Road to Kiev, Chapter Ten
[Ed. note-- The writing style changes a lot from Chapter Nine to Chapter Ten. I can only assume that the recorder is not the same person as before.]
Creepy
Tuesday, October 11, 987 AD
During the first watch of the night, the party hears a very gravelly, high-pitched voice calling for its mistress in Greek. The voice makes most of the hairs on our necks stand on end, Isabela being the most frightened. Reynaldo talks to the creature before it enters the room. It tells us that its mistress is Irethazan, whom we have recently killed. Reynaldo fails to mention this to the creature. It also mentions another, Veronica, but doesn't give any sort of relationship. It finally enters the room, and we see that it is invisible. Well, not see see, because, you know, it's invisible, but we notice that we cannot see it, therefore seeing its invisibilty. Wait, that doesn't make any sense. I'll have to edit this passage later. [Ed. note-- The author never does.] Isabela gets extremely uncomfortable and lets Reynaldo know that the creature smells a lot like a cat, but with a little extra je nais se quois that is definitely not good. Reynaldo asks it why we can't see it, and it says it can only be seen in total darkness. Then, it leaves and Isabela calms down a bit. But only a bit. The rest of the night passes uneventfully.
Every Conceivable Monster
Wednesday, October 12, 987 AD
Early in the morning, ghouls show up and throw stones at us through the bars of our secure location. Edward cannot muster enough faith to make them repent their ways, so instead Reynaldo webs them. Those who require it, don their armor and then we burn the web. The party fires arrows at the ghouls killing a few before the rest beat a hasty and cowardly retreat. We leave the dungeon to get some much needed fresh air. We spot two dwarves arguing in Russian upon the glass trail that led us to this place. Already ridiculously strung out, Nicolae sleeps them both. Gunther and Thorvald grab the two prone dwarves and everybody rushes into the arch, but encounter the invisible creature again, Isabela being our first clue, its raspy voice the second. It still cannot find its mistress and it is very worried, which makes us very worried. It leaves again and we make into the arch.
Thalia: We should kill them immediately!
Edward: What? They've done nothing.
Thalia: They're dwarves. Isn't that enough?
Edward: No!
Thalia: Fine, let's just steal their stuff then.
Edward: Well... fine.
The party loots the dwarves. Upon awakening, one of the dwarves begins screaming his head off in Russian until Gunther places his spear at his throat. He continues to scream, demanding he and his companion be untied and call us all sorts of unpleasant names. The screaming dwarf explains he is merely traveling back to his home in Kiev. They were not going to attack us because they didn't we were here. They came upon this place quite by accident. The party agrees they are not enemies and unties them. Then Gunther and Edward force everybody to give back what they stole. The male dwarf's name, the one that had been speaking, is Ivan and the female's name is Reisha. We are very surprised to learn that Reisha is female, what with the stubble and all. Since both the dwarves and we are heading in the same direction, we propose to join forces. Ivan claims to be a great Christian warrior among his people, and Reisha is a cleric serving Our Lord, Jesus Christ. About this time, Isabela runs away from Reynaldo and he has to go after her. The invisible creature shows up at the arch and says that the 'King' is coming, and then leaves. Reynaldo returns with Isabela and she confirms that it has left. At this time, Thorvald says he must take his leave of the party. He is afraid for his family since the world has become a much more dangerous place since he learned of these evil gods. He bids his farewell and leaves the arch, but forgets about the Glyph of Warding that had been set up and therefore forgets the word he was supposed to say. Subsequently, he is caught in the explosion and his exit is less auspicious than originally intended.
The party, now consisting of Gunther, Anna, Edward, Thalia, Wong, Nicolae, Reynaldo, Catarina, Ivan, and Reisha, decide to go check the adder traps that had been set a few days before. Edward also attempts to find ebony wood so that he may attempt to fix the magic dragonfly that has been out of commission for awhile. There are two snakes in the traps, but neither of them are adders. Nicolae curses his luck. Edward cannot find any ebony wood and guesses it is not native to this part of the world. Next on the agenda is to attempt to take the magic flame with us. We go back into the large eastern building and descend into the basement containing the floating orbs of fire. Edward chips out the handle from the wall, but the floating fire stays put. Then we splash it with water and it goes out. We decide this is not going to help us in the least. We then decide to go into the catacombs and look for the bodies of the cat monsters that we slew the day before. We do not find them right away. Instead we find blood trails that lead us to a grave of sorts. A room full of dead cat monsters, many of them much older than the ones we killed. We behead them all, just in case. We continue to explore the dungeon and encounter another cat. Gunther, with a small bit of magical help from Catarina and Reynaldo, easily defeats it on his own. Nearby, we find a nursing cat monster mother. We dispatch of it and then slaughter its young. Reynaldo and Wong periodically let out giggles while doing so. We attempt to go to the last unexplored area of this level of the dungeon when we are attacked by another cat. Ivan falls and Edward saves him. We decide to head back up to the surface to rest in the arch. Before we can make out the front door, Isabela freaks again, but Reynaldo is able to calm her. The invisible creature says that the 'King' has told him Irethazan is dead. Immediately after this, a larger ghoul than we have ever before encountered smashes thourgh the doors, slamming them back on their hinges. A handful of the regular ghouls and ghasts flank this larger one. The invisble creature mentions, in passing, that this is not the king as the party attempts successfully not to freak out.
Edward turns a few of the smaller creatures while Nicolae attempts to blind the large ghoul. He succeeds and Gunther and Thalia move into attack the now blinded large ghoul. Reisha attacks one of the smaller ghasts that is able to make through the wide open door. The three brave warriors form a quarter circle around the door so that no other ghouls and ghasts can come through. While this is happening, the invisible creature speaks to Reynaldo:
Creature: How would you like me to your familiar?
Reynaldo: Really!? I mean, uh, why?
Creature: I sense a lot of potential within you, and with Irethazan dead, I need a new master.
It is all Reynaldo can do to keep Isabela from freaking out. He notices that Catarina has cast a Rope Trick, and that Nicolae and Wong have gone up it, with Ivan in tow. He insists they let him fight, but they refuse him.
Reynaldo: If I said yes, what would this entail?
Creature: You'd have to kill her (he points to Isabela, hidden in Reynaldo's clothing), and then I could teach you many things, among them about your Axe.
Reynaldo: Axe? The Reynaldo's Axe?
Creature: The one you got from the Minotaur, yes? Before we continue, I think I should warn you that more ghouls and ghasts are about to come through that door.
Reynaldo warns Anna and she casts Soften Earth and Stone on the space immediately before the door. As warned, ghouls bust through the door and the first one falls into the softened stone. Edward turns a few of them away, and then Reynaldo blasts the remaining ones with a lightning bolt. They were in a straight line, after all. Reisha and Thalia get paralyzed by the ghouls' touch. Nicolae and Wong grab the two paralyzed warriors and bus them into the rope trick. The invisible creature, who says it is a cat named Boots, agrees to help against the ghouls if Reynaldo agrees to become its master. Reynaldo agrees to think about it, but first, he has to see what Boots has to offer. Boots demolishes what remains of the second wave of the ghouls with its claws and fangs. Or we assume. We still cannot see it, but claw and bite marks are left on the ghouls. Towards the end of the battle, it is Reisha, Reynaldo, and Gunther versus five ghasts. Reisha takes out one, Gunther the next, and Reynaldo takes out the remaining three with mighty swings from his Reynaldo's Axe, missing only once in the hand to hand combat. He screams in triumph and makes the party agree that the wussy Eorl has absolutely nothing on him.
Once the battle is over, Boots warns us not to go outside because the Ghoul King is out there waiting. Then he begins insisting that Reynaldo let him kill Isabela. Reynaldo says no, and Boots starts going a little insane.
Boots: No one has ever said no to me before! You cannot say no! Let me slay your pitiful cat and I shall replace her! I shall teach you many things and help you become one of the greatest mages of all!
Reynaldo (internal monologue): Fuck! This is a great fucking deal! But Boots is obviously fucking evil and these cocksuckers won't let me stick around if I do this! Fuck!
Reynaldo: You shall not tempt me. The answer is still no.
Boots: But I can tell you everything about your Axe! I can show you how to unlock all its power!
Reynaldo: Really? Well, shit, why didn't you say so?
Gunther and Edward: Ahem!
Reynaldo: I mean, Nay, foul beast. My answer is still no.
While this conversation had been going on, Thalia comes up with a brilliant plan: On her go, Nicolae and Anna are to extinguish their torches do that the room is in total darkness. Thalia plans to sling mud at the now visible cat and then open the door a smidge to let light in. The party can then fight the cat in the light because it is now visible. Upon Reynaldo's continued rebukes, Boots attacks Reynaldo, dropping him with a swipe of its very large claws. Thalia says go, and her plan goes off without a hitch. Boots attacks Isabela, knocking her unconscious. Wong grabs Isabela and Nicolae grabs Reynaldo and ferries them into the Rope Trick. Boots tries to jump into the Rope Trick, but Gunther is able to run him thorugh with a mighty thrust of his spear.
We rush back to the caged room to rest and do so succesfully.
Resting and Information
Thursday, October 13, 987 AD
We decide to sleep in and rest the whole day, since we were quite walloped the previous day. While resting, Catarina begins to tell us tales that are probably relevant to our current location. The tunnel that we are searching for was used by elves first, then by the Romans who used it as a supply route to the eastern part of the empire. Some speculate that the when the tunnel was lost, so was the esatern half of the empire. The dungeons that conect to the tunnel were used by the elves as burial chambers for a great king.
While Catarina gives this boring history lesson, Reynaldo screws around with the ceramic box and finds a false bottom. He finds the key to the doors of the cage that they are currently sleeping in. Catarina says that the red ribbon that was in the non-hidden portion of the box is probably the same type that elves used around their weapons, Anna, using a Detect Magic spell, sees it is of the combat sphere. Catarina also tells us that the reason we've finding so many ceramic weapons is that the old elves thought that metal would burn their flesh upon touching it.
Anna decides to use her Detect Magic on the silver apple tree. It glows quite brightly to her, but she cannot see what sphere it belongs to, if any. She does however sense that the Reynaldo's Axe is of the charm sphere. Reynaldo and Thalia take an apple each from the tree, and the party sees that they act as very bright lights underground, and descend back down to their safe cage. They find, however, that one of the doors has been rent off its hinges and that a Glyph has gone off. Thalia tracks a bunch of tracks, including a very large pair, going east down the tunnel. The steps continue going past the steps that lead into the dungeon. We decide to go into the room in the dungeon where we found the mother cat monster to make a defensible position there. We remove the cat bodies and place them in the room previous to the one we intend to use. We cover the mother cat's body with a blanket in case an intelligent creature makes its way here. One of the apples is left at the door of that room to entice unwary creatures. Except where the cat's body is, the entire floor of that room is turned to very soft sand by Anna. Also, the corridor from the door of the decoy room to about ten feet away from the door to our room is also turned to fine sand. Two Glyphs are set up. one at each end of the sand corridor. We then rest, awaiting the attack that is sure to come.
End Chapter Ten
