25 Longday 508

The party is still within the abandoned dwarven outpost of Karak Tuvar. They are in a chamber with murals depicting dwarves going to battle against goblins and orcs. Mõrvar is guarding a door in the eastern part of the chamber. Rilka is guarding an arched doorway in the southern part of the chamber. Surm and Savaric search the room and find nothing of interest. There is a door in the western part of the chamber and they have entered through a door in the northwestern portion of the chamber.

Savaric checks the western door for traps and finds none, and discovers that it is unlocked. Savaric cautiously opens the door and peers inside. It appears to open into a short corridor connecting to a door they have encountered before, confirming their suspicions. Savaric searches the corridor for secret doors or corridors and finds none.

Savaric then scouts down the corridor that Rilka is guarding. It, too, connects to a chamber where the party has already been. Rilka asks Mõrvar if he has heard anything from beyond the door he’s guarding and he responds that he’s heard nothing. Savaric checks the door for traps and finds nothing, but does find that the door is a bit off-kilter.

Mõrvar takes the crowbar and heroically forces open the stuck door. The party then passes through the door with the two porters, Burask and Kortash, in tow.

Savaric enters an oddly-shaped room. There are more doors in the room, as well as an archway. There is filth covering the floor and a stench in the room. There are murals on the walls depicting dwarves in solemn contemplation. Savaric and Surm notice something glinting off the light of Mõrvar’s Light spell in the filth. Rilka goes to guard the archway. The rest of the party moves toward the filth, Surm hanging back, ready to shoot with his crossbow.

Leaping from the filth, are a group of Morlocks. One leaps at Mõrvar and misses. Another leaps at Savaric and misses. There are four in total. Rilka moves in and attacks one of the Morlocks, felling it in one stroke. She attacks another, doing massing damage. Surm fires on one of Morlocks on Mõrvar, hitting it critically, nicking an artery and making it bleed. Savaric shoots the Morlock on him with two arrows and fells him. Then he fires on one of the Morlocks on Mõrvar. That Morlock falls. That leaves one Morlock left for Mõrvar. He hits the Morlock, and causes it to stagger.

The Morlock makes a break for it. Mõrvar swings at it, but misses. Rilka strikes it on its way out and kills it, and Surm finishes it off with a Ray of Frost. Mõrvar finishes the others off.

Savaric searches the room and the filth to see what he can find. Rilka guards the archway. Mõrvar and Surm guard he area. Amongst the filth, Savaric finds rotted humanoid corpses and gear. He also finds 96 gold pieces, 320 silver pieces, and 1100 copper pieces. He also finds an aquamarine, a freshwater pearl, a hematite, a piece of ivory, a piece of pyrite, two rose quartzes, a saltwater pearl, two sards, a sardonyx, a tigereye, three pieces of turquoise, a decorated silver plate, a gold and silver hand mirror, a gold holy symbol of Skondir, a gold mask, an ivory drinking horn with copper ends, a silver candelabra with the holy symbol of Skondir etched upon it, a silver hand mirror, and a scroll.

Surm casts Detect Magic on the items and only detects magic on the scroll. He deciphers the scroll and determines that it is a Scroll of Burning Gaze.

Once the loot is gathered, Savaric scouts through the arched doorway. The next room is dominated by a large statue of Skondir. There is another door exiting the room. Savaric searches the room and the statue and finds nothing of interest and the door is trap-free and unlocked. He stealthily opens the door. It opens up into a hallway. The party follows it, with Savaric checking for traps. Savaric finds none and the hall ends at a door. He checks the door for traps, and finds none, but does note that the door is askew. Mõrvar is brought forward to force the door open, but fails to budge it. Everyone tries to move it, but eventually it is finally moved by Mõrvar on a subsequent attempt.

The door opens up into a large room with a geometric pattern painted upon the ceiling. Savaric searches the room, and finds nothing of interest. There are several doors leading out of the room. Savaric checks one of the doors for traps—he finds no traps, but does determine that it is stuck. He also determines the same for another door.

Rilka opens one of the doors on the third try. Savaric goes through the door to scout ahead. It opens into a corridor. There is a collapsed stairwell resulting in a deep hole off to the side. There is a also a door off of the corridor. Savaric stares down the hole—he can see sixty feet down and can tell that the hole keeps going. He checks out the door, finding no traps and that it is unlocked. He stealthily opens the door into a largish room. In the center of the room is a dry fountain. Around the fountain, at its base, are four statues of dwarves in various states of battle-readiness. Around the fountain, are desiccated corpses.

Descending from the ceiling, as they enter the room, is a large stingray-like creature with a toothy maw and glaring red eyes. It has a long tail of segmented bone. Rilka moves forward quickly and attacks, doing a great deal of damage. Surm casts Mage Armor on Mõrvar. The creature then emits an infrasonic moan. Savaric is panicked, dropping his items and fleeing from the creature. Mõrvar attacks the creature for massive damage, felling the aberration. Savaric is retrieved.

Rilka guards the open doorway while Mõrvar guards one of the doors. Savaric identifies the creature as being a Cloaker. Savaric searches the room and finds nothing secret. However, inside the fountain, he finds a pile of treasure. The porters begin collecting it. They find 99 gold pieces, 243 silver pieces, 423 copper pieces, a piece of amber, a freshwater pearl, a piece of ivory, a milky quartz, a rhodochrosite, a topaz, a masterwork long spear, and a masterwork warhammer. Surm detects no magic on any of the items.

Rilka checks the open doorway and finds that it leads into a room full of more doors, but that one of the new arched doorways is actually one of the doorways they’ve encountered before, so the dungeon is starting to circle back on itself in some fashion. Savaric checks one of the doors for traps and finds that it is trap free and unlocked, but that it is off-kilter. He searches the room and finds nothing of interest. He searches another door and finds no traps and that it is unlocked. He opens it stealthily and finds that it opens into a corridor that turns. He also sees a chasm that opened up near the turn that is probably nearly 3 to 4 feet wide. He goes and peers 60 feet down and sees no bottom. Savaric searches the corridor for secret doors and finds none.

They return to the large chamber and check the door that Mõrvar has been guarding. Savaric finds no traps on it, and finds that it is unlocked. Savaric opens the door into a corridor that turns. He can see where another chasm has opened up at the turn.

The party then goes to another of the stuck doors and try to unstick it. They each take turns at it and eventually Savaric forces it open. The door opens into a corridor. It travels along until they encounter a pile of debris that must be climbed. Savaric scouts ahead, climbs the debris, and finds a door at the end of the corridor connecting to a part of the outpost that has already been explored. The ranger returns to the rest of the party.

The party continues to explore, opening stuck doors, traversing down long corridors, and finding empty rooms. None of the doors appear to be locked, but some are off of their foundations and stuck, evidence of a seismic event of some sort. Savaric continues to find no secret doors or stashes.

As they make their way down one of the long corridors into another room, Savaric and Rilka hear a moan. Savaric is nauseated by the infrasonic attack, falling prone and sick. Descending from the ceiling is another Cloaker. Rilka attacks the creature with her falchion. She misses with her first hit, but hits critically with her second hit. The Cloaker then attempts to engulf Rilka in its ray-like wings, but misses her. Surm moves into the room and casts Admonishing Ray at the creature, but it misses and hits the wall. Mõrvar charges in with his greatsword and attacks, hitting the creature mightily. Rilka attacks again, felling the creature.

Surm starts to search the room and notes that there is an antechamber to the room. He calls for someone to accompany him to the antechamber. Rilka and he scan the antechamber and see nothing of interest, but do hear a pair of moans and see a set of Cloakers descend from the ceiling of the chamber. Surm is panicked and drops his weapon and flees from the scene.

Mõrvar charges into the antechamber and attacks—but misses. Rilka attacks and hits twice with her falchion. A Cloaker engulfs Mõrvar and tries to bite him, but misses him. The other Cloaker also engulfs Rilka but fails to bite her. Savaric sends Victor in to attack one of the Cloakers. Then he casts Summon Nature’s Ally to bring forth a Small Fire Elemental to combat the Cloakers. Victor bites the Cloaker, injecting poison into the creature.

The Cloaker on Rilka bites her, while Mõrvar is missed. Victor bites his Cloaker and the Elemental misses his. Mõrvar breaks free of his Cloaker and attacks mightily. Rilka fails to break away from the Cloaker. Savaric fires at Rilka’s Cloaker. First he misses, then he hits. It sags against Rilka, slain. He then redirects his remaining shot against the other Cloaker and misses.

The Elemental misses the Cloaker again. The Cloaker moans again, Everyone manages to fight off the effects of the infrasonic attack—except for the Elemental, which doubles over in nausea. Rilka moves out from beneath the dead Cloaker and strikes out at the live one. She hits it strongly and it falls.

Now that the Cloakers have fallen, Surm returns. The party can see the remains of desiccated corpses and various treasures on the floor. Savaric re-searches the room that Surm searched before and then searches the antechamber with the treasures. The antechamber has murals depicting dwarves going to battle against duregar—evil dwarves from deep beneath the earth.

On the floor, there is 96 gold pieces 558 silver pieces, 148 copper, a malachite, a pyrite, a tigereye, a masterwork chain shirt, a masterwork heavy crossbow, a masterwork long spear, a masterwork longsword, a vial with a liquid inside, and a scroll. Surm casts Detect Magic on the items. He detects magic on the vial and on the scroll. The scroll is of Prestidigitation. He samples the vial and determines that it is a potion of Goodberry.

Rilka looks down a corridor and sees another collapsed stairway. Savaric is brought to the lead and the party takes the corridor. Surm collects his dropped weapon before they leave the room.

The corridor leads to more doors which are not trapped, but are askew. Mõrvar manages to unstick the doors. These lead to more empty rooms and corridors with more non-trapped doors that are often off-kilter in their frames that have to be forced open. Savaric searches the rooms and corridors for secret doors and stashes and finds none.

Down one long corridor is another narrow chasm, beyond which are more doors. Another turn off of the corridor leads to a corridor that has already been explored. Rilka and Savaric discuss the dungeon design and decide that the corridor beyond the chasm will probably lead to someplace they have not been so far. So they decide to leap over the chasm and continue on.

Each party member, including the porters, take their turn to leap over the chasm. Surm stands ready with a Feather Fall spell in case something goes awry. Everyone makes across without incident.

More rooms and corridors await the party on the other side of the chasm. None of the doors are trapped, but some are off-kilter and have to be forced open. Savaric once again searches the rooms and corridors for secret doors and stashes and finds none.

One long corridor has yet another narrow chasm crossing it. Burask points toward the chasm and says, “What’s that?” Now that he points it out, Rilka sees a green gemstone wedged in the side of the chasm about five feet down. Mõrvar and Rilka grab Savaric’s ankles as he dangles down the chasm and grabs the gemstone. Now that he’s down there pulling it out, he discovers that it is less of a gemstone than a foot-long green obelisk with glyphs etched along the sides. He manages to pull it out of the earth and haul it up. They pull Savaric up with his prize.

Examining the glyphs, it doesn’t appear to be written in any language they know. Surm believes that it is probably an ancient text and that it may be one of the scripts of The Aedonii. Surm detects magic on the obelisk and detects no magic upon it.

They all leap over the chasm and continue down the corridor. Mõrvar and Savaric continue down an extremely long corridor to a door that is a off-kilter. Mõrvar opens the door and sees a Cloaker descending from the ceiling. He shuts the door and covers his ears. Savaric runs back down the extremely long corridor to get the others.

Meanwhile, Mõrvar prepares to cast True Strike in case the door starts to open. Indeed, the door starts to open and the warrior casts his spell. He sees the creature’s segmented tail is wrapped around the door’s knob and it’s leering maw is coming toward him, but it misses. Mõrvar attacks and hits, doing a respectable amount of damage. Then Mõrvar attacks again, but misses. The creature attacks Mõrvar, but misses. Mõrvar attacks again, but misses, but the creature misses as well. The creature attacks again, but takes a bite out of Mõrvar. Mõrvar attacks, but misses. The creature attacks and bites Mõrvar again.

Meanwhile, Savaric makes it to the rest of the group and reports what’s happening. They all jump over the chasm and start running down the long corridor toward Mõrvar.

Mõrvar attacks and strikes the creature again, but the creature is still standing. The creature bites Mõrvar again. The Cloaker bites at Mõrvar again and misses. Mõrvar attacks the creature again and misses. Then Mõrvar attacks again and hits for mighty damage, felling the creature. He issues a victory yell that echoes down the hall.

When the others catch up, they gut the Cloaker to make sure that Channeling Positive Energy doesn’t have any effect on it and then Rilka does so to heal Mõrvar’s injuries.

In the room, they see more murals of dwarves going to battle against duregar. There are desiccated corpses. There are also several more doors into and out of the room. They decide to set up camp in the room and to continue exploring the next day…