I was definitely not expecting the altar to grapple me, but I guess mimics are learning and adapting. We’ve checked every single chest and container we’ve come across for traps or mimicry, but have started prodding every evil altar (and there’s been a few of them) without a second thought.
The party dealt with the three smaller mimics while I grappled with the large one. At one point in our melee it attempted to digest me, and I had to cut my way out of it like a spinning top, emerging with almost no body hair left. I turned to find that the rest of the group had nearly finished off the smaller ones. Peirce slammed the last one into the ground and left it vulnerable; I then sliced through the middle of it, bringing both my swords down parallel and then wrenching them apart as they cut through the mimic and splitting it in two.
Where the larger mimic had been was a small pile of gold, and a copper wand. Peirce identified it as a wand of smiles while we investigated the rest of the room. There was a worn statue at one end of the room, and after examining it more closely we found a hidden door behind it. Morwena tried to move it but was struggling – I moved up to help her and we succeeded together. Of course, she loosened it up for me.
I felt cold fingers on my neck. I had sustained a few wounds in the previous fight, and Amelia used her lay on hands to heal some of them, but I suppose a vampire’s lay on hands doesn’t feel quite so… holy.
Morwena then claimed the wand and said, “Smile if you want to be the first down the tunnel!” and used it on Peirce, who was unable to resist its magic. Warforged aren’t usually able to smile, but this simple magic had power enough to bend the metal on his faceplate into a grin.
We opened the secret door, and behind it was a tunnel. We stopped and listened, and smelled, unable to discern anything of interest. It sounded like a tunnel, all dripping and echoes. We started down it.
After a while, just long enough for us to slacken our concentration a bit, something moved at us out of the darkness, and we heard the sound of laughter echoing in front of us, behind us, around us. Some tentacles shout out at us and made to grab. I dodged them, but as I turned I saw that they had constricted at least three of my friends. I heard Reth shouting that it was a roper.
I started hacking at the tentacles, trying to free my friends. Reth struggled free and Morwena turned into an ungrappleable mist – both turned and launched some of their more powerful magics down the tunnel, aimed at the base of the roper. After a few volleys I charged towards it and started hacking at it, and starting from the top down I manage to turn it into so many slices of black pudding.
In the fight, we lost track of each other. None of us had noticed that Amelia had fallen, nor indeed fallen so far that death had taken her.
There was no question, we had to get her back to town, back to the temple.
Our forced march back to Stony Pine was uneventful, barring the unceremonious heave-ho we had to do to get Amelia’s body over the spike trap we struggled to navigate coming this way the first time.
At the temple of the Wounded Maiden we begged for help. Gwyn was not certain that they could help, but we gave them what gold and resources we could and focussed our energies in prayer and contemplation while the temple keepers worked. I say prayer and contemplation; for my part I could do nothing but focus on my anger to stop it coming out: focus it into a hard, cold ball in my stomach. I couldn’t believe one of ours had fallen, that I had allowed it to happen. My night would be full of unhappy memories.
Notes from Eskildar 