After a terrible night's rest, the
group made their way through the rest of the Gloop Gloop House. We found our
way to the boats on the canal, but before leaving decided we should check the
last couple rooms in this house.... now, I wish we hadn't! I guess I should
just be thankful that I am still alive to write about the terror that happened.
DEATH
POOL
Back inside the building, we
discovered a room with large pool. In the center of the pool sat a Gloop Gloop that
was so large that it nearly filled the entire pool. Little Maggie cast a spell to
understand what this creature was saying to us. It appears to have been
summoned here and wanted us to send it back home. Since we couldn’t
communicate back with this thing, it became impatient and irritated and called
for his guards.
The large
creature requested that Little Maggie join it the pool. Convinced that this
creature was friendly and that we should help it, Little Maggie waded in to the
pool! As she approached, the creature lifting her up… closer and closer to its
mouth! When she tried to escape, it threw her across the room. She hit the wall
with a booming thud and immediately crumbled to the floor… unmoving.
Margrave moved
immediately to Little Maggie’s side and called upon his Goddess to heal her.
She still wasn’t moving! I drew both my swords and leaped toward the closet guard.
I struck hard and true, and it was clearly staggered, but not quite dead. The
two guards next to me attacked, but I was able to move out of the way without a
scratch. Katie and her Ogre moved toward
the other group of guards and attacked. Katie injured one, but the other guard
struck Katie and she also collapsed to the ground… lifeless! Katie’s death
through the Gemstone Ogre in to a rage and he killed the oozling guard that
killed his friend.
The giant gloop
gloop in the center of the pool began to rise out of the water, and Lichalia
called out to her Goddess to help us and something truly miraculous happened!
Her Goddess appeared in the chamber and you could feel the energy as she
communicated with Lichalia. You could tell that Lichalia immediately knew what
must happen to defeat this creature. I am not sure what information was
imparted to Lichalia, but she immediately dove to Maggie’s side and began
rummaging through her bag. She found a book and pulled that out and began
frantically searching through the pages.
While Margrave
continued to save Little Maggie, I finished off the injured guard in front of
me, and severely injured the other. Unfortunately, this second guard was able
to counterattack and his strike also landed true, leaving me weak and dizzy. The
giant oozling in the pool moved forward until it was nearly standing over us. The
Ogre destroyed a second guard as I finished off the last guard on my side of
the room.
Finally finding
what she was looking for in the book, Lichalia began chanting some strange incantation,
but was interrupted when a large glob of ooze dripped off the giant oozling standing
over her. Seeing that I had the guards under control, the Ogre turned his fury
on the large oozling looming over head. He appeared to hit it with all of his
fury and I am pretty sure I heard it actually grunt from the blow.
I decided to
sprint across the room and learning from my mistakes yesterday, I slid on my
knees through the ooze from the two dead gloop gloops as I attacked the last
guard. I nicked it as a slid by, but must have been running too fast because I
slid in to the wall. The guard took advantage of this and landed a crushing
strike from his longsword that cut into my shoulder, down through my chest, ending
just above my navel. As the world faded away, I could see the giant oozling
demon spitting some sort of vile goo at the rest of the party…. then I
collapsed and everything went dark
REBIRTH
Nobody ever truly
knows what death feels like, but I know now and I never want to experience that
again! However, the God’s must have had other plans for me because suddenly
that darkness was filled with blinding light and then I took in a deep breath
of air! I slowly opened my eyes and looked around the room. All the guards were
dead, and the giant demon gloop gloop of death was gone! I saw Margrave’s
hugging Little Maggie, and she was hugging him back! Seems I was not the only
one saved this day. Sadly, the same could not be said for our friend Katie Five
Fingers.
As I sat there
regaining some strength, the rest of the party said their goodbyes to the
departed friend. They collected her earthly belonging were kind enough to let
me wear Katie’s armor since I no longer even had a shirt to wear, yet alone armor.
Margrave found some strange other worldly orb at the bottom of the pool. As we finished
collecting ourselves, the Ogre picked up Katie’s lifeless body and carried her
off to… well, I’m not sure where, but I am sure it is safer than this awful
place.
INTO THE WILD
Stunned, battered, and not quite
sure what’s next, we moved to the boats on the canal and loaded everyone up in
to both boats and began following the current. After travelling for about an
hour, we came to an area where the buildings were in ruins on one side and a
clearing on the other. Then suddenly there was a bunch of peasants running out
of the woods toward us. They were being hunted by vampires mounted on
horseback.
As the peasants
were loading in to the boats, the group of vampires approached. My friends
recognized one of these vampires as Korvin the Raven as well as a female
vampire they had previously fought! Apparently, Korvin had sent them on a quest
to find his cigarettes. Fortunately, they had found them on an earlier
adventure. They gave the cigarettes to Korvin, and convinced him that he lost
his “game” of hunting humans since they reached us first. I was amazed that he
agreed and left us go on our way.
One of the
peasant women knows of a village where they will be safe. This was a two-day
journey down the canal. Margrave spent the entire first day praying to his
Goddess to restore his favor with her. It must have helped because he healed all
our wounds the next day.
We arrived at an
intersection at dusk. The peasant woman told us that the hidden village was in
the forest to the North. To the South we could see several large steaming
buildings. She warned us to stay away from them; that they were bath houses for
vampire Lord Szaczard. Because it was getting dark, we decided to escort these people
to the village, spend the night, and then explore bath houses during the day
tomorrow. There was a lone fighter among the peasants we found, Kishtu. Kishtu
has his own armor and a few weapons, so I am hopeful that he joins us tomorrow
when we head to the bath houses. We could certainly use all the help we can
find right now.
Staring death in the face and losing three
friends in the span of a single day… How much of this place can we endure?! So again,
I say, “Farewell my friends. Hope to see you again in the next life!”
~Bheldor
