Session 2: CHARGE!

The Prison of the Gods has a peculiar feature: those who do not belong there are periodically ejected from the grand dungeon to a safe point on the Prime Material Plane. Well, that's how it worked originally. While the most visible sign of the fracturing of the magic that holds together the Prison of the Gods are the occasional tremors, the random disappearance of those new to its halls is another worrisome concern.

With one member down and much of the party injured from the battle with the rat swarm, our intrepid adventurers decided to rest for the "night". Nothing untoward happened until the next day, when as the spellcasters were performing their morning rituals Zay the Necromancer faded and disappeared. The party didn't even notice and continued on without their companion.

From the rat room, they proceeded through the door to the north into a corridor running east and west that has a chewed-up body in it. After checking that out, they turn to the right and head east, then south to one of the many open doorways in this area. There they finally find a room that was recently inhabited by humanoids: an intact bed, desk, and stools are in the room along with a pile of dirt obviously used for drawing plans. (The last set of plans remains: it appears to be a battle formation of some sort made of Xs, Os, and arrows.) The party searches the entire room including the bed, desk, and dirt but finds nothing remarkable. A bone backscratcher sitting on the desk intrigues Tex, so he takes it.

The only exit from the bedroom is an open "secret" door to the east. This leads to a L-shaped corridor with a door at the end. Through that door the group finds a long corridor proceeding north and east. With nothing to indicate which way is better, they continue east to a door on the north side of the corridor. The two rooms beyond were obviously barracks or quarters of some sort, though now they're filled with rubble and the footing is treacherous. Still, they decide to spend some time searching these rooms but get nothing to show for it other than a test of their reflexes when a tremor strikes the area.

Afterwards, they returned to the corridor and headed south to the next door in the corridor, this one to the west. Here they find another room where the rocks have almost completely covered the floor but not enough so that they don't see the door on the other side. It takes a few minutes, but they reach the door without much incident. They check out the door, find nothing, open it...and Tex once again takes an injury for the team as a blade whips out from underneath the door. Everyone jumped in and started bashing the blade until it was eventually knocked out of commission, but the damage had been done. Literally. At least the group hadn't had any tough fights yet that day!

Strangely, what the blade had been guarding is some sort of break room. Sensing no immediate danger, they searched the room and found a deck of cards and a gold ring! A small celebration erupted as they'd found their first real treasure.

Then their torches blew out. A brief moment of panic grabbed the team! Screaming! Hollering! Lighting torches! Everyone was relieved to find that nothing was attacking them; it was just the wind.

After working their way back through the rubble-filled room, they proceeded to the end of the corridor and through the door leading north. Yet another slightly rubble-y room greeted them, filled with small stones and a dented but serviceable censer. Tthardas casts Detect Magic to see if it or the ring is magical. While neither one was magical, he did (with a very high roll) notice the trap on the archway to the north and warned his friends. Unfortunately, Tex was still hit by the Color Spray trap and is knocked out. The rest of the party goes on through the trap with their eyes closed, which seems to work.

The new room is filled with rubble, while the walls are painted with images of lycanthropes playing three-dragon ante. Without too much trouble searching Arron finds a crushed golden goblet and the spikes sticking out of the wall. Tthardas decides to head back into the other room, sets off the trap again, and is knocked unconscious. Eventually a wandering rat swarm helps them realize that the spikes are blocking a secret door. After some work, they force it open and are surprised by yet another rat swarm. Tex, Tthardas, and Orrin take some nasty bites but are able to disperse the swarm. They decided to rest up here.

After an uneventful night and some healing, they head into another empty shared bedroom. As always, they split up, search the room, and find a stuck secret door to the east. Everyone crowds around the door to give it a good shove, which opens the door but causes the wall to collapse on them all. Damaged but still mobile, they investigate the large room beyond. The obviously tortured skeletons cause the party's animals to freak out and everyone but Orrin is temporarily paralyzed. They decide to get out of there and then group up with some hot cocoa.

After an hour and a few tremors, they begin wandering vague north-east through a bunch of twisting corridors. Eventually, they open a door and are startled to see two orcs guarding a door. The orcs retreat through the door they were guarding and the party charges after them. Unbeknownst to our heroes there is an entire orc warband inside the room, and despite some valiant fighting the party is quickly subdued and captured. Unconscious, they await their fate...in our next meeting.