This continues on after the characters had retreated to rest after the fireball went off in the vault room. Still the June 13 game night. (By the way, we reset the vault lever and the wall reappeared.)

The group returned upstairs to check the door they left the day before. They went cautiously, looking for kir-lanen to pop up at any turn. We opened the door to find green slime coating the walls of a medium size room. Some sort of entry over the cistern against the far wall. Gareth made short work of the green slime with a cure disease spell. The stuff turned brown and curled up and dried to flaky nothing. Found helmet and gauntlets on one shelf that we thought might have been used for checking through the cistern from within. We're not interested in looking that close right now.
We check the vault room again, using a spell to manipulate the hidden lever. Good idea because the fireball seems to have reset itself. Gareth uses a spell to translate the words on the wall and then another to copy the words into some scrolls. It turns out to be the story of some great beings coming to the forefathers of a certain dwarf clan and asking them to take on the job of protecting the crystal shard that holds the Heart of Fire, which can be used to recreate the sword Godslayer. Hmm. We're thinking that with the kir-lanens hatred of all things holy that maybe this was what they were looking for in this dwarf delve.

Return to the pillar room and reset the levers. Water from the stream fed cistern flows brown for a bit but soon clears up. We check the rain fed cistern as well and it appears uncontaminated. It looks like we were successful.

We meet with Kronin before we leave. He says that since it has been very well proven that this place isn't really safe, he asks that we take King Delvin's crown to his brother in Daggerford for safe keeping. We agree and also agree to take the Heart of Fire for safekeeping as well.
The dwarfs see us on our way out their secret door. Milo uses his tracking ability to eliminate the groups trail from the secret door. Our trip down river to Daggerford is uneventful. We speak privately with Master Ironeater. Kind Delvin's crown is quickly secreted away to somewhere safe. We then ask Ironeater for advice on what to do with the Heart of Fire. He says that it is known that the clan that had agreed to watch over the Heart has long since died out. But, as he looks right at Magnus, he says he believes he knows of another that would be quite up to taking over the job. Magnus agrees to take on the responsibility, along with the rest of us.

A couple days later, we are officially summoned to appear before the Council. In a very public ceremony, our group is each given medals (Kyra not happy and refuses to take down her hood. Gee, a rogue that doesn't want public recognition. Wonder why.) and a cash reward for clearing the contamination from the river.

Until next episode.

Now, as to the game on June 13.

The dwarfs informed us that there were two large cisterns somewhere higher up in the city. One was fed by rainwater and the other was fed by an underground stream. They think that the contaminated water is coming from the stream fed cistern. They know the levers in the pillar control the flow but they don't know exactly how they work. The one who had been doing that research was the dwarf cleric we found dead. But at least his research notes and the info he had been working from were up in his quarters.
Magnus had already gone up to the temple of Moradin to pray. The rest of us gave him some private time and then joined him in the priest's quarters so we could go over the water feed notes. We eventually figure out that manipulating the levers in the wrong way could very well mix the two cisterns and actually increase the amount of poison entering the river. We have Theeg go and turn the levers that will totally close off the intermix first and then shut off the lever to the one cistern that we think is contaminated and still running. The green water soon stops coming out of the spigots.

Eren and Kyra somehow discovered a secret door at the back of the temple. (Okay, so Eren got bored and was swinging from a torch sconce and Kyra spotted the secret door opening and closing. ;-) ) Since we're in the dwarf's territory we thought it best to inform them. Kronin came to check it out. It seemed like Kronin was looking for something and we soon found out he had thought King Delvin's crown should be here. Since there was a shaft to one side of the room, leading down, we went exploring. Kronin and one of his clerics, Kaine, joined our exploration. (Perhaps the elf rogue made them nervous?)

We found ourselves in a secret room. In the next room we spotted a dwarf statue. Another look makes us realize it is a golem because there is a kir-lanen's head stuck under its foot. The rest of the not long dead kir-lanen can just barely be spotted beyond the bulk of the golem. Eren jokingly says "We come in peace". Turns out that "peace" is the deactivation word for the golem. Go halfling.
As we spread out into the room, another secret door opens to one side and several kir-lanen begin to attack. Eren gets the jump on them and casts a color spray right in their faces. Another kir-lanen attacks Kronin and eventually enfeebles him with its spell ability. A third kir-lanen makes directly for Gareth. Milo doesn't like the big ugly beating on his friend the cleric and smashes the kir-lanen to bits with a rapid strike full attack. The other two kir-lanen go down fairly quickly as well. Gareth casts bull strength on Kronin because he won't pull back despite the enfeeblement. He really wants to find that crown it seems. On the other side of this second secret door we find a shaft going down. Kyra jams the secret door shut, hopefully keeping more kir-lanen from sneaking up behind us.

Beyond the golem room, we find a room with three doors. Milo smells the green slime smell behind the right hand door. We decide to leave that door for last.
The central door leads to what we think was a robing or dressing room for the king. Mainly because there is a crown on one shelf that is shining with light. Kronin says that is Delvins crown. Yee ha! We find other ceremonial looking armor and a cloak as well.
The room to the left looks like a treasury. Big stone chests against three walls. Lots of riches in the chests. Kyra finds a false bottom in one chest and a lever beneath that. The lever is marked with an old dwarf symbol that roughly translates to "Vault". Kyra finds no traps so Gareth reaches in and turns the lever. And then the room explodes!
As one wall of the room just seems to disappear, a fireball hits us for a good deal of damage. Kronin and Kaine are knocked unconscious. Gareth quickly heals them and then spreads healing around to the rest of us. The room that has been revealed beyond the disappeared wall is full of warm light and has a pillar at the center. A clear crystal shard with another red crystal embedded in it floats several inches above the pedestal. All three walls of this hidden room are covered with ancient dwarven writing. Since we are all hurt to one degree or more, we decide to take what we have found back up to the dwarf command area and rest and recover. Since we turned off the flow of contaminated water (as far as we know) we think the room that smelled of green slime and water can wait another day.

Oops. Didn't realize that I never posted last week.

Okay, so two games ago, our group arrived at the Laughing Hollow valley early in the morning. We could actually see where this green stuff was mixing into the river where it roiled over a bunch of boulders. We were met by none other than the wild elf prince we had rescued from a troll many weeks ago.
Elesian (probably not quite accurate, but close enough for now) showed us the big old front entrance of an old dwarf city carved into the cliffs. It was very overgrown but still visible. He also showed us to a "back door" that the orcs had been using. Milo used the surrounding underbrush to get a closer look around the orc door. He found lots of orc tracks, as well as some goblin, troll and maybe ogres. After very little debate, we decided that it might be better to go in through the old main entrance, which showed much less signs of activity. Our mission is to stop the river from being poisoned, not fight orcs. ('Course, if we just happen to kill some orcs along the way, well, that's good too. ;-) )

So we went in through the big front door. Did a little exploring in the immediate area, finding mostly dust filled halls and old traps. Some traps still worked and others have already been discharged or are jammed with age. Found a narrow corridor further in that we figured out was actually a closing wall trap that got stuck about halfway. At the far end of the narrow hall we find lots of crossbow bolts and a recently dead goblin. There is a ramp going down at one side of the room. We are able to figure out that much of the crossbow fire came from down that ramp and a lot of these bolts are dwarf make. Since the dwarfs might know something about how this place works and therefore might know how to stop the poison, we decide to go looking for them.
Bottom of the ramp is a big room with a large pillar at the center. There is a wide moat/fountain around the base of the pillar, but the moat appears all but dry. A large crack (3-5 feet wide, unknown depth) bisects the room, moat and pillar. We can see a couple of fountain heads near the bottom of the pillar that are spilling greenish water into the broken moat and that water is draining down the fissure.
As we move around the moat, we are attacked by gargoyles. After fighting them for a little bit, we realize they are like no gargoyles we have seen before. They have actual skin and flesh rather than the stone of regular gargoyles. And when one of them hits us with spells without using any casting gestures, we know there is something funny going on. We are finally able to slay them, one just before it gets away, possibly going to warn others of its kind. Gareth examines the remains and deduces that these appear to be kir-lanans, something he has only heard rumors about recently. It is said that these kir-lanans hate clergy for some reason and the destruction of several temples and holy sites are thought to be their work.
There is a small balcony and room high on the pillar. Theeg carries several of us up so we can examine the room. All that is in the room appears to be four levers. We think these may control the water coming out of the spigots below. Since we have no idea how they work we decide to not mess with them since we could end up making the flow worse instead of better. Hopefully, the dwarfs may know something. Otherwise, it's going to be hit or miss experimentation.
As we move around the room we find the body of a slain dwarf cleric of Moradin in the dry moat. He is only recently dead. We wrap the body up in his cloak and then stash it up in the balcony room in hopes the kir-lanen won't get it before we have a chance to give him proper burial.
Milo is able to find dwarf tracks and follow them to a nearby door that eventually leads us to a dwarf guard point. The guards only seem comfortable speaking with our dwarf, Magnus, at first. They quickly send a messenger to their leader while we retrieve the body of their fallen comrade. We are taken up to the dwarf command area to meet their leader, Kronin, while a couple other dwarfs take care of the body.
Kronin fills us in on what he and his people have found out about the city so far. This takes the better part of the rest of the day since there are maps and history to pore over.

And that was about where that episode left off.

Last Friday's game was quite interesting. The group decided it was high time they found a homebase for themselves and headed northeast, upriver along the Delimbir in hopes of finding something suitable. A short distance upstream, they noticed lots of dead fish floating belly up. Milo spotted some kind of sickly green scum in the water as well and used a scrap of cloth to collect a sample. Our alchemist was able to figure out that the poison was organic and apparently somehow derived from green slime.

We continued upstream to see what we could find, Milo and Kyra scouting ahead in full stealth mode. Soon spotted something in some bushes and moved to flank after signalling back to the group to stop, stay alert and keep quiet. Milo moved up on the target and saw that it was an elf, apparently from the Mistwood. Unfortunately, Milo doesn't move silent as well as he hides, so the elf figured out that something was nearby but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. The next thing the elf knew, Kyra's voice whispered from right next to his ear "Whatcha looking for?" just as Milo stepped into view, quickly followed by Kyra appearing practically out of thin air from behind the guy. Needless to say, that was one startled elf.

The elf recognized the Mistwood pass token Milo wore around his neck and said that we must be those he was sent to find in the town. He says that some poison has begun seeping from beneath the rocks in the Laughing Hollow, a valley about a day upstream. Even the mighty trees of the Mistwood are beginning to die off because of this poison and the King of the Mistwood elves sent him to find us and ask for our help. We agree to look into this, considering that's what we were doing anyway when we ran into him. But now we know where to start looking.
The elven scout says the only thing they know about what may or may not be going on is that a group of "hairy men" (dwarves) went into the ruins beneath Laughing Hollow before the snow started falling last year. A group of "green men" (orcs) was seen going in some time later. The elves have no idea whether these occurences have any connection with the current problem.

Since we're so close to town we head back to warn the town of the poisoned river (the current beat us to it) and to gather supplies and speak with the authorities. While we are gathering support and info (Seems like very few know anything about what might be beneath Laughing Hollow.) we suddenly realize that we might know something connected to this.
We found the body of a dwarf in the Mistwood during one of our earlier adventures and were able to determine that the body had lain there since before the snow fell but no longer than that. We buried the body properly and later contacted the head of the Ironeater clan in Daggerford to see if he might know whom to contact so they know their kinsman was dead. Master Ironeater knew that the dwarf was from the same clan as his brother. When we mentioned that the body had been found to the east (Purposefully NOT mentioning that it was found inside the Mistwood and full of elven arrows.) he mumbled something under his breath about his brother looking for something and saying that he thought it was to the east. Master Ironeater quickly "dummied up" after he realized we had overheard him and we asked a few too many questions. The timing seems to match up a bit too much for this to be coincidence.
Milo and Magnus speak with Master Ironeater. Turns out we were right. His brother did take an expedition to look for some lost dwarven city late last year. He knows little more though because this was really his brother's obsession, not his.

Gareth, our unofficial "mouthpiece" and usually go between with people of rank, is able to get hold of some useful magic scrolls from the temple of Chauntea. Seems they are more than happy to help out an expedition to try and counteract a poison source that threatens the major source of water in these parts.

After gathering supplies, we are back on our way and soon meet back up with the elf scout. We ride on past dark to try and make up some time. The rest of the night passes uneventfully. Partway through the day, the forward scouts spot something up ahead and signal for the group to halt. (Those skill points for Combat Signal Sign Language were well spent.) The scouts see a humanoid up ahead that seems to be eating a dead horse and Milo detects the overpowering odor of rotting flesh. We attack the undead and soon find that it has others in its pack. Other than gagging on the overpowering stench, we come through the fight fairly well. Eren is asked to make use of a prestidigitation spell to clean off the bits of the last ghast, that Milo basically hit three time in rapid succession and the beast practically exploded.

The ghasts were feeding on a horse and rider. Not much on identification left on the rider but the horses saddle does carry the mark of a tack & harness shop in Secomber to the east. We bury the poor soul with proper rites.

Somebody suggests that Milo see about tracking down the ghasts lair, which shouldn't be too far. Their trail isn't hard to follow and Milo soon finds something that would normally seem very out of place. But since the group seems to be looking for some kind of old dwarven ruin, perhaps this isn't so out of place after all. He finds an iron door (Set into a cliff face or hillside, I can't remember.) that leads down into some kind of old worked stairwell and a short bit of hall. The tunnel has collapsed further on and little is found but rubble and bones. Some doubt that this door and passage could have anything to do with the ruins supposed to be under Laughing Hollow, which is still half a day's ride away. But it is pointed out that what we are looking into was said to be a kingdom and therefore may have indeed stretched quite some way. This might be the remains of some escape route or a short cut or back road. Who is to know.

Not us, until next episode.