15 Eleasis 2993
Early in the morning Fen, Grexes, Fernweh, Axle, and Huzzah! head out into the warm, stormy weather to continue the search for another way into the Halls of Arden Vul. They walk with Ephelred and Jimson to their gate tower and have a quick look around before continuing into the ruins from the previous day.
Once there, Fen shows Fernweh the chimney. Fernweh peers down into it, blocking out all light from above to see if there are any light sources below, but without success. Meanwhile, Axle stomps around, and in a matter of seconds, locates unstable rubble that turns out to conceal a staircase.
After clearing the rubble, the group discovers that the staircase descends 60’ down into a room choked with cobwebs, grime, broken furniture, and all sorts of other trash. There is, however, a 3’ wide path cleared from the bottom of the stairs to a pair of doors. Between the stairs and the doors lie a pair of bodies that appear to have been corpsed by many poisonous bites. Further investigation reveals a viscous rose-colored potion that does not appear to be poison but rather healing-adjacent.
Surveying the disorder, Fenpenny’s attention is caught by a giant leg. With Grexes’s help he determines it to be from a large statue of Arden, and together they bring it over by the stairs. Grexes investigates a door on the other side of the room, and Fen accompanies him. Upon opening the door the pair are met by giant wolf spiders.
Huzzah! rushes forward to help, but Grexes has already sprung into action, calling forth the creature within him, transforming into a hulking brute. Fenpenny’s magic causes one of the spiders to glow, making it easier for a sneaky shot from Fernweh to hit it, bloodying the creature. Axle follows up with a fire bolt at one of the spiders still within the room beyond the door, and the webs there go up in flames causing much damage to two spiders.
Huzzah! invokes a clap of thunder to damage the spiders surrounding him, and Grexes splatters the one in its face with his battle axe, while Fen kills another with his rapier. The remaining spiders bite Fen and Grexes, poisoning the latter.
Fernweh snipes a further spider with his bow, killing it. Huzzah! tries to land the killing blow on the last giant spider, but misses. He does inspire Grexes though to finish off the final spider, after which he almost immediately begins milking the spider’s fangs for their poison which yields one dose of usable poison.
With the webs cleared from the small room by the fire, the group takes a short rest with gentle accompaniment from the two bards. While searching, they find a ruby worth 50 gold, as well as a badly damaged scroll. The scroll has a usable version of the 2nd level spell Rope Trick on one side and the other contains a badly damaged version of The Divine Breath of Thoth.
The party then passes into the next room north and sees an anvil atop a pedestal. On the anvil rests a strangely untarnished silver chalice. They pocket the chalice and move north after being unable to determine any further significance to the anvil or chalice. In the next room further north the party encounters an altar room with five meaningful wall and floor mosaics. Investigating the altar, Fernweh notices a round depression in the altar and places the chalice upon it, springing open a hidden compartment in the altar that would have been protected by a poison needle if an attempt to open it had been made any other way. Inside this compartment the party finds a pouch full of rubies and a lover’s token. The party contemplates the mosaics, including the repetitive depiction of the Ibis-Headed Thoth with a left arm raised parallel to the ground in artwork of various media.
Continuing north yet again, Grexes discovers a small closet which contains a relatively fresh halfling corpse with a dead stirge sticking out of his neck. Amongst the mundane possessions of the halfling, Grexes finds parchment note with a tantalizing clue written on it. Proceeding north yet again, the party peeks into a long room that contains a fireplace that is the likely terminus of the chimney they found on the surface, a large stirge nest with eighteen stirges, a set of sticks dipped in a sticky liquid that seems to repel the stirges from crossing into the easternmost five feet of the room, likely allowing access to a door on the north wall, and a strange ring associated with a platform that would seem to allow six square objects to be arranged in depressions, before they close the door and discuss what to do. Should they open the door repeatedly and try to pick off the stirges piecemeal? Should they try to smoke them out? Would leaving the stirges here help guard this location for future proprietary use?
Ultimately the party decides to retreat south to the hallway that had the mosaic room and continue east. The next room has double doors spiked open, allowing a 2’ gap for ingress and egress. The party discovers a carpet of bones in this room, all skeletons displaying crushed ribcages but not crushed long bones. Noticing glints in the amongst the bones, the party cautiously investigates the room and finds two gems, a pouch of silver coins, and a magical spear named Nightwind. The owner of the lair, a giant constrictor snake returns but is hampered by the narrow halls and is dispatched by the companions of the Reconstituted 3rd Cohort.
The members of the R3C then travel north on the east side of the stirge lair, investigating the stirge repellant sticks and looking into a room to the east, where they notice the legs of a crushed adventurer with one find leather boot on. Leaving the boot but taking a sample of the stirge repellant, the party heads back to the Sign of the Broken Head to regroup but once they are among the ruins of the city of Arden Vul, now caught up in a warm and sticky downpour, the party finds…
…through the pouring rain, a destroyed neighborhood plaza with a fountain in it, shrouded in vines which partially obscure the body of a dead adventurer. Upon closer inspection, this party of the Reconstituted 3rd Cohort (“R3C”) is attacked by the vines, which reveals itself to be a vine blight; joined by its compatriots, five twig blights, and a needle blight. The party makes short work of these evil, unnatural plants, mainly through the good offices of one Fenpenny Copperleaf, forever now to be known as Round-Up, the weed-wacker of doom, but not before Grexes and Axle are restrained by the vine blight with the former taking significant damage before Fernweh can dispatch his share of the creatures. With the fight over and R3C victorious once again, Axle examines the dead adventurer and find a magical brocaded wool cloak patterned with numerous squirrels on branches. Fernweh notes that he feels ready to train to acquire more powers and with them prestige. The party arrives at the Sign of the Broken Head, takes a short rest, and is able to determine the abilities of Nightwind, now used by Grexes, the Lover’s Token they found in the basement of the Plaza of the Priests of Thoth, and Axle’s new Cloak of Squirrels. While resting, Fernweh locates a small, holey sack in the inn’s rubbish heap, which Axle repairs and then infuses to create a small bag of holding, capable of storing twenty-five slots worth of sweet, sweet loot, while only counting as one slot and being able to be placed inside a backpack!
After resting at the Sign of the Broken Head, the party returns to the Plaza of the Priests of Thoth and re-enters the basement. Making a bee-line to the far northern section, this party of the R3C investigates the one-booted elf in the northeasterly room and determine that the boot is magical, but they are unable to identify its properties without the other boot. Opening the northernmost door, the party finds a spiral staircase down and proceeds with caution.
Three-hundred feet of descent later, the party finds themselves in an otherwise featureless 20’ by 20’ foot room, on the same level as the debouchment room at the terminus of the long stairway down from the Pyramid of Thoth but north of that room. Investigating for a secret door out, the party finds that the northern 10’ of western wall is illusory and file into another 20’ by 20’ room, this time showing signs of plaster on the walls common to ancient Archontian, Thothian priestly precincts. This room had a door to the northwest and a door to the southwest.
Footprints lead out of this room headed south, and the party follows them through a zig zag corridor with holes in the wall. hearing moaning, Axel peers through one of the observation holes only to jump back as an undead hand reaches for his face!
Scouting ahead, the group finds that the zig zag hall opens into a small room with many doors and a thick layer of trash. It appears to be a former guard post.
Resolved to deal with the undead before proceeding, Axle sneaks back to the peeking hole, while Huzzah! shines a light in another hole. Grexes finds a secret door into the barracks beyond the hole, and the group engages the zombies within, with Grexes using Nightwind to kill one and Fernweh rushing into to hit another, which is quickly finished off by Fenpenny.
Opening a chest in the barracks, Axle discovers a blue glass square as well as a jasper gem worth 125gp.