Aravis Telmir
Dranko Blackhope
Ernest Wilburforce Roundhill
Flicker Proudfoot (NPC)
Grey Wolf 
Kay "Windstorm" Olafsen
Kibilhathur Bimson
Makel Troutman (NPC)
Morningstar, Shield of Ell
One Certain Step (NPC)

Runs 1-10
Runs 11-20
Runs 21-30
Runs 31-40
Runs 41-50
Runs 51-60
Runs 61-70
Runs 71-80
Runs 81-90
Runs 91-100
Runs 101-110
Runs 111-120
Runs 121-130
Runs 131-140
Runs 141-150
Runs 151-160
Runs 161-170
Runs 171-180
Runs 181-190
Runs 191-200
 
 

(1831)

(run 111 begins) 
Saturday, April 11 - Tuesday, June 10 - The party trains. 

Dranko goes with Flicker to visit the Smoke House, the halfling inn run by Flicker’s parents. He (Dranko) plays cards with a notorious halfling card-shark, Porridge Greenbuck, and loses a few hands before activating his new magical Glasses of Inversion (which he was wearing when he came in.)

(These glasses allow the wearer, for one continuous hour per day, to be able to see the opposite face of any object. It’s perfect for cheating at cards.) 

After activating the Glasses he fares much better, and leaves for the night with a few gold in winnings.

Morningstar has decided that she is going to raise Snokas from the dead, at the altar of Amber’s Illuminated Temple. Word of the impending miracle spreads, and by the time it’s time for the actual event, about 80 Sisters of Ell (including many from the main branch of the Temple) are sitting in the pews, waiting to witness the Raising . Four novices have been assigned to assist Morningstar, and they help prepare the body, light the proper tapers, and generally set things in order. 

Morningstar then casts Raise Dead. To all observers, Morningstar and Snokas are sunk into deep shadow. Morningstar sees all around her go dark, and she is infused with the holy power of Ell, which streams through her and into the body of Snokas. Just as she is completing the spell, a voice sounds in her head: "When Snokas has returned to life, bring him at once to the High Priestess Milanwy." Then the power recedes, and the two of them emerge from the holy shadow. Snokas’ chest rises as he sucks in his first breath. The assemblage of Ellish priestesses begin to chant in admiration and awe.

But all is not well. As the party feared, Snokas’s mind appears still to be trapped in the Crosser’s Maze, and while alive, he is in a catatonic trance. Morningstar immediately sends a novice to take a message to Milanwy at the main branch of the Temple, and then walks the docile Snokas into a waiting antechamber. 

Less than an hour later the novice returns with orders from the High Priestess to bring Snokas to her immediately. Morningstar and some other party members do so. Once there, Milanwy has Snokas taken inside; she herself had a vision during the Raising, that she should take Snokas and pray for him; she doesn’t yet know to what end. To Morningstar’s surprise, Milanwy has words of admiration and praise for the successful execution of the miracle of raising the dead.

One of Kay’s first priorities is to make inquiries about her father and brothers who are fighting against some of the humanoid invaders, and also about the Yrimpa. She learns that her family is likely fighting in Sentinel against orcs, but that casualties there have been light. (The orcs in those mountains seem to be focusing their efforts at the eastern end of the Kalkas Peaks, near the city of Hae Kalkas. Sentinel is the city at the far western end of the mountains.)

The Yrimpa have been extremely valuable in assisting the Werthans as they battle against the Delfirians on the Balani Peninsula. It’s a good thing, too, since the Werthans are suffering more severely from attrition than are the Nifi worshippers.

Morningstar is visited at the Greenhouse by Swan, the Ellish Dreamwalker who researched the miracle that allows Dreamwalkers to bring non-Dreamwalkers into Ava Dormo. She has some disturbing news to tell. It seems that until recently Swan was a trusted advisor to High Priestess Rhiavonne, the leader of the Ellish religion on Charagan. Being interested in the new teachings of the Illuminated Sisters, Swan has been doing research into the history of the Ellish religions. She has found evidence that the Ellish religion was originally one of Protection and Dreams, and that the "night angle" currently practiced evolved because it was during the night that people were most helpless and in need of protection (and also when they dreamed). Also, it was once the case that almost all Ellish Priestesses were Dreamwalkers. But as Ell became thought of less as a Goddess of Dreams, and more of a Goddess of Night, the number of Dreamwalkers dwindled. 

When Swan said these things to High Priestess Rhiavonne, she was called heretic, uttering the words of an apostate. Rhiavonne accused Swan of pandering to Amber and the Illuminated Sisters, as if that by itself were a heresy.

Swan considered that reaction to be very out of character for Rhiavonne, with whom she had always been able to be quite frank. Swan decided to leave Kallor for a time and travel to Tal Hae, but before she left, she learned that she had been excluded from several meetings, even before revealing her "heretical" findings. 

This meeting causes Morningstar and the party to become very suspicious of Rhiavonne and the Ellish Temple in Kallor, believing that it may have been infiltrated by the Black Circle as was the Church of Delioch.

During the training time, Aravis decides to do some experimenting with the Crosser’s Maze. He hasn’t tried to concentrate on it since he knocked himself out trying back in Zhamir. He tries again, and the same thing happens; he has a momentary vision of vast spaces and the dance of Primes through the various non-solid planes, and then he (and Pewter too, by the way) blacks out.

Undaunted he tries again the next day, prodding mentally the great black void lodged in the back of his mind. This time he manages to hold the vision for a couple of seconds before its immensity overwhelms him. Day after day he tests his limits, concentrating on the Maze for as long as possible. After three weeks of this, he is able to focus on the Maze for a full minute before tiring. He can "see" around him the sphere of the world, translucent, and yet paradoxically he can also see its boundaries and the scope of the world. Around it float three interpenetrating seas: the Ethereal and Astral Planes, and Ava Dormo, the Dreaming Plane. In the distance he can see other Primes, each at the center of a swirling well of energies. Smaller "pocket dimensions" float around and among the Primes. 

Beyond even that Aravis can see a greater scale of things. The whole of the space enclosing the primes is a tall cylinder. A huge city sits atop the cylinder, and around it is an infinitely expansive cylinder, with Outer Planes radiating out of the center. Above and below the Grand Cylinder are huge black expanses that hurt to concentrate upon.

The last thing Aravis sees is that Charagan’s Prime is almost in contact with a second, shadowy Prime. There is constant back-and-forth transfer of magical energy from the two proximate Primes.

Without warning, Ozilinsh Teleports into the secret room and comes quickly down the stairs. The Spire Council wants to meet… in the Greenhouse, in an hour! In his typical scatterbrained way he apologizes for the short notice, but for security reasons no one was told exactly when the meeting would be until a few minutes ago. They can expect the attendees to start showing up in the secret room about an hour from now. 

Having dropped this bomb, Ozilinsh goes running back up the stairs and Teleports away.

Then Dranko drops another bomb. He uses his Snow Globe of Mirage Arcana to turn the living room into an endless field of stars. He turns somewhat awkwardly to Morningstar.

"So, I was thinking, if we’re both still alive a year from today, would you like to get married?"

Morningstar accepts, and there is much rejoicing. When Dranko afterward asks the others "How’d I do?" Kibi responds: "But… you didn’t even offer her any beer!" Then follows an hour of rushed preparations to get the Greenhouse cleaned and organized for a meeting of the Spire.

Half an hour later, right on schedule, the guests start arriving. Each of them is immediately (and without warning) subjected to the "bright light in the face" test, administered by several party members with Continual Flame objects. This is done on the off chance that the still-at-large King Farazil, Soul Eater, is secretly riding around in the body of one of the council members. The reaction of the guests ranges from good-naturedly amused to mildly annoyed, and none of them flinch away from the light any more than would a normal Soul-Eaterless person.

Most of the guests were present at the last Spire Council meeting to which the Company was invited. There is Yale, the gaunt woman who serves as advisor to King Crunard (not present). There is Cencerra, the elven adventurer whose own group prevented Lapis from loosing a second Blood Gargoyle over a year earlier. There is Mathias, High Priest of Pikon. There is Nigel, Duke of Harkran. And there is Ozilinsh.

There are four people present who were not at the Company’s last meeting, though they have met two of them before. There are:

Dalesandro, High Stormknight of Werthis. (The Company has met him before, after the attack of the Ventifact Colossus at Sand’s Edge.)

Alykeen, Archmage of Minok. He is a polite and well-kempt man, seemingly in his 50’s, with a trimmed black beard and mustache.

Salk, Archmage of Hae Charagan and new leader of the Spire following the mysterious death of Grawly. Salk is an extremely old-looking man with a wry sense of humor.

Lastly there is Rosetta, the 1000-year-old member of the Silver Shell, whom the party rescued from God’s Thorn before they left on their journey to Kivia. (You may recall that she had been tortured in fiery stasis for all of that time. You may also recall that the Silver Shell is an organization whose fervent purpose is to destroy the Black Circle and its agents. It hadn’t been heard from for several centuries, but has become active again with the recent rise in Black Circle activities.)

When everyone is assembled, Salk opens the council meeting:

"Friends and fellow Spire Members, I wish to start by thanking our hosts for their hospitality on such short notice. I want to assure everyone here that this house is utterly safe from scrying or infiltration. It seems that Abernathy, with his typical prescience, made this place a sovereign sanctuary before his death. In many ways it is safer even that the Tree was… and a good thing, too. 

"We will hear everything about our hosts’ recent quest in good time, but there are number of important events that I’d like to mention first. Not everyone here knows everything that has happened recently, and I’d like to make sure we’re all fully caught up.

"First, we still don’t know who is responsible for the deaths of Grawly and Thewana, or how the assassin or assassins managed to infiltrate their tower. We have found evidence that powerful Divine magic was used at the scene specifically to foil divinations. Unfortunately we have been unable to overcome that magic, and are no closer to an answer that we were before. It is our general thinking now that the Black Circle was responsible; divination and the traffic of information has ever been their stock-in-trade.

"Most of you know this already, but Ozilinsh’s Company is not aware of the events at Verdshane during their absence, so bear with me now as I bring them up to date."

He turns to address the party more directly. "You’ll be happy to know that Verdshane has been abandoned by the red-armored warrior woman Meledien and her mercenary army. In your absence Meledien continued to release foul creatures from Kinnet Gorge, and Cencerra and her group have been dealing with them. A thing like a huge black ball of shadow attacked Woodfork, killing dozens of citizens. Cencerra’s group killed it, with one casualty."

Salk turns briefly to Cencerra. "We’re all sorry for the loss of Gregor." Cencerra nods stoically, and Salk turns back to the party.

"After that, an army of 150 seasoned warriors was spared from other fronts and sent from Minok to dislodge Meledien. They were met on the road by a long green serpent released from Kinnet Gorge. It had an ability to shift in and out of the Ethereal Plane, and it killed over 100 of the soldiers before they brought it down; the decimated force turned back to Minok.

"Lastly, a Wyvern seemingly made of quicksilver had assaulted Minok itself, and the in the end Alykeen had to come to the city’s defense. This was extremely ill-timed for us, as Alykeen was holding up some critical warding spells at the time. It probably shaved over a month off of the time it will take for Naradawk to force his way through the planar gate at Verdshane. Worse, the gate itself has become unstable, a weakness that the enemy may be able to exploit.

"After that we decided that we could suffer no more distractions from that direction. Cencerra and her band led almost 300 warriors (all that could be spared) and successfully drove away Meledien’s mercenaries. Meledien herself escaped, but now there are 100 soldiers guarding the ruins, and another 100 guarding the Kinnet Gorge. Crime has increased in Tal Hae since then, since many of the soldiers were taken off the streets here. Everyone hopes that the Gnoll Lord of Calnis won’t take this opportunity to march down the road and attack."

Cencerra speaks: "I personally fought against Meledien in hand to hand combat. She is incredibly accomplished as a swordswoman, and might have bested me if conditions hadn’t favored me. She can move incredibly fast despite wearing that red plate mail of hers. In the end many of us ran after her, but she outran us and disappeared into the forest."

Salk continues: "The next piece of news is not good. You may have noticed that Carbuncle is not here at this meeting. That is because is missing in action. His last report came from an orcish camp in the mountains near Sentinel about 6 months ago. Here is the letter he sent at that time: 

"I’m still in the Kalkas Peaks near Sentinel, but I’ll be on the move again soon, and out of touch for a while. Rumors are flying about a major offensive planned from Hae Kalkas sometime soon, so I’m going to head east through the mountains, picking up information as I go. The orcs have holes all along the mountains. As soon as I learn anything, I’ll pop out and send another note. I’ve heard two casual mentions by orcish warchiefs about the Prophecies of the Orcish Crusades, and that makes me nervous. We might end up regretting that we never got our hands on a copy. Still, the orcs are no more organized than they ever are, and it would take a miracle to get some of the tribes to fight beside one another. If I end up going all the way, it should take me about two months to reach Hae Kalkas. I’ll report again by then at latest. - Carbuncle"

And that’s the last we’ve heard of him. In fact, orcs have returned in some force since then around Hae Kalkas and the surrounding dwarven towns."

After an uncomfortable pause, he continues, this time looking more directly at the Company again.

"There’s more bad news, I’m afraid. We think that your former companion Tor Bladebearer has been discovered and possibly killed. As you know, he’s been acting as a spy behind the Delfirian lines, sending us information about their movements and strategies. Crunard’s strategists working with the Stormknights are now convinced that Tor’s information is tainted. While what he has sent us has been technically accurate, it has too often led us to focus on a lesser objective while the Delfirians have executed some greater objective. It’s a very touchy game for both sides to play; we haven’t wanted to let on that we have a spy in their midst, and they haven’t wanted to let on that they know he’s a spy by feeding him blatantly false information. But they have known, for how long we’re not sure, and now we know that they know. We’ve sent this warning to him via a Sending spell, but disturbingly there has been no reply."

The Company grimaces as this news. Several times since Tor left them, Morningstar has tried to make contact with him in dreams but has been unsuccessful. This new turn of events is hardly cause for optimism.

At least Salk has one piece of good news. The Delfirian army tried to take the city of Hydra two months ago but were successfully repelled. Another adventuring group, led by a brother-and-sister team named Junaya and Jerzembeck, has been harrying the Delfirians for weeks by waging a guerrilla-type offensive. They actually did enough damage to the enemy supply lines that the siege was withdrawn. 

Finally, the meeting turns to the recent quest undertaken by the Company to bring back the Crosser’s Maze. Salk asks them to tell their whole tale, start to finish. With an uncomfortable glance at Rosetta, he tells the party that while they describe their adventures, they will be under the effect of truth magic.

For the next several hours the party recounts their entire story: their mad dash through the gartine arch into Kivia; their travel to Djaw and the small misadventure with the addictive powder; their encounters with the Faceless and with Shreen the Fair; their journey to the abandoned golem-city of Repose; their long journey south-east to the Jungle of Dreams; their encounters with Lapis; their discovery of Zhamir, the legendary City in the Bottle; and of course their weird mental sojourn through the deranged mind of Solomea Pirenne to acquire the Crosser’s Maze. 

There are hearty congratulations from everyone, and many questions are asked about the Maze itself. Aravis doesn’t have much to tell them, of course, but the Spire is still doing research, and Aravis is encouraged to keep experimenting himself. It won’t be long – perhaps only another year – before Naradawk will batter down the last defenses and emerge into Charagan. If the Maze is going to stop him, the Spire or Aravis is going to have to learn how the strange artifact works.

That brings the Company to their most recent revelation – the letter from Califax, that indicates that the Black Circle has a second, more immediate plot to effect Naradawk’s crossing. 

And that causes Rosetta of the Silver Shell to stand up and walk slowly toward the party.

"I have some rather pointed questions for you," she says. "But first, a bit of brief review, for the benefit of everyone here. When you rescued me from my long years of torture beneath God’s Thorn – for which I am still extremely grateful, let me add – you also rescued a Sharshun assassin named Inivane. You had many options at that point. You could have brought him back to the Spire for questioning. You could have killed him outright, for past crimes easily deserving of death or worse as punishment. You could have used him as bait. Or a bargaining chip. Or gotten him at least to give us valuable historical information about Naradawk, the Sharshun and the Black Cirlce.

"Instead, you let him go. Am I right?"

There is uncomfortable silence all around.

"Why? Why did you let him go?"

Morningstar answers after another pause. "We know that the Sharshun were once bitter enemies of the Delfirians. We hoped in letting him go that he would spur the Sharshun to attack the Nifi worshippers. Setting out enemies against each other."

"I see," Rosetta says, shaking her head. "Clearly you thought that was a better idea than bringing him in for questioning, after which we still might have let him go for that same purpose."

When the party has no reply, she continues.

"According to the story we just heard, one of the first things you did upon arriving in Kivia was to pay a visit to a Black Circle shrine. There – and please correct me if I misunderstood – you subjected yourself to a draining of your life essence in order to receive prophetic answers to some questions you had. Yes?"

"The Black Circle is different in Kivia," the party protests. "Many people use the shrines there for that same purpose. Carawell, who guided us out of Delfir, had done it several times in the past. The energy drain is only temporary."

"Ah. Do you have any idea to what purpose the Black Circle puts the "life energy" that they take from people? No? I though not. And what, precisely, are your reasons for believing anything told to you by a Black Circle priest? Even if what he tells you is the truth, don’t you think the Black Circle has its own reasons for feeding you bits of knowledge? Quite frankly I find some of your actions appalling."

By this time some of the Company are beginning to boil over with indignation at this verbal assault. The other members of the Spire are looking uncomfortable, but none of them, not even Ozilinsh, is intervening on their behalf. Some party members snap back harshly at Rosetta. Everything they did seemed like the best thing at the time to help their quest. They learned valuable information about Grey Wolf from that Shrine.

"Ah, we’ll get to that shortly," Rosetta says coolly. "First, though, I want you to verify that we heard you correctly regarding your encounter with this Shreen the Fair in Djaw. Am I right in recalling that, in order for you to get information about the Crosser’s Maze, you made a promise to this monster that you’d return the Crosser’s Maze to him? Without knowing at the time what it could do, or how powerful it was, or to what purpose Shreen intends to put it?"

"We felt it was a necessary bargain," the party answers hotly. "We needed information that he had, and that was the only way to get it."

"But Lapis," says Rosetta, "Lapis, whose band you later defeated, Lapis was able to get what she wanted out of Shreen by the use of force. It sounds like she made no ill-advised bargain with a Priest of a God of Monsters to get what she wanted."

At this point several party members lose their cool, and they blow off some angry steam at Rosetta. "Look, if you’re accusing us of working for the Black Circle or something, just come out and say it! It’s intolerable to sit here listening to your half-veiled accusations after all we’ve been through! We put our lives at risk more times than you can imagine while you’ve been sitting here… sitting here doing precious little from what we can tell. We don’t have to sit here and listen to this!"

Rosetta leans back and lets out a long breath. "Yes, I know. It’s difficult being put to these questions. But I’m only doing it for the benefit of the Spire. The Black Circle is subtle… more subtle than you realize. You may have been compromised without even knowing it. And like it or not, my allegiance to the Spire, and my hatred of the Black Circle, is greater than my desire to spare your feelings. 

"Now listen carefully to me. A Black Circle priest told Grey Wolf that he’s some sort of "axle," some central point about which two worlds are converging. And now you claim to have corroborating evidence from Califax, a known compatriot of Mokad and a one-time self-confessed member of the Black Circle. You, Dranko, claim to have converted him back to his Deliochan faith, but he himself is hiding, and we cannot question him directly. And while you were gone, we subjected your friend Praska to a number of… tests… all of which indicate that she is free of Black Circle influence. And yet Califax tells you not to trust her.

"If you were me, or any one of us here, what would you then believe? That the Black Circle is giving us vital information about how we can defeat them? Or that maybe, just maybe, this whole business with Grey Wolf is a distraction, or the truth is something wholly different than what you’ve been led to believe by Circle-tainted sources."

As Dranko begins to object, Rosetta continues. "I’m not saying Califax is a traitor, Dranko. I’m suggesting that he may be being used by the Black Circle even now, and that we hold as debatable and suspect anything that he tells you. That’s all. I have had more direct dealings with the Black Circle than anyone in this room, and I know how insidious they can be, how manipulative, and how subtle. Everything we know should be considered in that light. We can make no misstep in this."

Salk speaks up, his voice steady. "Thank you, Rosetta. We are all aware of the dangers posed by the Black Circle. For your part," he says, addressing the Company, "the Spire does not suspect you of any sort of treachery. We know that you are trustworthy and loyal beyond reproach, and that Rosetta’s questions are only intended to make sure we have as whole a picture as possible of our situation. I’m sure that nothing more will need be said to you today on this subject."

She gives a meaningful glance at Rosetta, who bows her head.

"The most disturbing part of your story," Salk says, "is your contention that the person we have known heretofore only as "P" is in fact Parthol Runecarver. I confess I find this difficult to believe. Parthol is one of the Spire’s great heroes, who sacrificed himself at the second Battle of Verdshane when Naloric Skewn was defeated. The notion that he’s still alive, and that he’s allied with Naradawk, is hard to accept. And we must consider that the source of this information is the insane mind of a man who cracked under the stresses of a powerful artifact. Nonetheless we will take what steps we can to confirm or dispute the theory that "P" is Parthol Runecarver."

The meeting of the Spire is then adjourned. Aravis is instructed not to leave Charagan until such time as the Crosser’s Maze has been used or passed on to another host.

(run 112 begins) The party continues training, crafting magic items and scribing spells. Only a few days after the Council meeting, Kibi abruptly vanishes.

Dranko finishes up work on his Plate Mail of Silent Strength for Ernie, and proudly presents the gift at the Greenhouse. Ernie is floored; the magic armor doesn't clank, and also allows him to cast bull’s strength on himself once per day. However, Dranko couldn’t resist adding one more special "feature" to the armor: when the little finger of the right gauntlet is pulled, it emits a loud raspberry. 

(Other party-crafted magic items of note: Wand of Fireballs and Boots of Speed from Aravis,  2 Wands of Cure Serious Wounds from Morningstar, and a Whip of the Searing Tongue from Dranko.  Also many potions and scrolls are brewed and scribed, respectively.)

Over the course of several days, Morningstar serves as the "Switchboard of Ell," casting sending spells to various relatives of party members. Kay’s brother Karn sends back that he and his father have been fighting orcs near the city of Sentinel; Karn has killed three orcs, and though he suffered a grievous leg wound, it has been healed. Grey Wolf’s sister (who he hasn’t seen since before his parents were killed) reports that she’s busy with "guarding" jobs for the foreseeable future, but will visit Ivellios at Tal Hae when she next has a chance. She tries several sendings to Dranko’s ornery grandfather, but the old man refuses to believe that Dranko has made anything of himself. (Morningstar then convinces Harmon to send Dranko’s grandfather a letter on Dranko’s behalf.) Finally she sends to her father, who is delighted to hear from his daughter, and assures her that her parents have full faith in Morningstar regarding the whole "Illuminated Sisters" business.

The party is visited briefly by an old guardsman with a limp. His name is Spence, and he’s the party’s new liaison now that Marbury Tillerson has been sent off on assignment. He’s a nice enough man, who wonders out loud why the party isn’t off fighting for their kingdom, but is convinced when he sees the "trophies" in Tor’s trophy case. (Also Dranko cures him of a wheezing cough, and that helps win his confidence.)

On the 27th of April, the annual Spring Tourney of Werthis takes place, but it’s woefully under-attended. With most able-bodied participants off fighting either humanoids or Delfirians, only three contests are held: sword, sword-and-shield, and an "open" division where participants can use any practice weapon they want. The nine-member party itself comprises a majority of the participants in each event, and Morningstar sends for many of her Illuminated Sisters, thinking this will give them good practice fighting in daylight.

Although the party is worried that they’ll be jeered for not being out fighting "for real," they are not subjected to any real mockery. The Werthans in fact think very highly of the party, especially Ernie, who is already famous as the carpet-flyer who helped Faskel Giantbane slay the Ventifact Colossus. 

In the straight sword competition (which pits party member against party-member in several matches), Kay defeats both Grey Wolf and Makel en route to the finals, where she is paired up against the one "ringer" from the Church of Werthis. He’s a skilled fighter named Anson, fresh from the front, who is only taking a leave long enough to complete some every-seven-year religious observance at the church. He and Kay have an extremely close duel, and in the end Kay is victorious, 3 hits to 2.

In the Sword-and-Shield division, Anson once again reaches the finals, but this time he finds himself fighting Ernie in the championship match. Ernie fights well, but is slightly outmatched by the Stormknight, and loses in another close match.

The open competition features all the party members except Kay, Anson, several priestesses of Ell, and a handful of other random participants. In the semi-final matches, Ernie is matched up with Anson again, and this time gets the better of his opponent. Morningstar (wielding her namesake weapon rather than the unfamiliar sword) is the other finalist, besting the most proficient of her students (Previa) in the other semi-final. In another long and hard-fought battle, Ernie is victorious. There is much cheering from the small but appreciative crowd, who weren’t expecting anywhere near such an entertaining exhibition.

A couple of days later, a messenger from the church of Ell (main branch) comes to the Greenhouse with a brief message for Morningstar. Snokas has been restored to sound mind, but has been sent away on a Quest for the church to some far away place called "Kiva." Kay is suspicious, thinking that it all sounds a bit toooo convenient, and the party wonders just how the church intends to transport Snokas across the uncrossable sea. Morningstar casts yet another Sending to make sure he’s okay, to see if he’s still addicted to Powder, and to find out how he’s crossing. The 25-word response: "I’m in the midst of a Delfirian army, trying to sneak through a big arch in a building. Not addicted. I must do this on …" "…my own," the party figures he was going to say. Morningstar is satisfied.

Near the end of the training-and-crafting period, Ozilinsh comes down the stairs of the Greenhouse one evening and tells the Company that they are going to be sent on an important mission for the Spire. In brief, they are to find out what happened to Carbuncle, rescue him if possible, and learn whatever it was that he was investigating on his trip through the mountains of Nahalm. As Cencerra and her group are off checking on reports of another Gartine Arch on the Dwarfish island of Karth, the Spire has decided to send Ozilinsh’s Company after Carbuncle. 

Since most of the orcish activity in recent months has been at the far eastern end of the mountains (near Hae Kalkas), that’s a likely place to start. To expedite matters, Ozilinsh has a letter for them with the Ducal seal that will give them free reign to come and go at will, even in areas with curfew or other lock-down. They should present the letter especially to General Burrin Rockbreath, who is in charge of the military operation against the orcs. (Kay scoffs – she’s a General too, and should get that sort of treatment anyway. Dranko immediately starts studying and forging the letter for later use.)

Lastly, Ozilinsh has a gift for Aravis: a small, cunningly crafted gold pin in the shape of a sheaf of wheat. It’s a Refuge token, and if he breaks it, it will teleport him back to the Church of Pikon in Tal Hae. The Spire knows how important Aravis is to the Company, but also knows they can’t afford to lose the Crosser’s Maze he carries within his own mind. ..

Wednesday, June 11 - Saturday, June 14 - And so the party sets out. They take Burning Sail (functioning just fine in Charagan waters, thank you) from Tal Hae to Kynder Hold, and from there march overland to Hae Kalkas. The trip is uneventful except for one alarming incident. One afternoon Grey Wolf feels that wrenching feeling in his guts, and a strange vision occurs. A large underground smithy fades into existence around them, overlapping the dirt road and grassy fields, as if both scenes exist at once in the same place. Dozens of sweaty, shirtless smiths are pounding away at their anvils and forges, making weapons. Slowly the forge-workers become aware that something is amiss, and the sound of their hammers gets softer as they stop working and look wonderingly around them. Some spot the party in their midst, and start barking in a foreign tongue. A few back away, but others start advancing menacingly upon the party, who form a defensive ring around Grey Wolf and draw weapons in response.

And then, as quickly as the scene started, it ends. The smithy and the workers fade away, leaving behind scorched marks on the ground. The party takes this as a clear sign that the two worlds are closer than ever to being aligned.

Sunday, June 15 - The Company arrives at the gates of Hae Kalkas in the mid-afternoon, and General Windstorm asks a skeptical guard at the gate to send for someone with military intelligence. Half an hour later another soldier arrives, but he doesn’t have much news from the front. He has heard of Kay, though; apparently General Windstorm is well-known in military circles as the Commander of the Yrimpa, who have made a huge difference in the war against the Delfirians on the Balani Peninsula. Kay is given a letter to expedite service at the Sages Consortium, and the soldiers agree to have someone meet them at the Sages’ in the morning, who will have more recent and relevant news.

Monday, June 16 - The next morning, after spending the night at an inn called the Mountain’s Foot, the Company goes to the Sages’ Consortium. A sage named Serin, who specializes in humanoid history, tells them what he knows about the book "Prophecies of the Orcish Crusades." For one thing, a man had been by only a couple of months ago looking for the same work. (The description is that of Parkitt, the apprentice to the Archmage Alykeen.) And Serin tells the party the same thing that he told Parkitt – the Consortium doesn’t own a copy of the book, and there are many who don’t even think the book exists. Serin believes that it is a collection of fables and prophecies describing how the orcs will eventually launch a holy war and conquer the kingdom. Of course, most humanoid races have similar so-called prophetic writings, and since they can’t all be right, it’s hard to lend credence to any single one. Serin also knows about a legendary orcish champion called the "Chun Aggrat," or Red General in the common tongue. 

Outside the Sages’ Consortium the party is met by a Lieutenant named Theodore who has at least been at the front fairly recently. Back at the Mountain’s Foot, Theodore gives the party some details about the situation. All of the actual fighting has occurred in and around the dwarven villages up in the mountains about three days travel west – Karzadin, Eggemoggin, Marhold and Nagstone. The last serious "Orcish Surprise" was near Marhold about three weeks ago; many soldiers were killed, but civilian casualties were avoided. Many soldiers are staying in Hae Kalkas in case the orcs manage to bypass the dwarven villages and break into the countryside beyond; the total soldiery up in the mountains themselves is only (he thinks) a couple thousand. He suggests that Kay can learn more details if they travel to Eggemoggin or Marhold themselves.

With that, the party heads westward and up into the mountains. En route to Karzadin they pass a slow-moving wagon carrying shields and potatoes to the front. Despite a vaguely-agreed-upon policy of keeping a low profile, Ernie can’t resist casting Create Food and Water , adding more potatoes to the wagon (which creaks ominously under the increased load). The wagon driver is suspicious, and asks that the party eat some of the new potatoes themselves, before he’ll deliver them to the villages. They do, and he seems satisfied. Dranko even casts Bull’s Strength on one of the mules, to help it carry the increased load of supplies.

Tuesday, June 17 - After passing by Karzadin (and more surreptitiously providing food and healing), the party arrives at Eggemoggin where General Burrin Rockbreath is rumored to be stationed. Ernie first goes to visit Kibi’s family; Kibi’s mom recognizes him at once and invites him in. She is disappointed that Kibi isn’t with him, but Ernie assures her that her son is fine, and off on an important secret mission.

General Kay Olafsen is soon directed to Rockbreath’s tent, to which the Company is admitted after Detection spells are liberally applied.

Rockbreath listens as Kay explains the Company’s mission. He has not heard of Carbuncle, but agrees that if he’s alive, he’s probably still undercover deep in the orcish interior. Rockbreath lays out a large map, which shows the general layout of the underground passages and caverns that form what is the true front. About three days journey into the caverns is what they call "no-man’s land," a region unoccupied by either dwarves or orcs, but heavily trapped by both sides. On the other side of that is orcish territory. On the near side of no-man’s land are four strategic bridges that cross a swift underground river; all of these are well-guarded by dwarvish forces.

Dwarvish sappers and scouts are employed all throughout the underground territory, watching for signs of orcish incursions, and listening (or using other dwarven senses) for new tunnels being dug by the orcs. ("Orcish Surprise" is a term the dwarves use for a common orcish tactic, wherein orcs dig several tunnels in the same general location, but leave the last few feet of rock. Then they all complete their tunnels at once, and come pouring out into aboveground dwarvish territory.)

Rockbreath takes pains to warn the party about the cunning traps employed by the orcs: pits, falling blocks, and "orcish balconies" from which squads of orcish marksman can take shots at intruders while maintaining almost full cover for themselves. The orcs have found some way of building new deep pits extremely quickly, but the dwarves haven’t discovered how they’re doing it. 

He also explains what is known about the various orcish tribes: 

The Red Fang tribe is at the forefront, and their leader is a barbarian named Okhot One-Eye. From what the dwarves have been able to gather, Okhot draws his authority from a legendary orcish hero called the Chun Aggrat, or "Red General." While no dwarf has seen the Chun Aggrat, Okhot has been seen on several occasions, and reports are that he is a fearsome warrior. The Red Fang orcs dye their teeth red by chewing on some kind of fungus, and they wear shirts with crude blood-painted eyes on the front.

The Bone-Breaker tribe wears black, and their symbol is a split skull. (Their enormous leader is called the Skull-splitter.) They used to be the dominant tribe until the Red Fang gained the upper hand. The Longclaw tribe are led by an orc called the Bloodseer; they paint their hands green, and are less frequently seen in battle. And the Blackstaff tribe, of which many orcish shamans are members, occupy the rearguard position that is a mark of shame among the orcs. 

There are rumors of an orc named Clagg who is agitating to stop the war, but he has never actually been seen, and Rockbreath thinks it might just be a ploy to lure the dwarves deep into orcish territory looking for him.

There have been a few recent offensive maneuvers made by the orcs in recent weeks. They built a new tunnel through the no-man’s land, but that was discovered and collapsed, and the orcs repelled. Another recent surge of orcs was able to temporarily capture two of the bridges, but these were also turned back after heavy fighting. And just three weeks ago a number of Orcish Surprises were opened near Marhold, and about 600 orcs rushed out before the tunnel was blocked and collapsed. They killed many soldiers (and a few civilians) before they were defeated.

Although the dwarves (along with human allies from Hae Kalkas) typically inflict many more casualties than they suffer, it still worries Rockbreath. Altogether he has fewer than 2500 soldiers in the region, and his advisors guess that the orcs have over 10 times that number.

The Company is given a pair of large unmarked tents in which to stay, and they spend some hours talking about their strategy for infiltrating the orcish territory and finding out what happened to Carbuncle.

(run 113 begins) For several hours the party debates various strategies and approaches. Should they go in swords blazing, or try a stealthy approach? Should they try to sow dissension among the orcs, to divert attention away from themselves? And given what they suspect of the "Chun Aggrat," (that's he's the red-armored Restimar), should they disguise themselves? 

They carefully consider good spells and prayers to have ready for the next day, and go to sleep. 

Wednesday, June 18 - The next morning they awake to the sounds of drilling soldiers and the smells of plain Dwarvish breakfast gruel. Ernie tries to help out with the meal, but the ingredients they have to work with are hopeless. A young and eager human soldier reports to General Windstorm, putting himself at her disposal for anything the party needs. (Dranko, always hopeful for torchbearer candidates, tosses him a torch. "See? He's perfect!" The rest of the party vetoes the idea as usual.) 

They spend an hour or so disguising themselves, so that Restimar won't know them if reports get back to him. The halflings are disguised as small dwarves, and the others are altered enough so that they're not immediately recognizable as Abernathy's Company. 

Two dwarven guards stand at the entrance to the primary tunnel leading into the mountains from Eggemoggin. Kay gives the new password "Kai-Kin," and they are allowed entry. The tunnels are tall enough for humans, and fairly easy going at first. While most of the tunnels in this part of the mountains are natural, the dwarves have smoothed out the rough bits. Torches show the shortest route, allowing the party to avoid unnecessary detours and dead-ends. 

Still, it's not like walking on a good road. The tunnels wind about, seldom going in a straight line for long, and there are plenty of inclines and declines. Occasionally the taller party members have to duck beneath low hanging rock formations. And even with torches out, there's not so much light that they can safely hurry. 

After a few hours of marching, two dwarves step out of the shadows and challenge the party, and again let them pass when the password is given. After another few hours, the party decides that they've put in a good day's march, and sleep on the rocky ground. 

Thursday, June 19 - The next "day," after another hour of travel, the party finds a small cavern seemingly set up as a underground campsite for travelers. Ah well. (Dwarves must be used to longer marches.)

After another full day of travel, the party arrives at another underground way-station, this one full of dwarves (about 40 in all). The dwarf in charge of this group is called Blackbeard, a dour and sarcastic dwarf who isn’t at all impressed with Kay’s military rank. He demands to know what the party is doing down here, but Kay flatly refuses to tell him, and this doesn’t improve his attitude. 

Kay then requests the services of two dwarves; she asks for a good scout, and someone who knows something about the construction of dwarven traps. Blackbeard again wants to know why she wants them, but she only says that she intends to pass through the no-man’s land and into orcish territory. Blackbeard reluctantly complies, and walks away into the crowd of dwarves, pausing to have a laugh with a few of his fellows. (Dranko overhears him, and while he doesn’t speak Dwarvish, Ernie does. Ernie says that the words meant something like "nice disguises.")

A few minutes later, a pair of dwarves reports to Kay. Maris is a silent dwarf who says he’s a scout, but other than that says nothing. The trap-expert is a young and eager Dwarf named Tribbin, who was responsible for some of the earlier traps laid in the no-man’s land, though he hasn’t been as involved recently. He’s obviously excited about being assigned to escort a general.

Friday, June 20 - After more sleep they set off again; the tunnels are getting more and more rough, and less and less straight. More often the party has to duck under low overhangs and step carefully to avoid snags. Torches on the walls still light the main route through, but it seems like long hours of travel before the party arrives at a large dwarven camp marked on their map. It’s a tremendous cavern, almost 1000’ in diameter, and about 200 dwarven soldiers are stationed there. It serves as both a camp and a supply depot; there are dozens of crates of food stored here, and a small freshwater lake in the center is used to fill water barrels. 

This time the dwarf in charge, Craster, treats Kay with great respect. He tells her that there hasn’t been any recent orcish activity in the immediate vicinity, though there are reports that the southernmost bridge was attacked two days ago. The attack was repelled – of course. Craster is extremely confident in the dwarves’ ability to hold off the orcs. The orcs have no tactical sensibilities, and suffer hideous casualty rates with every ill-conceived foray. Meanwhile the dwarves are well-trained and tough, and take no stupid or unnecessary risks. Craster makes it clear that the dwarves are fighting a purely defensive war, knowing that they don’t have the numbers to cross the no-man’s-land in force. 

Tribbin has been telling the party what he knows about the orcish traps, but it’s not much that they didn’t already hear back in Eggemoggin. The orcs have been supplementing the usual pits and "orcish balconies" with falling-block traps. "Designs stolen from the dwarves," Tribbin scoffs. They still haven’t discovered how the orcs are able to dig out new traps so quickly.

Craster gives the party a corner of the cavern in which to camp. He orders the other dwarves to leave them alone while they rest up for the next day, a day in which they expect to reach the no-man’s land.

Saturday, June 21 - After another eight hours of sleep, the party sets out again toward the nearest of the four bridges that cross the only significant underground river in the area. The four bridges are key points of defense for the dwarves, and when the party reaches the bridge after an hour of marching, they find it extremely well guarded. The river flows through the large cavern, and only one bridge spans it. The bridge has been carved away so that at its narrowest point only one or two orcs could cross at a time. 

On the near side of the bridge a number of bulwarks have been constructed, and short walls have been built so that any orcs who make it across the bridge will have to navigate a small maze, all the while being subjected to crossbow fire. About 100 dwarves are here guarding the bridge, and there are great supplies of axes, shields, armor and crossbow bolts. The whole cavern is flooded with light from dozens of magical torches, so that no orc could sneak across unnoticed. Clearly the orcs would pay a dear price if they even thought about taking the bridge.

The party is allowed to cross the bridge, and as they head across the wide cavern toward the only exit on the far side, a dwarven voice can be heard shouting out: "Kick their sorry orcish arses!" Hoping to do just that, the party leaves the dwarves behind and heads toward the no-man’s land.

For several hours they plod slowly through the winding tunnels and rough caverns of the under-mountains. There are no longer torches to light their path. They find their own way using their map from General Rockbreath, torches of their own, and the eerie blue glow of Grey Wolf’s magic sword Bostock. 

All at once, a small group of rats comes running out of the darkness. They scurry past the party, ignoring them, but Kay quickly casts speak with animals and asks one of them what they’re running from. "Noises," says the rat. "Why are you running from noises?" she asks. "Noises always mean bad things coming," says the rat. "You should run too." And the rat flees after its fellows.

Thirty more yards down the passage they come across one of the "low-tunnels" marked on their map. These are specially constructed tunnels with ceilings only 5’ high – tall enough for dwarves, but not for orcs. The sound – a scratching, digging sort of sound -- seems at first like it’s coming from this tunnel, but it seems empty. Tribbin and Maris stand still for a moment, and then walk over to the stone wall about ten yards past the low-tunnel. They listen intently at the wall for a moment, and then Maris whispers harshly "Bloody hell! Get back! They’re about to break through!"

The party draws weapons and casts battle-prep spells. They wait breathlessly – but nothing breaks through. Tribbin goes back to the stone wall, and guesses that the diggers must have just stopped digging, maybe two feet short of breaking through into their tunnel. It’s probably an underground Orcish Surprise.

The party decides to force the issue. Ernie casts stone shape, and finishes the tunnel himself, molding the stone away until it reveals the recently built tunnel beyond. Aravis, expecting orcs still in there, immediately launches a lightning bolt down the tunnel, but there are no signs of any orcs. 

The party spends a few seconds scratching their heads. The dwarves notice that the tunnel doesn’t seem right somehow; there aren’t the usual tell-tale marks of picks or other common digging equipment. And there’s very little of the debris that would be expected from a tunneling operation.

But they decide that whatever was doing the digging can’t have gone far. Morningstar casts detect thoughts, casts her mind out ahead, and the whole party takes off down the new tunnel. After a short while running, Morningstar picks up someone thinking up ahead, but out of range of the party’s light sources. She focuses in on that thought, just in time to get the thought: "Ready… Aim…"

"Down, everyone!" Morningstar shouts. And as the Company hits the floor, crossbow bolts come whizzing down the tunnel, clattering off stone and armor. Aravis realizes that the orcs must be within 60 feet if Morningstar is picking up their thoughts, and so uses his newly made Wand of Fireballs to shoot a blast down the tunnel. The red pellet steaks into the darkness, and then… kaboom! The party can hear the sounds of orcs shouting. Dranko, who speaks orcish, hears one of the orcs shout: "They’ve got wizards! Get the Digger out of here! Get it out now!"

In answer to the fireball, the orcs fire more crossbow bolts, and then some javelins come flying out of the darkness as well. Some of the party is hit this time, and Maris, hit with both a bolt and a javelin, goes unconscious. Dranko heals him back up, while Kay and Oa Lyanna put up a wind wall between the party and the orcs. 

Aravis sends another fireball down toward the orcs, but there is less screaming this time after the detonation.  More crossbow bolts are fired down the passage, but they are deflected harmlessly into the ceiling by the wind wall.

Dranko sneaks forward, using his various stealthy abilities, and discovers that about 60’ down, the tunnel opens up into a wide cavern, where columns of orcs (about a dozen in all) are lined up, ready to lean out, fire (or throw), and then duck back out of the fireball blast zone. Off to the side is a group of orcish axe-men, waiting for someone to come out of the tunnel into the cavern. 

About nine orc bodies already lay charred in the space in front of the tunnel mouth.

Ernie decides that it’s time to advance. With his shield spell in place, he runs down the tunnel (quietly, with his new Plate Mail of Silent Strength), and is greeted with a barrage of missile fire. Most of it glances off his armor and his shield spell, but a few bolts find their mark. The rest of the party is following close on his heels, and soon the battle is joined in earnest. Aravis toasts most of the remaining ranged-weapon orcs with another well-placed fireball , and many of the survivors turn to flee. As a number of the orcish soldiers are running, Dranko runs after them, hoping to subdue one with his Whip of the Searing Tongue. He is successful, knocking a weak-looking orc unconscious. But the sound of his whip makes the five remaining orcs turn their heads, and they see that they are facing a half-orc. A light of rage comes into their eyes, they stop fleeing, and turn en masse to attack Dranko! One of them grunts "What kind of pansy-ass elf weapon is that? 

So now Dranko is surrounded by 5 orcish barbarians, who start dealing gruesome damage with their great-axes. Dranko, not wanting to subject himself to 5 attacks of opportunity, only takes a 5’ step back before dropping his whip and grabbing his mace. But on their turn, the 5 barbarians, white spittle flying from the frothing jaws, ignore the other threats and concentrate their attacks on the half-orc.

The others are now fully involved in the fight, and it doesn’t last much longer. Kay is in her element, dealing out extra damage to the hated orcs. Aravis casts polymorph self, turns into a brown bear, and charges in to attack. And Morningstar casts hold person to disable one of the barbarian orcs. "That one’s the prisoner!" she shouts. 

Kay finishes off the remaining four barbarians with her Oa-Lyanna-driven Whirlwind power, but catches both Dranko and Aravis in the blast. This is especially painful for Dranko, who has cast shield other on Aravis and so takes extra damage away from the wizard and onto himself. Between the orc axes, Kay’s Whirlwind, and the shield other, Dranko is in bad shape indeed. (In fact, if not for an Endurance cast on himself just before the fight, he’d have been unconscious and inches from death.) 

But in the end, twenty-five orcs lay dead, with another half-dozen fled into the tunnels. Dranko is healed back up with liberal use of the new Wands of Cure Serious Wounds recently crafted by Morningstar.

And now the party has some prisoners to interrogate.

(run 114 begins) After a few moments, the two unconscious but still-living orcs start to stir. The party separates the prisoners, and gets down to the business of questioning the tougher of the two. Dranko does the actual questioning (being the only one who speaks Orcish) while Morningstar casts detect thoughts and scans the orc's mind while he answers. (Before the interrogations begin, the party agrees that after they get what information they can, the prisoners will be killed as quickly and humanely as possible.) 

The orc is frightened but surly, and spits at the "half-human" whom he clearly holds is low regard. At first he refuses to answer Dranko's questions, but relents when threatened with death if he doesn't talk. (Having noticed Morningstar casting a spell, he asks "What’s she doing?" Dranko responds: "casting a spell that will tear your soul out if you lie to us.") Several times he tries to get Dranko to promise that he'll be released if he answers truthfully, but Dranko is evasive. ("That depends on your answers," he finally says.) 

Unfortunately, the orc doesn't know very much. He knows that the tunnels back the way he came from are trapped, but doesn't know the details of those traps. (His leaders, slain or fled, just told the others where to walk.) The "Digger," he says, is a large humanoid creature that tunnels with its claws; this matches the evidence found by Ernie and Kay of claw marks in the stone. 

The orc doesn't know the whereabouts of Okhot One-eye, and laughs at the notion that he'd know anything about the Red General. He does reveal the name of one of his superiors – Korfog. He takes a dim view of the party’s chances of surviving if they press on into orcish territory. Having learned everything they can from the orc, Kay efficiently slits his throat.

The second orc knows even less than the first. He makes outrageous claims about being personal friends with both Okhot One-Eye and the Red General, but of course can’t provide any details when pressed. Kay kills him too.

During the second interrogation, Ernie suddenly hears a voice in his head; he’s the recipient of a sending spell! It says: 

"Still hiding Sand’s Edge. Leave note under front left post. Sharshun closing in. Have bracelet. Dare not leave city. Sharshun watching. Cannot answer Sendings. Embree."

Ernie answers: "Message received. Ernie. Far away right now."

This sparks a brief discussion about what Embree is talking about; presumably, the Sharshun are after him, trying to get the Wilburforce bracelet away from him. But why is he in Sand’s Edge, and what is the "front left post?" Whatever the answers, there’s nothing they can do about it right now.

Kay checks the two tunnels leading out of the cavern, and discovers the one through which the Digger retreated. There are also many signs of orcs having fled that way, that she is expert in spotting: scuffs of their boots on the rocks, gobs of drying spit, coarse hairs, and of course some bloodstains from orcs that were injured. 

Figuring that they might run into an encampment of orcs, Aravis polymorphs himself into an orc, and then Kay disguises him to look like one of the orcish prisoners. He walks ahead with Dranko and Tribbin, as if he’s taken them prisoners. The rest follow up about 50’ behind, as quietly as they can. Morningstar casts Rary’s telepathic bond on Dranko and Aravis so that the two separate groups can stay in mental communication.

After an hour or so making their way through the tunnels, occasionally stopping to make sure they’re still following the orcs, Dranko and Aravis spot something a bit odd. Sticking out of the tunnel wall about 30’ ahead of them is a smooth rocky protrusion, about a foot long. Dranko and Tribbin move slowly forward to investigate… and the floor starts to drop out from under them! A trap-door is swinging downward beneath their feet revealing a wide (20’x20’) pit, but with quick reflexes both have time to jump. Tribbin makes the easier leap to the side, comes up a few inches short, and is able to hang on the lip of the pit by his fingers. Dranko, thinking he’d rather be on the far side of the pit, tries the more difficult leap forward instead… and misses the lip of the pit by about six feet. He falls. 

He falls slowly, due to his Ring of Feather Falling, but that will still only give him a couple of rounds before he reaches the bottom, that he can see is about 40’ below. He tries flicking his whip out at the protrusion, and succeeds in getting it wrapped around, but the protrusion is smooth enough that the whip just slides off, and he keeps falling.

Then he notices a skeleton is hovering in the pit, maybe 10 feet off the bottom, looking up at him.

"Oh, crap." 

He finds himself sinking into some kind of clear jelly. It burns his skin, and starts dissolving his clothing, and even worse, his muscles seize up and he finds himself paralyzed! He sinks slowly through the slime until he is entirely submerged, and there he stops. He can see that the skeleton in there with him is wearing a silver ring, but of course he can’t reach out and grab it. 

Dranko frantically communicates his predicament with Morningstar over the telepathic bond, and the rest of the party runs as fast as they can to reach the near edge of the jelly-filled pit. Aravis immediately begins to polymorph into a giant eagle, hoping to grab Dranko’s paralyzed arm that’s nearest to the surface of the slime. Kay arrives, flying, and moves immediately to grab Tribbin and pull him to safety. The rest of the party arrives soon after; Ernie and Makel fire arrows down into the slime, thinking that it might be a living creature, but there’s no obvious effect. Flicker, over the sudden protests of the others, shoots of a zap with his Staff of Shocking at the slime. It quivers, but Dranko is still enveloped and paralyzed, holding his breath and taking a steady amount of acid damage. 

Aravis, fully transformed, plunges his claws into the slime and grabs Dranko’s arm. He’s not paralyzed, but he’s also not strong enough to pull Dranko out. He does, however, lift him up enough that arm is just above the surface of the slime. Kay, having gotten Tribbin to safety, flies back and tries to grab the exposed arm. She misjudges, touches the slime… and becomes paralyzed herself. Fortunately she’s still flying, and so doesn’t plunge into the paralytic jelly herself.

Ernie gets out a rope and starts tying off a lasso, thinking he might be able to snare Dranko and pull him out. But as Aravis continues to strain and drag Dranko slowly upwards, wings flapping madly, Grey Wolf remembers he has a recently-acquired scroll with levitate on it. He slowly pulls Dranko up out of the muck.

Ernie decides he wants to move closer to the far side of the pit, to be able to aid Dranko when he’s full up to the surface. There’s a two-and-a-half-foot-wide walkway on either side of the pit (between the edge of the pit and the walls), and it shouldn’t be a difficult matter for him to navigate the ledge. (The smooth stone protrusion is (or was) a hand-hold meant to make this easier.)

He slips. Arms flailing, he falls over into the pit, and his plate-mail clad body sinks like a bowling ball to the bottom of the slime. He is soon paralyzed, and can feel the acid start to burn his flesh.

Aravis flies the levitating Dranko over to where most of the others are standing, and Grey Wolf starts levitating him up to the rocky ceiling of the tunnel. He actually bumps his floating paralyzed friend gently into the ceiling a couple of times. ("Next time make the easier jump, you idiot!" he admonishes.)

Kay, still paralyzed, has also flown back over to the group. Morningstar takes off her Ring of Free Action and puts it on one of Kay’s rigid fingers, and Kay immediately feels vigor return to her frozen muscles. She takes a deep breath, and plunges into the jelly, flying/swimming downward to where Ernie rests on the bottom. Although she takes a good deal of acid damage herself, she is able to scoop up Ernie and fly back up to the surface and safety.

Ernie has suffered horrific burns while submerged in the acidic slime, but these are soon healed. A minute later the paralysis wears off of Dranko, Kay and Ernie. Kay then flies the party members across the pit one at a time, and everyone has a chance to catch their collective breaths.

They resume their march through the orcish tunnels; they’re off the map now, presumably somewhere north of the no-man’s land, clearly in orcish territory. Aravis (still polymorphed) is still out in front with Tribbin and Dranko, all of them scanning the gloom ahead for any signs of traps.

Tribbin suddenly calls them to a halt; his sharp eyes have detected a pressure plate set into the ground a few feet ahead, that he guesses is set to spring some kind of falling-block trap. The rest of the party catches up, and Kay, still flying, ferries people across starting with Flicker. As she carries the little halfling across, he shouts out for her to stop. She does, and just in time. Flicker has spotted a thin wire running across the tunnel above the pressure plate! There’s plenty of room for Kay to fly her friends over this wire, and they pass this latest trap without mishap.

Onward they go through more tunnels and caverns, still following the orcish trail. At one point they reach a wide cavern out of which run two different tunnels, and there are signs that orcs have recently taken both passages. One angles slightly up, the other slightly down. They choose the downward path, and it’s at this point that Kay realizes she no longer sees any sign of the Digger. Somewhere along the way it must have left the orcs, but she saw no sign of how it could have left the trail. Someone surmises that perhaps it can pass freely through stone. 

About twenty minutes later the party reaches a third "trap," though it’s hardly anything to worry about. It’s a 20x20 unconcealed pit in the center of a wide stretch of hallway. It’s deep enough that they can’t clearly see the bottom, but it seems empty, and there are 4-foot-wide ledges on either side that one could use to avoid the pit completely. Paranoid from the previous pit, they spend some time searching all around it, looking for some hidden mechanism or concealed trigger. 

Nothing. They talk briefly about going down into the pit to see if there’s anything at the bottom, but instead they decide that time is of the essence. The Company skirts the pit without difficulty, and continues on. Immediately beyond it is a small interesting detail; there’s what was once a naturally protruding piece of rock sticking out of the left-hand wall, but which has been sharply broken off as if hit by a hammer. Tribbin and Flicker examine the rock thoroughly, but as Tribbin says, "there’s no moving parts." They continue on, and the passage begins to gently ascend.

A couple of minutes later, they hear the rumbling. It’s the ominous noise of stone grinding on stone, and it’s getting louder at an alarming rate, as if something very large is rolling down the tunnel toward them! 

With only a few seconds before whatever it is reaches them, the Company acts quickly. Dranko casts Stone Shape to mold the floor into a ramp, hoping to deflect whatever it is upward. Morningstar casts a wall of stone across the tunnel, only 2" thick, but hopefully enough to stop or slow any incoming danger. (She leaves a small gap at one end, so that the party can still see up the passage.) Aravis casts rope trick, with the extra-dimensional space placed low and easy to climb into. 

Makel is peering around the wall of stone , and goes pale. "It’s a HUGE stone ball!" he shouts. "We have about 5 seconds!"

Grey Wolf, Ernie and Flicker manage to scramble up into the rope trick space in time. Aravis, realizing that there won’t be time for everyone to get inside before the ball arrives, grabs Kay and Tribbin and dimension doors back to the other side of the pit they recently passed. 

Leaving Dranko, Makel and One Certain Step still standing there when the huge stone ball comes smashing through the wall of stone.

Step leaps desperately to one side. Dranko pushes Makel ahead of him and they dive to the other side. Stone shards are flying everywhere, and the sound of roaring and splintering rock is deafening. The barriers erected by Morningstar and Dranko, while not enough to stop the ball, are enough the lessen the impact. But Dranko feels (and hears) his knees and shins snap beneath the weight of tons of stone, and they hear a scream from Step. The ball rolls past and eventually reaches the pit, where Aravis, Kay and Tribbin watch it plummet to the bottom and land with a loud thud. Then they hear it begin to roll slowly back in the direction that it came from; there is evidently a passage leading out of the bottom of the pit, and the stone ball is probably rolling back to somehow reset itself. 

Dranko, wincing at the sight of his own shattered legs, fires off a couple of charges from his Wand of Cure Serious Wounds , and watches as his bones re-knit. Step managed to jam himself in the corner of the tunnel and avoid getting body-slammed by the ball, but his left arms is bent backwards at an impossible angle and his face is an ashen white. He calls upon the power of his Goddess Kemma to heal his arm, and Makel (hurt, but not as badly as Dranko) gets healed up as well by the party clerics. 

Shaken but undaunted, the party continues on in pursuit of the orcs. Grey Wolf makes Dranko invisible, just to be on the safe side. After another few minutes of hurried marching through dark corridors, Dranko, Aravis and Tribbin see that a section of passage ahead of them has been magically darkened; Dranko’s keen half-orcish eyes cannot penetrate it. They stop, and the rest of the party soon catches up.

Rather than plunge blindly into the magical darkness, Morningstar steps forward to the edge of the impenetrable shadow. Back in Djaw, Ell imbued her shield with holy powers not yet tested, and this seems like a fine inaugural circumstance. She concentrates on the shield, willing it to blaze with daylight. Slowly the black shield with small white triangles changes color, becoming instead white with small black triangles, and then a bright white light flashes outward. The party instinctively flinches, and the darkness in obliterated by the daylight spell from Morningstar’s shield. The Company can now see that the widening passage opens into the large cavern, and waiting there are orcs. Many orcs. At least 15 are visible, and it looks like more are moving around back in the shadows. All of them are squinting into the bright light coming from Morningstar’s shield. Some of them appear to be talking or shouting, but no sound comes from them; there is some kind of magical silence still between the party and the orcs. 

There are three rows of well-armed soldiers in front, and far behind them, barely glimpsed, a large figure points toward them, and opens his mouth to shout some unheard command. 

(run 115 begins) Grey Wolf reacts first and casts hold person at the orc who is pointing, but it has no effect. Aravis points his Wand of Fireballs, and that certainly has some effect, as he fires off a blast into the midst of the orcish lines. Many of the weaker orcs crumple, their bodies smoking. 

From somewhere out of the darkness in the back, outside the range of Morningstar’s daylight, an answering red streak comes shooting toward them in answer. It’s the party’s turn to be engulfed in a fireball.

With that, the front lines orcs who still stand come rushing forward to engage the party in melee. They’re largely ineffectual, a good sign for the combat to come. Most of the party moves up a bit as they mop up the charging orcs. Dranko, still invisible , decides to pick his way through the lines of orcs and try to find the spell-caster in the back. As he moves through the cavern, he sees that there are quite a few more orcs outside the range of Morningstar’s light. Aravis activates his Boots of Speed. 

The orcish leader, standing in back, waves his hands and casts a spell at Morningstar. The world (to her) starts to go dark for a second, but she shrugs off the effect, her vision unimpaired. On his next turn Aravis, sensing that Kay is about to run out into danger, casts Stoneskin, and sends Pewter scampering over to her to deliver the spell. Being hasted, he then clears a path for her with a lightning bolt. 

Kay, unable to contain her seething hatred of the Kesh, activates her Amulet of Energy, doing 10 points of subdual damage to herself and tripling her speed for the round. Then she charges out through the orcish ranks, shrugging off attacks of opportunity as she heads for the leader in back. But those attacks aren’t as worrying as the flurry of crossbow bolts, fired from both sides of the cavern from unseen vantage points up in the dark shadows near the ceiling. Most miss or glance off her armor, and the remainder are deflected by the stoneskin. Dranko looks up, but cannot see any of the orcish crossbowmen; he swears under his breath.

As Kay closes with the leader she sees that he is dressed in furs, with armor glinting beneath them. Dwarf skulls hang from ropes at his belt. He has drawn a battle-axe. And his right eye has been put out, the socket naked at the center of two crossing scars. Could this be Okhot One-Eye himself?

Behind the party, about 30’ back down the approach tunnel, there is the sound of shattering glass. Flames leap up, blocking off retreat, and then ill-aimed crossbow bolts come flying through the flames at Tribbin and Flicker at the back rank.

Step and Makel have moved out into the cavern (though not far) to engage some of the orcs, and while most of the cannon-fodder are slain, there are stronger orcs with better armor giving them a good fight. There are also some smaller but quicker orcs, wearing only leather armor, looking for good flanking opportunities. There is a fierce melee near the center of the cavern, while spells fly from both ends. Another fireball from Aravis is perfectly placed, using a stone pillar to just barely shield Kay while two orcs on either side of her are roasted.

On his next turn, Aravis (still under the influence of his Boots of Speed), launches two more back-to-back fireballs from his wand, aimed into a knot of orcs around the wizard near the back. A couple of orcs are fried by the pair of blasts, but the tougher orcs are still standing (though badly burned), and the orcish wizard looks completely unharmed. Grey Wolf mutters, "Of course, he made himself immune to fire. Those orcs we chased away must have told him we used fire."

Dranko tries to cast a silence spell. He hopes to become an invisible anti-spell-casting tool to incapacitate the powerful orcish wizard, but he’s surrounded by orcs himself. Realizing that if they hear him cast they’ll lash out with their greataxes, he tries casting defensively, but at the last minute makes a mistake in the casting. The spell fizzles.

With a great many in the Company wounded, Morningstar casts a healing circle. Meanwhile Kay has been battling against the one-eyed orcish leader, while enduring the withering cross-fire of the hidden orcish crossbows. Also, a pesky low-level orcish sorcerer has zapped her with a ray of enfeeblement, reducing the effectiveness of her blows. 

Her orcish foe takes a step back, drops his weapon, and casts a spell at her; she feels her muscles begin to tighten and freeze in place, but she fights off the effect of the spell. Thinking quickly, she pretends to be frozen in place (succeeding in Perform checks admirably). Because her warhammer and dagger are held out in front of her, she figures that if one-eye is going to try a coup-de-grace, he’ll move around to her side, leaving himself especially vulnerable to a surprise attack. Being badly wounded, she uses the magical healing power of her war hammer, still without moving a muscle.

Dranko, still invisible, has also moved into position to strike at the one-eyed orc. And sure enough, the orc moves into position to better attack Kay, and Dranko executes a painful subdual-damage sneak attack with his sap. One-eye turns to face this new menace… a half-human! His eye narrows as he acquires a new primary target. He again drops his weapon, casts a spell, and touches Dranko with his hands glowing green. Dranko feels a poison start to course through his veins, but his body overcomes the poison, and the chill passes. Seeing his spell fail, and greatly weakened from various blows, he shouts at the orcish wizard (in orcish): "Gowl! Get me the $#!@ out of here!"

Gowl responds harshly: "If you die, it just means you were too weak to lead."

Well, that’s orcs for you.

A lesser orcish sorcerer casts a well-placed web spell into the area where much of the party is generally standing, though it also entangles some of the orcs.

Gowl, himself hasted, responds to Aravis’s fireballs with a pair of powerful lightning bolts, aimed primarily at Aravis and Grey Wolf. Both of them are badly wounded by the searing electricity, though it does burn away some of the webs in their vicinity. Beset by a powerful orc himself, Grey Wolf draws Bostock; the glowing blue sword whispers into Grey Wolf’s mind, exultant about being used.

Realizing that something must be done about the wizard, Aravis casts wall of ice from a scroll, and manages to trap Gowl and his two bodyguards in the hemisphere. But a few seconds later the ice vanishes, successfully dispelled by Gowl. And a large orc is now bearing down on Aravis, managing to penetrate his magical robe enough to bring him close to death. Aravis tries desperately to back away, but the webs cling to his legs, and he can hardly move at all. And then the orc gets in one more axe-hit, and Aravis goes down, unconscious.

Makel and Step have both been worn slowly down by powerful orcish fighters. Makel, on the brink of death (having already been knocked unconscious and revived by a healing potion administered by Flicker), realizes he has to get back to Morningstar for more healing, but she is about 15’ inside the webbed area. Makel breaks off from his melee, runs, jumps at the edge of the webs, soars over Flicker, and lands in the webs at Morningstar’s feet. "Healing, please?" he croaks. Morningstar obliges. He stands back up and keeps fighting, and again starts taking damage from orcish axes, but finishes off his nearest attacker.

Morningstar, unhindered by the Web due to her Ring of Freedom of Movement, strides over to Step and heals him too. The clerics are working overtime in this one!

At this point, Gowl sees that Ernie, Grey Wolf, Morningstar, Makel and Step are all in close proximity, without many of his own allies nearby. He strides forward, waves his arms about… and casts a devastating cone of cold. It freezes the webs, and while most of the targets manage to avert some of the blast, Makel is caught full on, and is frozen solid. Flicker runs over to him, and then sadly shakes his head at Morningstar. Makel is dead. Step is unconscious, and probably would be dead as well if Morningstar hadn’t just healed him.

Grey Wolf, seeing that things are getting desperate, pulls out the Mordenkainen’s Cube, and activates its Mordenkainen’s sword power. It starts slashing away at the orc bearing down on him.

Just as it seems that Aravis is going to be finished off by his orcish foe, Tribbin comes running out of the tunnel (where he had been told to hole up and take cover), and staggers the orc with a vicious axe-blow. The orc wobbles, slashes feebly with his own weapon, and keels over.

Flicker has emerged into the melee by now, and still blinking manages to seriously wound several orcs with vicious sneak attacks. Morningstar blasts Gowl with a searing darkness, and Gowl responds by finally taking the time to cast mirror image on himself. Six duplicate wizards appear. 

At Grey Wolf’s request, Edghar retrieves Aravis’s Wand of Magic Missiles, and Grey Wolf uses it to pop three of the images while Flicker pops another with a sling stone. Ernie heals Aravis back up, and Aravis polymorphs into an ox so that he can charge the powerful orcish fighters who are about to kill Dranko. 

Dranko, between the damage he’s taken from various orcs, and from having cast shield other on Aravis, is nearly killed by One-Eye’s allies. He falls over, pretending to be dead, and sure enough, the orcs turn their attention to Kay and the charging Ox. (Kay starts hurling what orcish insults she knows at One-eye, making sure he doesn’t notice that Dranko is still alive.) Nearly blacking out, Dranko gives himself of dose of his Wand of Cure Serious Wounds.

The pesky weak sorcerer has been peppering the party with more magic missiles, but finally Flicker comes running up and plants a short-sword in its chest, ending that menace.

And at last, Kay delivers the knock-out blow to One-Eye. She spits as her foe crumples to the ground, unconscious. She shouts out into the raging fight that Okhot One-Eye is dead, but Gowl just smiles. "Then finally I am the leader, as I always should have been," he growls.

But leader or no, he sees that almost all of his allies have fallen (save for the crossbow-shooters, still peppering the party from above), and that his mirror images are almost all gone. "You’ll see me again," he mocks. "And the Chun Aggrat should have no trouble with you." Then he steps back, casts dimension door, and vanishes.

The party finishes off the remaining orcs who have not by this time fled from the cavern. Bloody, bruised, with some of their number barely conscious, the party still has to deal with the crossbow-shooters, hidden and protected in two "orcish balconies." And Makel’s frozen eyes stare up lifelessly.

(run 116 begins) Since there’s no sign of the orcs that had been firing bows from the rear, the party starts a hasty retreat back the way they had come, just enough to get out of range of the orcish balconies. Morningstar and Kay carry the unconscious body of Okhot One-Eye, while Ernie and Step drag Makel’s frozen corpse with them. Crossbow bolts continue to rain down, and the party is forced to do some emergency healing as they flee. 

Grey Wolf uses fly and haste scrolls, and borrows Aravis’s Wand of fireballs. Flying high up into the battle cavern, he sees that the orcish marksmen are sheltered by stone bunkers with narrow grooves serving as arrow slits. 

Kaboom! One fireball pellet from the wand streaks through the groove, and the fireball blossoms behind. There are screams of roasting orcs, followed by silence. Kaboom! He turns and delivers a second fireball into the second bunker, with the same results. Always thorough, Grey Wolf checks the bodies to make sure they’re dead, and it turns out that one of them, while badly burned, is playing possum. It pleads for its life in orcish, but Grey Wolf lops off its head with the sword Bostock. 

The magical sword’s blue glow intensifies, and Grey Wolf hears its exultant whispers in his ear. Bostock is pleased to be used! So pleased, in fact, that its magic intensifies, and it goes from being a +1 sword to a +2 sword. 

Needing a safe place to rest, Grey Wolf uses his Mordenkainen’s Cube to cast Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion up in one of the balconies. A blue-black metal door-frame appears in front of him, and a moment later an iron-banded wooden door appears with a large brass knocker. In they go.

The door leads to a large but simple foyer, that opens onto a grand library. There are shelves with hundreds of books, comfortable chairs and sofas, and three fireplaces. The books are written in an unfamiliar language, though Kay discovers one book with arcane diagrams, and another with pictures of some exotic beasts.

The smell of good food is wafting through one of the doors out of the library, so the party investigates. They find a large dining room, dark but comfortable, with low wooden rafters and a large banquet table in the center. Platters of food are being brought from an adjacent kitchen by Unseen Servants and set on the table. It’s a huge feast, with more food than the party could hope to eat, but they do their best.

There’s a small shrine off one hallway of the mansion, to a strange God whose holy symbol is an open book. The party takes Makel’s body there and lays it gently on the floor. Kay draws the holy symbol of Brechen on some parchment and sets it by Makel’s head.

Okhot One-Eye, bound and gagged, is placed in an empty interrogation room (specifically asked for by Grey Wolf when he was using the Cube.) One Certain Step keeps an eye on him overnight. The rest of the party spends the night in comfortable feather beds, except for Morningstar. She prays all night over Makel’s body, and when Ell grants her spells, Morningstar casts gentle repose on the corpse.

Sunday, June 22 - The next morning the party immediately gets down to the business of interrogating Okhot One-eye. The orcish barbarian/priest is bound up tight, and his gag is removed so that he could talk. Morningstar casts detect thoughts (though it takes several tries before Okhot failed his save), but Okhot guesses correctly what’s going on. Gruff and defiant, he refuses to answer questions, and hums an orcish war chant to keep his thoughts as useless as possible. The party tries threatening him with mental domination; if he doesn’t cooperate, they’ll make him do their bidding and disgrace him in the eyes of his fellow orcs. Okhot doesn’t buy it. 

They ask him if he’s seen an orc named Lagzik, and this he deigns to answer. Unfortunately, his answer is "which one?" Evidently Lagzik is a common orcish name, and he knows several. The last one he remembers was a strategist back with the main force whom he met briefly a couple of weeks earlier. 

So Morningstar casts Memory Read looking for the memory of the last time Okhot saw Lagzik. Both she and the half-orc are suddenly thrust into the memory of a huge cavern lit by numerous torches and filled with innumerable orcs. In the foreground a dozen or so orcs are standing around a map, pointing and arguing about something. Okhot is not part of the group, but in the relevant part of the memory he looks them over, and Morningstar gets a good look at Lagzik’s face. 

The spell ends. Okhot’s eyes are wide open in horror. He’s no longer so sure that the party was bluffing about dominating him and making him commit treachery. Shaken, he offers the party a deal: they agree not to scan his mind through any magical means, and he’ll do his best to answer any questions they have. More importantly, when the interrogation is over, he wants the party to kill him immediately and quickly. (Okhot is under no illusions that the party will spare his life.)

The party tells Okhot that the Chun Aggrat is a fake, a human named Restimar who’s using the orcs to further his own ends. Okhot finds this extremely amusing, and doesn’t believe it for a moment. ("Suuuuuure, the Chun Aggrat is really a human. Go on. Tell me another one.") It doesn’t take long for the party to realize that they have no hope of convincing him of that. 

When asked about the Prophecies of the Orcish Crusades, Okhot says he hasn’t seen the inside of it. That is a privilege for the Chun Aggrat alone. Okhot understands that it talks mainly of the War of Righteous Conquest that will be launched sometime soon. (He doesn’t know exactly when.)

The Red Fang are the most powerful Tribe, and Okhot suspects that another barbarian/priest named Shorrig will be made leader in his absence. Gowl will probably make a power play, but he is not pious enough to serve the Chun Aggrat directly.

Dranko asks Okhot about the other tribes. The Bone-breakers he thinks of as club used to beat on enemies. They have some powerful fighters among them, but are disorganized and lack both brains and priests. 

The Blackstaff Tribe is smaller and consists largely of sorcerers. Somehow they have offended the Chun Aggrat and been placed in the position of shame in the back ranks.

The Longclaw Tribe once were allied with the Red Fang, but there has been a falling out and much hostility between them. This stems from the fact that the leader of the Longclaw, called the Bloodseer, believes that he should be at the right hand of the Chun Aggrat. 

Finally Okhot reaffirms his belief that the party would have no chance if they ended up fighting against the Chun Aggrat.

Seeing that there’s nothing more to be learned from Okhot, the Company honors their promise. They allow their orcish prisoner a few minutes to make his peace with Gruumsh, and then Kay dispatches him quickly.

Ernie then goes up to the chapel where Makel’s body is resting. He casts speak with dead, and learns that Makel (after a strangely long pause) that their navigator does in fact want to be brought back to life if possible. "Not finished yet," says his lifeless head.

The Company then exits the Mordenkainen’s Mansion. There’s no sign of any movement, but it does look like someone has come through the area and picked over the bodies while the party was inside. The corpses have been left to rot, and the insects are feasting. After some discussion as to their next course of action, Dranko is made Invisible and sent off to scout out the area to the west.

After a few minutes of exploring the tunnels and caverns, he finds that a westward-leading corridor is blocked by a small guard post. A wooden door-frame has been wedged into a narrow section of tunnel and two orcs are standing guard there. Dranko tries another route, but finds another such guarded tunnel a hundred yards to the north. But when he decides to go as far north as possible before being forced to turn west, he finds a third section that has merely been collapsed as (probably) a precautionary measure. 

Dranko sends word via Pewter back to Aravis that they should start moving forward, and takes up a position at a tunnel intersection that’s within sight of an orcish guard

(run 117 begins) By staying in communication with the party via Pewter, he plans on making sure the party stops before they get within sight of the guard.   Kay is made the recipient of both endurance and bull’s strength spells, and hoists Makel’s body over her shoulder.   The Company leaves the cavern in which they fought and killed Okhot and heads out after Dranko.

While they’re en route, Dranko hears the sounds of battle coming from somewhere behind the orcish guard.  He (Dranko) is invisible, so he pokes his head around the corner to see the guard’s reaction.  The orc keeps turning his head around to look in the direction of the combat, and is clearly struggling between maintaining his guard and going off to join the fray.  Finally he succumbs; Dranko peeks around the corner again just a few seconds later and the orc is gone. 

Dranko sneaks forward, still invisible (but expecting it to run out any time), and discovers there’s another orc just on the other side of the wooden frame.  This second orc has his back to Dranko, causing a brief struggle between the half-orc and his conscience.   His conscience loses.  Dranko creeps forward silently, and even though his Invisibility drops en route, he caves in the guard’s skull with his mace. 

He relays this new turn of events to the party via Pewter.  The party rolls their collective eyes, and hurries along.   Dranko considers dragging the body away (a Longclaw, judging by its green-painted hands and nails), but there’s too much blood, so he just leaves it, with its own short-sword stuck into its head.

Meanwhile, the party has reached a wide cavern when they hear the sounds of footsteps approaching from an adjoining tunnel.  They hide behind boulders and large stalagmites as two furtive orcs emerge.  The orcs look around quickly before hustling down the tunnel that leads back the way the party has just come (fortunately not noticing that Grey Wolf’s leg is sticking out conspicuously from behind his stalagmite).  After they’re out of sight, Morningstar casts Thought Capture on a spot where the orcs had paused.  She gets the thought: "If we get there first, there’s gotta be some really good stuff!"

Looters.

The Company continues following Dranko’s chalk marks.

"Great," says Flicker, when the party arrives.  "It looks like he committed suicide by crushing his own skull with a short sword."

The sounds of the battle have ceased, and Dranko creeps forward again on point, scouting.   After a minute or two he comes across an orcish corpse lying on the floor of the tunnel.  Its clothes identify it as a Longclaw.  A bit farther on are two more corpses, one Longclaw, and the other with the black skull insignia of the Bone-breakers.

"Looks like orc-against-orc fighting," Dranko relays via Pewter.

He continues on, and the tunnel he’s sneaking down widens until it opens into another large cavern.  He sees that there are about a dozen corpses near the center of the cavern – and one orc who is not a corpse.  The lone living orc is going from body to body, searching them for loot. 

Dranko decides he wants a prisoner, and casts command. Sleep!

The orc doesn’t fall asleep.  He does look up in surprise, and immediately bolts for a tunnel exit on the far side of the cavern.  Dranko (seeing that the orc has the black skull of the Bone-breaker tribe) follows the command with hold person,  but this doesn’t work either, and after a minute of pursuit, Dranko realizes that the orc has escaped. 

Eventually the rest of the party catches up to him, and they meet in the cavern with all the dead orcs.  The bodies are a pretty even mix of Bone-breakers and Longclaws.  A thought capture from Morningstar reveals that the orc that fled thought that Dranko was a surviving Longclaw, and that puts their minds a bit more at ease.  But it still doesn’t answer the question of what to do next.  They debate a short while, and decide that they still have not better plan than to make their way slowly west, looking for signs of Carbuncle.

Grey Wolf hears more footsteps approaching, and quickly warns the rest of the party to silence.   They quickly seek cover, but the only real option is to lie down and pretend to be more bodies in the pile.  Dranko takes up a position near to the tunnel from where the footsteps are coming.

Two orcs emerge tentatively into the cavern.  At first they look to be armed, but they’re actually carrying sticks with white pieces of cloth tied around the ends.  One of the orcs looks around, and says, "Hello?  Anyone here?"

Dranko detaches himself from the wall.

"What do you want?" he says menacingly.

The two orcs immediately start waving their white flags, as if they’re trying to ward off a demon.   One of them starts babbling in orcish,  "We don’t want to fight!  We don’t want to fight!  Don’t hurt us!"  And aside to the other orc: "I hope this works!"

The party rises up from their positions and surrounds the two orcs. 

"You… you are humans?  From the surface?"  the orc asks?

"You can see that for yourself," they reply.

"You are the ones who… who killed Okhot One-eye?"

"We are."

Morningstar starts casting detect thoughts , which makes the orc jump back in terror, but the party assures him that the spell is harmless.  The orc continues tentatively:

"And… and is the… the orc-killer with you?"

"She is. "

"Then you’re the ones I’m looking for," he says, his voice trembling.  "I… I have a message for you.   We were sent 
by… the most holy leader of the Longclaw Tribe, the Great Bloodseer.  He wishes an audience with the… the… er… the tourists from the sunlit lands.   He has sent out many to find you, and it seems we are… the lucky ones."

Morningstar detects that he is generally telling the truth.  He’s also scared nearly witless, and does not consider himself lucky to have stumbled across the party.

"Indeed," says Dranko.  "This is indeed your lucky day.  What does the Bloodseer want to talk about."

"I.. I don’t know.  He didn’t tell me.  He just sent me to… to find you.  Will you come with me?"

"What’s your name?" Dranko asks.

"It’s Skorg.  This is Skrap."

"Why doesn’t he talk?"

"He’s… he’s taken a vow of silence."

Kay rolls her eyes.  What kind of orcs are these, anyway?

After conferring with the rest of the party for a few minutes, while Skorg and Skrap stand there in terror, Dranko turns back to them.   An idea has been suggested that Dranko has to try out.

"Here, hold this."

Dranko hands him a torch.  He reaches out a trembling hand and takes it.  He looks quite the torchbearer.

"How’d you like to be a hero someday?" Dranko asks.

"Me?  A hero?  I… I don’t think that I…"

"Never mind.  We’ll follow you," Dranko says.  "But first we just want to take a bit of a precaution."

Aravis casts the Prestidigitation cantrip, causing glowing lights to circle around Skorg and then seem to sink into his skin and vanish.

"Now," says Dranko, "If anything happens to us, or you lead us into a trap, something very very nasty will happen to you."

Morningstar detects a fresh torrent of fear in Skorg’s mind.

"Oh, no!  We would not betray you, and the most holy Bloodseer!  But… the Bloodseer thought you might not trust him.  He said you would have the ability to do….um, to do something called an "Oggry."  He said you can do "Oggries" every half an hour to make sure everything’s ok."

"Lead on then.  Let’s just be sure that anything that might happen to us, happens to you first."

Skorg and Skrap lead the party for several hours through many twisting stone passages and wide caverns.   Skorg continues to mumble about how this sure is his "lucky day."  All at once the two orcs pull up short, and motion the party to silence.  Skorg sniffs the air, and shouts out: "Oh, shi…"

About 15 Bone-breakers, waiting in ambush, come flooding out of a pair of side tunnels, forming an encroaching hemisphere.  But before they can close, Grey Wolf obliterates half of their ranks with a Fireball.  Dranko knocks one flat on his back with his whip.  Kay fells one with an arrow, and staggers a second.  Morningstar bashes one with her weapon.

And that’s enough for the 6 remaining orcs.  Six seconds after charging out, they flee for their sorry orcish lives.  Morningstar kills another as they flee, and Kay shoots one more just before is vanishes out of sight.  The remaining four scamper away into the tunnels.

Skorg, who had just barely started to draw his weapon, stares at the party with his mouth hanging open.  He’s clearly never seen a display of such awesome efficiency.  His green-painted hands are shaking.

Nonetheless he continues to lead the party toward their meeting with the Bloodseer.   After a while there are clear signs of habitation: barrels and boxes stacked here and there, crude weapon racks, some caverns with rough sleeping pallets – even the distant sounds of orc-voices.  But there is no sign of any orcs.  Skorg finds this curious, but the party realizes that the Bloodseer must have ordered them away.

"We’re only a few minutes from the Bloodseer," Skorg says. 

"Wait then," says Dranko.  He casts an oggry – er, augury, asking if following Skorg to their meeting with the Bloodseer will bring weal or woe.  The answer is: "Weal, if you make no missteps."  Some in the party think this might be an indication that there are physical traps they’ll have to avoid.  But Dranko insists that Delioch means that they should make no diplomatic missteps, and that everything should be fine if they all behave themselves.

At last Skorg and Skrap lead them into a  room that is entirely orc-made.  Its shape is that of an eye.  At one corner is an opening into another room, covered with a curtain made of leather strips.  Light is spilling out between the strips.

"Wait here please," Skorg says.  He walks through the curtain, and comes out a minute later.

"The Bloodseer says you may see him now.  You are welcome to keep your weapons on you… he knows that you won’t use them."

General Windstorm goes in first.

The Bloodseer’s room is practically opulent compared to the rest of the orcish caverns.  The floor is covered with furs and bearskins.  There are wooden tables, chairs piled with blankets, and a large bed in one corner.  Incense burns in a dwarf-skull on a table, filling the room with a vaguely sweet scent.  In the back of the room sits the Bloodseer himself, on a large stone chair covered with furs.  He is flanked by four orcs in robes, whose faces are downcast and hidden.  These four do not look up when the party enters.

The Bloodseer is large, almost fat, his body straining against banded mail.  On a table within easy reach is a large orcish double-axe.  He wears a strange headpiece that is covered with hairy patches; Kay sees right away that they are dwarf-scalps.  His right left eye-socket is bare and empty, but painted around the socket is a reddish eye-shape, giving his face an almost alien look.

"Come in," says the Bloodseer, gesturing. "Sit." 

His voice is slow and deep.

The party enters the cave and arranges themselves on the blankets. At the snap of his fingers, two of the Bloodseer's acolytes bring bread and pungent wine for them.

"It hardly needs be said," the Bloodseer says, "as the bones have augured that you will show wisdom. But understand that treachery will not avail you. I have taken precautions, and though I don’t doubt your prowess, you could not wade through the sea of my soldiers that would surround you."

"We understand," Kay answers. "Why have you brought us here?"

The Bloodseer pauses before answering.

"I wish to enlist your aid in defeating an enemy of mine," he says.

Dranko speaks up: "You know, we think your Chun Aggrat is a human imposter. He’s really a human named Restimar, using the orcish armies for his own ends."

The Bloodseer’s mouth quirks at the mention of the Chun Aggrat. "We may wish to return to that subject later," the Bloodseer says. "But I find your presence here more interesting. Tell me... what are you doing down here in the first place?"

There is an uncomfortable silence, before Kay answers.

"We’re looking for an orc," she says."

"Does this orc have a name?"

"Lagzik."

"A common name. Do you know the tribe to which he belongs?"

"No, we don’t."

"So," says the Bloodseer, leaning back. "You have come down here looking for a lone orc, not even knowing his tribe. And how exactly did you expect to find him?"

This of course sends Morningstar to muttering that this is exactly what she’s been wondering.

The party asks the Bloodseer if he would be offended if they talk among themselves in a language he doesn’t understand. He answers that he certainly understands that they might wish to discuss what they’re willing to divulge. He’d want to do the same in their place.

He leans back while they have a hurried discussion in the Kivian common tongue. Ernie wonders if they should admit what "Lagzik" really is, and what danger that might put him in.

After he speaks, the Bloodseer looks at him amusedly and smiles. Ernie smiles back.

The party finally decides that they’re not willing to tell anything specific about Carbuncle until the Bloodseer is more forthcoming about what he wants. But the Bloodseer's answer pre-empts them.

"You wish me to be forthcoming. But you yourselves are deceivers."

"Listen to me," Kay says sternly. "My personal main reason for being here is to kill orcs. As many as I possibly can. But my group has been charged with finding Lagzik, and that is our highest priority. If you want us to help you, you’ll have to help us."

The Bloodseer takes this with great equanimity. He turns to Ernie again.

"So. This Lagzik is not an orc. What is he then?"

And the party realizes that somehow the Bloodseer understood all of their private discussion. That causes them to decide that they’d be best served being more forthcoming. At least none of them has explicitly mentioned the name "Carbuncle." 

"Lagzik is a human," admits Kay.

"A human. I see more clearly now. You are here to find a human who is... undercover among the orcish army. That makes more sense. Listen to me. If I am to enlist your aid, I will have to help you find this person, yes?. And for me to have success at this task, I will need to know as much as possible about him, so that I can learn of his whereabouts. Yes?"

The party agrees.

"Good. Now, let us return to a subject you brought up earlier. You made the claim that the Chun Aggrat, the great savior of our race who will lead us to conquest – that the Chun Aggrat is a fake? On what basis do you make such an outrageous claim?"

"His name is Restimar," Dranko says. "He’s trying to use your orcish armies as a distraction."

"A distraction?"

"Yeah. Restimar’s got his own armies that are going to invade, while your orcs tie up his enemies. He’s just using you."

"So. The Chun Aggrat is not really who he claims? Who all of the orcs believe he is?"

The party tenses, fearing that they’ve just lost all their credibility. But the Bloodseer leans back and a wide smile spreads across his face.

"I know it is so," he says. "The Chun Aggrat is a fraud, I am certain. But it is good to hear it from another’s lips. I told you I needed your aid in defeating an enemy of mine. It is the fake Chun Aggrat, this… Restimar… whom I wish you to kill."

The party is astonished.

"But… why do you need our help?" they ask. "You have enough orcs to defeat us, and you expect us to defeat Restimar. Why don’t you do it yourself?"

"You do not understand," says the Bloodseer. "The Chun Aggrat is as a God to the orcs. He is the legendary hero who will lead us in the Great War of Conquest. They revere him absolutely, and would do for him whatever he asks. Even the orcs most loyal to me would balk at the thought of betraying the Chun Aggrat. I can raise no hand against him. It would be suicide."

The party motions to the orcish servants who stand silent in the room.

"Do not worry about them. They.. are as one mind with me, and will not betray us."

"No," he continues, "I need you to eliminate Restimar. Which means we will need to draw him out where he is vulnerable."

"What makes you think we are capable of defeating him?" they ask.

"I am well aware of the strength that Okhot One-eye surrounded himself with. You were able to defeat him and his retinue, and drive away the mage Gowl. I believe you will succeed against the false Chun Aggrat."

Kay is skeptical. "Restimar isn’t stupid," she says. "He’s surrounded by loyal soldiers. He knows who we are, and will have heard about us from Gowl by now. What possibly makes you think he’ll allow himself to be put in a vulnerable position?" 

"The bones tell me that you have some… connection with Restimar. I was hoping that perhaps you would have some ideas as to what might lure Restimar away from his army."

That’s a stumper, all right. Most of the party confers, while Kay keeps speaking to the Bloodseer.

"Tell me about the Chun Aggrat. The real one, I mean," she says.

"The true Chun Aggrat is as a God. He is a powerful hero of my people, who will lead the orcs to great victory. But it is not yet time. I know this.

"From reading the Prophecies of the Orcish Crusades?"

"Yes. I know well the Prophecies. I owned them once. Before the Chun Aggrat took them from me."

Kay has clearly touched a nerve.

"I have studied the stories," the Bloodseer continues. "I among all the orcs know the meaning of the parables, the hidden secrets among the histories, and the translations of the dreams of the ancient prophets. I know only too well that the time has not yet come for the war that Restimar is driving us toward."

"But the other orcs believe him," Kay says.

"Yes. Restimar is very, very good. He knows the prayers. He knows the histories and rituals in great detail. He plays the part to perfection, but he does not serve as a channel for the holy power of Gruumsh."

"Maybe he’s getting his power from some other God," Aravis suggests.

"Possibly," admits the Bloodseer.

"We will need to discuss this among ourselves," Kay says. "Just as you have things you don’t want us to know, we will need to talk about things we wish to keep to ourselves, while we decide how to deal with Restimar."

"Very well. I will provide a secure cave for you, and make sure your privacy is maintained."

The party insists on being allowed to cast a Leomund’s Secure Shelter, and the Bloodseer reluctantly agrees.

The party extracts two more promises from the Bloodseer before they depart. He agrees to take no action regarding Lagzik before the party next speaks with him. And he agrees not to kill Skorg and Scrap, which he had intended to do as they were now potential liabilities. Kay promises that if they are given even the slightest reason to believe the pair of messengers poses a danger, she’ll kill them herself. 

The party and the Bloodseer agree to meet again the next day, sixteen hours hence. One of the Bloodseer’s acolytes leads them a short way to a small empty cavern with no other exits, motions them in, turns, and leaves them alone.

(run 118 begins) There is a great deal of discussion about how to lure Restimar away from his army and into a trap, without him bringing hundreds of orcs with him.  All sorts of options are considered.  They talk about plans involving cryptic Sending spells.  They seriously consider the possibilities of using Ava Dormo, possibly even drawing Restimar into the Dreaming and fighting him where he won’t have allies, but the logistics of such a plan don’t hold much promise.  (Even if Restimar is capable of entering Ava Dormo, what if he proves too much for Morningstar?  The other party members aren’t proficient enough in the Dreaming to have much effect in a combat there.)

The talk about Ava Dormo does prompt Morningstar to drop into a trance and scout out the local dreamscape.  What she finds is some local underground tunnels and caverns, but many fewer constructed tunnels than exist in the real world.  The same phenomenon that months ago obliterated the above-ground buildings in Ava Dormo, also seems to have wiped out constructed tunnels. 

Hmmm.  That must mean that the tunnels that are there have been built more recently, and might provide a crude map of potential Orcish Surprises.  Morningstar spends a couple of hours scouting around, and considers going back later for a longer look around.

Grey Wolf has been feeling a mild background pull at his innards since before the meeting with the Bloodseer.  It’s not as sharp and immediate as the feeling that precedes nearby planar travel.  It’s not going away, either.  But suddenly it suddenly gets extremely painful, as if Kibi is about to reappear.  Aravis quickly casts his thought into the Crosser’s Maze, hoping to see what happens when their Dwarven companion is drawn back from his other prime material plane.  He is immediately surrounded by the indescribable image of the multiverse, and easily visible are their own plane, and the overlapping smaller prime that is presumably where Naradawk is imprisoned.  As he saw before, there are hundreds of energy streams pulsing back and forth between the two primes. 

When Kibi appears, its visual manifestation (to Aravis) doesn’t involve either of the two interpenetrating primes.  Instead it’s as if a flashbulb has gone off somewhere behind his head.  Kibi is lying on the ground amid a pile of his gear, snoring away loudly.  Aravis has a bit of difficulty returning his consciousness to the real world; as he leaves the Crosser’s Maze, he blacks out.  (He comes to as usual in only a few seconds, with a headache.)

From Kibi’s point of view, it has only been a few minutes since he last saw the party.   They quickly fill him in on the current predicament. 

"I can’t believe it!" he cries.  "You’ve made alliance with an orcish leader.  You’re talking about sparing these two orcish servants.  And Kay is talking about redeeming them?  That they’re just a product of bad upbringing?  How could you all have had such a change of heart in only ten minutes?!"

Ernie sends word back to the Bloodseer, warning him about Kibi.  (Showing up with a surprise dwarven guest might cause an undesirable reaction…)

The Company decides to cast a sending spell to General Rockbreath with the following message: "At least 50,000 orcs.  Some very powerful.  Spells.  Creature called ‘digger’ makes tunnels quickly.  We killed Okhot.  Orcs preparing major offensive.  Orc wizard Gowl dangerous."

Morningstar gets the reply: "Do you know tactical details about their offensive?  Where they’re coming out?  Or more details about digger?  You killed Okhot?  Hot damn!"

In reply, Morningstar casts another sending to Rockbreath a few minutes later: "Don’t know where or when yet.  Orcs massing.  Digger creates new tunnels probably as fast as walking.  Orcish surprises?  Bloodseer is shaman powerful as Okhot."

From Rockbreath in response: "Thanks.  Report more as you learn more.  Morale raised with news about Okhot.  Haven’t mentioned 50,000 orcs yet.  Time and place for everything."

Kay also has Morningstar cast one more sending to her brother Karn, who’s fighting orcs with their father at the other end of the mountains, hundreds of miles to the west.  She says: "Hope you an Papa are well.  If you hear of orc leader Okhot One-Eye, tell them he is dead – your sister killed him."

The reply from Karn comes back: "We’re fine and recovered.  No fighting recently.  No orc leader is a match for my sister.  Stay safe."

Then the party goes back to discussing what to do about Restimar.   In the end, most of their plans revolve around the one thing they have that might be enough to pique Restimar’s interest: the Crosser’s Maze.  There’s much talk about whether Restimar knows about the Maze already, and if he understands its import.  All they really know about Restimar is that he’s allied with Meledien and Octesian, and that he’s probably working for "P" and/or Naradawk. 

The plan they hit upon is crafty in the extreme.  First, Dranko writes out a letter, ostensibly to Ozilinsh from "P" himself!  He uses his innate forgery skill, along with his new magical Forgery Kit   and an actual letter from P to his old agent Manzanill to get the style just right.  He pens the following letter:

Ozilinsh - 

I have been following your agents’ progress with great interest, and I congratulate them for successfully retrieving the Crosser’s Maze.  It will be extremely useful when the time comes, and that time is drawing nearer every day.

It is time for them to run a new errand.  The Chun Aggrat, the spiritual leader of Charagan’s orcish tribes, is the most convenient person to take delivery of the Crosser’s Maze before Salk can properly analyze it.  However, this needs to be done in such a way that no suspicion falls upon you.

You’ll need to send your company with the Maze on a "search and destroy" mission into the orcish caverns.  They should kick up enough fuss to get the Chun Aggrat’s attention.  Once they do, they should arrange a private meeting with him to deliver the relic.  Have the Sailor contact him magically once they are nearby.  After the exchange it should be easy enough for them to fake their own capture.  Later, after the orcish advance when you’ll have your "hands full," your friends can conveniently escape and return to your service without the Maze.

Timing is critical.  I need the Chun Aggrat to receive the Maze before he advances.  Your Company as done admirably since we’ve reached an agreement.  With your help, Naradawk’s day will be sooner than we had hoped.

Dranko signs the letter with the same stylized "P" as appears on the letter to Manzanill.

The plan is to fabricate a fight wherein the Company battled with orcs, and in which Makel was killed while the other party members fled.   In this concocted scenario, the orcs looted Makel’s body and found this letter on him.  They brought it to the Bloodseer, who will then send other orcs (who will believe the fight really occurred) to Restimar with Makel’s pack.  (To make it seem more authentic, they are including some magic items in the pack – a Potion of Cure Light Wounds , Makel’s Wand of Wonder, and Ernie’s Buckler +1, along with some food, spare clothing, a dagger, and other mundane possessions.

The hope is that Restimar will read the letter and come to the following conclusions:

· That Ozilinsh is actually an agent working for "P"
· The Ozilinsh’s agents (the Company) have secured some powerful relic called the Crosser’s Maze
· That "P" wishes this relic to be delivered to the ‘Chun Aggrat" before Salk (leader of the Spire) can analyze said relic.
· That the Company has been sent with the Maze into the orcish caverns, where they have been told to get Restimar’s attention by going on a killing spree.
· That the Company had intended to contact Restimar magically, but now can’t, since "the Sailor" has been killed.
· That the Company is now wandering around the orcish caverns with a powerful artifact, and no good way to contact Restimar and make the delivery.

If Restimar does come to those conclusions, he will hopefully come looking for the party.  And since he won’t want his true nature revealed to other orcs, he might leave his bodyguards behind. 

On the other hand, what if the letter makes Restimar suspicious enough that he contacts "P" to verify the exchange?  Or what if he sends minions to find the Crosser’s Maze and bring it back to him?  It’s a risky plan, but it’s the best they’ve got.

The only other matter for discussion is what to do with Skorg and Scrap.   Some party members want to spare the cowardly Skorg, though they don’t much care what happens to Scrap.  "But that wouldn’t be fair," others complain.

"Yeah, we should be fair," Kibi agrees.  "Let’s kill them both."

"Look, we’ll just have to level with Skorg," Kay says flatly.

"We should level them!" Kibi protests.  He still can’t believe that the discussion is about finding ways to spare an orc’s life.

Monday, June 23 - The next morning the party returns to visit the Bloodseer.   Kibi immediately takes note of the dwarf-skull candle-holders, and the dwarven scalps hanging from the orc shaman’s head-piece.   But the Bloodseer is not at all discomfited by the arrival of the dwarf.  In fact, he says solemnly: "I see you have brought the Opener of Ways with you.  The bones said you would appear, and that you would be alone.  The bones do not lie."

The Company gets right down to business, outlining their plan for luring Restimar away from the safety of his armies.   The Bloodseer listens as they outline their basic plan, and then asks to read Dranko’s letter.  He frowns as he reads, and questions each assumption.  "Will Restimar know what the ‘Crosser’s Maze’ is?"  "Does he know who Ozilinsh is?  Salk?"  "What if tries to contact this "P" to make sure this letter is on the level?"  "How good is the forgery?"  "Who is Naradawk?"

After he hands back the letter, he shares some news with the party.  He has had scouts and spies out all night while the party slept, gathering information.

"I have gathered reports.  Restimar is concocting some ceremony to indoctrinate the Skull-Splitter, leader of the Bonebreakers, as his new right hand.  Shorrig, second only to Okhot among the Red Fang, is furious.  He expected with Okhot gone, he would be made the Right Hand.  Perhaps Restimar, being who he is, is uneasy with true holy-men at his side.  But Restimar has also made Gowl the chief of his bodyguards.   So if you’re dealing with Restimar, you’ll have to deal with Gowl as well. 

"This forms a strange alliance of sorts between the Bone-breakers and the Red Fang.  I’m not sure what will become of it.

"Five days hence he will begin a tour of the digging teams, reviewing his plans for the eventual assault on the surface dwellers.   It is unlikely that you will be able to sway him from that once he has begun.  Your window is narrow."

The Bloodseer repeats his position that, while he’s willing to help the party execute their plan, he will do nothing that might implicate him should they fail to eliminate Restimar.  That said, he’s willing to loan the party a number of orcish stonemasons to help rig a trap somewhere.  (He strongly implies that he’ll have them all killed afterward to cover his own ass.)  And he’ll find some orcs to carry the bait to Restimar. 

(run 119 begins) The Company returns to their cave to plan the actual ambush.   There follows a great deal of discussion on the physical nature of the ambush.

They talk about digging concealed pits, hoping to ensnare Restimar and any orcs he brings with them.

They realize the importance of Morningstar nailing Restimar with a dimensional anchor as soon as possible, to prevent him from teleporting or dimension dooring away.

They consider using illusions to help craft an ambush location, and especially possible uses of the Snow Globe of Mirage Arcana. 

They agree that spike stones may be a good way to cut off escape should Restimar and his retinue try to flee.

They worry that Restimar might have magical glasses that let him see pierce illusions, as did his red-armored cohort Meledien.

They talk about rigging deadfalls to cut off escape.

They figure that an orcish balcony would be a good thing to have in staging an ambush.

There are some brief digressions about what they’ll do with Restimar’s body if they’re allowed to take it.  Bringing it back as a gift for Rosetta is a popular idea.  And that gets them all grumbling about Rosetta.  "I wish there was a way to trade in Rosetta for Sagiro," Kay grumbles.

They return to the Bloodseer with their plans.  They explain what kind of space they want, and he knows of something that should come close to suiting their needs.  About a day’s march to the north-east is a cavern that was once going to be used as an ambush location against the dwarves.  It even has a partially-built orcish balcony that could be completed in a couple of days.  The cavern is large (almost as large as the party wanted), and has four tunnels leading into it (more than they wanted), but is the best place available for the party to stage their set-up.

The Bloodseer sends them off with nine orcish diggers instructed to follow whatever instructions the party gives them.  (Afterward, the Bloodseer confides in party that the orcs will be killed to prevent loose tongues from wagging.) Skorg, whose life has been spared at the behest of Kay, is sent with them as a guide.  And the Bloodseer assures them that their planted letter will be delivered to Restimar, along with word of the party’s last known location.  If the Red General bites on the bait and heads out immediately, the party should have about three days before he reaches their area of the caverns.

Off they go.

Tuesday, June 24 - Wednesday, June 25

The party arrives as the cavern and immediately starts making preparations.  First, the team of orcish diggers is assigned to the task of completing work on the orcish balcony. 

There are four entrance tunnels to this cavern, two facing generally west (which is the direction from which Restimar will most likely approach).  Morningstar puts up Walls of Stone to block off the two that enter from the east.  Then they stone shape "U" shaped tunnels underneath the walls, so that they could be used as emergency escape routes.  And the tunnels themselves are the targets of glyphs of warding keyed to orcs, in case of pursuit.

When the orcs complete the balcony, there is time for them to work on one more project.  Under Kibi’s instruction, they build a deadfall above the southernmost of the two western approaches, rigged so as to be triggered with a rope whose end pokes out in the cavern proper.  Pull on the rope, and a huge pile of rubble will fall, blocking the escape route.

When the orcs have completed their tasks, they ask Kay if there’s anything more she wishes them to do. 

"Go back and report to the Bloodseer immediately," she orders.  She smiles inwardly, knowing that the Bloodseer is going to have them executed.

The crowning piece of the ambush is an elaborate illusion, created with the party’s Snow Globe of Mirage Arcana.  Step uses it to create the illusion that the two western approach tunnels continue for another 30 feet into the cavern, and then join before opening into the eastern half of the cavern.  This way, Restimar and any orcs that are with him will think they are in a ten-foot-wide tunnel, when in fact they are in a large cavern surrounded by the party and beneath the orcish balcony.  (The illusion also includes a second, fake orcish balcony farther into the cavern.)

More Glyphs of Warding are then placed right at the exit from the illusionary tunnels, such that any orcs exiting those tunnels will by necessity walk into the traps.

Kay and Flicker are the "bait" of the trap.  They are positioned as the two "on watch" by a campfire set in the far eastern half of the cavern.  Near them is an old magic item they have – Manzanill’s Smoke Frame, which looks mysterious and magical but isn’t very useful.  Part of the Mirage Arcana is a weird spiraling visual effect near the Frame, making it look like it’s probably the Crosser’s Maze.  Around Kay and Flicker are bedrolls stuffed with all the extra clothing and blankets from the Bag of Holding, making it look like the rest of the party is sleeping.

Pewter is sent down one of the approach passages, to warn Aravis when orcs approach.  Alarm spells are also set on both approaches.  The party has numerous protective spells ready to cast before the orcs arrive.  With everything in place, the party hunkers down to wait.

Thursday, June 26 - Several hours go by, past the time Restimar would have arrived if he had set out immediately upon having the letter delivered to him.  One Certain Step continues to concentrate on the Snow Globe.  Except for Kay and Flicker, all of the party is positioned behind the illusionary walls, ready to strike.  Skorg is crouched down in the back of the orcish balcony, guarding Makel’s body.

"Hey boss!" Aravis hears in his head.  Pewter is raising the alarm.  "A couple of orcs are comin’ your way!"

Aravis gives the signal, and there is a flurry of spells cast – mostly various protection spells – including some from potions and scrolls.  Aravis uses the last spell from the Book of Infinity , which is true seeing.  Kibi casts see invisibility.

Soon after that the Alarm spell goes off (in Aravis’s head), and then a couple of minutes later two orcs come walking into the cavern.  They don’t seem like anything special as orcs go, and Aravis and Kibi see nothing unusual about them.  They hold sticks with scraps of white cloth bound to the ends.  The orcs are fooled by the illusion, staying within the bounds of the false tunnels.  Just as they reach the area where the closest Glyphs of Warding are, Kay stands from her position at the campfire and says in a commanding voice: "Stop!  Stay where you are."

The two orcs pull up sharply, but one of them, peering forward toward Kay, takes one more ill-advised step.  He steps squarely into one of the Morningstar’s Glyphs, and a bolt of Searing Darkness fires from the air and strikes him squarely in the chest.  The orcs is blown backward a few feet and falls dead, a smoking hole in his torso.

The second orc looks down at his fallen friend, and then back at Kay, a worried expression on his face.   Kay repeats her directive that he shouldn’t come any closer, a plan of action which the orc seems to wholly endorse.  The orcs starts to call out in halting common.

"Are… you… the… humans… from… the … surface?"  he asks, struggling with each word.

Kay affirms that they are.

"You… wish… to… speak… with…the… Chun Aggrat, … yes?"

Kay nods again.

"I will… get… him.  He… will… be… here… soon."

And with that, the orc scurries back down the passageway after taking one last glance at his blasted fellow; he’s eager to be gone.

A few minutes later Pewter reports again.  "Boss, there’s three orcs this time, and one of them’s wearing red armor.  He’s huge!"  The Alarm spell goes off again, and moments later three orcs come walking down the tunnel.  Like the first two, these three are following the illusionary tunnel. 

Two of the orcs are especially large and strong looking, wearing metal armor and wielding large axes.  But the third – oh, the third.  He’s immense, over seven feet tall and broad, and he walks behind the other two.  He wears polished red plate armor.  In one hand is a large red shield with the device of the Eye of Gruumsh.  In the other is a wicked-looking black battle-axe, its dark metal blade glowing darkly, as black spots like shifting ink-blots coruscate across its surface.  They march forward toward the mouth of the faux-tunnel, and the remaining Glyphs of Warding.

But as they walk slowly forward, Aravis realizes that he doesn’t see any huge red-armored orc leader; unlike everyone else, he just sees the two "normal" orcish warriors. 

And Kibi, whose position allows him to see the second of the two approach tunnels, sees another group of orcs moving slowly into the cavern.  The second group also includes a massive red-armored orcish chieftain, along with at least four or five other large orcs behind him.  Aravis is up on the orcish balcony, and cannot see this second group.  And Kibi realizes that Morningstar, standing only a ten feet from him, cannot see them either.  They must be Invisible, but if he shouts to alert anyone else, his position behind the illusionary wall will be given away, perhaps alerting the orcs to the ruse of the Mirage Arcana. 

But one way or another, it looks like hell may be about to break loose.

(run 120 begins)Dranko decides that the jig is up; from his hidden position behind the illusionary walls he casts Dispel Magic directly on what he thinks is the Chun Aggrat only a few feet away from him.  To everyone’s surprise (except for Aravis) the red-armored warrior vanishes.  But the orcs hear the sounds of Dranko’s spell-casting, even though they cannot see him.

Still, the two large orcish warriors walking ahead of the now-dispelled Illusionary Restimar keep walking, not realizing that their "leader" is gone.  One of them speaks: "The Chun Aggrat has come to claim his prize.  Stand forth and deliver it… to… 

He trails off, as the other orc is frantically tapping him the shoulder and pointing to where Restimar isn’t.  They look at each other in confusion.  This wasn’t how their plan was supposed to go.

The invisible orcs, also led by a Chun Aggrat,  move further into the cavern.  When they come within Aravis’ field of view, he sees with True Seeing that, while all of the orcs are really there, the red-armored orc is actually just another normal warrior.  It seems that neither of the apparent Chun Aggrats is the real one! 

Aravis, in communication over Rary’s Telepathic Bond, tells Morningstar and Kay about this new development.  He also has realized that Morningstar won’t be close enough for his Haste spell, and that she should move a bit closer in.  Then he dashes down the stairs of the orcish balcony and waits.

Kay, trying to stick with the plan to lure Restimar out from wherever he is, announces loudly that she cannot move the Crosser’s Maze and he must come to her to get it.  As far the party knows, the orcs have only seen her and Flicker, alone by the campfire surrounded by what look like sleeping comrades.

Morningstar, seeing that the plan is falling apart for both sides, and hearing that Dranko at least has decided to cast loud spells from behind the illusionary walls, casts a spell herself.  Specifically, she moves forward a bit and casts a Dispel Magic on the invisible orcs across the way.  They all become visible, and the one that looks like the Chun Aggrat suddenly becomes just another orcish soldier.

Kibi is also sticking to his part of the plan.  First he tells Tribbin that when the others start fighting, that’s when he should start attacking the orcs with his magical axe.  (Kibi has lent the dwarven companion his magical Dwarven Axe that returns when thrown.)  Then Kibi drops a wide field of Spike Stones to block off the retreat of the orcs. 

Grey Wolf casts Haste on himself, Flicker activates his Ring of Blinking, and Ernie scans from the orcish balcony, hoping that the real Chun Aggrat will show up.  Step sees that one of the orcs nearest him is running his hand over the illusionary wall, looking perplexed.  He readies his greatsword in case any orcs realize the walls are fake and come charging through.  Kay is now shouting that she needs help, because she is all alone guarding the Maze.

She get her wish, though a little more directly than she expected.  A third Chun Aggrat appears right next to her, along with a lesser orcish shaman.   Aravis confirms over the Telepathic link that he’s the real deal.  And to Kay’s expert eye, Restimar really is an orc.  His disguise is nearly perfect.  He smells like an orc.  He moves like an orc. He bleeds orcish blood.  He exhibits all the little tendencies and gestures that are indicative of orcs.  So much so, in fact, that Kay gets to use half of her Species Enemy bonus against him, even though she knows deep down that he’s a human in disguise. 

Restimar laughs.  "Not all alone," he says, "but doomed nonetheless."  He readies his black coruscating battle-axe to swing, and then, after taking a quick look around the cavern, shouts: "The tunnel walls are illusions!  The enemy is hiding behind them!"

Still, it’s one thing to be told you can run through a solid stone wall, and another thing to do it.  Some of the orcish soldiers, arms out in front of them, come through the illusions, while others aren’t convinced and stick to the illusionary tunnels.  Step, waiting for this opportunity, chops at and hits one that emerges in front him.  The orc is wounded but does not drop.

Tribbin decides it’s time to get involved.  He throws his axe at the nearest orc, but misses.  (From the orc’s point of view, an axe emerges from a solid wall, arcs around behind his head, and vanishes into the wall again!)

Dranko activates Thriss, a python Figurine of Wondrous Power , and instructs it to go attack any orcs it can find.  Then he tries to leap over the Spike Stones but slips, doesn’t make it far enough, and lands hard on the spikes.  Ouch!  He makes another jump to clear the Spike Stones, and again doesn’t quite make it; he slices himself up some more as he finally stumbles out of their area, cursing Kibi.

Ernie has spotted Restimar out in the cavern near Kay.  He points and fires off a Searing Light spell that strikes Restimar square in the chest – but it fizzles away harmlessly!  That’s no good. 

Aravis casts Haste on Morningstar, and then instructs Pewter to climb onto Dranko’s back.    Kibi realizes that he’s got a great line for a Lightning Bolt, the problem being that he might also get Kay in the blast.  He casts it anyway, catching Restimar, the shaman who appeared with him, and a third orc who has come through the walls swinging an axe.  Thanks to the Potion of Improved Casting that he imbibed before the fight, Kibi’s spell gets through Restimar’s spell resistance, and it also sears the lesser Shaman.  The third orc is badly wounded.  Unfortunately, Kay does get caught in the blast, fails her save, and is badly wounded herself.  Restimar appears less damaged than Kay, and he grins evilly at her.

Morningstar now drops another Dispel Magic directly on Restimar.  The Incense of Meditation burned the night previously is of a special make that even affects Dispel attempts, and a number of spells are (hopefully) removed from Restimar.  Since she’s Hasted, Morningstar then enacts one of the most important parts of the original plan: she pegs Restimar directly with a Dimensional Anchor. 

One of the orcish soldiers now holds up a familiar item – it’s the Wand of Wonder that they sent off to Restimar as part of their subterfuge.  The orc points it at Kay, and speaks the command word.  Kay is struck by a bolt of energy – and starts to grow!  She gets taller and taller until she is face-to-face with her 7’-plus opponent.  It’s her turn to grin now, and Restimar shouts out "Not good!" to his supposed ally.  The orc with the Wand looks horrified.

Kay and Restimar exchange blows and taunts.  Fortunately for Kay, Aravis’ Stoneskin absorbs much of the damage from Restimar’s evil battle-axe, but the damage that’s getting through is still tremendous.   After the damage from Kibi’s Lightning Bolt, Kay will probably die if Restimar gets in a second round of attacks. 

Other orcs are now emerging in greater numbers through the illusionary walls.  Step and Tribbin are both engaged by powerful orcish warriors.

Grey Wolf casts a Lightning Bolt of his own at Restimar and the shaman, and while Restimar resists the spell, the shaman is blown to pieces.

Something strange is happening to Flicker.  He is blinking in and out, looking for sneak-attack opportunities, when suddenly he starts talking rapidly between blinks.   "Hey, there’s something…   not sure what…   all over the place…  think they’re coming toward…  Aaaaaahhhhhh!"

Flicker blinks back in, and is covered with round black leeches, each about a foot in diameter.  He runs screaming off in a random direction, his scream blinking in and out along with the rest of him.  Each time he appears, there are more of the black leeches on him, and his screaming becomes muffled as one affixes itself to his face.  Finally he blinks out and does not reappear.  The rest of the Company is mightily disturbed by this.

At about this time, Gowl appears.  The party had been wondering when Restimar’s sorcerous bodyguard would show up.  His opening salvo is an Ice Storm that pounds down around the party (and also catching an orc soldier or two).  Kibi is badly wounded, and Tribbin drops to the ground, unconscious or worse.

Dranko quickly scans the battlefield.  Kibi is wounded and has a large orc bearing down on him.  Tribbin is down and may be bleeding to death.  Kay will probably die if she doesn’t get healing in the next few seconds.   He wants to help them all, but can only attend to one.  He decides to leave Kibi to fend for himself, to chalk up Tribbin as a casualty of war, and to cast one of his long-distance healing spells at Kay.  Axe wounds and burn marks on her body start to close and heal.  That done, he charges across the battlefield to get in the face of the wizard Gowl.  (He remembers well the Cone of Cold cast by Gowl that killed Makel…)

The Hasted Morningstar then steps up and delivers an utterly devastating pair of Maximized Flame Strikes.  Restimar’s magic resistance fails him, though he makes his saves and avoids some of the 120 Points of incoming damage.

Step is still trading blows with a huge orcish soldier, and getting the better of the fight.  Ernie fires off another Searing Light at Restimar, but like the first one, it doesn’t penetrate the enemy’s spell resistance.  Aravis casts Haste on himself.

The orcs continue to press the attack, but the party is largely fending them off.  Step is getting worn down, though, and Kibi is nearly dead.  The orc with the Wand of Wonder again fires it at Kay, but she saves against its potentially devastating effect – a Slow spell.  Restimar again launches a savage series of blows against Kay, but  the combination of the Stoneskin and Dranko’s healing keep her alive.  If she’s lucky, she could survive one more round of attacks, but no more.  She keeps up a steady stream of damage on Restimar with her own weapons, and the Chun Aggrat isn’t looking too good either.

Kibi, realizing that the orcish warrior is going to kill him at this rate, steps back and casts Mirror Image.  Eight images appear around him, and the orc’s eager expression changes to one of confusion and fear.

Grey Wolf decides to deal with the wizard Gowl; he casts Coldfire and Gowl is enveloped in flames.  He’s hurt badly, but not killed.  Dranko, standing nearby, makes his save and evades the entire blast.

Gowl, with Dranko breathing down his neck, takes a step back and fires off an Enervation spell into Dranko’s face.  Dranko feels life energy draining out of him and his legs get wobbly, but he still swings his mace at the orcish wizard.   Gowl does not fall. 

Step, assisted by Thriss,  finally finishes off his orcish foe, though he’s gravely wounded.  Aravis, Hasted, casts a Fireball that nails a couple of the remaining orcs, and a Lightning Bolt at the orc in front of the crowd of Kibi-and-Images.  Ernie clanks down the stairs in his plate mail, intending to come to Kay’s defense if he can make it in time.

Restimar decides that it’s not worth dying in this battle.  He activates a ring on his finger, and flickers out… and then flickers back in again!  Morningstar’s Dimensional Anchor has prevented his escape.  He snarls in frustration.

The orc facing down Kibi launches a series of attacks; three of the Images are popped, but Kibi, down to his last few hit points, is unharmed.

Kay slashes at her red-armored foe, hoping to bring him down, but he’s still standing.  Then the orc with the Wand of Wonder fires once more at Kay.  Again Kay changes size, but this time it’s in the other direction.  She shrinks down until she is only a few inches high, looking up at Restimar towering above her.  Her first thought is that now Restimar will have trouble hitting her with his evil axe. 

Then Restimar raises his foot, clearly intending to crush her beneath his iron-shod boot.

Kibi has been wanting to cast Coldfire at Restimar, but was concerned about catching Kay in the blast.  That’s not a problem any more!  He targets the blast high above Restimar’s head, and it explodes in a ball of flames.  The wounded Restimar is charred, battered, slashed… and he goes unconscious.  The party cheers.  Then Restimar’s body slumps forward and he falls – onto Kay, who can’t get out of the way in time.  His massive body pins her legs to the ground, crushing them.  Kay also goes unconscious.

Grey Wolf, still Hasted, uses his Mordenkainen’s Cube to cast Mordenkainen’s Lucubration, and gets back his Lightning Bolt.  He uses it immediately to finish off Gowl, not concerned that the electricity-immune Dranko is also caught in the blast.  Gowl’s body flies apart.  The party cheers again.

Only the orc with the Wand of Wonder is left standing.  He fires off one more charge, and is pleased to launch a Fireball at a couple of party members.  But his smile is short-lived, as all of his targets are protected enough from fire to take no damage.  He is quickly dispatched.

Ernie arrives and helps to heave Restimar’s body off of Kay’s tiny form.  Aravis heads off to see if he can find some sign of Flicker.  Morningstar and Dranko start casting healing spells.  Tribbin, sadly, has bled to death,  but he has earned a place of honor among the roles of Dwarfish heroes, fighting in the battle that saw the end of his people’s chief foe.

And then Restimar gets back to his feet.  He has been regenerating, and he still grips his axe.  In a gurgling voice he asks: "Why did you even come down here?  Just to kill me?"

"No," Ernie replies.  "Killing you was just an extra benefit.  A dessert, if you will."  Then he sticks his short sword Beryn Sur into Restimar’s gut, and the false Chun Aggrat falls down again.  Dranko, hoping to keep him down this time, strikes Restimar several times in the face with his mace, and then One Certain Step beheads him with his flaming greatsword.   The head, upon leaving the body, changes form.  It’s no longer a hideous orc-head; it’s a black-bearded human, it’s features devastated by Dranko’s mace.  The body in its suit of red armor has not changed.

Dranko tries to take the red armor off the body, but receives a massive jolt of magical damage, and he falls back, cursing.

Ernie casts a couple of maximized Cure Serious Wounds spells on Kay, who soon after grows again to her normal size.  The concern of the party now turns entirely to Flicker, of whom there is still no sign.  Aravis finally spots him with his True Seeing; Flicker is lying on the ground, unconscious – on the border of the Ethereal Plane.  Out of Dispel Magics, the party is uncertain what to do about him.

It’s about that time that they hear the voice of the Bloodseer, off in the tunnels approaching the battle cavern.

"Hello?  It is I, the Bloodseer.  You have finished your task, yes?"

"We have," they answer.  "We’ve killed Restimar for you – the false Chun Aggrat.  Now what about our part of the bargain?"

"I wish to approach," says the Bloodseer.  "Please dismiss your spell of Spike Stones.  I will give you news of your friend, but first I wish to see the body."

Kibi reluctantly dismisses the Spike Stones spell, and the Bloodseer enters the cavern, alone.  He carries a large cloth sack.  He looks down on the body and head of Restimar.

"This is he?"

"Yes.  Now what about Carbuncle?"

"I will need to take the body, with the armor, and the head.  Otherwise I will be unable to prove my claim about him."

Dranko protests, but the others remind him that they had agreed to give the Bloodseer what proof he required about the imposter Chun Aggrat.  They do, however, ask for a favor before they hand over the head and body. 

"Are you able to Dispel Magic?" they ask.  "We have a friend who is trapped in the Ethereal Plane, right over there."

The Bloodseer agrees, and casts his spell on the spot where Aravis can see Flicker.  Flicker appears, and clerics descend upon him with healing spells.  He’s shaken up, and even starts shrieking when he comes around, but he’s generally unharmed.

"I don’t know what they were," he babbles, "but they were everywhere, in that place I go when I’m blinking.  I had seen them last time I used the ring, at a distance, but I didn’t know they were interested in me.  They were… horrible!"

With Restimar’s body and head in his possession (the red armor does not damage him as it damaged Dranko), the Bloodseer opens his sack, and pulls out a grim object – the head of Carbuncle.

"It was stuck on a pike outside Restimar’s tent," the Bloodseer explains.  "I learned that it has been there for some weeks.  Restimar must have discovered he was a spy, and he took no chances.

"Now, I will take my leave.  I’m afraid I have come to a conclusion about what I must do now, in order to make my story as convincing as it needs to be.   I will give you a short window of opportunity to escape – I suggest you take it."

He gestures meaningfully toward the exiting tunnels on the opposite side of the cavern, and the party realizes that he’s going to have to claim that the intruders who killed the Chun Aggrat are still at large.  The Company nods, and as soon as the Bloodseer is out of sight, they start making plans to flee.  They figure they only have a few minutes before the orcish hordes are upon them.

They’re wrong.

Less than twenty seconds after the Bloodseer vanishes into the gloom, they hear his voice booming back through the tunnels:  "The surface dwellers have killed the most holy Chun Aggrat!  We must take our revenge!  Kill them!  Kill them all!"

And the sound of roaring orc voices, hundreds strong, comes thundering down the tunnels.  Even as the members of the Company look at each other in horror, the sound grows louder.  They have maybe 30 seconds before a host of orcs will be upon them…

(next diary page)