Adventurers
- Alerich Greyborn (Fighter 2)
- Carbel Sweetleaf (Halfling 1)
- Elixabete (Thief 4)
- Kelro Mist (Elf 1)
- Assorted NPCs: Gutxi (C), Negu (H), Ondona (F)
With a suspicion that the drinking horn-holding dwarf statues might require an alcoholic catalyst, the party loaded up on wine and cider and made their way down into the gatehouse. They poured a little wine into the concave recess, and Elixabete pressed one of the labelled bricks. She vanished before their eyes.
The thief found herself in complete darkness, but fortunately her companions appeared one after the other until they were all clustered around a lantern, exploring until they recognised their surroundings as being near the old griffon nest.
Looking to clarify some of their unfinished map, the party investigated several untried paths, avoiding a gloopy mass of green slime trying to get the drop on them as they did so. Paying particular attention to the ceilings from that point on, they continued into a flooded room.
The caution paid off when they spotted another large slimy form above a partially submerged statue, and they waded in carefully. The lantern light disturbed another lair, though, and a cry from Carbel, the halfling struggling to keep all his gear dry from his lower vantage point, alerted the party to a knot of half a dozen large toads swimming in from another (still flooded) entrance.
Long tongues shot out and snared both Alerich and Elixabete, yoinking them into the amphibians’ maws. The thief activated her new set of leather armour, turning ethereal to the bewilderment of the giant toad, but Alerich had to fight hard to free himself
The party were able to inflict enough damage on the toads to drive them off and decided to retreat themselves back to drier territory. Realising she still had a few minutes left on her ethereability, Elixabete raced towards where the party had previously encountered a bald cleric, the rest of the party able to just keep up enough to provide her with light.
She poked her head (literally) through the door to find him and his two snake-headed companions scratching their heads over a tiny winged humanoid evidently sacrificed on some small box. The bald man spotted her incorporeal face and, startled, asked if she were the Snake-Armed Goddess’ messenger. Rolling with this, the thief answered in the affirmative and enticed the trio out of their room with talk of helping them find this goddess’ sanctuary. Apparently he had communed with her in a dream, and had been directed to “look south, beyond the great dwarf”.
The trio’s suspicions arose when they joined the rest of the adventurers, and the tale shifted from being messengers to becoming prospective cult members, and before long weapons were drawn and a fight ensued. The ruse had served its purpose in dislodging the snake worshippers from their defensive location, and they were cut down before the cleric could cast any of his spells. He went down swinging, though, directing his fury at the deceptive Elixabete and, with his last act, smashing the life out of her with his mace.
As they sorrowfully carried her corpse back to the village, the adventurers discovered that this mace could intermittently grant new life to the fallen. They thrust it into the hand of Carbel’s cleric retainer to bestow its effect upon the dead thief, and Elixabete breathed again, albeit through more bristles than she was used to - her was now a dwarf. Evidently her grasp on dwarvish and trawling through dwarven halls had had an effect.
