"That skeleton hits HARD!!"

When we last left our brave party of adventurers, they were preparing to leave the basement of the monastery in order to rest and recover from their wounds. They decided, however, to make one last turn before heading out and head down a path they hadn't traveled down yet.

At the bottom of a small flight of stairs was a small room. On the wall of the room was a large bas-relief carved into the stone wall. The sculpture was of a large bone creature. Darius correctly determined that the creature was actually a bone devil. He then noticed some writing carved into the wall underneath the creature. He couldn't figure out the language, but quickly remembered that he had a scroll of comprehend languages. He used the scroll and determined what the saying was. He wrote it down, but after sensing divination magic was very careful not to repeat the phrase in any language.

After determining that the room held no more secrets, the adventurers made their way to the dungeon's exit. On the way, they all heard the slow, steady steps of a creature blocking their path. They turned the corner to find a fully-armored skeleton wielding a greatsword. The battle to get past the skeleton was intense. The group was already tired and hurting from their earlier encounters that day and merely wanted to get out of the dungeon with their lives. The skeleton was keen on stopping the intruders.

The skeleton, with his glowing blue "eyes" lashed out with his greatsword. He sliced a brutal cut into Darius that almost knocked the sage unconscious. As Darius got out of the way, the skeleton turned its attention on the party's ranger, Avelin. Avelin was hit so hard with the skeleton's sword that she was knocked unconscious.

Gormgen, the group's dwarven fighter used a pair of concoctions which enlarged him and increased his strength, at the cost of his already dim intelligence and dispatched the undead protector of the monastery with ease. The group, now badly injured and in desperate need of rest and healing fled the dungeon and made camp for the night just outside the stairs to the basement. Each member of the party had substantial wounds to heal from and was grateful for the time to recover.

Once the night passed, the group made their way back into the basement where they went down a passageway they had skipped on their first time through the dungeon. (At this point, they decided to check out the first half of the dungeon, hoping to get some XP before finishing the second half. It wasn't a bad idea, the CR4 skeletal champion really gave them a run for their money)

The discovered a room that held a small cluster of pale vines which were emitting yellow vapors. The vines were sentient and attacked the group. It sprayed its pollen at Doc Kells, the party alchemist, and entranced her. Due to the entrancement, she moved into the vine's attack range and was attacked physically by the yellow-musk creeper. Fortunately, the rest of the party was able to stop her from being killed by the vines and rising as a zombie.

After the vines were destroyed, a pair of ghouls emerged from their hiding place behind the vines and attacked the party. They were dispatched quickly with only one ghoul managing to hit one of the party members with a single claw attack. Darius found the ghouls' secret hiding place and discovered a small cache of loot, including a large sack of gold and three magical scrolls.

There was another door across the hall, which the group went into and discovered a large pantry full of rotten wooden shelves and broken pottery. While searching the room, Doc Kells discovered bones from humans that had been sawed with a butcher's saw. After collecting the bones, she used her expertise in healing and the human body to determine that the bones were actually from a number of different humans, although she couldn't ascertain why this had happened.

The group now turns their attention down another hallway where surely more terrors and monsters await them... Tune in next week for more tales from the Cloister of the Opal Fist.