Chat Summary for 11 February, 2000

We started with the party pulling back to discuss their options. Most of the chat session consisted of the party discussing what to do. Sane suggested that the party needed to take care of the beetles to secure their possible line of retreat.

After coming up with a plan they set up the house and rested, recovering spells and spell points. They then returned to the cavern and put the plan into motion.

At the entrance to the cavern the party formed into three lines, with Matar, Thengal, Ariessus, and Xaveus (the "Melee Mob") on the front row, Katrina, Shadow, and Castinar in the second row ("Missiles and Mayhem"), and finally Nikki and Diana in the rear (the "Masters of Magic"). Once they were set up Sane ("Don’t worry about me") flew out into the cavern and dropped several light stones, illuminating the area in front of the tunnel. He then landed on the other side of the tunnel and created the illusion of a rotting pile of lizard carcasses ("Beetle Bait").

It took the beetles several minutes to react. One finally showed up to check out the new food source. It took a chunk of meat and started to head back towards the nest. The party (mostly Matar, Katrina, and Shadow) shot at it from the tunnel and killed it.

This scene repeated itself several times over the following few minutes, with more and more beetles showing up. Finally it got to the point that they were not able to kill all the beetles before some got away. Those that got away made a strange grinding or grating noise, which some party members suggested might be some kind of warning signal.

The party held their positions, wondering what would happen next. As they waited both K’harn and Xaveus detected strange rumblings from the ground. Xaveus announced that the grinding sound had moved underground. This made the party rather nervous, with visions of beetles popping up out of the ground at their feet dancing in their heads. Xaveus talked to the rock and assured everybody that there were no tunnels under their feet. Still, everybody was on edge.

The grinding noise suddenly stopped right after a strong rumble shook the ground. Xaveus thought it sounded like a mine shaft collapsing.

As they were waiting Matar ran out and pulled one of the dead beetles in for examination. He, Ariessus, and Castinar took a close look at it. They confirmed that the beetles were very similar to fire beetles, but without the glowing glands.

After a tense ten minutes, Matar finally saw some new movement. A large group of beetles was heading towards the illusion that Sane had been maintaining all this time. As they approached the party prepared for battle, with Diana casting her Combat Empathy spell. But the whole scene turned out to be anti-climatic when Diana toasted most of the beetles with a fireball, and then the archers and Matar finished off the rest in short order.

But there was something strange about the group. In the middle was a beetle that looked quite different. Instead of a dark, hard carapace it had a thick but soft, light-colored carapace. The other beetles remained very close to it at all times, even after the fireball hit. When it was killed there was another strong rumble through the ground.

Matar pulled the soft beetle in and the party investigate it for a while as they discussed their options. Since they had spells running they decided to press forward to the beetle nest after only a few minutes.

With Sane flying ahead of the group dropping light stones they made their way over to the alcove containing the beetle nest. When they rounded the corner Amber slinged a light stone up onto the shallow slope. However, to the surprise of Castinar and Matar (the only ones who had actually seen the nest entrance) there was no entrance visible. The party discussed it for a while, wondering if the beetles had either sealed themselves in or used some kind of illusion to hide their nest.

That’s where we stopped. The party is now discussing what steps to take next. Amber has been scanning the area for "pages of paper" with a Locate Object spell in the hope that they can find another journal page in the beetle nest, but so far has come up with nothing.

Since we’re not in combat the combat.gif map hasn’t been updated. However, lair.gif now shows the whole cavern. Battle grid has been updated as well.

So, talk it over and let me know how you approach the nest area. FYI the slope here is gentle, rising only about 1 foot for a run of 10.

Saif