Ninth Adventure:  "Where did everybody go?"

After a few days passed and we hadn't seen any of the others, Refanij decided to go check and see if everyone was alright.  He didn't come back for a day, but when he did, he told me that Orion and Barda had run off somewhere, and Bran had gone back to his monastery to repent for his less than enviable behavior in recent weeks.  Ref and the rest of the crew had been hauled in by the local authorities, and been accused of murdering Black Deaths.  I was shocked to find out that killing assassins was a crime.  To make matters even more confusing, they were told that their past indiscretions would be forgotten if they went and killed more Black Deaths.  I think I was getting it, it must be illegal to kill less than twenty Black Deaths, or something like that.

The Law sent a couple of green soldiers to escort Refanij, Troj-enz, and Kordac (that last surviving dwarf they hauled out of them mines), to the Black Death Convention Hall.  You remember, its the building with the newly remodeled front door, courtesy of me.  So they barged into the place and wiped out a couple of Black Death goons.  The rest of the easily seen and easily killed Black Deaths escaped into a tunnel and collapsed it behind them.  With nothing better to do, the group of assassin hunters begin to dig, and dig, and dig, and you get the idea, they did a lot of digging.  Night was falling, so they packed up their shovels and went back to the Orse Palace.  Refanij came back to the Inn to let me know what happened, and drag my lazy ass out of the arms of one of the uglier trollops working this part of town.   I told him I'd get up in them morning, and help out.

Well the next morning arrived, and true to my word, as always, I crawled out of bed and made my way to Orse Manor.  I got there and made them cook me breakfast.  We were waiting for the greenbacks to show up, before we went back to the dig, when a messenger arrived telling us to go meet this prick that had forced the others to flush the trash down the drain.  We went to meet him, well actually I stayed behind, didn't want to get too involved, I never like having the law know my face.  He informed the others that some heavy hitters had been called in   to take out our squad of inept and militant ragamuffins once and for all.   Deciding that now would be a good time to get the flaming hell out of here, me dwarf, gnome, and fancypants planned a  northern vacation. 

Secret Bonus Adventure:  "I Hear the Foliage in the Flinty Hills is Gorgeous this Time of Year"

We all gathered our gear and planned to leave the next morning.  Refanij had to go tell Realtis' mom that her son had been left dying and bleeding in an orc cave while his fellow party members ignored his last gasps for life and then had gotten turned into Orc stew.   We decided that we'd tag along on the two week trip to the Flinty Hills and hope the heat blew out of town while we were gone.  Sometime during the day, a message arrived from Wendell Bogart, Mayor of the halfling town Crestknoll, addressed to "Those fugging pricks which helped us wif our problem" care of The Orse family.  The letter thanked us for our help and welcomed us back to claim our reward of 100 gold pieces.   It would only be a day out of the way, so we planned on stopping in and collecting a little cash.  Maybe we'd get the chance to take out a few more of the little buggers. 

We walked out of town the next morning under cover of sunlight, hoping that the Black Deaths only came out at night.  Of course we knew that wasn't true, but it took us an hour to get the weeping T'Rojan to let go of his daddy, so we got off to a late start.  Accompanying us were Ref's oversized badger, Kleebo, and Condom's cat, Zot.  I wasn't ready to get another horse just yet, I had wasted too much money on the last one.

We stopped in at Crestknoll, and got a 100gp reward and a nice dinner.  We were also told that there had been a devious little halfling by the name of Bender Dribbons, who had apparently charmed several of the villagers and was trying to take control of the town.  There had been a little more bloodshed, and Bender had gotten away.  They lost his trail at the river, and there's no telling where a halfling with a charm spell could be.  Should we run into him though, they are offering a 50gp reward for his return.

We continued North and arrived without incident at Womtham, that little boil on the backside of the Kingdom of Nyrond where we first got joined up.  One day out of Womtham we were beset by 2 hill giants.  I immediately began questioning my decision not to get a horse.  T'roj had been hiding in a large sack for the entire journey saying over and over "there's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no..."  Apparently he has NO interest whatsoever in adventuring, and fighting makes him ill, so the sack served as a way for him to hide his eyes from the violent world we live in.  Anyway, I prodded the fearful wimp out of the sack by dropping in a handful of scorpions.  He jumped from the sack and fired an Acid Arrow at me, but I easily dodged the missile, unfortunately the big lumbering giant directly behind me wasn't as agile, and took a direct hit.

Refanij and Kleebo took on one of the giants, while Zot and Kordac took on the other giant.  Both animals took mighty blows from giant clubs, while myself and Toejam fired arrows and spells respectively.  When the giants finally fell, the wolverine was dead, and Ref had gone berserk, and was stabbing the giant's bodies long after they were dead.  I turned to see how T'Rojan was doing, and saw him heaving up his precious cheese and wine all over the plains of Nyrond.  He began to dry heave so I kicked him squarely in the balls, dropping him to the ground in agony.  It was from this vantage point, laying on the ground on his side and clutching the Orse
family jewels, that TRoj-enz noticed the gnome clutching a bloody hunk of fur and sobbing uncontrollably.  It was a very uncomfortable moment, as myself and the dwarf stood around inspecting our shoes trying not to look at the whimpering Refanij.

We were pretty beat up by the giants, well the two short guys and the cat were anyway, so we decided to turn back for Womtham, less
than a days journey away, to get some healing, and supplies.  Both myself and Ref were short on missile weapons, having lost many arrows and daggers during the fight with the giants.  We got to Womtham, got some healing for the dwarf, got some daggers
and arrows, and then I decided to buy 3 light war horses, Refanij refused to ride.   It was at this point that Kordac, who was wandering around town, found a man with a war elephant.  He told me about it, and I was able to pawn off a very nice ring, and purchase the elephant for the dwarf, as kind of a welcome gift.  Actually I thought the beast would be trouble, and anyone with a monster that big would stick out like a sore thumb, so I really didn't want to have to take care of it.  The Dwarf quickly named it Stampy, Ref ran out an bought a bucket of daggers to place on the behemoth, and I went back to the horse trader and sold him back two of the horses.  I kept one for himself, the other 3 decided to ride on the elephant.  That was fine by me, I could outrun the boulder with legs, on my horse, though it could move surprisingly fast at times.

Needless to say, no other creatures decided to attack us as we made our way to Reiltis's home.  Unfortunately Reiltis' home had been totally wiped out, with scattered bodies laying about.  We quickly went to Ref's nearby gnome village, and found out that something had attacked the elves in the last few days, but that the identity of the culprits was unknown.  The attackers had been tracked to some nearby hill however.   Our brave party, with the exception of the sniveling coward T'Rojan, decided to go find the evil-doers.  T'Roj inadvertently came along as he had been cowering in the basket atop Stampy, and was too afraid to get out.  When we got to the top of the hill, myself and Refanij scouted around and found a blocked up cave entrance.  We decided to stake it out overnight while Coward, Stampy, Zot, and the dwarf stayed at camp.

Around midnight 10 drow elves, yes you read correctly, drow elves, all male from what we could see, came out and attacked our camp.  Ref and I were able to sneak up from behind them and shout a warning to the others.  We then watched the drows get mauled by an elephant and a big cat.  We launched a counterstrike the next day.  We were able to get inside the door, by shrinking it somewhat and squeezing through the cracks.  Once inside, we killed 4 more male drow and 2 giant lizards.  Trojan even went after a lizard with his staff after it hurt his kitty.  The lizards were beasts of burden chained to the big rock door, and functioned as the doormen.  The reduce spell was due to run out  so we had to scramble back under the door before we were trapped inside.  Realizing that our lack of a healer was a major problem, since we, well the others actually, needed healing, badly, we decided that killing 14 drow and 2 giant lizards was sufficient to slow down the attack of the enemy, at least for a little while, and that we were needed back at Rel Mord far more than we were needed here.

So began our long and tedious trip back to Rel Mord.  During the trip, fall turned to winter, and the weather went from cool to cold.  Oh, it only took a week and a half, but a cold spell blew in while we were travelling, telling us that we weren't going to be going too far out of Rel Mord for a while.

Ninth Adventure, Continued:  "Do I Look Like a Dwarf?"

Every town we entered became a gathering of small children, who gawked at Stampy and thought the circus had arrived.  Kordac was able to scare most of the little runts away by giving them his ugliest gap toothed grin.  I had to use my horse to move people out of the way, a real pain in the ass.  We made it back to Rel Mord without much incident, any wild creature that got within eyesight of us took one look at Stampy and decided to go in the opposite direction.  The exception being some exceedingly stupid orcs, who ambushed us and proceeded to get crushed into the road.  Our greeting in Rel Mord was no different than in any other town, only more children, and more ugly grimaces from the dwarf.  Kodak and Ramses Ribbed went to the Orse home to find a place for jumbo, while Ref and I stayed outside of town at the dive we had been staying in.

I wish I could have seen the look on Troejams face when he gloriously rounded the last corner before his house, only to see the burned out shell that was once his home.   From what Kordac tells me, he fell to his knee's, face ashen, and looked like he was going to die on the spot.  Kordac, not knowing what else to say asked "Hey isn't that your house?"  Then after further attempts to get Rojan to move, cuffed him across the back of the head.  Torjid finally snapped out of it and frantically looked at the dwarf.  He then went running around the city, the dark city, as night had fallen, looking for word of his family.  He eventually got information that they were alive and we..., well, as well as they ever were anyway, and were staying in some fancy posh Inn within the rich part of town of course.    

From all accounts, actually it was only one account, but who's counting, the Trojan reunion was its typical embarrassment of hugs, "I'm happy you're safe" and the Orse Family, signature tongue kiss.  Daddy Orse put junior on his lap and they exchanged their stories, all the while, Daddy, Collin, Orse's hand could be seen fumbling about under T'Rojans robes.  Kodak was eventually able to get Collin's attention and asked where they could put up an elephant.  That got his attention, as Mr. Orse was a long time torturer and slayer of  loveable animals.  Sensing a major haul in the way of ivory, Collin offered to buy the beast.  After both Trojan and Collin convinced the gullible dwarf that the tusks could be removed without injuring the animal, he said he'd run the offer by me to see if I'd take it.

We eventually agreed to sell the elephant to Collin for some gems, I'd turn a tidy profit over what I'd bought it for, and the dwarf had gotten somewhat tired of the spectacle that the beast was creating, so I took the deal.  It turns out that the Orse bonfire was set by none other than our favorite assassin's guild, and my spies informed me that the Black Deaths had cleared out of town the night after they'd been attacked, but that the heavy hitters were still around, somewhere.  There was supposedly some underground hideout that the Black Deaths were, no doubt hiding in.   So our mission was to once again start digging at the collapsed tunnel.  The Man who'd sent us on this mission originally turned up dead, so we were unable to recruit more greenbacks to dig.

Five days of digging, I swear these idiots think I'm a dwarf, and we finally get to a wall.  It turns out to be the well that's about 50 feet from where we started digging.  A secret door opens into the well, and another opens on the other side of the well.  From there a long man made tunnel disappears into the darkness.  We go down the long, long passageway.  The minutes turned into hours, we just continued to go slowly down hill.  Refanij and myself stayed ahead of T'rojan, and the dwarf, so we could scout quietly ahead.  The tunnel went on for over a day.  I had no idea what time it was when we finally stopped to rest for the "night".  I lit a couple of candles to provide the only light we'd seen in a long time, and had a cold meal.  We slept in the cool silence of the tunnel, I suppose the dwarf liked it that way, but it gave me the creeps.  

We woke the next "day" and moved on.  Ref and I continued scouting ahead, when, finally we saw some light and heard noises.  The tunnel opened up into a room with two Black Death looking humans standing around a water source, shooting the breeze.  The room had three other exit tunnels; to the north, east, and south, relative to our location.  Ref and I snuck up, leaped out and attacked them.   One of them fell dead immediately, the other ran for the opposite tunnel, but took only a few steps before falling with one of Ref's daggers in his back.

We decided to go up the tunnel that the man was running for, and after a couple minutes of travel, we ran into a man standing in front of a door in darkness.  He must have heard Refanij, that clumsy gnome, cuz he started pounding the door behind him, then turned to meet his maker.  The fight was short, but he did manage to wound Refanij.   Damn we still didn't have any healers.  Funny thing, we realized that this human bastard had just fought with us in the dark, and it was pretty obvious that he could see us the whole time.  A quick search of his body revealed a ring and a key.  We gave the ring to TeRoBond who put it on his finger than began shouting "I can see, I can see" like some blind fool who'd just miraculously regained his sight.   Kordac dropped him with a well placed stomach punch.

"I guess you didn't see that, did you" he said.

Trodrans only response was a weak gasp.  We stopped and listened at the door, waiting for several minutes to hear if the alarm had been sounded.  All was quiet, so we unlocked the door with a key found on the dead body, and opened it up.  Inside was a room with two wooden doors on  the opposite wall, and a table and chairs in the middle of the room.  On the table were two mugs, a quick check showed that they were both still wet with ale, having been recently drained.  At about this time, we heard footsteps coming towards us.  We jumped back out the door, and closed it behind us, leaving it unlocked.

We listened at the door and heard a grinding sound, then the sound of a wooden chair being dragged across a floor and the distinct sound, that no dwarf could ever mistake for anything but what it was, the sound of ale being poured.  Apparently this man was either extremely confident in his abilities or he had no idea we were there.   Guessing that it was the latter, we exchange glances, then on a silent count of three, I push the door open and roll across the floor while Refanij throws his daggers and Kordac charges in with axe raised.  I don't think the poor bastard even got to swallow his ale.  Kordac saved a potential catastrophe from occurring, for as the man slumped dead onto the table, his lifeless arm tipped the pitcher causing it to tilt dangerously over.  Kordac's years of training paid of though, as he was able to catch the pitching pitcher and drain the entire thing in one smooth motion.  Both Refanij and I were somewhat annoyed that he hadn't saved us any.  He just looked at us and gave us that stupid dwarven look, the one that makes you wish you could discharge a limitless supply of lightning bolts in his direction, and shrugged his shoulders.

We listened around and didn't hear anyone else coming, so we began to look for the cause of the grinding sound we had heard when the man had entered the room.  Sure enough, we found a secret door between the two wooden doors.  We crept down the hall, and began what turned into a wholesale slaughter.  I honestly don't care to repeat exactly what happened, but suffice it to say that many sleeping Black Deaths will never wake up.  Two rooms of Black Deaths were wiped out.  I couldn't bring myself to slaughter them, I was thinking of joining their organization, but I guess that's out of the picture now.  The third room was the charm.  Our presence did not go unawares, and a fight broke out.  There was a little give and take, but the outcome was never in question.  The poor bastards died in their nightclothes.  You're probably wondering when I developed morals no doubt, but truth is I've never been interested in taking another person's life, only their precious metals and jewelry.   Of course, if something's trying to kill me I'm ready to fight back.

Enough of my senseless babble, you're probably wondering what happened next, since the alarm had obviously been sounded, as no one can sleep through an all out battle.  We pretty much had the same idea, so we split.  We left as quietly as possible, closing all the doors behind us, like they wouldn't be able to figure out where we'd been, and didn't stop till we were back at the cavern with the four tunnels and the two dead bodies.   We took stock of our wounds, and realized that Refanij had seen better days, but wasn't going to die just yet, and that Kordac was in similar if not better condition.   Trojan and I were unscathed. 

We discussed what we should do next and decided to investigate the southern cave.   We went down it for 5 or 10 minutes before it ended, rather abruptly.  We all started thinking "secret door" at the same time and soon began scouring the walls.  I hope I don't disappoint you when I say that we did indeed find a secret door.  Inside was a small room filled with black robes boxes of candles and candlesticks (the valuable kind) and a chest containing a potion of extra healing and various coins and gems.  It looked like these guys had ripped off a temple and stowed everything here.  Refanij drank down a couple sips of the potion and then complained that it didn't make him feel much better.  I told him that if he'd stop getting hit he wouldn't need to drink that crap. He threatened me with his dagger, but I didn't take it too seriously.  This room seemed out of place at the end of a long tunnel, so we once again searched for secret doors.  Once again we found a secret door. 

This one opened into a huge room with several torches burning on columns within.   It looked like a large subterranean temple, with two rows of pews and a large raised dais.  We were up near the dais, opposite it was a set of four large doors.     We crept in to investigate, Refanij went over to the large dais, as it appeared to have a sword sticking up out of the middle of it.  As soon as he touched it, an arc of lightning shot out and he flew backwards with his hair standing up on end.   He looked pretty damn funny actually.  He started cursing and unstoppering the potion of healing flask, I fell on the floor laughing with tears in my eyes.  He belly-ached some more then finished off the potion and threw the empty container aside.   Kordac ran around the room with his axe looking for something to kill.  When he couldn't find anything, he went and opened one of the main entryway doors. 

I cast unseen servant in hopes that I could  get it to pick up the sword for me.   Unfortunately it got blasted out of existence by a zap of lightning.  I threw a loop of rope around the sword, but it didn't budge.  Kordac reported finding only a mock suit of platemail in statue pose and a hallway.  Deciding that we couldn't do anything more here, without some more healing, we grabbed the available loot and headed back to town. 

I'm sorry to have to rush through much of this adventure, without adding much in the way of quality writing, but there's too much stuff to cover, and this chapter is getting real long already.

The trip down the tunnel was long and very very boring.  Eventually we made it back, only to find out, that winter had definitely arrived.  There was three feet of snow on the ground and the normal hustle and bustle of the city had come to a halt.   I was so elated to finally be in fresh open air again, that while the others peered cautiously through a crack in the door, I whipped it open and dove onto the snow making a perfect snow angel.  The gnome may have joined me, but the snow was over his head, so he really couldn't see what I was doing.  I then picked up a snowball and fired it at T'Rojan, missing horribly.  We ended up in a major snowball fight, but were sent running, when a bunch of kids started kicking our asses.  Not to mention, that our hands were freezing off since we weren't wearing any gloves.  We all went and bought some winter outfits, then went to the Orse family tavern, to see what was up.  

We got a warm meal at the fine establishment and the rest of the party decided to book a room there.  No way was I going to stay at this shit hole, so I parted ways and headed for my favorite dive.  I stopped along the way at the local magic shop, I forget the name, but its one of the finest on the continent.  I picked up a scroll of Tenser's Floating Disc, hoping to use it to retrieve the sword, and trudged through the deep snow out of town to my tavern.  I went to my room, and did some studying up on some new spells I was trying to learn, compliments of Melkior, may he rest in peace, if he be dead.   Then had dinner, a slattern, then sleep.  I got up the next day and headed to the quality establishment where I expected the others to still be. 

By the time I got there, they were awake and discussing what to do.  Ref and Kordac had gone out yesterday afternoon to buy some healing potions, but the snow had been so deep that Refanij had to ride on Kordacs shoulders in order to see above it.  They had also paid Bran a visit at the Temple of Erogenous and begged some healing off of him.   For some reason, they weren't pressed into service by the dickwipe.  Ref needed to go pick up his potions of healing and Kordac was going to see if he could find a friendly healer type that would be willing to accompany us, fat chance.  I went with Ref, and after watching the keeper of the Unseen Servant take the non-magic user to the cleaners for some potions of extra-healing and a scroll of Protection from Lighting, I decided that I'd deal with these guys in the future.  We also pawned off a priest scroll and got an amulet identified for Ref.  It was an amulet of non-detection.   It didn't work, I could detect the little beggar by his smell alone.

We then went to the Temple Erroneous,  I stood outside making yellow snow, while Ref went in to get muffin boy to heal him again.  Apparently he wasn't in cuz Ref didn't look any healthier when he came out.  Back at the tavern, we were all set to go, Kodiak had failed to find any living being willing to accompany him across the street, let alone into a dark cavern, I don't really blame them.  We dragged T'Rohan away from his precious wine, insisting that his meager skills were needed.  He stumped us, though, when he asked "How are my skills needed?"  Ref just got pissed and started pulling his daggers, so Trojan dropped his wine and quickly grabbed his stuff.

Back into the tunnel, more hours of walking in utter darkness, when a faint and distant rumble was heard.  Kordac said it sounded like a cave in, and that it came from behind us.  We turned around and crept back, I wanted to know if we were trapped in this damn place.  As usual Ref and I slunk ahead while the others stayed back a fair distance.  We spotted some men coming towards us brandishing a continual light source.  I waited till they got close, then webbed the fuckers up. 

I called the others up, then told the men to surrender.  No one did, so we began to hack our way through to them.  When we got near the first guy, I pulled my bow out and stepped in behind Kordac.  He called us a few names and threatened to kill us, as he hacked towards us.  I shot him and Kordac missed horribly with the huge axe that he insisted on carrying around with him.  Ref finished the guy off with his daggers and Kordac, in a fit of rage threw the nearly useless monster sized axe into the webs.   The next guy we got to also refused to surrender so he died as well. 

I offered surrender to the remaining four trapped men.  They accepted, so when we got to two of them we told them to lay on the ground.  They stupidly attacked instead, laying open a nice wound on Kordac.  I color sprayed the lying bastards, and knocked them out.  Kordac was pissed and raised his axe to kill the unconscious men.   I wanted some information, so I grabbed his axe before he could swing.  I could see he was in a rage, and he started yanking on his axe and cursing that they had to die.  Rather than become his next target, I let him go.  Well at least there were two more guys still trapped in the webs.  They were unconscious from the color spray, so we freed them and tight their hands and feet up. 

Upon waking we gave them the options of torture or talk.  They started giving me crap, so Kordac dropped a decapitated head from a previous victim on one of their chests.  I then had the other three drag the captive, with the face of his dead comrade staring him in the face, a ways down the cave while I dealt with the brave guy.  A little convincing and he started to talk, he told me they'd collapsed the tunnel behind them and that we were trapped, then he got brave again.  When I cut off his ear he let out a scream and passed out, no he'd died.  Damn, it must have been cuz my dagger was pretty dull and I had to really saw at it to get his ear off.  You're probably wondering what happened to the guy that didn't like to kill.  Truth is I don't like to kill, but when you trap me in a FUCKING TUNNEL, I kind oF LosE MY SHIT!  Sorry, about that.  

I took the ear with me and went to see if the two headed prisoner was willing to spill his guts.  Lucky for him he was pretty free flowing with his words.  We even got him to draw us a map of what the rest of the underground compound looked like, and got a head count.  He was unaware that we'd wiped out quite a few of his gang already, so from our calculations, they were down to less than half.  I thanked him for his valuable information, and promised that if we survived, we'd come back and get him. 

It took us another day and a sleep break before we got to the complex.  We decided to go in through the temple area, as it was attached to the rest of the area.  This time we found it to be totally dark, not a torch was lit.  Kordac threw a continual light coin into the room then charged in with axe in hand.  I don't know what it is about this place that causes him to do that.  The rest of us used a much more cautious approach of moving in slowly and keeping to the shadows.  Just about when Kordac got to the other side of the room, all the torches sprang to life at once, bathing the entire room in blinding light.  I immediately jumped behind the dais, out of the corner of my eye, I saw three men, appearing to be a mage and two warriors.  I readied a web spell and jumped up and launched it.  Engulfing the mage and one of the warriors.  Unfortunately it also engulfed a couple of torches and burned away quickly, only holding them up for a moment or two.  I ducked back down and prepared my bow.  I heard T'rojan mumbling some incantation, what it was I have no idea.  Refanij took off in the direction of the action and I could here the dwarf in combat.  I fired a couple of arrows into the mage then a cloud of stinking fog surrounded me.  It was awful smelling stuff, and I scrambled out of it.  Damn stinking cloud.  By the time I got out of it and pulled my bow back, the warriors were dead, and the mage went running through a secret door.  Refanij and Kordac went running after him. 

I decided that now would be a good time to get that sword.  I cast detect magic and determined that both the sword and the dais were imbibed with magic.  They were not the same types of magic however.  I pulled out the scroll of protection from lightning.  Ref came back in the room about that time, so I incanted the scroll and he, myself and Torjamb climbed up on the dais and tried to pull the sword out.  We all failed to get it out.  Obviously some real magic was at work here.  I looked over the bodies and found a ring which I thought to be a ring of feather falling, it quickly found its way onto my finger.  The armor appeared to be nicely made as well, too bad the detect magic spell I cast had run out before I could check it.  It was too large for the dwarf to wear anyway, so even if it was magical it was no great loss.   Eventually Kordac came back, breathing very heavily.  He'd tried to catch the wizard, but he had fled down this long hallway, easily outdistancing the slow ass dwarf. 

We checked out the rest of the complex, only to find it abandoned, with all the bodies just the way we'd left them a few days before.  Fucking maid service in this place really sucks.  Apparently there were even less Black Deaths here than we'd been told.  Judging from the layout, we'd killed everyone that had lived here with the exception of the wizard.  We searched the few remaining rooms, the only one of note appeared to be the wizards room, where we found a chest, that after close inspection appeared not to be trapped.  The last time I'd picked the lock on a chest, I'd gotten poisoned.  So rather than do it the old fashioned way, I went behind the chest, and used my wand of teleport objects, which I keep up my sleeve for just such an occasion, and teleported the pins out of the three hinges.  Ref and I then pried the back of the chest open.  We were rewarded for our efforts as a fine spray of acid shot out of the front of the chest, landing harmlessly on the floor in front of it.  Inside we found gold, gems, several scroll tubes, and two magic books.  The most intriguing thing that we found though was a piece of cloth with some markings on it which matched up with my ring, the one that I'd gotten off the goblin king many moons ago.   By laying the ring over the markings on the cloth, the pattern was completed, revealing a bunch of lines that meant absolutely nothing to me or anyone else.  I guess the mystery would remain unsolved.

We rested up and then proceeded to leave, via the long hallway that the wizard had escaped down.   A couple hours after we left I remembered the dude we'd left tied up way back on the other side of the complex.  I was really torn between just leaving him there and going back and freeing him.  I asked Ref if he'd go back with me and get the guy, he said he would, since we did promise to let him go, so we turned back and went to free him.