Hjalgrimm asks Murath about magic, controlling rocks. Murath seems confused at first, then tells Hjalgrimm that he remembers magic from his first home. Hjalgrimm asks if he can perform magic, and the Galeb Duhr shows how he can animate rocks and stones, and that he can understand everything around him where earth is involved. Hjalgrimm asks, would Murath be interested in moving to a new home? It would be his home to own and he would have friends there. Yes, the living boulder answers.
Askelon says he is going to Animate Dead with the bones. He animates 2 skeletons from the two piles of bones nearby, using spells stored in his ring.
Hjalgrimm explains what Askelon is doing and Murath creates a little animated dude made of rocks.
The party begins traversing the cave, heading south to the water, then east. As they turn north to check out an alcove, the encounter a spider.
INITIATIVE
- Rook throws a dagger at the spider, but as Faelon move forward to engage, he accidentally deflected the dagger. It tumbled harmlessly against a nearby wall.
- Rook throws a second dagger, which hits and deals fatal damage.
Hjalgrimm steps east into a space filled with mushrooms, which give off clouds of spores. He coughs and steps away.
Faelon, Tenktovie, and Askelon try to figure out what mushrooms they are but come up empty handed. They believe these have some arcane powers of healing or hallucination.
Askelon has one of his skeletons collect mushrooms. He seals off the bag.
They go back and collect the spider's poison sac.
They continue exploring, turning south into a large wide, and high cave. As they explore they find a desecrated corpse in an alcove off the east side. Everything is rotted, nothing useful here.
They return to the main corridor and continue exploring south. They find a passage to the east that turns south. They follow it until it turns back west and opens into the large cave corridor. Faelon crosses the cave to some water in front of a passage opening to the west. Hjalgrimm, Rook, and Tenktovie move into the corridor.
Just then, all but Hjalgrimm notice movement coming down the corridor from the north. Hjalgrimm was preparing to cast a spell to detect thoughts and not looking to the north. Though he cannot see the thing moving toward them, Askelon feels a strong bukrai presence to the north. The apparition floating toward them at an alarming speed is translucent and appears to be a young human man wearing tattered noble clothing and wielding a spectral rapier. The party is attacked by the ghost of Prince Brant!
INITIATIVE
- Tenk casts Toll the Dead, but when the spell has no effect he remembers that it deals necrotic damage. Noctis throws a dagger but is distracted by Faelon, again. He hits the spirit with his second throw. Faelon says Hory Shit! and decides to hold his action until the creature approaches. As it moves rapidly toward Faelon he hits it hard with Dragon, tearing away a chunk of ectoplasm, but hit it hard back, removing about a third of the monk's health.
- Upon seeing the frightening visage of the ghost, Rook is frightened. Hjalgrimm steps up and attacks the thing twice with Arya's blade, dealing an enormous amount of damage. Again, the necromantic part of the damage does not seem to affect the spirit. Still, it seems to be very badly damaged, fading in and out of existence.
- Askelon tells the Prince we need not destroy each other here. There is no discernable response.
- Tenktovie uses control undead. Success! He commands the ghost to stop fighting, and it does.
- Noctis is still scared. Faelon disengages. Hjalgrimm casts Healing Word on Faelon.
- Then Prince Brant turns east and floats into the cavern wall.
Hjalgrimm casts divine sense. He senses something evil and undead to the south southeast.
Askelon calls out to the ghost saying we need not fight.
After he moves a bit south, Hjalgrimm casts detect thought. He picks up on some words, but he does not understand them. He believes it is Old Jarin. He feels anger and fear. Askelon notices a bloated body in the water, but it appears to be just a commoner. It is not disintegrating, probably because it is so cold down here.
The group continues south through the large cavern. The investigate a few passages and alcoves but find nothing but another desecrated human body with crumbled remains of plain clothing and leather. They find more spider webs, but no more spiders.
They continue to work south and then west, passing another pool of water. The passage turns sharply north after a few dozen meters. They pass through another patch of mushrooms, being careful to cover their mouths and hold their breath. More webs, no spiders.
After a few more small passages and alcoves the emerge into a large cavern with a pool of tar-like substance. The edges along the pit are a bit slanted and gravelly, so they move carefully. First they navigate east along the south side of the pit, but discover it is a dead-end passage only about 25' long. The put runs right up to the side of the cavern on the east side so the move back over to the west along the south side, They continue their way north along the west side of the pit. They try to skip some rocks on the surface but the rocks to not skip, they just stick and sink.
When they reach the north end of the pit, which can now be estimated at about 30' wide and 50' long. They can see that the passage widens and continues north on the other side of the pit, but the ledge across the northern point is narrow and perilous. Askelon sends one of his skeletons across the ledge, but it slips and falls into the pit sludge. It sinks as it tries to claw its way back out. Askelon knows that the gulmorvrin is still animated, as it does not need to breathe air. Unfortunately, it cannot get back out on its own.
Faelon jumps across the small ledge and throws rope back to Askelon. They have Hjalgrimm hold the rope taught so the others can use it to navigate to the north side of the pit. Then the team helps pull Hjalgrimm across the perilous span.
As they work north they find a passageway to the east. An alcove on the north side is loaded with more mushrooms and spider webs. A passage to the southeast is completely submerged in freezing water. Askelon believes that this connects to the other large cavern where they found the bloated body.
They continue north until the passage turns sharp to the east. Within 10 yards they find their way back to the entrance. Murath is still there, playing with his rock dude.
Tenktovie remembers that Hjalgrimm said he felt a strong presence to the southeast when the prince disappeared into the rock. However, when the party moved south from the first large cavern, they skipped a passageway that lead east. They circle back around, retracing their steps, until they get just past the bloated corpse floating in the pool of freezing water. They hear a rhythmic pounding noise approaching from the north, behind them. They turn to see Murath running toward them, holding something in his outstretched hand. When he arrives he tells them that this fell into the hole. He hands a scroll case to Tenktovie, who opens it and pulls out a piece of parchment. He reads "Crowd gathering up here, including Captain of Guard and soldiers. Expect your bags to be searched when you emerge. DF" Tenktovie reminds the group that the Ranger's name is Denneth, and they remember his last name is Fa'ool, as he is Dalkeshi.
Murath says "Good luck" and turns and leaves. The party continues south to the point where the passageway turned west. This time they take the eastern passage. They turn south into a branch and follow it as it curves east, then north through another mushroom patch, and then west again. Just as they were losing hope of finding anything they spy a narrow passage to the north. The squeeze through in single file as it narrows and winds generally to the north. After about 40' the passage opens into a small cave about 10' by 20' with a few small alcoves. In the south alcove is an empty spider's web. But in the north alcove they spy an old shield and the hilt, basket, and cross guards of an old but mastercrafted rapier laying on the ground. Tenktovie blows the dust off the shield and examines it. He declares that it shows the heraldic crest of Clan Ethelyen, the royal house of Nurelia. This appears to be the shield and rapier of Prince Brant. When they lift the shield they find a skeleton below, curled in fetal position. Although covered in dust and grime, a regal collar of linked medallions representing a badge of office can be seen lying over the remains of the neck vertebrae, collar bone, shoulder, and upper ribs.
Suddenly the ghost of Prince Brant emerges from the walls of the cave. He seems to begin to present a horrific visage, but Noctis quickly hurls one of his Dekejis daggers at the ghost. It shimmers and screams, and then disintegrates. The cave becomes calm again.
The party gather the prince's belongings.