Tairn

Play date: Mar 21, 2006

1531.6.11 (Loemda) - Early afternoon

While the elves go upstairs to “fiddle” with the “candle holders”, Jack investigates the small room a little more. Eventually the elves return, webs are cleared, and Ash pushes the door further open. A column of white stone tapering as it goes from ceiling to floor is in the middle of the room. A humanoid skeleton lies on the other side of the column. Varendë searches him and finds a 20 inch long white stone rod that is one inch square in the middle and tapers to a point on each end. The rod appears to be a smaller version of the monolith representations encounter thus far, but two of them have been joined together at the base. There is no seam or inscription on the rod. Keddick joins the elves to troop upstairs again. They find the rod fits into the “candle holder” on the east gallery wall perfectly. The top half protrudes from the holder at exactly the midway point. Varendë fiddles some more, and Ash tries to add strength, but nothing happens.

Ash returns to the lower level and asks Jack and Traver to help him push on the eastern sarcophagus lid more. They even try lifting it to no avail. Ash calls up to Keddick and Varendë, and they rejoin the group in the darkness below.

Everyone clusters around the two foot wide stair leading down, and eventually someone tosses a burning torch down. The web below withers and pulls back from the flame leaving a small open spot in the sheet of web. Keddick ties a rope around a rat body and tosses it down. He pulls the rope to move the body. Suddenly, a large spider grabs the rat and scurries away. The rope goes taught and then slack. When the rope is reeled in, the rat is missing. Another rat is tossed down, and Ash waits ready with a flask of oil to through it down. The spider doesn’t reappear for over a minute. The group starts talking again. The rope goes taught, and with a quick reaction, Ash tosses the oil below. It breaks and burns out in fifteen seconds or so. The spider is gone again, and the end of the rope is well charred.

After long debate, everyone decides to head back to the bridge and ask Kerdra to heal them. When Keddick feels Del in range, he calls him. He wings his way over to the group about half a mile from the bridge. Keddick can feel his agitation. He tells a broken story of huge beasts crossing the bridge and then going away. He relays Kerdra is safe. Keddick asks him to circle the area looking for beasts, but he finds none. He says there were “many” of them. Del says they were like the two killed the night before.

As the group comes neared the bridge, the ground becomes softer. Traver notices an obvious upheaval of the ground caused by ogre prints that lead to the bridge. More of the same is found on the other side, and the two ogre bodies are gone. Everyone travels a bit west to find Kerdra. She comes out as they approach.

She says that several hours ago around noon, a group of six ogres crossed the bridge. Two were carrying a large wooden chest. They searched around the area where the fight took place. Eventually they threw the bodies into the Hawr. One ran back across the bridge and returned with a large sack within a few minutes. All of the ogres stripped their armor off. Two ogres bundled the armor, heaved it onto their shoulders, two more picked up the chest, and all six headed off at a good pace to the northwest.

She looks at Traver’s obvious wounds, cleans them, and then heals him. She in turns heals all the group of their wounds. Someone asks about disease and rats, and she admonishes everyone for not cleaning the wounds.

Keddick sends Del off to look for Ogres with the admonishment to fly right back if he finds any. He goes out of range after 15 minutes or so. Keddick waits for him for another hour, but he doesn’t return. Everyone heads back across the bridge, and Kerdra goes back into hiding.

Late afternoon - 3 hours to sunset
The trip back to the city is uneventful. The group starts thinking about the spider problem again. After much argument, Varendë reluctantly agrees to tie a rope around the column and him and have Ash and Traver waiting to pull him up. He descends half of the stairs and tosses Keddick’s ever-burning torch. His toss goes awry and lands in the general direction of his aim but far short of what he expected. He scrambles back up as the spider starts to move. After several minutes, he goes back down with Keddick’s crossbow. He doesn’t see the spider at first. He leans out to the right and spots the spider. The spider also seems to notice him. He shoots the spider as it rushes at him. The spider bites him viciously and Ash pulls him up by the rope.

Jack descends the steep stairs, watching for the spider. He sprinkles oil on some web before the spider starts moving towards him. He rushes up the stairs. He drops another lit torch on the oil coated webs, and the oil burns brightly for a 15 seconds before going out leaving a clear area to descend.

Keddick is the next to venture down. He moves around looking for the spider for 45 seconds or so before it notices him and rushes out of the darkness. He tries scrambling up the steps while shouting to be pulled up. The spider bites at him twice, but he fails to grab Keddick in his maw.

The group save Varendë decides to move down into the room and have it out with the spider. Keddick casts mage armor and shield on himself and then descends first trying to be very quiet. He unties the rope from his waist and waits at the bottom of the stairs while Traver starts down. Traver fumbles at the top of the steps getting his footing leaving Keddick standing on his own at the bottom. He descends and then is followed closely by Jack and Ash. Keddick moves towards a corner and Traver moves to the left of the stair. Jack moves beside him and Ash guards their backs. The spider comes scuttling from the other end of the room, and Traver’s arrow goes wide. The spider reaches Traver and Jack. Traver moves away, and the spider misses biting him by inches. Keddick fires a bolt into the beast, and Traver follows it with an arrow which pierces deep into the spider. The huge bulbous body collapses to the ground, legs twitching.

Varendë descends and stabs the spider for good measure. Webs cover the northeast corner. A pile of bones can be seen among the webs in the far corner. Jack clears his way to Keddick’s ever-burning torch, and returns it to him. He then begins systematically clearing the webs towards the pile of bones. Traver searches after him.

Skeletons of rats, ranging from small to extremely large, are littered everywhere. Seven small humanoid skeletons are piled in a heap with the rat skeletons near the northern end of the crypt. Amongst the bodies are some coins Jack identifies as ancient. He says he can sell them for more than their nominal value. There are forty-two coins in all: twelve gold sovereigns, eleven copper flowers, and nineteen silver laurels. The coins are all in rough shape, but the distinctive patterns Jack has seen before make them obvious coins from an age past. Three red garnets are also among the litter of three small mace heads, four rusted daggers, and two rusted short swords. A disc nine inches across of the same white stone as the building lies among the bones; it has an ivy pattern around the edge. Upon inspection, it seems to weigh about one pound, and it looks like a small buckler with places on the back to attach leather arm straps.

Condition Summary
The only party member currently hurt is Varendë. A viscious spider bite left Varendë feeling a bit weak from the poison, and extremely hurt. Traver helped him clean the wound and bind it, but the wound is enough to keep Varendë out of any toe to toe combat until he has a chance to rest or be healed.