Devastation

(Submitted by Milo)
The scouts continued northeast, following the tanaruks' backtrail. Eren and Toric collaborated to make some rune stones with Sendings to leave at the Landing for our friends. [Eren: I've always wanted pagers!]

Eren Sent to Kyra to say that Jaana has teleported back home to warn her people that the Thayvians were experimenting with Spellfire. Since Jaana is gone, she said it would be safe for us to return to the Landing. Kyra's response was that there are plenty of folks protecting the Landing at the moment and she and Toric should join us. They did. [Currently at the Landing - Gareth and several priests/mages of Mystra, a contingent from the Daggerford Militia (led by Cork) and a group of the Ilmataran Monks, the Black Knives. All of our dead have been raised and repairs are well under way.]

The next day, we continued along the trail. We figured we were only going to follow this another day or maybe two after thinking about it for a while. We realized (Adam called for an Int check all around.) that the last time we got to a fey'ri strong hold, it was just overrun with troops, fiendish cross breed animals (right down to the damn bats in the cavern) and all kinds of servants. We admitted that even our crew couldn't take on that big a group. (Hmm. Maybe it is time to talk to certain people and make sure the people in power [ie- With armies at their disposal.] in this area know that the fey'ri are on the rise.)

We were able to figure that it looked like the tanaruk were force marching, only camping every other day. There are signs of fey'ri landing only occassionaly, presumably to give marching orders. We found just a few signs of what we suspected are places where one of the slime creatures was for a bit. It doesn't seem that the slimes were marching with the tanaruk, more like they showed up once in a while or something. (They're hard to track anyway.)

We did find something disturbing along the trail -- the remains of a human leg, evidently discarded after all the good meat had been eaten off. It made us more determined and we pushed on.

Further on, we found a farm. This place wasn't just pillaged, it was destroyed in the tanaruk version of fun. The buildings were trashed, furniture broken, most of the farm animals dead and torn apart and the fields were fouled as well. There were one or two critters alive that must have evaded the raid and come back later. We found the remains of an adult male and female and a couple of kids. Toric could tell that the woman was tortured to death and violated, probably by fey'ri, not the tanaruk. We gave them a decent burial and moved on.

Theeg took high lookout and spotted a small settlement further along our path. There were just barely traces of smoke visible. We moved in quickly. Just barely a village, maybe a couple dozen buildings. Again, it looked to have been the site of destruction for no other reason than to destroy. Many of the buildings were burned down with some smoke here and there. The well head wall has even been broken and we figured the well had probably been fouled. (Aw, crap. I just thought of something. How much you wanna bet we'll find bodies down that well? One of the best ways to foul a water source back in the real dark ages. Not looking forward to that climb.)

There were burned bodies lying around and others off to one side. It looked like somebody had been collecting the bodies and preparing a mass grave. The bodies that were burned to the point of not being able to stay together in one piece if picked up had only been covered by tarps. Obviously, there were some survivors.

We followed the only fresh tracks in the village (maybe a couple dozen buildings) to the entrance to a root cellar. We decide that no orc or elf looking folks should open that door, so Eren went down first. Kyra had to join her at the bottom of the stairs for a minute to pop the lock on the door down there. Eren entered cautiously. There was a girl about 14-15 with a little boy and girl clinging to her legs. The older girl was holding a pitchfork pointed toward Eren, obviously scared to death but determined to fight. All three looked dehydrated, dirty and exhausted, to say the least. Looked like they hadn't slept in a couple days, at least, and the only thing holding them up was adrenaline.

The girl was too panicked to let Eren approach. Toric came down the steps and cast a Calm Emotions spell from just outside the door. The little kids pretty much collapsed against the teenager. The pitchfork dropped. The teenager didn't really know much about the attack. Their parents told them to hide in the root cellar and they did. They came out to find the village as it is. She pretty much collapsed shortly thereafter.

We asked Theeg to fly high scout again. He spotted a couple of outlying farms and we went to check them for survivors as well. The farms were destroyed, although one of them was not hit by the tanaruk. The tracks showed two attackers, draconic or at least reptilian, bigger than horses but not by too much. They definitely attacked from the air but the way the tracks showed they moved made us think of large predator cats. We looked around for evidence of breath weapon use but found no fire scorch, or acid burn or anything like that. We did find one area where there is some kind of residue all over the grass. Eren carefully took a sample to check [later].

That's about where we stopped. We were thinking about getting the kids back to the Landing but realized that puts them in harm's way. Secomber isn't that far away if I remember what Adam said correctly and we know that Silverymoon is fairly safe. On the other hand, Toric and Milo are quite familiar with a good orphanage school.

Milo - man with a past... and a future?

Events as reported by Milo...

Okay, we were at the Landing. Toric returned from his trip to the school with a bit of info on Milo's arrival. The records were noticeably less complete than would be expected from a Chauntean run school. (It's a side effect of keeping track of crop rotation and animal husbandry lists and the like. They keep meticulous records.)

What he was able to find out was kinda mysterious stuff. The woman's body found with Milo was dressed in lower class rags but her hands had no callouses or scars one would associate with that kind of hard living. Also, she smelled of herbs and sulfur and the like and there was what appeared to be the remains of a spell component pouch among her belongings, so she was likely a caster. She had several stab wounds that weren't fatal in and of themselves. It looks like her assailant definitely wanted her to know she was being killed. The killing blow (And even this one would have left somebody to die a long slow painful death.) started just above one hip and crossed upward to just below the opposite breast, almost severing the spine. From the description, Toric figured the weapon to have been some kind of serrated short sword. Her killer was strong as an ogre and probably more than 7' tall. (Toric got some incredibly high rolls on his skill checks when he was looking up info.) The other odd thing was that, even though the body was sent to the morgue and registered, there was absolutely no record of the body ever being buried. Also, a mysterious individual showed up exactly one year after Milo's arrival. Other than presumably human and male, there was very little description of this person. He donated 500 gp to the school, in exchange for a guarentee of Milo's care and education. A matching donation was made every five years, to the day, after that.

Toric also tried to find any info on the name Blackheart but only got sketchy info. (Boned the roll.) "The Blackheart" seems to be both a title and a name for an infamous orc warlord of the North. Seems to be head of a nomadic mercenary orc tribe that takes the entire tribe along.

Anyway, we all thanked Toric for his efforts and file the info away for possible further exploration. We decide that our immediate thing to take care of is to go visit "our friends" up river to see how they're doing and so we can introduce them to the rest of our group and stop referring to them so mysteriously. (We were all feeling kinda guilty about keeping secrets from folks who we trust with our lives.) So we packed up a bunch of the cookies and such that Eren baked up in her frenzy and we set out toward the dwarf hold.

After we made camp for the night, toward the end of thrid watch, somebody detected somebody approaching camp. We all got up and quickly figured out this appeared to be a somewhat powerful caster and evil. We spread out and stealth toward the target. Milo realized the target was finding its way with a staff, as if blind, and he recognized the smell. He mentally signaled the others to keep down and quiet as he stood up and asked the orc witch what she'd come for this time.

The witch did the deep and mysterious thing as she basically did an evil version of a smudging ceremony, wafting the stinking smoke toward Milo. He tried but he just couldn't get out of the way of the smoke. The orc witch (female shaman?) kept going on about some kind of prophecy about the Dark Soul and the Blackheart coming together and bringing forth black times, or something like that. (I really can't remember, darn it. I'm hoping somebody else took better notes than I did while Adam and I were roleplaying this scene. It was fun.)

The story seemed to be that there was a big confrontation coming between Milo and some other mysterious HE. (I kept on thinking she meant The Blackheart but it could have also meant some unknown sibling or something.) That darn witch couldn't have vagued things up much more. She said this had to be a one-on-one battle and Milo was to make sure his companions understood this. (Most of the groups reaction to that was "Yeah, right. Since when do we let the evil guys set the rules?") She said the confrontation would be within the tenday if we remained where we were.

Milo did some posturing along the lines of "So, give me a reason why I shouldn't kill you right here and now." in hopes of getting some info out of her. She didn't really flinch. (Milo had done a pretty good Sense Motive earlier and felt she wasn't lying because she seemed really psyched about taking part in this whole prophesized event.) The clincher was when she said "Well, then you wouldn't know..." Milo figured she seemed to be playing neutral at the moment and hadn't done anything more than be evil (Not always enough for him to just kill somebody out of hand.) and he'd hate to kill her now and find out there was some super important bit of information that only she had. And, he just had to find out what the heck was going on, so he told her to get lost.

After that, there was a group meeting about what we should do. We decided to try and find a more defensible spot for this and, after looking around, found ourselves at that ruined dwarf outpost where the characters fought those ghouls last year. Jaana casts her spell to commune with the surrounding nature and locates a pyrohydra lair to the north of our position. There is some debate about whether or not we should take that critter on to make sure it doesn't jump us while it is hunting and we are trying to prepare. Milo realizes somewhere along this time that he just KNOWS where his adversary is and how fast he is coming, directly toward him. He doesn't want to lead the adversary to the dwarf hold but somebody asks him if the adversary might not run into his friends place before it got to him? Milo realized the hold was in fact on a straight line between him and the adversary, so we decide to go to the dwarf hold. (Besides, we got cookies to deliver.) Kind of hoping that we can hit the adversary somewhere along the line BEFORE it gets to the dwarf hold. The idea that the adversary's group might be connected with the orc troop we drove out of the dwarf hold last year and might actually be headed directly for the hold was the deciding factor.

It's about this time that we start thinking that the adversary, who we are kind of assuming is The Blackheart in one incarnation or another at this point, might have a big ol' bunch of orcs with him. We also realize that the travel path he is on will take him through the northern edge of the Mistwood, so that puts Kyra a bit on edge. Kyra and Theeg move ahead as fast as they can, with the rest following soon behind.

We came to a stopping point shortly after everybody arrived at the dwarf hold. We were finally able to reveal the whole story to Larkin and Jaana and Toric so we could speak freely. We find out the dwarf population has grown to about 75, but 5 have recently gone missing in the lower reaches. (Something else going on. Hmm. Definitely fodder for future investigation and adventure.) Kyra used her tree stride boots to pop off to warn her prince. Hopefully, this warning will carry more weight now than the last time we tried to warn the wild elves about orcs.

The assumed reason for Eren's absence was that she was off recruiting for staff at Illchin's Landing. Don't forget Adam's thing about giving some xp for a story or whatever about what your character was doing in their absence. And, while we didn't tell the twins exactly where we were going, we did say we were off to our friends' place upriver and we had talked about going to see the dwarves when Eren was present.

At Last, a Wedding!

A report from Milo, with commentary by Eren...

The wedding of Kyra and her prince finally went off. Started at dawn of one day and continued through to dawn of the next. Covered a bit less time for the guests than the participants. The wedding party was supported by mass Endurance type spells worked into the ceremony by the Triune priests. The wedding guests were allowed to leave the ceremony site at intervals for breaks.

After the ceremony, the newly wedded went off to consumate. The rest of our party headed out of town. Our personal guests were taken back to their places and we went to Daggerford.

After some post-wedding partying, that is. Eren spent a fair bit of time trying to explain (over a lot of mushroom spirits) to Larkin why Bill isn't someone she could consider dating. Yes, he looks like a halfling, but he's a red dragon, for cryin' out loud. Yes, her mom likes him, but she doesn't know he's a red dragon.

Gareth confirmed that it appeared we needed to take Aura's crystal ball prison to a dead magic area to get her out. We headed south and began filling in Larkin about all our enemies along the way. We got to the area of the lab and located one of the zones that extended above ground. Larkin split the ball apart with a mighty blow from his hands and Aura was back to herself once he brought her outside the dead magic zone. Larkin (at least I think it was him. I know somebody did this.) pocketed the two halves of the crystal ball so they could be studied later.

I think Eren has one piece... she's very interested in the runes. But I could be wrong.

We went from there to the town of Bowshot. The rest of us stayed in town while Larkin went off to meet a contact he'd been told to seek out.

The end of the nights session was about the time we started bumping into refugees. They carried news that a group of trolls came down from the High Moor and are attacking the Way Inn. The last any of the refugees knew, the innkeeper and his supporters stayed behind to defend the place.

The scariest piece of information was about the leader of the trolls. It reportedly had red skin and at least one refugee swore it breathed fire. I think he said that it was larger than normal and had wings too, but I'm not sure. (Sounds like there's some more randy dragons out there. First Frostburn and now this monkey. Jeesh. Hope it doesn't blow up.)

Yeah, what is it with exploding dragons, anyways? Eren

Last Time...

Post by Phil/Milo with commentary by Jae/Eren...

While Larkin was otherwise engaged (back to Daggerford with the "cleric in a bottle", researching how to get her out), the rest of the crew did some prep work for the upcoming bridal celebration. The ladies in our group, plus a couple extras, will be the bridesmaids. The guys in our group won't be in the actual bridal party since the groomsmen are going to be Alraythien's ranger buddies. I think Milo, Larkin and Theeg are maybe doing guard/usher duty or some such? ("Bride's side, Groom's side, or I'll-See-That-Outsider-Wench-Dead-Before-She-Can-Sully-Our-Prince side?")

There were several teleport trips made. We contacted Kyra's dad and brother in Silverymoon and brought them in for the nuptuals. We also made a side trip to Waterdeep to shop for wedding gifts. There was a slight run-in with Roe, the dragonslayer bard (We ran into her just before Larkin joined the group. This chick hunts dragons, solo.) She and Bill (Remember our halfling buddy who is really an adult red dragon but prefers to be a halfling?) (Of course he does - I can understand him preferring a superior form - Eren) had met before and apparently have agreed not to go at each other. We were all real tense but they just exchanged pleasantries, Bill gave Roe a bottle of Elverquist wine, and we went our seperate ways.

We all ended up back in the wild elf city. The bride's group went to meet up with Kyra who was in the middle of getting her wedding tattoo(s). Kyra's are fairly involved, including some facial tattooing and several different bits of unmentionable anatomy. Eren and Bethany's tattoos will just be on one arm and Jaana was given special dispensation to go without tattoos. (Hmm. She is from a country where their blood enemies, the Red Wizards of Thay, distingquish themselves by having lots of tattoos. Gee, ya think that might have something to do with her aversion?)

So, later that evening, our group of friends is travelling back across the city, headed for their quarters for the night. A ghostly apparition of an elf woman jumps out of a tree and attacks Kyra, to the exclusion of any other target. We have a heck of a time fighting it because of the incorporeal deal. (I hate incorporeal undead.) We finally start dealing out real damage when the Prince gets ahold of that family heirloom greatbow we found in the dragon lair and Milo gets ahold of his special wood comp longbow. (Hey, Eren's ghost-touch staff did some damage... okay, just a little, but it was much more effective once Bill started using it - Eren) Kyra was flying (spell) and playing keep away from the baneshee while Alraythien and Milo fill it full of arrows and Eren does her best to penetrate its spell resistance. (And Bill hit it with my stick. Hard. Repeatedly. -Eren)

The baneshee finally dissipated and we went to report to the king. Milo was convinced the ghost had been summoned by Virilia, the king's advisor that hates us. Come to find out, almost nobody is that powerful and this baneshee is the result of something that happened long ago. Seems there was another prince who wished to marry an elf who wasn't "one of their own" many centuries ago. There was a jealous suitor who was killed when she attacked the prince and his paramour. (Suicide by royal guard.) It is thought that this is where the baneshee actually came from.

And that's about where we left it. The next things on the agenda are an "official" presentation of the family heirloom bow from Milo to King Malandritch, which is scheduled to happen in a day or two, and the wedding, five days hence.

Into the Dragon's Lair

Posted by Jae/Eren, but written by Phil/Milo...

Well, the "simple exploration of the dragons' lair" turned out to be anything but. While we were dressing out the kill of the one green dragon that didn't explode, we found a large bag around its neck. It looked to be a large duffle bag of heavy leather that was big enough to hold a good size human. We found enough fairy dust inside to constitute a one ounce dose. Considering the bag was water proofed, we realized this must be how the dragons were transporting prisoners to their lair. And since fey don't shed a whole lot of fairy dust all at once, we figured there could be alot of prisoners down there and who knows for how long. Even without our mage, we decided we needed to hit the lair as soon as we could.

The prince and his rangers went back to inform the King that the rest of the community could come back. (btw, Did anybody else notice we were able to just walk away from the wild elf village for the first time, ever, when we took off hunting for the dragons? Unless that was a misprint, we now actually know how to get to their village, from the lake at least.) This left just our group in camp when we were visited that night by the strange hairy guy that gave her Illchin's soul to keep safe. Janna doubted the choice of guardians but was eventually convinced to take up guardianship.

Bill, the halfling sorceror, was pretty sure the hairy guy was Karl, somebody he used to know. We eventually found out that Karl used to be a big wolf who used to carry around some woman on his back. It was a strange story. If she asks, Bill might even tell Eren some more while they are travelling. (After Karl's visit, Eren and Bill teleported away with Illchin and his wagon. Milo gave Bill a list of craftsmen to try to hire for finish construction at the Landing.)

We got to the lake and explored the shoreline. Lots of smaller trees had been uprooted completely and thrown about. Some larger trees had been systematically clawed through and taken away. This fit with what some of the fey had said about the dragons building something in the lake. We didn't see any kind of a huge beaver dam so figured it must be something in the lair. We went to the southwest corner of the lake to start looking underwater.

Janna provided the water breathing spell and we went in. The rest of us used the Circlets to communicate because water breathing doesn't let us talk normal, but Janna still doesn't want to use it till she is assured the circlets aren't shadow weave magic. (Project one when we get back to Daggerford: Get Gareth to check these things real deep for us.)

The sandy shore only went out a ways and then there was a sharp drop off. The lake proved fairly rocky and got deep fast. Even though we had been warned about the water weirds, one snuck up on us. Turns out they are all but invisible underwater. (A whole LOT of solid hits became misses because of the miss chance rolls.) We did eventually take it down. It got much easier after Kyra nailed it with one of her blue dye pellets. On the bright side, Janna now knew what a water weird looked like and could now use a spell to keep us clear of the rest. And, Milo got to ride on a shark, so that was cool. (Janna summoned it but magic weapons were needed to hit the wierd. But the shark could swim fast and didn't seem to have a problem telling where the wierd was in the water. So it and Milo "teamed up" as it were when the weird went up to get away from us.)

Our elves spotted the secret entrance eventually. The tunnel proved to be fairly long and we kept running into stout log portcullises. We had figured out the trees that were cut down were fairly resistent to water rot, so this wasn't too surprising. On the other hand, just the construction of these would have taken more than a tenday, so the dragons were here longer than anybody thought. Something else that was disturbing was that this new construction really looked to be just repairs to a much older setup. It seems the Old One and these new green dragons were all quite fond of "gauntlet" type lair entrances.

We were real careful. Kyra and Theeg spotted the traps along the way and we muscled up the portcullises. (Easier said than done by the way.) The hardest part was the air pocket elbow that turned out to be filled with acidic gas and had another portcullis beyond it. Theeg scouted it out and Kyra borrowed Milo's shield for the acid resistance while she picked the lock on the far portcullis. Theeg opened the valves beyond that and cleared the gas. Tunnel went back underwater again and there was a couple more portcullises and traps beyond that.

The tunnel finally came up in a pool fed by a waterfall. And boy were we surprised when we saw the trees growing in the chamber. The large chamber (somewhere around 60 x 100, I think) looked to be dwarven stonework but the floor and ceiling had been torn up to expose dirt. A very close together ring of trees grew from both the floor and ceiling. We went through the trees to find a small clearing with a pedestal topped by a single globe of light. It kind of looked like an upsided down candelabra. There were only the remains of broken globes on the other arms of the candelabra.

We slipped up when we approached the dais the candelabra grew from without having Kyra check for traps first. Boy did we pay for that mistake. The gas released by the trap seemed to be based on the Old One's breath weapon and did a whole boat load of damage. Darn near killed Janna and took big chunks out of everybody else's health. (Except Theeg, of course, who was immune.)

We were about to heal ourselves up when somebody heard what sounded like a stone shifting. Theeg went to investigate and found the THIRD green dragon ready and waiting. Good thing was that it wasted its breath weapon on Theeg. There was a hell of a fight. The dragon hit a good deal and we hit pretty good. There was thought of retreat but the tide really turned when Kyra got off a sneak attack with the dragon bone bow and criticalled on one of her shots. She did something like 80 points of damage I think. Milo and Larkin tagged the dragon quite a few times for some good damage too. Just as we were thinking, "Boy. I hope this one doesn't explode like that last one when it dies," it most certainly did. The acid blast killed Larkin (unfortunately, boned the save), hurt Janna pretty bad and took Milo to zero hp. Kyra made her save and Theeg's immune.

We healed up (used quite a few charges from Milo's cure light wand) while Kyra and Theeg went in the chamber beyond to investigate the screams we heard when the dragon exploded. They found some traps and disarmed them. They also found a chamber with three mounds of treasure. (So at least we're pretty sure there were only three.) There were also 20 fey and 2 elf prisoner hanging in cages. The prisoners were freed and we shared out rations because they looked a little rough and we now knew we weren't getting all these folks out tonight.

The prisoners mentioned that there was somebody else down here and we went back on alert. We went looking and ended up near the light globe. The darn thing seemed to react to Janna and we started to communicate a bit. Milo went to put one of the circlets on the globe but when his fingers touched the globe, it turned out the circlet wasn't needed. The globe said "Hello" as soon as Milo's fingers touched the surface. The light turned out to be a lantern archon, named Aura (I think), that was imprisoned by the Old One to give light to it's garden some 400 years ago. The other globes contained other lantern archons but they died when their globes were broken. Aura was sorry to hear our friend Larkin had died fighting the dragon and said she could return him to us in the morning if we could find a diamond. We found one among the treasure.

Aura also informed us that the other being down here looked to be an elven female that had been brought down here as a baby by the Old One. That really floored us because that meant this elf had grown up down here for 300 years... totally alone. We got the fey to help us find her because it turns out she is very good at hiding. (The three could never find her even though they knew she was down here.) Kyra tried to get one of the circlets on her head because we figured she didn't know any languages. The circlet dropping on her head really freaked her out and she retreated further back in the cave the waterfall spouted from.

There was an observation that she was on an animalistic level and Milo realized that he might be able to use Speak with Animals to talk to her. That, some Wild Empathy, some food and Milo keeping out of sight so as not to startle her, were enough gain her trust for the most part. We were able to get a circlet on her and communicate freely, cause the spell only lasts so long. One of the elves recognized a mark on the woman and said that this could be Illeeyan, the King's baby sister. She was presumed dead after her father was killed by the Old One so long ago.

The next morning, we placed the diamond and Aura's globe on Larkin's chest and Aura made him alive. Aura really seems to like Larkin (the only Lawful type in the group) so he has volunteered to carry her globe. Turns out she is a cleric of Lathander, by the way. We're planning on taking her to the temple either in Daggerford or Waterdeep to see if they can free her. (Although, out of character, we are sorely tempted to keep the "cleric in a jar" for ourselves.)

The end of the game found us still trying to decide what to do with the lair. We can provide light for the trees with luminescent moss (we recognized the kind of trees and know this will work) but the waterfall is actually from a Decanter of Endless Water. We definitely want to take that item with us, but we don't want to deprive the trees and other plants of water. We're figuring out arrangements. We're also not sure what to do about Illeeyan. She has no concept of the world outside of this little lair. She is all kinds of messed up in the head and we're not sure how best to help her. We can't even get her to wear clothes. Her to-the-ground-and-more length hair is more than enough for her tastes.

That's about where we left it.

Okay, Milo got rescued and everything sorted out... Milo's cleared and Bethany's alive again, and our lives are ever so much more complicated.

Our motto has been: Teamwork, Magic and Luck... but now I think we may want a new motto.

“Certainty of death—small chance of success—what are we waiting for?”

Eren

Yikes!

So much has happened, no time to explain it all.. but YIKES! Y'see, about a tenday ago we had this birthday party for Milo, and I invited this barmaid, Bethany, from the Happy Cow who kinda liked him, and the hit it off and all. And then we went off and had a really weird adventure and when we got back, the Militia arrested Milo for murdering Bethany! But he was WITH US THE WHOLE TIME!

Gotta get this fixed...

Eren

Eren (the halfling wizard) takes a thoughtful sip from an ale tankard nearly as large as her head.

The thing, y'see, that I think is really neat is that we're getting to be somebody in Daggerford. I mean, we're heroes and all -- we've got medals to prove it! It wasn't that long ago I was just Master Yellowknife's senior apprentice, and now I'm part of an adventuring company that actually does things to help people around here. We get audiences with the Duke, and everything.

I think what we need now is our own place, someplace out of town a little ways (in case of accidents in the alchemy lab) where we can all stay, even Theeg (the townsfolk are still kinda spooked by Theeg -- just 'cause he's a winged kobold half-dragon... sheesh!). We've started looking for the right place, but keep stopping to help clear out the dwarven city.

I can hardly wait to see what we get to do this week!

Eren (fire support) Willowburr

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.