|
|
|
We received a lead on the whereabouts of the ranger today, plus gold and potions for Rosco and Jutiapa. I’ll be able to get assistance in scrying for my amulet next time I go to Galantry city.
After renewing our supplies were are on our way to the Fort of Sablestone.
The wilderness to the fort is rough and I’m unused to this sort of travelling but needs must I suppose.
We were attacked while resting for the night in a cave. Gargouth awakened us with a bellow and the entrance to the cave became a wall of flame. Cronnen dowsed the flames with water from nowhere and Gargouth charged out of the cave. Then it all went dark as the cave entrance was magically sealed with rock. I lit up the blade of my dagger with a quick spell and Jutiapa dispelled the magic keeping us from getting out. Cronnen and Rosco charged after Gargouth. Jutiapa got into a close quarters fight at the cave entrance so I sent six magic missiles in two volleys to assist her (I’m sure they should have done more damage as I really like that evocation spell).
By the time I left the cave there were dead bodies littering the floor and Cronnen was disappearing down a hole. I closely followed Jutiapa after him and watched him run pick himself up and run through an underground river as if it wasn’t there, and indeed it was an illusion. We leaped a dark pit to find ourselves face to face with the mage who had trapped us in the cave. “Don’t move or I’ll collapse the roof” he screams in fear, his hand poised on a lever. Cronnen unconcerned advances and that’s the last I remember as tonnes of rock knocks me senseless.
I awaken to find Rosco reviving me with one of my own potions. With Jutiapa the three of us follow after Cronnen who has gone ahead. Faced with a fast flowing river that is three times wider than the imaginary one we faced before Jutiapa quaffs half of her flying potion and is away. I change myself into a mermaid and plunge into the icy flow not thinking that it is fresh water! I get to the other side without too much trouble and row the boat that Cronnen used to get across to pick up Rosco.
We find Cronnen and Jutiapa examining a magic door but in my haste I get them to stand back and I shatter the frame to allow us passage. Through the door we find a storeroom with another two doors. There is dried meat and grain, three chests and an awful smell of stale sweat, which I make a lot more pleasant with a simple word and a wave of my fingers. Rosco busies himself with checking the chests for traps so I suggest to Cronnen that he take some of the meat as it lasts for ages. Surprise, it is another illusion that hides a small glowing chest. Finding no traps in the other chests Rosco attempts to open this more interesting find and is blinded by the only trap he didn’t check for. Cronnen he hero that he is simply ignores the light and finds lots of gold and gems and a couple of items that Jutiapa identifies as a Deck of illusions and a gem of earth elemental control. Rosco informs us that the first of the other three chests has a false bottom. This reveals more gold so Cronnen starts to hack at the second chest with a dagger but doesn’t appear to crave my advice (I’m sure a paladin isn’t supposed to use such language in front of a lady). Rosco opens the third chest by touch alone and I peer inside to see that it has no bottom. I experiment with marbles and string to find that it is a magic darkness at the bottom of the chest to cover something bellow. A bad smell assails me as Cronnen makes a hold in the chest he’s been hacking at all this time and manages to plug it before we all retch. We carry it back to the river, tie it up and throw it in to let the gas seep out without affecting us further. Cronnen rows back to find out what is happening above and I lower Sidney into the blackness of the chest and through his eyes I see that there is a room below with a single door. In the mean time Jutiapa has cleverly found how to open the other doors to this storeroom. With the return of Cronnen we close the doors and the chest and rest for the night. I only hope we can get to Braylec soon as a blind rogue isn’t much good at finding traps.