22 Kythorn 1479

Ugh. So much for easy. Woke up a little early for watch, feeling something off...I put it down to the stew until I looked around. The camp was crawling with giant ants. I couldn't spot Allyson at first - she and Lyra were lying a bit off, where they'd been patrolling and both asleep. We figured out later they'd been drugged. The ants were busily picking up the gold and trundling it down into the hill. JUST the gold, very odd. They had a few warrior types, but they seemed content to let us be so long as we let them have the gold....or until Max got tired of not seeing what was going on and used a lovely bolt of divine light. Lit up the area nicely and maybe Aprilane appreciated it, since she couldn't really see either, but it certainly pissed the ants off but good. We fought off the warrior types while the drones scurried off underground. Then we checked out the damage - 2/3 of the gold down the hill and some sweet-smelling stuff all over the gold - just the gold, not the iron, not the wagons. Which likely explains the drugging - give whoever time to coat the stuff. There were footprints too, so we know it's some person, not some monster at least.

While we stood there scratching our...heads trying to decide what to do, the ants launched flying warriors. THOSE were nasty, had some kind of acidic spit or something. Still, in the end, they're only bugs. That decided us to head on down into the anthill. A steep slope, but people made it down mostly ok - mind you, the ants showed up to fight before everyone DID get down, but no worries. (Those came later) We quietly snuck through the twisty passages, things going smoothly - which, thinking back, should've warned us - we walked, more or less, into an ambush,

Nice big room at the end of the corridor, with a branching right there to worry about - a bunch of bandits - though their leader seemed to have some extra skills beyond your usual roadside bandit - and Daval. Well, we know who did the drugging and figured we knew who killed the other guard. Naturally Allyson and Ugrun charged right on in, as did Gnf - I always thought wizard types fought from the back - and I moved forward so I was close enough to help and SOMETHING dropped right on top of me, wrapped long, hellishly-strong fingers around my neck and started squeezing. Gnf thought he had a nice handle on the guy and launched one of his explosion specials, but DAMN the fellow could move fast. Spun around so fast I'dve gotten dizzy if I hadn't been already from the damned choking and let ME take the thunder. Oh joy.

Good idea on Gnf's part - there was no way of knowing the guy could do that - but he has GOT to learn to stop randomly firing things off figuring we can take it. Ugrun is getting kinda sore about it and figuring it's all "he's a big nasty orc, he can take it".

Anyway, we dealt with them and peeked around the corner and there was the queen indead. I snuck over close and didn't see any gold tucked around her and the gold so Aprilane figured that the gold, smelling all sweet and food-like was probably in the ant version of the pantry and if we covered ourselves in ant scent - which Daval and his bandits must have done - we could pretty much waltz around the anthill as we chose. Which we did - found the gold, I helped Gnf cast up a Tenser's Disk and we chugged it all out of there.

We did pick up some nice things off the bandits too - namely Daval's ritual book - and a scroll of "control insect" or somesuch - won't last very long, so likely only used to get the ant scent? Anyway, Gnf and I are sharing out the book - he copies a ritual, I copy one and so on. It's gonna take forever anyway. Now at last we can get some proper sleep.