Session recap, 3/23/2011

THE CAST:
---------
Gutboy Barrelhouse the Cleric (level 2), his henchman Serlo the Elf, and his dog Rufus
Justin the Dwarf (level 1) and his dog Bailey
Netal the Elf (level 1) and his dogs Moe and Bitey

The session begins with P.W. weeping from the horrible rash the beetle-spittle has given him.  Horrified by his boils, he no longer feels like a pretty little halfling and runs off into the darkness.  Mongo and his two henchmen follow, feeling pity for the little fellow, and perhaps hoping for romance.  Who can tell?  As they run off into the darkness, Justin the Dwarf, who had been trailing the party from the distance, emerges from the shadows to join in the killing & looting.

The party arranged their dogs in front of the door, and Gutboy instructed Serlo to open the door.  The dogs leaped at the beetles, chasing them to the other side of the room, and the party followed up with arrows - soon, all the 3' long insects were dead.  The beetle-room turned out to be another rhombus-shaped chamber with peeling pressboard furniture and brass floor-lamps.  A thorough search revealed a secret door, activated by rotating one of the lamps.  Behind the door lay an impressive room filled with magnificently preserved mahogany furniture.  Several bottles of wine, a black bottle labeled "Orange Water from Fountain, Level 3, Thaumaturgically Preserved", a scroll, and letter opener of protonium-metal were recovered after searching the cabinet & desk in the room.  A crystal decanter & 4 crystal ashtrays were also shoved into a pack, safely wrapped in a bedroll.

Moving further along, the party followed a corridor southeast from the beetle room to a Y-shaped intersection.  Heading south, they found themselves at another room, about 30'x40', with thousands of tightly-spaced holes in the floor.  Each hole was about 1" wide, and they were spaced only 2" apart.  Pressing down on the floor with a 10' pole caused metal blades to spring up from the holes.

Some discussion was made about how to get across the room, and eventually Justin gathered up the party's shields and used them to safely walk across the blades.  He picked up the shield behind as he stepped forward, laying it in front, and was able to make it to the other side of the room.  There were three doors here - one with a sign reading "Warning: Anomaly Ahead.  Authorized Personnel Only".  The other two were featureless.

He opened one of the featureless doors, and saw a corridor leading south and then down a set of stairs.  Behind the other featureless door, he found a stack of 8 quarter-inch-thick stainless steel plates, each 3' wide and 5' long.  He slid these plates across the tops of the blades, and was able to create a path for the party to get to the "Anomaly" door.

Justin and Gutboy had a brief discussion about what this could mean - Gutboy advanced his theory again that this place was an "adventurer's playground" or some other sort of adventurer tourist trap, while Justin argued that it was a research facility, and there was a nuclear reactor in there somewhere.  The discussion quickly petered out, and they decided to investigate the "Anomaly".

As they began to head down the metal path, the party heard screams from somewhere off in the dungeon - more of the screaming freaks!  They quickly closed the door to the blade-floor-room, and headed across.  Justin threw open the "Anomaly" door, and the party followed the corridor as it went down several sets of stairs and opened into a room full of arches.

This room had a total of 8 arches, each filled with a different colored mist - red, orange, yellow, white, black, green, blue, purple.  In the middle of the room was a stone pedestal with a bronze jug, with an image of a monkey-headed winged serpent on it, and filled with clear water.

Justin tried taking a sip of the water - nothing unusual happened.  He then decided to chug-a-lug the entire jug, drinking the whole thing down.  Again, nothing happened.

Feeling bold, Justin walked through the white mist.  Walking through, without a torch, he found himself in a 10' square alcove, featureless except for a stone basin with a drain hole at the bottom.  He tried a few other arches - same thing.  Grabbing the torch from Gutboy, he tried going in again, and was able to see what his wide-spectrum vision had missed in the absence of visible light spectrum - the walls and ceiling were painted in these alcoves.

Red: Flames & burning coals
Orange: field of orange poppies
Yellow: costume ball, with guests cringing in fear from some guy in rags with white mask.  Gutboy wondered if it was the King in Yellow
White: blue sky, with fluffy white clouds
Black: everything painted entirely black
Green: jungle scene, with thick vegetation
Blue: undersea scene
Purple: veins of purple color, ranging from near-black to lavender

Justin tried putting a little bit of water in the jug, and pouring it down one of the drains.  Nothing happened.  He then urinated down one of the drains.  Again, nothing happened, except for the blessed relief of his swollen bladder.  Finally, they tried pouring a little bit of the orange fluid in the black bottle they had just found into the jug and poured that down a drain.  Once again, nothing happened.

Wondering if they had screwed something up, the party headed out of this room, and explored the other corridor leading from the blade-room.  It led to a platform overlooking a sunken room.  On the platform was a large glass cylinder, cracked open, with shards of glass everywhere.  In the sunken room were tattered gray bits of cloth hanging from rotted poles - Justin thought they may have been flags at some point.  Leaving the sunken room through exits in the northern wall, they boldly walked across a corridor beyond, straight to one of a pair of doors, and fearlessly opened it.

Inside, a dozen goblins were busy prodding two captive Scientists with spears.  The goblins watched the players expectantly, waiting to see what their intentions were.  Their intentions turned out to be incredibly violent.  The last sleep spell was cast, and those who remained alive were quickly slaughtered, Justin firing his rifle several times.

The Scientists thanked the party profusely for freeing them, but there was no time for celebration - the gunshots had attracted something.  The party closed the doors quickly, and something began scratching at the other side.  The four dogs gathered around the door and barked furiously.

Unimpressed, the party searched the room - they found a massive pile of treasure under a pile of filthy rags, 9,000 sp and 1,000 gp.  They also found eleven gray pods in a corner of the room, attached to the wall.  Slashing one open, a larval goblin spilled out and fell to the floor, twitching.  Disgusted, the party slashed open the rest of the sacs and put the goblin-larvae to the sword.

Finally, the party decided to deal with the threat outside.  They tried opening the second of the pair of doors, but the creatures saw the light and rushed over - Justin saw that they were black dog-like creatures with pyramidal heads.  He slammed the door shut, and the party decided to let their own dogs deal with the threat again.

Serlo was ordered to pull open the door, and the dogs charged out.  Short work was made of the two creatures, and the party began the long trek back to the surface.  As they headed into the dark, something horrible heard them - the Scientists gave a cry as something snapped at them.  A gray spider-like being with a goblin-like head, at the end of a long neck and with a massive jaw, had come upon them!

The party panicked, and ran forward, hoping to find a better place to fight than the narrow corridor they were trapped in.  Throwing open a door, they found themselves in a 30' wide corridor - enough room to fight.  The spider picked up one of the Scientists (presumably "Brian", as that name was tattooed on his forehead) with its jaws and effortlessly flung him aside.  The dogs had run ahead of the party, and the players were forced to actually fight - the other Scientists, "Dave," took a horrible wound and was left bleeding and unconscious, but the party managed to kill the goblin-spider.

Gutboy used one of his healing spells on Brian the Scientist, and he was brought to semi-consciousness.  He then poured a flask of the colorful healing slime down Brian's throat, and the surge of healing removed all wounds and fatigue from the Scientist.  He was ordered to carry the body of his unconscious and slowly-dying comrade Dave, and the party slowly began the long march out of the dungeon.

Finally nearing the stairs to the upper level, the party began to cross the hall of bones.  A noise ahead though - screaming!  More of the screaming freaks!  As the screams became louder and louder, Gutboy become completely baffled about how they had wandered into the Hall of Bones.  He and Justin pored over the map, oblivious to the screams descending upon them.  Netal nonchalantly stood and watched, and Brian wet his pants in terror.  The screaming freaks were not going to stand idly by while this argument ensued, and they streamed forth along the ceilings and walls, surrounding the party.

Combat was engaged - with no sleep spells left, and flanked by the wall-crawling freaks, it was a hard-fought battle, Serlo was knocked unconscious and Gutboy took a frightening wound - but in the end, the party prevailed.  Finally, they made it to the stairs, only to be confronted by a half-dozen giant earwigs.  Fortunately, the earwigs seemed uninterested in the party, and after Gutboy blessed them in the name of Nisus, they spun around in circles and departed up the stairs.  The party followed soon after, and made it back to Chelmsfordshire without further incident.  Well, except for the death of Dave the Scientist - as they left the dungeon, Gutboy used his healing spell on Serlo, restoring him, while Brian begged for some assistance for Dave.

Brian: "Don't you have more of that healing slime?  Anything!  Please!"
Gutboy, lying through his teeth: "Uhh.... no... we only had that one bottle"

The party rested for a few days at Chelmsfordshire, and Gutboy used his divine powers to discover that both the black bottle and the protonium-metal letter opener were enchanted.  Netal had a discovery of his own - the scroll he had taken was inscribed with a sleep spell.  Gutboy also took the time to commission the construction of a small roadside shrine dedicated to Nisus - which, given the amount he was spending, ended up being more of a roadside table dedicated to Nisus.

Victorious, the party headed back to Mongo's apartment in Denethix, hoping they would not find a sock hanging on the doorknob on arrival.

Inquiries were also made at various merchants:

a. Dogs - the dog-sellers refused to do business with the party.  No reasons were given
b. Grenade launchers - the gun-seller didn't know what a grenade launcher was, but did know the Fist had grenades - but they were restricted items, and he didn't have any for sale