Barons of Pogrom Island—Situation Report for Queen of Lies—22 November 2003

1. You do a lot more looking around in your Drow disguises and end up freeing an elf called Nethalkin and T-Bird (another of Crayon’s followers) from a torture cell. You then do some more looking and acquire another crystal globe from another spider goddess chamber. Stealthily exploring more of the central Tower, you come across a hallway that Crayon believes is heavily trapped. After some more reconnaissance, Cadra enters the hallway with Rafael, and Cadra simply vanishes, releasing a Mohrg – an undead creature that looks like a decayed Drow that tries to attack the party. Crayon gallantly pushes past everyone and calls down the will of Essencia to smite the Undead creature. Bathed in divine light, Crayon causes the creature to flee back into it’s chamber (Ivan rolled a 20 turn dice).

2. Meanwhile Cadra had been teleported to the torture cell discovered earlier, and luckily for him, the party had left the cell open when they freed Nethalkin. After some door breaking, Cadra rejoins the party just before they enter what turned out to be Alevolenz’s chamber, the female Drow who is the head of House Vrama. Happily she is not here, but the party are still attacked by a Clay Golem while they are “working” (well Ballard was, he found the secret door while the others were looting). Strangely it tears itself open and releases an Arachnemass – a being made up of millions of tiny spiders that act as a single entity. Nethalkin wets himself and does the bolt for his life out the door you entered by.

3. Dodging the Arachnemass everyone makes for the secret door Ballard is holding open and it leads to a large bed chamber. Found a white milky orb floating next to a large bed. Minilir, the Dark Elf consort to Alevolenze was here in his stunning hat. When it looks like he’s going to cast a spell on you Ballard saves the day and does a charge as only a true warrior will, and knocks him off his feet. Both Palmerin and Ballard lay into him big time and bleeding heavily, he starts glancing around while trying some kind of spell. Thankfully Palmerin is close because Minilir unsuccessfully tries to grab Ballard and then disappears. From the opposite corner of the room Adestra and her mirror images warn that the globe still there and the hat that Minilir was wearing are both magical.

4. Searching the room you find some naked bodies inside a strange sculpture that have had their brains sucked out of their heads. Ballard swears under his breath as he realises Minilir really is a Mind Flayer and he nearly had him. Crayon asks Adestra to use the crystal ball to see if she can scry out Larze, or Alevolenz. She can’t see either, although she likes the idea of using the crystal ball to get intelligence.

5. Since you cant get the only other door out open, Crayon suggests going ethereal to get out, noone wants to go against the Arachnemass. You check out the whole level from the border ethereal plane and discover a secret chamber opposite the one Ballard found. You also find the treasury and six chests, and sticking your ethereal heads into them find treasure and that the last chest is actually a creature.

6. Going with Cadra’s suggestion, Crayon makes you all re-appear on the prime material plane in the other secret chamber which looks like a torture chamber. You find Kisandir, an Elf who has been badly tortured still chained up. He tells you about Alevolenz torturing him and that she has a secret conjoined twin in her abdomen. She’s the high priestess and the hidden twin is a sorcerer – a bad mix. He also says that she and Minilir often argued, but that Minilir always had the final word. You find a fair bit of good stuff, including a Bag of Holding and treasury keys, but no Beacon of Essencia, no Larze and no Ring from the Jama Plane.

7. You decide to go out the secret door back into the chamber with the Arachnemass and do the bolt to the exit. Cadra is starting to look more like a sardine every hour and can not outrun the mass of spiders in his plate armour (a snail could run faster, you swear it). He tries a fighting retreat, desperate not to be hit by the spidery mass. Somehow he gets past the Arachnemass, but not before you have considered shutting the door on the slow bugger.

8. You eagerly head across the hall to the Treasury you now know about. But yet another trap (and there have been heaps) kills Rafael, one of Niahm’s “people” who was unlocking the door. The room has 6 big chests, but you don’t know exactly which one was the mimic. After setting off still more traps on the chests and melting the keys to open the rest in the process, Cadra finds a heap of gear and gold and narrows the mimic down to the last chest. Crayon, ever the entrepreneur, strikes up a bargain with the mimic (nicknamed Mick). He convinces Mick to guard your treasury on Pogrom in return for food and breeding rights, and you find that Mick can speak both Common and Drow – an interpreter at last!

9. There is some discussion of leaving with the treasure and leaving Larze and the Beacon behind to rest on Pogrom Island, but Cadra is on a roll and wants to keep going while the Drow are on the back foot.