Chat Summary for 18 February, 2000

Situation: The party has approached the beetle nest, only to find the entrance missing.

As we started the chat session Matar and Xaveus went up onto the slope containing the beetle nest to see if they could find the missing entrance to the nest. Kat accompanied them on the wall, and Shadow moved forward as well, keeping them covered with her bow.

The pair discovered that while most of the slope was smooth, there were numerous piles of rocks scattered about, almost as if someone had swept them together. Matar investigated one of the piles and discovered that it went down past ground level.

Castinar soon joined the two, trying to see if he could figure out where the entrance was by studying the tracks. However, there were so many tracks in the area he couldn’t make heads or tails of them.

The scouts rejoined the party and it was decided to leave the beetles alone, but to have Hunter keep an eye on them by flying back here once or twice as the party pressed on. The group then discussed what to do. Castinar really wanted to study the penguins, since he didn’t have many underdark creature forms that he could turn in to that could swim well. The party decided to camp just outside the cavern itself while Castinar skipped his sleep period to study the penguins.

Most everybody went to sleep. Sane and Katrina stayed awake as guards, checking out the beetle nest hourly. Ariessus went with Castinar to see the penguins, mainly to get some quiet time alone. Nikki decided to play with her new polymorph ability and changed into about a dozen forms suitable for swimming. This went over much better than her earlier attempts at flying forms. During Nikki’s frolicking in the water she discovered this small lake area was fed by a warm vent of cloudy water deep below the surface.

After two hours Sane discovered that the beetles were active again. He flew around to warn everybody to keep their eyes open. About twenty minutes later the beetles approached where Ari was sitting by the edge of the water. She was approached by one, but it ran off. She sent K’harn and Hunter to inform the party.

Sane and Katrina woke everybody up and they discussed what to do. They decided to go attack the beetles while they were out and around. Meanwhile Castinar returned to the shore and approached a beetle, using his ranger empathy to prevent it from attacking him. When Ari and Castinar returned to where the party was camped they were surprised to find that the party had decided to attack, but they went along with it.

Most of the party started heading for the beetle nest area. Matar ran on ahead and to the side, trying to locate and kill any of the beetle scouts roaming around the cavern floor. Meanwhile Sane flew on ahead to the nest, where he dropped a light stone and started watching the beetles.

Matar killed three beetles with a single stroke, but the fourth one managed to survive long enough to sound a warning. At the warning sign all of the smaller beetles in the cavern area started running back to the nest, and one of the large beetles crawled out of one of the piles of rocks to stand guard over the nest. Seeing this Sane decided to attack it. He created a spectral force image of another beetle and had it crawl down and attack the real one.

That’s when things got interesting. Due to the light stone Sane had dropped the party could see the battle. Matar and Castinar both started running towards the nest, although Matar slipped as he started. The rest of the party kept moving at a steady pace in that direction. As they did so Kat began to fire on the beetles.

The battle lasted for nine rounds, during which time a total of nine of the larger beetles came to the surface to fight. Some came out of previously used holes, but most burst through other piles of rocks on the slope. Matar accounted for most of the kills. Castinar and Shadow killed a couple, while Sane and Kat, with the help of a lightning bolt from Diana, took care of the rest. While the beetles were somewhat difficult to hit, the party’s high armor classes and stoneskins protected them from damage. In the end all of the beetles were slain.

That’s where we left off. The main party arrived at the nest area just as the fight was finishing. Everybody is now on the nest slope. All of the beetles visible are dead. There are about half a dozen openings into the slope scattered around the party.

So, what do you do?