Brotherhood of Steel Annals

These annals chronicle the ventures of the Brotherhood of Steel company, originally founded as the Tunnel Snakes to loot the Caverns of Thracia, now travelling as The Brotherhood of Steel to avoid bounties on some of its longer-lived members.

**Session 1 lost to history**

*The Caverns of Thracia*

**Session 2, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador the mage, Drokk the witch-man, Viggo the barbarian etc
Cut loose from my last band- the bastards didn’t trust me! Anyway so I charmed them all to stay asleep then slit their throats. No point in burying them as the camp was 10 miles from the nearest road, as the idiot in charge never found someone who could keep a camp decently concealed and still within an hour’s march from the road we intended to rob people on.  I took their money and as much gear as I could carry; not much was of use, aside from a silver dagger the guy that fancied himself a cook had. The rest I just pawned and spent on room, food, and transport when I couldn’t charm my way to it.

I run out of cash in a village with a dungeon nearby, and there’s apparently enough fools around here at the same time that they’re making a go at it. What’s more, apparently the problems they’ve encountered so far have been living, which would make me invaluable to them. I’ve heard stories before of sorcerers going into dungeons full of nothing but undead and traps and finding that after all the work is done that the rest of the party doesn’t think they’re owed any more pay than a torchbearer would get. Sometimes those guys just blast the rest of the party with sleep magic and take the loot but even then they’re down a bunch of useful assets. The best way to get useful people is to be a useful person, or have lots of money already, but I’m stuck with the former for now.

I make contact with this group, who apparently when not taking casualties fighting gnolls spend their time “seducing” whores at the local tavern, not aware that the price of the women basically comes out of the drink they buy for them. One of them, the barbarian Viggo has an idea for making a lot of gold real quick. Apparently the entryway is covered in guano, tons of the stuff, and we can sell it as fertilizer. Now the only use I’ve ever heard for guano is submental mages of old who needed pinches of the stuff to focus their spells because noone at the time could fit a whole spell just in their head. I don’t trust this idea at first, think it’s some kind of scam, but I’m penniless so I would be a shit target for that. They give me a club they found last time, which I seem to be able to figure out the balance on, and we head off to clear the place of gnolls.

We enter, and go through a hallway or two. We line up on the door, and I ready to put every gnoll I see to sleep when the door is kicked down. 4 fall into slumber and fighting commences with the remaining 2; 3 men fall, including a torchbearer that apparently decided he got paid enough for combat and got beheaded after a swing and a miss with an axe he didn’t know how to use. The witch is able to save one of the other 2 fallen.  Viggo does the lion’s share of the damage with his halberd, striking both finishing blows.  He apparently takes the genitals of the fallen as trophies. And does so here. We find a few dozen gold and silver and some longbows and battleaxes. On the way out we pass some dog-sized spiders quickly without engaging them and get back to town.

We lost a few guys, and try to prevent bad blood with the locals by saying we prevented a gnoll attack; they don’t really buy it but they like the witch-doctor so they’re fine with us.

We check with a local business-type and he says he can move the stuff and provide carts, but we need to get the stuff out of the dungeon itself, since few locals will go there. He wants 25%, but we can always squeeze that money back out of him later. He says he can have the first of the carts available in a week. Someone is willing to risk 50 of his slaves shoveling shit in a hazardous area for 15% of the gross. This is almost certainly a ripoff relative to buying slaves but we don’t have the cash for that.

One of the sluts introduces the witch to her friend, and after paying ludicrous prices on drinks they hit it off. We hire some more men willing to venture into the dungeon; I get 2 heavily-armored types(always a good idea to be able to outrun people you might end up owing money) and Drokk gets a light fighter and a guy with a sling.

A week after we made the plan, we have 4 carts pulled by mules that have seen better days, 50 slaves, and 4 men set to guard the slaves. We approach and our scout sees a few figures-4 gnolls and a minotaur wielding a bronze greataxe. We promise 2 of the slave guards 15 gold each if they fight with us. As we’re trying to plan strategy we hear the minotaur shout “heretics” and stuff like that and they charge us. I put the gnolls to sleep as everyone with a bow or sling focuses fire on the minotaur. He kills an archer and seriously wounds the barbarian’s whore. He tries to run through some of us to wake up the gnolls but fails. Drokk blinds him with light, a spearman stuns him with a lucky blow and soon he is dead. Drokk tends to the wounded whore but she’s basically worthless now.  Viggo picks up his weapon, which has a charming image of a minotaur goring someone on it. I ask Derevi-if I’d known learning magic would lead to such an abrasive creature being bound to me I would have stuck to confidence schemes- can tell if it’s magic; between him and the man waving it around through the air we determine that it is merely finely made and balanced. Viggo cuts off all their dicks, and the minotaur’s head. We add more bows, arrows, and some morningstars to our collection, as well as a bit over 50 gold. We don’t pay a penny to the slave guards that failed to do anything. We’ll be back tomorrow to actually start the digging.

**Session 3, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Drokk, Agmadus, Viggo
We return to the area we’re going to have shit shoveled out of. Entering, I am told that a certain door that is spiked shut has a large number of poisonous centipedes behind it. The slaves get to work. We should be able to fit everything on 4 carts.

Half an hour in the man we have posted as guard in the tunnels comes running back, some kind of slime following him, pressing its way through the narrow corridor, touching all the walls. It wounds a man but is dispatched quickly enough. A small sum of money and assorted objects are found in it, including a gemstone.

When the first room is almost clear, the man in the tunnel again comes out, this time warning of people. There are a number of them in leather armor with bronze weapons and no light sources, acting somewhat berserk. Viggo kills a pair with a good blow and Agmadus kills 4; I put 4 to sleep. Both of my heavy infantrymen are wounded but with Drokk’s help both recover, though one is missing an eye. Some slaves try to escape but think better of it after seeing one of us kill 4 men in as many moments. The survivor, put to sleep, does not speak common and is still raging when we wake him.

We return to town to tend to the wounded; Viggo intends to sell the survivor. After a dispute with the gnome slaver over price he ends up just beheading the captive in front of him. Agmador, fresh with rumors of his combat prowess, manages to hire 4 new fighting men at a good rate.

Returning, the slaves have shoveled for a mere 10 minutes before our lookout returns: gnolls, armed with battleaxes. We engage for a bit, and some dog-headed entity, not a knoll, casts sleep on the middle of our ranks as I cast back, attempting to hit him and 4 gnolls, ending up affecting 3 of the gnolls-this is not a wizard as novice as I am. Derevi goes to wake the witch, who resumes his spell to cause the enemy mage to fear, which succeeds. Most of the gnolls die in their sleep, the one left awake flees with the mage. Almost a dozen of the slaves attempt to follow them. Agmadus convinces half to change their mind. We go up the tunnel just far enough to reach the place gnolls camped before and find two more, three are left missing, presumed dead.

The job is finished, and we return to town. The gnome wants us to pay for the missing slaves, despite the lucrative amount he is making just from a flat percentile cut. Viggo once again intimidates him, gifting him with the minotaur dick. The merchant we’re dealing with brought security for the payout. Can’t say I blame him. He got a bit better than expected, 6868 gold in total. After his cut and the slaver’s cut it comes to a little over a thousand for each of the four of us; after paying my 2 armored friends I have a bit over 700. Not bad for a few day’s work. The gem was a topaz, which sells for a little more. Hopefully the next time we go in we find this mage before he finds us. Derevi knows to wake me up if I’m put to sleep, hopefully he is ignored as a target, but enemy magic is still terrifying.

**Session 4, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Agmadus, Drokk, Viggo, and entourages
We return to the dungeon, hoping to find more shit. We follow the narrow tunnel that previously the gnolls have come from down to a lower level, where it widens. Through an area where the ceiling collapsed and rubble covers the floor we find another room full of old garbage. There’s a single gnoll; we hit him, he flees to the next room. In that next room there’s more garbage, fresh, and more gnolls; some of us run into the room for a moment chasing him then run back. The gnolls go to bar the door.

Viggo and others get to work breaking down the door we just closed, and spears attack the gnolls through it. We enter the room, following them as they retreat through a door on the other side. We hear a signal and others jump out of the trash piles behind us, attempting to flank us. One hits me and my bodyguards get in some good hits before I cast sleep, hitting 5 of the 6. Agmador is put down, but his whore kills the gnoll that did it and Drokk brings him back and heals the other wounded. We kill the 5, which we later realize is stupid because they would make good slaves. They had a small bit of money and basic weapons on them.

We proceed down the tunnel, and are going up some stairs when some blood-sucking things attack us from the ceiling; 2 of them land on me. In the confusion I forget I can cast spells and try to just pull them off me like everyone else is; one is pulled off by my bodyguard, the other killed by Derevi but not before it takes enough blood that I need healing. I’m left with some scars but it could have been much worse.

We find a bit of money rummaging through the garbage on our way out.

**Session 5, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Agmadus, Drokk, Viggo, and entourages
There are some traders in town; a peddler, Otto, and a dog breeder, Thund. Thund has several dogs available, of which Viggo buys several, including one that is promised to be quite the berserker. I buy a bloodhound, on the off chance we need to track anyone down, and put a down payment on a dwarven tunnelhound, which is trained to find secret traps and doors. Agmadus also orders a few dogs.

Otto offers a bunch of questionable items, including a dragon’s tooth and heart. I end up purchasing a protective twig of nightshade and a troll’s finger, which can serve as a food source. Derevi can’t identify any of what is sold as obviously enchanted.

Viggo attempts to seduce a bladedancer into working for him, and ends up succeeding even when her mentor intervenes by showing his manhood.

We enter through the shit-emptied room and proceed down the corridor. As our group is partway through a door opens in the wall, and we see a procession of men, led by some of the berserkers we have encountered earlier. Fight breaks out, a bunch of men are stabbed or cut, I cast sleep, someone from the rear of their formation in the hidden tunnel casts enchantments to Hold people, I am readying another sleep when the area I am in is put under magical silence. Another spell is cast and I am Held. There are some hand gestures between them and Viggo and we exchange each other’s wounded and back off, us to the entrance and them to their hidden tunnel.

Those of us who are still paralyzed are dragged to the entrance to wait for the spell to end, while we wait some gnolls approach from the corridor. The new berserkerhund kills them all in what seems like one continuous bite.

The paralysis gone, we leave the dungeon, to encounter Viggo’s previous one armed retainer. I can’t remember his name, and Viggo can’t either, so we address him as “Armsy”, which probably doesn’t help things. He whistles and some men pop up from cover, encircling us. He threatens to shoot me first, which makes sense, and I try some bullshit about not having spells left but he doesn’t buy it.

**Session 6, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Agmadus, Drokk, Viggo, and entourages
I attempt to cast sleep and get shot, had to try it. Drokk tends to me as combat happens; a lot of weapons break and some lizardmen attack Armsy’s men from the far side. Viggo’s wench recieves further injuries but she was already ruined so who cares. Derevi manages to kill Armsy and one other, and although Drokk is wounded by a crossbowman we forgot the fight is soon over.

We get back to town and recover for a few days. While there, we hear some rumors and follow them to find out that the man who fenced all our shit ripped us off, pocketing twenty thousand gold for himself. He’s apparently spent about half of it, including hiring 2 skilled bodyguards, one of whom is the bladedancer mentor Viggo lured his new girl away from.

We go to confront him, Viggo and his men at the back door, us at the front. We see the senior bladedancer and the other notable hire, a man wit some nasty looking armor, in addition to some local men holding a sword for the first time in their life. Discussion breaks down, and viggo busts in the back door. I cast sleep, putting down everyone but the main two threats. The one in the armor then casts sleep back, putting down Agmadus and several of our men. A door opens from a side room and two men come through. The armored caster casts sleep again.

**Session 7, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Agmadus, Drokk, Viggo, Zuma, Ben and entourages
I am woken to find that we have been joined in our fight by two men this merchant held prisoner who presumably want to get even. I immediately cast sleep, putting down everyone but the bladedancer, who due to her earlier magic is attacking very quickly, but having trouble with dogs, and by bad luck has broken both her swords. A dog kills her, Agmadus kills the armored caster, and I club a man to death.

Picking over the dead for their valuables, the armored caster is some kind of Zaharan, with his spell formulas tattooed on his person; one of our new acquaintances is also of those people and shares the translation with me, also recommending we remove the body’s head due to necromancy concerns. In addition to a sizable sum of money and valuables we find the man’s two handed sword was magic, Agmadus taking it, and I take a snake armband and some incense, both detecting as magic.

We sell the man who tried to cheat us into slavery, because killing him would be too easy and also it lets us get a few more gold out of him.

We return to the dungeon. In the lower levels, we hear fighting ahead of us, and  when we reach the stairs back up from it we see berserkers and lizardmen fighting. Viggo decides to join the fight rather than just wait it out and finish off the leader. The berserkerdog hurts someone, I put the men to sleep, and Agmadus’ new sword explodes the second time he uses it. We get some more of those nicely weighted clubs, and some small value in gold and gear.

**Session 8, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Agmadus, Viggo, Caster Manning
The dog trainer is back in town, with some dogs on offer, though our orders are not ready yet. Otto the Odd has evidently gotten out of another town a step ahead of the reputation of what he sells, and has a few things to offer us: the honeycomb of a giant bee, small creature that can smell gold at sixty feet, some dwarven mushrooms, and the charred remains of a mage’s spellbook. Viggo tries to negotiate but ends up paying full price on the gold sniffer. I buy the honeycomb and the spellbook, but can’t figure out any of the 4 somewhat recognizable spells in the latter.

We meet a spellcaster of some kind named Manning, who after hearing of our goal hires a warlock to come with him. He says he heard a rumor that the place we’re exploring is no deeper than two levels. We set off.

Back to the lower floor of the ruins, we poke around the rubble room we had previously passed through.  We see more of the room to the east of it- my guys poke through the rubble, some rats stream out but don’t bother us. There’s 4 gnolls along the eastern end of the room, with some pillars. Viggo and his berserk dog run up and hit them, the warlock fires off a magic missile, and I put the survivors to sleep.

Going forward, the sand on the ground is disturbed. We can’t exactly figure out by what, so we throw a gnoll body. Nothing happens, so I poke the ground with a staff and discover a pit trap. A bit more poking and I find another pit trap, this one re-covering itself after triggering.

Moving northwest there’s a statue, old enough to have rock growing on it. Agmadus somehow reads the description, knowing its meaning though not the language: “o apollo, blessed healer, touch me and make me whole”.

Going east, there’s a temple. Bunch of pictures laid into the walls- sea monsters fighting gods- and a statue of an armored woman. As viggo, always the archeologist, tries to figure out the best way to pry the reliefs off the walls so we can sell it to a collector, more gnolls, 8 or so, approach from the south. Viggo’s dog and then Viggo himself engage directly; my guys use their bows. The gnolls attack the berserkerhund, one breaking his spear in the process. I put 6 of them to sleep. The warlock and Viggo go down, as does his dog. The last gnoll goes down and the fight is over.

The hound is lamed, and Viggo has some scars. The warlock doesn’t even have scars. We find a few dozen gold on the gnomes; their value as slaves is the lion’s share of what we got from this venture.

**Session 9, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Agmadus, Drokk, Dr. Zoom, Viggo, and entourages
Zoom hires some new guys; a thief and some kind of tattooed warrior. Otto’s back in town, and he manages to talk Drokk into buying what he says used to be a witch's familiar.  Viggo wants to make trouble with the local baron, gotta be ready to move on if that goes bad. We hire some stonemasons to remove those reliefs, paying them a little upfront and a portion of what the stuff sells for.

Coming into the lower level, Zoom and his thief are taking point when we encounter a large ooze. Viggo and his mad dog attack it, it breaks into 4 smaller oozes. A few hits seems to confirm that weapons don’t do much against the small ones; we end up needing magic missiles and fire to kill them. Several weapons are broken figuring this out,  as well as one of my sell-swords losing his life.  I scoop a sample of ooze into a vial and we leave to recover spells before delving deeper.

We reenter and make our way to the temple without incident. Zoom senses something dangerous on the center of the temple floor-there’s some kind of patttern there- and we stay clear of it. The masons find a secret door, sealed prior to our discovery, behind the reliefs on the southeast corner of the temple. Some gnolls show up, and the fight ends with several dead and 3 asleep. We end up with about a hundred and a half gold each between the reliefs and the gnoll slaves after paying the mason’s share. Hopefully no gnolls poke around that sealed area we found. More hopefully, they do but just set off some traps before we have the opportunity do and leave before getting to any valuables in there.

**Session 10, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Agmadus, and entourages. Viggo in the second act.
We get back to the temple to check out that secret door that we, like idiots, just left there when we made off with the art. It leads down, presumably into an area built or maintained by different people. First room down there has a bunch of boxes. I detect valuables and sense some to our north, but the passage goes south and west. can’t seem to find any more hidden doors, gonna have to go around. Anyway, stuff in the room is a couple crates of mundane arms, some good shape, some not; a few crates of some kind of machine components, sophisticated but not sure what they do; and a crate with some exotic weapons, a nice sword, some magic plate armor, and a bunch of rockets. We keep going south, turn a corner west, have the choice between a door to the north and more corridor west, open the door. There’s a giant goddamn lizard coming at us, I didn’t sign up for this shit, I wanted easy and morally innovative sources of money. I web it, and we all hit it a bit, me expending my remaining spells as magic missiles. It’s hurt pretty bad, and Derevi tries to finish it off but fails; it breaks free of the web, kills him and a few other guys. Him being killed hurts me a lot, and I feel that snake band, which was on my head at the time, bite around one of my eyes. When I wake up Agmadus has its sword through its head and everyone but me, him, and two of his guys are dead. We get everything important, including the bodies, out of there.

Back in town Drokk does some healing. I hire a new bodyguard; Rich seems to be a very strong man, well rounded in skill besides that. I find a new familiar, another bird.

We’re at the tavern because Viggo is doing his attempt at politics, and the baron and a bunch of his men show up outside. Basically we have to pay taxes. I did not get into this business after killing my last set of co-criminals and wandering until I ran out of money so I could pay taxes. Viggo says we’ll pay.

Later that night Viggo sends the girl with no other function to set one of those rockets off by the baron’s castle-apparently it makes quite a spectacle.

The platemail detects as magic, nothing else does; the sword is extremely finely made despite this. I think I’ve figured out a new spell, should let me get past locked doors a bit better.

**Session 11, as told by Karador the Mage**

Karador, Zoom, Agmadus, Viggo
Zoom has hired a mystic. Otto is in town again, peddling some kind of magic flower and a shrunken gnome skull. The latter supposedly makes you better at bargaining, and Viggo buys it. Viggo does more rabble-rousing, trying to convince people the rocket explosion was an omen. Zoom identifies the device we brought back in parts as a rapid crossbow bolt launcher, which takes some time to set up and several people to carry. I take the strange throwing blades we found, as they seem a little better than daggers at the task.

We set off, hearing a shout as we arrive. Gnolls fighting lizardmen. There’s some kind of spellcaster, like a dogman but not like a gnoll, with the gnolls. The lizardmen engage us; Agmadus swings his sword through one, but as it swings another foot into the next it explodes into a cold wave, ruining all the weapons of those around him. The enemy casts sleep, hitting many of our hired help, and I cast sleep back, hitting everyone but the caster, as Teshar engages him. He flees into the dungeon and teshar follows, but he blocks the way with a web, so Teshar returns.

We lick our wounds; Zoom lost two of his men, and another, missing a hand, is now retiring from this life.

We return, making our way to the lower level, and the rotting corpse of the great lizard that cost me Derevi. Continuing down the hallway past that room we encounter a pair of doors, ancient writing on them, and my magic doesn’t suffice to open them. We retreat to the lizard room. We see what looks like a slide, presumably from one of the traps above. A search for secret doors reveals one; Zoom goes to investigate it, but gets sloppy, touches it, and is turned into a cat, along with everything he is carrying. He doesn’t seem to have his own mind in this form.  I knock the door open and teshar flies inside to check; there’s a room where clearly some kind of fireball happened a while ago. Rich leading the way, I go to enter, only to have Rich brush up against the door on his way in and trigger yet another trap, this one wounding him. I pull him back to get him healed but he’s left with scars. We once more retreat.

We journey to the nearest large city to get Zoom turned back to his useful self. We find a guy to do it, but apparently each of us owes him a favor-hopefully he never collects. We find a local attraction, races and fights, and Viggo bets money on his dog to win and it, unsurprisingly, does. Viggo is forced to waste money buying everyone a drink. A few new people are hired, including Zoom picking up a gnome and Viggo hiring some fancy fighting man, but I don’t have any luck. Zoom gets some better tools and I get Rich a silver greatsword.

**Session 12, Written by Teshar(afternote by Forrest)**

Karador, Viggo, Zoom, Agmadus, Ben
We are returning to the ruins, and coming down the stairs of the second level we encounter a group of the bronze-armored men from before, including one who is clearly a spellcaster. Karador shoot magic missiles at him to disrupt him while everyone else engages in combat. The caster takes the hood off the head of a staff he has, a bright light shining from underneath. I’m hanging back, as barring chasing lone unarmored spellcasters my main job is sticking with Karador. Viggo kills 4 men in one swing, one of whom was wearing platemail-a bit scary. The fight is over soon enough after the new short guy gets a hit in and Karador casts sleep. After some debate about their value as slaves, Viggo goes to kill them but finds they already have stab wounds. Apparently the shady guy in the weird armor got bored of the discussion. The light in the staff was just an illuminated rock, the spell ending with its caster’s life.

Proceeding further in, we get to the temple, and instead of going through the area we’ve mostly cleared Agmadus suggests we go south, to check out the unexplored area down there. This is when things start to go bad. We find another temple, pictures of gods fighting on the walls. The guy in the weird armor goes to check it out, and gets a bunch of crossbow bolts from hidden slits for his trouble. The dwarf is charging down the east passageway, while Viggo and most of his people go west. Some stupid thought of flanking the enemy. On the east there’s lizardmen, on the east there’s gnolls. The weird armor guy’s gnome goes to try to deal with his wounds, and also goes down. Agmadus gets the middle door open, to find more gnolls and two trained bears. They all hit a bear plenty but it doesn’t go down. Viggo, his dog, and one of his girls are fighting gnolls, from the sound of it. Karador puts the gnolls in Agmadus’ room to sleep, but the bears are still awake and angry. Agmadus goes down. Viggo shouts something about his gold-finder and there’s an explosion of wind and butterflies. Karador and Rich decide it’s a good time to run, Viggo catching up and passing them, when a woman steps from behind the northern temple and says something along the lines of “wait, don’t go that way, it’s a trap. Follow me”. Karador believes her, so he goes that way, running past her to what he is told is an exit to this place, and Rich and I follow, seeing the bears fall down a pit trap chasing ben as we go.

Karador runs straight into a giant spider, which bites him, disrupting his last spell and poisoning him.  Rich and I both attack it, rick dealing a blow that removes one of its legs. Rich gets another hit and another leg, and it messes up biting him, injuring itself on his platemail. It bites again, this time poisoning him, and I strike the final blows against it. The poison is fatal, though, and Karador and Rich aren’t coming back. I poke around for a few valuables and leave, feeling a change come over me, magic that Karador no longer needs finding new uses, letting me speak the common tongue, among other things. I fly out of there, back to the surface. I find Karador’s simple cousin, Forrest, and give him the bad news and items. Back in town, I hire someone to transcribe this message, leaving it with Forrest, along with Karador’s accumulated wealth and notes, which I have little use for. Karador’s notes are read to Forrest, and he signs up to delve into the depths, hopefully recovering Karador’s body.

Forrest here. I hadn’t seen Karador in a while, and the bird says he’s dead. He was nice to me when I was a kid, even though I’m slow, so this makes me sad. I heard something in town about talking to a short guy who lives alone, but after hearing it noone else seems to know who that is. Karador apparently ordered a dog awhile ago, and I give the guy some money for it; it’s a nice dog, very friendly, he can’t read either. He also offers another dog after he sees me being friendly; this one bites and doesn’t let go. Karador’s friends have some nice armor, and it fits me great. This snake bracelet is supposed to give me good luck, the bird said, so I’ll wear it.  I hire a guy who looks like all sorts of animals, he’ll help me out when we go adventuring. The guy writing and reading stuff for me is nice.

**Session 13, written by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Baxter the Red, Lareth
Drokk, who before was his own man, is now for hire; Baxter pays far too much and gets him. We go to the place where the stuff is. We find another building, smaller, to the south of where they had been going. There’s stairs down, and also a hole nearby. Guys come running up, and we fight them, holding them in the stairway. We win, and Drokk’s cat makes me feel better. The elf threatens his torchbearer, who is a coward.

We go down. The air is damp. We get to a rope bridge which split directions, north and east. Giant bats attack as I cross, and I kill them. The drop below the bridge sounds like fifty feet or so. North across the bridge we find large wood doors, passages east and west. We open the doors, and see a guy. I spear him. More guys attack me from the shadows, miss. Some kind of sorcery heals him. They pull back a curtain in front of a statue, and the weaker men who see it are unable to move. The elf brings his light in, and we see the others, some in plate and some in leather. 3 of them go down quick, and then one of them downs our elf. Me and my dog finish them.

Drokk brings back the elf, but his arm ends at the elbow. The frog guy spotted something shiny on the statue, before we closed the curtain. Viggo smashes the statue through the curtain, and we recover some scratched gems, probably its eyes. We leave, to give people time to recover.

We reenter, and find some lizardmen. Sorcery holds my body still, and they grab me, but soon they are all dead or fleeing and I am free. Normally such magic lasts longer. We descend to a temple, seeing fresh graffiti and bits of flesh and blood on stakes, but no bodies. I go up to the secret tunnel in the floor below, it looks like fire happened here, like the bird told me. Me and the frog open the door east. Walls are covered in magic stuff, statues of important people. More doors east, yellow powder around the edges. The elf burns it away from a distance with oil. When the doors are opened, more powder, some kind of mold, bursts out, killing Baxter, Gur, the tunnel dog I just got, and the Mog. More oil and rags used to clear the room ahead of all its mold. The room was once a fancy magic place,  with gems and gold wire. Secret doors are found; the first has a glowing ball on a table and some scroll tubes.

The second room has a bunch of bodies and a tall man, armed and armored. Viggo tries to talk, but the guy doesn’t answer, waving his sword and asking a question in a strange tongue. The elf takes the loot while viggo is talking. The guy gets angry at something viggo says and charges, downing the Nobiran. I get a hit and take one, and the dragon guy gets a few hits, killing him. His armor looks fancy, and we take it. The frog guy is dead, and the nobiran lost a leg. The room he was in has a shaft up and down, maybe 60 feet each way. We take some small statues and leave.

The armor, the ball and some of the contents of the scroll tubes are magic. The red tube is not readable, as is the black, but I am told both are in the same language, neither magic. Gold tube does not hold magic either, but describes the glass ball, something about power and teleportation I hear. The blue tube was made to explode magically when read, but the elf Lareth is clever and detects it. The green tube has four spells in it, readable with magic: a fireball, group invisibility, a spell to remove magic, and one to see in the dark.

**Session 14, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Lareth
Viggo buys a dog, I have hired people, and Lareth has somehow reattached his arm to his body, though it looks dead still.

We go back down, and after arguing over torches go across the rope bridge to find another, also recent make. Down a corridor past it, rounding a corner the air seems weird, and a transparent cube attacks us and is quickly killed, revealing a few coins and a gem. Then a room with curtains down the middle, and a man shouts. More men, all heavily armored. My man Bludd covers Lareth’s retreat so he can heal. There’s another curtain, behind it braziers, a basin, and a big wood statue. The statue is of a death god, with gemstone eyes, and it curses Lareth with weakness. They knock the statue over and take the gems. As we leave, we see men fighting lizardmen, the latter having a man in chains. We fight, me finishing it by killing three. The man in chains speaks their tongue, but switches to Gnoll, which Lareth can understand, and takes the man on as a servant.

**Session 15, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Barlamus, Lareth
New guy signed on, Barlamus, a marine. We go to the city to get Lareth’s curse removed, and I buy a decent spear. In exchange for removing the curse, the mage wants us to raid another mage’s tower for him and retrieve an item; he’ll tell us the details later. I hire a gladiator.

We reenter the dungeon. Giant rats attack the middle of the formation, but Bludd and a dog kill them and drive them off. We go north of the first bridge and find a room with big pillars and another bridge over another drop. Giant bats attack, and we kill them quickly enough. Lareth steps on a trap on the bridge and falls into the river below. Alynna jumps in after with a rope and saves him, but the tiny man who sits on Lareth’s shoulder is gone, swept away. We go out and go to the other entrance to try to find our way down to the river, or wherever it leads. On the second floor we get to a room full of garbage, and Lareth spots a secret door, which on testing opens to a twenty foot drop. A slime comes out of the trash, and our weapons are ineffective. Fire hurts it, but we don’t have enough fire. Bludd, Drokk, and the torchbearer die. We run.

*Forrest the Barbarian and the Tower of Transmogrification*

**Session 16, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Lareth, Barlamus
We were foolish enough to be indebted to a wizard, and now we get the details on the job. Another powerful wizard, Shaun the Shaper, disappeared a few weeks ago. We are to raid his tower and  retrieve his telescope; anything else we find is ours to take. He has one of Shaun’s men on a rack, and torture has made him reveal that Shaun is not at his tower, but his apprentices and henchmen will be. He gives us a few items to help us, dispelling and detecting magic and opening doors. We will be traveling a day to the south.

We do a bit of recruiting, me hiring a thief and Lareth hiring a warlock. We get a few more able bodied fighting men, and a female anti-paladin who will turn out to be nothing but trouble; some paladins were in town hunting her. We hire some mules to carry our gear and expected loot and set off to the south.

We arrive at the tower, and hear a tree talk. It tries to act as a gatekeeper, but we dont convince it. There’s a fight, 2 more trees start moving, when the main one dies they stop. The bladedancer and one of the new assassins were wounded and we leave them with the mules. The front door is magically locked and we use the chime to open it, another bell breaking. We go through a hallway, north and then turning west, entering some kind of reception room. There are five stone pillars, each with an item on them under a glass dome. Wooden statues line the walls. One of the pillars has a gem of some kind. Checking it for traps, there’s a blade that pops out if the globe is lifted. Dov flips the glass with a polearm from a distance, and it shatters. Those of us wearing or carrying iron and steel feel ourselves pulled back to the walls, and the wood statues start moving, golems of some kind. Wearing bronze armor, I am able to move, and I knock the gem off the pillar. It shatters, but the effect continues. There’s something that was holding the gem, and I manage to turn the trap off. Fighting wraps up; Caius, who grabbed a wooden brasier to use as a weapon, has lost an eye to the wood golems. The other four items are curios at best, and I take them. We remove the wounded and the remains of the wood golems to our camp outside.

**Session 17, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Lareth, Vinny
A prophet has wandered in from the sands, and joins us in our looting. That’s just how these things go. Past the room with the golems and the metal trap, we find a hallway with 3 levers in it, all up. Okig catches himself as he notices a pit trap. We could jam it open but not shut; attempts to use the previous door to cross it fail, as it just falls into the pit, some kind of wall of force on the other side. Lareth messes around with the levers by rope. The left one makes a clunking noise, the middle one sets off some fire trap that we can see from around the corner and burns the rope, and the last seems to do nothing but on examination it is lowering the force wall, and we cross the pit.

We see a large room, a walkway over a depression that contains giant lobsters, small holes in the wall. Okig, who is worth his pay, spots that the walkway becomes illusory, and feels out that the true walkway forks away from it invisible at this point. Lareth sends his slave for sand, and he returns with enough to reveal the true path by its presence on it. The east wall has a false door painted on it, to line up with the false passage, but we find the true door. Another hallway, another set of levers. The first lever is pulled and there is a grinding noise, the lobster pit raising its floor on one side to meet us. Combat ensues, Ledius killing several in one swing and Lareth finishing the last with dark magic. The second lever causes water to pour from the holes, stopping when we turn it back. The last lever does not seem to do anything.

Turning the corner of the hallway, we see a section of the wall slid aside, a swarm of bugs. We turn the third lever back and the wall contains the bugs again.  The next door can’t be picked, so I bash it down. We encounter a room of black and white squares on the floor. Nothing in it draws the eye but a door on the far side. We open it, seeing a small hallway, another door. Lareth spots a secret door off to the side but we’ll get to that later. Lareth’s guy unlocks the door, and we enter a large dining hall. We see a marble statue of a medusa, and five of the mage’s apprentices, one with a raven. Fighting happens. Viggo and I are charmed, and my dogs are made to attack him. Lareth charms me again, giving me new orders. I do not care for mages in my mind, but under the circumstances I forgive him. The mages are falling, but retreat through a door to the east, slamming it.

**Session 18, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Lareth, Barlamus
I try to break down the door, and Lareth dispels me with his last such scroll, having used the first to stop Viggo from becoming dog food. I break the door down, and we see the body of the raven’s master, dead as soon as his bird was killed. We chase further, through this kitchen. We turn the corner to see the mages standing behind some men with spiders on their heads, some with strange skin. A lever is pulled and a portcullis splits our force. We kill most of them, me doing the lion’s share of the work, but I am magically driven to retreat and one last mage runs down the stairwell behind him. From what I gather the others chased him down there, Okig running after him with a lantern, eventually getting hit by a blast of flames, but killing him in the dark. Meanwhile, the rest of the party stumbled into a troll, eventually killing it with fire, though taking losses. I return, and start to prepare one of the wizard’s brains as if I was scrambling eggs. Stryder is disgusted by this, maybe I used too much salt, and I stop. We burn the rest of the bodies to prevent magical means of learning from them.

**Session 19, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Lareth, Viggo, Barlamus
We rest, and Vinny patches us up. Back to the corridor where we finished off the mages, I knock down a door and we find their dormitories, little of note. There’s a door to the south of the main hall; Barlamus bashes it open to reveal a stairwell up. The secret door Lareth noticed leads to a sword in a pedestal; I try to grab it and my arms freeze, movement impossible, in great pain. Someone pries me free, and retrieves the sword safely. It is of fine make, though not magic, and Stryder takes it.

Going up the stairs, there’s slime everywhere, and everything is smashed. One room contains some small detailed figures of various animals and monsters; we pick through and I take the ones that aren’t broken. More ruined labs, weird stuff. Some kind of monster, part slug and part squid, encounters us in the hallway. We fight it a bit and it retreats, spraying ink. We retreat downstairs with the wounded, using wine to wash the ink off us and arming ourselves with salt.

Back upstairs, we find a room with large glass tanks, liquid in it too thick to see through, some kind of release valve. We don’t touch them. Another door is unlocked to reveal a very hot storage room.  Various creatures, including a salamander whose spit is being collected. Lareth takes some eel eggs, which apparently allow the person whose lungs they grow in to breathe underwater, with some complications.

Backtracking a bit, we find a room that smells of death, a man cut apart on a table while still alive. We are going through the north door of this room into a room where something metal is sparking when the slug-squid appears from the south. We kill it with salt, and Lareth tends to the wounded.

**Session 20, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Lareth
The spellcasters wait a day to recover their magics, but we see dust on the horizon, a group of men marching in this direction, so it’s about time we finish this.

Reentering, Lareth spots a secret door in the first hallway. Okig checks it for traps and opens it. Animal heads mounted all over, a trapdoor in the ceiling. My eyes and ears change to those of a pig, Okig’s to those of a snake. We get out of there. We go back up, and find the library, covered in slime. From what Lareth says they describe changing shape, creating new animals, eating things to gain their power, and death magic. The last one is cursed, and he goes pale when he opens it.

Lareth spots a secret door, and we open it. There is a talking snake on a tree, talking about riddles, we close the door, don’t want to play this game. Around another hallway, one door leads to the snake, which we ignore, and I bash down the north door. Some things in the shape of a man, seeming starved and frail, are in the room, and they attack us. We kill them, but they eat their fallen and get bigger and stronger. Eventually there’s one huge one left; Okig gets in good hits with his crossbow and Dov finishes it.

We find a circle in the floor, and those that step in it float up to the roof. Grass and trees under a glass dome, a house and a pool in the center. After mundane means fail we use the last of the Chime to open the front door. We see the missing mage, stuck in a circle of salt by his own power. He asks us to free him, we decline, and he gets angry as we take all his stuff, though not finding the telescope. The room off to the side is a trap, imaginary loot over an imaginary floor, but luckily we don’t fall down the pit.

Back downstairs, we open a door we forgot before, seeing a room foll of coins, art, and other treasure. A genie guards it, and after some wordgames we don’t see an easy way to free him from his task of being bound to guard the place, and figure he would probably beat us in a fight. We go to the snake, but Lareth spots a hidden door in the corridor. After I carefully figure out the trap on it. We find the observatory, lower the telescope down the window with a rope, and get out before the army shows up.

The loot included a dragon statue, which detects as magic, and Dov reads it: “ask and I will answer”. I get Caius’ eye fixed, and he gets hazard pay. We sell a wood golem to the mage when we deliver the telescope. We try to get a decent price for the spellbooks we looted but it leads nowhere. Lareth scares off potential recruits in the city when he kills a giant in a bar fight. Back at base, we wake one morning to find that Apefrup killed Stryder, and she ends up being killed to resolve things.

It seems a band of treasure hunters are in town, set up a fort on the entrance to the local dungeon. May try our luck on one of the places the maps we looted lead to.

*Forrest The Barbarian Argues with Apes*

**Session 21, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Lareth, Vinny, Barlamus
After that last business, we hitch a ride with a caravan to the place one of our maps leads to. Lareth buys a horse. The road is clear, and soon we find the place, a statue of an ape's head to either side of the door, and there are apes here. The eyes of the statues seem strange, and the stone this place is made from shows no seams or tool marks. Magic built this place.

We find a room with footprints, mostly gnoll. In another room we find giant rats in debris. After some caution, we reopen the rat-room, and the warlock's sleep spell affects a few of them, but the rest die easy. We find a dull blade and an iron collar in the form of a snake; I am reminded of my armband.

We find a room with snake skin and droppings, and Vinny stays in it while we continue. The snake comes out of hiding and attacks him, and disappears while he runs away. In the hallway, there is a stuffed ape head in the alcove. I go to the end of a hallway to examine a leather package. It turns out to be some kind of winged flying head, but me and my men have no problem killing it.

More doors and more hallways. A statue of an ape wearing ear trumpets. A portcullis blocks a corridor to the south, and the snake attacks Vinny again when he lets his guard down. We encounter a mass of insects, and when Dov and I kill it it is just a pile of bugs again. The walls of the room have drawings of brains and magic writing. The next room also has some things about brains, and Viggo and I shout at it. The cookbook says the thing i killed earlier is a Vargul, not woth eating.

There's another portcullis, we jam it open. We see a gorilla, and Alyanna charms it when it runs. We leave the dungeon to rest. The next morning, she casts a spell to speak to it, and it says that it is not from here.

We reenter, and encounter gnolls. Lareth walks forward to talk to them and hits a mirror, the room is a trick. A fight breaks out, but some of them get away, and gnolls to the south are made aware of us. Many of them have bows. Viggo throws a torch so we can see the enemy archers at the far end of the room. After a long fight, some of them flee. Looking around for loot, we meet a goblin prison, who says there's at least a dozen gnolls left.  These gnolls had the snake collars. It is strange that they had no armor.

We return to the nearest town. Viggo attracts attention, and it turns out there is a bounty on gnolls, so we meet with the local lord. His advisor Stephen wants us hanged as liars, saying these could be any gnolls. I show the snake collar. We are given rewards, and told the lord wants a dozen more heads, and for us to find the captives the gnolls took.

**Session 22, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Lareth, Vinny, Barlamus
On the way to the dungeon there are gnoll archers uphill. We win the day, but several men are wounded, one fatally so, while my guy Pat needs rest. The next day we go inside, making it to the big room where we fought gnolls before. One runs past as we pass the portcullis, and we run after, Dov wounding him. We advance as arrows rain. Pat is downed again as more come out the west door. I kill three in one swing as I take an arrow, Lareth being struck down to the south as more tough guys come in. Lareth's cursed arm saves him as his boys handle the fight at that end, and Vinny, me, and my guys kill a few of them, the boss swinging twice at me and missing. Barlamus kills the boss, then a few of the archers who have since switched to swords. Bofa and Pat are both down to one usable hand. Okig kills the last gnoll.

There's a room with a winch handle, and a room with a cell. A bunch of loot- backbacks, brain jars, parts of ape skulls. A statue of an ape, this time with a flute, is part of the stone here. A door quickly closed revealted lizardmen.

We find some prisoners; a halfling, a female halforc, and two men. The men return to town, the halfing to wherever their kind go, and Lareth hires the female. There is a room of strange puzzles.

I check the book for ways to gain magic when we get back to camp. There are four kinds of creature said to give magic when consumed: beholders, coatls, eyes of the deep, and unicorns. I am not sure how trustworthy the book is.

**Session 23, as told by Forrest the Barbarian**

Forrest, Viggo, Lareth, Vinny
After a resupply in the city, we reenter. Checking a corridor away from the gnoll area, there is a door sealed by magic; other doors open fine, and we see old bedframes and snakeskin.  We spot some peepholes, the glint of something in the dark beyond. back to the corridor, we open a protcullis. We see many gorillas with dumb stares. One of them moves, responding to the sight of our ape by blowing an ivory whistle. All the other apes start moving, grabbing our ape and taking hm away. We follow, passing a number of doors before seeing them go downstairs. Following downstairs, we see a painting west: a picnic, people turning into apes, the eyes seeming to move. There is standing water to the east, something sparkling at the bottom. There is an ape-shaped impression in the wall of the room they brought our ape to, a crystal the size of a coin glowing where the head would fit.

As i fight over the gorilla, waking them from their trance, there is more fighting to the east involving some guys from a hidden door and a lizard. I am killed.

**Session 24, as told by ... Someone**

Lareth, Viggo, Vinny, Barlamus
Forrest goes down and stays down. Kelo the sin-eater kills three of the non-ape enemies. After the apes are dealt with, Okig tries to pry out the crystal and gets a lightning bolt for his troubles, downing him and Dov. Lareth heals Dov, though he lost an eye. The party leaves, and is ambushed by humanoids that blend into rock on the road.

*Before Heath Learned Fireball*

**Session 25, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Lareth, Barlamus, Vinny, Viggo
I sign on with this band. There is a contest to cut a slave's braid with an axe, and one of them wins but kills her on the second shot. wasteful.

We go to the dungeon they have been excavating. A preserved ape is found and torn open, revealing a hand-sized chunk of moonstone.

So many dead apes in this place. A secret door behind a plaster wall yields more preserved apes, this time with pearls inside. As the half-ogre inspecting the bodies pulls the last one she yells at us to get out, and there's a burst of yellow mold.

More corridors, more strange ape decorations. We encounter some gorillas; one with scars and a missing hand, all mentally absent. Another body with a moonstone. We open a door onthe first floor, there's a smoke monster we have difficulty hurting, my spell being disrupted. The sin-eater smashes the urn it came out of, but damage from spells and Lareth's spell striking eventually kills it. Devith quits. We return to the small town I met them in to rest.

**Session 26, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Viggo, Vinny, Barlamus, Lareth
Entering again, we check a door they had previously found barricaded. Moving crates makes enough noise to wake whatever is on the other side, which turns out to be a pair of undead ape-things. Vinny fails to turn them initially, and I fail to blind them. Normal weapons fail to scratch them. Vinny blinds one, and Alyanna and I kill them. In the room beyond are some gnoll corpses and some basic gear. It seems we have killed wights, the book says that they either have horrific effects on the body or cleanse the memory, making the eater more charming. Lareth eats one, and seems to receive the latter effect.

There's a corpse of a pregnant instance of one of the things from downstairs, and of course more ape corpses with moonstones in them. An urn is smashed, but has no paraelemental. A third urn holds an electrum whistle. I open a magically locked door they previoust had trouble with, and we find a bedframe and a rotting ape carcass holding an ivory whistle. We find a room with tubs of fluid, some chalk at the bottom of each, unknown purpose.

I have to use magic to open another door, and we find a room with fancy chairs and mundane torture devices. Viggo recognizes the occupant as Karador, a mage previously with the party. We talk a bit, he offers to tell us a story if we come in. I cast a spell to delay poison, and Lareth and I come in to have a drink. He is confused at Viggo's hesitance, Viggo and his people enter, and the door swings shut.

He's been studyging ghouls and plans to torture and convert us, but we keep talking. Eventually the fight starts. He is immune to spells and our attacks, though Lareth's spell striking is hurting him. Viggo and Alyanna try to restrain him, but he is stronger than he looks. I use knock to let Vinny and his people into the fight. Olle tries to bind him, when a small demon stings him and he falls, dead. Karador breaks the hold, runs behind a portcullis which then closes. The demon is immune to normal weapons, but as it dies to silver we hear a scream.

**Session 27, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Lareth, Viggo, Vinny
We chase after, see a pair of portculli, one down. Checking another door, we see a large dirt-filled coffin, and some cells, only one of which has an occupant, a man in poor shape. Hearing the sound of casting, we return to getting the portcullis open. Doing so, the first people through trigger a pressure plate that closes the portcullis again. Karador gets a fireball off, downing me among others, but we soon realize it was an illusion as we are slapped awake. Viggo is made afraid, Lareth ignores a spell. Some ghouls are unleashed, and my familiar Harvey tends to Olle after Karador casts a fireball, a true one this time, centered on himself. We bind him, and after searching the torture equipment for something that can kill him end up simply drowning him in a bucket. His features change to those of a humanoid tiger, a rakshasa.

I meditate to regain my spells.We search for valuables, finding a glowing wooden cube, a scroll tube, some flasks, and an amulet with an ape face on both sides. There are severed body parts, including the head of a young girl, in the dirt boxes. The prisoner we saw earlier is turning into a ghoul, and we kill him. There are 2 spells on the scroll, and we find his spellbook, which includes the spell fireball. We will come back for the furniture, which is of good make, but pocket the rest now. The cookbook says that rakshasa is difficult to cook, but can give you a taste of the evil and protection they are known for, and may cause the eater to become catlike.

**Session 28, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Lareth, Viggo, Vinny
I lead this cookout. We follow the instructions, stopping when we hear a popping sound and eating immediately, the popping sound dispelling our magical light. I, Harvey, Viggo, Alyanna, Lareth, and Vinny eat. Viggo and Harvey struggle to get it down, and are left feeling temporarily resistant to charms. I have a siezure. When I wake, it seems Lareth desires power more than usual, while Alyanna and Vinny both got the resistance to charms and catlike eyes, though they seem  to have definitely turned from Law. I spend the next few weeks mentally in hell. There were apparently shadow hounds, though they couldn't be cooked, and the party encountered some giantsnakes, some holding human bodies in their mouth and manipulaing the torsos, one wielding a wand of some kind, but Vinny scared them off.

*After Heath Learned Fireball*

**Session 29, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Lareth, Viggo, Vinny
I recover from the rakshasa madness and learn fireball from its spellbook. Reentering the dungeon, we encounter a mass of moving sand, killing it.

Downstairs, we find that the statues(respectively a gnome nixie, a dwarf, an elf, a lizardman, a hag, and a hill giant) past the rakshasa's area detect as magic around the eyes. There are some ghouls; my fireball is not that impressive, but after 1 is destroyed Vinny and Alyanna control them.

Vinny uses the ghouls to open a portcullis, and they tell him a powerful wizard placed them here. I detect a magical effect to the northeast. Approaching the alcove in question is a pedestal, and Dov falls into a floor trap with a ghoul, but the situation is resolved easily enough. Some gems are found in an ape head, and the magic detected seems to be an empty pedestal. I leave it for later.

I knock a wizard locked door into a cavern, hear someone greeting us, and then giant mushrooms attack. We hear screaming and chanting from the hallways to either side of us as this happens. I web one of the passages off, and one of the newcomers uses magic to blind one of Lareth's men. There's a lightning bolt in the cave, then something eats the ghouls. I send my mystic after whatever cast the bolt; he runs quickly but can't find it. I silence the enemies to the south, and whichever of them had been using magic retreats. Olle is hit by a weapon and then a snake. The interlopers circled around the area of the silence and try unsuccessfully to blind Dov. I send harvey into the cave; he returns with information of the snake-tailed men and a big snake.

**Session 30, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Lareth, Viggo, Vinny, Barlamus
The silence seems to be affecting the interlopers greatly, it seems them use sound to 'see'. Barlamus was late into the dungeon, and engages the caster and his allies, being blinded by a wand of Light. One of the bosses is slain, but a minion with the wand gets away after its bearer is slain. The snakes using people in their mouths as puppets have advanced, despite our attempts to barricade the door with corpses. One of them has a wand of magic missile, and after I fail to blind him a missile downs me. One of them drinks a potions. The mage-snake casts a Fear spell from a scroll, affecting most of us, and attempts to partlay for the females in they party, but we run at full speed, the snakes stopping at the portcullis.

Dov took a hit from some kind of disease in this fight; I use magic to stabilize it, but he will need daily attention from me for the foreseeable future until Vinny or myself master the magic necessary to cure it. The experience has awakened something in Dov, and he can finally handle the arcane spells of his draconic ancestry. Someone notes that the magic sword which got away felt strongly of cold.

**Session 31, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Lareth, Viggo, Vinny
Back in the next day, we almost make it to the stairs when we hear rust monsters behind us. Viggo runs off to the side like a coward and one chases him, I wen the other, and the nuisance is soon ended. We take a middle path, avoiding a portcullis. Past some fire beetle carcasses, a message reads "pass right only singly, doomed is the flock". There's some more stuff with apes, and then some shadows hounds which are mostly dealt with by a fireball that i misaim and also down myself with, but I'm back up soon enough thanks to Harvey. Some gorillas are passed on the way out, as they escort anothe gorilla into the mind-control depression.

**Session 32, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Lareth, Viggo, Vinny
Back in and downstairs, we check out the pit trap to the east, spotting some gems in the liquid. at the bottom to come back for later. We open a room from doors on both sides, find some unfinished ape heads, they detect as magic but not undead, we move on. We lower the zaharan into the pit to grab the gems, some odd diamonds. A secret door leads to some water elementals, which try to drown people, but Lareth finishes them off. We then panic with rope to pull the people in heavy armor out of the water.

After some exploring, we kill a big lizard. We find a room with anvils, weapons, and more serpent collars. We see the enemies from before, I fireball them, killing a few and wounding the boss. Harvey goes for the guy's face but doesn't finish him. The wand of light is used to blind Lareth, and the big guy runs, Viggo giving chase. I pop  silence and we win, taking thw sword, the wand, and some loot from a chest that i needed 3 knocks to open. Now that we're taking the time to identify stuff, the gems from earlier are worthless. There's a map in this chest. I make us all invisible and we leave, Vinny fixing our disease and blindness problems.

**Session 33, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath
I slept in, and enter the dungeon after the others, finding them in the middle of a fight against gargoyle-like creatures. I fire a magic missile before fleeing with the rest of them. Lareth and most of his people die in the dungeon, though Cartamo lives. We meet a new zaharan, and Cartamo signs up with him for now.

**Session 34, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Viggo, Vinny, Kalak
We encounter some bounty hunters, the Hellhounds. They are looking for “Viggo Hellstorm and his twin Saddam Heimbach, Vinny, Lareth, and Forrest”. They suggest the rest of us hand the people in question over and there won't be trouble. Seven of them initially visible; two mages, two in chain, and two in plate, plus dogs in leather barding.

The samurai kills one of the mages and disrupts the other, Viggo joining the attack on him. A sneaky type breaks cover from the other direction to disrupt Vinny's bless. One of the fighters uses a scroll of ward versus magic, and another takes a giant growth potion. For my part, I sleep invisible, and I drink our potion of flight while this is starting. The cleric fires off a hold person spell, affecting Viggo and the samurai. Dov and his horse trample the thief. Kalak turns the giant gaseous, the cleric fails to blind Cartamo, and the mage blinds Vinny. Trampling done, Dov charges the guy in plate that attacked Vinny, downing him and hitting the one behind him. I send Heath to attack the mage as Cartamo kills the man who is just dodging a Choking Grip from Kalak. the cleric again fails to blind someone, Dov this time. The one with the anti-magic shell runs up to stab the samurai, but dispells the hold person and blinding spell in the process. the man who has been turned into a cloud is running away. Heath finishes off the mage, ripping his arm off and killing him, as I hold person the cleric and the explorer. Viggo kills the guy under antimagic. Being flying, I outpace the gaseous giant and bring him back. I find their camp: 6 scrolls, 5 potions, 2 magic bolts, magic boots, and mundane gear. Kalak identifies the potions, which include a potion of longevity, and the scrolls, all of which are substantial, one of which is a resurrection.

The bounty was put on my party members through the assassin's guild by Shawn the Shaper, who they ripped off previously. There was more money paid if they brought back the Well of Stars, the telescope stolen. Neither of the mages knew any interesting spells.

We head off back to the city to sell some loot and fix the damage to my heart and lungs from the Rakshasa. The Mithran cleric who fixes me requires a quest in addition to payment; I must kill the Lord Norlinger within a year, or otherwise remove him from power, and within that time grant my aid to a priest of Mithras i come across who requests my aid for less than a day. Vinny attempts to remove the curse from one of the spellbooks stolen from Shawn, and is finally able to cure Dov's disease.

**Session 35, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Kalak, 2 guys to be renamed
On our way back, two of my people have to ride double to a horse due to a scarcity of mounts. Downstairs, we find a disgusting mural of a cannibal orgy. On a stepladder, we find a nice box, containing some expensive painting supplies and a number of jars, one of which holds an oil of slipperiness. In another room is a goblin corpse, bites from a very large snake on his lower back, and some valuable pillows covered in molted snakeskin next to alabaster bowls.

Passing some strange shifting symbols about lost love, how to get rich, and other such things, we check the hallway by the cave for the secret door we know is there. I put up a Shield spell and try to knock it open to no effect, and detect nothing, so Viggo gets to work with the cold blade. It's noisy, and the door to the NE opens. The enchanter runs at the noise, the door shuts, and we use magic to hold the door shut as the party buffs up. Circling around, we run into gargoyles, and with magic weapons and sharpness we do better. One retreats, ringing a bell that looks like a snake before Viggo kills him. There's some 2 headed dogs, and viggo is disarmed, knocked to the ground, and poisoned. The snakes appear, this time one is puppetting one of Lareth's fallen, picking up the magic sword. Another has a wand, disrupting Vinny and Kalak. Mickey blinds the caster as Kelo engages the lost barbarian, Viggo and his people killing the dog.

Following, I am suddenly surrounded by blinding snow, and i hear spellcasting from ahead as the last gargoyle is still being fought. The sleetstorm ends, and Viggo runs up and beheads the barbarian, the snake now having to spit him out. I fireball as one of them tries to use a scroll, but the one with the wand is untouched. Heath charges after the snakes; he sees our she-orc, pregnant or implated with something, the snakes trying to flee with her. Heath kills one and wounds the other, the wounded one dragging towards the pit. Kalak grabs the wand and moves, then realized he doesn't know how to activate it. Pith, Vinny, and Colob shoot the snake with magic, stones, and arrows, and Viggo runs up and cuts it apart.

Cartamo kills the ogre, burns the body. We find the possessions of the possessed; a spellbook in particular. There's a door, runes denoting privacy, in the cave hallway. I open the door, see two round floating creatures with large eys. We retreat, Viggo shouts one and it explodes, kell being caught in the explosion and downed. Vinny heals him and cures the disease he likely caught. Nothing of note in the lab room we opened; on the corpses there is a dagger, the wand of magic missile, armor, and a ring which we can't identify.

**Session 36, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Kalak, Vinny/Paulie, Viggo/Mike
Guys we saw earlier approach from secret doors as we try to go down, I fireball the front group after they down Itesk. Harvey gets to her, both legs are burned off and she needs a month. We retreat and take a night.

Ogres approach as we rest but don't surprise, dealth with easily enough, some valuables and a potion of human control. Going back in, the bodies are gone but one of their sharp swords remains.

We go back to cut that door down, encountering another gas spore. This one doesn't pop, we kill it quickly enough. The cookbook says it's a spectator, and refers to the notes on Beholders: eat raw and quickly. I, Kalak, and Cartamo partake. Kalak goes insane permanently, Cartamo gains a gift for magic, and my left eye goes pitch black, blind but capable of projecting a charm person spell once a day.

Back to opening the door, we hear a hum from Kelo's boots and our lights go out; we have him change out of them, as only using them when sneaking seems like a good idea. A hallway splits to four doors. The first has a bed-shaped slab of glass with a depression in it, a valuable sabertooth tiger skin on the wall. Behind the skin is an ape etching, one ape drawing a picture of a closed wooden door in a book held by the other. The whole platform detects as magic. The next room is full of transluscent vines. The next is a cold partially dissected sabertooth, with teeth, claws and heart removed. The last is a lab, and we take some valuable supplies, trying not to think too much about the spools of intestine taken from the cat remains.

The plant room detects as magic, the south wall an illusion. A fireball doesn't seem to damage the plants, which are potentially dangerous. They can't be spoken to with magic, turned as undead, or cut with normal or magic weapons. We send a frog into the room, it touches a vine, and all the vines become solid and tear it to shreds as we back off.

We get back to camp. Kalak seems unlikely to recover, so Cartamo decides to put him down. We spend a week in the small village, Cartamo and Pith learning spells while jack recuperates. There was a large metal bell in the dungeon, and we buy a cart so we can actually move it.

*Heath Wears an Eye Patch Now*

**Session 37, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Mike, Cartamo, Paulie
Itesk is left back at camp. We go back into the cave north of the pit, finding a tunne we missed, an alabaster medusa statue, magic but not dangerous. We find cells, a corpse and an extremely weak man in them. We tend to him, get him and the statue outside. The statue seems to have some kind of continual light effect, currently inactive.

Returning, we  go back to the caves. The pit has rope ladders hanging down. We decide to instead just go down a floor the other way, a known set of stairs. As we enter the room something attacks from above, a brain with a beak and tentacles. Paulie attempts to argue with his gods about the creature being undead and loses the argument, being struck by them. The thing is killed. The book has no entry on it, though it does not that gas spores are delicious, and have either restorative properties or kill the eater depending on how they are prepared.

Down to the third level, we round a corner and see a big door, locks, and a huge ape head statue on either side, identical to the main entrance, but with glowing eyes. Jao gets within 20' of them and the eyes shoot beams, killing him. There are 6 sliding locks on the door; Paulie tries to dispel them for some reason. Arrows, even with sharpness, do nothing. Deathless minion on the grell corpse gets it vaporized, so the statues don't care about life or not. I Knock a few of the locks open.

We come back the next day, a freshly charmed wild bird for testing. It is vaporized. Dispel magic fails, fireball fails, and casting darkness on the eys fails. Area Darkness and a test animal confirms a safe path; I meditate back a stronger spell and as the darkness wears off we see the unconscious body on the floor in front of the door it hit before the eyes fry it. We leave, planning to get some mud to put over the eyes. We run into some of those guys with the sharp swords; the down Fath and wound me, and despite the Samurai mistakenly hitting Cartamo pretty nastily we win. We break the corpses just in case and recover 15 razor-sharp swords.

**Session 38, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Mike, Paulie, Cartamo
Back in, we encounter shadow mastiffs on the second floor again. Kelo is messed up; we get him out and return. I use an unseen servant to mud over the eyes, and test it with a charmed bird, knocking it open. We go through a few rooms, seeing an ape flesh golem. We find a plaster spot in a wall- an elf skeleton, holes drilled neatly in the skill. There's a scroll and a polished stone. I go to identify the scroll, triggering it and being polymorphed into brown mold.

I wake in my normal form when the return after recovering the ability to dispel magic. The gem is magic, and the door was shut when they returned. WE see another flesh golem on the other side of bars, and start a fight. it lifts the bars, ignores nonmagic weapons, and is killed quickly enough. The book has some instructions on how to prepare a flesh golem, noting that it tastes unpleaseant and causes twitching. Twitch we do, though it eventually wears off. There's winches which don't do anything obvious.

We find a room with a 10' diameter 5' deep shaft in the granite, an obsidian circle around it covered and sealed by a clear quartz plug. at the bottom we see a polished a jeweled rod, a book, and some vials. To the east of this room, we see grey clouds crackling, glimpses of another door beyond.

**Session 39, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Cartamo, Mike, Paulie
Mike throws a sword in to test it, to a delayed sound of a lightning bolt. Trying to recover the sword by the rope tied to it we get a charred rope.

Opening doors we find some clean rooms and dirts rooms. When we throw something into a clean room it disappears; some kind of linked teleporters. We pick a fight with a flesh golem to get it out of the way, and another one shows up from around the corner, downing Pith and I. Harvey gets to me right away, and I am fine, though I play dead. Pith will need a week and some time to relearn spells.

Mike goes to cut the bars down and chop into the secret door behind the golem. We get into a corridor, seeing a ghostly flock of blue jars, frozen in midair. Sand is on the floor from a broken sand clock. Cartamo sets off a trap, him and Mike falling 50' into an empty pit. We get them out and spike the trap shut. I throw a whistle through the birds, and knock the door open, they remain. Someone poles the door with a spear, setting off an explosion safely.

Ahead is a circular room. In the center is a 2' tall obsidian cone, surrounded by runes. Birds are potentially dangerous and ethereal magic, the obsidian is not dangerous but contains something magic and potentially dangerous. As Cartamo touches a bird it turns real, and a chain reaction realizes them all, flying out the way we entered. The runes denote truth, fire, danger, death, the irresistible, and destructive power; there is a warning that within the cone is a palm-sized scarlet kernel.

Paulie communes to confirm that the kernel is the great weapon this palce is said to hold, and that it will be mortally dangerous to remove the obsidian cone from this place. The storm room is magic and danger, but the quartz is neither, with the rod and vials underneath magic. Viggo tries to cut it open; when he slips the vials are smashed, and the book is eaten by worms, but the rod is retrieved. Paulie dispels the first half of the cloud room. We start to identify teleporter pairs, some magic mouths helping the process. Cartamo finds the last one. We go to the stairs, ready to rearm the eye trap, and hear a lot of noise upstairs.

**Session 40, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Cartamo, Mike, Paulie
It sounds like the gorillas are going crazy up there! We remain down here behind the statues, and I recover a spell, but the noise continues. We have to fight our way through a lot of apes on the way out; Cartamo is downed but i use the scroll of cure serious wounds to stabilize him.

**Session 41, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Cartamo, Mike
While we recover we set a watch on the entrance of the dungeon so nothing leaves with our prize; we observe wolves entering. I walk Paulie through some divination, and we come to the conclusion that the wolves and whatever accompanies them are the greatest threat to us in the dungeon.

Paulie is busy arguing with his gods, but quieter this time so he doesn't get slapped. Me and Cartamo take Kelo and Paulie respectively. The dungeon is quite and bodies are missing. The secret door to the weapon is closed, the trapdoor is rearmed, a large block of quarts blocks passage. Cartamo uses the rod of lordly might we made it out with last time to trip the trapdoor from a distance, setting off a fire trap. It also is set on some portuclli. Cartamo and Mike use their magic weapons to slowly cut through the quartz, setting off another fire trap on the other side.

Approaching the weapon, we manage to tip the obsidian over, but it's heavy and rolls. Going to chip the obsidian away, mike touches the seed, finding that it's the heavy object, the weight of fifteen or twenty stone in something that would fit in one hand. He relays visions of a large explosion miles across when the seed is struck with a violent blow. We make a sled to drag it out of here, getting ready to move when we encounter some wolves and a woman. There's a lot of fire traps, and w run around chasing each other, setting off fire traps that she apparently had some time to prepare.Pith is downed, and Harvey retreats from a fire trap to heal him. She chants something that kills our lights, Alyanna relights but the druid is gone. A spell is cast on Dov, she runs, a flame tra triggers on the door out, damaging the clay on the statues. I cast a darkness so we can pass through. There are gorillas, the druid tries to attack us from behind. We wound her, she runs into animals and tries it again, we kill her and get out. She had a staff of striking and magic leather armor.

**Session 42, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Cartamo, Mike, Paulie
Going over the loot, we identify the medusa sculpture as having continual light in the ultravision range. We decide to go back to the big city to talk to the mage these guys have worked with before. We see some men on the road, banner of the local lord. I make my party and the cart invisible. The lord's seer sent them to come after us and take our shit. I cast sleep from invisibility, getting 11 of the 13, but the guy with the banner is left, and signals, 30 crossbowmen popping up from the side of the road. Pith rides up, dismounts, and slaughters the crossbowmen trying to wake the riders. I keep getting shot, casting sleep when not disrupted and the crossbowmen on the north are all down. Cartamo fights the horsemen but falls off his own mount. Cartamo uses the potion of human control and chases them, while me and vinny use hold person on the ramining crossbowmen. Alyanna Holds one of the guys trying to ride off, 4 charmed ones getting away. Alyanna takes flight, and her and Heath give chase. Paulie gets Dov stable, and I can't fix Itesk.

We reach the city of Dulwich, trading the mage the cursed censer for access to his library and labs. we identify items and command words, including the lodestone on paulie. I hire a croc of some kind.

**Session 43, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Cartamo, Paulie
Viggo decided that the idea of telling our people they would eventually get paid was insane, so he left. Our broker has found several possible buyers for the weapon, and we go with the alchemist's guild. The handoff goes well enough, with one of the 5 vials we recieve going to the broker, him paying us the difference. Me, Cartamo, and Paulie each take a vial, with Cartamo buying out our shares on the 4th vial.

We check in on the town with the previous dungeon the gang raided. The mercenary company that set up a camp above it had pulled out money and slaves, allying with the men down there. Something went wrong, doors opened, a mummy attacked with a withering sword and killed the merc's strongest ogre, then some nastiness happened with wights converting all the men down there, and all the assorted undead of the place are looking for something.

*Good Old Fashioned Grave Robbing*

**Session 44, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Cartamo, Paulie
We follow our map towards the tomb of an ancient zaharan mage. Semerkhet and all his wives were buried in one large tomb, resting in a desert valley 2 days from the town of Peregrine. It takes us just short of two weeks to get there.

Peregrine is a town for pilgrims, and many offer to be our guides; one steals my ring, but Harvey retrieves it.

We set off with two guides and a month's rations. Out of town, the guides realize where we are going. The archmage was a horrible man, a curse upon those who try to rob the tomb. A young man came in to town a month ago raving about a huge beast that turned his friend to stone.

We see the tomb from half a day out, and find the entrance on the side opposite the road. Stone columns and statues of men, with another pair of statues by the doors. The guides tell us stories of creatures and men living inside. We set up camp nearby, but not too close. Some prophecizing by Paulie reveals that the petrification effect is not a breath weapon and there are multiple intelligent factions within the tomb. While setting up camp we see a group of people, a bit over a dozen, walking towards us across the dunes. One of our guides ends up going with them for some quick coin.

I turn some of our sneakier people invisible as a group, with one of the barbarians to back them up. They begin examination and enter the place. They report back about statues of women in the walls, a mosaic smashed open at the center to reveal an empty cavity below a man's heart, then more female statues. These last were gouged across the chest, and the pressure plate that controls the blade is discovered. A walkway was laid to cross the plate, and more doors were seen. A door was knocked down to reveal a petrified man with a sword and torch, and from drag marks he has been moved. Ignoring rooms of garbage, they went back to an earlier opening, then retreated from the sounds of chain clinking in the darkness to the south. On their return, Paulie and I check them for curses but find nothing; perhaps earlier grave robbers set it off, the curse requires we delve deeper, or the curse is not literal.

**Session 45, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Paulie
As we step across the threshold, we notice that magical light is dimmer within. We reach the area where we can hear the chains, and the monster, a large lizard with 8 legs and a brass face shield secured to the collar surprises some. Dov is turned to stone after slashing it. Fath tries to disable it with a cloud; it cuts through the freebooter and goes for Ibid with its poison breath. I cast Earth's Teeth, shredding the thing.

Many are wounded or poisoned. Ledra the priestess is revived but needs rest. Mislo the freebooter is revived, though he now has a cleft palette. We delay and enutralize poison. The cookbook tells us that basilisk flesh can heal slightly and restore sensation to numbed limbs, and if properly prepared the glands in its throat can function as potions of stone to flesh. As we drag the body out to butcher it, we notice that the wall trap has already had its blade removed. There's a large beetle behind us, but it takes a basilisk leg and leaves. We deal with poison and healing, then go back for Dov's statue. We are attacked by dogs, and deal with them easily enough, though in the process we learn that fireball spells have half their usual radius here. Paulie and his other cleric manage to harvest 4 glands, as this is a greater basilisk. These things would be worth a lot if taken alive.

**Session 46, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath
Me and my people enter alone, quickly retrieving the statue and thawing him. After some discussion we find he's been here a month, and was here with 4 other men; we heard of one running back to town previously, so that's three unaccounted for. I hire Buffel, as I can use a sneaky type.

**Session 47, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Cartamo, Paulie
The priestess quit.

We wake to a giant beetle pulling at the basilisk corpse. It goes down easy enough, but we drag both bodies further from the entrance. Going inside, we check out the east tunnels, seeing a tiny ray of sunlight through a hole. There's a room full of round stones the size of heads, but nothing happens when Cartamo smacks one open. We fry some scorpions on the other side of a portcullis. A door crashes under a pile of rocks when Cartamo attempts to force it open with his rod.

Cartamo triggers a pressure plate, causing a loud tone and narrowly dodging a blade. The portcullis opens, and Dov goes to fight a scorpion but is pinned to the wall by an arrow, as men at the end of the hallways are shooting at us, one casting a spell that slows those in armor. Ibid drags buffel to me for healing, but he is going to be a mute due to his injuries. After a stinking cloud the enemy retreats behind their door. Harvey stabilizes Dov.

We retreat, with me leaving Glyphs of Warding behind us as we go in case these men come for us. We run into beetles, and Dov is downed again as one tries to attack his leg, Kelo badly wounded as well. Buffel, who was perhaps paying more attention than the rest of us, points out that the trap we set off didn't seem to be what triggered the portcullis.

**Session 48, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Cartamo
The glyphs i had set up, some of which contained fireball spells, all seem to be gone. We explore to the southwest of the big room. There's a statue of a woman with a snake on each arm, directing the execution of prisoners- maybe one of the wives we saw at the entrance. We encounter some pigmen, a chase and a fight ensues, most are slain and some run. Braeg was wounded, and we bring him outside.

We return to a weird door, reinforced with iron and a metal rectangle 3' off the ground in it, some removed graffiti. We smash it down and slaughter some dwarves. They poured burning oil on the ground, seemingly immune to fire. Their tools will suffice for magic workshop, we retrieve some masterwork picks and a half-finished magic greatsword, and the boss has some nice armor and a shortsword. I fireball the tunnel to clear a trap I think the runners sent, and we retreat with our prisoners. The shortsword is magic, and the boss's armor is masterwork chain of dwarven size.

**Session 49, as told by Heath the Elven Savant-Sage**

Heath, Paulie
Between the corpses and the living, we interrogate the dwarves with magic. There were 25 dwarves, and the most valuable thing any of the had outside the forge room was the master of the forge's sword. They're in there mining gems, of course. They don't like the squealers, who graffiti their door. The master of the forge is named Sven. There are definitely traps, and defenses will be more men and burning oil, in addition to the door we broke down. We get to planning.