22 Eleint
❧A Fair Trade?
Morning
Once we were all rested up—and after I checked on my little project (still good, by the way)—we set out to finish explorin’ around Rezmir’s room. Directly across the hall was another door, so T-Bone went to check it out. Locked. Good thing someone remembered the keys from the desk. Turns out, I had ‘em, which normally wouldn’t be a problem, except we were tryin’ to be quiet. And as much as I love my armor, one thing it ain’t is quiet. So, I tossed the keys to someone a little less clanky, and she got ‘em to T-Bone.
The room itself? Kinda boring, honestly. Just full of food. A lot of food. Lhel got it in his head to cram it all into the portable hole, but there weren’t no way we’d get it all packed in without spendin’ half the day on it. I ain’t fixin’ to waste hours squirrelin’ away food like winter’s settin’ in. We settled on takin’ two barrels of salted meat—fair enough haul. ‘Course, we ain’t monsters, so we left a trade. In return for the meat, we gifted ‘em the fourteen bullywug corpses and seven cultist bodies we’d been haulin’ in the portable hole. Thought that was a fair swap. Locked the door behind us, too—nice and tidy.
While we were regroupin’, Kalama took a look through the scrolls we’d picked up along the way. Turns out, we’d gotten:
- Arcane Lock
- Enlarge/Reduce
- Moonbeam
I thought we had a teleportation scroll somewhere, but nah—guess that was just the instructions for the one we found back in the cave. Oh well. And that fancy greatsword from Rezmir? Yeah, doesn’t seem like anything special. Bit disappointing.
❧Rude Wizards
Back in the hall, we came to the last door we hadn’t checked yet. We could hear a couple of men talkin’ inside. T-Bone gave the all-clear—unlocked, no traps—so I opened it up, and in we went.
Now, I’ve seen some weird things, but this? This was downright morbid. Hundreds of horse skulls nailed up on the walls and ceilin’. Not even exaggeratin’. Place was cluttered with desks, chairs, and lecterns, all covered in stuff—potions, scrolls, and somethin’ that looked like meat. But none of it compared to the real centerpiece: four massive gargoyle statues loomin’ over everything.
Smack dab in the middle of the room were two robed men, locked in a real heated debate over Mesopotamia and pyramids. And, well—figurin’ I actually had somethin’ to contribute for once, I asked ‘em how they felt about Aztec pyramids. Thought I was bein’ clever. Turns out, they did not appreciate my insight. Looked at me like I was the dirt under their soft little scholar hands and started demandin’ to know what I was doin’ in their room. I tried to be polite, even offered to leave nice and quiet.
That’s about when the door slammed shut behind me.
We all knew where this was goin’, so we got ready for a fight. While the others prepped, I took a good look at one of the wizards, tryin’ to gauge him. Seemed like he had a lot of power, but he also looked like the kind of fella who’d drop if you hit him real hard. And wouldn’t you know it—soon as the fight started, the bastard started floatin’ like that’d save him.
Spoiler: it did not.
We took out one of ‘em, and the other rubbed his ring and vanished. No idea where he went—probably fled in fear of our mighty might. Then, right on cue, one of the walls also vanished, and a gargoyle came at us. ‘Cause, y’know, we hadn’t had enough excitement already.
Demdoo took a nasty hit, so T-Bone used our superior healin’ potion to help him out. Then, while Demdoo threw out another Prayer of Healing, the rest of us got to work loadin’ the two bodies into the portable hole and searchin’ the place. We found a couple of scrolls of Mage Armor on the wizard, which we handed off to Kalama. Only other thing that looked important were some fancy-lookin’ missives and letters.
Guess we’ll see what kind of trouble we stirred up next.