We came upon a beastmen horde today. Haven’t seen one of those in years! Ilmarian/Felix ran away and hid behind the carts for most of the entire battle. Sometimes his heroics amaze me and then he does stuff like this. Jezeg discovered the wonders of the Fire Sword and was quite pleased, I think! And, of course, it wouldn’t be a battle with the evil of this world if there weren’t any injuries to our party: Jezeg and Vladimir both injured their hands – Vladimir’s is looking much worse, though.
Battle Records: Caradryan = 13 kills. Nadon = 5 kills, High Damage Kill at 23 points (tied with Axtrica). Lillay = 5 kills (including the chief). Ilmarian/Felix = 4 kills. Nivak = 2 kills. Jezeg = 2 kills. Growlyn = 5 kills. Arvin = 2 kills. Axtrica = 6 kills, High Damage Kill at 23 points (tied with Nadon). Berishki = 4 kills. Natasha = 1 kill. Vladimir = 1 kill. Rustov = 2 kills.
Day 2141 (the next day)
Caradryan played around with his doctoring again today: Jezeg’s in for some discomfort while using his hand for the next six weeks or so and poor Vladimir will be fighting with his off hand for the next 16 weeks. He’s not having such a good time of it since he’s been with us.
Day 2142 (the next day)
We broke camp and moved out again today.
Day 2145 (3 days later)
Plavin directed us to Cliff Wall #2 – absolutely nothing there. Moving on…
2149 (4 days later)
Nadon and Natasha have gone missing. Well, we sort of know where they are. Just don’t know exactly what’s happened to them. Plavin lead us to Cliff Wall #3 earlier today. The water level here is higher than at the last two caves, so it’s decided that two people should go down instead of the whole party – there just isn’t enough time between tides to get everyone down, scout the area out, and then get back up to high ground. Nadon and Natasha volunteered to play scout on this one. We didn’t know anything was amiss until the tide started coming back in and they hadn’t yet emerged, so we pulled up their safety line. Instead of getting our two comrades, we got the untied end of the rope. It doesn’t appear to have been cut and that’s the only piece of mind we’ll get until tomorrow when the tide goes down.
Day 2150 (the next day)
Nadon and Natasha have returned – in one piece! Turns out they purposely untied their safety line (Of course, I knew that…) in order to search deeper into the cave. They’ve told us they saw humanoid creatures down there, but there was something off about them. We’re feeling pretty good about this being The Cave, so we’ll camp here for another week or so while Jezeg’s hand heals up to full capacity.
Day 2160 (1 week/2 days later)
The bulk of the party’s made the trip down into the cave – only Plavin and the incapacitated have remained up top. It’s a little spooky down here. Nadon and Natasha showed us the path they’d taken the week before. They remembered that the humanoid creatures had been carrying buckets of something from one area to the next. We decided to check out where the creatures had been heading first. We didn’t get far before coming upon closed double doors. Growlyn stepped up to open them and got himself shot full of arrows. Ouch! But, he’s a tough one and shakes most of it off. That’s when Caradryan decided it must be safe to cast Open – it’s not. He dropped to the ground after being shot and his breathing became alarmingly shallow almost immediately. We pulled him out of the line of fire as the door opens. We didn’t want to risk moving him just yet, so we took a defensive position around him and Jezeg (now playing party doctor) and waited for something to come out from the other room. We didn’t have to wait long – two humanoid creatures lurched through the opening only a minute or two later. I can only guess these are zombies – it’s true they appear to be human at first glance, but longer observation made it obvious they were certainly not human…or even alive. Most of the party ran from these vile abominations – I can’t say I entirely blame them either. Nivak, Growlyn, Rustov, Berishki, Ilmarian, and I stay with Caradryan. My first thought is to defend my injured cousin. Nivak and Growlyn’s first thoughts are to charge the zombies. Thank Myrmydia that decision proved to be a wise one! Growlyn dispatched both zombies without even breaking a sweat. I took Growlyn and Rustov with me to find the runners. After we rounded everyone up, we went back to check on Caradryan. Jezeg pronounced that his condition had worsened and healed him – his condition didn’t seem to change, so we made preparations to camp for the night in the hallway. A short while later, a human skeleton walked through the double doors. Yes, that’s right. It walked. The terror of that awful sight was too much for most of the party to bear and they all ran off – again. Ilmarian, Growlyn, Arvin, and Axtrica stayed with to guard the unconscious Caradryan. I soon found out that skeletons are easy to “kill”, or I suppose destroy is a more appropriate word. We gathered up the runners yet again and made camp for the night.
Battle Records: Lillay = 1 kill. Growlyn = 2 kills.