Wealday, Arodus 15, 4712 mid day
Ravenscraeg

We descended the stone steps into a claustrophobic narrow hallway. The mortared stone walls were wet from condensation and fuzzy from green-black mold, and the air was damp and smelled unpleasantly of soggy shoes.

“It smells like Badger’s butt!” quipped Pookie. This set of such a round of snickering from the others that I had a hard time concentrating on anything else for the next few moments.

A pair of iron bound wooden doors, one to our right and one dead ahead, lay before us.

The right door opened onto a short corridor that led to a large cavern — an underground stream crossed the corridor from left to right, effectively blocking access to the chamber beyond. On the far side was a large plank that would span the water, but we had no way to reach it.

Through the door ahead was a smaller chamber with a waterfall erupting from high up on the left wall, and then collecting itself in a pool that covered most of the floor the water flowed out to the right. Across the water was another door, next to which were a small cask and what looked like a hand bell.

We decided to check out the door to the right first, and so Etayne flew across to try and move the plank. It was too heavy for her to lift on her own, but before we could decide what to do next, a troll plodded over.

“What going on here?” it grunted in giant, which Sparna later translated for the rest of us.

“Prisoner transfer,” Sparna replied.

“Uh,” the troll grunted, clearly taxing its vocabulary as its heavy brows knit together in deep thought. “Maybe you leave for trolls to have fun?”, it asked in an almost whimsical tone.

“Orders from Runecaster,” Sparna cleverly replied. He then showed him one of the carved ravens the ninjas had been carrying.

“Uh,” again the troll replied before adding a few moments later, “Trolls not want any trouble. Carry on.”

Indeed, the troll was so confounded by the mention of Runecaster that he placed the plank over the water for us to cross. To the right was a large cavern with a massive furnace set against one wall, and a mountainous pile of coal against another. Three other trolls stood there in the gloom, looking suspiciously at us as we approached a door to our left.

Kali whispered something to Sparna, who turned to the trolls and asked, “Do you need more coal?” To which the troll, thoroughly vexed by now, bellowed, “NO MORE COAL!”

This door was locked, and none of the keys we got from upstairs worked. Fortunately Radella did not need a key, and soon the door was opened. We quickly scuttled into the room beyond and closed the door behind us.

This room was large and paneled from floor to ceiling in rich, dark hardwood. Tien style tapestries draped down over the walls from a twenty foot high ceiling. Seven straw mats lay arranged on the floor, which squeaked beneath our feet as we spread out.

But before we had a chance to discover more there was a loud blast, like a clap of thunder, and ninjas began to drop to the floor or throw spears at us from perches high upon the walls.

Ana called out, “It’s a trap!” as we engaged the enemy. Another thunderclap deafened Kali, Olmas and Lute, although the rest of us did not realize it at the time.

As we discovered before, while the ninjas were deathly quiet and deft with their actions, they were fragile and most of them quickly succumbed to the combined might of our onslaught. One of the survivors called out, “Invaders, help!” and the sound of heavy feet thudding up from behind warned us that the trolls were about to join the fray.

Fortunately the last ninja dropped just as the first troll smashed open the door. A quick Touch of Idiocy spell rendered the lead troll inert, and Kali trapped the second in an Aqueous Orb. One of the trolls in the back banged against the coal shoot and yelled, “Intruders!” but we suspected little help would come from upstairs.

Eventually the combat narrowed down in scope to a handful of fighters up front at the door bashing against the trolls who stupidly approached the narrow passageway one by one. This left the rest of us with nothing to do.

Earlier Kali had checked out the nearest northern door and found it was a simple sleeping cell, and had shoved Lute in and closed the door after him. Radella continued investigating the northern doors, and so I turned my attention to the two doors on the far side of the room.

Listening at the first door revealed nothing, and because Radella was coming this way anyway, I moved to the southern door. Again, no noise from beyond, and so I opened it.

It was an empty cell. “Empty?” I thought. “That’s just what they want you to think,” volunteered Timber.

Closer inspection proved Timber right: there was a secret door hidden in the southwest corner.

But before I had a chance to further explore our discovery, someone called out, “We need a little healing help in here! and I rushed out to see what was afoot.

It turned out that there was a ninja hiding in the cell I left for Radella to explore, but she had Olmas rushing over to help, and Ivan lobbing arrows in support. Over by the trolls I could see that one was left standing, with Sparna looking a little worse for wear.

A few channels later and Sparna had perked up and felled the troll just as one of the trolls we had “killed” earlier stood up. Kali used an acid arrow to put it down and keep it down.

Meanwhile over at the cell Ivan had put an arrow through the ninja’s eye, but not before she had stabbed Olmas with a (can you guess?) poisoned dagger. I used Delay Poison to block the effects, and by the time the spell expired the poison had too. Maybe we need to make this permanent on Olmas.

Anyway, it was time to do the usual and loot the bodies and rooms for anything valuable or useful.

[300]	vial of black lotus (the deadliest of poisons)
[301]	“The Deadly Kiss”, a +1 dagger forged centuries ago in Tien that allows the wielder holding poison to automatically coat the blade (as a free action), consuming the poison in the process
[302-304]	+1 earth-fire shuriken: flaming burst on any creature hit, reflex save (DC12) or target catches fire
[305]	blowgun
[306]	10 darts
[307]	5 regular shuriken
[308]	black ninja outfit: grants +2 AC and +5 stealth
[309]	masterwork thieves tools
[310]	33 gold arm bands
[311]	100 amethysts in a bag
[312]	10 thunderstones
[313]	6 masterwork spears
[314]	6 bone amulets of +1 natural armor
[315]	4 “nice” raven statuettes
[316]	lacquered screen
[317]	small Tien leather trunk
[318]	jade and lapis lazuli blow gun
[319]	Tien coins (300 gp)
[320]	scroll granting the authority from the king for the bearer to commandeer troops, servants and so forth within 2 miles of Kalsgard
[321]	disguise kit
[322]	set of washer woman clothes (?)

By now Lute was rethinking his decision to stay with us for safety, and decided to take us up on our offer to place him in the cloak room upstairs until either we returned to him, or he decided to leave on his own. We accompanied him upstairs, and gave him two of the rope-trick grenades plus a vanish potion.

We had just shut the door to the cloak room and I was leading us back to the stairs (anxious to see what lay beyond the secret door) when an arc of lightening zapped between Sparna and I, catching must of the group in between.

“Bastard!” growled Star, “Someone is going to die for that!”

But at that moment there was the twang of a bow string, and a large raven with a red feather fell down from the rafters with a soft thud onto the flagstone floor. Ivan was holding a bow with a very satisfied look on his face. Star cooed an appreciative, “Ooh!” while Beorn cackled.

It was dead. Just like that. Ivan had been carrying the arrow of Greater Magic Beast Slaying since we found it, keeping it in an easy to reach pouch. He had quickly spotted the giant raven hovering near the ceiling above and immediately shot the damned bird, which was now laying dead at our feet.

The raven was wearing a ring of protection around its leg, which we gave to Nihali, Kali’s raven.

[323]

+1 ring of protection (bird band)

I grabbed the raven corpse and tossed it into the furnace as we returned to the secret door. This led to a long hallway that stretched off into the darkness. Near at hand a door opened on our left. It looked like it might lead to the other side of the waterfall room, and so I was anxious to see what lay beyond.

It was a bedchamber with lots of odd things inside. There was a bed, the headboard for which was in the shape of a daemon’s mouth, a brazier burning in a corner (and giving off the aroma of burnt flesh), and bits of torn paper and debris collected in the corners.

Radella and I had entered the room when Helgerval announced, “There is something evil beneath the bed.”

A pair of giant hands crawled out, spider-like, and launched themselves at Radella. When I say “giant hands”, I do not mean the hands from a giant, but really gigantic hands!

Radella, Olmas, Anna and I bashed the things to death, leaving the earth elemental that Kali had summoned without a job, and so she asked it to pass through the wall to the south and look for the room beyond the waterfall.

The elemental returned and described a room with a well, but no entrance other than through the door we had already seen.

Radella discovered that the daemon’s mouth head board was a secret storage area holding some scrolls and supplies.

Sparna and Ivan had gone down the hallway a little further and discovered that it bent to the left and plunged down a flight of stairs. We decided to check out the remaining unexplored room on this level before heading down.

[324]	3 scrolls of Magic Circle Against Evil
[325]	vial of powdered silver (enough for the three [324] scrolls)
[326]	Stuffed sturge (giant mosquito)

With a rope tied around my middle (just in case) I jumped into the water and waded to the far side. I tied my end of the rope fast to the doorknob in case someone else wanted to use the rope to cross.

The item we thought had been a bell from across the water was in actuality an aspergillum — I hadn’t seen one since I left Pharasma’s temple in Magnimar. The door was locked and so I called Radella to join me. Picking up the cask I found that a key had been hidden beneath it, which unlocked the door. Radella had come across and opened the cask to find it full of a quality saki.

I opened the door. It was a circular chamber with a tiny well in the floor and a lot of fungi growing on the ceiling and walls. Upon hearing the latter Etayne flew across and pronounced they were “death hoods,” which dropped onto the heads of the unwary, suffocating them.

I filled the aspergillum with saki and entered the room, swinging it around in broad arcs, causing the death hoods to retract and melt. Then using Detect Magic I found something very magical in the wall far below.

But the well was only about a foot in diameter, and whatever was in it was fifteen feet below. Kali sent an Unseen Servant into the water to retrieve whatever it was.

The well instantly began to glow with a fierce light as a shining katana emerged from beneath the surface.

“I SENSE AMATATSU SCIONS AT LAST,” a voice boomed in our heads.

It was Suishen! Apparently Runecaster had stolen it, but could not figure out what to do with it (because Suishen refused to serve her), and so she tossed it in the well as a “safe” place to dispose of it.

Olmas reluctantly agreed to wield the sword (clearly one of us needed to), and as he grabbed it there was a moment’s pause before I heard a voice say, “You’ll do.” To be honest I wasn’t sure if this was from Suishen or Badger.

Suishen has confirmed that Runecaster is an oni in the form of a purple ogre, and I suspect that her careless discarding of Suishen will prove to be a costly mistake.

The stairs down await us, but we might need to recover spells before descending to face what might prove to be our greatest challenge yet.

[327]	key to well room
[328]	cask of saki (the good stuff)
[329]	Suishen