Session 35 - The Sinister Situation Sub-Stadium

27th of Uktar, 1371 DR
After puttin' the Squirmers to the torch, we headed down the hallway past the dead gods' banner to a set of double doors. Rumple could hear voices on the other side and it sounded like they knew we were comin'. So we kicked in the doors and started the fun.
Not so fun, as it turns out. The room (a gladiatorial trainin' room of some kind) was jam-packed with Undead! There were six Squirmers, two pregnant Squirmers (never seen anything like that before), and at least a half-dozen gaunt beats that literally radiated hate and anger (Egwaine called 'em Wights). There was also some Undead critter that had a long, grotesque, purple tongue (a Mohrg) which, we were informed, are very dangerous.


Despite their numbers, we defeated the pile of Undead fairly easily, although there were a couple of surprises. For instance, the pregnant Squirmers were pregnant with hugs swarms of worms! They dropped their broods as soon as they got close to us. The Squirmers have also learned to flick worms at us. This seems to hit much more often than when they try to claw at us through our armor. So, there was a tense moment when a worm wriggled its way into Storn's neck. Storn, however, whipped out a dagger and stabbed himself without a moment's hesitation. When he pulled the dagger out, amidst a gout of blood, there was the disgustin' creature writhin' on the point of his knife.

Everythin' else was fairly standard fair. We used the doorway for cover and to limit the number of Undead that could assault us at once. Mel soften the Undead up with a massive Fireball and then Alabron, Storn, and Tyree killed Undead left and right with brutal chops of their weapons. I killed a pair of Wights with Empowered Magic Missiles and managed worms with the Wand of Burnin' Hands. Rumple actually proved to be a passable archer, killin' several Undead with his bow. Egwaine, of course, was constantly at work in the background; reinforcin', healin', and gettin' worms off of people. We slaughtered the Undead and the worms and drove off the Mohrg.

Now, the two Wights I killed were the ones that seemed to be guardin' a large, wax-sealed vat like the one we found in Dourstone Mine back home. We debated what to do about it for quite some time until Rumple heard somethin' go "bampf" behind the other set of double doors. We barely had time to set ourselves when a Fiendish Dire Tiger burst into the room!

I think several of us believed this was one of the Pitchblade animals, so we beat it like a rented mule. It took a nasty swipe at Storn who fell back into the room so that all of us could get shots at it. I hit it hard with an Orb of Force augmented with my Hellcat Gauntlets. Mel blasted it with a pair of Scorchin' Rays. And then Alobron went and took it out of the fight with a Ray of Stupidity. I wished I'd remembered he was gonna do that. Could have saved myself a spell. Then, when Tyree dismembered the big cat, it simply vanished in a puff of acrid smoke. It had been a summoned creature!

Through the next set of double doors was the Mohrg (healed of its damage), eight Tieflin' warriors, and some kind of Cleric. Again, using the features of the room to our advantage, we tore into these deranged, evil, cultists.

The Morgh, for all its potential danger, turned out to be easy enough to deal with. It tried to paralyze a couple of people with its disgustin' tongue, but they managed to resist its horrid toxins. Hell, it only drew blood twice on Alabron. One was an admittedly forceful strike, but then it was dead for good.

Rumple, again, put his bow to good use. He killed one Tieflin' with a pair of arrows while the fellow was just realizin' a fight was on him. He placed two more arrows in another Tieflin', peppered the leader once, and struck the killin' blow against the Mohrg.

The Tieflings were just cannon-fodder and spent the fight missin' us with their greataxes and tryin' to extinguish themselves.

Alobron used a Fly spell to give himself some mobility. At first he hovered above Storn, helpin' to drive back the Tieflins, but when the Mohrg fell back into the room, Alobron was able to give chase. He kept the Undead horror pinned in a corner, landin' a couple of powerful blows with this falchion.

Mel called forth a piece of "Elven High Magic" I was truly impressed with. He called it Firebrand and it brought forth bursts of fire that nearly filled the room. It didn't kill anyone outright, but it caused horrible burns to all the Tieflings and caused them to scatter to avoid further damage. The Cleric must have had some sort of fire protection spell active since he just stood his ground, chucklin'.

Storn killed four Tieflins and struck the killin' blow against the leader. Tyree killed a Tieflin' and struck a tellin' blow against the leader. Egwaine reinforced us all with a Mass Shield of Faith and kept Storn in the figjht with her healin'.

I used an Empowered Magic Missile at exactly the right time to ruin the leader's Doom spell and hurt him a lot (my missiles blowin' right through his Brooch of Shieldin'). Two more Magic Missile spells helped kill the Cleric. I spent the rest of my time teasin' Mel. For an Elf, he's easily excitable.

When all was done, we had a large amount of booty and, on a strange alter, (one of?) the Apostolic Scroll! We spent a good ten minutes tryin' to figure out how to claim the scroll so we could remove it from evil's hands, but the scroll was protected by some sort of "temporal stasis field" (or so says Mel) that we were unable to penetrate. After studyin' the magic forces at work, Mel declared that we would just have to leave it here for now. Without some absurdly powerful magic, he says we have no way of claimin', movin', or even touchin' the scroll without killin' ourselves in the process.

I guess we'll have to just kill every villain down here to make sure no one else can touch it either.

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