KhorasForum

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham


The party explores the ruined lighthouse where they just battled the hobgoblins and bugbear and they discover the remains of several dead human bodies and parts of an elven body and their gear. Apparently the hobgoblins have been part of a raiding party and have brought their elicit gains back here to enjoy.

One of the hobgoblins had a spyglass on him and on the top floor of the lighthouse they find a lookout perch.

Included in the gear in the ruined lighthouse they find a magical jug that pours different liquids out of its 10 different stoppers. It can produce acid, basic poison, beer, honey, mayonnaise, oil, vinegar, fresh water, salt water and wine. Otep is thrilled about the ability of the jug to produce mayonnaise and Akronos has to bargain with him that it is only to be used for mayonnaise on non-adventuring days.

The giant sized mace is claimed by Otep who loves having a magical bashing instrument.  Otep tries out his new weapon on one of the dead hobgoblins but aside from the great joy of tenderizing a dead hobgoblin he doesn't see any special benefit that the weapon bestows. They decide to give the hobgoblins, bugbear, human and bits of elf remains all burials at sea and toss them off the cliff into the pounding surf, successful with most of the throws making it into the waves leaving only one body on the rocks waiting for the high tide.

Since it is getting late in the evening the party decides to stay in the lighthouse for the night. They check the magical scroll that Boazman has given them to communicate back and forth and find that he finally has some updates for them.

The scroll has written on it in overly flourishing script "I have deciphered the first page in the book. This is definitely a workbook on demon banishing, hand written as they worked it out. I've redouble my efforts and will have more updates for you soon." It's nothing they couldn't have guessed for themselves but having the confirmation is good.

The next morning the party searches around outside of the lighthouse and they discover that there is a small foot trail that shows signs of use heading to the east. The party heads out and Ceress and Otep keep an eye out for game for the party to kill and eat, seeing as how they didn't buy supplies back in town before heading out into the countryside. They find a shepherds lost sheep on the pastural hillside and with a marvelous shot they kill the vicious animal before it could charge the party and seriously injure one of them. After bleeding out the sheep and dressing the kill they check the enchanted finger on the chain and find that it still points to the east.

The rolling cliffside hills level out over the next several miles to be mostly flat land with a mild drop off into the ocean and occasional beach access points. After about an hour of hiking the party sees more ruins ahead.

These are the ruins of a small village with just the rubble of little houses remaining on the outskirts of the ruins of a church and decent sized fort. There is an earthen ramp between the ruined houses and the church and another one between the church and the fort. The fort is at the end of a cliff creating a small peninsula with the earthen ramps/walls running from cliff side to cliff side as well as the fort wall running from cliff to cliff. There are many easily accessed points to go up the earthen walls/ramps due to years of neglect. There is what might have been moat at the front wall of the fort but an earthen bridge has been created going to the gate and the gate doesn't doesn't look like it could be closed anymore.

They check the finger again and it points at the ruins of the fort. The party hides a ways out and using their newly acquired spyglass they search the ruins for activity. They see that two hobgoblins are digging up graves outside of the church. Eventually two other hobgoblins come out to trade off on digging duty.

Ceress takes the spyglass and Theren turns him invisible and he goes scouting. He gets close to the ruins but finds the cliffside is too steep to risk climbing down in this area so he starts heads back to the party. As he does he sees a goblin with two skeletons and two zombies following him come out from the fort. They go to the hobgoblins digging up the graves and collect two freshly unearthed piles of bones and take them back to the fort.

Ceress returns to the party and they hatch a plan of attack. They will lure the two digging hobgoblins away from their dig with a "wounded and helpless halfling" calling for help and then spring a quick and deadly ambush on them!

The plan goes almost according to plan, aside from the damage they take from the hobgoblins and the fact that one isn't quickly killed and it goes running back to the fort screaming something in goblin that probably means "help, we're under attack". Otep finds himself quicker into battle and with a burst of running speed during this combat and starts to wonder if the oversized mace has more properties than just hitting a little harder. The second hobgoblin is taken down and the party tries to hide the evidence of the battle.

While the party is trying to dump the dead bodies into open graves to hide their kills, enemies on the walls of the fort start firing arrows down on them. Akronos jumps into a grave for cover while the rest of the party hides behind the church.

Theren turns Otep invisible, Ceress heads over the far side of the sea cliff wall and the party starts advancing on the fort. The enemy within the fort has pushed a wagon into the entryway of the fort but Otep sneaks past it while invisible and finds that there are two hobgoblins to the left and two skeletons, two zombies and a goblin that is chanting to the right. He sneaks past the skeletons and zombies to get up to the goblin with the intent to attack him and disrupt his long casting spell. This is when he notices that the goblin is standing around four piles of bones.

Theren has advanced on the fort and takes this moment to use the ring he got from the original ruins to cast a fireball into the entryway of the fort, hoping that Otep isn't in the blast area. The wagon goes up in flames and so does one of the hobgoblins and both skeletons. Otep was fortunate enough to be out of the blast radius but now that Theren isn't concentrating on his invisibility spell it goes away.

Battle breaks out with Otep the only one in the fort for the first several round and things get ugly. The necromancer goblin is much tougher than Otep guessed and despite loosing his animate dead spell just before finishing it he gives some serious damage before Otep is able to finally kill him. By this point the zombies and the two hobgoblins from across the hall have also attacked Otep and he is hard pressed. One of the hobgoblins has a silver circlet around his right wrist and a sword made of shadow and gloom, but despite all of his efforts, the fates do not favor him and he never gets to show Otep what wickedness the gloom blade can do to living flesh.

Akronos makes great use of a catapult spell to smash a hobgoblin in the back of the head with that iron A he had created back in Aridorn, Ceress and Lutheo team up in the forts courtyard to take down another one and eventually the party is victorious. Everyone is injured and mostly tapped out of spells and abilities but everyone has scored a kill in this epic battle.

Some of the party searches the fort for any other enemies and they find no other enemies, only several caches of piles of bones throughout the fortress. The others loot the bodies and check for magic. They find that the silver circlet, a potion and a bag are magical. The bag is easy to figure out that it must be a bag of holding due to the vast amount of look that it holds, apparently loot from raiding merchant caravans and travelers.

Theren takes the circlet off of the hobgoblins arm and notices that where it was touching its skin that there are angry red marks. He looks at it in the light of day and sees that the circlet is made of silver and has incredibly detailed motifs of a deep sylvan forest scene. Dryads, nymphs, Sater, fairy dragons, all harrowing goblins through the forest. This sounds good to Theren and the blade the hobgoblin had that disappeared with his death sounds promising so he puts on the circlet. He hears a whispering when he puts it on, a soft voice telling him to kill the goblins, the hobgoblins, to kill them all, to get revenge for killing its friend. Assuming this is a good thing, Theren decides to keep wearing it and test it out along the way. After all, all magical items that adventurers find are beneficial and ones that talks to you but the rest of the party can't hear it must be even more so!

At this point the party decides its a good time to take a short rest before looking for what ever it is that the finger was pointing too.

After the short rest they wander around the ruins of the fort until they figure out that the finger is pointing to one of the sets of bones piled up in the ruins. These are the bones of a male human that is missing the ring finger and pinky from its left hand, and maybe the previous owner of the finger that is now mummified and dangling from the chain. The cast detect magic on the bones and discover that they do have trace elements of magic lingering in them. The magic has the same signature as the gem and the glowing green pit back at the dig site. Most of the magic signature is concentrated in the skull and only trace amounts remain in the rest of the bones.

Akronos casts the spell rope trick to create an extra dimensional space so the party can bring the gem out of its protective shielding box but not have it in this dimension in case the black soccer is searching for it. The party climbs into the extra dimensional space and Lutheo brings the gem out. He notices that when he has it out of the box he feels warm and as if an uneasiness that he hadn't been able to put his finger on before was lifted. There is a reassurance to having the gem out of the box.

They experiment with the gem and the bones, touching the gem to the bones, the mummified finger on the chain to the bones and several other experiments that yield no noticeable results. They take the finger out of the rope trick and check to see where it points. It now points to the west no matter where they stand in the ruins. Back into the rope trick they touch the gem to the map and the area of Lands End flickers with light briefly before winking out and coming back into existence at Aridorn, which happens to lie north by north east of where they currently are.

Once again while having the stone out Lutheo feels more at peace than he has in recent days. Somehow having the gem out of the box makes him feel much better than when it is locked away.

Some of the party finds this curious and while a few encourage him to use his innate paladin powers to sense good and evil, others advise agains it. Lutheo decides that it is better to know that his powerful, magical gem with the symbol of Ynthar, his religion roughly etched into it is a great force of good instead of a force of evil. He concentrates and focus his energies and works to detect good and evil around him.

He senses in the gem great evil, darkness, the soul of all demons, the depths of hell and demonic hatred all wanting to crush his happy little paladin soul!  He then falls into the black abyss, loosing conciseness.

The party sees him concentrate on the gem, his eyes roll back, he collapses to the ground and he starts thrashing about. The thrashing quickly passes. 

When he comes to, he is covered in a sheen of sweat and feels terribly nauseous.
He can sense it, the gem wants to influence him, to use him, to consume him.

The party decides that Lutheo shall no longer carry the gem or the box that it is locked in. Otep will carry gem locked in the box and Ceress will carry the key to its lock.

That evening they check the magical communication scroll and found the following in Boazmans flowing script:
"I skipped ahead and deciphered the last page. They were trying to work out The Problem when Duthelm attacked, earlier than they thought they would.
"It's not finished. They haven't worked it out."
Oh gods, what did you five find in those ruins?!?".

Apparently the party has stumbled into something greater than any of them could have imagined.

When they go to leave the ruins the next day they find that there is a line in the grass a ways out from the ruined fort, straight and dead. It runs north and south. It eventually intersects another line. That line comes to a point at a curved line. The curved line forms a circle about 1,000 feet across with the center being where they were when Lutheo case the detect evil (while in the rope trick). The lines for the edges of a 1,000 foot diameter symbol of Ynthar.


This is where session #5 ends. The party now realizes that they probably have the remains of one of the six original members of the Conclave of Freedom. It might be that persons finger on the chain and it is now pointing to the west while the map is highlighting a new location in Aridorn which might be another Conclave member or an intricate demon laid trap. If only they had planned their mapping waypoints better they could have started with Aridorn and then come down here instead of now having to backtrack.

Next session: Will they travel back to Aridorn to find what awaits them and take the opportunity to personally thank Captain Obvious/Boazman for his detailed research into the book of banishment or will they all leap into the pounding surf to join the bodies of the dead in what would probably just be hastening their destined fate?

Session #4 Summary

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham

When last we gamed, the party is "safely" in Aridorn with two rooms in The Kettle Inn enjoying soft beds, hot meals and cold drinks for the first time since the many weeks of hardship as slaves and escapees on the run. They have sold off loot and are replenishing the gear that was taken from them when they were enslaved.

After buying new musical instruments Theren spends time in the vast Aridorn library with the help from a library pass that the sage Boazman vouched for. He spends several days looking through the books on astrology for a clue to the poem he has been pursing for the past 100 plus years but doesn't find it or any reference to the author, Thun Pines. His evenings are spent playing his new musical instruments at The Kettle inn and earning a few coins and free drinks.

After buying new gear, Otep gets bored and takes a job loading and unloading wagons at a pay of 2 copper pieces a day.

Akronos has a custom made, one pound letter A crafted for reasons only know to him.

Lutheo practices his sword play and the meditations of Ynthar in an effort to get back into balance with life after serving as a slave.

Ceress buys a small set of pan pipes to help calm his nerves and control his Saurian rage. He also spends a decent amount of time with the Figurine of Wondrous Powers cat curled up on him and purring despite not needing the boost to healing. He has taken an instant bond with the figurine, more so than would be expected from a massive lizard man.

Theren and Lutheo team up in the library of Aridorn to search for history on the Conclave Freedom and their involvement in the Demon Wars and the banishing of Draxorith. They discover that the Conclave was made up of 6 individuals. 4 were men, 2 woman, 4 were wizards and 2 were clerics. There names were Kelandor (F cleric), Tarmondan (F wizard), Nikova (M wizard), Hardin (M cleric), Geldan (M wizard) and Illanor (M wizard). All were hailed as heroes of the war when it was over. Some stayed in the public eye and some disappeared from the spotlight after the initial celebrations were done.

Kelandor dedicated her life to healing others, working from sun up to sun down using her spells to heal any that needed it and her skills with medicine and first aid when she would run out of spells. Nikova went on to become a politician in the Rukemian Empire and Hardin became a crusader leading may battles for his home nation of Kitar into the boarder lands with Duthelm. The party didn't find much on the other three past the first year of the end of the Demon Wars.

On the evening of the fourth night at the Kettle, Boazman joins the party for drinks. He has obviously been working long hours studying the encoded book that the party brought out of the ruins. He tells the party that he is proud to have deciphered 2, maybe 3 of the symbols used in the coding method. He can also tell that the cipher changes with each page. He is thrilled to be making this progress but the party is a little underwhelmed with how long it is taking. Boazman points out that who ever encrypted the book was brilliant and it will take him quite a while to get to where he can ready it.

The party decides to sell their two stolen horses and take a ship to the point on the map that is highlighted when the green stone is brought near it. This is in Ormek, the southern most region of the Rukumian Empire in the area of a town called Lands End.

Akronos goes down to the harbor to find and negotiate passage for the party. He finds the harbor master who for a small fee tells Akronos that there are 5 non military ships due to head south in the next few days that might be willing to take on passengers.

Port Master Rillo tells him that the Warthog, captained by Sancho, The Third Wind captained by Draabyn, the Clay Duck captained by Rinity, the Anterra captained by Salazar and the Comet captained by Nikos are all scheduled to set sail within the next week with charters to the south.

Akronos asks Rilio which is the ship least likely to encounter pirates on its voyage. Rillio let's him know that while he isn't sure which one is least likely to encounter pirates he is sure about which one is most likely to encounter pirates. "If any of these five ships had an encounter with a pirate it would almost definitely be the Third Wind" he says. "For that matter, if there's an encounter with a kraken, a hurricane, an angry sea god or anything else befalling a ship in these oceans it would be the Third Wind mixed up in the disaster." He went on to say that "According to Captain Draabyn, he got his start adventuring when he was just a ship hand and the ship he was on was attacked and destroyed by a kraken. He was the only survivor and washed ashore clinging to the ships name board. He spins an even crazier tail of adventure from there that none of us believe but now he's a renowned captain. Renowned mainly for attracting crazy situations that go exponentially bad."

Akronos decides to avoid the Third Wind and talks with Sancho of The Warthog. While the normal rate to book passage as far south as Lands End would be fifteen gold per person, Akronos negotiates a rate of five gold pieces per person since they are skilled adventurers who could help in the case of a pirate attack or other challenge at sea. Sancho also agrees that if there is battle and they are instrumental in the victory then he will refund their five gold pieces each.

They set out the next morning on the Warthog and are informed that they are not allowed to tie knots or help out in any way aside from fighting off enemies. The well trained crew of the Warthog doesn't need landlubbers messing up the ship. They do notice that The Third Wind has already left port despite not being scheduled to set out for a few more days. They keep an eye out for it while at sea but don't see it or any ship wreckage so maybe it was just good fortune that took it out to sea in the middle of the night instead of ill fate or nefarious business.

Several of the party spend the first couple days at the railing throwing up but by the fourth day at sea, everyone has gotten their sea legs. The weather and wind was good, there were no pirate attacks or other encounters and on the fifth day they make it in to port at Lands End.

The town of Lands End is a shabby shadow of its former glory. The kingdom of Ormek has been in decline for a long time and now suffers great corruption and lawlessness. Bandits and raids on the roads have become common.

The party gets two rooms at the local inn called the Slaty Dog and enjoy a decent lunch before testing out the map and finger back in their room. The map still lights up in the general area of Lands End when the gem is brought close to it but now the finger points to the east, showing them that they are now west of the location instead or north of it like they were in Aridorn. 

The party decides to head north out of town a couple miles and test the finger again. This time the finger points East by Southeast and the party sets off in that direction realizing they must be very close to have have that much of a shift in a few miles. They hike across rocky, rolling green hills sides with nice views of the ocean for a few hours with the occasional check of the finger to make sure they are still on course. After a few hours they see a tower up ahead, probably the old abandoned lighthouse they had heard about.

Ceress snakes ahead to find out what the movement was that they saw near the base of the lighthouse. He discovers that it's a hobgoblin with a human leg on a spit that he starts roasting over the campfire near the lighthouse.

The party decides that such evil can't be bypassed so they decide to attack and kill the hobgoblins. An elaborate plan of attack is designed and the three hobgoblins now seated around the campfire eating the leg are surprised by a well shot arrow from Theren. The party sets upon the hobgoblins quickly killing one and scattering the other two, one into the lighthouse and the other around the back of it. Two arrows whip out of the lighthouse doorway, one striking Otep as the party advances on their enemy. Ceress goes through the lighthouse door to battle the hobgoblin in there only to find out that he is backed up by a bugbear with the largest mace Ceress has ever seen. The remaining hobgoblin circles around the lighthouse to rejoin the battle but is brought down by the remaining party outside.

Inside, Ceress is hard pressed and it is only through the magical aid of Theren that he lasts as long as he does. Otep and Lutheo join him and shortly after Ceress is dropped by a massive hit from the bugbear.  The party drops the hobgoblin and focuses their attacks on the bugbear and are finally able to kill it.

Ceress is revived, the party regroups and searches for magic items and finds that the oversized mace and a jug in the lighthouse are both magical.

This is where session #4 ends.

Session #3 notes

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham

The party has just escaped the buried ruins and had their first full nights rest under the stars with a full belly of wild game caught by Ceress.

The next day they start traveling through the forest heading towards the Aridorn, the capital city of the Rukemian Empire. This is where Akronos was captured and enslave. He had originally traveled here from Drakkel to learn some specific spells from a sage named Boazman. His spell book and magical chest of book storage was left at Boazman home and Akronos is eager to get them back.

They spend that first day traveling through the forest and rivers and avoiding any paths. In the second day they see what might be a hunters Lodge potentially filled with provisions, soft beds, a good fireplace and spare hunting gear, but out of great caution and wisdom, the avoid it and spend the night sleeping in the dirt instead.

From there they find game trails to follow and the ground they cover picks up. They eventually find a small road and follow that to the east.

Later in the day as evening is getting close they come upon a roadside inn.
They decide that a party of a human, an elf, a half orc, a saurian and a halfling might be too easy to identify if they are followed so they send in just the elf and human to buy dinner as well as more provisions for the road. After eating their warm meal they return to the rest of the party and give them the provisions for a cold but superior meal to anything they have had in the past several weeks while slaves.

This travel continues for several days with the occasional stop in a roadside tavern for provisions. On the fourth day after escape, the are traveling down the road in two groups, Lutheo and Akronos in the lead by about 100 feet followed by Theren, Otep and Ceress in the hopes that they won't be as identifiable.

Two guards from the slavers dig catch up to the party at this point. They ride past the first group without recognizing them but when they get to the second group they realize they might have found the escaped slaves. The stop and circle back around, dismount and interrogate Lutheo and Akronos. These two stall the guards while the rest of the party catches up, then they attack and quickly overcome the guards. They keep one from dying and hasten the other to his afterlife.

The party questions the guard that they kept alive and he begs to trade any information he has for his life. They find out that the Black Sorcerer Kelvar and his right hand man Delmanakan have sent half of the guards out looking for the escaped slaves. The guards aren't just mercenaries hired for this job, they are part of the military arm of the Knights of the Abyss of Duthelm. For some reason they aren't wearing their uniforms on this mission. The guard doesn't know much but promises to never return to Duthelm if they set him free, he will go to the War Vale and become a mercenary and never speak of them to anyone.

Just to make sure that they aren't missing anything, the party has Akronos detect magic on the guard and all of his gear. While doing this Akronos sees the green gemstone for the first time with detect magic since it has been carried by Lutheo outside of the protective box that it came in. The power of the stone almost knocks Akronos unconscious but he quickly drops his concentration on the spell before it overwhelms him. He instructs Lutheo to put it back in the box for safe keeping and to shield it from detection. They then swear the guard to silence upon pain of death, strip him of all possessions except some of the scrap slave clothing that they still have with them and then set him loose to go to the War Vale. They are very good people for doing this and the gods will probably smile upon them when they meet their early death for some good deed one day.

They now have the two horses of the guards and their speed of travel improves greatly.

They continue on their way and as the party approaches the great capital city of the Rukemian Empire they start to see the landscape changing. The forest gives way to farmland. The farmland eventually gives way to smaller specialized farms and then to outlying villages as the city comes into view. Aside from Akronos, none of the party have seen anything on this scale.

There is a sprawl of tents and shanty dwellings from travelers too poor or cheap to stay in the city leading up to a cleared area 1000 feet from the great wall of the city of Aridorn. The wall is at least 30 feet tall and formidable. Guards can be seen patrolling the top of the wall. Hawkers line the road leading up to the gate selling meat pies, hats and cloaks, offering their services as a tinker to repair items and selling small toys to occupy children's attention. The queue of people entering the city at this time of day isn't very long and it doesn't take the party long to get to the gate and hear the rules of the city while paying the 3 copper piece price each to enter.   

The guards at the gate inform all that come through the rules of the city of Aridorn and the Rukemian Empire. Bared weapons are forbidden. Fighting is forbidden. Killing is an execution-able offense. Theft will be punished in proportion to the crime. Wearing of armor, carrying weapons or other signs of being ready to fight, kill or cause mischief is highly discouraged. The city guard are to be obeyed at all times. The Empires roads is sacred and commuting a crime on the Empires road is as if you committed the crime in the capital.

The party is informed that they can recognize the Aridorn Guard by their shining silver helmets and shields, their white and purple tunics and the purple padded jerkins.

Once past the city walls the party find themselves in a tight packed city of stone, wood and plaster buildings, mostly three to five stories tall. The main roads are wide enough to pass two wagons while still leaving a space for pedestrians on either side. The side lanes are wide enough for a wagon and a pedestrian on one side and ally ways are only wide enough for two people or a hand cart. At regular intervals are courtyards that are a bustle of activity during the day with farmers and venders selling their wears.

The hustle and bustle feels like it is pressing in on the players that didn't grow up in a large city, the stench is overwhelming and the sounds make it hard to think. Dirty children in rags and filthy bare feet beg, hustle and steal, merchants walking with purpose, shoppers, craftsmen, messengers and the occasional grouping of Aridorn Guards.

Akronos doesn't recognize this section of the city from his few weeks here in the past so he finds a carriage for hire to take them to the university district where his friend Boazman lives.

The carriage drops them off in the square just up the road from Boazman home and Akronos leads the party to the door leading to the second story home of Boazman, the sage he was staying with before getting kidnaped while exploring the city down by the waterfront.

Boazman seems genuinely surprised and happy to see Akronos alive and at his doorstep. He invites him in before realizing who his traveling companions are. Unable to retract his invitation and not wanting to be rude, he invites the road weary party into his home. His wife Rezo seems even less pleased with the unexpected company but still offers refreshments to them. Ceress and Otep take the horses and extra great to a inn just a few blocks away called The Kettle to stable the horses and stash all of the weapons and armor that they have collected in their escape.

Boazman returns a small but heavy chest to Akronos. The chest was in a prominent bookshelf in the living room and he assures Akronos that all the contents are as they were when left.

Boazman is a sage working at the local university authenticating written documents. He analyzes the language used (where art tho vs where are you, etc), the ink composition and the paper to put it into date context. He has developed a specialized version of the Identify spell to analyze ink composition.

According to Boazman "A lot can be told just by analyzing the ink. Ink can be made with plant, animal, and mineral inks. Pine sap from trees that were between 50 and 100 years old and then boiled till black is popular in some areas. Ink from mixture of hide glue, carbon black, lampblack, and bone black pigment which was mixed with pestle and mortar. Ink made from burnt bones, tar, and pitch or ink from soot, glue and water. These don't damage the paper they used on but are not resistant to moist and can smudge. Iron ink made from iron salts and tannic acids. Only problem with this ink was that it is corrosive and damages the paper it is on. Ink was also made from branches of hawthorn which were cut in the spring and left to dry. Then the bark from the branches would be peeled off and left to soak in water for eight days. That water would be boiled until it is thick and black but while boiling, wine would be added to it. That thick and black liquid would be poured in bags and left in the sun to dry. When it is dried, wine (again) and iron salt would be mixed with it over fire. The resulting mixture would be ink ready to use. But I degrees, you asked about..."

Theren asks him to look at the poem that he has been obsessing over for the past 111 years and Boazman take it with the promise of fully analyzing it and providing any information that he can.

The party tells Boazman a little about their adventure but leave out the information about the room with the symbol of Ynthar, the gem, finger on the chain and the map.

Boazman suggests that it sounds like the party found the final battle site of the Demon Wars. He would be interested in any of the books they would be willing to part with. He knows others that might be interest in any other hard artifacts they found.

Most of the party don't know much about the Demon Wars except that it happened a long time ago in this part of the world so Boazman educates them.

"The Demon War was fought from 2566 to 2570 CY, during which time there was a nine month siege of the city of Myranor. Duthelm fought against the combined forces of Kitar, Rukemia, mercenary companies from the War Vale, the Order of the Drake and the Conclave of Freedom (a group of six very powerful wizards and clerics). In the end, the Conclave managed to setup and spring an elaborate trap within their own stronghold during a climactic battle known as the Battle of the Banishing. Draxorith was banished and the forces of Duthelm were routed. The forces of Duthelm retuned to attack the Conclave but reinforcements of Rukemia and Kitar were there to ward them off. Unfortunately during this battle when the Empires side was winning a volcano in the Snowy Timber range erupted and whipped out both sides in a massive lahar mudslide. It buried the army of both sides as well as the conclaves stronghold where the banishing took place. The only ones to escape were the powerful Conclave Defiant, the hero's of the war.

With the demon lord Draxorith banished, the war quickly unraveled. The loss of their master was a devastating blow to the Church of Draxorith. The loss of Draxorith left the priests weakened. For the last century and a half, the priests and the Knights of the Abyss have sought a way to re-establish contact with Draxorith.

Duthelm has since had other skirmishes, battles and minor wars with Kitar, but none that quite rival the first Demon War. The Second Demon war is recent history with Duthelm summoning in an extremely organized and almost hive mind Demon force but they quickly lost control of them. Now those Demons live in the Rift Vale in the Snowy Timbers south west of Kitar."

The party decides to show Boazman the large book that was found in a side room by the final battle, the book that is locked and they haven't been able to look at yet. With great reverence and care and the white glove treatment Boazman uses spells to check out the book, unlock it and discover that it is encoded and will need lots of time to decipher.

The party mentions at this point that they might be tracked by a Black Sorcerer and Boazman freaks out, making them gather all of their possession and leave his home to continue the conversation at their rooms in the inn.

Once in their rooms in their inn they bargain with Boazman to get the magical ring and cat figurine identified, get a couple extra pearls for their future use all in trade for giving him 8 books on demons, summoning and banishing that they took from the ruins.

Once identified the ring is a ring of fireballs with the two smaller ones used, two medium ones and one large one still intact.

The figurine of the cat is discovered to be a Figurine of Wondrous Powers. It is the legendary Kitten of Purring Health. It can be used once per day to summon a magical cat that will curl up on the bonded owners chest while they rest, purring and doubling the amount that they heal during that time.

Theren takes the ring and Ceress takes the cat figure. The look on Ceress's reptilian face is hard to decipher, but maybe this small item means more to him that first glance would indicate.

The party sells off the used armor and weapons they gathered, the demon horn they took is sold to Boazman and they entrust him with the large book that is written in code on the understanding that he is to work on decoding it and provide them with what he learns and return the book when they want it back. They have money in their pockets to replenish the gear that was stripped from them when they became slaves. Boazman acquires some lead sheeting from a local components shop here in the university district and wraps the encoded book in a cloth, then bends the lead sheets around the cloth wrapped book to help hide it from scrying and magic detection and then puts it into a large sack.


This is where the third session ends. The party is "safely" in Aridorn with two rooms in The Kettle Inn enjoying soft beds, hot meals and cold drinks for the first time since the many weeks of hardship as slaves and escapees on the run. Next session, do they retire from adventuring life and set up shop in the big city or try to find out what the map, gem and finger are leading them into?

Session #2 was epic.

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham
Three human NPC's Joe, Billy and Fritz (the "locksmith")

Nathan, the DM


When we ended the last session the players had explored the entire ruins, found the site of a major battle and the circular chamber with the symbol on Ynthar and pit of evil green glowing smoke in the middle of it.

They have a large map, the green fist sized stone with the symbol of Ynthar etched into it, a finger on a chain and other items collected from the site including a magical wand, shield, ring, cat figurine, 2 potions, 3 scrolls, the remains of the dead mages spell book and coins and other small valuables scavenged from the ruins and the dead.

When we pick up for Session #2 the party splits up after a few minutes. Ceress and Otep went back to the flooded cold storage room to see if the location where the water is leaking out could be turned into an escape rout. They would spend the next 30 minutes or so bashing and pulling apart the section of floor that the water was seeping out. When they finally had it large enough to fit through they discovered that there was a natural chamber that the water followed through. They explored it and found that it went quite a ways and would be their best hope for escape without going back to the necromancer running the digging slave outfit. When they checked the collapsed entry hall they could hear the digging crew hard at work trying to get access to them, most likely to kill them all and turn them into zombies.

Akronos sat down in the chamber with the glowing white line around it and all of the dead bodies. He had all of the magic items with him and using supplies scavenged from the wizards lab set about identifying the magical shield and the wand. He discovered that the shield would provide great protection to the one that wears it and utters the word Sumerack. The wand would provide healing but only had 9 charges left in it. During this time he notices that there is a growing pressure on his ears like being underwater but he can't figure out what is causing it.

Meanwhile, Theren decided to check out the pit of swirling green evil in the center of the symbols of Ynthar. He walked up to the edge and touched the green smokey substance. Immediately his stomach churned and his bowls turned to water. He barely made it to the side of the room to drop his pants and void himself before soiling himself. He decided after that encounter to leave the evil alone for now. He went to the study off the room before the main battle room and found a very interesting book that is close to what he has been looking for for years but doesn't appear to be actually written by the same author. He lost a lot of time reading this book and trying to figure out why the writing style is different than the author he has been searching for even through it is written under the same.

Lutheo kept watch over different party members while all of this was going on. He too noticed the growing pressure on his ears but couldn't figure out what was causing it.

The Otep and Ceress came back to tell the rest of the party about the possible exit that they had created. While the party was debating what to do next they all felt a sudden increase in the pressure and then the white line around the battle room flared brightly. Green oily smoke started to pour out of the hole in the banishment chamber and rush towards their room. They backed up into the next room which had two rooms off of it, one the wizards lab and the other the library (each with a dead body in it). When the green smoke hit the white line surrounding the battle room it spread out along the mortar in the walls to go around the room. After passing through that room it rushed past the character and some mist broke off and went into each side room and the remainder rushed past them and down the hall through out the rest of the ruins.

They all looked at each other knowing that bad stuff was happening but not sure what it was. They quickly found out when the skeleton in the next room got up and charged through the door they had left open. Battle ensued and they managed to kill the skeleton without too much injury, pinning it in the door while hacking at it. They heard the skeleton in the next room trying to open its door and realized that all the skeletons in the complex were probably coming alive, except the ones in the room with the protective white line around it.

A running battle ensued. All three of the zero level NPC's were killed by the skeletons, Lutheo once again was brought to unconscious as well as Otep. The Sumerack shield was put to great use to save the party when they were overwhelmed by skeletons. The scroll of Lightning Bolt was the final key to taking out the last 5 skeletons and saving the party from death.

After the battle the party healed up as best they could. They gathered their possessions and moved to a room near the cold storage room. They barricaded the door leading into that hallway and got an hour of rest before continuing on.

They explored the cavern that the water had been running out and found that it led to the outside after a long, twisting, muddy path. The sun was setting and they used the cover of dusk to make their escape down the hill. They traveled for many hours before allowing themselves to crash for the night and get a solid rest for the first time in who knows how long. A vigilant watch was set to make sure that if pursuit found them they would not all be caught sleeping.

This is where Session #2 ended. They party has escaped with the stone, the map, the finger on a chain, the large locked book and a few more magical items as well as a handful of coins, books and valuables.

And the final chamber with they symbol of Ynthar.

The map of the buried complex.

Here are the handouts the players received as well as the map of the buried fortress.

Session 1 Summary

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham
Nathan, the DM. I played in this campaign under David Rooms masterful guidance back in 1998.


Prelude:
Before the campaign began, each of the characters has been captured by their own series of unfortunate events and enslaved onto a digging team. The two spell caster were fitted with slave collars that have Drellisite crystals imbedded in them to prevent them from casting spells.

This is where the players have come into the picture. They have each been picked up by slavers and brought to a dig in the NW mountainous section of the Snowy Timbers forest. They have been here for varying times but have all witnessed the brutality of the leader of the dig, Kelvar, a Black Sorcerer of Duthelm, his right hand man Dalmanakan a Knight of the Abyss and the rest of the guards. The guards act efficient and organized like a military group but wear nondescript armor and clothing. They each carry a short sword, club and whip and wear chainmail armor.

In the group of slaves are two dwarfs, one of which takes a tool out of the dig site and is killed for his transgression. Kelvar kills him and then animates his body as a zombie to dig. Zombies are good at digging, just stupid about it so not very effective when they hit roots, rocks or just dig themselves into a small hole. Kelvar does away with the zombie after a day but it is a good reminder to the other slaves that their fate could be so much worse than it currently is. Kelvar's right hand man, Delmanakan is present for this killing and many other evil acts.

On the day the campaign starts the characters are part of a 12 person digging team that has been working a long ramp down into the earth along side a building. This is the fourth building that has been unearthed and each previous one before has been a dead end. This one was discovered due to the chimney becoming exposed by overflowing rivers and water flowing down the chimney. The ramp down has been paralleling the building and they have finally come to a window. The tools are taken away from the slaves and carried out by one of the weaker slaves. Six guards are assigned to them to explore the building and report back. They have lanterns and are a mix of cautiously guarding the slaves while still keeping them as trap and monster finders.


Inside the ruins:
Main Entry Hall
The waters flowed through the grand entry hall (the only section of the building with a strong enough roof to survive whatever caused these building to be buried under 30 feet of earth) and through a door down into the basement. In this entry hall are two dead warriors, tables, chairs, a huge fire place and book shelves with various books on interesting subjects for a noble to entertain their guest with. The head guard sends one guard back to Kelvar with a shield and both swords of the dead warriors to verify they are what he is looking for. They continue to check and see if there is anything else in here worth finding or if like the other buildings it only had a small section survive and nothing of interest in it.

Water is still seeping through the hall as a small stream when they enter, leaking under a tapestry and the door in the SW wall. The doors to the north are busted open with debris pouring into the hall. The doors to the south are barred shut but when opened were found to have a sold wall of earth behind it.

Stairs and Entry Hall
The stairs to basement have structural damage. Signs of water at the entry hall at the top of the stairs to the basement show a high water line a couple feet up the wall. It is cold and there is damp in the air. The stairs go down about twenty feet. There is evidence that this corridor was flooded to the ceiling at one point recently. The support beams along the hall show signs of being water logged from long exposure. There is still about a foot of standing water in the hall that floods out when the door at the far end is opened. Water has slowly leaked under and around the door at the end of the hall.

After the rest of the party has gone through the hall, one of the orc guards bringing up the rear taunts the dwarf prisoner about the death of the other dwarf. The dwarf gets enraged and shoulder slams the guard repeatedly into a support column breaking it and causing a cave in that kills both of them and brings the whole hall down. The party take this opportunity to attack and kill the 4 other guards but their injuries are serious. By the end of the battle Theren is almost dead and lies face up in several inches of water, one of the other digging crew has been killed, Lutheo was brought to unconsciousness and revived to continue the battle and Otep made an epic leap bringing down the last guard with a flying strike by the short sword he acquired off a dead body.

After the battle, one of the fellow slaves, Fritz puts some of his skills as a gear maker before becoming a slave to use. He uses wire pulled from the hilt of a recovered sword to pick the locks on the Drellis crystals slave collars freeing Theren and Akronos to cast spells.

The cave in has cut off the water supply to the hall stream as well as provided the party some security from Kelvar and his crew on the top side.

Room 1
Past the door from the hall is evidence of the past water seeping around it and across the room and through the open door on the other side. This room has two chairs, a small table, cobwebs, and two dead warriors. They have obviously been dead a long time and all of their gear is showing it's age.

2 - Common Hall
Large clean hall. Tapestries and marble walls. The floor is littered with about a dozen skeletal corpses. Some bloated white spiders about the size of a mouse scurry out of sight when the party enters.The trickle of water leaves out of the open door to the left.

3 - Hallway
The trickle of water goes down the hall and through the door to the left.

4 - Main Storage Room
Empty barrels, boxes, blankets, clothing, boots, cloaks, tunics, gloves, belts, bolts of coarse cloth, pots, pans, cutlery, clay pottery, glasses, mugs, bags, pouches, backpack, rope, chain, saddle, stirrup, bucket, mop, broom, rags, shovel, lots of rotted food and a pack of 12 still edible dry rations wrapped in wax paper.

5 - Water and Wine Storage
Twenty two barrels, 1 large wine rack with 47 intact bottles and several broken ones. Bottle of blue pills. Blue pills are discovered later to be "purify water" pills.

6 - Cold Food Storage
This chamber has 10 feet of steps leading down into it. The chamber is very cold and you can see your breath in the air. This room is 33 degrees Fahrenheit, held constant by magic. This spell is still running. There is 5 feet of water in the room but it shows signs that it has been much higher. The shelves are knocked over and there is a variety of bags, boxes and bottles floating in the water, The water slowly swirls (clockwise) with the debris drifting along. When explored by Ceress it is found to be slowly draining out through cracks in the flooring in the NW corner.

7 - Kitchen
This large room is obviously a kitchen. A large fireplace dominates the west wall. Long tables fill the center running the length of the room. Pots and pans hang from the ceiling. Bread ovens line the west wall. Barrels, boxes, bowls and bags are littered about the room. Stained plates are stacked in the corner on a small table. A huge black cauldron sits in one corner. A thorough search will reveal a barrel of thick dried glue like substance, various intact bottles with colored liquids, a jar of herbs and your standard kitchen gear.

8 - Hall
This is the serving hall from the kitchen to the dining hall. Double doors on both ends swing open away from the kitchen on hinges that are designed to swing close on their own.

9 - Mess Hall
The walls are plastered, the floor covered with mosaic tiles. The paintings on the walls displays scenes indicating that this room was meant for drinking and debauchery. Four long tables flanked with benches fill the room. Cloaks hang on pegs. One chest and one barrel stand in the corner. Two skeletal figures lie on the floor. A deck of cards are scattered about the table and floor. A huge fireplace is in the north wall. The barrel contains lamp oil, about 200 turns worth. The chest is unlocked and holds 10 torches and two hooded lanterns.
There is a table at the east end of the room that is set with crystal goblets, silver dining cutlery and china plates and 6 nicer chairs. The party takes the silverware.

After exploring the mess hall the party takes some of the rope and swords recovered from storage and the dead and work to pull more supports down in the entry hall way. They succeed with causing more of a cave in hopefully delaying the efforts of the necromancer to gain access.

They then take their first real rest since becoming slaves. They get a full 8 hours of sleep and recover from their trials of escaping being slaves. Feeling refreshed after their rest, they decide to continue to explore the rest of the ruins.

10 - Hall
This hall is a mess of death and damage. At the head of the T intersection to your right is all sorts of charred marks and blackened damage. There are what you would guess are burns, lightning, acid and other scars on the walls, floors and ceilings. There are fragments of bones, clothing, armor and weapons sections all over the hall.

11 - Captain's Quarters
Closed door. Very clean, organized and plush bedroom. Small table, chair, bed, chest, book shelf, tall wooden cabinet. Hidden under pillow, large knife. One corpse that looks like it tried to lock itself in after being wounded.

12 - Armory and Stone & Metal Workshop
This room is divided into two sections. The right section has racks of weapons along the walls. Several suits of thick, padded armor are hung on the walls as well. Several tall thin tapestries. Most of the weapons are armor are strewn about in disarray. This room contains: 4 barrels of Greek Fire, 27 sheaf arrows, 1 two-handed sword, 1 Bastard sword, 1 broken long sword, 1 war hammer, 2 clubs, 3 short swords, 1 heavy crossbow, 1 unstrung long bow, 13 heavy crossbow bolts, 1 12' length of chain.

The left section is a cluttered with miscellaneous metal junk, half finished suits of armor and weapons in need of repair. A large table stands in the center of the room. On the table are several books, dozens of small metallic tools, a large hammer, an anvil and several dozen small metal locks in various stages of repair or disassembly. Several books can be seen on a book shelf and on the main central table. In the east wall is a fireplace and bellows. The books cover subjects like engineering, mechanics and architecture.

13 - Barracks
Thirty bunks, moldy blankets. Three skeletal corpses.

14 - Cells
This small dungeon has four stone and iron bar cells, each 10'x10'. In each cell are three orcish skeletal corpses.

10b - Hall down the T intersection
Further evidence of great magical destruction and death show in every step of this hall. Bits and pieces, bone and armor and weapon fragments.

15 - Commander's Personal Quarters
These are larger personal rooms that seems to be part bed chamber and part office. A large woven rug dominates the central floor. Deep plush comfortable chair. Fireplace chamber set in wall. Crossed rapier swords hang above fireplace. Lutheo and Theren each claim a rapier.

16 - Commander's Personal Quarters
These are larger personal rooms that seems to be part bed chamber and part office. A large woven rug dominates the central floor. Deep plush comfortable chair. Fireplace chamber set in wall. Books and scrolls adorn a bookshelf (information about the local politics).

17 - Commander's Personal Quarters
These are larger personal rooms that seems to be part bed chamber and part office. A large woven rug dominates the central floor. Deep plush comfortable chair. Fireplace chamber set in wall. Nightstand by the bed (book of Ynthar in the nightstand). Lutheo takes the book of Ynthar.

18 - Commander's Personal Quarters
These are larger personal rooms that seems to be part bed chamber and part office. A large woven rug dominates the central floor. Deep plush comfortable chair. Fireplace chamber set in wall. Books on nature and morals and philosophy.

19 - Commander's Personal Quarters
These are larger personal rooms that seems to be part bed chamber and part office. A large woven rug dominates the central floor. Deep plush comfortable chair. Fireplace chamber set in wall. Novels about country side and romances and slice of life stories.

20 - Commander's Personal Quarters
These are larger personal rooms that seems to be part bed chamber and part office. A large woven rug dominates the central floor. Deep plush comfortable chair. Fireplace chamber set in wall. Ceremonial Long Sword and Shield on the wall. Books about Duthelm, Caramus and the Citadel.

21 - Conference Room
Long oak table, 8 plush leather, high backed chairs. Nothing of value that the party could find except bits of bodies everywhere.

22 - Wizard's Laboratory
Several large books are open on the main table. These books are filled with hand written notes some of them focused on strange symbols, runes, diagrams, charts, numbers and/or lists. One large and impressive book is on the floor in the grip of a man in plate armor. He has four arrows sticking out of him as well as a deep gash in his waist. The book is bound and locked.

Also in this room are spell components, acids, alchemical equipment, dried herbs, jar of soot, jar of sand, two pearls worth 50 gold piece each and a jar with several dead insects.

23 - Library & Den
This room is very quiet. Its floor is padded with a moldy, but plush carpet. All walls are lined with darkly stained wooden book cases. At the center of the room is a small table, about which sit four chairs. One chair is tipped over. Several dozen books are strewn about the room. A skeleton in robes lies face down on the floor. The room is lit by a soft bluish light that emanates from a sphere set in a mount on the table. This room is virtually dust free. A thorough search reveals 3 scrolls which the part later discovered to be Cure Wounds, Silence and Lightning Bold. They take these scrolls as well as the glowing light.

24 - The Larger Battle Chamber
The doors to this room are blown off their hinges. There is a glowing thin white line that goes across the door and around the whole room.

There is a large amount of dead in this room. Most of the dead are in a semicircle around the far double doors which are open. There are blast marks on both the near and far walls. There was a huge, pitched battle here that has left stacks of dead in the room. There is a blast radius from the double doors and a broken staff in the doorway.

Several dead skeletal corpses lie about the chamber, apparently having died fighting each other. Mostly humans and elves vs. orcs and ogres. Several dead rats lie about in late stages of decomposition.

The corpses littering the floor seem to be of two opposed groups. Some of the corpses are listed below - the good guys (human, elves and half elves) and the bad guys (orcs, humans, half orcs and ogres):

A warrior with a broken blade thrust through his body. A shield lies next to him.
A robed skeleton face down with a dagger in his back.
Short skeletal body - charred black. Carbon burns on floor around it. Fanged skull, possibly a goblin or other humanoid race. Tattered chain mail.
Warrior in black scale armor, jeweled amulet on chain around neck.
Skeleton in chainmail. Sword through rib-cage, clutching a blank scroll.
Large mummified corpse, ugly humanoid, in chainmail and tunic. War hammer next to him. Slashes all over his body. Duthelm badge. (A flat steel and stained black oak brooch bearing a skull impaled on sword).
Human skeleton. Fighter
Elven skeleton. Studded leather.
Upper half of orcish skeleton. Lower half some 20 yards away.
Elven skeleton. Robes. Non-magical silver ring on one hand.
Human skeleton. Studded leather armor.
Twelve foot tall monstrosity. Appears to be a black skeleton with great claws, protruding spikes and bat-like wings. Appears to have suffered massive damage. (Torn wing, cracked skull, broken claw, broken arm). Pieces of dismembered human bodies all around it.
Elven skeleton. Fine chain armor.
Human skeleton. Plate mail armor.
Ogre skeleton with broken leg. Massive hammer beside him. Remnants of cloak and studded armor. Duthelm badge

A man in black leathers and long black jacket. Badly burnt and damaged body. He has his spell book with him but most of the pages are burned out of it. The higher level spells have been burnt out leaving only some 1st and 2nd level spells in the book. He has a small, locked metal box with intricate carvings. He wears the key to the box on a chain around his neck. When opened by the party they find the box contains a gemstone, a folded map and a severed finger on a chain. The gemstone is a fist-sized emerald colored translucent stone which glows brightly with a green energy and bears a symbol inscribed upon it. The symbol is a triangle inside a triangle inside a circle, the symbol of Ynthar, the faith of the monk and paladin.

After taking a few minutes to rummage through the room and find all the magical items and easily collected and carried valuables, they proceed on.

25 - The anti chamber is just 10 by 10 and the doors at the other end are closed.

26 - Hall with symbol of Ynthar around a pit
This magnificent chamber is adorned with the fine marble, silver inlay and intricate carvings in the stone. The entire chamber is built around a large circular pit in the floor. A symbol is built around pit in the tiles of the floor. Odd runes and glyphs run around the perimeter of the pit. The runes and glyphs are glowing and fading in seemingly random patterns. An eerie greenish mist churns about in the pit, illuminated from within as if by lightning. Oddly rhythmical flickering of green light up the room. The symbol around the pit is obviously the symbol of Ynthar, the faith that both the monk and the paladin follow.


The session ended with the party retreating to the room of the large battle, taking the gem, large map of the continent of Ithria and finger on the chain out of the box. The green gem is the size of a large fist and it has the symbol of Ynthar etched into its surface. They played with the map and gem and found out that if they brought the gem close to the map a point on the SE corner of the continent light up red. They played with the finger on the chain and found that no matter where they positioned it, it always swung and rotated to come to a stop pointing to the SE.


Next session: surrender to the necromancer trying to dig them out and hope for his mercy or find a way to escape...

I think it is perfect that Mark is playing a sailor that idolizes Callister Draabyn!

I can even see there being the occasional "Draabynite" out there that ship captains curse of. Sometimes young men that truly want to emulate the legend, other times just a sea faring term for a crazy seeker of fortune and fame.

"My last crew had this crazy Draabynite kid that swear I heard muttering to the sea "here kraken, kraken, kraken". Didn't last two weeks before he died leaping into the maw of a dragon eel saying that he would handle it while we readied the ship to make way."

The legend lives on!

Session #14
"It Burns When I Pee"

Once we get back from the witches ruins with the news of our impending death, we decided to act quickly against the Scourge. The disease is causing a burning in our flesh, a pounding in our heads and pains in our eyes. Our bodies are dying, all of our physical traits are suffering from it and it's getting harder and harder to concentrate. We have Paragon go into the Drowned Rat Tavern in disguise from his mask, looking for members of the Scourge for us to capture and question.

While waiting outside in an alley, Aruzmathel sees Pigeon walking through the streets away from the area. He is bloodied and bruised. A large fighter type is following him and it looks like he is about to attack him. Aruzmathel cast Message and tells Pigeon to dodge but it is too late. The bruiser grabs him and heads towards an alley. Torgrin says to send him in. Hugh starts running around the block to get to them. Aruzmathel tells Pigeon to go with the pull and then casts Benign Transportation to swap Pigeon and Torgrin.

Not expecting the 70 pound kid in his arms to change into a 240 pound dwarf, the figher drops Torgrin. Torgrin pulls out his ax and asks him what he wanted with the kid. The Bruiser tells Torgrin that Pigeon owes him 50 gold and he wants to get it out of him. Aruzmathel checks with Pigeon on why this guy grabbed him and he says that that he lost a bet and owes him 5 gold, well maybe 50 depending on how he looks at it. After some conversation with Torgrin and Hugh, the bruiser leaves and continues looking for Pigeon.

Pigeon explains the following:
Aruzmathel, I must speak with you. About the Street Rats... one of our brothers, a young thief named Saffa, picked the pockets of two armored men at the west market. He came back to our hide out with some gold and food. And a medallion. Beaten bronze. It had this symbol on it. (He sketches out the same symbol that the party saw before – the symbol associated with the Scourge). This is the symbol of the Scourge, isn't it? Soon after Saffa showed us his treasure, eight armored men stormed our hide out. There was a terrible battle. We fought, but there were two many. They had armor and swords and three of them had magic. Ten of the Street Rats were killed. Four were captured. I and three others escaped. I followed these men who had the four captives. They went into the sewer. I can show you where. I followed them through two sections of sewer until they saw me and chased me. I escaped. Just barely.  I think I know where they were going. Based on where I managed to come up out of the sewer, I think I know what building. I can show you. No one knows the streets as well as the Street Rats. We know every nook and cranny of the city and many of us know the sewers as well. On behalf of the Street Rats, I humbly ask you to help me free my four brothers.

One of the spell casters chanted and threw a spell. Several of us were struck by it.. He cut open his arm and his blood flowed and we were all struck. We have all been sick all night and this morning. What is this sickness? Can you cure it?

We tell Pigeon that we will try to cure them and kill all the members of the Scourge that we can find. We go back to the Street Rats hideout. Saffa had a stash that Pigeon knows about, being the head of the gang and all, and in there is the pouch he got off the Scourge member. There is some coins and a leather tie with two keys on it inside the pouch.

Hugh gives Pigeon three silver and tells him to take the other members of the gang to lay low in a tavern for the night. Pigeon argues that he wants to go and to help be we insist that he and the other surviving members of the Street Rats must stay out of this next battle

We take the keys to Finnegan to use divination on them and the dead cleric body in the dungeon. He tells Aruzmathel that he has discovered the meaning of 17 symbols and the meaning of 4 derivatives of Huridian and would love to spend the next three days talking about it. Aruzmathel is very tempted to but realizes that his blood is burning, his head is aching and the back of his eyeballs itch. While the new knowledge that he has spent so much time searching for would be nice, the death at the end of that time wouldn't kind of off set it. The Huridian updates will have to wait till after we kill lots of the Scourge and cure the disease that is killing us.

Finnegan uses his divination and receives the following:

He who held these keys and trust last moon
Does lair at the House of Mora.

Tread not the daylight gate
Fire, steel and spell shall rend your flesh from bone

Rivers of filth and darkness
Lead to Blood and glory.

Sight of your prey's lair
Precedes great knowledge and fortuitous victory

Beware the ringing bells
For by their sound your fall is entoned.


We prep for battle and head out to the sewer entrance that Pigeon told us about.
We drop in and take up marching order of Torgrin, Hugh, Aruzmathel and Paragon. Torgrin is checking for traps and Aruzmathel is looking for magic.

Torgrin uses his dwarf senses to lead us to the right spot through the sewers. While moving through the sewers Torgrin sees a giant rat ahead and engages it in combat. The rat gets in a solid bite on him before he kills it.

Torgren goes up to see where the rat was digging in the wall and thinks that he heard some footsteps and maybe a voice. Aruzmathel puts on his blindfold of x-ray vision and about 10 feet in he sees two figures in a basement digging and prying into the ceiling of the room they are in. They are breaking into coffins in the cemetery above them. They take the body back through their tunnel to the house of the Scourge which they probably picked for ease of grave robbing.

We continue down the sewer and find a door that should lead to the house we are looking for. The keys fit the door and unlock it. Hugh pushes the door open and it makes a great squeaking sound and there is a slight moan heard somewhere in the distance. Hugh moves down the hall and Torgrin follows. They look around the bend in the hall and see a 9 foot tall at the shoulders headless undead. It has chains attached to its body and to the walls with lots of bells on the undead and chains.

After way too much debate we cast silence on the undead and then toss our rust grenade at it. All the chains and bells rust out and the rust finally settles. Hugh charges it and attacks. It pulls its sword and hits Hugh as he gets inside it's range, but the large sword breaks while cutting into Hugh. It continues to pound Hugh and Hugh pounds it back. Paragon uses an impressive spell against undead and does massive damage to it, dropping it to the ground. Hugh sees an eyeball laying on the floor and squishes it. The undead stands back up and both Hugh and Torgrin hack it to pieces. They continue to squish other pieces of it that we find strewn about the room. Once all of these eyeballs and other bits of it have been destroyed it stops regenerating.

We advance into the complex. We find a kitchen and storage room and then off in another direction we find 4 stone coffins. Hugh advances in and pulls the lid off one of the coffins and finds a partial undead. It is a dry husk below the waist and above the waist is an undead in the creation. Hugh stabs it in the eye and then stabs it in the other eye. It starts regenerating. The coffin is magical and creating the zombie and regenerating it. We decide to leave the undead in the coffins so we don't leave any obvious traces of being this far into the complex. We go across the hall and find another 4 coffins.

The only way further into the complex is through the kitchen. Paragon casts Silence on a coin that Hugh carries and we move in and attack the ogre that is working there. Another ogre comes in and joins the battle and we kill them both.

Paragon heals up the team from the battle but discovers that Torgrin and Aruzmathel still have the spider bites and they don't heal up. He tries to remove the poison but for some reason he can't.

After the ball is over, we hand the boy back over to House Tenney and escort the girl back to her house with her family. Lord Jandosh thanks us for the great job tonight.

We had the two prisoners from the attack taken back to House Qaigen and put into separate interrogation room. One is a half ogre fighter and the other is a human cleric.

The next morning we decide to interrogate the prisoners. Paragon doesn't want to be part of the interrogation so he goes up to the house library. We start the interrogation on the fighter.

The fighter plays if tough and wont answer any of our questions and Aruzmathel warns him that he'll get handed over to the crazy dwarf if he doesn't start talking. When he continues he silence in the face of our questions Aruzmathel tells Torgrin to break him. Torgrin has a lemon brought down from the kitchen. Without a word of warning he cuts off the half ogres eyelid and then pours lemon juice into it. Hugh gets upset and leaves the room to check on the cleric, Aruzmathel is very surprised but stays to follow through on the interrogation. The fighter still refuses to speak and after a few moments of warnings of worse things to come, Hugh comes in and asks to see Torgrin outside.

While they are out of the room, the fighter talks to Aruzmathel and says that his name is Dugarkin but won't give any more useful information. When Hugh and Torgrin come back in, Hugh makes Dugarkin the offer of he can give us information or he can die. He promises to have his eyesight returned as a good faith effort (from when Aruzmathel blinded him in the battle). We call in Paragon and Aruzmathel briefs him outside of the room that the prisoner tripped and fell and Torgrin cut his eyelid off.

After his eyesight is returned and the eyelid is healed, Dugarkin gives us lots of information in exchange for the promise that we will let him live.

He was hired by Jorman the Red, a red bearded human who came to the Gilren House apartments where he was staying in the poor part of town. The cleric's name is Shadak and Jorman the Red is his boss. He didn't know the other fighter in the group. They wanted to capture the woman. Shadak had others working for him inside the building as informants. He didn't know who the boy was. He was hired three days ago. Shadak is low ranking a priest working for the Scourge, the group that heavily uses blood magic. Shadack gave each of them a magical tattoo before the job started. The Scourge has a temple in the west section of town.  He was paid 10 gold for a couple hours work. The blood priests have mentioned the name Arxkula in hushed tones. He heard them in a tavern called the Drowned Rat down by the docks. He knew they were blood priests from the tattoos and the lower ranking ones wear studded leather and wear blacks and reds.

We let Dugarkin know that we will put him out the city tomorrow.

We figure that it would be best to have as much information on the Scourge as possible before interrogating the cleric so we check with Vordak, the Master of Arms for information about the Scourge and he doesn't have any.

We go out to talk to Pigeon about the Scourge. They have lost several members to them. They have a liar in the west end. They are hiring and growing. They keep their inner circle private and hidden. The Street Rats have lost 4 members this month to the Scourge.

When we get back in we find the Rinbura is waiting for us in the lounge. He had talked with Aruzmathel the day before about hiring them for a job. His nephew works in a small mining town, Churrat, to the north for house Xevani. House Xevani is trying to hush something up. We give him our blessing to talk to the nobles of the house to see about hiring us to find out what is going on.

The spider bites are starting to burn and Paragon has been searching for a cure without any luck at this point.

We call in Paragon to assist with the interrogation of Shadak. Paragon wakes him up and removes his gag and gives him some water. He lets him know that his only possible chance of survival is to work with us.

The priest calls out "Arxkula, forgive me, I have failed you". Then he says (in Iskren) "Blood Death" and blood pours out of every orifices and he dies in a bubbling pile of mess. Aruzmathel checks the body for magic and it has a very distinct and powerful aura.

We decide that we need to pursue the poison from the spider bites in all methods possible. Jamdin is one of the best healers so we go to see him. He says that since it is magical he probably wouldn't be able to help. He recommends that we go see Corthyra the Witch who lives 2 miles outside of town or Crayston who might have some knowledge of these things. 

Crayston on the north end of town is known for having the most knowledge in obscure bits of religion and the dark arts. He is of House Winair. He says that it is a high level necromancy touch spell delivered through the bite of a summoned creature. He says that Corthyra might be able to help.

We go out to the crumbling tower that the witch is said to live in. She answers the door and is a 7' 6" tall and nasty looking woman covered with disease. She says "yes, yes, yes, the spider bite, yes, come in". She dishes out a bowl of soups stuff for each of us. Hugh examines it and see all sorts of fun stuff in it. He samples it and it's not too bad.

She pokes and prods the wound on Aruzmathel and gets some puss out and claims that it is stage two. She has heard of the blood mages and that they are walking the streets of Drekkel and Asylum. First, the bad news... Arxkula the Mighty, a lesser lord of Ferunus, one of the 12 blood lords of the demon on Azor. She has seen the spider spell before but the spell that was delivered was far beyond the ability of the cleric that cast the spiders. The "Burning Blood" spell is a mighty spell that is demon magic. The only way to cure this is by drinking the blood of the one who cast the spell, and that wasn't the one in the alley who cast the spiders. We will suffer several days of declining health and abilities before succumbing to a horrible death if we do not reverse the magic...

Upon returning from their trip into the countryside for sightseeing and grave robbing, Paragon, Torgren and Hugh regrouped with Aruzmathel and Oliff in their quarters of House Quagen. Aruzmathel and Oliff were updated about the tomb and most importantly, about Paragon claiming the magical eye in a way that will make it hard to dispute its ownership by other party members. In addition to the treasures already mentioned in the previous summary, the three adventurers also found the following in the tomb: a Mask of Disguise, three potions of regeneration and a "Scroll of Identification".

The Mask of Disguise is a simple magical mask that alters the appearance of the face and hair, but no other features such as height and weight.

The Scroll of Identification will, to the best of its ability, identify the name and nature of any enchanted object placed on the parchment. Only objects small enough to fit on the parchment can be identified. The identification appears as text written below the item. It is unknown if the scroll has a certain number of charges and if so, how many are remaining.

Aruzmathel spent his week selling captured spell books to the Drakkel Wizards guild and searching for a scholar that could teach him one of the few magical codes he has not yet learned. His obsession with deciphering Huridian has lead him to learn Inedka, Iretic, Iskren, Parueli, Thullic, Kartese and now the Goblin magical codes.

During the storytelling and Aruzmathel casting covetous glances at Paragons left eye, the Master Chamberlin comes to our quarters and summons us to a meeting next morning.

When the party meets with the Master Chamberlin and The Master of Arm the next morning they are informed that their services are needed as body guards.

Three days from now House Bresslar will be holding it's annual ball. Lord Jandosh, a guild member of House Quaigen, has arranged the engagement of his daughter Natalia to a noble son and heir of House Bresslar. Natalia has several other suitors that might take offense to the engagement, most notably a young man from Prad Ironworks, and one from House Winari. There are concerns from House Quaigen that there might be an attempt on her life after the announcement so we are to be her bodyguards. The ball is very formal and no weapons or heavy armor will be allowed. We are all to be in dress cloths and be on our best behavior.

It's estimated that there will be about 100-200 guests, 50 servants, many personal bodyguards and house guards from both Bresslar and Quagen. There will be a large mid-evening show and following that will be the announcement of the engagement, bringing the two houses closer together in alignment.

Paragon suggests that the best way to protect a target is to remove the target. We should just "bag the bitch" till the announcement, let her out for that moment and then bag her back up, all for her own protection of course. Unfortunately, her presence is expected at the ball and the party decides against Paragon's repeated recommendations. Instead, we will just keep a close watch on everything and everyone at the ball.

On the day of the ball the weather turns bad and it starts raining. The party takes three coaches from House Quaigen to pick up the Jandosh family and escort them to the ball.

Once we meet the family, Aruzmathel casts an Extended Protection from Arrows on Natalia.

We arrange to have the mother, Natalia and her younger sister, Cassindri ride in the first coach with Hugh. Torgren rides with the driver of the coach, out in the rain. The 16 year old Cassindri quickly develops a crush on Hugh. In the second coach we have the father, their servant and Hugh with Aruzmathel ridding with the driver. Paragon rides in the third coach.

Once we get to the social hall, Aruzmathel dries himself and Torgren with a cantrip. The coin from the Drakkel Festival of the Coin is on display in the art gallery and Oliff heads off to view it.

Cassindri asks Hugh to dance with her and he can't refuse. Every party member gets plenty of distractions from their job of guarding Natalia during the night.

An old man with a white beard by the name of Rynbura comes up and asks to talk with Aruzmathel aside from the crowd a while. Aruzmathel tells him that he is working and would love to talk to him tomorrow at House Quaigen. He lets Aruzmathel know that he has heard of his groups skills and wants to hire them through House Quaigen and accepts the offer to come and meet with them tomorrow morning.

Oliff notices a Grum dancing troupe and watches them for a while. Oliff sees someone in black and gray talking to himself while watching Natalia. He lets the rest of the party know through the house rings about this and we all look for him. Aruzmathel casts an Extended See Invisibility on himself and scans the room. While looking for him, Aruzmathel spots an old man dressed in nice robes with Huridian symbols around the collar. Another fighter type man is striding towards him but Aruzmathel looses sight of them in the crowd.

Oliff overhears that two waiters are distressed because they have run out of gray pepper sauce (an inside joke among the party) and then he sees the mysterious man in gray again. He is momentarily torn between his duty to to follow the mystery man in grey and his desire to run into the kitchen and save the day with his own batch of grey pepper sauce. After a moment's hesitation, he hurries after the man in grey.

Aruzmathel sees five men in Prad Ironwork colors, but they appear to just be a noble and his guards and servant.

The formal dance begins...  according to the rules of this dance, women choose their partners. Cassindri drags Hugh out on the dance floor and a young grum lady takes Oliff. A short woman takes Torgren out to the dance floor. Because of Paragon's ridiculously high Charisma and good looks, four women (actually, three women and an effeminate male elf) want to take Paragon out onto the dance floor and fight for the honor. After a minor scuffle between the four, the blonde wings and grabs Paragon, who can't refuse.

Torgren and Hugh do a terrible job of dancing, Oliff trips himself and almost flattens his partner. Paragon, however, dazzles everyone with some fancy footwork.

When the formal dance ends, a tall and well-built man wearing the green and black colors of House Amnithor approaches Aruzmathel. He introduces himself as Guarell of House Amnithor. His house would like to offer Aruzmathel's group a position with House Amnithor. They specialize in armored security, mercenary companies, siege engines and other related fields. Aruzmathel informs him that we are currently on assignment and he is unable to be distracted at this time, but will get back to him within a week with the response from his group.

Aruzmathel asks a house servant to find out the name and house of the man with the Huridian runes on his robes. He tips him a gold for the information. The servant quickly returns and tells Aruzmathel that the old man is named Crayston and that he is an independent scholar currently in the employ of House Winari and that he has a reputation for being something of a recluse.

Meanwhile, Oliff turns down the grum woman for another dance and instead grabs a full tray of crab puffs. Oliff asks a servant to keep an eye on the man in gray and tips him a crab puff for his services.

The main show starts with a wild array of dancing and jumping and minor magic tricks. Natalia and the girlfriends that she's been hanging out with start moving through the crowd. One of her friends drops back and tries to ask Aruzmathel a question. She attempts to position herself to block Aruzmathel and delay him. Aruzmathel steps around her and continues. Paragon sees Natalia do something with her ring and she fades out as she is walking between two people. Her friends don't seem phased by this. Paragon casts Invisibility Purge and it shows her moving through the door. All except for Hugh follow her into the backstage area. Aruzmathel, Torgren and Oliff run after he and Paragon goes back inside and informs the master Chamberlin that she is running and asks if there are any other potential targets.

Oliff casts Expeditious Retreat and ends up catching up to her. He tries to grab her but trips and falls spectacularly and drops both of the remaining crab puffs he was carrying. Aruzmathel casts Alter Self and turns into an Aswani for the greater speed and senses and continues running after her.

Oliff casts Sleep and drops her. A young man runs out of the bushes of a nearby building calling Natalia's name (apparently he can see her invisible body fall). The young man draws a sword and yells "She's not marrying that maggot!". Aruzmathel casts Sleep on the man but he resists the effects. Oliff cast Sleep on him and this time he drops. A dark beam of energy comes crackling out of the darkness and slams into Aruzmathel. He staggers a couple of feet under the impact of the spell, but he saves and resists the effects.

Three men burst forth from the bushes at a run and attack Aruzmathel and Oliff with swords and a wand of stunning, With a spell, the wielder of the wand summons ten  large spiders. The spiders quickly swarm over Aruzmathel and Oliff and begin trying to bite them through their clothing.

Torgren and Paragon soon arrive and join in the fray. Between Aruzmathels Web, Sculpted Burning Hands and Blindness, Oliffs Sleep spell, Torgren's cleaving attacks and finally Hugh joining in the battle, all three opponents are blinded and defeated. The large one with the sword is killed and the other two and the young man (Natalia's romance interest, apparently) are captured, bound and brought back by the house guards that came with Hugh.

We strip the magic wand, magic armor, Natalia's necklace and ring and take all the prisoners back to the social hall. We communicate through the House Quaigen rings that we have retrieved the running daughter and that it looks like she was trying to run off and elope. Her father asks if we can make her presentable in time for the planed announcement in a couple minutes. Once we get back to the hall, Aruzmathel uses spells to make all of us presentable and the father and guards from both houses march her up onto stage and make the announcement of her engagement.

Another mission accomplished by Team Forced Recon!

1) Little detail. Paragon used lots of healing spells to bring him back up to good health.
2) Because Paragon is mean. I don't think that he meant to kill him, but he didn't seem to show any remorse about it after he checked and found no pulse.
3) There was more damage done to the party and we had a lot of cannon fodder soaking up damage for us too. I didn't record all of it, it was pretty late at that point.
4) Apparently not.
Thanks for the questions

Session #10
9/21/07


While the rest of the party was dealing with the Oricalcum smuggler, Paragon was out in the countryside doing etchings of Traxien glyphs in some ruins and returns from a nice day that was amazing encounter free. Oliff decides to join in the local baking contest for the next couple days so won't be able to join us if anything comes up.

Aruzmathel is given a 5 pound brick of Orichcalcum as his gift from Mistress Alia Qaigen instead of his spell book.

The Chamberlin asked Aruzmathel and his team to meet with him at the tenth hour in the east meeting room.

While the rest of the team squabbled over who was the team leader, Aruzmathel let the Chamberlin know that he would get his men in line and be there in the morning, and as a side note, the crew should be given decaf from now on because they apparently get riled up easily in the morning.

Master of Arms and Master Chamberlin are in the meeting. Garalich was robbed last night, one of their guild members. His business is the Wandering Eye, an import/export trader. He is a cashier specialist and was working on certain items that we're not yet declared. His 2 children (son 14 and daughter 7) were taken as well as the scrolls that were not yet declared and some other items. The scrolls are details of religious ceremony of a border clan of Keshier, the Ahsetu clan.

He lives in the Tower Bright district of the city. We have a house messenger leads us there. Garalich tells us that the thieves took told, his wife's jewelry, some tapestries, carpets, the scrolls he was working on, a number of tribal artifacts, etc. Oh, yes, they also took the children.

We examine the house and by the little bit of mud we guess that the thieves came in from the back door and went up the stairs and robbed the upstairs master bedroom and study.
Torgren goes into the back yard and checks for tracks. He finds one from boots and one that looks like it was made by webbed, four toed feet (not a saurian or orc, but not sure what. About 4 feet tall and light with a tail). There are also one set of kid foot prints, small and probably the daughters. It looks like someone had scrapped off their shoes before going into the house. There is something green in it, tiny green leaves. There were three sets of boot tracks, two hard and one soft, two sets of webbed feet and the little girl's prints.

We check out the boys room and it looks like there was a struggle. There was no struggle in the girls room. None of the other rooms look like they were searched. The parents were at a social engagement last night when this happened.

Torgren follows the footprints into the street and Paragon finds that there is a manhole that they could have gone down. Torgren finds some scrapes on the manhole and some mud.

The main headquarters for Prad Ironworks is about four blocks away. They specialize in weapon and armor and the occasional siege engine. It's doubtful that they would have been involved in the robbery, but we keep in mind how close we are to them.

The translation notes were taken as well. The scrolls would have been worth about 5-10,000 gp on the open market. The religious ceremony was for conjuring up the ancestors of the clan. They don't know if this ceremony would actually work or not.

We use the house ring to call Fennigan to try to find out what the webbed footed creature is. He will research it and get back to us.

We go back to the manhole and Torgren drops down and looks around, using the Light spell from Aruzmathel. He finds a doll head on the ground in there a little way down one direction. He heads off that direction and gets to an intersection in the sewer section. Just down the right branch he finds the arm of a doll. We all go down into the sewer and catch up to Torgren.

We want to find out how deep the water is in the channel so we have Torgren jump in. He is only 4'4" and the "water" covers his head, being about 5' deep. The walkways are about 2' wide. We have Hugh and Aruzmathel on one walkway side of the sewer and Torgren and Paragon on the other.

Three giant (weighing more than Torgren) rats come down the walkway, one chewing on a doll leg. Aruzmathel used web to hold two in place, but the third jumps into the water. It swims on and ends up attacking Paragon. Aruzmathel takes it out with a Hail of Stones. Torgren kills the entangled rat in front of him. We easily kill off the other rat that is trapped in the webs.

Torgren tacks the rats and finds where the rats came from (left turn in the passage) and where there was another doll leg. The walkway that Hugh was walking on crumbles at one point and he falls into the filth.

We get to another crossway and find a doll arm down the left branch of the tunnel. We hear a bubbling down the way and as we get closer we see what looks like webs that are across the passage. There is a giant rat in the webs and it is being dissolved down to the bones. There are other bones and items in the acid web creature.

Aruzmathel detects magic on the items in the creature. It looks like there are six magical items in it of average power. There is a ring on a skeletal hand and a rusty iron sphere about the size of a baseball on a belt, but Aruzmathel can't make out the other itmes.

Aruzmathel cast Resist Energy, Acid on Paragon and gives him the ring of healing. Paragon then casts Nimbus of the Balor and charges the acid creature and attacks it. When he hits the creature with his body the Nimbus of the Balor bursts into flame and does vast amounts of damage. The creature goes into spasms and green slimly fits. Hugh slashes it and does lots of damage with his flaming sword.

It lashes out with tendrils and hits Aruzmathel and Torgren and starts burning them and dragging them in. Torgren pulls the tendril off his leg. Paragon jumps into the center of the creature and burns it up more. What is left of it drops into the water and starts to make moves to get away. Hugh and Aruzmathel deal the final fire damage to it and its remains slide into the water.

Aruzmathel points out the magical items and Paragon fishes them out of the remains that are both on the path and in the water. Ring, rusted metal sphere, 2 potions in glass containers, dagger, skull with a magical gem in its eye.

We contact Fannigan through the House Quagin Ring and he confirms that we are probably looking for Boglings by the description of the footprints.

Torgren continues tracking and he finds some tracks at the next intersection and the last leg of the doll heading straight down the passage. He leads on and steps on a trap that swings a heavy weighted spike into his sternum and impales his body. Paragon jumps into the water and avoids the swinging Torgren and spike. Hugh and Aruzmathel jump into the water to avoid the swinging trap on their side.

There are more pressure plates down the hall and Torgren leads us through them. Once we get to the next intersection Torgren finds a doll torso in the left tunnel. We go down it a little ways and then it turns to the right.

We go around the corner and find a 9-10 foot tall zombie standing in the center of the sewer. It is headless and has an extra arm attached to its chest, each arm is holding a large weapon. Aruzmathel casts Bristle on Hugh before he charges into battle. Hugh hits it and his armor spikes hit it too for plenty of damage.

Aruzmathel casts spells into it, Hugh and Torgren pound it and Paragon moves up to heal Torgren but takes a nasty hit and loses his spell. It pounds the party and the party pounds back. Torgren swings the final blow to the zombie and then drops into unconsciousness.

There is a glyph on the body of the creature and we cut out that patch and take it with us. We head up to the next intersection and find a little blue doll dress stuffed into a crack in the wall of the passage going forward. It leads to a large area that has a large circular pool and a lantern with a glowing crystal on the wall. The water is rushing in from one direction and goes out the other three directions.

Hugh goes into the water and finds a latch in the pool. He pulls it and then finds that one of the blocks of stone can be pushed, leading to a passage under the water. He lets us know and then goes through finding a cavern with a torch burning. He hears two voices talking from a distance. After checking out the area he lets us know by the rings that it is safe for us to come in. After we are all in the area, Aruzmathel casts Prestidigitation to dry us all off. Paragon casts silence on a coin. We advance and Paragon peaks around the corner and sees a man talking to the son of the merchant. Both men are armed and it looks like the son was in on the job. We shift back, leaving Paragon out of the silence and able to hear the conversation.

There are many people in this thief den and it looks like a professional gang. The leader is telling the boy that it will give him lots of marks in the Scourge Gang if he kills his sister. There was about 10-12 bandits (mage, grum, woman, leader, ogre, etc.).

Paragon motions us back out of the room and back out of the water entrance. He briefs us on what he saw. After talking about it, we decide to contact the Master of Arms through the House Quagin rings and tell him that we want plenty of backup. He can spare 8 men right now or more in a couple hours. We want to wait the couple of hours with the 12 men (including a cleric). We meet with these men at a local tavern. There are 11 solders, one captain, a cleric and a low ranking mage)

We head back in and find that they have discovered our presence. We hurry into the room with the pool and find that the trap door is open. Paragon, Hugh and Torgren head into the water, but as they reach the turn in the water they run into a guard. Hugh pushes past Paragon and fights the guard and kills him. He then moves to the end of the tunnel and comes up at another guards feet. Hugh kills that guard and we start getting everyone else into the room. The enemy mage comes around the corner and is surprised by us. We move up and slaughter the mage.

We recon the room from a distance and then Paragon throws the Silence coin in and Aruzmathel follows it up with a Web spell getting the little girl and an orc fighter stuck and the woman and ogre entangled. The rest of the party moves in. Paragon moves up, attacks the traitor son and drops him with a critical hit. Aruzmathel tries to blind the woman sorcerer/evil bitch. Torgren moves in and slaughters one of the thugs and Hugh swings at one and trips and sprawls on the ground.

One of the thugs comes around the Web corner and throws a flask of acid or something into the guards. Aruzmathel goes around the corner of the web as the crazy bitch is dragging the girl out of the web with a sword to her chest. Aruzmathel tries to use Baleful Transportation on her and she saves. She then runs out dragging the child.

Hugh and Aruzmathel chase her. The rest of the party warp up the last of the enemy between some of them surrendering and killing the rest.

Hugh and Aruzmathel catch up to the witch and are in a stand off with her saying that if we advance, cast a spell or try anything she will kill the little girl. Aruzmathel uses Benign Transportation to swap the places of Hugh and the little girl. The bitch cuts the girl before the spell could take effect but the girl squirmed enough to make the dagger miss her vital spots. Hugh moves from his new position to block the only exit of the witch. She takes a swing at him and fumbles and falls. When she stands up she throws a dagger and it glances off Hugh's armor.

Aruzmathel casts web and catches her in the middle of it. Paragon heals the little girl.

We get our party into position and Aruzmathel drops the web. She has gutted herself and used her blood to write 18 glyphs in the floor. There is also a blank sheet of paper. These were written in the Iskren code with a few subtle twists on it. Aruzmathel deciphers the magic that was used and decides that it is blood magic, Transmutation in nature, probably 1st or 2nd level, for communication. Like a message or sending.

We recovered all the scrolls and the artifacts that were stolen from Garalich as well as looting all the bodies. Aruzmathel makes sure to search the witch for any spell book she might have.

We head out through the tavern's secret entrance that the witch was trying to escape through. Since it is associated with the thief guild, Paragon sets it on fire after us.

We make it back to Hugh's horse that was tethered a block away without any incident. Before we leave the alley, Hugh becomes visible again so he can load gear and ride his horse back to house Quagin. As Hugh is putting things into his horses saddle bag Torgren notices that someone is watching us. Hugh takes us thorough a long round about rout back towards house Qaugin. A couple minutes into the rout, Torgren tells us that we are still being followed. We double back on the person and he dodges into a houses bushes. Hugh asks him "is there anything I can help you with neighbor" but there is no response? Torgren goes in and tries to grapple him and gets hit with something that knocks him back on his ass, then the guy teleports out. While he was following us he kept checking a little pendant around his neck. Aruzmathel checks the area for magic and sees the residual from his teleport and finds the magical traces of where he teleported to a few blocks away.

We head out and after we are confident that we have lost him we find a tavern with a large, private room to look through the treasure.

Each of the 8 bricks is 5 pounds, and has a glyph of the Red Eye Corp. Aruzmathel drains one of the bricks and checks it for magic but it has none. Apparently the glyph was due to a metal piece being in it, but it has been removed. This missing metal might have been a tracking symbol.

Hugh tries to open the chest while Aruzmathel is looking at the oricalcum and he finds a needle trap with his gloves, fortunately avoiding the poison. The lock is complicated so Aruzmathel uses Knock to open it. Hugh goes about setting the coins into stacks and counting them and finds it is filled with 800 platinum and 350 gold (Drakellian mint) two small red gems (blood opals) and a fire agate.

The only magic item we have from the battle is the green potion.
There is 47 gold from the bodies, some basic non-magical equipment, some weapons, and the broken shards of the flaming sword.
There are four papers written in Southern. One is a map with two levels of a house with an address for house Winari, the house we were just in, marked Safe House #7.

Two papers are official, stamped documents that are letters of credit. One is credit voucher from Argenthouers Vault House and declares a value of 10,000 Drakkellian Gold Lords. It is made out to someone named Rancard. The second credit voucher is valued at 7,500 gold and drawn upon another bank. The fourth document is a letter of introduction for Rancard to Fallenkor, a wizard that might be interested in the product.
The spell book is from the battle mage.

We go back to House Quagen and meet with Burver, the Master of Arms. We explain the details and reasons for our attack, but he is concerned and wants to bring it to the attention of more of the nobles.

We then move the meeting to the library and meet with Burver, Morkei, Lord Kryton and Guild Representative Darian. We retell the story. They say it's possible that House Winari might have seen our house symbol and track it back to us.

After talking it over they decide that we should get a standard missions 10% cut from the take of this attack. Our take comes out to a 5 pound brick of oricalcum, 1,000 gp, the spell book and the green potion of regeneration (1d12 plus 6 rounds heals 5 points per round). Torgren gets the potion, Aruzmathel and Oliff split the brick and share the spell book and Torgren and Hugh split the gold.

Before we retire for bed, one of the house guards reports that the Horathi Sorian that Hugh was looking for was seen at the Wounded Keel Tavern playing cards with a mix of humans and orcs. Oliff decides to stay at the house but wants us to bring him back some Sorian meat if possible. The Wounded Keel Tavern is a tavern which is built into a permanently moored ship at the docks. It is a rough tavern with a seedy clientele.

Hugh, Aruzmathel and Torgren go to the tavern and find the saurian Bael playing cards. There is one other saurian at the bar but it doesn't look like they are together. One guy glances at the table regularly but we are not sure if he is part of the gang that Finnegan mentioned.

Aruzmathel goes to the bar pretending not to know the other two of his group. Torgren goes and joins the card game. Hugh goes and talks to one of the bouncers and lets him know that there might be a conflict as he tries to arrest a criminal and is told to take it outside. Hugh walks up and pulls out his sword and denounces Bael as a murderer and that he needs to go with Hugh to meet justice. Many weapons in the room are drawn. Bael growls, shoves back from the table and grabs a weapon. Hugh sticks Bael during this opportunity. Aruzmathel holds a spell for the first one from the crowd that joins Baels side. Bael swings at Hugh and misses twice. Torgren smashes one of the guys coming up from the crowd and Aruzmathel blinds another one.

Aruzmathel sees an org down a potion and draw his sword. Bael hits Hugh. Aruzmathel casts an extended duration Spectral Hand. Several of the guys are on Hugh and he takes a couple hits. There are two on Torgren and they do some serious beatings on him. Hugh takes a serious bite out of Bael. Aruzmathel hits Bael with Belker Claws through the Spectral Hand and drops him. Torgren drops his guy. Hugh takes another solid hit. Hugh strikes and drops one and then cleaves and drops a second fighter, offering up to the final orc that was against him to surrender. Aruzmathel drops the orc on Hugh with Belker Claws. The guy on Torgren pulls out of combat after seeing so many drop but the org moves into combat to replace him. Aruzmathel uses spectral hand to shocking grasp and takes out the commander in the breast plate that was retreating. Hugh swings and misses the org, Aruzmathel hits him hard with a shocking grasp and Torgren misses. The org pounds Torgren for heavy damage. Torgren pounds the org and cleaves off his right leg and drops him.

Torgren drops when he comes out of his rage. Aruzmathel checks the bodies for magic and finds that there are two potions one that looks obviously like healing so he gives to Torgren and brings him back up (the other radiates transmutation magic).

The half orc that Hugh spared the life of comes up and thanks him for sparing his life. He asks for his name and Hugh gives it to him.

Once we get Bael out of the bar Hugh checks his body for valuables. We head back to the house, go into the stables and Hugh lets Torgren do the honors of decapitating the body.

Hugh delivers the head to Finnegan. Finnegan is taken aback but thanks Hugh. Hugh has someone within the house mount the saurians weapon on a placard and gives it to Finnegan. Hugh then takes the body to the city morgue (somehow several steaks lighter from its flank, thanks to Oliff) and drops it off.