Recap
After the battle with the tapestries, the group decided to walk out into the tunnel and navigate the corridors. Breach, with his "degree" in engineering and architecture, quickly figured out the symbol on the side of the wall was a map of the dungeon we were in. Using that logic to move forward, we crossed the first T-junction and decided to head right since there was a breeze coming from that direction. Upon doing so, we made it halfway down and encountered a red-eyed, heavily muscled creature with humanoid features and a horned bull head with wispy hair. Lance and Horatio were in the lead and quickly formed a defensive flank. Horatio set for charge and, sure enough, the creature bellowed and charged us at tremendous speed. Not anticipating our military precision, it ran headfirst into the business end of Horatio's polearm only to meet it's untimely death. It then melted into the stone. Rillain took out some chalk and marked the point where we killed the creature.
We then moved forward to the end of the corridor to a dead end. We repeated this at the other end of the T-junction and found nothing. It was then decided to continue straight down the main tunnel and continue to listen for the grunting and roars of bull creatures. The group encountered a bull creature at every T-junction, whether it be down the left or right side, so they decided to set up a flank at each intersection to lure the creatures into charging us. Horatio continued his amazing success by skewering several of them upon impact. We decided there would be nine in total leading up to a "boss" at the end of the maze.
After the first three were defeated, the next three were more powerful and emitted a noxious gas that blurred our vision and made it difficult to fight. Nonetheless, we powered through and defeated them. Moving forward, we encountered number seven, it became wise to our flanking strategy and did not charge. Instead, it roared before red hot fire spewed from it's snout and hit those of us set for charge. We defeated it, but took heavy damage as a result. We decided to skip number eight and went down the end of the T-junction in stead of going straight. We suspected the corridors would meet at the edge of the point where the map appeared to connect. We were proven right when reached the end and saw the tunnel angled downward at that point. After confirming the other end of the T-junction and the center also went downward, we decided to scout ahead. Our Silversword companion decided to sneak down the slope after hearing the snoring of another bull creature. She made her way down to where all three points met and saw a nest made of what appeared to be gold and a bigger, more menacing looking bull creature sleeping in the nest.
Things didn't go well after that point when the creature awakened and sent a flaming breath weapon her way. The rest of the group at the top of the right side corridor saw the blast of red light up the room below and heard her screaming for help. We decided to run down the corridor, but several of us slipped and fell down the hall. It was sharply angled so we descended pretty quickly, but those of us who didn't slip were able to stop the others from falling. We composed ourselves and eventually encountered the bull creature. We took the fight directly to him and eventually defeated it, but not before Jade was knocked unconscious. Once dead, it melted away like the others, but this time our entire surroundings melted away too and we awakened back in the professors office where we started.
After coming to, we immediately subdued and surrounded the professor and questioned him at sword point. He confessed to being in league with the Cult of the Democrats and proclaimed that they were trying to preserve history and that we were destroying it. When asked to explain, he said there is an ancient text that used to be on academy property that contains proof of the powers of the Bureaucracy belonging here in Yellowia and having some sort of roots on Habololy. Rillain was highly offended by the comments and proceeded to lecture the professor on the misguided views on democracy. Our Silversword friend, being the figure of authority on campus, granted Rillain legal rights to accuse and condemn the professor for his treason. He was ordered to jail to be held until fully prosecuted. During his questioning, he was stripped of his one hundred year tenure and all rights at the Bardic Academy. It was at this time, after breaking down and sobbing like a six year old with a skinned knee, that he told us of a book he uses to communicate with his cultist overlord (can't remember his name). This cultist power was described as a humanoid bull like the one we saw in our trap who was also responsible for casting the high level magic we were subjected to. The book acted as sending stones, much like Tom Riddle's diary in Harry Potter where he would write down questions and commands and receive responses. The book was confiscated.
We left off with the group deciding whether they would stay on campus for a little while to do some research or leave academy grounds where it may not be safe. We are to discuss on the boards what to do next which will directly impact whether we come back to this group when we play next or move on to the next group.
