(Saturday – October 20th)

We began this adventure by regrouping outside of the Lair of the Kobold King, and after splitting up treasure both from the Lair and bodies of slain enemies Mimosa, Haladorr, Richard, Knolan, and Dulin ventured in to explore the rest of the Dungeon! As they entered Draube Zerk came running by, claiming that his mother was off to the west waging a “one-woman war” against the orks, but he seemed more then happy to see his old comrades again and gladly joined them for the moment. Upon entering the unexplored portion of the lair the party encountered another group of large snakes, one of which bit and “snake poisoned” Draube which would be his excuse for missing (blurred vision) or being hit (slow reflexes) for the rest of the adventure. Further into the lair we came to an elaborate door ahead with three key holes, and one door down a hall on each side. Richard explored to the left and peered through the door only to find three large, mutated looking monstrosities! Hoping that they hadn’t noticed him, Richard retreated back to the party but was soon followed by the monsters. The first was a large werewolf like creature, the second was a crawling green oozing mass which paralyzed upon contact, and the last was a very tall frog-like creature with a giant eye which caused terror in those who it gazed upon. During this combat a mysterious Elven man came to the party’s aid with some quite skillful archery, later identifying himself as Jikari. After a long, painful battle in the hallways with these monsters, eventually the party was victorious but very beaten up.

Investigation into the room where the monsters came from indicated an area of strong Transmutation magic, which Jikari, Richard, and Knolan took to investigating. At the same time, Draube grew impatient and peaked through the door to the right only to have several crossbow bolts narrowly miss his head. After a moment of regrouping the party charged into the room, halfling-paladins flying head first, to find a group of kobolds defending three magical circles on the floor with alchemists fire and tanglefoot bags. After dispatching with the pesky kobolds the group investigated the strange runes on the floor. Dulin discovered that one was a healing circle, and professed that another was a magical “dwarven healing circle”, which then transformed Draube’s skin (temporarily) into rock and caused him to sneeze small stones. Dulin subsequently jumped into the circle and experienced the pain of her skin being set ablaze, but thankfully that was temporary as well.

The party had now acquired three keys and set to opening the elaborate door. Inside they found the doorway split in two, leading to two separate rooms when the vision of the Kobold King appeared, claiming to have hostages and daring the party to rescue them and face him. It then became apparent that some mechanics or magics were at work for the rooms were moving! Each room contained a skeleton at its center which was turning a large crank, and the rooms rotated seemingly at random. There were six rooms in all, and after encountering some vicious owlbears, one of which Jikari and Draube knocked into a pit of blades screaming and spewing feathers all about, the party came across the room containing the two prisoners – covered in tons of rigged up Alchemist’s Fire! The party also detected the presence of the Kobold King nearby, but delayed because several members were still fallen unconscious and could provide no aide in what would undoubtedly be a tough fight. Rotating the rooms manually, the rest of the party was taken back to the healing circle and revived, but upon returning and rescuing the hostages successfully it appeared that the Kobold King had fled! Behind the last two of the six rotating rooms was bright stone hallway which led the party back to the surface on the other side of the mountains.