Svartaland, Season 02: Värmskörde / The Warm Harvest

Session 19

Session 20

Session 20.5

Session 21

Session 22

Session 23

Session 24

Session 25

Fearing another Explosive Glyph, Timador and Stroop use their dueling Mage Hands to strip the lone surviving cleric; Sagon then hog ties the unconscious cleric and gags him to prevent him from speaking any magic spells in case he wakes before they are ready to question him. The Company's plan is to interrogate him after they rest, casually throwing out the name Vendarie; Timador will use his magic to discover any surface thoughts pertaining to the whereabouts of that Spirit Naga. It's a good plan, but when attempted (after searching the rest of the complex), the wizard discovers that the Yuan-Ti's cleric's surface thoughts are hazy and dim, as if he were dreaming of being in some art museum. The cleric's inner thoughts seem completely oblivious to all external stimulus and at odds with what the conscious cleric is saying. Chancing discovery and pushing deeper, Timador hears the word "Horfin" echoing within the Yuan-Ti's brain like a steady drum beat. Knowing a little about ancient human languages before the Common Tongue was adopted, Timador recognizes this word as once meaning "to disappear."

In the rest of the complex, the party discovers 200 or so pounds of equipment and food supplies worth about 400 gp. This includes some stone sculpturing tools, small vials of a cloudy yellow liquid, and medically-jarred parts of a vivisected human. Yrsa uses Speak With Dead to question the cadaver, learning that he was a Orlane farmer named Martin Harold or Harold Martinson, something like that. The farmer's last thoughts were of him settling down with his family for an evening meal. Information regarding his family and home are also obtained. Yrsa blesses the body and wraps it up in some bedspreads after the Mending cantrip is used to make the farmer's body a bit more respectable. The body and everything else of reasonable value is placed into the Company's Portal Hole.

Stymied in their attempt to get any useful information from the Yuan-Ti cleric, Sagon ritually executes him. As he does so, though, one of the white eyed, smiling white-tooth dark spector-like creatures rises out of his corpse, laughs at the party, and begins to fade away in front them as others of his kind have, but, reacting quickly, the monk--now at a level where he can strike supernatural creatures with his bare hands--is able to rapidly punch and stun the screaming creature, doing enough damage to "kill?" it and causing it's phantasmal body to disrupt and crumble into a black powdery dust, which The Company collects into a small jar for later analysis.



Meanwhile, Viggo, left in charge of the fishing boat docked back at Orlane, finishes up making deliveries of the trade goods and fresh catfish that Captain Kruesh arranged to sell locally. And, as Orlane is a new village, and not on any of Viggo's maps, the cartographer spends extra time leisurely walking the dirt paths, using his consistent stride to take reasonable measurements of the place. Busy as such, and stepping near the western edge of the settlement, he goes unnoticed by two men who Viggo sees skulking around a house near an old well. Likwise using stealth, Viggo moves up closer to see what they are up two. And, this includes one of them uncoiling a long length of rope (marked off in foot increments with white paint), and the other stripping off his clothing down to his skivvies. Before the nearly nude man disappears down the inside of the well, Viggo cannot help by notice that his arms, upper legs, and back bear colorful tattoos resembling a map.

Viggo interrupts them doing whatever they are doing, and the topside man, Elzevir, expresses a sequence of awkwardness about needing to measure the water level for some kind of agricultural purposes. Viggo is buying none of that, insists of knowing what's going on, and he even climbs down the rope to see what "Joe" is doing, and what he's done is apparently removed a small brick from the side of the well 40 feet down and shoved it into the front of his shorts. Viggo acrobatically flips around him and down the rope further, and while Joe is surprised by that, Viggo reaches up and "picks Joe's pouch" and removes the brick. Things continue badly like this for awhile, with the men making rope-cutting threats. Finally, a semi-reasonable partnership deal is brokered. The two men are apparently treasure hunters and the brick--now in Viggo's position--contains a riddle clue:

As my flesh is devoured, most will see
longer if I'm fat but less if I'm slim.
I need to breathe, but wind's my enemy.
Even the brightest among us grows dim.

Viggo reads it aloud to the two men hoping that they can all agree to work together. Also, Viggo immediately voices a solution the riddle, and Elzevir frantically begins examining Floppy Joe's back for any ink on it that might be candle related. It is about this time that Viggo also recalls a lighthouse/candle image on the map that Yrsa showed him earlier. Armed with this information, Viggo attempts to negotiate further with the two men, expressing that she has other friends and resources that would aid them all. Unfortunately, all the two other men can see is their 50-50 share of the treasure has been reduced to 50-45-5, and now down to just 1/8th for each of them. Plus, the light alf may have inadvertedly said something about her friends beating Elzevir and Joe up and taking their clues. The two men make a break for it and head for the trail to the northwest.

Viggo runs to the fishing boat, casts an Alarm spell on its decks, and then he races on foot to the southwest into the swamp, hoping to quickly meet up with The Company. He does so, and Timador's owl, a hastily written apology note/better partnership offer, and Kime and Sagon riding upon a Phantom Steed are dispatched across the swamp to head off the treasure hunters. Given the weirdness, the powerful magics involved, and so on, Elzevir and Joe agree to 1/8th shares and a partnership, and they all return back to Orlane.

Joe climbs back down the well to see if anything else was hidden behind it or below it. As he attempts this, a Gelatinous Cube beneath the water level reaches up and pulls him under and inside of it. The Company races to save "his skin" and many of them leap in, using the rope (or monk abilities) to friction slow their falls to avoid falling damage. Kim and Viggo pull Joe out while the monk and the wizard's sculpted Lightning Bolt dispatch the cube. Further examination deeper in the well reveals a concealed door. Once Joe is back on the surface, the Company see that the Cube's acid attack has already abated, but they make a show of wiping the acid off his skin while Viggo tries to memorize important information off his tattoo map.

Joe gets some healing and he and Elzevir and Captain Kruesh return to the ship to rest and recover. The rest of the group explores beneath the well and, making use of the Water Breathing spell, they make their way into the nearby water table and find some cavern tunnels rising out of the water and into the hills on the western edge of the city above. There, they battle with Shadow creatures (who manage to drain the monk's Strength) and several Troglotyes, who manage to get a couple of hits in before they are decimated. There is also a humanoid in Plate armor, who is seen standing motionless in the dark as the party gazes through a small metal grate that leads into a brick and mortar structure. The Party cannot reach him, but the armored man and Yrsa exchange Sacred Blast and Toll the Dead cantrips until Yrsa's foe is heard going up some stairs and through a heavy door.

The session ended on Day 50 about 18:00 with The Company seemingly finding a narrow brick passage that seems to lead into the complex. Oh, and bless his tiny legs, Stroop spent most of the adventure running to and fro as various opponents appeared, disappeared, or died. Good thing he's so damn cute and charming.

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Session 26.5: "Cheese, and Cheese Again, A Halfling's Hallucination"

Day 50, 22 o'clock. Feeling quite peckish after their last encounter, Stroop sells his soul to a suspicious passerby in exchange for one wish, and the Halfling wishes for the largest cheese in the world. He finds himself transported to where said cheese is, on the show room floor of the cheese factory at Lake Havasu. There, he finds himself in the shadow of a 14-die Cheese Elemental, which lashes out at him with a pseudopod of fermented dairy ingredients mixed with vegetable oils, food coloring, salt, and emulsifiers. The bard is immune to such things; in fact, they instantly restore all of his lost hit points and remove several levels of physical fatigue. The bard strikes back, and the melee ends quickly, as it's nearly time for third breakfast. Stroop directly absorbs the dead creature's casein, which immediately breaks down within his digestive system, releasing strong opiate-like substances called casomorphins. The reward centers in his brain thus stimulated, the bard completely surrenders to the throes of cheese addiction.

Session continues like this all night.

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Session 27

After, the Spirit Naga's death in the dungeon beneath Orlane, the Red-Gold Company ponders their next move. But, true to their word, they share the loot that they just acquired (200 GP, two sets of plate armor, breastplate, and magic items) with the two treasure-seeking pirates, Floppy Joe and Elzevir Blok. And, as those two just made "quite a haul" just for resting on the fishing boat docked on shore, they suddenly were quite willing to share their tattooed map and historical info in hopes of earning even more.

Floppy Joe reveals that during the tail end of the war, he was serving aboard the Çift Kartal (Double Eagle), one of the ships in the Yazhet Ostrovi under the command of Ökenveld Wimranda Fleet Captain Torben Martaraci. Martaraci's duties consisted mainly of supplying bases on the lake islands and carrying back locally produced raw materials and tribute back to port at Tshad. Shortly after a return trip to Tshad, Floppy learned that he had a map tattooed on his map, but he had no memory of having gotten said tattoo. Pondering it further, he felt compelled to inform Captain Martaraci, but Joe could not locate him, and many of the Captain's former crew believed that Martaraci had been executed by the State. Joe also began recalling something about Midshipman Brendel, which he was also supposed to have told the Captain. Brendel, he then learned had died recently in "the line of duty." Panicking that he might be involved in something--and next to go--Joe confessed what he knew to his closest confidant, Elzevir. The two of them decided to venture into the Tshad Tombs to examine Brendel's corpse (entombing and visitations is fairly commonplace in Ökenveld society, but opening the caskets of the dead... not so much. They found that Brendel was wearing a rather cheap, oversized locket. Within the locket, they found numbered hymnal verses. Elzevir recognized that the verses copied did not match the numbers listed, and the numbers listed pointed to specific words in the passages, namely: twoscore feet deep well north). Playing a hunch, Floppy deserted the navy, and the two men hitched passage to Orlane, where Joe recalled that Brendel last was stationed. The village of Orlane had just recently sprung up where an Ökenveld military camp had once been. In the oldest well, 40 feet down, Floppy found a loose brick in the northern part of the well wall, the same brick that Viggo stole from him, the one containing a versed riddle of which the answer was "A Candle." The Treasure Hunters now overlayed the map that Yrsa purchased on a whim with the one inked onto Joe's back. The verses on Yrsa's map indicated that the map of Joe's back was needed:

If chests you crave and the treasures within,
Seek Floppy Joe's tattoos on back and limb.
Combine this vellum with the sailor's skin.
Consult the riddle entrusted to him.

And the verses on Joe's back indicated that they needed to combine what he had with another map, which they hadn't yet found:

What often has cities, but no real homes,
Acres of forests, with no living tree,
Mountains and rocks but no tinkering gnomes,
Waters where two fish can swim westerly?

The combined map ended up looking something like this:


Needing more to go on, they planned to explore the Lighthouse on the map next (as it seemed most likely to match up with the Candle clue). The party Long Rested at Orlane, and Floppy and Elzevir and even Kruesh (who was given a bonus of gold from Kime) spent some of their newly-acquired wealth on drinks and hot food at Maizy's tavern. By Bright Light, all rested and healthy, they arrived at the dock of a small island just off shore of a larger small island. A young boy, Boyd, fishing on the dock, waved them down and greeted them, but he seemed confused as they were not the normal lighthouse re-supply crew of Captain Yilan. Boyd's father Sefrim, working nearby to refurbish a crappy rowboat, also mistook them for the resupply crew, and he started giving the group directions as to where the load the food and fuel. He also invited a few of the crew to go up to the land house where his wife Blinda was preparing a hot meal. "We can feed a couple of you now, and the wife can cook more food for the rest of you after you're done unloading." Stroop was already to hike up to the house, but Timador admitted that he and his boatmates were not the resupply team. They were instead... umm, cartography students, yeah, that's it. And Professor Viggo (or was it "Prof Bob"?) began explaining again the tools of the trade. Timador does offer to give Sefrim some food and fuel, though, to tide them over if his class could look around the island a bit. Sefrim initially is against this, as this technically is a military post, but he relents soon enough and allows Sagon to carry up a box of coal and for Floppy to deliver some crated food.

It turns out that most of the inhabitants of the lighthouse island are a variety of Doppleganders (apparently from off world, who were brought to this world as slaves aboard a ship crewed by Githyanki). The Dopples escaped when the Githyanki's camp had been burgled by a group of adventurers, and the Githyanki were more concerned with tracking down the thieves. This event had occured near the ruins of the fishing village of Yalc. This information might also match up another tale of Yalc that the Dwarf Thomun Stedz revealed earlier; he said that his party had been "one rounded" by a group of creatures matching the physical desciption of Githyanki). Sagon makes a weak excuse at misunderstanding his delivery directions so that he could explore the lighthouse instead of the storeroom, and, as he is all alone then except for three Doppels closeby, they ambush the armorless monk, hoping to take him out quickly so that one of them can easily replace him. Their ultimate goal was to get a ship and get further away where they could more easily lose themselves in a larger populated area. But Sagon proves to be no easy victim, and he ends up knocking one of the Dopples off the lighhouse. Unable to proceed as planned, the Dopples do what little they can manage to use their form changing ability to sow confusion, but, Viggo, Timador, Stroop, Yrsa, Kime, and Elzevir have been alerted that something was fishy from the start, so they have little difficulty besting these otherwise dangerous foes, even those who made themselves to appear to be Sagon, Floppy, and Vogelfest.

After freeing the actual human residents of the island and discovering and questioning the sole remaning Dopple, The Company begins exploring the island, especially the Lighthouse for any sign of a clue. Nothing obvious stand out until Floppy Joe walks near the fuel stove at the top of the Lighthouse, and his very presence triggers off a Magic Mouth, which utters:
Ignore the first verse about settlements.
Draw a triangle between the NEXT three.
From captured thri-kreen gut, line a segment
Long as to dragon but toward ship at sea.

Not exactly sure if they're intrepetting the clue correctly or not, they draw lines on their combined map image constructing a triangle between the mountains without gnomes to the image of the fallen tree and also to the icon of the two fishes. As this seems to "capture" a Thri-Kreen insect icon within the triangle, they then draw a line from its stomach to the dragon icon. Next, they draw an equal line of equal magnitude from the Tri-Kreen towards the target on the ship icon's sails. That places the destination somewhere pretty much in the middle of nowhere, somewhat close to Damcili.

They use up what little light they have left to sail south and west. Near shore they anchor and complete another Long Rest. They also execute Jemm, the last of the Dopples. There is also a bit of fruitless underwater exploring near the spot on Joe's back where the ship icon was tattooed. Eventually they reach Damcili. At first light, the Ranger Kime leads them easterly on foot through the rough, rugged terrain of Glemda Saylar towards the uninhabited location where they believe the maps and assembled clues indicate. In a small valley beneath steep cliffs and hillocks, near a pond of rain runoff, Sagon spots three unnaturally colored stones (one red, blue, one green) arranged in a triangular pattern, five feet across. Timador detects for magic in the area, but sees nothing that they haven't brought with them. They begin digging between the stones, and, a yard down, they hit metal and unearth a 1'x1'x1' chest. Viggo disarms a needle trap and picks the lock. The lightweight chest was empty save for an inscription on the inside of the lid and upon the bottom of the chest:
Gentle enough to sooth every tongue known.
Light enough to caress heavenly sky.
Hard enough to crack apart rocks and stone.
I've got a temper, sure, but what am I?

Viggo ponders aloud the word "Water," and a Magic Mouth appears on the open lid and utters:

I lick earth slick enough to make a bed
swallow loot nearby and blanket its head.

Various members of The Company remark, "Rivers," "Lakes," etc. then recall the nearby pond and race into it. They find seven standard-sized locked chests shallowly buried in the soft mud beneath the collected water's surface. An assortment of coins, gemstones, common jewelry, and other items of value is stuffed into each, totaling roughly 41,000 GP in value. The chests are cleaned up and are placed in the Portal Hole and transported to Damcili, where the loot is divided and distributed among the eight treasure hunting partners. It is then further converted locally into more precious coins and gemstones, and much of the armor and weapons that have accumulated on these recent adventures is also converted into cash at local businesses and pawnshops. The treasure-seeking partnership now dissolved, Floppy Joe and Elzivar make their leave. When asked what they plan on doing with their share, Floppy says he knows a man who, for a price, can help him create a new name/identity. Yrsa suggests "Sloppy" might be good.

Deciding that they still don't have enough money to pay for Auntie's nearby magic-concentration services, The Red-Gold Company moves to complete the rest of their map-update quest. They sail past the small island, which contained the Dragon Icon on Yrsa's map, but see nothing of interest. Likewise, as they cruise west along the northern shores of Kraldjur and Krossad, they see nothing much of interest in the mostly-peaceful elvish lands to satiate their adventurous tastes. Although, Stroop starts to feel a little uneasy after first breakfast. As all food agreeds with him, he believes he's gong up a level in experience. All of the party has, and they return back to Kuststad to report their findings to Commander Holt, who gives them eight days of vacation so that they can train up and acquire new skills.

Session ended there and should pick up again on Day 61 with the adventurers at 7th level.

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Session 28

After training up a level, learning Feats, and meeting with Grenhay Sumpers about creature components and potions, the Red-Gold Company meets with Commander Holt. Holt informs them that he has received a mental Message from an old associate of his, a Druid named Chjell Knusari. The vattenpujke druid was concerned about an unusual feeling that he was having. Seeing it as a good opportunity to pay off an old favor and also in promoting good relations with the goblins of Kedellg island, Holt assigns the Company to assist him for a couple of days to see if they can help in any way. Holt also sends along a small package of mealworms and crickets, a favorite snack of Chjell's. The adventurers set off at once and take along Kruesh as a second navigator. The journey to Kedellg is roughly 36 miles or about a dozen hours of traveling time. It's a fine, wonderful warm day, but the travelers are nearly surprised by a cresting omnidirectional wave that makes navigation difficult and will likely cause flooding among the nearby islands. After Viggo makes the needed course corrections, Timador Sky-Writes a warning about the lake Tsunami approaching Kuststad, Krossad, and Kraldjur.

After the initial rise and rush of water in the Wimranda Lake region, they continue north to Kedellg, which they see has become very "wet around the edges," especially in Sandborg, where the sandy pits surrounding the pujke village home of Chjell have filled and muddied. They also see that about eight miles to the east, two new land masses have arisen from the lake bottom. This area, Viggo recalls from an old shipping map, was a shallow area (to be avoided by heavy cargo ships) and was known as Olmayan. Interested in the new land masses, but following firstmost to their mission, they land near Sandborg and discover that Chjell and others have headed by boat over to the new islands. They follow, with Timador send notes his owl familiar can drop off announcing they are coming to help, if needed. As they get closer, they locate the two goblin boats beached, see several pujkes scampering towards what look to be caverns (or now partially collapsed cave entrances). Near the boats they encounter a human dressed in white hat and linens, who announces himself as Czardus, a cultural anthropologist working for the Royal Aquatic Institute of Svarta, and he explains he is only living among the tribe as an observer. What is happening is a rescue mission: the vattenpujke, Czardus explains, are an egg-laying species, and after their amplexus and external fertilization mating ritual, "The Evening Calling," members of the Sandur Aettbalkur people mostly leave their eggs (and eventual vattenspawn) to fend for themselves. The zygotes do, however, require plenty of water to to flourish and thicken their protective jellies as they develop. And, as the caves have risen above the lake level, several of the tribe sailed over to save and relocate the eggs. Shaman Chjell welcomes the party, but asks that they aid only by helping to provide magical lighting to help the goblin spelunkers to find the dark-colored eggs in the caves. They do so.

Afterwards, the party explore the second new island mass further to the east, and they look for any evidence of volcanic/plate tectonics or harmful magics that might cause further disruptions of land or sea. The eastern isle is more overgrown with colorful corals and rocky hills. Beneath a particularly unnatural-looking ring of large boulders, they see a very old Ziggurat structure, about 100' high and 200' square at the base.



The small shrine at the top has stairways leading down and inside the ancient structure, but, due to the sunken nature of the rounded interior hallways, and the fact that the ziggurat has been underwater and likely covered in mud for who knows how long, much of this recess is filled with water, silt, and mud. They manage to find metal drain grates at the bottom of the staircases and some exterior drain spouts at the upper exterior levels of the ziggurat. As they look to have been designed and sized for draining away normal rainfall, the drainage pipes have become clogged over the years. Stroop, Viggo, and Timador use their Mage Hands to dig the pipes clean from both sides. Eventually, they are able to remove enough of the older hard packed materials to drain more of the water out of the recessed area. After they shovel out loads of additional mud from the lower passage, Viggo is then able to locate and work the lock on a stone door leading inside. Behind the water-sealed portal, they discover the rounding passage ways spiral downward. Inside, teh passages are dry and dusty, so they are surprised when they hear some growling/grunting noise, and even more surprised when a section of hallway seals behind them.

This is prelude to the party being attacked by several big, tough Cyclopian Minotaurs, who employed a method of attacking and retreating and wall shifting techniques to try to divide the party and finish them off in smaller groups, but, except for the monk, the party managed to stick closely together, with Yrsa and Kime often picking up their Halfling Bard companion and carrying him so that Stroop could keep up. And when Sagon was cut off, his multiple attacks, speed, stunning attack, and recently-purchased jar of Keoghtom's ointment was just enough to keep him on his feet. And Timador's new ability to summon an Earth Elemental also helped to save the day. After defeating several of the minotaurs, most everyone was badly hurt and had exhausted their spell slots, so they retreated out of the ziggurat while the getting was good and returned back to their ship. Viggo left an Alarm spell in place in one of the corridors, and they sailed to the north east portion of the new island where they could long rest and still be within the spell's one-mile range.

Session ended on Day 61 at roughly 27 o'clock.

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Session 29

Before resting aboard the Silver Rose, Kime and Sagan scout out a shorter, alternative path back to the ziggurat up the rocky slopes that Viggo first examines via his telescope. The pair of adventurers find good locations and secure ropes for the others to use, then they return back to the ship. At about 35 o'clock, the whole group starts on this route and finishes exploring the remainder of the ziggurat. Inside, they find that they are four of the minotaur "office cubicles," and they harvest the still shiny flexible metal mesh harnesses. In one of the cubicles, they find a coral shell in the shape of a minotaur, which contains a shriveled, mummified minotaur form within. They reason that the coral was "feeding" of them, as the more "crusty" minotaurs they fought earlier seemed less hardy and powerful than the ones who were not partially covered with coral growth.

Also discovered in the other rooms after the rounded maze coridors are the remains of a wizard's workshop, a communal kitchen and dining and living area, and a permanent Teleportion Circle surrounded by full cages of non-rusty steel bars and locked doors. Most everything of value appears to have been looted from these areas or left to age and decay. The supplies sealed in stone-shaped containers in the counter tops: water, flours, pork fat, baking soda, soap, vinegars, seems remarkably well preserved without any magic being detected around the jars. Some magics, however, especially in the northwest corner of the structure, Guidance, Mage Hand, and and rituals were failing to cast or operate as expected for the party.

In a large, bowl-shaped floored room, they find a mound of colorful coral has collected at the bottom of black-colored bowl. Two shafts or growths of coral have snaked up and out of the bowl into rounded shafts in the north and west walls of the room. At the botom of the bowl, they see that there is a 10'-diameter pool of blackness, which a bit of colder air seems to rise out of. They also detect some dark gray swirls. Experiments upon and Detect Magic spell, cast 50' away from the coral and then brought into the area show the 10' circle of blackness to be some type of Conjuration magic. The darkness is not wet, cannot be collected, and things pass through it without effort and come back unchanged Eventually, the monk tied to a rope, climbs down the coral and squeezes through the blackness into a chamber below. A previous test dipping in the owl familiar on a line like a tea bag, indicated the other side of the black disk was more than 100' feet away from Timador.

Wherever the true destination of the portal, lays, the Company makes their way through to explore. What they find is a dark, wet cavern where much of the stone work seems to have been shaped into rooms, window portals, and possibly a mining pit. Much more of the colorful coral can be found growing here out of a very deep pool of cold water, and the coral here is oddly luminescent, giving off a hazy violet glow. In a progressively deeper chasm to the east, a different color of low glow, blue, emanates from a huge forest-like growth of mushrooms and fungus. The mining area leads off into three passages: North, Central, South. A brief examination of the Central passage leads to an overlook over a very dense portion of the blue mushrooms. There, Viggo feels a touch of some sort of mental intrusion into his head, but he backs away and rejoins the monk, who's heading north. There, Sagon discovers an ossuary cavern filled with a large variety of small and larger humanoid bones, a small pond, wet stalactites above the lake, and three myconids standing in the far corner, possibly asleep. Venturing further in toward them, Sagon discovers that clinging to the stalactites are some type of inflated spore spewing creatures, who began spraying the area with powdery green dust, which animates many of the bones in the caverns. Yrsa attempts to turn them, but her Turn Undead channel of divinity doesn't affect these creatures. After a lengthy battle, the Company destroys the spore spewers and disrupts the green magic that was animating their skeletal constructs. The three myconids, however, were not alive at the start.

In the southern passage, a pitched camp of spider-silk tents is stake is a rough circle. Some of the blue mushrooms have grown up out of the chasm near the camp. Examining the tents, some shabby-looking barrels are found inside with oily wet spots covering the tent floor spaces. From these wet spots and out of the barrels, gray oozes and a ooze vomiting creature arise and strike out at the monk and the others near him. During the battle, Sagon's silver-shot staff is damaged by the ooze acid, and the fighting alerts large grasshoper like fungus creatures, who leap into the area and attempt to bite and poison the humanoids. After this battle, a dead body of dark-skinned and haired dwarf is found in a nearby chamber, where he appears to have propped a table up against the entrance to seal the door. His body and equipment are found to be acid scarred. What has survived, however, is his platinum ring, and some of one of the sheets of paper he had in a leather binder. The dwarf writing in side read:

as I cannot deny that. I don't know what is more amazing: how those [unreadable] sahuagin priests and sorcerers managed to [unreadable] their blue rafter temples near adamant pockets, or how the geomancer can unerringly locate both from here where we cannot activate even simple Detect and Find charms. Vraspir does not voice his secrets aloud, nor does he [unreadable] of the ease of repurposing their stone. But always alert and curious, I search for the secrets of his power. Until then, we continue our labor for a tenth share. I hope soon for more. I am wary, though, of neighboring Fire Giants. I hear odd sloshing at night, but when I peer I see nothing below in the eastern chasm separating our camps. The [unreadable] says [unreadable] can be trusted.

The monk explore deeper into the caverns, and, with a rope died to him, ventures into the denser portions of the blue fungi. There, he succumbs to a mental assault and feels compelled to lay down among the blue fungus onto the wet spongy pink-gray flooring from which they grow. Telpathically, a voice can be heard by those nearby" "We are King Araumycos; join the comfort of the mass; avoid the chaos of the individual; do not be merely be an instance of life; join." The party uses the rope tied to Sagon, to drag him free of the fungi trying to consume him.

They then attempt going through the northern passage again, where the fungal growth is not as thick. Sagon is able to nearly get through on his own, and he sees a cleared passageway beyond with a set of large double doors. A multi-eyed fungus monster and some roper-like growths rise up then and drive him back, while, to the south, a vety large, 28' foot tall mushroom-headed figure works its way up to the edge of the denses part of the fungal forest, and the Company battle with it. Only their mundane attacks seem to have any event on it, though, as all the magical spells Timador, Yrsa, and Stroop, leveled against it seemed to have no effect. Also, the Conjuration and Divination spells they attempted down here didn't even cast. The giant mushroom also was regenerating damage each round, and it was releasing mental attacks against party members whenever they were within 30 feet of it. Eventually, they had to pull back into the more coral-dominated portions of the cavern.

The session ended on Day 61, about 44 o'clock. (Next possible long rest would be at 55 o'clock.)

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Session 30

The Company retreats back to the safety of the Ziggurat to rest and plot their next moves. Able to use his Divinination Rituals again, Timador casts Detect Magic on the few items they've been able to assemble on their latest venture, and then he casts Identify on the platinum ring found on the acid-scarred dwarf miner. The magic ring allows the wearer to, once per Eclipse cycle, to cast a limited form of the Expeditous Retreat spell, lasting for one minute. For now, it is given to the halfling Bard to use and attune to so that, when he needed, Stroop will be able to use his Bonus Action for ten rounds to take the Dash Action.

Since there are still several hours before they can all properly rest to regain their spells, Kime uses the extra time to raid the kitchen stores in the Ziggurat Commons Area to make barrels full of what she hopes will be fungicides, which can be used against "King Araumycos" to harm him or at least slow his new-growth regeneration. To this end, the Ranger mixes up solutions of sodium bicarbonate, rancid corn syrup vinegar, liquifies the pale yellow dried soap, and boils up lye from the wood ashes. The barrels are then loaded into the Portable Hole. Once the adventurers rest and resturn to the site of their last battle, Kime and the others dump the contents of barrels where they will cover the northeast area. (Earlier, Sagon sited a door). Once dumped, the runoff continued to flow down into the thicker blue patches where the giant mushroom creature last stood. Almost immediately after they dump the barrels, more mushroom and spore creatures--including a 15' high fungal behemoth, gas spore "bags," and a poison spore projector--come out of hiding and attack. The creatures are put down by a combination of melee attacks by the party and Timador's Earth Elemental (summoned above where Conjuration spells still function), and a well-placed Fireball, which burns away the fungal creatures.

Araumycos, though, does not make an appearance, so the party hugs the north eastern cavern walls, dispatches the stationary fungal "Roper" creatures stationed there, and reaches a pair of large stone doors. Viggo examines them and discovers they are locked using a simple metal bar slotted across them from the other side. Unable to summon Mage Hand, the Light Alf considers sliding his rapier in and trying to lift the bar out, but he knows that this will cause a clanging noise if he is successful. Timador though, has his Elemental phase through the stone and remove the bar and open the door. In the passage beyond, Stroop is able to make out the sound of metalic harp strings being plucked and a drunken voice singing and composing Fire Giant lyrics, which, after some starts and stops and corrections, ends up yielding the song:

Beneath the King, Hofgoði sings, brings order to the Thing
Then Warlords swing, what Blacksmiths bring, and Soldiers ordering
The center of society is slaving at the forge;
The tenor of its lava stream, is paving roads bright orange.
Hammer we raise in pride, up high, and anvil beat like drum;
without this heat inside, we die, and charcoal we become.
If threatened, we shield our hearts in steel; this, our foes must learn:
No Jötunn yields, his knees won't kneel; our nature is to burn.
All of Nature is Ours to Burn.

The singing is coming from Karlo "the Barely Enormous," a Dwarf Fire Giant guard, "just" ten feet in height. The guard is drunk on an algae and koji fungus brew and is rather despondent, his only friend, a young Hell Hound pup named Davorin. Karlo has been stationed here, essentially in an insulting/worthless position, guarding a remote passage from which there should have been little to no chance of anything ever needing to be repelled. As Karlo has failed at physically repelling these surface adventurers, he takes a different approach to his duty. Since the party had stealthily removed his gold-inlaid throwing boulders before revealing their presence to the giant, Karlo attempts to block their passage further inside by outright warning them of the Ettins and Fire Giants who lay beyond his post, knowledge of which gives the party pause, as they're not certain they're up for a fight against several giants. Karlo inquires if the surfacers have any wheat bread or sugar, and, after Sagon gifts the giant his cask of honey mead from the Portable Hole, Karlo warms up further to the party, and he relates how the Fire Giant Jarl beyond and above has been "dangerously stoking up the place" lately to create adamantine armor. From there, the conversation leads to discussions of sun-grown grains and the possibility of making the giant some fresh bread in the Ziggurat above. Lured into such a promise, while also not truly believing that caverns below him lead anywhere up, Karlo travels with them to the surface. Along the way, they battle with another spore bag, three animated bone clusters, and fight some coral creatures, which attack, after the Company direct the Fire Giant to smash some of the coral growing through the black portal so that he will have room to squeeze through. While Sagon is pounding on the largest coral creature, the rest escape up the coral mound into the Ziggurat.

While showing the Fire Giant that the Ziggurat does indeed lead up to the surface world, the group sight three large long ships to the west approaching the newly-formed island. Using his telescope, Viggo is able to make out that the three ships are flying the Svarta banner. The light alf also sees two other ships approaching from south east, flying Ölkenveld banners. They start immediately back up the muddy slopes to check in on the Silver Rose anchored below. And, as they reach the ridge and are able to look down, they see that the Lizard Man Kruesh is safely aboard and raising the Svartaland flag. At that point, the ground around them also begins to rumble and quake violently.

The session ended on Day 62, about 6 o'clock. (Next possible long rest would be at 23 o'clock.)

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Session 31

As the newly-form island begins to quake and settle and/or sink, and as five ships approach them, the Red-Gold Company hurry down the rocky slopes and return to their ship, the Silver-Rose. Viggo has used his telescope to make out details about the approaching vessels; this, combined with the previous experiences of his fellow party members indicate that two of the three ships sailing from the west are the longship Meerpaard and ocean knarr, Meerveulan, military patrol ships from Fort Mouth. The third, a long, thin ocean-going knarr, carries the name Golf Snijder and is later found to have originated from Messersachs. All three have been dispatched to investigate the new island (and source of the recent flooding). Most of this is learned from the skipper of the Meerpaard, Will Paree, who speaks to the party through the mouth of a Pseudo Dragon ("Sgt. Rembrandt"), who has flown ahead to caution The Company from attacking either of the approaching Ökenveld ships (the Denizyilani and the Engerek).

This suits the adventurers just fine, and they begin sailing northward away, keeping their distance from the currently unstable land mass. Sagon spots a bat-winged creature flying from the east--a horned red imp. The Monk overhears some of the conversation exchanged between the imp and the psuedo dragon: Captain Paree insists that Svarta has a claim to the island (as a portion of it lies within their 9-mile boundary waters and some of its vattenpujke citizens have historically used the submerged Olmayan caverns here for breeding). The imp (Seaman Apprentice Uzun), speaking for Oramiril Niroop Simek, indidates that ownership of the new island is not a given and still needs to be settled diplomatically; and, in any event, gaining the new island (if any of it manages to stay above the water level) will not expand Svartaland's sea boundaries (as recently established in the treaty) any further into the Neutral Waters.



As these diplomatic matters are being discussed, the Silver Rose continues north and the Golf Snijder sails up intent on meeting up with them. The ranger Kime notices large steamy bubbles rising up between the two ships, and also something round and large--with six appendages--surfacing quickly. A giant dragon turtle bobbers up and blasts a 60' cone of scalding steam across the entire length of the Golf Snijder, dropping all but two of the 15 crew members. Sagon races across the deck planning on leaping on the turtle's back, but, as he sees the turtle's shell is blazing orange and a harmful heat is pouring off of it, the monk attacks more cautiously, but he is unable to stun the gargantuan beast. And, as most of the monster is protected by its massive shell, it is difficult for any of the adventurers to harm it with their melee weapons. Stroop, Timador, and Yrsa attack it magically, but some of their spells do not appear overly effective. The turtle exhibits a legendary ability to shake off and/or reduce much of the damage directed against it. Springing into action, Karlo the Fire Giant leaps onto the seas dragon's back and begins hammering on it and cracking its shell with his giant axe and great strength.

Kruesh and Viggo, meanwhile, are doing their best to sail the Silver-Rose away from the creature, who recharges its breath weapon immediately and scalds the crew of the Meerpaard after first swimming very quickly towards the longship. The Meerveulan and Golf Snijder crews manage to hit the turtle with ballista bolts, and several of the Meerveulan crew members launch arrows. Will Paree hits the dragon with a green beam of energy, which carves into the monster and does considerable damage. (Timador believes he's just witnessed a Disintegration spell in action. Yrsa then notes the cleric on the Golf Snijder also hit the turtle with a powerful dark necrotic spell, possible a Harm spell. And, the Ökenveld ships move in closer, but they are still too far away to join the battle. Eventually, through the combined efforts of all four crews of the Svarta ships, the turtle is slain and then harvested for its meat and internal organs.

After the combat, the various crews join together to discuss the new island, possible volcanic activity, treaties, etc. The Admiral of the Ökenveld lead ship awards Timador a platinum medal for his quick actions in Skywriting a warning to the islanders about the flood waters. Not to be completely shown up, the Captain of the Svarta longship also awards Timador a gold medal. And, when Yrsa boards the Golf Snijder to provide medical assistance, she discovers that the cleric of that ship is Birtingr Solstheim, the leader of a Freehet Cult who Yrsa once beat to death with a club when he was attempting to sacrifice her (in pre-Session 1 backstory). Solstheim says that [i]Raise Dead[/i] was cast upon him by a female cleric he was not familiar with, and he recovered in a hospital. He remembers some things about Yrsa and her brother Bran, and also mentions that it has been difficult regaining his old life back (his standing, wealth, etc.) but Solstheim insists that sacrificing a human was not the sort of thing that he would have ever done. Okay, then. Something felt very not right about this to Yrsa, but her Insight check into the man didn't indict that he was lying.

The Meerpaard and Silver-Rose then sailed to Sandburg, hauling the turtle carcass for processing and rendering. The Company then began the trek back to Kuststad to give Commander Holt their full report. On the journey, Kime, on watch, sees a couple of suspicious vattenpujkes approaching Lugna from the lake and climbing up the step cliffs of the Knife Coast--definitely entering the mining city using a "back way." The Company writes a note to the town's mayor and has Timador's owl familiar drop it in the townsquare to warn the city that something nefarious might be afoot.

Once back at Kuststad, The Company checks in with Holt, "The 'Tweens," and sells creature components to Grenhay Sumpers. Stroop and Karlo perform at the Milk Maid Tavern to thunderous applaus. Holt then assigns The Company to return to the new isle area to continue observing the ongoing situation there, which suits them just fine as the adventurers were hoping to return to the (now-submerged) Ziggurat and Stone Shape an airlock chamber around the shrine door entrance so that they would be able to re-enter the complex without flooding it. To this end, they consult with dwarfs who are in town renovating the basement of the Kuststad Mission. From the dwarfs they obtain plans, a water-proof door, and some building supplies.

Instead of returning with them to the island, Karlo decides to stay behind in Kuststad, where the people appreciate him and where he can possibly work for Holt. The rest of the adventurers and Kruesh return to what's remaining of the new island and make regular patrols around it. Under cover of the night, they work in the depths below building the new entrance. Once that is complete, they test it and reenter the structure. Everything seems to be as they left it, except the dark portal pool to the mushroom caverns is no longer open. The 10' pool is gone, and the coral mound that had grown up through it had been sheared off, apparently when the portal closed. However, below where the portal had been was some type of 10' round door, divided into four pizza-like wedges of stone. Between the four wedges were sheets of iron and copper. After clearing away about nine tons of coral, Timador was able to identify the door beneath as containing some type of Transmutation magic, which, when magical lighting is channeled into two center rings would cause the four wedges to push apart for ten minutes, opening the door and allowing access to a flight of stone stairs beneath, stairs that lead to someplace other than the mushroom caverns.

Session ended on Day 65 about 40:00. The Company can full-rest again beginning at 50 o'clock.

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Session 32

Following the steep stairs down, the adventurers see that the passage leads through a stone arch into a larger chamber about 60' wide. In the middle of that room near to the southern wall, they briefly see a large stone owl figure perched on a pedestal in a fountain. "Briefly see," that is, because the room immediately clouds up with blinding fog. And, as they back their way up the stairway to the upper level, they hear a loud voice exclaim, "You are not the Master Vraspir. Quickly speak the pass phrase if you've been given it, else expect to be harmed if you enter within." There is also the sound of metal against metal, metal against stone heard within the fog. The Company keep wary and wait for the cloud to disperse. It does, and when they venture in again, a voice issues the same message, but this time there is no fog cloud. Stepping beyond the archway, they are confronted by two helmless-suits of animated armor, which have longswords and some type of smokey cloud faces. After the party defeats them by beating upon them and breaking the armor pieces apart, Timador notes that the stone owl figure detects of some type of Transmutation magic. Meanwhile, the monk, always in a hurry, heads east into a 10' wide hallway floored by a parallel array of metal bars and flanked by a partial wall of square pillars, which separate the hallway from north and south rooms (which is where "murder-hole" type guardsmen typically await with crossbows. Sagon shakes off some sort of gibbering, howling mental attack; the unsettling voices come from a stretch of green jelly oozing in a large trough beneath the barred flooring. And, at the end of the hallway, Sagon sees a robed figure pulling at a lever attached to the wall. A grinding noise is then heard, and the monk is just barely able to swing his staff at the robed figure before he runs off. The monk's attack, though on target, passes harmlessly through him. The fleeing figure leaps into a pit to the east, cries out in pain at the landing, then he gets up and runs further south out of sight.

Kime and Vogelfest and Viggo approach the bar-lined hallway and battle with more headless suits of armor and three Gibbering Mouther type masses of the green jelly, which, along with tens of floating eyes and biting mouths, has oozed up through the bars to lash out at them with hideous, toothy pseudopods. All three heroes shake off the Mouther's mental and chemical blinding attacks, but they take some brutal damage from Mouther bites and from crossbow bolts fired by the six suits of animated armor. Yrsa, Stroop, and Timador cast healing spells to reinvigorate party members and also ranged damaged magic to whittle away at their foes. Sagon finishes off the teh last of the animated guardsmen and Viggo's continuously-applied Witchbolt finally slays the troughed Mouther.

A closer examination of these first few rooms then yields the following: the stone owl has some sort of metal jewelry attachment on its forehead that appears to be missing a gemstone; the owl's head seems like it should rotate, but it is locked in place; the once animated armor now is little more than scrap iron, but the eight longswords and six crossbows the animated constructs employed in combat are still of high quality; and, despite the animated armor guards not having had flesh bodies, there is a nearby bed room with pallet beds enough for six humanoids to sleep, and a card table and two chairs in an alcove corner with a few coins and cards laid out as if a poker game had been interrupted.

The Company has little time to ponder any of this, though, as a large Earth Elemental glides through the wall near the owl fountain and begins attacking, especially intent, it seemed, on killing Stroop, who is repeatedly pounded until the Halfling bard drops to the floor unconscious. The rest of the party does what they can do to protect him and they attack the creature en masse, with Timador summoning up a smaller Earth Elemental to aid in the battle, which is over relatively quickly, but not without the party members have taken considerable damage. Still, after casting some more healing spells cast and quaffing potions, they decide to push on, exploring deeper into the complex to make the best use of Timador's elemental before his hour-long summoning spell elapses.

The tunnel south--where the robed figure disappeared to earlier--is essentially a long ramp down whose floor surface is covered with a slick of cooking oil. Skid marks seem to indicate that a humanoid may have slid down it. There are also some small, apparently harmless bats in the corridor circling about and/or clinging to the ceiling of the ramp tunnel. Sagon is lowered down the ramp while attached to a rope. At the bottom, he finds a sliding wall lined with horizontal spikes waiting to impale anyone who may have slid down the ramp. Next to the wall of spikes is a wall of padding. It appears that the figure may have slid into the padding and then moved the wall west to line up the spike trap. Timador's Earth Elemental just breaks and slides the wall, creating a narrow opening to the south while the rest of The Company repel down the rope. In the hall beyond, they find two adjacent prison cells. Also, the floor in the hallway is covered here by a layer of sand that seems to have gotten wet at one point and then dried and hardened. Some foot prints can be seen indicating that a humanoid passed over the sand, went around the corner west, then ran around another corner to the north. Also, in the first cell, the monk discover a robed individual who claims to be Vraspir's brother, and he beckons the adventurers to quickly let him loose before Vraspir frees the Lightning Elementals. This all turns out to be some type of delaying ruse or joke, and the robed man in the cell, Stroop determines to be an illusion. It's even more apparent he's not real when Vraspir's "brother's" conversional phrases start repeating. As this is happening near the first cell, Sagon and the Elemental scout the hallway ahead and discover a sprung pit to the north; however, as they stand at the southernmost edge of it, their combined weight springs open three other pit traps doors in the hallway beneath them. If anyone else had been in the hallway just behind them, they all would have been dumped 15 feet down onto the spikes. Each separate pit trap also contained two hungry ghasts. But these pitfalls and undead only momentarily delay the monk and the elemental, and the other adventures are able to easily pick off the ghasts. The monk then leaped over the northern pit into another pit just beyond, which was hidden by an illusion. But he's okay, managing to use his monk abilities to avoid falling in.

The area beyond, he finds, is a large, mostly spherically-shape room with an oily pool at the bottom just after the pit. A combination of winding paths, stairs, and ladders leads further up from the bottom of the bowl-shaped floor. Sagon also sees twenty two- to three-feet diameter silver balls scattered across the floors above. He traverses the paths up and sees two additional platforms higher up just beyond the rounded chamber. While Sagon is exploring ahead, the Elemental "ferries" the rest of The Company across the edges of the two pits. It is then that the monk hears an incantation being spoken from the platform above him. The whole room is then filled with a Freezing Sphere, and everyone takes considerable cold damage. The monk climbs the ladder and looks for the caster of the spell, but the wizard must be invisible. The monk then blindly attacks with his staff and kicking feet while Timador hits the whole area with a fireball. The invisible wizard reacts by casting Absorb Elements to reduce the fire damage to himself, and then, on his next action, he casts Animate Objects on ten of the silver balls. They hover up and fly rapidly, smashing their attacks against The Company. The monk, though, now knowing that the Wizard is just beyond an open secret door, attacks and kills him with a flurry of monk blows. As the frail wizard drops to the floor, Sagon sees the man inside the robes turn to snow and ice, which quickly melts into a wet puddle. All that is left of the wizard is wet robes and footwear, an arcane focus and a few spell components, and a book of Ritual Spells.



Timador recalls a very high-level wizard spell called Simulacrum, which a 13th of higher-level wizard might be able to cast to create a duplicate of any creature out of an ice figurine. Such a creature, if it is also a spell caster, would have the spell slots and known spells of the original target, although the icy double cannot ever learn new spells nor regain lost spell slots once cast. Still, even with just half the hit points of the original target, a Simulacrum can be quite deadly. And, the adventurers, who are now badly hurt and with their most powerful spells already exhausted, have to wonder if the real wizard and/or more creatures are also close at hand, ready now to easily finish them all off.

The Session ended there on Day 65 about 42:00. The Company still needs to wait another eight hours before they can begin a long rest to regain spells, so they are potentially in a world of hurt.

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Session 33

After the battle with the simulacrum, the Company members regroup to plan their next move. Their discussion is joined by the ambient rattling of chains and the groaning of gears nearby: some indistinct scraping metal noises, which evolve into the hard stepping of steel sabatons onto stone. A set of doors to the southwest opens, and four headless sets of animated armor arrive to continue the defense of the complex. But, even with the adventurers depleted of most of their offensive spells, they shatter their foes. Not able to take much more, though, and unable to rest, they make their way through a secret passage back to the opening up into the Ziggurat. Returning to the Silver Rose, they inform their shipmate Kruesh of recent happenings. After resting, and it still being a couple of hours before sunrise, they once again dive into the waters of the Wimranda, ready again for further exploration of the sunken Ziggurat's subbasement.

Viggo's keen eyes and Timador's detection rituals discover Explosive Runes inscribed on the metal seals between the doors. So they and Stroop combine their Mage Hand cantrips to open the doors remotely. This springs a pendulum blade trap but the warding glyphs do not detonate until Viggo bowls one of the heavy silver balls through the opening. Inside the southeast room, they discover a comfy chair, chest, shelf full of crafting objects, and a mahogany table whose top is occupied by a large castle model. Some of the catle's structure is built up out of stacked gold, silver, copper, and platinum coins. Sagon and Viggo work to free a goosenecked Continual Flame lamp positioned as to provide light when working on the model. The castle gives off hints of Conjuration and Transmutation magics, as does the chest once the lead-lined lid is opened remotely using disembodied magical hands. Inside the chest, additional coins are stacked atop some type of pressure plate, lead-lined bottom not attached directly to the rest of the chest. After looping a rope around the chest, everyone backs outside into the 60' wide rounded room. The monk tries yanking the chest out of the smaller room. This sets off a wide-reaching magical effect, and the party members feel disorientated and queasy. The rounded room spins around them.

Next, they hear a loud chik, chik, chik ticking, sounding like the escapement mechanism of a gnomish clock. A loud gong rings twice. An unseen speaker gives voice, "Välkommen till Slottets Urverk," then it chuckles with an echoing menace. The party finds themselves "shrunken?"/"transported?" into the walled bailey of the stacked coin castle. As they shake off the nausea gained from traveling there, they notice the environment seems semi-finished, crude and hazy, as if brushed over with sloppy paints and poor illusions. However, the mechanical clockwork men-at-arms, who now turn to face them from their guard positions upon the castle's chemin de ronde above, appear real enough when they attack. The armored constructs move quickly and hack wildly with poleaxes or a spinning circular blade. Although these mechanical monks cut fast and furiously, they do not stand long against the party and Timador's Shatter spells. On the demolished body of the Clockwork Castellan, Viggo finds a "Visitor's Pass" card, and while the party maintains possession of it, they are no longer openly attacked by the inhabitants of the coin castle, but neither do they have free access to the rooms of the interior Keep.



Exploring a well near the barn to the north, they encounter a filthy construct who identifies as "Toshr." He offers to sell them from his cart of rags, bottles, bones, and scrap metal. But, beneath the waistcoat he flaps open, he also has an assorted of shiny pins, buttons, and even a gnome wristwatch, which Ursa pays him a 100 gold for. Toshr announces that he is legally authorized to search and claim anything that he finds in the castle's sewers and storm drains. He indicates a grating to the sewers, which actually seem to only lead into a shallow, wet pit. In the barn, Toshr tells them is stabled Timmehëst, the queen's riding horse. Timador draws up some well water and dumps it into the trough for the horse, who approaches and mouths it up.

When the party attempts an audience with the queen, the north tower guard who bars their way, says that he will check with her asking if she will see him. He returns shortly and informs them, "The Queen is tied up at the moment, and cannot meet with anyone." They party then tries the southern tower to speak with the king. The tower guard there inquires and returns with the mayor of the city, Burgmästr, who relates to them that the king is sleeping and cannot be wakened. Burgmästr, does, however, offer to show the adventurers to the more common locations within the castle. He does not stay long with them, but points out the chapel, the tavern, the Castellan's station, the stable, graveyard, and the king's coal mine. The party then splits; the monk visits the chapel and listens to the sermon of a priestess of Vhereum Steadfast, Stroop heads to the tavern to get a drink from the barkeep Kroogr, Timadar discusses accommodations with Jänta the tavern maid, and Yrsa has a lengthy discussion with Resr, who states that he is a "resurrectionist," who can lawfully obtain a body for her if she wishes ("for Science and such"). This body can apparently come in the form of a statute-like mannequin, something more fleshy like herself, or a zombie which Yrsa can control for 20 hours. Each is progressively more expensive in that same ordering.

When they search the entrance of the coal mine (following up on "The One Tavern Rumor," obtained by Stroop): "there must be trouble at the mine seeing how none of the workers have come up for lunch"), they encounter the boy, "Nipr," who offers to hold the mine shaft doors open for them. Alas, neither Nipr nor the party can open those mine doors without an authorized keycard from the king. They try again to see him, but he is still asleep. And being told that the coal miners may be in danger fails to motivate Burgmästr to try harder in waking him. "He hasn't been sleeping well lately," they are told instead. "Perhaps the Queen can rose him?"

Trying again to meet with the queen, they have no luck until Viggo makes his own luck (after Stroop casts Invisibility on the light alf, and Viggo sneaks inside and finds a hiding spot while the tower guard is questioning the queen. Then, when the guard returns, the rest of the party bombard him with noisy questions. So, Viggo sleaths his way inside the Queen's chambers. There, he finds her, literally tied up and gagged on her bed. A real-life Halfling rogue, who was sitting in a chair next to her reading a book, looks up in Viggo's invisible presence, and exclaims, "This isn't what it looks like!" Eventually, though, after some conversation, it appears this is exactly what it looked like. The rogue tied up the queen and has been staying in her room "as it has the best bed in the place." The halfling is Doldtro Karl, who's been in here a very long time. Supposedly once a friend of the Wizard Vraspir, Doldtro agreed to help the wizard test his coin castle trap, but the wizard never let him out of "this pocket universe, a realm somewhat tangental to Nirvana." Doldtro questions Viggo as well and learns about the rest of the party and whether or not they have the Purple Keystone. Viggo admits they do not. Doldtro explains it's probably hidden deep in the coal mine, but they need a key to get inside, and the King cannot be woken.

Disguising himself as the Lady Drottnina, Doldtro (who is an Arcane Trickster by trade) explains to the tower guard to let in the rest of the party. They then raise a gate providing them access to the king's throne room. There they find the sleeping Koongr, search him, but find no key nor are able to wake his majesty. But they do find, upon investigation, the King's "skin" bears a "spray-on tan"--except for a white band of flesh around his left wrist. Yrsa places her gnome watch on him and it rings and Koonr wakes up. Hearing about trouble in the mine, Koongr widely opens his mouth, and a key card extends out like a wide tongue. The card proves to open mine door and, while Nipr holds it open, Timador additionally inserts his door wedge-shape spikes to help prop them open. In the coal mine, they find the skeletal remains of the miners, and battle with a clockwork brass dragon, who has taken over the mine as his lair. At one point during the fight, the dragon was heating up as if it where about to burst into flames near where it had previously flapped the air full of a cloud of powdered coal dust. But Kime and Vogelfest hammered and clawed upon the dragon moments before it could flame, causing the fiery build up to instead escape out side venting as heated steam.

Within the dragon's hoard (most of which were just piles of painted props), they find a purple Amethyst Cobochon, which stinks of Conjuration and Transmutation magic. Doldtro explains that it must be fitted within the owl figure for it to open the gate but it cannot merely be placed there via a Mage Hand or even by Timador's Earth Elemental. The owl is designed to also feast upon the hand that feeds it the stone into its metal head piece. As such, the party subdues Resr and dig up his six graves, one of which contains a zombie and one a fresh body (a previous adventurer in mail armor) who has been kept cool apparently due to a sublayer in the crypt that contains Bitterwhite Ooze, a deadly creature that feeds upon decay, entropy, and and galactic motion. "Then," Doldtro explains, "it farts out waves of cold." Once the bodies are obtained, Doldtro cuts the hands from the corpse and zombie and uses his Mage Hand to control one of the severed hands to place the purple keystone into the figurine. As claimed, the owl opens the gateway and also swallows the hand. Doldtro then uses his Mage Hand to pluck out the Amethyst before Timador can do the same. The halfling, the party, and the clockwork horse Timmehëst (whom they've taken along) find themselves back in the room with the coin castle model. Doldtro says the purple keystone will also work in the Owl statue in the Ziggurat's subbasement to get them to an even deeper level.

The Session ended on Day 66, roughly one o'clock. The party can next long rest at 18:00.

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Session 34

After returning from the Coin Castle realm, the Company completes a short rest and heals. As Doldtro has been gone for 50 seasons, but it doesn't feel like it has been that long for him, they send Viggo and Sagon up to the surface to check in with Kruesh. It appears to be 2:00 or so on Day 66 as expected, so Sagan returns with that news. As it is daylight now, Viggo remains aboard the Silver Rose in case anyone is closely watching the ship. Viggo and the lizard man will keep up appearances and continue their scouting mission on the surface, sailing the knarr around the two remaining potions of the new island, the rocky cliff areas near where the Ziggurat is submerged and the upcropping near the pujke egg caves. Meanwhile, below, the adventures complete a long rest and swap information with Doldtro Karl. The Halfling explains to them that he first met Vraspir when the geomancer was disguised as a young elvish wizard. Vraspir, already an established wizard, apparently helped to form a new group of adventurers near Hartewald, the Svarta capital. Their group included Doldtro Karl (the rogue), Varee Vareesson (Dwarf fighter, former coal miner), Sweet Willaim (Druid), Deevar Lightkeeper, priestess of Vhereum Steadfast, and Vraspir (in his elf girl disguise as Alflin Jal). They explored together and faced a variety of dangers, and Doldtro noted that the elf girl Alflin, had always been "lucky," always managing to "stay up" when some of the others dropped in combat. Eventually, the Wood ELf druid, Sweet William, left the group when he learned that his wife had died while he had been off adventuring. It was about that time that Vraspir dropped all pretense of being low level and revealed himself as having been a high-level wizard, steering their actions. He then took complete control of the group.

The three remaining members of the group continued working for Vraspir, who paid well, funded and controlled their group resources (including shared magic items), and sent them on various missions and quests. Doldtro says that one of the magic items (held as group treasure) was a Bag of Holding he felt that he owned. The bag normally held the other magical treasures between adventures: a Ring of Expeditious Retreat (used most often by Varee), a Rope of Climbing (used by Deevar), a House Figurine of Wondrous Power (used by Sweet William, which turns out to be the Clockwork Steed that was stabled in the Coin Castle), and an Elvish Cloak (worn by Alflin). Doldtro wants the Bag Holding and offers to split the other magic items with the Red Gold Company if they manage to retrieve them together. Doldtro knows where the Bag was normally stored between missions.



Once they are fully rested, Doldtro uses his Mage Hand cantrip to manipulate one of the severed zombie hands to place the Amethyst Cabochon into the Owl statue near the entrance to the upper level of the Ziggurat. Beforehand, though, he warns them not to position themselves in the stairwell leading up as "the northern opening will seal as the southern opening opens." The owl activates, rotates it's head 180 degrees and lights shine out of its eyes against the stone wall. A layer of stone dissolves away, revealing a layer of metal behind it, which also dissolves to reveal more stone, which also dissolves. As this is happening, similar layers build up along the northern wall. It closes as the other opens. Doltro warns not to remove the purple keystone, as it needs to be in place to keep the doors in this configuration. Doldtro then hurries down a new tunnel system and stairs that leads south, switches back to the north, then swings south again. The monk Sagon keeps up with him while the Wizard Timador commands his owl familiar to keep watch over the owl and keystone. Yrsa, Kime, Vogelfest, Stroop, and Timador then make their way down into the new level.





At a corner a hundred or so feet down, Doltro removes a large framed picture, which he explains shows Ley Lines that Vraspir has mapped out in the Wimranda Lake region. Timador knows that Ley Lines are concentrations of magical energies left over after TheWorld was recreated. The locations of these magics can effect certain other magic cast near them, and they are also locations where the passage between one realm to another can more easily be accomplished.

Doldtro removes groutless bricks from the wall behind where the framed picture rested to reveal a metal container with a hindged "dooggy door" like opening. Reaching inside, he pulls out three small bags of coins but cries out angrily, "That rotten bastage took my bag of holding!" The hobbit squeezes and crawls inside the metal box thumping at the bottom, sides, and ceiling. He knocks free several sheets of vellum which contain Vraspir's wizard notes for when he developed many high-level spells, including "Secret Chest," "Private Sanctum," "Teleportation Circle," "Transmute Rock," "Wall of Stone," "Arcane Gate," "Create Undead," "Instant Summons," "Programmed Illusion," "Sequester," "Simulacrum," "Teleport," and a unique 1st-level spell called "Faerz'ress Frá-vera," designed to allow spell casters to cast Divination and Conjuration spells in the presense of normally restrictive Faerz'ress concentrations.

Doldtro becomes upset and does not particualrly want to explore further. But it is also made clear that a body they found in a previous adventure was probably that of his drawf friend, Varee. The Red-Gold Company found a Ring of Expeditious Retreat on a dwarf's partially acid-dissolved body. They travel further down a spiral staircase and then a 200 foot shaft into a small room whose door is barried with a tough "timber" of Zurkhwood mushroom stem. The door, once opened, proves to be a door that the party spotted earlier when battling "King Araumycos," that giant mushroom guy who was imune to their magical attacks. Returning to the room, it's decided that Timadore will climb further back up the shaft away from the Faerz'ress, where he is able to work a conjuration spell. He summons an Earth Elemental to smash a back entrance out of the chamber so that they can move about the cavern without having to walk immediately into combat with Aramycos. Once accomplished, though, they discover that possibly Aramycos is dead, for several huge chunks of stone from the ceiling appear to have fallen upon him when the island started quaking and sunk. A stream of large ants has also been tearing apart and hauling away portions of the gray brain- like undermass where Aramycos lived among the blue mushrooms. Also, the area where Kime dumped the barrels of her make-shift Fungicide appears to have never recovered afterwards. Thus free to more thoroughly explore the cavern, the Company does so and locates a skeleton wearing a rusty set of scale armor. A rope is found with the body, and it has not suffered any decay. It turns out to be a Rope of Climbing, and Doldtro determines the armor to be of the sort that Deevar the cleric used to wear. Yrsa is prepared to ask questions of the dead, but Doldtro says that he has no wish to disturb the cleric, and suggests instead that they locate the remains of Varee, whom he was closer friends with, so that they can question him about the Bag of Holding. The group ponders the five questions that will be asked of Varee's remains. And, from him, they learn that Sweet William had the Bag of Holding (apparently he came back to work with the group), Varee last saw Vraspir 15 seasons ago, Vraspir had told them that he trapped Doldtro in the coin castle because the halfling was stealing from them, Vraspir's plan was to build a trap to capture a Quarut (one of the Inevitables) that was chasing him, and that Varee would like his remains to be buried near the Kentacii coal mines.

Returning to the guard post where they met the "Barely Enormous" Fire giant, Karlo, they find that some of the cavern ceiling has collapsed here as well, but the guard post was also rifled through, the mattress to the bed slashed open by a big knife and searched. Beyond the guard chamber, which seems to have been deliberately constructed to block off the fungal cavern, the party finds large stretches of winding tunnels and caverns of various sizes. There is evidence of life here among bioluminescent lichen: rats, bats, and possibly small humanoid creatures, all of whom scamper away if approached. The smaller shafts with their tight bends and rapid changes in elevation could take days to explore and map out. They head instead down the larger tunnel south that could accomodate a Fire Giant-sized creature. The tunnel dries out considerably as they go, and soon, temperatures are well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In a largish cavern, they discover fencing that pens in a small herd of dwarf muskoxen, about 4 foot high at the shoulders. Someone, like giants, is keeping them here as cattle. Not finding a nice secret back door to a giant treasure room, and not particularly wanting to battle with Fire Giants who may have recently forged adamant weapons and armor, the party decides to held back to the surface, where they can remove the purple keystone and block off this area until to explore later (or possibly never).

The boat ride home is fairly uneventful. They do make a quick stop at Sandborg to have a chat with the vattenpujke druid Chjell Knusari. They fill him in on the (now) likely stable condition of the two raised portions of the Olmayan reef area. The pujke egg caverns are probably safe again, but teh druid is warned that fire giants or worse may arise out of the submerged Ziggurat is it is disturbed and tinkered with. Timador has cast a couple of Arcane Lock spells on the outer doors to prevent easy access. The Druid suggests further that he can have some of his people disguise and bury the Ziggurat with rocks and silt so that it will not easily be found. After that, the company returns to Kuststad and makes their report to Commander Holt. Doldtro catches a ship to the mainland and plans to head west to bury the remains of his pal, Varee. Before that, though, the Company sells off the spoils of their adventuring, settles accounts with Grenhay, and divides up the treasure between them and Doltro. And Yrsa had ossuaries made for Varee and Deevar's remains. Finally, as they await their next mission, Timador meets with the local Mystics to discreetly exchange spell information and to start research into who this Vraspir person might be. And, before they left the Ziggurat, the Company "accidentally" lost a few pages of a journal detailing how a group of adventurers (fake names prominently mentioned) had found the Ziggurat and accomplish much to thwart the evil wizard's wards within.

Next session should pick with the new season.

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