Paul announces that he is even less prepared for the game than he was last time. Chris (Thaiphong) is amazed, "How is that even possible? Last time you barely remembered your name!" Chuck (Graf) points out, "Yes, but last time Bruce wasn't here, which had the effect of pushing the lucidity quotient way up." Bruce (Grenville d'Tharashk) wanders off to paint himself blue. Peco (Solmar) points out that Ernest (Kurgash d'Tharashk) will be absent today. Everyone expects that Tim (Lungpuncture) will be late as well. Chris reflects that later on, they will be considered the lucky ones.
The characters find themselves in Newthrone in the country of Q'Barra. Grenville d'Tharashk wakes from his stupor, while Kurgash d'Tharashk contracts explosive diarrhea from a mosquito bite. Lungpuncture is busy downloading Service Pack 2. Every few moments he murmurs something about needing to reboot automatically in fifteen seconds.
Solmar points out that an Astral Stalker has a throat dart and the ability to add its CHA to all of its saves and to its armor class. Grenville is amazed, "It fights better because it's sexy?"
Thaiphong points out, "Given the way most monsters we've met are put together, why does this amaze you?"
The take from the last adventure amounts to 2200 gold in art and gems and 2000 in gold coins. Those characters that were around last session (which means "not Grenville") each get 400 gold. Grenville volunteers to help sell the various artworks, thereby generating an excuse to get himself a share of the loot. For once, he does well in bargaining: he finds a rich and stupid merchant willing to buy everything he's offering for 3000 gold.
Grenville returns to the other characters laden with bags full of gold coins. Thaiphong is amazed, "Way to go, Chocolate Mousse!" Everyone gets 500 gold as a share.
The other characters explain to Grenville that they have traveled to Q'Barra to locate a missing student from Margrove University, and the book he took with him. The reward is 3000 gold for the book, and 2000 gold more for the student (alive). The others point out that the characters have not negotiated separately with the student's family, so it might be possible to get even more money from them. The book is apparently some kind of magic book, but not actually a magical book. If you get my drift.
Grenville is relieved to find out that the characters are not totally unprepared to be in Q'Barra. For example, they have a map. And there is a location marked on it, four days out in the wilderness. The next step in the plan is to follow the map out into the waste-land.
Grenville asks the others, "How many of us are able to survive in a wilderness environment?"
Thaiphong replies, "I can hide in it. That's about it."
Graf rasps, "I can ignore it, at least until it rusts me."
Thaiphong concludes, "I think we should hire a guide!"
Grenville concurs. He spends 9 gold talking to people, trying to find a reliable guide. He ends up with two choices: a native Cold Sun lizard man expatriate or a human guide who might not know the area as well. He decides to talk to the lizard man.
Grenville pays the lizard man for twenty days' service in advance.
Thaiphong takes a look at the lizard man guide and tells Grenville, "Either you made an incredible deal, or this guy is setting us up for an ambush."
Graf points out, "That way, we get to kill him. Win-win!"
Thaiphong asks, "Is there any special equipment we need to buy, Mister Lizard Man? Have you ever been a guide before?"
The guide responds, "No, but I know jungle very well." The characters find that the lizard man is a poor source of advice on supplies because he simply doesn't need any. Thaiphong tries asking a local merchant for advice and ends up getting larded up with a wide variety of potentially-useless survival goods.
Seriously, the characters buy food and whatnot with some advice from Lungpuncture. They make sure to get some bug repellent. Supplies for the whole group cost 40 gold. This money includes a couple of lizardman porters to carry Lungpuncture and Kurgash.
Most of the experience is what the characters would expect, except for a local pest that resembles a scorpion with wings. Thaiphong asks, "Is it poisonous? I drink an antitoxin. Dear god, I'm not going to die of poison." It turns out they are poisonous, but they aren't fatal: they just leave big welts. Thaiphong tries eating one. It tastes rather bitter and unpleasant. He decides to look for something that looks more like a nutria before sampling any more of the local fauna.
Graf notices that Thaiphong is looking around at the local animal life and decides to help. He grabs the top half of something furry and sinuous, discards the bottom half, and puts it on like a puppet. Thaiphong turns around to see an eviscerated weasel-thing tell him, "Hi, Thaiphong! Are you looking for walking sandwich meats? Try me!" Thaiphong shudders and asks Graf to get rid of it. And to wash his hands.
The characters are taken completely by surprise when the pygmy lizardfolk start firing arrows at them. Grenville takes one right in the belly. He looks sick. The others look around to see that there are at least ten attackers, all hiding about ten feet up in the trees. They blend into the background with spooky facility.
Solmar leads the response by gumming up three lizardfolk with a Web from his wand. Thaiphong rushes a tree and starts gamely chopping away at one of the lizardfolk. Graf bemoans his decision to not carry a missile weapon.
Solmar takes a dart right between the eyes and feels the horrible draining effects of poison sucking away his vitality.
Doc Lungpuncture finally wakes up and casts a Prayer. Everyone else feels that this is quite apropos.
Cutter Gerald and Doc notice that one of the pygmy lizardmen has a longbow; the others are using shortbows only. They instantly decide, player-character-style, that the longbow-armed pygmy must die. The one pygmy wearing a special type of hat breathes a sigh of relief that the characters didn't notice him first.
Solmar throws a fireball bead into the midst of his Web. Thaiphong asks, "Are they still able to use their short bows while in the web?"
Solmar points out, "Yes."
Thaiphong replies, "Burn them! Burn them all!" The fireball is able to incinerate them all completely. The additional damage from being engulfed in burning web is just icing on the cake.
Graf intones, "Let the killing begin!"
Thaiphong clarifies, "The killing started some time ago. Some of us just didn't realize it." Thaiphong punctuates his comments by cutting a pygmy lizardfolk into three neatly-sliced pieces. He moves on.
Cutter Gerald yells at Grenville, "Turn around! That one with the longbow is shooting you in the back!" Cutter Gerald demonstrates that he is actually more effectual than his boss by shooting the longbow-armed pygmy with his crossbow.
Thaiphong mentions, "We need to kill all these guys, take their poison, and have Cutter Gerald coat everything he's got with it, including his thieves' tools."
Graf howls in desperation, "Get out of tree! Get out of tree!" He rams his face into a tree trunk. The others notice that this strategy doesn't appear to be working particularly well.
Thaiphong takes an arrow hit in the top of the head from the pygmy lizardfolk above him. He staggers in pain and confusion. Likewise, Graf also takes a critical hit from an arrow. He grouses, "Why did that have to go right between the armor plates? It itches so much!"
Lungpuncture casts a Spiritual Weapon at the longbow-armed pygmy. He watches as his spell strikes the lizardfolk square in the face and celebrates, "I've never actually hit anything with a Spiritual Weapon before! Huzzah!"
Solmar stabs a pygmy to death with his long spear. He tells the others, "Look! I got a pygmy on my spear!"
Thaiphong cheers him on, "If they aren't intelligent then we can eat it!" Thaiphong savages another pygmy. "I feel like such a Godzilla here!" He lops the creature's tiny little head off.
Cutter Gerald and Lungpuncture continue hammering on the pygmy lieutenant. He gets one last shot off, and then collapses.
Grenville sees a pygmy lizardman off in a tree. He takes an arrow shot that goes way wide. He instructs his cohort, "Cutter, shoot that lizard." Cutter shoots the lizard out of the tree.
Lungpuncture observes this exchange and comments, "That's why Grenville's the boss and Cutter's the minion."
Graf finally clambers up to his lizardman and stabs the creature through the face.
Thaiphong slaughters the last pygmy lizardman.
Solmar quickly works up a Neutralize Poison infusion on himself while Thaiphong collects up the pygmies' poison supply (DC 11, primary and secondary damage 1d6 CON) and Lungpuncture stabilizes the lieutenant's wounds. Thaiphong concludes that the arrows the pygmies have already poisoned are worthless; he tosses a pile of them into the fires left behind by the Fireball. He comes up with 20 doses of common pygmy lizardfolk poison, and three more doses of a different type of poison from the pygmy lizardfolk lieutenant.
Lungpuncture harvests six pygmy lizardfolk heads for his skull collection. He starts picking the flesh off.
Thaiphong suggests, "You could just carry around a bag full of maggots. That'd be much more convenient. And if you got a masterwork bag, it wouldn't leak."
Graf shudders and offers, "Sick man sleeps outside."
A quick looting effort yields up 452 gold from the lesser lizardfolk. Thaiphong is amazed: "Holy crap! We should do this every day!" The boss lizardman has 50 more gold and a small masterwork longbow. The characters stack up a pile of small shortbows and shortswords where they can find them later on, should they want to. The money is divided up into five shares of 100 gold, plus 2 gold that Grenville keeps for himself.
The characters engage in a cursory interrogation of the pygmy lizardfolk lieutenant. He tells them that he and his men attacked the characters because they were humans and were somewhere they shouldn't be. He hasn't seen a lone human wandering through the woods. If he had, he would have killed it. The characters decide that marking out a search pattern for a student-body-recovery effort is premature.
The next day, Lungpuncture memorizes enough Lesser Restoration to make Solmar better again. He muses, "So far, my experience of this adventure is that I wake up on a boat, we're fighting something and everything is on fire. And then I wake up again, we're in a jungle, we're fighting something and everything is on fire. I like to think I'm distilling the gaming experience down to its core essence."
The characters finally make it to the marked spot on the map. They find a truly immense tree. Grenville groans, "Not again! Why does everything have to be in trees?" Then the characters see a young man seated against one of the roots, reading a book.
Thaiphong calls out, "Young man! Are you a student of Margrove University?"
The youth replies, "I used to be. You want this book?" He holds the book up. Solmar casts Hold Person. Lungpuncture steps away from Solmar. Nothing happens. The fellow (very clearly not held) complains, "Hey! What gives? Stop that!"
Thaiphong explains why the characters are here and what they want. The young man indicates that he's got a whole backpack full of books, up in the tree. He's more than willing to give the characters the book they want, but he doesn't want to go back. He claims to be happy here, because of his girlfriend.
Thaiphong groans, "Holy shit. I start looking around for a girlfriend."
The onetime student notices Thaiphong's concern and explains, "She lives in the tree."
Thaiphong is relieved. "Thank god. It's only a dryad."
The youth heads off to get his pack of books. He comes back with the pack and his girlfriend. Turns out that his bag is a Pack of Holding: he has an entire library's worth of books inside. Soon enough, he comes up with a book titled Ssauranauchrosholbasochron in draconic and indicates that it is probably the book the characters are looking for. He claims, "Wow. I didn't even realize that I'd packed this!"
Grenville tries casting Detect Magic on Aaron Gollister. He tells the others, "Psst! I think he's charmed!"
The dryad says, "You have your book. You're not getting the boy. Now leave."
Lungpuncture tries to summon a celestial dryad. The dryad responds immediately. She orders the characters, "Stop what you're doing, leave this place, and return to your homeland!" Everyone except Solmar decides that this is a really good idea and immediately moves to comply.
The dryad tells Solmar, "You are strong. What is your name?"
"I am Kurgash, orc warrior!"
The dryad seems skeptical, "You don't look like an orc."
Solmar insists, "I am an orc wizard!"
The dryad muses, "It has been a long time since I met anyone strong enough to resist my charms. Except a dragon."
Solmar goes one step too far, offering, "I am an orc dragon!"
"I don't believe that."
"What can we offer you to give up the boy?"
"He is my favorite toy. You'd have to offer me something really special. Come to think of it, there is something I'm looking for. There is an object dear to me called the Heart of the Wood. It was stolen by Lhazaar pirates from the ship that was to carry it to me. It is a simple item, a carved heart made from a piece of wood."
"How about we bring it back and you give us the boy and ten grand?"
"I can't give you ten grand because I don't have any money."
"Will retrieving the item be dangerous?"
"I have a couple of magical trinkets I could offer you, to help you on your way."
"You have yourself a deal!"
Far away, Thaiphong imagines what the trinkets might be and groans, "You soak this one in lemon juice and you see a secret message. You blow into this other one and you hear a whistling sound."
The dryad actually offers Solmar two scrolls: an arcane scroll of Protection from Law and a divine scroll of Detect Poison, Detect Law, and Bless. She asks him, "Will these serve you?" As a favor, she also dispels her Mass Suggestion effect and allows the other characters to return to her grove. Solmar is just so happy to not be alone anymore that he is willing to agree to anything she says.
Once the other characters walk back into the clearing, the dryad explains a bit more about the situation. She knows the pirates were called The Black Wing. They attacked the ship carrying the Heart of the Woods six weeks ago, before it was able to make landfall at Newthrone.
Before the characters depart, the dryad mentions, "There is one other deal I could offer. I notice you had a man with you who had a rather attractive voice. I could trade."
Lungpuncture responds instantly, "Yes!"
Grenville is almost as fast, "No!"
The dryad points out, "I have a 23 CHA..."
Discussion ensues upon how this is actually a much nicer fate than what many other characters suffer. Lungpuncture mentions, "My last character was eaten alive by a gibbering mouther! And you could just end up in bondage to a beautiful woman!"
Grenville speculates, "Well, maybe later..."
Four days later, the characters are back in Newthrone and haunting the docks. It turns out the place is on the coast. Who knew? Newthrone seems to be just like Saigon, except that the Asians are all replaced by lizardmen.
Grenville learns that the Black Wing is an independent pirate ship operating out of the Lhazaarite island of Last Point. The island is near a navigational hazard called the Gray Tide, a mysterious body of gray mist that is said to be able to disorient crews. Something bad is rumored to live in the center. The pirates on the Black Wing are said to be inhuman. They are short like dwarves and they conceal themselves from view. They raid a ship perhaps once a month.
Emboldened with this success, Grenville tries asking the locals about the Heart of the Wood. The thing is, that isn't something that the people around here are really going to know about. And neither does Grenville, because most of his Bardic Knowledge is all wrapped up in how he's a Dragonmark Heir and is so superior to everyone else. All anyone knows is that some kind of druid thing was going to be transported from the Eldeen Woods. Some wizard kid was supposed to pick it up, but it never showed up.
Lungpuncture observes, "It's pretty obvious that Grenville was never the most studious of bards, but he managed to talk his way out of getting bad grades in school all the time."
Grenville finally decides to talk a ship crew into taking the characters out to Last Point. He lies through his teeth, anticipating that the crew (or at least the captain) might be sensible enough to not want to sail right into a pirate haven. He tells them that the characters have a secret map of the pirate sanctuary on Last Point and just need a captain confident enough to take them there. He promises that it will be completely safe. He finds a captain willing to take the characters for 800 gold. They're willing to toss the trip back in for free. Grenville takes up a collection from the characters to get the money.
The characters talk a lot about their nonexistent secret map as they arrange for the crew to drop them on the beach. They arrange a signal for pickup. Thaiphong suggests, "How 'bout a horde of angry pirates? That should be a good signal."
Lungpuncture looks for tracks on the beach. He finds nothing. The characters end up just wandering around the island for their first day. Grenville, frustrated, asks, "Just how big is this miserable island?"
Graf replies, "About the size of England."
Grenville curses, "Nuts."
Actually, Last Point is only three miles long. The characters are able to cover the whole place in a day. Even after a second search, they still find nothing. Then Grenville tries Locate Object to find rope near the northern tip of the island. He finds some underwater, near a strange natural bridge rock formation. The characters find that there is a sand bar all the way out to it, so they can just wade there. The two warforged find that the sand doesn't completely hold them up, so they end up walking underwater.
Halfway to the rock structure, something happens. Something bad.
Lungpuncture celebrates , "We're getting attacked by seaweed! Yaaay!" Nobody else shares his enthusiasm. They're all too busy watching a seacat swim up to the characters and attack Solmar, gouging a big chunk out of him. And then the fiendish eagles take off from the natural rock bridge to attack. They look like bird outlines, but made up of inky blackness.
Graf suggests, "Okay, the next time we attack something that has druid magic going on we better remember that they might have feral pets hanging around."
Grenville points out, "How could we have suspected that druids might have effective defenses? I mean, their magic is even weaker than bardic magic!"
Thaiphong shushes the bard, "Can it, Grenville. Druid magic can do plants, animals and fire. I don't see you pulling anything even a little bit like that out of your ass."
Graf and Thaiphong pile into the seacat, even as the seacat takes Solmar apart in detail. Someone screams, "Everyone get out of the water!"
Cutter Gerald realizes that he is surrounded by three fiendish eagles. He decides to hide by ducking under the surface of the water. Grenville just keeps on singing and dancing.
Lungpuncture suggests, "Solmar, you'd better not cast Lightning Bolt. Shocking Grasp is off limits too. But Burning Hands is okay."
Thaiphong agrees, "Yeah, that should work really well. Everyone knows that cats are famous for their flammability."
Lungpuncture observes, "You must have had a very interesting childhood."
Thaiphong ignores them to kill the seacat the old-fashioned way, with a sword blade embedded into it right up to the crosspiece.
Lungpuncture swings at a fiendish eagle and curses, "This is going to take all day."
Graf cuts one and reminds him, "It'll be over quicker if you'd talk less and kill more."
Even Grenville draws his sword and attacks one. Much to his surprise, he draws blood. He gasps, "What's all this red stuff on the end of my sword?"
Thaiphong hits another eagle. It flaps away, screeching at him. He curses, "I just did fifteen points of damage and it's still up! This game sucks!"
Graf points out, "But these aren't just ordinary eagles, they're fiendish! And they're advanced!" He watches as two fiendish eagles make a thorough effort to peck out Thaiphong's liver. Another one flaps at Solmar and goes for eyes.
Then Cutter Gerald comes up from underwater to deliver a sneak attack upon the fiendish eagle that had been picking pieces out of Solmar. His strike (much to his surprise) is flawless: he kills the creature in a single blow. Graf comments, "Once again, we see that the minion is more useful than the master. I really think we should reconsider the idea of giving Grenville to the dryad in exchange for the boy and the book."
Grenville manages to critically hit his fiendish eagle and kill it. Thaiphong finds himself in the unaccustomed position of congratulating Grenville on his martial prowess. Solmar steps up to spear the fiendish eagle engaging Graf, leaving only the bevy of fiendish eagles fighting Lungpuncture. Thaiphong reflects, "Gee, this doesn't look nearly as terrible as it once did." He steps up to cut one of Lungpuncture's attackers, allowing the warforged to dispatch it a moment later.
For some reason, Graf screams out, "Die, Sea Foam! Die!" There is a lot of splashing. Thaiphong and Solmar exchange significant glances. Solmar pulls out a damp copy of The Artificer's Handbook on Renegade Warforged Disposal and flips directly to the section on water damage.
Thaiphong kills the last fiendish dire eagle and promptly organizes an expedition to recover the body of the seacat. The thing has a body like a porpoise, a leonine head and forepaws, and a mane of silky hair down its dorsal ridge.
Solmar suggests, "We could make a boat out of it!"
Grenville is incredulous, "Do they actually teach you this sort of thing in artificer school?"
The characters move on to the natural bridge. It is a lot larger than it looked from the shore: there is a large cave entrance hidden in the base of the right side of the arch. Thaiphong volunteers to sneak inside and check the place out. He passes through a corridor into a chamber supported by columns carved to look like fish swimming into a watery vortex. The place smells of a sickening combination of rotting seaweed and dung. There is a pile of damp firewood in the center and single torches on each of the columns. A large set of double doors lead out of the chamber to the North. There is some kind of storage room to the east. Thaiphong goes back to bring in the rest of the characters.
The storage alcove is stacked deep with crates. Several half-devoured carcasses, including some human carcasses, hang from chains. None of the bodies have eyes. And there is somebody living here: an ogre with a club and some kenku.
Graf taunts the others, "I told you it was going to be kenku! I told you!"
Thaiphong points out, "We should have bet on it. My bet was going to be sea elves."
Lungpuncture walks out to suck up their attacks. The kenku fill him full of arrows, and then the barbarian attacks. Thaiphong is briefly relieved, then horrified, "Oh thank god! Oh, that would be their barbarian."
The characters notice that Lungpuncture is screaming like C3PO. He takes 48 points of damage. Amazingly, he is still standing afterwards. Everyone is totally amazed, including Lungpuncture.
Lungpuncture staggers back and heals himself. Thaiphong steps up to shoot the ogre barbarian with a poisoned arrow. The barbarian acts like he noticed, but only just barely.
Cutter Gerald notices that Grenville has started to sing again, so he hides behind a crate.
Then the ogre barbarian hits Lungpuncture and kills him instantly. Graf comments, "We'll need to save his head for the bar."
Grenville zaps the ogre barbarian with Glitterdust to blind him. This doesn't hurt his AC, but it does mess up his ability to hit things. The ogre staggers at Graf, swinging wildly. Graf breathes an unliving sigh of relief as the ogre misses.
Solmar places a Bane Against Giants upon Graf's blade while Thaiphong steps in to attack the ogre as well, moving so he can flank. And then the pulverizing starts. Thaiphong and Graf stand there and take the ogre apart, butcher-style. Graf delivers the death blow with his armblade, cutting the creature's neck open so his head flops off to the side.
Thaiphong asks, "What kind of pirates have an ogre barbarian?"
Graf offers, "He was the animal caretaker. He took care of the birds."
Thaiphong gasps, "Then let's not meet the butler!"
The kenku are comparatively easy to polish off. They almost seem to welcome the cleansing death the characters bring. With them out of the way, the characters proceed on to the looting stage:
Lungpuncture's goods include:
The crates contain supplies that the bandits have scavenged: food, blankets, lumber, extra saddles, and so on.
Cutter Gerald reports that the double doors are free of traps. Then he spends a leisurely 30 seconds opening the lock (four tries).
As soon as the characters open the door, a kenku starts to play a flute to fascinate the characters. Grenville is so excited: it's the first time he's ever seen fascinate actually used. Unfortunately, he, Cutter and Thaiphong are the targets. They go under instantly.
A crowd of kenku show up and position themselves, careful to avoid disturbing the fascinate. Graf decides he's not having any of it: he charges! Solmar isn't too impressed either: he uses a combination of Spectral Hand and Empowered Shocking Grasp to electrocute the bard. Instantly. The bard goes down with a look of surprise on his face.
And then the kenku attack en masse. Five of them surround Graf. His early confidence is shaken when he realizes that kenku get a much better cooperation bonus than other creatures do. Things get even dodgier when he learns that they are all rogues and do ghastly amounts of sneak attack damage. But then it turns out that he's currently got DR10/adamantine thanks to a Stone Construct infusion provided by Solmar.
Grenville decides to help out Graf by hitting the kenku who just stabbed him with a Scorching Ray. The kenku reels, whereupon Graf howls out, "Exterminate!" and finishes the job.
Solmar stabs another kenku to death.
Thaiphong notices that he is being surrounded by three kenku. He also notes that he is not defended by a reassuring magical stone carapace. One of the kenku cuts him in the side. He complains bitterly about the injustice of it all as he gets down to the job of slaughtering kenku. Then he realizes that the kenku are so tiny and weak that their strikes are barely able to break his skin.
Thaiphong takes another ineffectual hit. He bellows out, "I like you, little bird-men. You make me feel strong and virile!" He attacks the leader, delivering a fatal strike. "I love fighting these guys! I mean, it sucks when the leaders are kicking your ass, but the minions are like popcorn!"
The characters make short work of the remaining kenku minions. Even Grenville manages to kill a couple. And then the looting starts.
The room contains a large wooden table between two stone columns carved to look like squid and fish in a vortex. There are lots of kenku nests along one wall. The opposite wall is carved to resemble a horde of fish consuming a screaming humanoid figure. There is a massive fireplace to the northeast. And there are no obvious doors out of this chamber.
Grenville tries Locate Object, searching for the nearest wooden heart. He thinks it is to the south, and slightly to the west. He stays in a trance as Solmar searches around the fireplace. Solmar manages to find a Ring of Feather Falling (identified later) in the ashes. Graf searches the kenku nests and comes up with nothing.
Finally, Cutter locates a secret door in the southeast corner of the room. It's not even locked. As usual, Thaiphong goes first. The first thing he finds is a sonic Glyph of Warding, which he sets off. Fortunately, he has big floppy bugbear ears so he isn't deafened for that long.
Thaiphong continues through the secret corridor into a big room with three columns carved to look like aquatic things in a vortex. He calls for help and hides.
The other characters run in, right into the ogre mage Deldegor's Cone of Cold. The ogre mage is hovering invisibly at the ceiling, as usual. Graf feels very, very cold. Cutter laughs: his Evasion trick actually worked the way it's supposed to, which is just as well because if it didn't he'd be dead.
A quick battle follows. By the end of it, Deldegor has been burned and cut to bits.
Deldegor's possessions are not magical, but he does have a pouch of 74 pearls, each large enough for Identify.
The characters find ten eyeless prisoners hanging from chains. Grenville tries healing one, but the spell seems to hurt him instead. The characters figure out that the so-called prisoners are actually all undeads. They hack them apart.
Thaiphong curses, "What a fucking idiot. 'I want screaming zombies in my room! I'm evil!' I bet he was a bed-wetter."
Thaiphong sneaks forward into the next chamber. The passage slopes up very substantially. Then he attempts a Reflex save, with less than impressive results. A chute opens up underneath him. He tumbles down a short slope and falls fifty feet into the water below. It is only his Ring of Feather Falling that keeps him alive and undrowned. He clambers back up and continues forward to the next trap, growling that this place must have been an amusement park back before the great wars.
Thaiphong continues on over the arch. He finds a section of illusionary floor, then falls through a trap door that then dumps him out through the apex of the stone arch and down a hundred feet. He reflects upon how the Ring of Feather Falling is probably the smartest magic item purchase he's ever made as he climbs back up again.
The next stage is a narrow passage only three feet wide, sloped sharply down. The way is made even harder by a series of three vertical metal bars blocking the way. Only a skilled escape artist could get through, and even then it would be quite difficult. The characters are stymied, unable to think of a good way to get past the bars. They decide to rely upon magic.
The characters camp out in the kenku's room for the night. Graf suggests, "Me and Doc will keep watch!" The next morning, Solmar makes up two oils of Gaseous Form. This costs 570 gold. Solmar, Grenville and Thaiphong cover the cost in equal shares. While he works, everyone else searches. Finally, Solmar joins them and finds a secret door just shy of the three metal bars. A chorus of "Doh!" fills the passage.
Everyone stands back as Cutter Gerald verifies that there are no traps and that the door is not locked. Then Thaiphong goes first.
Thaiphong hears a slow drone above him. He looks up. The ceiling above him is covered in locusts. He thinks they look like normal locusts, but there are a lot of them. They don't attack him, but he has no light sources. He retreats to let the others know what he saw.
Solmar provides Thaiphong with the last Fireball bead on his necklace and sends him back in. And he buffs up Thaiphong and Graf with everything he's got. As Thaiphong advances down the hall the locusts start swarming. They come for him. He throws the Fireball bead. It turns out they have Fire Resistance 10. Thaiphong starts screaming, "Let me out! Let me out!" He runs for it.
Graf tells the others, "I think he's doing fine!"
Thaiphong runs back to the secret door, screaming, "They're immune to fire!" It also develops out that they fly in hypnotic patterns. He imagines going back to the dryad and telling her, "Look, lady. We found your heart but it's defended by locusts. Fire-resistant, hypnotic locusts."
Grenville avoids getting hypnotized, then responds by hitting the locusts with a Color Spray. He prays, "I hope these things are treated as thousands of less-than-one-hit-point creatures, rather than as one mega-hit-die creature." He finds out they also have Spell Resistance, but he blows through it. Thousands of locusts end up unconscious, blinded and stunned.
Thaiphong yells, "Stomp dance! Stomp dance! Stop drop and roll!" He finds that the locusts also have Damage Resistance. He howls, "These things have the whole package! Everyone through the secret door!"
Graf begs, "I want one of them! I'll feed it!"
Grenville yells back, "NO!"
Solmar shocks a bunch of them with Shocking Grasp. He does it three times before Thaiphong pulls him through the secret door.
The characters move forward into a large room with polished rock walls. Four columns are arrayed symmetrically around a central altar. Four statues of strange animal-featured men stand guard. A big throne with a halo of razor-edged feathers sits against the south wall.
Cutter hides.
There is a humanoid figure in heavy armor and a bird-faced helmet seated in the throne. It holds a heavy mace that looks like a sphere grasped by a bird's talons. Grenville fascinates him. It works: even a cleric can't beat a DC 27 Will save. The others move up to flank the fellow. There's a lot of religious symbology around, but Graf still doesn't know what religion it's for. He suspects that the local cultists are probably not pink flamingo worshippers. "Hi, boys and girls! I'm here to peck your eyes out!"
Grenville stops singing.
Graf, Cutter, Solmar and Thaiphong all attack. Thaiphong gets a crit. Solmar does a Spectral Hand to deliver Empowered Shocking Grasp. Smoke comes out of the joints of the cleric's armor. Thaiphong pulls off the helm to check what he was. He thinks the guy might have been human. Or elf. Or orc. It's hard to tell.
Grenville does another Locate Object to find the heart. It's to the south. He casts Detect Magic while the others loot the dead, evil cleric:
Solmar finds a large secret door on the east wall, activated by a hidden lever located near one of the statues. Cutter checks the lever for traps and proclaims it safe. Thaiphong pushes it up. Pulleys and weights move the stone slab aside, revealing a bloodstained ramp down.
Graf offers, "This looks like a garbage chute for sacrifices. Back home... well, I've said too much already. I bet there's sharks on the other end of this ramp saying, 'It's noon! Helloo?'"
Solmar finally manages to find the secret door on the south wall after at least an hour of searching. Thaiphong borrows Solmar's spear and prods at the door from a distance. The door's surface starts to writhe and undulate. Swarms of locusts boil from the door, filling a ten by thirty foot zone. Fortunately, they stay where they are. And they're not hypnotic. Thaiphong puts on the cleric's cloak and mask, just because. It's funny because it's so small on him. Then he puts it on the back of his head.
Solmar watches Grenville try a Color Spray on the locusts. They don't seem impressed. Solmar tries Burning Hands on them instead, and that seems to work pretty well. It takes him eight wand charges to cook them all.
Thaiphong goes through the door. His feet crunch on roasted locust. He enters a low-ceilinged room carved from rock. Wooden shelves cover one wall. A tapestry of a bird-man covers the west wall, while a cot is pushed up against the east. Thaiphong gives the all-clear.
Grenville walks in like a sleepwalker until he bumps into a trunk. Cutter figures out that there is a magical trap on the chest, one that will activate if the chest is opened. He admits that he can't disarm it. Thaiphong's plan: just bring the whole damn box. Nobody disagrees.
The characters find a small desk cluttered with half-finished trap designs, plans to attack various shipping lines and steal their treasure, and so on. Thaiphong comments, "Say, guys, not that piracy is something we should get involved in but a lot of these plans are pretty detailed."
Solmar finds a crude secret door to a tunnel behind the tapestry. Thaiphong sighs with resignation and sneaks down it. The tunnel goes to the edge of the arch and ends. The usual suspects look for secret doors, but find nothing. Solmar eventually deduces that the stone has been magically shaped. The characters theorize that the cleric probably used Stone Shape to get out.
Thaiphong suggests, "Going through this is easier than going back through the locusts. Let's use the altar to break through the wall." Thaiphong and Graf smash through the wall with the cleric's magical mace. Eventually, they make it through. Graf asks (after six hours of smashing), "You guys rested yet?"
The characters prevail upon the dryad to open the evil cleric's chest. Inside, they find:
The dryad is so happy to see the heart that she looses her hold upon Aaron Gollister and gives him to the characters. Solmar and Grenville burn through all 25 of the cleric's pearls identifying everything magical, as noted above.
The characters decide that life just isn't worth living without Lungpuncture around. They persuade the dryad to hook them up with a suitably high-level druid and have him Reincarnated. He comes back as a dwarf, with some different feats to compensate for his sudden non-warforged nature. Then they give him back all his old equipment, plus the cleric's Heavy Mace +2. He takes his old head and hands and has them made into a helm and gloves.
The 5th level characters each get 6760 experience points. The 6th level characters get each 5950 experience.
Doc Lungpuncture is reincarnated to the midpoint of 6th level.
Chris indicates that he is going to retire Thaiphong and restart as something less delicate. All agree that Thaiphong will settle down to run the Fallen Angel in Sharn.
Grenville ascends to 7th level and gets his third level of Dragonmark Heir. His minion Cutter Gerald becomes a 5th level Rogue.