The Die Rollers

September 9, 2018 Still the 5th day of Uktar 1375   Unsure of their next move, the Alliance stood their ground while waiting for their foes to take a swipe, confident in their ability to shrug off anything the undead could throw at them. Several rounds went by and it was apparent that neither side wanted to cross the threshold, so Rokh instructed Anee to dispel the fog clouds on their side of the wall.      Seth urged Keli and Rokh to head out and hunt down the spellcaster. His assumption was that this necromancer, unlike the shadowdancers, wasn't hiding, nor would it be inside a fog cloud since it needed direct line of sight to its targets. Rokh cast airwalk and Keli used a scroll of flight of the dragon to improve their mobility, then dimension door ed out into the main cavern just 100 feet away and about 50 feet above the ground.      When they arrived, the two could see no wizard but there were 4 other areas obscured by fog clouds . They each c

October 8, 2017 Still the 5th day of Uktar 1375 Both vampires missed with their grapple attempts, but in her weakened state Kiira decided to withdraw and join her friends on the other side. She cast freedom of movement , turned around, and bolted for the portal . Both attacks of opportunity from the undead monks had missed, but, unfortunately for the warrior-priestess, she had triggered the traps that Halaster had set.      Kiira was instantly feeblemind ed and levitate d 10 feet off the ground [rolled a natural 1 twice], but she was able to make her save against the temporal stasis . With only her survival instincts to rely upon, Kiira used what little intellect she had left to make her Bigby's grasping hand grapple herself and have it push her through the portal .      At this point Rokh was already making preparations to go back and rescue Kiira, so he was quite relieved when the dwarf showed up, albeit with a blank stare. He cast heal and used a scr

September 30, 2017 5th day of Uktar 1375 After several days, Anee had finally unlocked all of the Runestone’s properties. She learned that it acts like a capacitor for spells that are cast inside Undermountain. Its charges are used to power some of the magical enhancements of the dungeons, such as Halaster’s teleport cage and scrying cage spells (although this particular use seems to be a recent development).     Halaster was known for his specialty spells (e.g., scrying cage and teleport cage ) and he tied the Runestone to those spells in Undermountain. He was also known for his penchant for creating portals , and so he also tied the Runestone to access and modify all portals in his domain. The Mad Mage also used it to power the defenses of the Runestone Level—the elementals, the earth golem hybrid, and the flameskulls.     The group’s resident archivist also noted that its charges may eventually deplete if, for some reason, everyone in Undermountain stopped

September 24, 2017 Still the 24th day of Marpenoth 1375 Seth and Keli tried to locate the other two attackers (whom they now assume to be shadowdancers) by stalking the cavern floor, to no avail. They also tried to look for the portal that the necromancer and the shadowdancers could have used to breach into the Runestone level, but there were no obvious signs of any such magical doorways.     Next, the whole party regrouped and followed Seth while he attempted to find the shadowdancers’ tracks, and again they were disappointed. And another attempt was made to look for the suspected portal by sweeping the whole cavern with multiple detect magic spells, and still nothing. They even considered summoning an umber hulk for its tremorsense ability, but its movement rate was too slow for it to function as an effective hunter.     In what alcoholics would call a moment of clarity, Rokh decided to use his prepared miracle spell to cast lesser planar ally to summ

April 12, 2017 Still the 24th day of Marpenoth 1375  A  reverse gravity  spell sent Kiira, Rokh and Anee hurtling up into the air. While Rokh had an automatic  feather fall  spell to arrest his sudden ascent, the ladies suffered damage from both hitting the cavern ceiling and the subsequent round-trip down to the floor.      Still unsure if the  reverse gravity  was cast by an unseen assailant or merely one of Halaster's traps, the divine trio collected themselves and walked a short distance down the footpath. They called on the others to regroup. But before they could even discuss what had just happened on the hilltop, a  horrid wilting  spell enveloped them; Kendor and Anya took a massive amount of damage and barely survived the necromantic attack. An enemy had definitely entered the cavern, they now realize, and it had gotten the drop on them twice.      Seth used his  cloak of the bat  to polymorph into a tiny bat and flew northward, hoping to spot the en

March 8, 2017 8th day of Marpenoth 1375 Anee studied Halaster's notes further in preparation for her first attempt at activating the control panel. She cast a divine insight spell on herself and spent eight hours poring over the Mad Mage's half-insane, half-ingenious wall scribblings across all three caves, making sure that she had the correct combinations out of over seven hundred nonillion permutations the 36 runetiles would make when inserted into the 24 carved slots. As soon as Anee finished with her research, the whole party trudged the path up to the hilltop.     As the group looked on in anticipation, Anee anxiously selected the first set of tiles from the satchel. With a silent prayer to her goddess Mystra, the archivist carefully inspected each slot on the control panel while admiring Halaster's creativity and cursing his ability to confound, all at the same time. In what seemed like an eternity, Anee carefully placed the chosen tiles into the

December 6, 2016 Still the 3rd day of Marpenoth 1375 The rest of the Alliance regrouped on the path below the caldera and prepared for their ascent. Keli piggybacked on Kiira; Kendor produced two greater floating disks through his shadow conjuration spell, he rode one and had Rokh and Anee ride on the other disk (and warned them not to disbelieve to illusion or they'd fall).     On the way up, Keli spotted the drow—three with dragon wings, hovering near a fourth one who was still hanging onto the steep hillside while being attacked by Seth's shadows. She cast finger of death on the one still grounded and instantly killed it, and arc of lightning on two of the flyers. The flying drow immediately dispersed in different directions.     The party flew up to the hilltop to face the Huge creature sitting on top of Anya's resilient sphere . They saw a 12-foot monster made of stone with crystals jutting out from its body. According to Anee, it was a u

November 26, 2016 Still the 2nd day of Marpenoth 1375 Anya's analyze portal spell revealed a couple of limitations imposed by Halaster's portal to the Runestone Level: (1) users are only allowed to equip up to 10 pounds of metal each, and (2) each user must possess a ring of wizardry . Since the party has only one such ring, they decided to return to the surface to procure one more. Keli bought one from Aurora's and everyone headed back to the portal room to get some rest. 3rd day of Marpenoth 1375 As a last-ditch effort to gain additional information, Anya cast stonetell to ask the surrounding bricks questions about the portal and its users. The stones knew nothing of a switch to turn off the stasis trap, but they did reveal that a number of dark elves had entered after the old man used the portal , and none of them have come out since.     As the group prepared to make their jump, Anya cast Rary's telepathic bond on the player characters an