The Records of Deklan Greenfellow

Day 93 cont.

Was able to identify the "Terkow" as a very unique form of fleshless vampire, powerful, but without the immunities that more mundane vampires possess. We continued to the next chamber and found 3 sarcophagi, 2 sealed and 1 open and filled with blood. Through a team effort the two sealed ones were opened and it is here we found the crystals that the map had pointed two- 9 crystals to be precise, with the "Fertility" rune. I suggested that we empty the sarcophagi filled with blood. Kali asked Corrigan to put on the special pants once again, and he produced a bucket, which she then used to ladle the blood out. I simply watched and encouraged her efforts which apparently made her uncomfortable, as she handed the bucket to me to finish. I emptied out most of the blood but was unable to find anything else. We then departed and flew back to camp.

That night I made my special stew, but the effort was wasted, as the creatures were too dull to know any truly interesting spells. Their dominate ability appears to be innate rather than the product of a spell, unfortunately.

Day 94

Checked on the status of the Aspis and Pirates this morning. The Pirate camp looked in disarray, and one ship had left. Only about a dozen pirates remained. I spent the day with Julliver trying to uncover the next rune, but we did not have success. That evening, Reegan gave me a potion that cured me of the energy drain I had suffered, and this night I was able to finish my Greater Rod of Piercing.

Day 95

Checking on the Pirate camp this morning revealed them all departed. We decided to check out what remained, as we had done with the Mantis. We flew over and searched their former camp, but found little left. Several pirate weapons lay about, and we took a few for keepsakes. We did find a tiny cache of 15 gold pieces, which Corrigan mightily plundered. We returned to camp and again Julliver and I worked on the map-rune, while the others explored. We did have a breakthrough this day and uncovered another location- the rune of Righteous Anger was located in the extreme NW section of the city, in the military district. We flew our expedition there and entered a cave that was at the location. This time, the ambush came from a giant dire crocodile-that appeared to be undead. After we killed it, we looked at the webs it had been "hiding" in and realized that it was "corpse-spun" and had been the victim of a Corpse Spinner spider. which possesses a poison that will turn a living creature into an abomination like we just encountered. It cannot be snuck up on, and can dimension door and plane shift. As we were going to be venturing further into its lair, I determined that if we had to fight it, that I would try to relieve it of those abilities. Fighting a teleporting Corpse Spinner would make a difficult situation much worse.

We continued on and were charged by 4 corpse-spun Boggards. They poisoned and tongued Reegan and Julliver, which was probably fairly unpleasant for them, but we were able to dispatch them quickly. I decided to summon my Lions as bodyguards lest the spider's first move was to teleport behind me.

We continued to the next chamber, which was much larger and filled with webs. The Spider appeared in the corner, and several of the others charged after it, and promptly got caught up in the webs that were all over the chamber. I anchored it to this dimension to keep it from teleporting to where it could do the most damage. Reegan got hit by the Spider with a jet of silk, and managed to retreat by flying on his carpet. With almost everyone trapped (save for Julliver-yay.) I decided to summon an Azata to keep the spider occupied for a time. I then created a Flaming Sphere and, after getting telepathic permission, used it to the burn the webs off of Reegan.

He then flew my Flaming Sphere up to the middle of the chamber, and I sent it to burn the webs off what I thought was an entrapped Corrigan. As the Flaming Sphere bore down on him, I was rather abruptly informed in my mind that he was not in fact trapped, but that he was trying to free Kali, and I had just misinterpreted his thoughts. With that potentially awkward situation averted, I assisted him in freeing Kali (with the burning). After Reegan and Kali were freed to assail it, it went down quickly. Corrigan found the crystals hidden in a small niche- four of them, this time. We also found a gnarled staff. We stand at 6 out of 7 crystals located, only 1 more to locate before the rescue operation can commence.

Day 96

This morning I performed my customary check of the remaining competing camps, which due to the effects of the pernicious spores had dwindled to one. The Aspis appeared to be nothing but a memory at this point, and we decided for the sake of completeness to examine the grounds of their former camp as well, even though past such efforts had yielded very little.

Kali, Corrigan, and myself flew over on Reegan's carpet to the site. Reegan stayed behind, I believe he considered the excursion to be a waste of time. Discipline and adherence to procedure does pay off however, as in examining the structure that served as their primary headquarters we found some treasure, information, and magic items! As we jovially assembled the loot, we were interrupted- the camp was not as defunct as I had suspected. The leader of the Aspis as well as a small cohort of mercenaries confronted us and demanded we hand over the items. We had a brief exchange of ideas, centered around determining exactly which party in these negotiations deserved the title of "looter", before we refused their demands and battle was joined. I protected Corrigan from crossbows 2 of the mercenaries were employing, while Kali charged in the middle of the group, accomplishing twin objectives of being surrounded by the enemy and denying me the use of my area effect spells. We adjusted to the situation and Kali ended up sustaining only light wounds. Their leader demonstrated some arcane casting skills and I took some blood along with the skin this time (for completeness's sake). I have a number of magic items to look at tomorrow.

We returned and Reegan, Julliver and I spent the day working on the last piece of the rune puzzle, while Kali and Corrigan explored the city. The three of work remarkably well together, and we had arrived at the solution when they returned. Ironically the last rune-Wealth- was hidden near the original Pathfinder base. We prepared ourselves and flew out to the site.

We were ambushed by a group of 8 Charo-Ka warriors overlooking the entrance to the cave we had pinpointed. We quickly dispatched them and I noticed some green fluid oozing out of the head of their leader. I took my own sample this time- I have some ideas for testing it that Reegan need not be involved in. Kali noted that all of the monkey-men wore an armband designating their membership in the Maka'eeka, a group of mercenaries. Apparently these armbands can be turned in to a particular city to fetch a bounty of 1000 gold. After Corrigan unsuccessfully attempted to convince Reegan to start a counterfeiting operation, we entered the cave.

The cave had been cleaned to an almost immaculate state. I speculate it was someone's effort to rid the room of mold spores. The center had two large beds-pallets of dried grass. We carefully started through the large room to the other side, when our group was hit by two simultaneous Cones of Cold. The spells were administered by two large Ogre magi. They proved very formidable foes as they were both strong and dextrous casters. Reegan, or as we found out later, his construct-body, were knocked unconsious for part of the fight. Thankfully, we found that one of the abilities of the Reegan-construct is that it will repair itself after sustaining terrible injuries. While Corrigan flew about on the carpet assailing one of the Ogres, I was able to Curse the other when it threatened to kill the snake, buying just enough time for a badly injured Kali to intervene and for Reegan to come to. The Ogres wore the same armband as the monkeys outside, although neither of these two had the green ooze in their heads.

Continuing....

We entered the cave into