Maure Castle: The Hand

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About the Saga

After the death of Gaiseric by a symbol of death hidden by a tapestry (at least until Scrappy lifted said tapestry) and subduing the Seekers' tyrg trainer, the Blackrazors push on deeper into Maure Castle.

Timeframe

Cast of Characters

Notable Quotes

"Foolish mortal..." -- the voice Fontain hears after placing his hand against a magical hand imprinted in the dungeon floor ... and just before going a little insane.

What Has Come Before

Adventure summary

The Saga

Ready'Reat 28, CY 591

Gnollish Fury

Seamus retires to the staging room to guard the tyrg-training ranger and the corpse of Scrappy, who was killed by a symbol of death in the previous outing. The party starts exploring a side corridor when suddenly a huge gnoll surprises the rear guard with a flame strike. The unholy fire kills Charybdis outright, and badly wounds Rex, who promptly pulls the cleric/rogue to safety.

Hogarth, seeing the suddenly explosion behind him, turns, draws his bow, and prepares to fight the menace … without peering around the corner. Ian turns invisible using his ring, then proceeds to run down an opposite corridor, looking to flank the gnoll.

Meanwhile Fontain tries to incapacitate her by casting Otiluke's resilient sphere, but it fails. She responds by advancing and casting word of chaos and is very surprised when it has no effects on the Blackrazors.

Hogarth spring attacks, trying to hit but misses. Ian continues his long flank. Fontain sends an orb of force flying at the gnoll,. The gnoll, enraged, charges up, overrunning Hogarth who dances out of the way, and then hits Rex.

The fighting continues as Rex tries to hit and barely connects, but Hogarth isable to land a flanking attack that does a fair amount of damage. Fontain, seeing how effective his previous attack was, does the same, launching another orb of force at it and wounding her badly.

Suddenly a dwarven fighter named Thorin -- a former adventuring companion of Rex's who got lost in the dungoen -- shows up looking to help and starts charging into combat. Rex attacks but misses, but sets up Hogarth's attack, which hits. Then Fontain launches even more orbs of force at his enemy, staggering her. She then casts word of recall, fleeing and dropping her rod of flailing.

The Room of Purple Robes

After pausing to heal, Rex introduces the dwarf as a fellow survivor of his expedition, named Thorin. And Ian finally arrives, surprising the rest of the party.

The party then retreats to the staging area, leaves Charybdis there, and returns to their explorations. Afterwards, party heads back to pool of water and finds a door near the pool ... Ian and Fontain get vision of ovoid purple shape in water. They also receive a strong magical impulse coming from the southwest.

Find a long corridor, and at its end, a room filled with purple robes. Exploring this room, Ian stumbles across a pool of long-dried blood ... and is attacked by a howling spectre, which reaches out with ghostly talons and shreds his very soul.

Hogarth steps up and strikes at it with his ghoast-touch blade, hurting it badly. It reacts by lashing out at him, hitting him for two negative levels. Rex also steps up, attacks the ghost with his magical long sword. Fontain fires off several magic missiles, which stagger the creature. Ian strikes back, slashing the creature and causing it to spill fountains of incorporeal blood onto the floor before sinking into the ground.

Continues exploring, finds two empty rooms before finally finding a polyhedral room that has a large black hand in it. Fontain touches the hand, and suddenly has a demonic vision, hears the word "Kerzit", and a voice says "Foolish Mortal". He then trembles and nearly passes out as his hair goes stone white and horror washes over him. (and takes 7 points of permanent wisdom damage).

Experience

XP is 900 for everyone but Charybdis; her XP is 750.