Click here to see the full-size map (approx. 350KB, opens in a new window). Note that it is covered with scribbles and scrawls that Fnord drew on it while exploring the caverns.
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Another word of explanation: these journals cover a relatively brief period shortly before D&D3e came out, when the campaign was being played using the 4th edition of the Hero System. I guess it would have been about 1999.
as transcribed from fragmentary handwritten notes from several sources covering an indeterminate period
I've gradually got my nice new castle organised, with relatively little trouble. There was a tiny problem with the barbarian tribesmen who live in the valleys to the north, when they nicked some of my livestock as I was driving them back from the royal city of Coltraine on the shores of the Angelsmere. Also, the Marquis of Quant, the original lord of my demesne (now renamed Fnordonia after its excellent and well-beloved prince) raised a little bit of a fuss, but I basically ignored him except for retaining a top-flight firm of lawyers, Whitlow, Futtle and Crun, to ignore him officially.
Anyway, I had a little "talk" with the chief of the barbarians, Sigir by name, and he agreed that I was far more manly and macho and studly than he, and that he should stop nicking my stuff and I in return would refrain from chopping him into little pieces.
After the initial contretemps, Sigir and I actually got along very well. I agreed to train his young men in modern methods of warfare, and to foster his son and heir, and he in return agreed to acknowledge my overlordship and to act as my March Warden in the north. It was pretty clear, though never actually stated, that basically I would leave him alone if he would leave me alone, and on that basis we parted on the best of terms.
Merchant traffic has been falling off alarmingly, and there are disturbing reports from the south about the depredations of a bandit chief called Rohypnol who is preying on villages and caravans, and appears to have control over some undead. In a (possibly) related report, a caravaneer called Khazir had a run-in with a nasty undead sea-monster — a skeletal creature, possibly an undead sea-serpent — which panicked his crew excessively, but otherwise did little damage. He noted pirates on the horizon, and thought they were waiting for the beastie to do the business. However, fortunately for him he posessed some sort of charm against the undead, and he escaped. He made port at Holgerblatt, where he was advised to go no further north, but trusting in the efficacy of his charm he proceeded and eventually reached Chateau Fnord, though not without incident. He was attacked on the road by a bandit hord(ette) with some human skeletons — suffered 15 casualties out of 50; 5 dead, 10 ran away.
I decide that this bears close investigation, and leaving Bahir as my seneschal, headed off down the merchant road to Holgerblatt with Eric the Werebear.
I've been on the road with Eric for three days; we've just reached the Öoder River. On that first night our camp was scouted out by something strange — wolf howls all around, Eric felt danger, and found the tracks of something four-footed, lupine and skeletal. There's someting unnatural about undeadifying animals. More unnatural than the normal run of undeadness, that is.
We reach the Öoder Bridge and camp above it for the night in a miserable damp spot.
We go down to the bridge, where we find a dead guy (about 2 days dead) with an arrow in his back and his throat cut. Standing near him is a skeleton which becomes a little bit animated when I approach it, causing me to Smite It With Righteous Anger (sort of a reflex action by now).
I rode over the bridge and found Öoder village burnt out and deserted. The brochs at either end of the bridge I found to be full of skeletons — I suspect them to be the erstwhile inhabitants of the village. They don't put up any sort of fight as I smashed them to flinders (a sort of prophylactic action, just in case they might perhaps reanimate a bit later on). We then rode on for Mulwinkle, which we reached after nightfall.
Eric camped in the woods outside of town, while I rode in and took a room at the Daisy and Sun (by Douglas Pooks). I enjoyed some excellent ale and a surprisingly good meal by a chef who clearly knows his business, and retired after engaging in the standard "paranoid adventurer in an inn" precautions.
Note: During my meal, a young boy named Tom was brought in, badly hurt. It was said that he was attacked by a troll as he was tending his flock of goats. Mr Sime, the doctor, tended to him, and he was taken away before I could find out anything more.
This was a crossover with another party playing in the same world. Po was me, Omega was Andrew Robins, I think Brook was Kent and Zak was Nate's character.
Outside of Mulwinkle we met a very peculiar group indeed: the Immaculate Po, a Chinee of some sort (who I have met before, a very long time ago). There's an elf maid by the name of Brook, Zak (some sort of wolf-boy — maybe a lycanthrope? perhaps not) who sports a pelt of blue fur, and a bronze golem called Omega. We were attacked by trolls, all of which we brutally slay and burn.
Eric and Po left to make their way back to Fnordonia, and I have agreed to show Brook to the Elvish Woods once I've finished my business with this rotter Rohypnol.
As usual, Fnord forgets to date his diary entries, making the task of his biographer a real pain in the backside, let me tell you.
Odd occurances: objects have been falling from the sky to the accompaniment of loud BANGs. First, a metal, wheeled wagon, all enclosed but with glass windows all round. We investigated it pretty thoroughly, but could make neither head nor tail of it. It had seats inside, all facing the same way, though it looked rather cramped — I'd never fit in there in all my armour. There's no accommodation that I could find for harness, so how it is dragged along we don't know; maybe it's magical, who knows.
Next were two men, both dead, one recently and the other not. They were both covered in mud and dressed in coarse (though finely sewn) cloth, and accoutered in harness of some sort. They both wore painted steel helms, like a man-at-arms' kettle hat, and both had some kind of handgonne with them.
We proceed. At one point, for no good reason that I can think of, the golem flung himself down a hill and rolled to the bottom. There's nowt so queer as heavy metal folk. We carried on for a few miles and then made camp — the golem attempted to make a HUGE bonfire, but I managed to convince it to tone things down a bit. Everyone leaped up to volunteer for guard duty; they all seemed so keen that I thought it a pity to deny them, so I let them have their fun. I set up my hammock and went to sleep.
Brook shot a wolf on her watch, for no better reason than that it was looking at her. Hmmm.
Next day, on our way, we hear the sounds of conflict over the rise ahead and come upon a burning caravan. Heading down towards it I see that it is the wagon train of Zarkhov's Emporium, whoever Zarkhov may be. Two of the wagons are burnt, another three are not. There are a few dead folks, a few wounded folks, and lots of runaway parrots and monkeys. I made a valiant effort to save a woman with an arrow in her shoulder, but her wound proved to be beyond my meagre skill (fucked up my First Aid roll, d'oh!), so I used up another healing potion on her. (5 left). I managed a spectacular success on the arrow stuck through Zarkhov's gizzards though, and have him up and bellowing in no time flat.
Note: Fnord gets +1 Paramedic vs. arrow wounds due to this spectacular display of dice-rolling
Zarkhov is a rude, arrogant shit, but his consort — a very tall (7'6") green woman — is a creature of surpassing beauty. Anyway, it would appear that in the attack, his menagerie fled into the woods: four adult lions, a manticore, and a teeny-tiny baby 3-headed hydra, only ten feet high. Oh yes, and an elephant. And possibly some sort of nasty farting demonic sprite, which Zarkhov let loose in his own defence and which he thinks has gone back to its own plane, but hell, who knows. Let's face it, Zarkhov's record is not a particularly good one. After a certain amount of wheedling from the tall green beauty I agree to go afetr the escaped menagerie, in spite of my poor opinion of Zarkhov.
I interviewed Zarkhov's captive, who told me where his band's lair was — to the south-west, up in the hills, up a dead river-bed. His directions were quite specific, owing to the force of my majestic presence. I agreed, in return for his cooperation, to kill him quickly. He also mentioned Rohypnol, and also the fact that along with the 20 or 30 bandits there were a bunch of undead up there. He begged and begged and begged for his life in a way that was completely unfair and emotionally blackmailing, until eventually I agreed to let him live. He fainted in relief, so I killed him in his sleep while he was feeling happy — all rather distasteful.
Holy crap, this is a rather vicious aspect of Fnord that we haven't seen before. He's normally so easy-going; maybe he ate something that disagreed with him.
I cast about for tracks and found all sorts of them — lions, an elephant, clawed feet, as well as humans — going towards the forest in the west. Zarkhov kept going on and on about bringin his animals back to him. Eventually he gave up on me and appealed to Brook, who agreed with a perfectly straight face. He gave Brook a ring that he claimed would control the creatures.
Note: Omega is smitten with Olona, the 7'6" tall green woman.
According to the information we got from the bandit, it was about four days to the bandit stronghold. We left, after browbeating Zarkhov into eventually giving us some food for the journey.
We travel, following the tracks. Brook tried out the Animal Control Ring, found that it worked, and buried it under a tree.
Storm. Pissing down with rain. The dry river bed is no longer dry. In fact it is extremely wet. We will all get unacceptably muddy.
That night, Zak saw a glinty metallic flicker of movement: maybe bandits? We don't know.
This morning, Zak found the tracks of one horse and one guy.
We carried on up the river, following the tracks. We find the tracks again after losing them in the river, and begin to recognise some of the landmarks mentioned by our prisoner. We encountered the elephant from the menagerie.
Late in the day, Omega noticed a dead deer which proved to have puncture wounds as well as claw marks — maybe the escaped manticore? Brook the Annoying Elf ate a slab of it. We travelled on for a while until dusk, and set up camp. Brook complained of feeling ill.
We spotted a bizarre bony flying thing taking off about twenty metres away: I put an arrow into its head, and Omega through a boulder straight through it.... it crashed into some nearby trees. I sent Omega off to find it, but he failed. (I cannot find it in me to hold his failure against him however, as he is the only one of theis motley crew who remembers to address me as "my Lord").
Brook became worse and worse, eventually becoming delirious. Her back erupted in a nasty case of boils. I suggested that we should shun the unclean one until she recovers (or not).
We set up our campsite on a wide flat rock. During Omega's watch we were attacked by revolting disgusting zombies (6 of them). Omega dispatched several of them by flinging boulders through them at high velocity; I dispatched the others by means of a cunning dive-bombing strategy. Zak suffered an unfortunate bout of nausea which got much worse after he disembowelled one of the Foul Undead; he started coughing and vomiting until he was quite debilitated. As the last of the Revolting Undead Obscenities bit the dust, I spotted another of the flying undead thingies, took off after it, and swatted it out of the skies. we then made our way down to the river — on the way we met the elephant from the menageries again; it was very friendly.
We set up camp again, and surrounded it with spiky pine branches as makeshift abattis. I set up my jingly bells on wires as an intruder alert to cover the open approaches. Brook started getting a little better, though she was still rather scabrous and disgusting.
Omega dug himself a fire-pit, and I decided to fly over to the bandit lair once it got dark to do a bit of reconnaisance.
The bandit stronghold proved to be a semi-circular rampart and palisade built up against a cliffside. Inside was one large building and several small ones. The walls were lighted with some sort of magical lamps. There was one fire up on the cliff-tops; maybe a watch-post? There were some shiny things glinting outside the ramparts; maybe spikes?
As I flew over I surprised one of the flying skeleton things. I smacked it with the Giantslayer and c`ut off one of its wings, but the blasted thing screeched and creeped me out so badly that I had to land and collect my scattered wits. Curses! I landed at the fork of the two rivers, about 10km from the campsite, and was forced to use the last of the day's charges for my Wings of Flying to get back.
Next morning, Zak detected the odour of corruption on the breeze and suspected that there may be more of those nasty undead Minions of Evil critters about. We don't see any sign of them, but they're just bound to be about, I just know it.
We head off towards the bandits' lair. On the way we spot the tracks of various woodland creatures, and also those of a group of skeletons, maybe ten of them, heading down towards the river.
We have no problems that day, but....
....next morning while scouting I am attacked by a Mommy Bear, who I kill. She has (had) two cubs, about a year old, which I let live in spite of the fact that yearling bear cubs are delicious when prepared correctly.
We made our way over the last ridge, and I checked out the defences with my spyglass. We have to cross the river to get at them, so we hike down to the point where it forks so that we can cross, hopefully, unobserved. I fly Brook across the river, but Zak wimped out at the prospect and elected to have Omega carry him over. The big wuss. Brook and I took our ease while the other two struggled across; Zak had to scramble up a little clifflet, while Omega was forced to walk up and down the banks to find somewhere to climb up. he reappeared three hours later, covered in mud.
We headed off down to the edge of the forest and I observed the fort for some hours. There appeared to be about 40 people manning the walls (in rotation). Some riders entered through a gate on the right hand side, and we spied crops up on the plateau above the cliffs. I plan to fly up there in the night and burn them all.
WW1 German soldiers in pickelhaube, plus a Maxim gun and a small amount of barbed wire
That evening, just as night was falling, there was a mysterious explosion and we were showered with mud and a bunch of corpses: 9 of them, to be precise, and some sort of infernal device.
Omega played around with the strange machine; we figured out that it was some sort of bolt-thrower, but it didn't work when we pushed an arrow down the tube. A little more tinkering did get some results though — he finally managed to make it work and SHOT ZAK IN THE HEAD! Fortunately zak had put on one of the helmets, and so only took 6 points which I healed with another of my potions (5 left).
We also found four books made of the finest paper and written very precisely in a language we don't understand. These men are obviously retainers of some very powerful lord, to have access to such a Wand of Magic Missiles.
There is a significant gap in the diary at this point; the attack on the bandit stronghold is not described at all. I assume it all went well, since Fnord is still alive and writing (badly) some time later....
Back at Castle Fnord, I began formulating an expedition down into the caverns below the keep to map them, and to clear out the last of the creeping monstrosities which are left down there since our takeover.
While I was planning, I received an embassy from the Dwarf King, and we hammered out a treaty and exchanged handsome gifts: he gave me a chalice which turns any liquid placed in it into the finest red wine, and I gave him my Mace of Thunder.
Click here to see the full-size map (approx. 350KB, opens in a new window). Note that it is covered with scribbles and scrawls that Fnord drew on it while exploring the caverns.
The dwarves claim the underground territory to the east of the underground river, and want assistance in their wars. I'm not that keen, but offer to give them food.... in the end they give me 4 suits of excellent armour and agree to give me a discount on future orders. They're pleased to hear about my expedition; they won't give me a guide, but they did give me a map, of which I have four copies made.
Orson arrived unexpectedly, having had some kind of dream-summons. Considering the timing, and my expedition plans, this kind of creeps me out. Nice to have him along, but I'm a little alarmed that any gods are taking an active interest in me....
Who the hell is this? A real person or an NPC? I suspect it might have been Kent, but I'm really not sure.
Not long afterwards, an elf warrior-cleric arrived, also having had a prophetic dream commanding him to come to my aid — now I'm getting really creeped out, and I'm starting to think that maybe staying home might be a good idea. Ah well, I've never been clever when it comes to staying safe.
I discuss my long-term plans for the demesne with Orson: to turn the castle and its surrounds into an academy of the martial and magical arts. By a stroke of good luck, this ties in nicely with an ambition of Orson's, and he is all for it. We shall have to investigate the possibilities in greater depth when we get back.
Orson was accidentally exposed to a bit of poverty and squalor in the form of some refugees from down south; in a spasm of charity he stated attempting to fling money about, but was dissuaded by the good advice of his manservant, Willard. He eventually came to me and I agreed to let him have 100 acres to the south of the ravine where he will build a hospice for the relief of the poor.
I get Orson to fill up my Ring of Spell Storing with Invisibility spells — 10 of them at an hour each.
There was some unpleasantness with an incubus who seems to have impregnated one of my underhouse parlour-maids. We hired a midwife/abortionist from the village to take care of the parasite, and gathered all of the castle women into the Great Hall where we await the appearance of the incubus so that we can kick the crap out of it and banish it back to where it came from.
(There was a whole lot of ickiness involved in expelling some kind of Spawn of the Pit, but no sign of any incubus.)
I'm approached by the over-house parlour maid who brings reports of mutterings and murmerings from the maidservants, some of whom are making "going away" noises. I tell her that as long as they can meet their contractual obligations (in other words, if they can pay off their indentures) they're free to go. However, I strongly suspect that none of them have that kind of cash inspite of the ludicrously high wages I pay them.
More disturbing reports come up from the gate innkeeper; apparently the virgins of the village have been visited in the night by someone (or something) which has been adopting my form!!!!! Goddammit! This cannot be borne — I get all of the consequences and none of the pleasure!
Just when I think the day can't get any worse, some of the kitchen staff come to me with more bad news and some kind of demon-thing in a jar: apparently it has been shitting in the food, and it bit a cook and poisoned him. Eric went down to see to him; apparently Eric is a doctor, I never knew that.
Anyway, Eric's doctoring skills proved to be inadequate to the task and the cook failed to realize his full wellness potential — in short, he died. Bugger! Where am I going to get someone else who does those delicious little pastries just the way I like them?
Shortly afterwards I'm approached by a terrified kitchen-boy (I like to make myself accessible to the staff; it gives them the illusion that I care about them) who babbles something about more of the little demon-things swarming all over the kitchen. We all tear off down there (except for Orson, who had gone off to consult some Wise Woman of the Hills or some such thing).
We entered the kitchen to find it full of the nasty little demon-spawn just as the kitchen-boy had said, and we discover that they are capable of Projectile Pooing! Bleeuch! Monsieur Le Elf (Alaemon) and myself tear into the revolting little scumsuckers while Eric keeps an eye out for the huge hideous Spawn Of The Pit we expect to appear at any moment. We chopped them all into bits in fairly short order, and then tossed their regenerating arses on to the fire. They had shat all over the place like so many Glaswegian drunks, and through a lot of the stores as well, so everything will have to be checked for demon-poo before it can be eaten. Demons are really quite unpleasant, even the little ones.
This is a highly abbreviated precis of the session, since I forgot to write any of it until the following week. Slacker.
We set a trap for the incubus, using one of Orson's spells. We caught it and kicked its arse from here to Ursa Major.
We supplied ourselves out the wazoo, and made our way down through the bowels of the castle, through the old temple area below the dungeons, and into the caverns. It's nasty down there, very very nasty.
We are gathered around a nasty trans-dimensional vortex thingy, which Orson says is some kind of hell-portal for the Creatures From The Dungeon Dimensions to come through, when we are attacked by a slithering swarm of snake-spawn. Eric chopped a few of them up, and I made my way back to incinerate the rest of them with my Flame Tongue. They all died very satisfactorily, but produced a choking fume (which cleared quite quickly, thank goodness). Some of the nasty little bastards crawled up my legs, so I turned the flame on myself (much to everyone else's chagrin) and relied on my Ring of Fire Resistance to keep me cool and fresh.
There was some discussion about how to get everyone over the Vortex of Ultimate Nastiness; I offered to throw people, but for some reason that option was vetoed and everyone elected to jump over under their own power. Orson leaped majestically over the portal and fell arse over kite down a series of ledges, followed by Eric who managed not to.
The cavern exited into a sparkly cul-de-sac (possibly gems here?) and a passage. Orson cast a Detect Invisible spell and promptly keelede over and started talking to himself — he came to his senses a short time later, apparently having been for some sort of psychic visit to a kind of intellectual-wimp-world.
We proceeded down the passage a short way, when suddenly there was a loud BANG! and Alaemon, Orson and I were projected into some sort of freezing hell-dimension — we found ourselves balanced precariously on an icy cliff-face looking out at a repulsive and immensely gigantic Jabbathehutt demon-thing. We found that we had peculiar fleshy umbilicals coming out of our bellies (straight through our armour) which disappeared up through the haze in the sky. The demon-thing was picking things off the cliffside and eating them; naturally it didn't take long before it decided that we looked rather appetizing and attempted to eat us. We took exception to this and killed it....
Note the supreme understatement here. The battle was actually moderately epic.
....at length. After destroying the demonic opposition, I collected the other two on the wing (Wings of Flying snatch-and-grab) and we flew back up, following the umbilicals back to our Real World. We found Eric lounging about doing bugger-all, the lazy bastard! He claimed to have been killing demon-things upstairs, but there was no evidence of that (except for the plummeting monkey-demon corpses that fell past us as we did our thing below).
We all camped up in a largish cavern: there is a pool at the far end which Orson zapped with a lightning bolt, frying a mass of repulsive slimy snake-eel things. He sealed it over with a force-wall while I set up my hammock on pitons. I put my Portable Hole on the wall and Orson went to sleep in it.
An oddity: when he woke up, the Hole was on the floor, and the floor of the Hole was rippling oddly — very peculiar.
We head off on our new day's exploringa nd encounter something almost immediately — a nasty tongue-thing comes zipping out at me from a hole in the floor! I chopped a slice off it before it managed to slither back downstairs, and decided to toss a few molotovs down after it. I got out the Portable Hole and slapped it against a wall, and while inside (getting the crate of molotovs) the floor started its weird rippling again and Orson spotted it scooting across the wall.... he grabbed it and stopped it moving while I got out, but this is a very puzzling and alarming eventuality.
Anyway, I tossed a total of five molotovs down the hole after the tongue-monster and we scooted past it. Eric, bringing up the rear, was attacked by another one coming from a side-passage: Alaemon and I chopped the bejeezus out of it and tossed the pieces down the hole full of burning oil.
We made a more thorough reconnaisance of the passage ahead and found several more of these suspicious-looking holes. Orson, fortunately, has the answer: he craetes a series of tubular force-walls which we scurry through, and make it down to the subterranean river (with Orson bringing up the rear, re-absorbing his force-walls as he came with his funky Force Wand of Doom.
The river has a shingle beach on our side. Our next exploratory target is the Elephant Cave.
We encountered a peculiar temporal distortion when we entered the cave and became caught in a loop of time. I eventually managed to break free and get outside, whereupon I found myself ravenously hungry and thirsty, as if I'd not eaten or drunk anything for days. I ate and drank my fill and then started dragging the others out with my grapnel. We all gorge ourselves and then fall asleep, leaving Eric on watch. We slept for about four hours and then swapped over... whereupon we were attacked by some sort of nasty shrieking snake-critter out of the river. The critter's screech knockeed out Orson and me flat, leaving Alaemon and Eric to smite the snake thing hip and... well, hip. Orson and I eventually recovered, but the other two appeared to be doin quite well so we left them to it. They chopped great chunks out of it, and suddenly it disappeared, leaving nothing but splashes of a shimmering eeeeeevil ichor. (Oh yes — Alaemon and Orson both claim to have seen a vision of the Goddess, but I didn't see squat.)
After we all rested, Orson investigated the temporal distortion area with his crystal ball, during which we were briefly bothered by a bunch of the nasty skittering poo-shooting demonettes. I split one with a thrown hand-axe, the others scarpered.
In spite of Orson's eagerness, I decided to bypass the nasty place and we clambered around the rocks by the river to the next "beach", which was lit by a weird light and swathed in a stench of despair and corruption. I laugh in the face of fear, and all that, and Orson distributed large white handkerchirfs doused in peppermint oil.
We proceeded up to our left, away from the river. The bay consisted of a series of rock steps or terraces, leading up to a passage. The first interesting thing we found was a group of icy pillars, in which were embedded human figures. Eric went ahead to scout, and while I attempted to defrost one of them with the Flame Tongue he was attacked by a nsty green polyp-tentacle-thing. A certain amount of running about and screaming and shouting ensued, during which I accidentally choppped the guy I'd defrosted in half. Oops. (A musketeer).
Eventually the green slime disappeared through one of those nasty dimensional portals in the wall. WE defrosted another pillar, inside of which is another soldier, one of the drab-clad ones we encountered (dead) before, when Zak got shot through the head with the maxim gun. We carry on up the passage with the Tommy in tow; he appeared to be somewhat agitated and ran away afetr a time. Silly bugger.
We ran up against a rock-fall blocking the passage — I began to clear a hole through, and after several hours of that (thanks for helping, guys! Sheesh!) suddenly got tired and went to sleep, leaving Eric on watch. During Eric's watch, Tommy came back and gabbled something at him in his weird language and then let off a shot from his arquebus which woke everybody up. I menaced hima bit (for his own good, honest) and he let off another shot! Obviously some sort of magical ever-loaded arquebus; could be quite handy if you could ever get enough of them to equip ten or twelve hand-picked men. I took it off him and tossed it into my Portable Hole, and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and sat him down where we could all see him.
The shooting startled Eric so much that he involuntarily went into bear-form, which was moderately inconvenient since I'd only cleared enough rubble to make a hole big enough for a human. Orson solved the problem by shrinking bear-Eric down to the size of a hamster. NOTE: Eric's change startle Alaemon somewhat since he was unaware of Eric's status as a lycanthrope.
Anyway, we clambered through and found that once again our dwarvish map had failed to fulfill its accuracy potential — a small fissure led off towards (we thought) the Elephant Cave. Sure enough, once we actually got in there, Orson used his Brain The Size Of A Planet and recognised it from his previous foray with the crystal ball.
Eric is still a bear, still the size of a hamster. Tommy is still terrified. Orson touched a peculiar oily psychedelic wall and fell down unconscious (again), but woke up again shortly afterwards. I am fine. Alaemon is fine.
We checked out both ends of the Elephant Cave and found nothing much of interest, and so went back out the way we came and carried on up the passageway. Tommy decided to leave us at that point, so we gave him his arquebus back and he ran off without even thanking us, the rude bastard.
We carried on into the Drip, which is all sparkly, and through it into the Thorn, which is hot and steamy — I notice what appears to be a lava pool. I was not aware that this was a geothermal area, but Orson postulated that it was yet another dimensional portal through to a Hot Place. We carried on through to the Scrotum. Orson checked it out with his crystal ball and found half a dozen flying monkeys hanging upside-down asleep. He blasted one with magic missiles and the rest of us swatted the others as they went past. After killing them all we carried on through to the Oilcan, past another dimensional portal and down a passage.
We came across a strange thing: there is a 20 metre diameter sphere missing from the rock. We all got across it OK except for Eric, who (at 1600kg) is just a tad heavy for us to drag up the other side. Curse his lack of opposable thumbs! Orson solved the problem by shrinking him (again) down to the size of a gerbil, and we carried on down the passageway and into the Gallbladder.
Orson found a fissure and did a spot of recon with his crystal ball, finding a chamber containing:
That was about when he made the mistake of looking down into the vortex and came over all hypnotized-like. We didn't actually notice anything much out of the ordinary for about an hour and a half, but then I took his crystal ball away and he performed his usual trick of falling over unconscious. When he came to and told us what he'd seen, we decided that we didn't want any huge tentacled monstrosities from the Dungeon Dimensions swanning about the place and that we ought to send it back to where it came from, preferably in lots of pieces.
To cut a long story short, we made our way into the cavern, banished the H.T.M.F.t.D.D. by the simple expedient of choping bits off it until it ran away. The old guy in the cage had a snake-thing wrapped around his neck and disappearing into one of his ears, and was doing something with a red gem that was spitting out red lightning all over the show. Eventually I bashed open the cage, killed the snake-thing, and Orson saved the gem from dropping into the vortex (which turned out to be a bit of a mistake, really).
The old man was knocked out by falling from the cage, the vortex disappeared, and then some complete idiot (not looking at any wizard in particular here) had the bright idea of pouring holy water on the Gem of Ultimate Evil, blowing us all into another dimension. Oh what fun, we're in hell. Again.
It looks very dull from here: a featureless plain, grey sky. Just like Britain.
There is another lacuna in the diaries at this point, consisting of little more than a few treasure lists and a couple of notes about npcs.
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