Author: Blameless

Delta Company steps into the cave by way of the concealed door in the cliff face. A terrifying prehistoric sound fills the cave; Xalver, talking through the stone of farspeech tucked in Max’s pants pocket, announces he is sending Gamble and Ivor through the Minandrinal portal to rejoin the party.

Smooth talking Gamble conveys himself and his “bodyguard” Ivor swiftly through town and out the east gate still manned by Stran. Tracking Delta by tracking the bloody tracks, they get ambushed by one wolf. Hoping to avoid unnecessary delay, Gamble prestidigitates a big cat growl startling Ivor instead of the wolf. The glitchy wolf is quickly dispatched. Gamble and Ivor locate and rejoin their company in the cave. Andrakis recaps the day’s mission particulars.

Tanagra, at Ivor’s suggestion, checks the tracked blood which tests as elven, maybe human, not sheep. Southward into the cave seems most promising for locating the source of bloody footprints. Tambourine flits up to the edge of a steep drop in the path. A hiding will-o’-wisp ambushes her with a shock attack. She bashes it to death with her morningstar.

Tanagra drops down the eight feet to the path below and uncovers another will-o’-wisp sheltering along the ledge. This one is hit by Ivor’s death toll and Andrakis’s firebolt. Chainmailed Max crashes down on the will-o’-wisp from above as arcs of retributive electricity dance over his armor. Although difficult to hit, the second will-o’-wisp eventually succumbs to Andrakis’s firebolts.

Continuing south by west, Tanagra finds the third will-o’-wisp and immediately beats the charged snot out of it.

The path wends around to a chamber with a couple of large cages and a writing table up on a ladder accessible ledge. Tambourine finds will-o’-wisp number four which proves to be immune to its own terrible luck trying to launch its shock attack. Tanagra beats it all but lifeless. Gamble, still bruised in face and ego from an unfortunate nosedive down the rocky drop-off, kill-steals the will-o’-wisp with a firebolt and declares himself a hero while playing a charmingly ironic lick on his radical lute. Ivor appreciates the humor with a couple of curative pats on the back.

The levity is short lived as darkvisioned Andrakis notices the door has been torn away from the second cage, and torch bearing Max notices a vampire hunched in the open cage. Max hucks the torch into the vampire and draws his longsword. Tambourine, Tanagra, and Ivor charge past flat-footed Max to attack the vampire. Tambourine asks the vampire’s name even while hitting her with a morningstar, but the vampire does not answer that her name is Gertrude Mullinger. The vampire generally seems muddled, confused, even pitiable. Even in all the confusion of the melee it is obvious that she has turned to stone around her joints and face. But Gertrude remains potent enough to bite a chunk out of Tambourine’s life and blight Max nearly unconscious. Andrakis hurls in his returnable shadow blade. Gamble snaps out his eldritch blasts and inspires Max with a power chord. Ivor strikes with his spear butt. Relentless Tanagra action surges a fatal greatsword blow.

Tanagra and Tambourine have a look at a closed, locked door going east. Ivor examines a pool of blood on the floor just outside Gertrude’s cage, most likely where Vageiros Swiftlight met his demise at Gertrude’s stony hands. Max pokes through Gertrude’s decrepit mariner’s clothing for personal effects. Andrakis and Gamble examine the writing table upon the ledge. Andrakis picks up a key from the table and hurls it across the chamber to Tanagra who snags it out of the air without even looking. Tanagra hands the key off to Tambourine to open the door into a laboratory. Andrakis and Gamble pore over Vageiros’s journal documenting his final efforts to cure a mysterious stone disease from his dear friend Zinfiel and her companion Gertrude using vampirism, a controversial solution that The August Order of Mages would find objectionable to say the least. Just as it occurs to Andrakis and Gamble that there is likely a second vampire nearby, Ivor announces from the laboratory that he found a blind vampire inquiring about April and Vageiros. Should kill vampire now yes?

Andrakis slides down the ladder and sprints through the cage room and laboratory to intercede for Zinfiel. Gamble grabs the journal and warns against attacking Zinfiel just yet. Friendly Tanagra plucks the cork out of a keg of blood and inquires, without a trace of judgement, whether this is Zinfiel’s supper. Andrakis, catching his breath, debriefs Zinfiel.

Zinfiel and Gertrude were working aboard a merchant ship when the crew began exhibiting the stone disease. By the time they got to shore all the other crew were dead. Vageiros risked all to innovate his radical solution of vampirism here in Willowlight Cave and, at least in Zinfiel’s case, with good success. Andrakis breaks the news to Zinfiel that Gertrude’s outcome was considerably less successful, that Gertrude apparently got free and beat Vageiros to death, and that April seemed intent on protecting Vageiros’s legacy by accepting blame for his death.

The party kicks around some ideas on how to proceed from here, ultimately agreeing that all evidence of the experiments should be removed including Zinfiel. That means leaving April unjustly on the hook for murder in accordance with her own desire, but she cannot be relied upon to support the truth where it imperils Vageiros’s legacy nor the ruse that Gamble proposes to exonerate April, liberate Zinfiel, and extoll Vageiros’s legacy as righteous protector of Minandrinal from evil vampire Gertrude.

Quietreach assets are deployed in the early morning hours to sanitize Willowlight Cave and extract Zinfiel to Quietreach for evaluation and treatment.

The investigators return to the magistrate’s office. Neni helps arrange a private final debrief for Andrakis with April. He convinces April that he is hip to the whole sad story and can still offer her a way out. She declines. Her desire to accept the blame and punishment will be honored. Andrakis assures her that Zinfiel and her husband’s legacy have already been safeguarded.

The magistrate, Neni, and May return to hear the conclusion of the independent investigation: April absolutely did the murder of her husband, no doubt. May is incredulous, and Andrakis dreads the inevitable conversation when May learns of the deception. The vindicated magistrate passes sentence: extradition. Everyone expected much worse. Furthermore, the magistrate decrees a reward upon the investigators of 350 gp and a fireball necklace. What a strange town.

Delta Company, subject of an experimental task force conceived by Shadow Regent Ferin Blackleaf, will be rapidly deployed to the island city of Minandrinal, home base of perennial Quastarte rival the August Order of Mages, to investigate a murder. The client is May Phlouwurz, half-sister of half-elf April Swiftlight née Shouwurz, the prime and only suspect in the murder of her husband, Vageiros Swiftlight. Despite April’s confession to the murder, May is convinced that April is not culpable. Delta’s mission is to seek the truth, preferably one consistent with May’s theory of innocence. As April is an alumnus of Quastarte, the diplomatic tension between the August Order and Quastarte requires that Delta’s true origins and allegiances be concealed from everyone except May, already in the know, and official Quastarte diplomatic liaison Neni Moondrifter, a reliable ally. Probably.

No connection to Minandrinal from the Hall of Doors has been discovered so the team of “Silverymoon” investigators travels by mundane wizard portal to the western end of Minandrinal where frustrated May awaits their arrival. A nearby park bench permits some frank discussion among the Quastarte defense team. May fills them in.

April confessed to the murder even as she hauled Vageiros’s body from the island wilderness up to the east gate in the middle of the night. May asserts that it is impossible for her to have deliberately brought harm to Vageiros as they shared a deeply committed, loving relationship. Both were steeped in the town’s culture of arcane academia. Although May travels a lot, she kept in touch with April and Vageiros who both seemed professionally satisfied, economically stable, free of vice, and without any conspicuous new acquaintances, projects, or interests. Regrettably, the literal body of evidence was burned on the orders of town magistrate Trafaren Dawnmane upon April’s confession. May eagerly encourages the investigators to begin interviews at the magistrate’s office where April is detained. Andrakis proposes establishing a base of operations first at the nearby inn where May is already lodged for her stay.

Gladz sisters Nefu and Colo, proprietors, welcome the newcomers to the Drunken Darling Inn, if they are willing to share the one vacancy. The gregarious sisters entertain Tanagra, Tambourine, and Max at the bar with libations, food, and town gossip. It seems that the room between May and the investigators is rented indefinitely by shady itinerate merchant Vanorin. And maybe, just maybe, April had some occasion to deal with Vanorin.

Meanwhile, invisible Andrakis has surreptitiously slipped away from the inn and located the outside windows of April’s cell where he attempts to quietly interview her without attracting the attention of Trafaren, the magistrate, or Neni, the Quastarte liaison. April is too distraught, loud, and possibly crazy to keep cool. She merely reiterates her confession to the murder and draws attention to Andrakis who attempts to evade his way back to the inn. Neni psychically intercepts him outside. Andrakis cancels his invisibility and fortunately finds a sympatico ally in Neni. They discretely exchange notes. Andrakis learns that April may have had contact with a shady itinerate merchant by the name of Vanorin.

Back in the inn, the reunited party catches up at a quiet table and agrees that Vanorin is a person of interest. He has been away from town since a few days after April’s arrest, so it might not be too difficult to locate the magically locked ledger he supposedly keeps in his room. Andrakis arranges a diversion to join the sisters Gladz for their nightly basement apartment mahjong match later tonight. Until then, a formal visit to the magistrate is in order.

Max obsequiously introduces the investigators to the inconvenienced and prickly magistrate and requests a recap of the official investigation. An east gate duty guard, Stran Bronzeorb, answered a late-night banging at the gate to find April in possession of the corpse of her husband, Vageiros. April offered her unsolicited, unensorcelled, unrevoked confession of murder; the case was closed; the body was burned; sentencing was interrupted only by the arrival of malcontent May and, more recently, her obnoxious, prying team of investigators. The magistrate allows that the guard MIGHT be available for interview, not that it matters at this point. And a zone of truth will be tolerated on April only with her consent, an unlikely prospect. April herself has nothing to add to the magistrate’s account. The investigators excuse themselves but not before Andrakis upside-down reads the guard roster which places Stran at the east gate tonight at midnight.

Later in the evening at the inn, Andrakis makes good on his mahjong date with Nefu and Colo, removing them from culpability of, or interference with, the planned break in. Tanagra masterfully picks the lock to Vanorin’s room. Max’s detection of magic confirms the arcane lock on Vanorin’s business ledger on a table. Tanagra, surprised to learn she is the smartest person in the room, determines the ledger will be unlocked by a passphrase and proposes a search for clues to said passphrase. Tanagra’s heady confidence dissipates somewhat when she turns to investigate some bookshelves and conks hear head noisily. Downstairs, Andrakis, desperately trying to bring his otherwise primo mahjong game down to a losing level, slams down his tiles to cover Tanagra’s concussed ruckus. Fairy Tambourine swoops up the bookshelves of pulp fiction and shipping receipts and locates a grocery list atop, unremarkable except for the peculiar capitalization of the words TWO and FOR. Max notices a similar pattern in a letter of complaint on a side table: ONE and MISCHIEF. Catching on to the pattern, Tanagra locates a love note on the bedside table: THREE and MONEY. A quick search finds neither FOUR nor ZERO, so Tanagra incants over the ledger: MISCHIEF FOR MONEY. Max no longer detects the magical lock.

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The ledger lists several transactions with slightly fewer customers. Among the transactions are two of immediate interest: April S acquiring one keg of sheep’s blood (paid) and April S acquiring five alchemical syringes (paid). The potential reagents for blood magic are weird but hardly illegal. Tanagra replaces the ledger, toggles the lock with the same passphrase, and they exit quietly. Tanagra’s skill at picking Vanorin’s lock open is matched only by Tambourine’s skill at reengaging the lock closed.

Slightly poorer Andrakis joins the others in the dining room. Neni, waiting just outside the inn, joins them for a huddle. Andrakis and Neni are updated with the ledger information. Neni does not know of Vanorin’s other customers, nor does she deduce a purpose for copious amounts of sheep’s blood, injected or otherwise.

Neni returns to her evening as the investigators head to the east gate to meet guard Stran Bronzeorb just starting his shift along with his immediate subordinate, Ckahrll. The guards explain that nobody goes through east gate until it opens at 6 tomorrow morning; the wilderness beyond is dangerous at any time of day but particularly unwise to travel at night. Once the conversation turns to the murder, Stran sends Ckahrll away under the pretense of fetching back some coffee. Stran then relates how he was startled by a banging on the east gate which he opened to find a sobbing, confused April with her freshly deceased husband. The body had some light wounds, perhaps, but also notably misshapen as though crushed. For what it is worth, Stran does not personally imagine April is guilty of intent to murder. Persuasive Andrakis convinces dubious Stran to permit them out the east gate on their own responsibility.

Tambourine, with Tanagra’s help, immediately locates bloody footprints arriving from the wilderness which they backtrack southeast toward a cliff face. A wolf attacks Tambourine from the undergrowth. Tanagra dispatches it before it can injure anyone, but the noise attracts a particularly large wolf who charges from the unscalable cliff above. Although more formidable, this one also is no match for Tanagra’s greatsword. Andrakis’s mirror imaging reaction to the attack causes a side effect of silent invisibility. Accustomed to Andrakis’s bizarre wild magical effects, the rest of the party ignores his sudden absence and continues exploring along the base of the cliff. Max’s torch attracts another wolf which accommodatingly runs right to its demise on Tanagra’s sword. Tambourine and Max locate the apparent source of bloody footprints where they emerge from a door in the cliff face obscured by relocated shrubbery. The door swings open from an unseen force of tremendous power and confidence, that being Andrakis.

Moth and Snory check along the walls of the roper chamber for secret doors. Tango checks a water feature for the dragon compass. Scram checks for the perfect stone to illuminate and throw. Nala checks down the next passage for something new to fight. Ssatschia checks the same passage for something new for Nala to fight and finds a pair of purple wormling adversssariesss. Tango dashes down to sneak a hand crossbow bolt. The biting, stinging wormling exacts brutal revenge on Ssatschia, rendering him unconscious. Nala expedites her greatsword to dice the wounded wormling into mush. Ssatschia, borrowing life from Snory who borrows it from Kelemvor, inflicts revenge wounds on the second wormling. The second wormling finds itself unluckily attacking Tango before Moth takes it out.

Woozy Ssatschia surveys his deific reserves and suggests stopping for the night, but Nala, Moth, and Tango remain healthy enough to eagerly explore a blood trail leading to an adult purple worm. Nala lands a perfect hit on the squishy purple worm which makes no effort to avoid. It is already dead already. Nala goes in search of the worthy opponent that killed a fully grown purple worm and finds a metal dragon statue looming over a seemingly unlocked chest. Kawaii, she observes in the only orcish word she knows. Clink, clink, clink, Scram observes regarding the inviting chest and fancy statue.

Moth puts a hand on the chest which brings the clockwork dragon to tail-razor-slashing life, slashing Tango, Scram, and Moth. Nala goes to work on the dragon with her sparking greatsword. Moth joins with his sparking fists. The dragon bites and claws anyone in reach, dropping Tango. Snory sets Tango right with a healing word. Ssatschia calls for a withdrawal. Tango entreats the riled clockwork dragon for a peaceful negotiation. The clockwork dragon negotiates: LEAVE! Tango, Moth, and Nala accept. Scram, unable to help himself, shrinks the chest to half size which irritates the dragon into futilely spewing a short cone of fire over the abandoned, shrunken chest.

The party barricades in a nearby room for the uneventful night. Tango sneaks back to the dragon and surreptitiously scales its back looking for an access panel to muck up. A barely noticeable collar encircles the dragon’s neck to a latch in the back. Tango masterfully unlatches the collar, and the clockwork dragon crumples to the floor, released from the long inert commands of the twice late Phlouwurz the Skeletal Necromancer.

Nala flips the chest open and liberates the dragon compass.

With the death weaver dead and its webs unwoven, Alpha Company takes a brief respite in the altar room of the crystal key clutching bird. Rather than backtrack to Phlouwurz the Skeletal Necromancer’s lair to try out the three keys in the podium’s keyholes, the party elects to explore onward through a formidable door to the west. Nala botches her boots of lockpicking. Scram, always the imitator, suffers the same. Tango simply picks the lock, fortunately yet undamaged.

The door opens right into Phlouwurz’s lair. Too easy. Key bearing Snory inserts each key into its color matched keyhole. Snory, Nala, and Moth simultaneously turn the three keys while Tango and Ssatschia cover them in case anything hostile is released, or in case any key turner refuses his duty.

A click originates somewhere from the west end of the room. Nala follows the hint to a secret door which opens to a shiny red sword displayed on a stone table in front of a stone statue in a small room. Kenku Scram compulsively grabs the shiny sword so shiny.

Two angry specters pop out of the table. One considerable fireball pops out of Scram. When the specters do not immediately die, Scram pops out of the room. Ssatschia spiritually turns the specters, and Tango chooses the first take down with his short sword. They need not have bothered as monk Malcolm Moth finishes both with a double critical punch.

A greater wraith arrives to investigate the hubbub and drains life from Nala and Tango. Tango does not feel his usual vital self and is ready for bed but applies his short swords to the wraith anyway. Nala keeps the pressure on with her greatsword. Scram returns with the looted sun sword and wallops the wraith with surprising effectiveness. Ssatschia takes measure of the situation and blesses the party for better luck. The greater wraith chillingly touches Moth. Snory transfers some vitality to Nala who transfers her greatsword into the wraith. Scram removes the greater wraith with a vitriolic acid washing and hands the sun sword off to Ssatschia.

Ssatschia reckons the stone statue is not as attached to its stone plinth as it could or would be. Tango finds no traps on it and gives it an unproductive shove. Moth shoves it the reverse direction, but the resolute statue does not budge. Ssatschia gets low and notices a relatively thin pillar supports the statue at the center, leaving a gap all around the edges. Tango rotates the statue around and the table recedes to reveal stairs down. Feeling entirely accomplished for the day, the party secures the little chamber and crashes for the night. Responsible Ssatschia takes the first and only watch.

The rested party descends into the subchamber. Scram locates a switch on the wall to toggle the ceiling door from this side. Ssatschia and Nala probe ahead north where the stonework room enters a natural cavern. The soft flutter of furry wings and sonar squeaks augurs the arrival of a pair of bat swarms. Tango and Moth join the bat swarm melee while Snory and Scram launch spells from the chamber doorway. A giant bat bypasses the classic formation, swooping overhead into Snory. Snory gets in a parting punch as the giant bat next swoops over to Moth. The giant bat misjudges the injury incurred flying down Alpha’s opportunistic melee line. Scram prodigiously fireballs the room and that is that.

Ssatschia continues through the cavern and next encounters a waiting goblinoid sword wraith commander who commands the honorable presence of a couple of wraith warriors. Ssatschia anticipated more wraiths and received an overnight deific download of his aura of life spell to protect against any further wraith-induced life drains. The commander runs away from Nala’s greatsword and Ssatschia’s new sun sword. They pursue. Tango and Moth engage the two warriors. Scram scorches rays all over the place. The honorable wraith warriors are defeated. Jim’s magic missiles, normally problematic for Scram, actually hit on the commander. Tango’s sneaky crossbow bolts claim the final hit on the sword wraith commander.

The search resumes for the compass. A tendril from the darkness snags Tango and drags him across the ground toward a roper. Tango wriggles free and barely gets a belt buckle joke off before Nala and Ssatschia get got by a second roper hiding on the dark ceiling. Tango takes cover around a corner and sneaks in crossbow bolts. Scram splashes a vitriolic sphere of acid on the ground roper and follows up with scorching rays to really etch in the acid. Ssatschia inflicts wounds with the guidance of his divine host. Nala throws hand axes at the ground roper until the ceiling roper obliges her by lifting her to within greatsword range. Moth lands what punches he can despite the disadvantage of being restrained. The ground roper succumbs to scorching rays and sneaky bolts. Snory gets lifted to the surviving ceiling roper and conducts a fatal infliction of wounds through his moistened pinky finger. Ssatschia, Nala, and Snory fall 25 feet to the cavern floor.

Old Man Xalver translates the book liberated from the late Phlouwurz the Skeletal Necromancer by Alpha Company three weeks ago. The book reveals that APPOTHROMAX is an astral dragon and that there is a compass, probably still locked in the late Phlouwurz’s lair, that will guide its possessors right to APPOTHROMAX. These revelations come to Alpha Company convalescing at the Inn Decision’s lounge to the soothing tones of local bardic talent Doctor Djonnn. As Alpha is already familiar with the lair, it will be up to them to return with the jade key and liberate the compass as well.

Five kobolds have the misfortune of encountering the rested and fully staffed Alpha Company as they traverse the Hall of Doors back to Snakewood. Four are brutally slain and the fifth departs to tell the tale.

Back at the stone cap into the lair, Tango leads the party back through the explored passages. Ssatschia guides Tango past the danger zoned cleaning closet of sneezing, coughing dust and around the mean green moss carpet. Nala kicks the lock off an unexplored door which opens to a room of two extra long sarcophagi. Each one releases a wraith of ordinary height when opened. The wraiths are defeated without too much inconvenience. Tango loots out a couple of valuable, gem encrusted gold crowns from one sarcophagus [1200 gp each]. Moth gets a bronze key from the other. Scram grabs the golden statue from the end of the hall.

Nala and Tango explore a side hall that ends with a locked door. Once cleared of traps and picked open, the party finds a waiting skeletal executioner with an oversize, novelty great axe guarding a room of five closed sarcophagi and eternally burning braziers. Scram tries to reason with the skeleton. When communication fails, Tango sneaks an attack. The executioner brings its great axe down on Tango, but Tango leverages his timely luck to foul the swing. Nala and Moth take out the executioner before it can recover.

Tango, Nala, and Moth push lids off the sarcophagi. A couple of them release wraiths that are dealt with easily. Snory glimpses light through the wall and eventually locates a secret door which Scram opens into a rough cavern. On the other side of the little cavern is another door, secret only from the other side, that opens into the back of the cleaning closet that nearly killed Ssatschia on the previous visit. Neither Snory nor Scram recognize the danger. Scram empties an urn of its sneezing dust finding neither key nor loot. Tango rushes to shut the closet door before the dust cloud emerges and drags choking, suffocating Scram out. Quick thinking Ssatschia produces a Theki root and blesses Scram. Scram easily recovers.

All five sarcophagi are double checked for valuables. Moth finds yet another secret door into a rough cavern and explores through the other side before anyone else can see where he has gone. He wanders into a tangle of webs. A web zombie does whatever it can do to slam Moth and closes the door behind him.

Nala chases after Moth and reopens the door. Moth laconically explains he is stuck. A second web zombie slamming into Moth requires no further explanation. Snory and Tango take out one of the zombies as Scram’s fireball flies past them incinerating the room full of flammable webbing. A death weaver spider, deprived of his concealing webbing, drops to the floor. The surviving web zombie slams Moth bloody. Nala’s greatsword exacts fatal revenge. Tango’s sneaky shortswords and Scram’s scorching rays get deep into the death weaver’s business. Nala brings critical greatswording and slays the death weaver.

The cavern, secured by secret doors and cleared of dangers, shelters a short rest. Tango checks out a bird statue on an altar which is found, happily, to be holding a crystal key in its statue beak.

Xalver, flanked by Thurdram and Solana, interrupts Alpha Company, supping at the Inn Decision in recuperation from the extreme werebabysitting encounter at Wardenwood, to announce a new mission pursuant to a lingering, unsolved Opeth prophecy recorded by one Marcos Blackbramble. The Vessel Prophecy, catalog index 975K, concerns a device or item of inverted triangular shape representing specific, positional color combinations: bright bluish white in the upper right, fiery red in the upper left, deep golden in the bottom, all surrounding an orange hexagon. The next part of the prophecy entails Charlie Company’s encounter with Tophe rolling the dislocated head of Cohoreth the Herald. Tophe is represented as being pretty angry and vulnerable to the golden triangle portion. The final part of the prophecy introduces APPOTHROMAX, identified as an esoteric dragon mentioned primarily in an old diary penned by the sorcerer Mer Sageshout. A dragon worshipping cult in the Snakewoods murdered Sageshout’s son Thelvi which brought obsessed Sageshout to their underground temple and, perhaps coincidentally, to the end of his diary. Alpha Company must use the Hall of Doors to approach the temple entrance by Snakewood forest, infiltrate the dragon cult lair by any means available, and identify and gather any information relevant to 975K.

Equipped with one half of a teleportation and speaking stone set in case rescue / recovery becomes necessary, Alpha quickly and proficiently navigates the Hall of Doors and Snakewood to a stone cap concealing a staircase descending to the lair. Encouraged by the mission ease so far, confident Nala ditty-bops down the stairs where a skeletal guardian has been waiting indefinitely. She hucks a hand axe into it. Ssatschia, marveling at how quickly the cakewalk turns violent, follows down the stairs and nimbly slips around the guardian who is focused on shield bashing and longswording Nala. Seeing a couple more guardians lining up to abuse Nala, Ssatschia turns their undead attention around the other direction, and they clack away from his rebuke. Cut off from his brothers in humeri, the first, surrounded guardian is quickly defeated at the cost of Moth’s critically shattered hand. Snory, standing on a hurtful patch of mean green moss, tends to Moth’s fist while Ssatschia and Nala run down the second guardian. The third guardian has fled down a twisty corridor into a collapsed dead end where Nala and Ssatschia trap and finish it as well. The tough guardians have landed their share of damage so the party pauses to dress wounds.

A valuable, yet portable, dragon statue intently watches the party rest. An intense, but hands-off, examination of the lovely statue reveals no known religious significance and no sentience in the gemstone eyes which “watch” only in the sense that good artwork can seem lifelike.

The rested party explores a cluttered room of sarcophagi that has become strewn with broken pottery, discarded bottles, and busted implements of war. Exploring Nala soon locates a skeletal executioner lurking around a corner. The executioner ineffectively swings its oversize, novelty great axe around in the tight space. It does not long endure its poor choice of weapon, armor, and moniker as the Ssatschia-blessed party gives it a quick re-death.

Rested Ssatschia finds a cleaning closet containing several lidded jars. Lifting the lid off one of the containers of sneezing dust, Ssatschia has a vision of his own terminal sneezing suffocation. He drops the lid back on the jar, slams closed the closet door, and breaks the outside handle off.

Snory cannot shake the nagging hunch that there is more to discover in this cluttered room of sarcophagi. He tramples through mounds of debris and notices a decently concealed door. Nala and Monk clear debris away from the door. Ssatschia finds and defeats the lock and the door opens into a brief cavern. Moth traces along the cavern wall and locates another door, secret on the opposite side but not concealed on the cavern side. Moth opens the door to find a secret vault and its guardian wraith. Blessed Moth and Nala go to work on the wraith. The wraith relieves Moth of better than a third of his life essence. Moth’s magical fists relieve the wraith of existence.

Snory looks through the vault for anything relevant to the mission. An uncharacteristically tidy urn catches his attention. He collects a fancy jade key from it. Through the other side of the vault, Nala opens a door into yet another room of sarcophagi. Nala and Ssatschia pop the tops off the sarcophagi. The three occupants each feature a diadem respectively formed of gold, silver, and the mysterious yet inexpensive white polymer peeyveeyceey. These antiquities are left in place by the independently wealthy Alpha Company.

Moth reaches for the exit door and receives a full dose of poison from a concealed needle. His dwarven resistance reduces the effectiveness down to a slight tingle. The party files into a hallway that seems to be the other side of the collapsed corridor going back to the dragon statue hall. They stack up to breach the door at the other end.

Nala critically finesses the door open and beholds a flower arrangement that, upon closer inspection, is a skeletal necromancer standing confidently upon a raised dais. Nala has no difficulty seeing the necromancer’s three attending skeletal guardians. Snory, taking a page from Ssatschia’s holy book, makes his way to the dais and turns the undead into the corners of the room. Ssatschia throws a blessing. Moth and Nala choose the closest guardian and beat the marrow out of him. Not one to pick up a piano bench, Moth heads for Phlouwurz next. Nala and a pair of highly animated spiritual weapons follow his lead.

Nosy Snory finds Phlouwurz’s book of APPOTHROMAX prominently displayed on the raised dais and liberates same. There are also three keyholes in the lectern which recall the jade key in his pocket.

Surrounded Phlouwurz, not one to give up his life and life’s work without a fight, blights and blights again bloodying the entire party. Moth goes down until Snory transfers some life to his account. Nala’s greataxe, Ssatschia and Snory’s combination spiritual weapons and death tolling, and Moth’s punching wear Phlouwurz bloody. Moth goes for a stunning strike but Phlouwurz hides his ki and takes a dimension door to the other side of the room where Snory is attempting to slink out of spell range. Snory, not up for another spell attack from Phlouwurz, goes all in on a lethal infliction of wounds leaving only a pair of skeletal guardians which are quickly mopped up.

Tango and Ssatschia finish an unrelated fishing trip, scheduled as PTO before Alpha caught the Wardenwood werewolf mission, and meets up with Rodolf who sends them through the Hall of Doors to hopefully reunite with Alpha Company already in progress.

Tango and Ssatschia step out of the Hall of Doors into the dark, howling, forest smelling forest. Ssatschia lights his arm and they pick up the trail of rope that Scram left from the Hall of Doors toward Wardenwood via Drusilla’s cabin where the rest of Alpha have just retreated with the liberated children. A couple of wolves come around for an easy meal or some scritching. Tango and Ssatschia put them down.

The woods fill with darkness and the sounds of howling. Nala and Moth shepherd most of the children back into the cellar. Scram scoops up one of the rescued catatonic girls and drops her into the basement just in time to save her from the huge werewolf that bursts through the rotting cabin’s west wall, scoops up three less fortunate catatonic girls, and flees deep into the woods with them. Moments later the werewolf bursts through the north wall at the cellar door, makes an inquiry about its other children before noticing them through the gappy floorboards. The werewolf leaves emptyhanded this time but for a smack from Moth.

Moonlight filters through the trees and into the cellar of children who begin to affect a more wolf-like behavior. Snory feels vindicated yet imminently endangered as Alpha realizes they have fought so hard to liberate a dozen juvenile werewolves. Nala drags the cabin’s bed onto the cellar door. Moth adds his density to the barrier. Snory, Scram, and Nala hasten out the front door. The commotion attracts the approaching attention of Ssatschia and Tango. Ssatschia risks contact: Hail and well met, Alpha Company, anybody out there? Scram gives the only countersign he can: Hail and well met, Alpha Company, anybody out there?

Reunited outside the cabin, Snory catches Ssatschia and Tango up on the most relevant details: there are a few loose werewolves. Any of them that look like children are actually children and maybe should not be slain right away, at least according to Nala. Nala bonks a werepup out with the flat of her greatsword by way of demonstration. Bed-sitting Moth pulls another werepup, wereHanna in fact, with his dart and then punches it unconscious. Just when it seems like knocking little werepups out will be an easy task, the huge progenitor werewolf, Victoria, steps out of the forest ready to Tango. Tango announces, This ain’t no kid! Tango is ready to Victoria. Unable to land anything on monkey arming Tango, discouraged Victoria leaps away back into the forest leaving a werepup to fight her fight. Nala knocks the werepup unconscious.

Snory probes northeast and defensively points at lurking Victoria. Tango charges in with his prodigious offhand kukri. Victoria ripostes with her legendary claw attack. Again, Tango monkey arms Victoria’s onslaught and she leaps away, this time barking for help. Ssatschia offers a healing word for Tango. Scram fires up his mizzium apparatus for a little werewolf sleep action but instead evokes a chaos bolt that impacts a cold spot on Victoria. Nala charges Victoria critically and action surges her greatsword in exchange for some legendary claw action. Tango slips around and sneaks a fatal kukri, slaying Victoria.

Moth wedges the bed with some of the busted cabin lumber and steps out of the cabin to survey the damage. More werepups, summoned by recently defeated Victoria, arrive to avenge her. Moth, Nala, and Tango knock out the pups. Tango experimentally feeds one of his curse removal potions into an unconscious werepup and it encouragingly reforms back into a child. Curse removal is administered to all the unconscious tikes and they are collected into the cabin for the rest of the night.

As weariness and moonlight fight with the sunrise, Nala and Moth find trusting, endearing children in the cellar rather than rowdy, ravenous werepups. They convince the children to take their curse removal medicine. Tango hunts a bag full of breakfast birds. Scram and Snory make a discrete examination of Victoria’s remains and drag her off the path to prevent any trauma with the children.

The party and its sixteen rescued children proceed northeast to the quaint town of Wardenwood where the shacks sag as much as the villagers. Lead villager Matilda observes the loose children with some concern. Why would they be taken from Drusilla the friendly fey hag? What happened to dear Drusilla? Scram answers with an unnervingly accurate recreation of Drusilla’s death screams. Tango reaches for the diplomatic reset button.

Tango explains to the villagers that they have been saved by the noble heroes of Quastarte, their children liberated simultaneously from a nasty werewolf, a cruel fey hag, and a lycanthropic curse. Undiplomatic Snory hastens to add that it was Lydia and Remy who brought them there anyway and it is they who should be blamed if the townies do not like the results. But the villagers DO like the results and therefore bestow Alpha Company with the Saviors of Wardenwood achievement. Some administrative sorting of children ensues. Pinky Zigz rewards Nala personally with his favorite toy, a bag of painted lima beans [bag of beans]. Just don’t drop them.

Alpha company lounges at Inn Decision, the Quietreach resort founded by intrepid Hall of Doors explorer Rodolf, at a level of comfort that often precedes extreme danger invariably beginning with an unexpected knock on the door.

There is an unexpected knock on the door.

Portent has a mission that has rolled downhill to Alpha. Local townie Lyla Thornstitch reports that Wardenwood, home of her sister Lydia, Lydia’s husband Remy, Lydia and Remy’s daughter Hanna, and Hanna’s imaginary (or at least invisible) friend Whatsit, is constantly threatened by at least one werewolf. Portent and Lyla must hasten out, but Portent refers Alpha to information broker Rodolf for the details. As it is happy hour, Alpha heads downstairs to the bar.

Over mead, whisky, and prune juice, barkeep Rodolf explains the ups and downs of the Hall of Doors. The main “up” is that a person can quickly travel to and from many several places and times through this road-shaped nexus. The notable “downs” include the fact that the linearly arrayed doors stretch on for a vast, maybe unknowable, distance so some travel is still required, and the Hall of Doors is randomly frequented by belligerent things that may wish to fight. Oh, and the doors can lead to objectively terrible places like the inside of a volcano. So, for a poignant example, the optimal path to Wardenwood would be found 382 doors to the left and across from where one emerges from the Inn Decision onto the Hall of Doors. Because getting the door count wrong could be so terribly lethal, there are unique runes above the doors identifying the destination to anyone with an accurate index. Rodolf indicates the appropriate rune for Wardenwood in his hopefully accurate index. Moth carefully records it.

Rodolf dramatically reveals his personal stash of hand-crafted potions nestled in the back wall of the bar and, to demonstrate his confidence in Alpha versus werewolf, generously dispenses two double-dose healing potions and a couple of curse removal potions each to Nala, Moth, Scram, and Snory. Rodolf, using his neck key, escorts the party into his locked cellar and out to the Hall of Doors.

Rodolf returns to his inn and the party counts doors down the thankfully vacant Hall of Doors. Happily, the 382^nd door matches Moth’s rune. Scram opens the door into a forest deliciously smelling of sap and rain instead of lava. Snory demonstrates the doorway travel is reversible so the party steps into the forest and treks northeast toward Wardenwood in the late afternoon.

Scram uses short bits of rope to mark the return path in case circumstances allow any survivors to return. A well-kept cabin becomes noticeable through the trees ahead unlike the root beasts camouflaged around the party. A horrid burble paralyzes all but Snory who removes one beast with an infliction of wounds. A new root beast takes its place and they slam paralyzed Moth.

Fortunately, a lovely old grandmother wielding a handful of burning sage appears from the cabin and shoos the root beasts away. Mission focused Scram leverages grandmother’s local knowledge: Where were wolf? Were where wolf? Where where wolf? Grandmother inquires about the kenku’s obvious affliction in the blunt way old folk seem to get away with.

Grandmother Drusilla invites the party in for some restorative poultice and stew. Snory, detecting Fey trickery, subtly throws the prearranged sign of Fey to the party. Drusilla’s hospitality is declined. The party’s hasty departure is interrupted by a childlike cry from beneath the cabin. Snory’s innocent inquiry as to Drusilla’s family way is met by her transformation into a combative hag. She misty steps outside the cabin barely avoiding a face full of Scram’s juicy, melfy acid arrow.

Drusilla, working from the forest through the cabin window, puts Nala to sleep. Snory wakes Nala and she busts the lock off the basement door with her greatpick. Dropping into the basement, Nala locates twelve manacled children who quickly relate that Drusilla is very mean and they do not understand why their parents might so punish them by sending them to her. Pinky Zigz offers his toy to Nala if she would only get them home. If that were not endearing enough, Pinky follows up with a joke about a horse that steals saddlebags, but there is not time to sort that out right now because Scram and Drusilla are exchanging magic through the cabin window.

Scram breaks a vitriolic sphere over Drusilla and drops below the window. Drusilla conjures vines that hold Snory and Scram pinned while she dispatches a root beast into the cabin to beat on Moth. Nala rushes to help Moth beat on the root beast but gets paralyzed by a second root beast that rushes to help his buddy beast beat on Nala. Confident Drusilla misty steps back into the cabin to wail on Moth and then retreats, closing the cabin door behind her.

Drusilla momentarily pops in the door just long enough to attack the party. Vine grappled Scram and Snory begin timing their cantrips to retaliate. Moth and Nala destroy the root beasts. Nala meets Drusilla at the door and runs her off but slings her greatsword out into the forest accidentally and must retrieve it. Moth frees Scram and Snory from the vines. Snory tries to restore some of Moth and Nala’s health as Nala charges into the forest after Drusilla. Nala has no difficulty locating the hag, well-lit by Scram’s scorching ray, with her greatsword. Moth tries to catch up in time to get a piece of the action but surging Nala hits Drusilla in all her critical areas and slays the hag. The quaint cabin reveals itself as a decrepit hut neglected for a hundred years.

Snory searches the cabin for a manacle key but finds only a wand for Scram [wand of paralysis], extra manacles for more kids, and a bag of silvered nails. From the search, Drusilla appears not to journal her schemes or correspond by post. Outside, Moth locates a manacle key on Drusilla’s defeated remains.

The kids offhandedly complain about Drusilla sticking them with the silvered nails. Before Nala releases the children and gets the party trapped in a basement with 12 potential juvenile werewolves, Snory does a medical examination and debrief with Hanna. Finding no evidence of lycanthropic characteristics or tendencies, Nala releases the children to enjoy iron rations and potable water while the party dresses wounds and rests.

The children are arranged in a marching order for the nighttime trek to Wardenwood. Nala and Moth lead, Scram and disciplinarian Snory bring up the rear. No sooner has the march cleared the cabin than the air is filled with dislocated howling, paralyzing Moth with fear and panicking one child into fleeing. Irrational fear spreads through the party and all retreat to the house, scooping up fleeing and scared children along the way. Despite the horrible death rattling, no threat is visible. But a darkness is falling over the hut and the darkness seems to shelter the approaching problem.

Ander pushes mummies back with his force ballista, Watc wears them down with fireballs, Ten gets mostly dead Barika vertical again, and Sqyylarr and Barika finish off mummies while avoiding the trappy looking center of the room. Ash, feeling more himself, enters the temple and follows the party’s path of destruction until they are reunited in a room of dead mummies.

The party takes some time to dress wounds while exploring the vacated sarcophagi and a couple of promising treasure chests. Watc gives the all-clear on the east chest but is hurtfully double checked by dubious Barika before she loots out gold and jewels [65 gp]. The west chest, on the other hand, does not look quite right to anyone. Ander reckons that one is a mimic yet is unable to persuade still dubious Barika into opening it. Ten carefully opens it which pulls a trip wire revealing the trap pit in the center of the room. Other than the delightful engineering, no treasure is found in the west chest.

Ash notices a misaligned tile on the north wall that swings open to a room containing a glowing blue door, a hand pump dripping into a pool, a player piano, an intermittent ringing bell, a plaque contrarily warning that silence is golden, and a sandstorm that blows in and transforms into a powerful mummy lord. Mummy lords are exclusive enough that this almost certainly is the cult leader formally known as Brenin Analun. Brenin completely shuts Sqyylarr down with a paralyzing fear. Ten drops his twilight sanctuary to reverse Brenin’s effects and bolster the party’s good health. Knowing a boss fight when they wander into one, Ander empties a wand of magic missiles with a side of force ballista on the outside while Watc immolates her on the inside. Barika chops in for the kill exposing insides and outsides.

Mindful of the plaque’s value on silence, Ash and Sqyylarr free up the pump handle to stop the water dripping. Ander liberates a blue crystal power source from the ringing bell’s red and black wires. Watc and Ten deactivate the player piano with a single-throw switch of indeterminate number of poles located just under the keyboard. As the room gets quieter, the door gets less blue. Once Ander pipes down about the amazing blue crystal power source he studies with his arcane goggles, the door’s blue glow fades entirely and swings open.

The next room features a prominent urn upon a pedestal upon a dais. Around the back of the dais is a pile of treasure [135 gp] which no one believes to be benign despite Ash’s repeated assurances to the contrary. Ander eventually scoops every last bit into the handy haversack and strangely survives.

Ten, floating above the urn in search of helpful markings, becomes convinced the adventure cannot proceed until the urn is opened. There is no disagreement that the lid is securely fastened in place by magic, but the urn, pedestal, and dais appear to feature no operator, obvious or secret, until Ash notices the lid can be turned by hand more or less in the conventional sense. Patterns on the lid display to indicate progress as the lid is toggled left and right. Eventually twisting the pattern right-left-left-right releases the lid revealing a pulsating mass of flesh. Ten reckons this is Brenin the mummy lord’s phylacterized heart and bids Barika to destroy it quickly. Barika buries her axe in the center and a cloud of dust envelopes the party.

Once the dust clears, Ash scoops out a glowing orange talisman from the urn. Because that orange glow matches the entry door as well as the mummy room door, Ash figures good things will happen when they come together. With a slight detour to explore the sloping hallway from which Brenin emerged, the party returns to the unopenable entry door which easily opens in the presence of the talisman.

Watc conjures up a floating disk to transport the elfgate pieces into the temple and the party returns to the orange door in the mummy room. This orange door opens easily as well revealing the love of Ander’s life: three Eberron airships parked in an enormous hanger. He flips a lever on the wall which fortunately opens the roof instead of something inconvenient or painful. Clearly this is the correct location for the elfgate as the party realizes this hanger is the enormous block significantly rising from the lake that no one has talked about. Sqyylarr and Barika unload the pieces and stack them per Ander’s arcane directions. Ten chains deific guidance wherever bad luck threatens mission success. Once complete, the gate powers up blue on one half and green on the other. Ten lobs a potato at the green side and it bounces off the wooden surface. Watc hypothesizes that potatoes are not people and bounces off the green side as well confirming to her that she is not people. Ten patiently suggests the blue side might work better so Watc lobs the potato into the blue side. Moments later, the potato emerges from the green side followed by Portent Order.

If the party will set aside its potatoes for a moment, Portent has something to show them through the blue side. Everyone follows through to Quietreach, a generally secret, possibly cloud-based, substitute for destroyed Quastarte for conducting Opeth research pursuant to the defeat of Pohet. Portent points out the landmarks while leading the party to the Inn Decision to meet the local leaders.

Arcane Regent & Leader of Quietreach
Name: Marpunith Quentin
Race & Class: Tiefling Mage
Marpunith is the leader of Quietreach. Easygoing and lighthearted most of the time, she runs this place with ease & efficiency. Almost as if by magic!

Divine Regent
Name: Thurdram Ingotshaper
Race & Class: Dwarf Cleric
Taciturn and serious-minded, Thurdam is regent over all things Divine. Despite his standoffish demeanor, he is always ready to talk shop, and his knowledge is apparently limitless.

Shadow Regent
Name: Ferin Blackleaf
Race & Class: Gnome Rogue
If you don’t know to look for Ferin, you won’t see her. The head of the Shadow host is as quick as a cat, and as silent as a winter’s night. Keep a tight hold on your purse!

Primal Regent
Name: Falenas Norfaren
Race & Class: Elf Ranger
Falenas is most often found outdoors, if he is to be found at all. Quiet and focused, this Ranger is far more comfortable in the woods surrounding Quietreach than in a classroom. Skilled in tracking, hunting, and scouting, he always finds what he is looking for.

Technomancy Regent
Name: Solana Fistspark
Race & Class: Human Artificer
Solana hails from Eberron, and you can always find her tinkering with some kind of gadget. Jovial, if somewhat distracted, she’s always ready to show you what she’s working on. Given the amount of soot she’s usually covered in, you might stand back!

Martial Regent
Name: Hidhall Aacis
Race & Class: Dragonborn Fighter
Gregarious and loud, Hidhall is always hailing someone from across the room. Even when that someone is standing right in front of him. Short-tempered, and quick to show off his fighting prowess in the tavern, Hidhall is nonetheless an exemplary leader when training or leading troops.

Psionic Regent
Name: Oreborn
Race & Class: Warforged Monk
Dry as old parchment and sharp as a tack, Oreborn leads the psionic host. She has forgotten more about psychic powers than most people will ever know. Her acerbic wit can sting like a whip, but she means well. Plus, since she probably knows what you are thinking, you better watch it!

Innkeeper
Name: Rodolf Khussom
Race & Class: Human Fighter & Bard
Rodolf runs the Inn Decision, and is always ready with a tall tale about his lifetime of adventure and mayhem. Considering the magic and mystery that lives in this Inn, let’s hope he can live up to all his stories! Rodolf has been in charge of the inn as long as anyone can remember. Rumor has it he was here and running this inn when the first Quastarte transplants arrived.

Chief Archivist
Name: Professor Xalver Bafflestitch
Race & Class: Gnome Cleric
This notable Gnome archivist has ostensibly been with the Caravan since the beginning of its journey. A book enthusiast and lore aficionado, there is little Xalver can’t locate in a book. If he’s read it, he can find it!

FOXTROT

Armin finishes up his project atop the second tanker wagon despite Wall’s critically placed handaxe protruding from whatever the Quori regard as a vital organ. Armin teleports to his lifeless brother and spits some vitriolic screams. Running bear Briar arrives at the tanker in time to personally experience the exploding device Armin installed on the tanker which sends flying bear Briar and spinning Toffee across the desert without the benefit of teleportation or a soft landing. Not to downplay the force of the explosion, but it was not the level of catastrophe that would ensue from igniting a tanker of vis.

In dramatic timing that no one could write, Gghrondeneuxs the dracolich and Gghuarrlongh The Undying pop out of a sunburst portal and Gghrondeneuxs uses his line-shaped lightning breath to slice the top off the third tanker finding it equally devoid of vis. With no time to even check the first tanker, cheesed Gghuarrlongh The Undying and Gghrondeneuxs pop back out and take their portal hole with them.

ALPHA

Tango parkours his way up to the howler and gives it the double shortsword treatment. The howler seems unresponsive and makes no attempt to evade Scram’s crafted fireball. Nala fatally cuts through the equally stunned lamia and continues her swing into the howler. The howler and ogre begin to emerge from their disadvantageous condition as Tango, his blade divinely guided by Ssatschia, and Moth beat on the ogre. Ssatschia fatally bites into the ogre and feels pretty good about that. The Howler in turn bites into Ssatschia but finds itself ultimately claimed by Tango’s shortsword.

DELTA

The desert army of gnolls, jackelweres, scorpions, and cyclopes seem inexplicably stunned. Andrakis cautiously pops in only long enough to shadow blade his gnoll antagonist. Ivor throws a high level infliction of wounds on his cyclops antagonist. Individual retribution continues with Tanagra bloodying her gnoll and Tambourine bloodying her jackelweres. The area stun wears away as Gamble incapacitates one of the cyclopes with hideous laughter and urges the group to overcome individual enmity and focus their efforts for efficient kills. Max focuses on slaying Tambourine’s jackelwere. Andrakis focuses on critically injuring a scorpion. Tanagra focuses on her own gnoll and slays it. One of the gnolls loses focus and attacks one of the scorpions who retaliates on the gnoll and stings itself dead. A jackelwere focuses on fleeing a cyclops who take the opportunity to kill it and charges a gnoll. A scorpion grapples the berserk cyclops. Although probably not how he intended it, Gamble’s pep talk certainly proves effective as the party destroys what few desert critters do not mutually annihilate each other.

Tanagra and Tambourine co-critically snap the last, laughing cyclops out of his laughter. The serious cyclops pounds irritant Ivor into the ground for old time’s sake. Gamble puts Ivor upright again and Ivor thwacks the cyclops out of his misery with his spear butt.

It was not pretty, but any giant desert melee one can hobble away from is a win.

CHARLIE ET AL

All companies eventually return to the caravan for debriefing with Portent and Xalver. Portent invites questions and Ten certainly has a couple: Who knew Armin was a traitor, and when did they know it? Well, The Opeth sensed the nefarious presence of Pohet through the book mobile at an early stop but only had resolution down to 144 feet square. This necessitated the contrived leak for those suspects which ultimately revealed the Quorish duplicity of Armin and, eventually, Hansel. Oh, and surprise! Orange crystalline god/goddess The Opeth has been along with the caravan the whole time! Ander is just relieved he is not the traitor since he accepted a blue shard from Tharizdun’s prison buddy Pohet a.k.a. The Dreaming Madness, for whatever good it does.

Ssatschia has a question: What is a The Opeth? Portent winds anecdotally back to the epochally ancient history of Tharizdun infamously opening the living gate. Ssatschia hits the fast forward. The Opeth is a crystalline god of goodness who sought its material plane counterparts and more recently identified Quastarte as an ally against the nefariously evil designs of evil crystalline god Pohet.

Ander has a follow-up question: How many days does it take to revive a shield guardian? Portent defers on that for now.

Ash ponders: How can we trust The Opeth? Grateful Portent enjoys the surge of endorphins from Ash stepping firmly into his expositional amusement park. It is time for slightly greater transparency. Ash begs to not know the location of the vis. Portent explains that the caravan has been the subject of a The Opeth prophecy:

So in a tangle of temporal paradoxes and dependent variables, the caravan was created and dispatched to fulfill the The Opeth prophecy and finds itself now at a new beginning expressed only as a prophetic ellipsis. That new adventure begins with the revelation that the tankers are not empty at all but contain the sixteen segments of a large elf gate to be delivered, assembled, activated, and entered by Charlie, sans manufacturer’s instructions, deep within a temple located to the south through the Scimitar Spires and along the Sea of Shadows. The temple might be known to some as the ground track beneath the floating City of Shade from which one could be transported to or from said city. The city is long missing or lost, but the temple remains as a sealed tomb to protect a secret imminently discoverable.

The non-Charlie balance of the caravan’s enduring membership files into Xalver’s book mobile and transports to an undisclosed location as Charlie sets off with the wagons, newly upgraded with panoramic sunroofs.

After a couple of unremarkable days of travel, Charlie arrives at a door into the temple carved into the rock edifice right at the edge of the Sea of Shadows. The door is locked by an obscure, nearly unsolvable puzzle. Or it would be if Ten had not immediately worked out the riddle posted above the door which clicks right open at this solution.

The party elects to leave the elf gate bits with the parked wagons and hobbled beasts long enough to take a little reconnoiter inside the door. Ash still seems a little out of it since the recent battle and remains behind to guard the caravan and convalesce.

Inside the long entry hall of alcoves, the temple appears clean and kept aside from one obvious corpse decomposing on the floor. The ceiling and doors are pale marble, the walls are brown granite, the floors are a lovely terracotta, and the fancy entry doors lock irrevocably behind the party, trapping them for the indefinite future. Ander examines a dedication on the north wall to Brenin Analun, leader of the sacrificial keepers of this tomb. Speaking of tombs, one of the alcove statues is actually a pygmy giant skeleton activated by the use of the front door. Despite its long hibernation, it competently and unhesitatingly scimitars Sqyylarr and Barika. Ten highlights the skelly with a radiant moonbeam and the party kills it in the usual manner. Watc repeats the experience by approaching the north statue and the fighting starts over again. To Ander, a pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure so he attempts to preempt the next two statues. One is just a statue, the other is a skeleton who is beaten by enraged Barika. Ten channels a massive proselytizing cure from his deity Ilmater, the Broken God, Incarnation of Passion, informally Steievv Teh Deity to his friends.

The party figures out that one might simply avoid a fight by avoiding the statues. Either that or the skeletons grow weary of the fighting. Attention turns to the long-deceased desert adventurer on the floor, presumably unable to avoid the skeletons and their scimitars. Whoever he was, he brought along gold [70 gp] and a hidden sapphire of which Watc relieves him.

Sqyylarr and Ander detect that a rune engraved on the floor and emanating strange energy portends a trap. A great and ornate but homely statue beyond the rune portends nothing notable at all.

The party examines a door south and, finding it benign, moves on through. Sqyylarr calls attention to a low, horizontal, oily seam along the south wall of the corridor. Ander produces an ironically-named pole of collapsing, extends it from one foot to ten, and probes the floor ahead of Sqyylarr. Barika does the same with a javelin. It seems perfectly safe for the poles, but a spinning saw swings out and down the south wall when Barika gets too close. Reductionist Sqyylarr dashes along the north wall in total safety until she misses noticing the oily seam on the north wall from which a saw swings into her legs. Who would even contrive such a cruel arrangement?

Watc carefully surveys the room ahead and relates these features to probing Sqyylarr and Barika: there are five open sarcophagi, a couple of treasure chests, a door to the west that has the same orange appearance as the one-way entry had, and a section of dodgy looking floor in the center of the room. Barika cautiously edges into the room and is promptly murdered by five waiting mummies and their ten rotting fists. Barika is dust.

Ten encircles the remaining party members with his twilight sanctuary and refreshes his magical shillelagh. Sqyylarr smashes the nearest mummy. Watc fireballs the room.