Day 3: The Moat-house

From the diary of Vida Pankhurst

Today we awoke in the stench of sweat and sick and opted to first investigate the dilapidated tower of the moat-house, this decision was reached largely because the floor was littered with treasure. Being the blundering idiots that they are Ugg and Joe went inside and were surprised by a giant spider that had made her nest in the roof of the tower. Not being able to join the battle in the compact space of the tower I watched the two of them best the overgrown insect with little difficulty.

Fortuitously, luck bloody seemed to favour us because amongst the treasure in the room we unearthed a scroll of Cure Disease, that I promptly cast upon Sameson who returned to his usual pallor; as opposed to the sickly green the disease had turned him.

With the tower raided we climbed deeper into the moat-house following Neddy's muddy footprints. They ended abruptly at a pair of double doors that we opted to ignore in favour of raiding the rest of the moat-house. Well, we didn't want anything bloody sneaking up on us in our confrontation with Neddy did we!?

As we liberated the place of its treasure we battled with the super-sized wildlife that had made its home there; including a giant lizard, snake and bloody Tik! Relatively unscathed, thanks to Sameson's healing wand that he acquired from the hobgoblins earlier, we made our way back to the door for our confrontation with Neddy and whoever his 'master' is.

But, the bloody snake had locked it behind him, and Joe's lock picking skills were malfunctioning again, so Ugg and I battered it down. Through the door was an abandoned room that, judging from the empty sleeping sacks on the floor, had been used as a resting area for a large group of humanoids. Ransacking the place we uncovered a secret door leading back down into the moat-house.

Proceeding into the passageway, we wandered down a long corridor before coming into a large chamber with several doors in alcoves at its far side. Blindly wandering across the room we failed to notice a group of reeking bugbears – horrid hairy goblin like creatures - lurking in a side passageway that pelted us with their bloody spears as we entered. They managed to seriously injure Sameson, so Ugg (boosted by a Bull's Strength spell from Sameson) and I launched a counter-attack at them. They were no match for the combined might of Joramy's holy fire and Ugg's axe, and we were soon back to exploring the room over the stench of burnt bugbear.

There was nothing of value through the doors, I assume they were cells in a dungeon maybe, but we heard a loud banging like a grate, or wall, banging down somewhere else in the complex. Nothing is ever bloody simple is it! I wonder what kind of bloody sadistic madmen makes these kind of traps.  Having no choice but to backtrack we marched off down a different corridor and came across a similar room to the previous one, also with cells. Only this time we encountered a group of foul hyena people, called gnolls, arguing in an ante-chamber.

They hadn't seen us, so we wisely attacked the bloody things first. Ugg tried to draw them out to us, but they ignored the dolt. Therefore, we bombarded them with magic and arrows, which seemed to do the trick. Then that tricksy elf, Fillian, summoned a giant web to imprison the enraged creatures. Knowing that should they break free they would stop at nothing to kill us all, I used my wand to set fire to the web and continued to use it until all the gnolls were nothing but smoking cinders upon the chamber floor. Why should such foul beasts be allowed any bloody mercy. What mercy do they give to the poor humans they capture and devour, or sacrifice to whatever unholy god they purport to worship. Be damned with them!

Taking what we needed from the ruins of this area we made our way down another corridor. Clearly we made too much noise because a door burst open and we were attacked by more bloody men cultists. Killing them we failed to prevent some running off for reinforcements, so we pursued them battling our way through more men.

Just as we were almost overrun with heretics Fillian cast a sleep spell knocking most of them out. But then a man bedecked in armour and clearly a cleric, and leader of the heretics, entered the fray with two lieutenants. This cleric was both none other than the so-called beautiful one (like beauty is anything but bloody subjective) that captured Fillian and his company originally, and someone Ugg and Joe knew as Mr. Lars from Nulb. Laughable he called for our surrender. Pfft as if I would surrender to any man and a fool of a heretic less!  At our rebuttal him and his lieutenants attacked.

Again I was forced to do what was necessary, whilst the men in my company stalled, and take my hammer to the sleeping guards before they could be awoken by the cleric to re-join the battle. I took no pleasure in breaking their defenceless skulls, but I will not debate morals when lives are at stake. Ugg and Sameson confronted the lieutenants in battle, whilst I blessed us and conjured my goddess’s spiritual weapon to set about crushing the cleric and his men.

Fillian started lobbing bloody rays of wizard fire at the cleric whilst Joe pelted the lieutenants in arrows. Only the cleric had a few tricks of his own and his magic knocked Joe unconscious and dispelled the blessings of my goddess just as a I called upon it. Things looked bloody dire when Sameson was knocked bloody unconscious too. Luckily Ugg, fool that he is, is a rock that held his own against the lieutenants, smashing one them to pieces and engaging the one Sameson had already injured.

I was just getting warmed up of course and I healed Joe with one of my scrolls and commanded my spiritual weapon to assist Ugg in finishing the last of the cleric's men. But the bloody heretic cleric was too tenacious to see he had lost and cast a darkness upon the room. Backing out of it, so I could bloody see, I dispelled it and we surrounded him and saw about bludgeoning the fool into submission. 

Finally he surrendered and the bloody recreant offered us information on where the slaves and sacrifices, including Ugg's real parents apparently, were taken to. I didn't believe a bloody word out of his mouth but my companions seemed to think he might have something useful to tell us about the Temple of Elemental Evil, so I abstained from caving in his pretty face in retaliation for the indignities he made us suffer before.

Threatening to set his boots on fire made him reveal that he was a cleric of Loth, the spider goddess, and that he was in fact working for some creature called Hadrack.

In exchange for his worthless life he offered to show us where the slaves were being kept and give us what treasure he had lying around the moat-house. Fillian, like myself, wanted to put a dagger in the heretic and be bloody done with him, but we decided to keep him alive if only for the sake of the slaves. Although, that didn't stop us stripping him of that precious armour and any other equipment the popinjay had on him, before shoving him into some rags off one of his lieutenants. Let him suffer some bloody indignities. Amongst his things I found a magical phylactery marked with runes sacred to Lloth. As distasteful as the thing is I'm sure Joramy would not object to me putting it to use in my service to her. Us girls should stick together, evil or not.

We bound Lareth and let him lead us to a cavern where he claimed he'd hidden some treasure. He did warn us that a horrible creature guarded it and he no doubt hoped we'd be consumed by it, so the bastard would be free of us to go back to worshipping spiders. We reasoned this but, being the bloody greedy men that my companions are, they decided they didn't care and marched right on into a cavern with a large pool in its centre.

Of course Ugg took two steps into the chamber only to be accosted by giant pincers that sprung up from the depths. He fended it off and the giant bloody crayfish that they belonged to surfaced only to be pelted with our arrows. It dived back under again and waited for Ugg and Samerson to show their trademark stupidity and wade into the pool to get treasure, before attacking. With a little luck they managed to kill the creature and within the depths we found some Lareth's treasure, including a gem that Ugg thought putting in his hair made him look cute. Honestly sometimes I wonder how men came to dominate this plane!

Retrieving Lareth, before Fillian (who was guarding him during the encounter) bloody beat him to death, we proceeded to what was apparently a short cut to both the surface and the slaves, only it was bloody blocked by a grate which we had triggered earlier. Therefore, for our sins, we had to let Lareth guide us on another route through some catacombs.

Just when I thought I got a whiff of undeath some bloody ghouls showed up. I raised my holy symbol high and turned them to ashes with the volcanic power of mighty Joramy, along with some help from Sameson of course. There were lots of the bloody things in the catacombs and in a mighty battle one of them managed to paralyze Sameson with its claws. I rushed to help and succeeded in driving the ugly things off. Lareth took advantage of the distraction to escape and somehow broke his bonds, cast a Fear spell on Joe and plunged the room into darkness with another one of his bloody trademark Darkness spells.

Backing out the darkness I guarded the way we came in with my wand. He didn't come out that way, else I would have fried the bastard, so when the darkness subsided we realized he must have gone forward where the ghouls retreated. We pursued him into a most insidious chamber that almost defies explanation.

An obelisk radiating malevolent power towered in the middle of the room and an equally pernicious looking altar lay on its far side. I remember feeling an overwhelmingly sickening sense of torment, pain and ungodliness at the sight of it. It was…o I don’t know… I’m running out of bloody synonyms that mean really bloody evil! Think of the worst you can and it was nine times more bloody foul than that. Lareth, seemingly dead, lay amongst the decimated remains of the ghouls upon a platform by the altar.

If I could only go back and change the choices we made upon entering that chamber, I would. Sameson and I approached the obex like a pair of fools and picked up the scrap of paper that was upon the harrowing altar. Upon it was The Name. Fillian shouted a warning from the entrance and we turned to see a foul creature descending towards us from the cavern roof.

I recognized the creature as a Grell. A bloody mess of a monster; all barbed beak and writhing tentacles plucked straight from the void of the far realm. Perhaps it was panic that made us do it, but in our foolishness, our ignorance, our arrogance we thought that uttering The Name would stop the Grell, maybe drive it off. I spoke it together with Sameson but it was us, not the Grell, that slid into oblivion.

< A page is torn from Vida's diary >

 

...never know. With the Grell defeated and Lareth missing we had no choice but to carry on and hope to bloody find the slaves ourselves. Reclaiming my potions from Joe, who had only taken advantage of the situation to attempt to pilfer my belongings – bloody rogues – we followed another passage out into more catacombs.

We battled our way through zombies, who seemed almost innocuous next to what we had just fought, and I was blessed to discover my goddess had not abandoned me despite forget forgot not spoken...We eventually found our way out into another part of the moat house we had yet to explore. Joe started to pick the lock on a nearby door when a bloody spear almost impaled him through it. He leapt back and the door burst off its hinges revealing something that looked like a larger, even uglier version of Ugg. It was only a bloody ogre called Lubash!

I summoned the might of Joramy to give me strength and, along with Ugg and Sameson, stepped forward to battle the beast. Fillian used some dirty elf trick and fired a magically ray into the battle that seemed to weaken the creature and made it easier for the rest of us to dispatch it. After crushing the overgrown orc's corpse we found some of the little brats that had tormented me in Nulb chained up in a nearby antechamber.

As much as I hate the little bastards, who apparently work for Joe, no one deserves to be chained up in this bleak pit to be the food of ogres. Therefore, we broke their chains and Joe took them back under his wing - gods save them. Exhausted, we decided to encamp in a defensible room before heading to Hommlet to restock and decide what to do next. Still no bloody sign of Neddy as well!