Don't Look Up!

Bazil the Dancing Sorcerer's Journal - Entry 3

The party searched the apprentice area which had seemingly been co-opted by the bugbears, finding nothing of interest we headed further along. Heading down one corridor, we noticed movement in a room ahead of us. Readying our weapons we found a small room that was mostly dark but covered with geometric shapes and symbols from floor to ceiling. Moving within, were child-sized men or maybe gnomes. They seemed oblivious to us and used glowing chalk to draw the symbols upon the walls.

Somehow the small men floated easily to reach high upon the wall, levitating. Nain and Ozmo thought the chalk was fascinating and asked the monks for some. We tried drawing some geometric shapes ourselves, they did not pay this much mind. However, when Ozmo attempted to write to them the monks rushed over and erased what he had done and confiscated his chalk. Fascinating as it was, we decided to move on.

We explored further and met with some conflict here and there, giant beetles spring from a refuse pile, a sloppy bugbear ambush. Other than the mute and slow monks, we were finding little other clues that this was where we’d find the Plated Mage’s research.

Continuing on our band entered what appeared to be a small chapel. Eerily quiet and peaceful it struck us as odd compared to the rest of the area we had explored. We entered cautiously with myself and Ozmo bringing up the rear. As the tail of our party came into the room, our curious halfling magic-user looked up at the ceiling. He let out an exclamation, which warned his compatriots, but also drew the beasts which he saw above upon him.

Two stalwart gargoyles had separated themselves from their perch above and dove onto Ozmo. Before anyone could react he was torn limb from limb. Everyone sprung to action and we assailed the grotesque stone devils. In the aftermath piles of rubble lay among the pool of blood and flesh that remain of Ozmo.

I wholeheartedly believe that Ozmo’s scream saved my life. Curious little bugger that he was, may he rest in pieces, err peace. Dan Ger spoke to the Iron God for his safe passage, and we brought his body and belongings to a storeroom we passed earlier and barred the door for the night. In the morning Ozmo’s head was gone and we suspect our psychopath dwarf is the culprit.

Leaving the room the next day, we found a note on the door. I don’t remember exactly what it said but the gist of it was: Something something meet in the map room at noon if you want an audience with Lachesis, the map room is to the north. Having heard of Lachesis and feeling a bit dreadful with the loss of Ozmo, we settled on finding the map room and meeting this character Lachesis.

Trying to find our way to the ‘map room’ we continued discovering new chambers; the group entered a small room with a cistern in the center. We heard our dwarf cleric yell out ‘Drink!’ and rush forward toward the seemingly full pool. Something grey and magical slid onto his hands and face and we began to see the telltale smoke of flesh burning. Acting completely out of character, Klint rushed forward and struck at the grey ooze. Much to his puzzlement, his sword of magical darkness immediately began to smoke as well. We used magic and other means to dispose of the grey ooze before it ate away at Nain’s face but Klint’s fabled longsword, the one we wrested from the undead guardian, dissolved before our eyes.

We continued on, hoping that the meeting was not to be a nefarious ambush. Stepping quietly after each other in the corridors, we began to hear animals hooting and calling to each other. Soon we saw the cause of the ruckus as a pack of foul baboons rushed at us. As they entered our light we could see that something was definitely wrong with the creatures as all of them had gleaming metal limbs or jaws. The metal limbs and jaws moved as if the were part of the monkeys bodies and were wickedly pointed, sharpened or bladed. The baboons attacked us with a rage.

After a loud and unpleasant battle which I oversaw from the back ranks, we were able to pick through the corpses of the baboons. The limbs were definitely part of their bodies and the monkeys notably did not bleed a red blood, but a foul clear liquid instead. Wondering if this was part of the Plated Mage’s experiment we continued again.

The next room that we found was dominated by a large painted map on the floor and we also found some furniture. To our delight we found a hollow chamber in the podium of the room, within which was a delicate ring on a silver chain. Twitch volunteered to try the ring on and immediately disappeared from sight! What a find for our stump-legged companion!

The party had some time to burn before our appointment with Kazaia. We continued a bit north and found a potted plant that seemed out of place. Smashing it we found gold and silver hidden in sacks at the pot’s base. Lastly we had another encounter with some bugbears, obviously they claimed this area as their own.

Now equipped with the ring and a bit higher spirits, we headed back to meet Kazaia.