Entering the Palace

Our Party of adventurers have come together at the behest of Gavin the Guildmaster of the Black Crows Adventurers guild in Belltaine. Rumors have stirred that there still remains treasures to be found south in the ruins of the silver palace.

Gavin Relays the rumors that 20 years ago a warrior riding a silver dragon flew to the palace in search of something. At the time Princess Argenta ruled with a careful and kind hand and was well loved by her people. After the rider came to her palace the princess disappeared and the land almost overnight fell to ruin. Rumor has it when the rider came he took the princess and cursed the land. The palace no stands as a ruins and non dare seek the treasures that remain for fear of being cursed themselves or devoured by whatever beasts have since moved into the area.

The group has agreed to investigate the castle and return with information of what they can find out about what may have actually happened 20 years ago and full looting rights to the castle minus 25% commission to the guild. The guild has agreed to also help secure buyers for any unique or harder to sell items of value should the team return with any.

After Securing their provisions the group begins the 3 day long trek south to the Silver Palace of the former princess Argenta.

Day 1: Came to a canyon and stopped for the night. During the night weather changes to stormy, no one got good sleep -2 on all rolls for the day.

Day 2: Thunderstorms through the first 2 hours, then cloudy for the rest of the day. No encounter.

Day 3: Cloudy, no encounters on the way there or during the night.

Day 4: Came to the entrance of the Palace and notice a red light emanating over most of the land and most of the castle. The entrance way into the castle is however not covered in the light. A rat scurries past and steps into the light only to expire moments after. Several other small woodland creatures appear to have met the same fate.

The party avoids the red light and ventures forth toward the open entrance to the palace. Checking carefully Tolo discovers a thin wire run across the entrance. Borrowing a 10ft pole from Lol he carefully breaks the wire at a distance, triggering a dart trap and embedding the dart into the opposite wall. The inside of the palace is dark so Tolo lights a his lantern and steps inside, the rest of the party following behind. As soon as every one steps inside the portcullis slams shut behind them and the red light now covers the exit. Brock touches the gate and feels his hands go numb reporting as such to the rest of the group but is otherwise unharmed.

The party Looks over the courtyard for anything that seems out of place or hidden but is unable to turn up anything useful. The party then decides to investigate the door to the east listening first to see if there is anything or any one behind it. Lol hears chains rattling behind the door, they open it and are immediately set upon by a pair of skeletons.

The thief takes a grazing wound to the arm from a sword lash and the ranger takes a nasty sword jab into across his side. The cleric calls upon the power of his god and the skeletons flee before from the bright glowing light of law. The group finds a lever on the wall which is in the down position with no label however the up position is labeled B. Tolo searches for traps and finds a needle trap in the handle but believes a hidden button will disable it. He presses the button and lifts the lever up but nothing seems to happen.

The party heads back and checks the door on the west wall, Tolo hears scratching and squeeks coming from the other side. Brock and Onah take position in front of the door with weapons ready while Lol has his pole arm ready to reach past them and stab at anything that moves forward, and they open the door. The party sees a 3 foot long giant rat which looks confused and starved, it stares at the party hungrily. The party advances to attack with Brock and Onah both making ineffective attacks. Lol stabs with his polearm and kills the rat clean with a puncture through the chest into its heart when it reared up to attack.

Investigating the room the party finds another lever but Tolo does not find any traps on this lever and carefully with the 10ft pole raises the lever into the up position labeled A, this time the a grating noise can be heard from the courtyard. On returning to the courtyard the 2 portcullises have risen providing entry into the rest of the palace.

The party opts to take the entrance on the right and follows down a corridor and around the corner until they come to a door. Listening at the door there is heard some quiet whispering but they cant make out what is being said. The party decides to enter with weapons on the ready with the rogue and wizard taking the back row the ranger and fighter in the front and the cleric and fighter with the heavy crossbow in the middle.

Upon entering the room it appears to have been a library at one time however no books or scrolls are on the shelves. While searching the room 5 kobalds are found hiding behind a table. Seeing that they are outnumbered they don’t immediately attack but demand that the group leave their home in peace, they don’t wish to fight but will defend “their” territory. Seeing nothing of value and seeing no sense in pointless bloodshed leave the kobalds to their room.

The next room south contained barrels of old beer and sacks of grain but little else.

Listening to the next door it sounds like someone is ransacking the place. The party enters a room setup as a pantry and come upon 5 humanoids with pale earthy skin. They are taken by surprise but immediately grab their weapons for a fight. The party moves in and attacks dropping 2 but the remainder still has the will to fight but are unable to get more then some glancing blows off their armor. 2 more fall before the final drops his knife and begs for his life. The party agrees to spare him if he can provide any information about the palace. He agrees but he wants to be by the door so the party cant change their mind and just kill him. The group is fine with this and allows him to stand by the door but they stand prepared for any tricks. He tells them that back the way they came and through the other gate if they take the path all the way down the stairs it leads to a large pool however giant ferrets live there and it has the same bright red light. He says that is all they had explored and the group lets him leave. Tolo fills his lantern and the group heads to the next room.

Hearing nothing at the door they cautiously move in. They find a large eating room with statues of men and women eating dinner. there is food on the table which looks old but not moldy or decayed, no one opts to eat any of it and finding nothing of value moves on. they come across a split in the corridor and choose to take the path to the right and follow it down a flight of stone stairs down into a cavern.

The cave has been polished smooth and 3 smashed statues stand before another smashed status of what used to be a women but in its place is a clay statue of a painted blood red eye. Brock starts to search the rubble and disturbs a giant centipede hiding there. He gives it a good whack with his axe and it scurries away. He finds nothing but rubble.

They continue up a large wide set of stairs. When they reach the top they find a man slouched up against the wall holding his side. He says a particularly large goblin hit him with a heavy club in his ribs knocking the air out of him and he played dead. The cleric believes his plight and goes over to check on his wound but as he reaches down to lift his tunic to take a look the man grabs him and springs to his feet and in a fluid motion has a knife to the clerics throat. He demands they all drop their weapons or he will slit the clerics throat. As the party is about to try and negotiate for their friends life, 10 skeletons march further from the cave having been drawn to the sudden commotion by the stairwell. Upon seeing the skeletons he lets go of the cleric and looks to see if he can run away but the exit is blocked. The party informs him that he is going to stand the front line and if they get out of this alive then he will answer for his crimes.

The cleric turns 9 of the skeletons to flee from the clerics divine might but one still advanced, but Lol’s pole-arm smashes through its skull rendering it to fall apart. The ranger takes its shield and Lol takes its shortsword as a reserve weapon. The party takes the bandit captive taking his knife and tying his hands behind his back with rope. Brock is in charge of tugging him along and keeping an eye on him. He says his name is Farn and that he got separated from the rest of his group who heard there were riches to be plundered here. He refuses to give any further detail other than that.

the party continues forward and enter a room full of steam, but save for a few benches nothing of note. The next room over holds an oak cabinet with carved scenes of springtime. the floor is marble with specks of gold and black stone. Tolo checks the cabinet for traps and finds non on the cabinet. He opens it and finds towels and pink bars of soap in the shape of dolphins. He succeeds on a wisdom check and carefully lifts the towels up with a borrowed 10ft pole revealing a sleeping cobra and a large gold key. he carefully places back the towel and informs Lol to attack it with his pole-arm. Lol brings his pole-arm down with full might and blood seeps quickly into the towels but the snake is assuredly dead. they still carefully flick the key from under the towel with the rod and give it to tolo for safe keeping.

The room connects to another which looks to be a very ornate bath area, along with flasks and a feathered fan. Above the bath are 5 birdlike creatures. The group tries to move on into one of the other rooms with out disturbing the bird things. They don’t attack.

the party enters a room with a pedestal and on the pedestal is a object silvered in color that all light seems to gleam and reflect off of. Tolo goes to get a closer look and when he nears the object a projection of a mans face appears and he says “BEWARE” and then disappears. Tolo explains he believes this to be some sort of trap and that no one should try taking the pendant. The group agrees and heads to the the room on the right.

The group enters a room with a large mosaic with a man in black platemail riding a white dragon. Several other mosaics include mermaids and a crowned maiden. A keyhole rests within the mosaic with the dragon. Tolo tries the only key he has(the gold key) and it clicks revealing a new keyhole in the mosaic with the mermaids. He succeeds on his devices check and figures he will try the key in the second hole which when inserted and turned vanishes along with the keyholes and in its place a floating silver sword appears. Tolo reaches for the sword but suddenly the man in black armor is standing there and swings his longsword at tolo, striking him with a hard blow. the knight dodges a blow from Lul, however the ranger strikes true and the knight vanishes as if he was never there and the sword falls to the ground still glowing. Tolo checks himself and releases he was not actually harmed by what he can only assume was some sort of specter. Onah the ranger picks up the sword and notices that it feels good in his hand. The next door leads back into the steam room and they continue further into the cave.

They follow the cave until they see a bed of straw with bones strewn about and a large white ape chained to the wall. It appears to have enough slack as to prevent any one from getting by it. It sees the party and begins to pull on its chain trying to get to the party. Keeping their distance Brock hits with 2 heavy bolts dropping the beast. The ranger then goes over and makes sure it is dead with one final jab through the heart. The party then heads to the back of the cave in a defensible position and sets up a makeshift camp to rest.