CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry eight

Dear Gilra,

My senses were right, right after resting we found the armory to the side of the main tower. Next to the numerous axes and swords, there were also some weapons like the Fey bane longsword, which looked exceptionally suited for what was soon to come.

After the armory we decided to keep what we suspected was the throne room for last and circled back to the stairwell we came up on, next to which we found several abandoned guestrooms, alluding to a glorious past.

But then it was time to finally conquer the throne room, and as we opened the doors to the majestic throne room, with it's row of viny pillars leading up to the throne itself, it looked quite empty.

We all seemed to suspect invisible creatures, so before anyone else could react Gnomy decided to fill the room with black tentacles, hoping to catch anything in it, visible or not. In return, something suddenly turned him into a rat, which turned out put an end to his spell casting for the rest of the trip, as his rat squeaking couldn't say the required words anymore, even though his mind was still there.

Surprised but ready, Kinley was the next to respond. As he walked into the room, he soon spotted the air elemental swirling on the side. And like Kinley usually does, he was right next to it within seconds, whacking it with whatever he was holding.
Meanwhile, Worf had taken Gnomy's rat body and put it inside his pocket for safe keeping while the rest of us followed Kinley into the room.

The air elemental was no match for Kinley, so I moved to the middle of the room instead, looking around carefully to try and see what had turned Gnomy into a rat, and to my luck, Queen Rhoswen must have flinched as I suddenly saw her quite well hidden eyes in one of the pillars. While we now knew where the queen was hiding, it didn't make hitting her any easier, and before we could try to hit her, she had summoned another wind elemental to annoy us and moved to another pillar.

The wind elemental had appeared between Delgo and me and within seconds Delgo was twirling around inside it's vortex, creating quite a sight with his twirling hand still on fire from the magical flames he had been producing.

On the other end of the room at the pillar with the queen inside, Draco, Kinley and Worf were trying their best to hit the queen, but even with Drako's pseudo dragon Zar'roc landing on the pillar itself and trying to sting the eyes with it's tail, it was still hard to do, and certainly not helped when another wind elemental appeared only to be beaten down.

Meanwhile I was thinking on how to prevent the queen from hopping from pillar to pillar and the numerous oil flasks I carried were my answer, so while Draco was swirling around behind me and the rest was hitting the queen's current pillar, I was pouring oil into the pillar closest to me and apparently attracting the queen's ire, as suddenly I got the urge to laugh, an almost irresistible laughter that made me unable to do anything but roll around on the floor for over a minute, a nasty spell to say the least.

As I was rolling around laughing, Worf with Gnomy in his pocket had moved towards the throne itself from where Whorf fired some arrows at Delgo's air elemental, destroying it too and making Delgo drop to the ground again.

Back at the queen's pillar, Kinley managed to score a hit on the queen through the eye hole who in turn tried and eventually succeeds in casting that same laughing spell on Kinley.

With only Draco, Delgo and Worf still able to fight, Draco decides to call upon his army of critters, soon swarming the entire pillar with spiders, including two enlarged ones inside, keeping the queen poisoned and nauseated, after which Draco even entangled her with the pillar's vines themselves.
Unfortunately the spiders soon disappeared to where they were summoned from, so Draco called a flaming sphere instead, burning the queen inside her pillar prison, and when he started calling down lightning too, it wasn't long before the queen was toast.

While Kinley and I were recovering from our laughing spells, the rest found the Crook of Cildhureen among the queen's possessions. So onwards and upwards we went, as we head up towards the towers roof, quickly dispatching the spriggans stationed there and using the Crook of Cildhureen to reseal the prison.

Afterwards we managed to get out again the same way we came in without any incident, meeting the waiting Palombier as expected. He and his buddies quickly got us home again, while also returning Gnomy to his human form.

Seeing as we are now once again in Westtown and I managed to live that whole adventure and tell about it, it seems my diary has served it's purpose. So while I might still write down some short notes to remember, I think I'll be using that writing hour while my companions prepare spells to get in some extra rest or preparation instead.

So, until I write again,
Maruk

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tl;dr: Explored upper level, found armory, guest rooms and empty looking throne room, Queen Rhoswen was hiding in pillars, summoning wind elementals and putting transform or laughter spells on us. Defeated her and got the Crook of Cildhureen, moved up towers and cleaned up spriggans waiting there, used Crook of Cildhureen to seal prison and returned home.

CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry seven

Dear Gilra,

After resting, we decided to explore the west end of the courtyard before risking another trap in the main corridor. As it turns out, the animal pens are to the west, so as we opened the door we came head to head with two worg, vicious looking over sized wolfs.

Gnomy was the quickest of us and seemed to have gotten inspiration from the vines, as the worg came to a sudden stop while black tentacles spouted out of the ground all around them. Pleased that for once it wasn't us who was being groped in unpleasant places, Draco and Kinley were quick to follow, Draco with his trusty lightning bolt and Kinley by charging into the enclosure.

It was Kinley's charge and sudden stop that revealed the true situation to us, as he started yelling back that there were four more worg waiting around the corner. Seeing an opportunity to channel the worg between the tentacles and the wall, I was soon standing at Kinley's side, holding the worg back as our companions dealt out some ranged pain from behind us.

While worg can be a real threat once they surround us, I think our quick thinking and the black tentacles channeling effect, allowed us to take on the worg's in smaller numbers, offering an easy victory to us once again.

With the nightmarish images of the field of rubbery black tentacles suppressed, we quickly moved on to through the next few doors, storming through the barracks and smaller towers, defeating several spriggans along the way. We finally barged into the man tower room, where we saw what appeared to be queen Rhoswen, pacing back and forth and paying us no attention.

It took an arrow and some disbelief, but in the end even this strong illusion faded to our inspection. So with the first floor cleaned out of any threats, we took the main towers stairs up and stumbled into a ballroom filled with dancing people. As they approached us and tried to make us join them in the festivities, Kinley felt three arrows bounce of his armor. Reassured by this that something was up, we once again managed to see the dancing people for the illusions they were and started looking around for the source of the arrows.

It didn't take us long to figure out that these shooters must be similar to the invisible pixies we encountered before, so Draco sent his pet Velo out to sniff them out, just as Manon went to the center of the room and cast an invisibility purge centered on her, revealing all invisible creatures around her.

With their invisibility gone, the three pixies we found didn't last long, so before long we were out exploring the second floor again.

A few doors down, we found two more satyr waiting for us, and when they cast a sleep spell on us all, they succeeded on me and Worf. When I woke up again it was with one of the satyr trying to coup-de-grace me, and only my quick wit to save me. Worf was more lucky as he had fallen asleep back in the safety of the hallway behind us, so within seconds we were all dealing out some heavy punishment on the satyr, who didn't last long enough to do much in return.

After dealing with them, we continued through what ended up being the kitchen and came out into the roof garden next to an angry looking plant creature. Luckily for me, Kinley was the one being grappled this time, as the plants heavy damage would have killed me in seconds while Kinley managed to put up quite a fight even while being held tightly by the plant.

With the plant occupied by Kinley, the rest of us managed to surround it and start dealing damage as well, and soon the plant was down and Kinley received some much needed healing from Manon.

By now we were once again getting winded from the fighting but decided to push on to the last floor before resting anyway.

Up there we soon stumbled onto the balcony where we discovered a badly hidden spriggan. While fighting that one however, his three better hidden brothers joined the fight. It took some work but even in our winded state these four spriggans were no match for us.

However, one of the spriggans managed to deal me a heavy blow to the head, making it hard to think, and we were now also running low on prepared spells, so resting seemed like a good idea.

We are now closing in on the queen's quarters, and according to that satyr in the basement, the armory must be around here too.

Until soon,
Maruk

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tl;dr: Continued exploring the first floor and fought several worg and spriggans, as well as an illusion of queen Rhoswen. On the second floor we encountered an illusion of dancing people and three invisible pixies. Followed by two satyr in the kitchen and a plant creature(barvus?) in the roof garden. Moved on to the third floor, fought four spriggan on the balcony and decided to rest.

CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry six

Dear Gilra,

The last hours have been tense, after our group reformed, we continued exploring the dungeon and soon came upon two more sprigans and a horned guy playing a flute who I think was a satyr. As soon as we entered he started playing a charming tune, but luckily for us, none of us was impressed and within seconds we were attacking the sprigans with our usual ferocity. After the sprigans were down, it only took a few hits before the satyr had enough and surrendered, offering us information about the castle in return for his life.

According to the satyr called jaxir, the castle was three floors and a dungeon high, with the main tower being even higher. On the first floor there where barracks for the troops, on the second floor a ball room, a roof garden and a kitchen and on the third floor we would find the queen's chambers and the armory.

Armed with this new information, we snuck up the stairs to the first floor where we once again prepare to rush through a door to surprise those behind it, unfortunately while we were sneakily getting ready, Draco accidentally made a ruckus while calling some lightning, which turned out to be a bit louder than expected. Still, it made no difference to the sprigan on the other side of the door, as he was down within seconds just like the others before him.

With our surprise ruined and a charged lighting running through Draco's veins, we decided to forgo stealth and just run into the next room, which turned out to be an empty courtyard. At least, it looked empty at first, right up until four carved plants came alive and turned out to be topiary gargoyles. They put up quite a fight, even making some of us retreat while others charged, but after a strong battle we did manage to defeat them.

We barely had time to breath before Draco once again urged us on from the rear lines, as his charged lightning bolts would not last much longer, so without delay we decided to take the main door further into the castle.

I was once again up ahead to try and find any traps before my allies triggered them, but the rushed move must have distracted my senses, for one moment I was sneaking through a 20 feet wide corridor and the next I was hanging sideways in a narrow pit, under attack from thorny vines which held me tightly in place. It seems, in hindsight, that there was a hidden trapdoor in the middle of the hallway, with a shaft below it leading down to the plateau with all the skeletons and equipment we found earlier in the underground tunnels. In that shaft there where three assassin vines waiting for anything that fell into the trap, dropping their victims only once they were dead, leading to the skeletons we found before. And now they were trying to do the same to me.

As I suddenly disappeared from my party's sight, they quickly rushed closer, Kinley managed to dodge the vines attack, but Draco got pulled into the pit too, but not after managing to discharge one more of his lightning bolts, which only taught us that the vines were immune to lightning.
Since both of us were now hanging inside a narrow shaft and the vines could reach out of it into the nearby area, our companions had a dilemma, if they wanted to do anything against the vines or for our rescue, they needed to get closer, which also meant they would be in the vines reach.

Luckily for us, some of them risked it and before long Kinley was lowering his animated rope while Gnomy and Worf were trying to hit the vines. By the time the animated rope was attaching itself to me, Draco had wrestled free, fallen into the cave bellow and moved to a safe distance, only suffering a few scratches and bruises from the high fall.

Meanwhile some acid arrows had hit the vines and proven useful, and made Draco think that unlike lightning, fire might help too. So while Kinley was holding a firm grip on the rope, ready to pull me up when I broke free, and Worf got grabbed by the vines for getting to close to the edge, Draco was thinking up ways to roast all of us that were stuck in the shaft.

Luckily for me, I got free before Draco's plan came into effect, and thanks to Kinley's pulling I quickly ascended out of the shaft, climbing out next to Manon, who slapped a needed healing on me now that she could once again reach me.

So while I was balancing on the edge of the pit next to Gnomy, Kinley and Manon, with Worf dangling below me in the vines grasp, Draco at the bottom of the pit had finally summoned a fire elemental, thinking that was the easiest way to get some singing fire tangled into the vines. That this would also singe anything we had dangling the the shaft must have escaped his mind, as I'm sure Worf was now getting hotter by the minute.

The vines I just escaped from didn't want to give me up that easily though, as they once again grappled me on the edge of the pit. Luckily this time I was still attached to Kinley with the rope, and his valiant pulling managed to pull both me and the vine farther away from the pith, allowing all of us to hit and kill the vine out in the open.

The other two vines in the pit were however still alive, with one of them holding Worf and the other trying repeatedly to grab the fire elemental, our party soon resumed it's attack on them except for Kinley who once again lowered the rope for Worf.

It seemed like the gods of chaos were watching us, as by the time the rope attached to Worf, the vines had grappled the fire elemental, pulling him up and singing both Worf and the rope. Worst of all, it seems the vines were quite resistant to fire too, so our fire elemental was more trouble to us than to it's intended target. To make matters even worse, Kinley who was now trying to pull Worf up tripped and fell into the pit too, dropping like an armored brick past Worf and the fire elemental, he soon landed in the cave with a resounding clang, probably waking everyone who hadn't heard our struggle yet.

Realizing that a fire elemental might not be such a great idea, Draco finally dismisses him and started summoning an air elemental instead, after all, one of the elements was bound to have some success.

By the time the air elemental appeared, we had killed another vine, releasing Worf to fall to freedom too and making it so only one vine remained. The air elemental soon started a whirlwind in the shaft, just as the last vine grabbed Gnomy from the top. Luckily the grab didn't last long as the last vine withers, and Gnomy surfed down the whirlwind into the cave below to safety.

With the vines exterminated, we once again grouped up in the courtyard and decide that a rest was heavily needed.

Until soon,
Maruk

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tl;dr: Continued exploring the basement, encountered two sprigans and a satyr called jaxir, who surrendered and told us about the castle. (3 floors + basement. 1st floor: barracks. 2nd floor: ballroom, kitchen, roof garden. 3rd floor: queen's chambers & armory. 3 towers, main/middle tower is highest). Snuck up a floor but blundered into a sprigan anyway. Fought four topiary gargoyles in the courtyard and fell into a trap while scouting the main corridor. After escaping/killing the trap, resting was needed.