Mandraiv's Diary 5

We continued rummaging around in the catacombs, looking for this necromantic alchemist.  Things were going well as we were able to advance through a secret passage, presumably giving us the element of surprise.  It was a bit of a tight fit though.  Anyway, once we emerged we found a physically challenged dwarf, apparently a member of a race called the derro.  Poor little retard even had white hair.  And so ugly.  He was fiddling around with a corpse and some oversized mosquitos, and we emerged and destroyed him and his pets in quick order.  Moving on, we hit a bit of a snag.  More of these derro, but this time with darkness spells.  They overpowered our lanterns and cantrips easily, and Artox was the only member of the group able to see anything.  The fight to beat two of the little pricks took ages, as Artox was the only effective combatant on our side, although his continual advice kept everyone else busy and feeling useful despite all evidence to the contrary.

Interestingly, as one of them scarpered once he realised that he was surely doomed, the big idiot and the ugly chick gave chase.  Into a dark room.  Despite my advising against it after taking stock of the entire situation through Artox’s eyes.  I expect a woman to struggle to follow simple, sensible instructions, but had thought better of the big fool.  He’s going to be a real liability if he continues to struggle to come to grips with the fact that I know better than him.  About pretty much any situation.  Still, they may have learned something about taking good advice when they were attacked by some kind of acid trap and strange skeletal snake constructs in this new, dark room.  The snakes were packing some kind of poison and soon had the chick out of the fight, with the big punce taking up most of the slack until Artox was able to finish squeezing the life out of the first derro he’d managed to grapple. 

Note for later – this is all taking much too long.  Need to up Artox’s ability to deal damage for fights where everyone else is useless.  My plan of having him lock down one opponent effectively is of limited value when no one else contributes to the fight.  Maybe an extra head or two.  Worth considering, anyway.

Eventually, after quite a disconcerting amount of time and damage to us as a group we were finally able to eliminate all opposition, and decided that prudence dictated that we all head back to the inn for a drink.  On the way, we were ambushed in the street by a massive trash monster, but the big idiot and the big punce took it down easily while I, after checking to make sure that my psuedodragon medal was clearly visible ensured that any innocent bystanders stayed clear and were unharmed.  Hope they remember me – but then again, who could forget someone as good looking as me, bearing medals, saving their puny lives?  Must remember to stand next to the chick more often in public, so that in comparison I’m even more really, really, ridiculously good looking.

We then made it back to the inn for a night of quiet drinks and rest, and woke to find the big punce feeling sick.  Over the mercenary nature of the church of Abadar, he headed to the church of Sarenrae for healing, while the ugly chick decided she’d go join the church of Shelyn.  Turns out that the ugly stick she was beaten around the head with as a child affected more than her looks, and she’s delusional to the point of believing that she’s a stunner.  It’s really quite funny, not sure if I should play along or try to convince her that she’s hideous.  Can see a lot of amusement in both.  Of course, it’s easy to understand why someone would want to be good looking, I mean, life is better for us beautiful people.  Maybe she can find some magical enhancements at some point.

We headed back to the catacombs under the cemetery, where we fought another trash monster and found some kind of Frankenstein’s monster ready assembled, just waiting for that bolt of lightning and low and behold, the head was unmistakably that of our target corpse.  We libverated the head, and it wasn’t long before we found another derro.  Fortunately, we were better prepared this time and the priest managed to use one of the scrolls we picked up on our way this morning to create a daylight spell.  Blasted the darkness away, lit the place up like a Christmas tree and revealed our new opponent, slightly different to yesterday’s, this derro had three arms and was apparently an alchemist.  He was magically and alchemically buffed to the hilt and very hard to hit, and the slippery bugger had an uncanny knack for slipping out of Artox’s grip as well.  We eventually managed to kill him though, with the big idiot spending almost all of this fight flat on his back, unconscious.  The cause – some kind of poison the derro was using.  He nailed Artox with it as well, towards the end of the fight, but it was pretty much all over by then.

Turns out that this wasn’t the master alchemist we were after, although this may be a good thing given how tough this apprentice was, and that there is more of this complex to investigate, as we’ll need to find the rest of this guy’s body before we’re done saving the city again.