July 26, Friday (cont.) - The characters entered to chamber, and immediately began to gag on the noxious fumes rising from the fluorescent slime pits. In the eerie green glow, they could see what looked like it might be a body crumpled on the floor on the far side of the chamber.
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| Noxious Slime Pits and old dead body |
Approaching the form, they could see that it was indeed an old dead body, clutching a satchel. The satchel seemed to be in good condition, and had preserved the papers inside, which included what turned out to be a spell book, inscribed as that of Illvag of Korvann. One or two of the characters were able to recall that Illvag of Korvann was the name of the wizard from the Silver Swords Company (the adventuring group whose map and notes they were following to get here). According to the Silver Swords' journals, Illvag got separated from the rest of party, along with a warrior named Arstof, and they never saw them again. This apparently was Illvag's long-dead corpse. Near the body was a hole in the ceiling, from which the tattered remnant of a rope hung down. They also found a wand that would later prove to be a Wand of Magic Detection.
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| Navigating the slime pits |
Also in the satchel was a hand scribbled map with notes in the margins. The map was written on the back of a scroll of Blindness/Deafness. The map and the notes seemed to detail what happened to Illvag and Arstof after they got separated from the rest of their group, and their (unsuccessful) attempt to find their way through the Underdark wild from a spot labeled "lake shore" to a spot labeled "slime pools".
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| Illvag of Korvann's Map (and journal scribbles) |
The notes described their struggles as they tried to find their way back to the tombs, while trying to keep a badly wounded Arstof alive. Illvag described Arstof's eventual death, and marked the location of the burial cairn he was able to erect over his dead body. The notes specifically mentioned Arstof's shield, and that he wished he could bring it with him, but was unable to carry it. This interested the characters.
Reviewing these materials, the characters decided that they would go up through the hole in the ceiling and use Illvag's map to get to the lake shore, hoping to be able to find a way to the city and the Blood Orb using this rugged back way. The characters assumed that there would be temple guards looking for them back in the tombs, and in the temple areas beyond.
About halfway to the lake shore, the party found the chamber containing what appeared to be a heaped pile of stones making a cairn. As they were about to investigate the cairn, three cave fishers attacked. Their thick outer shells proved to be difficult to penetrate with melee weapons, but they were eventually slain.
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| Cave Fishers and Arstof's Cairn |
Moving on to the cairn, the party removed enough rocks to find Arstof's shield. A Detect Magic spell showed that the shield was indeed magic. Badric took the shield for his own use.
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| Arstof's Shield |
Moving on, the party soon reached a ledge overlooking a very large body of black water. They heard a noise off to the right, and realized that three figures were rowing a crude boat carefully along the shore in their direction. They didn't look like priests or temple guards, and gave the impression of trying to be quiet and sneaky...
Next - Shrashtak and the Temple of the Shadowed Veil.
GM Commentary - The group is getting closer to the end of the story arc, and I have to admit (writing this later) that I was having mixed feelings at this point. It felt to me like there were a certain number of sessions that could/should have been allocated to this whole story arc, and that I had spent too many of those sessions in the "getting there" part of the arc. Honestly, this may be more my feeling than that of the players, but I was feeling mental fatigue, and was not at all happy with my GM'ing of this arc with regards to pacing, etc... Oh well. Live and learn. In retrospect though, I definitely fell like we should have done just a couple of sessions on getting here, and then spent more time in the city and its environs than we ended up doing.
The next couple of sessions, because of the above, felt disjointed and rushed, which is my fault entirely. But that is a story for another day...
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