The Cat People That Weren’t Cat People At All

In today’s pre-Christmas holiday adventure, our team of intrepid characters set out once again in hopes of finding the third level of the dungeon. Spoiler. They were once again thwarted. 

They team - Theodora, Ember, Svenasus the Pegasus, Ves, and Lorna Doone travelled to the local tavern to hire some fighters. They paid 20 gold pieces and were able to hire six men who would each receive half a share. The party agreed to this knowing first, they had been pulling very little lately, and second, most of these guys were probably doomed to die grisly deaths due to the party’s callous behavior.

The fighters, named A, B, C, D, E, and F (promised names only if they survived and returned on a second adventure), were wary but set off with the team to enter the dungeon through the mansion basement entrance. 

Svenasus was again dropped first and with the help of Ves’ feather fall spell hit the ground slightly less hard than last time (there were some weight miscalculation issues) and only took 6 points of damage.

The rest of the party followed on ropes.

The team noticed that a previously spiked door, keeping the naked hairless humanoid cat people locked up, were missing and the group collectively shuddered. They immediately moved to follow their path from last week into the large room, down the hall, and to the crossroad. Back to the even larger room with the elvin statue that had come to life previously.

The statue was waiting for them. But the team was prepared. Ves cast Dispel Magic stopping the statue in it’s place, still repeating the same words from last time. Lorna Coone set to smashing it to pieces, for the valuable metals inside, with her mace. 

The group opened the second chest from last week and a secret door opened on the west wall. Lorna stayed behind with F (holding the door), as well as C and E to guard/help her. The rest of the group went through the secret door. To the north were wall paintings representing the good and heavenly and to the south were the bad and earthly. Ember removed the daggers on the wall with a green stone (the opposite having red stones) from the south, earthly side.

The party then returned to the larger room and the chest. Placing the daggers inside did nothing. Nor did it reveal anything else on the statues pedestal. So they moved onto the pit. The pit seemed very deep so the group sent two hired men down 100 feet of rope, held by Svenasus. It wasn’t long enough so another 100 feet were added and one made went to what seemed to be the bottom where he started screaming. He was pulled up and was physically fine but emotionally broken and screaming about ghosts.

The party didn’t have time to examine this further as F told them that the naked cat people had just entered the room. They didn’t look as much like cats as the party thought but they were hairless and eyeless and creepy. 

Theodora used her Fireball scroll and burned them all to death. And the party decided to go back to the cat room from the beginning and see if there was an idle there.

Lorna had finished collecting all of the precious metals and they were loaded into Sven’s saddle bags. And the party departed. 

Opening the door to the “cat” room hallway presented the group with four more “cat” people, some large and some small. A fight ensued. There was spear jabbing, daggers, and Burning Hands. They were all vanquished. They party went to the room and moved across it to find another door. On the other side was a corridor and a room filled with snakes. And the party, knowing their time was just about done, turned back and returned to the shaft. 

Theodora cast Levitate on Svenasus, as every one grabbed a hold of him, and the party was transported up and to the mansion again...

No richer, and with no more idols...

- Theodora

 Return to the Mansion Entrance - 12/13/20

The intrepid group of adventurers, this time Ves, Theodora, and Svenasus the Pegasus, opted to venture down the shaft through an abandoned, ruined mansion into the dungeon. Svenasus had to just drop down, sustaining some damage. The others climbed down with rope.

Theodora had some familiarity with the entrance, haven taken in before, but the rest of the party was new to that part of the dungeon.

They group entered a 30 by 30 foot room with doors to the north, south, and west. To the north, Theodora remembered looting so the group went south. There they discovered a room filled with naked scary humanoids as well as goblin like creatures who frightened the group badly enough that they turned, spiking the door three times and the following door was spiked as well. The eyes will haunt them.

And so they ventured west. In that room, a large space that seemed silent and empty, there were Bugbears. The adventures tried to escape through a door on the south wall as Theodora burned the monsters with Burning Hands. This mostly singed and angered them. But the party escaped, even after almost leaving Theodora behind to her fate (she took 4 hit points of damage).

The Bugbears gave chase and Theodora used Push to hold the door closed. The group moved down the corridor and to the west, to the east they saw the Bugbears who followed them but then fell back. The monsters did not follow them to the large bronze doors emblazoned with snakes. Theodora remembered as snake monster behind those doors who demnbaded to be fed. The group turned away. 

They circled around and ended up back in the main room, heading back into the Bugbear room and headed north this time. They saw a door but then heard the same Bugbears behind them. This time they fought.

The Bugbears inflicted damage on the party and then Theodoras put them to sleep and the group killed them as they slept. Taking what little money they had.

They went through a door in the west wall and entered another hallway. At the intersection they could go south but this appeared to head back to the snake room. Or go west but this path headed upwards. Or north which was a graduated down tunnel, so they took this path. 

The group ended up in a very large room, they could not make out all of it. There were two large chests along the east wall. One which demanded glory, the other sacrifice. Further along the north wall was a slab, a table, which had cracked and lead down into a pit. And in front of it was a large elvish statue figure with a sword through its chest. 

Ves casted protection from evil on theirself and opened the glory trunk, it was empty, but as they did this, the statue came to life, pulling the sword from its chest. It was 10 feet tall. The group chose to run for it and come back with more people to fight another’s day, exited the way they came, and levitated to the surface.

Ves and Theodora visited Xylarthan and Ves learned the Feather Fall spell for when they party returns.

And now it is time to rest.

- Theodora the Gnome