Balder the Brave

• Balder Dash (gnome wizard) - Jamie

• Donk Platebreaker (human fighter) - Jeff

• LATE: Elvis Ghenna (elf bard) - Shane

• Malcolm Gandhi (gnome thief) - Kevin

• Red Feuersturm (human temple fighter of Hob) - Chris

• Slim Jim (human rogue) - Darryl

• Sophia Beauchamp (half-elf priest 21) - Ian

• Walton Formalin (half-elf mystic of 21) - Andrew

Balder peers into the gloom

They had decided that it was to be a stealth mission, sneaking into the town of Brian via the old mines and underground tunnel, to rescue the kids' mother from the cells. Cousin Malcolm and the Priestess Sophia were to undertake the actual risky stuff, and I, Balder, was to enable it all using my Invisibility spell. I had offered my Fireball, as yet untested, but they felt that it would be too conspicuous. Pretty sure it would be spectacular though!

They figured that 2am would be the ideal time, the Gnolls having had some few hours to carouse through the evening, and then be thinking about rest and sleep.

As my internal chronometer ticked over to 1am, I signalled to the others that it was time and that we should be off. Casting a simple Torch spell onto the head of my staff, I peered out into the mines, trying to remember which tunnel we needed to use.

"This way" noted Walton confidentially, leading us off down one of the mine tunnels.

Leaving Elvis, Slim, and the kids at the mine entrance, the rest of the party trudged off after Walton and Donk, through the mines, along the old escape tunnel, and held our final briefing just before the tunnel's hidden door into the cellar of the old Brian Inn. Walton reemphasized the strategy again. I was to cast the Invisibility on Cousin Malcolm and Sophia, they would slip up the ladder into the Inn, stealthily make their way around the town wall past all the Gnoll guards to the location of the cells, where Cousin Malcolm would unlock the doors, release the kids' mother, and then they would sneak her back here. Simple.

Cousin Malcolm, Sophia, and I moved forward to the cellar door, and I cast my spells.

"Pop" went Cousin Malcolm, disappearing from sight.
"Pop" went Sophia, also disappearing.
"Ten minutes" I reminded them, as faint footstep noises crossed the cellar and scuffed up the ladder.

Then I retreated back to join the others and waited ....

... and waited ...

... and waited ...

Donk is like a wall all by himself

After maybe fifteen minutes I heard noises from the cellar. Peering between Donks legs I spotted Cousin Malcolm and Sophia dropping down the ladder and crossing the cellar towards us. They didn't look to be in any hurry, and in fact they stopped halfway across the cellar and Sophia cast a spell. It looked like a Detect Magic, and then she cast a Torch spell, and carefully studied the cellar wall in the soft glow from the Torch.

Turns out there were some magical Dwarfish runes carved into the wall of the cellar, and a creepy feeling of being watched had alerted Sophia to their presence. Weird!

Anyhow, as anticipated, the rescue mission hadn't quite gone to plan. There were a number of Gnoll guards patrolling the top of the town walls, and two small squads consisting of a Gnoll and a leached Wolf patrolling around the central stockade. Plus, two alert Gnoll guards stationed at the door of the cells! Which only had one set of barred windows, right next to the door, and the guards.

"Too challenging" stated Sophia, "and we are all out of magic points!"

We dejectedly trudged back to mine entrance to rest up for the day. Once we arrived there and reported to Elvis and Slim, I took one of my recharge grapes and dropped into restorative sleep.

Waking about nine hours later, I found that my magic points had still not fully recharged, and nor had Walton's, or Elvis's. We decided to rest again, while the others explored a bit more of the mines to see if there was another path to the town. That led directly to the cells, Slim hoped!

I took another of my grapes, and again dropped into restorative sleep.

Exactly ten hours later I woke, magic points fully restored, and itching for some excitement. Walton explained that we would have another run at the cells, but this time with a distraction to lure away the guards outside the cells.

"Fireball?" I asked hopefully. 
"Nope" replied Walton, "too conspicuous".
"I can burn something!" suggested Red eagerly.
"Nope" replied Walton, "too dangerous".
"I'm going to have a crack at it sometime!" I muttered quietly to myself.

Due to the extended magic recovery duration, this run was going to be slightly later that yesterday. If it took us an hour again to get to the cellar, that it would be a 3am start. Maybe the guards would be gone then? Ha!

And off we all went again, except for Elvis, Slim, and the kids. Same trip up the tunnels, same plan, with a little diversion thrown in to get past the guards at the prison.

"Pop" went Cousin Malcolm, disappearing from sight.
"Pop" went Sophia, also disappearing.
"Ten minutes" I reminded them, as faint footstep noises crossed the cellar and scuffed up the ladder.

Then I retreated back to join the others and waited ....

... and waited ...

... and waited ...

"Yawn"
It was so boring just standing there behind Donk.
"Hadn't Sophia said something about magic runes on the wall of the cellar?" I wondered.
"Those sound really cool. I could just have a quick look while waiting" I mused.
"The others will be back shortly; I can just meet them in the cellar" I figured.

Three runes were carved into the wall

Moving forward into the cellar, I could definitely feel the sense of being observed that Cousin Malcom had mentioned. It was emanating from the wall on the right, between the secret entrance to the tunnel and the ladder up to the inside of the Inn. Sure enough, there were three runes carved into the wall there. They were low down, about my height, so easy to see and to explore.

Tracing the runes with my finger I noticed that the central one was surrounded by a faint joint in the stone. Does it move? Giving it a light push, there was a detectible movement as the block of stone on which it was carved slipped slightly back into the wall. Wow, cool. Maybe it would move a lot? So I gave it a decent shove. The whole stone block slid back with a click, and a panel of the wall silently swung open to reveal a level tunnel leading off into the darkness. A stale musty smell wafted out in a puff as the secret door swung open. Wow, cool. Surely this would lead us to the prison, and we could just get the prisoners out without even going into the Gnoll infested town! Hopefully Cousin Malcolm would be back soon and we could just head off down this way.

Sure enough, just then the trapdoor swung up and the sounds up climbing rattled on the ladder. Still invisible. That's good I thought, no desperate action could have been required on their trip.

And sure enough, no desperate action had been required. All lights were out at the other Inn, but still the roving patrols on the walls and around the central palisade with two alert guards on duty at the prison. Sophia managed to get a look into the prison, through the barred windows beside the guards, and there were three separate locked cells inside there. Too tricky they decided.

Mistress Quail was spotted

They even spotted two humans who were wandering about the town as if they owned the place. A burly male fighter in black chain mail, and a weirdly dressed women in a red and black patchwork costume, with a hat thing with two read and black dangling tails. 

Sophia reckoned she would be a Priestess of Mister Quail. 

Mmmm, suspicious, humans working with the Gnolls to subdue a whole town. To dig for something ...

Everyone was pretty excited about my discovery of the door leading to another tunnel though, so we planned the exploration and set off. Red as the muscle in case of encounters, me for leadership and magical support, Cousin Malcom for sneaking, and Sophia for ... um, ... maybe her sneaking skills too.

Activating the Torch spall on my staff, we moved cautiously forward. The tunnel was pretty spacious, obviously hand carved through the rock by superior Dwarven craftsmen. Well, when I say spacious, Cousin Malcom and I found it spacious, Red could just fit his bulk in by turning slightly sideways, and Sophia had to duck a little. So, single file, and spacious for us Gnomes anyway. Red led; he was good at discovering problems and I let him take the point position.

After about fifty metres, the tunnel opened up into a small square chamber, a ladder running up the left-hand wall, and a closed door on the far side. Given the distance we had come from the cellar, I figured we were probably directly under the barracks building.  No way we should test out the ladder and go up there, so Red strode across the chamber and stood in front of the door. As he reached out for the big doorknob, he hesitated, and looking back at Cousin Malcom, asked about the possibility of traps.

"No traps here" stated Cousin Malcolm confidently, after activating his Detect Traps spell.

Red opened up the door and squeezed into the tunnel. He led us on for another 40 metres where it opened up into another chamber, with a ladder up, but no other exits. I figured we were probably directly under the second Inn building. The prison was attached to the end of that building so somewhere over on our left by about thirty meters should be the cells. Unfortunately, in that direction was just the carved stone wall of the chamber. Maybe there is another hidden door?

Running my hands over the wall on that side of the chamber I noticed a minute roughness and the hint of a door there. After some careful prodding, another hidden door swung open to reveal a dark tunnel leading on towards the prison and the cells. Perfect ...

But the tunnel just kept going, right past where the prison was expected to be, and on to probably the other side of the town. This wasn't going to help us get into the prison ...

The tunnel stopped at a 1.5m diameter well shaft that extended up to the surface above, we could see stars glittering up there, and down about 3m to water below. On the left of the shaft, ninety degrees around from our tunnel, another tunnel led off to the side. It was going to be a tricky manoeuvre to cross the well shaft to the next section of tunnel. But not to worry, I knew Spider Climb!

After casting the Spider Climb spell on Cousin Malcolm, he shimmied around the corner with a torch, and explored the next section of the tunnel. His quiet commentary drifted back to us for a few minutes.

"Same size as the rest of tunnels, so pretty spacious"
"Maybe ten meters along here to what seems like a dead end"
"This end wall is as smooth as"

"No signs of a hidde ...."

His commentary cut off in mid-sentence, no exclamation, no gaps, no noises, just gone.

I cast Spider Climb on Red, and he squeezed himself around the well shaft and into the other tunnel, his huge sword held out in front of him; in case of silent enemies, he stated.

Once on the other side, he threw back his rope and pulled Sophia and I across too.

"While I can still climb" he said, "I'll pop back and report to the others"

[Chris was heading home. He was also planning to be away on vacation for a few weeks, so we extracted his character from any possible hazards ahead and sent him back to the others who were waiting safely at the secret entrance to the Inn cellar]

Still no sign of Cousin Malcolm, so I began looking for any sort of door mechanism. Low down towards the floor there was some kind of rough patch on the smooth end wall. As soon as my fingers brushed across the centre of the patch, POP, magically teleported to yet another room.

Cousin Malcolm was there, the idiot, just looking at the Dwarven runes carved all over the walls. There was one exit from this room, not counting the wall where we had arrived. Casting Detect Magic, Sophia noted that the wall where we arrived was actually magical, and she was able to POP back out through the wall. And back in again. She left a note there for the others so they would know to follow us in!

The three of us decided to explore further, and we peered through the other exit into another man-made chamber, again carved out of the rock and covered in Dwarven runs. An opening led away on the far side of the chamber, and sitting in the middle of the chamber was a large stone sarcophagus, its lid partly off and tipped down to the floor. Tracks from some large creature with claws, talons, and some form of dragged tail, were scattered across the floor, and led in and out of the far opening. A pile of dried (but still warmish) faeces sat on the floor near the exit. Ewww

Sophia cast a Detect Magic and reported that something magical was in the sarcophagus.

A dwarven skeleton lay inside

Malcolm scuttled up the sarcophagus lid and peered into the sarcophagus. 

"Some old dead Dwarf" he exclaimed, "Wearing armour, with a big ole axe, and a gold compass thing"

"Don't touch anything" I yelled, as he reached forward, and he quickly scuttled back down.

We followed the footprints through the opening, around a curving tunnel, and into another, larger, chamber. This room had two closed sarcophagi, and a pile of rock where one of the side walls had collapsed into the room. A dark system of old natural caves loomed menacingly on the other side of the pile of rock. It was pretty obvious to me that some ancient creature had found its way into this tunnel system from the caves/mines beyond and disturbed the first sarcophagus that we had found. No doubt it was still out there somewhere, and we would find it in due course.

In the meantime, Sophia cast another Detect Magic and reported that the two seals on the sarcophagi were magical. These magical seals consisted of a continuous band of some form of metal that spanned across the joint of the sarcophagi lids, holding them closed, and keeping whatever was inside them, in.

"Don't touch those" Sophia commanded, as Cousin Malcolm reached towards them.

Not willing to brave the unexplored caves, we retreated back into the first room with the open sarcophagus. It was time to make sure that nothing bad was lingering here.

Detect Evil and Detect Traps were cast. Both negative, fortunately.

A strange golden compass was retrieved

Sophia carefully reached for the golden compass, cautiously touched it lightly, then lifted it out of the sarcophagus when nothing happened and slipped it carefully into her backpack. Cousin Malcolm climbed up the sarcophagus lid again and laid his hand on the shaft of the huge axe.

"I couldn't even use this baby" he noted with a grin, then jumped backwards with a shriek.

The Dwarven skeleton rolled over, tugged slightly on the axe, and then crumbled to dust.

Cousin Malcolm peered back over the side of the sarcophagus, and then retrieved the axe.

Deciding that we had done all we could without the rest of the party, we prepared to head back through the magical door and join up with the others. Sophia went through first, that I touched the wall in the triggering location, but nothing happened. Cousin Malcolm had a go, nothing! Sophia was out, and just us two Gnomes left behind in the caverns with the sarcophagi. Bloody typical.

We poked and prodded at the wall to no avail.

And then Sophia appeared again. Cousin Malcom nearly shat himself when she appeared right over him. She said it was the golden compass that was the problem, so she had left it outside in the tunnel. But there must have been something else, because we still couldn't leave, and nor could she!

So, now we were all stuck on the caves side of the magic door, the rest of the party somewhere on the other side. We tried for quite a while to get back through, but eventually decided that we would just rest there and hopefully the others would arrive at some point. I was pretty confident they would. And I didn't really want to head out into the caves where that old monster might be lurking.

Leaving Cousin Malcolm to watch over us, Sophia and I dossed down to natural rest and spell recovery.

"Don't wake us unless it's really urgent" I told Cousin Malcolm before curling up in the corner of the room next to Sophia and closing my eyes....

[The knickers incident occurred during Balder's rest, so he didn't witness this. Perhaps a separate post will be required that covers this particular incident, so everyone can share the mirth]

The mighty dwarven axe