ;-)]
Since they now had the rune of stars which would let them into Rothilion's crypt, the party headed back to the Polyandrium.
Sam scouted the graveyard, seeing a lot of zombies milling about. Seeing only 2 zombies in front of Rothilion's crypt, the halfling decided to take them out quietly. Up close, he recognized the 2 zombies as the remains of Tardash and Robalind, badly burned and slashed with large claws. Sam's thrown dagger hurt, but didn't destroy, the Tardash-zombie, and both gnome-zombies moved in to attack Sam.
The commotion of Sam's scuffle began to attract other zombies that were wandering in the Polyandrium. Fraugh noticed the sudden shift from milling about to focused movement, and the party rushed down to help Sam.
As the party fought off the zombies around the crypt, more kept arriving. Fraugh got the crypt door to open with rune of stars, and then moved into the entry of the crypt to sit out the battle. Sam soon joined him, tumbling his way through the zombies. Hoshi and Thartok soon finished off the zombies and the party closed the door of the crypt behind them as they went down to check it out.
Rothilion's crypt seemed more like a museum and library than an actual grave, but the party didn't seem to mind overmuch as they pocketed the few items they found that were still intact.
As they opened the door of the main sarcophagus chamber, however, the party found itself facing another would-be grave-ransacker: a mind flayer lich. The lich mind blasted the party, stunning Sam and Thartok. Then it moved forward and picked up Sam.
"Let me leave, and you can have the snack back", it told Fraugh and Hoshi telepathically. The 2 quickly agreed and stepped aside. The mind flayer handed Sam to Hoshi as it walked quickly past them.
After the mind blast effect wore off, the party quickly ransacked the sarcophagus, taking Rothilions staff of justice and the rune of the sun.
Leaving the sarcophagus, the party made their way across the Polyandrium to the Crypt of Orbakh. Using the rune of the sun, the doors of the crypt opened...and fell in rubble with a loud crash. When the noise had died down, the party entered the Crypt of Orbakh.
Bypassing a pit trap at the bottom of the stairs leading into the crypt, the party opened a door into a large room containing 2 large gorillas. The party quickly backed up, pondering why there 2 large gorillas in the crypt. And then they were wondering why 2 large cat-things were coming down the hall, as well. And then a naked man. All looking at them strangely.
The cat-things and the gorillas made menacing noises at each other. The gorillas screamed and thumped their chests while the cat-things peeled back the skin off their faces and screeched. The party was taken aback.
Fraugh cast burning hands, which killed the cat-things but only pissed off the large gorilla nearest him. The gorilla reached across the pit trap and mauled the wizard. The naked man's attempt to cast sleep on Hoshi failed, while Sam stepped up and unloaded his wand of magic missiles. Several wands of magic missiles were used to kill off the 2 gorillas and the naked man. The bodies were then piled into the pit trap and the creeped-out party moved on.
The parties explorations took them down several hallways that wrapped around the large room where the gorillas had been. Investigating a room across from that room, however, Sam discovered another large gorilla...and it was also pummelled to death with wands of magic missiles.
More wandering the halls, and the party was confronted by a group of bugbears demanding that the party leave or be killed. The party made fun of them, so the bugbears charged, splitting up to attack the party from 2 directions. The battle was short.
Fraugh noticed that all of the bugbears looked exactly the same. The party found that interesting, but was disgusted to have fought yet another group of monsters with no treasure.
Further on, Sam peaked into a room where he heard voices and was spotted. A large web-footed ogre-looking thing and another naked man--which looked like the man they had killed earlier--attacked the party. Or rather, the web-footed ogre-looking thing attacked the party, while the naked man went and fetched more web-footed ogre-looking things. Thartok killed a couple of the ogre-looking things, and Hoshi used a wand of fear to scare off the naked man and one of the ogre-things.
Following the fleeing ogre-things, the party entered a part of the crypt that had become flooded with water enough that Sam once again resorted to climbing on the walls with his slippers of spider climbing. The party found where the ogre-things had retreated...and there were 5 of them, obviously waiting for the party to come into the chamber.
Deciding to go for it, Fraugh stepped in front of the door to use his wand of magic missiles. The naked man had moved into the room while the party had discussed their options, and he cast sleep. Fraugh shook off the spell and shot the man with his wand. Sam and Hoshi used their wands of magic missiles from opposites sides of the door, angling to hit the ogre-things on the ends.
The ogre-things moved up to attack and Fraugh, who was still standing in the door, was hit several times. Reading circle of doom from a scroll he had planned to use to learn the spell, Fraugh managed to kill off a couple of the ogre-things. Then Thartok moved in with Hoshi and the battle was over quickly.
Sam investigated a scimitar hanging from the ceiling in a glass globe...and was blasted into the water, unconscious, by a trap he didn't see. A couple of potions of cure light wounds, however, and he was back up and feeling foolish. The rest of the party partook of similar potions and they bravely entered the next chamber.
Big spherical, rubbery thing with tentacles that sported toothy jaws...and another naked man who looked like the one they had killed twice now. The man introduced himself as Femras, and his companion as Beautiful Flower. They offered to trade the party the treasures from the crypt in exchange for being able to leave the crypt unmolested, adding, "Or we could kill you now."
Battle-weary, low on magic, and without their cleric...the party considered the offer. And then took it. Orbakh's bone mantle and Orbakh's ivory scepter were delivered to them, and they left the crypt, heading back to camp.
Or they would have, anyway. A strange vision of a long-dead elf of Myth Drannor appeared to them when they touched Orbakh's ivory scepter. The elf, a baelnorn, introduced himself as Molostroi and told the party about the Cult of the Dragon's plans to use a corrupted pool of radience to make a dracolich even more powerful. He asked the party to help thwart the Cultists' plan by using the scepter to destory the dracolich's phylactery.
The party agreed and they headed back to their camp.
Everyone received 4000 XP. Fraugh, Thartok, and Hoshi all went to Level 8. [an error occurred while processing this directive]