Bizarre Safari: A Traveler's Guide to Goblin Land, Pt.4

The Nature and Astronomia of Goblin Land

I don't understand Goblin Land quite yet.  I cannot easily explain it's mysterious flora, fauna, or stars.  I've found the celestial curiosities especially inscrutable.  I'm afraid that the best I can do for you is to simply describe the things I've seen.  Even then, I'm sure to do it poorly.  What words of ours will help me paint the colors which I've had to train my eyes to see?  One feels them first at the back of one's eyes. After a time the eyes will then adjust.  Can I then train my pen to write them down?  I shall try my best.

The sky here is not blue at all, but an obstinate shade of green.  It's green like a pool of stirred algae, green as a bright jade stone.  The days are lit by a pair of suns.  The larger is perhaps the same size as our yellow sun, but colored instead a piercing bluish white.  Close beside it is a second sun, tiny by comparison and colored in a deep crimson.  These suns change position a bit each day.  They take turns leading one another across the sky.  About once each week the small red sun hides and is not seen at all, perhaps afraid of the blue who swells up with anger making these days hotter than most.  On the next day the red sun emerges again and seems to have calmed his blue friend a bit.  No matter the day, the blue sun is always painfully bright.  To my eyes, it's light has a certain thickness.  The colors of our clothes and skin all seem slightly skewed.

If anything the nighttime sky is even more bizarre.  The stars are all wrong and I can't make sense of them at all.  I see none of the familiar constellations.  The stars here show far more variety; some of them shine in colors that I've never seen before. 

The nights are lit by three different moons.  You might not see all three in a single night, but to go until dawn without seeing at least one is very rare indeed.  At first glance they each appear to be the size of our familiar Luna.  By stretching out an arm and holding up a thumb for measure, one can see slight differences in their size.  I've compared all three against my thumb on many nights, and impossibly they all seem to take turns at being the smallest and largest moon.  One of these moons is rather blueish, but a thick white-gray haze slowly creeps across it's face; it looks to me like a great milky blue eye now blinded by cataracts.  The second moon is a moving patchwork of color with shades of purple, black, and blue; this moon is the darkest of the three.   The last one is the brightest, and reminds me most of our familiar Luna.  It is mostly white with spots and splotches of grey and black.  Perhaps this is our Luna with her face turned away from Goblin Land, but recently I've come to think of this moon as the lost sister who once was Luna's twin.

Artwork by aanonymvs

The procession of days, nights, and seasons seem to pass much the same in Goblin Land.  The time you spend here is equal to the time you've lost back home.  However, these two worlds have their schedules misaligned.  While England is having a rainy dawn, Goblin Land might have clear green skies with the double suns riding high at midday.  I don't see any obvious pattern to these discrepancies, but I haven't yet made much of an effort to study them.

On the whole Goblin Land seems to be a drier place than England, but at least the clouds and weather seem familiar.  Storms come and go much as they did back home.  When the heavens open, it is good pure water that falls.

Mostly I've seen scrubland and rolling hills, but I've seen lakes and forests too.  The plants here are not green at all, but instead a variety of purples.  Leaves, needles, sprouts of new growth; all purple.  Also, I do not recognize any of the twist of branches or shapes of leaves.  These are not simply purple oaks and pine, but something altogether new.  Among the trees I've found some fruits to eat, and others to avoid.  The most common type of grass has tufts of thick fat purple leaves shaped similar to aloe.  If you find yourself in dire need you can boil these down until they are soft enough to chew.  It's not very pleasant, but it is safe to eat and easy to find.

The most common animals by far are lizards.  Well, either those or bugs.  They scurry here and there in infinite shapes, colors, and patterns.  Some of these grow to enormous size, there are ants here larger than men.  Gone though are the mice, and bats, and bears, and boars, and basically anything with fur.  There are cats now, but we brought those here.  Oh, and once I saw a kind of rabbit thing, but it had big bulging compound eyes like a horsefly so it may have been some manner of hairy insect.

Stay sharp if you head out into the wilds.  Watch for the large flying lizards, they'll sometimes carry off man-sized prey.  Tread careful when you aren't on rocky ground, occasionally a great toothy worm will burst up from below.  Also be wary of large nests that lie upon the ground.  The eggs might belong to a six legged Frostilisk who can freeze you solid with a glance.  Many dangers in the wilderness can be avoided if one just stays alert.  Yet even if the path is known, a wise man hires guides.

Bizarre Safari: A Traveler's Guide to Goblin Land, Pt.3

The Focus of my Fear

My first journey beyond the portal to Goblin Land was most disagreeable.  The strangeness of the place turned my dungeoneering instincts into paranoia.  Danger is no stranger of the strange, and so I know to be wary of weirdness.  But here, everything is an oddity.  Each look I took fed my fear and tension.  I was jumping at shadows, and raising my shield at the buzzering clicky-clucks of the buggybirds.

Artwork by Sjemenka

As it turns out, I needn't have worried so much.  I hope these written accounts of mine might help set your mind to ease.  The dangers of Goblin Land are similar to those of England.  To get a sense of it, just replace the desperate bandits with burrowing death worms who have toothy mouths at both ends, and instead of vicious soldiers there are four armed red men flying on pterodactyls who will drain the fluids from your living decapitated head to fuel their strange machines.  On second thought, "similar" might be the wrong word. 

What I mean to say is that the dangerous things tend to be obvious.  I haven't seen a tree or rock eat anyone yet.  I'll grant you that it's not an idyllic place, but at least there are no kings and queens to scrape and bow to before you're caught in the middle of their stupid war and die.  We make our own way here.


~
Excerpts from a strange travel book left at the Abbey of St. Emmet within Jeff Rients' Wessex campaign "A Surfeit of Lampreys", as written by my character, Vithujin the Elf.

Bizarre Safari: A Traveler's Guide to Goblin Land, Pt.2

Excerpts from a strange travel book left at the Abbey of St. Emmet within Jeff Rients' Wessex campaign "A Surfeit of Lampreys", as written by my character, Vithujin the Elf.


Down and out in Goblinville

When we first arrived this place was much different.  There was no goblin merchant, and the entire village was abandoned.  Just a collection of broken hovels at the bottom of a crater surrounded on all sides by a steep incline.   The looted shacks were either falling apart or burnt to ash; it was a ruined ghost town.  Around the perimeter of this village are eight passages dug into the steep incline at the bottom of the crater.  The portal we came through was one of these.  I know that a few of these lead back to various parts of the dungeons under Dundagel.  Perhaps they all do.

Artwork by Illeander

Turg (our goblin guide) explained to us that many of his kinfolk had been captured as slaves by the brown skinned people with three eyes or killed by purple skinned raiders.  With their numbers dangerously low, the remaining goblins decided to cross the runestone portal and seek safety within the dungeons of Dundagel.  A desperate plan indeed.  Some of the purple raiders pursued them and crossed into our world as well.

That was when we stumbled upon the pack of goblin survivors.  We knew nothing of their plight, of course.  The first words we heard from them were not greetings but the magical mutterings of their shaman.  We all sprang to action.  I threw my spear at the shaman hoping to disrupt his spell.  It not only pierced his right shoulder, but pinned him against the wall as well.  Then I pulled my blade and ran to finish him.  I'm not in the habit of leaving enemy spellcasters alive.  After that I spun around and saw the fight was over.  The scene was carnage, my comrades had cut down all the goblins save one.  That last goblin wisely chose to drop his weapon and surrender to us.  Thus Turg became our prisoner.

Luckily Fred the Dwarf knew the goblin-speak.  We bound Turg's wrists and questioned him, but suspected his words were lies.  It was decided that he should travel with us, so Fred began leading him through the dungeon by a length of rope.

We threatened to kill him if he tried to escape, but we need not have bothered.  He was telling us the truth; the goblin people were utterly wrecked and broken.  I hate to imagine how Turg must have felt that day.  Even if we let him go, where else could he have possibly gone?  At this point, every familiar friend he had ever known was either dead or enslaved.  I think it would have been cruel of us to set him loose.  Without home, hope, or haven; just a poor lost soul, forever floating, like a shadow in the darkness.  He needed our protection, and he knew it.  He was quite content to be our prisoner.  He even told us that we treated him more kindly than the shaman ever had.  For our part we were not quick to trust a goblin, but Turg proved his loyalty to us time and again.  He became a useful ally, and eventually our trusted friend.

Since then we've found and freed many goblin slaves, perhaps 30 in all.  They seem to have accepted Turg as their leader and have returned with him to Goblinville.  They were an instrumental source of unskilled labor as we built our stronghold up on the edge of the crater, looking out over their ruined village.  We invited all of them to live and work within the safety of our walls, but some (like the goblin merchant) have chosen to rebuild their old homes.  I suppose they feel safe enough within the shadow of our keep, and after all the time they spent in captivity the taste of freedom must be sweet indeed.

Bishop Aethelred has begun calling the goblins to mass within his newly built Chapel of the White Queen.  His teachings have made an impression on them.  They're slowly learning to solve their problems using words rather than fists, the importance of telling the truth, and best of all... hygiene.  They've really taken to the morals within Aethelred's teachings.  Their memory of the bible stories are atrocious though, which we elves (Lankii, Sonoma, and I) find highly amusing.  Our new pastime is to ask the goblins what they know about Adam and Eve or Moses just to hear some ridiculous thing come out their mouths.  Sometimes Aethelred informs us that they are actually telling the story correctly, which only makes us laugh even harder.  We mean no offense, honestly, it's all just so... delightful.

Anyhow, the town is growing and looking better all the time.  It seems that the soil in the crater is poor for growing, far too rocky and hard, but no one has gone hungry yet.  Thankfully there is a forest of sorts growing near the crater with fruit and some small creatures.  The elves we led here are trying to learn all they can about the strange new flora and to expand the forest.  Fred and the other dwarves insist we keep the trees the hell away from the walls of the stronghold, which is fine.  There is some debate now raging about planting some trees within the stronghold itself, but I'll keep my nose out of all that.  I'm beginning to worry though about the great family of feral house cats we rescued from below Dundagel and released into these woods.  The cats seem to be doing well since they are quicker than most of the other predators.  The trouble is that according to the goblins, the small lizards of the forest are becoming harder to catch. If the trend continues I suspect they'll begin to hunt for cat instead.  I think they would be eating the cats already if not for their great respect for Aethelred.  His affection for his cat, Billy White-Paw, is quite well known.

Perhaps we should lead some chickens and goats through the portal next.  I'll ask the others to invest a few coins to help prevent a goblin famine.  I'd buy the livestock myself, but I'm essentially bankrupt now after paying for part of the construction of the stronghold and my continuing magical research into creating the Gommagolem.  If successful I'll have made a magical, slightly corpsey automaton infused with the spirit of my dead friend Gomma.  For now I'm just glad that I was able to reanimate his skull; I can't imagine having to lose any of my closest friends.  Eventually, I hope to have him walking about, sleeplessly protecting Goblinville and guarding the portals that we've sealed.  Whenever I command him to answer, he tells me that he is very excited for the opportunity with his usual understated response "If I must".  He's such a card.

Bizarre Safari: A Traveler's Guide to Goblin Land, Pt.1

Excerpts from a strange travel book left at the Abbey of St. Emmet within Jeff Rients' Wessex campaign "A Surfeit of Lampreys", as written by my character from the every other Wednesday night tabletop crew. 


Bizarre Safari: A Traveler's Guide to Goblin Land

An Introduction

Good health and long life to all who read herein.  I am Vithujin the Elf, member of the adventuring group called the Silver Shields.  I am a dungeon delver and obviously no great sage, but I'm no simpleton either.  In my youth I spent a few short decades learning the lore of my people, and studying from the arcane texts.  As a resident of the guesthouse at the Abbey of St. Emmet, I've heard countless stories and wild rumors.  Back then, I thought I knew a little something about everything.  Yet, never have I seen reference nor heard any whisper to even hint at the existence of Goblin Land.  Without any clue or warning, I simply stepped into a new world and saw it all with my own eyes.  It is a vast, unknown, and alien realm.  I feel compelled to document this strange and colorful place.

My companions are not too keen for me to share these secrets.  They fear that my words will encourage other explorers to come and exploit the meager resources we've worked so hard to find.  I hope that they forgive me.  While I share their concerns, I know that others will stumble through the portal eventually.  We have made allies among some of the alien peoples living in Goblin Land, and I would hate for others to kill them simply because they look so strange.  We are striving to forge alliances here, and even a single such incident might ruin our reputations and plans.  They aren't all friends, there are dangers here as well.  Some are enemies to be avoided or swiftly killed.  So, I've decided to share with you all that I can about this strange world, hoping that in return you might respect our friends and help us fight the red four-armed bastards who think they own the place.

Whenever I return to see blue skies and familiar stars, I plan to leave a few new pages with the monks at the Abbey of St. Emmet.  I hope they might copy and bind them, making my words available for any who wish to read.  I may well find my end while exploring Goblin Land.  Perhaps these stories at least can be your guide even if I cannot.

Finding the Portal to Goblin Land

With mystery and magic quickly fading from the Earth, my friends and I are working to lead many into a strange new realm. We call it Goblin Land.  We're attempting now to seal all the portals to our old world, save one.  I'm sworn against providing exact directions, so the best I can do for you is share the few lines of cryptic poetry we've left with the remaining elves and dwarves in case they wish to follow.  Seek us out, noble heroes.


In Goblin Land we'll wait for you. So should you wish to go;
You'll make your way to Dundagel, then down the depths below.
No map nor guide knows where we hide.  Will you find where we are? 
Thresh on the Throne of Melting Flesh, you've likely gone too far.
Within a stark plain corridor the portal can be found.
Carved in the wall and eight feet tall; it's open, large, and round.
These silent seeming circle stones are ringed by glyphs and runes.
Does still their builder live beyond, beneath the triple moons?
The path is blocked, the way is shut, so close but yet so far.
A dwarven metal wall keeps safe the goblin made bazaar.
In center stands a sturdy door now double locked and barred.
This tough blockade is smartly made, but entry isn't hard.
You'll find no hinge nor handle for we loathe to be surprised.
So knock and smile and be polite and soon you'll have arrived.
Here lives the goblin merchant, who I'll thank you not to kill.
Beyond his store through the other door, there lies Goblinville.

Caves of Myrddin: con session 2

Massacre in Dundagel

Everyone from the previous expedition returned to test their luck a second time. Many new adventurers joined our ranks, and spirits ran high as we set off for the ruins once more. All told, a dozen of us entered Dudagel. Only five returned alive.

We saw an 8ft long, sickly white lobster with four pincher claws, black hair, a womans face, red eyes, and pointy teeth. We all snuck around her while she was stuffing big gobs of rotting grey meat (dead sandworm?) into her awful gullet. An orc told us later that she/it can make an orc's head explode just by looking at them. Yikes.

The orc also told us about a local dungeon wizard who was building some crazy spiral pyramid out of metal and wood. Going after the wizard seemed like a good idea at the time. Oh, how wrong we were.

See, it all happened like this...

The structure is in a huge room. It has metal support columns holding up a long wooden ramp that winds it's way up and around to the top of the 50' structure. On the top is a platform with a 9' tall demon idol in the lotus position, lit by the big green flames in the palms of it's hands. It casts a strange flickering green light around the whole chamber.

While most of the party is busy searching and listening, Vithujin (Elfy Don't) decides to climb the ramp to see what's going on up there. Ian of Scotland goes up right beside him. Feelings of sickness and vertigo soon follow. A spell of protection from evil seems to help Vithujin recover, but Ian has no such magic and soon stumbles and falls toward the edge of the ramp. Vithujin tries to save him, but only manages to grab his holy symbol. The chain breaks from his neck as Ian tumbles over the edge. The fall doesn't end well.

Vithujin continues upward. Once he's close enough to the idol, he starts splashing holy water onto it. Well, that just pisses it off. The green flames shoot up into 6' pillars of green flame until the holy water evaporates moments later. Vithujin's eyes go wide and he slowly turns and heads back down the ramp.

Shortly after that, we decide to have Father Demetrius say a few words for Ian. His body is placed a short way up the wooden ramp and the whole thing is set alight as a funeral pyre. That's when a pair of basalt golems burst through one of the many sets of doors, and the wizard enters the chamber with them. He wears armor with a circuit board type pattern like in the original Tron movie, and a cylon centurion style helmet with one long narrow eye slit. He yells "Kill the intruders!", and the golems begin to lurch forward.

We all scatter and flee before them.

Most of the party runs back East, the direction we came from. Shorty the Halfling and Corbrun the Fighter head northeast and go into an unknown room. Vithujin heads northwest into a short hallway where he waits and watches to see what the wizard does next.

The bulk of the party is slowed down by one stuck door. Only Liddia the Elf makes it into the short hallway beyond, where a second door won't budge at all. As the basalt golems rush toward him, Frederick the Dwarf turns and fires his crossbow at the wizard. The bolt stops in mid air and then falls to the ground.

The wizard begins casting a spell just as Vithujin uses the power of his magical sword, but the wizard is too fast. The wizards magic flies eastward and erupts into a fireball. The magical fire stops just short of Liddia, who turns and sees those behind her die in flames. Only Frederick the Dwarf survives the burning horror.

Vithujin uses the Sword of the Frozen North to call forth the North Wind to envelop the wizard. The intense cold damages the wizards armor and cracks begin to form. The magic circuit system overloads and light pours out from the cracks in the armor. The wizard screams "Noooo!" and then explodes.

The golems both start swinging.

MIA

Jimbob the Elf and his hopeless loser sidekick Grungy the Dwarf (Jerry) - Both vanished suddenly without a trace. These were our first losses, reducing our party to ten. I'm not sure exactly where we lost them, perhaps some premonition of our fate convinced them to bugger off and make for the surface. (No, Jerry just had to leave a little early. He seemed interested in FLAILSNAILS though. Having Jimbob and Grungy return for some Google+ games would be pretty cool.)

In Memoriam 

Ian of Scotland (played by Ian), a cold-blooded cleric who seemed ravenous for pork. He became disoriented by evil emanations coming from the top of the spiral ramp he was climbing. He continued upward, but lost his footing and fell to his death. Evil architects never build safety rails you know. 

Wilbur of Stramshall (Brad) - An elf. He charmed an orc named Selgak the "Mighty" (mighty stupid). Then convinced Selgak to challenge the orc chief for control of the redneck orc trailer park village. Selgak was knocked unconscious with a single punch to the face. When Selgak awoke, we congratulated him on his stunning victory, having "somehow" stabbed the orc chief in the head with a crossbow bolt. "I didn't know I had it in me" said Selgak. After that we had Selgak and some of his orc underlings lead us to the wizard who had been giving them trouble. Selgak was leading the way when he was suddenly smashed into jelly by a stone golem. I should probably skip over the part where Wilbur helped us to quickly shut and brace the doors after the stone golem pulped Selgak. Some of his orc cronies were still in there and started banging on the doors before they were silenced by sickening thuds. We aren't proud of it. Please don't judge us too harshly. A bit later, Wilbur was burnt to a crisp in the fireball that killed about half the party. 

Lightfoot the Elf (Jim) - An excellent cartographer and finder of secrets. He "inadvertently" snorted some of the stoned dragon's psychedelic purple haze while trying to store it in a flask for later... hmm. Later on, he used his once per session d30 for a saving throw vs. fireball. Rolled a 1. He and his lovely maps were reduced to ash. We had to scoop his remains into a sack, but that was abandoned after the zombie attack. Lightfoot's runed gemstone that shoots lightning bolts might still be in the dungeon somewhere. 

Deadly One-Shot Dandy Wasdewy (Matthew) - The guy who actually shot the orc chief in the head. For some reason his 2hp (2nd level) thief did not survive the fireball. I'm not sure if the still-beating black demon heart survived the fire, but I know it make it's save vs. poison when it got hit by that dart yesterday. Wasdewy's was the only body we successfully brought back to be buried in the abbey cemetery. Rest in peace you scoundrel. 

Demetrius the Cleric (Joshua) - Stood bravely before a pack of a dozen zombies and managed to turn 9 of them. Presided over the makeshift dungeon funeral of Ian the Pig Slayer. I think it was even his idea to use the wooden spiral ramp as a funeral pyre. Demetrius also perished in the fireball. As we were dragging all the burnt corpses back the abbey, those 9 zombies found us and killed yet another member of the party. That's when we abandoned most of our dead friends. As a result, Demetrius and the others could be charred zombies by now. This was Joshua's first ever of D&D session. Great game dude! I'll save you a spot at the table anytime. 

The Unknown Elf (Ian's replacement character) - I never caught his name. Two of our party members (who managed to avoid the fireball by splitting from the group and running into unknown rooms) found him wandering in the dungeon alone. He knew a shortcut and led them to safety, probably saving their lives. We all met up again and he became the 13th party member, helping us drag bodies up to the surface. Then he died. One of those 9 zombies got a crit and crushed his skull. Fate sucks dude.

The Harrowed Survivors

Liddia the Elf (Moira) - Put a bunch of orcs to sleep, allowing us to capture and charm the others. Helped us hack out way through the last mob of zombies so that we could finally escape the dungeon. She seems cool and collected even in the stickiest situations, though I imagine the image of burning party members may haunt her dreams forever. 

Shorty the Halfling (Erick) - Short of statue but stout of heart. I'm glad he was there for the last battle, running between legs and hamstringing zombies. 

Corbrun the Fighter (Scott) - "I'm loving this empty room" he said as most of the party burns in the fireball. Yep, going northeast was a good choice. Slew two of those zombies I think. 

Frederick the Dwarf (Chris) - Dude survived a figgin fireball followed by a pair of stone golems trying to pummel him to death. Hard-core. Those golems powered down once they lost sight of us all. They might reactivate to fulfill their last command if anyone gets too close. Approach if suicidal. 

Vithujin the Elf (Nick) - He survived, but mourns the fallen. Leaving the bodies behind really bothers him. He assumes that any dead left in Dundagel will rise again eventually. At least we got Wasdewy out of there. Crossbow wielding zombie marksman? No thanks.

Caves of Myrddin: Vithujin's Confusions

Vithujin the Elf, occasional survivor of the dangers under Dundagel, has returned once more to the guesthouse at the Abbey of St. Emmet.  Once there, he immediately begins making arrangements for a celebration he calls the "Woed Ruckus", a week long marathon of drinking, feasting, and wenching.  Reaching into the pouches at his belt, he pulls forth gold, and even platinum coins to pay the locals for their various services.

As a joke, Vithujin payed for some fliers to be made up.  The intent was to send invitations over to the scoundrels at Le Lepin Bleu (Hugo le Bâtard's manor), but due to heavy drinking and gross overpayment the fliers end up in every settlement surrounding the Abbey.

Let the Woed Ruckus begin!

Our generous host Vithujin the Elf, the Pantless Pilgrim, the Demon Freezer, and only person to have successfully goosed the Dragon of Dundagel and been remortaled to talk about it; is throwing a party.  

 Already in attendance are those persons possessing a gentle spirit, quick wit, or firm backside.  

Now the rest of you need to show up.

The plan is to fill the Abbey with songs, stories, and seductions for a full week.

St. Emmet's antennae will be flailing wildly. 

On the first day of the Woad Ruckus, Vithujin refuses to talk about where he got all these gold and platinum coins that he is now spending so recklessly.  On the second day, Vithujin lets slip only that the coins were indeed found under the ruins of Dundagel but remains tight-lipped about any details.  That doesn't last for long though.  After days of drinking and merrymaking, he seems to forget his caution and launches into a tale so impossible, so ridiculous, that those who've experienced the horrors of Dundagel think it might just be true.  

It went something like this...

I don't know how this story makes any sense, but this is what happened.  Those dungeons are mad I tell you.  Best I can do is list out all the quandaries I encountered.  A list of Vithujin's confusions.  Here we go.

It was a dark and stormy morning when we set off to the dungeon.  There were bunches of us, ten or eleven I think.  Three elves for sure, Lankii, Sonoma, and myself.  Our holy man, Ethelred the Unready.  The great slab of beef named Will Die Too was there, and strong enough to wrestle ogres.  Frederick the Dwarf brought his maps and his army along, some crossbowmen in chain, a mule, and Turg his goblin guide.  Oh, and Sonoma has a torchbearer, but that guy didn't say much.

There was some talk of going back into the magical land of the goblins where day is night and the stars are all wrong.  The burning sands of the desert are strong enough to keep the forest in bloom during winter.  Turg knows of a village of strange colored men miles away who hold goblins as slaves.  We decided to go meet these men, so down we went into the east tower, the gatehouse of Dundagel.  As we came down the spiral stairs a swarm of giant rats suddenly fell upon us!  We hacked and chopped them to bits, but one of them bit into the thigh of Frederick's animal trainer so hard that blood sprayed out like a fountain and I almost slipped and fell down the stairs.  His wounds were too great, and the poor man perished while he mumbled something like "don't leave me down here".  We loaded his corpse onto the mule and continued down.

Frederick led us through the winding corridors of stone and mortar until we reached the circular portal covered in runes and emerged in the goblin ghost town.  The sky and trees and purple fruits are strange in ways I can't describe, but at least the weather was an improvement.  Then, as soon as we arrived, we abandoned our plan to search out the strange colored men.  Instead we took to exploring the various sections of the dungeon passages and rooms which straddle between that world and this one.  We began opening new doors.

We found a small hole at the base of a wall in a stone room.  Terg was sent in to investigate.  Terg said that the tunnels were made by many rats, and lead to corridors further down.  We plugged the hole as best we could.  

We found a small room full of weapons, some were rusty junk but others we took to sell.  We discovered later that among those a two handed battleaxe was magical, Will Die Too carries it now.

Then we found a hallway full of demonic faces carved into the stone walls.  Sensing danger, Frederick the Dwarf searched about and found that the entire floor of the hallway was a pressure plate.  We took the obvious course of action and tossed the corpse of our dead comrade onto the trap while quickly backing away.  Poison darts shot out through some of the demon mouths along the walls.  With the pressure plate thus weighted down, we walked across safely. 

Soon we found ourselves in a satanic chapel.  Others collected a wavy emerald eyed serpent dagger, emptied fresh blood from a small golden bowl, and took down the fine black curtains from the walls.  I poured a vial of holy water unto a small statue of Old Scratch, utterly melting it.  We learned later that these items allow the dagger to summon forth shadow demons when it spills the blood of the innocent.  Ethelred, being a man of strong faith, insisted then that we destroy the dagger.  I think that I saw Lankii keep it's emerald eyes though.

After the looting, we searched about for whoever had filled the blood bowl.  Unable to find any doors, we went up through the hole in the ceiling and discovered a very strange room indeed.  Along the walls were a dozen pillars made of crystal, prism prisons holding shadow demons in stasis.  One of these disguised a secret door.  There were three sets of finger holes in the stone next to one crystal pillar, but the lowermost set of holes were trapped to snip off fingers. The big brute Will Die Too stepped up and heaved at the upper finger holds. The entire column slowly swung out like a door, as all the air in the room rushed out the opening pushing us toward the void that lay beyond.  Will let the column snap shut.  We dallied here for a time as I sketched the pillars and shadowy figures within.  We returned here (with our dead friend) and presented these findings to the scholars of the abbey.  Thus we learned of the shadow demons and the dagger used to summon them for bargaining.

After a long rest, we set out again retracing our steps.  Along the way, we encountered a gang of melty lepers.  They didn't notice us approach, so I thought we were just going to toss holy water on them to see if they melted further.  The holy water had no effect, so I thought we would try to parley.  But no, one of us threw a burning flask of oil at them, which flew wide at lit up the room.  Others in our group began aiming crossbows, so I cast a sleep spell on the freaks hoping to defuse the situation and possibly save their lives.  Well, we tied them up and tried to question them, but the horrid things had never grown any tongues to speak with.  That's when we saw their satanic tattoos.  We decided they they were either evil abominations or victims of a fate worse than death.  We put them down and continued on our way.

Rather than return to the hall of the shadow demons, we chose a new perfectly ordinary transdimensional dungeon corridor to explore.  In this area, we found a large font with a statue of the White Queen (Morgana?) pouring a continuous stream of clean pure water from an urn.  In a nearby room, we found a multitude of cats and a crazy old crone who claimed to be the "royal rat catcher" having inherited the job from her mother.  If that's true then how old is she?  Centuries?  She was also talking to people who weren't there and pouring us drinks from her jug of piss, so we were a tad skeptical.  Sensing that her answers were useless, we went back to rest once more and prepare new spells.  We returned to her with gifts of jam and other foodstuffs to distract the old woman.  Meanwhile, Ethelred the Unready recited prayers that allowed him to speak to the horde of cats.  The first thing he heard them say was "Get us the hell away from that crazy woman!  She makes us live in this dungeon!".  Well, promises of freedom were made, and questions about shiny treasure were asked.  Then a black cat with one white paw and the soul of an adventurer stepped forward and offered to lead us to the "big pile of shinnies behind the secret door".  His name is Billy White Paw, and we owe this feast to him.

Billy led us up and down and around from room to room.  He warned us of the flying serpents in one room.  Lankii charmed one of these, I think he said it's a "wobra".  Eventually Billy led us into a room with the bodies of a bunch of purple men, purple raiders I guess.  In this room is a secret door that opens to a narrow natural cave passage.  The passage soon widens into a cavern with a large pool of water holding about twenty large fanged fish.  Oh, and in the center of the pool is a GIANT HEAPING PILE OF COINS AND GEMSTONES!

Well, those fish soon became kitty treats.  Then we filled every sack and backpack and had the mule loaded down so badly that I heard him wheezing as he went up stairs.  We brought all the cats out to the forest in the magical goblin lands and set them free.  The old woman cried a bit, but we made them a deal and she can always get new cats.  She is staying at the abbey for now, perhaps the priests have some prayers that can help unfuddle her.  Billy White Paw has decided to continue traveling with us.  Ethelred seems to have taken a shine to him.  As we passed by the magical throne Ethelred told Billy that a dog once sat in the throne and learned to speak, but it sometimes melts people and is dangerous.  Billy said "Not dangerous to me. I'M Billy White Paw!" and hoped up to sit in it.  It didn't give him the gift of speech, but Billy claims that it "supered up his cattishness".  I'm not sure what that means, but I'm glad that he's happy.  Ethelred is using his share of the loot to research a new spell to help him understand Billy all the time, oh and he donated a bunch of gold to the abbey.  I think he said something about it going to help build a new holy water font.  But you know, I prefer ale.  Lankii is busy training his new pet flying cobra.  I still don't trust the venomous thing.  It might last for months but that charm spell will wear off eventually, and that wobra keeps looking over at me.  We buried our poor dead animal trainer, and Frederick is already hiring someone new.  He also gives his men danger pay, and hefty bonuses.  He even made an effort to track down the dead mans family in order to compensate them.  I thought it was a classy move, especially for a guy who throws his dead henchmen unto traps.

And me?  I'm just taking it one day at a time... and today was made for wenching!