The Knights of the Spoon

Having caught our breath – we proceed stealthily up the corridor.  There are no more chambers until we reach the bridge over the stream, where I spot a goblin sentry again.  My aim is poor in the dim light though and the shaft misses.  Fortunately he rushes towards me and I make short work of him with my sword.

Concerned that his battle-cry may have alerted his comrades, we move forwards, but become aware of the noise of a waterfall up ahead.  Slowing down, as the sound may have masked his cry, we peer round the corner, into another cavern.  There are two pools of water at the base of the waterfall, held back by low stone walls.  One has been breached – obviously the source of the flood that almost swept us away.  Three goblins are waiting, but seem oblivious of our presence.  Elaina, Aramil and I draw our bows and step out, each aiming to kill one of the three goblins.  Aramil and my arrows strike true, but Elaina misses and her goblin runs from the room.  We pursue, before it can alert the bugbear, up some stairs and into a larger cavern – we are too late to catch it before it alerts the others.

The cavern is full of loot, and we can see three goblins cowering behind it.  To our right are some stalagmites, and a growling noise coming from behind them.  A deep voice booms out, asking us who dares to approach Klarg.  I start to offer a chance for him to surrender, but suddenly a wolf leaps past the stalagmites and attacks us.  I hit it with an arrow as it charges, and its jaws fail to grip on my leather vambraces.  A swift slice from Elaina then finishes it off.  Garret performs another incantation and the three goblins fall into a deep slumber.  We then hear a scuffling noise from behind the stalagmites, and guess that Klarg is attempting to escape via the shaft into the wolf stable that we saw before.  Instantly, Aramil, Elaina and Sildar rush out of the cave and down the passage along the stream, to try and block him off from escaping.  I rush past the stalagmites and see him climbing down the shaft – I fire an arrow before he disappears out of sight and hit him.

The others rush down the passageway and reach the entrance to the wolf-cave before he reaches the bottom of the shaft – we have him trapped.  He rushes to meet us, and with a single blow smashes Elaina against the wall, knocking her unconscious.  Aramil and Sildar are momentarily panicked by the ease with which he dispatched Elaina, but press their attacked anyway.  Garrett takes the opportunity to deploy his bardic wit and invective against the bugbear, and Klarg is obviously unsettled by it as his next attack is mistimed and misses, allowing Aramil to land a hefty blow on him.  Meanwhile I have jumped down the shaft myself, and attack him from the rear.  My sword thrust runs him clean through, and he slumps to the ground.

In the cavern above we find a small amount of money (about 30 gp each in total) and some restorative potions, as well as a lot of bulky trade goods they have been looting.  We carry this, load by load, back to the wagon, which takes the rest of the afternoon.

7th day of Tarsakh

Next day we return to Phandalin, and restore the looted trade goods to their rightful owner, Halia Thornberry.  She is grateful, but continues the longstanding local tradition of complaining about the Redbrands.  We agree that they are a local menace, and she offers to pay us some more money if we can capture their leader, Glasstaff, a human wizard, and capture any correspondence he has.   We agree to investigate, but decide that dinner and a bed beckon for the moment at the Stonehill Inn.  As we step out of the trade store though, we are confronted by 4 ruffians in red cloaks who tell us that we are not welcome in Phandalin.  We protest that we are not looking for trouble, but they reach for their swords.  We draw first and each strike at our opponents, severely wounding three of them and killing one.  Garrett then once again uses his incantation to put them to sleep, and they fall to the ground.  We bind them and take them, with an encouraging crowd, to the Town Hall.  There we are met by Harvin Wester, the Mayor, who seems a thoroughly weaselly character.  I suspect that he will release them the moment our backs are turned – he seems more annoyed with us for antagonizing them, than please that we have eliminated some vagabonds.  Sildar however, steps forward, and reveals that he has been sent by the Lord’s Alliance to bring some order to Phandalin, and that he will be taking over that responsibility from Harvin.  Harvin seems relieved to be handing responsibility for keeping order to someone else, and invites Sildar to take them into custody and look after them.  Satisfied that Sildar won’t be on their side, we retire to the Stonehill Inn for a well deserved drink and meal to celebrate our new found abilities.  Unfortunately Garrett still doesn’t seem to be able to hold his ale.

5th day of Tarsakh

After a desultory overnight stay in Phandalin, we awake and get ready to leave.  I find the shrine of Tymora and meet Sister Garaele, who turns out to be a fellow elf.  She knows nothing of my quest, although she shares a desire to rid Cragmaw Castle of goblins.  However, she has a more pressing need to find out some information from a banshee, and wants my help with this.  Nervous of distraction while Sildar and Gundrun are still in goblin hands, I promise to return when we have freed Sildar.

Garrett has been buying pitons or iron spikes or something, but the transaction is soon finished and we set off back down the track.  We encounter no problems and camp for the night near the place where we were ambushed.  Next morning we find the ambush site, and see no disturbance.  We scout around, but find no other ambush.  We then proceed cautiously up the goblin track and our caution is rewarded when I spot a snare trap, and then a pit.  They are obviously expecting pursuit.

After a few hours, we reach a low bluff that matches the description that the goblin gave.  There is a cave mouth with a small stream issuing from it.  There are briar patches that approach the cave mouth, so Garrett and I cross the stream to sneak up through one set that go closest to the cave mouth, while the other two advance along the foot of the cliff in the bushes there.  Our fieldcraft is rewarded as we find a watchpost with two goblins who are completely unaware of our progress past them in the bushes.  We leap out and each dispatch a goblin with a single stroke, soundlessly disposing of the guards.  Emboldened, we enter the cave entrance.  Immediately on our right are steps up to a larger cave with two chained wolves that snarl and strain to reach up.  We rapidly dispatch them with arrows and examine the cave beyond.  At the far end is a narrow chimney which has been used as a midden, presumably from a cave above.  We consider climbing up, but decide we would be too vulnerable while making the ascent, and decide to continue up the main passage along the stream.

Turning the corner, we see a branching corridor on the far side of the stream, and a rickety bridge crossing the passageway about 20′ ahead, and 20′ above us.  There is movement on the bridge – a goblin sentry has spotted us.  I loose an arrow and hit him, but he scampers off.  Worried that he will raise the alarm, we jump across the stream to the branching corridor.  As we are half crossed though, a surge of water comes down the stream.  We are buffeted, but all just manage to hang on to the cave walls and prevent ourselves being swept away.  Cunningly, Garrett casts a minor magical illusion of the sound of us being swept down the stream to try and convince any goblins listening that we are gone.

We continue up the corridor, which slopes up in a series of rough ledges, before intersecting another corridor.  To the left, this opens out to a large cave, where we see five goblins preparing a meal.  So far we have not been spotted.  Garrett uses another spell to cause a magical slumber to fall on them, and I kill the last one with an arrow.  Aramil and Elaina rush into the cave – there is a high ledge on one side, and a larger than normal goblin has leaped up.  He holds a scimitar in one hand and the hair of a bedraggled human captive in the other, and threatens to kill him if we do not negotiate with him.  I, being the only one who understands goblin, shout at the others to stop and tell him that if he releases the captive, who I assume is Sildar, we will spare his life.  He says that he will give us the captive if we bring him the head of the bugbear Klarg.  The captive raises his bruised and bloody face and says in a weak voice ‘Don’t trust him!’.  I make an instant judgement and let fly with my nocked arrow, wounding him, but not preventing him from pushing the captive forward off the low cliff.  He falls ten feet to the cave floor and lies in a crumpled heap.  Aramil rushes forward and pronounces a benediction on him to try and stop him dying. Elaina leaps up the stone steps and strikes the great goblin, but misses. Garrett tries for another incantation but it has no effect.  I shoot another arrow but it misses wildly.  The great goblin swings at Elaina and catches her a heavy blow on her shoulder which renders her shield arm numb, but despite this she swings her sword round and under the blocking swing from his scimitar; it catches him across his stomach just below his leather jerkin and carves deep through his belly, almost reaching his spine.  He looks astonished as he sees his guts slide out in front of him before he topples forward, dead.

Elaina rests on her sword and massages feeling back into her shield arm.  Garrett quickly dispatches the sleeping goblins.  Aramil is now able to use one of his healing incantations to restore the captive to consciousness, and indeed heal many of the wounds he has suffered during his captivity.  It turns out that he is indeed Sildar, and is most grateful to be rescued.  We offer him the great goblin’s scimitar as a weapon, which he accepts, but are unable to find any armour for him to wear.  He is enthusiastic to accompany us to wreak his revenge on these goblins and clear out these caves from this scourge.  We clean our weapons, retrieve unbroken arrows and have a quick drink before turning to continue our quest.

This being the journal of the travels of Aeldrin Oakwood, once of Selenica, ranger of Dymrak, now chosen of Oghma.

It has been a halfmoon now since I acted upon the visions that I have been receiving for the last several moons. The visions were clear, if confusing – I have no idea why I should have been chosen by Oghma to receive these visions, for I have never worshipped or paid reverence to him. The message was clear however; I am chosen by him to travel to Cragmaw Castle and cleanse his shrine there. I assume that I have been chosen, unworthy as I am, for my many years hunting goblins in the Dymrak, for he has also revealed that it is they who desecrate his shrine.

The vision also told me to go to Phandalin, and meet a Sister Garaele there, at the shrine of Tymora. I found Phandalin on my map and so headed west out of the Dymrak. At the first homestead I reached, I inquired of the road to Phandalin, but the owner, Pyotr Sukiskyn, had not heard of the town at all. Looking at my map he remarked that it was missing a town called Threshold as well, which was on the road to where Phandalin apparently once was. These humans change things so fast.

Anyway, I took the road to Threshold without any major incident, and found a bustling human town. There are a new set of men here, from Thyatia, who seem to have taken over the rulership of Traladara recently; they call it Karameikos now. At Threshold, I enquired of Phandalin, and discovered that it does still exist, but is a mere village now, having been over-run and pillaged by orcs many years ago. As I was asking for information on it, I was approached by a dwarf named Gundrun Rockseeker. He recognized me as a ranger and offered me employ escorting a wagon-load of supplies from Threshold to Phandalin for him, as he was concerned about bandits and goblins on the road. I readily agreed to take his commission, as I was already intending to make that my destination, and being paid to travel my own road seemed a stoke of fortune. He introduced me then to three others that he had hired to protect his wagon; two half elves, one a priest of Helim, the other a sell-sword, and a halfling who seemed altogether too fond of his own voice and opinion on all matters.

3rd day of Tarsakh

The journey to Phandalin was initially uneventful, until the third day around noon. Rounding a corner as the track made its way through a cutting in dense forest, we saw two horses lying in the roadway ahead. I moved up and identified them as belonging to Gundrun and his bodyguard, a man named Sildar Hallwinter. There was no sign of either dwarf or man, but as I looked for more clues, two goblins leaped from the undergrowth and attacked me. As I turned and drew my swords, I felt an arrow hit me in the back – an ambush! One of the goblins then hewed my leg, and I collapsed to the ground. I came round as Aramil, the priest, cast a benediction to heal my wounds. The two goblins by me were dead, so I snatched my bow and killed one of the two ambushers on the hill above with a single shot. Elaina, the half-eleven warrior, felled the other with an arrow. We saw that actually one of the other goblins that had attacked in close combat was merely asleep; it turned out that Garret the halfling actually knew some magick as he had boasted the previous night in his cups.

Casting around, I found tracks belonging to many goblins leading to the north-west. It looked like they had dragged their captives or victims in this direction as well. Returning, I questioned our now-bound goblin captive. He revealed that he was part of a goblin tribe led by King Groll at Cragmaw Castle, although he was part of a warband led by a bugbear called Klarg in some nearby caves. According to the goblin, their king had been paid by a mysterious stranger called Black Spider to kidnap the dwarf, so they had ambushed the two of them. The dwarf would be sent to Cragmaw, but the bodyguard was destined for the goblin cookpot.

We rapidly evaluated our options. We could follow the goblin tracks to their cave now, and try and rescue Sildar, but that would mean abandoning the cart and its supplies, and we were also weary and wounded. Questioning of the goblin revealed that Sildar would probably be kept alive for a while, so we decided to continue to Phandalin first and see if we could recruit help.

4th  day of Tarsakh

We arrived at Phandalin after another uneventful day on the road. There we delivered the cart and supplies to Barthan’s Provisions as required. The halfling seemed very jumpy when we approached Phandalin, and admitted that he had once lived here, but had fallen in with a bad set known as the Red Blades. Talking to Elmar Barthan, he revealed that Gundrun had two brothers, but they were not in town at the moment. It seemed that the whole town lived in fear of these Redbrands, who were a bad lot entirely, running a whole protection racket. We were paid by Elmar and left Gundrun’s wagon with him, and took rooms at the decent inn in town, where we heard more tales of the bad deeds of the Redbrands. We tried to see if anyone would help up rescue Sildar or deal with the Red Blades, but the local population seemed completely cowed. Even a half-elf called Darren Endermarth who Elsa the barmaid claimed was a great warrior claimed that he was too old to help us out when we spoke to him.

Disillusioned, we retired to bed. In the morning, we decided to do some quick shopping and the go and see if we could rescue Sildar. I need to see if I can see Sister Garaele as well quickly, if only to find out why I am here. Especially if I am going near to Cragmaw.

We continue to explore the labyrinthine tunnels. Occasional bellows (not the fire pumping implements!) can be heard. Gradually they get louder and we know we are getting closer to the beast.

We turn a corner and see an open room up ahead. Within is a HUGE figure – half man, half bull, all badass!! It stands 10 feet tall and wields a giant rusting axe like a hatchet. Minerva and Morgan step back and set spears, anticipating a charge. However, no charge comes.. What a let down!

Amber looses an arrow and Varys casts Magic Missile and the battle begins.

It seems that while the Minotaur is great at bellowing, looking imposing and swinging it’s big chopper it is not actually so great at fighting. Minerva and Morgan hack it down and only Morgan suffers any damage in return.

Victory is sweet. Certainly sweeter than the axe, which is definitely not magical. Everyone advances into the room to check for any other treasure and suddenly there is a flash of blue light.

When our sight returns it seems we have been teleported into another room. It contains a small (5 feet high) crystal obelisk and has one exit. Rob examines the obelisk and finds he is unable to touch it. It is clearly magical but we can discern little else about it so leave the room to attempt to find out where we are.

A passage leads around a corner and branches – both branches lead to a door. One is locked the other not.
We open the unlocked door and find that from the other side it is covered by wall hangings – a tapestry maybe. We hear voices but cannot make out what they are saying.

We check the other door – Amber and Rob manage to pick the lock. It contains two sarcophagi. No one is keen to investigate further so we retreat and re-lock the door.

After some debate we enter the first room and attempt to strike up a conversation.

This attempt doesn’t go well – the Rakasta accuse us of defiling their temple and get quite shirty about it. I forget the details, but it ends in a fight. One runs for the door after casting a single magic missile at Morgan. A return volley of a double MM from Varys and a thrown dagger from Amber mean it will never learn the skills of higher level casting.

In order to gain a hostage, Varys casts Web, which entagles the Rakasta as well as Morgan, Minerva and someone else. The Rakasta is tied up but still doesn’t want to be friends.

We exit the room, dragging out the living and dead Rakasta. The plan is that we spike the door shut and try to get some rest before making a break out.

Legend tells of a famed elven interrogator by the name of Morkel. Sadly he isn’t here but we try to question the Rakasta anyway. It seems that the two we met before have been executed for being weak and a similar fate is likely for us. It can’t understand how we got in but is deeply offended at our violation of the temple.

We settle down to rest, but within an hour are alerted to sounds coming from the opulent room beyond the door. It doesn’t take long for them to try to open the door we spiked shut and once they start properly hammering on it we call out for a parley, mentioning our hostage.

They are supremely confident of their position (as well they might be) and aren’t that interested in any negotiation. They are interested in our talk of a giant black pearl though – could this be our ticket out of here?

We march to the blue light curtain to undertake our water based experiment.
After we pass through the light Isis casts Create Water and our water bottles fill up and indeed water splashes on the floor as she creates too much. However, within seconds we notice it starting to disappear and within a minute or two it is all gone…

Nevertheless, we continue down the passage to see what we can find.

Eventually we come to a pair of doors. Behind one we hear a rustling sound so we open it. Within are three short humanoids. Bael and Amber try some friendly opening gambits as we would prefer to avoid combat. They seems suspicious. Bael offers to sing a song of greeting. Within the words he weaves the magic of his Charm spell. One of the humanoids falls for it and becomes more friendly. Isis attempts Charm Mammal and one more becomes more friendly.

We chat for a while and gain some key pieces of information:

• the old city lies ahead
• there are ghosts and shades and deadly traps in the old city
• there is a magical artifact within the old city that keeps the old ones in a long slumber.
• only a few remaining evil servants of the old ones seek to remove the artifact, hoping to resurrect the old ones.
• they are called kopru
• the artifact creates the blue light and the associated dryness keeps the kopru out

The humanoids also know of a route out of the tunnels up to the ‘sky grass’, but they say Morgan is too fat to fit through. They take us there, and it is confirmed to be a very narrow tunnel.

Consensus seems to be that we will have to fight our way back out past the kopru. Hopefully forewarned is forearmed. We can focus ranged weapons against it. They are weak to cold and dry, but these are things we are not able to generate!!

We decide to return to some of the other tunnels we have explored, namely a door with a steel bar. We open it and have a mooch around. Varys recalls ancient stories of a place called Knossos and wonders if a Minotaur hangs out around here…

We continue to explore the maze of tunnels and spirals that we have found.

Key discoveries are:

• Some tunnels lead to a ‘curtain’ of blue light. We seem to be unaffected when passing through. The tunnels and chambers beyond the blue light are notable for being incredibly dry. We then notice that our water bottles are empty!
• We have found an old kitchen with a working water tap. So, we figure we can survive
• There are patches of green slime in some areas which do no one any good.

Another abandoned kitchen has a chimney. Rob decides to climb up as it must eventually lead out.. He is gone a long time so Bael attempts to follow. However, bards are not as good at climbing and he falls and knocks himself unconscious! We rest for several hours and then Isis uses the staff of healing on all. Bael regains consciousness.

Isis transforms into a bat and flies off to seek Rob. Within the hour she returns and explains that she found him, resting out in the open. The chimney leads into a fissure, which he followed and it eventually leads out onto the plateau. Rob looked exhausted but alive. Based on Isis’ description we wonder about how to get out…

Bael manages to charm Amber and release her from the power of the hideous frogtopus. She talks of what she felt – a voice was telling her to go deeper, to seek out the giant black pearl from the dry place.

Our priorities have changed!! It seems that down beyond the blue light are the remains of an ancient city and within them is the legendary black pearl. The frogtopus cannot pass the light barrier so attempts to charm passing adventurers into doing it for him/her/it.

First step is to test whether Isis can Create Water after passing through the light curtain.

While this key exposition is occurring Rob returns and everyone agrees they are hungry. We had heard scuttling noises behind some doors earlier – possibly it is rats that we could eat. Varys readies a Sleep spell and we go hunting for food.

We manage to catch 12 rats which we butcher and roast over a fire of burning furniture under the handy chimney. The meat doesn’t taste great, but it fills our empty bellies…

You are standing at the end of a tunnel in a sheer 500 ft cliff face. Jungle stretches out before you with mountains in the background. Exits lead back, and technically down.

Bael instructs Isis to change to bat form and work out where we are, go and find the tiger and try to get back here with it. Still under the effects of his charm she happily does so and flaps off.

Meanwhile the rest decide they need to find a safe way down and return to the room with eight exits. We take the one between the two we’ve already passed through, to finish off that corner!

It leads off and gradually bends to the right and descends in long, shallow steps. After maybe half a mile we come to a huge fissure in the rock but the path continues down the side of the fissure. We descend…

Eventually we see a blue light in the distance. We approach it and pass through with no apparent ill effect beyond a slight tingling. We are now at the bottom of the fissure and there isn’t too much to see beyond some boulders. It is quite dry down here. This cavern seems unlikely to yield much of interest so we return to the path and ascend. Someone notices that all our water bottles are now empty!! Could it be the effect of the blue light?

We get back to the eight arched room and go for the arch opposite where we first came in – it opens into another circular room with a dais at the other end but nothing else of note.

The arch one to the right of the spiraling upwards path seems to lead us spiraling down, which is a good sign. At the first of the inevitable side passages to the shaft we drop a copper piece, it falls for a while and we hear it hit something but it’s too faint to be sure if it’s rock or water. We descend another circuit and drop another – it hits rock. We also notice that there appear to be huge iron girders across the shaft. No one is too sure what they might be for.

We get to the bottom of the shaft. It is smooth stone with no boulders. Morgan notices that the walls appear to be have been scorched sometime in the past. Again, no one is sure what that might mean.

There are two other entrances/exits here – one smells of very little, the other has an unpleasant, acrid smell. We opt for the dry one. We find a row of cells, still populated with skeletons, what may be a guardroom and a small kitchen. Within the kitchen is a tap, and after running water through for a couple of minutes it seems drinkable. Hurrah!!

We elect to rest up for the night by our water source and continue exploring in the morning.
Bael takes first watch and is alerted by a scuttling sound – a huge tentacled centipede type creature drops from the ceiling. He grabs his sword and kicks Morgan awake. Lucky he did for the tentacles manage to paralyse Bael. Morgan jumps up and draws his sword and lets out a battle cry which awakens Minerva and Varys. Morgan lands a mighty blow and then is promptly paralysed! Minerva manages to land a hit on the beast but strangely fails to cut off any tentacles. She is then paralysed!!

Varys the Nervous girds his loins and casts Magic Missile. What a spell!! The Carrion Crawler collapses and everyone is saved. After a half hour or so the paralysis wears off and everyone has a laugh about how funny it would have been to be killed off in such a way. Then we all go back to sleep.

In the morning(!) we continue to explore south. The passage continues for a while then we see a blue light. Bael has an idea and walks up to it and passes his arm through, holding his full water bottle. It comes back empty. We head back to the bottom of the shaft, pausing while Bael fills his bottle.

We take the acrid smelling passage. The smell gets worse, and suddenly we are attacked in our midst by six troglodytes. No wonder it was so smelly!!

Only Morgan is unaffected by their terrible BO issues. However, he is at the back and currently unable to engage. To summarise – Bael has an absolute nightmare and it unable to land a blow. Minerva does a good job. Amber and Rob are attacked while still tied up (why didn’t Bael Charm them at breakfast time!!). Varys has to attempt some dagger action.

Somehow we survive the battle; Varys is able to swap places with Morgan so he can get involved. Rob’s bonds are severed and he is able to land a blow before being nearly killed. Magic Missile again proves it’s worth.

As the dust settles we realise Rob is missing. Morgan charges after him and is able to catch him before too long, given that he is almost dead and is only running from sheer effort of will…

Bael and Amber are also severely wounded, and questions are asked as to the wisdom of sending off the only person who could use the Staff of Healing on a scouting mission.

We rope up and Rob leads us across the narrow, slippery ledges that make up the only passable parts of this hellish cavern.

We pass several pools of boiling mud when suddenly several things happen at once. A hideous head with a tentacled mouth appears from a pool to our left, Varys starts to chant an incantation and Amber stabs Bael in the back!!

Quick to react, Morgan turns and punches Varys square in the face, knocking him out. Bael yelps while Minerva clonks Amber over the head with the flat of her sword. Rob looses an arrow at the monster, but misses.

Isis suddenly realises that the monster is her master and she must subdue Minerva so that she will recognise it as her master as well. She attacks Minerva, but fails to pierce the fighter’s armour. Rob manages to graze the monster with an arrow but Bael misses.

Now, Rob also realises that the monster is his master and he turns and looses an arrow at Morgan at point blank range. Morgam responds with a tasty left hook and Rob falls over.
Amber too is suffering at the hands of Minerva – she slips over and then takes a boot to the head which knocks her out.

At this point Bael feels it might be time to attempt an exit. Morgan feels the call of the monster but manages to resist. The party are all still roped together and luckily the three strongest members are still compos mentis. They are able to slowly drag the prone bodies and the struggling Isis through to the nearest ledge. Unfortunately this is not the exit and so our intrepid heroes must delve deeper into the mountain caverns… We bind the arms and gag our ‘charmed’ companions and wake the unconscious ones so that they can walk.

The path descends and and the first fork we take the passage on the level (the right hand passage). It soon turns back on itself and becomes worryingly steep so we backtrack.

The other path (the left fork) continues to descend and then we come to a three way fork. For want of a better method of choosing we take the left passage. It descends and ends in water… Backtrack.

We take the middle passage. It veers to the right and then ends at the opening of a huge fissure – no way through here. Backtrack.

We take the right passage. It leads to the top of a scree slope so we descend it. It goes a long way down but eventually we get to the bottom and figure it’s time for a rest and some water. Isis is indignant that we attempted to attack her master and curses us. She says she cannot hear his voice any longer but knows that she serves him.

Bael attempts his own Charm. Firstly on Varys and then on Isis. It works!! They smile happily at him. Varys says that it was the little statue that first spoke to him…

After some rest we press on and and come to a lake. Bael wonders if there might be a small pale creature with lamp-like eyes living on an island in the middle. There is no sound of anything however so he decides to don the cloak of manta ray and explore. After 200 yds the water is only up to his shins so the others all join. The water briefly makes it to knee depth and then gets shallower again. At the far shore the ‘beach’ slopes up and we appear to be walking up a dried river bed.

In the cavern wall we spy an archway. Not a natural arch but one carved out of the rock. Morale rises and we pile on through.

After a while we pass through a vaulted chamber with ledges on either side of the passage. At times it seems like the DM is making it up as he goes along…

We eventually reach a circular chamber with 8 exits. The passage 90 degrees to our right appears to smell fresher so we eagerly enter. It rises and turns to the left. A passage heads off to the left – it ends at a huge shaft that both descends and ascends into blackness. We continue to climb the sloping passage. After what may be another turn of the spiral we find another passage to the left. Again it ends at a shaft. Back to the spiral. After a while it strightens out and we see the glimmer of day light!!!

We reach the end of the tunnel and find ourselves about 500 feet up a sheer cliff. Looking out on jungle below and mountains in the distance.

While the evil in the mud pools must be defeated, we need to gather strength and hone our skills before we return.

Before departing for the village and healing, Bael is determined to open up the giant oyster.

Minerva and Morgan get hacking at it, while Bael sings a ditty about scything cornfields. Eventually they crack through the shell enough to be able to have a hack at the muscle. Something blocks their swords and some careful butchery reveals a huge black pearl. The size of a baseball, which means nothing to our Mystaran heroes!!

The sight of the pearl stirs memories, and Isis resolves to check her diary when we get back to the village, and before she flies off to renew her acquaintance with the tiger.

Feeling pretty beat up, we return to the village to rest and recuperate and hopefully restore the sight of Varys and Amber.  Umlat, the priest, confirms that the giant black pearl of legend was the size of a man’s head and allowed the owner to control the weather.

Three days of lounging around sees everyone feeling better (and seeing better) and ready to return to Taboo Island.

We pass through the temple and return to where we originally saw the shark. The water level has dropped (as we thought it would) leaving a muddy wet floor. We are able to just about make out the dais in the gloom and Bael dons the Cloak of Manta Ray to examine further. There are no more sharks and he is able to confirm that this is the same chamber.

There are more steps off in the distance, but when he goes to explore there’s been a huge rockfall that has blocked further progress.

From this point onwards, Vary’s recollection of events seems to become rather hazy.

He remembers returning to the upper level and continuing past the collapsed floor that we fell through into the flooded cell-block.  Beyond this we found a room somewhere with a stone pedestal and a small carved stone box sitting atop it. Amongst the detritus on the floor we found a beautiful bowl with gold inlay and diamonds around the outside. Inside the stone box was a statuette of a hideous half-man half-octopus creature. It glowed under Bael’s detect magic spell and no one fancied picking it up.

After feeling like this level of the under-temple was fully explored, we descended the stairs down which a lot of the water has flowed. The steps got rougher and opened out into a hot cavern with many bubbling mud pools. A precarious ledge seems like our only way forward….

The plan seems to be working as the rat carcasses result in a fin breaking the surface and aiming straight for the steps. Minerva deals the shark a mighty blow, which it doesn’t seem too pleased with. Everyone else isn’t too pleased to see two more fins bearing down on us. Yikes! This has turned into a proper battle.