Spruce Street Gamers A sinister evil broods...

As of 9pm CST on 19 June 2009, the Spruce Street Gamers site moved to it's new home: a dedicated server hosted at iWeb. The zippy new server boasts a dual-core Celeron 1.8 GHz processor, a whopping 1 GB of RAM and 2x 80 GB SATA-2 drives configured in software RAID-1. It's a big step up from the previous server, which was a virtual server with 512 MB of RAM, but I think we can handle it. :) In addition, we stuck with MySQL for the back-end database and all the data appears to have migrated successfully.

I still have to move all of my other sites over to the new hardware, so it is possible that the site may experience a few minor outages in the near future. But I will do my best to keep the downtime to a minimum.

Please let me know if you notice any problems with the site or any missing content.

I believe I successfully converted the site from PostgreSQL to MySQL on the back-end. This should eliminate most, if not all, of the strange errors cropping up all over the place. As far as I know, everything should be working correctly at this point.

So after the rapid dispatchment of the giant crayfish a short discussion followed. The discussion being as to rest, return to Homlett, or continue on. Faylinn on the side of rest, Rathmine, and Flashypants for continue, and me well, though I felt that returning to Homlett would be a wise action I had to agree with our two stout comrades in that none of us were in immediate danger. There fore the decision was made to continue to explore these catacombs.

In what we have seen and heard, or more accurately read, in our short time here as layed out the balance of several competing temples in the hierarchy. In our explorations we have in my thoughts at least dealt with both the temple of Earth representative, and that of the temple of water.

So being aware of our slightly diminished abilities we set forth down the hall opposite the crawfish pool. This led to us well being fairly indecisive. The original hall led down to where if I were to guess lie a pair of mausoleums. We choose at the current juncture not to open those doors. now this room did contain two other passageways, ones that we do need, I feel, to return and explore. but being as the room was fairly open, and we feared a possible ambush from several undead we left.

This led us to a rather average looking door that was positioned roughly at the midpoint of the hall. A few deft movements and the lock gave way and we we granted admission. Another hall, another door, another skilled picking of the lock. But the next hall brought an uneasy feeling to my stomach. Lined with fine looking tapestries this hall did not look like it belonged here. Well at least not in the catacombs of commoners. And from my learnings my desire to meet a more powerful being was shal we say lacking. But heading the words of my companions who put little faith in such tales we bravely (foolishly?) continued.

This hall ended in a room as most halls do, but this was actually a small grouping of rooms whose configuration does not seem to fit with the original scope of the environment. Which I am to therefore conclude that they were built or remodeled after the original construction. But this is beside the point, the rooms held several thing of value to us. First in our way we found several new creatures; Firewing Drakes, and Junior Salamander Lancers.

After warning Faylinn that her fire magics would be less than useful to us in this situation Rathmine led the charge.  Using our terrain to our advantage we bottlenecked the creatures in the room and picked them of one by one. Rathmine cleaved through two of our foes. Flashy pants dazed and flourished his spikes. I fired a few shots that met their marks. And Faylinn?? Well she stood back and spent the time playing with her sputtering arcane projectile. After the battle we comforted her in the fact that everyone has a bad encounter or two once in a while when the just can't get thier arcane projectile off.

But back to the matter that was then at hand. These beings were but guards. And guards of what? Well of course from my introduction you know that they must be guarding the fire temple. So our unfalteringly brave crew stepped forth and into the adjacent camber. This room that we entered being by far the most opulent of the rooms so far. Chairs a table, chest, rick cloths, oh yeah and a lying weasel of a man named Lareth. A lengthly verbal banter ensued. During which I steadfastly held guard at the door in case we were to be ambushed. We had heard of this man and his alleged atrocities before. His sly tongue wound its way through the ears of non-fey companions and would have should we (Faylinn and I) not have been there would surely have led to his escape. Instead we had him cornered and with intent to bring him in to custody and return to town. But he underestimated us and the speed and fury of reactions. As he went for his sword I fired a swift arrow deep into his shoulder, Rathmine swooped in and swept his legs out from underneath. And Faylinn bless her heart gave up on he arcane projectile and burst forth with a forceful orb. Unfortunately we were unable to extract any more information. This being due to the fact of Larenth taking the full force of Faylinn's orb had left him limp and lifeless upon the floor.

We scoured the room for a clue, information, anything we could find. A nifty dagger for Flashypants, and a scroll were our rewards. The scroll made our situation ever more dire though. As it layed out plans to both amass a hundred troops, and to establish an informant in the town of homlett.

Collecting our poor and unfortunate companions from their hovel we raced to back to Homlett to warn Jaroo, and the town.

A recap of the last day and a half of our adventures. Following up from our encounter with what appeared to be a patrol of ominous figures sent to hold the moat house in preparation for the up coming 'push' for [Homlett] we descended into the lower levels.

The first lower level of the moat house held store rooms, cells, and an interrogation chamber. The store rooms were loaded, weapons supplies and small amounts of looted merchandise. (later we would discover from whom this had been looted.). The primary open room and all non-cells were fairly well constructed stone work. Though apparently unused for some time they have seen some recent occupation and do seem to be in better condition than that of the above ground keep. The cells were unkept and filthy, as would be expected. But not nearly as filthy as the last two rooms that we were to search upon this level. Those rooms were the abode of a vile Ogre , though he was smallish the foul stench that he exuded was by far the most powerful thing we encountered.

And while we are discussing our encounters let me remind you of what we did encounter on this floor. Our first meeting was with nothing too spectacular but your standard dungeon scavengers. Four gelatinous green slime . These creatures simply keep most subterranean areas clear by acidly dissolving things alive or not that are in their way. We dispatched these quite well. Though Faylinn's flames sputtered and Rathmine dug his Axe into me in an unfortunate series of events. Both Flashypants and I delivered wicked blows and held our own. Things we should all take from this encounter is to not rush in as I did (should have known better) and to be wary of attacking near your fellow adventurers.

The next surprise the we beheld was an unleashing of undead. Our first encounter of these horrific aberrations. And what more logical place then the hall that led from the prisoner cells to the interrogation room. Four zombie and two wight . Low level but still a fright for us in that the attacks of these creatures have been know to kill one instantly. A grueling battle followed. Trading of blow for blow between Rathmine, Flashypants and several of the Zombies. Faylinn fortunately unleashed her fiery hot ball amongst the close quartered foes. With but a few deft shots the undead were dead once more.

A through searching of the area commenced and with his highly skilled abilities Flashypants found a decrepit ladder leading ever lower. We contemplated decent for a moment but then turned our thoughts to the completion of exploring our current level. This left but one door for us to enter.

The stench emanating forth was all but unbearable. A loud dumb and unamused [ogre] was barring our further advance. Upon seeing this lumbering hulk we at once devised and fell into a simple battle plan. We bottle necked him at the door. From the rear our artillery attacks of arrows, arcane projectiles, and spikes drove home devastating blows. A sweep of Rathmine's axe and the ogre became no more than a large pin cushion.

His room was shall we say opulent for that of an ogre. Those who led him either held him in esteem or fear or both. Four artistic columns and a fine pile of furs were left to decay in the rank air. Hunkering down we allowed ourselves a brief rest to recover from our intense battles .

Here I submit a running list of our party's collective treasure:

Bolts of fine cloth: 2x50g

Ruby: 1x100g

Sapphire: 1x100g

Dagger with sapphires: 1x150g

2033 copper

Decorative box: 1x45g

Gold ring with sapphire: 1x50g

Gold ring with ruby: 1x100g

We certainly had a lot on our hands yesterday at the Moathouse! 

After the rest we took once the ogre was dead, we found that he had kept prisoners, and that three were still alive.  We found two humans (apparently merchants most recently in Shadowdale) and a dwarf.  Though they were all in bad shape, the dwarf was worst off, and FP was good enough to give him his healing potion.  In thanks, the dwarf gave FP an iron ring.  We do not yet know if it has any value either monetarily or magially, but the gesture was lovely, as I'm sure FP would agree, and he now wears the ring on his finger.

For now, though, the group of three still waits for our return to lead them back to Hommlet.  After all, we have yet to figure out the depths of villany at the moathouse, and we could neither abort our mission nor split up.  We did give them directions to the town, as well as instructions to see Tifalius when they arrived--just in case we were captured or killed before we could return to them.  But they apparently would rather wait for our escort than venture back alone, which I think a very wise decision (and one I did not hesitate to urge them toward!).   

The moathouse is far larger than it first seemed--mainly owing to the fact that it has level after level below ground.  After leaving the prisoners, we ventured down the secret ladder FP had discovered earlier, where we were rather quickly beset upon by four ghouls and a Banshee.  The four of us did not have too much trouble with them, and once finished with the battle, we continued our survey of the level.  

Through one passage, we found a curious and highly suspicious trail of gold coins, spaced evenly along a narrow corrider.  I removed the coins with my mage hand to check for traps.  The fact that there weren't any made us more rather than less wary--after all, someone put them there!--and we decided to try another direction for the time being.  After following long, winding tunnels and a shallow stairway down, we came across a pool... a pool that housed a Giant crawfish of all things!  Again, our group had little trouble killing the beast, but we did decide to avoid resting in the room, as we do not know what else the pool may hold.  Notably, we uncovered some very valuable treasure on the lip of the pool--two bejeweled rings and a half dozen or so spells!  Our party has yet to decide which, if any, I shall inscribe in my spellbook.