Starday, 25 Lamashan

After having a little fun with our chosen giant commander, we somberly realized we still didn’t have enough rings + amulets to safely enter the field up on the mountain. Well technically we might have, but nobody really wanted to be subject to the scrying that the amulets left one vulnerable to.

So Takkad and Sabin when invisible and had magic detection on when they windwalked over to the Lamashtu temple to see if there were any likely looking treasure chests or living bearers of said amulets and rings. It was, of course, still semi-collapsed, and completely dark inside. Sabin had the advantage there, but couldn’t communicate to Takkad in windwalk form so I gather there was some wispy hand signals or something employed. (I wasn’t along; I just got a summary of their trip when they returned.)

The main chamber had 3 passages, but two had collapsed. There were idols of things vaguely dragonic and lion-like. In windwalk form, the collapsed passages were less of an issue than might otherwise be the case, but still they proved uninteresting. The passage going straight ahead had little rubble, and led to an antechamber with stairs down. The antechamber held the tattered clothing of three bodies – less cautious adventurers, I suppose – and nothing there radiated magic. The stairway led to a room that looked like a torture room, but that also appeared to be a deadend.

Returning to the entrance they tried the right passage. They were able to pass through the rubble, but it ended in a square room after 30′ of piled rubble. This room also had three exits from it.

• The right one held a stagnant pool.
• The middle one led to a large cathedral-like space which seemec to be a shrine to Lamashtu. Takkad sensed a presence there, but then these clerics are sometimes just on edge.
• The left one held benches and cabinets, but little else of interest.

Returning to the entrance, they tried to go left but it was impassable even in windwalk state.

That seemed to be it in the temple, so they returned and reported. To prepare, I case see invisible, mirror image, and spell resistance. I figured anything we found in a temple would be likely to try to cast a spell or two.

We windwalked, and entered the temple. By previous agreement, we made our way to the cathedral room, It didn’t take long at all to detect a shadowy figure .. or was it figures? .. at the far end of the room. I waited until the Usual Suspects were close enough together and then cast haste on our group.

There wasn’t just a couple. There were eight. Sabin used his sign of wrath and one shadow was seriously injured. 4 shadows turned on Sabin, but most of them hit the images from his mirror image spell. Takkad channelled positive energy, and one shadow fell. Avia channeled too, and three more were killed. Kane likewise channelled, and two more disappeared. And then by golly, it turns out they didn’t care much for fire, so I “channelled” a fireball that took out the remainder.

The altar was magic. There was a magic black painted metal chalice. There was a wand. There was a black dagger. And all these things were magic. We quickly determined we had

[1643] decanter of endless water
[1644] adamantine dagger, +3, decorated with genuine iconic Lamashtu figures
[1645] a wand of soul binding [4 charges]

Kane wanted to destroy the altar, so our team’s adamantine weapons were put to good use. He followed with a consecrate spell, which he apologetically explained would last a lot less time than he’d like but that too made him feel better.

For a little guy, Kane sure is fanatical at times.

Takkad was still dissatisfied with our efforts. Not at us, but he was thinking we were running out of time and worried that we needed to hurry and do certain things or Karzoug would be too powerful for us to kill. He decided to do a powerful Communing with his god, which unfortunately must be a series of yes/no questions. This was conducted with great pomp and circumstance, which I guess is de rigeur for this sort of spell. And we asked

1) Are there more rings in Xin Shalast? YES
2) Is the field on the mountain powered by a Runewell? YES
3) Is the Runewell in the city? NO
4) Do any remaining dragons have a sihedron ring? NO
5) Is Karzoug fully revived? NO
6) Is Karzoug able to leave the spires now? NO
7) Is Karzoug going to leave the spires within a week? YES
8) Should we confront him ASAP? YES
9) Does Karzoug have more than 12 allies with him in the spires? UNCERTAIN
10) Are we missing a needed artifact? UNCERTAIN
11) Does Karzoug get stronger the longer we wait? YES
12) Will it benefit us to create discord in the city? YES
13) Do we need rings or amulets within the occlusion field? YES
14) Does the field extend everywhere, including within the buildings? YES
15) Do any giants possess rings? NO

So it was clear that there was, unfortunately, some basis to Takkad’s fear that we needed to hurry. The discord thing, though, sounded both fun and easy. We talked to Margive about why the giant rebellions always seemed shortlived. He explained the Lamia held much greater sway over the city than we’d given them credit for. They were fairly quick to put down rebellions.

Lamia, hmm? We could reduce those numbers, although we really wanted to take out the matriarch if she ever came back down to the city. Margive surprised us by saying she had indeed returned to deal with the death of her priestess. Seems she thought that might have been another outgrowth of the rebellion and she felt a need to attend to it personally.

At last. A suitable target.

We returned to the coliseum, and carefully planned our next excursion. Takkad and Sabin decided to scout using the usual windwalk technique. They quickly and easily detected raised voice from Karzoug’s chapel. They spotted three harridans and one other dressed much better than the rest. They were loudly discussing what to do about the giants who’d killed their priestess (heh!)

That was pretty much all we needed. I again prepared mirror image, spell resistance, see invisible, and, in this particular case, haste before we even left.

We’d hoped to surprise them, but their hearing must be excellent. They heard us in the chamber next to them and startled. So I led with chain lightning, which hit all four of them, killing one as a nice start. Sedgewick threw a Mislead (his new favorite spell, I think!) and Kane prayed. Takkad did a greater dispel at her royal highness, and then the three remaining came after us. One attacked the false Sedgewick, which cringed and bent over in mock pain. Another brought a flame strike down in our midst, hitting all but me. Then Avia stepped up. She attacked the leader viciously, doing prodigious amounts of damage. Nolin stepped up and did the same.

I also did a Mislead while Sedgewick tried to deafen our opponents. Kane called in a flamestrike of his own, and Takkad simply cast Destruction (which unfortunately failed). A blade barrier appeared, followed by a firestorm at many of us and a searing light at Takkad. Sabin tried a disintegrate, with disappointing results. Avia took some more hardy swings, and Nolin actually charged to good effect.

Rigel went invisible, and I knew she was angling for a backstab at some point. Our fighters were now in the thick of the battle, but our healers were not close enough to help them heal. “Get together” I whispered hoarsely, “and i’ll teleport us”. I waited a few seconds for everyone to get in place and then teleported us closer.

Takkad did a powerful Mass Cure spell. Avia and Nolin found themselves under attack, and surprisingly one of the harridan found Takkad to be the most threatening and took some gouges out of him. Then the unholy blight hit, and suddenly people were a lot weaker. Sabin unleashed a flurry of blows and Avia finally took out another harridan. Nolin lent his blade to the effort.

Rigel tried to shoot some arrows, but only nicked one once. Worse, she became visible at that point. Sedgewick pulled out his wand of lightning, but the harridan’s spell resistance thwarted him. Kane healed Takkad and I initiated a mage sword. Takkad channelled, helping both himself and our fighters while a harridan tried unsuccessfully to take out Sabin. The other damaged Takkad a little, but mostly took out Sabin’s images. Sabin responded by taking it out, and Avia turned to the last one and took her out too.

We quickly assessed the magical items we’d won.

[1646] dagger, +1, unholy
[1647] headband of inspired wisdom +6
[1648] ring of force shield
[1649] 4 pearl anklets
[1650] golden crown
[1651] sihedron ring
[1652] dagger, +1, unholy
[1653,1655,1657] MW Breast plate
[1654,1656,1658] MW Great Sword

And to continue and extend the discord, we dumped the body of the matriarch into the giant section of town, in an alley. She was big enough and heavy enough I just teleported her.

Takkad sent another disquieting message to our favorite giant. “Your problem is solved – again.”

And when the body was discovered, we learned that we’d killed the chief assistant of Ceoptera, not Ceoptera. Or at least, that’s the body we’d dropped off; we probably killed her too (that would explain some of the difficulties we had) but she was disguised as a lesser. Oh well. She’s dead, anyway. I think. These folks should wear (accurate) nametags.

Fireday, 24 Lamashan

It was a dark and wormy night.

We had finished killing the blue dragon(s) and were ready to retire for the evening. Takkad had put down a glyph of warding and we were arranging sleeping order when it was suggested that we check on how the giant rebellion was going. Sabin took about a half hour to memorize an arcane eye spell and then he and Takkad went outside to send it off to scout around. He saw an increase in the giants+cragspider units – at least 6 different patrols of two each. Checked out the Lamias on temple row seemed to be searching much like some giants still were — presumably for us I suppose. And GiantTown itself was very active, with visible discord and fighting.

Keeping in mind that confusion and surprises works in our favor, Takkad eyed the already dilapidated temple of Lamashtu. The smile on his face was almost maniacal, later, as he told us how he used stoneshape to remove (ahem, reshape) structural support from one of the walls, and OOPSY! it fell over. There were still creatures in and around it, and a cloud of dust arose, but it was too dark to tell if anything actually took damage besides the structure. We can only hope, he said solemnly.

One thing I’ve noticed about clerics. They’re rarely ambivalent about a topic. And on the topic of Lamashtu, the clerics in our party are unanimous in their, shall we say politely, disapproval.

Their task of destruction and divination complete, the two returned and the party rested. Takkad and Sedgewick took the first two hour watch, then Sabin and Kane took the next 8 hours, as the rings of sustenance they wear reduce substantially the amount of sleep they actually need each night now.

Starday, 25 Lamashan

And I awoke, refreshed, to a discussion of what kind of confusion we could do to the temple with the Lamia. The greater goal, of course, is to obtain more sihedron rings. Since these are supposedly given to close cohorts of Karzoug, nobody in the party questions that killing them is an appropriate way to obtain possession. Little bloodthirsty; seems we’ve enough sneakiness in the party there might be other ways. Shrug.

It was suggested, though, that attacking the temple may have too little reward for the risk. After all, we had no specific targets, and just appearing and causing mayhem in an area full of magic users (no matter how unpracticed) was unlikely to do us much good.

Takkad was curious (to put it lightly) about how the “structural issue” at the Lamashtu temple was being handled, and we agreed that we should at least look in and see what was happening around the city. There may be a sihedron ring to be had yet. We also wanted to see what the progress was on the giant rebellion. While it may not be wise to be overt agents in that struggle, if there are ways to prolong it or even surreptitiously aid the “lesser” giants in defeating their “overseers”, it’s worth considering.

Windwalk being our friend, we were soon in wispy form and off to the Lamashtu temple. We noted when we got there that there were indeed several Lamia .. I think .. “odd creatures” anyway .. walking around the outside of the temple, seemingly inspecting it. There was a creature that appeared to be a giantess from the waist up and a lioness from the waist down. There were a couple of creatures that resembled vultures too, although imprecisely.

No speaking in wispy form, so we followed Takkad next to GiantTown, where we observed the fighting had stopped but there were a significant number of giant-on-spider patrols that no doubt contributed to the tranquility. It appeared that “the rebellion,” at least for now, was over.

Next on to Margaiv; we wanted to clarify a few things with him. We found him in his home, and he was most happy to see us again. We became solid and began to quiz him a bit. Yes, he was sure that he had seen 3 different dragons at one time in the air. That means that there are one, or maybe two, more dragons out there. (We killed two, it’s true, but one was younger and it’s not at all clear how often he/she/it was out flying.) It would be very like Karzoug to have three different breath weapons in his arsenal.

Margaiv also confirmed that the giants were fighting last night, longer than usual, but the soldiers came and although it took most of the night, things were quieted by morning. A little disappointing that it was quieted so easily – the distraction provided by a rebellion would only aid us.

We asked Margaiv if there was a way to reach the temples unnoticed and he said, not safely, not for many years. But there is a way? Well, yes, there’s a tunnel that leads there but nobody uses it anymore because nobody returns. Why? Hello, nobody returns. But it does come out near the temples? Yes, supposedly.

Sounds like a good way to get close undetected, except for that “nobody returns” part. But hey, that’s our specialty, right? Clearing out the dangers? So Margaiv helped us get to the beginning of the tunnel, which was in a basement at the northern end of the city. It appeared to be giant-sized, so we could stand three abreast.

Margaiv hastily returned, uncomfortable with being so close to the tunnel. We asked him to find out more about the ‘rebellion’ if he could. We entered. It was gently sloped, but a bit winding. This was not a natural tunnel, but clearly a result of (older) construction. Being giant-sized, we had about 15′ to the ceiling.

We proceeded cautiously, but found nothing but dust. The tunnel’s reputation had acted as an excellent doorman, and there was no evidence of recent passage. Over time, it felt like we’d climbed half the mountain but we saw some daylight ahead.

Blinking in the light, we emerged under what looked to be about a 10′ stone overhang. That was it? Nothing had attacked us; nothing prevented us from returning. If there was danger, it must be outside here somewhere. Sabin and Kane cautiously led the way out of the tunnel. Nothing. Sabin and Kane stepped out from under the overhang and the only noteworthy thing was that they saw two stone pillars on top of the overhang.

However, Sabin was still invisible, and Kane was not. One of the “pillars” lashed a tentacle out at Kane and the game was afoot. Heh. A foot.

I quickly hasted everyone I could (Kane was out of range), and those that could fly either started that ability, accepted a spell to enable that ability, or both, and moved to rise and close in. But it turns out these things had a remarkable reach on them.

Our fighters started doing some damage, and from what I hoped was a safe distance, I tried a lightning bolt. I figured fire on rock wouldn’t be smart but lightning might do some damage. However, the one I could aim at seemed to shrug it off. Sedgewick was singing, per usual, and everybody was feeling pretty good about killing something. Ultimately it was Avia and Sabin who smacked the killing blows, although these arms/feet/tentacles sapped a great deal of strength when they hit. Sedgewick looked over the “bodies” and thought a bit. These were “ropers,” he explained, and although they were typically long lived, they were considered “aberrations”.

In any case, it certainly explained how the tunnel got a bad rep. These things had probably been in for any years – apparently they are very long lived. Another tick on the checklist: “tunnel safe”.

Sabin had been itching for some time now to use analyze dweomer on the field around the spires, so before we had any fun in Temple Row, we went up to the mountain. After examining the aura, he said it was solid throughout the structure, completely prevented teleporting within, and guarded against scrying (from without, not within).

With the spell still operating, he turned his attention a sihedron ring. We already knew much about them but this spell revealed something we’d already suspected – they could act as a means of safe passage through the field.

Lastly he examined a medallion. It too could permit safe passage, but as we’d thought, it also acted as a conduit for scrying upon a person wearing it.

We windwalked to the top of the coliseum and solidified. From there, Sabin sent out an arcane eye to see if we could learn more about the Lamia area. He discovered it had several levels, including living areas for some of the clerics. We also noticed that lioness we’d seen earlier, and that she carried a sihedron ring!

Golly, a target!

Sabin cast see invisible and Takkad and Sabin went wispy and went to scout this out a little more carefully in person. They came back and reported that she seemed to always have some attendants around her, but there was a room off to one side that we could probably solidify in and stage an attack.

With this news, we all enthusiastically left to create mayhem and death.

It went almost exactly according to plan. Just to be safe I did a mirror image before we went. We solidified undetected, and Avia said there were three in the room and one outside it (probably in the hallway.) After opening the door, the fighters teleported right next to her, per usual and got several quick blows in. Takkad cast silence. The acolytes quickly jumped to defend their matriarch but I threw a chain lightning at them that significantly slowed them, and Nolin killed both the matriarch and one of the acolytes in a single flurry of swings. The other acolyte fell to Sabin, whereupon I opened the door to the hallway, and said in Giant to the astonished Lamia outside, “The lady will see you now.” She attacked one of my images, and then Kane called down a flamestrike — overkill, really now — and Avia performed cleanup on the severely scorched Lamia.

Someone commented that it was strange I did not use a single fire spell. “Well,” I replied, “there were two things. One is too many friends too close too fast, and two is there were just too many flammables in this room to safely use fire without setting the room on fire.” And Nolin perked up and said, yes, that’s a great idea!

??

Nolin suggested we set the place on fire. I was confused … why draw attention to ourselves? Our battle had taken less than 20 seconds, without time for anyone to even yell for help. We would have the ring plus whatever else we found in this room and be gone. But he made the point that smoke, fire, and murder would just add to the mayhem and confusion.

At this point it became more a matter of pride and workmanship. He was suggesting that we intentionally light it in a manner that made it look less like a battle and more like a coverup. I found it VERY ironic that I was being asked to not use a fire spell but that we instead would start it with a torch in an ordinary and mundane way. It almost seemed wrong.

We hastily searched both the office and the bedroom, as well as the bodies. (We dragged the body in the hall into the bedroom.) We found

[1635-1637] 3 daggers, magic (+2)
[1638] great sword, masterwork
[1639] sihedron ring
[1640] thin bone knife, magic (ceremonial; if used to apply a coup de gras, can create a skeleton)
[1641] necklace, magic (leather with beads, but really a gold necklace of fireballs: 2 3d6, 2 5d6, 2 7d6, 1 9d6.
[1642] glasses with circular prism help reveal incredible details, +5 perception, +5 tracking

Collecting our goodies, we left. We did stop and put the Lamia’s great sword in relatively plain sight in the giant section of town, hoping to incite a little distrust. Having returned, Takkad thought to scry the same giant we’d scryed before, and reported he seemed frustrated and angry, particular about having to follow the orders of the Lamia. I jokingly told Takkad he should send him a message saying his problem had been taken care of … and to my surprise Takkad thought that a clever move. He sent a message to the effect that she was dead and his problem was solved, and he observed the giant became alarmed and distraught.

Ah, a good day for confusion. I think we need to reduce the spider patrols, and the way to do that may be to visit the barracks and introduce them to the concept of confusion. And ideally, we still want a couple more rings. Takkad is concerned that Karzoug will rise before we go to assault him and he’ll be undefeatable, but I’m not concerned. We keep getting more powerful too.

24 Lamashan, Fireday

So Takkad was scrying upon this likely looking giant we’d found, to see if we could determine his habits and such so we could figure out the best time to attack him. His spell allowed him to scry for HOURS, and for everyone around, it’s kind of like going to a play with a blindfold on but somebody whispering in your ear. Once in a while, Takkad would say something like, “he seems to spend a lot of time in what appears to be his study.” Really. Boring.

So when some tattooed giants came to visit him briefly, mounted on crag spiders, I perked up. They mentioned to him that there were unconfirmed reports of humans in the area, and we could see when they left (we were, after all, in an abandoned house near the giant’s) that the runes actually glowed. Now THESE might be servants of Karzoug! Maybe with more rings.

I immediately volunteered to follow them, in gaseous form (thanks Wind Walk!) The group looked at each other and seemed to collectively shrug. Avia said she’d go along, but I’m not sure why. We can’t communicate when in gaseous form, but maybe she’ll see something I’d miss.

So as they saddled up, I went to follow them. I stayed behind them and tried to stay out of their gaze. After a while, they took on the appearance of being on patrol, but same old same old. Like they’d done this a thousand times before, but they really weren’t looking. Their head would turn but you could tell they were thinking of something else. Sometimes, they even said something unintelligible to each other while looking away. Pretty rote.

Which got me thinking. I know in wind walk we can go something like 60mph max, which is pretty fast. But then I started thinking of that classic problem: which is faster, a man or a horse? Well a horse of course, unless the race is short enough because it takes a small amount of time to go from standing still to full speed. For a small amount of time, the man can actually accelerate faster because he’s smaller.

So I figured out the math (they were still going through the motions of a patrol) and I figured that 60mph was a mile a minute, or 1/60th mile per second. That’s like 90 ft per second, but I can cast a spell every five seconds. So if they did see me, I’d probably have at least five seconds to get away. Could I go a maximum of 450 feet? Or because I have to accelerate, would it be less?

So I tried it a couple of times. I said to myself, “Ready, set, go!” and I’d zoom off in a straight line as fast as I could, counting to myself “One Korsova, Two Korsova …” and see how far I could get before reaching “Five Korsova”. The first time I went pretty far, but then realized I had no way of knowing really how far I went. So I estimated how tall each floor was — here in the giant district each floor was something like three times my height, so, maybe about 18 feet? But that meant even a three story building was only a little over 50 feet. What would make a good yardstick for 450 feet? Nothing really presented itself. Maybe I should just do one second and try to measure 90 feet. Or less, if I’m not that fast. I still don’t know for sure if I can go zero to ninety in one second. One second is a little hard to measure too.

About this time, I noticed one of the giants had turned around and seemed to be looking right at me. Now I know I’m not cmmpletely invisible, but I’m also a little indistinct and hard to make out. He nudges his companion, who turns around as well, and he says in Common, “Human, come to me and yield.” I felt a little shiver, and realized he’d just tried to charm me or something. Heh, not this well ordered, resilient mind, thank you!!

And I realized just how prescient I’d been to see how fast I could move, because now I needed to. I immediately went about 450 feet straight up. (In the excitement of the moment, straight up was my unthinking choice). Looking down, I could see he and his companion still staring at the spot I’d been — they had no clue which direction I’d gone.

Well, I did go pretty fast! Apparently the acceleration is almost instantaneous! Other than something like a magical ray, I could probably elude almost anything.

Then I thought, “what’s Avia doing?” I looked around, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Of course she was as hard to see as I was, but I’d thought she was right nearby. Little irresponsible of her to just take off like that. I thought we were supposed to stay together.

Suddenly the giants around me scattered. It was not in panic, but it was almost as if in response to some sort of silent command. The way that they and the two runed giants themselves reacted I think the two giants raised an alarm somehow.

Clearly, it was time to end the surveillance. I thought for a moment. If the alarm had been raised back where Takkad was scrying, they’d know about it too, and would probably be preparing to leave or hide. Where was Avia?

Perhaps she’d already thought this through and headed back. Increasingly, I’ve noticed, the party individually comes to the same conclusion in about the same time whenever we discuss an issue. Is it so far fetched to think we might independently arrive at the same correct solution? So, back to Takkad it is.

In windwalk form, it took but seconds. I wasn’t all that far away; the giants hadn’t exactly been galloping on their steeds. But when I got there, people started yelling at me. Weird, how I can hear them but I can’t speak to them. Seems unfair. They clearly thought I’d done something wrong, when in fact, it was fortunate I was so adept at speedy movement. Avia wasn’t there yet. I started to solidify, but that takes like half a minute.

During that time, Sabin teleported to Avia, who was apparently still on a rooftop somewhere near where the giants had been, She’d solidified, thinking there was going to be a battle. I swear, she doesn’t know when to just run away! Anyway, he took her a ring of invisibility (borrowed from Rigel?) so that she could return undetected.

Meanwhile, search parties were being organized, and our spot on the third floor of a building would eventually be discovered. Judging from the shaking of his head and increasingly coherent mumbles, Nolin did not find their effort praiseworthy. At one point, I think I heard him say something about finding a lass with both hands. Or maybe he said “last boat in these lands” but that makes even less sense.

Anyway, Avia showed up soon enough and got all in my face about it, and tried to blame the whole thing on me. Takkad also seemed to take her side, and he wasn’t even there. I didn’t think it prudent to point it out to them, but hey – who got back on his own and who needed to be rescued? Hmm? I think she’s just a little embarrassed and reacting poorly because of that. Sometimes I think she still sees me as a little kid or something.

Meanwhile, the group decided to go back to gaseous state and go somewhere that wouldn’t be searched (or at least searched soon). Some in the party were paranoid that the search would find us, and that the search would be exhaustive and that nobody would sleep until the humans were found. Personally, I think it’s more likely that when no humans are found after an hour or two, life will return to normal.

I mean, Karzoug has been aware of us for a few days now, and HE hasn’t apparently raised the alarm.

Anyway, at first we thought we’d go to the coliseum, and then somebody had the idea that if we went up by the citadel where the air was deadly thin, then even if somebody was tracking us they wouldn’t be able to follow us. This would be a very uncomfortable permanent camp, but it did meet that odd criteria. Then Nolin surprised everyone by remarking, “You know, with the entire city in an uproar looking for the humans, this would be a good time to go after a dragon.”

Isn’t that a little like, “hey, as long as I’m bleeding so much and my blood pressure is down anyway, wouldn’t this be a good time to see how sharp this knife is on my skin?” Wouldn’t fighting a dragon with everybody in a heightened state make us even more likely to be discovered?

Nolin thinks no. And many agree with him! I raise an argument but nobody’s listening to me now. So we waft over to the place in the temple district where we know one had made his home. We went in prepared for electricity – I used five resist electricity spells on Takkad, Kane, myself, Sabin, and Sedgewick. Just out of paranoia, I also cast resist cold on myself. I get 8 2nd level spells per day, so this is a good use of them. Don’t use many other 2nd level spells these days.

Rigel and Nolin received protection from electricity.

And off we went to kill a dragon while the city hunted for us.
We entered the dragon’s lair (an abandoned government building) and wisped into a large chamber, well past the entrance. Apparently this building used to house tax collectors, and had fortifications that (now) were not in use. The chamber was 20′ tall and 40′ wide. Using detect magic, we discovered we’d narrowly missed tripping an alarm spell that was cast over the center portion of the floor in the main entry way. We hadn’t become solid until we were past the alarmed area. Unless … does wisping over an area trip an alarm, or does it require physical contact and corporeal form?

We’ll never know for sure, but odds are that it detected us, because we were there less than a minute before a dragon appeared from a corridor at the other end of the chamber and shot a lightning bolt at us and disappeared around the corner. It hit everyone but Kane and Sedgewick. Myself .. happy for my resist electricity spell!

Reviewing my options, it appeared the best way to help at this point was to haste everybody (or at least six of us that were in range) so the fighters could get multiple attacks. The dragon did not immediately reappear, so I also cast spell resistance on myself.

By this time we had moved cautiously in the direction of the dragon, but it had still not appeared. Rigel peeked around the corner and announced it was empty. Was it invisible? Or did it run farther away? Shrug. Easy answer to that one. I walked up alongside Rigel and cast fireball about 80 feet away. Nothing screamed. No dragon.

A couple of people were surprised at this method, but Avia just snorted and rolled her eyes, while Nolin looked a bit thoughtful.

I walked forward another 40 or 50 feet and cast ahead of me again. Foof went the fireball. No dragon. People followed behind me. Takkad had cast True Seeing on himself and the timing was such that he could generally confirm my findings a few seconds after I lit up the room.

Sedgewick had cast Mislead earlier and so had a copy of himself to move as well. He moved him into the room after my 2nd fireball and discovered he made an excellent target. A lightning bolt shot from the far corner of this large room, where a blue dragon crouched. More importantly, Takkad shouted that there was a larger dragon invisible just 50 or 60 feet away. It too shot lightning at Sedgewick’s illusion, which wasn’t exactly harmed, but the bolt also was aimed at myself and Nolin. I dodged and with my resist, took fairly minor damage. Now with a visible target, though, I dropped a fireball in behind it. Nolin was hurt not at all, but the Usual Suspects (Avia, Sabin, Nolin, and Takkad) dimension doored their hasted selves right next to the larger dragon. Takkad cast Greater Dispel at it – that had only a slight visual effect but Takkad felt it had been pretty successful.

Unbeknownst to most of us, Rigel had invisibly lined herself up to do some serious damage. She pulled out her last arrow of Dragon Slaying, invoked True Strike, and let loose. While her arrow did not, as the name implies, slay it outright, the dragon was very very very upset with her and howled in great distress. Meanwhile, Avia was smiting and slaying and cutting and I think she also got a dozen steaks and a nice roast judging from the way she carved up the dragon. It was dead before anyone could utter “steak sauce”.

Rigel was now visible, of course, and within range of the smaller dragon. I put up an opaque wall of flame between her and the dragon and put myself between her and the dragon until she could become invisible again, but … no worry. Takkad called Destruction upon the smaller dragon, and it obliged him by not dodging destruction.

The battle was over. The big dragon was dead. The little dragon was dead. And outside, still the city hunted for us.

Inside, we were inspecting the bodies to see if they actually carried any magic items. The large dragon did:

[1616] a sihedron ring (yay, this was the goal after all) {Nolin}
[1617] a ring of greater cold resistance which, if nobody objects, I’d like to take. {Trask}

Sabin suggested we identify “the other rings” too. Other rings? Apparently while Takkad had been scrying the giant, Rigel and Kane and Sabin teleported over to raid his personal treasure chest. Really? And I was accused of living dangerously? Sheesh! Anyway, those two rings were

[1614] ring to engage a magical shield, but it was part of a pair and they needed to operate together .. or reciprocally, if I understood correctly.
[1615] ring of invisibility (maybe this is the one they lent to Avia?)

Now there was a pool in this room, and we thought that there might be loot there, or that it might be the RunePool running the alarm around the citadel on the mountain … but no, it wasn’t even magical. There was a dais, or at least raised portion of the room off to one side (I could imagine an art display there had this former government building still been in use). Sedgewick used his secret door detection and found a secret door on the back wall of this dais. It led through an irregularly cut corridor to an apparent dead end, but magic revealed another secret door at that end. There was sounds of commotion on the other side, so we chose not to open it and expose ourselves, but Sedgewick reported later that he heard, through the door and the hubbub, a voice say, “Karn – while everyone is looking for the humans, we should start the rebellion.”

Rebellion. Interesting times we are living in.

Meanwhile, there were some obvious doors on the east side, and Rigel checked them for traps. None. Opened them carefully …

… and found that the dragon we’d killed had been just a wee bit over-neat. Over-organized, perhaps. This was the most meticulously organized dragon hoard I’d ever seen. Well, okay, that’s not much since I’ve only seen three. Let’s just say, the most meticulously organized treasure room I’d ever seen. Coins were stacked. Like items were placed together, rings over here, wands over there. Detect magic told us it was similarly organized along those lines too – non-magic here, magic there.

It made it easy to determine there was about 128,000 silver coins here. (A lot to carry even with bags of holding.) There were about 42,000 gold pieces, and 1040 platinum. We snatched up those last two. But we also found

[1618] gold coffer w/70 gemstones (~20k gp)
[1619] silver bracelet
[1620] jade comb
[1621] red silk gloves with gold thread in a glass display box
[1622] masterwork mithril 1/2 plate
[1623] masterwork breast plate
[1624] banded mail (magic: +2)
[1625] wand of lightning (caster level 6) [23 charges] {Trask}
leather bag with six vials, the first five frozen solid:
[1626] cure light wounds
[1627] cure light wounds
[1628] cure light wounds
[1629] cure light wounds
[1630] owl’s wisdom
[1631] oil of magic vestment +4
[1632] bejewelled ivory scroll tube {Trask}
scroll of keen edge
scroll of unseen servant
[1633] ring of evasion
[1634] rod of extend metamagic (3x per day) {Sabin}

Having located (for some of us) the main reason for killing a dragon, the party continued on with less enthusiasm and alacrity. I’ve noticed that after finding a bunch of valuable things, the group takes on an attitude not unlike that of a person who has just eaten a good, full meal. Yes there are things I should be doing, yes of course I’m with you, but just tell me where to stand and I will support you from there.

That in mind, we continued on. There was another door to inspect yet. It had locks, yet was not locked. We entered and it revealed a ramp up, and more smallish rooms .. really, it looked like we’d entered some office space. Well, except for the area that seemed to have arrow slits; clearly we’d entered the tower.

We found a likely looking room, and I again created a Rope Trick to allow everyone to rest in semi-seclusion. Paranoid because of the ongoing search, Takkad also placed a glyph of warding in the hallway before reaching this room.

It has been a good day. And to think we might not have killed a dragon today had I not been quick enough to escape the grasp and sight of those two runed giants.

Oathsday, 23 Lamashan

Well, the Spared who’d been made undead still needed to be made unundead, so Avia turned on the evil radar and detected them hiding under the stairs. A little while later, the adamantine swords had created an “access panel” and destroyed them. They had been outfitted identically, so we picked up

[1606] 4 sets of +1 padded armor
[1607] 4 +1 bucklers
[1608] 4 +1 rings of protection

However, Avia and Nolin still needed clerical attention to restore them to normal. Nolin was fully restored, but Avia was going to need a bit more before she returned fully to normal. They said they’d finish tomorrow.

We went to Margive at his house and he was most pleased (ecstatic, really, for him) when he found we’d destroyed the evil invisible monster.

(I have this mental image of him trying to convince his friends: no, really, it was a huge but invisible monster and it stole my friends. Now they don’t even talk to me; they just try to harm me. Don’t go in that apparently empty room, or it will get you too.)

Anyway, Takkad was talking to him more about the ice devil from the arena when I caught part of the conversation that startled me.

There are three dragons living here.

I’m thinking maybe I should cast “protection from everything” each morning. Although, perhaps I should learn that spell first …

I do wish my resist energy spell lasted longer than 130 minutes. Maybe I’ll research a means to extend the duration of my spells.

Anyway, we then asked Sedgewick about ice devils. He was able to tell us that yes, they like cold, and they can summon other things but not very often. Beating one often brings accolades and renown. Losing to one simply brings death, however.

Interesting. I suppose it’s a devil so it needs to be dead — it’s become our lot in life. We are a small cleansing cloth, doing our part to remove the grime in the world.

As my spells have become more powerful, I’ve definitely become more of that stand-in-the-back type of sorceror. I can shoot fireballs from quite some distance, and even my lightning bolts have some distance to them. I guess it make sense. I’m never going to be the destructive force that Nolin or Avia, or even Sabin are. At least they get up in the face of the evil we defeat.

Anyway, Avia. That’s right; Karzoug had spoken through her again, much to her distress. We still didn’t know why that was happening, so Takkad decided with some reluctance to bring forth the Peacock quill. “Why,” he penned, “did Avia get chosen to represent Karzoug’s voice rather than Sedgewick?”

“The question,” it wrote back, “is not why he chose her; the question is why she allowed him to.”

Cryptic, per usual. Nolin insisted it meant Avia was weak-willed; this drew the intense focus of Avia. Since the quill was out anyway, both Sedgewick and Avia tried penning questions about the force field surrounding the citadel, but the pen responded not.

This caused Sedgewick to sit and ponder a bit. After casting a spell of legend and lore, he said he suddenly remembered a few things about the quill.

1) no one who has a quill ever runs out of ink.
2) It can be asked a question to be answered in the near term as a guide to actions
3) On a much less frequent basis, it can be called upon to communicate with the nether worlds.

There was some undetermined limit to how often it could be asked to do something. But that told us that it probably was ignoring Sedgewick and Avia simply because it had already very recently answered a question.

So instead, we discussed how to prepare for battle against the ice devil Cricket. We’d want resist cold, certainly, and I think mirror image on myself would be a smart move. It’s certainly saved Sabin’s bacon more than once.

We again hused the Rope Trick to provide a more hidden rest area.

Fireday, 24 Lamashan

It was very early in the morning Fireday when during his watch, Sabin roused us. Cricket was scouting the room below us. He’d apparently decided not to wait for us to come to him. But how did he find us? Or at least find the room we were in? This underground was vast.

That didn’t bode well.

We quietly prepared ourselves. If we went down the rope, it would have to be one at a time and that would mean the devil could pick us off one by one. Our strength was in numbers. Dispelling the spell would cause all of us to drop to the ground at once. Not optimal, but it did put us all into battle at the same time.

This meant we had some time to prepare, and it gave me an opportunity to haste everyone before we dropped. Kane threw protection from cold on Sabin, and Sedgewick started to sing. Rigel went invisible – a little ring action there I suspect – and Sabin cast fly on Nolin. I was able to cast resist cold on myself, and Sabin threw a displacement on himself.

Then the rope disappeared, the heavens opened, and we rained down into the room. Things began in earnest.

Cricket was already floating above the ground (hence the fly spell) when we appeared. We prepared to use our usual strategy of teleporting the fighters directly to the fight, when to everyone’s surprise (including Avia’s) Avia again spoke:

“These people teleport to their foes during battle. Slay them all now!”

Despite the warning, Sabin was able to dimensin door per usual, but it was nevertheless distressing to have our strategy revealed in such a way. Nolin immediately marked him up pretty good.

Cricket moved away (and Nolin, Sabin, and Avia all made him pay for that maneuver) and then teleported.

Crap. Where would he go? Only place we knew of was his “box” in the coliseum. Quickly we divided into our usual teleport teams (I had Kane, Sedgewick, and Rigel) and we tried to teleport into his box.

We were largely successful. Of course, the dread wraiths we’d seen earlier were still there, and immediately turned on us. I was able to get a fireball on them before they got so close that a fireball would have too much impact on friends.

The wraiths were awful. They took health and sometimes stamina everytime they struck. Rigel and Sedgewick both found their stamina diminishing, while nearly everyone else at least got wounded. I’d just put up a wall of fire to make them back off when Nolin announced from his aerial position that the ice devil was in the middle of the stadium and approaching (a couple of dozen feet off the ground).

I put the wraiths between two walls of fire, making them very unhappy. The ice devil shot a cone of cold at us, clipping part of a wall of fire and making me very glad that I’d cast resist cold on myself. My damage was minimal. Others weren’t as lucky.

Kane accomplished a way cool thing. He banished the devil, and it returned most unwillingly to his plane. Remind me never to really piss him off. Takkad channeled a great deal of vengeful, painful (to the wraiths) positive energy and they were most upset. And stuck.

Wraiths finally began to drop. Sabin nailed the last one, just after Avia again provided us with color commentary from Karzoug: “The devil wasn’t important. You will all be mine in the end.”

Yeah. Those grapes were sour anyway. Snicker.

I was not terribly injured, but I was definitely the minority. The clerics went about healing (and restoring, as needed) the injured. Since we’d been awakened, most of us had not regained any spells or a full amount of rest, so we definitely needed to recharge. Another attack now would be … unfortunate.

Still, we needed to nail a couple of things down. Avia was not the only one annoyed by the interruptive commentary from Karzoug, and we began to puzzle it out. Could the sihedron she wore be permitting or enabling scrying? Several of us have the medallions, but Avia was alone in wearing hers. Sabin cast detect scrying .. and found that yes, Avia was being scryed. She reluctantly took off the medallion .. and she was no longer being scryed.

Given that our rope trick was probably not a secret anymore, we decided to set it up in an out-of-the-way place here, while I used teleport to go to our previous camp (the vampire room) and set up a fake camp, complete with its own rope trick. I’ll never know if anybody was frustrated by that (I expect the spell will harmlessly expire) but I’d like to think they were.

I did leave a note in the ethereal space: “Sorry we missed you. Please set up an appointment next time.”

When the ice devil was banished, his weapon was not, and it clattered to the ground. We now retrieved it and identified it.

[1609] +4 returning spear, icy burst +1d6 cold, crit 19-20 plus addl 2d10 cold upon crit

Pretty nifty.

There was also some chests in the ice devil’s box.

[1610] Darkwood chest with 8-10k of gold
[1611] Darkwood chest with 400-500 platinum
[1612] Darkwood chest with ~1500gp of gems and jewelry
[1613] Sihedron ring (Kane)

(later)

Finally, we got a full rest.

Margive told us that “masters of the bad men” wore the sihedron rings. Takkad did a divination that said to pass through the forcefield we need to appear like Karzoug’s servants. Combine those two, and we decided we needed to find more powerful allies to kill, and snatch their jewelry.

We all windwalked through the city, looking for powerful beings to anger. We checked Karzoug’s temple – nope, nobody there seemed powerful enough to annoy.

We found where a dragon probably lives in the city, and decided that perhaps we weren’t quite ready to annoy a dragon yet.

Then, moving higher into the city, we found a giant with tattoos similar to those Mokmurian had had .. but much larger. He was a frost giant. He seemed to be giving orders to others, who seemed to be giving him much deference.

Target selected! Mischief managed!

We took a quick side trip to the mountain again to see if the rings offered safe passage through the forcefield. It did.

Time to go plan our injuries. Er, I mean battle.

Wealday, 22 Lamashan

Morning could not come quick enough, yet courtesy required that we at least have breakfast with my parents. I think my mother was beginning to understand that Rigel was not my betrothed, but Father seemed to remain convinced that with some subtle prodding and gentle directing he’d have grandchildren in no time. For her part, Rigel took it all politely, but Nolin, I think, showed far too much interest in the proceedings.

I swear to you, these are not the parents that raised me!

We left my childhood home and went back outside the city to a sufficiently distant location so as to guarantee a little privacy. Nolin did nothing to help by smilingly reminding me that if we used up all my spells for today, we could always go back and spend another day with my parents. Even Rigel threw him a look at that.

Besides, it has nothing to do with skill, at this point. It’s just a matter of luck as to whether I can overcome the magic resisting our return. with a run of back luck, such as I had yesterday, I could exhaust my spells. I hoped fate would smile upon me, for the sake of the rest of the party and in no small part for the sake of my sanity.
After all, it would take 12 failures in a row to have to – get to – spend another night in my parent’s house.

It’s not that it was a bad house, per se, of course. I grew up there and it holds fond memories. Who doesn’t have fond memories of their childhood? It’s just that recently, it had become more difficult to –

Shoot. First teleport failed. Thank goodness this spell doesn’t take any serious components. With my natural ability to eschew components, small and trivial items are not really needed for me to –

Crap. Failed again. Ok, I’m going to really focus and put down my quill. It’s just a matter of luck anyway. Can’t miss 12 in a row!

[Hastily written in the margin: ONLY TOOK TWO MORE! HAH!]

Wealday, 22 Lamashan (later)

We arrived from Korvosa with others waiting expectantly for us. Nolin immediately sized up how people were dressed and announced he was fully suiting up too. While he prepared, Takkad filled me in.

Last night he and Sabin apparently did a litle scouting with arcane eyes. Some interesting things they found:

• ground level on the main street does not appear to be actual ground
  level. The road is actually elevated above what appears to be the
  first floor of many of the buildings. There are basements here that
  were never intended to be basements. Are there also sidewalks beneath
  the streets?

• the buildings are immense. This is not a small city, even in its
  partially damaged state. Were it not for the danger presented by
  the apparently awakening Rune Lord and the hundreds (thousands?)
  of creatures living here, this would be a fountain of knowledge
  about a time long since gone.

• entry to the city is blocked by a fortress of smooth black stone.
  Passing it in a normal fashion and remaining unchallenged is unlikely.

• About 1/4 of the eastern city has been destroyed … or at least
  heavily damaged .. by a landslide from the surrounding peaks,
  followed (presumably over many years) by glacial snow and avalanches.
  It makes the area look forbidding, yet at one time there were
  buildings there so may some structure remains under the rough
  rock and ice.

• As one proceeds through the city, one grows ever closer to the
  gleaming spires on the mountain, and the stern face of Karzoug
  looking down upon the spires and the city itself. The visage
  must lie several thousand feet above this already air-thin
  and exhausting altitude.

• As the eyes proceeded, the buildings seemed to get larger and
  more ostentatious as one neared the citadel and the face.
  Karzoug was not a subtle man.

Based on this information, it was clear that a stroll down Main Street was not going to be our best choice. However, windwalk could again be our friend and there appeared to be several choices of places we could land and solidify near the citadel. Because if there was one thing we could be sure of, it was that Karzoug was not going to be found at the end of the city with the small and crushed housing.

Before leaving, I cast resist cold on myself. Not because I was chilled, but it seemed more likely that damaging spells would be cold-based here than fire-based, and my own natural fire resistance would assist me if I guessed wrong.

We landed safely, and a quick inspection showed nothing – no footprints, bodies, or anything to indicate anyone had been here recently. But we quickly learned if we got too close to the citadel, there was some sort of force resisting us. We could push through it, and we did, until … there was some sort of THRUM, or pulse, which had a very deleterious affect on those under its effect.

I myself had not, apparently, gotten close enough but Rigel, Nolin, Sedgewick, and Kane all had … and the THRUM seemed to affect them badly. They appeared disoriented and staggered as if drunk or confused, while some found wounds appeared to varying degrees upon their body. Sedgewick quietly and calmly (considering the nature of his news) announced he was blind.

Kane healed him, and I mean Healed him, and his stuttering left him, wounds healed, and the blindness disappeared. But he still appeared shaken by the event. A combination of lesser restorations and minor healings helped the rest, but all moved out of the zone. Takkad pondered a bit, and recalled a passage he’d read that had not meant anything at the time. Braxis’ journal had said we needed to find and deactivate the Runewell that was running this rather massive burglar alarm.

We returned to gaseous form but learned two important things. The area of THRUM seemed to cover all the interesting features of this upper slope. Nothing would be found here until the trap was disabled. And the second thing was that being in gaseous form did not, in any way, shape or form, relieve you from the punishment from that trap.

We finally returned to the place we’d originally (safely) left gaseous form and was very surprised when Avia turned to us and said, in a voice not her own, “Now how do you like my toys? You come to my home to play, now it’s time to pay the piper.”

And while we were surprised to hear this short monologue coming from Avia’s mouth, she was nothing short of apoplectic. If we had any substances with a sedative effect, this would have been a good time for her to ingest them.

It was decided that, at the least, it would be a good time to rest and rethink our plan. The houses in the upper part of the city appeared to have been, at one time, very nice houses so we stood a good chance of finding some reasonable accommodations there. No linens or bathwater, mind you, but a solid roof and perhaps doors and windows that still worked.

We gave the house an inspection, and it seemed reasonable. Passageways were huge, yet individual items seemed right-sized. Giants for servants? Perhaps. Legend does speak of such things.

One room seemed to radiate cold. My resist cold had expired, so I renewed it. By one of the far pillars there appeared to be a large worm. I don’t mean like thick-as-your-thumb juicy worm. I mean bigger-than-your-body purple worm. And when it detected us (by our heat, no doubt) it left no ambiguity about its intention.

My resist cold served me well, but Sedgewick, having taken yet another heavy blow, lay near death. Kane moved to him quickly as I shot a carefully aimed fireball at the backside of the creature. I figured it it liked cold, heat would probably damage it greatly. I was not disappointed.

I found out later that Kane used Breath of Life on Sedgewick and literally pulled him back from Death’s chilly shores. It took but seconds, but Avia and Nolin hit the worm mightily, killing it – but the toll was almost too great. A single breath and Sedgewick had lain dying. And then the worm did a strange and horrifying thing.

In its death, it exploded. And again many took significant damage as the freezing cold worm guts hit us with great force (although my resist cold served me well again.)

Included in the worm detritus was a partially digested being. Once one got over the shock of dealing with a partially digested being, it occurred to us to see if the body contained anything magic.

It did.

We found a mask, that looked like death or a skeleton, if you prefer [1601]. After studying it and casting identify, we were able to tell the mask had the capability of, once per day, so long as it had been worn for at least an hour, of flying off the face of the wearer and attacking the face of a victim, bestowing upon it the equivalent of a finger of death spell. There was also a sihedron ring [1602] that looked very handsome – golden, with some valuable stones set in it. It offered a +3 deflection bonus, a +3 resist added for all saving throws, bestowed upon the wearer the effects of Endure Elements at all times, and allowed the wearer to change the appearance of their armor as a standard action. You couldn’t change it to full plate, for instance, but it sure could look like that’s what you were wearing. Sedgewick ended up taking this, mostly because he had no additional resistance to any of the magic we were facing.

Sabin tried using an arcane eye to find this Runewell, but was unsuccessful. Got to see a lot of different buildings, though, I guess. Apparently there’s a pretty significant sporting building, or coliseum nearby, and he saw an interesting creature in there. It was like nothing we’d ever seen before. He tried to follow him but an arcane eye has no opposable thumbs and gets easily thwarted by closing a door in front of it.

Based on these reports, we used windwalk to tour parts of the city in person, which carried with it the minor thrill of danger. We’re not, strictly speaking, invisible. Just hard to see. We checked out Temple Row, the Jotenburg District, the Artisan District, and flew over the Slave District. Intrigued, I asked Takkad how he knew all these names because as near as I can tell, they were not enscribed on the ground below us. Turns out he’d kiped a map from one of the rooms we’d been in earlier, and it had all these sections highlighted and named. I was expecting something a little more spectacular.

Disappointed yet intrigued, we set up the “usual guard duty” so we could rest and recover spells. We noticed, at one point, what looked like a dragon silouhette across the face of the moon. Of course. It wouldn’t be complete without a dragon. I drifted off to sleep.

… but then just before dawn Kane hastily awakened us. There was a clicking noise outside the window. Those near the windows were able to catch a quick glimpse of two crag spiders. Nasty things. Takkad used a spell called “Destruction” – utterly fascinatingly thorough! – to take out one, and Sabin and my lightning bolt took out the other.

Now we need even more rest.

Oathsday, 23 Lamashan

We went to the coliseum, to see if we could learn more about the creature we’d observed with the arcane eye. And we did locate him again without too much trouble. He seemed to own (or at least claim possession of) one of the nicer “boxes” in the arena. But today he was not alone. With little effort, apparently, he summoned two bone devils (according to Kane) and ordered, “I’m bored. Fight for me.”

Kane said the creature itself was an ice devil. Devils. I’m not sure if devils or dragons are worse, and now we have both.

We were quietly discussing this unsettling turn of events when a voice reached my ears. “M’lord, m’lord!” a small shadowy figure called to me. “We have waited for you.”

Me?

Us, it turns out. This was a small creature with a most amazing skill. He was humanoid .. ish .. but he could change his skin to match his background almost perfectly. It allowed him to go almost anywhere undetected, so long as he was quiet.

We decided to let this harmless looking creature lead us deeper into the tunnels beneath the streets. He had this annoying habit of repeating, “you’ve come!”. Were we part of some prophecy? If so, I’d like to know what it says of our surviving.

Eventually we were deep enough into the tunnels that he felt he could speak. His people called themselves “the Spared”. Many many years ago, they had been slaves when Xin Shalast started to crumble around them. They were able to survive when others could not because a) they were small and thus elusive, and b) they were well camouflaged. Innately.

His people have excavated more tunnels over the years, but some of his kind had broken into a bad place of crypts and terrible things. In fact, a Terrible Thing was known for taking his friends and people and enslaving them in some way. Not like the Runelord, but in a way that seemed to leave no person inside. They were never the same again, and yet they seemed to never die.

This sounded like undead to me, and to several others as well.

His name was Margaiv, and he showed us the murals that foretold our arrival. Apparently his goddess Mesmina had said to patiently wait and she would send us. And his faith in us made us the unquestioning choice to save his people from the invisible (yes it was invisible) beast that was enslaving his people.

I put my hand across my brow and looked down. Really? Why did it always have to be us?

But us it would be, and we resolutely set out to save these peoples. They were ecstatic, but not so ecstatic that a great many of them wanted to travel with us. In fact, only Margaiv was willing to take us sort of close to the entity responsible for these heinous acts. He took us as close as he dared, pointed down the hall and faded into the wall to await our heroic actions that would save his people.

It really was not a nice beast. And it was invisible. It seemed like it might be a vampire of some sort? Never really did get a square look at it. But that’s okay; all I needed was targeting orders. I cast Spell Resistance, Mirror Image, and Resist Cold on myself before we went in.

Both Sabin and Takkad had cast spells to allow themselves to see invisible beings, and they helped tell us what was really there. I hasted everyone, and Sabin teleported the Usual Suspects next to the beast.

But as luck would have it, this was a fairly powerful evil. It lashed out with tentacles (or so they said) and four “converted” Spared also converged on the party. When it lashed out, those close to it, in a single round, were left moderately hurt, but considerably weaker. And they found themselves without spells they’d had just moments before.

For my part, I had not gotten within range of its tentacles. I used chain lightning to light up as many baddies as possible. Then a fireball .. and that’s all we had time for. Others had slammed it with a flamestrike, and channeling against undead, and some very sharp, hasted swords.

It had turned into a mist and disappeared through a crack in the ground, but a little passwall from Sabin and an accurate sword from Avia, made it dead for good.

Now that it was dead, we carefully ascertained it had possessed

<

p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>[1603] Bracers of armor +3
[1604] Ring of invisibility
[1605] another sihedron ring

We caught our breath for a moment, but there were a couple of loose, undead Spared still about, and we’d need to clean that up. But this bad was gone, and that would likely make the others seem like child’s play.

Hmm. How long ago was it when knee-high goblins was decidedly NOT child’s play?

5 Lamashan, Sunday

So at long last, we decided to forego further testing of our thermal fortitude and leave the higher latitudes behind. We teleported back to the library to “prepare”.

Really, all we needed to “prepare” was to get a good night’s sleep and remember some spells. Well, I think Takkad did want to go to Magnimar to buy some goggles of darkness, and Sedgewick picked up some special crossbow bolts. Myself, I felt pretty prepared. But then Avia decided she wanted to get one of the whirly stones, and Takkad also wanted to talk to the mayor. Nolin said he was interested in going too, so I agreed to teleport everybody there tomorrow.

6 Lamashan, Moonday

What a delightful day at Magnimar. We soooo yanked Takkad’s chain. I think to properly record this, I will need to write it as though it were written as a prophecy. Ahem …

And it shall come to pass in those days, that the Wandering Man, the Master of Fire, Her Lady of Holy Pain, He Who Shatters Doors, and the Illustrator shall come together in the City of Lesser Glamor. And while they shall arrive as one, they shall depart as many. For it is said that Her Lady and the Illustrator shall seek out the Stones of Whirliness, and though they be scarce, they shall find them with but a wee bit of searching. And yea, the Man of Wandering shall see through the Darkness, and both he and the Illustrator shall find cold iron to thwart their enemies.

And as a group they shall seek audience with the Leader of the City of Lesser Glamor, but lo, they shall desire two different Paths.

One Path, the path of Light, shall require camaraderie, bonding, and demonstrations among peers before finally consummating in arriving at a time with which to confer with the Leader. And much merriment shall be had before the Meeting.

But the other Path, the path of Dark and Haste and Avoidance of Camaraderie, shall also be proposed. And there will be those who strongly desire one Path over the other, and those who Could Care Less. Yet both Paths cannot be taken; one must must be taken while the other is discarded.

And only one among them can return all of them to their origins, and he shall favor one Path over another.

And it shall come to pass that after the moon has risen, a Message shall arrive on the wind to the Wandering Man, seeking his whereabouts. And he shall reiterate again, out loud this time to the Shunned Mage, that the Path they are taking is not one of his choosing, and shall wonder Out Loud if others have Lost Their Minds.

Upon receiving this communication, the Shunned Mage shall make himself present, thus choosing one Path but avoiding the Desirable One, and shall directly and summarily return himself, Her Ladyship, and the Aimless One to whence they’d come, leaving the rest to their Path. Using Foul Magic, the Leader shall be informed despite the possibility of Great Camaraderie.

And so a Meeting Time for the following day shall not be made, and the remainder of the group shall return very late in the Evening but full of mirth and song.

Thus endeth the prophecy.

7 Lamashan, Toilday

It turns out that while we were in Magnimar the previous day, Kane had asked some questions of Desna and one of them was to learn whether fasting was really necessary to discern the path to Xin Shalast. And the answer was, no, it wasn’t. Takkad was curious, though, as to whether it made a difference and decided to fast beforehand anyway as an experiment.

Having acquired, we thought, all we needed we teleported to the cabin in the morning, and then used windwalk to make our way upstream. The wind did increase, but although it slowed us we still made progress much faster than walking would be. We found what we believed to be the tributary Ava, and in short order we did indeed see a tall and beautiful waterfall. If we were walking or boating, it would present a formidable obstacle, but in gaseous form we traversed it easily.

Finally we came to what seemed to be a frozen lake which seemed to be the source of what seemed to be the river. If you’re detecting some skepticism, you’re very perceptive. Increasingly, it seems, things are not what they seem.

As we solidified at the short of the lake, two things quickly became apparent to us. It was indeed very cold, and the air was indeed very thin. Endure elements had been cast on all of us, so the cold was noticeable but not dangerous, but few of us had any means to breathe when air was scarce. I noticed that one got tired more easily, and seemed to have less endurance or stamina at this altitude, and I realized that it might be prudent to obtain some magical means to improve upon this.

The lake, it turns out, was actually a marsh (but still frozen). If one walked carefully out on the fairly clear ice, one could see that sometimes the bottom was mere inches away while other times it was measured in feet. At this altitude, there wasn’t the usual collection of marsh grass and plants, and certainly there didn’t seem to be any animals or life. Instead, I observed that there seemed to be some fungi and lichen growing here.

Takkad cast True Seeing and went looking around the lake in windwalk form to cover as much ground as possible, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

It occurred to me that one way around the thin air problem might be a rope trick. And it turned out that worked very well – we waited for Nolin and Takkad inside the rope trick, a bit cozy but at least comfortable.

I thought it was just myself, but in talking with the others I found that when outside, there was also this growing unease, like something was wrong or out of place. It wasn’t so strong as to be distracting, but was apparently real, nonetheless.

Takkad tried a number of other things, including using a rock to simulate a moon, and asking the peacock quill for clues (it basically said, “you’re in the right place; wait for the moon”). Having learned pretty much everything we could (or so we thought), we decided to teleport back to the library and come back the night of the full moon.

But, um, it failed. Something was resisting me, and a couple of attempts to teleport back to the library failed. We decided to make our way back to the place below the falls and try again from there. And when we’d made it below that big falls, we found the feeling of unease was no longer present.

Unfortunately, neither was Rigel nor Nolin. We weren’t quite sure when we’d lost them, but looking around, we realized they were not with us.

Since windwalk had expired, I cast Fly on myself and flew back to look for them. I was worried that something bad and evil had happened to them, and since Fly doesn’t last nearly as long as windwalk, I needed to recast it a few times. But it still took about 45 minutes, and when I found them they were right back at the lake, sitting around a fire they’d built. They insisted that they’d followed us faithfully, except for some reason they’d ended up right back where they’d started.

This feeling of unease appeared to be more than a feeling. Whatever blocked teleport also appeared to confuse direction. Another thing to make finding Xin Shalast a challenge!

The rest of the group arrived within an hour.

We decided to spend the night in a rope trick while recovering our various spells, then start anew in the morning. Just for grins, I kept trying to teleport out, and finally succeeded! That proved it was possible, if difficult. From the library, I then tried to teleport back in … and that used up all my fifth AND sixth level slots before succeeding. So again – it was possible to teleport in, but by no means a sure thing. Sabin determined that dimension door, which covers a lot less ground, seemed to work okay. Maybe because it stayed within the “field” we seemed to be in.

8 Lamashan, Wealday

Takkad windwalked us all again, and led us down the mountain. Or seemed to. He actually led us to another mountain nearby – quite certain the whole time that we were heading in the right direction. He tried again only to lead us north of the lake. The third time I tried to lead us, and it seemed to work. And once the unease was behind us, teleport worked reliably, and we all made it back to the library.

Kane and Takkad talked about intersecting planes being a reason for the disorientation, but I quickly lost track of the points they were making. It apparently was enlightening to the two of them and the rest of us just found other stuff to do. We have until 21 Lamashan before the full moon, so there’s plenty of time for discussion, or research or whatever. Or acquisition — I think a Necklace of Adapation might help considerably with the breathing issues.

Takkad seems less eager to teleport with me to Magnimar, but does also want to obtain some sort of breathing aid. Rigel and Nolin feel they’ll be okay.

20 Lamashan, Moonday

Since my last entry, Kane and Takkad obtained whirlistones that let them breath. Expensive buggers, but they were already wearing amulets or necklaces so they couldn’t use the cheaper alternatives. We also bought three rods of extension, which can make spells last longer.

Armed with portable air, we are ready to return. So we teleported to the five mile point, assumed windwalk form, and made our way back to the lake. I created another Rope Trick for us to wait in, and we wait. Every now and then a couple of us would go down and look around, but, well, nothing.

Finally the moon rose above the mountain peaks around us and shone on our area. And still nothing had changed … but wait. Takkad claimed he could see a trail – path, really. It looked like the river Ava had an old bed that was now clearly visible … to him and him alone. Maybe fasting wasn’t necessary, but clearly some sort of distress somehow aided this vision.

With Takkad as our guide, we proceeded ever higher and ever more north up the mountain.

We were only a mile or so north of the lake when we came upon a fallen tree, and a young lady, naked, sitting on the fallen tree. Sedgewick tried to address her in Thassalonian, but she looked at him strangely. Her ears suggested she might be elven, but Avia thought they were the wrong shape. I stepped up and asked her, “Do you live here?” (yes) and “Do you like visitors?” (ok).

Turns out she understands common fine, but not Thassilonian. She is an ice nymph, and a druid. She knows of us from our experiences with her cousin in Turtleback Ferry. She’s willing to help us but only in a guiding sense. Her name is Svenka. She led us a ways further until we reached a 100-ft wide paved road. The bricks were golden, but a close inspection showed them only gilded, not solid gold bricks. Still, pretty ostentatious.

She pointed out the sentries, at the top of some high cliffs, and said she could go no further. Sabin used arcane eye to spy upon them and found that the sentries were cloud giants. Sending it further into the city, we discovered the ancient city had a population of hundreds, maybe thousands. So far as we knew, this could represent a substantial defending force. This was not going to be as simple as Runeforge; a little more subtlety was going to be needed.

But first, Rigel and Nolin were admitting that with 20/20 hindsight, perhaps some sort of breathing apparatus would be helpful. Since we’d pretty much exhausted the market in Magnimar, I offered to take them to Korvosa. Assuming, of course, that I could get teleport to work.

We decided to Rope Trick overnight, and with a fresh batch of spells, attempt to teleport Rigel, Nolin, and myself to Korvosa.

21 Lamashan, Toilday

It took many attempts, but I did finally get us to Korvosa. Fortunately, we could find two more Necklaces of Adaptation. Unfortunately, my spells ran out before successfully teleporting back. With a disproportionate amount of glee, Nolin suggested we stay at my parents’ overnight and try again in the morning.

It wasn’t all that long since I’d last visited, and I didn’t want to surprise them. Yet, here we were and I had to admit it made more sense to stay with them than to use money for rooms in town.

So with a heavy heart, we arrived at my parent’s door. It was easy to see that Mother was surprised at our arrival but she smiled at Nolin’s visage. How much DID they talk about last time?

My father wasn’t home at the time, but Mother hastily prepared the rooms we’d used a month or two earlier. Rigel made me nervous by repeatedly eyeing the furnishings and utensils as if she was doing some sort of mental audit. Nolin found himself a comfortable place on the patio.

It wasn’t too long before Father returned, and he was pleased to see us again so soon. For someone who essentially shoved me politely towards the door just a couple of years ago, he certainly seemed happy to see me and my friends.

“Trask!” he exclaimed. “Back again so soon? I see you brought Nolin again, and Rachel!”

“Rigel,” I said, hanging my head. “It’s Rigel.”

“Right!” he said. “So ..” and his voice dropped to a stage whisper, “you two have resolved your issues?”

“Father, there were, and are, no issues. She just couldn’t come last time. No, we’re here because I need to rest and regain some spells. The rest of our group is ..” I hesitated, “… in an area partially shielded from magic, and teleport is not always successful.”

He frowned. “Perhaps if a more experienced sorceror were to try. Where is this place? Perhaps I’m familiar with it.”

“No, Father. It’s no place you’ve ever been. It’s in the mountains in the far north.”

“Is this still chasing that Runelord thing?”

“Yes, Father, it’s related to that. But the air is very thin in the mountains, and we returned to get some necklaces of adaptation to improve our breathing.”

“So, there’s nothing I can do to help? Say, what if I came along?”

“What if you just worry about the shop?” my mother called from the next room. “You’re done adventuring; quit trying to come up with a reason to pick it up again.”

“Yes, dear,” lamented my father. “Although, I -”

“No ‘although’ about it. We have a deal, remember?”

Father gave me a look and a shrug. “Let me know how this all works out. I’ll drop you a sending from time to time.” He retired to his den, and I was left looking at my friends.

Nolin grinned and said, “I love your family!”

Rigel said carefully, “It’s never boring here.”

I rolled my eyes at them both and went to get ready for lunch. Tomorrow morning I can try teleporting us back again.

(Later)

Received a sending from Sabin. Told him I’d have to sleep and we’d try again tomorrow. Maybe they can arrange to kill the guards before we get back.

5 Lamasha, Starday

As Sabin touched the body, several of us started to (uselessly) yell No. No is a simple word, and understood by even simple people, but it is wholly ineffective at stopping something that has already happened. I’m not at all convinced that Sabin doesn’t interpret “No” to mean “please hurry and finish before I reach you”. But in this case it made no matter – the body had been disturbed even though prudence might have had us take a few more notes or observations first.

Despite the unnatural fog, this was clearly a small graveyard. Digging in the ground here must be possible only during certain small times of the year, so it didn’t surprise me that some gravestones seemed to mark very shallow cairns, as though they were a combination of digging and rock piling.

The dwarf, which we presumed to be Karvek Vekkers, seemed to have burned off his feet (or had his feet burned off after his death). He was, at this point, a solid frozen chunk. But as he was touched, a ghostly figure rose from the body. The figure seemed to have burned-off feet, significant fangs (not simply an incidental dental issue), and glowing red eyes. He seemed unhappy that we touched the body. He randomly (I assume) attacked Avia.

Now, it seems blatantly unfair. Ghosts are translucent and you can’t easily touch them; why is it they can so easily affect us on the material plane? Shouldn’t we be as hard to discomfort as they are difficult to affect to us? I mean, simply being frightening is one thing, but shouldn’t there be a little symmetry here?? Why don’t we frighten ghosts? They shouldn’t be able to do physical damage.

Ah well, coulda shoulda woulda. Avia was indeed harmed by the ghost, taking some deep scratches as the ghost emitted an unearthly moan. But Takkad channelled positive energy into the ghost, I did some scorching rays, Sabin shot some magic missiles, and Avia gave as good as she got and the ghost quickly dissipated.

Sabin picked up the remains – enchanted armor and all – and we headed back to the cabin. While the ghost had given out a, well, ghostly, moan, now we were hearing really disturbing howling off in the distance. It was distracting, and made me nervous. Rigel, Sedgewick, and eventually Kane felt that way too … but Kane pulled out a wand of Remove Fear and the feeling left me. Weird that just a howl could do that – I’ve faced down giants and bigger and never felt terribly scared.

And – was it my imagination or was the wind picking up? I couldn’t tell if it had started snowing or it was just blowing around. The wind did seem stronger, and when I mentioned it to the group, a couple of people nodded.

By the time we reached the cabin, there was no question that the weather had changed. It was definitely snowing, the wind was much stronger, and you could hear it making noises, almost like voices in the wind. Sedgewick mentioned he thought it was possible that druids could control the weather, which really was not a comforting thought.

The wind and ice made it a challenge just to enter the cabin safely, but with care we did. We took the body downstairs to where we’d seen Silas’s ghost.

As we brought the body into the room, Silas’s ghost re-manifested. There was a look of profound sadness and .. was it forgiveness? … on his face. Then surprisingly, the body disintegrated into dust and Karvik’s ghost reappeared – fangs and stumps and red eyes and all. But this time the eyes were focused on his brother. The two seemed to be having some sort of monumental staring contest …

… as the wind increased further and made the cabin shake. There was another howl right upstairs! Rigel panicked, but Kane again zapped her with his Remove Fear wand and she settled down. Nevertheless, she became invisible, which guaranteed if she bolted again we’d never know. Sabin grimly went to mirror image and Avia cast a protection from evil. While there was nothing to fight yet, everyone was on edge.

And still the staring contest went on.

This time the howling was right outside the outside door for this room and something beat on the door. Nolin and Kane totally panicked and crouched cowering on the other side of the room. Thinking that perhaps the door was going to be busted down, I put up a wall of force across that entire wall, including the door. Anything that busted it down would find an invisible barrier.

Avia grabbed the wand of Remove Fear from Kane (he was in no condition to object) and zapped him and Nolin. Upstairs was the sound of shattering glass. Either the wind had gotten very strong, or something had broken in. I was not the only one to hear this – Sabin dimension doored himself, Avia, Kane, and Sedgewick up to the hallway. I was going to go, but decided I should stay here in case something tried to break in. Nolin and Rigel (we found later) went up the stairs. Takkad flew up the center of the shaft.

Suddenly, I found myself alone down there. And still the staring contest went on.

Meanwhile, upstairs, the team had dimension doored pretty close to the object of their hunt. A creature was there in the south room with stumps for legs, like Karvek, and glowing red eyes, like Karvek, but with an elk’s head and a humanoid body. It had fangs and claws and looked decidedly out of place in the natural order of things. And when Avia moved to close with it, as she naturally tends to do, it actually tried to grapple her. She held it off but still took some damage from its claws and teeth. These were close quarters and it took some maneuvering for Avia and Sabin to fight effectively.

And still the staring contest went on. Nervously, I cast mirror image. There was no longer any beating on the door.

This time, the creature successfully grappled Avia. It was incredibly strong. Sabin beat upon it, drawing blood. Kane withdrew slightly, leaving room for the fighters but remaining close enough to be an effective healer. That’s when the second creature – yes, a second one of these monstrosities – broke the window in the kitchen and climbed through, much to Kane’s distress. Mindful of the grappling ability, he cast Freedom of Movement on himself and prepared to do what he could to defend what had been the rear of the group. Takkad, his attention diverted to the new threat, threw a Flame Strike at it, which it did not appreciate – but it also did not do us the favor of dying from it.

And still the staring contest went on. I could hear noises upstairs. “Uh, what’s going on up there?” I yelled up. Other than the whistling wind, it was now quiet down here. It sounded like my friends needed help, so I teleported up to the kitchen.

Despite Sabin and Avia beating on the first beast, it managed to grab Avia in its mouth and turned to leave. That was it? Collecting food? or victims? Not wanting it to escape, Takkad used Wall of Stone to block off its exit. It howled in anger (but howling with your mouth full of Avia obviously mutes the full effect.)

About this time I arrived in the kitchen; popping in right next to the second beast. While it may have been startled, it adapted quickly. I tossed some lightning its way, but it was a fairly weak bolt. For its part, it bit me and tried to hold me in its mouth much like the other had with Avia. Nolin smacked it hard, but it held on. I cast enlarge person on myself, to make myself harder to hold on to. And I was, but not so large it still couldn’t wrap its maw around me.

Meanwhile, the beast holding Avia was encouraged by sword and crossbow to release Avia. Then Rigel appeared from nowhere (literally) and shot a flaming arrow in its face. Boom. Dead critter. Rigel knows how to make a good entrance. Everyone hurried into the room with the other creature.

But in the meantime, it had stepped outside through the opening it had made in the cabin and was preparing to fly off. I may have been pinned, but I still had one more trick up my sleeve. Once a day I can breathe fire due to my heritage, and this was time. I turned my head to face the beast and unleashed an upchuck o’ fire upon this creature that seemed to so embrace cold. Take that. It was MOST unhappy with me. But it was not yet dead.

It was Nolin who struck it down in the nick of time — although I have been studying magic skills which might have allowed me to cast other spells to free myself even while pinned.

Takkad spread healing all around, and life was good again. I could tell my friends were impressed with my bravery at taking on such a creature just to save Kane.

I and the others hurried back downstairs. And still the staring contest went on.

It took, literally, minutes. Karvek’s face looked less angry and more tired. His fangs and claws disappeared, and he slowly faded away. Silas turned to us and thanked us. Then he said, “If you insist on going to that place, you may find the way by looking at the pages in my journal.” He started to fade and I yelled, “Hey! But somebody ripped them out!” He smiled and as he disappeared, some pages materialized and floated out of the air to the ground before us.

Takkad and I both scanned through them.

A path described as a grueling physical trail, even if it weren’t for the strange, otherworldly influences. There is a disorienting effect. It’s easy to get lost. No wonder it’s been hidden for 10,000 years.

Continue up the Kazeron to the 2nd tributary. The River Avah is a winding route not for the faint of heart. There are no banks; only walls up to 300 feet tall. The waters of Avah are freezing cold, yet never freeze, themselves. The air grows thin, and the sky is the deepest blue. When you arrive at the ice mists, you will be very near the world’s roof itself, at the River Avah’s source. Wait and fast here until a night with a full moon. Then the remaining way will be revealed to you.

Sigh. I hope there’s a fire inside. Sounds like we’re going to get pretty cold getting there.

5 Arodus, Tuesday

Much discussion ensued about what items to get, and in what order.  We have two sources of discounted magic: Sabin, who can do weapons and armor and does it for cost, and Rallo, who will do wondrous items for 10% over cost.  The prevailing policy was we didn’t want to take “too much time” and we also wanted to give everyone fair access.  That resulted in the following ordered shopping list.

Rallo

Headband of CH +2 => +6 (Trask)       16d, $17.6K 
Belt of ST +4 => +6 (Sabin)           10d, $5.5K 
Goggles of night (Kane)                6d, $6.6K 
Winged boots (Takkad)                  8d, $8.8K 
Cloak of resistance +1 => +3 (Rigel)   4d, $4.4K 
Belt of CO +2 => +4 (Sedgewick)        6d, $6.6K 
Winged boots (Avia)                    8d, $8.8K

Total: 58d

Here was Sabin’s work list:

Sabin

Sabin's armor                     7d, - 
Kane's buckler +1 => +2         1.5d, $1.5K 
Kane's mithril shirt +2 => +3   2.5d, $2.5K 
Avia's sword +1 => +2            11d, $11K 
Nolin's sword +2 => +3            9d, $9K 
Rigel's bow (add seeking)         7d, $7K 
Avia's buckler +3 => +4         3.5d, $3.5K 
Sabin's axe +2 => +3              9d, $9K

Total: 56d

I myself also went and found magic users who could move my +2 ring of protection to +3 ($10K), my belt of CO from +2 to +4 ($12K), and my cloak of resistance from +3 to +5 ($16K).  When you include the work I asked Rallo to do, I spent a total of $55.6K on upgrades.

Rallo grumbled a bit about this being a bit much, but we took him out for dinner a couple of times and reminded him we’ve given him first crack at most of the stuff we’ve found.  Over the almost two months he did commissioned work for us, he did earn $5.8K (plus, of course, whatever else he may have sold at his shop during that time.)  He smiled, but I think we may need to bring our projects to him in a less concentrated group next time.

A few others in the party also had some work done, or picked up some pieces, on the open market.  Overall, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t make themselves a little harder to kill, or a little better at killing, and you gotta be proud of that!

12 Arodus, Wednesday

Well it looks like we’re going to have a couple of months to study, train, and/or just rest or hang out.  I offered to take Takkad to Golduria so we could see if everything was okay with the innkeeper.  And it turns out that there was a perfectly logical explanation.  When Takkad sent his message, as luck would have it, the innkeeper said he happened to be, uh, indisposed, and was unable to reply.  Takkad and I looked at each other, and I asked the innkeeper, “how was she?”  He smiled a moment, and then looked aghast and stammered, “Uh, what do you mean?”

Takkad and I took a walk around town to assure ourselves that in fact nothing seemed amiss.  Takkad told me he’d been to the Pathfinder Society the day before, looking for information about Xin Shalast, but although the place was legendary – or maybe because it was legendary – there was nothing recorded that was usable.  He mentioned Sedgewick was going to research it among the books we’d found, and that he himself would like to go talk to Quink in Sandpoint.  I was curious so I offered to be the means for that.

Upon returning, we discovered that Sedgewick had indeed found some information, but sadly, very little of it was new to us (or rather, I should say to Takkad. The man has a mind like a sponge!)

Sedgewick told us:

Xin Shalast was at the base of Mhar Massif, which lies at the headwaters of the sacred level Alph. (At this, Kane perked up.) Sedgewick continued that the river Alph supposedly led to the earthly paradise sacred to Desna. (Kane corrected him and said it was *not* “supposedly”. Just because it hadn’t been found yet didn’t mean that it didn’t exist.)

Karzoug called down unknown creatures from the sky, and had innumerable minions, and created gateways to other worlds. Karzoug’s favored school of magic was transmutation, but in excelling there he neglected illusion and enchantment. He built immense statues to guard his realm; Alaznist built Helltowers to defend hers from him. Independently, the Runelords were said to have created a means to place themselves in states of suspended animation, leaving minions behind that would awaken them when the world was in a state to receive them. It is not clear if all the Runelords were successful in this plan.

15 Arodus, Starday

Today, Takkad and I went to see Quink in Sandpoint and see if he knew anything about Xin Shalast.  At first he rambled a bit about Karzoug, and the legend, and then suddenly his eyes got big. “I have something right here, that might be useful!”  He shuffled through some papers, then scowled and looked to his left.   He scratched his chin and quickly moved to another stack of papers on the other side of the room and his scowl deepened.  “Right here, I had it – wait, oh, right now, that would be in the cabinet.”  Takkad and I looked at each other as Quink moved to a bureau/desk/armoire – it sadly appeared it might fulfill all those functions – and opened a drawer. “aHA!” he exclaimed.

“I imagine you’ve read the books of Cevil Charms, yes?” his eyebrows questioned? “Of course, Takkad, a well-read man such as yourself probably owns a personal copy of Eidolon.”

Takkad gave a small, smiling nod. “Entirely possible; my library is extensive and I recently expanded it.  It’s hard to keep track of them all.”

“Well, I too am an admirer of the man,” Quink continued, “and at one time had a significant correspondence with him.  Redwing – that’s his nickname, you know – of course you probably already know that.  The point is, he sent me a letter, a personally handwritten letter, in which he recounted a tale he’d heard about Xin Shalast.  And I just located it.  I normally have things a bit more organized, but your visit caught me – ”

“I completely understand,” said Takkad diplomatically.  “And I apologize for not setting up an appointment instead of just dropping in.”

“No no, not at all,” said Quink.  “You and I have a common interest, a common base.  Even after all these years, all these centuries, Thassilonia is what brings us to the same table!”

“Ahem, yes,” said Takkad.  “But you mentioned a correspondence?”

“Yes, yes,” said Quink excitedly.  “Here.  You can look, and you can copy, but you understand, of course, he personally signed it!  So it mustn’t leave..”

“Yes, of course,” said Takkad, absently, looking it over. I saw his eyes get big, and he handed it to me.  It said

Salutations Mr. Quink!

Thank you again for the kind words and drink. It’s always a pleasure to speak with readers of my work, especially those well-read and civilized enough to know of my writing beyond Eidolon. Alas, I was unable to procure a copy of the early draft from my personal files.  It would seem that it has gone the way of so much of my early work, lost forever to the gulfs of time and narrow-minded publishers unable to grasp the import of a young Pathfinder’s work.

Fortunately, my mind is as quick now as it was in those early days of my explorations of your fantastic homeland.  I recall the evening I first heard the story of Xin-Shalast, while seated on a log in a Varisian camp, sharing ruby mead with an enchanting young woman.  Ah, but that’s a story for other times.

mI was intrigued y the tale, though. All peoples have tales of “cities of gold,” yet with Xin-shalast, the Varisians had no tradition of explorers seeking it. They viewed the place as one of evil, a place to be feared and forsaken.  As far as I could tell, none of your indigenous people ever sought out the ruins before the advent of Chelish rule.  But there was mention, come to think of it, of two dwarven brothers. Vekker, I think their names were.  Claimed to have found the route to Xin-Shalast and convinced several tradesmen in Janderhoff to support and supply their plan to establish a base of operations in the low Kodar Mountains along the Kazaron.  Their vanishing into the Kodars bankrupted all but one of their investors, I hear, and even today, the Vekker name is generally accompanied by a litany of rousing dwarven profanity when i tcomes up in ‘Hoffian taverns.

In the stead of enclosing a copy of the early, complete draft of my work, though, please find a signed copy of Eidolon with this missive.  I trust it will look quite handsome on your shelf.

In good health,
Redwing

“As you can see,” said Quink excitedly, “we had met for dinner, and discussed some of his drafts.  At the time he’d thought he might still have them, but alas, they seem to be lost.  But he did mention this story of a dwarven expedition.”

We looked at each other.  “Thank you, Quink,” said Takkad.  “I agree, this may be valuable information.”  Ever the diplomat, Takkad spoke with him another ten minutes before we took leave of him.  Returning to the library, we waited until the others were with us and gave this news to them.  Nolin’s only reaction was, “I knew I needed a bigger weapon.”

Much of the party is now impatient for their magic work to be done.

5 Rova, Oathday

It has been several weeks since we travelled to Sandpoint, and it seemed as good a time as any to visit my parents.  A couple of the group said they’d like to accompany me to Korvosa, which shouldn’t be a problem so long as we don’t surprise my parents. So I have sent word via rather ordinary means (a letter) that I’ll be arriving today with three of my friends.  That should give Mother time to clean up the guest rooms so they are up to her standards.

I have retrieved my enhanced headband from Rallo, and also my enhanced cloak of resistance.  My belt of constitution and my ring of protection are still being worked on, but I don’t anticipate needing any extra health or any extra protection, unless it’s to prevent my mother from hovering around me or my father from requiring more details of my recent adventures.

Oddly, although I started writing this journal so that my father could one day read of my adventures, I feel now like I don’t want him to read everything I’ve written.  I think this journal will remain primarily for me, and I’ll convey summaries to my father in other ways with less editorializing.

So Takkad, Nolin, Avia, and myself arrayed ourselves at noon, and we teleported to a place I know outside Korvosa, so that we could walk in like ordinary people rather than pop in like apparitions and frighten everyone within fifty feet.  And all three of my companions agreed with my reasoning.

Although this route took us an extra half hour to walk to my parents place in the city, it also meant they got to get a better taste of the city itself.   I realize I am not objective, but I think Korvosa is probably one of the most beautiful and calming places in Varisia.  And now when I say that, I can say that having seen a lot more of Varisia.

Prepared for our arrival, we were greeted warmly at the door by both my parents.  My hopes for an uneventful visit were dashed almost immediately by my father when he undiplomatically asked, “What, did you already lose that young lady friend of yours?  I had come to like her – Rachel was it?”

“Rigel, Father.  Her name is Rigel, and she’s fine but she didn’t come along this time.”

“But it wasn’t that long ago you were here! Did you already have a falling out?  She seemed so quiet; perhaps if your mother and her had a talk …”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nolin obviously hiding a smirk, Takkad studiously inspecting a rather ordinary earthen vase, and Avia smiling broadly.  “Father, there’s nothing to .. fall out.  We’re just friends.”

“Don’t believe that,” my father said in a stage whisper. “They say that but she either doesn’t really care at all or she’s plotting something. You should -”

“Father, truly, she is simply taking some time off and resting.”

“What does she do?”

My companion’s eyes all turned innocently to me and invited me to respond so that they might bathe in my discomfort.

“She is .. an economic redistribution researcher.”  With the distraction that the momentary gape of my father provided, I turned quickly to my mother.  “Are we using the rooms upstairs?  I’ll go show my friends their rooms, then.” She nodded, still looking a little confused.

Nothing is ever easy with my parents.

6 Rova, Fireday

Dinner was uneventful and actually quite pleasant.  If it’s one thing I’ve missed in the last year and a half, it’s been my mother’s cooking.  From what I hear, they have a part-time staff to do some of the cooking now, but Mother always likes to pick up the frypan herself when there are guests involved.  (Another good reason to bring my friends home!)  We had discussed before we left that we intended to leave Sunday morning, so maybe I can get another of these home-cooked meals tomorrow.

However, we (the four of us) will go out for dinner ourselves tonight, so as not to impose too greatly on our hosts.  We invited them along, but they declined.  So we will all meet at the Leaky Roof for dinner around sunset.  (Really, it’s a nice place – it just has an odd name.)

Breakfast was late today, as we slept in a bit.  Avia wants to check out the markets, and Takkad also has some errands he wanted to run.  Nolin said that while he may spend a little time inspecting the city, he’d be just as happy to spend the day relaxing on the patio.  I myself want to go meet again with Councillor Rasok, and Father agreed to accompany me.

Ah, Councillor.  It seems I have been underinformed on the machinations of the Korvosan government.  I’ll admit, outside of knowing that the king ran the army and has a marvelous palace, I hadn’t really paid much attention to how the city was run.  But in talking more with Father on this visit, I came to learn that although Father calls him Councillor, or more precisely, “counselor” (and he does indeed participate in an informal council) his actual title is Arbiter.  He is one of the judges for the town (and the region), and the “council” he speaks of is the collective group of Arbiters.  While they hold no legislative power, they do represent (aside from royal decrees or proclamations) the judicial arm of the government and it is said that they hold some unofficial sway over the monarchy itself.

In any case, I wanted to know if his peers – if the city – wanted to be involved in this effort against Karzoug.  After my last meeting with him I was encouraged both by his knowledge of ancient Thassilonia, and that fact that it sounded like the council might be interested as well.

But the meeting was disappointing to me.   While he and Father did chat about their days together again, his conversation with me was less on point and more vacuous, at least to me.  When I raised the topic, he looked at me and said, “Honestly, I’™m still trying to wrap my head around the concept that we’re even seriously talking about this. For most of my life such tales were the sorts of things we heard as children, but it was just a fantasy story about a long-dead kingdom. I’m no scholar but I’ve done my share of reading, and I’m afraid no one I’ve spoken to has any idea where Xin-Shalast was, other than ‘it was said to be in the high mountain peaks long ago’.”

He continued, “But should you find such a place, the stories I’™ve heard of the streets paved of gold … you must bring me word of how to get there if you succeed.  I’m sure it would be in the best interests of the scholars of Korvosa to study such a priceless artifact.”  And then my heart sank when he added, “But be sure to contact only me, none other, for you must know that there are many unscrupulous men who would take advantage of you to turn this to their gain.  So work in secret and bring me news.”

Sigh.   While I don’t believe him to be unscrupulous, he is at best, mocking my – our – efforts.  On the one hand, he seems to ridicule our efforts but then wishes to be the sole one to hear the news if we do find the fabled city.   I wonder if this won’t be a common problem.  If we do find the city, it will undoubtedly  be both a lucrative and historically significant find.  How will we maintain the historical integrity of such a find without creating a garrison there?  I fear that we too will need to keep the location secret, and thus only extend its legend.  To do otherwise will doom it to looting and desecration.

Father had additional errands to run, so I returned home alone.  I was surprised, as I entered, to hear two voices from the kitchen. Nolin and my mother were talking.

“Sure, but why?” asked Nolin.

“He was adventurous.  He was … outgoing.  He was something of a bad boy.” responded my mother.  I moved a little closer, and now could see my mother, although not Nolin.  She was smiling.

“You seem different from him though,” said Nolin.  “I mean, he’s a sorceror like Trask, right?”

“Yes.”

“But you …?”

My mother smiled again.  “Not a magical bone in my body.  I handle the mundane stuff.  I can sew, I can cook, I can get tough stains out of a cotton tunic.  And Elros knows a mend spell, can conjure food and drink, and can use prestidigitation to remove stains.”

“How did you meet?” asked Nolin.

“I was working at my father’s market. I’d seen him there before, and he looked utterly lost every time. He bought things that made no sense, like two pounds of fresh fruit and a pound of salt.  Once he bought more than he could possibly carry, and he paid my father to have me haul them to the place they were staying.  Because it was a fair distance off, he offered to also buy me dinner.  I wasn’t catching on, but I’m pretty sure my father knew.”  She smiled.  “He wasn’t really interested in produce. Or groceries.  The man can plan when he puts his mind to it.”

Nolin laughed.  I don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh before.  “So he’s the brains and you’re the brawn?”

“Not at all.  I also do the books.  I keep the inventory lists. I put food in the house.  We’d have no food here at all if we left it to him.  You’d think a man who can command powerful magical energies could follow a recipe – but I swear the man would starve if he had to cook for himself.  And his magic shop would be about two months behind in its bills and billing if it were up to him.”  She paused.  “He’s impulsive.  He follows his gut.  Sometimes that’s utterly remarkable and sometimes, it’s … problematic.

“No, he’s very charismatic, and I wouldn’t change anything,” she continued, “but we complement each other.  I could not enjoy the life I’ve become accustomed to without his skills, and he wouldn’t be able to earn a living with them without mine.   He is the face of the store, and the face of the family, and the head of the household, and he fills those roles admirably. I am the chief of staff, the filter for his visitors, and the agent for his problem solving.   Not every issue can be resolved with flame, and those that cannot, fall to me.  I am confident that if anything threatened this family he would give his life to defend it. And if anything threatened him, I’d do the same.  Even if I don’t have a fireball at my disposal, I do have other weapons.”

“From what you say, I see a lot of him in Trask,” said Nolin solemnly.

I moved away.  I found the whole conversation a little disconcerting. I’m pretty sure I can cook.

And neither Father nor Mother had ever told ME how they’d met.

But then, I’m not sure I ever asked, either.

8 Rova, Sunday

Avia, Takkad, Nolin and I had a very impressive brunch prepared by Mother before taking leave shortly before noon.  I’d learned what I’d come to learn, and apparently Takkad, Avia, and Nolin had also fulfilled whatever their goals were.  Nolin kept looking at me and breaking into a grin, and I began to appreciate never having heard him laugh before a lot more.

1 Lamasha, Tuesday

Things are finally coming to a head.  Most people have their enhanced magic items back by now, although Avia’s still waiting on her winged boots.  Nevertheless, we are beginning our provisioning.  Top on the list is: what, if anything, do we want to get with our group funds?  It was agreed that in general, we’d like to get things to get us out of very dire straits.  We already have a scroll of stone to flesh, but several times now people have either almost died or been severely handicapped by demon attacks that required multiple lesser restorations.  While our priests now have the ability to raise dead and do greater restorations, they are not inconsequential spells and require substantial amounts of diamonds or diamond dust as material components.

So two major purchases were: two diamonds worth 5000 gp each, and 6000 gp worth of diamond dust.  A resurrection requires a diamond worth 10,000 gp, but Takkad’s elders assured him that two 5000 gp diamonds would also work, and that provides some flexibility in case we want to use one for “simply” raise dead.

We’ve decided to see if it is possible to contact Mr Redwing himself to see what else he might remember.  Takkad said he’d check with the Pathfinder society in Magnimar before we leave.

3 Lamasha, Oathday

Takkad talked to the Pathfinder Society in Magnimar. Mr Redwing, it seems, is on the road quite a bit.  Pathfinder, and all that.  Right now he’s believed to be in or heading for the Cheliax region.  So all we need to do is find a single person whom we’ve never met, who is 800-1000 miles away in a region we’ve never visited.

Or, translated, “we don’t get to meet Mr Redwing.”

4 Lamasha, Fireday

Some serious planning before we leave.  We decided to go to Janderhoff and pick up the trail of the Vekkers.  Chances are good that we’ll simply follow the river up into the mountains.  It will be cold, bitterly cold.  If the wind is too great, we will reach a point where we won’t be able to windwalk, so we also purchased a folding boat for 7200gp using group funds.

We can easily teleport to Korvosa, and then windwalk from there to Janderhoff.  We can talk to people and decide what to do after that. Everybody has their magic items back, newly enhanced. Rallo has been paid, and is probably happy to again take on freelance projects that pay more than 10% over cost 🙂

4 Lamasha, Fireday

We didn’t really learn all that much in Janderhoff.  We went first to the Pathfinder Society and Takkad flashed his badge or membership card or whatever.  But the representative there was kind of dour and uninteresting.  He finally retrieved an older member who could speak from (I think) memory rather than legend.  Or at least he looked like he could.  But even he didn’t have much to add to the story.

Yes, it was the Vekkers, Silas and (I forget.)

They got a large backing, but there wasn’t just one.  They came back several times, looking for additional backing.  Apparently they were mining up in the Kodars and claim to have found a path to, or an entrance to, or a way to access the famed city of gold, Xin Shalast. They brought back enough gold each time to suggest that perhaps they were telling the truth.  The mining team consisted of about two dozen dwarves at its max, but not a one of them was ever heard from after the Vekkers disappeared.  Story is that they took the investor’s money, presumably paid off or killed their crew, and took off with it.

Kane asked if there were any investors’ families still in town.  Our host harrumphed and replied, “not likely”.

What’s up in the mountains?  It’s a dangerous area. Weather’s extremely challenging, but the weather’s the least of it.  The air itself thins out and you have difficulty breathing.  The wind alone threatens to push you off every precarious ledge.  There are furry creatures that roar so loud you hear nothing else.  And so on.

We’ve decided to stay overnight here, study up on endure elements and windwalks, and wisp ourselves up the river until the winds force us to abandon that mode of travel.  If we haven’t found anything interesting yet, then I guess we unfold the boat and head upstream further.

5 Lamasha, Starday

According to our maps, Ulgin is the only notable city between here and our goal, and while it is not directly on the path, the ground below is so barren and featureless that we will head there solely to have the landmark.  It’s a town of about 5800, but our research suggests it is a place that tends towards isolationism and strangers that come to town often don’t leave.  Frankly, it sounds like a place steeped in evil.

So we reached it in just a few hours, happily flew over it, took about a 30 degree turn to the northeast and continued on. After another hour, hour and a half, we reached the foothills of the Kodars.

The Kodars are some impressive peaks, with many, I’d estimate, in excess of 20,000 feet high and some in excess of 30,000.  We flew over the Kazaron River since the info we had was that the Vekkers’ operation was on the Kazaron.  I’m not sure what we were looking for .. just something out of the ordinary.

The Kazaron met another river, and at the junction of those two rivers, as luck would have it, there appeared to be a structure. We are probably at about 10,000 feet, so a structure qualifies as “out of the ordinary”.  The structure looked like a cabin built up on a cliff, but some long, enclosed wooden appendage led down to a smaller structure some 50 or 60 feet below.  We all landed up top and materialized outside the cabin.

We were immediately struck by the fact that, yes, it was cold, and yes, the wind was blowing quite briskly.  While we were in no danger of freezing to death, it was equally true that it would be a rough camp if we stayed here.  A discussion ensued, and we thought that now that we’d landed here and were familiar with it, we could retreat back to the foothills to create a base camp, and return here by teleport rather than windwalk if we wished.  We could return to gaseous form, scout the area around the cabin, and then go back to a more safe area to discuss strategy.   If the entrance to Xin Shalast was around her, there would undoubtedly be some powerful creatures guarding it or pouring out of it, so we should consider carefully what we want to do.  Plus, the cold would be a significant hinderance were we to get injured or stuck here.

The brief stop and discussion allowed me the luxury of quickly (if painfully, because the cold really does seem to hit the fingers first) updating my journal before we head back to set up camp.

5 Lamasha, Starday

And somehow – I honestly do not know how – we went from that discussion about scouting and then setting up camp, to “hey, let’s go in”. Standing on the porch outside, Kane and Sedgewick found the door unlocked, entered, and made their way cautiously to what appeared to be the kitchen.  I don’t really know what else they may have done before getting there, because that’s when it got interesting.  We pieced together later most of what happened.

Kane and Sedgewick passed through the entryway, entered the hallway, and followed it to the kitchen.  It was apparent the entire place was disheveled and cluttered, as though either there’d been a battle or someone had ransacked the place before us.  In the kitchen, in addition to the apparently requisite destruction and clutter, they found on the wall a picture of two slightly drunken dwarves standing in front of an elk — apparently some sort of hunting picture.

And about that time, Kane found himself ravenous.  So he conjured up some food and drink – a big ole pile of it on the floor in front of him.  He and Sedgewick both dived into it, but quickly discovered it was unsatisfying.  Then they eyed each other, and realized what would really go down good.

Meanwhile, Takkad sensed, because of his status spell, that they had been put under some compulsion or spell.  Avia was the first to get to the room, and found that Kane had already drawn blood on Sedgewick, but Sedgewick had managed to make a mark on Kane as well.

It seemed to me from the noise that the other door at the front of the cabin might lead directly to the kitchen, so I went and opened it.  Sure enough, there was Kane and Sedgewick before me, with Avia coming up from behind Kane.  I was about to go in and try a dispel magic when Nolin yelled at me not to go in.  That caused me to pause a moment, and I saw Kane struggle against Avia as she bent over and grabbed him.  With her arms wrapped around him, he found it easy to bite her hand, which drew blood.  The strange thing was that rather than struggle to be free, he seemed content to gnaw on Avia’s hand.

Sort of a paladin pacifier.

Takkad took advantage of Kane’s distraction to tie him up, but it wasn’t easy.  He struggled every inch of the way.  Meanwhile, Sabin had cast a resilient sphere on Sedgewick, which simultaneously protected him from harm and stopped him from harming anybody else.

With them restrained from hurting anyone (else; Avia had her hand in Kane’s mouth until he was totally tied up!) Takkad cast Heal on Kane … and he looked muchly apologetic.  Sabin dismissed the resilient sphere and Avia was freed to cast remove curse on Sedgewick as she healed him … and he too looked a little less wild-eyed.

Kane said he thought he sensed something – no, not a thing.  Some force in the room, and did a positive channel into the room.  He immediately reported that it definitely changed … something … in the room.  That is to say, he didn’t sense anything in the room anymore. “There was a weight in the room,” he said, “and that weight is now gone.”

I’m guessing this is a priest thing, because I didn’t sense anything before, and I didn’t sense anything after either.  I think I have reasonable control over some significant magical energies, but I didn’t feel … well, whatever.  If he says it’s gone, then I suppose it’s gone.

For their part, Sedgewick and Kane said they entered the room and felt hungry.  Kane immediately conjured food and drink but one bite of that and he was sure that wasn’t what he hungered for.  That’s when Kane and Sedgewick decided to, well, eat each other.

But not anymore, they assured us.

Anyway we now understood that the disheveled state of the cabin might not be due to a battle .. or at least not due to an invasion.  If even one dwarf was so affected, it could easily have become a bloodbath inflicted upon the rest of the unsuspecting crew.  And if more than one was affected … I looked around.  Yes, that could certainly explain things.

The painting in the kitchen was indeed of two apparently sodden dwarves, standing by an apparently slain elk.  I suppose these might have been the Vekkers.

With our entire party in the cabin, the cabin seemed much smaller.  The kitchen held our would-be cannibals and the rest of our party, just barely.  To the south, the hallway led to what turned out to be a bedroom, and another western door.  To the west of the kitchen, another door led to what appeared to be a larder … and a grim discovery.

In the larder, there was a bare floor, hooks hanging from the rafters, and a window with bars on it.  That might not be too unexpected for a larder, but there was also a pile of bones.  Smallish, but thick. Rather dwarvenish.  It would appear we’d found at least part of the missing mining party.

The bedroom to the south held two beds, a chest, an iron coal bin, a crossbow, some shields, a coat, and a hooded lantern.  We decided to inspect the whole building before doing much with the stuff in the room, since folks were understandably nervous now that the place seemed to be haunted, or cursed, or something.  We quickly moved back into the hallway to a door which we assumed led to a closet.

The door was not locked.  Inside there was sturdy shelving and .. by golly it was a closet, right where you’d expect one.

This left just the southwest corner of the house, which we presumed was accessible by the door to the west in the southern hallway.  It was unlocked.

Entering the room we found it was a 10’x25′ room next to what appeared to be a shaft.  Given what we’d seen on the outside, this was entirely what we expected.  But what I didn’t expect was the reaction from Takkad.

Takkad, who always seems to take detailed notes of every building we examined, looked up from his drawings.  He went back out to the hallway, looked up and down, mumbled to himself and carefully paced off from the kitchen, down the hallway, to the outside wall of the bedroom.  “There’s more,” he said.  He again looked up and down the hallway.   “Judging from the size of the cabin and the size of these rooms, there’s more either behind the closet or behind one of the walls in the larder or the shaft room.”

We returned to the closet and searched around the heavy shelving, but we could find no signs of an entrance or panel.   Returning to the larder (which we noticed now had a really unpleasant odor, and probably always had) we began to search its southern wall.  Again we found nothing.

But when we searched the shaft room, we at last found a secret door.  It was, unfortunately, locked.  Rigel happened to be out of the room at the moment, so Nolin, with a broad smile on his face, announced he would use his “sword of opening” to unlock the door.   It took two, maybe three applications of the great adamantine sword of opening before the door bowed to its magical power in an explosion of splinters.

The newly opened door revealed a small room, about 5’x10′.  The room may have been small, but it contained some big surprises.  First, the doors themselves and the walls around the room seemed to be of double thickness.    There was a desk, upon which appeared to be a leather ledger and a pen.  There were 7 large, heavy burlap bags, and a small coffer.  5 of the bags contained gold dust … Rigel estimated there was about 1000 gp worth in each.  Two of them contained small gold nuggets: those bags are probably worth about 1500 gp each.  The coffer was neither trapped nor locked, but it contained 28 uncut gems, each worth about 50gp each.

Our attention turned next to the ledger.  While it bore the expected entries for the work being done here and the expenses being incurred, there were also notes about the various mines and locations that had been worked and in most cases, petered out.  Notably, some details on the last mine were clearly missing; although we could probably discover the location from the remaining notes, the ledger nonetheless bore evidence of pages having been ripped out.

A quick discussion ensued.  Kane mentioned that while we were opening the secret door, he’d been playing with a peg in the nearby bedroom and found that what appeared to be a simple place to hang one’s coat, moved and clicked when you pushed it.  Others mentioned that they definitely wanted to go down the stairs – or rather, down the shaft.  Nobody trusted the stairs once they heard about Kane’s clicker.  Sabin wanted to find the trap, though (convinced it must be a trap).

So Sabin returned to gaseous form (gotta love how long windwalk lasts) and tried to find what the clicking sound did.  He couldn’t spot anything. Kane heaved a sigh and said, “YOU work the peg” and went to look for himself.  And by golly he really did find a section of stair which appeared to be trapped – under one state it wouldn’t support any weight at all.

Now that everyone was thoroughly suspicious – cannibal curses, traps to drop you dozens of feet, and did I mention that nothing seemed to grow within about five feet of the cabin? – nobody wanted to walk down the stairs, although we were all convinced something really cool must be down there.  So we all returned to gaseous form and drifted on down to the base.

At the base of the shaft, there was a 20×20 room with a door to the north and a door to the south. We chose the south first.  The door was not locked, but when we entered I was immediately struck by the odor – it smelled, I don’t know, not rotten but I guess chemical. There was a pile of what looked like metal shavings here.  I had just cast detect magic (nothing) when a strange feeling ran thru me and some others in the room with me.

I turned around and standing near the pile was a dwarf – might have been one from the picture, I don’t know – and he looked a little .. intense.  He had a beard full of gold flakes and specks of black, and his eyes were bright as he said, “You gotta try some of this!  It’s awesome!” and he gestured at the pile.  I again felt a chill run through me, and said, “I don’t think so.”  Takkad saw him too, and also felt something. Remembering upstairs, he immediately channeled positive energy into the room, and with a disappointed look the dwarf faded away.

A couple of us have detect poison, so we now cast it on the pile.  The pile of metal shavings contained arsenic, and suddenly we understood what was going on here.  While the apparition may have been magical, this pile of metal discard was an ordinary byproduct of mining and processing the ore. It’s probably also why nothing grows around the cabin — the ground here is probably poisoned as well.

To the west and up a slight ramp was an unlocked door. Entering that modest (10×15) room we found rather shabby conditions, but at least there was a plank floor.  To the southeast a curtain hung from the ceiling to provide a little privacy for the 5×10 room behind it.  That room held a cot, some boots … and, Sabin, announced, some magic.

We quickly began to search the room and something fell out of one of the boots.  It was a [1222] +1 punching dagger, that appeared at one time it may have had some sort of a coating on the tip.  Nolin says it was probably poisoned at one time, but it had never been used and the poison was probably harmless now.  Probably.

We returned to the base of the shaft and tried to open the northern door.  It led to a room with pans and picks – mining equipment – with another door to the north.  That one was locked, but it was easily unlocked. This time it led outside, where a cold wind greeted us and a crude path curled and led around to the south side of the building. Kane followed that while the rest of us decided if maybe we’d seen enough for now and should return to create that base camp we’d talked about.

But that was decided for us when we heard a startled cry from behind the building.  In a flash, we cleared the side of the building and was able to see exactly why the group should ever split up.

In the back here there was a large pile of (probably poisonous again) filings or fragments, but there was also a huge pile of sticks or branches.  Or so one might think, had it not stood up to thirty feet high and borne glowing red eyes that were focused on Kane.  As we watched, it took a might swipe at Kane – I swear it had a reach of 15 feet if it reached an inch) and Kane staggered, bleeding significantly. Perhaps even more significantly, it looked like some fungus had come off the tree and stuck on Kane.  He staggered and stumbled.

Sabin gathered “the usual suspects” around him quickly and dimension-doored the welcome wagon to a spot close to the tree.  But the reach on this thing, and the suddenness of our encounter left some of them out of optimal position.

Takkad, who had been out of position to join “the usual suspects” this time, looked heavenward and invoked a spell I’d never seen him use before.  Later he told me it was “destruction” and he’d just learned it, and boy, did it do a number on that tree.  It must have shed half its branches and it looked like it had been through a tornado.  But the eyes still blazed red, so Kane gamely attacked it, and removed a surprising number of branches with his attack.

Still capable of significant damage, the tree attacked both Kane and Avia with some powerful blows. More of the fungus attached itself to both Kane and Avia, and both stumbled as it seemed to affect their balance.

As I mentioned, the dimension door was not perfect, and because of the reach of the tree Avia found herself subject to attack while being unable to attack herself. She gritted her teeth and absorbed another attack and another round of fungus to move right next to the tree.  Her attack was successful, and the tree looked more like a huge pile of sticks .. but still with red glowing eyes.

I moved to get a line-of-sight at the creature, and Sedgewick began to sing. However, Nolin, who had already ended up right next to the creature, immediately began swinging at it … and one swing was all it took for the light to go out of those red eyes.  The creature collapsed in a silent pile of, well, now firewood.

Takkad healed everyone of their injuries, which were in some cases quite grave.  The fungus required more than just healing, but our clerics took care of that too.  But everyone felt that now, really, we should go find a safe place and regroup.  While we were not in danger of having exhausted our spells, the things we’d run into already had made us use them at a surprising rate.

But then we heard the knocking.

Or to be more precise, Avia, Rigel, Kane, and Sedgewick heard the knocking.

We searched around but it quickly became apparent the knocking was coming from inside.  We looked at each other.  What else was waiting for us inside?   So it was with great caution and some trepidation that we all slowly went back to the base of the shaft, and all of us could now clearly hear the knocking.  In fact, the knocking got louder.

Standing at the base, it was apparent the knocking was coming from the room with the arsenic pile.  With a deep breath, and ignoring the concerns of my companions, I opened the door .. and was confronted again with the backside of the apparition of Goldbeard.  It might have been my imagination, but he seemed a little less scary and a little less intense as he turned to stare at me.  Takkad entered and immediately channeled positive energy again. The dwarf grimaced, and may have even faded a bit, but immediately refocused his gaze on us.  On me.

“You are still alive?” he asked in a gravelly voice and with some raised eyebrows.  “You – you seek the City of Greed.  Abandon your quest.”

“We will not,” replied Takkad.  “But we will remove obstacles in our path,” he said pointedly.

The dwarf looked at him with a steely gaze. “I can take you to Xin Shalast.”

“But?” I asked sarcastically.

“But I do request a task of you,” said the phantom.  “If you bring me the bones of my brother, I will help you.  His bones are still at the last mine, and that is not where he should be.”

We agreed that was not unreasonable, and the apparition faded.  It seemed that tomorrow would bring us to the old mine.

But first a few loose ends. We returned upstairs to the cabin to examine the trunk from the bedroom. We found within

[1223] large black opal
[1224] cracked leather backpack with broken rock hammer and 43gp
[1225] 12 +2 crossbow bolts of distance
[1226] pocket flask containing potion of ability to scale and move in mountains (+10) plus endure elements – duration 8 hrs

So .. we were THIIIIIIIS close to setting up a base camp in a substantially warmer climate, but somebody made the point that we should use the remainder of the windwalk spell to scout out the last mine, and THEN return to create a base camp.   We estimated we had about two hours of windwalk left, so we could probably take some time to (try to) find the last mine.

We found the area described, but the wind was ferocious.  We were further upriver, and higher in the mountains.  We believed that although the trails were icy and the wind strong, it was navigable with care.  We were at the base of a 2000 ft cliff, and the trail led up. But as we went up, the way seemed less and less safe.

There were layers of unnatural fog here, and from the fog we could see the tips of what appeared to be gravestones.  In fact, there appeared to be the body of a dwarf in a firepit.  Before we could do anything, Sabin reached down and touched the body.

Arodus 3, Sunday

Well that was a bit more difficult than I would have liked.

I’m afraid my memory is a bit faint after all that happened. Most of us had enchanted two sets of weapons in the magic pool, one against greed, and another against wrath. I remember a statue of Karzoug tried to stop us, and I remember we stopped it from stopping us. In the end, my “domineering” staff became a very powerful magical artifact:

silver, +2 quarterstaff of storing [10 charges]
bull’s strength 1 charge
enlarge person 1 charge
telekinesis 2 charges
flesh to stone 4 charges
-2 diplomacy
+2 morale bonus on saves versus transmutation
+2 attacks/+2d6 damage versus transmuters and shape changers
absorb up to three harmful transmutation effects a day

My +1 cold iron dagger became my covetous weapon, now capable of

returning
-2 diplomacy
+2 morale bonus on saves versus evocation spells
+2 attacks/+2d6 damage versus evocators and fire users
energy resistance (fire) 5

The fire resistance didn’t really help me at all (I’m already more resistant than that) but for several in the party it was a welcome addition. (Some of them still seem to feel like I have no self control. Go figure.)

Anyway, armed with all that, we went after Alasnist, expecting a fight but almost biting off more than we could chew. Upon entering the hall we confronted 4 sin-spawn. Well, feh. I was in the initial group with Avia, Nolin, and Takkad, and 4 sin-spawn weren’t really going to hold back the four of us. We defeated them even before the second part of our party came through the teleportation circles.

Before following the teleportation circles to the next destination, we regrouped. Nolin, Avia, Sabin, and Takkad went first this time. It took a bit for them to clear the circle because apparently there were nine sin-spawn waiting for them this time, and while we’d sent exactly the right people to deal with that threat, it still took a bit of time for them to leave the circle so we could arrive. We clearly came after some major damage had already been done, but just as clearly it was not yet over either.

But it didn’t take long.

We’d collected a total of 13 +1 great axes, and 13 +1 red breast plates. There were still the flaming weapons stuck on the walls that we’d seen last time. And there was still the smoky curtain at one end.

Takkad used True Seeing to look through the smoke, and he saw a huge hall, two rows of stone pillars, a flaming ceiling, and a circle of low flames on the floor surrounded by a large sihedron image.

Oh. And an enormous demon. Takkad called it a “shemazen” and warned us it was about thirty=five (35!) feet high and looked like a cross between a bear and a spider.

And then a lightning bolt struck him. He told us, grimly and as quickly as he could, that he also saw Athroxis and she also saw him. A hasty and brief conversation seemed to be leading towards getting the magic user first and the demon second, although there was notable noise from some about that abomination needing to go first.

Then it all became personal, as another lightning bolt came out and this time, it struck all of us, bouncing off of Takkad. And to seal the decision, Takkad yelled “The shemazen is gone!” just as the shemazen appeared behind us.

I quickly judged that the greater danger was the dimunitive magic user, because I figured that the demon would just be a physical battle, and our fighters excel at that. In hindsight, this served to show how little I know about demons, even if it arguably proved the right move anyway. I threw up a wall of force between her and us, and turned my attention to the 35-foot spider-bear behind us.

Our party flew, and floated, and teleported. We smote, and struck, and fought. But the demon was able to not only deal damage but reduce one’s strength, and it wasn’t until some holy power got invoked (Avia!) that the demon started taking serious damage. We knew this because of the great chunks of flesh actually flying off, and the unearthly howls it emitted. Agonizing howls of pain are always a good indication you’re doing it right.

There was a flash as something – Takkad said smugly it was another lightning bolt – hit the wall of force and detonated. The wall held. A second hit it .. and it still held. Walls of force are pretty darned strong. And frustrating, if you just blew two high level spells making one light up briefly like a full moon.

The shemazen teleported away from us but Sabin, in an inspired effort, ran towards it and threw his axe at it, killing it.

We were mildly damaged but nothing a little cleric action couldn’t take care of. And now we could turn around and deal with Athroxis. I decided it might be prudent for me to cast spell resistance on myself, and while others positioned themselves, Athroxis dropped the smoke. Oh, and conjured another shemazian. Our efforts to fight them one at a time was for nought, now.

At a signal from my companions I dropped the wall of force, and it was ON. Athroxis wielded a flaming ranseur which was vicious, and the shemazian went back to what shemazians apparently do best – making people bleed and sapping their strength.

Takkad aimed a Greater Dispel at Athroxis, and that may have contributed to what happened next.

It was Nolin who finally struck the killing blows on Athroxis, and the most peculiar thing happened. As she fell, dead, to the ground below, an elaborate tattoo or etching on her forehead disappeared, and reappeared on Nolin’s forehead. It was like a bad bar game as he tried to guess why people were staring at his face, but not his face.

But there wasn’t time for a lot of this, as there was still a demon to deal with. I tried chain lightning, and it laughed at me. Takkad tried a cone of cold, but Takkad paid for it with a swipe and a significant loss of strength. Finally, Sabin gathered his usual friends and dimension doored right next to it, and between Avia, Sabin, and Nolin (and a the faintly visible aura of justice in the air) it was quickly put to rest.

With both the demon and the fighter/mage down, we checked to see what radiated magic, and what it was. We found

[1211] wand of lightning [15] CL 10
[1212] wand of clairvoyance/clairaudience [32]
[1213] mithril breastplate +4 (black)
[1214] +1 flaming ranseur
[1215] amulet of natural armor +2
[1216] belt of physical might +2 (st + dx)
[1217] headband of vast intelligence +2
[1218] ring of protection +2
[1219] cloak of resistance +3
[1220] spell component pouch
[1221] spellbook

We had defeated the last hall in RuneForge. Now all we had to do was get out. We weren’t sure if we were even in the same plane as our homes, although we suspected it was the case. We decided to rest for a bit to recover from our battles and consider how we might get out.

5 Arodus, Tuesday

It occurred to us that we should charge our wands/weapons one last time before (we hope) successfully leaving Runeforge. Unfortunately, this did not go well. Our working theory is that what we did with our weapons drained the pool, either temporarily or permanently, it matters not, of its magic.

We dipped our newly acquired wand of lightning, and was able to raise it to 25 charges. A second dip and it went to 30 charges. Several cautionary yells from the peanut gallery suggested we should not be experimenting with one our more valuable magic items, so we switched to our wand of knock. It went from 10 to 8 charges. We dipped it again, using either telekinesis or an unseen servant (I don’t remember which) but it fell in and dissolved. Gone.

Since that wasn’t disasterous enough, we tried again with a wand of silent image with 3 charges. It exploded, but fortunately we were all far enough away it didn’t hurt us. So endeth the lab.

We were careful to stuff our haversacks and bags of holding as full as possible with things to bring back (whether to use or to sell). We weren’t sure if we’d be able to get back into Runeforge, or whether we’d want to.

Takkad tried a sending to his father, which seemed successful. But then, thinking about it more, even if we were on another plane it seemed likely a sending would succeed.

So we stood in front of the inscribed sihedron, knowing that it was somehow special. I had a sudden inspiration, and although several party members seemed startled, it was done. I tried casting a teleport spell to the dragon’s lair, where he’d stored his hoard and where we’d created the original gate that led us here. Teleport is from the conjuration school, and whether it was the spell or the school, it had the desired effect. A gate opened up, through which we could see the circle of stones we knew to be on the mountainside outside the dragon’s lair. I immediately stepped through.

I think there were a couple of cries of warning, but there I was on the mountainside, and soon the rest of my party was there too. The gate remained open for about an hour before closing of its own accord. And from there, we teleported back to the library and began considering what we’d accumulated, and what we’d keep, and what we’d sell.

Takkad seems to be the party accountant, and by his calculations, even when setting aside a share for party use, assuming we find a market for the things we wish to sell, we should each increase our wealth by over 59,000gp. Each.

Each!

But we’re not done. We need to still confront a Rune Lord and stop him from re-assuming power, and without other Rune Lords to oppose him, we may have quite the battle on our hands. And to that end, I (and many in the group) are spending a fair amount of time considering what magic items we may want to construct or purchase to bolster our strength even more.

Starday, Arodus 2

My last entry stated that today would be a multiple fireball day.

Definitely.

The room full of sin-spawn would have fallen nicely with fireballs and swords, but then a bunch of human fighters arrived. And they too, knew the fireball spell. This caused me less distress than my companions, and the fireballs weren’t as powerful as mine. Sabin did the dimension door thing to take out one of the spell casters, only to learn there were more humans supporting that one. While he, Avia, and Takkad were not in danger of dying, the battle was decidedly more complicated than we’d thought.

I continued fireballing the sin-spawn; the humans continued to fireball and force-missile us. Finally, between the fireballs and the fighters the last of the sin-spawn expired, but apparently many of the humans were spellcasters and not only did we continue to get fireballed, but some of them were using blur or displace or mirror image to make themselves harder to hit.

Takkad put up a blade barrier to cut off half the humans from the others. One tried to launch a fireball through it – hah, fat chance. It blew up in his and his friends’ faces.

I switched to magic missiles, as the fireballs would have harmed my companions. Takkad dropped a flamestrike, and with that, we finished off the last two.

We discovered that those behind the barrier had run to the teleport circles and left. Sedgwick had apparently created a troll, or an illusion of one, and Nolin was a bit put out that he’d rushed over to kill it when in fact, it was not a danger to us. We need a system for coummunicating our illusions to each other.

Inspecting the rooms nearby we found, basically, quarters. Each human room had a pair of bunks and a chest. Each sin-spawn room was more like a cage.

Checking over the bodies, we found, on the six humans:

[1206] 6 +1 great swords
[1207] 6 +2 mithril chain shirts

On the sin-spawn, we found

[1208] 10 +1 great axe
[1209] 10 +2 red breastplates

We were also able to locate spellbooks (for the fighter-mages, I presume): [1210] 12 spellbooks.

We decided not to let the humans get too far away, so after a quick inspection to note what rooms were around us, we went to the teleportation circles. The first group of 4 (since only 4 can fit into the circle at a time) was Takkad, Avia, Nolin, and myself, and the second was Sedgewick, Kane, Sabin, and Rigel. We prepared ourselves (mirror image, mage armor, etc) and teleported.

My first impression of the room was large, with stone walls. The room was lit, but one end of the hallway held a curtain of billowing black smoke. And in the four corners of the diamond-shaped room were the four fighters who had escaped, and all four hit us with a fireball. Even though their fireballs were not as powerful as mine, Nolin missed a jump and ended up taking a lot of damage. I was a little scorched but plenty mad, and although I was tempted to show these guys a real fireball, we needed to minimize damage to ourselves first. I quickly threw up a wall of force to isolate two of the fighters from us.

Avia was able to healed everyone a fair amount (sweet!) Following my lead, Takkad entombed another in a wall of stone – one of the hazards of standing in the corner of a stone room. And about this time, wave two of our group appeared in the teleport area.

The one remaining fighter remained defiant and claimed we weren’t ready to meet Athraxis, but Nolin, feeling less like debating and more like disemboweling, accessorized him with his sword by giving him a very large piercing. I lit a fire under him, and when he still refused to die, Nolin took off his head.

Meanwhile the two behind the wall of force were using fireballs and energy bolts to judge the shape and height of the wall.

For some reason, Kane walked over to the wall of force, stared through it, and made one of the fighters cower. I HAVE to believe there was some magic involved here. The other one managed to figure an angle over the 10 foot high wall and explode a fireball over us, singing several of us again.

That was a bad idea.

I dropped the wall of force and our fighters rushed forward, much to the surprise of the enemy. They had mirror images but Sabin, Avia, Nolin, and Sedgwick of all people, kept plucking off images. In short order, their attacks began to hit true and that was the end of those fighters.

We added three more chain shirts and great swords to our collection. Takkad released the one who had been entombed, and apparently he had needed more air. Oh well, who knew? One more chain shirt and one more great sword.

We decided to try to the other teleport circles first. We appeared in the middle of a discussion, it seems. There were some large tables some distance from us, around which were sitting some humans. I heard, “but how do we get the sin-spawn back to human?”

This looked like a perfect opportunity to use my new spell. Fire is great, but there looked to be combustible books and scrolls strewn around that we might find useful. So, chain lightning it was!

I think I stunned a few of my friends. They didn’t really know I’d been studying lightning. The lightning took out three of them before they even knew we were there. Two others were now QUITE aware we were there, and five others were hastily taking up arms.

Takkad and Nolin each took out another before they could effectively mobilize.

With my friends rushing in, however, fireball was out of the question. A flaming sphere did seem to be in order however, as the fighters closed. Another round or two and the rest of the humans were dead. in the end, we found ourselves with a total of 20 great swords and 20 mithril shirts.

It was pointed out that these humans might have had useful information, and I don’t disagree, but the hard part, as always, would be getting that information from them while they tried to kill us. And I’m pretty sure they would not have welcomed us as colleagues. So in the end, I’m positive I introduced myself properly.

There were a lot of documents and books littering the area. The three alcoves at the end of the room were full of alchemical equipment, and the middle one seemed to have a cauldron of, well, liquified flesh.

On the table we found notes outlining how to forge magical weapons. There was also notes describing what may have been the point of discussion as we entered: generations of warriors were suffering from inbreeding and one consequence of that was that they more frequently and more quickly degraded into sin-spawn, and unless they could find a way to either stop this process or find a way to take the sin-spawn back to human form, their population was doomed.

We felt our magic had been too drained to take on whatever was behind the smoke, so we agreed to go back and rest. As we left, however, there as a loud thunderclap and a wisp of smoke in the middle of the large room. A figure seemed to turn about and vanish.

On the way back, I thought about the chain lightning. Since the individual bolts can be directed much better than a fireball, it might not only be more damaging but useful in a greater number of situations. I do still have to worry about line-of-sight (lightning isn’t good at arcing around obstacles or friends) but this could be pretty cool.

Fireday, 1 Arodus (still)

Kazaven had teleported or dimension doored out, which left our fighters behind a wall of force, and the rest of us to face two devourers.

Takkad, aware he was still protected from evil, took a moment to stone shape a passage around the wall of force, allowing Nolin and Avia to attack one of the devourers and kill it. I pulled Sedgewick out of harm’s way on the theory that I could take a bigger hit than he right now, plus I had spell resistance up, and naturally he started to sing.

Sabin used locate creature to try to find Kazaven, but it strangely told him he was all around him. Was he invisible? Had he become ethereal?

Nolin and Avia continued to battle the remaining devourer, with Nolin taking most of the beating at its … hands. To help them out, I actually approached it from the rear, flanking it and drawing its attention. As expected, it paid much more attention to the armored party members in front of it than the unarmored human at its rear, but the distraction nevertheless helped seal its fate. Takkad channeled healing to all (most importantly Nolin) before Avia finally put it down.

But where was Kazaven?

With that, Sabin found a trapdoor in the floor, and Rigel rushed over to check it for traps. Of course. He was all around us .. he was underneath us, and judging from the locate spell, he was probably directly under us. No sooner had Rigel pronounced it safe than Takkad warped it with stone shape to open it and Avia, Nolin, Sabin and Takkad all jumped down.

For her trouble, the big K sent her an ominous black ray, which she kind of dodged but that still left her looking a bit wan.

I immediately jumped down too, using my acrobatics to land on my feet.

Sabin got a wicked grin on his face, looked left and right at Nolin and Takkad, and dimension doored them all next to their lich buddy. Nolin immediately took several swings at him, and if he could have still bled, there would have been blood everywhere. Takkad tried a greater dispel (which apparently did nothing) while Avia and Sabin did their usual damage.

Then the room was briefly aglow, and we all felt weaker while Kazaven cackled about how he felt invigorated. The room – the sarcophagi – was a trap, it seemed, and our life forces would be used to replenish his.

But Sabin threw a touch of idiocy on the lich, greatly diminishing his options. And with nearly all of us down there now, we hammered him – even Rigel, with an invisible sneak attack. I tried lightning … and found that it has no effect on a lich. Shrug. It was technically Avia who landed the killing blow, but it was truly a team effort.

Takkad talked about needing to find the phylactery, and I remembered what we learned at the Foxglove estate – a lich had to put part of himself away to become a lich in the first place. As luck would have it, the sarcophagus closest to where he died was that object, so our fighters quickly destroyed it to remove any chance of Kazaven returning.

Searching his remains, we found some impressive goodies.

[1194] a Staff of Hungry Shadows [39] The charges in this staff could be used to invoke the following spells: 1 charge – enfeeblement, darkness, or vampiric touch; 2 charges – enervation or summon shadows, and 3 charges – call devourers.
[1195] bracers of armor +5 (mine!)
[1196] headband of intellect +4
[1197] ring of protection +2
[1198] statue of himself, which we believe to be an artifact of a contingency spell

and a robe, non-magical.

And as we marvelled over this, the room lit again and we all felt weaker. The trap was still draining us. We tried dispel even as our cleric healed us. Didn’t think we’d changed anything. Finally, Rigel treated it as the trap it was and discovered how to disarm it.

The other two sarchophagi held valuable stuff. One held

[1199] various spellbooks

and the other … oh how Rigel’s eyes lit up! The other held

~14,000 gp worth of coins, gems, jewels, and other small items, plus
[1200] smoking bottle (creates clouds of smoke when unstoppered)
[1201] scarab of golem bane – detect a golem within 60′, and remove DR should one attack it
[1202] spellbook of very nice black leather — Kazaven’s
[1203] collection of instruments, originally valuable jewelry, probably worth about 1500 sp

Sedgewick inspected the spellbooks and reported there was a spell and rune listed for each of the seven sins, which Takkad, I noticed, was summarizing in his notebook. All I remember is the runes needed to be engraved in the skin, which made them somewhat unattractive to me.

At last, we felt safe enough to rest.

Starday, Arodus 2

Today we would take on Wrath.

We entered the corridor, and as expected it was easier for some than others. It took me, for example, a while longer to reach the door at the end of the corridor. It was untrapped and unlocked and led to a huge hall. While we’d been in a Great Hall before, this put it to shame. It had to be 150 feet long and over 100 feet wide, with a huge 60′ ceiling. On a far wall there was a mural of a red-haired lady riding a dragon. At the far end of the room was a tall pedestal (probably 30′ tall) upon which stood an iron archer probably 12 feet tall.

It didn’t take a genius to predict that either the mural or the archer would come to life. It was best, I guess, that it was the archer that decided to attack us.

We had all entered the room, spread out a bit to reduce the effectiveness of area effect spells, and the statue decided to attack Nolin, Avia, and Takkad, the last two of which easily determined her decision by being struck by bolts of fire.

Sabin, with a quick sign to the others, paused to let them gather near him before dimension dooring directly to the statue. Since he got over there before I could do anything, he effectively took fireball off the menu. Besides, heat might not do anything interesting to the metal figure. So instead, I created a major image of the white dragon we’d defeated. Perhaps it would fear cold. Thinking similarly, Sedgewick created a silent image of a troll.

The statue moved, however, and then shot lightning at our party standing around her. Sabin and Avia both took damage before the statue moved sharply OFF the pedestal, and left behind a cloud of noxious gas.

It was flying now.

Sabin gave fly to Nolin, and Takkad gave airwalk to Avia. I tried to dispel magic on the iron maiden but near as I can tell it had no effect. The statue, however, again attacked, this time with bolts of ice. Sabin and I both gained flight and moved toward the statue.

In melee, the statue proved formidable, getting some heavy blows on both Nolin and Avia. But with our fighters able to match its movement, it did eventually take enough blows that it crashed to the marble floor below and lay motionless.

Beyond the pedestal, a hallway led to another room which contained only two circles – one formed of a red line, and the other of blue. The rune of Wrath was in each circle.

I cast mirror image on myself as we started to experiment. We learned that blue exits a room, and red is the arrival area, and that about four humans could transport at once. In short order, we were all in another room … and facing many many (maybe a couple dozen) figures that did not view us with favor.

I got off a fireball — but this was clearly going to be a multiple fireball day…

Fireday, 1 Arodus

As I predicted, after a brief respite, we decided to look for goodies. The mummies themselves had some magical (+1) chainmail [1185], which is useless to me. They also apparently had on their person (!) 8 gem-encrusted torques [1186] worth about 600 gp each, but otherwise unmagical.

The walls here are covered with skulls, which themselves still have bits of flesh hanging from them. Upon inspection, Rigel announced there was a secret level associated with each and every one of them.

Everyone stepped to the back of the room (well, in a circular room I suppose “towards the door” is more accurate) as Rigel opened one. There were no explosions, no sharp spikes, no lightning bolts .. no visible effect at all. There was an area behind the skull that held funeral linens, and a sickly sweet smell, but nothing else of value. As we pondered this, Rigel happily announced “Another!” She and Takkad opened all that we could find, certain that the mummies had been guarding something of value, but apparently they’d only been guarding “the room”.

The only exit from this room (other than the door through which we’d entered) was a staircase off to the northeast. It eventually wound up at an iron door, which was unlocked. We entered.

This circular room had six statues in front of six alcoves (a seventh alcove held the door through which we’d entered).

One statue held some grapes.

One held some bread.

One held some cheese.

One held some meat.

One held some candies.

And one simply stood there with his arms crossed. But he looked to have really sharp teeth.

Sedgwick said these represented the key families in the realm of Gluttony. I asked about the last one, and he just grimly said, “Cannibalism.”

Well gosh, cannibalism seems like a problem and a solution all in itself. Eventually, you run out of food, right? Gives finger food a whole new meaning. Still, I’d rather not meet the rep from the cannibal family.

We went to the first, with the grapes: Inibs. We opened the door and entered the corridor, which shortly led to another room. Rigel’s eyes got very big, as here there was a golden sarcophagus. But first, there was a loud noise from the west, and a reddish looking womanish looking armored looking figure approached menacingly. She appeared to have a clay body with iron plating and some runes all over.

Well crap. Fire won’t help here. So I hasted everyone. Sedgwick inspired us and Takkad prayed for us. Sabin and Nolin got some blows in, but swords probably weren’t our best choice against a foe made of clay. Next I tried magic missile, but they just bounced off. Magic resistance. Great.

But then Avia cranked up the religion and suddenly she was laying some heavy smiting on Ms Golem. In an incredible burst of speed, the golem smacked Nolin, Avia, and Rigel (who’d crept in for a possible sneak attack) but Nolin responded by taking three swings and connecting three times — the last one making it drop. Takkad healed the wounded and all was right with the world. Rigel rushed to the golden sarcophagus.

The lid came off with Avia, Nolin, and Sabin carefully lifting it. Avia had detected no evil inside, and in fact, there was nothing at all inside. Rigel disappointedly remarked that the gold was gold plating. However, there were 2 star sapphire eyes and 12 amethyst grapes adorning the lid, which offered some consolation, at least.

There was plenty of storage for wine (finally!) in this room, but it was ancient, and thus not wine anymore.

Nearby another small room held valueless and disappointing empty bottles.

Another room held bodies and putricity.

Another room was simply empty.

Yet another room was – you know, I suppose I should be in awe of these relics of an ancient civilization but even though I’ve made a point of picking up the language, and even though we are seeing things that have gone unseen for hundreds and thousands of years, I’m bored. I’d rather be using my magic. I have learned SO much and gotten SO much better at this!

I wonder if I’ve yet surpassed my father. How does one measure such things? Is it by money earned? Creatures killed? Spells known? Friends made? Influence gained?

Certainly nobody my age is this adept, right? I mean, I don’t remember seeing anybody down at the market flicking lightning bolts off their fingers.

With a start, I realized I’d stopped to think in the great hall, but the rest of the group had moved on. I got a hurried look at some murals – I suppose that’s what turns a hall from ordinary into great — before rushing to catch up.

At the other end of the hall, we found a necromantic lab. Nothing showed with detect magic, but clearly there were components here for necromantic spells. Maybe those corpses in the other room were also “components.” There was a book about creating undead [1190] there.

While in the lab, Avia sensed some evil, and before we could do much else, two shadows became apparent and immediately attacked Takkad, who looked shakened and weaker. Then I think I heard him mutter under his breath “so that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” and conjured up a flame strike which illuminated both of the shadows as if the sun had reached out and caressed them. Kane channeled a whole lot of positive energy at the shadows and Avia stopped in midstep. The shadows were gone. Between them, Kane and Takkad took out the two shadows before anybody else could do anything – a somber reminder that religion kills! 🙂

Another lab next door seemed far less sinister and more alchemical in nature ([1189] alchemical supplies).

We returned to the great hall to inspect more room connected there. One reeked of decaying flesh and prepared to fight zombies or ghasts … but no, it really was just dead bodies. Maybe a few weeks old, which was a little alarming because it meant there were still people alive here AND there was still something killing them.

Another room proved largely empty and thoroughly disinteresting.

A door to the north was locked, but Kane broke the lock .. and inside we found another sarcophagus.

Oh, and another eight mummies. Now we know from recent experience that this simply screams for a fireball, so with nothing more than a gesture and a nod from the group, I obliged. Six of the eight took serious damage; one was killed outright and one was outside the blast range. Takkad channeled energy, and Kane channeled energy, and more dropped, leaving only the one who’d been largely unaffected by most of the spells. Avia willingly stepped forward and finished that one off. I got to use my cantrip “disrupt dead” to some small effect.

This left us free to inspect the sarcophagus they’d been guarding. This, now, must be something valuable to have these creatures guarding it.

Nope. Oh I’m sure it has value as an artifact, but it’s not solid gold or anything. Sigh.

We went to another room near the pile-of-bodies room and discovered a long narrow room with what appeared to be a spectre hovering in it. Well that’s a no brainer! Fireball!

And apparently it took affront at that, because it immediately teleported next to me and …struck me or something. The pain was brief but intense, and I felt weaker. Nolin stepped up and finished it off on my behalf. Thanks, big N. Takkad did some special healing – he called it a restoration – and I immediately felt better. I don’t think I’ve ever been on the receiving end of that kind of magic before.

There was a room to the south, and from the debris and damage it appeared to be the scene of a battle. But there were no creatures there, and nothing of value left.

Wandering through these connected rooms, I began to wonder at the design. It was almost as if they were built at random, simply because there was room yet. Some were connected to others in weird ways. They clearly interconnected the doors that represented each family; no family area was separate from another. Perhaps this is the result you get from a gluttonous architect.

We returned to the statue room, and checked out the “meat” door. It led to some places we’d already been, and proved uninteresting. We returned, and this time chose the “candy” door. Before we could go through, though, we heard the sound of a door closing behind us (the “grapes” door) and a creature stood before us. “Master, I found them!” he claimed, to nobody we could detect. But it made us very nervous.

Takkad tried talking to him in a brusque manner, but he seemed more interested in eating us. He was a zombie, it seems, and he kept up his running commentary to “Master”. Avia grew tired of his talk and was the first to smack him. I hit him with not one, not two, but three scorching rays, which judging from his sounds he did not like. Nolin and Takkad each got some blows in before he succumbed, and he only succeeded in injuring Avia.

He’d been carrying a +2 humanbane dagger [1191], 8 masterwork daggers [1192], and a +3 chain shirt [1193]. The distraction having been dealt with, we returned to the candy door, but perhaps a bit more alert and aware, looking for “Master”. We found a few more rooms, but none of them held anything interesting.

We returned to the statue room and considered. We knew from our travels that this area had a lot of secret doors; we’d found some of them from the non-secret side so we knew we’d missed some. We felt we should go back and search the rooms more carefully, because we believed there was still more here.

We did indeed find a few more secret doors, but none of them led anywhere interesting … until we finally found one off of one of the sarcophagus rooms. This led to another necromantic lab, complete with disembodied organs and a human body, partly dissected.

Avia announced there were three evil presences in the next room, one more powerful than the other two. We looked at each other and buffed up. I added Mage Armor and also gave it to Nolin, Avia, and Sabin (it adds protection against incorporeal creatures.) I gave myself Spell Resistance and mirror image. I cast Greater Invisibility upon Rigel, and hasted everyone. I believe other magic was employed by our other magic users, but I didn’t take note of it. Then before the magic such as haste could wear off …

We went in.

I led with a fireball, and Sabin then dimension doored the usual suspects next to what appeared to be the most dangerous being in the room — and that’s saying something when one considers the other two beings were demons. It too was prepared, it would seem, as Avia quickly took out three of it’s mirror images. One demon moved to attack Takkad, but found himself pushed back. Another came after me … but nothing happened that I could tell. A finger of death was pointed at Sabin, but it damaged him without killing him. Sedgwick started singing. Takkad tried to dismiss one of the demons, but was not successful. Nolin took out two more images – the haste was proving useful – before actually connecting and doing some damage. Kane tried a dismissal, with equal results. I gave my chain lightning a try, but discovered that, no surprise, these creatures had spell resistance and I’d failed to crack it. Sabin finally connected and dealt some heavy blows, while Avia took out the last of its images. One demon struck Sedgwick, and he cried out in pain. The other shot a ray of enfeeblement at Takkad, but Takkad dodged.

Then K dimension doored out, leaving us the demons to deal with.

Oathday, Erastus 31

As we entered the lair of Envy, there was a little hesitancy on the part of the party. While the warning of having our powers crushed was doubtless just hyperbole, it did put everybody on edge. Takkad, as seems customary of late, was in the lead.

There was a metal rod – or did it used to be a sword? – melded into the ground near the center of the room, and this seemed to conduct the occasional electrical discharge that still flitted from place to place. I was eerily reminded of the aftermath of a lightning strike that had been charged with a little too much electricity. And as we started to file into the room the danger we’d been warned of became far more real. The rod embedded in the ground flashed blindingly, and things felt … odd.

Takkad was the first to announce: “I’ve lost status.” And Kane: “Me too.” I realized I did not have my mage armor – ha, joke’s on me. I’d forgotten to cast it! But now I turned on my detect magic and was dismayed to find that I had not been immune to the effect. My ring of protection was no longer magic; nor were my bracers of defense. I suddenly felt very vulnerable, and quickly cast mage armor.

Around me arose cries of dismay. “Not my sword!” screamed Avia. “My bracers!” agonized Rigel. Fully half of our magic items seemed to have had the magic sucked out of them.

Now in my case, we had a spare +2 ring of protection and +3 bracers of defense that had been safe within a bag of holding, but not everyone was so lucky. Many of the items our party had considered important were now useless pieces of metal, paper, or wood.

So this is what the warning had meant. Fantastic.

And then as electricity continued to arc randomly in the room, it occurred to us that it could happen again at any time, and the whole place became much less fascinating.

Still, we were here because there might be something valuable here, so Takkad, Nolin, Kane, and Sabin started entering a passageway nearby. But there were putrid pools of filth, garbage, or sewage (we never did determine which) and it clearly made at least Nolin stagger noticeably. They disappeared from view as the moved down the corridor, and I did not feel motivated to follow them. Takkad told me later they encountered acid-laden air and finally returned abruptly when the air just became too foul. Kane’s wand of lesser restoration was necessary to restore them all to full health, and in some cases more than one charge was needed. Takkad channelled positive energy to help remedy the damage from acid air.

And they found nothing useful.

Perhaps there was something valuable here, but the pools of foul liquid and the random cancellation of magic from time to time was enough to make us leave. On to Kharzoug, and the hall of Greed.

Shortly after leaving the area of Envy, we discovered that for most of the magic items, their neutralization was temporary. Avia, in particular, was most pleased to see her sword regain its powers. My bracers, alas, were permanently damaged but as I mentioned, we had spares.

As we entered the corridor of Greed, Rigel found the passage to be quite easy. The rest of us struggled to varying degrees to reach the impatient Rigel. Rigel took the lead, looking for traps. The corridor led to a single door, which, after an inspection, Rigel pronounced to be a trap. It appeared to have jewels embedded in it, but Rigel also prounounced these to be fakes (with traces of disappointment in her voice).

After some additional searching, Rigel was able to find a secret door, and defeat the lock/trap that guarded it. We found a beautiful tunnel, with polished wood and inlaid silver and gold Thassilonian runes. A cursory look at these seemed to indicate they extolled the life and victories of Kharzoug (big surprise).

Further ahead there was a green, sparkly silver mist. Nobody thought that traipsing through that would be a pleasing experience. Meanwhile, Takkad and Sabin kept reading the runes and talking out loud: although Kharzoug bragged greatly about his prowess with magic, it seems he paid far less attention to (and possessed far less skill in) the schools of illusion and enchantment. He considered himself the enemy of Alaznist. He created the Hellfilre Plumes (of which the old lighthouse in Sandpoint was reputedly one) to help protect his empire.

I studied the mist and was able to detect some transmutation magic, so we created a gust of wind to dispel it. We quickly hurried to the chamber beyond.

Here we found an ivory floor, and a beautiful fountain in the middle of the room with water spouting from the (obviously NOT full size) figure of a whale. Curiously, the fountain never overflowed, so presumably somewhere there was a drain that perfectly matched the rate at which water flowed from the whale.

Perhaps most surprisingly, there were six small, vaguely humanoid figures swimming in the pool, along with what appeared to be the occasional goldfish. Takkad struck up a conversation with them and learned of a mean silver man who seemed to enjoy hurting them. The silver man was big like us. Sometimes he freezes water. He was by just yesterday but didn’t do anything harmful.

Takkad had an inspiration and used his ‘create water’ spell to create a brief waterfall from nowhere. The little creatures were ecstatic and labeled him Water Friend, guaranteeing him friends for life. But they could tell him little additional information.

In the next room we found another fountain, this time with a statue of a wizard and an outstretched hand. Water shot from the hand about 30′ before falling harmlessly into the pool. There seemed to be some magic in the pool of some sort, but nothing on the goldfish that were here.

Exiting to the north, there was a corridor full of doors with knobs. They were metal doors that looked silver, or silver inlaid. But opening one and looking inside didn’t yield anything of interest. The room was empty but for little odds and ends. The rooms had slightly different inventories but all were uninteresting. The strange thing? They all radiated strong magic.

So I stepped up and tried to dispel magic in the room. That seemed to do nothing.

Sedgewick snagged a goldfish and tried tossing it in the room. It flopped a bit, and eventually died; a fish out of water. Kane actually entered one; nothing. He entered and inspected all of the rooms; still nothing.

We went on to the next fountain room, which looked much like the previous right down to the wizard with the outstretched hand and goldfish. There was a door to the south which Rigel checked – it was locked, but not trapped. In a flash, Rigel insured it was no longer locked.

Sabin and Takkad entered first, and found what appeared to be a study. There was a worktable, and bookcases that appeared to hold hundreds of books and scrolls. More ominously there were some animals in metal cases – and a silver mannequin.

Literally, a silver man. Well those darn little sprites were right. He turned to us and .. disappeared. Sabin grunted and said that sure looked like a dimension door to him.

We started to do our “usual thing”. Sedgewick and I started to look over the library. Nolin began to search. Sabin inspected the animals – they were dead and the dog’s hind quarters were solid silver. Avia started trying to detect evil, hoping to determine where the silver man had gone.

Sedgewick found some spellbooks, and was gathering them up while Rigel checked another door for traps. There were none, and she unlocked the door for Avia, who opened it.

This room had statues in what we assumed at first were battle poses. We were alert to the possibility of them suddenly coming to life, until someone pointed out these were not battle positions so much as defensive positions. We had apparently found the rest of the staff in this section. It seemed they’d all involuntaily been turned to statues, and their stance was not attacking, but rather an attempt to stave off whatever magic had done this to them.

Rigel moved to, inspected, and unlocked another door in the room. Avia opened the door – and the silver man was revealed. He was ready, as well, and a greenish ray shot out at Takkad, taking him to the ground grieveously wounded, even as several mirror images sprung up around the silver man.

How did he get two spells off at once?

Sabin didn’t wait to ask questions. He, Nolin and Avia dimension doored to Mr Silver. I sensed I might want extra protection so I cast Spell Resistance on myself. Nolin had time to take out two images, while Sedgewick started singing a song of courage. Meanwhile Takkad started to heal his broken body.

In the middle of the room was a large (40′ across) pool, and Mr Silver was on the opposite side of the pool. Avia took out an image, Sabin took out an image, and I managed to carefully place a fireball out there that hit Mr Silver but nobody else. Unfortunately, he seemed unfazed by it. He DID seem a little more concerned when Nolin actually connected with his sword, though.

Images gone now, Avia started hitting him with sword, fire, and holy power. Mr Silver again managed to get two spells off – a disintegration ray on Nolin and, much to our surprise, he cast fireball on himself, knowing while he would hurt himself, he had an opportunity to perhaps outright kill the fighters surrounding him. Too bad for him I still had a magic missile in me, and that’s all it took to push him over the edge.

Damaged heavily, but not horribly diminished in magic, our group took inventory. Mr Silver left behind

[1180] silver staff of spell holding [40 charges ] also usable as a quarterstaff, +2 damage, +2 INT.
[1181] cloak of resistance +1
[1182] rod of metal and mineral detection
[1183] a belt of mighty constitution +2

As we moved closer to the pool, some of us found it disorienting. Sedgewick, in particular, warned others to stay back as he felt the pool was draining him in some fashion, and he stepped back. Takkad theorized this pool might be a means of charging or recharging magical items. He tried dipping a dead staff [730] into the pool, and identifying it we found it had 5 charges now. Dipped again, it went to 50.

Rigel, her eyes shining, estimated that 300 lbs of mithril silver might be worth 40,000 sp. The group considered whether to sell Mr Silver’s Corpse for metal, as a curiosity, or just leave it, lest someone try to revive it. The possibility of great money, though, has the group leaning towards some form of sale.

In any case, we decided to rest here overnight, and recover spells before proceeding.

Fireday, 1 Arodus

We arose eager to go traverse the corridor dedicated to gluttony. This time Kane was the one who found the path easy for him while the rest of the group tripped, stumbled and slowly made their way down the path. It didn’t take long for us to finally find a door, which Rigel said had no traps and no locks. Opening it, we saw why it needed no guard. Inside were eight mummies, which quickly (well, for a mummy) moved towards us. But the room was just so perfectly shaped for a fireball, that I had to blast them. So I did. Avia was able to take some chunks out, as well as Nolin and Sabin. A second fireball and Takkad’s negative channel knocked out every last one of ’em.

Eight mummies is nothing to sneeze at, but we also dispatched them seemingly easily. Maybe too easily. We’re taking a pause right now to consider what to do next and catch our breaths. At the very least, we’ll likely inspect the smoldering bodies for goodies.

Sunday, Erastus 27 (still)

When we killed Longtooth, we marvelled at what a dragon’s hoard looked like. We had no idea.

Longtooth had decades to accumulate his wealth. This dragon – whose name we never did learn – had centuries. A small number of centuries, maybe, but still.

Here’s what we found:

[1100] scroll of globe of invulnerability
[1108] scroll of remove blindness/deafness
[1111] scroll of heal
[1118] scroll of bear’s endurance

[1101] belt of giant strength +4
[1105] wand of cure light wounds [46]
[1106] pearl of power
[1115] chime of opening [5]
[1120] ivory set of bracers of archery +1
[1121,1124,1129,1130,1131,1134] Everburning torch

[1109] 6 vials of holy water
[1103,1104,1105] cure serious wounds
[1110] 17 potions of cure light wounds
[1116,1117,1126,1127,1128] potions of cure moderate wounds
[1122,1123] potion of resist energy (cold)

[1112] quiver + 20 masterwork arrows
[1113] 2 arrows greater dragon slaying
[1114] teak box with 6 thundereggs
[1125] flaming tongue longsword
[1137] 1 adamantine war hammer

[1107] cloak of resistance +3
[1119] half plate +3 w/wolf
[1133] darkwood buckler
[1134] masterwork suit of full plate w/ravens
[1135,1136] 1 mithril shirt +1 (small)

There was also about 500 copper pieces, 19410 silver pieces, 7000 gold pieces, and 950 platinum pieces. That alone represents the equivalent of over 18,000 gold pieces! Now of course, once we divide that among our party it is a much more modest amount (for certain values of “modest” :)) but .. woo hoo or what??

There are also tapestries that, while not magical, are valued at over 26,000 gold pieces. More woot.

Father, I’m not exactly positioned yet to buy my own house in the merchant district, but I very much see the attraction of this profession. The only thing better would be if we were also being paid to do this, but that would be too much to ask. Any employer would probably want a share, or maybe all, of the riches we uncover. To retain any of it would require … dishonesty, I’m all for bending the rules, but I’m not prepared to break any. So this arrangement works fine.

Wealday, Erastus 30

We catalogued the dragon’s treasures and moved those pieces we didn’t immediate ly put to use into the library. Then, with a deep breath, it was off to what we thought was probably the entrance to Runeforge, where we hoped to learn how to thwart Karzoug’s attempt to reenter our world.

Now that we knew where we were going, we could teleport there directly. We jokingly divided up the keys by the wraths we supposedly represented (I was lust – how silly!) and began to ascend the stairs to the cave.

But we’d never taken this way before, and we were surprised when what appeared to be three earth elementals rose from the ground and blocked our way: two in front of us and one in back. Sabin and I looked at each other and each cast mirror image. Takkad asked, in common, what they wanted, but they replied “none but the appointed may enter!”. Avia turned to the one behind her and said, in Thassilonian “Let me pass!” … and it did!

So Nolin did the same in front and got attacked for his trouble. What’s up with Avia? And then we realized she was wearing a sihedron. Kane, who was also wearing one, stepped up and demanded passage … and was also permitted to pass!

Well, it took a little bit of shuttling and sihedron passing, but eventually all of us were able to get past the sentries. The dragon may have been dead but we were still far up on a mountain, and the cave itself was still cold and ice-covered.

Using our spiked shoes, we navigated the formerly secret, narrow path down to the bottom of the chamber, checked to make sure we still had our keys, and lined ourselves up at the appropriate pillar. Simultaneously we inserted our keys into the slots in the pillars.

Each pillar produced a different light, and they sprang to the central pillar where they formed a pure white light. A vortex then appeared, and looking into it it appeared to be a passage somewhere. We’d definitely found the entry into Runeforge.

We entered.

The passage led to a chamber with seven statues and a sihedron engraved on the floor. There was a bubbling pool in the middle, that radiated strong magic, and behind each statue was a corridor.

The chamber was large, probably 80′ across. Takkad captured some of the water from the pool in a vial, but after having done so, it was no longer magical. We concluded it was something about the pool.

So choosing a corridor somewhat at random, we started down the corridor behind Zandergul, who represented pride. Sabin went down .. and disappeared. Through their status spells, though, both Takkad and Kane said he was close by. Takkad stepped forward … and didn’t disappear. He took another step .. and did.

Each of us stepped into the corridor and arrived, according to Sabin, at different intervals. Some sort of filtering was going on, but eventually we were all there. The corridor looked to proceed before us, opening into a room. Sabin and Takkad stepped through first .. and immediately paused.

They called out briefly that there were mirrors, and gestured for everyone to halt. Apparently another Takkad and Sabin had emerged from each of two mirrors, one down a corridor to the left and another down a corridor to the right. The four new combatants immediately assumed an attack stance. Had the rest of us entered, we would have faced multiple instances of ourselves.

Any hope that we might negotiate with them disappeared when a flame strike hit Takkad, courtesy of one of the other Takkads. And Sabin was hit by a feeblemind from one of his doppelgangers.

It seemed that the doppelgangers were intent only on attacking the corresponding originals, but that didn’t stop us from being injured by their battle. I threw up a wall of fire to help separate them. When a blade barrier appeared, everybody needed to jump back. Fortunately for Takkad, he had memorized few offensive spells that day, so he knew that his battle would quickly devolve into pushing and shoving. Sabin, on the other hand, had a wealth of offensive spells as well as weapon prowess. Although Avia had pulled the original back from danger after the feeblemind, the other two dimension door’ed next to him, putting them squarely in our midst.

I hasted those of our party within range, and that granted Nolin and Avia the advantage they needed to take care of the extra Sabins with less danger to themselves. Kane read a scroll of heal and then Sabin was back in the game too. It didn’t take long after that, but I hope we never have to see Sabin argue with himself again. It wasn’t pretty.

Takkad, meanwhile, was being pummelled by a copy of his backpack. I carefully fired magic missiles at the copies without stepping into the mirrored corridor; the last thing we needed was an opponent loaded up with fireballs. However, when Sabin, now immune to the effect, stepped up to the magical mirrors and started smashing them, the doppelgangers fell in shards as well.

Proceeding onward, we entered a large chamber which seemed to have a giant peacock sitting on a dais. Upon addressing the peacock, however, we not only felt immensely silly, but were rewarded with six austentatious heralds who shot fireballs at the whole group. Fortunately, we were a little spread out so they couldn’t actually hit all of us with 6 fireballs. But several of us took notable damage, and the clerics got to work healing. Meanwhile, the ol’ dimension door trick brought the fighters to the firethrowers, and they quickly put an end to that. I found that they themselves were surprisingly susceptible to fire as I killed two and nearly killed a third.

The peacock, it turns out, was an illusion. But in the wall behind it, we found a secret door that led to a nicely appointed chamber. Nice, that is, except for the corpse rotting there.

Being of a practical nature, we took the following now-unused items from the corpse:

[1140] magical robe
+2 on class checks if evil alignment
-3 levels if good alignment
-2 levels if neutral alignment
spell resistance 18
+5 AC
+4 resistance (as cloak of resistance)
[1141] headband of vast intelligence +6, +3 skills,
skill ranks = to your hit dice
[1142] ring of protection +2
[1143] cape of Montebanc (dimension door 1/day)
[1144] journal (not magical)
[1145] spellbook (2 volumes) every illusion spell thru level 9

In one chamber adjoining this one, we found a couple hundred skeletons. We found the other rooms empty of any useful items, but the journal suggested this had been the workshop of Viraxis. He had been working on a way to live forever and had decided that was best done with clones. At some point, it seems, the current clone aged before he could create another, and, well, here he was.

However, one of his journal entries mentioned an alliance with Delvahine. It seems she was a follower of Sorshen, who represents lust, whom he was working with. The journal also mentioned an alliance which apparently thoroughly destroyed the area of Envy.

As a result, the group decided to go visit Delvahine’s area next.

As before, entering the corridor had mixed results for different people. I myself had no trouble traversing it, but others made it in in fits and starts.

We opened a pair of iron doors and entered a room. It was filled with gilded cages, although many were empty. One clearly was not, although the human looking creature in it seemed gaunt. Concerned, Takkad headed over to that cage while the rest of us were welcomed by the designated greeters.

Four succubi flew in front of us, trying to entice us to join them. The ceiling here was very high, probably 90′, giving them plenty of room to maneuver. Judging I would probably be attacked soon, I cast spell resistance on myself. As the succubi continued to try to lure us closer, I cast fly on Nolin so he could accommodate them and he obliged by beating on Vorvod.

One called Eryalla successfully convinced Rigel it would be fun, and Rigel started removing her armor. For her trouble, I fireballed Eryalla. Sabin cast fly on himself and also entered the fray. Only Rigel seems to have been affected, but Nolin now got a swing in on Zevashala. Sabin was bloodying up Lelyrin.

When only Zevashala was left, she threw us an evil look and disappeared.

I had never left the doorway, and it was about this time that I heard a noise behind me. Turning, I saw a figure walking towards us from the end of the corridor. I yelled to the group and cast mirror image on myself. As the figure advanced I cast a color spray at it – forgetting in the excitement that the spray only travels 15 ft, not dozens. So used to those fireballs!

“Trask, it’s me, Sedgwick!” the figure yelled.

Sedgwick? No – what would he be doing here?

Kane tried detect evil, and found none. Sedgwick held up his hands, and Kane tried detect good. I began to question him – was this really Sedgwick?

As others arrived, the conversation continued. It really was. Apparently he’d been at the Pathfinder Society when Takkad had been researching this mountain, and he concluded (correctly) that this was his old group. He followed us here and, unknown to us, apparently jumped in the vortex before it closed. He went looking for us in the area of Krune (sloth) and while he didn’t find us he did report it was highly unpleasant.

Meanwhile, we inspected the bodies of the succubi, and they seemed to be identically attired:

[1146,1147,1148] Bracers of armor +3
[1149,1150,1151] amulet (non magical) with woman’s face
[1152,1153,1154] ring of protection +2

The +3 bracers were better than my +2, so I switched.

Takkad had been working on his survivor, and although his health was better, his mind was still not … shall we say, all there.

And before us was still a big unknown. There appeared to be a room or pavilion or tent, really, marked by silk walls that were 20′ high and a very apparent entryway. None of these had been Delvahine … was there another corpse waiting for us inside? Where did the other succubi go? Sounded like we had more to check out, and now an extra person to do it with.

So we went to enter the pavilion, but immediately our path was blocked by what appeared to be numerous stone giants. They insisted we could not see The Lady, but Nolin persistently told them “We have an appointment”. They did not seem swayed by his statement. However, when he, Sabin, and Avia started hacking through them, and I managed to squeeze a fireball in between them, the giants started falling. They did not seem to respond to reason, but they all died fairly quickly.

Inside, there was lots of plush. Pillows, those same silk walls, cushions, comfy chairs 🙂 But no more giants (and their bodies held nothing of value to us.) We moved to the next chamber and saw a woman on a throne or dais through the entryway. Just as we reached it, she said in what Sedgwick said was Abyssal: “First I don’t hear from Viraxis and then the giants and now THIS!”

That seemed to Sabin to be the signal to dimension door in. The room held a smoking brazier in addition to the now familiar cushions and pillows. In he went, with Takkad and Nolin. Zevashala did one more attempt at googlyeyes at Nolin, and Nolin responded by beating up the figure in the thrown. I cast spell resistance again as Avia dimension doored herself in to the throne. Delvahine tried to attack Nolin, but Avia’s protection from evil prevented her.

There was an attempt at singing, but Sedgwick had a countersong. In fact, as Delvahine tried to unleash something really impressive, all that came out of her mouth was “Sedgwick is great!” much to her surprise and annoyance. I managed a magic missile on Delvahine before Sabin finished her off. Zelvahine managed to take some life force from Nolin before she finally succumbed to Avia’s sword.

And then the searching began. We got another triplet of (bracer[1155] / amulet[1156] / ring[1157]) from Zevashala and from Delvahine we got

[1158] +1 wounding whip
[1159] +2 mithril shirt, glamered to look like a flimsy top
[1160] +4 gloves of dexterity

Under the southern bed, we also found

[1161] handy haversack
[1162] book, written in Thasslonian, +1 WI
[1163] 6 potions of cure moderate wounds
[1164] potion of cure disease
[1165] potion of remove paralysis
[1166] box of sex toys [12]

We also picked up the brazier of mind fog [1167].

This seemed as safe a place as any (now) to rest, so we decided to sleep here and proceeed to Envy tomorrow. Takkad will leave his rescued human here because we really can’t drag him along with us and this place is now safe. He’ll come back tomorrow evening with a Heal spell and see if he can restore him to some semblance of a normal life.

Oathday, Erastus 31

After a good night’s sleep (those cushions really were comfortable) we headed off to the lair of Envy. Before entering, we have been warned by a voice:

STOP! Your powers shall be crushed and you shall die.

Pretty full of themselves. We shall trudge on, regardless.

This was, indeed, the site of some magical battle. Faint magical energy still flited from metal slag to metal slag. We decided that even though this area may be partially destroyed, we will inspect it as best we can.

Toilday, Erastus 8

Since we still were concerned about the magic in what we’d come to call the Quill Room, I tried a dispel magic. It was a little odd, casting it on the whole room, but as near as I can tell, it did nothing anyway. I didn’t feel like I’d done my best, so I tried again and we discovered the evil aura of the room had disappeared. Did I dispel something, or did some spell just end of its own accord? You never know for sure with dispel, but having the evil gone made everyone feel better, and we felt like we could safely pick up the magical quill. To be on the safe side, Takkad did that but with an unseen servant rather than an actual hand.

Takkad noted that the image on the floor in the cathedral was both offensive and magical. He tried a dispel on it, but it was ineffective. He muttered something about Lamashtu and Father Xanthus and “not on my watch”. I suspect there is more he intends to do here.

But for now, we are down on spells, and we have a body of a Sandpoint guardsman to repatriate. We picked up some things Scribbler would no longer have a use for:

a cloak of +2 charisma [1012]
a +1 breastplate [1013]
a +1 returning dagger of cold iron [1014]
a peacock quill, radiating very strong divination magic [1016]
17 vials of ink (8 black, 2 blue, 2 red, 1 violet, 1 yellow, 1 green,
1 brown, 1 pink) [1015]
falchion (broken by Nolin)
bag of diamond dust (750gp)

Returning to the surface, we consulted with Father Xanthus and he agreed to help with the cleansing of the cathedrala We decided to make camp next to the pit to make certain nothing crawled out overnight (and that nobody tried to sneak in.).

Wealday, Erastus 9

Returning to the rooms below, we discovered that today, all the foggy rooms were gone. Apparently that was the result of a spell with a duration of 24 hours or less, probably maintained by Scribbler. Sabin used an erase spell to erase one writing of Scribbler, leaving only about five thousand more.

Nolin and Avia started smashing statues. Meanwhile others of us went back into the pool room. The pool is incredibly clean (and Xanthus comments upon this.) How clean? I decided to find out, ignoring the horrified looks of my companions. How bad could it be? Well, it did make me feel sick, despite its cleanliness, but I threw up back into the pool as that seemed most appropriate.

NOW someone tried a detect evil and found the water was evil. It was probably unholy water.

Kane tried consecrating the water; nothing.
Kane tried dispel evil on the water; nothing.
Takkad tried a greater dispel magic; nothing.

Takkad decided to vent his frustration on the jackal on the floor by using 4 stone shapes to significantly deface the image.

Kane deformed the pool, thinking it might disrupt whatever magic was there. And it seems it did. We concluded that it was the pool that was magical, not what was in it, and now the pool was ‘broken’.

Sabin kept erasing scribblings. Dogged, he was. But don’t say “dogged” around him; he might take it as an insult. Or worse, a compliment. In short order, all of the “important” (that is, ones that made a modicum of sense) were erased so that nobody else could read them in the future.

Takkad, meanwhile, was inspecting the hole that led to the surface and the cave-in beneath it. He concluded that with some skillful stone shaping, and judicious walls of stone, the structure underneath could again support the street above – possibly even better than the old street. He began the work here, but it would take another day’s worth of spells before he and Kane would finish. When they were done, the street above was solidly replaced and supported.

There aren’t a lot of clerical architects out there.

Starday, Erastus 12

When all of the scouring, erasing, shaping, and conjuring was done, the Square of the Four Watchers was christened. Four statues were placed above; one each for Desna, Sarenrae, Pharasma, and one guardsman from the garrison (fashioned after the one remaining corpse with recognizable features).

Meanwhile, below, our clerics and Father Xanthus’ army of sacred sandblasters turned what used to be a sacred area for Lamashtu into a harmless empty room that only held bad memories, and that only for us and the souls lost here. In time, it may be consecrated to some other deity, but for now, all are happy that it is NOT welcoming to Lamashtu.

A wall with a stoutly built and locked door was added to make the whole area nearly inaccessible except by force. (The locked door is only accessible from the garrison!)

And this too was the day when we helped bring to fruition an utterance of Rallo – a random statement we’d thought had been made in jest, or perhaps in frustration or even fear, but no. Rallo had seen Death close up and decided he was not willing to stare it down again. He will eventually, of course – we all do – but not in the wild, not in the battlefield.

Rallo has retired (if you can call running a magic shop a form of retirement.) As a group, we decided to help fund his setup, and in return he has said he will make items for us for only 10% over cost. We also will give him first option on any of the magic items we eventually decide to sell. It is not an avocation without risk, but the risk lies in a business failing rather than his life being lost. Rallo was often the most impetuous among us, which makes this comparatively conservative move all the more surprising, but it’s a decision each must make for themselves.

It made me think of you, Father – why did you decide to settle down and stop living from the road and reaping the rewards of such a life? When should I? I’ve lived a much shorter life than you did before you stopped, but I feel the last year has been .. comparatively rich in experiences. I’m but 18, but am I already living on borrowed time? Perhaps sometime when there is more time, I will teleport home and have that talk with you.

But not now. Tomorrow we will head to the ancient library to research more about the Runeforge: its legend, its power, and its use. Karzoug seems to be intent on bending it to his use in this modern day and we must find out how to stop him.

Moonday, Erastus 14

Information of the Runeforge was sparse, even from the mechanized servant available to us. Runeforge was not an object, but a place, and it was created to be a neutral place where acolytes of all the Rune Lords could study and research magic. Because of the danger of any one Rune Lord gaining access to this kind of research, the exact location was intentionally vague and secretive, and although students of all the Lords would attend there, while there they were, in theory, without allegiance.

To insure this, they were enrolled in this magical university for life. Once you checked in, only death was your way out. Mistrusting each other, the Rune Lords themselves created wards and barriers to prevent them from entering, or having agents or minions enter. Presumably all that flowed from the studies was somehow made available to all simultaneously, or never. It is not clear to me how the establishment of this hall of knowledge would benefit them without some clear way of getting output from it, but perhaps we will learn more as we study.

We found vague references to one of the last projects being undertaken at Runeforge before the empire apparently fell. The Rune Lords were seeking some method of transcending and eluding Death itself. Even limited successes in this area of study might explain the apparent vitality of some portion of Karzoug (or perhaps we’ll find, other Rune Lords).

After days of research – and we’re talking everyone who could read ancient Thasselonian, which is most of the group – we were able to discern only that Runeforge was up in the mountains, perhaps the Kodar to the north. But there were tens of peaks there and we needed more information.

Takkad was able to uncover information about a commander named Xaliasa, who, it appears, commanded the ‘Hellfire Plume’ that seems to have been located just outside Sandpoint. Xaliasa may have been double dipping and trying to serve two Rune Lords, but ultimately proved loyal to Alasnist.

Upon saying this out loud, Takkad got a strange look on his face and immediately sought out the pieces of the broken falchion, and Scribbler’s dagger that I had claimed. There was inscribed ‘Xaliasa’. Scribbler and Xaliasa were one and the same. It appears at least one principal from the past had been able to either cheat or prolong death.

It also suggested his cryptic scribblings were credible (if we could but understand them properly.)

Giving those notes a bit more weight and with some help from our mechanical librarian, we were able to identfy a likely peak in the Kodar range as the ancient Mt Xin: Rimeskull. Armed with a modern name, Takkad thought we might find more information from travellers societies and churches than from ancient manuscripts, so we are planning a little trip to Magnimar tomorrow.

I saw Takkad playing with the magical quill, trying to figure out why it was magical. I don’t believe I’ve seen Takkad look frustrated very often, but clearly that quill vexes him.

Toilday, Erastus 15

So Sabin and I took Nolin and Takkad to Magnimar via teleport. We quickly went in four different directions, as Takkad wanted to find out more about that mountain peak, Nolin was off to visit his parents, and Sabin went to buy more spell components. I decided I wanted a good cloak of resistance, fearing that we would run into more magic users who would attempt more charm or other magic upon me.

I found a shop that had a rather poor looking one, and the shopkeep tried to overcharge me for a lesser powered cloak. I went looking elsewhere, but even in a city the size of Magnimar, the number of shops selling something like that are limited.

During this search, however, a man approached me quietly and suggested he might have access to the cloak I was looking for. I was naturally suspicious, since at the time I was near the Underbridge and many transactions there have … strings attached. The man told me some story about his uncle dying or somesuch and I was worried that a) I might be buying stolen goods, or b) I might be set up to just have my money stolen.

I told him I would like to see it but if it was all he said it was I’d be interested. We haggled about a price and ultimately settled on something between 6000 and 7000gp, the exact amount to be determined after inspecting it. We agreed to meet again in an hour.

I’m no Rigel, but I followed him after our meeting and he seemed to head to a brothel and disappear within. How would I know if I was being cheated? I could tell magically if the cloak was not what I expected but would I be able to tell if he were lying about any part of his story? It occurred to me that Rigel might be able to help, and come to think of it so might Kane. I teleported back to the library and brought not just Rigel and Kane, but Avia back with me.

And that turned out to be of very little help at all. Avia and Kane found it humorous that we went and staked out a brothel, while Rigel didn’t understand at all my concern about whether the man had legitimate ownership of the cloak. In fact, she suggested we could improve the price considerably, given that we were now four versus one. I was against that, and I did see Avia knit her eyebrows a bit, but Kane was all for it.

Anyway, the man came out, we met at the agreed upon place, and Rigel, Kane, and Avia surreptitiously came along to make sure he did not bring friends. He did not, but when I started questioning more about the origins, the price started coming down. Sigh. My guess was the cloak was not his, but I had no actual proof of that, nor could I possibly discern who it had come from. We eventually settled on 5300gp, and I had a smart looking cloak with a little silver (thread) trim. And I had Rigel, Kane, and even Avia who found my negotiating tactics and priorities to be odd. And all they could talk about was how did I find a man in a brothel with a cloak, completely ignoring the earlier part of my story where I mentioned how I’d actually met him.

We met up with Takkad and the others, and it turns out everybody had a good trip to Magnimar. I got my cloak, Sabin got his components, and perhaps most importantly, Takkad got his information from the Pathfinder Society. Apparently Rimeskull had not been visited in dozens of years, but there were rumors of a white dragon, and although people (including soldiers) had gone to check it out, nobody had ever returned. Yup, that sounds like where we need to go. We won’t be able to teleport (initially) but once Sabin and I have visited it once, we won’t need to trek. The first time, however …

Seems like we will be starting a trip soon..

Fireday, Erastus 25

It seems there was more research to do before leaving, so my prediction of a trip was not inaccurate but definitely in the wrong timeframe. It looks like we’ll be leaving tomorrow, and Takkad has a spell called Wind Walk which means the journey need not be arduous and lengthy at all.

One of the things we were waiting for was for Kane to finish creating his set of wands: a wand of erase, a wand of lesser restoration, a wand of knock, and a wand of protection from evil.

Starday, Erastus 26

Wind Walk meant we could travel at the speed of the wind, which was much much faster than even horses. It only took about 4 hours. I may look into this spell but I fear it might be clerical only.

When we got there, we knew we were at the right place. There was a huge head carved into the side of the mountain, and even more telling, there was a plateau below that had seven other huge heads. Seven Rune Lords? There was no sign of a white dragon.

We did detect magic on the heads, and they were indeed magical .. but interestingly each emanated magic from a different school. As an experiment, I used Mage Hand to put a rock in the mouth of the figure representing Karzoug. There was a loud thrum and a key appeared in the mouth .. even before I could put the rock in it. I claimed the key.

Takkad suggested maybe a spell from each school cast at or near the appropriate statue might yield similar results. The mages and clerics stepped up and did that, and as we pulled the last key from the last mouth, Rigel yelled, “Dragon!”.

And indeed there was. White dragon. Likes cold. Should hate fire! I fireballed it … but it seemed to have little effect. Then it returned the favor with an icy cold blast which brought several of us far closer to death than we cared.

Kane set about healing us, while I tried another fireball. Surprise (or maybe not) – the dragon appeared to have magic resistance too, and the fireball had zero effect on it. Rigel fired an arrow at it which, by rights, sure should have hit it but it seemed to pass through it. Instead of flying by again, the dragon dropped down and grabbed Rigel in its mouth! Avia, Nolin and Sabin did the dimension door trick to get right next to it, but were having an uncanny problem just laying a weapon to it.

Suspicious, Takkad cast greater dispel at it and suddenly it seemed mildly startled and it seemed to snap into place. Displacement! And I’ll bet fire protection too. Takkad did another dispel and suddenly the fireballs started to hurt it, and the swords started to draw blood. The dragon had long ago spit out Rigel to deal with the fighters and it roared angrily now. Abruptly it pulled back, seemed to say something, and it disappeared. Perhaps it too knew dimension door.

We decided that although we could fully heal ourselves, we would probably want to have more of our spells available before confronting the dragon. So we teleported back to Sandpoint, but then we reconsidered. We needed more information about the cavern into which we expected we’d need to enter.

Quickly Sabin and I returned (I was protection, just in case something went amiss) and Sabin deployed an arcane eye. Using the eye and Sabin’s night vision, he was able to scout the way into the cavern. There were some statues about 40 or 50 feet in, and of course there was a protective barrier of what looked like freezing fog in the outer part of the cavern. About a hundred feet past the statues, a great hole gaped. Apparently at that point, we needed to go down — maybe feather fall or fly or something. The cavern was huge here; easily a hundred feet wide.

As the arcane eye went 300 ft down, Sabin found that there was a floor and the floor had (surprise) seven statues. More interesting was the dragon had its lair down there, and was resting upon it, searching for potions among its treasures and gulping them. No doubt healing itself.

We returned to Sandpoint and Sabin relayed what he had seen. Yes, we definitely wanted to rest and buff up, but we could also now lay in a bit of a strategy. But we realized there was a tremendous advantage if we could simply teleport to the point of battle. One problem: I hadn’t seen any of what Sabin had seen, so I had no point of reference.

So we returned once more, and Takkad cast True Seeing on me so I could see through the dark. We all became wisps of wind again (wind walk had not worn off) andin this semi-invisible state, Sabin and I went off to explore.

The nice thing was that with True Seeing I not only got darkness, I got to see through illusions too. And so I was able to discern that the statues were just that — nothing to be concerned about. I was also able to discern a hidden but tiny path leading around the edge of the great pit, so that dropping in wasn’t the only option.

The dragon wasn’t there now. so we spent some time trying to look over the hoard. It was tempting to take some things now but the dragon would undoubtedly note that things were missing, and we might even get caught, and we felt the element of surprise would still be very handy.

We returned to Takkad and all teleported back to Sandpoint. We came up with a plan knowing, this time, that the dragon would likely have enchantments we’d need to dispel before our fighters (or spells, for that matter) could be effective. We also split the group into two groups, each with a person capable of teleport, as our escape plan if things did not go well. We agreed to collect some cold weather gear, and rested. This would not be Longtooth. This dragon was bigger.

Sunday, Erastus 27

We awoke, had a good breakfast, and went off to kill the dragon. Funny how there was no talk of discussing anything with it this time. I think people grew tired of Longtooth’s conversations pretty fast last time. We cast our protections and enhancements that were not of short duration and teleported directly to the hoard.

The dragon was not there.

Sabin used a Locate Creature scroll to monitor for the approach of the dragon. The rest of us started to pull magic things out of the treasure, possibly for immediate use.

We got to do a good minute or two of ransacking before Sabin announced, “Dragon coming, that way.” And he pointed at a corridor.

I decided it would be amusing to see the dragon get frustrated very quickly. So I threw a wall of force over the entrance to that corridor. And only moments later, a small blizzard occurred in that corridor that was, yet, contained within that corridor. As our party gaped, I said, “wall of force. He’ll have to dimension do–“.

And he dimension doored.

Takkad had to take a dragon bite before casting his greater dispel, but just like before, the dragon snapped into position a few feet from where he’d appeared just moments ago. No more displacement! And he seemed really annoyed by the fire. And the fighters really beat him up. And he was really bleeding. And he was really dying. Amazing what you can kill if you have time to prepare.

So he left us again, but this time Sabin (through locate creature) was able to tell us immediately, “He’s down that corridor,” meaning the one he’d appeared from. I dropped the wall of force and we all ran after him.

And although he was able to give Avia a good bite, and to get one more good icy breath on us, by having gotten to him when he was badly wounded, it took only a few well-aimed swings from our fighters to take him out. Wiping the dragon spit off her body, Avia seemed quite pleased to slice off its head (which seems to be our calling card these days.)

And that was that. One dead, ancient white dragon. What do you think about THAT, Father? WOW.

There was, of course, a LOT of treasure he had collected over the years, but I will detail that some more tomorrow. We spent a lot of time poring over and collecting it. I’m feeling a little giddy; there’s not just money but some pretty interesting magic stuff too.