Mandras shook his head blearily. It had been a bad night, separated from his battleaxe. He dressed, ate a hasty breakfast of porridge and honey and joined the group as they proceeded to the gate of Ximes. Rarder’s generous bribe to the guards had paid off and the party’s weapons were still there. Mandras let out an inward sigh of relief.
Moving through the forest for hours, the party came to a clearing some 300 feet wide. It contained a dip in the ground with a 15 foot high pryamid poking from the base. On entering, they encountered 3 figures on plinths, reminiscent of gods of wisdom, war and whatever else from legends of lore. They were rather unyielding in information or clues to anything… On the offhand chance, Alf prayed to one and a doorframe appeared on the plinth. Alf tried the door, it opened, he stepped through and disappeared from sight, dropping some 10 feet into a room with 6 fire beetles. Mandras leapt in after him, as did the rest of the party – after brief hesitation. The carapaced creatures were wiped out, but not before Mandras took a wound.
The room had three doors. The party took the E door and wandered down the corridor, checking rooms as they went along. One contained two lizards chewing on a corpse – they were quickly dispatched and Alf recovered a fine gold mask from the human cadaver.
Further wandering led to encounters with rats, retracing their steps to the fire beetle room, exploring other doors and corridors and fighting giant centipeds - successfully. Eventually Rarder’s voice rumbled out from the back – we need to speed things up and find our way into the depths – that’s where the wizard will be – or so the soothesayer said. (Indeed, the party had given largesse to a beggar on the way here.)
As luck would have it, Konrad found and opened a door that led down to an eastward running corridor. And so it went.