The party set out at dawn next morning, on the way to a clearing where Triana was to meet with the bear she had spoken of the previous night. One of the party members asked if they could all simply teleport there. Triana said that was not an option, since she was not able to travel through the type of gateway she made the previous day. She also said that something has been wrong with certain types of magic lately, which is why the portal the party took the previous day was so far off the mark. The party arrived with Triana to the grove where she was to meet the bear to find that the bear was already there.
Triana told the rest of the party to stay back while she went and spoke with the bear. As she approached, she was very respectful towards the bear. She bowed and kept her head lowered throughout most of the of the conversation, clearly being submissive to the bear. This was impressive to the party, because after the brief displays of power Triana had given them, they were confident she would have no trouble dealing with a bear if it came to blows.
It did not come to blows though, and after several minutes of talking the bear wandered off to where he came from and Triana returned to the party. She told the party that the bear had noticed and increase in Orcish activity in the region and that his cousin had been killed in the next woods over. He suspected that there was a cave in that forest that was now inhabited by Orcs and Trolls, not too far from where his cousin had been killed. The party set out there immediately, following the vague directions Triana was able to obtain from the bear while Triana herself returned to her home to investigate this possible witch coven further.
The party traveled west through the woods until they emerged on the other side. Once out of the woods, they discussed what to do with the stones that Clarence had removed from the eye sockets of the zombies. Shanris suggested that they simply dig a hole and bury them, but the rest of the party wanted to attempt to destroy them. At first they tried having Shanris bash them with his sword, but that seemed ineffective. Next, Clarence shot a bolt of electricity at one of them. This made it glow white, but it was still intact. Thinking it was weakened, the Shanris struck it once more with his longsword, which sent a jolt of electricity up his sword and into him. Shanris let out a yell and jumped back, clearly in pain. Shanris was very angry at this, and said that he was going after the other school members and if the rest of them wanted to play with stones all day then that was their choice. Clarence picked up the stones and placed them back into his pack, and the he and the rest of the party followed Shanris across the King’s Road and into the forest on the opposite side.
This forest was downright eerie. Once again, there was no noise whatsoever and the air was very still. The party followed the vague directions they had, proceding very cautiously with their weapons drawn. After some exploring, they came to a tree that looked like the white guardian tree they had come across in the previous forest; only this one was dead. The ground around it was covered with rocks and salt. This tree had very obviously been killed, and the party suspected that it was by the orcs the bear had talked about.
After some more searching, the party discovered the massive body of a dead bear. It had obviously died in a fight, for it had many sword or spear wounds and numerous arrows sticking out of it. Shanris inspected the tracks and other features in the area and determined that a party of at least 8 humanoids was involved in this fight, and that several of them had died – though there were no signs of their bodies. The party searched around further and discovered the same strange plant they had seen before at the underground exit of the school [an event that took place in the one log I’m missing].
As he had done previously, the dragon became very excited by this and ran towards the plant, breathing fire on it before jumping in and feasting on the howling remains of the plant. This revealed a small opening in the ground, apparently a hidden entrance to some sort of cave or tunnel. Once the dragon had cleared out enough of the plant, the party lit their torches and jumped in.
They found themselves in a hallway. It was wide enough for two of them to walk side-by-side comfortably, and perhaps 10 feet high. The party decided to head east inside the tunnel. They went for perhaps 200 feet before coming to a dead end. There was a very large boulder blocking the way. It appeared to lead either outside or to another very large cave, but it was impossible for the party to move the boulder so they headed back the other way. After having gone about 100 feet from where they came in at in the opposite direction, the hall turned to the left. At that turn there was a door. Deciding to investigate the door before seeing where the hallway went, they opened it. It lead to another small hallway, which the party went down. After 30 feet or so, they came to another door.
Upon opening this door, they found themselves face-to-eyeballs with a very strange creature. It was roughly the size and shape of a basketball and completely covered with eyes. This startled the party quite a bit. There was no conversation about what to do; they all assumed this creature was hostile and acted accordingly. Clarence and Shanris both fired arrows at it. The creature was able to dodge the arrow of Clarence, but in doing so had moved right into the arrow of Shanris. It let out a high pitched howling noise as it deflated in agony on the ground. This apparently got the attention of some other beasts in the cave, as the party saw lights and heard commotion coming at them from various hallways that were attached to this main room.
They all pulled back into to the hallway, just in time to see 3 huge trolls appear from various hallways, all carrying torches (and thankfully nothing else). The party had yet to be noticed by the trolls, and took advantage of that by letting a volley of arrows fly into one of the trolls. Several of the arrows hit it in the neck, causing it to stumble back and fall to one knee. This grabbed the attention of the other two, however, and they charged the party.
Had the party not been wise enough to pull back into the hallway before this fight, they would have easily been killed by the trolls. However, since they were in the hallway, only one troll could face them at a time and they were dispatched one by one. This was still a very difficult task though. The party soon learned that the only way to deal with their regeneration was by applying liberal amounts of Clarence’s lightning to them. Badly injured, the party emerged victorious and prayed that this would be the last of the resistance they would encounter in this cave.
The party entered the room and took a look around. It was circular, and spread evenly around it were 7 doors, including the one they came in from. The party went clockwise and started to explore all the doors. What they saw inside each of them was truely horrific. Each of the first 3 rooms contained 7 sets of shackles, each of which held a badly abused dead body. At the base of each body, the party could see traces of various pieces of school clothing mixed in with pools of bodily fluid and, in some cases, limbs. Several party members threw up as they went through the rooms, finding more of the same.
In the 4th room, however, they found something quite different. Chained to a post in the middle was a large dog-like creature of some sort. It appeared to be much larger and more muscular than a normal dog though. It also had an unusually large mouth and 6 legs. It growled furiously at them, but was unable to attack because of its chain. Not wanting to risk it breaking free, the party shot it with arrows until they were certain it was dead. Inside that room they found a human-sized desk that had apparently been cleaned out. There was nothing else of interest in the room and so the party moved on.
The party immediately recognized the next room from the scrying Triana head done from them. Percival rushed to one of the bodies, which the rest of the party gathered was his brother Tybalt. Much to the surprise of the party, Tybalt did not appear to be dead. He was obviously very badly injured, but he was still breathing. The party checked the rest of the people hanging from the shackles in the room and discovered that all 6 of them were still alive too (though some appeared to be more alive than others). Clarence and Shanris immediately began to pick the locks on the manacles and gently lower the bodies, while Hayate ran into the next (and final) room to see if there were any more survivors. Percival stayed by his brother and obviously refused to leave, though none of the other party members even thought about asking him to.
In the next room, Hayate found much more of what they had seen in the previous rooms, with the notable exception that one of the people still appeared to be alive. He informed the party and they got her down too once they had finished in the other room. The party gently carried the bodies into the main room and discussed a plan of action.
They obviously had to get these fellow students out of here as soon as possible, but that would be no easy task. The only exit they were aware of was some 12 feet off the ground and Percival’s brother was a very large man. They could not risk exploring the caves for another exit though, as none of them were in a condition to fight.
Eventually they came up with a plan that involved using the table they found as a makeshift stretcher (along with the liberal amounts of rope they had brought) to lift the victims out. It took a decent amount of time, but they were finally able to get it working. Shanris climbed out and helped Clarence up, and the two of them were able to lift everyone else out; though this took some time as they had to take numerous breaks. They were eventually able to pull everyone out though, and decided to make camp up there. It was late at night by now and they were all exhausted, not to mention the fact that they had no way to carry all these people to a place where they could receive proper medical attention.
The party covered their rescuees as best they could with what spare cloths and blankets they had, and applied a healing balm which Triana had given them to their most obvious injuries. They set up a watch rotation and settled in for the night, hoping that it would pass uneventfully. However, “uneventful” had never been a word that would typically be used to describe anything associated with this party and this night would prove to be no exception.