Yuria's Log: Day 3, Part II and Day 4

11/14/2011
Day 3, Part II
     As we continue farther northwest, the sounds of nature begin to lessen. It's a bit concerning since we're still fairly deep within the forest. The volcano is about a two day journey from where we are. A bit longer than we had originally expected. Everyone except, Sir Thoran, notices that the forest is getting more and more sparse. Drogo detects some tracks and we begin following them. We find bits and pieces of undead skin along the trail of webbed feet. We assume these are some sort of amphibian undead creatures, dwellers perhaps. We had encountered them in the past, so it was easy to assume.
     As the forest becomes less dense, we find a single silver tree with something wrapped around it. It's a dweller. The decaying amphibian, maggots leaking from its body, is wrapped around the bottom of the tree. Crawl trails are leading to the tree from a distance. It's almost as though the dying creature was trying to get to the tree. One of the mechanical taps is around the tree as well.
All of a sudden, something rockets out of the tree onto my face. It looks like a squirrel, but it's happening so fast and I'm just trying to get it off of my face. Sir Thoran takes out his hammer and with one swoop bashes it off my face whilst still keeping his mug full of ale. The squirrel goes flying off my face and then immediately gets up and starts crawling on its front legs, pulling the rest of its body forward. Sir Thoran puts the poor creature out of its misery with a final blow.
     "Oi, thank you, good knight." I say a bit out of breath and quickly follow with, "Never do that again! Well...Not so close to my face at least. You could have critically wounded my face and then what would we have done?" He shrugged a bit distraught. He was just trying to be helpful. Calmly and quite genuinely, I say, "Again, thank you."

     "Sorry," Sir Thoran says in a low, beard muffled, voice. He takes a big gulp of ale and stills his hammer.
     I examine the odd squirrel like creature. From what I can tell, it's not transmittable, so something had to have turned it undead. I'm guessing that they are using this silver residuum to create these undead creatures because eating residuum is part of a ritual to create a Lich. The crawl trails must have been the dwellers attempt to get to the tree in order to keep its self alive. With the amount of trees that have been drained, I make the assumption that someone must be using residuum to create an undead army. The bucket at the still has quite a bit of residuum left. Since Lament and I haven't encountered this type of residuum before, we both take a vial full for future testing purposes.
     Loogan begins tinkering with the mechanical tap.
     "What are you doing now, Loogan?" I say.
     "Oh...Nothing," he says nonchalantly. "Just checking this baby out. This thing has more knobs and gears than anything I've ever seen before." His little halfling voice raises a bit in excitement.
     "I really wouldn't bother with it if I were you. I mean...You could get hurt, you know?"
     He continues to try to take the contraptions off of the tree, despite my warnings. Loogan really does love mechanical things. Always trying to take things apart and put them together.    
     Sometimes, useful...Other times, not so useful. After much tinkering, he manages to get the trap off of the tree. It begins wrapping its self around his arm. He shakes it off of him screaming, "Get it off me! Get it off me!" Sir Thoran, gladly, takes out his hammer once again and begins smashing the mechanical item, spilling a small bit of ale from his mug this time. It begins squealing and screeching loudly, until it shrivels up.
     The wild elves book it towards what forest life they can find in the area, anywhere away from the silver tree and the screeching screams of the mechanical creature. After the loud shrilling screams from the still, it begins to gets really quiet, abnormally quiet. We decide it's probably best not to hang around the area. We follow the elves and head towards the cave.
     "It's best if we set camp," whispers one of the wild elves. "We won't make it to the old entrance till mid day tomorrow." He begins the making of a fire. His companions already making their beds and readying their meals.
     As I wake up for my watch, I notice Lament is already up. He's rubbing the book on his leg. He's muttering. He doesn't appear to actually be awake. I walk over and sit next to him, looking at him to see if I notice anything else that's odd. I take the book gently and hide it in my bag quickly. He begins talking to me. I don't understand what he's saying. He's talking in an odd language. I assume some kind of demonic language.
     "What's that?" I say gently.
     He wakes up, looking at me anxiously and responds, "What's wrong?"
     I continue to speak gently saying, "Nothing. Thought I heard something."
     When our watch is over and I assume Lament is in dreamland, I try to burn the book. Ripping a page from the journal, I place it in the fire. With much success, it burns. I then place the edge of the book into the fire and gently toss the rest of it. It submerges in flames and I watch it to make sure it turns to ashes. We encounter nothing else throughout the night.

Day 4
     In the morning, we travel through the forest for a few hours before we reach the entrance to old Gauntlgrym. It looks as though someone has exited the entrance. It's blown out from the inside.
     "It's been like this ever since we found it," said one of the wild elves, noticing the concern on my face.
     "How long has it been since you found it?" I ask.
     "About ten years," says another wild elf from behind a tree.
     Drogo scouts the cave. Upon return, he reveals that there appear to be undead within the cave. We begin preparing for combat. I ready my Turn Undead spell. Playing with the magic between my fingers, from my pointer to pinky finger and back. We slowly enter the cave. I move forward and peer into the darkness. I see something moving. All I can see is a large mouth, drooling; it's fangs ten times larger than your average fox. From what little I can see of the critter in the darkness, it appears to be undead.
     I throw my Lance of Faith at the large creature, a brilliant ray of light propels towards the undead beast searing through it. A golden radiance lingers, lighting up his figure and aiding my allies. I see a shard of shimmering force from Lament's Eldrich Bow. It finishes off the creature. Sir Thoran charges forward and we hear strange breathing sounds. Four creatures that look like dwellers, but a bit larger, appear from the unlit area of the cave just to the left of the knight.
     A maw, an undead skeleton, jaw hinging, moving quickly from shadow to shadow, made its way towards us. I use Turn Undead on all the large dwellers and our wild elf friends manage to finish them off. I say to one of them, "Nice shot," as I curse the large skeleton creature, banning him and lowering his defenses. Lament moves forward towards another undead creature with a large mouth. Sir Thoran follows Lament, swinging his hammer at the maw. The large dweller near Lament took a bite at him, upon biting him, a burning flame came from Lament's skin damaging the dweller in return.
     As the mouths and dwellers are cleared, we all focus and finish off the maw. It looks as if the whole back entrance of the cave was being excavated. Sir Thoran and I agree that this is not the way to get in due to the thick wall. It would take months to get through it. As we search the area, we find about three hundred gold, a dagger and a necklace.

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The DM hasn't given us details on what the new items look like or what they are yet. I'll edit and add them in once I get that information - For now, note, Yuria has the dagger [level 3] and Sir Thoran has the necklace [level 4]. We use a roll system for loot drops like this.