Having saved the city from the plague, we at last had a chance to rest and learn from our experience. Both Milque and I were approached by Theo, a representative of the local Thieves' Guild, offering to train us in some new skills. This took us a few weeks, during which time I assume the rest of our party was off training as well. I know that Chicot disappeared into the woods, and that Glug was off throwing one hell of a party because I had to bail him out of jail. I spent most of my time on locks and traps, I'm not sure what Milque was working on. After training I hung out with Milque for a bit, and was surprised to find he was switching careers. Geez, he's just getting somewhere as a thief, and he's off doing something else. These humans just can't seem to stick to anything for very long. My magic must have impressed him though, because he decided to become a mage. Well, an illusionist, anyway, but pretty close.
The person he chose as his new mentor required him to complete a small quest first, so I tagged along to help. It seems that he had lent a book and some scrolls to another mage in town who had vanished during the plague. Our job was to go to the mage's house and retrieve the missing items. A little second story work sounded like a perfect way to practice what Theo had just taught me about locks. The mage's house was conveniently close to the inn we were staying at, so we headed over to check it out. Naturally, there was no answer and the door was locked. Luckily for us it was the same kind of lock that Theo had been showing me, and I was able to open it without making much noise. We slipped inside and found ourselves in total darkness. We began working our way forward carefully, when Milque bumped into something at about headed level.
Something spherical with tentacles. Our first thought was beholder! Then we realized we were still alive and decided it must be a gas spore. We slipped past it and out into the light. I started working on the door on the other side when it floated out of the darkness. It sure looked like what I'd heard a beholder looked like, but it didn't do much, so it must be a gas spore. Then Milque started floating. Up, then down. Then a hole appeared in the floor. I got the door open, and we fled upstairs. Whatever it was, we didn't want to mess with it. Going through the upstairs door triggered some kind of a magical trap, and Milque was blinded by it. Great, now we're stuck in a mage's house filled with magic traps, a weirded out beholder, and I'm the only one who can see. Blech. Not a good start to the day.
Beyond the trapped door was a library, filled with books I was itching to examine, a table, chair, and a fireplace. I parked Milque by the chair while I looked around, which was a bad idea because he seemed to sink into it. After that I moved him near a door so he'd at least have a chance to run, and started searching. One drawer was filled with what appeared to be rocks and sticks. This seemed suspicious to me, so I grabbed a few and stuck them in my pack. While I was searching the books on the shelves, a whole appeared in the floor, and the beholder floated up through it. We moved on quickly into the bedroom. We got luckier there. The book we needed was in the bedside table, but not the scrolls. Half there.
I checked the window, as another way out, but it was wizard locked shut. A couple of other things in the room appeared to be magic (the pitcher and bowl on the table), so I stuffed them in my pack as well. Peering out the door the beholder seemed to have vanished, so we snuck back down the stairs. Another door led down, so down we went. There we were surprised by a blink dog. "What's a blink dog doing in here?" I thought. Well, they're pretty smart, so I decided to just talk to it and explain why we were there. Amazingly enough, Blink was pretty friendly. The mage who's house we were in was in trouble, but Blink wasn't sure we could help. He led us to him, and I agreed. We couldn't help him.
We found him floating in mid-air in the middle of a circle of protection that boggled my mind, transformed into a lich. Ouch. Not someone I wanted to mess with. Blink led us to a side room, which had wine racks full of scroll tubes. I found the one we wanted, and resisted the temptation to snitch a few extras. Blink wouldn't appreciate it, and I'm sure the lich wouldn't appreciate it either! We made our way out, with Blink in tow, and slipped past the beholder once again. Our first stop was to see Zeker. He's the most powerful mage in the city (at least that I know of), and somebody important needed to know that a lich was loose in town. I wasn't planning on doing anything about it, that's for sure.
Milque's blindness wore off, and we went back to his new mentor and delivered the goods. I got a new spell out of it, and he started doing Mage training. I headed back to see Theo again, and thank him for the new stuff he'd shown me. He decided I was probably ready to learn some more, so I did that too. Then I went back and got Danell to show me how those second level spells worked. All in all I was feeling a lot better about my skills! We also got a few nice goodies out of the deal.
The sticks turned out to be wands, one was a Wand of Wonder (which Milque took) and the other was Lightning (which I kept). The rocks, however, were dangerous. Powerstones of some kind, attuned to and trackable by their owner. The Mages guild took those off our hands and kept them under special shielding spells while they decided what to do about the lich. Later, I realized I still had the pitcher and bowl, so those I snuck back and left on the doorstep. They vanished, so I decided I better too. I moved my stuff to another part of town.
A few weeks later, Milque was done, Glug was done, I was done, and Quicksilver was done. There still wasn't any sign of Chicot, so we decided to hang out in town a bit longer waiting for his return. Theo came buy with an offer of work. Some tunnels below the city that the guild used were infested with monsters of unknown type, and he needed them cleared out. He'd sent a few guild flunkies down and they hadn't returned, so he needed a more heavily armed party. Naturally, as we'd just saved the town, he thought of us. We negotiated a bit and arrived at 2000GP plus a bonus based on difficulty. We begin exploring off to the left, following the left wall.
The first thing we meet is a huge pack of ghouls! Great. I hate undead. I mean once I kill something, I'd really prefer that it stayed that way. We decide to retreat quickly. We make it back to the entrance, and find that a cart has been parked above the grated entrace to the tunnel. And no-one is around to move it. Damn. I bet Theo arranged this. I cast a couple of shrink spells on the cart and a strength spell on Quicksilver, and we manage to move the cart and lift the grate. Then we head back and renegotiate. 20,000 sounds a lot more reasonable if we have to face undead.
We rest up and head back in. We find a group of 10, which Glug turns. As they flee, we reset to meet the charge of the other 10 coming at us from the other direction. Quicksilver, being an elf and immune to their paralization, blocks the door and begins hewing at them. Milque starts lobbing oil, and I start casting magic missiles into the pack. A few rounds later they're dead, again. We head north for the last 10 (the ones we'd turned), and lob oil at them as they cower. Then Quicksilver cuisinarts the rest (one day I'll get him to explain that term, but it sure is effective), and we head out.
Our next trip in was a lot less successful. I stumbled into a trap which Theo hadn't warned me about, and Quicksilver and I were dropped into a pit with a Gelatinous Cube. We were paralized almost instantly. Fortunately, Milque and Glug weren't. They managed to get a ring of fire resistance on me (QS had one on already), and then oil bombed the cube. As they were getting us out however, they were attacked by a couple of shadows. It was really scarey watching the battle play out with no ability to move, or even to scream. Fortunately, Milque grabbed my wand of lightning and was able to blast the shadows with it, since Glug's turning was ineffective. We all lost some strength temporarily, but we made it out alive.
We even picked up some goodies from a backpack at the bottom of the trap. 6 gems, 2x10 and 4x50 129 GP in gold and silver A turquoise necklace worth 100 GP A Jade Figure of Gaea worth about 1400 GP A scroll of Barkskin, Hold Plant, and Warp Wood. Blowing lots of wand charges was more than we'd expected though, so we went to see how much recharging would cost at the guild. Lots, was the answer. Maybe more than we were getting paid, even at the new rate. Time to renegotiate again. Several rounds of shuttling back and forth later, we agreed to less money (12,500) and wand recharging. So we rested up and headed back in. A bit of exploring later we ran into something I still can't explain. Two red robed guys, with tattered robes and a decidedly undead look about them, and a wild haired undead guy leading them. He might have been a wight, in which case we were lucky to get off as easily as we did. Quicksilver hit the leader, and I magic missiled him in the same round, and he dropped. It seemed a little easy for a wight, but I wasn't complaining. Quicksilver hit one red robed guy, and I missiled the other, Milque tossed in some oil and a round later they were all dead.
At this point I was ready to head out to rest, but the group voted to press on. A room or so later we met up with another pack of ghouls. Only a dozen this time, but still plenty of retching and paralysis to go around. Glug turned five of them, Quicksilver killed four, and Milque brought down three with oil, and at that point we decided to retreat and rest. We headed back in, expecting to easily finish off the last five. Of course it never works out that way. Milque went to throw oil and had a major screwup. So major he managed to ignite his bandalero of oil flasks. Suddenly there was a fire elemental behind me! It didn't hurt him, as he was wearing a ring of fire resistance, but I got some nasty blisters on my backside.
Meanwhile, Quicksilver kills one, but gets really badly raked in the process and drops his long sword. He retreats a bit so Glug can heal him, and I magic missile one and kill it to cover his retreat. Milque tries the wand of wonder, and gets a stream of soapy bubbles as a result. They fill the hallway and into the room, obscuring everything and covering our retreat. At this point the remaining ghouls begin to appear through the bubbles. I blast one with my last magic missile spell, and Quicksilver gets the last two. While he's recovering his sword, I notice that the human torch has vanished. Moments later we here a girl's voice calling out "Auntie Em, Auntie Em, I'm not in Cansas any more." We head for the voice and find a girl who sees us and faints. Seeing a glow down the hall, we found Milque confronting a giant spider, as he stood burning in the middle of its webs. He color sprayed it and killed it, and then freed a small dog from the webs as well.
At this point his flames died out, and we headed for the exit with the strange unconcious girl. We took her back to the inn, and got her a room of her own. With some help from the innkeeper's wife, we brought her around and talked with her a bit. She said her name was Dorothy, and her dog was Toto. She's from a land called Oz, and before that from Cansas. She told this outrageous story about a Scarecrow, a Lion, and a Tin man! I tried to hide my shock, as she seemed sane enough, but hanging out with undead, talking wild animals, and golems, sounds crazy to me. The best I could figure, she was from another plane. Milque wouldn't admit it, but I strongly suspects that she was summoned by the Wand of Wonder, as the first thing she claimed to see was a flaming man. Glug communed with his goddess that night, and got a little direction. We were to try and help send the girl back. We'd discovered that the shoes she wore were magic, so we took her and them to the mage's guild to get the identified. We traded 200GP of the gems we found in the backpack and found out they were the answer. They seemed to be shoes of planar travel, and were activated by friction. A few taps later, and her wishing to be home again, and she and the dog were on their way. A good thing, too, I think Toto was getting on Blink's nerves.
On to Journal Twelve