One prisoner saved, one to lay to rest

We went into the room where the prisoner was being held. Before we had a chance to free him, the door opened and two Magma Claws and a Magma Hurler came into the room and started throwing fireballs at us. I took a hit, and then harnessed the power of thunder to push some of them back into the hallway so we had a chance to regroup. As Rhogar pierced one of the Magma Claws with his sword, Treble got hit in the back with a crossbow bolt. A gnome had appeared out of nowhere. Horadric attacked it and noticed that the gnome had a tattoo on his face, which I'm told is a dragonmark called the Mark of Scribing. There are a lot of political nuances here that I don't really follow, but from what I understand a dragonmark is a tattoo that grants its bearer some powers and generally indicates the bearer to be affiliated with a particular House. With these developments, it probably means that something further is going to unfold, but my only interest here lies in getting the hostages home safely and bringing down the thugs that are terrorizing the mountain trails, so I plan to engage them only as much as necessary to accomplish these goals.

Anyway, back to the battle: Keh'r killed one of the Magma Claws, after which I attacked the Magma Hurler and bloodied it. Rhogar breathed acid in the general direction of the gnomes, killing one and revealing another who promptly disappeared. We heard footsteps down the corridor as he ran away. Through the course of the battle, Treble had become bloodied, but as I took my second wind, everyone around seemed to feel invigorated to battle on. I finished off the Magma Hurler and the battle was done. We found a key on the gnome's corpse, which opened the jail cell that the prisoner was being held in. Now that I think about it, it's somewhat notable that the gnome had the cell key while we were told that the hostages were being held by goblins. I'll have to ask the Castellan about this during our next rest. He may know more about the role that the gnomes are playing in all of this.

The prisoner was in fact, Sertanian, the Castellan of the Hall of Great Valor. We freed him from his restraints and I gave him water and food, which seemed to help him regather some strength and composure. He was bruised but otherwise in decent shape. We didn't have a lot of time to talk to him about his ordeal--we tried for the most part to get the necessary information from him to find more prisoners. He told us that he used to be held in a room downstairs with a spiral staircase and frescoes on the walls, and that when they brought him upstairs, they put Mertala the cook in the downstairs room. He said that when they brought him upstairs, Kartenix was being held in one of the cells in this upstairs room, and that as a guard, Kartenix had had a plan to overpower the Ettercap guards and Sertanian had feared that the plan went awry and that Kartenix met a bad end.

Sertanian told us that he is willing to lead us to the downstairs room where he was formerly held, through the east door. Before we left, Shamash found a dusty set of robes in the corner of the room. Treble scouted the Magma Claw lair through the north door, which he said was empty. We followed Sertanian's direction through the east door, stepping gingerly over piles of sticky weblike substance as we went to confront the Ettercaps. Treble quickly found himself immobilized as the Ettercap queen threw a web on him, also immobilizing Horadric. Treble teleported out of the goo, but he and Horadric had a hard time shaking it off. One of the Ettercaps made the mistake of approaching our group and found himself the target of not one, but three readied attacks against him. He then attacked Keh'r with a greataxe. The other Ettercaps made their way toward us, and some skeletons joined in the fray, too. I admit that I was not at my best in this encounter: it was difficult to navigate through the narrow hallway over the web-filled terrain and my flail was not finding its targets. However, the others managed to take out most of the enemies before the Ettercap queen fled. We attempted to bring the fight after her, but she threw a web behind her, immobilizing Keh'r and making the ground too trecherous for us to be able to navigate quickly, so we decided to stay as Keh'r freed himself, Horadric burned away the sticky webs in the hallway, I guarded the stairs, and some of the others rested. We could hear the clatter of the goblins running away on the staircase, so it was as good a time as any to regroup our forces before continuing on to rescue Mertala. In the meantime, Treble searched the room and found Sertanian's fears to be well-founded: Kartenix's body was stuck to the wall in the corner. I am deeply saddened that this was his end, and we will be returning on our way out to bring his body back to Brindol for a proper burial. I hope that we will be able to find his son Thuran alive and well in this place, though I dread having to bring such tragic news to the boy, who has undoubtedly been through much already.

Treble found a few other things, too: some residuum (it just looked like sparkly silver dust to me, but as a mercenary, he judged it to be about 100gp worth) and a fancy-looking heavy flail which I hope to get a better look at soon. I am attached to the flail I have, which was handcrafted for me by Achai and it reminds me of home; however, it is starting to show some wear and I don't have the necessary skills to repair it by myself.

I think the plan for now is to continue through the staircase and rescue Mertala, and then escort her and Sertanian back to Brindol along with bringing Kartenix's body home. We are weary from such a long day of battles, but especially since the Ettercap queen went ahead and alerted the guards of our presence, most of us seem to feel like we need to press on and rescue her before she is moved again or before she meets the same end as Kartenix did.