Ladrengielle – blogpost 3

Clearing the dungeon and finding a way down
At the first level of the dungeon, we previously found a Xanathar outpost and took Groin and Pebbles with us. Pebbles died during a fight, but Groin is still with us. After beating the fake vampires, we continued our way to clear all posts and free the dungeon of monsters. We came across some Manticores, and we had a critical fight. Some of us almost died. During another brawl with bandits, I felt pretty reckless. I wanted to help my party so bad, but my spells mostly endanger everyone because they have an area of effect. So what I did was not that smart, but in some fights, I just jumped into enemy range and cast shatter and that sort of spells that can cause a lot of damage. I repeated this kind of stuff in every fight. I preferred the action instead of waiting for Borac and Smokey to finish them off.

Along the way, we explored a lot. Perqen transformed into a spider a lot to scout the rooms for us. We found a statue with a chest in his hand and with a green ceiling. The ceiling turned out to be an acid trap, and inside the chest, there was a heart. Finally, we found our way down to the second floor of the dungeon. Here, we also scouted a lot as well and came across a human revenant searching for his friends that had abandoned him. He wanted to find them, so in exchange for his help and knowledge about the dungeon, we provided security for him. In the end, he just wanted to get some revenge I believe, but it led to my death…

The fiend that got me
I remember that we entered a room with a man in the corner and a black creature near us. I did not recognize it, but because I again wanted to add value to the party I recklessly used fireball causing the man in the corner to die immediately. The revenant that traveled with us realized that he could rest because he had gotten some justice – and disappeared. The next thing I knew, the black creature (Mezzoloth – fiend) created poison or acid clouds where Perqen and I couldn’t get out of. I died.

Out of character, it is quite fun to tell you how I got resurrected. Borac finished the fight and tried to revive me. However, I was dead for more than a minute, so he couldn't save me anymore. He tried everything - kicking me, slapping me, giving me a magical apple or mushroom... None of it worked. But... The magical apple did do something different. It increased my size. So, when Borac decided that he needed to bring me to the Harper guild to resurrect me, he had to drag me up the dungeon in my enlarged state. He did this by grabbing my hair and pulling it. 

Resurrection
When I woke up, I felt really bad. I was slower, weaker, and suffered trauma from dying. Nothing worked in my body. I could not fight, I was scared, and I kept hearing a voice inside my head. But, I did not hesitate to go back into the dungeon. I had to go back, because I had a quest to fulfill for the Harpers, and I wanted to go with Borac. Borac also had a trauma: he turned temporarily deaf. He couldn’t hear anything. I had to use message most of the time to communicate with him, otherwise, he would just continuously say: ‘WHAT?!?!’

I could not look around corners without flinching and fighting was hard on me. I was also grieving Perquen, who also died that day. I was really sad, tired, weak, cried all the time, and I did not feel comfortable in my own body. I recovered a little every day. During my recovery, we helped a dwarf defeat some Rust Monsters, and he decided to join our party. His help was more than welcome because we were one man short. So Smokey, Borac, Kharrum (dwarf cleric), and I continued our journey. Not knowing where to go, or what we would encounter.

I remember we came across a Flesh Golem and a Flaming Skull on a lightening-plate. What a fight was that! However, because my head was so full of feelings and anxiety, I did not remember much.

When I fully recovered, I remembered. I was greeted at the first gate of hell by a demon. When my party summoned me to the plane of the living, the demon would not let me go, because of me dying all the time and he wanted me to stay to wrap it up. I told him I really wanted to go back because of my undying love for Borac. I now felt a power growing inside of me. I made a pact with the Mezzoloth: when I converted to evil, he would let me live and give me more powers. I gained warlock powers that day, but something tells me that shifting my alignment from chaotic good to chaotic neutral was not all of it… It sometimes feels like I’m sharing my thoughts with another entity in my own thoughts…

Next time: fighting with Beholders!