Kidnapped!

As I was walking back to Frandlyn from my previous downtime activities, the forest had an eerie feel to it. Suddenly a tall man wrapped in dark robes with arcane symbols on them zapped me with some sort of magic bolt. I immediately fell unconscious.
When I awoke, I was stuck in a cell with the rest of the members of the party, and we are all stripped of our gear. This Elf was steaming mad! How dare someone steal from me! I’m the one that’s supposed to do the stealing, not the other way around!
The magic users attempted to cast their way out of the cell to no avail. There was some sort of anti-magic barrier preventing them from being able to cast. As they were complaining amongst themselves about not being able to do anything, a hobgoblin guard came and threw us 10 loaves of hardtack. I knew exactly what to do. This wasn’t the first time I’ve been in a cell (discussion for a later time). Hardtack will break your teeth if you try to eat it, but it can be filed down into a nice shiv. Someone needs to be stabbed for taking my stuff!
I was steadily rubbing the hardtack on the stone wall shaping it into a point when the guard approached and threw another prisoner into the cell. The guy was gruff and called himself Axel. I have no idea whether he was telling the truth or not. There was something about this guy I didn’t like. He claimed to have previously escaped and was recaptured. He was willing to offer us information if we’d play his little dice game. We all went along with it…mainly because we had nothing better to do. Axel revealed that we were in the dungeon of a powerful sorcerer named Zanzer Tem that captures people to work in his salt mine.
Mason must’ve been thinking the same thing I was about this guy, as he grew tired of the game and attempted to choke him with a rope. I’m glad I didn’t attempt it, because Axel sent Mason flying across the room with a backhand. Severus intervened and was able to persuade Axel to cooperate, at least temporarily.
Erik came up with an idea on how to get out: we’ll stab Axel and call the guard for help. For once, he had a pretty good plan. However, it was Severus who unexpectedly executed the plan. He grew tired of Axel’s crap and stabbed him. In Severus’ defense, he did warn Axel several times that it was fixing to happen if he didn’t stop.
The hobgoblin guard came with three more goblins to investigate the commotion. As soon as the guard opened the door, Severus pushed Axel onto him resulting in all four monsters going prone. Everyone proceeded to attack with our homemade shivs. Ser Wyn accidently killed Axel in the process. I didn’t cry over it…the guy was a royal pain in the neck! We found several healing potions once we searched the body, so I took one of them. You never know when it’ll come in handy.
As we were starting to leave the scene, a goblin saw us and ran down the hallway to alert his buddies of our escape. We proceeded to the next room and found all our armor in pile. I feel less naked now. My armor is like a security blanket to me. I feel very vulnerable without it.
We proceeded into the next room, still looking for a way out. Two hobgoblins were startled, but quickly dispatched by Ser Wyn. I’m going to stick around this guy! He’s making my adventuring life very easy! A quick search of the bodies revealed nothing I cared for, but our melee weapons were in a pile in the corner. I was never happier to be reunited with Lilith, my life-stealing sword. I have a feeling she’s fixing to get fed soon.
The next room had a few trinkets that I wasn’t interested in, but it did have our ranged weapons. My bow was in good working order, so I’m ready now to enact my revenge!
As we stepped out into the hallway, we literally ran into a goblin. Ser Wyn, again, made short work of it. This guy is my new best friend! However, the fight alerted two orcs in a different room who shouted out asking what was going on. Luckily, Severus was well versed in Orcish and was able to convince them that everything was fine. They disappeared into a room behind a locked door. Of course, we couldn’t leave them alive as they knew of our escape. We snuck into the room and ambushed them, killing them easily. As we were looting the bodies, we heard a door open and then shut. Everyone though it was strange, but we blew it off as the wind or something.
As we were walking down the hall, Ser Wyn fell into a pit and spiderwebs started appearing on the walls. Multiple party members (including myself) attempted to jump the pit, but we all fell. Suddenly, it came to everyone’s realization that the spiderwebs were appearing due to magic. That could only mean that the anti-magic barrier was gone. We used magic to get everyone out of the pit…kicking ourselves for not realizing sooner that the barrier had been lifted.
The room at the end of the hall had the rest of our gear as well as a few other items. I ended up taking a quiver of 10 arrows +1. The room appeared safe, so we took a short rest here to gather our strength and to heal up.
A wolf was guarding a huge treasure horde in the next room we entered. While my instinct was to put an arrow between its eyes, Scree had a better idea. She successfully convinced the wolf that it no longer needed to guard the horde and to let us have it. I am totally not used to getting treasure without a fight, so I was just dumbfounded. She proved that it is possible to get something without having to steal it or fight for it. It goes against my very nature!
A bit further down the hall we came upon a locked door. Mason was able to successfully open it, but he was poisoned in the process. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the room of interest. I kind of felt bad for Mason. I supposed it was better that he got the poison rather than someone else, as he is better suited to handle it.
As we continued onward, we came across a mess hall full of half-eaten food. I’ve seen some foul stuff in my time (fresh kills and such), but this room had a stench that I could not handle. We all quickly moved down the hall into a room that had four different exits.
In the first room to the left, we came across an Illithid. As the Illithid was telepathically telling each of us “Dinnertime!”, we slammed the door and locked it. Sorry, but I don’t feel like having my mind flayed today…or any day for that matter!
We backtracked to the large room, where Severus proceeded to enter a room with a shelf full of various items. He found a scroll containing the knock spell. Little did he know that spell was put there for a reason. As he attempted to leave, he found that the door was locked. This forced him to use the scroll to unlock the door.
Again, we went back to the room with the multiple exits and proceeded into a kitchen area. This area smelled worse than the mess hall! As we entered, a group of skeletons popped up. Severus, being the cleric he is, attempted to attack them but just ended up antagonizing them. In the middle of the fighting, Erik’s fireball backfired and hit Severus and Kip. What is this dude’s deal with casting? He’s the only caster that has these issues and everything he has done so far has had consequences. There’s something he’s not telling us and I’m going to find out what it is! We eventually killed the skeleton and secured some healing potions.
There was one room left to check from the larger room, so we decided to check it out. We discovered a blind man that was bound by a silver chain and gold ball. Upon approaching him, he shouted “You’re not my master!” We were able to calm him down and talk to him, where he revealed that he had been chained up for 50 years. When we freed him, he magically disappeared! Severus attempted to put the gold ball into his bag of holding, but it would not go. He also realized that he could not put it down. The ball was cursed! Severus cast greater restoration to remove the curse’s effect upon himself and will deal with the curse of the ball later.
In the center of the next room we went into was a green crystal sphere. As we entered the room, we heard a weird laughter. Ser Wyn was drawn to the sphere and touched it. When he did, two sprites appeared and charmed him. Ser Wyn then repeatedly attempted to convince us that the sprites were our friends. Severus ended up charming Ser Wyn to counter the sprite charm, which eventually wore off.
As we continued onward, we found a room full of mining gear. We must be getting close to this salt mine that Axel was speaking of. Apparently, he wasn’t lying. Too bad for him that he is now rat food. We found this salt mine a little further down the path. It was full of slaves picking away at the salt and was guarded by two demons. Kip was able to successfully banish one of them. While he initially had good fortune, Kip had a spell backfire during the fight that resulted in five innocent slaves being killed. While we were whittling away at the demon, Scree came up with a brilliant idea to quickly take this thing out. She shape-shifted into a spider and crawled onto the ceiling above the demon. Once in position, she shape-shifted again into an elephant and fell from the ceiling directly onto the demon. This instantly crushed it! The entire party was in shock at what had just occurred. After the fight was over, a miner warned us not to go near the conveyor belt. He said there was some kind of ooze coming from it.
In the next room we did see a conveyor belt, but there was no ooze coming from it. Perhaps the miner was wrong and just messing with us. We did kill five of his friends after all. There were six dwarven miners here that were being guarded by a pair of ogre guards. As he did previously, Severus spoke natively to the guards. He was able to convince them that it was shift-change time and that they were needed in the next room.
As we proceeded to the next room, we found a conveyor with a slime on it that was devouring the two guards from the previous room. The miner was telling the truth after all! We quietly snuck past the slime into the mine shaft.
We were able to proceed through the shaft without incident. At the end of the shaft, we found a guard station with a single hobgoblin playing with dice. We quickly ended his playtime. Further down we came across two more goblin guards. They panicked at our sight, which helped in quickly dispatching them.
In the next room we entered, there was nothing but a chest in the center of the room. It was extremely suspicious, and my first thought was that it was a mimic. When we opened it, a glyph started glowing and a fireball went forth from the chest. Luckily no one was seriously hurt from the fireball, and we walked away with a lot of coin.
A bit further down we ran into a hobgoblin. I thanked him for his contribution to our party’s cause as we ended his life. No need for coin if you’re dead!
Our adventure brought us into a room full of cells next. In the first cell, we found a bunch of silver weapons. I took 10 silver-tipped arrows from the weapons cache. Most of the other cells had nothing in them or the items were of little interest to me. In the last cell, however, we found a man that was trapped behind silver bars. It suddenly dawned on my why there was silver everywhere…this guy is a werewolf! I immediately nocked a silver-tipped arrow to take care of the situation, but I was told to hold off for a second. Against my better judgment, I lowered my bow. Scree was convinced that if she could talk to the werewolf then she could convince him not to hurt us if we let him go. Luckily, Severus could tell that the werewolf was lying so we ended up leaving him. I still have a bad feeling that keeping him alive could come back to bite us (pun intended).
As we continued our search for the exit, we came into a room that was completely dark. Upon entering we were attacked by very powerful magic. This must be the lair of the guy that imprisoned us, Zanzer! It’s stabby time!
Zanzer proved to be extremely difficult to kill. Every time we would get his health low, he would end up healing himself. Finally, we were able to stun him which gave us enough time to deal the killing blow. Revenge is served! This guy had quite the stash of loot saved up. It appears that the mine held magical artifacts, and that was the purpose of him enslaving people. I ended up taking a Cape of the Mountebank as my share of the loot. We also found a ledger that contained research Zanzer had performed on everyone he captured. The guy was very meticulous in his preparation. He knew everyone’s strengths and weaknesses as well has how to exploit them. While my goal was revenge ultimately, the party did the world a favor in getting rid of this guy.
A trap door on the ceiling proved to be the way out. We headed to our bastions for a well-deserved rest.