With their previous adventure having gone disproportionately well in comparison to the norm, the party sets out once again to the Palace of Arekasadra, still keeping their hardy numbers in tact. The journey from the village to the palace is typically a short one; they would simply set up camp for the night, then be in the palace by morning. But as they slept in the snow cleared site they made for themselves, something wicked had come to put a damper on their journey. They were not attacked at their campsite. To say such a thing would imply that they were actually at the campsite in the first place. Rather, the party somehow found themselves in a forest, with a trio of naked women with fiery hair and raven wings not unlike the woman they had met at the olive tree. They began screaming at the party, calling them thieves as they demanded one of the swords that the party possessed, that they had taken from a corpse that belonged to a man named Nephelegeretas.
Unsurprisingly, the party were not willing to give away something as valuable as a sword. Thus causing the women to begin assaulting the party with their whips.
Now, once upon a time by an olive tree, a similar woman was going to whip former Combative Companion Zanorak for his poor manners. Everyone had assumed that a lashing would not be too harsh of a punishment. Turns out their whips steal your youth. The party killed these creatures, which brought them back to the campsite, but now Halthor is 12 years older. Truly, he is getting too old for this shit.
The next day came, and with it a blizzard, but thankfully another group had built a site near the palace, and if the party were willing to part with some of their income, they could use the location to rest when the blizzard inevitably gets worse. But that's a problem for the party in the future. For now, they have treasure to uncover.
After reentering the palace, and heading back down to the second floor, they find a room with a series of chalk writings, telling them of the area around them. One noting a safe passage, another noting a locked door, and another warning them that "Ahead they hide as statues". Naturally, they took the most dangerous path, as they assumed that whoever marked that path didn't venture far. After continuing through they find a group of dog headed men demanding a toll for them to continue lest hey fight, but thankfully Krok and Halthor did have a couple of things the group really enjoyed, being wine, and meat, so they happily took the items and even offered the CeeCees a map from another group of people that had tried exploring the area. Apparently if they traveled through a massive hallway and took a couple of turns, there would be a treasure there that the original men were incapable of obtaining.
Turns out that treasure was death.
The hall was of massive length because in reality it was a booby trapped hall that dropped the entire party down not one, but two floors, leading to them crashing into the waters of a river below. Since almost everyone has some form of heavy armor on, this immediately led to the party flopping about desperately trying not to drown, with Bodhi and Halthor sinking to the bottom, holding their breath as Halthor continues to lament at how terrible this journey has been for him so far. Thankfully the two are fished out of the water with the party managing to find dry land at the end of this massive underground river they've found themselves in, complete with burning corpses and razor sharp brambles. Neat. After some exploring, they do at least manage to find a door. Where it leads they can't possibly know, but anything seemed better than where they were at, so they took the door which led to new room with several paths including a chamber with a passageway in the shape of a crocodile, and silver inside.
"This is a scam. This is a fucking scam. Fuck this place!" thought Halthor being the resident pincushion for dangerous situations, but there was a lot of money to be had if he had grabbed what was in there, so he thoroughly examined the location to see if there were any mechanisms or traps that would activate upon him entering. He was certain that the moment he entered, he would be trapped, but there didn't seem to be anything that would indicate such a mechanism being in place. So, Halthor enters and right on cue the entire thing closes on him. Turns out the entrance looked like a crocodile's mouth, because the entire thing was a massive crocodile, and now Halthor is being digested as the beast begins approaching the party with intent to gobble them as well. "FUCK!" Halthor is burned pretty badly from the creature's acid, but he thankfully still has a dagger on hand to stab at its insides as the party fight it from the outside. They are only barely able to kill the beast before Halthor is completely digested, and he's eventually vomited along with the silver corns inside.
The party really needs to get out of this dungeon. After grabbing a nearby statue that was also booby trapped but didn't kill them. The party began a frantic effort to get out of this hellhole they had found themselves in. With no direction whatsoever, they just blindly traveled where they had hoped would lead them up, and surprisingly, their intuition got them to a set of stairs leading to an above level. They were in such a hurry however, they failed to avoid a pressure plate hidden in a bool of blood, so Halthor was hit by a swinging axe that fractured his ribs. "This shit isn't FUNNY ANYMORE!" he thought to himself, before being knocked unconscious, with his own blood being added to the pool. At least the party had a way out of the fourth floor. PSYCH! The stairs turned into a slide, causing them to drop back into the bloody floor beneath them. Time to keep searching. After who knows how long of wandering about, the party somehow made it out in one piece. Halthor was flickering in and out of consciousness, the party were bloody and damp from the river, and there was a blizzard raging outside to greet their arrival...Perhaps they COULD part with some silver to rest in that nearby campsite.
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