The Temple of Death: Part Three

Rocky IX:
Since encountering people is so much fun, the party is overjoyed to hear a voice in the darkness ordering them to drop their weapons. Thaddeus immediately disappears, and Argorn rampages into the darkness. The rest of the brave party are captured by Geonids (aka rock like creatures), but decide that their hosts aren’t all good after the leader involves the "Kill them all" clause of hospitality.

After a brief battle aided by the fact that the Geonids only relieved the party of their main weapons and a timely use of a Confusion spell, the party scored their own pet rock. Upon espousing a truly atrocious range of rock-based puns, the captive gives in and the party find out a number of titbits of information, including a neat password to the gate out of here. Rock on!

The party finally escape the caves for a while to come across a nicely tended valley of grass and some centaurs. Fortunately the horsemen are open to bribes and so the party has a place to rest for the night.

Cloud Overhead:
Continuing on, at the other end of the valley there are two caves, one of beckoning hands, the other of a snake mouth. Strewn about are a number of statues, without bases, and of strange art pieces as "horrified", "terrified" and "filling pants". The party bravely sends the two fighters on ahead (into the snake mouth, no way is anyone trusting the obviously evil friendly hands entrance), and they handily dispatch two medusa while the rest of the party sit around enjoying the sun.

Next up the party came across a portcullis between them and the end of the Gauntlet. Eventually remembering the password, they passed on through to the other side, where they met Foucet and his friend the Cloud Giant. Foucet didn't believe their story ("We're... traders. That it, traders. Right?"), forcing the party to kill not only him (it was his own fault, no-one to blame but him) but also the Giant, who, in turn, was blinded then deafened before finally deadened. There was more loot to be had, included a nice set of armour that Lotus snagged, although it needed some repairing before it could be used.

Continuing on, the party finally met the promised contact, one Elven Princess Rahasia of the Glade of the Siswa. Habenath managed to control his drooling long enough to find out the Master's army was gathering more quickly than expected, and the party should lie low for a while in the city of Magden. She also reminds them to find her sister, Marialena.