Company of the White Oak Campaign - Interlude 6-8

Wealsun 7, 621 CY
The Yatil Mountains
The Obsidian Citadel

Mordenkainen, just shy of his 100th birthday, sat alone in his study. He still considered his mind to be sharp, but his eyesight was now nearly gone. Luckily, he had developed a new spell about a decade ago that created a magical voice that read to him. He could choose the voice and it was a melodic female voice, an elven voice - ironically once belonging to an elf he knew he had now outlived.

The tome being read to him sounded enchanting in that voice, but the words of the book were troubling him now. This work, A Treatise on the Nature of Abjuration by Iggwilv, had played an unsung role in Oerik’s history. When then-Canon Hazen of Veluna, before he became Pope Hazen, used the Crook of Rao to instigate the Flight of Fiends in the year 586, archmages like Mordenkainen saw this as not the ending but the beginning of sealing off the entire continent from dangerous manifestations from the outer planes. Studying this book had been instrumental in Mordenkainen’s contributions to The First Great Barrier Spell, ritual magic so powerful that it had taken Mordenkainen, Basiliv, Leomund, and Nystul to anchor the spell. The spell changed the very way magical gates would work anywhere on Oerik, so that beings native to Oerth could open gates, but beings gated in from the outer planes could not in turn open gates of their own.

But now, as Mordenkainen listened to the book being read to him, he realized these were not the same words he had read before. Was there an error in the casting of his spell? Some flaw in the spell’s creation? Because if these words were true, then…

“A spell could be made to trap us all in…” Mordenkainen mused out loud.

It was just then that the meteor swarm struck the citadel. Fiery missiles fell hard and fast from the sky, crushing through the citadel’s defenses like they were no more than paper, and killed Mordenkainen.

Luckily, Mordenkainen was prepared for that.

Long ago, he had wished for contingencies in place in the event he was killed. Time rewound three minutes. Mordenkainen was still alive, with an idea about what had killed him.

The first thing he did was teleport to the highest roof of the citadel. He watched for signs of his attacker, but seeing no one, he cast Dispel Magic, to prevent the Meteor Swarm spell. But the meteors still came. One of them struck him directly, incinerating him on the spot.

Time rewound again, but this time only by two minutes. Mordenkainen was still on the roof of the citadel, as if he had just arrived there. Someone just cast a spell at me that even I couldn’t dispel, Mordenkainen thought. Terrified, he cast the most powerful monster summoning spell he possessed. Four manticores appeared in the air above him -- right in the path of the meteor swarm. Two of the meteors vaporized the manticores, but veered off course, including the one that had incinerated Mordenkainen. The other two meteors crashed into the citadel, including one into the tower a few floors below where Mordenkainen stood. The tower crumbled and the floor broke up under his feet, but Mordenkainen cast a Fly spell before he tumbled into open space. He soared away from the fiery inferno that was his citadel and down to the courtyard below.

Once he alighted on the ground, Mordenkainen was feeling pretty good about how he’d escaped death. Twice. But then his right leg went weak and then numb. The numbness was suddenly all over the right side of his body, through his arm, and even half his face. He stumbled, unable to catch himself, and fell to the obsidian flagstones in the courtyard. He was confused, unsure what spell could have caused this affliction. What he had no way of knowing was that he had just suffered what physicians on Keith Winton’s Earth would have called a stroke. Not one of his magical defenses was prepared for it, so they did not stop it.

Mordenkainen opened his eyes. He felt groggy, like someone who had slept too long. It took him a few moments to focus on his surroundings. It looked like the master bedroom of the Obsidian Citadel. He was in his own room, in his own bed. Someone was sitting next to the bed, a fat, old man with a white beard as long as Mordenkainen’s own.  The man was dressed all in blue.

“Good heavens…” Mordenkainen said with a voice that surprised him with its weakness. “Is that you, Tenser?”

The fat, old man nodded and smiled. “It is indeed. It’s good to see you awake.”

“It’s good to see you too, old friend. Is it really you? Not a bad clone…?”

Tenser’s smile melted back down to a grin. “No, it’s really me. I just let myself go in my old age.”

“Best time for it…” Mordenkainen tried to focus his thoughts. He should be remembering something. What was it?  …Oh! “Tenser, the citadel was…under attack…”

“I know. The attack stopped.” Tenser rose quickly as Mordenkainen struggled with his bedsheets. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not lying in bed all day,” Mordenkainen grumbled. “I’ve got to inspect…” He couldn’t finish his sentence, as just trying to sit up seemed to drain the last of his strength from him.

“You need to rest, Mord. You haven’t just been asleep. The strain of protecting the citadel was too much on you. You had some kind of …attack of old age. You’re only here with us now because of the healing and curative spells that have been cast on you – just about everything short of a wish spell.”

Mordenkainen felt so tired. He just wanted to go back to sleep, but he struggled to stay focused and ask. “How…long?”

“Two days, it was two days ago. I’ve been here the past twelve hours, most of it sitting here with you. This isn’t the first time you’ve woken up either. You’ve been half-awake, half-lucid, before, and said—“

The silence grew thick in the room after Tenser cut himself off. Mordenkainen had noticed it immediately, but needed to gather fresh strength to speak again.

“What did I say?”

Tenser shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Just some--“

“What…did I say?”

Tenser let out a heavy sigh. “You said…you recognized me and said you were glad to have me here…before the end of all things.”

Mordenkainen closed his eyes. He needed to go back to sleep, even if it was an eternal sleep he would never wake up from. But he still had more to say. He fought for more focus, more strength. “It is right that you should know. Tenser…the end is coming. The past…is catching up with us.”

Tenser felt sure this was not some delusional raving this time. Mordenkainen was struggling to tell him something important. “What, from our past?”

“No…a different one.”

 

Mordenkainen was sleeping when Tenser left the room.

Outside the private chambers of Mordenkainen was a marble-lined hall, with decorative columns reaching the ceiling 20 feet above the floor. Dancing lights circled through the air around crystal chandeliers. Long burgundy curtains concealed the alcoves in which iron golems stood, waiting to defend their master’s chambers. But the only thing that surprised Tenser was seeing Robilar.

“Robilar!” the old, blue-robed wizard said. The mithril woven through his archmage robes was enchanted to be as blue as the fabric. Though bare-headed in front of Mordenkainen, Tenser now had on his turquoise helmet that gave him immunity from all mental attacks. “You still don’t look a day over 50.”

“That’s good,” Robilar said, “because, between you and me, I am starting to feel 57.”

Both men laughed.

Robilar had a white beard now, but his face bore the wrinkles of a man 20 years younger. Though bedecked in gold-chased adamantine plate armor, it was no doubt enchanted to be no heavier than a suit of clothes, and even if It was heavy, Robilar wore his old belt of giant strength. A sword was sheathed at his side, but he bore no other noticeable weapons.

“How is he?” Robilar asked at last.

The smile faded from Tenser’s lips. “Fading fast. It is good you came when you did. I fear you would have missed saying your good-byes by morning.”

Robilar nodded. “And you?”

“Oh…” Tenser said, waving his hand as if to swat away the kind gesture of asking. “Just the ailments that come with old age. Nothing a dab of healing ointment now and then can’t fix…”

“No, I mean, were you attacked as well?”

Tenser nodded in understanding, but then shook his head. “Ah, no, at least not so far. And we do not know his assailant yet either. Though I am heading to see the current Circle of Eight in Greyhawk next to see what we, together, can ascertain.”

“Good. Then go now,” Robilar said.

Again Tenser nodded, then left to find a location in the citadel from which he could teleport safely.

Robilar approached the doors to Mordenkainen’s room, but he did not go in. Instead, he turned around with his back to the doors, like a sentry. He stood there for a full minute, until the sound of Tenser’s footsteps no longer echoed down the long hall, and then a minute longer, through the long silence that followed.

“One does not free as many imprisoned gods as I have,” Robilar said at last, “without being able to smell them coming. …Show yourself!”

There was no response at first, but then shadows began to coalesce in the center of the hall. The dark blot hovering in the air began to grow and take shape.

Every Earth has a legend of death taking the form of a reaper. Oerth was no different, but here that reaper had a name -- Nerull.

Nerull, god of death, stood there like a tall skeleton draped in a blacker-than-black shroud, wielding a terrible-looking scythe. Nerull seldom personally manifested. When he had, men usually died of fright at the sight of him.

Robilar just drew his sword and pointed the black blade at Nerull. “I knew you would come. I was hoping to find the Sword of Kas to battle you with, but it eluded me. I had to make due with borrowing Blackrazor from its current owners. Well? Think I can take you with it?”

A voice that sounded like shovels in the dirt at a grave answered. “Stand aside, Robilar. It is not your time.”

“Suppose I make it my time…” Robilar said, and he charged forward.

Nerull raised one bony hand in the air and instantly cast a repulsion spell. Robilar, though, braced himself for it and stood his ground. Nerull, being a god, simply doubled the power of the spell. Robilar was now struggling to keep his footing and had to take some steps back to steady himself. Nerull threw in a telekinesis spell and Robilar was thrown completely off-balance. He toppled backwards until his head hit the wall. Worse, as Nerull approached, Robilar found he could not move from where he was.

“Stop…face me, you coward…” Robilar said as he struggled.

Nerull moved past Robilar and the doors to Mordenkainen’s room flew open at his approach.

“No…take me, damn you…”

“When your time comes, it will not be my doing.” 

The doors closed behind Nerull as he moved inside. Robilar just laid there, knowing he could do nothing to save Mordenkainen now, as surely as death had spared him yet again.

Reviewing the Beatles Solo Albums in Order - part 14

At the end of 2001, completely off my Radar at the time and ever since until now, was Paul McCartney's Driving Rain album. It had been three years since Linda died and Paul had already done Run Devil Run, a fun album that sounded nothing like a grieving man, but here Paul allows himself to sound sober and somber, like it was time to outgrow "silly love songs" and move on to more serious rock n' roll. Unfortunately, that meant that none of these songs were very fun, and for a Paul song that tends to mean they won't be very memorable -- and they aren't. I thought "Spinning on an Axis" and "About You" were pretty good as I was listening to them, but I already can't tell you a thing about them anymore. The CD came with a bonus track, "Freedom", which was a much better single. It's a post-9/11 anthem, upbeat, simple, but powerful, and completely different from the rest of the album.

Which brings us back to Ringo and His New All-Starr Band (King Biscuit Flower Hour). By now, these concert albums are all starting to sound pretty much alike even when the band members change; Ringo is certainly sticking to crowd-pleasers and no deep cuts from his repertoire. That said, the "Photograph" and "Back Off Boogaloo" versions we get here are heavier rock than we've been used to hearing. It's worth noting, perhaps, that "You're Sixteen" begins with the bit where Ringo would single out an old granny from the crowd, bring her up on stage, and announce she was 16 and sing to her, something that Ringo (thankfully) soon realized was embarrassing at best and creepy at worst and he cut it from his future acts.

This will be the last time we visit George Harrison in this project, as we finally reach his final project in life, the 2002 album Brainwashed. I did get this in 2002 (or maybe in 2003, at the latest) and, while it is no Cloud Nine, and it's sad George did not have one more Cloud Nine-level album left in him, this is still a worthy contribution to his catalog. Although some songs are forgettable, and "Brainwashed" is a return to the cynical paranoid side of George that has cropped up ever since "Taxman," there is some good stuff here including "Rising Sun," "Stuck Inside a Cloud," and "Never Get Over You." "Any Road" is the second best song on the album, but my favorite is another cover song, and perhaps George's oldest cover song ever, "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea." It's fun, engaging, and remarkably memorable -- sort of like George always was, at his best.

What is there to say about Paul's Back in the World Live album? There is no new material here, nor even any new arrangements on songs that I noticed. It's interesting to hear how Paul ended some songs in concert, particularly "Hey Jude." But I'm going to share "Freedom" here because I didn't earlier when it came up under Driving Rain.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loW1binvJ7A&list=PLu3OmtA_M134jBn7fdezkvpkYtH1D0QB_&index=27

Which brings us back to Ringo (from now on it will only be the two of them) and Ringo Rama. It's off to a solid start with "Eye to Eye," Ringo's strongest new song since "Don't Go Where the Road Don't Go." Other songs are more hit than miss. "Missouri Loves Company" is nothing but something to hang a pun on. "Instant Amnesia" does interesting things, veering into different types of songs and seems to be either a tribute or a rebuttal to "Instant Karma" -- I can't figure out which, but it's a song worth thinking about. "Imagine Me There" seems to be a more straightforward tribute to John, which actually makes it less interesting. "Never Without You" is a tribute song to George, but is stronger for its universal application; it could really be Ringo comforting anyone they won't be forgotten, minus the few subtle George references. 

I didn't hear it, but "Memphis In Your Mind" allegedly has a recording of Roy Orbison's famous growl in it, making it the last posthumous song to feature Roy, but it doesn't impress me beyond that (plus, despite what I read, I think the growl is really in the bonus track song "I'm Home" -- which also doesn't impress me other than the growl). 

"I Think Therefore I Rock N Roll" is not a deep song (despite its title) and doesn't really try to be, but is just good ol' fashioned rock n' roll. "Trippin' on My Own Tears" doesn't do anything for me. "Write One for Me" is a curious song, switching between Ringo and Willie Nelson mid-song for no real reason and sadly highlights how much better Willie sings that Ringo. "Love First, Ask Questions Later" appeals to me maybe more than it deserves to; it's just a pleasant, easy rocker with a nice message. "Elizabeth Reigns" is a weird song that, similar to "Instant Amnesia," could be honoring or mocking its inspiration and I can't tell. "English Garden" is a remarkable little song, the first one to feature one of the Beatles' dogs on it, and the first new song to segue into one of the other Beatles' songs -- the short rendition of "Let 'em In" in mid-song is the longest cover of a Beatles song by another Beatle up to this point. Then, again in mid-song, the song stops and restarts as a different-sounding song, similar to the trick he used in "Instant Amnesia." 

The bonus track "Ok Ray" is a lot of fun and a good rocker.  

As tempted as I am to pick "Instant Amnesia," "English Garden," or even "Never Without You" as my song to share off this album, I gotta go with my first choice, "Eye to Eye" --    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UAD4Vq-U3Q&list=PLlKu0fStJqQxM9P-Mm7F3sSD08OmRToAe&index=1 

   

Company of the White Oak Campaign - sessions 30-31

Session 30

Goodmonth 14, 621 CY
Castle Greyhawk

Almost the entirety of the Company of the White Oak – Haruspex Niv, John Grond, Father Langdon, Percy, Reed Underbough, Brother Ulrich the Maimed, Rom Riverbluff, and Gendri, along with the henchmen/hirelings Peter, Biros Frapple, Saraband, Quentin, Herv, and Muelara Wynna – came to the raised drawbridge of Castle Greyhawk. Langdon spoke the magic command word that lowered the drawbridge, and shortly they were all within the courtyard of the castle. The south half of the courtyard was littered with dead bodies and skeletons, all recognized as the remains from their last big battle here.

There was the matter of where they could leave their mules safely. The stables seemed empty, this time, and Peter and Quentin were staying behind to guard them. 

Now the intention was to return to the castle dungeons and find the second level, at last. But which way to go down? John suggested the spiral staircase under the central tower, as it brought them furthest south into the dungeon. Like elsewhere in the upper works, the chapel to Zagyg on the ground floor of the tower was empty and nothing stopped them from going down. They passed the conspicuous lever on the halfway landing and, still highly suspicious of it, left it alone again and moved on to the rooms below.

The first room below was empty and the corridors beyond were silent. Wanting to reach new ground quickly they avoided rooms and navigated the corridors south to where the stairwell from the keep emptied out. But things were very different when they reached that point, for where they had expected to find a long, wide, north-south corridor, there was instead only a landing on a spiral staircase that went far deeper into the dungeon. The north-south corridor was still there, south of the staircase, on a ledge overlooking the shaft. There was still a narrow 5’ passageway heading into the north part of the dungeon level from here. All of this, strangely, matched the map of Ommetog the Shade.

There was no need to tarry on the first dungeon level any longer, so they followed these new stairs to see where they led. After a full circle around the spiral stairs came to a landing on the west side. There was a corridor heading west from here, but the stairs continued down past it. The Company decided this must be the long-sought level 2 and exited into the corridor. Haruspex cast an ESP spell and soon detected thoughts coming from a side passage to the south.

There were two doors down that side passage (plus it led further south past those), but the thoughts were coming from behind the east door. The Company barged in on three dwarves sitting on a scale model trebuchet in a wood-lined room, eating mushrooms. The dwarves picked up their hammers and assumed defensive positions. Several members of the Company could speak Dwarven and they chose to parlay with these three. The dwarves claimed to work for the Greyhawk Construction Company. They did not know who their employer was, but money would show up in their “account” and they would come to the castle. They had found the spiral staircase opened to the lower levels and decided to check it for maintenance before taking this break. They had also just chased four hobgoblins from this room. Haruspex suggested they all travel together to “check for maintenance,” to which the dwarves agreed, but not until after their half-hour lunch break.

With time to kill, the Company went to examine the room across the hall, and immediately heard loud snarling and growling coming from behind the door. Haruspex’s spell, however, detected no thoughts. Langdon’s thoughts immediately went to ghouls, something they had not seen except that one time up in the keep. They barged in and found a room with bas-relief carvings of giant fern-like plants on the walls and a 10’ diameter tunnel leading out of the west wall that was completely, magically dark (as they had seen inside the cairn at the center of the Hidden Dell’s Ringstones). The noise was definitely coming from inside there. A crossbow bolt fired into the tunnel did not overly disturb the creature or creatures. John, suspicious, sniffed and smelled no trace of monsters. But John, Reed, and Herv did venture into the pitch black tunnel to explore it, with rope tied around them and counting out their steps loudly. Or at least, they thought they were. The others did not understand right away why they kept marching in place in front of the tunnel and counting already, but they spun the three of them around and they found they were back in the room. Everyone was sure at this point that the tunnel was just an illusion. They even found Reed’s crossbow bolt, damaged, in the room with them. Before leaving, Muelara, who claimed to be good at finding secret doors, did a thorough search but turned up none.

Although they had been in that room for nearly a half-hour already, they didn’t want to bother the dwarves yet. So they went back into the initial east-west corridor and followed it further west. They reached a room with some skeletons on the floor (which proved to be safe to pass), and from here they could go west or south. They were interested in hunting those hobgoblins and found tracks heading south. These led down a corridor to a door, and behind that door was a wide alcove and a turn in the corridor to the east. There was another door to the north, but the hobgoblins had ignored it, so too then did the Company. But as the corridor turned south, the tracks passed a door with a big lock on it, and this was too tempting to pass up.  

Reed checked for traps on the door, found none, and then picked the lock while Biros watched an expert at work. Inside was a black curtain. Behind the black curtain was a room surrounded by more black curtain. The Company moved into the room and, ascertaining that the floor and ceiling were safe, began lifting back the curtains to check the walls. They found two more locked doors – and a man with a dagger!  The man with the dagger became locked in combat, primarily with John at first, as John tried to grapple with the man and drag him from the wall so more of the party could get around him and surround him. Langdon, Reed, and Rom were able to assist as John struggled with the man. Although outnumbered 12 to 1, the man expressed fanatical confidence that he would win because he was “The Assassin of the Green Claw” and could not be stopped. Only he could, ultimately brought down by Reed who mocked the assassin in his final moments by saying his dagger was better.

It was a good thing no one had been hurt by that dagger because it was clearly poisoned. Haruspex had no qualms about taking that into his possession. The assassin had also been wearing a gold ring set with an emerald (that would later turn out to be very valuable) and had a set of keys. The keys worked for opening all the doors concealed in the room, but one also worked on the trunk they found in a niche concealed behind the north wall. This trunk was not trapped and it contained 1,757 sp and 590 ep. Reed checked it for false bottoms and found a concealed compartment that held …a wineskin? The Company found that odd, but it was excellent liqueur that was so tempting Reed that John had to share his flask of aqua vitae with him to keep him from drinking the treasure.

The first door out they tried was to the west, and right behind that door was five gnolls waiting for them with polearms. The gnolls did not stand there for long; Muelara dropped them with her sleep spell. The room had nothing but straw pallets for the gnolls, but what they lacked in furniture they made up for in coin -- they had silver, gold, and even that rarest of coinage, platinum, on them.  There was another locked door to the west, but the Company was getting impatient waiting to get back to hunting hobgoblins.

They took the south door from the assassin’s room and that connected up with the T-intersection they had already seen at a distance from the locked entrance to this room earlier. Returning to hunting hobgoblins they tried to pick up the tracks again and managed to only because Gendri was so good at finding the faint tracks, earning the nickname Gendri the Hunter from his companions. Soon they were in a new room where they surprised five hobgoblin archers – and dropped them in their tracks with a sleep spell from Saraband. The hobgoblins were lighter on treasure than the gnolls, but they had very fine bows and silver arrows, which all became party treasure.

Sleeping foes did not stay alive for long around the Company of the White Oak, but they kept one of them alive because Gendri could speak Goblin and Niv could charm the hobgoblin. Communication was halting, since only Gendri could talk to the hobgoblin and the hobgoblin would only talk to Niv, but Gendri taught him what to say and then the hobgoblin was ready to lead them there. The path west was narrow and the hobgoblin moved past two wider passages that led north, telling Niv those ways led to a trap. The Company also saw stairs heading up. All this time they had struggled to find the way down to level 2, and now they had found two stairs in one day!

Soon they came to a pair of doors. Niv’s ESP sensed a group behind the south door that were getting ready to sleep and a group behind the north door was eager for action. The Company decided to give the north group what they wanted and sent their fighters in. The six hobgoblins behind the door did not last long in the ensuing fight, but long enough that the six more hobgoblins from the south had time to come in before the Company had time to loot. The six from the south were dropped one or two at a time by Hold Person spells from the clerics, while John and Reed tried to come around behind them (which proved difficult because there was an extra room between the side door they had earlier sensed them behind and the room they were coming from now). The last two hobgoblins surrendered. There were four rooms in total in their lair, but only two of them inhabited. They did not have a lot of treasure, just scattered coins, 518 sp, 44 ep.

Though no one had been hurt yet on this easy expedition, the treasure was starting to get heavy to carry and weighing down the magic-users (who carried the heaviest loads), so they turned around and returned to the surface.   

Session 31

Goodmonth 27, 621 CY
Castle Greyhawk

An abbreviated version of the Company of the White Oak arrived at Castle Greyhawk – the theurgist Haruspex Niv, the anti-hero John Grond, the priest Brother Ulrich the Maimed, and the swordsmen Rom Riverbluff and Gendri (along with the hirelings Peter, Harvard, Biros Frapple, and Vundar). It was not lost on them that they were missing some of their most skilled members, the curates Langdon and Percy, and the cutpurse Reed Underbough. Yet they had an ambitious plan – they were going to descend to level 3 of Castle Greyhawk and see if they could handle it.

Father Langdon was actually already at the Chapel to Boccob at the castle, so the company just joined him there and camped out in the back. The hirelings guarded the mules in the stables overnight, while all but Peter would be coming with in the morning.

Goodmonth 28, 621 CY
Castle Greyhawk

A small party of eight proceeded into the keep. They did not exactly know how to get to the central stairwell from inside the upper level of the keep, but they had seen where the stairwell came down onto level 1 of the dungeon and it seemed like the stairwell should be coming from somewhere northwest of the gargoyle room in the keep. So they went in search of it, ignoring the hinged statue inside the tradesman’s entrance that screamed of a trap to them, and moving into the gargoyle room to find it, thankfully, now gargoyle-free (and indeed, no sign of their remains from months back). There was a pair of double doors to the north they had not tried before, so they did so now, revealing a short hallway lined with statues of noblemen. The company formed up with fighting men all up front and proceeded right past the stone statues without incident (though they remembered well the dangers of messing with amber statues!). Haruspex cast his ESP spell and sensed no thoughts here, but he did sense thoughts coming from the next room – thoughts so alien he could not tell what they were thinking…

Through a second pair of double doors to the north they came into a huge hall that spanned the width of the keep. A blazing fire started out of nowhere in a giant central hearth and they could see a dozens of green, ghostly figures moving around the hall, partying around a feast, with no interest in the intruders. The company cautiously moved inside, but as careful not to interact with the ghosts as they were with the statues. They could see stairs going up to the northwest and northeast into the corner towers, a balcony onto the second floor above them, a door to their right, and an archway to the left – which would lead them in the right direction for the stairwell they sought.

First, they had to cross past two alcoves, each of which had a stone statue of a swordsman in it. One of the statues had one gem remaining for an eye. Again, everyone kept their hands to themselves and moved past – and found the grand spiral staircase! Although the staircase was 30’ in diameter here, the company knew it widened to 50’ in diameter by the time it reached level 2 of the dungeon. It spiraled down clockwise, with a deep open shaft in the center of it. Down they went, spiraling past levels 1 and 2 and coming to a landing on the south side of the shaft on what must be level 3. 

Similar the part of level 2 they explored two weeks earlier, level 3 seemed to consistent of lots of short corridors linked by doors. The first corridor they took west led into a room from which Haruspex detected animal thoughts (of hunger) coming from. They were, then, not surprised by the three gigantic crabs, each at least 5’ in diameter, waiting for them inside the room! Haruspex tried to take them down with his one prepared Sleep spell, but it only dropped one of them.

The fighters all rushed in to surround the giant crabs, with John Grond working his way around to attack from behind. Rom and Gendri were hurt by their pincers, and it was tough piercing those armored carapaces, but soon there was only one left and it skittered away, trying to flee up a corridor to the north. That corridor had ended at a door, but the door opened on its own for the giant crab as it approached.  That still didn’t keep the company from catching up to it and killing it, as they did with the other two. 

There was no treasure in the room, just a 5’ alcove full of dusty offal and a 5’ wide square column in the middle of the room. The corridor north led to a short dead end corridor heading east, to what must have just been a single wall between it and the spiral staircase. These all seemed like ideal places to hide secret doors but, despite the reputation elves had for finding secret doors, Vandur found none here. 

They headed south and then west and found a door where Harurpsex again sensed animals’ thoughts. The plan was to open the door, lure one out, slam the door shut, and kill the one, but when John got the door open and found it had four huge spiders in it, he slammed the door back shut right away. And then the company did something they had never done before – spike a door shut, so it would not open for the spiders like it did for the crab. 

The spider’s lair was either a wide hall or a long north-south room, and they had not seen what was at the north end of it – but finding out did not seem to be worth fighting venomous monsters, especially now that they were out of potions of neutralizing poison. 

They headed south from there, finding an abandoned office with a locked cabinet. Biros apologized profusely when he could not pick the lock on the cabinet, but after some effort and noise they managed to knock the hinges off the cabinet to get inside. Inside was a stack of blank sheets of vellum and an odd sculpture of two metal cylinders, one clearly a stand, but the smaller cylinder attached to the side by a ring and a cord. It seemed to serve no purpose, but was taken with in case it was treasure.

The room to the east of that room had three rotting corpses on the floor, festering with bugs. If the bugs were dangerous, they were too afraid of torch fire to do anything to the companions and they used the torches to scatter the vermin. Nothing of value was found by the corpses or under the moldy straw in the room. 

The next room to the east was larger and had an opening in the ceiling that led to a wide, but low-ceilinged space above the ceiling here. Rom lit an arrow on fire and fired it up into the crawlspace, but it flushed out no monsters. The room was filled with broken trash, bits of what was once wooden furniture, but there was no pattern to its scatter, nor any treasure hidden among it. While searching the room, they all heard a loud hum coming from what sounded like behind the southwest wall of the room. They formed up into battle formation, but nothing emerged from the wall to attack them. And, again, there appeared to be no secret door there.

Haruspex sensed human-like thoughts coming from the room to the south. They barged in on another large room filled with trash, this time including mounds of offal, and saw three large rats accompanied by two rat-men. This time the fighters charged in with only one Magic Missile spell for support. They found the rat-men were resistant to non-magical weapons, so the swordsmen, Ulrich, and Haruspex focused on killing off the rats (a fourth one soon emerged from the dung heaps). John and Harvard (Harvard was using John’s magic javelin) were too much for the rat-men and they went down before scoring a single injury on the company. Sadly, all they were guarding was junk, though the company recovered some rope, iron spikes, and a rusty axe. 

Having seen enough of level three, they returned to the giant crabs, cut off as much crabmeat as they could carry, and returned to the keep. They encountered nothing else until reaching the ex-gargoyle room, where they surprised four men-at-arms.  The men-at-arms were terrified; they had been hired by an adventurer who had come to explore the castle. Something big and shadowy had crept up on them and killed the adventurer, so the men-at-arms fled through the closest door, which led into the keep. Now, though, there was no sign of this ‘big, shadowy’ monster in the courtyard, though they did find fresh blood.

The men-at-arms were invited into the chapel, where everyone was told what they had encountered to Langdon, while Biros cooked much of the crabmeat. Later that afternoon, they left Langdon here and escorted the men-at-arms back to civilization.