Session 2/3/07

                Faerisa 9, 22CR: After resting and preparing spells under the watchful eye of the unsleeping maug Boraan, the adventurers contemplate their options in exploring the rest of the Slaughtergarde Laboratory.  They decide to leave the howler alone for the moment, since it is trapped on the arcane diagram and cannot trouble their other movement throughout the complex.  They return to the central corridor and investigate the large copper doors marked “danger!” in goblin, and Dvalin cautiously advances inside the room beyond.  The dwarf sees some irregular notches carved into the floor stones, and four dark recesses in the ceiling.  Using his stonecunning, he realizes the room contains a deadly four-bladed scythe trap, and after an initial mishap where he is lightly wounded, Dvalin rigs some crate splinters beneath the floor’s pressure plates to disarm the trap.

                The party advances forward into a short corridor, and quickly comes upon a pair of hobgoblin impalers guarding a room which may have once been a demonic surgery or experimentation chamber.  The impalers attack aggressively, calling for their goblin minion up a set of stairs to the north to join the battle.  Five goblins charge down the stairs and clog the corridor, but between the party’s frontline fighters and a skillfully-placed color spray by Altaer, the goblinoids are subdued without much difficulty.  The one goblin who was not incapacitated by Altaer’s casting surrenders, and he and two other survivors are tied securely in their northern barracks while the adventurers loot the area, collecting coins, gems, and some valuable masterwork surgery tools.

                Klar decides to have a bit of fun with two of the goblin corpses, and throws them down to the howler from the top of the stairs.  The abyssal beast rends and gobbles its unexpected meal, and Klar chuckles grimly to himself, having disposed of a few stinking corpses of his favored enemy, and also intimidated the other goblins into speaking about their leader, a hobgoblin cleric of Maglubiyet called Nambrakh.  His sanctum lies to the east, down a long corridor, but the goblins are forbidden to go there.

                The party moves through another set of copper doors carved with demonic faces, heading eastward down the aforementioned corridor.  Cyndele peeks around the corner and is startled by four hobgoblin zombies armed with battleaxes!  The zombies are guarding a broken demon gate of some sort – perhaps one of the shattered gates of Slaughtergarde, broken long ago by the Thulkaar champions of law.  A vicious running battle breaks out, and the sounds of goblinoid chanting can be heard to the south through another corridor.  This can only be Nambrakh, who is singing the praises of his dark goblin god, Maglubiyet.  Though several zombies are still standing and engaging the party, Cyndele charges the noise of the chanting through a set of red curtains, but may have bit off more than she can chew… because the hobgoblin cleric is accompanied by three spear-wielding skeletons and a skeleton archer! 

Cyndele bravely holds the line, chipping bone from the skeletons with her hammer, but she is surrounded and things look grim.  Just then, Ayotunde clasps her holy symbol of Shandae and intones: “Malo Tor-Oya, hear my prayer and protect us!”  Green rays of light radiate from her body and strike the remaining zombie and three skeletons, obliterating the undead with the holy power of Shandae.  With the undead minions cleared away, Klar and Jack charge Nambrakh and deal the wretched cleric a pair of mighty blows, with Jack’s scythe neatly severing the hobgoblin’s head from his body after Klar’s glaive cut deeply into his torso.  Nambrakh’s head rolls across his dark altar of Maglubiyet, knocking over a small statue of the god and extinguishing some black candles upon the altar as well.  The party gathers a large pile of coins and gems from the foot of the altar, as well as a divine magical scroll.

A set of copper doors in the west wall of Nambrakh’s sanctum bears investigation, so after Dvalin pronounces it safe to advance, the party moves ahead into darkness, brandishing their sunrods in hand.  Inside the room, a pair of Dark Creeper emissaries and a sorcererous ghoul await them.  Another battle is joined, and though the spells of the ghoul and the shadow cloaks of the creepers frustrate the party for a time, they are victorious.  Jack claims an amulet of natural armor +1 from around the neck of the ghoul sorcerer, which he personally felled with his sweeping scythe blade.

While searching the room for clues, however, a vengeful goblin ranger called Bruntalgoik attacks from the rear, skulking with his shortbow in a narrow southern corridor.  Bruntalgoik is set upon revenge for the killing of Nambrakh, and he orders his hyena companion to attack the vulnerable Altaer.  The hyena quickly drops Altaer, who lies bleeding, but the party responds to Bruntalgoik’s challenge and defends their young sorcerer.  The hyena falls to Klar’s slashing glaive, and the rest of the party’s warriors chase the goblin ranger down the southern corridor, where he falls after a brave stand.

Exhausted and drained of spells from the recent fighting, the party elects to rest for the night inside the emissaries’ room.  Jack finds a small, twisting passage in the room which he can barely squeeze into, but which seems to lead back to the surface of Kurkle Ridge.  The passage is apparently some sort of back entrance, through which the dark creeper emissaries traveled to arrive here for some unknown purpose.

Their purpose, however, becomes clearer when two documents are found in a false compartment in a desk: one is a sketch of the shattered gate in the zombie room, with some unintelligible notes in an unknown language beneath.  The other is a hastily drawn map of a forest area, with a building indicated upon it, as well as a hidden passage leading somewhere… however, no one in the party can read the language in which the sketch and map are annotated.  Satisfied but still curious about the nature of this laboratory and the mission of its late occupants, the party sets watches and rests for the night.

Faerisa 10, 22CR: Nothing troubles the party’s sleep, so the adventurers assume that they have cleared nearly the entire complex of foes.  However, the howler still remains, and Cyndele burns to destroy this abyssal foe.  First, the party completes its search of the laboratory, discovering first a muddy room inhabited by an aggressive monitor lizard (they easily dispatch the hungry reptile), and then an old, arcane library, from which they claim eight valuable old history tomes and an arcane spellbook containing a number of simple 1^st-level spells… including one that Altaer identifies as comprehend languages. 

The sorcerer immediately casts the spell right out of the book, causing the magical script to vanish forever.  However, he uses the knowledge imparted by the spell to translate the notes on the two pages recovered from the dark creeper emissaries.  The first – the sketch of the demon gate – says “Destroyed!  No salvageable sigils.”  The second – the map – leads to the forest of Shul Sennek, in the southeastern part of the Valley of Obelisks, and indicates a “Surrinak Hunting Lodge” with a “trapdoor hearthstone.”  The humans of the Surrinak family rule the forest of Shul Sennek, and have a reputation as reclusive but competent lords.

All that remains in the complex is to defeat the howler and send its corrupt soul back to the infinite layers of the Abyss.  The party concocts a clever plan, deciding to utilize a classic pincer maneuver and come at the beast from two sides simultaneously.  Altaer, Dvalin and Klar attack from the west, while Jack and Cyndele charge in from the east, supported by Ayotunde.  The howler, surprised by the party’s boldness, growls its defiance and brutally tears into Cyndele with its teeth and quills, but Arinna’s Bumblebee will not be denied her quarry.  After a bloody but short melee, the howler falls with a defiant roar, pierced, slashed and blasted by the adventurers’ combined strength.  Its lithe, demonic body quickly crumbles to black, stinking dust.

Victorious and unbowed, the party gathers its gear and treasure, as well as the eight crates of spices they recovered for the Chicane Guild, and after bidding farewell to the stalwart maug Boraan, they return to the surface and pack up their two mules to return to Sumberton.  The late morning sun greets them as they return from their first foray into the deep and hidden corridors of Slaughtergarde.  It seems their next target is the forest of Shul Sennek and the hidden Surrinak Hunting Lodge within, but a return trip to Sumberton seems to be the first order of business.

Azarr Kul's Ambition