Jarlyn’s place

We store all the goods in the big room with the door and lock it, then prepare to go down to the underground city. The marching order will be Ghoral, Jarlyn, Glaive, Perrol, and Kross. We decide to lock the door and then Perrol and Glaive will set something so that we can tell if anyone comes through the door. Ghoral notices that there are tracks going both way in the hallway and sconces for torches on the wall. As we go down some stairs around a couple corners, Ghoral hears some cheery giggling, leaves rustling, and birds chirping. Perrol can hear as well and it seems like the giggling is humanoid, adult giggling. We continue, cautiously, down the stairs. As Perrol gets close to the second corner, something niggles at Perrol that there is something wrong. Ghoral sees a room at the bottom of the stairs and notices faces along all the walls that are in metal. Perrol has Ghoral check the corner and he notices the sconce is off-center and a line in the wall. Ghoral and Perrol do security systems and determine that the sconce goes both ways; they think one way is a trap. We light a hooded lantern and take a closer look. Glaive notice that when it’s turned counter-clockwise the floor starts to tilt. We decide to turn it clockwise and a secret door opens. It’s a small 10×20 enclosed room; nothing is visible. Perrol goes in and starts looking around. When he gets towards the back, the floor drops out from under him. He drops about 10 feet and immediately feels stuck and something moving around him; he dropped his lantern when he fell. We start segment 12. He yells for someone to throw him a rope and he notices that it’s something slimey and a dark sludge. Glaive pulls out a rope and throws it to him while Jarlyn and Ghoral help pull Perrol up. There is a large sucking sound and we get him out. Kross starts lighting another lantern. Glaive notices that the black sludge is coming up over the edge right by Perrols feet. Glaive backs out of the room and Perrol gets up and backs out too. Kross tries to close the door but nothing happens. Perrol notices that Kross didn’t turn it far enough. Glaive reaches around and finishes and the door starts to close. We see the black sludge get in front of the door and get ready to attack and then the door closes. Ghoral decides to go in to the room and takes two steps in. The sounds are louder for Ghoral and it sounds like the giggling is coming from just to the left of the other hallway across the room; probably one fo the faces. Perrol moves into the room too; doesn’t notice anything different in the room. Ghoral also notices that at the end of the other hallway is a large gearlike doorway at the end. We all decide to enter the room and as Ghoral moves in a little farther, the giggling stops and a voice says:

“Welcome to Jidazrune.  Behold the wonder!
But beware, ye who seek to plunder.
Traps abound and guardians peer,
Beyond every corner, behind every gear.”

It’s coming from the mask by the hallway; the mask is animated. The two doors in room are large, gearlike doors. The door on the left has the Dwarven symbol for the letter “J” on it and the one on the left the letter “A”. The door on the left is half open.Ghoral, Perrol, and Kross notice that there is a rock wedged in the door keeping it open. Kross shines the light in and sees some rubble against the far wall and a very narrow hallway. Perrol does magesight and notices some magic spots in the walls and then the one face that is talking, as well as the “A” door. Perrol examines the walls and it appears the bricks in the area are what is causing the noise.I give Perrol my lantern and he lights and peers in to the room. He sees rubble everywhere in the room, a metal rod with a gold tip in the center in the room, and then another small tunnel against another wall. There are also lots of cobwebs in the room as well as a dozen small cots and chests. We decide this room is a trap and decide to look at “J” room. Glaive and Perrol can tell this one is trapped, but they can’t tell how it is triggered. Perrol looks at it longer and determines that you need the key or to successfully pick the lock, or the trap is triggered. We decide to head off down the hallway and leave these rooms alone. When we get to the end, the halway T’s and there is a door across the end of the hallway with the letter “Z” on it. To the right the hallway ends in a wall after ~50 ft and there are four doors with letters “D”, “I”, “N”, and “E”. Perrol does detect magic and determines that all are magical. Ghoral and Perrol go down the left side of the hallway and there are three doorways two on one side and one on the other. Ghoral feels the floor go out from under him as he gets towards the end. Ghoral is able to jump back in time and in the opened floor about 10 feet down is a a row of spikes with a weird creature impaled upon it. Kross takes a look at the creature and it looks like the creature has concealment which helps it hide in rubble.Ghoral jumps across the pit and sees the the other two doors have the letters “R” and “A”. I ask Ghoral to push against the wall, since our map doesn’t show one being there. When he tries to push against it, his arm goes through; it’s an illusion. I perform a detect evil and don’t detect any. Ghoral goes through the illusion and is in the room we expect with doors on the left and right that have letters “Z” and “E”, respectively. We decide to go through “Z”, so Perrol and Glaive do security systems and determines that it is trapped. Glaive determines that failing this lock will release deadly magic. Glaive attempts to pick the lock and is successful. When Glaive starts to open the door she realizes that the trap will still go off, so stops. I do a detect evil and detect nothing. Ghoral grabs the door to keep it open but doesn’t continue opening, while Glaive goes to the “E” door and attempts to pick the lock, but is unsuccesful.She attempts again and is successful, but it’s the same thing; the trap will go off if we open the door. Glaive gets a faint whiff of sulfur residue.We decide to let both doors shut and go back to the room with the rod. Ghoral goes in to the room and picks up the rod. The tip is a goldish color, but not gold. Perrol notices that two piles of rubbish are missing. He does detect magic and the only thing that shows up is the door. We look in the chests and find nothing. Perrol tries to listen down the tunnels and hears faint snoring coming from one of the tunnels.We discover that the rod will not help in disabling the traps so we decide to head towards the snoring sound. Perrol steps in and determines that the snoring is coming from the right side down the tunnel. Ghoral goes in to the right and when he gets to the left he sees a branch to the left there are lights coming from a room, the lights are moving. We decide to go in and Ghoral is first to see that this leads to a large room, indicated on our map. It’s a large room with columns and 30 foot ceilings.Ghoral sees lots of rubble throughout the room.We rush into the room. Perrol notices that one of the pillars is imperfect and only about 5 feet tall. Perrol decides to poke it with his sword….

 We get 1 xp.

I learn that my shield does not activate automatically; here are the stats:

Shield of Deflection: +3 with DCV plus Missile Deflection (Thrown Objects) (5 Active Points); 4 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Turn each (-1/2) 

After the dinner we go back to the room and go to bed. While Ghoral is on watch, he gets surprised and hit in the stomach for 10 body and 40 stun; it’s the spectral. Bob wakes up and sees a large spike (scythe) in Ghoral’s stomach; he yells and alerts everyone. Glaive gets up and uses fast draw to attack; she hits DCV 8 for 3 body. Ghoral recovers. Perrol tries presence attack; doesn’t work. Kross grabbed his weapon. I try to turn undead. A white light shoots out of my holy symbol but a red light shoots out of the spectral. My light erases the red light and penetrates the spectral but doesn’t appear to do much damage. Suddenly the room goes dark. I can hear it coming towards me and I feel a sharp blinding pain in my right shoulder. I’m hit for 10 body and 30 stun; 3 body and 15 stun get through. Glaive tries to perceive where the spectral is and is successful; she attacks and hits DCV 8 for 4 body. Ghoral tries to perceive the spectral and is successful; he hits DCV 8 and hits 13 body and it screeches. Perrol uses magesight and sees the outline of the spectral. He attacks and hits DCV 11 for 5 body. The darkness disappears and we see the spectral dissipating; the scythe is on the ground. We determine that it is magical and evil. Kross goes over to touch it and it crumbles to dust. 

We decide to eat, pack our stuff and check out; cost is 4 sp apiece. We are going to head to the underground city. We head off to the temple district first to visit the Hospin temple. When we get about a few steps away from the inn, Perrol notices a man on a roof about 1/2 block ahead. Perrol lets us know about this. He also notices the frame of a crossbow. Kross goes across the street and tries to come around behind and gets on a building. We wait a couple minutes and then head down the street slowly. When get about a block down the street, the assailant dunks down (he’s preparing the crossbow). Kross is behind him on a different roof so he lines up to take a head shot. Kross hits for 6 body and 38 stun; the crossbowman slumps over. Kross goes over to the other roof and waves to let us know he’s down. He tosses the crossbow and bolts over the side of the building to us and then he carries the man down. I perform paramedics and he is out cold and will be for a long time. I notice a red dagger tatoo on his left shoulder. Perrol does mage sight and detects magic; two items. It’s coming from two vials; symbols indicate one is Cure Poison and other is Cure Wounds. We decide to drop the body off at a guard station on the way to Hospin Temple. After a little bit of hassle with the on-duty guard, we get the supervisor and they put the assassin away. We get to the temple and ask to see the high priestess. We are taken back to see Helen in her office. We tell her that we are getting ready to go the underground city. She turns to a novice and tells him to get the kits that have been prepared for the unground city expedition. He returns with a wood box that contains seven potions: 5 healing potions, 2 remove curse potions (handles normal and magical malodies). We thank her for their generosity and head to Bob’s and Chad’s place. The gate is locked so Glaive attempts to pick it and is succesful. We go around back and look around and it does not look like anyone has been here since our last visit. We head off to the building with the underground city below it. As we approach the building we see palace guards situated around the building. One of them says, we are almost ready for you so go inside. The priest, wizard and lieutenant are inside waiting. We see crates of water and food, enough for 5 weeks for each of us, climbing kits, and hooded directional lanterns with oil flasks. There are also 40 arrows, 40 bolts, 3 sets of throwing knives, 2 sets of lockpicks, and first-aid supplies. There are also two books: Primer on Undercommon (languages for underground societies) and Primer on Dark Dwarven dialects. Once they leave, a barrier will be raised around the building. We will have to spend 20 days in here after we come back up. They give us a red flag to show that we are back. We head in and they raise the barrier.

We earn 1 xp