A Mage from Poisonwood II Pt.6: Down, Down Under Bandit’s Well

I stood over the corpse of the wyvern I had just slain using the newest spell in my arsenal, Spinning Blades. Its breath weapon, nightmare gas, failed to affect me like it affected Tweena, the dungeoneer had run away into a side chamber. I harnessed some nightmare juice from the dead dragon while Vorox the monster rider, Greyshadow his dragonsaurus mount had to wait outside at the surface by the well along with the trio of followers he had just recruited (named Feak, Zar, and Zevor), went to deal with the temporarily insane Tweena. We were about a hundred feet or so underground in the ruins of a secret dungeon accessed through what’s referred to by the locals as Bandit’s Well. The intel I had gotten on the Red Daggers guided us here, the travel from Rockhollow occupying the past few days. After Tweena recovered, Vorox must’ve dumped a potion down her throat, we began our crawl through the seemingly abandoned human-sized chambers, over rusting catwalks suspended over vast bodies of black water.

A little while later we had gone deeper down a few flights of stairs to what appeared to be the back side of a secret door with Tweena again in the lead. I was busy rolling up my Portable Hole into which I had been dumping everything we had been looting along the way. A gush of stale, dusty air invaded my nostrils as she opened the door. The front side of the secret door was a superior quality white marble statue of a mage bearing a jet staff in one hand and a large fire amethyst in the other. The statue’s face had a maniacal expression on it as it gazed into the fire gem. The door opened into a long dark hallway the floor of which was covered in a thick layer of dust and detritus. Another similar statue as that which served as the door sat further down the hall, the gems of both statues providing the only light. Tweena unhinged the statue-door at my behest and I swept the portable-hole over it as well as the other statue when we came to it stowing them in the inter-dimensional space where I would put all the other booty.

We discovered a maze of dusty chambers and ruined halls which were populated with animated statue after statue bearing magical arms, a few skeletons, some giant spiders, pair of giant centipedes and a spider swarm from which we had to flee shutting it up behind a secret door. We found rest in a damp chamber the door of which bore the Wayfarer’s Mark where we licked our wounds all of us were pretty bad-off, after barricading the door. The next morning (we assumed it was morning) we wended our way to the final chamber where we fought a long battle against animated armor bearing magical arms and a magic helmet. The treasure which the armor had been guarding was almost completely collapsed and Vorox and I left it up to Tweena to crawl into the spider hole we found behind the door and pull out the treasure she had found in a locked and trapped chest.

Afterwards we decided to work our way back up to the wyvern’s lair and try to find its hoard. In all I had stowed away in the hole 16 wizard statues of white marble with a jet staff in one hand a large fire amethyst in the other and a maniacal expression on the face, 8 other wizard statues sans fire gems, 3 small white marble statues with ruby eyes and holding an iron spear, a black marble statue with an iron spear and shield, a small solid platinum gold & silver embossed jewel-studded harpy statue, a magic table bearing an illusory banquet, 3 superior quality quartz studded silver candelabras, 8 silver plates with matching silverware, and whole mass of both magical and non-magical but still precious gear. We easily found the rest of the wyvern’s lair across the black water which I was easily able to teleport both Tweena and Vorox, one at a time, into the cavern. We smote the wyvern hatchlings we encountered there and met a wandering and barely coherent berserker named Orn who took a small cut of the hoard after we found it and ran off after we exited the well. We rejoined Vorox’s dragonsaur and all three of his new followers, fortunately the monster rider keeps Greyshadow well-fed. We bivouacked by the well and settled into our bedrolls for a well-deserved rest.

I was awakened suddenly. “Harpies!” shrieked Feak just before he got snatched up in a harpy’s talons. We were able to rescue Feak, Tweena and Vorox took it down before it could carry him off, and fought the other two off of the attack. We managed to kill two of the she-beasts but the third was able to flee flying towards the distant mountains. The next morning we started back to Rockhollow. It started to rain by midday.

By evening while the others set camp I continued on for a couple of miles in the rain and dark so as to be able to teleport back to town and our lodge and a nice warm fire and hot food. My rest was deep and I had a dream concerning Blackgut’s emerald necklace (it was in the wyvern’s horde of all places) and something about the land meaning the valley of Rockhollow, needed to be “protected” whatever that meant. The others marched into town the next day.

We split the gems and coinage evenly and took up the magic items we individually wanted and could use the rest we decided to fence through my contact, Ebaik the alchemist. We set up a special auction in one of his back rooms which attracted some of the richest “collectors” in the valley including a shady mercenary and the fat merchant Keenor (see Pt.1). At the conclusion I slipped Keenor a dose of yellow lotus and took my fair share of the money and retired to my cellar lab at the lodge. That’s when it hit me.

Keenor was dead (see A Mage from Poisonwood: Pt. 7). I really need to lay off the lotus.

 

To Be Continued…

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