Dungeons & Dragons

“Rollen,” says Simon enigmatically, “you always get me into trouble.”

Having twice failed to gain the confidence of the gargoyle receptionist, the adventurers elect to make another tour around the perimeter of Stone Monastery, known locally as the Mountain Keep and rumored to be under lich management. Even the more law abiding of the group reluctantly agree that forced entry remains the only option to continue investigating the Black Earth cult. But first, Argyle requests a quick look at the garden statuary around back.

Meega peeks into the garden, since Argyle is too short to do so and Rollen is too tall to do so, and sees not quite a dozen lifelike statues artfully arranged across the neglected garden with well-worn paths woven among them. Simon picks the lock by shrinking the gate, clever as it is noisy.

Intently scrutinizing the statues that will surely spring to life at any moment, it takes some time before Barrin and then Allana notice the pair of elemental gargoyles closing in on the party atop the garden wall. Rollen picks up on Barrin’s subtle cue of frantically pointing right at them and issues fair warning: “Hark! Gargoyles, if you want to harm us you will have to go through Meega first.” Observing the determination in their little stone faces, Argyle puts Moradin’s blessing on Barrin, Meega, and Rollen as they brace for conflict. Simon, lately interested in reading books instead of burning them, manifests a wizard’s kitty cat.

Gargoyle One swoops in to attack Rollen as his notched arrow sparks across its stone skin on one side and Meega’s axe gouges the other. Gargoyle Two rips into Barrin who returns with a flurry of punishment that seems somehow less effective, but does throw the creature off balance enough that he and Allana, throwing a parting critical Eldritch blast over her shoulder, can escape its attention. Meanwhile, Snowflake the cat pads up to One and zaps him with blue and white beams that cause a little bit of frost and confusion while Rollen ducks away, marking him as quarry and takes advantage of Meega’s distraction. Argyle lays some divine healing on Barrin and utters a non-randomized, surprisingly appropriate, dwarven curse backed by the full faith and credit of his mighty hammer swing into Two while a refreshed Barrin runs back in with a well-struck dagger blow. Simon throws a squishy cold hand on One, answering an old riddle regarding the sound of one clapping hand. Rollen, Meega, Simon, and Blameless erode One; Barrin, Allana, and Argyle crumble Two.

Three doors enter the building from the garden. Allana listens at the most eastern and maybe hears footsteps, maybe not. Simon drops a “cat and mouse” pun and rearranges his familiar from feline to muline to sneak in to see what is what, and what he spies with his beady little eyes is a hooded alchemist sprily dashing among tables, scrolls, and potions in a retro split level laboratory. Simon recalls his familiar and announces the coast is clear, reporting that there is just some elder cloud of volatile organic compounds floating around through the first door. Barrin listens at the next door over and hears only the ocean beyond.

Rollen enjoys some fantastic beginner’s luck picking the first lock but realizes an arcane locking spell holds the door closed. Simon, efficiently twinning his “lockpick” spell, opens both doors simultaneously by shrinking them off their hinges. Time stands still as an incomprehensibly powerful killing cloud engulfs Blameless, Argyle, Rollen, Allana, and Meega. Meega manages to stagger away as Barrin and Simon make for the garden exit. The lich paladin appearing momentarily in the doorway does not even look fatigued from this impressive arcane display.

Argyle, Rollen, Allana, and Blameless return to the loving embrace of their individual creators. Meega, Barrin, and Simon sprint over the horizon to fight another day.

As the Ice Shield Orcs retreat over the horizon, Rollen redeploys the archers evenly around the defenses. The second wave, forty strong, crashes from all sides almost immediately, as Kurbin Dellmon predicted. Orcs quickly breach the defenses and wreak havoc in the compound. Arrows, bolts, and magic fill the air but the relentless onslaught falls villager after villager, claiming even Kurbin himself. Again team Dellmon repels the attack with an impressive count of 30 Orc casualties, a victory muted by the forever loss of 3 villagers.

The smell of burning grass interrupts an uneasy reprieve. Lookouts spot an Orc creeping up through the smoky cover to torch the building sheltering the women and children, and the building begins to catch fire. A bucket line forms while Barrin leads the sheltering civilians to another building. A new line of Orcs appears through the haze on the opposite side and the third wave falls upon the ranch. Veteran Argyle implores the defenders to hold the walls and focus on any Orcs that get through.

Meega and Barrin rush to hold the left palisade while Argyle and Simon hold the right. Blameless, now inexplicably a hue of blue, and Allana shift spell targets as needed from the center. A particularly nasty couple of fiery orbs to the left from Blameless reduce a pair of otherwise healthy Orcs to nothingness and a few of their cohorts suddenly remember other appointments and depart. Simon’s witch bolt latches on to a couple of unlucky blokes on the right and lightnings their troubles away. Barrin, wrecking face inside the Orc line, rains a flurry of blows upon three Orcs leaving just one very injured Orc. Allana joins the right palisade and bludgeons Orcs with her magical shillelagh. Rollen calls for reinforcements to the left but his archers’ confidence fails when Rollen’s bowstring snaps from the constant barrage he serves up. Meega ducks around a swung axe that whistles past and buries into the face of the attacker’s adjacent friend. Adding injury to insult, Meega ripostes her own axe into her would-be assailant before he can grieve his error. The brutes surround and overwhelm Barrin but even so they begin to withdraw, and Argyle rescues Barrin.

Another night passes and the ranch awakes to a line of hundreds of Orcs on the horizon. A horn blows from the Orc line and is answered from the other side of the ranch, a duet of doom. Rollen recognizes and answers a third horn, a foursome of fortuitousness as the abundant forces of High Forest flank through the Orc armies with complete surprise and win the day.

Once the Orc forces are dashed, a contingent of Elves, answering Dreena’s summons, visit the ranch where Rollen catches up with them on his 4500 year absence. The commander, Lqogqynq of Leafy Bottom, answers what he can and furnishes Rollen with two quivers of arrows. Overhearing the unanswered questions of haunted keeps, a nearby rancher realizes these are questions HE should be asked and jumps in with a little information:

The Knights of the Silver Horn built four keeps to protect the valley, but years of neglect fertilize rumors of haunting. Rivergard Keep lies north along the river in the Sumber Hills and is held by unidentified adventurers. Druids occupy Scarlet Moon Hall, and they are praised for restoring the balance of nature there. Feathergale Spire is (er, was) held by a really nice society of air mount enthusiasts, widely respected for their charitable fundraising for orphans. Finally, according to rumor, a lich commands nearby Mountain Keep. The Vale of Dancing Waters, although not a haunted keep, also features prominently in local lore, but the Besilmer dwarves residing there, the rancher warns, would not welcome uninvited visitors.

Confident in the security of Dellmon Ranch, the adventurers resume their original junket to the Sacred Stone Monastery. They arrive a short time later to find a large stone building with a red tile roof nestled in a hidden natural amphitheater. Stairs lead to three entrances, the central main heavy wooden door and two smaller entrances to the west and the more decrepit east. Hoping to meet someone on the outside to gauge the local monastic receptiveness toward travelers, or to mug for his uniform, the group circles around the building finding a rear garden and servants’ entrance but no monks.

At the main entrance Rollen knocks on the door. A golden mask answers through a sliding slot that they are not an inn and can accept no guests. The slot shuts abruptly.

Simon knocks on the door. The mask again answers through the slot and Simon explains that the air elementalists sent the adventurers to disrupt the monastery but instead they would like to join this fine medley of meditators. The mask runs a quick LexisNexis search on the group and claims they would not be suitable members.

Rollen offers an unbroken arrow, point first, and this time, in addition to the shutting slot, there is the additional uninviting noise of a set door lock.

Rejected, the adventurers retreat to the east door to reevaluate.

Welby surveys the obliteration of the Feathergale Society and, comprehending the destiny of his new friends, imparts that each of four elemental cults occupies a haunted keep. Then he is gone.

Interrogation of the captured Feathergale knight begins with a request for clarification regarding Howling Hatred, but the knight finds his captors unworthy of exposition. Thuy the initiate, rattled by Simon’s puppeteering of Merroska’s corpse jumping off the bridge, corrects the misconception that the Feathergales eat people, which is some relief to soup eater Rollen, but he admits they do ritually sacrifice people on occasion. Offered freedom, the initiate fanatically jumps off the drawbridge but the faithless knight flees into the Sumber Hills.

Before his theatrical departure, Merroska’s person was relieved of a Besilmer helm, handed to Argyle, of unknown magical properties and an onyx bug, which Simon pockets.

Simon reckons maybe two knights and Savra remain in the spire. The Sumber Hills offer no safety so the spent adventurers hole up in the first floor dorm to rest. Blameless, unscathed by battle, monitors the window while Barrin camps the stairs. Barrin, after an hour, observes a knight sneaking down the stairs but at that moment Rollen screams himself out of meditation from a nightmare of a rushing black skull and the frightened knight hurriedly retreats back up the stairs. Another scream, this time not from Rollen, pierces the tower from the roof a short time later.

Barrin tiptoes through the darkness, up the spire stairs, to investigate. He finds no one on the upper floors until he reaches the roof. From concealment on the stairs he can see a person kneeling out on the western ramp, slick with blood and holding something he cannot distinguish. Barrin withdraws to the first floor and whispers to Blameless that even the Sumber Hills Ankhegs would be safer than this wack-a-doodle spire with its screaming, kneeling blood people up all hours of the night. They scrum the issue for six more hours while Rollen monitors the sleepers until everyone awakens refreshed and ready to face whatever horror awaits upon the roof.

Methodically ascending the spire, the party search the rooms for intel and loose change and find some of each. There are several copies of a primordial devotional to Yan-C-Bin and some journals kept by Merroska. One entry in particular interests Allana: Prophet Kalinoth, D.Div., who Allana learns is a lost spirit to the fragment of elemental evil, issues a warning about the forces of Opeth. Other entries refer to sacrifices made to Yan-C-Bin and a letter found on Merosska’s desk incontrovertibly associates the nefarious Howling Hatred air elemental cult with the Feathergale Society.

Alone on the roof, Savra, in a dreadful state, remains kneeling on the ramp. The adventurers emerge from the stairs and unhesitatingly gush buckets of empathy for their dear friend Savra, now clearly holding someone else’s lungs in each outstretched hand, much like her victim gushed buckets of his vital organs and fluids all over this miserable scene. Argyle searches his spellbook for something helpful, but finds nothing for freeing a thrall. Meega tries an open-hand orcish technique without results. Blameless attempts a high level command spell like he has seen Allana perform, but Savra sees through his poor execution. Simon makes a psychic link, but he too is enthralled and begins to suffocate as the elemental’s true form reveals itself to him. Desperate, Allana touches the Opeth crystal to Savra and Yan-C-Bin retreats. Broken but at least in her own senses, Savra implores the group to flee urgently, so Argyle scoops her up and they make for the stables to escape on hippogriffs and vultures. They spirit Savra to the Lance Rock portal and through to Ardak’s cottage. The mounts are freed except for Holly the Hippogriff whom Simon brings through.

Ardak arrives home more surprised at seeing the party back so soon than at Simon’s prankish pet filling his living room. Ardak calmy retrieves a feed bag for Holly who is magically pulled into it. He pulls out a pouch of halfling tobacco and offers some to Blameless who helps himself but is not pulled into the pouch. Ardak casts sleep on Savra and listens to the executive summary of the Feathergale adventure. He appears uncharacteristically flustered when presented with Thurl Merosska’s journals and urgently excuses himself.

During Ardak’s absence, Rollen peruses the primordial manuscript acquired from Welby and is astonished to discover it is a history of High Forest, his own homeland. Impossible though it seems, the ancient elemental battle recounted an estimated 4500 years ago exactly describes the battle Rollen personally recollects a mere 20 years ago.

Ardak returns with an elf wearing a long robe, introduced as the chancellor of Quastarte, and two Spellguard who depart with Savra on a litter. Argyle objects to the martial incarceration of his ward but Ardak assures him she is good hands and Argyle acquiesces. The chancellor’s attention turns to Allana and he strongly advises her to not publicize Opeth’s presence as it puts Opeth in danger. Simon proposes changing Opeth’s name to Jerry which solves everyone’s problem except Jerry’s.

After the chancellor leaves with a swoosh, Rollen asks Ardak why his memory is 4480 years out of time. Ardak responds, in his enigmatic fashion, that the world is a mysterious place. Following that bit of profundity he indulges the usual Q&A. The black arrow Rollen carries cursed him with the rushing skull nightmares, but the effect is temporary. Ardak identifies the unidentifiable helm as a helm of identify. The proper deployment of the onyx bug, he tells Simon, is to throw it on the floor and shout the elvish word for “flying”: RIMPA. The result of doing so is not tried, not queried, and not explained, so that little experiment awaits some future desperate crisis.

Rollen requisitions two arrows from quartermaster Schmeck and they suspiciously regard each other for a couple of awkward minutes before Rollen departs, checking himself for planted medallions.

Eager to perpetuate recent successes, the gang departs right away for the Sacred Stone Monastery, home base of the Black Earth. Ardak advises caution, but it is their best lead for discovering the fate of the Mirabar delegation and for unraveling elemental evil.

Traveling from Lance Rock, following the Sumber foothills east toward the monastery location, the party traverses a dry gulch and spies a column of smoke ahead. As they approach a flame-engulfed home and consumed barn, Barrin warns Rollen to take care because wood elves burn faster than regular elves. Allana frees the panicking, penned livestock. Simon, acquainted with fire safety, breaks out a window first and throws open the door. Smoke billows out while Simon, Barrin, and Rollen billow in, low crawling beneath the smoke. Barrin locates an unconscious half-elf and drags him out where he is revived and cries out, “Maygan! Maygan!” Simon searches for Selwyn’s hot wife, but no other occupants are found in or around the unburned part of the house. Around the back of the house Blameless determines the fire was intentionally set and Rollen, first familiarizing himself with Meega’s feet, searches until he locates the departing tracks of four Ice Shield Orcs with a stolen horse and wagon, the two ranch hands Obb and Fipp Lavelle, and Selwyn Anderil’s pregnant wife Maygan, alive and well riding in the wagon.

Always eager to help strangers in distress by clobbering their antagonists, the hero party, plus one, take off after the bandit party and soon overtake them trying to free the stuck wagon from mud. Maygan appears safe in the wagon but the ranch hands lay collapsed in the mud while a couple of Orcs lockpick them with their boots. Rollen draws on the nearest of four brutish Orcs and offers to negotiate for the purchase and safe return of hostages. Although out of turn to announce a reaction to the offer, they appear mean and unpersuaded. Blameless, preparing the diamond component in his purse, offers them one last chance to yield. Predictably, they do not avail themselves of an easy out. The closest brute takes a couple of menacing steps, staggers from Rollen’s skewering arrow, and then atomizes into a fine pink mist from Blameless’s fiery orb. A couple of javelins fly at Rollen in answer and then it is business as usual with dagger-punch-punch from Barrin, axe gash from Meega, hammer smash from Argyle, fire bolt from Simon, crackle blast from Allana, and they all fall down. A tap from Argyle’s hammer spares the final Orc for a little chat.

Okkkkkkk, as he self-identifies, freely answers questions. The Ice Shield Orc raids are a response to the strange weather Gruumsh sends as an inconvenient truth for the humans encroaching on this Orc-claimed valley. Also, it so happens, Orcs like taking things and slaves and generally causing mayhem one ranch to the next. What activities and weather they would prefer in the absence of these little opportunities for rowdy antisocial behavior is not clear, but what is clear is that these Orcs are not pursuing some lofty pogrom of elemental evil.

Blameless taps his wrist and wishes Selwyn the best of luck. Selwyn, freshly reunited with his wife, babby, horse, wagon, and ranch hands starts to bemoan his exposure to danger and lack of any place to go, literally a 45 minute walk from his ranch. Blameless inhales deeply preparing to deliver a scathing diatribe on the socioeconomic risks of the entitlement mentality but he is instead peer-shamed into an escort mission to the wealthy Dellmon Ranch, regionally famous as a bastion for Orc resisters.

The party, plus five now, arrives at Dellmon Ranch, though it looks more like a fortress with its compound surrounded by three buildings topped with improvised battlements all protected by defensive trenches and comprehensive fencing. They are greeted by Kurbin Dellmon, of Dellmon Ranch fame, who refuses to leave. His daughter, Dreena, has reached out to the elves of High Forest for assistance in the struggle. As if to punctuate the level of tension, Kurbin’s impetuous son, Fendric, runs by and punctuates Okkkkkkk right in his last remaining hit point. Meega, suddenly a bit self-conscious, is assured she probably won’t get the same treatment because she looks fairly human.

Kurbin offers hot ranch stew for those who want it but Rollen, with his tactical intuition, wastes no time throwing together a master class for the ranch bowmen, and not a ranch moment too soon as ranch scout Flameran Verminbane returns with ranch news of an immanent ranch attack. Rollen deploys most of the archers on the west building to engage the approaching Orcs while the large surprise force attacks in earnest from the east. Fortunately range and line of sight permit engagement to either side.

Rollen has the distinction of delivering the battle’s first hit. Blameless tosses Meega his crossbow, but she swings it around like an axe, sending a quarrel into the dirt. Allana, Simon, and Blameless dispense magical streaks, bolts, and orbs into the hoard while Barrin and Rollen pluck at their harps of arrow launching. With the momentary problem of having no injuries to tend, Argyle blesses Allana, Rollen, and Blameless so that Moradin guides their aim. Meega, beyond even great Moradin’s power, swings the crossbow fiercely sending a quarrel sailing far into the sky. Barrin jumps from the roof to mix it up Old School, that being a school from the time before ranged weapons. Simon creates madness among the attackers inciting green-on-green violence. Allana shifts her hex and streams ribbons of ouchy energy. Blameless, lobbing fiery orbs two at a time, unexpectedly flares in blinding light. Simon enlarges Rollen. The Orcs breach the obstacles and begin pouring into the compound. The hoard slay a couple of ranchers, permanently decapitating one of them while Argyle rushes to save the other. The main attacking force chooses that moment to pull back and retreat, presumably at the sight of Large Rollen ethereally illuminated by a devil-shaped lamp below. Barrin, Meega, and Large Rollen mop up the two remaining Orcs from the feint attack.

Kurbin dampens any celebration with a warning that another wave will be upon them soon.

The evening calms after an eventful day of soup smelling, question dodging, and manticore chasing. Back in their dorm room, the adventurers share and process two new revelations. First, the Sacred Stone Monastery, headquarters of Black Earth, lies east-southeast of the Feathergale spire. Second, the secret elemental ambitions of the Feathergale Society likely bode ill for ongoing relations. Surely nothing will come of this until morning.

Barrin and Rollen volunteer for watch, but this does not allay their skull-rushing nightmares. Screaming interrupts Barrin’s watch and the two watchmen depart to investigate without alerting the sleeping party. The extraplanar sound of facepalming awakens Blameless and Allana. Blameless taps Meega awake while Allana considers the merits of waking Simon. Argyle begins donning his armor.

Out in the feasting hall, Rollen and Barrin encounter two knights up late smoking and joking, but they know nothing about any screaming and suggest everyone returns to bed. Rollen demurs, but Barrin continues down the staircase, seemingly no concern to the knights at all. Blameless, emulating social behavior, emerges and leans casually on the stairwell smoking his churchwarden yet closely monitoring the knights for signs of aggression. Rollen, master deceptor, sleepwalks around the corner and down the stairs, “Gravy … gravy … gravy …” The confused knights grow increasingly concerned as Allana and Blameless dash off downstairs to help the sleep-walking elf find gravy. The ruse really thins out as Meega runs through with no pretense at all, and Argyle emerges in plate armor looking for the latrine, and Simon sprints past with Argyle’s shield, pardoning himself to the knights, and surfs the shield down the stairs, posterior over teakettle, to the stables.

Outside the second floor kitchen through its closed door, Barrin overhears discussion of an offering that will please the Lord Commander. Barrin anguishes over how to intercede in what could be the ritual sacrifice of a person, but problem-solving Rollen simply opens the door and sleepwalks into the kitchen. “Gravy … gravy … “

“HELP! THEY’RE GOING TO EAT ME!” pleads a diminutive, bound figure. Rollen marks one of five initiates standing around poking at their victim and readies his bow. Barrin leads the investigation with his dagger point at Five, Blameless chills him out, and Meega axes him a question. As Five falls dying, Allana enters with her mommy voice to settle everyone down, scolding that the Lord Commander shall be very cross to find his initiates fighting each other like this. The persuasion works on most of the initiates, creating a pause long enough for Welby, a vocal advocate for continued violence, to free himself with Barrin’s help. Welby jumps up, menaces formerly-calmed Two, and, hardly alarming at all, runs up the wall. Four, ignoring Allana’s soothing plea, stabs at Barrin which triggers an arrow sailing by from Rollen and frozen fingers from Blameless. Two, gaining clarity from Welby’s attempted stabbing, petulantly throws his dagger into Allana and is hit with an arrow from wall-standing Welby. Barrin and Meega end Four while Blameless and Allana focus arcane magic on Three who is yelling for help out the window. Barrin retires Three and delivers his trademark laconic catchphrase, “Shut up.” The unlikeliness of reconciliation dawns on One so he grabs a rolling pin and swings at Barrin. Meega finishes One and decapitates Two, sending his head into the gravy. Rollen fumes at Meega for ruining the gravy but at least wacky wall walking Welby is uneaten. Following hasty introductions, Meega inquires about the nature of Welby’s visit. Welby changes the subject and reveals offhandedly he knows the location of the haunted keeps for the elementals and possesses a book in primordial. With no time to unpack that bit of compact exposition, Blameless offers his last gold piece and a common dagger in trade for the book. Welby seals the deal with a shrug and everyone runs out of the kitchen.

Rollen runs downstairs to the stable to find Simon excitedly babbling at the irritable stable knight. The knight, fed up at last, holds Rollen and Simon at spearpoint and offers to go fetch all the other knights. “To do what?” Rollen inquires innocently. Good to his word, the knight departs up the stairs followed by Rollen’s cautionary yelling. Simon and Rollen set about constructing and optimizing an escape vehicle comprising four hitched hippogriffs with one deployable folded boat in tow. Design flaws, vis-a-vis the exterior door dimensions and aero-gravitational properties of the boat, result in late changes to the specifications, but the assembly eventually is completed and accepted as-built. Rollen, sharing a quiet moment with Simon to admire the finished product, laments, “I’m going to miss ya’, Simon”.

Meanwhile, Argyle has held the third floor stairwell, waylaying the two smoking knights. They learn the difficulty of wounding Argyle through his armor, but their persistent and savage attacks slowly wear him down even while his hammer answers their aggression. They trade hit after hit until, to break up the repetition a little, Argyle lets loose some lightning and a knight tries a ball-of-air spell. Unbeknownst to them, the stable knight climbs the stairs behind Argyle, unbalancing the contest.

About that time, Barrin remembers the cleric and charges up the stairs to aid. Sensing the emergence of a new alpha, Blameless, Meega, and even Welby follow Barrin to stab whatever he stabs. With some difficulty in the cramped stairwell, the partially reunited group overwhelms the surrounded stable knight and one smoking knight. The remaining smoking knight retreats as mad clanging erupts, urgently summoning everyone in the spire to the stable.

Allana, directed by her concerned patron to check on the recent endeavors of Simon and Rollen, surveys the improvised chariot in the stables. Extrapolating the probable results, she rhetorically asks, “Good king, what are you doing…?” Rollen explains the design even while he securely tethers Simon to whatever fixed object he can find; in the miniscule chance something goes wrong with the flight at least some of Simon won’t fall into the canyon. Allana magically commands Simon, convincing him to delay his launch plans at least until the rest of party joins them. Eager for the flight, Rollen uses Simon’s Argyle shield to make a summoning ruckus.

As he passes the first floor headed to Rollen’s clanging summons, Barrin runs into three initiates led by Magic Girl who were roused from sleep by someone banging on a shield in the stables. One of the initiates asks, “What insanity is this?” which is pretty laughable considering he lives in a remote tower with a paramilitary society eating people and riding vultures. Meega makes some small, failed attempt at deception but then hews to her raisin debt, striking initiate One with two axing motions and killing him. Barrin runs into the newly opened space between the two remaining initiates and uses a double-punch-stab to knock Two back into his room and over a bed. Meega kills Five. Blameless runs for the main entry door, shocking Magic Girl as he runs past her. Argyle hammers Magic Girl and she retorts with a thunderwave. She runs for another room with Argyle in pursuit and evades him. Meega intimidates initiate Two into surrendering and revealing that Magic Girl is actually Hurricane Girl. Two is tied up for further questioning later.

About that time, hurricane winds outside the spire become noticeable. With Barrin’s help, Blameless lowers the drawbridge despite the winds, voiding its warranty, but it looks too dangerous to cross. Down in the stable, Rollen similarly concludes that flying the hippogriffs would be fatal in the strong winds violently shaking the doors. Upstairs, Welby loots the locked chests and discovers a couple of cloaks he knows are of the Howling Hatred as well as some gold pieces for his personal charity fund. Pursued by a knight, his plan to escape down the outside of the spire is similarly thwarted by the winds outside.

Everyone regroups in the entry foyer. Merosska’s voice on the wind decries the betrayal of hospitality and Savra’s voice urges surrender. Rollen, returning the courtesy in primordial, urges the surrender of the Feathergales, answered by windy laughter. Simon, unfamiliar with primordial, offers to help Rollen with his food allergy. Now realizing that their speaking is overheard, Simon and Allana telepathically link the adventurers to discuss their cunning plan, or any plan at all for that matter. With the cloaks and Blameless’s “alter self” spell, pulling a Star-Wars-Chewbacca-Death-Star-Prisoner deception is possible, maybe even an Ocean’s-Eleven-SWAT-uniform-vault-heist, but then how to capitalize on the momentary confusion? It seems unlikely Merosska will be tricked long enough to permit vulture-jacking on this scale.

Merosska’s wind voice, tired of waiting, says they will come to the foyer for the final epic battle. The wind suddenly stops, opening the possibility of fleeing out the front door, but the Feathergales have a flying advantage whereas in the foyer there is a bottleneck of the stairwell and doors. Rollen, concerned the hippogriffs could be used against them, runs down to the basement and panics the beasts into scuttling each other.

As promised, knights begin pouring into the room, not just from the stairwell but from the adjacent room with a window. Readied actions from Welby and Allana strike the first wave with a shortbow arrow and eldritch blast. Rollen and Barrin clash with knights in front. Blameless puts twin chromatic orbs into Bravo and Charlie and the ripple of wild magic calls a unicorn into existence right in the middle of the foyer. Simon, busily firebolting a knight, hears a voice requesting that he please move aside. Argyle, hammering Charlie, hears a voice offering aid. Barrin, Rollen, and Meega continue soaking up punishment at the front, holding back the arriving knights. Meega ripostes a miss from Alpha. Hurricane Girl blasts a jet of air from the side room knocking Simon unconscious into the foyer wall. The unicorn revives him and proceeds to charge Charlie and stomp him to death. Speculation of the unicorn’s name prompts him to introduce himself, but his name can only be experienced as a feeling of warmth and peace. It probably translates differently to poor old Charlie who was one day from retirement. Rollen chases the troublesome Hurricane Girl out the window, puts a well-aimed arrow through her dark and windy heart, and she plunges to her demise on the canyon floor. The furious battle for the foyer continues.

Outside, meanwhile, the unicorn has teleported Simon and Barrin to the far side of the bridge to restore them to good health and they identify the cloaked figure of Merosska standing on the bridge, potentially cutting off the only escape route if things go pear-shaped inside. Although confused by the presence of a unicorn, Merosska keeps his composure as he frost rays Simon. The unicorn entangles Merosska while Simon critically firebolts him and Barrin runs up to strike as does the unicorn. The doors open as the foyer is secured with the surrender of the last remaining Feathergale knight just in time to witness Simon rid the world of one Lord Commander Captain Merosska. The two captives, one knight and one initiate from earlier, are made ready for interrogation.

Welby, only barely surviving the long night, stumbles off into the sunrise, foolishly declining a thirty second unicorn ride.

Refreshed from a long rest on technomantic beds, the adventurers awake to find Ardak making breakfast make itself. While lesser mortals slept, Ardak deconstituted Allana’s Sword of Psychosis, separating the Psychosis from the Sword, into an amulet of the encased amber crystal strand with which Allana has become so fond of conversing and a nice longsword with which no one speaks at all.

Concerned about the protective properties of Blameless’s bathrobe, Ardak hands him a Helm of Defense [+1 AC] embossed with the Quastarte Coat of Arms and the School of Technomancy motto, “Primus Automatus”.

Rollen and Barrin each recall a nightmare of a skull rushing at them.

Ardak identifies Barrin’s dagger as magically stabby [+1 to hit, +1 to damage] and entertains more questions over breakfast, the executive summary being that Red Larch is a thread to be pulled from the greater tapestry of elemental evil.

Argyle grabs a few healing potions for the direst emergencies while Rollen checks in with his quartermaster for an allotment of arrows. Quartermaster Schmeck, no relation to Captain Smeck, really gives Rollen the hot light interrogation about his recent activities. Rollen whips out his Spell Guard org scroll which indicates Schmeck is not in Rollen’s chain of command. Schmeck retorts by calling Ardak a senile old emeritus and inexplicably offers Rollen a medallion. Rollen, pretending to study the capacity of his quiver, delivers a brutal snubbing, completely indifferent to Schmeck’s advances, and departs with the arrows to alert Ardak of this nosy malcontent.

After a brief travel refresher from Ardak, the group departs through the portal back to Red Larch and heads to Gaelkur’s tool supply, barbershop, and not-quite-noon tavern. Blameless spots Larmon Greenboot from his shepherding duds and signals to Rollen with a nudge and a cough. Rollen asks around for a cough drop for Blameless and introduces himself to Larmon who confirms his finding of four recent burial mounds in the hills. Rollen further inquires about the Believers, alarming three patrons in the corner who depart suddenly. Simon presses Larmon for information on the three, but Larmon balks a little at being mobbed by a group of strangers with a bunch of questions in the middle of his brunch ale. An appointment is made for the following morning when Larmon will guide the group out to the graves.

Taking Larmon’s point, the party breaks up into smaller task groups. Simon dons his purloined black Believer’s cloak and follows the three suspected Believers to four warehouse storage buildings, at #20, where he encounters Bethendur, proprietor and accomplished closer. They negotiate a deal for 500 cubits of storage and, while Bethendur maths up an estimate, Simon greets the three Believers from Gaelkur’s. They are really put off by his cloak and, to be quite honest, the rest of him as well. To patch up the faltering relationship, Simon offers the promise of special information regarding the Delvers. It seems like that entices them back a little, but the discussion really cheeses Bethendur and drives up the price of storage to a flat fee of 600 gp however short the term.

Meanwhile, at the stoneworks, Allana, Meega, Rollen, and Blameless meet a rotund whirlwind of a woman, Albaeri Mellikho, proprietor. Blameless repeats some rumors of strangers seen at the quarry and Mellikho confirms she has heard these reports from her workers but doubts the veracity of the claims; quarry workers, she explains, are a drunken and disgruntled lot. Blameless reads the subtext and tries to ease his way out of the meeting without openly confronting this suspected Believer, but Rollen employs a more direct approach and bluntly mentions the secret passage between the chamber of moving stones and the quarry. Gasping, Mellikho begins choking on the cupcake she’s noshing and things get very tense until Blameless can usher Rollen out with a bit of pig-elvish.

Meanwhile, at the Helm at High Sun, Argyle orders up some authentic ale from the fatherland. Barrin requests the same libation, but the paperwork for indemnification and waiver for non-dwarves cannot be completed in time. With their finger on the pulse of Red Larch’s crossroads, Barrin and Argyle overhear bits of a discussion between a priest and a caravan guard about Beliard and an unnamed, but notable, dwarf. Argyle and Barrin join the conversation, as folks do in taverns, and the four get linked in with each other’s career aspirations. The other party members rejoin at the tavern and agree to have a look at the quarry hillside this evening after Argyle takes a wee beernap.

That evening, dividing up by specialties, Rollen, Barrin, and of course Simon stealth off to have a look at the hillside where the stone-masked strangers were reported while Argyle, Meega, Allana, and Blameless luxuriate by the campfire off the western road. Rollen and Barrin conceal themselves in shrubbery but Simon takes a different tack, prestidigitizing a stone mask for himself and standing quietly in plain view. The ploy works perfectly as a rotund stone-masked woman emerges from the quarry and makes her way toward Simon. “A believer approaches!” she calls, holding her arms aloft. Simon remains still, unnerving the woman. “Arigo…?” she probes. Rollen coughs, “Mellikho!” at Simon and the encounter ends abruptly as the woman flees. The three investigators return to base and, with the cozy campfire already going, the party camps the evening away until time to meet Larmon in town.

Again, Rollen and Barrin each recall a nightmare of a skull rushing at them.

The group departs Red Larch with Larmon and his sheep toward the hills in the east and, after a time, arrive at a barren hilltop where there are four rock-covered graves. A tower rises above the hills a couple of miles to the north and grasslands, where Larmon grazes his sheep, stretch out from the hills to the south.

In the absence of any marker or other clues, the group begins the grim task of excavating grave number one in which they discover a dwarf, wearing artisan robes, slain with arrows and crushed. Tangled in his beard is a Mirabar medallion and some goat jerky. The second grave contains a human warrior whose uniform indicates she is of the Mirabar army, and she also was slain with arrows and crushed. The third grave contains a human warrior who wears a black cloak and stone armor bearing the symbol of the Black Earth, and he also was slain with arrows and crushed. The last grave contains a human wearing a white robe with black feathers and a small necklace bearing a symbol unknown to the party, an inverted triangle topped with an upwardly bent cross. No obvious relationship among these grave occupants can the party determine other than the timing and cause of their deaths. After Argyle presides over the recommittal, the adventurers turn their attention to the tower.

Larmon relates that the tower belongs to some feather knights who keep hippogriffs, but ominously warns that the interposing Sumber Hills poses terrible mortal danger to anyone who would be fool enough to … but Simon is already double sprinting toward the hippogriffs.

The group makes its way through hills and valleys until, about halfway to the tower, a low, distant rumble pauses them long enough to wonder, how distant was that rumble? Just when they reckon everything is probably fine, and that rumble must be for some other group of adventurers, two giant insectoids burst through the ground, unsuccessfully spitting acid at Rollen and biting at Meega. Barrin, wielding his new dagger, lands several blows while Allana sends the other a blast of eldritch. Simon hastens Meega and Rollen so they move with impossible quickness. Rollen puts an arrow deep into his quarry and Meega uses giant slayer to slay one of the giants, but a third pops up and bites Allana. Blameless frostbites it to slow its attacks and it does not survive Simon’s missiles and Barrin’s dagger. The last Ankheg burrows away leaving a hole and Argyle positions himself at the hole ready to whack it, but the devious bug burrows up behind him instead. Allana poetically sprays it with poison. Word of the beatdown spreads to the other Ankhegs and there are no further attacks.

After covering the final mile, the group finds itself at the foot of a lowered drawbridge spanning a sheer drop to a brilliant white limestone spire, resembling a sword piercing the blue sky with enormous vultures circling around the top. Unaccustomed to the kindness of strangers, the party hesitates safely off the bridge, exchanging hails and waves with knights at the top. Simon crosses to converse with Savra about any low mileage hippogriffs for sale. Determining that the situation is safe for the rest of the party, which is to say that their malingering is holding up potential hippogriff transactions, Simon waves everyone across to the tower.

Savra marvels at the fortuitous timing of the visit, as they happen to be preparing a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Feathergale Society. She leads the group through a limestone and marble hall, where hangs an elaborately wood-carved eagle, and up to the roof of Feathergale Spire, featuring a grass lawn, gazebo, a fixed spyglass for observing Ankheg attacks in the surrounding Sumber Hills, and crenulations with four launches. Here the adventurers meet the Lord Commander, Captain Merosska, who explains the Feathergale Society are aerial mount enthusiasts from Waterdeep. Merosska can shed no light on the nearby burials, perhaps observable through the spyglass, but he kindly invites the group to stay overnight for the anniversary celebration.

Excusing themselves to settle in before supper, the group hangs out in their dorm room, generously vacated by a member of the society. Blameless does some light snooping, expecting to find some letterhead or motivational posters with the newly-discovered insignia from grave four, but he finds only locked chests. Casually hanging out in the feast hall, Allana inquires whether a white robe with black feather mantle might be associated with the Feathergales but again nothing is learned about the fourth body who was dressed as such. Simon is FINALLY invited to go down to the stables where the stablemaster introduces him to a hippogriff, in the approved fashion naturally.

Rollen stops off at the kitchen to emphatically relate a latent penchant for gravy, but the local custom strangely does not serve gravy with soup as wood elves do. Fortunately he travels with a personal supply of packet gravy.

A bell summons the celebrants to the feast where they find seats and the soup is brought out. The Society eccentrically inhale at their soupy aromas for an awkwardly long time, long enough that an equally awkward conversation breaks out seeking to establish how the adventurers find themselves in the Sumber Hills, in Red Larch, or anything else they care to offer, which is not much. Fortunately just then someone bursts into the room yelling that a manticore is on the move, granting reprieve from the weird feast. The Lord Commander holds aloft a ring, promised for whoever brings him the manticore’s head.

Meega pilots a hippogriff with Blameless riding along, and Simon pilots a second hippogriff with Argyle riding along. Then, on giant vultures, Rob with Rollen, Chowd with Barrin, and Fenegar with Allana. There is also a solo knight who does not introduce himself competing for the ring.

Simon and Argyle are first to locate the manticore, and the ensuing dust-up seriously injures Simon. With this new perspective, he begins to examine his life and considers just retiring to a beach with his newly acquired hippogriff instead of chasing around manticores. Observing his plight, Meega determines to keep a greater distance while Blameless launches an ice orb, but the strain of casting at this range inadvertently creates a swarm of illusory butterflies and flower petals. Allana’s and Barrin’s knights close in for some good attacks, but close enough that the manticore returns damage. Rollen has superior range but cannot capitalize on the advantage. Blameless hits the mark again and this time two flumphs materialize. Barrin worries about their little flumph families left behind, but unempathetic Blameless gesticulates emphatically at the evil manticore. The flumphs choose life and flee. Allana ends the manticore and it begins to lifelessly tumble into the deep canyon with all competitors in nosediving pursuit.

Fenegar and Allana are in an early lead alongside the anonymous knight. Chowd and Barrin pass them easily and maintain their lead all the way down, but Chowd misjudges his speed and heavily impacts the ground. The vulture, who had only one day until retirement, dies instantly. Barrin and Chowd are thrown unconscious and it suddenly occurs to everyone else to slow down.

Rob’s vulture lands and Rollen runs toward the crashed vulture where Argyle also tends to the dying. Blameless fetches the manticore head, tossing it to Meega so she can fly it solo without overloading her hippogriff.The injured are recovered to the spire where the Lord Commander’s rejoicing leads to an important disclosure: the location of the Black Earth, a rival of Feathergale, is the Sacred Stone Monastery.

Retiring to their room, some of the group are intercepted by Savra who, in a hushed voice, seeks to recruit them to the Feathergale Knight’s secret organization attempting to control elemental air for the destruction of the enemies of Waterdeep. It seems the allure of hippogriffs has coincidentally led the adventurers to some startling discoveries as the elemental evil tapestry exposes another thread.

At the farthest end of the underground chamber network, the party finds itself in a royal crypt of dwarven construction. Meega lifts aside the cover on the dwarven queen’s sarcophagus revealing skeletal remains wearing a fine dress, an amulet and, almost escaping attention, invisible lady gloves. Within the opposite sarcophagus, the king’s mortal remains wear a fine suit of plate. A small vial peeks out from underneath. Simon unsqueamishly rakes up the valuables and passes along a message from Moradin successfully suggesting Argyle should wear that nice, kingly plate. Blameless finds a false bottom in Mreegar’s empty sarcophagus concealing a well-used battleaxe, as suitable for Meega as it undoubtedly was for Mreegar, of magical bone with a leather lanyard and a braid of purple hair.

Backtracking to the main crypt, a search of the ten lesser, yet still noble, sarcophagi turns up a brass box which Simon opens face-first to reveal a wooden box. Blameless borrows a gold piece from Rollen and puts it in the box. When Simon closes the box the gold piece “disappears”. Meega and Argyle close the royal door via the cranky column and return the previously borrowed Warhammer O’ Leverage to its deceased owner.

Returning to the chamber of moving stones, Rollen leads the way out through Larrakh’s corner escape tunnel which gradually opens to the quarry behind the Mellikho Stoneworks in the northwest of Red Larch. A picnic in the outlying woods alleviates hunger and exhaustion from the morning’s Black Earth showdown. Refreshed, the time has come to confront the constable about the illicit goings on beneath his feet and to learn his mettle.

As the adventurers approach Constable Harburk they realize Grund and the Whittling Man, Baragustas, are being interrogated. Using his super-ego voice, the constable orders everyone to disarm and wait. The party members elect Allana as their representative and placate Rollen, barely keeping his lid on, with a backup plan, conditionally initiated by a codeword from Allana (“blerg”), for the regulars to defend themselves by force.

Harburk’s investigation centers on three corpses, presumed murdered, found in the quarry. Neither Grund nor Baragustas have knowledge of their demise, but both sufficiently defend the party’s virtue, vis-a-vis Larrakh, to convince Harburk to release, if not absolve, them. In their own defense the party remind the constable of their deeds rescuing the sinkhole children when, by the way, some nefarious degenerate dropped the rappelling line into the sinkhole.

A suddenly lurking Dwarf, Bruenor, seems interested in the broader fate of a delegation from Mirabar, of which the three deceased were members, and specifically mentions the name Bruldenthar, not among the deceased. Wary of over-informing the constable, the group keeps tight-lipped and shruggy on the subterranean details and hopes to find Bruenor later.

On the merits of his association with Ardak, the party believe they can trust Endrith Vallivoe so, released from detainment, they seek his guidance at Vallivoe’s Sundries. In his opinion the Believers are misguided and probably unprepared for the truth of Larrakh’s foul manipulations. He suggests conferring with Mellikho, who has observed strange men about the quarry.

In familiar synchronicity, Bruenor happens into the store at that very moment. This time, free of potential legal entanglements, the party relates to him their encounters with the Believers, the slain strangers, the Bringers, and Larrakh in particular who was found with Mirabar trade bars on him. In turn, Bruenor reveals that the doomed delegation was bound for Summit Hall with manuscripts essential to his semi-secret organization, the Harpers.

The mention of manuscripts jogs Endrith’s memory: he chanced to purchase one of these twelve books from a merchant who purchased it from a keelboat captain and, even after multiple markups, Endrith hands it over to Bruenor freely. Having no proficiency with Dwarven, Blameless is permitted to handle the book and finds it to be of exceptionally fine quality. Allana, also unfamiliar with Dwarven but suffering from eidetic memory, flips through the book briefly before Bruenor gets suspicious, but it is long enough to inerrantly and canonically remember the entire text. Simon, through the window from his banishment outside, surreptitiously makes out the title, “History of the Besilmer Dwarves”.

Absent a better notion, the party checks into the Swinging Sword intending to stay a couple of nights. Adjourning to the Helm at High Sun for some highly publicized stew, the party sees Braelen, of boulder starvation fame, and his father, Rothar Hatherhand, enjoying a bit of stew together.

Because awkwardness and provocation are the pillars of sociology, Blameless greets Braelen and joins them, quite unwelcomed. Rothar, fuming at the imposition, leaves with Braelen. Next, Blameless strikes up a conversation with Bruenor who hints subtly that Blameless should be more guarded until they can meet up later at the stable. Running out of opportunities to practice social emulation, Blameless starts to ask Meega about Mreegar but, now unsure what constitutes acceptable dinner conversation, decides to just stick with the stew and ale.

As foretold, the party encounters Bruenor while chatting with William the Stable Boy. Bruenor imparts that Larmon Greenboot, a local shepherd, found some shallow graves to the east, south of the hills. Larmon, when not shepherding, may be found around the Red Larch Tool & Beauty at #17.

After a full night’s rest, the party defers the day’s priorities to Meega. Noting Rollen’s uncontainable enthusiasm, she suggests another attempt to activate the Lance Rock portal and the party, full of misplaced optimism, revisits the scene of their recent failures.

With an abundance of mutual encouragement, an abiding grasp of history, religion, and arcana, and a little luck, the portal opens, probably back to Quastarte. Unfortunately, only Rollen and Allana have physical contact with the King’s Mattress at the moment of activation and they vanish, sucked in. Recreating the first success, subsequent activation of the portal goes much easier and Meega, Argyle, Barrin, Simon, and Blameless find themselves transported a harmless 30 seconds later. Unfortunately, the party reunites in a destination despairingly unlike Quastarte, a destination where everything wants to kill and perhaps eat them, and the killing is well underway by the time the B Team arrives.

Unfamiliar bug-like critters yank on opposite, and unconscious, ends of Rollen and Allana while silent, aloof, headache-inducing observers look on. Argyle, in top form, throws a heal on Rollen and smashes the nearest bug with his warhammer while avoiding the counterattack. Blameless stabilizes Allana, but the coordinated attacks of an observer and bug knock him out. Meega’s axe finishes a bug and, like Argyle, her armor and agility stave off damage. Rollen, too close for the longbow, scrambles to his feet hacking with his shortsword while Simon flings a spread of magic missiles. Blameless manages to land a fiery orb on Argyle’s bug, but entirely incinerates himself with wild magic in the process. Barrin, stabbing and punching faster than a gnomish Stab-And-Punch-2000 with optional rotary coprocessor, holds out bravely but eventually succumbs, as does Allana despite her fiendish vigor. Even stout Argyle falls and Rollen lays on hands to revive him. “CLEAR!” Meega, Rollen, and Argyle continue against mounting odds as reinforcement observers approach, but Ardak fortunately steps through the portal blasting a knockdown wave to buy time for recovery and escape.

Back through the portal to Lance Rock, Daddy Ardak directs Meega in aligning the portal stone for the desired conduit to Quastarte and everyone goes back through, this time returning to Quastarte as intended. Although very tired from the recovery, Ardak entertains many questions. In short, the party’s destiny is to use available means, including the portal system, to assist with the retrieval of the missing manuscripts so that the elemental evil rising in Dessarin Valley may be defeated.

Ardak identifies the collected magical items:
The queen’s amulet resists detection by divination.
The queen’s invisible gloves assist with lockpicking and traps.
The king’s potion appears to be for invisibility, but is actually sneezing and choking dust.
The bone axe, from the Dessarin Dwarves thousands of years ago, improves attack and damage, especially against giant creatures.
The box is a collapsible boat, either 10’ or 24’, with a sail, mast, oars, and 1 gp, seating up to 4 or 15.

Ardak, before retiring for the evening, soberly admonishes, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Hidden in the corner of Red Larch’s newest sinkhole, Barrin observes ten cloaked figures return to enter the stone door, leaving behind ten cloaks, and then six recloaked figures depart with three bagged figures, leaving behind four cloaks.

Because inquiry and curiosity are the pillars of progress, the party selects the hallway of unusual architecture to explore. The purpose of the gridded ceiling construction down the long, dim corridor reveals itself to Argyle and Blameless as they barely avoid the concealed, suspended cages dropping on them. The cages block the way, dividing the adventurers and ironically trapping them in between while at the far end a pair of eyes set in grey skin peer through a slot in the stone door. An exchange of religious credentials fails to improve the situation but Allana figures out this is a Delver cult.

Blameless issues a cease and desist on the dropping of cages, on pain of popsicle, to Grund who earns his moniker Pee Pee Orc and hurriedly abandons his post inconsiderately forgetting to first raise the cages. Meega gets busy deranging the cages while Argyle discovers he can either tip up a cage or slip under it, but not both. Simon’s mage hand rearranges the broken bits of plaster.

While Meega frees Argyle from isolation, Rollen and Barrin push open the eyehole stone door revealing a square chamber wherein suitably shaped boulders pin a young man to the floor in front of a gray obelisk of the same make and model as the King’s Mattress but with the recent inscription to “displease not the delvers”. The hallway cages are remotely flown from chains in this room.

Braelen Hatherhand, trapped here for two days, complains of hunger and thirst but not of his geologic bonds. While Barrin gives his complete attention to raising the dropped cages to reunite the party, Allana and Blameless furnish Braelen with water and inquisition. Although not a Believer himself, his father Rotharr and much of Red Larch are, and Braelen enhances the party’s understanding of the situation. This underground complex is thought to be the product of Delver society and it is further believed that ancient Delvers are entombed here. Larrakh, the head priest of Black Earth, ostensibly conveys the wishes of these ancient Delvers who communicate by moving large stones in a nearby chamber. The Bringers act as enforcers for Larrakh, and the denizens of Red Larch either believe in this arrangement or serve it out of fear. In fact, an obviously conflicted Braelen declines liberation from his weighty punishment for the heinous infraction of not delivering a message to Waelvur. Rollen, concerned for Braelen’s safety, heals his wounds.

Reluctantly leaving Braelen to his unfortunate predicament, Allana swings open the next door and mutually rediscovers Rollen’s nemeses, the Bringers of Woe, a gang of five laughing, leather-clad, crossbow-wielding bandits loitering around a central life-sized, reconstructed statue of a Dwarf recovered from a local quarry now framed in a wooden scaffold. Allana scoots out of the doorway and Blameless peeks in to extend sincere offers of friendship, answered with three bolts shot at Rollen who, having deja vu all over again, remembers to step out of the way this time. With deadly force now justified, everyone breaks off a piece for these black-armored stooges. Overstimulated Blameless causes a gout of wild magic that makes everyone except two Bringers invisible. The party, experienced with this condition, capably polishes off all but the last Bringer who makes for the door. Allana commands him to approach, halting his egress and confounding him longer than he survives.

His invisibility intact, Blameless takes advantage of the lawful good loophole (that which is unseen is unjudged) and cleans out the tribute arranged within a ring of sand at the base of the assembled statue. The wealth is redistributed invisibly with one notably interesting dagger appearing in Barrin’s belt, to which he enigmatically proclaims his freedom.

Continuing to exploit his invisibility, Blameless opens the opposite door into a short hallway to find a whittling old man at the far end. Thaumaturging a booming Delver voice for Argyle’s stern Delver-like expression, Blameless expresses displeasure with Larrakh on behalf of the Delvers. Larrakh’s pious personal assistant opens the next door and passes the message through, but this seems to lessen the ruse’s effect and Larrakh, who must also have thaumaturgy as a cantrip, laughs in a booming voice at these preposterous, imposturous infidels. Larrakh’s personal assistant suddenly recalls another appointment and grovellingly excuses himself.

Flat, upright stones are scattered through the enormous chamber, a lantern illuminates the center of the chamber, and six slabs with skeletal remains ring the wall on three sides. Larrakh remains unseen so the party fans out and, at the conclusion of his maniacal laughter, a sharp clunk is heard as all the stones begin to levitate slightly.

A few of the stones, shoved by Larrakh and his acolyte to crush the adventurers, begin their march across the room, but Barrin charges one of these, returning it to sender. Rollen jumps atop a stone which Allana launches at Simon. Larrakh, observing everyone’s fun, ruins the merriment by shattering Blameless, Simon, and Rollen while Barrin tangles with the acolyte.

Barrin, in a spot of trouble, ducks out of melee, surges his health, and crashes a stone into the acolyte, lining him up for a deadly, fiery orb from Blameless. The wild magical feedback makes Blameless’s beautiful rat nest hair fall out. Meanwhile, Rollen rides into a worrisome confluence of several stones and is thrown unconscious into the maelstrom. Argyle, just having a quick peek at the stone slabs and skeletons, rescues Rollen.

Outnumbered and outpaced, Larrakh becomes the victim of unintended consequences as several stones are sent his way at high velocity in a proxy war of King’s Mattresses. Realizing his disadvantage, he casts a slowing spell on Barrin, Allana, and Meega but this realization comes too late as he is corralled into a corner by the stones, now bouncing madly off the walls and each other, as Barrin steers them toward the doomed priest. Larrakh has a trick up his sleeve and spider-walks up the wall to safety, evading the stones, several flying spells, and Meega’s axes, until Barrin’s shortbow returns him both to the floor and to his maker.

Argyle arrests the momentum of the careening stones and the party examines a magnificent mural high on the walls portraying a great Delver battle against fire, wind, and other elementals. At the far end, a heroic gray Half-Orc with a purple mohawk is reverently carried by the Delvers on a litter.

The stones eventually settle back to the floor while Argyle and Rollen debrief Grund cringing in the corner, Barrin finds some pyramidic currency in Larrakh’s pockets, and Allana finds a secret passage in the corner as well as a false panel in the back wall. From Grund’s recollection, Rollen is able to piece together how the stones were activated and smacks Larrakh’s staff into the floor. The re-levitating stones are lined up and unnecessarily smashed into the false panel revealing a dwarven crypt beyond.

This chamber is of fine dwarven craftsmanship with ten dwarf-sized sarcophagi. The only asymmetrical feature of the room is a stone column, not quite adjoined to the ceiling or floor, with a hole, conveniently located and sized for Argyle’s warhammer handle. Argyle’s reverence for dwarven remains is exceeded only by his reverence for a finely crafted warhammer, so he borrows a warhammer from a nearby damaged sarcophagus to crank the column around with Meega’s help. In the revealed subcrypt are three additional sarcophagi: to the left and right are royal resting places, perhaps a king and queen, flanking a half-orc-with-gray-skin-and-purple-mokawk-sized sarcophagus, the non-final resting place now open and empty of Mreegar.

The new day dawns as the intrepid adventurers eventually agree that they are in Red Larch. Fortuitously, before they might form other plans, panicked shouting alerts the party to a sinkhole opening up on the southwest corner of town and they join the fray to help. The middle-aged town elders (Waelvur, Albaeri, and Ulhro) request rope, yet pointedly decline the assistance of outsiders.

Blameless convinces the townsfolk that Rollen’s Regulars are a professional and expert sinkhole rescue team who are destined to solve or exacerbate this emergency, and that the townies should stand back for either outcome. Meega anchors a couple of lines and Barrin, Allana, Simon, and Argyle rappel in to rescue the three, make that four, children and one sister of a frantic woman. Barrin, with Handel the shovel, unearths the buried, Simon and Allana innovate new rope sling techniques for the recovered, and Argyle taps Moradin’s grace to heal the wounded and locate the entombed. Meanwhile, Rollen realizes the elders are concealing a darker truth and shadows them back to the cartwright’s shop, but he learns nothing new regarding the murmured-of Dwarven Delvers supposedly angered by the presence of interlopers at the sinkhole.

The rescue team reunite the sinkhole victims with the Frantic Woman just as the officious constable shows up, typically too late to be useful. The remaining topside party would rather die jumping in a hole than conversate with the constable again so they do that. Argyle brings Rollen back from the dead using Allana’s Sword of Psychosis to amplify his power. The ropes slack from atop and flow discouragingly into the hole rendering impossible any conceivable constabulary reconciliation. The party adds “Confront the Constable” to its quest log for a later date.

With little choice but to find an exit through the cavern, the party discovers passages leaving east and north. The east passage appears more civilized, with a well-crafted stone door and some discarded cloaks, so the party explores in that direction. Barrin, scouting ahead, finds two motionless sentries on opposite sides at the end of the hallway. Upon closer inspection these carved figures are merely doors indicating, so it is believed, ladies’ and gents’ privies, but this humorous anachronism is reluctantly discarded when a chamber of death, instead of a chamber pot, is discovered beyond the second figure.

Giant forest rats, entering and exiting through cracks in the chamber of death, feast on the decaying corpses of three travellers. Exploration of the room provokes an attack on Rollen by the aggressively hungry rats, promptly dispatched by blade and missile. Simon, brandishing a smoldering corpse leg, discourages any new challengers. Allana discovers that, when alive, these travellers’ foreheads were engraved with an iconic triangle clear through to their skulls.

The next chamber contains a floating black rock. Simon domesticates the rock with a length of rope, but the rock dies when removed from the central column of magic discerned by Allana. Crestfallen, Simon rolls the rock back into the magic and sets it free to hover existentially. An elusive yet undeniable sense of purpose permeates the room.

Up ahead, Rollen eagerly opens another crafted stone door to see what wonder the next chamber reveals and barely manages to register disappointment when shot with unwelcoming glares and crossbow bolts, earning him the Dead Like Simon achievement, as he drops like a rock pulled out of a column of magic. Indecision grips the adventurers: advance or retreat? Simon’s mage hand slams shut the door, breaking contact with the aggressors, and Blameless, using a trick discovered only the night before, projects the image of a beholder to confront anyone opening that door while Argyle and Meega spirit Pincushion Rollen back a safe distance. Simon transmutes the sound of an angry beholder while Blameless evokes a fiery orb in his hand. The door opens and, for a brief but terrible moment, the room’s occupants are face-to-face with a writhing, screeching beholder spitting a deadly, fiery orb at them. The door closes urgently.

Argyle revives Rollen and the party retreats, discovering along the way that one passage has been closed off by, if cloak arithmetic serves, three new defenders. Back in the sinkhole cavern the party, forsaken by an ungrateful town, find no new dangling ropes and set about preparing a concealed corner to rest. Rollen and Barrin adeptly rig the stone door to be difficult and noisy to open, as featured one hour later when Barrin observes six figures emerging, with much difficulty and noise, from the barricaded door.

Distractedly irate at having their cloaks pilfered, the cavern occupants fail to notice the improvised berm and leave through the north passage. Exhausted from a half-day of intense spell casting, falling, and staying up late the night before, the party completes an uneventful rest.

The party members, minus unconscious Simon, crowd into the crumbling burial chamber behind the throne room and look around expectantly for the treasure chest. Instead they find a sarcophagus and a classic statue of Selûne’s Starry Eyes. A decorative rug adorning the chamber’s sarcophagus entices Barrin to touch it. It leaps to smother Meega who holds her breath the six seconds it takes her compatriots to roll up the rug.

Over the objections of no one, Allana and Barrin eagerly attempt to open the engraved tomb of King Solomon Petrikov, but the heavy lid resists until Meega obliges with a mighty shove. A silver-bladed longsword with a glass hilt encasing an orange strand draws Allana’s attention, but Barrin yoinks the sword from the skeletal remains. At first Allana settles for the consolation Bag O’ Family Biscuits, but she soon persuades Barrin to yield the Sword O’ Psychosis as well, leading to an awkwardly one-sided conversation with someone she calls Opeth.

Argyle gathers King Simon’s languid form and the Order of the Graverobbers adjourns with their newly acquired boar cart and horses back to town. The opportunistic Rumplestiltskin predictably intercepts them immediately upon return, ungratefully falling to pieces over the lost boar. Allana reunites the undeserving Rumplestiltskin with his cart and horses.

Back at the Swinging Sword the night passes uneventfully and, to everyone’s vast relief, King Simon awakes in the morning. Pointing to the word “Family”, he claims the Bag O’ Family Biscuits and, pressed by Rollen, reluctantly reveals his surname is Petrikov. A Selûne acolyte at All Faiths imparts that the late Solomon Petrikov, king of a peculiar nearby barony, begat two sons: Sherman and Simon. Simon denies any relation owing to a slightly different pronunciation of the identically-spelled names, but Rollen’s suspicious mind carefully tallies these coincidences for later.

Next on the agenda is the pressing issue of Vallivoe’s kidnapping by the Lord of Lance Rock. Although this title implies a feudalism, everyone in Red Larch knows that Lance Rock is merely a huge rock slab, entirely devoid of a governable populace. Jalessa, renown briner of fine hams, reconciles the puzzle: “Yes, Oi know ov this self-appointed Lord of Lance Rock: tetched in the ‘ead,’e is.”

A quick consultation with the constable turns ugly as he and King Simon each suggest the other should be incarcerated for the good of society. Allana narrowly diffuses the volatile confrontation and the party quickly ushers the king out of town toward Lance Rock, a short walk southwest. Along the way, up in a tree, Simon spies a “bird” comprising a black arrow pinning a skull and a note deep into the trunk. Portending the remainder of his filthy day, Barrin removes the assembly, abundantly handling what turns out to be a human skull and a grammatically ambiguous missive written on human parchment: “The last laugh you’ll be next Valklondar.” Barrin wipes his hands on the grass, Rollen horks the arrow, and the march continues.

Lance Rock, a massive monolith of grey granite protruding vertically and angling east, stands where, according to legend and evidenced by the gouges in the smooth stone, a dragon dropped it. Nearby a nearby sign warns, “Come no closer lest you catch the plague that afflicts me,” at the entrance of a brush-choked ravine. Blameless pushes bravely to the front courtesy of plague-averse Rollen, but it is Barrin who discovers the body rotting in a cave entrance.

“Hey look, guys, it’s a body.” As though fulfilling some hidden cosmic desire, Barrin pokes the zombie into angry animation. A brief but fierce fight ends when the zombie explodes putrid guts and ichor on Barrin and Rollen. Meega ducks. Blameless, proficient with medicinal herbology, satisfies himself, if not Rollen, that this zombie undied of natural causes unrelated to plague.

Barrin, perhaps distracted by the stench, wanders into a boulder ambush effected by suspiciously well-organized and patient zombies inside the cave’s first chamber. The dungeoneers develop a rhythm for effectively subduing the undead and briefly consider activating a storeroom full of standby zombies to test their methodology, but elect instead to press deeper into the cavern.

Rounding a corner the party finds a small, star-shaped chamber wherein a bear, a maiden, and a jester sway idly, unconcerned with the interlopers. Simon casts a distraction down an opposite passage while Blameless dashes through the chamber experimentally, instigating a macabre dance of exceeding creepiness. As happens too often, dancing degrades into a melee that costs Simon his precious consciousness and the festivities end with stabs to the costumed zombies. As Argyle feeds Simon his hourly healing potion, Barrin and Rollen make good use of an oatmeal-free trickle of water to clean up.

Moving along with restored determination and hygiene, the party glimpses a large chamber where a hooded figure stitches together sundry body parts on stone slabs with a bone needle and dark thread. Retreating out of earshot, the group crafts a cunning plan to run in and injure the zombie necromancer by any means available. The plan executes perfectly each time he regenerates and the commotion attracts the attention of four animated skeletons at the opposite end of the chamber. Despite the skeletons’ innovative use of ranged weapons, the fellowship, in top fighting form, methodically reduces them to bone meal in short order.

Wasting no time to determine where skeletons might carry loot, the party charges across the chamber in pursuit of a fleeing perp observed early in the fight. The chase traverses two entirely unique passages that appear to reconverge ahead. Allana musters her concentration to study this redundant topology and determines the single crucial difference: the left path is on the left and the right path is on the right.

In the center of the boss dog chamber, a pedestal of arms holds aloft a crystal sphere projecting an Elder Elemental Evil Eye. Allana begins another one-sided conversation while Meega, sauntering up to the E4, enrages a wizard, presumably the Lord of Lance Rock, who emerges from behind the curtain and hurls magic at Meega. Reacting, Meega launches a couple of hand axes back at him. Rollen aims his longbow at the offending wand but tags the LoLR’s magicking elbow instead. The LoLR foolishly teleports next to Barrin who critically sticks him with the pointy end and he crumples, unconscious.

The eye chamber is quickly ransacked before the LoLR regains his senses and the party finds 99.32% of Endrith Vallivoe who urges the immediate termination of the LoLR. Blameless obliges the request. Simon, observing Vallivoe minus one hand, removes a suitable replacement from the LoLR. Rollen picks up a journal and the party makes its way back to Red Larch while Simon tries out material for his new scroll, 101 Japes for the Maimed.

Back in town Vallivoe’s urchin fan club turns out to welcome him back and everyone gets a good night’s rest. When Vallivoe feels up to it, the gang carts the King’s Mattress out to Lance Rock for final assembly of what is later determined to be an Elven portal. Vallivoe’s configuration requires that the mattress stack upright upon Lance Rock and, although the group assembles the project within specifications, the device does not power on self test after several days of failed attempts. Still and all, the project is a welcome change from the death and destruction of the preceding weeks.

Rollen regains consciousness, but the effects of multiple head trauma have taken their toll. “What happened?”

Meega gently guides him back to the path to look for the horses. As the fellowship’s only one-quarter orc, Meega has the most to lose if she and Rollen can not track a second horse to pull the cart. The casually-racist assumption that orcs are good at pulling carts happens to be true in Meega’s case, but that makes the characterization sting worse. It would be no help that the horse they find is entirely unsuitable for cart-pulling having lost several essential cart-pulling pertinences to lupine digestion, not the least of which the capacity for life.

Realizing a second horse would not be forthcoming from the universe, Argyle and Meega assist the remaining draft horse, Draco-Odor, at pulling the laden cart to Red Larch on schedule while the rest of the party provides additional ladening and some encouragement. Thusly do Rollen’s Regulars roll into Red Larch with royal reliability.

With the afternoon sun fleeting, the party divides up so as to spread offense and confusion at maximum efficiency. While Argyle thanks Moradin’s providence and proselytizes tough love at the all-faiths shrine, Allana and Blameless metatrope the tavern keeper at the Upside Down Mop Bucket at High Sun™ regarding one Endrith Vallivoe, sought to sign a waybill for the precious grey slab emanating plot lines from the cart.

Thanks to Red Larch’s pioneering postal address system, the party have no difficulty locating Vallivoe’s Sundries at #22 in the south of town. The unnervingly intermittent furtive visages of children validate an offhand comment made earlier by the tavernkeep that Vallivoe’s children “are a thing”. Setting aside all other considerations, the party attempts several modes of pediatric engagement including chasing, deadly force readying, dust kicking, deception, condescension, cajolement, and ambivalence. Meega and her 1% bubble pipe satisfy the puzzle and allow the party to progress, with Argyle lighting up the bubbles and Barrin contributing rodentry to the amusement. Argyle feeds the urchins.

The sundries shop contains many sundries but Vallivoe is not among them. Simon, noting the unchecked box for “signature required”, proposes leaving the stone under the welcome mat and calling it a job well done. But P.E. Ardak’s words linger on the wind, “Deliver the box to Vallivoe PERSONALLY! OooooOOOooo….”

The children’s testimony and a thorough investigation of the house allow these sanctioned conclusions:

1. Vallivoe disappeared in the night unexpectedly four days ago.
2. A few horse-mounted ne’erdowells entered the Sundry shop by forcing the back door, presumably coincident with 1. They rode off south.
3. Small valuables and the cash till were heisted, presumably coincident with 2.

Armed with knowledge and arrows, the party determines to confront the local constabulary, Harburk, AKA the Butcher of Red Larch, at #11.

Attending the butcher shop is the butcher’s wife, a woman so uncommonly common that King Simon’s bond compels him to compel her to his aid, acquiring a ham and directions to the constable.

Two buildings over the detachment finds the constable and his deputies relaxing after a long day of abiding bandit raids. Simon, giving them a good monocle-ing over, learns that two deputies of Red Larch were earlier disemboweled on the road east. Gross. Because they are shorthanded, these pipe-huffing law men can’t be bothered to investigate the disappearance of Vallivoe.

Exhausted from a full day, the group elects to break for the night. They sample the fare at the tavern and rent rooms 3 and 4 overlooking the stables at the Swinging Sword. The evening passes without incident thanks to the vigilance and high armor class of William the Stable Boy. Argyle, snoozing under the cart, awakens with a blanket lovingly tucked around him.

At dawn, a ruckus involving the constable erupts outside the inn. Blameless interviews Rumpelstiltskin,  an irate, transient merchant who indicates his two horses, cart, and a superior Waterdeep-bound boar were stolen right under his nose at #21, the market on the edge of town, by two horse-mounted bandits making south. An investigation of the site reveals Rumpelstiltskin’s nose was actually in town during the heist, but the two-horsed-bandits story is completely legit as far as he knows. Proceeding on this dubious information, the fellowship pursues south on foot.

Careful investigation down the south Long Road leads the party along a side path recently marked by four horses and a cart. Barrin scouts imperceptibly ahead and spies four bandits eating ill-gotten boar. Nearby are four horses and an enigmatically caged black bear. After carefully collating data on the camp, Barrin, drawing on years of training and preparation at monk academy, uses sophisticated, detailed hand and arms signals to silently and painstakingly communicate these particulars back to the party creeping up the path. Simon, cleanly separating character knowledge from player knowledge, charges up the embankment. Barrin crits on dual-wield facepalm.

Alerted to the presence of interlopers, three of the four bandits take cover behind rocks until mortally subdued, but not before the black bear liberates himself upon the party. Many attempts to sequentially calm, scare, and mouth-punch the bear prove mutually exclusive, but eventually it becomes bored and leaves. The fourth bandit, panicking into error, escapes into a cave behind the camp.

Inside the cave the adventurers discover an advanced alarm system, fresh blood on the floor, and size 18 footprints. On the lookout for a hemophilic artificer wearing clown shoes, Simon, carefully observing the ceiling and reciting the lyrics for shield, narrowly avoids hosting four hungry stergis for supper.

Around the corner, a locked door successfully distracts everyone from the ogre leaping from a nearby chasm. The leaping ogre successfully distracts everyone from the goblin emerging from the opening door. Untypically unnerved, Argyle drops his beloved warhammer down the chasm, gobsmacking him beyond the capacity even to randomize an inappropriate remark. Simon, defying the 400-to-1 odds, critically firebolts the ogre at point blank range and, for an encore, mage hands Argyle’s 2 lb warhammer up from the chasm.

The party discovers the bandit leader’s body beyond the doors. In his pocket an unsealed, folded note credits the Lord of Lance Rock with arranging the bandit abduction of Vallivoe. Having already executed sentencing on the bandits, the party recovers the evidence of their malfeasance. They don’t call this the Sword Coast for its progressive jurisprudence.

The vanquished occupants of the cave hold surprising wealth for folks choosing to occupy a cave. The party arranges a transfer of assets while, unbeknownst to everyone else, Allana mysteriously suspects the promise of even greater wealth beyond a throne on the far side of the room. Rollen, suspicious at discovering a throne inside a cave, cajoles King Simon into checking it for traps by sitting on it.

Simon seats himself on the throne to assume reign over the cave. The throne’s Ghost Guard manifests suddenly and wastes no time reducing Simon’s life force to zero and putting him into a magically-induced coma. Argyle, observing Simon’s discomfort trying to be prone in a chair, whisks the king away to safety while others discuss the metaphysical ramifications of sticking a noncorporeal being with entirely-corporeal arrows.

“GO NO FURTHER,” warns the Ghost Guard. Allana, who ain’t scared of no ghost, skips ahead to the post-mortem investigation phase.

“Hey, guys, there’s a chamber back here.”

The Ghost Guard takes offense.

“LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAVE”

Allana finds a lock behind the throne.

“LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAVE”

Barrin picks the lock.

“LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAVE”

The throne slides forward revealing a rusted door forced open by Meega.

“LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAVE”

The ghost, catching a well-struck arrow from Rollen, dies sighing.

“leeeeeeeeeeeeeave…”

Inside the hidden chamber lies a stone coffin.