"You'se knew de ovver one was down here!" Jurz accuses the remaining devil as he hurries across the room to hit it with his club.

10:35, Today: Jurz rolled 19 using 1d20+8.  Hit the last one.
10:36, Today: Jurz rolled 8 using 1d8+1.

The grievously wounded devil shrugs off Jurz's assault with no apparent injury sustained.

"Yes, of course I knew he was here too," it responds directly into everyone's minds. It sounds puzzled why Jurz is upset about that.

Minmorc will scowl at the solid block of stone and will spit a huge yellow lugie on it in disgust. He will start helping Bully to gather up anything valuable though he will stay clear of the gem until the group decides what they want to do with it. "Oi, devil guy, any chance yer can patch us through to yer boss? Yer done a good job wid der sales pitch but I wanna talk ter der fella in charge before I agree ter anyfing."

Moffdust will turn Billy to face the blocked doorway and align his nose with the orc lugie. With some encouraging words in a strange language  "Nog Billy ooboshu bug!" she urges him to push against the stone. She crouches down and examines the bottom of the block, muttering to herself.

Bulldust plops down the bag of holding in the centre of the floor to collect the treasures and tosses in the bits he found.  He tries lifting the gold statue off its pedestal, not touching the green eye, and placing it on the floor.  He will try to move the pedestal.

The stone pedestal is 10ft high, 10ft long and 5ft wide. It would weigh something like 80,000 pounds. If it was placed there by manpower alone it would have required a small army of men and special equipment to do it, so it is more likely that it was done by magic. Giant Bully and giant Minmorc together are not able to move it.

The stone outside the door seems like a similarly impossible challenge. If there is a way to move that stone it seems like it must be somewhere on the other side as searching within the room does not find a way to move it.

The golden winged serpent statue is another matter. Closer inspection reveals it is made of gold sheet skillfully hammered over a stone statue to form an almost seamless layer of gold. There would be several thousand gp worth of gold there. The stone statue is 10ft tall and weighs about 4,000 pounds. Giant Bully can drag the statue across to the edge of the pedestal then is just strong enough to lower it to the floor fairly safely on his own. It will be easier with giant Minmorc's help.

The grievously wounded devil's response to Minmorc's question is "My lord Baalzaghul is trapped and has been for centuries. We cannot speak to him and he cannot speak to us. Give me that green gem and I can free him, then we will all be rewarded for freeing him."

Minmorc will help Bully and the others in any way he can. Looking around the group Minmorc will ask "I don't fink Jurz wants ter make deals wid devils, wadda the rest of yer wanna do? Anyone know a good trick ter get gold offa rock an Dregs, yer found wot we're lookin for?"

Dregz knows a sure way to get the gold off the statue, but doesn't recommend it.

"Jus leave it out in der open air fer a bit," he suggests sourly, "somewun will pinch all der gold !"

"Den somewun else will pinch der stone !"

Devils that have been trapped for centuries are, in the priest's considered but unvoiced opinion very unlikely to be grateful - indeed they're much more likely to be wrathful that the one that freed them kept them waiting for so long !  And before you know it there's a plague of heroes descending on the area, queueing up to banish them again and killing off anyone who doesn't measure up to their standards of decency.  No, as far as Dregz is concerned, it's best all round if Lord Baalzaghul waits a bit longer for release.

As for the bit of the Magic Stick which he seeks ... he's pretty sure it's a lot further down, but dutifully fishes out what he has thus far, holding his flail in one hand as he concentrates.

Dregz holds the black mace loosely and lets it swing to point the way to the next piece of the mace. The mace swings westwards towards the blocked doorway, just as Dregz suspected. But no, actually it is pointing at the dead devil lying face down on the floor in front of that doorway.

Bully or Minmorc can easily turn the devil's corpse over and they find the next piece of the black mace tucked into a fold of the devil's leathery hide close to its heart. It is a lumpy hexagonal disc of black metal with two slots toward the centre from opposite edges of the disc, with a 3/4 inch hexagonal hole connecting those two slots. It is obviously designed to slot onto the incomplete black mace to form the second of three parts of the mace head itself.

After a thorough search the treasure found among the bones on the floor of the chamber amounts to 21,100gp worth of gold and gemstone jewellery, as follows:

• 50 Gold ear rings (50 x 10gp = 500gp)
• 20 Gold nose rings (20 x 10gp = 200gp)
• 20 Gold bracelets (20 x 50gp = 1,000gp)
• 4 Gold and tiger eye turquoise rings (4 x 50gp = 200gp)
• 10 Gold and lapis lazuli armbands (10 x 100gp = 1,000gp)
• 2 Gold and rose quartz clasps for girdle (2 x 100gp = 200gp)
• 2 Gold and bloodstone armbands (2 x 150gp = 300gp)
• 10 Gold torcs (10 x 200gp = 2,000gp)
• 8 Carved amber brooches (8 x 250gp = 2,000gp)
• 6 Carved jade bracelets (6 x 500gp = 3,000gp)
• 2 Gold and tourmaline bracelets (2 x 500gp = 1,000gp)
• 2 Gold, agate and quartz torcs (2 x 500gp = 1,000gp)
• Gold and emerald ring (1,000gp)
• Gold and ruby ring (1,000gp)
• Gold and ruby ceremonial dagger (1,200gp)
• Fire opal pendant on gold chain (1,500gp)
• Gem-encrusted gold serpent mask (5,000gp)

Arlein shifts her judgemental stare to the remaining demon, and gives it a derogatory sniff.

While hunting out the treasure Minmorc will take a moment to cure some of his own superficial wounds. Once the obvious loot has been found he will focus his little mind on the arcane, it looks to the others like he's trying to sniff out any magic.

Abandoning his vigil over the badly wounded devil, Dregz quickly scampers across the room to take possession of the next bit of his Magic Stick ... which is rapidly becoming less stick like and more mace like.  Indeed, it seems that ...

"Der might only be wun more bit of der Magic Stick ter find !" he informs the crowd excitedly.

That done, the little goblin turns his considerable intellect to the issue with the stone slab.  After giving it a good staring at, he pronounces judgment.

"Ise reckon dat der slab iz wot is keepin' der Lord Baalzaghul trapped down der," he opines.  "An' puttin' der uvver gem in der eye of der statue might be wot makes it shift."

Or not, seeing as how Bully seems to be intent on stripping the statue for the gold, which will probably break whatever magics sit upon it.

On a whim Dregz joins Minmorc in sniffing out magic, concentrating on the statue.

"Oi Dregzie, wot does magic smell like ter goblins? Smells like burnin air ter me, like air round an electrickery weapon... I likes it."

Distracted by the discussion bout the smell of magic, Jurz turns away from the devil, and frowns at Mimmorc.  Mumbling something, he starts sniffing loudly ...

"I's never noticed dat magic smells.  It just looks blurry to me's."

"Oh yeh, magic got a real speshul smell ter it but yer gots ter focus real hard an kinda fill yer nose wid magic and not sneeze and den breathes in der air through der magic. It woz real hard ter learn in my tribe coz our shaman farted a lot, we fink his farts is wot killed him, nearly killed alla us too."

"Jus' glowin' lights," the goblin priest replies absently echoing Jurz, the big Orc's description making him very thankful of that !

While some of the team continue searching through the bones littering the floor for more treasures, others get a far away, distracted look in their eyes and start talking about the smell or the look of magic.

"Oi Moffa! Der big statue got some diffrent smells o magic on it, a couple o little smells and a big stink from der gem, yer knows wot dey does?"

"Yeah." Jurz adds  "De statue is all blurry when you'se look at it right an der eye is really blurry ...."

Then he suddenly remembers the devil and turns to scowl at it, on principle.

The little goblin priest nods too.  "Dat's right !" he asserts.

"Mus' be sumfin' very wrong if dat devil didn' jus' take der gem himself.  I bet sumfin' bad happens to der one dat touches it !"

"It might be ... blessed !"

A horrible thought indeed.

At Minmorc's urging Moffa joins in the effort to determine a bit more about the magics on the golden statue and its one green eye. She casts a spell and stares at the statue for a while just like the others had done before her.

Minmorc is clearly struggling to come up with a plan so he will think out loud. "Soes... der statue is covered in gold but all fulls o heavy rocks we can't bring wid us... we don't ave a good way ter get der gold off... der gem's big so its worth a bit but its got big stink magic on it so it could do bad stuff... how bouts we just take der head? Dat way we got a bit of gold an we don't touch der gem an we don't break no prophecies, right? Anyone wants any healin or wants ter do anyfing while we's here?""

Moffdust narrows her eyes as she stares at the golden statue. Her voice drops to a whisper "Dese gold magics stops youse from findin de statues, and de green magics makes youse wish youse never did." Rounding on the wounded devil leaning against the wall she hisses "Youse is a false guardians! I releases youse!" She ends it with three magic missiles.

Dregz nods approvingly as Moffa blasts the lying devil.  "He wuz a bad wun," the priest remarks sagely.

"Dat sounds likes wese shouldn' be taken der head eivver," the little goblin notes.

"Praps wese could chop der head off an' take der rest of der statue ?  If wese all stands around it der magic stick might bring it wiv uz.  If wese ends up in a city somewhere den we can sell it ... if not den wese are no wurz off."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:07, Mon 15 Jan 2018.