The Danger Gang Goes Back To Cassandrea
After picking up some supplies and sending those fragments out to their favorite libraries, the Danger Gang suits up to return to Cassandrea. Kolya and Botomites both decide that this is a little out of their league, and return to the Kivot to guard the Lobster Barrel.
Once back at Cassandrea, they take the offensive against the hordes of undead encamped there. Zahrah distracts them while the others sneak up from behind. Gershom turns them while Karl, Martialis, and Kotrag rush in. Before they know it, they're the ones who are laughing. They dig around through the ruins. Karl snags about eighty of those bone arrows that make skeletons. They also find some more of those small bronze rods that say "Find Heracles". They also find a trap door.
They scuttle down the hole where they run into some Ghost Dogs. Their eerie howling spooks quite a few of the guys, but Gershom keeps his wits about him and turns the dogs.
They encounter a three locked doors, one of which has been pounded repeatedly from the inside. They decide they ought to fight these dogs, so that they don't have to worry about them sneaking in from behind. A Silence spell takes care of the possibility of horrible howls, and the Gang dispatches the dogs without too much trouble. Then they work their way down a long hall of locked doors (probably about ten). At one point, as Karl is listening to a door, he gets attacked by a little Crystal Spider. At first he hopes to befriend it, as it appears to be a little living gemstone, but it turns out to be a little jerk. He and Kotrag smash it. Behind that door they hear somebody grumbling. They talk to him a little bit; he claims to be guarding some sort of Maze of Death. That sounds pretty dangerous, so our boys want in. Karl picks this last lock and inside they find a Scaly Daemon With One Big Arm. He quickly swats Karl down to a negative with his giant polearm. He rushes back out of the room and locks the door behind him. They decide they're gonna need a plan for this guy.
Marty flies off to get Can. Zahrah and Gershom mosey over with him back to town to do whatever it is people do when their players don't show up (masturbate?). Can and Marty rejoin the rest of the party to tend to the injured Karl. In a few hours, they're ready to give it another go. People are Enlarged; mirror images of Can flit about. They finally stumbled on the plan they so desperately needed: kick this guy's ass.
They bust open the door, screaming. The daemon starts whacking people with his barbed stick. Every hit, he rips out chunks of flesh as he pries the weapon out of our boys. Also, he can shoot electricity through it, so there's that. Kotrag gets knocked unconscious, so an injured Karl drags him out to the hallway. Marty and Can keep fighting, with Marty rotating through his animal forms to heal himself. Karl tosses Marty the clord (which he switched to swub form) to start beating on him. Karl then hides in shadows as Marty changes into a mighty eagle. Karl picks up the swub from the corner (which he chages back to Clord) then stabs the Daemon in the back! "Et tu, Karl!" the beast yells, and with that Can polishes him off with stab of his mighty knife.
Everyone is happy.
They return to previous room and Can builds a Secure Shelter.