Jarlyn’s place

Continued from previous week…. I see the creature jerk his left arm down and hear some rumbling. The wall next to me crumbles down on Ghoral, Perrol, and I. It narrowly misses me, Perrol dives backwards out of the way, and Ghoral is hit by some debree but only for 5 stun. I charge in to the run, activate Sheild of the Faithful, and swing at the guy above the floor but miss. Glaive holds for her turn. The creature moves both arms and goes “woosh” up to the ceiling (20 ft). We all feel something kind of like walking over a grave as it goes over. He opens his mouth and I see it glowing orange and then it spouts an orange flame comes out and misses me. Glaive and Perrol hold. Kross puts away his sword and takes out his bow. I move to corner and strike at wires and hit but only put dents in wires. Ghoral hits curtain with axes and cuts it down. Glaive moves in to the room in opposite corner. Perrol enters room throws dagger, hits DCV 11 and it bounces off. Glaive hits for DCV 5 and cuts 3 wires. Glaive strikes again, hits DCV 13 for max damage and last two wires are cut. His left hand drops free. The creature moves to the back left corner and his left foot twitches. Glaive notices these little holes all the way around the room open and little darts coming flying out of the back wall holes. Perrol jumps and the darts miss. The darts hit me but bounce off. The darts miss Glaive as well. Kross moves in to the room and fires his bow with armor piercing arrow but his string breaks, flies in to his eye and blinds himself for one turn. I drop my mace and attack with my dagger, hit twice severing all five wires. He drops to the floor. Ghoral moves in to the room near the creature. Glaive takes half move and holds. The creature wiggles his right foot and these little pebbles drop out of holes in the ceiling and when they hit the ground there is a bright flash. Glaive happens to have eyes closed and is not affected. I am blinded for 7 segments. Perrol is blinded for 2 segments.  Ghoral is blinded for 4 segments. Kross is blinded for 3 segments. Glaive moves next to creature. Glaive attacks and hits DCV 7 in arm for 5 body and 15 stun; looks like small cut. She attacks again and hits DCV 13 (by 5) in vitals for 6 body  and 28 stun; ichor is running. The creatures left foot moves and darts come out of left wall. We are all missed. Perrol moves next to creature. I drop my dagger and grope for my mace and pick it up. Ghoral steps next to creature hits DCV 3, misses. Glaive attacks and hits DCV 11 (by 5) in thigh for 3 body and 9 stun; doesn’t seem to do any damage.  Second attack hits DCV 13 (by 5) in the head for 2 body and 10 stun. The creature turns towards Glaive and it shoots a bolt of orange liquid flame for 1 body and 1 stun. Perrol hits DCV 9 in chest for 5 body, but it bounces off. Ghoral hits DCV 11 in vitals for 16 body and 64 stun; splits the creature almost up to it’s chest; green ichor flows everywhere and he drops.  We look around the room. On the back wall is a full wall painting going East to West. First is a wild spray of multi-colored pigments; small and round and either red, green, yellow, or blue. Next to that is a simple black square. Next to that is a blue humanoid kneeling to one side of small white square with a red smear. Around the white square are 5 figures like the ones in the big chamber; oval faces and long fingers. The five figures stand in line and to each side of them are tear drop shaped orange pigments. Perrol believes the black square or a pit and in this case we think it may mean a doorway. I believe this is the high priests chambers and this could be a clue for something; like getting to or worshipping these gods.

We go to the other door and I sense that there is evil behind the door about 20-30 ft up. Perrol uses mage sight but doesn’t detect any magic. There are 5 doors in a semicircle with the same siguel on them. We each take a door and open at the same time when Perrol says, “Now”. Behind each door is crossbars in the brackets and an alcove. There is a sheet of ice about 1/2″ thick with lots of little holes about a half inch in diameter. There are 30 - 35 holes in each and it appears random in order. The bar that can be brought across the door is metal as is the latch it goes in. Perrol goes in to one room and Ghoral positions himself to break down the door. Perrol shuts the lever down and a couple seconds later he opens it back up. Perrol says as soon as the latch went down, colored lights came out of the holes (red, green, blue, and yellow). He had an out of body experience and he was sacrificing women and children and starting to feel that this was okay.  I perform a detect evil on Perrol and I can tell that he isn’t evil but there is an aura that is fading. Ghoral and I try knock down the wall. As we continue we find that there are different colored quartz. We earn one XP.

We investigate the other two holes but find nothing. Perrol and I try to read the runes again and Perrol figures out that they are an ancient magic for a type of summoning for nature; an attraction type. We determine this was probably to attract the rock snakes. We go back to the room where the humanlike creatures were and search some more. The Ceiling is ~40 ft high. There are lots of paintings on the walls, mostly of violence; hunting, killing villages, etc.  The humanlike creatures have blue faces. On the end near the opposite doorway the pictures look more sophisticated. It shows the blue faced creatures bowing to large cone shaped creatures.  Also at the wall at the end was a blue faced creature in a large chair (throne?) with yellow tendrils coming out of its head. We look through the archway and there is a four way intersection about 2 yards. Straight ahead on the other side of the intersection there appears to be another room with pillars, with a large shape towards the end. Ghoral can tell that the shape is a pyramid and on top appears to be a skeletal figure. The colums have pock marks. There appears to be ice on the floor. We hear a feint chanting sound coming from somewhere on the other side of the archway. Perrol uses mage sight and it appears that parts of the figure on the pyramid are magical; mainly around the head.

Ghoral goes out to peek around the corners for the intersection. Ghoral starts to go down right hallway. I look and stand guard on left hallway. Perrol steps in to the room to see more and the chanting is much louder in here. Perrol feels a buzzing in his mind like something is searching his mind. He backs out to the middle of the intersection. He can feel something still actively searching his mind. Perrol turns around . I realize a lot of mind based magic stuff is line of sight if they don’t have some way of detecting the mind itself. Start segment 12.

Glaive moves in to left hallway with me. Perrol moves back in to other room out of line of sight. Kross can see that the eyes are glowing a slight orange on figure on pyramid. He takes a shot with bow; hits DCV 10 (by 5) for 18 stun and 6 body in the shoulder. Kross is hit with an ECV of 5, he feels a buzzing in his head and a wash over his head. Ghoral is hit with an ECV of 4 and feels the same sensation as Kross. I move to the entrance and try to detect evil and I can see the eyes are starting to glow orange. Ghoral charges the pyramid and gets to the base. Ghoral can see that the skeleton appears to be spiked to the chair and the eyes are glowing orange. Ghoral hears a click sound and the skull turns and looks at him and orange flame bolts shoot towards him, but he Ghoral “aborts to dodge” and he misses. Perrol moves in to right hall.  I use turn undead on it, “In the name of the Skyfather and light shoots forward” (59), and it seems to have no effect. Glaive  moves next to pyramid. Glaive notices long elongated “crystal” teeth with a green swirling inside and the bottom skull (steps) looks off. Glaive hits DCV13 (by 10) for 9 body and 27 stun in shoulder; she hits again DCV13 (by 10) for 9 body and 27 stun in the legs. The skeleton shoots bolts of orange at Ghoral again and hits DCV11 for 2 body and 14 stun. Perrol moves in and attacks; hits DCV 7 for 6 body and 18 stun in the chest. Ghoral moves to side and hits DCV 4 for 15 body and 45 stun in chest and shatters the body and big flames shoot up in a column for ~20 sec.  Perrol and Glaive notice metal bits flying out of the head and shoulders before the flames start. Everyone steps back due to flame. We still hear the chanting which changes slightly when the flames shoot and then goes back to original sound. The sound is loudes near the pillars. From what Kross can gather, this does not appear to be undead. Perrol notices the magic seems to be gone. Kros and I notice that there were sparklies coming from the skull eyes embedded in the pyramid. Glaive notices the bottom step has dropped some. The ice on the sides of the pyramid are melting. We find some of the metal shards laying around. Ghoral looks at the columns and notices they are all stone and machined really well.  He also realizes the sparklies are diamonds and starts taking them out of the skulls.  I detect evil coming from the room behind the pyramid. There is thick ice and animal pelts under the ice. Ghoral sees four bodies in the right corner covered in ice. The bodies are blue. One has a necklace with a large cut gym on it under the ice.  Ghoral starts walking toward the bodies. They are female and have flint daggers. Ghoral doesn’t recognize the pelts but thinks they may be worth lots of money. Glaive goes to back of cave to hit two of the creatures and hits both by 5 for 8 body on one (dead) and 3 body. I take out two others and then Glaive finishes off the last. We search the bodies and find 6 rubys and 4 emaralds. Kross looks at the pelts and doesn’t recognize them either. He thinks these are possibly extinct pelts. Ghoral knows the pelts are worth a lot due to status symbol, so we decide to dig them out. Glaive continues to get the diamonds out of the skulls. We also notice that the skeleton has metal in it’s “innards”. We have a total of 20 diamonds (~1000 gp), rubys and emeralds (~300 gp), 50 pelts at ~100 lbs(possibly ~1000 gp). We each carry 6 gems and stack pelts against the walls to pick up later.

Ghoral leads down right corridor and he see alcoves filled with ice and “blue” people with a man and a woman in each of the eight alcoves; each has a dagger. The ice is too thick to get to them. We go down the other hallway (left) and there is a T at the end. To left is a curtain string of beads with icy sheen covering hallway and to right is another T with door. Their is something evil behind the icy curtain; meshwork of evil. I poke a whole in the icy curtain and see a room with 20 ft ceiling. In center of chamber about 10 ft up is a humanoid spread eagle, face down, no ice. It is pale skin, greenish/grey palor, lines of dark green in the veins. From each outstretch finger and toes extends  slender wires going into small holes in the wall. A single wall goes from the head to the ceiling. A scene is painted across the opposite wall. As I’m describing the head comes up and it has green eyes, filled with fluid that I believe has replaced his blood. The green fluid appears to be the meshwork of evil. I see the right hand clench and I notice the bottom of the strands start to curl in different directions. The strands are starting to wrap themselves around me.

….(continued) I yell, “there is a rock snake coming up from the whole” and I back up and ready my shield and mace. The snake comes about 10 ft out of the whole. Glaive sends horse down and holds. Perrol moves forward by Glaive and holds,  Kross sends horse down and holds. I move forward and attack; hit for 9 body and 27 stun. Perrol moves forward and attacks; hits for 7 body and 21 stun. Glaive moves forward and attacks; misses. The snake hits me (hits DCV for 2 body and 17 stun; I’m dazed. Ghoral moves forward and attacks; hits for 15 body and 45 stun. Glaive attacks (head shot) and misses. Perrol attacks (head shot); hits for 8 body and the snake falls over dead. We notice that rock snakes start coming out of the other two wholes. We advance on one and it attacks Ghoral. The second rock snake shoots across to the other side of us and does pass atacks on Ghoral (miss), Perrol (miss), Glaive (miss) and me (miss). Perrol uses remaing half move to get next to first snake. Glaive moves to second snake; hits DCV of 8 but does no damage. Perrol attacks first snake; hits DCV of 9 for 7 body and 28 stun. Kross moves to second snake and attacks; hits DCV of 7 for no damage. I move to second snake and attack; hit DCV of 9 for 9 body and 36 stun. The first snake attacks Perrol and misses. The second snake attacks me and misses. Ghoral attacks first snake; hits DCV 9 for 14 body and 56 stun and it falls, but still wriggling. Glaive attacks second snake; hits for 4 body and 12 stun.  Perrol attacks prone snake; hits DCV of 5 for 15 stun. Kross attacks snake two; hits DCV 5 for 6 body and 18 stun. I attack snake two; hit DCV 4 for 12 body and 36 stun. The first snake opens it eyes and the second snake attacks me but misses. Ghoral attacks first snake; hits DCV 6 for 16 body and 64 stun. Snake one goes down. Glaive attacks second; hits DCV 13 for 9 body and 27 stun. Glaive attacks again; hits DCV 16 for 9 body and 36 stun. Snake two looks wobbly. Kross attacks snake two; hits DCV 6 for 6 body and 18 stun. The snake drops dead.

Perrol looks down hole 2 and it appears there is some possible tunnels; same for holes 1 and 3. Hole # 3 looks like there might be a table or something and stone rubble, pick and a crow bar. We hobble horses on other side of stream in grassy area. The winches over the holes have platforms that will hold two people; Ghoral and I go down. After about 15 ft, the shaft starts to widen. It’s a bell shaped area and there is a portal above the rubble with a hall way behind it. Ghoral thinks someone was uncovering this not covering it up and we feel a draft. We see writing over the portal. The rest come down. Perrol and I work together on the writing and it says “Evil lies within, Death awaits those who pass”. I notice some magical runes interspersed. Perrol does magesight and the runes are glowing. I do detect evil and don’t detect any evil in this area except the book I have from the camp. Kross records pictures and we drive in the homing beacon. We decide to go through the portal. The whole hallway is chipped out of flint stone and the floor is uneven and icy. The hall is 13 ft wide and 6.5 ft high. We go about 20 and come to a cavern ~20 ft wide, we can’t see ceiling (but do see stalactites from above) or other side, but we some rough pillars. There are two row of pillars about the size of the current hallway and steps lead down. I notice that the steps are icy and the floor around it. Perrol does detect magic and can tell there is something off in the distance and up that is magical; he also sees three blips of magic straight ahead. I perform detect evil and I sense evil straight ahead. Ghoral and I go down the steps and make it. Perrol and Glaive make it down the steps. Now that Perrol is down, we can see that the place where the first “evil and magic” was is an ice mound that is ~6 ft tall with a humanoid shaped encased that is 5 ft tall. We see 11 more mounds about with same characteristics but some are laying down. All the mounds have magic and evil emanating from them. The creatures have wild black hair, beards woven in the long braids with finger bones entertwined and they are carrying an axe or a spear and a sheild and wearing loin cloths. Kross takes pictures. Perrol is thinking hard about touching one of them, but notices that the torch is starting to melt the ice. He backs away and Ghoral sees that the ice stops melting. Kross and Perrol also notice that in the hallway the frost has melted. Ghoral moves out to the middle and see that the ceiling has some sort of pipe. Then we come back to first on and Ghoral tries go around one but trips and bumps in to one and the ice cracks . We get a free action. Ghoral attacks the one he bumped in to and lops it’s head off. I move to one and crush it’s head in. Perrol is able to get in and attacks one that is still frozen; hits DCV 4 for 6 body and 30 stun and he goes down, but not dead. Kross attacks one and misses. Glaive did not react fast enough for free action. Segment 12 starts and all figures are alert now. Glaive moves to one and attacks; hits DCV 7 and hits for 7 body and 21 stun in the chest; he’s dazed. Perrol approaches one with axe; hit’s DCV 7 for 3 body and 9 stun in the chest. Kross attacks the one near Glaive and I; hits DCV 9 (by 5) for 16 body and 80 stun in the head, he’s dead. I do a move by on the one Perrol is attacking; hit DCV 8 for 2 body and 4 stun in the arm. Four do a coordinated attack on Perrol and do 1 body damage but 48 stun so he goes down unconscious. Ghoral moves behind one that is attacking Perrol; hits DCV 11 for 11 body and 33 stun and he drops. Two move in range of me, start segment 3. Glaive move to attack one near me; hits DCV 7 in vitals for 10 body and 28 stun with a disabling wound.  Kross comes in to attack one near Perrol; hits DCV 13 (by 5) in thigh for 6 body and 12 stun. I attack one near me; hit DCV 7 in left shoulder for 6 body and 18 stun. Two do coordinated attack against Ghoral; both hit but do no damage. One attacks Perrol on the ground while he’s unconscious and hits him in left thigh for 7 body. Three do a coordinated attack on me. Only one hits for 4 stun, no body damage. Ghoral attacks one but misses. Glaive attacks one that’s attacking me; hits DCV 15 (by 5) in chest for 6 body and 18 stun. Kross attacks the one attacking Perrol; hits DCV 10 in leg for 6 body and 12 stun. I attack but miss. The one attacking Perrol hits him in stomach for 6 body; Perrol is now at -2 body and dying. The two attack Ghoral; one hits him for 4 body and 18 stun and Ghoral is dazed and other hits Ghoral thigh but glances off. Three coordinate against me; one hits in vitals and the hits in chest no damage but 20 stun so dazed. Last one recovers from being dazed. Glaive attacks; hits DCV 8 and misses. Glaive attacks again; hits DCV 7 in legs for 7 body and he drops (dead). Kross attacks but misses. I recover from being dazed. The one that was attacking Perrol comes out of his frothing rage and attacks Kross; hits DCV 11 for 5 body and 26 stun and Kross drops unconscious. Ghoral gets hit for no body damage and 4 stun. The two attack me;   and I take 9 body and am dazed. Ghoral hits the one attacking Kross and kills him. Perrol takes another point of body damage. Post segment 12 recoveries. Glaive moves to attack one close to Kross; hits DCV 12 (by 5) in vitals for 7 body and 32 stun and he dies. Kross recovers from being dazed. I hit one and for 8 body in chest and he dies and I hit second in chest for 10 body and he goes unconcious. Last one hits Glaive for 2 stun. Ghoral moves in to attack but misses. Glaive attacks; hits DCV 11 in thigh for 6 body  and 12 stun. Second attack; hits DCV 10 in legs for 3 body and 6 stun. Kross goes behind the last one; hits DCV 7 in shoulder for 8 body and 24 stun and he goes down.

We give Perrol a healing potion so heals 4 body. I heal as well for 9 body. I heal Kross for 11 body. I heal myself. There is nothing else in the chamber. There is another archway at the end. We decide to camp out for a day so I can heal Perrol again.