Thotham's Journal Entry #10

Lefty grabbed the bag that fell from the dusty ashes of the demon and motioned to Salazar. When he approached, he sighed relief as we had recovered his bag of holding. Pulling the inventory list out of the bag, he began to go through his possessions within until, unfortunately, he announced an item was missing from his bag . . . a manual of flesh golems. After all this time, our enemy had finally gotten his hands on exactly what we were trying to stop him from obtaining.

With that, Salazar thanked us for our assistance in getting back his possessions and took his leave, retreating to the entrance of the dungeon. Meanwhile, picking through the remains of the battle, Feefifo found a key among the ashes. I produced the book from my own bag of holding and both the key and the book now glowed red as if they belonged together. 

We unlocked the book and it was passed to both Inrah and Sai to inspect for arcane knowledge. We discovered exactly what we had thought, we too were now in the possession of an opposing manual of flesh golems. Though Vax protested at the demonic thought, we knew that only one choice remained for us. What better strategy to combat a Thay wizard's Flesh golem than to summon one of our own! Sai agreed to construct our foul creation as I dumped out the head and arm we had gathered from the bag of holding and Feefifo rounded up the rest of the parts from around the dungeon.

Before Sai was to conduct the ritual to summon our lesser golem, there was one last thing for us to do with the book. We placed it in the bookshelf with the missing book and, as we suspected, unlocked a hidden passageway beyond. the passageway beyond the bookshelf had a short hallway and two doors. Using my boots of the elven kind, I stealthed forward, not making a sound and checked both doors for noise. No sound came from either. Peaking in, I saw giant sized weapons in a weaponry past the door on the right and a barracks past the door on the left . . . both were empty.

Sai began the hour long ritual to construct our golem while the rest of the party rested for the battle that was sure to come beyond the final door of the barracks. The door glowed red and was inscribed with an arcane sigil to bind it. Once Sai had constructed his golem, it arose and followed his commands to arm itself with a longsword and a scimitar from the weaponry. Next it was commanded to burst open the door containing the arcane sigil. With a mighty rush and a crash, our golem severed the defensive magic on the door, and we walked behind the mighty creation as we entered the room. (side note, Lefty had affectionately named our golem Jarold von Deathknight . . . Can't say a bit of humor before the grisly scene beyond the door wasn't warranted.)

There on a makeshift throne sat the "old" priest of shar from Phandalin. He sneered and told us we had troubled him long enough as he finally dropped his guise and the true, red Thay necromancer was in full view. In front of him stood, as we suspected, a horrifying Flesh Golem constructed of the parts that had disappeared throughout the dungeon.

As the battle commenced, more undead minions of the necromancer crashed through the wooden parts of the floor to join the fray as our golems battled each other in the center of the room. Sai had used the enlarge spell on our golem and turned him into a monstrous giant while the rest of us rushed into the room and attacked the enemies before us. 

Shadow, moved forward with frightening speed, his mind single on the Thay wizard. As he approached, he put a sphere of darkness around the wizard and rushed forward. Before Shadow could strike, the wizard cast fly and hovered over and out of the darkness. Sai to the opportunity to throw a bead of fireball upon him as Shadow once again pursued.

Meanwhile on the backlines, Inrah began a kind of wizard battle with the Thay who played a defensive game, casting shield to block her attacks. Feefifo, Zax, Lefty, and myself started to thin the army of undead that continued to pour out from the floors. 

About the floors . . . as it turns out, the floor of this room was suspended above a giant pit. As the golems attacked each other back and forth in the center, the blows were enough to start to crumble the sections of the floors below us. In fact, a section of floor that Shadow was standing on gave way and he tumbled down into the pit. Luckily, our friend landed on his feet and was able to sprint to a ladder at one end using his monk's Step of the Wind ability. 

After several back-and-forth attacks from the Golems, both of our creations were looking worse for wear. With a flair of genius, Inrah used Dissonant Whispers on our Thay's creation and mentally shattered the golem with a final scream inside its twisted mind and the battle seemed to suddenly sway in our favor . . . until our golem, bloodied and confused, went completely berserk and turned on Sai, simply because he happened to be the closest thing next to it.

With three vicious and mighty strikes from his own creation, Sai collapsed to the ground. Zax rushed to his side and pulled him back to our secondary line where we could heal his wounds. The Thay wizard was looking worse for wear from the attacks of ours that were able to get through. Getting back on his feet, he looked at our Golem and sneered, seeing the mayhem it had created. Unfortunately, the very Golem in the center, crashing against the tiles would be his demise as the tile he was standing on crumbled underneath his feet and he fell to his death in the pit below.

The undead constructs attacking us immediately fell to the floor becoming inanimate and Sai, now back on his feet, took a heroic leap at this creation and pushed himself and the golem into the pit below, falling deep into a central pit below. It was a brave act that ultimately saved us from a rampaging golem as we rushed out of the dungeon before it would collapse in on us.

Emerging from the entrance, we did not find the cool chirping of the Neverwinter Woods. What we found instead were deep, ominous mists encircling us. Something outside had changed. Evil now seemed to thicken around us.   

Thotham's Journal Entry #9

Our group discovered an entrance to what appeared to be the Thay necromancer's lair right where Inrah's vision pointed us. A small 5ft passageway led deeper inside, only wide enough for one person to enter at a time. It was at that point I knew I needed to take to the shadows. If the Shadow master's Guild had any perfect opportunity to flank and trap us, this would be their opportunity. I couldn't let them see me enter if we were under their surveillance, and so I took to the shadows and let the group proceed without me until I could join them again.

In the darkness I waited until several minutes had past, and my stomach turned as I heard shouts, blasts, and the sound of battle from within. Having surveilled the area and determined it was safe, I snuck stealthily into the lair. What I found inside was that my party had dispatched a grave full of undead skeletons and skeletal wizards -- bone dust was everywhere, and it was good to see my "talents" weren't needed for the fight they faced.

Three doors exited the room and so we chose one and proceeded forward. The next room we encountered had a pedestal with two heads stitched together, the eye sockets replaced with gems. One a rather normal looking head (despite the gems for eyes), and another that was giant sized and covered with several other gems as if it had eyes everywhere. While the smell was horrific, that didn't stop Feefifo from walking forward and slapping the head covered in gems to see if it would animate. As he did, the normal looking head that was attached to it disappeared into dust, leaving the monstrous head behind.

I gave the large head a psychic shove with my telekinesis and it felt to the floor. When it did, a blast of force came out of one of the gems and hit Sai (still in his raptor wild shape and surrounded by circling winds from the previous battle). Seeing this head could possibly be weaponized, I pulled out a 10' pole from my bag of holding and stabbed at the head to try and mount it upon the pole. It struck the head true but didn't stick upon the pole . . . instead it exploded on me. While the blast could have been worse if I hadn't jumped out of the way, it was still extremely painful. Dangerous, but I bagged up the head into the bag of holding anyway . . . perhaps we could still weaponize this gemmed head in the future.

Sai blasted his way through a locked door and created a small hole large enough for his raptor form to sneak through. On the other side was what only could be described as a chalkboard detailing body parts and their benefits. it appeared as though this was the research study of the Thay necromancer who most certainly was on the quest to construct his flesh golem. We noticed among the notes a description of the two heads we had already found. In fact, the notes detailed two of every body part needed to construct a golem: torso, legs, head, left arm, and right arm.

Next, I led the group down the hallway beyond the head room and again, my reflexes saved me as the floor disappeared along our narrow pathway to reveal a pit below and only the doorway at the end. Inrah flew ahead of the group and attempted to open the door when it collapsed down upon her, causing her to fall down into the pit and sustain minor injuries, while the door created a natural bridge for 10 feet of the 20 foot pit. I lit a torch and lowered it down to Inrah with my telekinesis to see she was covered in very black dirt and help light her way as she flew out of the pit and over to the other side. Sai used a Fae Step to cross the gap. I used my Cloud's Jaunt to misty step the distance. Lefty picked up and threw Feefifo like a tumbling acrobat across the gap, and then leapt the distance himself.

In the room beyond was a familiar face but also one contorted in pain. It was Salazar! Salazar the warforged merchant from our previous travels to Neverwinter. Sai held him down while I pulled out the dagger in his stomach and Inrah healed him with her wand. He soon passed out, but Sai was able to wake him with a pouch of smelling salts. He had no recollection of how he arrived here, but what he was missing was his own bag of holding that someone had stolen from him after an ambush back in Neverwinter.

To add to the strangeness, the room he was in had the two torsos mentioned earlier: One that was thin, and one that appeared muscular. Sai touched the muscular torso and the thin legs disappeared. Inrah mentioned that it appeared that perhaps we were somehow constructing the golem for the necromancer or possibly making a choice for him. The torso didn't fit in the bag of holding, so we left it behind, healed Salazar enough for him to join us and continued through the dungeon.

one by one as we worked our way through the dungeon we found the remaining body parts. While our plan was to never touch make the choice by avoiding touching the legs to select or disintegrate one, Sai couldn't resist his curiosity and touched the legs.

We encountered more trapped doors and dangers along the way until lefty found a strange wooden duck in a box. He ascertained no threat from the automaton and picked it up to claim the strange device for himself.  That was a bad decision.  It exploded in a fiery blast and while most of us dodged the main explosion, Feefifo took the full brunt of the explosion and passed out from the trap. Inrah healed him awake quickly while Sai cast a healing spirit in the form of a radiant beetle. We each touched the beetle and received its healing blessing. I can't say how nice it is to have friends with the healer's art.

by the time we had searched through most of the rooms we had touched an arm here, and a leg there thinking that perhaps that was how we finally escape this lair. The original doorway out had sealed, and it felt like we would be trapped here forever unless we figured out what the Thay's game exactly was. There was even a bookshelf in one corner that seemed to be missing a book, begging for us to return the book of flesh golem to it, but we resisted the temptation to do so.

Instead, we wandered through the final doorway we hadn't gone through back at the room full of skeletons, which took us right into the trap of the very demon who took the key from Seegis the mage of the magical tower outside of Phandalin! With a sneer he cornered us and simply said, "Now, you die" as we were charged by two hell fire boars, a demonic giant spider, and the undead griffon under his command. What followed truly was a vicious battle. Sai had enlarged himself and transformed into a giant toad. Inrah summoned for a flaming sword and began slicing at the demon. Lefty was petrified in fear from the sight of the giant spider, while swing and slashing at the hell boars. Feefifo was taking careful steady aimed shots at the griffon dealing shots with deadly precision. I was throwing my psychic daggers above the head of Lefty and into the boars and spiders . . . really anything I could see, and even Salazar joined in the fight with what appeared to be some kind of warforged gun.

In the end, we dispatched them all as they disappeared into flames. The demon dropped a bag on the ground as he disappeared in hellfire. We had won, and now it may finally be time to rest for a bit and discover if this is Salazar's bag and what it may have inside that was so attractive to the demon and his hoard. 

Thotham's Journal Entry #8

We took a moment to organize ourselves in the shelter of the Abbey basement. I slipped on a new pair of Boots of the Elvenkind and pocketed the magical dust of choking and sneezing. Having a spare trick or trap up my sleeve will be nice. Zax took the Decanter of Endless Water. Sai was left in charge of the Necklace of Fireballs and Periapt of Wound Closure. Inrah donned the Robe of Useful Items and the Blood Well. The rest of our haul from the seer's trials would be divided between Shadow, Feefifo, and Lefty.

Upon further inspection, we found a journal in the basement left behind by the Thay Wizard from Inrah's scrying. The journal seemed to fill in a lot of the missing blanks in our mysterious hunt. An entry from three weeks ago noted that the wizard had found a manual of Flesh Golems and locked it with a key for safekeeping. An entry from two weeks ago noted progress on his experiments with constructing golems from corpses of animals from the nearby surroundings. The last entry in the journal caught us up to today. The Thay knows we have his book and has headed to his secondary base . . . the very location Inrah scryed deep in Neverwinter Woods.

Knowing we only had 5 days' time, we quickly headed out toward the edge of Neverwinter Forest. While we walked, Sai was busy with a druidic ritual to find us some friendly horses to make the journey less exhausting. At first, he found some horses already occupied by Lord's Alliance riders, but at the end of the day, he found us a small heard. I've never seen anyone as adept at handling animals than Sai. It was truly a marvel to see him work and before we knew it, we had horses that took us right to the edge of Neverwinter Forest to where we could follow the river to our ultimate destination.

Sai thanked the horses by causing an apple tree to spontaneously bloom and provide them with a couple bushels of apples. As for us, we continued along the path going deeper and deeper into the forest. Old specters of our last visit seemed to arise as Zax heard a cackling and creaking of rocking chair. The forest grew darker and more menacing with each footstep. Even the waters appeared unnatural, dark, and full of an unnatural murkiness.

As nighttime came, it was time to set up camp, and we found a nice plateau with a vantage point that overlooked the river and forest. Zax and Sai took up watches while the rest of us settled down to what was supposed to be an uneventful sleep. Unfortunately, it was not.

From the depths of the river came two enormous, demonic-like giant toads with glowing red eyes. Zax woke us at the first signs of trouble as they moved in for the attack. Despite using magic to blind and reveal the location of the toads, ended up swallowed inside the gaping stomachs of the beasts. 

I suddenly felt the pull to manifest something new inside me! Psychic knifes appeared in my hands, and so I did what any newly born Soulknife Rogue would do. I used them, striking true to the unholy toads that had attacked us! 

Sai shapeshifted inside one of the toads and turned into a raptor beast that clawed and bit the beast from the inside out. Inrah pulled out a 10-foot pole from her Robe of Useful Items and magically impaled the toad that had swallowed her, but unfortunately the piercing damage it inflicted seemed ineffective. With a final two blows, I threw a psychic knife that landed right between the eyes of the beast that had swallowed Inrah, penetrating its skull with psychic pain that caused it to blow apart and release Inrah, who now was holding a flaming sword, ready to hack her way out from the inside.  

Zax ran forward and used her paladin's smite and dealt a holy blast that caused the other toad holding Sai to blow apart as well. Let's just say . . . it was a mess. Thankfully there was a river nearby to wash ourselves . . . except for Sai, who remained transformed as a dinosaur that seemed perfectly at home sleeping in the innards of a giant toad.

The rest of the evening was thankfully uneventful, and we set off for the clearing in the morning. Of strange note! Before we left, I found a small toad that seemed to take an interest in me. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it's happily hitching a ride on my shoulder for now.  I'm taking this friend of the forest as a good omen.