Searched all day for kalamanthus. We found a few small plants, but no “source.”
14th of Marpenoth, 1371 DR
Success! We managed to find a large crop of kalamanthus. I made a map, harvested a goodly amount of the stuff, and brought it to the monks. I made my offering and asked to learn their meditation techniques. I ain’t got an answer yet, but I can’t see why they’d refuse me. Guess I’ll find out later.
15th of Marpenoth, 1371 DR
We ran lots of errands today. We reported to the garrison about the bandits (and collected quite a large bounty). We dropped off the rubbin’s to Allustan and told him all about he actual tomb. I managed to collect enough gold to actually buy a magic item! I never thought I’d see the day. When I was in Waterdeep, a friend of mine had a pair of gloves that amplified the power of his spells. He called ‘em Caster’s Gloves. I put an order in for ‘em today. They won’t get here until the 21st, but I guess its wait or go to Waterdeep myself.
Most of us went and had drinks with Sergeant Voss at the Spinning Giant again. I talked to him about getting a social introduction to Lieutenant Machella Venderin. Voss told me I ought to talk to Lieutenant Dolbrun about that.
While I was tryin’ to improve my social calendar, Justice and a few of the others went to gather some more information about the Dourstone mine from Dourstone himself. They didn’t get to see Dourstone, but they did witness Kullen deliverin’ some supplies to what looked like cultists of dead gods. These cultists then took the supplies into the mine!
Something bad is definitely going on down there.
We ended up bargin’ in on Dolgun’s pa in the middle of the night. Him bein’ a foreman at he Dourstone mine, we figured he be the ideal guy to tell us how to get in the mine. Luckily, he wasn’t pleased with the numerous deaths and disappearances happenin’ at the mine. So, he told us to try to sneak in during the guard change while they all meet up in the main house to discuss duties and whatnot.
Sounds like a plan.
16th of Marpenoth, 1371 DR
We got ourselves all dolled up in miner’s gear and headed out to the Dourstone Mine. Since we decided to go durin’ the day, it wasn’t Dolgun’s pa’s shift. We almost got nabbed by the foreman, but some quick thinkin’ on my part distracted the foreman and saw us safely into the mine. It took us quite some time to find the deepest part of the mine – the place where the new elevator was located. But find it we did, greased up the gears, and headed down.
There was a pair of Tiefling guards waiting at the bottom of the elevator. By the time they could see that we were not more cultists we were already on the offensive. We managed to dispatch both guards before they could pound on the west door (a door bearing Bane’s symbol). After trying to question one of the guards to no avail, Justice executed the Tiefling!
This, after he had just given us all a lecture about how killin’ a helpless prisoner was always an act of evil. I think Justice has a bit o’ Damaran blood in him.
We headed through the Bane door. Two other doors were down there. One had the symbol of Myrkul on it. The other didn’t have a symbol at all. I used a new spell I’ve developed I call Silent Portal. It makes any door (or similar openin’ portal) completely silent. It let us open the Bane door with nary a sound. Of course, the fourteen Skeletons covered in bells and chimes were not doors.
Although Justice failed to turn the Skeletons, Trogdor succeeded – blowing the Undead to pieces and causing some 200 bells to clatter to the floor. There would be no surprising whatever evil lay behind the other doors in this room.
Sure enough, cultists (some people I even recognized from town) came pourin’ out of the door on the left. Tiefling Fighters started comin’ out of the door on the right. The cultists were untrained, fanatical rabble. They charged into battle screamin’ and, shortly thereafter, died screamin’. The Tieflings were altogether different. Well trained, tough, smart, and able to create shadows to protect themselves – they were a problem. The fight was brutal and confusin’. Dolgun lit the cultist’s barracks on fire and Justice locked them in the room to burn to death. Wow. Trogdor used lots of healing from the new wand and Carenthal and I were hard-pressed to conserve some of our spells. In the end, we were victorious, but the screams of burning people and Tieflings will haunt me, I fear.
Now, durin’ the second half of this grand melee, the double doors down the hall began to shudder as somethin’ large, strong, and pissed off began smashin’ through it. As the last Tiefling died, we ran up and tried to use the doors in the hall to funnel whatever horror was in there into the room where more guards were waitin’ for us. It was an excellent plan, and by all accounts it should have worked.
But it didn’t.An enormous, crimson boar with huge tusks and all kinds of horns juttin’ out of it bashed its way through our makeshift barrier and started tearin’ into Storn. The beast hit hard and our blows barely even hurt the thing. It was even resistant to magic and avoided a spell from Carenthal and one of my Magic Missiles! Trodor was behind Storn, basically pourin’ healin’ energy from his wand into Storn. It took all of us and many of our resources to kill the beast (turned out to be a Fiendish Dire Boar), but Valcrist got in the final crossbow bolt that killed it.
Gods know what’s waiting for us deeper in the cultist’s chambers.
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