Into the Fortress

We healed up with potions and went after the Grave Knight. Zelara was able to track him, and Kyle shot him good. We continue on, and make our way to the enemy stronghold: a tower built into a mountain. We decide to sneak up to the door and try to get in, since we don't see any sentries around the tower. Illythan checks to see if the door is locked and trapped. The door opens to a spiral staircase leading up and several crates on the floor. Zelara pulls out a crowbar and cracks open one of the crates: it's filled with black onyx which is used to create undead. The other crates are full of skeletons. We decide to deal with the crates on the way back out, and head up the stairs. It quickly becomes very, very dark. Eorin casts light on his shovel, and Illythan scouts ahead. He doesn't encounter anyone on the second floor, and finds some crates up on the third floor. These crates contain foodstuffs for orcs. He reports back that there's a door entering into the keep on the second floor. We travel up to the second floor and Illythan checks the door for traps. Zelara listens at the door, hears nothing odd, and pulls it open.

There is a cliff and a very sturdy looking bridge across the chazam. We begin to cross the bridge, when it suddenly moves. Zelara jumps out of the way, but Illythan and Eorin are trapped: the bridge has morphed into a cage that is hanging over the chazam. Zelara finds four buttons on the wall, all with the same symbol on them: a square with a circle in it. The bottom closest to the door seems to have been pressed the most. Zelara presses it and the trap disarms and the bridge unfolds back into a bridge. We cross the bridge and find another set of buttons and a door. Zelara opens the door and we see an entryway designed for a group of dwarves to gather and gear up if a threat arises. There's some broken gear lying around and another door. Both doors (including the one we entered through) can be bolted from inside this room – probably to prevent orcs from following them up from underground. The doors are made for dwarf sized creatures, so we do have to crouch down to go through. We go through the door and find a room with a fire pit, a table and chairs, and stairs leading up to another door. The fire pit has a chimney hole that goes up extremely high. The floor is tiled, but none are raised. Zelara goes up the stairs and tries to open the door. The stairs turn into a slide and causes zelara to fall into a pit trap, and she vanishes. She re-appears at the top of the chimney and continues falling. A giant spike erupts from the bottom of the fire-pit, but Zelara avoids it. The door, however, remains open, and we dash through.

We are now officially in cave territory: no more fine dwarven architecture. We can hear the sound of water. The caves are vast, and there are faintly glowing fungi along the walls. We find the edge of an underground pond/lake with a chair and fishing rod. There's tension on the string (so it seems as though there's a fish on it). There's a sack next to the chair. We decide it's a trap, and don't touch it. We walk along the edge further into the cave. We find a tunnel that goes farther into the mountain, but decide to continue exploring. We find one other passage that heads off more to the edge of the mountain. We can feel air coming from this tunnel and decide to investigate it. It's a straight shot out until it gets to a curved area that leads to the cliff-side. Eorin supposes this is where the dwarves tossed out their trash.

We turn around and follow the tunnel that heads further into the mountain. The tunnel gets narrower and narrower, forcing the party to travel single file. We come to a hole in the ground, that we could probably jump across. There's something squishy and unpleasant at the bottom of the hole. Kyle jumps across the hole, only to slam into an invisible wall and fall into the hole. The hole is filled with gelatinous cubes, and Kyle is severely injured by the fall. Zelara directs her rope of climbing to wrap itself around Kyle and we pull her out of the oozes. Eorin figures out the invisible wall is actually a device, and there is some way to turn it into an invisible floor. He doesn't know if it's a mechanism or a key phrase or spell or whatever. Kyle shoots the oozes dead from atop the hole, and Zelara figures out there's a mechanism to activate the floor at the bottom of the pit. Zelara climbs down to the bottom and ties a normal rope to the lever. She takes a moment to rifle through the bodies that had been trapped in the oozes. She finds a waraxe (which she can hear sing when she holds it). She climbs back out and we pull the lever from atop the pit. Eorin identifies the spell on the waraxe as from the evocation school. We cross the invisible bridge. About 80 ft along we find another door.

This door isn't trapped, but it is locked. Zelara pulls out her crowbar and forces the door open. The room is 40ft by 40ft and has a door on the other side, It is full of armor. They don't look like dwarven suits of armor – they appear more human sized. They're all full plate, but missing helmets. There's a longsword for each suit of armor. Eorin prepares to cast detect magic on one of the suits of armor when it animates and attacks him. A melee ensues, and while Zelara and Illythan do damage it, but then Kyle shoots the shit out of it epically and it dies.

Then the far door opens and we hear a clanking, see a mess of gears and metal, and a voice tells us to surrender. We fight for a few moments, and quickly realize that it's a clockwork golem. It grapples Zelara and starts to try and feed her to it's clockwork bits. Eorin figures out it's immune to magic and has massive damage reduction, the exception being rust spells and adamantium weapons (neither of which the party has). It asks us to comply again, and Zelara and Eorin comply. Eorin heals Zelara, while Kyle continues to shoot at it. Kyle and Illythan back into the narrow hallway as Kyle continues to attack. The golem moves toward Kyle, and Eorin and Zelara can see into the next room. It's a dwarven great hall – full of stone tables and chairs none of which look comfortable at all! There is something sitting in the throne. It's cloaked and masked and all that fun stuff. Though bigger than human sized, but not quite large yet. Illythan remembers the sack next to the fishing pole, decides to hope to god it had something useful in it, and runs full tilt back along the tunnels. The golem transforms into a 20ft by 5ft wall and inserts itself into the hallway. It hits Kyle pretty hard, shredding her, but is now trapped in the hallway. Zelara draws her bow, and begins attacking it once more. Illythan finds the sack and sees a bunch of scrolls. He scans one, sees that it's Rusting Grasp, grabs the sack and runs back to the group. Kyle steps out of the reach of the golem and continues to shoot, her arrows slowly but surely whittling away at it. Eorin notices something is off, but can't pinpoint what, and takes a full defensive stance as he heals himself. Kyle continues to shoot at it.

Something touches Eorin, and he is critically wounded as the imp familiar of the figure on the throne casts the harm spell on him. The concerning feeling Eorin had was air moving strangely as the imp invisibly flew towards him. Zelara notices the imp, but decides getting the rest of the party together is the best way to help Eorin and continues attacking the golem. Eorin channels energy and heals himself. Illythan returns and attempts to cast rusting grasp on the golem. The spell fizzles and doesn't work. Kyle shoots it again, and finally, the golem dies, exploding shrapnel and gears everywhere. Fortunately, everyone was out of range and remained unscathed.

The imp leans over Eorin and whispers. “Give in, or we both die.” Eorin looks at it defiantly, and gives a prayer to Pharasma, declaring “I am a priest of Pharasma, and my faith is sound!” Both Eorin and the imp are promptly hit by a flame strike spell from the man on the throne. Eorin falls to the ground unconscious. Zelara rushes over and tries to pull Eorin out of the line of sight of the dude on the throne. Kyle channels energy to heal the party, and Eorin wakes up, still severely wounded. The man on the throne moves forward, but seems to be stumbling a bit. Zelara draws her standard sword and shield and waits for it to cross the threshold. Eorin channels as well, and figures out the man is a powerful cleric and litch, but is recovering so it's probably going to be easy to kill. Illythan and Kyle promptly do so. It crumbles to the ground.