4/19/17 Gahldra and the crew were exhausted. After narrowly escaping death at the hands of the blue sorceress they decided to sleep. It was around midnight after all and Gahldra was still slowly recovering from her contact with Bobugbubilz. An hour or so into the first watch, the long-dead warrior, Kaschei, began pushing through the doorway into the companions' sleeping quarters. He began challenging them to a dual in his usual slur and Maugrave and Theedie did not take the interruption well. A fight was inevitable this time. Gahldra, meanwhile, slept right through the entire encounter until someone shook her awake. When she saw blades drawn she sprung awake, grabbed her shovel and rushed to join the fray! "Ung... wha... Woah a battle! Who's ready to DIE!?" Kaschei hacked and slashed through Gonzo and one of the newcomers, but the party quickly retorted with a blinding fury of magic and swordsmanship that left Kaschei bleeding out from his severed sword arm. The group was quick to divide up his equipment and they soon returned to sleep. Morning came and the sun began to rise but, to the party's horror, so did Kaschei and the slain newcomer! Kaschei complained that he had been robbed and unfairly beaten but soon left saying he had somewhere to be. The group decided to return to the hole beneath the flagstone that was filled with flies and the stench of rotting flesh. A perfectly logical place to want to return to. Upon reaching the place, it quickly became apparent that no armored creature would be able to fit down the tiny shaft. The group hastily decided to disrobe and descend - sending the unarmored wizards and peasants down first. "How dangerous could it be?" they thought. Gahldra, Gonzo and the newcomers quickly reached the bottom - even before the remaining party members had finished disrobing! Gahldra, though, reached the ground even quicker than the rest as she slipped from the rope ladder and fell the last ten feet flat on her back. The chicken she was carrying fluttered gracefully down after her and landed gently on her chest, clucking a sort of chickenly chuckle. "It wouldn't have hurt so bad if I hadn't landed on by shovel..." She tried to regain her breath and footing without inhaling the swarming flies, but she found that as Gonzo and the newcomers reached the bottom, the flies were leaving them and assembling themselves farther down the tunnel... into the form of a giant man. The fly-man somehow retrieved a sort of club and splattered one of the weak peasants standing over her. It seemed this would be their last stand. Realizing the danger, Gahldra called upon Bobugbubilz for a favor - to help them live to fight another day. As she began the incantation, she realized it was her first time ever calling upon Bobugbubilz in this way and that she honestly didn't know how the magic was going to function. She realized quickly that the incantation was causing some sort of disruption within her. She suddenly felt as though she was naked - completely exposed to the corruptive power of the supernatural energies she had tapped into. Fear began to overtake her as time seemed to slow to a crawl and the enormous and hideous eye of Bobugbubilz opened once again from the blackness that fell around her. It seemed that he had heard her call... but his unblinking stare was cold and apathetic. Then... she understood why. She clutched her chest, suddenly in the worst pain she had ever been in. She screamed but no sound escaped her lips; gasped for breath but found her lungs empty. She felt as though her life was being ripped from her still-living body and then... she felt nothing. Bobugbubilz had gotten what he wanted and it seemed that she was nothing but a pawn to the creature all along. A rag to be used and thrown away. She hadn't the time to feel regret for the life she had chosen or to object to fate's cruel flick of the wrist. She was gone before she even reached the muddy cavern floor - her soul torn free and absorbed into the demon's gaping toothless mouth. The companions fought hard to destroy the fly-man and save Gahldra from the grips of death, but it was too late. Before the companions had even fully registered she was gone, Bobugbubilz's demonic envoy appeared to retrieve her lifeless body and returned home to feed the innumerable amphibious hosts that live there. The group went on to find the secret "Demon" card and defeat the Fool in his numerous and powerful forms, but Gahldra would never hear of their successes. Their feats and their narrow escape from the the Jester's hellish demonic playground would go unseen and unheard by her and from the blackness of death there would be no cheers or congratulations... only silence.
