There are many stories to tell, but I’ve had little time to tell them. At the moment I’ve got blood on me from some possibly unwise gaming activities involving the beheading of a gnoll, but I don’t really feel like cleaning it up and who knows when we’ll get another quiet moment where I can write in my book. PRESS ON!
After a short rest, and some vain attempts to get the smoke out of our clothes and/or loincloths, we opened another door off of the hall. Quietly mind you. Splug crept down the hallway ahead of us. The customary spear failed to impale him in the shoulder, but he heard a little scuttling sound of someone trying to hide and so he said “Reveal Yourself!”. although come to think of it his voice isn’t really deep enough to warrant the capital letters.
Two Tieflings were hiding in the corner somehow under a table and two chairs. Distress later said they were some kind of Tiefling darkblades. Sneaky looking buggers although Distress also said later that she could smell their brimstone cologne so there’s that. Anyway, that was later. Right when Splug ran into them, one of them whispered to him – “We are not your enemies; your enemies are in there” and pointed to the door he had just passed. Unfortunately, only Splug heard this, so as you might have guessed we started to fight them. Old habits die hard, especially the habit of making things die.
A gnoll priestess joined the party after a minute or so. A shrieking one, which everyone always enjoys. I mean who doesn’t like MORE SHRIEKING. I’m not sure which door she came out of but there was at least one door we had passed that had a knocker on it in the shape of a minotaur, and a bulls head carved on the floor in front of it. After a bit of shrieking which I think was actually an incantation, there was a sound like a whipcrack, suddenly a much stronger brimstone smell, and a huge demon was standing there. The shrieking in my head became impossibly louder. A Barl Gura. Isn’t it fantastic?
Right about then, Splug said to the tieflings – “If you are not our enemies then don’t fight us and fight our enemies instead!”. With which he turned on his heel and broke away from them. The tieflings could have struck at him easily right then. When they didn’t though, an uneasy truce came to pass between us. Klajdu also turned and joined with the demon and the priestess. The tieflings were absolutely useless in our battle, but all’s well that ends well and they are now quite free to be unhelpful to whatever degree that they wish.
A quote.
Splug: Attack the demon!!!
Klajdu: Klajdu has plan!!
right after that quote, Klajdu started some kind of really impressive attack that involved dashing down the corridor and…. we’ll never know because the priestess caught him in the something-painful as he passed her and he was knocked down. It was a good flashpoint in the battle though because myself and Carn both used long-slumbering powers we’d been saving up. And finally the evil ones died.
Except the tieflings of course. They hung around. Their names were Azkilak and Katal. I suppose those are still their names come to think of it. They offered an unlikely story of having snuck all the way down into the dungeon to steal things, then having only found some candlesticks, they had started a negotiation with the shrieking priestess to sell them to her, then given them to her so she could.. appraise them I suppose? The thought of haggling with the shrieking priestess keeps making me laugh. That and “Klajdu Has Plan!”.
Anyway, I should itemize our treasure a bit. The priestess had hide armor and a hemp flail and also a pair of silver candlesticks (which was surprising to see). We found a book called the Book of Wrath Unveiled, which seemed to be a book about the cult of Baphomet. Come to think of it I should really give that a bit of a read. It probably would have been helpful in the bits that already happened. Read on.
We also found a pair of gloves that are clearly magical, pretty clearly from the Shadowfell, but as to what they actually do I had to admit I had no idea. Also there was a gold necklace and a jade bracelet and a bunch of gems – rubies, diamonds, oh my.
Another quote:
Distress: ‘As barbarian Tim Gunn would say: “Make Work”. ‘
Somehow we got on the topic that Distress should, or possibly that she wished to, go spoon with the two tieflings.
Distress: “The problem with spooning [with the tieflings] is that there are many opportunities for pickpocketing”
Shazia: “*That’s* the problem with spooning the tieflings?”
We arranged to take a rest. Us in one room with each of us doing shifts on watch, and the tieflings out there somewhere. Who cares. Damn tieflings. During the fourth watch Klajdu and Splug were on watch and damned if a tiefling didn’t come trying to sneak the door open and come in. He slunk away.
When we woke up, they were still there, and I guess cause it would have been awkward to kill them, we let them hang around. We proceeded to a new hallway whose floor had been decorated with a big greasy trail of blood that ran from one door to another door a ways down. 3 spectral figures rose up from the blood (ooooh) and raised their hands to greet us. Some of us waved. We’re a polite sort for the most part.
The first was a man, and was wearing badly torn chain mail. Later we learned his name was Valrog the Brute. The second was a dwarf wearing plate armor. His name turned out to be Serteras. The third an irritable elf with green robes carrying a staff. “Nidora” I think.
They seemed to think we weren’t worthy. They asked us many questions. results were mixed.
For instance on the significance of the Well of Demons, Klajdu offered “A place where demon in well, perhaps for storage”.
Carnibald as usual made some valid points, one of which was that clearly they had failed some test so they should let us pass for us to have a chance to finish their work.
Apparently this place was a testing place, or proving ground, for worshippers of Baphomet. To complete the test we had to find 4 items.
Someone in the party blurted out what the murderous pillars had said to us – “Mask, Bell, Blade and Tome”, and it does appear that those are the items.
3 of the items are held in chambers built to test Baphomet’s worshippers, to the north, west and south of our current spot. And then through the double doors to the east, is the resting place of the Book, and also to the east is the Inner Sanctum, which opens only when the ceremony is completed, meaning all 4 items have been brought to the correct locations.
Interesting though they may be, it seems that the four items cannot be removed from the dungeon and when in doubt they tend to teleport back to their current locations.
Oh, and our reward for completing the ceremony will be the summoning of the Terrible Guardian, which is a green dragon that’s been imprisoned here. I can hear the shrieking now and it is glorious. Along the way there will be magical traps they said (oh yes… yes indeed) and this central corridor we were standing in is frequented by a giant boulder that tends to smash things in its way (neatly explaining the messy trail of blood).
There was some difficulty deciding which way to go but Splug and I just set off down the corridor towards the west and the rest followed. we went through the <next few words are obscured by a few bloody fingerprints> all things a curtained vestibule. What in hell is this, the Vale’s most secret chapel?
I got down on my hands and knees and peeked briefly under the curtain. I got the sense of a brightly lit room with pillars, the pillars being reflective, or perhaps mirrored. Splug just up and went through the curtain and after the curtain fell there was no sound, and no response from him. We were concerned, although this time I managed to avoid pointing out our apparent need for a new goblin. I instead got down on hands and knees again, looked under the curtain again, said the words “Something’s not right about these pillars”, and then vanished completely. The curtain apparently fell back, although I wouldn’t know; I wasn’t there.
Where I was, was in a lovely stone room with no doors or windows, occupied by Splug and also by a half-starved gnoll. the two of them were trying to kill each other already so I guess they skipped past the niceties. I’ll come back to us in a bit. Back in the vestibule of vanishing vanquishers, Fitz swung his axe angrily at the curtain in front of him, and of course he vanished. Klajdu then charged out through the curtain, smashed into a mirror and suddenly was disoriented. I think we later figured out that he had at that moment, and several times thereafter, teleported between mirrors and become confused.
A quote:
Klajdu: “What Fuckery Is This!?”
Back in the chamber of the ravenously-hungry gnoll, Fitz was adding a great deal of emotion and violence to the situation. After a number of exclamations and exhortations to kill the gnoll, Splug shouted “Shut up you half-dwarf idiot!”. To stay with the three of us (four counting the gnoll), we did eventually kill the gnoll only to miss his company shortly after, because it became dangerously boring in the room. In fact after a minute or so we went back to the gnoll. I thought about whether I was interested in extracting his teeth and to be honest I’m not sure why. Fitz and I had a brief thought of using his severed head to bowl a bit. Fitz became distracted though and left the severing of the gnoll head to me. Oh hey note the aforementioned blood
So anyway, back in the room where everyone *wasnt* trapped and skipping merrily down the road to Batshit-Crazy-Town, Distress figured out that you cant look into the mirrored pillars and eventually got across the room with her eyes closed. Her reward was being attacked by skeletons. She was dismayed. After those of us in the oubliette enjoyed several merry rounds of crossbow practice and some perhaps-anticlimactic severed-head-bowling, the crew outside killed the skeletons, Distress put her hand on a hand-shaped bit, took the mask from the altar and impulsively put it on her face.
This also teleported the three of us (three and a half I suppose, give or take) back into the main hall. The head and severed corpse came with of course. As well as a fair bit of blood. It’s a shame Klajdu wasn’t standing right there under the teleported blood frankly because I’d have loved to see his face.
A quote:
Distress: Wasn’t there supposed to be a book?
Fitz: No this one was the mask
Distress: There’s a mask??
Splug: yea, the one on your face!
Distress: AAAAAGggghhHH NO!!
and as an epilogue, we tricked the tieflings into heading back towards the altar, saying there was some treasure we had missed. Naturally once they looked into a mirror they ended up in the oubliette. I’m still thinking of them occasionally in that room, wondering which one of them became the bowler perhaps.