Session 17: Cost of Living (part one)

Game Date: 11/16/07
In Game Date: Novander 29th

The day dawns gray and drizzling with rain as the party stares into the forbidding depths of the entrance of the ruins. Grumble strides forward into the gates, only to have a portcullis drop down both in front and behind him. As Badger desperately searches to find a release switch, Grumble begins to be pelted with small, spiky stones that glow with an eldritch green light. Through the dim gloom the party makes out several small hunched figures slinging the rocks at Grumble. Nialia distracts them by summoning monsters to charge the wizened, red-capped gnome-like creatures while Badger slips through the bars of the portcullis and begins searching the inner walls of the gates for a release. Quirky squeezes through the first set of bars to grant Grumble some much needed healing. Grumble has cast almost all his javelins, but the distance, dim light, and the well-constructed earthen berm the creatures are taking cover behind keep him from doing any significant damage.
Finally Badger finds and triggers the release for the portcullis trap and scampers out of the way of the rocks now being slung her way. Slipping under the rising bars, the party can do nothing but charge into the hail of stones being cast their way and engage the small but powerful creatures in hand-to-hand combat. Up close, the party has the advantage, but not much of one, as the murderous fey creatures shrug off much of the damage dealt by the party’s weapons and magic. Finally Nialia casts a spell that causes the wounds of the fey to quickly fester, weakening them. Grumble takes two of them down in one mighty blow, and the rest fall quickly after that. The redcap bodies vanish, leaving no gear behind except for one long, sharp tooth for each one slain. Curious, the party gathers them, resolving to ask someone knowledgeable about these things later on.
The ruins have an evil pall felt by the party, but most especially by Quirky and Nialia. Quirky finds his healing spells less effective, and is hard-pressed to shake a feeling of dread that grows the deeper into the ruins they go. Nialia shifts into lupine form and tracks their quarry’s scent through the ruins. They find one body, evidently slaughtered by the murderous redcaps they just fought. Another body is found in the lair of a huge fiendish carrion crawler. The carrion crawler gets the drop on the party, and it's tentacles paralyse Rowan, but Quirky is ready with a handy remove paralysis spell. Rowan and Grumble keep hacking at its hide and dodging the tentacles filled with paralyzing poison. It is Nialia who finally steps forward, throwing her Python Rod up onto the abberation’s back, where it transforms into a giant constrictor snake. The party backs away as the two creatures writhe and grapple with each other. The snake, though, clearly has the advantage, and slowly crushes the life out of the carrion crawler. Smiling smugly, Nialia commands the snake to turn back into her staff.
Following the trail still further into the ruins, the party finds the corpse of the wizard who bought the diamond off Rascal. His body has been slashed and torn, and no treasure, diamond or other, is found on his corpse.
Just then, a sweet, siren song fills the air. Badger and Grumble begin to walk, entranced, towards a darkened stairwell that seems to be the source of the sweet music. The rest of the party manages to stop them, but the song continues, and the dwarf and gnome struggle to draw near to whoever is making the beautiful music. Finally not one but six harpies fly out of the stairwell, hovering and wheeling about the tall chamber. The song’s effects begin to wear off, but not before the harpy, evidently a sorceress of no mean power, starts hammering the entire party with destructive spells.
During the fight, Quirky casts a particularly powerful spell in the form of a black bolt that reeks (to Nialia’s senses) of evil. Nialia files that gross incongruity away as the party desperately tries to pierce the harpy’s mirror image illusions. Quirky has his hands full casting healing spells as quickly as he can, but takes a few hard hits from some searing rays. Rowan, who was hit hard by a cause fear spell early on in the battle, recovers magnificently and puts an arrow right through the eye of the harpy, killing her instantly.
Beaten and bloodied, the party finds the diamond they seek, as well as other gold and jewels. Also in the treasure hoard is an old, blackened book. Suspicious of such an innocuous-looking item, Rowan and Badger have Quirky cast detect evil on the book. Quirky casts his spell and is nearly blasted into next week as the overpowering malignance of the book stuns the poor gnome. He tries touching his holy symbol to the book, and his symbol explodes. Quirky realizes they’ve stumbled upon one of the few extant copies of the Libris Stygia Vilius, the fabled Book of Vile Darkness. This explains why so many evil and aberrant creatures had been drawn here. Shuddering, the party wonders if this was the treasure that the previous party sought. At any rate the party locks the book in a trunk, and throws the trunk in their bag of holding. The evil aura of the book can’t penetrate the bag, being a pocket of extradimensional space. So contained, Quirky states that a only a priest of great enough ability (greater, unfortunately, than Father Tillok), can destroy the book utterly.
The party gladly leaves the ruins behind them, riding hard during what little daylight they have left to put distance between them and the rotting evil of the ruined keep. They make camp some ten miles north of the ruins in a clearing off the road. Quirky, insisting he’s not as badly hurt as he seems, takes first watch, allowing the healed but exhausted other party members to fall into much-needed rest.