RECAP: 5th Avengers, 1-3-21
Balyx, now healed, takes the lead and backtracks to the room where we met the dragon, finding a door that we had missed before. He inspects it, finding that it is not locked but also not opening. The doorframe appears quite sturdy. Balyx attempts to force it open, noticing that it is barricaded from the inside, but also managing to dislodge the door bar. “Once more into the breach!” he says to the party and enters, with Geth following close behind. Bones and broken furniture and weapons litter the floor, and a partial collapse of the structure in the corner has been rearranged to prevent anyone from entering the upper level. The room has been undisturbed for some time now. Among the wreckage, we find a longsword, a gold chain, 34 gold pieces and 4 platinum pieces. Heading back toward the ooze room, Geth notices an unopened door and calls Lauris to investigate it. The door falls off its hinges and Balyx enters into what appears to be a rotted bedchamber. Geth conclusively determines there is nothing of value in the room. Balyx continues over to a darkened hallway and Geth follows, lighting a torch to illuminate the corridor, which leads to an area beneath the Moathouse.
Torch in hand, Geth leads Balyx into the basement, trying to be stealthy but failing. At the end of the twisting, narrow staircase is a masonry basement with black slime slipping between the stones, making most surfaces slick. The structure is engineered, made of worked stone. Apart from the occasional drip, we don’t hear anything much. Geth notices an unopened door, and noticing that it is unlocked, makes eye contact with the rest of the party before opening the door and entering cautiously. Debris and trash litter the room. The only feature of interest is a door along the east wall. Investigating the door, Geth can perceive a path made through the debris by recent traffic, leading to a blank wall. Geth finds a secret door and opens it once everyone is inside the room. Next, there is a large room that is mostly empty, seemingly swept of debris. There is a single door on the south wall. Strange items lie on a white blanket on the center of the room next to a lantern, and movement is visible from the shadows. We enter combat.
The first humanoid makes a hand motion and grabs a symbol at his chest. A lizard man swings at Geth but misses. Balyx pushes through the door and engages one of the humans in robes. Balyx hacks away at one of the mages and casts Wrathful Smite on him, wounding him and inflicting fright upon him. The other mage hits him with Magic Missile, and a lizard man hacks at him with its claws. Lauris hits the target he can see with a crossbow bolt. Jarry kills the humanoid with Magic Missile. Caela squeezes through the door and strikes a lizard man with her weapons. Geth produces his Flame Blade and sears the lizard man in front of him with the fiery blade. The lizard man fails his retaliatory attack and Balyx also misses his attack against it. Balyx shrugs off a blue-white streak of light from the still-living mage, feeling intense cold as it whizzes past his head. The other lizard man misses, and Lauris takes an attack of opportunity before exacting revenge upon the creature who just diseased him. Caela swings her mace and mashes the lizard man in front of her, and Geth turns it into cooked dinner-size portions with his flame blade. Balyx charges the wizard and attacks. The wizard reaches out and touches the paladin, who feels his life force leaving his body. Lauris heads into the fight against the remaining wizard and annihilates him. Lauris notices that his weasel is missing.
The robes on one of the humans are the same clerical robes as seen on the man who attacked us in the druid’s grove. The other is an evil wizard. The other two look like a combination of lizard men and gnolls and have been manipulated to be more muscular but are also covered in filth.
Balyx wants to take a short rest. We look at the white blanket on the floor, now crumpled and kicked about. On it are: an iron torch (Illusion) three black cones, a black scepter with violet gems, a small violet sphere (Transmutation), a black metal tube (unknown). Geth calls Jarry over to check out the items, and they are all magical, except the scepter.
The cleric has 28 gold, 16 platinum, 10 silver, the wizard 25 gold, 3 platinum, and 8 silver. Geth takes the coin and Jarry takes the ritual items. Balyx and Lauris meditate while the rest of everyone pulls the bodies into the corner and dump them in a pile. We hear scratching from the door we have barred, but nothing from the southern door.
Looted from the Moathouse:
longsword
Gold chain
87 gold
23 platinum
18 silver
