28th of Uktar, 1371 DR
Raknian had congratulatory bottles of red wine waitin' for us in the Cynobe. They didn't have worms in 'em nor were they poisoned. Still, I don't think any of us drank 'em. I managed to talk the Snow Leopards into creatin' a distraction for us so we could get to the Apostolic Scroll. I had no idea they were gonna put on a strip show, but that's what they did. It proved a remarkably good distraction.
We made it to the secret chambers without a hitch. Egwaine performed a ritual, callin' on Kelemvor several times, and succeeded in disablin' the protective magic around the scroll. Mel used a Mage Hand scroll to put it in our Bag of Holdin' and we prepared to deal with whatever was on the other side of the iron door.
The creature was the biggest monster we'd ever seen! It was a gigantic, pale, maggot-like worm and it's reactions were like lightin'. It spewed forth a gout of green goo that covered Alabron and disgorged nearly a dozen various Squirmers. The liquid looked like it was eatin' Alabron away from the inside! He suddenly became pale, thinner, and a little out of breath. To brave to flee, however, he stood his ground against the Zombies.
Raknian had congratulatory bottles of red wine waitin' for us in the Cynobe. They didn't have worms in 'em nor were they poisoned. Still, I don't think any of us drank 'em. I managed to talk the Snow Leopards into creatin' a distraction for us so we could get to the Apostolic Scroll. I had no idea they were gonna put on a strip show, but that's what they did. It proved a remarkably good distraction.
We made it to the secret chambers without a hitch. Egwaine performed a ritual, callin' on Kelemvor several times, and succeeded in disablin' the protective magic around the scroll. Mel used a Mage Hand scroll to put it in our Bag of Holdin' and we prepared to deal with whatever was on the other side of the iron door.
The creature was the biggest monster we'd ever seen! It was a gigantic, pale, maggot-like worm and it's reactions were like lightin'. It spewed forth a gout of green goo that covered Alabron and disgorged nearly a dozen various Squirmers. The liquid looked like it was eatin' Alabron away from the inside! He suddenly became pale, thinner, and a little out of breath. To brave to flee, however, he stood his ground against the Zombies.
Storn and Tyree moved into the position to prevent the Squirmers from getting in the room and I put a Wall of Force at the end of the hall so we could deal with the Undead at our leisure. Egwaine called forth Kelemvor's power and destroyed four of the Zombies and turned three more. Alabron killed a Squirmer in a single blow (causin' it to drop a pair of worm swarms), cleaved into another, killin' it as well, and still managed to get off a Quickened Protection From Evil spell. Mel ran into the breach created by Alabron's sword and blasted a Lighthnin' Bolt down the hall, killin' both swarms, two Squirmers, and the two swarms dropped by their deaths.
After that, the fight was basically over. The worm just didn't know it yet. Even though it kept pukin' up Zombies (four more, in all), our preparations were better. Invisibility on Rumple. Greater Invisibility on Tyree. Mirror Image on Alabron and Storn. Wand of Burning Hands ready. I dropped the wall.
Even though the worm was a tough opponent and it surprised us by extrudin' this horrible lashing "hairs." there was never any doubt as to the outcome of the fight. The one time the worm managed to hit Storn (and not an image), the Dwarf's combat trainin' kicked in and he hacked at the beast's maw, preventin' it from swalloin' him. I even managed to blast it with an Orb of Force (after seein' how it ignored Mel's Fireball). The funniest thing is that it was one of Egwain's Spiritual Weapons from that low-level wand that struck the killin' blow!
Figurin' we'd just ruined the "monster" portion of tomorrow's festivities, we headed back to the Coenoby to meet with our manager. He was quite mad that we hadn't murdered Raknian yet. We tried to explain the situation to him, but I fear he's gonna do somethin' stupid. He did bring us a letter that Eligos had penned to Allustan. Unfortunately, the letter told us nothin' we didn't already know. He did mention some notes, however...
We went to Titan's Hall to await our meetin' with Raknian. There was a bit of a run-in with the Snow Leopards and Tyree's continuin' attempts to have sex with one or more of them. I ended up spillin' everythin' to their leader. She went back and barricaded all her girls in their room. Eventually, it was Carenthal who showed up speakin' on behalf of Raknian.
The story he spun was that the Cleric (Bozol) we had killed had blackmailed Raknian into lettin' him use the stadium for the cult's needs. Raknian had killed that woman and asked Bozol to raise her from the dead. Instead, Bozol turned her into an Undead creature and forced Raknian to do his biddin'. There was also the suggestion that Raknian's head of security is also a member of the cult and that's why Raknian hasn't come forth himself. That, and Raknian was worried we'd simply kill him if he showed up to the meetin'. We assured Carenthal we had no desire to simply kill Raknian (Alobron gave me a strange, side-long glance at that), so Carenthal agreed to go retrieve Raknian.
We waited for hours, but no one ever returned, so we went back to our room. Later we discovered Carenthal's dead body, throat torn out just like the Coenoby guards. Somethin's down here huntin' people, but that will have to wait until the fight tomorrow is over. It's been a long day.
