Soon shadowy shapes were seen below ascending the stair towards the party, men in grey robes. They bore curvy bladed daggers and chanted in an unsettling manner! UGAH, NIKTO, AIEE, PALIMDRYS! Tyrrian could see the robed men had smooth featureless faces and their robes rustled in unsettling ways! A volley of arrows and man-beast spears were hurled at these foes, one of which pitched over the edge screaming into the pit. The others collapsed from fatal wounds and Tyrrian brained the lead one whose chest burst open and a bloody mass of tentacles sprang forth! The same happened to the other robed bodies and Tyrrian found himself kicking and stomping to keep the nightmares at bay! Bull Zi nailed one with a dart, and Chi dispatched another with an arrow!
Just then Lars, who had been in the rearmost of the party heard stealthy movement behind him and swung about with "The Rock" at the ready! "The others are OK, and I thought I smelled food!" cried Moep!
"You're a VERY lucky halfling." muttered Lars as he pushed Moep ahead of him in line.
After descending deeper a landing is found with a side hall leading deep into the cavern wall. The archway is covered in strange curved runes. Chi uses some elvish magic and her eyes glow as her hands trace the runes. Her voice becomes deep and as if in a trance she utters; "Dhol cantis,Ghorl Nigral, Yig Aiee, nikto nathrak, Ugah Cthulhu." Coming out of her trance, Chi is shaken deeply and begins to mutter about Cthulhu and how bad this is.
The hall is discovered to lead to a small chamber with a stone altar, a grey robed man emerges from the shadows and almost slices Tyrrians face with a curved dagger. A short melee ensues and Tarek dispatches the robed one with a stab in the ribs, Tyrrian braces for the expected thing and smooshes another tentacle beast under his boot! Everyone stays away from the robed ones dropped weapon, which promptly finds its way into Moep's hands. The altar is discovered to have 4 polished obsidian eggs and a small censer on it. Tyrrian and Tom decide this place should be cleansed and the eggs (all but one) are smashed, and the chamber consecrated by Limtram! Bull Zi discovers the Altar moves and reveals a secret 3x3ft doorway, and Lars finds many hidden peepholes in the walls. Lars fishes out a small pouch of "Moep snaks" and tosses one through the newly revealed portal. "You need to scout that area for us." Lars says to Moep, who at first was balking at the notion he go first, in the dark. "I'm sure that is where the treasure is hidden." says Lars pointing where he tossed the treat. "Oh in that case!" Moep ducks through the opening in the wall. Discovering a 2ft wide tunnel that leads deeper into the rock Moep heads off to scout with Sven and Lars with a torch following 10ft behind. Moep is good at finding (triggering) traps, and short enough to not be harmed by them. Sven marks the locations with chalk and Lars disables them as they go. Two stone chutes are discovered and bypassed. The trio ends up at the bottom of a steeply descending tunnel in a small chamber where water drips from the floor to a puddle on the ceiling!?!?! Returning the way they came fearing they have lingered too long and the rest of the group may fear them dead or worse the trio return to the chutes and ignore a tertiary tunnel that was opposite the way to the weird water. Moep volunteers to climb down the chute and take a "look". In less than 3 minutes Moep springs out of the chute clings to Sven and gibbers incoherently; "Big, thingy! slimy, moving, ugh, lets go now! eek!" The trio decides to head back and emerge from the portal just as Tom and Tyrrian were about to give them up for dead. As Lars describes what they found Tarek shushes the party. Kneeling in the archway and watching the stairs of the main pit a figure has emerged from the stinking mist, Tarek takes aim and strikes the grey robed figure with well placed arrow. The shot was not enough to kill it however and the grey robe begins to turn and return the way it came rather hastily! Tarek draws and fires again, "CRITICAL" skewering the the grey robe.
The party reforms its order and descends the main stairs to see where the last robed figure came from. The grey robed body with an arrow buried up to the fletching in it s back is pitched into the pit. Another 50ft or so below the first landing is a second of identical nature. Within the same small alter chamber as before, and Tom and Tyrrian consecrate this area as well. All four eggs are smashed this time. The altar is as before and the secret portal leads to meet the unexplored turn off near the water room. Heading deeper the party descends the main stairs again another 50ft or so to discover the stairs have collapsed and 15ft further on is a third landing as encountered before, only this one has a brass gong hung on a post. After tense minutes of discussion ropes are readied and the gong post is lassoed, a secondary rope with grapple hook is tossed and the group makes its way across the dangerous area. Tyrrian is almost lost when the secondary rope snaps! A harness is made for "bessie" and soon everyone is across and safe. Bull Zi dismantles the gong and puts it in his pack. This landing does not lead into an altar chamber a before, instead a cavern with four bricked in areas is discovered. And a strange moaning seems to echo from this area as well.
Moving forward the natural tunnel ends and opens into a chasm. About 20ft below is a sea of writhing tentacles of all sizes. Opposite the group on the chasm's far wall is a drawbridge that is raised. The strange echoing of alien chanting drifts through the area, no means can be seen or found to operate the bridge. Bull Zi tries ringing the gong 3 times to no avail. Tentacles keep randomly swinging up out of the chasm and towards Tyrrian making him VERY uncomfortable.
The party decides to back track to the second altar room and follow the secret tunnel to the chutes, where Moep encountered whatever scared him badly. Tyrrian glady leads the way back and upon emerging at the third landing he realizes there is another opening in the pit wall some 50ft away and about 15 feet lower than the third landing. Moep is volunteered to wall climb over with a safety rope attached to him. Bull Zi the follows Moep over and together they discover a small cave decorated with broken red glass and a skeleton covered in wispy green moss clutching a moss covered stick in its hand. Urged on over his shoulder by Moep to "get the wand!" Bull Zi stealthily removes the wand from the skeletal hand. "POOF!" the moss releases a cloud of spores catching both in the face! The small cave grows dark as a shadowy red face appears in the gloom and looks angrily at the two adventurers as the skull lets out a piercing scream! Emerging from the cave with green faces the two quickly rejoin the others and loosely describe what happened.
The party eventually finds its way back to the chutes, and safely lowers everyone to the chamber below. The discover a giant tentacle here coming up out of a large hole in the floor. Attached to the tentacle itself with iron rings is a rope ladder descending into darkness. A side cave is also found, and the group goes there first.
This natural cavern is soon discovered to be the lair of two mountain basilisks! Emily is almost killed, Moep straddles one and stabs it repeatedly, and Tyrrian performs his first "Deed of Arms" rolling up under the mouth of the second and stabbing its mouth closed from below! The party decides to camp here, heal Emily and skin the basilisks. It is also discovered that each great lizard bears a golden horn on its snout!
Great recap. It was fun, too.
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