Day 24 - Hey! It's a brand new day.... Finally

We wake to the sweet smell on a pot of tea...MMmmmmmmmmmm!!!!! The cottage vanishes - Banipal has a reccie to see where the army is...

"What army?" I ask as he heads off...

"There’s always an army!" he replies with scorn.

It goes without saying, he doesn't find one! We finish out breakfasts and continue our search in another room - one we haven't been to yet... I check for traps.

"It's clear," I tell them. "You can open it."

Rumbles tears off the nailed bar and Norton kicks the door open - the room is dark and pretty shabby, not dissimilar to the others we've been in, except there’s a door at the opposite end. Small piles of rotting, damp, mouldy debris lay scattered about, I pick my way through them and check the door for traps. It's hardly worth it though, there’s an old bed-head, a mouldy mattress, rotten woodwork but no other doors and no threats that we can see. Banipal checks under the bed - nothing there either....we move on. Rumbles, too impatient to wait for me, tries kicking in the door and hurts his foot - this pisses him off so he kicks it again, this time in anger – that opens it... More rotting things... the decor here is tres boring. We continue – Rumbles seems to be enjoying ‘opening the doors’ so I let him carry on. He smashes open the door to the next room and... surprise... the room has a rusty old bed, a decaying mattress and the dried out shell of a desk - Banipal disassembles it – I think he’s looking for secret compartments… he finds nothing... nix.. nada... nil! Meanwhile Rumbles searches for secret doors with an axe - funnily he has no luck.

Having run out of rooms 'they' want to go back to the room with the Roper... I'm happy to just pick another tunnel and move on but 'they' win. Norton, Rumbles, Damir and even Yuna arm themselves with cross bows and various other projectiles; I stand well away from them… Banipal opens the door then bolts – out of the line of fire. It’s only now the door is open that the daft gits realise they don't have room to be out of range of the Roper AND see it to shoot at it!!! Der! I could have told them that. Norton impulsively hurls a fireball into the room... and there's an enormous explosion... Flame billows out of the room stopping about 2 inches from where the party stand.

"That's amazing!" I said. "Do it again!"

"Wow! I want more of those!" says Norton, whose beard is still smoking.

"Did someone bring marshmallows?" asks Damir.

"What WAS that?" says Rumbles sounding slightly puzzled.

"We could try another tunnel..." suggested Banipal. 'Yes please' I think.

"Nah, lets wait till it cools." says Norton.

Can you believe they still want to search it... It's a smouldering mess of slag! We wait - the stone is glowing so we use the heat to dry some washing, boil water for tea and bake some bread... Eventually it's cool enough to enter, I finish my tea and keep a look-out while the rest of them search the room. They find nothing other than... nothing. "Let's go try another tunnel," says Banipal

"Finally," I sigh.

We trudge our way back to the crevasse leaving sooty little footprints as we go. After a bit of bickering the party finally agree on another tunnel - then they change their minds and pick yet another... We find ourselves in a short corridor ending in an open archway. I sneak down and have a peek. The corridor leads to an octagonal room, glistening walls of smooth black rock soar upwards, with holes (or entrances) far above the ground. A single archway leads from the far wall. I check for traps and find one, while trying to disable it I set it off - Oops... I did tell them not to stand too close to me. It appears to have been an alarm as a group of Drow appear through the archway, there's about five of them. I yell a warning to the rest of the party, tumble past the lead Drow and come up ready to attack. I hear Norton and Rumbles charge in behind me.

I lay into the nearest one and kill it – that'll teach them... Damir leaps into the room and swings at another. The ones at the back cast spells at us – I think it may have been some sort of curse but it didn't work... Banipal flings himself into fray and manages to spectacularly miss everyone!! (NOTE TO SELF - remember to give him heaps for that.) Rumbles – as usual – lops his Drow in two. I attack again... doing a good amount of damage, Banipal shoves in and attempts to kill my Drow... He’s really off his game today, he hits it but only just – hardly worth the effort. Damir's in form though with another a critical hit. Needless to say, he kills it. Retaliating, one of the spell casting Drow hits Damir with a curse – enervation... At least it's only temporary... he'll be better in about 5 hours – The Drow buggers off out of the room and Yuna steps forward and casts a ray of frost at the remaining one – it drops dead. Yuna is delighted and ignores the fact that Banipal and I did a bunch of damage on it already... Norton takes off after the fleeing spell caster... Rumbles sprints after them, overtaking Norton, who after all only has short legs. He corners the Drow in a small room with a large round table, a counter unit and some chairs and a dividing curtain. Rumbles skids to a stop and whacks him one... Meanwhile Banipal activates his boots of speed and headed off after Rumbles and Norton – catching up he trips the Drow and thumps him – but not very well... I let them all go and strip the four dead ones. Meanwhile Norton, Rumbles and Banipal slaughter the prone Drow...

Damir and I find a 4x Mithral shirt, 4x ring (M), 4x spiked chain (M), 8x potions, 4x hand cross bow with 48 bolts, 8x vials of poison and 4x spell books which Yuna jumps on.. "Mine, mine, mine, mine!!!" she cries gleefully shoving them in her pack.

In the other room Banipal takes his life in his hands and pulls back the curtain. There are 4x double bunk beds, a couple of footlockers and not much else. Heaven knows where he thought he was going – a quick bite to eat before he dies perhaps?? Norton and Rumbles check the walls by thumping them… interesting technique... Not sure how effective it is... they find nothing.

Back in the octagonal room, Yuna takes me through a Dimension door to the top hole or entrance or whatever it is. We secure a rope which Yuna hangs off. I check the door for traps, unlock and open it. A wind roars out shoving the door back into me and making Yuna swing about a bit on her rope – Damir kindly belays the rope from below. Using only one hand Yuna casts a dispel into the room… nothing happens. Bracing against the wall, I spike the door open 90° and pause to ensure it's stable.

While we've been occupied, Banipal's scamped up the rope, over Yuna and is attempting to 'crawl against the wind' – He looks like a dirty, hairy, avant guard Marcel Marceau. Unfortunately the wind pushes him off and he falls 100' – he tumbles as he hits the floor and bounces to his feet - lucky he's a Monk. Rumbles take a shot... he makes it to the top – climbs over Yuna and drags himself onto the ledge. He lies there and peers into the semi-circular room – "It looks like a big metal throne!" he yells "there's a couple of doors and some tapestry thingies.

Yuna's still hanging off the rope, "You OK?" I ask sitting on the ledge bracing the door open (just in case)

"How are we going to get down from here?" she asks.

"No probs – I can carry you if you can manage to hold on???"

Rumbles drags himself further into the room and off to one side of the runner leading to the throne. The wind dies to nothing. He stops, re-arranges himself, drives a piton into the ground and ties off his magic rope. Well done Rumbles! He tries to roll up the carpet – it seems like it's stuck to the floor at either end. He heaves it and it comes loose, flapping about in the wind. Rumbles tosses out his magic rope and tells it to wrap round Yuna – he hauls her up and into the room – clear of the wind tunnel. I go next. We then haul up Damir, Norton and Banipal. All together again – Wwweeeee...

Rumbles, having ripped up the offending carpet, goes and sits on the throne.

"Please get off my lap," says a deep voice from nowhere...

"Sorry," says Rumbles getting up again.

"That's alright – This time I'll forgive you."

"Hi, I'm Trixie... who are you?"

"My name is Solom Ned'razaka."

"We can't see you," says Damir

"Perhaps that's a good thing."

"D'ya think he's really ugly..." says Banipal - I elbow him, he tries again... "That's a Drow name, isn’t it?"

"Yes it is..."

The voice seems to be moving round the room. Rumbles goes back and sits on the Throne – seeing it's now vacant

"So..." I flounder for a topic. "What is it you do here and how do you feel about the current political situation... Oh... and who's this Goddess of Death we keep hearing about?" I ask

"Kiri Ansalie is the Lady of the Dead..."

It doesn't take long to become apparent that Solom has aspirations of his own. The Drow are in disarray after the overthrow of Lolth and the Houses are vying for advantage. Solom is on his side. By his account, the other Drow know he's here and they have an "arrangement" but he wouldn't be averse to another change in the political climate, though not necessarily restoring power to Lolth or Kiri Whats-her-name. He fancies himself as a leader. While all this is going on, Yuna's done detect magic – the Throne and the carpet are magical and there is sort of a blurry effect where Solom is.

Solom continues to explain that Sith Morcain has a few factions; the Schools of Magic headed by Solom who tells us he is Arch-Mage, the Schools of the Divine (only one left), those associated with mundane war-craft and peasants. There is more than a suggestion that he would like us to knock off his opposition.

"What do we get out of it?" asks Banipal.

"What do you want?"

"Our memories back." Norton pipes up... Nice one N.

We show Solom the drawings we have of our 'other' selves... he says he heard a group had been brought in earlier in the war and had made a bit of a mess (sounds like us).

We talk, and talk and talk until finally those of us who haven't become irrevocably bored come to an agreement (of sorts). Solom gives us a bunch of potions and scrolls to use against Undead and we're to kill the heads of House Morcaine who apparently are guarded by those flayed elf things... and headed by a Vampire – Fabo!... Oh! And by the way... looting rights are ours.

After a lot of bickering back and forth between ourselves we finally decide to go with my (mostly frivolous) suggestion, meant merely to be another option to argue over... Which was... we go back, tell Lord Randal Morn he has a 'pest' problem; thence get Yuna to teleport us to the Inn sell all the stuff we've gathered then buy up a bunch of other gear from the Inn then come back again. We backtrack... through the web, through the crypts and out to the graveyard. Banipal, Rumbles and Norton hop into Damirs bag of holding and Yuna 'blinks' to Lord Randal Morns Manor... It's early evening when we get there; the gates are closed and armed. We're hailed by the sergeant who lets us in and summons the Lord. We settle down for a few hours to fill him in on the situation then go back to the border to the Inn of the Far Shore. At the crossing we find a party on watch to assist anyone "coming in hot." They tell us there are more missing parties. Yuna "blinks" us back to the inn which is looking emptier than when we left. Bertrand is happy to see us – he, like the others, thought we may be dead.

After dropping our gear, bathing (for those of us with any sense of smell) and having something to eat, we settle down to quiz Bertrand... we get some information like; Kiri is a goddess of death and revenge and that the city of M????? is a sizeable Drow city... and that lately there have been rumours of internal unrest... Bertrand believes the city had been sacked and burned and is under new management – at least we can confirm that for him.

Back to The Inn of the Far Shore.