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It was day again.
Going through their new gear, they took note of the potions of Elvenkind which the Wizards' Guild had included in the gifts.
"There's no such thing as potions of Elvenkind!" exclaimed Jabu sagaciously [ having made his MND roll on a percentile dice ].
So Bookem cast Detect Poison and all these potions turned out to be poison. "Methinks petty WG anti-psi politics" muttered Bookem as he duly disposed of them.
The pteranodon had turned into an obsidian statue (2m-cube plinth and all) on the far side of the skull-line "CCTV" cleared-area up on the ridge, so the party decided to head down into an adjacent valley. They crossed it, unseen, in the scubby forest and climbed the next ridge. On the top of the ridge, they noticed that the statue's head had turned to face them. Puzzled, they stationed Stanley on this ridge to observe and went down into the next valley - a wider one.
They cast Invisibility to Undead on half the group (Randy, Jabu, Grunter and Tamper) and sent them across the skull line. For once, the skulls did not move. Note that this spell only lasts a minute, but was a long enough time to scamper over half of the 500m cleared area, and the skulls did not seem to look behind themselves.
Stanley had noticed that the statue's head moved a bit, so he relayed this info (via Psi-contact) to Bookem. The party suspected that the statue was tracking their captive Christie, so, while Oprah was recharging ready to cast another bout (of Invisibility to Undead), Lon hauled Christie off. Sure enough, the head moved. Lon left Christie bound and unconscious under a bush and returned. The head moved again - it was tracking Lon! Lon did an inventory check - the Broom Ring? So he went back and fetched Christie and left the ring. This did the trick.
"Why didn't the thing fly during the day? It flew at Stanley yesterday, during the day. In fact it attacked that group of bugbears during the day too," they asked. Only the wind answered, and it just moaned.
More ItU spells were cast and the rest of the party crossed the line. They found a cliff face, against the right ridge, deep in the scrubby forest, just before dark, and encamped.
Five minutes after dark, a swooping noise and a roar down in the valley. The pteranodon was up.
Christie felt uneasy and claimed she could "feel" Antonio. Worried that maybe he could "feel" her, the group got Stanley to psi-contact Osterman. They relayed the TPS coordinates (using the magic ball) and a wizard popped in (with an extra-loud BANG! as Teleports are wont to do). The wizard took Christie away (BANG!), and left Bookem with a WG head-set which allowed him to contact the WG stationed in Goldenton, and left a bandolier with another five potions of Elvenkind. These ones had written on them "for psionicist consumption only". Bookem duly disposed of them, but as he was doing this, he lost two.
The party moved a bit in case anyone investigated the two bangs, but the rest of the night passed peacefully.
In the morning, they ventured up the valley, it getting steeper and steeper and came to a cliff face, 200m high. They ventured left and found a gulch and stream, then a 1m spun-concrete pipe, with stinking sewerage laced with blood and bits of bone dribbling out. No-one was brave enough to go into the pipe. Further up this gulch, forward scout Argo spotted a patrol(?) of six ghouls. The party fled back out and hid in the broken rocks at the foot of the cliffs. The ghouls went down into the scrubby forest.
They ventured the other direction and came to a smaller cliff, 40m tall. Stanley, donned in the Cloak of Elvenkind and Boots of Elvenkind, and drank two potions of Elvinkind - well the WG would like to think so. He scrabbled up with his magical "spider" backpack. The castle was right there: big and square, black stone, no moat, its massive iron gates open, movement up in the battlements. Stanley withdrew slowly and quietly.
They spent the rest of the day just watching the ghoul and shambler patrols trying to work out some roster or pattern. There didn't seem to be any pattern at all. All the while Bookem relayed information via his head-set, and relevant TPS coordinates, for when the big Specularum raid was to eventuate.
They hunkered down for the night, but it was peaceful.
The next day, Lon went for a scout, he took the TPS ball, donned the Elvenkind gear, and ventured up the gulch right after a ghoul patrol had left. There was a little well-tramped switch-back track which emerged behind the castle, and here he saw a ricketty lean-to against the back wall of the castle, made from rubbish, bits of wood, and various junk. But it was enormous, as big as the castle itself (40m by 30m) and two storeys tall. From within could be heard chanting. Down one end of the lean-to were two double doors, outside which stood two ghastly ghast guards. Lon took a few readings of the ball, but did nothing else. He reported back to the party, and Bookem relayed this info back to Goldenton.
After the next patrol, Lon ventured into the pipe. Since his last scout (a few hours ago), a large amount of muck had come out of the pipe; it was spattered on the far wall of the gulch. Although the flow was now down to a trickle again, so, he climbed up and looked for a tide-mark in the pipe. There was none; it must have been full!
He scurred down and, guessing about beneath the castle proper, came to a short vertical shaft with hand-holds and a grill above (the pipe continued). Quiet chanting could be heard above. The room was lit by torches so it was far too dark to take a ball-reading. He climbed up and periscoped about through the grill looking in the room above.
It was a huge room, black stone, with humanoid or demi-human wretches chained against the walls. These figures had the lower halves of their bodies missing, but they were still (unnaturally?) alive, and moaning and sobbing. On one wall was a huge portal with bright flickering purple light, like a Psionic Dimension Door but four-times bigger. Standing in front of this portal, was a tall chap, dressed in red robes, chanting and gesticulating, facing the portal (back to Lon). He suddenly stiffened then spun, and bellowed "Silence!". All the wretches went quiet. He sniffed twice, and Lon thought he looked straight at the periscope through the grill.
Lon took off, quiet as he could (thank goodness for my Elven kind boots! he thought), and scurried out the pipe, heading to rejoin the others.
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