The party continues to explore the second level of Undermountain, the ‘Arcane Chambers’.
Tang Wu takes the lead, as the passages wind through Undermountain. Ahead of the group, he sets off a trap, and a massive boulder painted like an eyeball begins to roll towards him. He drops the leash for his goat, and begins to sprint towards the party to warn them. The eyeball continues towards the party, rolling over Mantis and wounding him. The rest of the party manages to escape major injuries, but the goat is crushed flat. The boulder stops at a wall, allowing the party to flee. After some healing, Mantis takes the lead.
The group moves to a room past where the boulder trap was set. Mantis finds strange tables with indentations shaped like a humanoid body. They move forward without learning the strange purpose of the tables, and enter a new room. There is a desk made from a sarcophagus and a charred chair. The west wall is covered with niches, which are filled with books. Mantis investigates. The north wall has a set of urns on shelves. Shining Brow investigates, and breaks two. They are filled with ashes, but he finds a pouch in good condition filled with dust.
The party finds the way forward blocked by a massive metal grate, sealed with heavy chains and multiple locks. Shining Brow begins to work on opening them, but pauses when one of the locks speaks the words, “This section is closed”. He continues, avoiding a trap, only to be confounded by a solid metal lock with no discernable mechanism. When he moves on to the next lock, he is struck by magical fear, and flees the gate. Tang Wu pursues him. Mantis and Shazuu try to open the grate, but are unsuccessful. The party re-groups, and decides to go back to an earlier door. They pass through the hall of tentacles again, and move to a new, wide chamber with vaulted ceilings, and five dragon skeletons, set up like museum exhibits. Unable to find the reason for this display, the group forges ahead, moving down a flight of stairs to a shrine.
An altar stands in the center, with a mummified corpse. The walls are covered in dwarven sculptures, and a cloak sits on top of the corpse. When Tang Wu examines the cloak, it comes to life and begins to entangle and strangle him. The party helps him fight back, but does as much harm to him as to the cloak. The cloak splits into three entities, attacking the party, but the group takes them down. They find a pint sized clay flask with a script wrapped around it and some vintage coins. Finding nothing else of value, they go back through the hall of tentacles, and descend a stairway to the third level.
The stairs end at a T-intersection. One of the passages leads to a large room with rows of shelf like niches, making for aisles of open tombs. Many are filled with old dwarven corpses. Mantis reads through some names, and Shining Brow finds some ceramic beads, but move along when they don’t find anything interesting. As Shazuu leads them down a hall, the sound of his armor and equipment seem to alert four humanoid creatures, who charge and attack. Melee is joined, and the party wins easily, but hear the howling of more of these Quaggoth creatures. As part of the party retreats to the aisles of tombs, a sinister figure steps from the shadows. He casts a spell, and black tentacles fill the passageway, trapping Shazuu and Tang Wu. As more quaggoths appear, Shazuu breaks free and charges the humanoid figure, who he now recognizes as a drow mage. The party joins the combat. Suddenly, large spiders seem to phase into existence. The black tentacles disappear when Shazuu slays the mage, and the party is freed up to defeat the spiders and quaggoth. Shazuu retrieves a quarterstaff, spell pouch, and some coin from his vanquished foe.
