Attendees:
We returned from the Ice Dungeon of the Neanderthals (Now tell me that wouldn't be a great title for a TSR D&D Module circa 1985. "Ice Dungeon of the Neaderthals"). We played about 45 minutes of "D&D: The Book keeping!" before we continued on with the slaughter.
The Sage & Alchemist called for help. Guess his latest problem is that he has sent a fire elemental out into the world with an "enlarge" spell on it, and the thing is roaming free in our countryside. We go out to encounter it. I believe the creature went down in one round. (Was this the one brought down by the pumped up magic missile?)
It was pointed out to us that beneath our very grounds was the windy room with an Iron Door at the far end of it. Since we already had our rope system set up from last time we went that way, we did the descent and then began to try to figure out how to get through the door.
Just before we begin our journey to the center of WEIRDNESS, an old man shows up with a few friends. They just appear outside the keep and request to speak with whoever is in charge. Apparently the old man seeks something from beneath our keep; a gem that was long ago lost down there by one of his counterparts. Apparently what once existed down there was a city made by dwarves which fell into chaos when magics went wrong!
This door is Adamantium, and thus worth a large fortune. There's only one true "strong man" in the group, and that was the Dwarf, Guzgern. So he and two moderately strong types tried to force the door. After a while and some magic buffs, we got in. We go through and discover ANOTHER door. Now of course we had with us Joe's pet Beholder Simulacrum, who began to use disintegrate to obliterate the wall next to the door. I can only guess that we obliterated the wall instead of the door because of fear of triggering some kind of trap?
I could go room by room, but I'm afraid I'm going to get them all out of order, etc. So here are the major encounters I can remember...
Inside we find a small hallway and then a room with a pool of stagnant water. Arising from said pool is some kind of "undead elemental". Most of us spend the first round moving into place, making saving throws from it's hideous breath, etc. I think Jim's character Khouzam obliterates it.
A dustdevil-kind-of-thing. It tries to put Alan's character through the spin-cycle, but is interrupted by a whole lot of dust-kicking. We destory it.
"The Misfired Spell." This was a limited wish spell that was long ago miscast and the residue has hung around, causing all sorts of chaos. It basically is a swirling cloud of amorphous energy that randomly lashes out at people, but that when struck also says the phrase (in Dwarvish) "I Wish...", and suddenly some random effect takes place. We got most of the positive ones (Joe's character Ashen got "Free Action" cast on him; A few players got pelted with a shower of gold coins; A few people got effects that were irrelevant to them; My character Krayden got nailed with a spell identical to the one Joe had cast earlier at the creature). Eventually we brought the thing down with weapons and spells.
Around now a stone block falls and covers the exit door. We won't be getting out that way anytime soon.
We encounter a clay beast shaped like an Ogre but with a swirling maw of a head. We smack it around a while.
There's a room full of cages. Said cages, suspended from the ceiling, sometimes contain the bodies of dead prisoners. The cages sweep up anyone who triggers the plates in front of the door, and lock them up. It does this to Guzgern, and we spend a bunch of time trying to figure out why we didn't bring a pure thief with us. Eventually we wind up getting Guz out using two Melf's Acid Arrows to break the chain and bring him down, and then torching the entire room until it collapses. We are outside the room and we decide to go check out another area.
There's a horrible, horrible trap corridor which includes a 2-square long segment of "Blade Barrier" that pops up when stepped upon, followed by arrows fired from the wall and Melf's Acid Arrows fired from the walls, a scythe that swings at anyone who tries to step off to the side, a constricting section of hallway in which the walls slam together to squish anyone between them, and a wall of force that keeps anyone from getting to their appointed target (a metal box and a door at the far end). Guzgern as usual takes the brunt of this. With the help of Ashen's dispel spell, he gets past the invisible barrier and to the far side. He finds a chain coif in the metal box. We do a whole lot of postulating about how to get across this (since the only charactr with any thief skills in the party is actually an assassin, and therefore not mechanically inclined; The rest of us have no clue about traps so we can't even make a roll). We subsequently "defeat" this trap with use of a few "Create Water" spells from Terry's character Vernal, combine with freezing powder from Robert's character Owen Frist, to create an ice barrier to support people crossing the pressure plates.
Guzgern meanwhile is at the far end and has found that a dwarven voice has speechified about how to get to the reward we seek. Apparently he must retrieve the keys from the right statues. If he does, he can open the box here, which requires 6 keys. Apparently he gest through 4 of them, but on the 5th, he is attacked by the statue. By now, the cleric and the monk have gotten across. It seems that only certain items (of unknown make) are able to hurt this statue, because we aren't doing a thing and it's bashing our brains out. So we sound retreat and skate back across the frozen traps and get out of the room. The statue follows us and gets itself trapped by the traps. Said traps run all night long because they still sense something in their midst and won't let it go as long as it's alive and moving (which it is certainly doing). So that direction may now be impassable.
We sleep and then do some recovery, then we move on to anywhere that we haven't been yet.
This would be the three undead tree-like creatures who try to hypnotize people and entice them into range so it can grapple them. At first some of us in hand-to-hand do pretty well, but then eventually it manages to hit, doing not only temporary DEX damage, but often paralyzing us. A few were hypnotized by the scintilating colors, but are awakened either by recovery rolls or by it physically attacking them. Magic Missiles and charging dwarves bring the trees down. Which is good because Krayden and Etrin were by now paralyzed and ready to be mulch.
And that's where we end. We have not yet completed this place, we don't have the gem, and it was about a quarter after midnight on a work night. So we had to pack it in.