Seeing two lights on in the bell tower, the party thought to investigate, but serious problems were developing. Endefal, Sholo and Nadal began feeling ill, and soon were vomiting up their meals in the basement area. Both Kal and Alando, noticing large insect bites inside their shirts underneath their armor, began falling asleep, and soon both of them fell into something resembling a coma. Kumar began exhibiting signs of dry and flaky skin, large bulging eyes, and running nose. Mongo and Cadelaine (who had the token that prevented disease) were the two lucky ones and seemed to avoid catching anything. It looked as thought time in the swamp water had no done well for the adventurers as nearly all of them had come down sick!
Endefal quickly cast Cure Disease on Kal and Alando, hoping that curing the two priests from the sleeping sickness would allow them to cast curing spells. Alas, the Cure Disease spells merely allowed them to awaken from the coma, but they were still tired and tended to drop off to sleep unless shaken or nudged. Alando handed Endefal a scroll he carried of Cure Disease and asked him to use it on himself, as at least one priest should be able to cast cure spells. Endefal did, and quickly the vomiting disease disappeared. Nadal and Sholo were still sick, however, and would stay that way the rest of the night. Along with Kal and Alando, the four were virtually useless in a fight, so it was up to Mongo, Cadelaine, Endefal, Kumar (who, despite his symptoms, didn’t feel that awful) and the ape Gra-Gra to guard the basement. At that, they saw a giant constrictor snake over 30 ft long begin to slide down the stone steps into the room! Mongo, Kumar and Cadelaine quickly dealt with the reptile, and they realized they had to find a cover for the portion of the basement the stairs went out of or perhaps suffer monster attacks all night! However, one good thing is that they now had food to eat, as the snake was cut up and cooked over the fire, making a delicious soup for the group.
While Mongo, Endefal and Kumar dealt with gathering wood and such to pile over the opening, Cadelaine, curious about the lights in the tower, snuck out invisibly to climb the ivy covered walls to the top of the tower where she could glance in the window. Quietly scaling the walls, Cadelaine looked inside the window openings at the top of the tower and saw, to here horror, two floating balls of light hovering in the rafters! Although never seeing one, the magess/thief had heard tales of “Will o Wisps”, balls of floating energy with evil intelligence who were quite deadly. The fact that not one but two of the deadly creatures appeared to be inhabiting the top of the bell tower chilled her.
Cadelaine swiftly descended the ivy and hurried back to the basement as Kumar and Mongo were putting finishing touches on the crude wooden covering with Endefal caring for the sick. After telling the party members about the wisps, they agreed that this was not the time to investigate the ruined church further. Setting the makeshift barrier atop the opening, Endefal then cast Wyvern Watch upon the top of the stairway to attack anything trying to get inside. The night passed relatively uneventfully, as the only item of interest was the sound of walking feet around the basement roof during the early morning hours. The footsteps seemed to be that of many humanoid creatures, but whoever it was, they never attempted to come down the stairs and the sounds soon disappeared.
The next morning, the party felt better as the wyvern watch cast by Endefal had not been triggered, and nothing else had bothered them. Endefal was able to cast Cure Disease on Sholo and Nadal and cure their vomiting, but Kal and Alando, even cured, still had a tendency to lapse into sleep at odd moments. It was decided they would have to stay behind (guarded by Gra-Gra) while the rest of the group scouted out the area.
Cadelaine exited the basement invisibly, but immediately upon the other adventurers coming up the stairs, they were set upon by five Juju zombies that had been hidden around the area! Obviously the footsteps they had heard that night had been the walking undead, who had waited patiently during the night for the party to emerge. Battle was joined, with Mongo hacking three of the walking dead to pieces and the others taking care of the remaining duo (as turning from Endefal and Kumar failed to work). After the short battle, the explorers realized they needed to find the source of the undead they were facing.
Cadelaine, looking out into the swamp, noticed an unusually large amount of crocodile activity all through the waters and grass. Obviously the dragon of the swamp had sent out his reptilian servants to scour the area after the frogmen massacre. As the party made to leave, several of the reptilian beasts began sliding up the hill and (attracted by the character movement) moved to attack. The party then faced off against nine of the crocs, assisted by Cadelaine’s web spell which captured almost half of them until the others could be dealt with. After dealing with them and not being very injured in the doing, they dragged the reptile’s bodies far away from their camp, hoping to avoid other predators finding the basement.
Finally satisfying themselves that Kal, Alando and Gra-Gra were ok, Cadelaine, Endefal, Mongo, Nadal, Sholo, and Kumar set out to scout the immediate area. They headed west past the ruined abbey and into some broken ruins, with an invisible Cadelaine taking the lead. She made her way carefully through some rubble of long-crumbled edifices, noting only insects, snakes, lizards and spiders scurrying in the rocks and scrub. She did make one fine, a shiny ring on the finger of a skeleton buried in rubble, which she removed from it’s bony finger and put in her pouch, for Alando to later identify.
Finally, making here way through a building, she came out on a boulevard that went north/south. The north end led into the swamp after a hundred yards or so, while the south end continued on to an intersection and more of the city. Noises from across the street catching her attention, the invisible Cadelaine crept across the street to look over a low stone wall. She triggered her Silence Stone when she saw what had attracted her…..serpent men! Three of the reptilian beasts, along with two flying snakes that hovered overhead, were in a small courtyard digging at a large hole in the ground. One serpent man, with a snake head and two arms that ended in cobra heads, was watching as two others (both with snake heads, one with a tail, both wielding scimitars) try to dig up a buried chest hip deep in the ground. They hissed to each other in a language Cadelaine could not understand, and she quickly scurried back across the street to present this information to the hidden party members.
Making plans, the party decided to sneak up on the group and attack, with Cadelaine invisibly leading the way with a backstab or two. Things didn’t go as planned. as the group was spotted crossing the street and two flying fangs attacked the party. The battle was joined as Mongo jumped over the wall and attacked one snakeman (who spit poison all over him, catching the ranger unaware as the fluid burned his skin), Nadal took on another with swords, and the last ran to hide. Cadelaine and Sholo quickly dealt with the flying snakes, with Endefal assisting Mongo using Fist of Faith to dispatch another, Mongo took chase after the serpentman with snakes for arms, eventually getting ambushed by the hidden snakeman but fighting back to eventually kill him. Meanwhile, Nadal battled the scimitar wielding snakeman and eventually maneuvered the snakeman into being backstabbed by an invisible Cadelaine, finishing him also.
The party searched the area including the hole the snakemen had dug, which contained a chest. Examination of the dead snakemen found that one had a map of the site, which indicated that many centuries earlier works of art had been buried by the church of Umgawa. The chest revealed several golden and ivory statues, some gem studded, but all worth quite a bit. The snakemen were dumped in the hole, the hold filled in with earth, and the chest hauled back by the adventurers to their hideout. However, on a brief foray by Cadelaine of the area she came across a building that seemed to house a certain foreboding, feeling extremely uneasy as she scouted out what appeared to be some place of ancient knowledge. Marking it on their map, they returned to Kal, Alando and Gra Gra and left the treasure there.
Cadelaine and Endefal both decided it was past time to investigate the abandoned abbey near their basement home, so along with Mongo they scouted it out. Muddy footprints of some kind were found in the foyer and seemed to lead deeper into the abbey, but they were not followed. Several round, dark, muddy sinkholes dotted the area, and Mongo found evidence of a large snake like body having traveled through these sinkholes. Investigating one broken tower, the group was started by the sudden appearance of a large, snake like figure with a human head that briefly slid from a room and disappeared down a sinkhole….a naga! Not wanting to mix it up with the reptilian creature (and uneasy about what spells the creature might have, and his ability to travel swiftly through the sinkholes dotting the area), the group beat a hasty retreat back to their basement lair rather than deal with the deadly reptilian being at this time….
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