Orhan 4 Day 26 TE 6054

Well, finding no way into the vault, we head further down into the dungeon. But then D. decides to try again at the vault door, so we go back. Miraculously, D. gets through the first lock this time. Then the second lock blasts her with a lightning bolt.

We proceed deeper down. A level down is a hall with lot's of broken statuary arrayed along the sides. They're pretty much all broken. We tread around cautiously, until we reach a door. Listening at the door makes it pretty clear that there's a basalisk behind the door. Well, we shut all the lights off and Oathar casts Dark. We also cast Sly Ears on everyone. Then we open the door and head towards the hissing slithering thing. Ick. It's an AT 12 DB 30 basilisk. We attack!

It claws Haeraan some, but mostly misses. But then the basilisk breaths a cone of poison gas. Gosh. Luckily, no one actually gets poisoned. We kill it as it tries to flee. Bwuh-ha-ha. Then D. accidentally poisons herself while trying to harvest its poison glands. Oops. We sweep the area and find a couple of old swords. Bits of some other broken weapons and a few coins. There are also two rings on stone fingers? Imre takes one (light) and D. takes the other (fire).

We continue on wary of the couple of ghosts Haeraan is still sensing. We encounter a metal door in a small side area. It has written upon it in an ancient language, "Secure Storage". D. locates a trap on the secure storage door. Drat we set off the trap. The stairs all turn into a slide and a great rumbling stone appears above us. Haeraan, Alynna, and Oathar merge into the wall. Imre long door past the ball. Unfortunately, Kyrik and D. flee down the stairs towards the spiked pit trap at the bottom! They leap across the pit and hit the illusionary wall and fall onto the spikes. Then the ball lands on them. Ouch! Piercing and Krush crits for them both. The ball teleports away and the trap resets. Imre leaps into the fray to save them all.

Three hours later, we finish the necessary healing. Then we discuss if we should try again. We decide to go through the lower door instead. After some more merging with the wall and dealing with the traps, D. gets us inside. We appear at the edge of the Dungeon of Doom! Oh dear. There's a large door with a tounge. Oh dear. Haeraan detects a skeletal dragon. Oh dear. We prep our defenses. A small prayer session follows in which powerful forces are invokes, but they generally cancel each other out. Oh dear.

We wander in and find a ghost. He's slumped over and looks depressed. Haeraan interogate him. "No, it's all over, we failed!" We try to ask him about what he failed in doing. "We were supposed to guard the final chambers from the dragon." "We thought it was just a man." "We're not supposed to tell anyone what we were guarding." The ghost ignores Haeraan's holy aura. Very strange. "I'm not worthy to serve anyone. I've failed in my duty to the emporer."

Imre attempts to repel it, but it doesn't work. So Haeraan repels it and it fades into the wall.We go to the presumed location of the other ghost. "I served the order of the flaming sword, but I failed!" Haeraan tries to put that one to rest too. He fades away into the wall.

We prepare ourselves and CHARGE THE DRAGON! D. and Imre take cover behind some pillars, the rest of us charge in. The dragon proves to be AT11 DB80. Imre points at him and makes one of his legs fall off. Then Alynna runs up and kills it. We're done. How anti-climactic. Wow, look at our terrible death monk.

Haeraan starts piling up dragon rolls while others search for treasure. D. finds a secret door.

We enter and find a small octagonal chamber. It's sort of vaulted up to the center. In the middle is a stone pedestal. On the stand is a large golden sphere. On each of the octagonal sides is a symbol of one each of the eight orders. We go and stand in front of the appropriate symbols and the golden sphere starts glowing slightly. Kyrik touches the sphere and gets his hand stuck in the sphere.Hmm, Imre does the same thing. The sphere gets brighter, so we follow suit and stick our hand in. Suddenly there is a flash and we all get a vision. (separate files)

Behind us is a grinding noise and a niche opens for each. We head to our niches and in side is a ring for each, except for Kyrik who gets a ring and a sword. We automatically attune to our rings. They indentify us as members of the order and allow us to detect other members of our order. Kyrik gets a sword which glows when he picks it up. His sword tells him he is worthy. (+1/level, +2/level versus enemies of the empire, extra heat crit at -2 levels, +4 spell adder, can shift between broadsword and dagger form). It will gain even more power if we can find a lens for it. Kyrik reveals that instead of the dream of initiation and discussion, he got a dream of Luarto Shang killing the emporer, and the rescue of the last hier.

We also notice at as we are formed into a team, we can freely inform each other of our current hit point status, and other various tactical information.

We also get two fate points and five talent points.

We head back to the secure storage door. En route, Kyrik flashes his ring at the ghosts and orders them back to their rest. They go away. D. sucessfully disarms the trap, and then picks the lock. We get into secure storage. Inside is a passage way with several numbered doors. We try lot's of doors. They are locked. They also have poision needles. Imre gives her some poison resistance. D. manages to disarm the trap on one of the doors. Then she picks the lock. Inside is a bare 10x10 room, but in the middle of the room is a large freestanding twisted doorway. Yup, that's a portal. An inactive portal no less. D. move on to another door. Behind door number two is nothing. We open all of the doors the same way. Total loot: 4 empty rooms. One has the portal. One has half of a giant geode. One room filled with crates where we find a set of fine china/silverware/potteryware. One room is totally dark. It cancels our light spell. Cold start coming out of the room. Then we close the door.

Oathar figures out the china stuff has a few enchantments on it: warm solid, chill liquid, det. poison. Place setting for 2 dozen. Worth 300-400 gold. With the spells, more than that. We decide we are keeping the china.

We take the china and teleport back to the beach.

Orhan 5 Day 23 TE 6054

We arrive in Selkai!