2 Illumination 509

After defeating the spellcasting ghouls in the room, the party searches the rooms and the bodies they encountered them all. Though they find some magical objects on the bodies—including magical silken ceremonial armor on the spellcasters—they find little else of interest in the rooms.

Mõrvar brings up the possibility of using a dimensional door to pass through the walls of the rooms to shorten their route through the lair. After a lengthy discussion, the plan is nixed due to the fact that the spell won’t be able to transport everyone into the guardian’s lair, thus putting those that did travel at risk.

However, Mõrvar also speculates on the location of a possible secret door that, if actually there, would also shorten their route to the guardian chamber. Surm agrees that this would be a good idea, if the door is there. So this is the plan the party decides to pursue.

While the room where they fought with the ghoul warriors is being searched, Tarben, Sorcha, and Brother Caric take the loot back to the entry chamber of the lair.

In this chamber, Surm finds an illusionary wall is blocking a secret door. However, following the door where it leads would lead them away from their goal, so they decided not to pursue it.

They make their way further along their route, out of the ghoul rooms and down a corridor. Savaric searches along the way. They find their way into an empty room. They search this room out and find nothing really of interest. They move on to the next room.

This large room has several doors and a portcullis that leads toward the direction they wish to go. As he is searching the room, Savaric can hear snarls, growls, and movement from beyond the portcullis.

After a brief planning session, Savaric and Ilona agree to venture down the corridor that is blocked by the portcullis. They hit the lever and the gate opens noisily. Then Savaric, invisible thanks to Ilona, cautiously makes his way down the corridor. He finds himself at another portcullis. Beyond it he sees two hideous undead creatures, skeletal with entrails writhing in their bony guts that twine upward to form a long tongue that lolls out of the mouth of the creature. Six more are lounging about in the room beyond, making eight altogether. Savaric cautiously makes his way back to report.

After consulting those with religious knowledge, it is determined that the creatures are Mohrgs, undead that spawn from the corpses of dead serial killers. Their tongues can paralyze and if you are slain by a Mohrg, you quickly rise as a fast-moving zombie in service to that Mohrg.

After a long planning session, the party decides to send Surm and Prioress Drenham down the corridor to make the first strike against the Mohrg. Surm can entangle them in black tentacles while the Prioress can call holy fire down upon them. Surm can then encase them all (or as many as he can) in a fireball. The tentacles will make it harder for them to dodge the flames.

As Surm makes his way down, Prioress Drenham opts to cast her spell from the main room instead of the corridor, leaving Surm alone in the corridor. As he continues down the hall, he sees the Mohrgs straining against the portcullis—and then hears the distinctive sound of gears turning. The portcullis begins to rise.

He quickly casts his spell. Prioress Drenham casts hers as well. Mõrvar and Rilka ready themselves to enter the corridor and change places with Surm. The portcullis continues to rise and the Mohrgs begin to move forward, undeterred by the black tentacles. As the party repositions, the portcullis opens all the way and the Mohrgs begin to move. Rilka casts a burst of radiance into the room. Mõrvar casts scorching rays into the room. Then the fight begins.

While Mõrvar engages with the lead Mohrg, Surm casts fireball into the group behind them, catching the one Mõrvar is fighting in its outer rim. Mõrvar slays the lead Mohrg and another moves forward to take its place, filling the narrow corridor with Mohrgs. As the fight goes on, the Mohrgs prove to be resilient opponents, but are eventually falling to Deathblow and the barrage of spells. The tentacles finally manage to entangle them as well, impeding the creatures’ abilities to fight. Surm launches a lightning bolt from a wand at the line of Mohrgs, doing a great deal of harm to them.

Finally, between the spells, the tentacles, and the blades, the Mohrgs are all dispatched.

Moving into the next room, Savaric searches it out and does find another secret door, leading away from the direction the party wants to go. Where the party wants to go, is a locked door.

After Surm takes a go at the lock and fails, the party decides to break the door open. Mõrvar takes a crowbow and pries it open, revealing an expected short corridor with a dead end.

Savaric comes forward to search the area—this is where Mõrvar thinks a secret door should be. Sure enough—-Savaric finds one. It is free of traps and unlocked.

The party fortifies themselves with a battery of protective spells (prayer, bull’s strength, shield other, etc.). Then Rilka, followed by Mõrvar, enter the secret door.

Rilka finds herself in complete, impenetrable darkness. Even the light of her magic falchion is doused. She cannot even see with her Orcish darkvision. Suddenly, she feels a great deal of pain as something very large bites her. The bite sends cold and poison coursing through her veins. She cries out in alarm and pain, but manages to move forward to allow Mõrvar passage into the room. Prioress Drenham calls upon the light of Halor, casting daylight, to illuminate the area and dispel the magical darkness, allowing Rilka and Mõrvar to now see with the light of her falchion.

What they see is a hideous, huge, black, spiderlike creature surrounded in umbral webs of shadow.

The two warriors engage the creature poison continues to course through Rilka’s veins. It bites Mõrvar, but he manages to fight off the venom—for now. Eventually, after some very nasty bites, the two take down the Nightskitter.

Mõrvar cuts off its “head.”

Now the party can either wait to enter the Inner Sanctum of the necromancer or go now, while their protective magics are still in effect…