Adventure 98 – Deep hold – trek to the heart of the mountain

Talin – Dwarf: Fighter (lvl 12)
Othello – Gnome:  Thief (lvl 12)
Bone – Human: Fighter (lvl 12)
Hammar – Dwarf: Cleric (lvl 11)
Gubikla – Gnome: Wizard (lvl 11)
Mightychondria – HalfOrc: Fighter (lvl 10)
Randy – Dwarf Cleric (lvl 11)

Has Cloverdung lost his mind in hiring Pete?

Was Kavis eaten by Ollie?

Pete seems to have lost his willingness to hang around the party after Bone went on his axe demon rampage “saving” wyntbridge.   His place is filled with Randy who claims to be a hill dwarf but does not have a beard.  He only has a long mustache. So the party is thinking he is just a fat tall gnome trying to pass off as a dwarf.  Any way the party gets a strange visit from a disguised Boris telling us to meet him at the Vorticinal Network circle in the woods the next morning.  There he tells us that the assassinations are getting worse.   He also tells us that from what we told him of what has happened it sounds like they are trying to bring back the old evil gods to the material plane.   He will try to meet us at the heart of the mountain in Deep hold.  He leaves and then the party teleports back to Deep Hold.

There they find a couple of strange structures in the throne room and a couple just outside.  They seem to detect movement or sound.  They start vibrating directed at the location of the disturbance and eventually explode.   Othello shot one of them in the throne room a caused it to explode and the explosion has destroyed the secret door that lead to the overlook of the throne room.  Talin headed down to the other secret door and opened it at the same time the second tree thing exploded and that caused the two there to explode.  Now that the path was clear the party heads out south down the passageway.  They pass the secret door to the trapped section.  They also pass the collapsible stairs that the mechanism was broken. The passageway lead to a door and a intersection just passed the door.  Othello heard something behind the door but Talin said move one and take the passage just passed the door.  They pass by another door that could lead to the same room where the other door lead to? The party then runs across a spot in hallway where the clerics claim was stone worked to look like the wall and it appears to have been done from the other side.  There is a discussion / argument over whether to use pass wall to get inside and free andy held up dwarfs or would that let the bad guys in.  While this was going on Mightychondria and Othello head back to the intersection to investigate a sound.   It turns out to be two hound like creatures lead by a pale Orcway.  

Mightychondria squares off against them while Othello takes shoot from the shadows.  The others come over for help after Mighty tells them that there is something over there.  Gubikla cast a fireball.  Talin heads through the side door that lead to empty barracks and then out to the other hall flanking the Orcway.  Bone rushed in almost tripping but ended up just kicking Othello out of the way.  The beasts were finished off.  Mightychondria noted that the hounds did not bleed.  After the battle they head back to the stone shape wall and Gubikla uses pass all to open it up.  They see a elderly dwarf their that introduces himself as Ollie a bard.  He seems very interested in leaving and for us not to investigate the area he was held up in.  It turns out he was trying to hide that he had killed and eaten several dwarfs.  Him trying to get away caused the party to kill him.  Where he pretended to be dead until Randy was going to cut his head off.  That is when he sprung to life again and tried to use something in his pocket but was really killed before he could.  The party found several rooms that looked to be a dinning hall covered in blood and bits, a woman’s bedroom that was searched through, a room where he put all the chopped up bodies, and latrin that ended up having a magical hatchet in the shitter that Hammar fitched out, and a large bedroom where it looks like he stayed. There was a magical compartment on the south wall that Othello apparently rearmed and setoff.  Plus a invisible chest under the bed that looked like it held a wand, dagger, and bracers but was empty.  

The party then heads out following the passageway up some stairs to a landing that lead to stairs down and a hallway heading south off the landing to more stairs up.  This is where Mightychondria felt air being push from behind us from something large.  The party ran up the first set of stairs and felt and heard something large coming the other direction.  Othello found the secret door in the intersection but could not open it.  Gublica knocks it and the party rushes in to a guard station.  The door is made out of the vis stone so they can see through it from the inside.  They see a little less than a dozen pale Orcway come up and start looking around for the party.  The party opens up the secret door to take on the Orcway and they seem to vanish.  They are just hiding but most of the party members don’t seem to know that.  Mightychondria rushes out and up adjacent stairs in pursuit of where he assumes they have run off to.  He gets ambushed.  This leads to Bone and Hammer going over to attack the now visible ones.  Gublika cast ice storm hitting the main group of them.  Randy heads out to take on one or two of them.  Othello uses his thunder kick wand to blast two of them back.  He was hoping to knock them back into the one of the wheeled tinical beast climbing the stairs but they were only knock back a few feet.  Most of the Orcway are killed and the party starts concentrating on the wheeled beast or running up the smaller hallway where they think the beast can’t go.  Mightychondria gets flung behind one of the monsters.  He then has to dive under the monster to pick up his dropped halberd. This is when Bone crits on the monster and grows and is seeing hearts.  He turns toward the largest heart, the other wheeled beast.  The rest of the party runs up the stairs and into a enter room that lead to a large wealthy bedroom.  The doors were locked and glyphs put in place to keep Bone out and hopefully the party safe.  Bone ends up killing the other monster while the last Orcway ran off.  Bone managed to regain control of himself just before killing the wheeled monster.  But the party does not know that yet.

COD = Bone for not caring for if he kills off the party while using the ax to save the party.