Up the Mountain
Mordenkainen tells us that there is an order of monks called the Pentangle Order who specialize in mental discipline. They are well known in their ability to shield their minds from psionic attacks. The party heads to one of their monestaries to see if the order would be willing/able to train us how to shield our own minds (in preparation of meeting more mind flayers). The Pentangle Order has two monestaries: one on the northeast side of Mt. Karnak, and another (the main monestary) in the center of the lake where the Arena is located.
Mordenkainen reminds us of the arena's affect on certain weak magic items are affected by the magical binding of the area near the arena (potions become inert, scrolls turn to dust, etc.). Armor, weapons, and protection devices seem to be immune to the magical binding of the arena. They lose their magical properties when near the arena, but regain them when you leave the arena. He also reminds us that the arena does not suffer magic-users.
The party gives their potions and scrolls to friends in Sard for safe-keeping while we travel to the Pentangle Order. We leave our horses stabled in Sard and head to what is commonly known as "Star City" (the Order's second monestary). Traveling to the monestary, which is at an elevation of 10,000 feet, we gain a spectacular view of all of Middlemar. On the way, we cross over several bridges that span rushing rivers flowing down from the mountains. The closer we get to the monestary, the higher percentage of Pentangle Order that are associated with the running of the inns. The proprietors of the inns along our journey:
We send a carrier pigeon back to Sard, calling for the remaining members of our party to come to Koreolis so that they can get trained as well. We meet with Master See-Fu, who is a very very very old, skinny, and short man. It's difficult to tell if he's a short human, or a dwarf. He ends up being a crotchety old bastard. After six months of training, several of the party members have mastered the Iron Mind ability. During our training, a visitor arrives and attacks Master Sea-Food, who lays out the perpetrator in three jabs.
It takes 15 days for the party members in Sard to arrive, due to the message that we sent taking longer than usual to make its way to the party members. This was due to Ulian *not* being at the temple in Sard when the message was sent. We have no idea why Ulian was not in Sard. After the training, we head back to Sard. No one has seen Ulian in six months. He took a contigent of priests from Garnet to Cloudyhead. The plan was for him to meet up with Solara in Rudd. Because he has been missing this long, they assume he is dead or incapacitated. They have no one to take over running the temple in Sard. They need someone to go Cloudyhead to see what has happened to Ulian, and Swifty has been nominated. Three other priests went with Ulian to contact Solara. None of them have been seen since.
Dried Wine and Exploding Books
We head to Cloudyhead, stopping in Rudd first to talk with Solara. She says that she did meet with Ulian. She and Ulian successfully cleared out Cloudyhead over the course of a week. The last she saw of Ulian, he and three priests stayed at Cloudyhead to set up a watch in the tower. This was 36 days ago. She then helped Ulian for a week cleaning up the fortress. The party heads to the back entrance of the fortress at nightfall. There is no light coming from the tower windows. We enter the cave at the back entrance, open the secret, and come to the floor trap, which is tripped. A fetid odor is coming from the pit trap. Lowering a torch down to the water at the bottom of the pit, we see two huge cephalopods. When the cephalopods disturb the water, we see the tips of the spikes that are mounted into the floor. Somehow, this pit has been filled with water since last we were here. We then attempt to close the floor trap and see that someone has fused the stone lock (the floor trap will not lock closed). Having two people hold the floor steady, we run across the closed trap one at a time. Everyone makes it across, except for Ben (he's the last to go). The floor trap begins to tip. Kathy catches the floor so that Ben doesn't go into the pit. Kathy loses her grip, the floor tips, but Ben holds on by his teeny tiny little dwarfy finger tips and makes his way across the pit monkeybar style. During this ordeal, we notice that there are at least two cephalopods down in the water.
We make it to the lower well room. There is no stinky smell in here. In fact, everything seems the same as the last time we were here. We head up the stairs to the next level up. The kennels that had dogs boarded when the gnolls were in the fortress are now open with fresh hay in them, but there are no animals about. We find two-week old hoof prints in the area. Other than this, the fortress is deathly quiet. Heading up to the guard room (next level up in the tower), we find it to be completely barren. There are still bunks here, but the straw beds of the gnolls have been cleaned out; no weapons, no chests, nada. Going up another level to the lookout room, which has a firepit in the middle, is likewise empty. There are ashes in the firepit, but it is cold. We go to the mindflayer room. The stack of bodies has been cleaned out. All of the cabinets in the middle of the room are open and contain crafting supplies. This room, too, is empty.
The party then heads to the level that contained the "loud room" when we had been there previously. We find what appears to be a gathering area. There is a big table in the middle and two large hearths. On the table are five cups, a pitcher of spoiled wine, and three plates. We investigate the other rooms on this level: a kitchen and a bedroom which contains a chest. In the chest are some vials of a clear liquid, a couple scroll tubes, and some traveling clothes. On the table is a book. Swifty starts reading the book. When he got to page 3, the book explodes. The first three pages are a log of events: "we starved out the gnolls, the demon's room has been cleaned out, etc." It is obvious that this was Ulian's book. The scrolls are written in Dwarven, giving instructions to Ulian from a priest named Carn to secure the Tomb of Koric after a re-consecration. These instructions are very precise and detailed. Near the end, it mentions Ocyxerac's Staff and that it must be secured. The instructions on how to secure the staff are missing from the parchment.
Tom checks out the last room on this level. There are three semi-decomposed skeletal remains with a green ooze smeared across the floor. It looks like the ooze erupted from the middle of the room where the bodies are, and then spread out across the room. We find two diaries from the three dead priests. At the end of one of the diaries, the last entry reads: "Captain Hiram from Archet is due to arrive today. We are looking forward to having visitors."
Looking for Ulian
We sleep in the fortress for the night. The next day, we open up the front gate (which we cannot close behind us, so we leave it open), head out of Cloudyhead and make our way to Koric's Tomb outside of Rudd. First, we go to Rudd, let Solara know what we found in Cloudyhead, and ask her to secure Cloudyhead until we return. I also ask her about Captain Hiram and tell her what the diary entry said about him. Solara said that Hiram is stationed in Archet and hasn't left there, and that if he had been planning on visiting Cloudyhead, she would have known about it as they have good communication on troop movements.
We travel to Koric's Tomb to see if the entrance is secure. It is. We head to Rudd to find Tunnelly and ask him about Ulian. He hasn't seen Ulian for three weeks. At that time, Ulian talked with Solara to set up a meeting with the Mayor of Archet to talk about the possibility of having Archet sends troops to inhabit Cloudyhead and help with its defense. They are waiting for Ulian to return to say, "okay, I'm ready for the meeting." We head to Archet to talk with Captain Hiram and the mayor. We get admitted into Archet in the middle of the night and find an inn. The next morning, we head to the center of town and find Captain Hiram. After speaking with him and the mayor, we find out that no one here has seen or heard from Ulian in the past five weeks. So, with this being a dead end, we head to Onyx to see if we can scrounge up a mindflayer down in the sewers.
Onyx... Nice Sewers ya Got Here
The party finds a main entrance to the city sewers: a large gate with a lock on it. We head to Morley's Inn since we remember that he hires a lot of rat-people. Maybe we'll be able to find someone there who could help us gain access to the sewers. Kathy meets with Mistress Singe and arranges to obtain some maps of the sewers. Morley says that the last time an ithilyid was seen in the sewers, it was in the southern side, not the sea side. After one night tromping around the sewers, the party has an epiphany and relaizes that this escapade in Onyx has put us on the wrong track. Back to Rudd/Tomb of Korric/Cloudyhead.
We get back to Cloudyhead and talk with Solara. A messenger in Rudd contacts the party with a message from Solara: She mentions that the room with the trap is now full of water and that it is flowing. We head to Cloudyhead and talk with Solara. She takes us to the room with the floor trap and shows us that the water is slowly flowing out through the side wall.
Next time: into the pit, looking for a cavern.
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