…and the sky full of dust.

Last session the party had just entered the asylum, where they believed the wizard they’d been looking for was to be found.

It started off fine. The adventurers, leaving Sister Jag outside on guard [player was absent], walked boldly into the asylum and started to explore. In quick succession they discovered empty storerooms, cells, and slaughtered several inmates who were probably not as hostile as first appeared. This did, however, attract the intention of some orderlies, who were intimidated by Ratco, and they escorted the party to the basement, where the wizard (Grove, or Clove, hard to tell), was.

The basement had several corridors of cells and more inmates; a torture chamber with a Derro and some henchmen (easily vanquished), and, finally, a study where the wizard was. He told them that he and his fellow Keepers (who were dead, mostly at the party’s hands) had summoned and ‘bonded’ with a spawn of evil from the sixth dimension. He could also make it manifest, allowing us to kill it. In exchange, he’d come back to the Duke with them and be the Duke’s court wizard.

The party agreed, and the wizard summoned the beast: a tentacled monstrosity that proved much harder than the party had been expecting. Immune to most of Porthus’ spells, non-magical weapons barely scratching it, and with powerful tentacles that grabbed opponents and squeezed their life from them, the beast proved more than a match.

Asbo, thinking that the wizard– if dead– would make the beast weaker, killed the wizard with a well-aimed bolt. Porthus tried and ultimately failed to damage the creature with any of his spells, and decided to try and use his wand on it, in close-combat. Foolish. He was promptly grabbed and eventually crushed, his dead body thrown to the floor. Asbo, deciding running away was the best option, dragged the chef’s corpse out with him, and escaped.

The other two weren’t so lucky. Wulfric went down first, swatted to the ground by a tentacle. Then Ratco, who had been doing the most damage, had been grabbed, escaped and grabbed again, was also crushed, and died a valiant death.

Thus the cleric, Sister Jag, and the thief, Asbo, escaped and went their own ways.

Thus the adventure, and the campaign, came to an end.

It is told, in taverns across the land, that there is a new restaurant in the Barony, which two halflings run; one deals with all the day-to-day business, the other cooks.

That’s another campaign finished. Been through a lot in the past few months. Next time we meet up we’re trying out a one-shot Pathfinder game, using high-level characters (level 17) just to see what it’s like. Then, another campaign I guess; although who is running it and with what system is currently unknown.

Dear Uncle,

I seem to have found myself with some time to spare, so have penned this letter and arranged for its delivery. We’re off adventuring, myself and my friends, looking for a wizard to take back to the Duke… although why we are looking for this wizard, I just don’t know. He seems to be part of some strange cult, dabbling in necromancy and other vile acts. Not like myself, whose culinary skills have tempered my arcane powers. Hmm, not sure what I mean by that, maybe that my spells are proving good and useful.

Anyway. Myself and Ratty were holed up in a basement, dining on a fine stew that I prepared, whilst Wulfy and Asbo are off looking for a cleric or druid to bring poor Sister Jag back from the dead… again. They were gone a good while, a whole day in fact, but came back with Sister Jag (now a half-orc), and tales of spiders and ettercaps. Seems they had a fun time of it. Reunited we waited until night and headed to the temple, where were we told another wizard, Hive, was based. He is part of this cult, and might know where our wizard is (his name? Clove, I think. Makes me think of food and I get distracted). The temple is no longer a place of worship, and is avoided by the townsfolk.

While, Asbo proved useful, and picked the lock of the front door and we sneaked in. It was a dusty, ill-kept place, with alchemy equipment on the altar and the statues of religious icons covered. We found a trapdoor leading down to a semi-natural cavern, and were pretty much attacked straight away by none other than Hive himself!

The fight was fairly quick; partly due to my flurry of magic missiles and a fireball. I’m getting good at lobbing spells at people; but my cooking skills are still superior. Hive is badly wounded, near death, and when we interrogate him we learn little; then something pours out of his mouth and dissipates into the air; seems the poor fellow was possessed by evil… or something. He mumbled something about a garden, so we followed a tunnel and came into a water-logged cavern with violet fungus trees sitting on islands. The tunnel sloped steeply down, and everyone slipped down it, except Asbo who came carefully, and myself, who rolled to my feet with a flourish. I was quite proud of that.

Obviously, the fungus attacked us. And each time they did, we got some rot. I ended up feeling pretty bad, but we killed the trees; I took one out, Wulfy took two out (I helped with lightning bolts, and magic missiles, and cast a fly spell on the dwarf), and Asbo took out another. Meanwhile, Jag found a nice sword, which might come in useful later.

We headed back out, and Jag used some of her magic to heal our wounds. We camped out in the basement to recover. Next day, we headed to the asylum, where we believed Clove was (why did we no go there straight away? No idea). We found the building and decided to make our way in by the side door: and for some reason Wulfy decided to smash the door down; we entered, and three orderlies with cages on their heads attacked us! We had to kill them, sadly, but I had to use up a few more of my powerful toppling magic missiles.

So, the others are going in to find Clove. I might wait outside and guard our backs.

Well, that’s all for now dear Uncle. Hope to write more soon.

Your nephew,

Porthus Waddle, Chef.