Session Fourteen

The fourteenth session of the Adventures of the Dragon Crag was on the 29th November 2021.

## Party Members Present

* Brandr Sigurdson
* Snorri Morgrimson
* Relnwe Adiath
* Professor Meino Osterhaus
* Aleksi Lehtonen

## Synopsis

### Heading West

We stored the loot we gained from our foray in the Ruins so far in a broken pipe near the Bandit Camp. We also put the fires out in the camp so as not to attract unwanted attention. Out intention was to head west to try and find the stairs down to the second level of the Ruins in the old hold of Clan Stonepick. We set off by the light of Snorri's lantern, made hazier by the thick exhale of Fogmaker Red from the Professor. We headed through the area around Zambor's Well and onto the straight dwarfen passage we had found earlier. We took this passage west, passing lots of juntions and cave entrances on the way. Eventually we came to a crossroads. To the north we saw a small room, to the south was another passage, whilst the straight dwarfen passage we were on continued westwards.

### The Halls of Trade

We decided to explore the room to the north. This room was clearly a guard room, built with defence in mind. It provided protection both from the north and from the south. Our voices seemed to echo in the space through the northerly doorway. Above the doorway were runes. Snorri couldn't read them as they were all scuffed, but Brandr managed to put together their meaning. They said 'The Halls of Trade'. We went through the northern doorway into a vast hall with a dim light in the middle. We could not see the edges of the room, but we could make out many pillars holding up a great roof somewhere in the darkness above. Rel heard a noise and pointed it out to Brandr who recognised it: it was the sound of clinking dwarfen armour.

We decided the best course of action was for Aleksi to take his kit of and creap forward in his Kislevian Knickers to see if he could see the source of the noise. Aleksi silently approached the light, feeling the subterranean breeze on his bare legs. With a tall pillar hiding his fair, fleshy body, Aleksi spied a lantern left strangely on a stand. Aleksi slithered back to tell us what he saw. We decided that whoever it was had probably already heard us echoing about. It was agreed that it would be best for Brandr to holler into the darkness, which he did happily. He said that we were 'reet hardy lads'. Only a faint snigger returned to us from the darkness of the huge hall.

The Professor then had a cunning plan that involved soot. He told us to head further back in the caves whilst he hid himself in the guardroom to see if he could see whoever had lit the lantern. After a short while, he heard movement around the hall and some talking. THe sounds then receded to the north and disappeared.

### Three Shouty Boys and One Dead Boy

We continued west alpong the straight dwarfen passage and it slopped down and became increasingly soggy. We heard raised voices in the distance. Aleksi snuck forward again, this time fully clothed. The passage opened up before him and more passages went off in several directions. He saw three people shouting at eachother, weapons drawn, bloodied, and pointed at eachother. There were two dwarfs and one human alive, whilst a second human lay slumped on the floor, dead. After Aleksi returned to tell us what he saw, we decided to pile in.

They all look surprised to see us and the human shouted at us for help. Brandr told them to all drop their weapons, which they did. The human told us that they all woke up here and didn't remember anything - the Professor saw that he wasn't lying. The human wa tall with black hair and a Reikish accent. Aleksi examined the corpse and noted that there was a lot of blunt damage, but that the wounds had been reopened by a blade. All they had with them aside from the weapons were a small bag and a flask of water. Brandr examined the dwarfs and saw that there was a personal rune on one of them and determined it was a rune of Clan Jewelgrasper. Thinking of their loss of memory, Aleksi remembered that there were a couple of draughts that could cause the effect. He also remembered that stagnant water could cause sickness of the brain. We opened their flasks and had a whiff - it smelled of shitty water.

### Following Trails and Reading Journals

Rel saw two trails on the floor. One went east and the other went west. Rel and Aleksi followed the westerly trail and saw various entrances to more tunnels, including a jagged one that looked more recently mined. The trail led them to a cave that was covered in a lot of blood - far more than four people could make. However, there was a camp that four people were clearly living in. There were a couple of packs with personal items and some journals. Around the entrance of the cave were marks of another trail. They brought the packs to the rest of the party.

We examined the journals. One of them was in Reikspiel and the author was no master of words but it told us that one human was an Imperial whilst the other was a Kislevian possibly related to the criminal underworld of Deadgate. The second journal was in Khazalid and was mostly directions and descriptions, but we noticed there were strange gaps in the text. We assumed it was hidden writing. With his excellent scientific knowledge, Snorri knew that heat would reveal the writing. Holding the lantern close revealed the hidden words. They were notes about the personalities and brackgrounds of two humans and a dwarf. We deduced that one of the dwarfs was one of the Lawbringers, possibly investigating the Kislevian criminal human.

### Trolls! Trolls in the Dungeon!

We went back to the bloody cave to follow the trail Rel spotted. On the way, Snorri and ALeksi investigated the jagged, mined tunnel, finding that it lead to another Guardroom. The trail from the bloody cave was a mixture of mud and blood. Water trickled into the passage, which got wetter as we moved along. Aleksi saw that the blood was about a day old as we came into a wider cave. In this cave, we heard the unmistakable sound of a troll snoring. We saw its great shape underneath a blanket - it was badly injured.

We were about to finish off the injured troll when we heard a scream behind us. We turned to see another troll looming over the human and two dwarfs (we had brought them along with us). The troll looked at us and said, accusingly: "You hurt Hogga!" The fight then broke out with this troll who turned out to be called Gedd. The injured Hogga also stood up to join the fight. In the end, we stood over two dead trolls - Hogga was slain by Aleksi, whist Gedd was slain by Brandr. The Professor noticed that a dagger of Kislevian origin was sticking out of Hogga's back. There were still many questions to be answered.