Hacking the Castle of Maidens

The Castle of Maidens, March 17th-24th

Battle Royale, Foes Defeated and Allies Gained, Into the Castle, Wahlid's Tracking Prowess Saves Us, Throkians Defeated, Maidens Rescued

A little before dawn we were awakened by our not-so-trusty innkeeper. He said his lookout had sighted the genie leaving the castle, and we should go. To ensure that no funny buisness occured we took him with us to the entrance to a tunnel leading to the Castle. Took off, and soon the tunnels filled with fog. "Looks like Guards and Wards", I thought. After an hour and a half or so we reached a room and began dungeon hacking in earnest. We were looking around the room when a band of men entered from the opposite side. There were around 6 tailed men, one elf, black as night, and a bunch of carnivorous apes and velociraptors. I cast Slow, taking out a bunch of the raptors and men. We fought a good fight, taking out most of them quickly. One of the tailed men may have been a priest. The black elf was making two attacks a round, obviously a very skilled fighter. He was the last one standing on their side, and when Justinian, [[Elgale[[, and I teamed up and started doing serious damage he fled by steppping into a shadow. He took our Javelin of Minos with him, as it was sticking in his body at the time. We took a tailed man captive, and let the rest bleed to death.

After some healing we kept going. We found the a room with the names of all the maidens writ on a mosiac in the floor, with a trapdoor overhead. It had obviously been the scene of a major battle, with blood everywhere and lots of green burn marks. We tracked some people away from the scene of the battle, and encountered the remains of Hassan Azam's party. We took out a Naznah, an imp, and a mechanical man. The mechanical man had some potions in a box on his back, so we took them. Two were healing potions, so we drank them immediately. Two were labeled "Ayesha". Hassan himself was not present.

We were only lightly wounded, but all out of healing magic. We kept exploring, and found Hassan Azam tied up and at a negative. We threatened him with death, and he became very cooperative. He told us he and his party had fought a four-armed guardian genie and lost badly. He went one way and they another, but then he was kicked in the face by a big redhead who tied him up and took all of his (ie, our) stuff. We knocked him ought and added him to our load.

We explored some more and met up with Walid and Asterion. Their party had been wiped out by a stone idol with a giant force of powerful undead. Walhid and Asterion had been paralyzed by ghouls early on, and so they got to watch in unmoving horror as their entire party was killed. When the paralyzaton wore off they ran while the undead stopped to feast on the corpses.

Together we went back to the trapdoor room and went up. We were in a corridor, and in front of us were three Amazons in a steel cage. It was Demopha and two others we didn't know. We all failed bend bars rolls, and went off to look for another entrance or a magic item that would let us through the bars, promising to come bakc and rescue them.

Back in the dungeon we explored and had the most unpleasant surprise of encountering a bunch of undead with a stone idol leading them. Though the Pan-Muslim Party had taken a toll there were still several greater ghouls, a mummy, and a bunch of lesser undead. I decided we only had one chance, and cast Polymorph Other on the mummy. It suceeded, and he turned into a whale, blocking the rest of the undead from us. We ran.

As we were running, we encountered some Orthians, led by a sprite of some kind (she flew on wings and cast spells). We talked for a while, trying to persuade them to help us aid the Amazons trapped nearby. In reality I was trying to talk them into going into the undead room, but they saw through me. The sprite summoned an air elemental and we started fighting. The elemental hurt Justinian, me, and Gur a good bit, but we finally beat them all and took one unconcious one prisoner.

At this point I realized that we were still carrying Green Slime vials from the forbidden dungeon, so we could eat through the bars and free the Amazons. We went back and did so. Now a party ten strong (with three unconcious prisoners) we began to explore the castle proper.

We came to the end of the corridor. There was a tall statue of a woman with a bowl in front of her. The bowl was filled with coins of various denominations. It was trap, to be set off by putting in the wrong thing. We put coins of all denominations in, and the statue opened a door, deafened and blinded some of us, and blessed us all. We passed throught the door onto a stair. Tracking revealed that a group of women had gone up stairs, and a single elf had gone down. We elected to go up after seeing that down lead to a large wardrobe room.

We explored a bit, using tracking to avoid following the Throkians in the hope that they would take out some of the castle's defenses while being beaten up themselves. We fought another air elemental in a bathroom, and it almost killed Asterion. We then found stairs up with lots of maiden tracks. We tried to ascend, but a fiery creature, half-man and half snake, blocked our way. We were fairly hurt, so we backed down and went to a different staircase.

On the upper floors we found a bookcase with several magical books and other interesting texts. We took them all. More exploring reveealed that the maidens had it pretty sweet, with a pool, gardens flowing with milk, wine, and honey, and other comforts. We got to a place with Throkian tracks, recent burn marks, and the lingering smell of burnt flesh. "Aha! they are near, and hurt!", I thought. We tracked them and prepared an ambush in a room. They walked right into it.

A climactic battle ensued. Gur, Justinian, Elgale, and Afaf were imprisoned in a Wall of Thorns cast from the bow of their Green-haired Girl (Fraxina is her name). Brigette was a very strong fighter, not a bard at all despite carrying a lute and being Celtic and all. She fought with the Rod in Axe form, and Usibius had the bronze plate and my shield. I used up a lot of spells, and killed Fraxena and Usibius. I Slowed Anmah, and knocked Brigette out. On our side one Amazon died, and one went unconcious, as did Wahlid and Ishmael. Wirshin and Afaf got off unscathed, as did I. Elgale was in poor shape, but up. Demopha was also OK. I got some info from Anmah before I knocked her out.

We then ascended to the maiden-holding level. We had to fight the fiery snake guy, and an invisible man in a set of arabic clothes. We beat them both, but at the end Demopha was unconcious and I was pretty hurt. We then freed a bunch of maidens, 25 all told. One room held a statue and a patch-work girl, who I killed. The statue was inanimate.

As were were preparing to leave a booming voice started yelling at us, and a genie appeared. He said he was the genie of the castle, and he would let us off if we left immediately, abandoning the maidens. Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, got into a fight with him. He was a getting his butt kicked, so he turned invisible and ran. We decided he was not the real genie, but just another guardian. We got everyone out of the castle, and took off into the desert to the West.

Prisoners : Hassan Azam A tailed man Brigette, a freakin' 14+ level fighter and Throkian leader Anmah An Orthian