Legion of Doom Annals

These annals chronicle the ventures of the Legion of Doom company, from traders of commodities to the rulers of Port Wang, and the doomed planar rift expedition that brought about the company's end, with its survivors re-establishing themselves as the Firestarters company.

*The company's origins of trade and treasure-hunting*

**Session 1 (1st Spring - 15th Spring, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

My employer, Rhith the elf, recently acquired a ship, and after we fled the unpleasantness at Akiros - we gnomes have a talent for knowing when we’re not wanted, I had everything of value over my shoulder in a bag before the first building was set to the torch, almost had enough time to make some quick coin selling kindling - we found ourselves in Port Thunder, home to a good number of my cousins. The ship was acquired with some trade goods on it, primarily bolts of silk and barrels of wine and brandy. This city is a major source of salt and ivory, so we figured we could sell the contents, load up on the local specialties at low prices, and go on a venture around the exarchate. It was apparently a bad time to buy ivory in town, so we loaded the ship up with salt and hired a crew. The captain, John, seems good enough, and Carellus, one of the elf’s archers, is serving as navigator. We have 6 crossbowmen, and between them and some gnomish magic we should be able to deal with pirates or wildlife, though I hope we don’t have to test that. My cousin, Saul, works in the trade office here and with a little bit of coin and some enchantment that might not even have been strictly necessary we got out of the port with tariffs a little lower than expected.
Three days of journey brings us to Olantea. Good bit of money in town, got the city-state thing going, though I feel awfully lonely as a gnome here. A wink, some gold and a charm make our entry tariff a little more reasonable, and we enter the city. We sell them all the salt they could want and fill the space opened up in the hold with barrels of the local surplus, tar-not the most lucrative thing, but it’ll definitely sell. A few words half-cough half-mumbled while discussing valuation of goods and the tariff officer is friendly about how much we have on board. This bit of magecraft is coming in handy.

Few days later, we hit Thetis. Now it’s known for its sugar, but must have been a bad harvest, because the stuff costs more than it does on the other side of the sea. Grain is pretty cheap for grain, but the stuff’s only worth transporting because of the space in the hold. We sell salt and tar at decent prices and move on to the south.

Kataklusia is also known for sugar, and the blight, or however the hell such things work, seems to have not affected it. We pick up the stuff for cheap cheap cheap, and we are back in business. We sell a good bit of tar and some salt, pay nominal tariffs, and get on our way. Drasos is next, on our way back to Port Thunder. They do not want salt, but tar and sugar sell at great prices, as well as moving some grain at a modest profit in percent if not absolute amount. We pick up a decent amount of pepper and furs-timber just isn’t worth moving across this area when half the place has their own trees to cut down.

 Finally, after about 2 weeks, we end up returning to Port Thunder. We unload the tar, sugar, fur, pepper, and most of the wheat. We’ve still got almost a fifth of the salt we start with, and we’ve paid taxes on it equal to a fifth of its value at this point. Still a tidy profit on the trip, and looks like plenty of potential for repeat business. Pointy-ears and co are getting all official, about to set off on sanctioned treasure-hunting to the south, with a side deal moving brandy. He’s offering additional security for the ship, a dwarf and his custom-built ballista machine. We’ll probably take him, even though we’ve had no problems in these waters under a somewhat experienced captain. There’s all sorts of things we could run into on the seas that some artillery might be good against. Definitely some money to be made here, and so far we’re just dealing with the legal stuff. Good money, so long as the war doesn’t come here. If the war does come here, probably still money, maybe even more, but conflict isn’t exactly in my nature.

**Session 2 (16th Spring - 27th Spring, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Madness happened to the markets this week- the price of ivory dropped like someone had just found trees it grows on! Hell, even if that is what happened, someone somewhere is going to find out after I do, and by then I’ll have sold them every tusk the fine city of Port Thunder has to offer. We also stock up on salt, which always provides decent margins, even when supplying to coastal cities, when the source is salt flats. We have some additional security this trip, two types that seem ready to swing swords around and a dwarf in some kind of automaton. I hope that the money we pay them for security turns out not to be a complete waste. We set off for the free city of Olantea, probably the only place in the area I can be sure we’ll be able to move all this ivory quickly.
On our way to Olantea I’m awoken to a rocking of the ship. I mention this to the captain as we eat breakfast the next morning and he informs me that we narrowly missed a whirlpool, and that the entire ship was nearly lost. I lose my appetite on hearing that, especially given the quality of the food to begin with.

On hitting Olantea, we offload the salt and ivory, plus a few bundles of grain we still had. No profit on that last, just glad to get it off my books. Olantea must be using all its tar and timber for shipbuilding right now, because the prices are absurd. The city-state also produces some of the finer things, and I manage to put together a sweet deal on some porcelain. It almost breaks my heart to leave a port with so little cargo, but the ton and a quarter of the stuff we have is worth more than a full load full of salt, pitch, or timber so it should be a good enough move. Off to Dawnharbor, and hopefully selling this porcelain and filling up the hold.

Halfway to Dawnharbor the ship suddenly sinks a few feet, as if some great weight was applied to it. Numerous tentacles burst from the water, and I fear I’ve found my way into one of those picture books some of my cousins occasionally sell from the southwest. A leviathan of some kind is upon us. Our crossbowmen are on the deck, as is the new dwarf in his ridiculous contraption. The swordsmen are quickly at their posts. With their efforts, and my heroic use of Magic Missile, the beast is slain before it does too much damage to the ship. We cut it up and bring its meat aboard; it only has a day or so to rot before we hit port, so the smell isn’t that bad.

We hit port in Dawnharbor. We sell most of the porcelain, as well as the ink sac and the parts of the beast most usable for spellcraft; the rest we sell as seafood and it quickly ends up in restaurants. It ended up selling for about as much per stone as our usual fare, but the meat itself was probably not worth the time to harvest for just a ton of it; the ink and tentacles were. We buy some timber at fire sale prices- again, I wonder if someone’s just found a great source of it- and set off back for Port Thunder.

We reach Port Thunder uneventfully, and offload the tin and remaining porcelain. Shares of profit are paid off to myself, the captain, the navigator, and both swordsmen. The dwarf apparently owes us money and is working it off. Some of the money is put in the bank for safekeeping, and it seems like Wang Dong the swordsman that goes without armor is going to bring another sum of it to the south to meet up with the group searching for a pile of sand in the middle of a desert. I give him a short note in Elvish for the enchanter detailing the state of our operations.

 Prices have been a little too good lately. If I had to guess why I’d say someone is liquidating everything he owns in the area to try to get his gold somewhere else in a hurry before the war stops him.

**Session 3 (28th Spring - 41st Spring 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Having done some noticeable damage to the local economy, we are going to head off to the Bone Key in search of a magic tome we have a map for. Rumor says the island has, for whatever reason, had a lot of bodies buried there over the years. There’s an abbey, long abandoned, where some cultists supposedly hid treasure a long time ago, and none have ever gotten it out. Somewhat usual rumors of necromancy and the undead in the place. Between magic tomes and treasure there will no doubt be much worth finding, maybe even the accumulated riches of those that died trying. In any event we begin preparations; the ship has a fine assortment for mercantile tasks but if we’re going exploring we will need some other roles filled. I end up hiring a witch and a dwarven craftpriestess, both capable of providing healing and assorted magics, as well as a dwarven rogue type, who will be able to help us in dealing with traps. The barbarian, Donan, hires a human priestess, particularly skilled in healing. We have plenty of martial types, although a quick reequip in weapons more suited for fighting the undead, who are not easily cut-slings, hammers, nets, etc- is needed.

**Session 4 (42nd Spring - 47th Spring, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Nix and Entourage; Donan and entourage; Steveo; Otho
We finish re-outfitting the ship- installing a catapult, on the off chance that the walking ballista isn’t enough, getting some war dogs for the barbarian, and filling the hold with bunks and adequate provisions. The old map says that the way to the tome is under a wellcap under a tree on the highest point of the island.

We get close to the island. After his trained falcon scouts from the air, the new crocman Steveo swims out to scout. He reports back - upon getting to the beach a number of skeletons, a dozen or more, rose from the sand and he retreated. He reports having seen a path somewhat marked by wood on the beach.

We go to the beach in stages, 4 at a time in the boat with the crocman Steveo bringing the empty boat back. Everyone but John and Carellus, who we will need to use the ship, comes with us. We start to advance up the path, and encounter a number of skeletons. Between combat and the divine spellcasters turning them from us we deal with them quickly enough, with a dog and the barbarian wounded, easily enough restored.

Advancing up the hill, we find a ruined chapel and a large willow tree. One of the dogs is grabbed by the tree and pulled towards a large mouth that opens on it. We all shoot it, the dog is freed, and it retreats back a few feet. The barbarian of all people thinks to talk to it and it responds in an archaic but understandable dialect. It is hungry; we offer to bring it food, boars from the island, if it lets us pass to the tunnel below. We bring it two boars, caught by some of our people who have such skill, and it reveals the wellcap, then reveals another wellcap, which it indicates is the correct path, once we impress on it that it only gets more food from us if we come back alive.

The wellcap is square, and once opened there is a brass ladder down, very old. Steveo descends. He sees a dead end, the situation the other shaft led to, which is dangerous, and an area full of water. He finds some coins and a ring. We may need to put some boards across a pit to proceed.

 We have the lizardman’s falcon carry a message back to the ship, and set up camp in the chapel for the night. The ring detects as magic, and the barbarian is brave or impulsive enough to try it on; it seems to increase his reflexes and awareness, and he can see through it when his eyes are closed.

**Session 5 (48th Spring - 54th Spring, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Nix et al, Donan et al, Steveo et al
We return from the ship after a night’s rest with some planks, following the path cleared of skeletons the day before. It’s easy enough to lay them over the spikes, and we enter the dungeon.

Once inside, we find light doesn’t lead as far as it should, even for those of us who can see in the dark our range is limited. We reach a fork, and from the west passage we see movement. We encounter an undead mage, mirror image illusions protecting him; he emits a cone of flame from his hands that wounds much of the party, though me and mine are just out of range of it. Those that get near him fall sick, and as any other ghoul his bites and claws inflict paralysis. I light it up to make it easier to hit, and the healers start to work on the wounded; the rest attack him. Our divine casters fail to turn undead.

We almost have him down, his illusions dissipated, when another undead appears; a large zombie comes from the east. I make an illusion of birds attacking them but neither of them believes it. He hurts my dwarven cleric, who backs off a bit. I hit him twice with magic missile, which hurts him, and one of the fighters strikes him, which does nothing. I and the witch have silver daggers on us, which we offer to the fighter types. Between the silver and a new, successful illusion of knights with glowing swords striking him, he is downed, and finished off with silver once downed.
Nothing is on the bodies; either undead mages don’t have spellbooks or his is stashed away elsewhere. The clerics finish healing. There is a room in each direction; we investigate the east one first. We find piles of bones, and some purple mist in one corner of the room. Donan experiments with the mist with a stick and a vial but is unable to take a sample. Digging through the pile of bones, we find a wand of magic missile, unknown number of charges.

Going to the east room, we find another corner of pink mist, a stone desk and bench, and some jars. There’s nothing in the jars that didn’t dry and rot a long time ago, and the barbarians smash them. We find an ivory scroll tube with a scroll of wall of smoke and a silver and jade tiara.

Back to the fork and to the west we proceed down the hallway, finding doors to the north and south before it turns a corner south. The north room is an old kitchen; nothing is of note here but an old garbage chute, which we cover with a stone desk so nothing can come up through it. The south room was a storeroom; we find a metal bag of gems.

 We return to the ship with our wounded; one man died, another is blinded, others need much rest. We detect magic everything, identify the wand. We return to Port Thunder, selling everything for 1400 gold and begin to hire replacement crew. A Dwarven fighter is hired by Donan, and Steveo looks into more trained animals.

**Session 6 (55th Spring- 85th Spring, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Nix et al, Donan et al, Anakin et al
We add some new people to the company: Anakin, the wizard, returns from the east, bringing Croco and the sword "Flametongue" with him. Anakin hires a thief of his religion, and Donan hires a barbarian covered in runes, while I hire my cousin Sav, purely on his merits of course. We use the funds from our expedition so far to rearm everyone with silver, as we expect to encounter more horrors.

We make it to the island and up the path without difficulties; we feed the tree some rations and fish after failing to catch a boar.

We start with the west corridor; hear the sound of water dripping. We make a few turns and are facing south; we come to a tee. We can see that each branch of the tee then turns south again. As the foremost dog enters the junction, we hear a noise and darkness engulfs us- even those of us with infravision can’t see. We back up slowly, and pass the edge of the darkness.

We return to the split and go north; the rooms we previously cleared are unchanged. We come to another split; north and west, each opening to a chamber. We go north, and see a room; 6 orbs of purple mist are on the far side of the room, the wreckage of desks or bookshelves along the wall. There are the ruins of a large bed, with a necklace with a large octagonal sapphire hanging from a hook above it. Donan removes the necklace with a pole, we hear a whistling noise. A cloud of darkness appears, and we are struck with a noxious smell; I, Sav, and others are sicked. The darkness retreats into the room. The rest of my people are unaffected by the smell and enter the room. The dark entity tries to strike the craftpriest Ehara with fear, but she is of strong will and resists it. Sav and I make it out of the cloud, and everyone starts firing silver bolts, which seem to hurt it, despite passing through it. With Donan’s flaming sword and a few more bolts it dissipates. The room has no more treasure than simply the necklace, but on closer examination the purple fog in these rooms seems to provide a view into other rooms: we recognize the two we’ve already been in; another has a sarcophagus; the other three are dark.

Back to the previous fork, we enter the western chamber. We see the sarcophagus, a purple mist above it, empty wrought-iron candelabras, and passages north and south. Donan gives everyone a piece of garlic. The passage to the south is a small alcove, full of mold, with an orb of purple fog in it. To the north there is an octagonal chamber, a silver circle surrounded by runes engraved on the floor, a pile of bones in the center; another bit of purple fog oversees it. The dogs are spooked by the bones. From what Anakin can tell, it looks like the circle summoned some kind of spirit here, which since left, leaving behind its material form-the bones look like a giant frog or something. Back in the main room, the sarcophagus seems to be an altar in the shape of a sarcophagus, as it lacks a removable lid. There is an indentation on it in which a box is set. Anakin recognizes one of the symbols on the sarcophagus- a cult that summoned things from the outer darkness.

We figure this is probably important. The witch detects danger around the sarcophagus; the priestess detects magic, and finds that the box and its contents are magic. Furik, our dwarven delver, inspects the box; it is glass, with brass fittings; clears the grime off it and sees a book inside, likely our goal. Furik can find no physical trace of a trap, and Anakin’s thief confirms this. We all get ready, and Furik pulls the box out of the depression.

Three large rats appear, likely demonic. I magic missile one of them, dissipating it. Others attack them with weapons, even silver, and they do nothing. We faerie fire the other two and Donan kills one with his magic sword while I kill the last with another magic missile.

The box has no keyhole or latch, but does not open. There is an octagonal depression on it the same size as the diamond on the necklace. We decide not to try opening it yet.

We return to the southern passage to find the darkness gone. On the southwest path, we find a room that once help prisoners-manacles and bones among the debris, another orb of fog. A search of the room reveals only a small soapstone trinket in the shape of a ship, which detects as magic.

Taking the southeast path, we find a room full of bones, see the dripping water. The room was connected to a cavern. As we enter it, there’s movement, and a giant’s skeleton stands up and attacks. We take it down, a crossbow bolt from Furik dealing the final blow. Searching the room we find a stone coffer; it contains a masterwork shortsword and warhammer, as well as a jade idol of a bat creature on a rocky outcropping, some teeth, a wrought platinum unholy symbol, large fire opal, copper and silver curios+jewelry. The edge of the room connects to a cavern which has a small beach and leads into an underground lake of some kind.

We return to the ship with our prizes. After checking everything for magic and finding only the boat trinket and the box to have magic, we apply the sapphire necklace to the box. The box opens, and we hear a loud crash and see a column of dust from the center of the island. The book appears to be in Sunuz.

The next day, my powers restored, I use magic to read the book. It is definitely what we were after. It is titled “The Lexicon of Outer Darkness”; it contains a substantial portion of a spellcaster’s life’s work-spell formulas, essays, philosophy, and instructions on how to make protection circles for summoning/trapping otherplanar beings. It contains the formulas for 8 spells, the last of which I can only assume summons some kind of demon - choking grip(1), deathless minion(2), necromantic potence(2), dismember(3), fear(4), animate dead(5), phantasmal killer(5), summon hezrou(6).

Deciding to test the boat trinket, we go to the beach and put it into the water; after a little messing around it turns into a boat big enough for 16 men; we drag it onto the beach and a day after it turned into a boat it turns back into the pocketable trinket.

 Returning to the center of the island, we find that the shafts down have collapsed, and our friend and possible asset the tree is slain. We poke around the ruined chapel a bit more and find nothing; the remnants of the cultists have long since walked away. The machinist says it would be possible to excavate the shaft but it would take a long time and resources we don’t have with us. The goods we found seem to be worth about 10,500 gold, not counting the masterwork weapons, which I plan on keeping for myself and Sav.

**Session 7 (86th Spring - 11th Summer, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Anakin, Wang Long, Nix, Donan and entourages

Half a day out from Bone Key, we hear a humming noise, and then magical darkness engulfs the ship. there’s a noxious cloud, and those in it have trouble doing anything but coughing. We hear a voice, in an unidentifiable language and then in common, say it’s going to kill everyone on the ship. There’s some movement on the upper deck and one of our archers is dead.

Anakin tries to counter the darkness with light and fails; I try to make an illusion of light and manage to counter the darkness in a 30’ cube in the middle of the deck. The enemy leaps down onto the lower deck- it’s some kind of demon- and kills Captain John. He says he’ll keep coming back periodically and killing us until the lexicon is destroyed, even if we kill this body.

Donan gets a good hit in, the witch Aesri faerie fires him and the craftpriest Ehara creates an area protected from evil in the center of the deck. Anakin runs to me to grab the wand of magic missile, as I am busy sustaining the light illusion. Donan’s new gladiator accomplice gets in some good hits and Anakin uses the wand. With everyone behind the protected area, the demon summons a cloud of biting insects to cover most of the deck. The gladiator once again strikes true and he dissipates, leaving behind only bones much like those we saw in the dungeon. I set them aside.
On further examination the demon is bound to the book, and no simple trick, like taking it apart, will free us of it. We return to bone key and bury the book in a findable place, with Steve-o drawing us a map of it. One copy will be kept with us, the other in the vault in Port Thunder.

On our return to Port Thunder, some people leave us, either because of the danger or to strike out on their own. Carellus the navigator, Ehara the craftpriest, and 2 sailors leave. We hire 4 new sailors, a navigator, and a captain easily enough, thought these new ones lack fighting experience. We check for more people looking to hire on to adventure. Wang Long, the cousin of Wang Dong, joins us. Donan picks up an elven fighter-mage after I got a bit too cheap in my offer, while Wang Long hires a freebooter type named Fabio and I hire a fighting man specializing in archery.

We do some more research on the ship wrecked on a reef that we are considering salvaging. The owner-operator of the ship was based out of White Island and has no heirs; why he went near the coral is unknown. Wang’s new hire knows a guy who worked on one of the previous salvage crews, and we buy him dinner. His group got past the sharks by baiting them away from the area with food dropped in the water. The ship is only below water to the bilge line; the coral it wrecked on is shallow. They knew that the owner had been going to the Isle of Dread a lot; rumors of a city of gold and all that, but coming back with skins, teeth, jewelry, and other such products. The salvagers got to the hold, and saw barrels of liquor, boxes, crates, weapons, and other stuff. Some large black tentacles emerged from further deep in the hold, large enough to grab men, crush them, and drag them in, at which point the rest cut their losses and run from the monster in the ship.

We find a hedge wizard with a specialty in magic items and engineering to identify the qualities of our items for us; he fails on the ship trinket and confirms what we know about the ring. I trade spell formulas with him, getting Jump and Light for Sleep and Wall of Smoke.

We hear some news of the war; it seems Darius is losing. My cousins in Tyrus, who had already set to work on counterfeiting coins with his likeness, may need to change their tooling soon.

**Session 8 (12th Summer - 30th Summer, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Nix, Wang Long, Donan, Anakin, and entourages
We finish our preparations and research and set off south from port thunder in search of the wrecked ship. On the second day there’s a large school of tuna; one of the lizardmen spears a few and we feast on them. We pass the salt fens and make it to the area without further incident, stopping 400 ft away; the crocs stopping us when the ship gets as close to the reef as is safe.

The crocs and the new freebooter set off in a boat first, see some sharks 200 ft out, return to us, then go forward again, throwing a sheep and some chum to the sharks to distract them. They board the ship; the mast is broken and the ballistae useless. Everyone else of use is ferried to the ship, save the mechanist and Donan’s priestess.

We investigate the cabins on the first floor; to the front is the galley, which contains a good amount of food, some of it still good. To the rear is the captain’s cabin; we find his charts, which show him traveling from white island to somewhere far to the south past the Isle of Dread; a couple thousand gold in coinage in a chest; a rather nice cape made of chameleon skin; and some personal letters and such, which we keep just in case.

Fabio moves downstairs to scout, and we all follow him down the three sets of stairs. The front door of the hold bursts open in a mass of tentacles; sav lights it up with magic. One tentacle constricts Donan’s gladiator; Donan himself strikes a great blow, cleaving off two tentacles entirely. Aesri, now on the deck, runs and cuts the gladiator free, and attempts to heal him, but the damage to his spine cannot be undone and he passes. Croco is down, but between Wang Long and the witch he is healed after the fight. Steveo harvests some teeth from the beast, which looks like an eel with a squid’s tentacles.

There is a good amount of cargo in the hold, and we bring it back to the ship, burning the wreck so no one else will risk themselves trying to get to it. We return to Port Thunder and sell everything.

 We work out a deal with the Syndic to set up a trade post on the isle of dread; we are loaned 60 thousand gold over 5 years at three and a half percent interest a month, no interest in the first year. Wang Long hires an elf that seems to be capable of arcane and divine magics, while Donan hires a mage. We begin preparations for the expedition.

*The company's intial exploration and colonization of the Isle of Dread*

**Session 9 (31st Summer - 60th Summer, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Wang Long seems to have a businessman’s mind, or at least pretenses to one. He secured a loan for building a trading post somewhere on the island we’re to be exploring. If we can pull it off, there’ll definitely be money to be made; in every new frontier it’s always the middlemen and suppliers that make the real money, but I suppose there’s no harm in being the explorers so long as it lets us set ourselves up as the middlemen.
On the long trip down, we’re blown off course a bit by thunderstorms, but after talking with some local dolphins seem to reorient ourselves. We find the northern side of the island, other smaller islands around it; we head round the east of it, getting some idea for the terrain. To the south is an archipelago of smaller islands, populated by assorted tribal types. They seem friendly enough. We gift them some tools and ask where might be a good spot for our trading post; a matriarch says there’s an island to the west and then northwest that might be a good location for what we envision but is populated by dogmen - gnolls perhaps? - with several ships.
Some of the locals are willing to work for us, but most lack usable skills for construction. In terms of trade goods they have assorted spices, feathers, dies, and pigments available. What ruins there are here, at least the very old ones, are taboo, and perhaps best asked after later in private. We will be able to get guides to take us some distance to the north, as some go to tar pits there every so often. We are told of a decent place for what we plan to the north, though it was “garls” - large stupid men of some kind -, though those are everywhere. We trade more tools for spices, dyes, furs, and wood, and are told they want glassware, drink, and cloth. Always good money in selling booze to people.

We go north, find a natural feature that’s good enough to use as a dock, and disembark. A scout hawk saw what sounds like a Roc to the northwest of us.

 As we move through the forest, we encounter monkeys, who fling all manner of things at our crocs, and don’t like his tone when he tries to talk to them. I am also gifted with animal speech-once sold a sheep a wool sweater- and calm the monkeys down. They tell us of a lizardman village up in the hills. We keep moving, and see the village in the distance - 50, maybe 70 huts - and some skulls-of-our-enemies themed decorations on the path. One lizardman sees us and runs back to the village; we soon see about 40 running towards us.

**Session 10 (61st Summer - 70th Summer, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Steveo sends his messenger hawk back to the ship to summon reinforcements, and tells the rest of his animals to protect the elf, who he sends forward in the hopes that the native tongue here, which the elf knows, can function as a common language. The rest of us retreat, and I conjure a wall of smoke to hide our position.
The elf comes running back; their leader said “who are you, what are you doing here, get out” and indicated that their territory extends to the ridgeline, which we retreat well past as they throw javelins as warning shots. We return to the beach and tell everyone to stop unpacking, we’re not staying here any longer.

We navigate around for quite a bit, looking for the gnoll island. We find it, the bird scout seeing 4 large ships and dozens of canoes. An alarm is sounded, and people are getting on the ships; two approach us. Wang has the bird drop a message on one of them declaring them all to be his subjects. I think this is pretty dumb as he could have just offered them easy loans at a high interest rate and gotten much better control of them but it’s his project. We back off, they follow us for a bit, and eventually break pursuit.

 We keep going north, pass some beaches and dunes, and find a small island, basically a mountain with a lagoon to its north. We land off the lagoon. We find some wild goats and some large footprints. Additional scouting by the hawk indicates that there is a village of ogres on the other side of the mountain and a nest of winged lizards-drakes? Wyverns?- on the southern tip of the island. We encounter some owlbears and deal with them easily enough. This seems as good a place as any to set up a fort; once the problems on the island are dealt with we won’t have to worry about anything wandering in to our territory too easily.

**Session 11 (71st Summer - 90th Summer, 1322), as told by Nix Garnetgetter**

Nix, Wang Long, Anakin, Donan, Thad, and entourages
We’ve been building the fort for about a week when the ogres show up. A group of them run out of the woods towards us, bows and spears, the ones in the middle carrying battering rams; more remain in the treelines to south and east.

Sav faerie fires the guy who looks like he’s in charge, and we focus our fire, including Civitas’ ballista, at him- he goes down. Another of the ogres, also in distinct dress, waves his hands, and a dark bolt flies to the top floor of our tower, exploding and destroying our ballista crews. Those at the treeline shoot at those of us in the tower, downing some, and trying to ignite the fort with flaming arrows.

The battering rams reach our front door, which will not last long. Anakin starts loudly asking a demon to grant him the power to destroy his enemies. The ethical implications of this we’ll maybe deal with later. I am among the next round of people wounded, as is Civitas, shot through his mech. We are dragged down to healers, both surviving with wounds. As we are being healed, Sav jumps into the open mech, continuing its fire. An illusion of wyverns attacking is conjured to distract the ogres, hopefully enough to be worth the action.

Empowered by a dark entity, Anakin raises our dead as mockeries of life, picking up the weapons they dropped and continuing to fight as the ogres break the door and rush into the fort. Sav shoots again with the ballista-mech, killing another leader. Anakin webs the entrance to the fort shut, taking a few ogres prisoner; the rest, realizing they can’t profitably attack, retreat into the jungle.

 Me and Sav decide this is probably a good time to call it quits on this job; gnomes have bad enough luck without messing with dark powers that haven’t even paid us in advance. Civatas also is unnerved by it, or at least realizes he’s pretty far from any supply lines for his craft, and joins us. Arketh, the elven dual mage, between the events of the day, his previous encounter with the lizardmen, and the opportunity to study under a much more experienced elven mage comes with us. Donan and his people are also leaving, but for a different port. I wish those remaining on the island the best, but my skills aren’t suited to being rushed by dozens of ogres or seeing those fallen beside me have their bodies used as puppets.

**Session 12 (1st Autumn - 60th Autumn, 1322), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Anakin, Wang Long, Wang Hung, Thersites, Lorweth, entourages
Anakin has convinced the ogres we captured to follow him. We’re going to attempt to meet with the ogre village and get the remainder of them on our side, or at least broker a truce. We get to a fair distance from the village, then send one of the converts to arrange a meeting. Anakin is set up to intimidate them, levitating off the ground with me making an inverse halo appear behind his head.

After an hour or so, a dozen of them show up, including a big one and a decorated one. Anakin makes his offer and threat, to some effect, as they were impressed by us. They agree to a truce, and will fight for us if we deal with the troglodytes nearby, whose caves are too small for the ogres to effectively enter and fight in. We’ll probably enslave them if the opportunity presents itself, maybe ship them somewhere else. The ogres also want to be paid in meat, which should be easy enough.

We set off for Wang Long’s native land of Zhistraya, to do some recruiting and get supplies and funds. There’s flying fish and we lose a bit of time but otherwise the journey goes smoothly. Wang Long’s cousin, Wang Hung, joins us; he seems to be some kind of occultist. Wang Long commissions a boarding device for the ship and manages to sell the magic greatsword. Donan runs off into the wilderness of this place, determined to make it on his own (with his people, of course) or die trying. We all hire some new hands, including quite a few spellcasters; I found a very insightful shaman. Wang Long buys some large animal native to this land to use as a mount. We buy assorted materials that will be of use to us in crafting potions and other items.

We return to our small island, dodging a waterspout and deciding not to engage with some killer whales. We hear reports of a fleet of a half dozen small sailing ships to the north during our absence.

We set off on the ship once again, this time for Port Thunder, in an attempt to get, among other things, settlers. On our way, we are attacked by flying piranhas. We survive, with my healing, despite lots of injuries; Fabio loses an eye. On arrival in Port Thunder his eye is restored by a cleric running some kind of mystery cult and Wang Long goes about his business goals. Asking around, it seems that the loser of the civil war, the younger brother of the deceased emperor, has been given a mission to keep him out of the court without needing to kill him: he is going to be starting a colony on the Isle of Dread, right where we are. He’s funded in this project by the King of Velosia and other young wealthy families that backed him in the war.

 On the way back to our island one man in left with scars after an encounter with hippogriffs but we are otherwise unharmed.

**Session 13 (61st Autumn - 90th Autumn, 1322), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Anakin, Wang Long, Wang Hung, Thersites, and entourages
It’s time to answer the troglodyte question. After some scouts reveal that there is a second entrance to the cave complex on the back, at a waterfall, we enter with a raiding party. As we’re trying to figure out who’s on trapfinding duty we encounter some trogs, 10 of them, coming from the east. They smell bad, the nose-pins we made beforehand helping only a little. I imagine it’s harder to get up close and swing a sword at these guys. Some fighting happens, I put a few to sleep. More are coming from the east, and another group from the southwest. Anakin webs the east passageway off, and I cast the sleep spell again, feeling as powerful as it ever could. We take a few prisoners to interrogate and leave. Nothing but primitive weapons for loot here.

 They are dumb, but Wang Hung is able to use magic to speak to them, and generally get the idea across that they should leave. We’re formulating a plan to cover them in disease and curses and send them back to wipe out the rest of the population, keeping them trapped in their caves in the process.

*The company's Camazotz expedition on the Isle of Dread mainland*

**Session 14 (1st Winter - 30th Winter, 1322), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Anakin, Wang Long, Wang Hung
With overwhelming force the wyvern infestation on the island is dealt with, leaving us with, among other things, a wyvern egg. The diseases wipe out the troglodytes with few complications.

We set off by ship towards Anakin’s goal, making it our own as if we do not each serve different powers. A bird scout indicates we have the choice between going through the mountains or up a river. Having a ship and little else to do with it, we choose the river. At one point we are in a lake and are attacked by giant dragonflies; Wang Hung and I cast spells to make all of us fight better and them fight worse and soon five are killed, the sixth retreating.

We reach the river’s apparent source, another lake, this one fed by waterfalls. The lizardmen investigate, and a cavern behind the waterfall is found. We follow. In the cavern are the ruins of a city and a pyramid, the latter having kirinese pictographs of fairly obvious natures: death, fire, chaos, and so forth. There’s 2 cave entrances behind it, we go left.

 There’s an archway covered in glyphs, an origin myth: these people came from here, and this place is cursed. We move forward, see two humanoid figures, animated corpses covered in vines. We see a plant, large yellow flowers, that seems to have been making them. We kill the animated corpses, which are not true undead, then kill the plant while avoiding its spores. We identify the flower as a yellow-musk creeper, which entrances its victims and then eats them and animates their corpses to defend and feed it. Digging around for the remains of said victims, we find a helmet and a sword that detect as magic as well as a number of irrelevant items and some valuables. The helmet seems to allow the wearer to comprehend languages, while the sword, in addition to being sharp and accurate as one would expect, also seems to make the wielder’s reaction times just a bit better. We return to the ship after this short recon, to go back in deeper soon.

**Session 15 (31st Winter - 38th Winter, 1322), by Aesri the Witch**

We return and proceed into the cave. We feel a bit of a draft, the cave narrows, and we encounter some giant insects. One of the lizardmen tries to speak to them, resulting in a larger one coming forward, some kind of warrior, making it clear it doesn’t want us going through its territory. Some of our people move forward, more warrior ants show up, there’s a fight. We end up killing 3 of them, Anakin webbing off the side tunnel that more of them were coming from.
Forward, we find a fork. Down and to the left seems to be a small cul-de-sac, walls glittering with what Furik identifies as pyrite. The right path proceeds gradually upwards. Eventually we end up in a sandy, wet cavern, floor and ceiling covered in stalagmites and stalactites. They turn out to be piercers, killing Aristeides and wounding others; I attempt to put every one I can see to sleep, and we get to work on healing the surviving wounded.

On the far side of the cavern is a shaft heading up. Anakin’s ogre goes to investigate it, and something jumps down, paralyzes and grabs him, and takes him up. I try and fail to choking grip it, Nathar hits it, and Steig kills it. Nathar and Ted pull the ogre out of the little pocket it put him in. Anakin and I set to work on recovering our spells. The pool below is searched, finding a corpse, calcified, with rusted sword and a small metal box. The box contains a decent sized diamond and a scroll tube, which Anakin identifies as containing 3 fairly powerful spells. The shaft goes up short distance, a stone plug in its side, some water trickling out. After a few attempts someone gets the plug open, and we proceed along the revealed tunnel, going further up.

 Eventually we find the source of this trickle of water, a large cavern, the water glittering with rainbow slick and the smell of oil in the air. A lizardman is going first, as it is water. A giant slug attacks him, the rest of us attack it, and it is quickly dead. We find some gems in the pool. The tunnel ahead is still sloping upwards, gradually, and getting dryer.

**Session 16 (39th Winter - 46th Winter, 1322), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Anakin, Wang Long, Wang Hung, Thersites, Ivoreth
After resting for the night in a defensible corner of a cave, we continue forward. We reach the end of this passage, intersecting a north-south worked passage to the east and having a small area to the north of it that’s covered in webs. Wang Long's riding wombat whines - something in the webs, smart money on spiders. The spiders are probably trap hunters, as they’re not coming out when we attempt to provoke them. Rounding the corner into the passage, we start heading north, seeing another webbed passage to our west, presumably connected. We’re considering burning the spiders out when a bunch of ape-men attack from the north, surprising our forward people. There’s a lot of them, and a figure at the rear in spiked plate armor, eyes that don’t look quite human.

 There’s a bit of fighting, they go down easy, then the guy in the back raises his hand and everyone in front of me is engulfed in darkness, me and all of mine but Furik being too far from the center of the effect. It sounds like one of the hire-mages tried to make a stinking cloud and undershot it in the dark, hitting a bunch of our people in the process. Spiders add to the confusion from both avenues. I try to counter the darkness with light and fail, the creature’s magic is stronger than mine. It then goes to dispel the cloud, which affected several of its minions, and dispels the darkness in the process. The damned wombat moves forward just enough to get between me and Furik, who was downed by a spider. I shove Stieg under it to heal her, and she recovers, a few scars but no-one hires dwarves to be pretty. Ted illuminates the enemy caster, letting Ivoreth get in a good shot as I and the sorceress put all the minions to sleep and Anakin helps one of our lizardmen. After another blow the enemy magic user disengages, but everyone chases him, not wanting word to get out to any others down here, and the ogre kills him. We find some diamonds and a magical poison on him, and he seems to be a humanish creature with noticeable lizard features. We return to the boat with the sleeping ape-men as hostages, but later we end up just killing them as they can’t be put to useful work.

**Session 17 (47th Winter - 76th Winter, 1322), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Wang Long, Ivoreth, Anakin
Wang Hung has made some potions, and we go back up the river. There’s some crocodiles, but no serious disruption. We reenter behind the waterfall, finding an ant, behaving strangely - yellow flowers growing from it. It is killed and the passage behind, full of more of them it block with webs quickly enough - it seems we’re gonna have to burn the infected bodies or they’ll just make more plants.

We go forward until we reach the room that previously held piercers and a carrion crawler; Anakin detects danger, and we find a few hidden pits have been dug in the center of the room. As we enter the room some darts are thrown, an ambush by the apes. Long and his guys try to fight them but miss their initial blows, so I just put them all to sleep, ending the combat. We throw them into the pits, which as it turns out were bottomed with spikes. The darts seem to have been smeared with feces, and I heal one of the wounded lizardmen.

We get back to the area where we previously encountered spiders, monkeys, and a snake-man, and it seems to have been cleaned up since we were last here. To the north, there’s some glyphs, archaic kirinese, just names and dates of death, hard to place. Going east we find a courtyard, open to the sky, and see a canyon north, a ruined city to the west. A bird is sent to scout a bit, but it isn’t exactly an expert in city planning. There’s a bunch of monkey noises, and we decide to camp til the next day.

Anakin is woken mid rest by a large centipede, which is quickly cut in half.

The sun is out, and we move into the courtyard, having heard some kind of whooshing noise. Getting a decent distance into the courtyard, we are ambushed from the trees; one snake-man poisoning arrows with a flick of the tongue, another a spellcaster. The spellcaster first drives most of us insane, though I, Ivoreth, and Anakin are unaffected. Furik, Nathar, and Ted’s dog all manage to attack immediately despite the confusion, as the archer fells the fire sorceress on loan from Wang Hung with a single poisoned arrow. My attempt at Holding them with magic fails, as they are just inhuman enough to be unaffected. Anakin manages to continually disrupt the caster with magic missiles so he can’t cast spells, and as half our people stand mesmerized or try to kill each other Ivoreth finally kills the caster.

I faerie fire the archer. The dog, after doing a good bit of damage to the enemy, disembowels the dwarven fury Wang Hung sent with us. I am hit with an arrow but shrug off the poison. The dog and Irwin get in good hits on the archer, but it them kills Ted with a bite. I choking grip it, and it’s soon dead.

 Ted isn’t coming back, neither is his dog, or the fury. The fire sorceress was downed by poison, so it’s easy enough for me to bring her back. The caster had some valuables on him, and both had a golden tablet that seems to give the bearer entrance to the city. Venom is extracted from the archer’s corpse, and we keep the bodies to interrogate them.

**Session 18 (77th Winter - 83rd Winter, 1322), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Wang Long, Wang Hung, Anakin, Thersites
We return to the area containing the city, ready to explore. There’s a marshy area, with an obviously well-traveled path through it to the north. Another path leads through the city to the west.

We spot a cave entrance, tracks from someone who doesn’t wear shoes and clearly isn’t baseline humanoid, but other than that too worn to tell. Fabio is sent to sneak into the cave, after being made invisible with a spell. He returns, telling us that all three entrances he could find lead to the same interior, which has over a dozen frogmen inside. Long goes in to try to talk to them, and they’re pretty dumb.

Wang Hung goes in also, casting a spell on himself to speak their language before entering. We establish that we don’t work for Horan, who apparently takes monthly tribute from them. They ask if we’re here to pay tribute to the god of the lake, and Hung plays along, saying we have, and they say that in that case we are not enemies. Hung uses this opening to propose we be friends; apparently Horan takes their eggs from them and raises the resulting offspring as his soldiers, and they do not like this. They used to own this city, and now would be killed on sight by the bears, monkeys, or their own children. They also have problems with light, which obviously limits their ability to help us, and they’re not that likely to be relevant in a fight anyway.

They point us towards “the place of towers”, and describe the situation. Horan is a tall human, a spellcaster, though they don’t know enough to tell us what kind of magic he can use, or how powerful exactly. He also pays tribute to the god of the lake, and does so sufficiently that it let him live here. Wang Long makes an offer of lordship over them, Wang Hung translates, and they respond: they’ll swear fealty if we kill Horan, don’t anger the god of the lake, and give them their city back. Might be worth it, though honestly there’s so few of them in this cave that it might be a better idea to directly play for the loyalty of their many children in the enemy’s ranks once the opportunity presents itself. Horan gives the god of the lake lots of ‘shiny rocks’, and other gifts, so there should be decent money in this project. We are told to beware the snakes and the bears, who do not shrink from the sun like these guys do.

We venture into the city just a little bit, and camp in a ruined dome for Wang Hung to recover the spells he spent in translation. Fabio is still invisible, speaking occasionally so we know where he is. While we’re doing so, something flies over, we hear flapping noises. A bird sent to scout, the lizardmen able to talk to it, says it saw some very large wasps, the size of Wang Long’s oversized wombat or so, flying in from the north. We continue through the ruined city, passing a large pyramid, not merely worn down but destroyed by something, possibly a great emanation of power.

As we go west we hear drumming from further west. Fabio, Furik, and one of the lizards hear buzzing coming from the north sky, and we all quickly get to cover. Sure enough, some giant wasps come down from the sky, land in the trees, and take off a few minutes later with riders, maybe apes. Fabio, still invisible, goes to check the place. He returns with a description of platforms of monkey-men in the trees, a ruined tower on the far side. He occasionally seems to be gesturing, forgetting we can’t see him. We consider burning the trees down the monkeys inside but decide to give the area a wide berth, given the size of those wasps.

We find a ruined marketplace, and as we begin to search it we encounter some giant animated piles of living and decaying matter. Thersites and a lizard are hit, the lizard being restrained, pulled into the mass. Long and his mount do a good bit of damage to the one trying to eat the lizard, then Anakin throws a bolt of lightning to its center of mass, which only seems to heal it. Wang Hung hits one with a pillar of fire after his sorceress hits the other with a cone of fire. I get incredibly foolish and try to have Steig finish the badly wounded one off, given how many times he can attack something in a short time. I am struck, and killed.

I wake up back in the frog’s cave, Wang Hung having raised me from the dead on the second attempt, no permanent wounds on myself, but the pair of us seem to owe the powers he serves a favor: the conversion of a people to the worship of Chaos within a hundred and one days. The frogs were kind enough to allow us to stay the night so I could be raised here rather than my body carried back to some further place for Wang Hung to recover his spells. Apparently the fight ended pretty quickly after I went down, with a few items being discovered in the marketplace. The first was a potion, which Wang Hung identifies as a potion of invulnerability; the second is a scroll, written in ancient Olman, of ward against undead, some assorted valuables, and a set of bronze bracers shaped like snakes that detect as magic. Apparently Wang Long convinced Anakin to let him try to hit him while Anakin wore them, and the ‘dark lord’ now has some bruises all over, and has figured out that the bracers protect against damage from magic missiles. For now it has been agreed that Wang Hung should have them, considering that he is the only one that can keep us on this side of the abyss. Anakin has mastered new magics, and his cloak seems to have been turned by his benefactors into some kind of undead creature.

We return to the fort, as I need bedrest. Wang Hung does potions work, as usual, and then sets to work on scrying the various relevant parties in this area.

The Gnolls: a hundred and a half to two hundred of them capable of combat, no real fortifications, a few ships, no traces of anything magic or non-gnoll. Doesn’t look like it’d be easy to sneak up on them, as they’re basically dogs.

The men from the dragon: he sees a half dozen men, none younger than middle age, interacting with the locals, but their residence is shielded. His mind lingers there for too long and he suddenly sees the face of a dragon, hears “no”, and blacks out, waking up with his inner ears destroyed. Even after magic his hearing is still a bit bad.

Darius: a thousand seasoned fighters outfitted as heavy infantry, easily three thousand in support staff, several clerics, and an elf are seen. Darius is out in the field, involved personally in everything being done. The castle itself is shielded; as is usual in such cases it’s difficult to tell if the shielding is magic or mundane. His men seem to be from two units, one a white dragon on black field, one a white star in front of a blood-drop. One of these is a Mithraite sect that doesn’t like any other divine magic, no matter how friendly it presents.

 Everyone else heads off to the Wangs’ homeland to do some recruiting and business while I rest.

**Session 19 (1st Spring - 11th Spring, 1323), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Wang Hung, Wang Long, Anakin
In the time before we reenter the city, we engage in some mercantile business of some kind, including buying opium to entice the natives to Chaos. Wang Hung attempts to scry Horan’s stronghold, predictably finding that the main building is warded, but getting a basic idea of layout and the forces outside.

We enter through the waterfall, use a web spell to bypass the zombie ants, the usual stuff. In the city, we take cover when we hear noise in the ear and catch the shadow of a winged creature the size of an elephant flying West to East. We find a compound with a pyramid at the center, which Anakin recognizes as the ‘entrance to the underworld’ we are tasked with; Horan’s compound is to the South. We camp for the night, hearing some goblins nearby but not close enough to be an immediate concern for us.

We find the gate those gold tablets are to authorize entry to, but we don’t look like the intended bearers. Fabio is turned invisible and sent to scout; bugbears, mongrelmen, and frogmen are around the place. A gorilla hiding in the rafters somehow detects him entering a guard tower but he gets away without incident, still invisible, as the alarm is rung. He is sent again to see if he can climb the walls and open the gates for us, but there’s two sets of gates, both barred.

Poking around the area a bit more, we find an abandoned temple, which we will later re-purpose. Some mongrelmen ambush us with poison darts; Nathar is hit but survives. The mongrelmen are chased but escape.

We find a path upwards from here to the plateau and then double back to the pyramid. At the top of the pyramid is a flat landing, with an altar in front of a statue of a giant demonic bat, identified by Anakin as a depiction of one of the servants of the lord of the underworld. We take our time, being cautious and expecting traps. There’s a stone plug in the floor before the altar, markings indicating that it’s a way down. Anakin’s magic detects danger in the wings on the side of the altar, razor sharp and made to move, in addition to a hollow space under the altar and the mouth of the statue, the latter having sharp obsidian teeth and traces of blood around it. These gods like blood sacrifices, though who doesn’t. It is probably made to slide up or down. I conjure an unseen servant; the trapdoor opens when stepped on, quickly resetting, and the wings come slashing down on anyone that tries to reach for the cavity in the altar. The servant can’t seem to trigger the mouth. The ogre just smashes the wings, and some manipulation of a bat face causes the altar to open up, revealing a good bit of valuables, though for now we leave the stuff explicitly devoted to this entity here to avoid drawing its ire. We capture a monkey and put its hand into the mouth; blood is drawn and the door opens for ten minutes. Seeing the mechanism from the other side, it’s clearly nonmagical and any liquid will do, with a wheel on the inside to open it on our way out.

**Session 20 (11th Spring - 13th Spring, 1323), by Aesri the Witch**

The company assaulted Horan's stronghold in a well-coordinated attack, opening the gates with scouts turned invisible and then slaughtering the various guards before capturing Horan. Aesri is busy communing with dark powers and sits this one out. Horan is released after agreeing not to try to get revenge, in exchange for intel and the closest we can get to him signing the place over. We got a vast research library, some bracers of armor taken by Anakin, a magical dagger given to Fabio, lots of valuable treasure, and his spellbook. He calls the dragon to him and flies off.

**Session 21 (14th Spring - 15th Spring, 1323), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Anakin, Wang Hung, Wang Long, Ivoreth
Time to see how this area settles with Horan gone. Anakin is doing the talking for the most part. The bullywogs will be allowed to keep sole guard of the dragon egg, and will help in garrisoning the fort. We are not to approach the egg. The bullywogs in the cave, who we met earlier, want protection from the other bullywogs and the bugbears.

The bugbears want money for their squad of guys stationed at the villa, but are bartered down on their price given how easily we killed them. We are told that the mongrelmen have no real home or community to speak of.

The cave-dwelling bullywogs will be protected, but are not to go near the egg either.

We enter the pyramid. Stone walls, glyphs on them, more motifs than messages, and warnings against curses that will befall those who delve too deep, standard stuff. The passage turns, and we find ourselves in a room with a conical ceiling, some bronze valve above the center, bronze ladder rungs running up along the corners of the room. Tap finds a secret door, and Furik can’t find any traps on it, and the ogre gets the door open after a kick from someone else fails.

A small area is revealed, with another stone door, this one opening to a large room with detailed mosaic on the floors, recognizable as a liturgical calendar. There’s a curtain of feathers, with potential danger and definite magic behind it. Sweeping it aside, we see a chalk statue, seated, with a feathered headdress and robe holding a gold sceptre, and a face identical to Anakin’s.

Anakin goes to take the sceptre, holds it up, and is instantly petrified, turned to chalk. The statue has turned to flesh, and asks what happened; it looks like Anakin wearing the headdress and robe. An attempt to dispel does nothing, and he rises, fingers clawed, the first few hits not effecting him, but magic missiles work. He attacks and tries some kind of gaze attack, which fails, before succumbing to blows. Remove curse fails to restore Anakin; Croco pries the sceptre from his hands and returns it to the thing that attacked us, and Anakin returns to life. Nothing detects as magic now, so we take the sceptre, a cultural artifact and made of pretty metal at the very least.

Back to the main corridor, we proceed around another corner and get to a chamber with a big jade artwork on the wall, a depiction of a centaur trampling something. We try to have a bunch of people lift it, some mechanism is triggered which throws it out and it shatters. We completely forgot we could use magic to levitate it. Oh well. Still worth a fair bit as material. There’s a stone door behind it, which we open after some requisite healing.

We see a mummified centaur holding an obsidian spear, surrounded by grave goods. Anakin recognizes this thing from legend as the offspring of Camazatz, and it detects as magical, and as evil undead. Wang Long and his guys run in and get attacked, Croco dies. The thing needs silver or magic weapons to be hit. It is hit a few times, and I curse it, then Wang Hung and his fire sorceress finish it off. We loot this room and get out; three attempts at restoring life to Croco from Wang Hung all fail.

 We talk to some of the intelligent monkeys and they will trade the giant wasp larva to us for spells and scrolls.

**Session 22 (34th Spring 1323), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Anakin, Wang Hung, Wang Long
Returning, we open the door past where the centaur mummy was and find stairs leading down. There are three stone basins, one containing liquid, one holding the dry shell of a giant crustacean, and the third capped. Anakin determines that the water is potentially dangerous. We find a key on a chain, and send Steveo down the 60 foot hole under the sealed one once we break the seal. A spider attacks him, and after some bait we kill it, then take a minute to cure the poisonous wound it dealt.

The bottom of the hole leads to a hill, the area around the hill looking like classical depictions of the Olman underworld. We all go down, but it’s hard to go down the hill the way one intends to, and some end up burnt by flames or frostbit by the cold area. There’s a stone door, glyphs about the Earth Mother, who is not kind. The stone room behind those doors has a glazed urn, with a pile of organic debris before it, detecting as very dangerous. Someone goes into the room, the pile starts moving, full of eyes and mouths, all the mouths babbling, attacking with acidic tentacles as the people that went into the room are driven mad by the noise. It’s killed quickly enough. The urn contains the dried and ground heart of a great warrior, supposedly to be consumed to gain his strength.

I cure the spider poison, rather than letting it just be delayed.

We go south, across the edge of the fire. We see sand, with a path full of small worms. The entire sand area, worms or not, creates a magical fear effect, but eventually someone shakes it off and opens the door at the end of it. Steveo loses his memory in the river.

Heading south, we see a pile of gold ahead, finding a secret door on the western wall of the corridor, finding stairs to the East. Returning to the secret door, it opens to a corridor, leading to a long room. There’s a pool of amber liquid in the center, red, white, black, and blue mirrors in the middle of each wall. All detect as potentially dangerous. Theogically, they seem to represent the five suns or the five ages of man that the suns have shone on. The liquid in the central pool is glowing.

Bruce is entranced by the white mirror, approaching it. It turns to liquid and engulfs him, some kind of ooze, acidic. It’s killed before he is too badly hurt.

The black mirror shows a reflection of the person looking into it, but in Olman garb. The reflection spoke, “Command me and I will answer”, but did not do anything when told to serve, continuing to just mirror the actions of the subject.

The blue mirror looks like it’s a window to water, being held back by the glass. We don’t touch it, for fear of breaking it, but Bruce sees a vision of us, further down in this place: we release a corpse which resurrects, he is drawn to it, it kills him and drinks his blood - and then he’s back here, with us, telling us what he saw.

The liquid in the pool takes like iron, and we can’t tell what it does just by dropping an arrowhead in.

Returning to the corridor, a mage tries to web the gold, it releases yellow spores, which he dodges. We burn the yellow mold away from a distance but there’s nothing of value underneath. We find another secret door, this on leading through a narrow passage to a door marked by iconography of a winged serpent. Beyond it, a circular room, a large jade death mask, and a small pyramid topped by the remains of an egg that something hatched from.

 Wang Long eats the heart powder, becoming stronger and able to talk to great cats. Steveo’s memory is restored by dispelling the effects of the river.

**Session 23 (35th Spring - 37th Spring 1323), by Richard the Witch-man**

Richard (formerly Aesri), Anakin, Wang Hung, Wang Long, Ivoreth
Wang Hung’s familiar has communed, and says there’s another secret door somewhere on the floor of the dungeon we’ve been through. Sure enough, just as people are going down the stairs to the next level, Seth notices the door, opening to reveal a facsimile dragon head, blasting steam on those descending. Furik and an Unseen Servant spell find the pressure plate and determine the nature of the mechanism. There’s some scarring on the flame sorceress and the bladedancer, and we go back to base to rest up and heal the wounded, leaving those two to recover.

We descend, Furik leading after our encounters with traps. After a sharp turn we find a pair of heavy stone double doors. Some crowbar work and they open to a partially collapsed room, full of rubble. The elves smell something in the air that isn’t healthy, though not immediately fatal, and advise we don’t spend too many hours here. Snakes pop out of the rubble; a lizardman talks to them, finding them to be a single snake with a head on each, and conflict is avoided. There’s doors west, southwest, and south; we go west.

The air gets worse, and we see a door, glyphs on it about a ‘corn-mother’ figure. We enter a room with a tree in the center of a pool, no leaves. I use magic to speak with it, and we give it some food and the promise of more in exchange for passage, but it knows nothing of use to us. We continue, eventually seeing a bunch of jaguar motifs on the walls, opening a door to a room decorated with a cat theme and a large number of preserved cats of various kinds.

On the northeast wall there’s a large carved jaguar face, a seemingly stuffed jaguar-man standing in front of it with a spear. A calendar and altar lie to the southwest. Furik, a taxidermist herself, thinks the hearts of these cats were removed. Wang Long goes to take the spear the catman is holding and it attacks him. A flurry of spells takes him down, though Wang Long is injured. The cats aren’t worth much, and we regroup after some fresh air.

We return and check the door west from the cat room. There are stone jaguar men with spears, and as Bruce goes to manacle one just to be safe he is shocked by the spear, as if struck by a small bit of lightning, thought not magically. Avoiding the spears, we proceed, and open the door at the far end to clean air. There’s human skins on the walls, a statue of a man standing on hot coals and skulls to the south and a black stone well with a black mirror beyond it. There’s a black panther towards the south, but it seems to not recognize our presence.

The well doesn’t contain water, but something glowing brightly. There’s a voice, declaring it to be the ‘Well of Wisdom’ and asking for a sacrifice; we throw a silver dagger in. It answers our questions, telling us our goal, and treasure, is in ‘the place of the seven caves’ to the east, but then it gets annoyed, reveals itself, and blasts a wave of cold at us. I am killed, as is Anakin and a mage. Steig apparently finished it off and then they got out with the loot so Wang Hung could see to returning us to the land of the living to continue our delve into a somewhat more metaphorical underworld.

We are all raised, with various complications. Anakin now scares animals, and I am now a man. Not quite sure how to process that, but it certainly could have been worse. Wang Long seems to have caught some kind of lycanthropy from the catman that attacked him, and tore someone apart at the full moon.

**Session 24 (71st Spring, 1323), by Richard the Witch-man**

Richard, Wang Long, Wang Hung, Thersites, Ivoreth
We’ve heard back from our recon people with a few interesting places to check out, but for now continue the pyramid. After feeding the tree, we find a secret door behind the large cat face, leading to a corridor with a pit for a floor, a few running across it at regular intervals. There’s a hinge on the large calendar as well, revealing another corridor and another door. Opening it, the floor is obsidian, with a door to the east and double doors south, both safe as far as we can tell. The double doors have glyphs, something about the infinite. The east door seems to just open to a small alcove.

We open the double doors and see a burial chamber; past some columns and down some stairs we see a miniature city, a dragon-themed barge in the center, a sarcophagus on it, with a raised dais holding a throne on the west wall. People move towards the center, and as they reach a certain point on the steps a wall of green flame jumps up. Clearly a magical trap; we wait, and it dissipates, but I detect magic and the whole thing is still magic. There’s a small mummy on the throne, and the rivers of the miniature city seem to be quicksilver, radiating cold. Wang Long pokes one with a pole, and the pole catches fire, but a cold, blue fire. There’s a solar calendar behind the mummy, and the mummy, that of a small male child, wears a ring, a tiara, and a pectoral. The river liquid detects as magic, the mummy and sarcophagus don’t.

We go to investigate the sarcophagus; I levitate Wang Long over it, and it bursts open as something attacks him, in the shape of a man but also made of quicksilver. Normal and silver weapons fail to effect it, and a curse of mine fails, but a flame strike and some magic missiles kill it quickly enough as Wang Long, pretty badly wounded, gets to cover.

The sarcophagus contains a scroll and a feathered skull mask, both magic, and a bunch of valuables. The three model temples around it seem to be containers; the first has some jade, the second I am foolish enough to open myself and narrowly dodge a poison needle, and a trap on the third is detected and also disarmed, leading to some more mundane loot.

We send the elves to check the small room in the previous junction for secret doors, and Seth vanishes as soon as he steps in. The whole damn room detects as magic. We’re not sure how to get him back, and leave a note for him.

Back to the cat room, taking the south door, we find a door obviously covering a pit, glyphs to the effect of ““do not open this pit unless you are willing to meet the challenge of the game”. We keep moving, though some want to try it. We see the corridor slopes east and turns down; we will come back tomorrow at full strength for Seth.

Some prophecies are attempted; Seth is alive, in the temple but deeper than we are now. The scroll is a divine scroll of Commune. The mask has a glyph on the inside, which when spoken seems to change the appearance of the wearer into whoever they are looking at, or perhaps focusing on; I am looking at the face of a cat when I use it, so the others see my face as that. I will experiment more with it later after determining if it has limited charges.

**Appended journal entry of Seth, Elven Nightblade:**

 It’s dark. The floor is stone. I advance, trying not to lose my way back to where I started in case I need to go back. I find a stone wall, decorated, though I can’t see the decoration. I keep going, the wall on my left, until there’s a wall in front of me, rubble on the floor. I find an archway and pass through, keeping the wall on my left like this is just a maze someone wanders through for fun, and keep going til I hear a click on the floor and noise behind me. A portcullis dropped down that archway, bronze by the feel of it. I find another pressure plate at the other end of this small area but it seems it just triggered the portcullis that already dropped. I try sawing at the bars with a knife, or lifting them, but they’re too thick and heavy, probably attached at the top, past the holes they dropped through. Eventually I realize I don’t have to be in the dark. I use my bowstring and a few arrows to make a bow drill, using shreds of my cloak as kindling, and soon have a small fire going. The smoke is escaping to the north, past the bars, so at least I won’t suffocate from it immediately. The wall behind me is painted as some kind of optical illusion, made to look like the passage keeps going. I restring my bow, put some cloth round an arrowhead, light it, and shoot it out into the hallway. The spot that I ‘landed’ on from the alcove is a fresco of something with a vulture’s head, holding a spear. Assorted other gods and beasts decorate the rest of the walls. I’m going to sleep now. I’ll make another fire in the morning to read my spellbook by.

**Session 25 (71st Spring - 72nd Spring, 1323), by Richard the Witch-man**

Richard, Wang Hung, Wang Long, Anakin
We go down to the next layer of this place. We have the choice between north and southeast and choose the former. We see a room with a representation of the sun on the floor in shining metal. A huge ball covered in eyes levitates from the north; Wang Long charges it and it explodes in a single hit, spraying spores over Wang Long and a few others, all of whom require us to cure them of disease with magic. To the north is a stairway down east. We double back, see that the south route, then turning east, is a slope down with brass rollers on the floor, like something is just supposed to slide down it.

We check the norther route for traps, Furik finds a pressure plate a few steps down. We go back for the cat mummies and throw them to set it off. The second attempt works; a boulder comes out of a hidden area and rolls down the stairs, making a crashing noise at the bottom.

At the bottom we see the boulder blocking a door, but with room to maneuver. We use some rubble to set the boulder off to the side so it won’t roll and open the door. The room is full of glowing beetles, and after the lizardman talks to them we pass, staying away from their nests. We continue east, ignoring a door north that would involve getting a bit close to them.

The corridor turns east and then south, ending with doors and markings for the “Chamber of the ones-who-have-ascended”. We open the door, seeing a man and a woman in feathered headdresses, both unmoving, lying down on stone beds, a crystal vessel on a table between them. Glyphs warn of ‘gods which rain fiery death’ but that kind of language is common here. The bottom of the flagon has some silver powder in it; the liquid in its contents must have evaporated withtime. Doors to the west and east from here. We wake the woman, who asks what we’re doing here and why we woke them. She points us east and we add water to the flagon, using its contents to put her back to sleep. We are told to take the southern route as we leave and not disturb them. The west leads to the upper levels. They don’t detect as magic, though the elixir obviously does.

Going east, the walls are lined with mummies but there’s nothing magic about them. There are stone animal heads attached to the wall, and we see something glinting in a bird head. It’s a gold ring, detecting as magic. Furik checks for traps, which are of course there, and Wang Long safely retrieves the ring with an arrow.

The passage splits; east and south, the east obviously being the obvious side of a secret door, and a small passage to the north. We go south, eventually seeing an obvious trap to the east, a raised dais, stuff on it, on the other side of a pressure plate. Anakin levitates Furik over and she returns with a silver coffer containing a copper figurine, which seems magical.

Further south, it turns west, to the tomb of some kind of great leader, whose army is interred with him. Opening the doors, we see clay soldiers and courtiers, cloth long since fallen from them. To the north is a door, chariots and statues in front of it, and a model palace along the west wall. The contents of the palace detect as magic, the statues don’t. There’s a person-sized model door on the front of it, not made to be opened. The ogre breaks it down. A corpse on the far side of the room inside stands up from its chair, a green glowing amulet round its neck, and starts moving towards us.

Wang Long, ever brave, rushes in and fights it. Furik smashes a window open in the palace so I can cast on the enemy, but after my attempts to curse it fail I just faerie fire it, and a flurry of magic missiles and a killing blow from the ogre finish it. Wang Long is wounded, but far worse than that each strike of the thing drained him of his vitality. The amulet stopped glowing, but still detects as magic. There’s a bunch of grave goods, but nothing else of note to me.

The north door turns west, to a stone block sealing it, likely pushed down that rollered ramp we saw above. We return to the corridor with the stone heads, taking the narrow passage north, it ending in a pit, we think the other side likely meets up with the room with the bugs. East from the head junction, we open the secret door, entering a hallway. Some bars swing up from the south and Seth is freed, apparently been sitting there since a few minutes after we lost him. I give him a magical light source for the future. To the north there’s a bit of moisture dripping around and stairs down. We leave for now, to return and finish this.

 The ring, between my feeling it and Furik’s knowledge, is of dwarven origin, conferring immunity to petrification and an increased sense of direction. I identify the amulet; when worn by undead it prevents them from being turned. The figurine has elven for “Warden” written on it, and a few small features to depress, and seems to just float around and move randomly for ten minutes when activated; a child’s toy. For now Wang Hung will carry the ring, as the only one of us capable of resurrecting the fallen.

**Session 26 (8th Summer, 1323), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Wang Long, Wang Hung, Anakin, Thersites
We’re back in the pyramid, working our way down. The corridor turns a few times, and there’s a few inches of water on the floor. We get to a room where there is a pool of water connected to this, with a small walkway around the edge of it that isn’t too deep to the ground on the south of the room. There’s a door south and a passage leading east; the walls are covered with glowing lichen and there is the sound of a woman singing, seemingly not from anywhere. The water itself is clear but glowing, nothing seemingly in it but some seaweed. Some of us skirt their way along the walkway, getting to the southern shore. Something that looks like a woman, but made of water comes out of the water and the singing stops. Her appearance charms a few of the men, though I and Nathar are unaffected. We all hear, in our respective tongues, “I haven’t had visitors in quite some time, how delightful. Some of you might just have to stay with me here”. Wang Long shoots her, the arrow passes through, and she spits at him before jumping into the pool and disappearing. A giant electric eel comes out of the water and attacks us. There’s a white cloth on a stone bench to the South, and being the only thing in this room our attention is drawn to it. Seth is charmed, so I put him to sleep, unable to get any of the others. Furik gets to the cloth first, it looks impossibly beautiful. Nathar falls into the water, and Bruce threatens the cloth to get her to call off the eel, tell the charmed to stand down, and talk. She offers to trade trinkets for the shawl and we will do so on our way out, not wanting to do this while our people are still charmed.

East, we find a room with a giant conch shell in the center. There’s a tiny crayfish in front of it, asking “who is this that disturbs the great guardian”. Furik understands it due to the helm, while Anakin recognizes it as ancient Olman. We say we’re here to free Camezotz and we are pointed to the door east, told to mind the floor for traps. The giant hermit crab that this crayfish speaks for will not trouble us.

We open the door and find the pressure plate in the floor, which probably makes the stone bamboo stalks in the wall decoration hit you. We get to a finely-decorated chamber, 6 niches along the walls containing figurines, a capped well in the center. Only mortals can open the well, the seventh cave, and free Camezotz. Anakin detects all seven ‘caves’ as potentially dangerous. The statues are all fairly reminiscent of what we have encountered on our way here, such as the naiad and her shawl. Anakin figures out that he just has to read the well’s inscription in reverse to free Camezotz, and does so. There’s a cracking noise, air escaping, and the well cap breaks and falls. Bright light and heat from below, and Camezotz rises in the form of a giant bat, fire in his mouth. We all hear him in our native tongues: “what an absolute gaggle of strange creatures. Fascinating. What year is it?”. We tell him the year, he asks what calendar, and Anakin clarifies by turning our 1323 into something that in the Olman calendar is in the late sixth millenium. He has things to do, but offers us each a draft of the underworld. We didn’t come this far to not accept. All are changed by the experience. Some grow wiser, or more charismatic, or so forth; feel years of practice accumulate in their minds and bodies, or gain strange magic powers. Others are changed bodily. I find myself once again a woman, though this time a halfling. Thersites has been turned into a lizardman, while Nathar now bears, to those able to identify it, the mark of Zahar.

On our way out, we perform the exchange with the naiad, trading her shawl for some mundane wealth and a magic ring, which she identifies when prompted as a ring of free action. Checking the rest of this place methodically, as Camezotz has told those who serve him here to not attack us, we find a statue with black sapphire eyes and a magic sword on its back. Past the fire beetles from earlier we find some ornamental stuff and detect a magic sling in their small hoard. We find a looted tomb north of the hermit crab. The mirror room is investigated; the black mirror will give someone who casts a command spell on it a prophecy, but only once per user. The blue mirror pours water, while the red mirror gives false visions of impending doom and burns at the touch. The basin temporarily turns things to the appearance of gold, but moving it would break it. We take the elixir from the sleepers, as they will no longer need it, and plan to come back for the valuable quicksilver in the model city.

 The sword seems to be particularly made for use against things from other planes of existence, while the sling is a sling of seeking. The elixir suffices for a five millennia sleep if undisturbed, and two doses remain. I practice polymorphing into a bird, and hire some new people: an ogre to act as my valet, a mystic with some knowledge of magic, and a halfling who knows how to use a sword.

**Session 27 (2nd Autumn - 4th Autumn, 1323), by Aesri the Witch**

Aesri, Anakin, Wang Hung, Wang Long, Thersites, Ivoreth
With our main task here accomplished, it’s time to clean up the surrounding territory. First patch has some giant frogs; we have people that can speak with animals and we quickly enough make a deal where we can pass through if we stay out of their way. Maybe we’ll domesticate them later. Next, in the same area there were reports of vines moving to follow the explorer. I use magic to speak with them, keeping a safe distance. They pretty clearly will just try to grab and paralyze anything warm-blooded and drink its blood. Once identified we can bypass them. There’s a ruin here, so some usable worked stone if we need it.

Next area has jaguars per the report. Wang Long goes shouting in cat speak until some come and talk to him. They’re territorial, but don’t care about the riverbed, just their hills. On the other side of the river are some carnivorous plants. We check the plants out, finding six giant sundews. There is probably some medicinal or alchemical use for them, so we leave them, but we map out where to avoid. We head back to the fort to regroup.

We are off to clear up some hippogriff sightings, hopefully retrieving some eggs we can train from the moment they hatch. We make it to where they nest, a monument of an open hand, the nests on the fingertips. There’s a bunch of initial shots with spells and missiles, and I waste time trying to cast spells that they don’t stay in range long enough for. Anakin’s ogre kills one as it attempts to dive bomb him, and Ivoreth is pretty messed up and loses his weapon. Eventually, someone is downed. Sheaug runs to him so Steig can heal him, while I cast sleep, downing 3 of the 5 remaining hippogriffs. My guys kill the last two. The healing works well enough. We take six eggs as trophies, and of the two dozen hippogriffs we find two bodies intact enough to fly when reanimated and another fifteen that can be made functional skeletons.

 I am going to begin finishing my alchemy studies under Wang Hung; there’s a few things I still need to pick up. The arrangement where Sheaug carries me and Stieg around worked out pretty well, letting us attend to the wounded immediately while I am still casting spells. Both Stieg and I move fairly slow, so this is necessary just for us to keep up with everyone else, but Sheaug is a gifted runner besides that.

*The company's final expedition, through the planetary rift*

**Session 28 (5th day of Early Autumn, 1323), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

The Legion of Doom's final days were heralded by the discovery of a small complex within a giant stone head on the Isle of Dread mainland. The company explored the complex looking for treasure, finding a glowing rift that showed a softly glowing cavern within its depths. They then fought a tremendously powerful insectoid creature, not of this world, with wickedly sharp forelimbs and pulsing energies flowing from its eyes, its hide turning aside most of the company's blades. The company slew it though they were sorely tested, and several incurred lasting injury: Anakin's ogre warrior vassal Shrek lost his arm, Wang Long's vassal Steveo the elven bushranger was unmanned, and Aesri's vassal Nathar the zaharan legionnaire was turned into a lead statue. Nathar's transformation proved beyond the ability of the company's mages to fix without lengthy research, though Steveo's ailment was cured by the healers. Shrek was provided a mechanical prosthetic arm by the company's zarahan machinist, but thereupon quit the company. Not realizing the painful outcome of meeting this creature was a foretelling of what lay in their near future, the company determined to continue exploration of the complex.

**Session 29 (1th day of Mid-Autumn, 1323), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

The company's stakeholders, save for Thersites the crocman, returned to the complex with the majority of their most capable vassals. They completed their exploration of the passages, fighting several unnatural creatures including a large number of crystalline skittering beetle-like creatures who proved very hard to land a blow on. Upon discovering a statue that radiated extremely potent magic, they determined that the statue's power could be triggered by placing valuables within its mouth. Several members tried, with varied results: Aesri was briefly pulled into a small dimension where she fought what appeared to be a were-boar--reappearing instantly after transforming it into a fish and feeling greatly empowered; Wang Hung's powerful fighter vassal Bruce's soul was stripped from his body; the Sling of Seeking that Ivoreth carried was eaten by the statue; the Delver's Ring carried by Wang Hung was lost to the same fate; and Wang Long felt a great doom laid upon him--that one day he was fated to be transformed into a statue. Disregarding the loss of Bruce and magical items to the statue, and the spellcasters' depleted power after fighting the crystal creatures, the company decided to make a short probe into the rift.

**Session 30 (2nd day of Mid-Autumn, 1328, est.), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

Five of the company's stakeholders along with sixteen of their trusted henchmen arrived on the other side of the rift, already reduced by two of their more capable members from those they had set out with, for not only was Bruce the fighter lost to them, but Aesri's vassal Furik the dwarven delver did not appear on the other side of the rift. Her fate was never determined. The company soon found to their dismay, that they had made a critical error: the rift did not allow for their return passage. Compounding upon the enormity of this trouble, the company had not brought supplies for a lengthy expedition. As troubling as learning that they had no ready way home, the company's holy spellcasters found that their connection to the gods was restricted, preventing them from refreshing their most powerful spell energies or communing for answers about their current predicament. This did not deter Wang Long from immediately planting one of his always-carried flags into the soil and claiming the cavern as property of Port Wang. The other side of the rift was an enormous cavern, softly glowing, full of mushrooms. The company determined that they should set out immediately while they were yet hearty and supplied. They encountered several powerful creatures who looked like they were mummies, yet instead of wrapping were covered in thick layers of jelly. These were dispatched in a difficult fight, but inspection of their wounds found that all who had been near the creatures were showing signs of some unknown plague, which the company's healers could only keep suppressed with difficulty. Continuing onward, the company was set upon by a number of rust monsters; through skilled tactics the beasts were only able to claim two of the company's irreplaceable sets of plate armor before being beaten down with staff, haft, and spells.

**Session 31 (2nd day of Mid-Autumn, 1328, est.), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

The company next came upon a great tower extending from the cavern's floor to its roof, with figures distantly visible in its windows and crenallations. They retreated to a nearby cluster of crystals to observe further from cover and attempt to rest prior to further action, when they were attacked by a number of the crystal beetle-like creatures they had encountered in the stone head. Fending these off, they determined the crystals were unsafe for resting. The cavern's fauna wearing the company's strength down quickly, it was decided to to attempt engagement with the tower's denizens immediately. The company proceeded forthrightly to the tower with banner aloft, and stopped a short distance away when it was clear they had been seen. The tower's guardians sallied forth in number, armed and armored for war, but the company made its intentions clear. After a brief exchange they were revealed as similar in appearance to elves, and ameniable to being treated with. Translation between the two groups was accomplished through the tower's devices, and the company agreed to enter the tower under guard, accepting temporary confinement in exchange for shelter from the cavern's dangers and treatment of the disease that many of their number still had, caused by the creatures that the Ildar named as "rot-fiends".

**Session 32 (3rd day of Mid-Autumn, 1328, est.), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

The company then spent a week or two in confinement, though it was difficult to track time in the ever-glowing soft light. Their diseased members were treated by the tower's guardians, the Ildar, whose city was a great domed one sitting atop the cavern. Upon release, they spoke with one of the city's elders and learned much of their predicament. The rift had taken the company not to another plane of existence, but to another world among the heavens, one whose lands were blasted and lifeless, far removed from the gods. By their best estimates, the rift had brought them there approximately five years from the day they had departed.
To return home was revealed to be no easy task. The Ildar were a people of great knowledge and wonderous devices, but they claimed knowledge of only three rifts on their world that would lead back to our own, none easy to reach. Only one of these would send the company back to the year 1328, and this was a portal gate in the stronghold of a strange and hostile race known as the Oard. In exchange for for the company's powerful godly healing for one of their leaders, and stating a hope that the company would wreak much destruction upon the Oard in getting to the portal, the Ildar agreed to provide passage to the Oard's stronghold and some of their potent weapons: a spear that produced powerful bolts of fire, which they called a flamelance.

The company agreed and prepared for two weeks for the assault. They sold most of their steel weapons and armor, these being greatly prized by the Ildar who lacked metal of good quality, along with the face changing mask, healing potions, and some spellcasting services. With local currency in hand they purchased additional flamelances and the packs that powered them, along with lightweight "ceramic" armor effective against such heat weaponry, and several ioun stones which could increase their vigor and absorb arcane spell energies. Additionally, they recruited into their number as a stakeholder the Ildar dwimmerknight Kirth, an outcast from his society who wished to live in a world where the gods were present.

**Session 33 (1st day of Late Autumn, 1328, est.), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

The company at last set out for their fated doom, riding in a captured Oard transportation disk that would return to the Oard stronghold by floating just above the ground. Feeling confident with their potent new weaponry in hand, they reached the Oard's stronghold after about a day or so of travel across the blasted landscape. The structure was a large metal one, the interior comprised of metal walls and circular doors that opened on their own. After empowering themselves with potions and spells, they proceeded through the site attempting to find the center where the Ildar said to expect the portal, but it was not long before they ran into one of the Oard's shoggoth servants and an alarm was raised.
A hectic running battle ensued as Oard and shoggoths began appearing from all directions and moving against the company. Some of the company's members, especially Aesri and Wang Hung and their followers, focused on trying to find a path toward the center, while others such as Wang Long's men attempted to engage the enemy. The decision to stand and fight proved a poor one. The shoggoths were horrific behemoths hardly slowed by the company's attacks, much less killed, even with the powerful flamelances; the Oard themselves were a powerful race who cut down members of the company readily while proving to be particularly difficult to kill. Yet not fighting was no assurance of surviving the ordeal. Wang Hung's vassals Tahara the bladedancer with elven blood, Marius the fighter, and Ngo Seong the eunuch-mage, like Aesri's people, did not attempt to engage the shoggoths, remembering the advice of the Ildar about their unstoppable might; this proved to no avail as a single shoggoth got into their midst and slew the lot of them in short order, with only Wang Hung's signature protective spell keeping him from joining their fate.

Only a few Oard were slain by the company's members, and not one of the mighty shoggoths were felled. Special praise must be rendered to Wang Long's capable vassal Fabio, the handsome freebooter known to many women in many ports. With a superb shot from his flamelance, he slew an Oard singlehandedly, and then in an act of highest nobility and courage he charged into the enemy ranks, sacrificing his own life to buy his lord time to escape. In this brave deed he was joined by Toka Demon-scar the fallen nobiran champion, whose act of attacking an Oard without even a weapon to hand gave his own lord Anakin enough time to reach the portal.

The deaths mounted as a few of the company managed to reach the portal. Ivoreth the elven ranger, Lord of Port Wang and company stakeholder, a peerless archer, met his end at the hand of Oard blasts. The same fate befell two of Wang Long's other vassals: the mercenary lawyer Leo who was Port Wang's founding adminstrator, and Hunter the eunuch-mage, creator of the spell Hunter's Harrowing Hail of Heatrays. All but one of the remainder of the fallen were slain by the hands of the shoggoths: the fighter Otho, the elven nightblade Seth, the barbarian Ysaafi, all of Anakin's band; Ivoreth's vassal Eyeth the elven ranger. That final death was Steveo the elven bushranger, who, horrified by the Ildar's tales of the Oard's "assimilation" performed on the bodies of the slain, doused himself with oil and lit himself on fire before ending his life by his own crossbow, avoiding the fate awaiting his comrades.

Only a scant number of the company managed to reach the portal. First was Aesri with her people: Sheaug the ogre warrior who carried his lady Aesri atop his back, the halfling bounder Vin, and the antipaladin Dim; next Ivoreth as alone as he had come; then Anakin with his henchman the croc-man Erwin, and Wang Long with his retinue wholly lost. Wang Hung was the last through the portal. He had sought temporary refuge in a small room so that he might cast a spell of skinchange. As enemies surrounded the room, he burst out in the form of a hawk, his necrophidius familiar held tightly within his talons. His newfound speed of flight and the last remnant of his protective spell permitted him to reach the portal alive in a frantic dash, though it was a near thing.

*The company's return and escape from the Rock of Akiros*

**Session 34 (3rd day of Early Spring, 1618), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

The Legion of Doom now took stock of their position on the other side of the portal. They were underground, in a room of metal and wires, glowing from the presence of many colorful blinking lights. Wang Hung and Aesri announced that their connection to the divine was restored. The core of the company had been shattered by going through the rift; many of their most capable and trusted vassals were now dead, their bodies so far away in the hands of the Oard preventing the company's holy spellcasters from returning them to life, and many items of power lost. Their location yet unknown, the remnants of the company arrayed themselves for finding a way home.
Upon their departure from the room, they found themselves staring into the faces of a trio of Oard. While still potent warriors, without their shoggoth servants the Oard were not nearly so formidable, and with the company's strength now focused against these few, the enemy was rapidly cut down. Wang Hung then determined that the portal they had emerged from must have been built by the Oard, for some purpose of incursion or invasion, and determined to destroy it. With several shots from his flame lance, he melted the portal into slag, the rift within flickering away to nothing, the lights in its room similiarly winking out.

The company then took shelter in a nearby room and barracaded its entrance, to give the divine spellcasters a long-awaited chance to restore their most powerful spells. Wang Hung then had a realization: Aesri's encounter at the statue had left her powerful enough to reincarnate the dead into new bodies, not merely return breath to the recently fallen, so long as she had a part of the body. His cousin Wang Long had kept a tooth on his person from his henchman Croco who had perished in the Pyramid of Camazotz; they could now bring him back to aid them at their darkest hour. Aesri performed her magic, though something about the spell made holding onto it impossible, and the knowledge of its workings fell from her mind like sand; after completing the spell, she would never be able to cast it again. Despite this, she succeeded and Croco reappeared, now in the form of a dwarf, very confused. Wang Long was overjoyed at his trusted henchman's return, speaking at length with him, and Croco agreed to return to his service.

Now rested and their morale somewhat restored from the appearance of an old companion, the company set off once more into the underground stone corridors that the portal room had connected to. They had not gone long when they encountered a large bull with a metal hide, known as a gorgon, that belched a great cloud of gas on them. The beast was quickly slain with the company's flame lances, but the gas left Wang Hung, Dim, and the newly reincarnated Croco petrified into stone statues. Dragging the statues back to the safety of the room where they had rested, the company steeled itself for another foray to the surface. Anakin recognized the particular stonework as belonging to the great dungeon under the Rock of Akiros, where he had once ventured as a member of the Swords in the Underworld.

**Session 35 (4th day of Early Spring, 1618), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

The company sallied forth again and almost immediately encountered a pair of warriors, who hailed them. They revealed themselves as Wyeth the elven knight, author of this chronicle, and Shev the stone giant earthcaller, who were companions. They had been brought to this underground place by some strange creature's teleportation, and were also seeking an exit. An offer was made to join the Legion of Doom as stakeholders, which both accepted. They informed their new companions that the year was 1618; the news was received with shock and great dismay.
Wang Long, upon seeing Shev's formidable strength, hatched a plan to have him pull the his petrified cousin Wang Hung out of the dungeon. He stayed behind with Kirth to build a sled from local materials while the rest of the company pressed ahead.

Initially heading south, Wyeth used a spell to open the magical lock on a nearby door which led to a room containing a number of orb creatures that raced around quickly and zapped the company with energy. These were dispatched with the flamelances, and a large metal orb was found that held various valuables, including an arcane scroll, and a magical dagger which was given to Vin. A group of bugbears was met; though they were ready to ambush all who entered, Anakin treated with them and they received him amicably, providing some information about the way out of the dungeon's corridors.

Behind a stout door the group discovered an armored skeleton warrior on a slab, which rose as they entered and attacked. Aesri cast a powerful spell against evil that dispelled the undead's life force, and its bones clattered to the floor. Wyeth took the skeleton warrior's armor and heavy sword, while Aesri took the rod the undead had carried. When Wyeth tried on the skeleton's belt, however, it proved to be not a belt of strength as he had expected, but one of feminity. Attempting to dispel the magic and remove the curse proved futile, as the magic within the belt was extremely potent. Considering it a fair price to pay for gaining such powerful treasures as the sword and armor, Wyeth accepted this as fate for the time being and accordingly became Wayeth.

Exploring further, the company came upon a rift through which they could see what appeared to be the lands of Kirth's homeland. Near it were several creatures which looked like bright red bugmen, each with four arms, who immediately attacked. They proved no great threat to the company's warriors, but Anakin's carelessly aimed spell of lightning heavily blasted both friend and foe alike. Anakin quickly expressed his chastisement, which was all the more emphatic for the many outraged warriors now staring at him with swords still in hand, and swore as recompense that he would take no share of any further treasure found until the company had made good their escape, which was accepted by his companions.

In an adjacent room, the company found the bodies of three explorers, hung up against the wall by webs. Unsettled by this finding, Wayeth doused the corpses in strong oil and lit them ablaze, upon which the company replenished basic supplies and equipment from a pile in the room, which they expected belonged to the fallen.

Returning to where Wang Long had now finished the sled to carry out Wang Hung, the company learned from Kirth that the bugmen creatures were from his homeland, and he named them as xill, saying that the corpses had no doubt held many of the xill's eggs which would have hatched in a short time, and that a great deal of trouble had been averted by burning them.

**Session 36 (4th day of Early Spring, 1618), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

With Shev now pulling a sled holding the petrified Wang Hung, along with some supplies and treasure, the company set out for a determined push to the surface. They had not gone long when some form of spirit attacked the company, which later research suggested may have been what the sages call a magnesium spirit, and it sapped the strength from Wayeth's arms before the combination of her powerful strike sending spell energies through the blade and Anakin's spells of magic missile dispersed it. Wayeth's strength returned as the company continued onward.
The company next came upon a pair of constructs in the shape of scorpions larger than horses, which were blocking a possible route upward. As the constructs did not attack them immediately, but were clearly guarding the path ahead, the company struck first, first empowering themselves with spells and then charging to the attack after Anakin cast a spell of lightning against the constructs. The company took no injury in the short fray that resulted.

Past the scorpions was not a way out, but instead a large library and alchemy, full of extremely valuable books and substances, many of them magical. Most noteworthy of the texts were a pair of treasure maps, a tome that improved research for zaharan artifacts, a partially-researched powerful spell named Rakeld's Spell of Sympathetic Sigil, an almanac that Aesri seized after exclaiming she could use to further enhance her magical studies, instructions for summoning a particular demon for powerful spellcasters, a book allowing the user to maintain more spells readied which was taken by Wayeth, and a partially-used tome that allowed communing with the gods through its pages. The lab's contents included potions of gaseous form, ESP, and healing. After looting the site, they sealed the room with glyphs of warding and rested. Upon opening the door the company found the charred corpses of several small goblin-like creatures that had activated the glyphs, which cheered them considerably.

Exploring further into the area the company found what appeared to be a small temple with many benches facing a huge black stone mirror. After staring into the mirror's polished sheen for some time, Anakin saw a face appear before him and conversed with it. Identifying himself as a great lord and servant of Chaos did not please the being, and Anakin stumbled away from the mirror as though lost in mind. Aesri examined him and declared he had been mazed before dispelling the enchantment. Wayeth then made an attempt to treat with the being, and asked several questions useful to the company before learning that the being was the Keeper of the Akashic Archives, the most powerful creature of Law on the plane. Deciding to leave well enough alone, the company departed quickly.

Following a partially caved in tunnel that required Shev to squeeze through, the company at last arrived on a higher level, dispatching some form of slime or jelly that attacked with little trouble.

**Session 37 (5th day of Early Spring, 1618), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

On the next level, Anakin declared that based on his recollection of the stonework seen during his exploration of the dungeon some three hundred years prior, they must be near the surface. After further exploration of the passages, the company came to a sealed round door, and Wayeth cast a spell to unlock it. Upon opening it, a great noxious purple cloud emerged, and the company retreated hastily, at last sealing a door to block its further advance. They set at first to wait for the cloud to dissipate, which proved fruitless as it began to emerge when at last they opened the door again. An attempt at dispelling the cloud was made to no avail, and necessitated a further retreat down the passage. At last Aesri came upon the idea of warding Shev against poison, and he entered the cloud filled area alone to find and solve the problem. He discovered the source of the cloud to be yet another rift, and sealed the door once more, finally allowing it to disperse.
Continuing onward, the company found a small room containing a chest, which they opened with care after checking for traps. A demon that seemed to be the chest's guardian began emerging, rapidly filling the air with a choking cloy of palpable evil power. Yet Aesri was the quicker, and dispelled the demon with a potent spell before it could so much as act. Within the chest were some treasures, including a folded piece of black velvet that possessed magical power.

The company then came upon a wholesome looking woman lying on a slab, seemingly asleep or in some form of stasis. The impulsive Kirth dashed forward and kissed the woman, which woke her. She expressed confusion and said she was a trained assassin who had been part of a group of treasure-hunters that had entered the dungeon, but had no idea where the others were or how she had arrived on the slab. Wayeth offered to take her on as a vassal, until such time as they had escaped the dungeon, and she accepted the offer.

The company had one last noteworthy encounter before reaching the exit, discovering a skeletal being in a brown hooded robe sitting in a chair. Aesri attempted to cast her spell that had proven so potent against such creatures, but the undead creature was undeterred and instead sent half of the company to another portion of the dungeon with a wave of its hand. Shev, the remaining stakeholder, stood pondering for several minutes about what to do in the wake of his companions' vanishing; prior to him choosing any action, the rest of the company had returned. They then opted to skirt the room's edges, whereupon they passed unmolested. Later research suggested this creature may have been what the scholars have named a crypt thing.

**Session 38 (5th day of Early Spring - 1st day of Mid-Winter, 1618), from *Deeds of the Firestarters Company*, by Wayeth, Winged Knight**

The remainder of the company's trek from the lower levels until reaching the dungeon's exit was of little note. Having found the upper levels, Anakin was able to guide them through the quickest way out. When they at last saw sunlight, they found that the path was blocked by a portcullus and a pair of strange blue men before it. Hailing the men, the company found them to be guardians of the exit, asking the company to be inspected with some devices they carried before they could be allowed to leave, to ensure they were not undead or some disguised creatures from another plane. The company found this reasonable and assented, but as they were inspected, the newly hired assassin slunk to the rear of the group before fleeing headlong back down the passages. The company did not pursue her, deciding it was for the best; who knew what foul creature that feared discovery might have been hidden beneath that face?
The company emerged into the welcome day on the Rock of Akiros, with Anakin finding it much changed from the island he knew three hundred years prior. The Skylaxian University that now sprawled across the island afforded the company opportunity to refresh themselves and find passage off the island back to the Isle of Dread, to the company's headquarters of Fort Wang. While they sailed, Wayeth and Kirth copied the two tomes Anakin carried which contained the whole of the company's spell library into their own books.

Wang Long's joy upon seeing his beloved city come into view could scarce be compared, though even it paled beyond that which beamed from his face when he saw the massive statue of his own self that towered over the city's center. Unfortunately, that joy would not last. In the three hundred years since their departure, the members of the Legion of Doom who had remained behind had been incorporated into the city's bureaucracy, with leadership of the city passing down from Thersites several generations prior.

When the current city officials heard of the possibility of Wang Long's return, they did not send an envoy, but an assassin. While the battle-hardened youxia fended off his attacker handily, it was readily apparent that he could not hope to survive against repeated attempts, for eventually his luck would turn. Nor did he possess the time to use the memories and legends the people had of his benevolent rule to establish a wave of popular support. For he had spoken openly to all of his identity, expecting a warm welcome, yet instead the city's leadership had moved swiftly to secure their control.

Wang Hung and Anakin's faces, being only on small statues scattered around the town rather than an enormous one in its center, and not being present on a multitude of murals and paintings throughout the city, were not so apt to be recognized. Both decided to retire from the Legion of Doom and stay in Port Wang. Anakin wished to discover the fate of his vassal and wife Padme, who had been pregnant at the time of his departure, along with the fate of his children. Wang Hung, upon being restored from his petrification, stated he was ready to return to more subtle political scheming and alchemy; the events of the expedition had ruined many of his carefully laid plans to acquire power more directly. He gave Shev his flamelance in gratitude for hauling him out of the dungeon, and departed with a mention of seeing what might yet be left in the Wang Mortuary of Defense.

The rest of the company decided to leave with Wang Long, boarding a trade ship to Tyrus, and arriving on the 1st day of mid-Spring. En route, they decided that the name Legion of Doom had drawn too much misfortune to it, and that they would reform under a new charter, naming their new company the Firestarters. Upon arrival, the Firestarters spent nine months researching the three treasure maps in their possession, identifying magical items they had discovered, crafting magical items, creating a new spell, building up a headquarters, and hiring vassals. Before they could set off for any of the sites located on their maps they were approached by the emissaries of several city states, who offered a significant bounty to assist against a major regional group of slaver, which the company accepted, departing for Lowport on the 1st day of Mid-Winter 1618.

As the tale of the Legion of Doom ended, so began the chronicles of the Firestarters.