Week 17: It Should Have Been Gone...

Week 17: "It Should Have Been Gone..."

Callux 6/15 - 6/19

*AS 972 - 977*

When we left off...

With no further delays, you popped the rusty **cellar door**, and Selgaard and Nars barrelled down the broken ladder.  They were confronted, almost immediately, by a sluggish, rotting monster that could only have been a carrion crawler.  Clyde and Quintus followed them down to deal with the wretched thing, while Ulfar cleverly secured a rope so you could climb back out again.  The carrion crawler was not too much of a problem, but it filled the whole coridoor and forced the group to separate into different rooms.  Unfortunately, more gummi worms were waiting, and Nars and Clyde fell into a sub-basement, leaving Selgaard and Quintus to cope with the upstairs.

That might not have been so bad, if a trio of rust monsters hadn't emerged and decided to snack on Selgaard's armor and glaive.  It fell to Ulfar to bail out Selgaard when Quintus followed Clyde and Nars into the sub-basement to deal with a **bulette** and two more gummis. Both groups were almost done-in by the carrion crawler's ability to paralyze its prey, but you pulled through thanks to some serious tanking and a plucky assassin.

After "Team Good Guys" had a moment to rest and explore, you discovered whole rooms full of corpses while Ulfar ran face-first into another group of monsters.  He successfully kited them through the dungeon halls, dropping down through the same hole in the floor that caused all the problems last time, and consequently crushing some of his friends with a very large death slug.  You punched your way through the last of the gummi worms, and then settled in for a proper rest.

Now recovered, Ulfar began the thankless work of trying to unlock the cellar doors to figure out just what the hell had happened here.  Nars and Clyde helped by cutting the feelers off of every rust monster and jamming them into locks until, eventually, one did break.  Between the military commander who had locked himself in his room, the wholesale misery in the barracks, and the general state of the other remains, you pieced together that this had been some kind of **storm bunker**, and that the people had been stuck inside it.  In the very best of cirumstances, they all starved to death.

The human misery did not distract from the ultimate goal: in the final level of the bunker, you found a dome of tree roots protecting the **Shield of Thundertree**.  It was being defended by two **Chuul**, and they took you by surprise.  However, the tried and true method of kicking the shit out of them and then stabbing them while they're down saw you through without issue.  Sir Quintus was pretty much the only one who uses a shield, so he gained a new piece of bling and your minds turned to more serious matters.

It took two days to move the bodies out of the bunker and gather enough wood for a pyre.  During that time, Ulfar established you all with temporary quarters in the old Cultist Hideout and Nars used a bird to scout the area where the Fey problems seem to be coming from.  He found a small area of clear-cut forest on the edge of a bog, and something was moving through the underbrush, but the bird was afraid to get closer.  With more questions than answers, your group headed back toward **Lake Tittytitty**.

Your journey took you past Wyvern Tor, which is still not a mountain but is still building up to blow if Gruumsh gets his way. No new progress was made there, but the Lady of the Lake did meet with Nars and tried to answer three questions for him.  Ultimately, she instructed him to "get his boots wet" and see what happened.

With that in mind, you all agreed to head back toward Phandalin.

**Around Town**

Titties in the lake.

Posted in the town square: "Are you painting murals? The Congregation of Artisans is looking for craftsman of all sorts: needle workers, bakers, and furniture arrangers are all in demand in Synd City. Come see how our priests can help you put meat on the table!"

The Falkon Company has announced it will begin distributing copies of a document called a "FAQ". Everyone keeps asking what that means, but no one knows. Perhaps someone in a town will know.

A group of pirates was driven aground in the Crowded Aisles, via a coordinated effort of Wardensport, Blackaxe, and Frostholm ships. While the islands usually provide plenty of cover for ships to escape, this target was expertly flanked.

Rotterburg has recently graduated its first class of soldiers. They are expected to now spend two years as mercenaries, in what's been informally called a "stabbing abroad" program, before returning to the school for advanced studies.