We started in the small elevator room that they ended in last time. There was a door to the north and south. We went south. In a small hallway, we could smell something bad coming. The next room had soil on one side, the rotted remains of some sort of organic material. Xeelie was hesitant to enter so Oakwood stepped up and prodded the soil with his reach Bo Staff. A fungus creature emerged and let loose a gas cloud. Unfortunately, it extended to where Oakwood was but fortunately, he saved. We rolled initiative and moved up as we could. It was tight quarters. The two of them weren’t much of a threat and only TerStegan was hit for little damage. Xeelie did her Detect Magic and as usual, she detected something new but we had no idea from where. We did the dance of moving around to no avail. There just wasn’t any room. TerStegan even dug through the dirt. Eventually it occurred to someone that the elevator might be magical. A Crafting roll said that it didn’t sound mechanical when we rode it so it must be magical. We moved on.
The next room had a big pile of flesh parts. The source of the smell. Oakwood thought it looked like another Gibbering Mouther which turned out to be true. Thankfully, it was dead. There were also two, what turned out to be, ghouls in there, praying to it. Brisco went first and fired a cantrip. On its turn, it ate a chunk of flesh and healed itself. TerStegan was hit on that first round, infected with Ghoul Fever and paralyzed. He stayed that way throughout the fight. The save DC was stiff although it did lower by one each round. He could do nothing. Xeelie did her Tumble Through thing and Oakwood moved up to give an alternate target to TerStegan. And then one of them leapt across the front lines and landed between the two casters in the back. One of them got paralyzed too. 2 of 5 unable to move and it looked dicey. Oakwood managed to Trip one which gave Xeelie two sneak attack hits, one of which was a crit. Oakwood also crit and then finished it off when it tried to stand up. 3 against 1 swung the odds back in our favor and it was dropped, trying to get to the healing flesh.
We made a bunch of rolls. The disease increases in severity once a day and Treat Disease took 8 hours of care so we couldn’t really do anything about the afflicted TerStegan and Brisco at this time. Oakwood did Treat Wounds on TerStegan while Brisco and Xeelie searched. With Xeelie’s new witch healing focus spell, TerStegan was good to go. We found nothing although we did avoid messing with the mound of flesh. We decided to press on after talking Brisco into taking 10 minutes to Treat himself. The next room was back to the library we had seen before. We saw a ghostly figure that looked a lot like the portrait of the head craftsman we saw in the workshop. He took a book from a ghoul and then faded into the floor. In the center of the room was a column of blue light with bits of flesh flowing through it. The light looked a lot like the Gauntlight Tower light however we didn’t think we could stop it here. We had to go down and stop it at the source. The librarians seemed ghoul-like but not as menacing. One asked what she could help us find. Xeelie spoke up from the back and asked for a book on Haunts. We were told we needed to go to the scriptorium for that.
So, we were led through the library, past shelves of books, ghoul librarians and lots of closed doors. The scriptorium had many desks for scribes to transcribe books. And a skeleton on the floor. Soon enough, a Haunt appeared and told us to get to work. She was the head librarian and assumed we were new scribes. Xeelie agreed that we were and got to work. Oakwood tried to explain that we weren’t scribes but was mostly ignored. Once we got to work, the Haunt touched a secret button which would open a secret door (to her office?) However, since she was a ghost, she just walked through it. One of our books had a letter put in it. Another letter from the Dr whose footsteps we seemed to be following. What I can remember, it said that as long as we worked, the Haunt wasn’t a problem. That the temple to the north was “interesting” but the priests were “touchy”. And something about a grand spiral staircase. It also guided us to a sack with some gems. Oakwood searched the skeleton and found a small portrait of the chief craftsman. He was a Cavern Elf although the Haunt of him looked a bit different. He also found a tiny iron key but no one saw anything to use it on in this room. Lastly, he removed the Chain Shirt. At this point, we decided to head home and deal with the disease.
Back in the library, one of the ghouls invited us to meet the high priest in the temple. Clarisa made a Recall Knowledge on the carvings around the door. The goddess of death. That told us they likely wanted to sacrifice us. We said, no thank you and moved on. There was some debate as to the quickest way back to the stairs up but Xeelie got that right. From there, it was up and out. We had no trouble until we met a 4-person adventuring party around a fire by the entrance. Evidently it was almost midnight in the above ground world. They were eager to trade information but since we knew way more than them, we didn’t give them much of anything. It helped that we were ”just kids” so they assumed we didn’t know anything. Evidently, the mayor had invited them to come over here and they were pleasantly surprised that someone had already cleared out the first level. You’re welcome. TerStegan suggested they start with the Gauntlight tower, to face the blood Delcora. Was that evil? Brisco mentioned our run in with undead. They had heard about the graveyard attack from the mayor, and again it didn’t occur to them that we could be the heroes that fought them off. They said they had found a way down a level to the mushroom men and were tackling that in the morning. At least they’re going a different way. If they get killed, we’d get lots of good stuff. Is that evil? But they look more formidable than the town guards.
Once we got TerStegan to stop talking about the Rose Guard Lore, we made it back to the club house. Brian assumed we could deal with the disease. And also assumed we could identify magic items. The bag had 4 one-use weapon talismans. We decided to sell those. And some medium strength anti poison potions that got distributed. The doctor’s letter had warned us about poison users coming. The miscellaneous wealth got distributed as well but it wasn’t much. The big ticket was the +1 chain shirt. TerStegan was eager to convert it into something he could use. But it was a 5th level item so, while we could use it(?), we couldn’t Craft with it. Oakwood asked if anyone could use it in the meantime. The Rouge could but since she lacked the STR, it would give her -1 on DEX skills. Plus, it had a DEX cap of +3 so she’d be losing out on some of it. The Sorcerer spent a feat to be able to use light armor so she could use it. She also lacked the STR but didn’t care so much about DEX skills. But she didn’t fight much. We assumed the Druid could not use it since it was metal but further research says PE2 removed that WotC limitation. We gave it to Clarisa for now, however when she turns 5th, she’ll likely bump her DEX to +4 at which point, maybe it will be converted. She went from the least wealthy to the most wealth and now Oakwood is on the bottom.
