Posted: 16 January 2022 (reading time: 7 minutes; 1316 words)
Recap by Melissa Savlov
After a short rest, Asgarday∂a re-enters the mansion ruin. Almost immediately, they encounter a big swirly apparition and some giant spiders. To everyone’s surprise, Laguza is uncharacteristically freaked out by the malevolent misty creature, now shaped into something resembling a phantom. Somehow, It got into her head and left her virtually immobile with fear and confusion. Fortunately, her friends are there to supply the courage that temporarily eludes her. Vyshka directs a guiding bolt at the swirly monster, and Greunthrn finishes it off.
Once the swirly monster has been vanquished, Laguza emerges from her fear fog and rages at the closest spider. She slices it up and throws it into a hole in the floor. She swings at the second one, misses, then commands it to stay in the corner. It doesn’t react, so Belnirith vibrates that second spider until it explodes. The room is now free of spiders. So Greunthrn decides it’s a good time to use his handy dancing lights to survey the space beneath the hole in the floor. It appears that it’s been turned into some sort of living space.
The team decides to continue exploring the mansion. As Greunthrn perceives the floor of the next room might not be stable, its floorboards decaying, Belnirith strides right in and ends up crashing through the weakened wood and falling 20 feet. When she’s about a foot from colliding with the floor, suddenly, huge black wings emerge from her back, startling everyone, especially Belnirith! She starts flying around the room in hazy delight. She calls out to Laguza: “Hey, wanna fly with me?” Laguza rolls her eyes, frowns at Belnirith, and declines with a humorless no.
Then, Belnirith calls out to Vyshka! Everyone expects the hermit elf to decline. But Vyshka’s time playing with the dire-wolf puppy Viggo reminded her that she needs more fun in her life, so she says yes. Belnirith scoops her up and they both fly across the room. Meanwhile, Greunthrn hears something scraping around; it’s coming from the hole. He and Laguza navigate around the rotted sections of the floor and take a look around. They don’t see anything.
But, when Belnirith swoops them into the adjacent Tower Room, Vyshka spies some suspicious-looking oil on the floor as well as a plethora of golden coins, many of which are covered by the black gooey liquid. Vyshka calls out to Greunthrn and Laguza to let them know what they’ve spied. Then Belnirith notices that her wings are becoming less tangible very quickly, so they land in the Tower Room.
As soon as they are on the floor, the oil forms a wave and rolls toward them. Belnirith remembers how fun it was to vibrate the hell out of the spiders; so she tries it again on the oil. The loud gong creates holes in the ooze. Then Vyshka tries to fight it off with a radiant spell, which fails. Then, she uses her mage hand to push back the wave, to no avail. So Belnirith casts more vibrating sound in its direction, and the ooze grows a few more holes.
Seeing that the ooze is distracted, Greunthrn takes the opportunity to surround himself with a silvery mist and swiftly teleport himself through the first room to a second door in the Tower Room. Greunthrn yanks the door open and prepares for battle. But the ooze somehow manages to reconstitute itself and doubles in size! — to the horror of Belnirith and Vyshka, who are in the room with it.
The oily stuff begins to fill up the entire Tower Room, but it doesn’t breach the threshold into the room where Greunthrn stands poised for attack. Nevertheless, before Greunthrn can stop it, the ooze attacks Belnirith so intensely that she can barely move. Then it attacks Vyshka, who is similarly incapacitated but not quite as much as her wizard friend. Belnirith musters up enough strength to blink away in a cloud of mist. Vyshka remains in the Tower Room, grumbling that she never should have trusted Belnirith to stick around for her. On the plus side, the loyal Laguza comes through for Vyshka yet again.
Laguza leaps into the room and slashes the ooze with her klókr (the axehammer she made herself, that has been subsequently enhanced with the help of the Allhammer, Moradin). It is vanquished! Asgarday∂a gathers up all the coins and shoves them in Laguza’s bag of holding. Meanwhile, Vyshka and Belnirith engage in a bit of bickering — with Vyshka complaining about being left behind, and Belnirith asking Vyshka why she’s neglected her responsibilities taking care of Viggo. Clearly, they’re just letting off steam. Both of them have a tendency to go negative at times; but, after all they’ve been through together, there’s no genuine ill-will.
Together, the group collects enough coins to add up to 2,200 gp — thanks to the OCD Wizard who sneaks around rounding out numbers of coinage everywhere he roams; but that’s a tale for another time. They all head outside to find Viggo and take a brief restorative rest. Viggo jumps around happily and leads them to a grove that looks like the perfect place to regain their strength. As they’re resting, Greunthrn’s tracker instincts alert him that some of the nearby foxes are behaving oddly. He notices a figure in the distance that appears to be a skeleton wandering around outside and then returning to the mansion. He can’t see it well, but he can tell that it’s taller than a human.
Soon, they’re almost back to full strength and, even though it’s getting dark, they decide to explore the downstairs area below the mansion. Greunthrn and Laguza enter the basement/dungeon first, with Belnirith and Vyshka close behind. The room appears to be empty but for a few pillars and some sliced-up spiders. Then, they notice the bodies and bones strewn throughout the room, in various stages of decay. Some seem ancient, some seem like they died a few months ago. But all the bones look picked over. As the group wanders around the room, something weird and wormy suddenly pops out from the chest of one of the dead bodies!
Vyshka is standing right next to it, and it tries to attack her; but Laguza draws its attention away from Vyshka and so it attacks her instead. It wraps around Laguza, including her head. Vyshka tries to get it off Laguza with a guiding bolt, to no avail. Then Greunthrn sneaks up and attacks it. It splatters to death. Laguza recounts that she’s heard of slithering trackers emerging from dead bodies. Belnirith cleans everyone up with a spell.
Then, they all enter the next room to find four skeleton ogres. Belnirith immediately wields her wand, which spews out a 20-foot cube of web. It covers two of the four skeleton ogres. Plus, the webs make the room sticky and hard to traverse. Vyshka invokes spiritual guardians who look like tiny Thors with wings. Greunthrn’s bow companion chatters manically while arrows pierce skeletons left and right. Together, the team kills off multiple skeleton ogres; but more keep entering the room.
As Asgarday∂a continue to fight off the multiplying monsters, Greunthrn calls out that he still hears that weird scratching sound from the farther down the hall. Laguza dashes into the next room and gets into a position where she can see a warlock casting chanting in an unfamiliar language behind an altar, guarded by two more skeleton ogres. Belnirith and Greunthrn fight off the skeleton ogres in the room they are in, while Laguza points out the warlock to Vyshka.
Vyshka casts a bolt of radiant energy toward the warlock. It smashes into the him, and he curses, his concentration ruined! Whatever the wizard was working on, it stopped just in time. There are now the skeleton ogre guards and the warlock remaining…
TO BE CONTINUED…
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