Characters

• Marika Spandrell - Human Rogue
• Raif - Human Sorcerer (with his familiar, Sanchez the monkey)
• Philomena Halimion - Elven Wizard
• Eog - Dwarven Monk
• Heinrich - Human Fighter
• Jayne D’Ark - Human Fighter
• Carsus - Half-Elf Cleric

15 - Too Many Chefs

The first part of this level has already been recorded in Philomena’s diary , so rather than repeat all that, I will just fill in a few missing bits of plot-related info first, then continue on from more-or-less where Philomena left off (there may be a bit of overlap.)

• The member of the assassins’ guild whom the party met in the bar was called Billy “The Butcher” McKillty. He carried a pair of evil-looking meat cleavers, and was apparently both completely insane and also feared by all, including fellow members of the assassins’ guild.
• The entrance to the third level of the dungeons was hidden in the wine cellar of the Herzog’s Tower. It led into the old jail complex and from there into a set of natural caverns through a breach in the jail wall.
• The first gummi-were-bears the party met had some mining equipment with them and it seemed as though they may have been looking to unseal the entrance from the other side…
• The bread-bane knife that Marika used was the fabled Mithral Breadknife of Castle Greyhawk, which the party found inside the remains of one of the strawberry gelatinous hexahedra.
• The speech that Popinfarsh gave to the party concerning the history of the great chefs is printed in full, here:

“Long ago,” Poppinfarsh says in his cute, squeaky little voice, “three wonderful chefs lived in the Castle of Greyhawk, far above our caverns. They were the greatest chefs in all the land, and people would come from far and wide to taste their marvellous recipes. But one day the chefs were unfairly punished after making a minor error that anyone could have made and actually resulted in no deaths whatsoever. They were locked up in the dungeons and left to rot. However, the Mighty Wizard Galomohgen was locked up with them owing to an unfortunate accident involving a barrel of wine, 2 goats and a buxom serving wench that could have happened to anyone and actually resulted in no deaths whatsoever. Galomohgen helped to chefs to escape, but as they fled the guards the four of them fell into a raging river that swept them away into the darkness…” He pauses for dramatic effect. “But thanks to the fortitude and bravery of the Great Chefs, instead of drowning, they found an underwater passage into these very caverns and made a new home for themselves. The Mighty Wizard discovered a hidden chamber and learnt many secrets. He used this knowledge to improve the caverns and to create magical cooking utensils that allow the Great Chefs to breathe life into their culinary creations.” Poppinfarsh suddenly looks sad. “After many happy years with his friends the Chefs, the Mighty Wizard passed away due to a totally unexplained case of liver failure, but the Chefs live on and carry out his last wish: that they continue to create tasty delicacies of the most fabulous variety.”

And so… The party had just spoken to Mentu, and he had done a deal with them whereby if they helped him move some lumps of dough into his special oven, he would give them permission to roam around his dungeon, and would also point them towards a secret passage that would give them access to the next level of the dungeon. They did the job (although not all of them agreed to move the dough) and went down the secret passage. They encountered a stinking bread pudding monster that they swiftly dealt with, but shortly after they heard Mentu's voice shout that they were all traitors, and he sealed off their escape. They continued on, and encountered a room with a giant doughnut golem in it, which they defeated, but during this fight Heinrich turned in to a partial gummi-were-bear and grew in size, bursting out of his armour. After the fight he returned to normal, and as he was gathering up his bits of armour he found a piece of paper amongst them. He read it, and it turned out to be an explosive rune spell that Philomena had placed there in revenge for him knocking her unconscious. Unfortunately he was badly wounded after the fight, and died in the explosion...

The somewhat stunned party carried on, leaving the body of Heinrich behind them, and found the tomb of the wizard Galomoghen, which had a golden chalice on it. They discovered that putting an alcoholic liquid in the chalice would summon the ghost of the wizard. They chatted with him and he offered to let them into the next level of the dungeon if they brought him proof that the three great chefs were alive and well. After agreeing to this, they went down another secret passage where they found a hidden room guarded by a Ninja-Bread Man. They defeated him then rested in his lair.

After resting, the party carried on, coming out through a secret door in the wardrobe of Mentu's quarters. He was not there, so they looted the room, then checked out his library, only to discover that it had been burnt down, by a person or persons unknown... They explored some more, and ended up fighting a load of gummi-were-bears from the gummi-guard house. During this fight, a stranger appeared in a burst of surge energy. He turned out to be a cleric named Carsus who was capable of channelling negative energy at his enemies. He helped the party defeat the gummi-guards, but it was a close-run battle and everyone was badly injured. Carsus helped the party to heal themselves using his magical offertory bowl. By placing small donation to Pharasma in the bowl, the party could be healed, and the donation was spirited away to the temple coffers. The party agreed that Carsus was handy to have around, so decided to let him stay with them as they explored.

They rested again in the secret area where they had fought the Ninja-bread man. During their rest, whilst Carsus was on watch and Philomena was trancing, a strange apparition floated through the wall, pointing an accusing finger at Philomena. It seemed that only Philomena could see this spirit, who looked a lot like the fallen Heinrich. However, Carsus sensed something was up, and was able to detect the presence of an undead creature, even though he could not view it directly. The ghost vanished after a few moments, leaving Philomena feeling even more unsettled than before…

After the rest, as the party were eating and getting ready to move on, Philomena discovered a book in her pack that had not been there before. It was titled “Metallurgy Through Ye Ages” and purported to be written by one Ingar Greybearde. It seemed to be a standard non-magical tome, and was a little damaged to boot, but it did contain various marginal notes that Philomena decided might be worth looking at when she had more time.

When they came out of the secret area, they saw Mentu lurking about. They gave chase but he managed to stay ahead of them, and led them into a trap where they were shut in a giant griddle-oven with some flying Crêpe-like creatures who did their best to engulf them and eat them. They managed to defeat them and sent Sanchez through a small viewing hatch to turn off the oven controls and open the oven doors. Carsus surprised the party a little by raising one the dead Crêpers as a zombie.

They carried on into the grand kitchen, where they met the three great chefs hiding in various barrels, bins and cupboards. Just as they were trying to convince the chefs that they were not evil (which was not helped by the presence of an undead airborne pancake), Mentu appeared from behind a secret passage in the fireplace, and attacked the party with the help of the purple gummi-were-bear and several bread-like copies of the party members who had previously helped to move the dough (yes, they were doughplegangers...) Mentu revealed that he was a Mind Fileter, and also revealed what was under his robes. Standing seven feet tall, his body appeared to be stitched together from various cuts of meat. His thighs were huge hams, his arms were legs of lamb, his fingers were sausages, etc. His head was a rather poorly preserved octopus. He then zapped the party with his mind-fileting attack, which caused them to become sluggish in mind and body. (And before you ask, no, there was no saving throw. Nothing can save you from the deadly power of the Mind Fileter, Mwa Ha Ha!) Philomena greased up the fireplace area, and most of the baddies spent the fight slipping around in the frictionless lubricant. Mentu, however, escaped the grease by vanishing and reappearing somewhere else, only to be tracked down by Raif with his scent ability. By this point, as Raif was facing off against Mentu, the purple-gummi-bear was dead and the doughplegangers were taking a sound thrashing as they completely failed to remain standing for more than three seconds.

But then an energy surge took Raif away, and also caused Jayne to have a weird vision where she could actually see the surge energy, not just sense it as usual. The energy seemed to be concentrated around the characters, in particular their bonded items, such as her own shield. Mentu seemed un-phased by all this, and brought in some gummi-were-bears and a flock of flying, exploding cream pies as reinforcements, then used his levitation ability to lift himself out of the reach of the party’s melee attacks. From this vantage point he zapped the party with various curses and hexes designed to impair them whilst his minions did all the actual fighting. The surge of energy also caused the bubbling cauldron hanging in the fireplace to boil over, disgorging a large sticky humanoid creature that turned out to be a treacle elemental. Carsus sent the zombie Crêper over to engage it, and the two creatures spent most of the fight taking lumps out of each other. Meanwhile, the great chefs had apparently decided the party was hostile and attacked them with various ladles, rolling pins and food-related spells, such as acidic lemon juice rays. In the course of events, two of the chefs fled, but the third was nearly killed by Carsus, only Jayne’s intervention saved him from death.

The fight went on for sometime, but as his minions fell, Mentu realised he was nearly out of spells and could not defeat the party. He levitated to the ceiling, opened a grill set over the entrance to the massive chimney that led upwards into the darkness, and made good his escape, promising that he would be back for revenge at some point in the future. The party added him to their list of enemies, then decided to make their own escape, as they were all injured and the rampaging treacle elemental was still up and ready to attack them. The zombie Crêper had been forced to flee the room thanks to a chilling touch from Mentu. It was now returning to the fight, but the party were worried they might get caught in the cross-fire and decided they didn’t need to destroy the elemental that badly.

As they shut the door to the great kitchen, the party could hear the noises of the treacle elemental and the zombie Crêper as they battled it out amongst the bodies, cream splats, oil slicks, flour spills and general mess. The party retreated into the chamber beyond the griddle room, and it was only at this point that Marika remembered that she left Jondril hiding in the south-eastern passage leading out of the kitchen…

The party worked their way back through the corridors until they discovered the other end of the passageway behind the fireplace. The secret door to the passage, which the party failed to notice on the way in, had been left open. Marika sneaked along the secret passage and was able to observe the kitchen. She saw that the zombie Crêper had been reduced to small, pancakey, necromantic crumbs, and that the treacle elemental appeared to have returned to its dormant state inside the cooking pot. She noted with some surprise that the unconscious body of the chef had gone, and that Jondril was waiting in the room for the party to return. On questioning him, it turned out that he had waited in the southern passage until the sounds of battle had died away, then carefully returned to see what the result was. He was shocked to see an ethereal figure hovering over the body of the chef. He was further amazed to see that it was a ghostly version of Heinrich and, as the spectral warrior touched the chef, he sat up and was apparently healed of his worst wounds. The apparition turned to Jondril and fixed him for a moment with a stare from beyond the veil, then faded away into nothingness. The chef seemed just as surprised as Jondril, but lost no time in making a speedy getaway down the secret passage.

The party searched for the chefs, and eventually found them hiding in the underground cornfield. It turned out that the hideously ugly half-orc chef was a candy-maker named Jamay O’Lever, the African-Celenian chef who had hidden in the flour bin (and who had been nearly killed by Carsus) was the baker Anslee Hare-Eyot, and the red-haired chef was head cook Gardone Rumsea. The chefs were terrified that the party would kill them, and indeed some members of the party (they know who they are!) were quite keen to carry out three summary executions. However, the underlying goodness (or possibly self-interest) of the party won out, and they decided to take the chefs back to Galomoghen’s tomb, in order to show him that they were still alive and (more or less) unharmed. They hoped that Galomoghen would keep his side of the bargain and allow them access to the next level of the dungeon. They used some Dwarven ale that Marika had discovered in Mentu’s wardrobe to summon Galomoghen’s shade via the golden chalice. He was overjoyed to see the chefs again, and spent some time questioning them and the party. The chefs complained that the party had invaded their home and tried to kill them, and had driven away poor Mentu. Fortunately for the party, Galomoghen seemed to appreciate how manipulative Mentu had been, and how he’d used a combination of deceit, his telepathic ability and some charm spells to befuddle the easily-led chefs. Even during the final battle, Mentu had been using his telepathic link with the chefs to turn them against the party. Galomoghen’s attitude towards the chefs was of a father telling off some wayward children for a spot of naughtiness.

Galomoghen lived up to his word, and opened a secret door behind his tomb that concealed a passage to another purple-glowing portal, with another warning from the mysterious V, “Are you sure you’re ready for this one?” The party decided they weren’t and opted to return to the surface for some rest and more training. Galomoghen asked the party to take the chefs back to the surface, as they were clearly not safe when left to their own devices. He deactivated the magic cooking pot, which was apparently the main source of their ability to create the food-based creatures, and also awoke the pink gummi-were-bear queen, who had been imprisoned by Mentu. She seemed to be quite friendly, and took charge of the gummi-were-bears, promising to allow the characters safe passage through the caverns in the future. Popinfarsh decided he would stay in the caverns as well, to carry on his job of tending the cornfield and the fungus room.

Galomoghen then decided that it was time for him to move on to the next world, but before he left, he opened his tomb up to reveal not only his own remains, but also those of Heinrich! As the party watched, Heinrich’s greatsword floated through the air towards Raif, apparently as payment towards the debt of money owed by Heinrich to Raif. Before finally closing his tomb and shuffling off, Galomoghen gave his magic chalice to Jayne, as a reward for saving Anslee. Although he could no longer be summoned by the chalice, he told Jayne that it would help her in her trials to come.

The party went to see the Herzog, who was surprised to learn of the caverns under his very home, and immediately sent emissaries to negotiate with the gummi-queen. It all worked out well for the chefs: it turned out they were fondly remembered by the Herzog, who loved their puddings when he was a small child and had been very upset when his father had them imprisoned for accidentally poisoning a visiting ambassador. He reinstated them as chefs in the royal kitchens, and pardoned them for any past crimes. He was also glad to get back the Mithral Breadknife of Castle Greyhawk and rewarded the party handsomely.

So, the party trained and researched and got ready for whatever the Castle had to offer them next…