Continued
The northern staircase is chosen by Echo as our path. I see what appear to be enclosures. Barred rooms that contain…. Something. Rod suffers some sort of mental trauma, turning her icy cold, that takes her a few minutes to recover. A voice, speaking ancient Elvish, warns us that we made a mistake by entering here. In the rooms, ancient corpses rise up and start moving to the edge of the bars. Behind us, the stairwell closes off from some sort of portcullis. We are trapped down here.
Rod regains her composure and turns the dead. The creatures move away from us to the back of their enclosure. To our left, Iron doors are chained shut w/ chains. The large room to the west is full of ancient equipment. A slave storage area according to Ackdor. Murder holes line the walls. The middle of the room is the guard station. The western wall is full of mine shafts that glow an orange light. The same direction as the large, hot doors above. The northern wall has three shafts. The Eastern path ..one. We head north.
It’s like we entered a swamp. Moisture, vegetation, moss, fungus, fill the cavern. Some of it glows creating a seeable light. Better for our human companions. Water rushes ahead of us. Steam rises from it. The middle passage seems to have less vegetation than the side passages. Looking down into one of the moss covered pits, I see a creature. Covered in an insect or lobster like shell but nothing like this world would develop. Echo suffers the same effects as Rod when she attempts to read the creatures.
Echo decides to get its attention and tosses a rock near the creature(Maxpary). It notices us, roars, and charges. Answering calls respond from the other pits. Looking behind, two more are shambling towards us. These appear to be undead(Maxpary Shambler). Melina’s ability to Turn the Dead works on these monsters. The others converge onto the group to attack. We make quick work of them.
While Rod is investigating the mushrooms in one of the pits, the creatures begin standing back up. These undead forms took a bit more as only magical weapons seemed to affect them. Echo, her face badly torn up by the monster, unleashes a stream of ball lightning on her attacker, frying it. Her second and third bolts sizzle by me, singeing my hair. I decapitate it, finishing it off.
Leaving the tunnel, the residents of the cages are coming towards us. Hundreds of undead shambling in our direction. Rod’s Turn Dead drives away scores of them but many more start coming through the side tunnels. King and I attack taking down a few of the skeletons. Realizing the numbers are against us, Echo calls for us to fall back and fills the tunnels w/ electrical fields, frying dozens upon dozens of the fell denizens. The sound is deafening. Snapping and crackling reminiscent of the popping of insects that wander to close to a flame. The flashing is hard to look at, blinding light. Taking out ones that make it through, my bowstring snaps. Rod Turns the Dead again to keep them at a distance.
(pause)
