Rosia Lightfoot's Journal - Part 17

Curse this place, and curse my luck!

Every room we encounter seems to have a trap in it, and I seem to be setting them all off. It's almost as if this whole area is designed to guide people of my profession into alternative employment...

We found a room full of pillars, with debris scattered around. I discovered that the pillars were trapped, and I attempted to disarm one of them. However, I set the trap off instead (of course...) and managed to get buried under a pile of rubble as the pillar collapsed on me. Thank Pelor for Quercus' healing spells, or I would have been badly hurt. One small ray of consolation was the silver dagger I found in the remains of the pillar. It is not magical, but it will come in handy if we ever meet Longtail again! We also found a golden ring in some rubble at the back, and it seems to be magical, but we can not discern what it does. Isaak thinks it might be a decoy to fool the unwary.

In another room there was a pedestal with a large gem on top of it. Assuming it would be trapped I tried to lift the gem off from a distance using my mage hand spell. However, it seems that the designers of this cursed place had thought of that, and had fixed the gem in place. I searched the pedestal and found that it was indeed trapped. It pained me greatly, but I allowed the others to persuade me to leave it alone.

A secret door led us south, to a room covered in moss, with many wands attached to the walls. I had grown wary at this point and decided to leave the wands alone, but Isaak seemed determined to test his luck, and pulled one of the wands down. He was promptly cursed by the evil powers that resided in the wand, and began to shake uncontrollably. We had to camp out for the night to allow Quercus time to petition Pelor to remove the curse from poor Isaak.

We continued south and found a large, empty room behind huge double doors. Inside was a smaller doorway to the east. Curbag and I went in to investigate. I could find no traps on the smaller door, but when we opened it the double doors slammed shut and spikes came out of the north and south walls. At the same time the north wall started slowly moving towards us. We knew that we would be killed if we stayed where we were, so I investigated the room through the smaller doorway to see if I could find a reset mechanism for the trap. Meanwhile, Curbag began hacking at the door with his greatsword, trying to cut out the lock.

As I entered the smaller room to the east, which was empty, I felt the presence of some evil force. I found the location of the trap trigger, but as I knelt to examine it I felt that the force was tearing me apart, and the longer I stayed there, the more damage it was doing me. I left the room, meaning to return at the last possible moment, and could only stand around and watch as Curbag hacked at the door. I could hear the sound of hacking from the other side too, and we found out later that Oren was helping from his side. However, the sound of Oren chopping was soon replaced by the sounds of battle. Apparently a band of bugbears and dire wolves attacked the party whilst we were trapped, thinking they would be weakened without us, no doubt.

If they thought is was going to be an easy battle, they were sadly mistaken! From what the others told us afterwards, they put up an heroic defense, and succeeded in killing most of their foes, and driving the rest away. I cannot comment on this fight, as Curbag and I were still trapped in the other room. As the northern wall edged closer and closer we faced a tough decision: should we abandon the attempt to break the door open and dive into the deadly eastern room, or miss our chance as the wall moved past the smaller doorway? Seeing that he had made some progress with the door, Curbag decided that he would carry on with his task, and trust to his mighty muscles. I momentarily considered entering the eastern room without him, but thought in the end that it would be better to perish in the company of my friend, than die alone in that room of evil.

This turned out to he the correct decision, as Curbag (once more with the help of Oren) was able to break open the lock at the last moment, and we stumbled out into the relative safety of the corridor. Whoever built that trap must have been a sadist. It seems to me that it was designed to strike the maximum fear into its victims, giving them time to contemplate their grisly end, whilst offering them the scant "hope" of surviving a slow death in the evil room. I have had it with this place. From now on, I will leave the treasure alone unless I am totally sure there is no trap. Even then, I will weigh up the risks and decide if the reward will help me survive this dump. If there is a lesson to be learnt here, it seems I am learning it...