Post/Author/DateTime	Post
liquidfilth 06-30-05, 09:07 PM	Episode 1 - "Mirrors" The day started off fairly simply, in the Seven Spirits Grogshop, where the four met their contact, Milo Merryweather. He gave them the run down – Brawn Dyson has been complaining about horrible dreams of late, and had become excessively paranoid. He’s begged the Boromar family to send guards to watch over him as he sleeps, as he dreads something horrible is going to happen to him. The pay is ample (25 gold per guard, per night!), and the players take Milo’s assignment with little reluctance. They were to begin their duties the following day. Boden spent the rest of the day after meeting with Milo back at him monastery, while Pythivakri spent some time in the Grogshop asking questions about Boden – Loreli listened in on the conversations she was having while enjoying a drink. Pythivakri learned little about Brawn, save that he makes occasional trips to Xen’drik and Droaam, and that he’s been looking especially badly rested of late. Timmon, in the meantime, decided to scope out the house ahead of time. While investigating a neighborhood, he spotted another individual, an old lady in a heavy robe, checking out the same house he was. She turned away when she was discovered, and walked away – Timmon tried his best to tail her, but somehow lost her in an alleyway. It had seemed as if she had disappeared into thin air. The night passes, the new day begins. Milo’s agents (the party) arrive at Brawn’s house, where they are introduced to Mr. Dyson briefly, before he huddles in his room. The party is clearly uncomfortable with the situation, with the apartment being so bare (everything had been cleared out). They investigate the house, as any party would; they discover a few odd things… one of which is a series of mirrors left hanging on the wall, turned to face inward. When they turned them around, they discovered all of them to be shattered, spider-webbed outwards, as if someone had been trying to get out from the mirror. The following morning, Timmon discovered a black marking on the door to the house they were guarding – a common sign that the Daask has some interest in the place… There was some outside investigation during the two days – Pyth and Loreli went to the Morgrave University to see if they know anything about Brawn Dyson and his trades… later Loreli went to the Truffle Shuffle (a port tavern and dance hall) to see if any of her Family contacts. She narrowly avoided a pair of goblin thugs that were tailing here. All the more evidence, in her point of view, that the Daask were trying to get involved. Loreli arrived back at Brawn’s home late that evening; upon her return, their lack of clues brought them to interrogate Brawn. They discovered that he slept with a large stone of some sort, and thought that to be the obvious source of the issue… but before they could press the issue, trouble arose. There was a knock on the door, which Timmon first assumed to be their payroll. However, upon opening the door, he discovered that, while the man standing outside the doorway was dressed as the courier had been, he was much too large for the clothes. A hobgoblin in courier’s clothing, as it were, delivering a parcel full of goblins instead of gold. Chaos erupted as the hobgoblin tried to waylay Timmon, and as if attacks were planned in unison, the back window to Brawn’s house began to shake and splinter. Timmon and Loreli kept the assailants from breaching the front door while Pythivakri used her knowledge of magics and her animated skeleton to keep the attackers from the rear at bay. Brother Cole darted around the house, trying to keep things together --- and things were going so well until the old lady showed up once more. She appeared out of nothingness and engaged Timmon first, who had pounded his opponents into unconsciousness. With a flurry of metal fists, the old lady showed her true nature, and darkness washed over Timmon. Boden Cole similarly tried to step in the woman’s way, and found himself against a wall in just moments, with Pythivakri’s skeleton companion smashed to splinters immediately following. Pythivakri kept her distance until the warforged woman stepped toward Boden Cole. To her shock, her incorporeal nature did not stop the crone’s blows from landing – and darkness washed over her for the first time in years. The old lady emerged from Brawn’s room with stone in hand; having dealt with most of the guards, she simply ignored Loreli and tried to walk away with it. Loreli was having none of it. She lashed at the stone with her whip, pulling it away from the crone and rolled away from her – and when she pulled the warforged to the ground by tripping her, she made her run, stone in hand. She did not prove quick enough, however – the warforged burst from the front window, and bore down upon Loreli – but before she could do anything, the stone itself began to glow, and exploded in a dark light – the shattered shrapnel lodged itself into Loreli and the crone, and other pieces of the stone skittered unnaturally away, and found themselves into Timmon, Boden and Brawn’s flesh. The pain overcame Loreli, and the world faded from her – the last sight she saw was that of the warforged clutching to its wounded arm, an unnatural glow burning from the stone that had imbedded itself into her. The party awoke to the smell of smoke and the sounds of battle. A pair of Boromar razorclaw riders stood vigil over Brawn Dyson’s house, keeping Daask raiders from entering it – the house was littered with corpses of Daask goblins, and apparently they had launched a full-out attack on the Myshan Gardens district; the Boromar were fighting alongside the Watch, a temporary alliance. With the party now awake, the Boromar guards were quick to escort the party away, to somewhere safe…
liquidfilth 06-30-05, 09:07 PM	Episode 2 - "Matchmakers" 9 Nymm, 998 YK: The party leaves the Seven Spirits Grogshop, disappointed that Milo doesn’t have anything new for them to do. While on their way to “Panbatter’s”, they hear signs of struggle from a nearby alleyway. They go to investigate to discover a man being attacked by a trio of thugs. The party approaches and the sight of them frighten the thugs off. The man, named Colm, lifts himself up, and thanks the party. Brother Cole heals the wounds he sustained, and Colm invites them to the nearest tavern for drinks, on his dime. The nearest just so happens to be the Seven Spirits. Colm offers the party an interesting job, one relating to his family – he claims a relative of his, a Daniela Lila is deeply in love with a man from an enemy house, Red Itamar. Daniela’s family is closely related to the Orien dragonmarked house, where as Red’s relations link him to the house Denieth. And while there are no laws or taboos that forbid it, the families of Daniela and Red are still strongly against their getting married. Colm wishes to have the party whisk Daniela away in secret to have her meet up with Red and marry without the consent of the families. The pair want to be wed in the ceremonies of the Silver Flame, so, fortunately enough for Colm, of the people that rescued him, one of them just happens to be a clergyman of the Flame. After much discussion amongst the party, they agree to the job, taking a fee from Colm of ten platinum apiece. He gives them a rough schedule of Daniela’s day, a ring he claims that Red wanted to present to Daniela, and asks them to bring Daniela to the Skyedge Park the following evening. The party, however is restless, and decides to try to use Pythivakri unique state of being to try to get a message to Daniela about what they intend to do – to get her to Red to be married. They venture to the Crystal Bridge neighborhood, unfortunately sticking out like a sore thumb in the ritzy neighborhood. They’re stopped by guards only once, however (Brother Cole scurrying off when seeing them approach, “pretending” to be a solicitor of the Flame) – one of the watch recognizes Pythivakri as “Panbatter’s Ghost”, tells Loreli, Pythivakri and her skeleton to be careful, and they continue their patrol. Brother Cole eventually rejoins them (bits of twigs in his hair, sounds of dogs barking in the distance), and they head to Daniela Lila’s residence. Exploiting her abilities, Pythivakri swoops into the cellar and up through the house until she finds Daniela, sleeping. Summoning an unseen servant to aid her, she wakes Daniela. Daniela is frightened, of course, but remains fairly quiet – Pythivakri tries to explain the situation but forgets Colm’s name at the time… making the explanation all that more difficult. Eventually, Daniela feels like listening, but asks if she could at least see who she was talking to. Pythivakri agrees; Daniela turns on a lantern and when she sees Pythivakri form, screams. Chaos erupts in her house, as guards burst into her room, and see Pythivakri – not being prepared for a ghost, they quickly call for someone in the house that can. Brother Cole and Loreli, hearing the screams, quickly head to the house guards. Brother Cole brandishes his pendant of the Silver Flame, and asks if he can help – he’s let into the building, and a panicked Daniela explains that there was a ghost in her midst. Being a clergyman of the Flame, he takes this claim in stride, explains he’s an exorcist after a fashion, and begins, essentially, bull******** and tapping around the house for negative energies. After some time, Brother Cole insists that he accompany her throughout the next day – purely to make sure that if the ghost returns to haunt her, he can deal with it. Daniela and her guards reluctantly agree, and so they set Cole and the rest of the party in a servant’s quarters. Quick to relay the plan to Pythivakri, Cole decides it’s time to excuse himself, head to the privy and make rude noises so as to deter any nosy guards. Pythivakri meets him there, they share information and make a plan for the next day for the ghost to appear and Brother Cole to cause enough of a distraction so that they can pull Daniela away from the guards and to her love-in-waiting. So the next day comes, and the party ventures forth to Seven Towers where Daniela does her daily shopping. Her first stop is in the Seven Towers Spa, where Loreli accompanies her (to free treatment, courtesy of Daniela) and reveals Red’s ring to her. Loreli calmly explains that they need to whisk her away to be with her love that evening, and to have her not panic when the moment arises. Outside, Brother Cole begins explaining to the guards the nature of the ghost, and begins a plan to “be rid of her” (all the while, Pythivakri is floating within the robes of her skeleton guardian, listening). He distributes holy water, and asks them to surround the ghost when it reappears, spraying it liberally with the water. The guards, amicable to the idea, nod knowingly, and pocket their new weapons. It takes some time before Pythivakri finds an appropriate time to emerge to distract the guards. After an awkward lunch together, the party and Daniela find themselves in Yuyiv’s Curio’s, a bauble shop run by a caustic little gnome of the shop’s namesake. For whatever reason, this was where Pythivakri decided to make her appearance. Suddenly chaos ensued as the guards lept over the counter and displays to surround her, destroying valuable trinkets left and right – but they “successfully” destroy the ghost with the holy water, Pythivakri feigning destruction and sinking into the floor below. While all this action is going on, Loreli pulls Daniela to “safety”, while Brother Cole and the skeleton guardian scurry away during the guard’s celebration. The party drags Daniela to the Seven Spirits Grogshop to lay low until it’s time for them to head to the wedding grounds. Milo decided to cover for them, despite himself, until he felt it was time for them to move on. They gathered some robes from him (something Milo stocks readily), and the party goes on their way. They arrive at the wedding grounds in Skyedge Park about an hour early, Loreli scouting ahead. She finds a group of men waiting under an archway, and she approaches them, asking them their business, and finding out that they are, indeed, there for a wedding. Doubt is sewn, however, when she sees a similarity between one of the men at the wedding and one of the men that were beating Colm in the alleyway the previous day. She bids the men farewell and beats feet to the rest of the party to inform them. The new information that one of Red’s men has some relation to Colm’s injuries causes the party to panic a bit, but soon Colm approaches, ready to attend the wedding, and calms their fears. From a good distance, Daniela identifies Red, and the party approaches, cautiously. He glances towards the man that Loreli claims looks familiar to her, and says he can certainly see where one might be mistaken, but, he’s sure of what his attackers looked like. And so they approach – Cole has his shield drawn, claiming it to be a part of the marriage ritual. As he passes the suspect individual, he recognizes him as the man in the alleyway that attacked Colm, without a doubt. He approaches him, makes a thinly veiled threat, and the man excuses himself from the ceremony. Cole stands under the arch, and has Daniela take her place next to Red. He begins reading the rites, still keeping a eye to all of the guests. The next few moments are chaos. Colm nods to Red, and Red begins to reach for his belt. Loreli stops him, for a moment, and, in a panic, Red tries to knife her. Daniela faints at the sight, and Red’s guests join in the attack. Pythivakri begins to work her magics on Colm, but he quickly disappears from sight, with a swig of some manner of potion. Loreli dispatches Red with a vicious swing from her scimitar, and leads on into another of the guests. Cole tries desperately to protect Daniela, but a crossbow bolt lands in her back before Pythivakri’s skeleton puts an axe into the assailant. After the dust settles, Loreli leans down and discovers that “Red” was in fact in an amazing disguise – it wasn’t Red at all. Brother Cole lays hands on Daniela, reviving her and removing the bolt – after which the party decides it’s best to run like hell before the city watch shows up. Not sure what to make of the situation, they head back to the Seven Spirits Grogshop with Daniela. While discussing various plans, they proceed to get Daniela stinking drunk, and then, after failing to come up with any ideas, they decide to abandon her at the closest temple of the Silver Flame and be done with it.
liquidfilth 06-30-05, 09:09 PM	Episode 3 - Part 1 Fin scurries from his hiding place to find himself on Loreli’s doorstep. Pounding on her door, Fin wakes Loreli as quickly as he can – they’re looking for you he explains, and I’ve got orders to get you folks outta town. So, Loreli packs her things, and they set out to find the others. Brother Cole is found next, and then Pythivakri – the situation is explained to them: The two families involved in the previous night’s fiasco have their agents crawling Sharn, looking for the trio. Milo values them too much for them to be swept up in that business, so, he’s decided to ship them off. To Gannu’s Folly, of all places, a old silver mining town of little use to anyone. It’s a safe haven, of sorts. The party gathers up their things, buys a few basic necessities (a wagon, some mules to tote around their belongings), and they set out on the road… a few hundred miles ahead lies their destination. Ten days or so into the trip, the party is set upon by a group of Daask goblins while setting up camp. It isn’t so unusual for them to have been attacked by Daask, but, it is unusual that they’d be so far out of Sharn. Among one of the goblins is a crude map of… something. It’s unmarked and unremarkable in every single way. The party decides to break camp and find somewhere else to sleep for the evening. Brother Cole pockets it; Fin shoves the Daask goblins into the nearby river. A couple more days pass, and the party finds themselves in the town of Gannu’s Folly. Brother Cole and Loreli settle into the Silver Cup for a drink, Fin scurries to his contact and Pythivakri goes skulking about the local bakery to get her fix. Fin doesn’t find out a whole lot, but, what he does find out proves helpful. The old “hideout” that Boromar used to employ has been overrun by local bandits, and judging by the fact that most of these bandits seem to be goblins, it seems like they might have a lead as to where their attackers came from. Fin also discovers that his contact has been buying a little dreamlily from these bandits. Following that information, the party settles in for the night, preparing for the venture forth into the mines the next day. What follows is essentially the wholesale slaughter of the inhabitants of the mine. Under the guise of a band if miscreants looking to buy dreamlily from the bandits (which wasn’t too much of a stretch, as they’re miscreants, just of a different variety), the party delves into the mine, accessing the inner chambers after Fin finds a secret switch that moves the faux-debris away from the entrance. His simple question involved something about wanting to buy drugs, but, the goblin guards weren’t convinced, and reached for their crossbows. First mistake. Fin quickly dispatches the two guards with uncanny speed, and the rest of the party runs in chasing the remaining two goblins. The goblins dive into the darkness, calling for reinforcements, and reinforcements certainly come. A wave of goblins pour from the darkness, but are greeted with more bolts, blades and flaming cloaks (a story I’ll save the necromancer to tell). One goblin escaped to the east, although not after being terrorized by Pythivakri’s spectral form, and one goblin was captured to the south, but only after Brother Cole subdued the necromancer’s murderous skeleton.
liquidfilth 06-30-05, 09:10 PM	Episode 3 - Part 2 Meanwhile, skulking not too far behind them is an unscrupulous gentleman going by the name of Cydd. The sounds of battle having settled down, he decides to let himself be known. He claims, at first, to be an agent of the Boromar, but that’s quickly dismissed as a lie – Milo would have informed the party of a new agent, and not word one was brought up about this character. His alibi for following the party quickly dissolving into nothing, he states his purpose is in fact much simpler. He saw a band of Boromar agents skulking off into the wilderness, and he smelled a profit. Much happier with that answer, the party decides they could use the extra muscle, under the condition (put forth by Loreli) that if he try ANYTHING that undermines their operation or tries anything to hurt anyone in the party, that they’d have his hands. Agreeing to these terms, they turn their attentions to the surviving goblin. Realizing that their visit to the mine has effectively turned into a full-on raid, they cut to the chase – they demand to know where the silver stores are kept. Unfortunately, they picked the wrong goblin for this task, as he’s woefully ignorant of where the silver’s stored. Settling for another option, they decide to force him to take them to his leader. And so the goblin does. He leads them through the winding corridors of the mines, making the most direct route he can to his master. There are only a couple of interruptions on the way, one being Cydd insisting on tearing a goblin barracks apart to see if he can find anything valuable (which resulted in a small purse filled with 10 galifars), and a quick look into the kitchen, which they wisely avoided. They approached the doorway that apparently led into the quarters of the goblin chief, and Fin, putting his ear to the door, heard quiet conversation on the otherside, although he couldn’t make out what was being said. The goblin hostage asked if he filled his part of the bargain, and if he could make his way out – and surprisingly, the party allowed him. He began to leave quietly, but when Cydd tried to shiv him as he passed, he ran off screaming, after which the chief’s room fell quiet. Brother Cole’s words fell somewhere along the lines of screw it, and he kicked open the door. His jaw dropped a bit seeing the room filled to the brim with goblinfolk, the worst of which looked like some kind of goblin-rat abomination. (I like to think that he seriously considered reaching out and closing the door, but, too little too late). The goblins surged forth, flooding the hallway outside of the room, while Brother Cole tried his best to keep the doorway blocked. A massive battle ensued, but the party’s expertise proved too much for the rabble that was the goblin mob. While it took some time, the party eventually cut its way through the clot of goblins, but the rat-creature was proving a bit more tenacious than the rest. Even after being set on fire (apparently a favorite tactic amongst this group), the beast stood fast. After scoring a bite on their newest companion, Cydd, Brother Cole ordered a pig-pile on it, which was made easy as Loreli kept pulling its feet from it. They pin him easily, and even get him hog-tied, but the goblin-rat was proving too wily for even them. It changed form into that of a dire rat, and squirmed free of the ropes, but not of the party. They struggled to drag the squirming rat over to the pool of oil that had been spilled, in hopes of setting it on fire, but Loreli’s dog, Dirt, seeing a potential meal, lept up, snatched the rat from the party’s hands, and proceeded to make a meal out of it. And that is how the great wererat chieftain met his end. Not having even a moment to rest, they had to leave Dirt to enjoy his meal as they heard shambling footsteps coming from where they had entered this part of the mine. A quartet of zombies in bedraggled clothing stumbled forth from the dark – Pythivakri’s skeleton and Loreli cut them down with relative ease, while other events were unfolding at the other side of the room. Apparently, another goblin – the same goblin that had fled from Pythivakri earlier – fled once again, in hopes of getting reinforcements. Unfortunately all he got was a very hungry horde of zombies. He clambered up the ladder he had descended to escape, only to find it locked by his pursuers. Begging for the party to let him up, he promised to show them to a silver store if they set him free…
liquidfilth 06-30-05, 09:10 PM	Episode 3 - Part 3 Having taken care of the goblin chieftain, and not wanting to venture too much deeper into the mines in their current state, the party decides to take the fleeing goblin outside, along with them. They search through the bodies and take what little valuables they can find, and then head on up to the surface. On the route back to the entrance to the mine, the goblin, named Nom, stops the group. In exchange for his freedom, like previously negotiated, he shows them a secret store of silver – three crates, all marked by the Wroat Mining Company, sit in a dusty storeroom, previously hidden from the party. The party, of course, immediately starts plotting as to how they can get all this home. After dealing with some large rats that were stirred up during the time they were examining the crates, they put together a number of ropes and pulleys that allowed Pythivakri’s skeleton, Cole and Loreli to lug the heavy crates free of the mines. Making two trips, they manage to get two crates out before deciding to head deeper into the wilderness to hide and make camp. In camp, Nom offers his services to the group, to which the party agrees – he’s allowed to leave alive when the job is done, with all he can carry, a deal Nom eagerly takes up. The skeleton is put on watch that evening, and the party rests well on their new cache of silver. The next day, the party arises and decides that it may as well try to pull out one more crate before making leave. Loreli, Cole and Fin move into the mine once more (leaving Pythivakri and Nom behind to watch the cart). However, upon entering, they discover that all of the goblin corpses that were once simply laying there, had been moved. Taking that as a good sign that they should be moving on, they turned back and headed right back out. When discussing the inhabitants of the mine, Nom told the party of the man who called himself “Gannu” and how he was coercing the Daask goblins below into working for him by “blessing them” with his powers – in short, he was infecting the goblins he trusted with lycanthropy. Brother Cole, being of the Silver Flame, knew that they were in need of new weaponry if they were to deal with the wererats with any ease. This made the decision to go back to Sharn a much easier one. They set out before mid-day. They arrive in Sharn a little less than two weeks later; Fin sets ahead to make contact with Milo, who in turn makes sure the gate guards that are on duty when the party passes through are under Boromar payroll. It’s only a matter of a day before Milo manages to fence the silver that was “salvaged” from the Gannu mines – and just as quickly, the party becomes that much more important to the Family. Milo sets the party up with their own headquarters above Panbatter’s Bakery, and encourages the party to sign up with one of the adventuring guilds in Sharn, to use as a front. He also brings them up to speed on what has happened in the month that they were gone. The families that were seeking the party have now stopped their active search, although word of the party’s return to the city could bring the search back up. Milo encourages the party to lay low – doubly so because of the fate of their former associate, Timmon. Timmon was found murdered and mutilated near the Seven Spirits Grogshop. Countless witnesses identified Brawn Dyson as the culprit, but he managed to evade the Watch and hasn’t been seen since. Whatever the stone that embedded itself into Timmon’s flesh was torn free by Brawn, giving Loreli and Brother Cole something to worry about. In addition to that, a woman named Flamewind has requested the party’s presence at Morgrave University – however, this summons was pretty much unanimously dismissed by the party. Taking Milo’s advice, they founded the Silver Tongue – an adventuring group in the Deathsgate Adventuring Guild. After only a couple of days back in Sharn, they’re ready to set out, waiting only for Milo to return with his group of porters.
chimpman 07-03-05, 09:58 PM	I'm still not all the way through, but this looks like a great campaign! There are some pretty neat ideas in there (I remember talking about some of them before). Thanks for sharing this with us, and I look forward to seeing more.
liquidfilth 07-07-05, 03:02 PM	Appreciate the sentiment, Chimp. Tonight I'm sitting everyone down for the sixth session, so, hopefully the next part will be posted by tomorrow.
liquidfilth 07-10-05, 05:03 PM	The trip back to Gannu’s Folly was painless enough. The party now had help of a half-dozen porters to drag whatever they find from the depths of the mines. They skirt around the town entirely, not wanting to have anything to do with its inhabitants, and head directly for the mouth of the mine, Nom – their captive goblin – as their guide. They quickly set up shop outside of the mine, having the porters ready themselves for when they return. However, before they managed to enter the mine, a familiar figure presents itself. Cydd Netherchilde, who disappeared a month before when the Silver Tongue was exploring the mines, steps down from a hiding spot above the mine’s mouth. The party is, justifiably, suspicious, especially Brother Cole. Cydd tries to explain that he’s not the one that they have to be concerned about… however, he has a hard time convincing the party, and Brother Cole moves to accost him. It’s then that Cydd reveals why he made an abrupt departure last they met. He steps back, drawing his blade and shifts into a half-rat, half-human monstrosity. The party reacts with a mix of horror and curiosity (mostly horror on the part of Nom). On the basest of instincts, Brother Cole almost lunges at him, however, cooler heads prevail. Cydd takes this opportunity to explain – he’s afflicted. He was not like this before, otherwise he would have turned on them back when they first encountered him. The party takes this for truth – and they allow him to tag along, although Brother Cole keeps an uneasy eye on him throughout. Nom does his best to guide the group briskly through the mines to where he believes the silver stores to be, but Fin refuses to leave well enough alone, and asks what lies down every dark hallway, behind every closed door. It’s not that the searching is fruitless, it’s just that their goals seem a little unclear. The party does find a few things of interest on their ways down. They stumble across an impromptu armory, a pair of shrines to strange gods, rat gods… quarters of the inhabitants of the mine. The party picks and chooses a couple things here and there and moves on. One of these quarters held a grim display of various skulls, and a decayed halfling, crucified and pinned to the wall. Fin, especially disturbed, asks Brother Cole to say a quick prayer for the dead in the room, and he does so, quickly. In another room, they find what appears to be some kind of unnatural darkness, suppressing all light – a number of dire rats had made their home there, but, before they can lunge at their potential new food, Cydd speaks up (in chattering, squeaking tones) and somehow convinces the rats to follow him to where more food could be found. Taking a very nervous Nom along with him, Cydd disappears deeper into the mine. All this time, while searching through the mine, there’s been no sound other than the occasional squeak from rats and the sounds that the party themselves have been making. All evidence points to the mine having been abandoned for a short while now. Not content with what they’ve gained already from the place, however, the party scours every corner they can. Brother Cole even goes so far as to find the source of the darkness that was emanating from the room with the rats, and covers it up, allowing normal light to fill the room. Cydd returns with Nom, sans any rats. He managed to convince the rats that there was food down in the lower levels, in hopes that they would disturb anything that was down there. As the party begins to head down the ladder leading down into the deeper parts of the mine, Pythivakri’s skeleton stops in its tracks when it gets close to the hole leading down. Refusing to budge, even under Pythivakri’s order, Brother Cole picks up the bag of bones and forces it down. When it passes the threshold of the opening, it falls into pieces, clattering on the floor below. Pythivakri scowls at a very embarrassed Brother Cole, who begins collecting the bits of her skeletal companion and putting them in a bag. The party heads down deeper into the mine; they hear no evidence of any disturbance, save for the occasional chatter of rats in the distance. Nom begins to lead them to where he believes the silver was stored, with minimal resistance from the group. However, upon reaching on of these said stores, and opening the doorway, they find nothing – old drag marks leading away from the room, but, no crates, no silver, nothing. Everything had been cleared out. Nom scurried to another room, where another store would have been – there they find old bottles filled with various substances, a lot of what appears to be dreamlily – but, no silver, just more drag marks and dusty floors. So, they do what any reasonable group would do. They immediately begin tracking the drag marks to see where they lead. Nom, tells them, at this point, that there’s nothing more that he can tell them about the place, other than down lower is where all of the zombies were usually kept. He keeps pace with the party, hoping they don’t decide to get rid of him just yet. The tracks lead down, onto an elevator and deeper still into the mine. They make only a few stops on the way down, making note of what may have once been a makeshift trading office, a few blank papers scattered across a worn desk. They all climb onto the elevator and descend. Following the tracks still leads them to a mine-cart track and following that the track picks up again, leading even further down into the mine – it being easy enough to follow, they eventually find their way to where the tracks apparently abruptly stop. Being fairly seasoned, they find a “secret” door quickly, and shift it aside. When they open the door, they see the tracks end entirely – into a partially ruined circle with arcane carvings, ruined by the pair of zombies digging haphazardly at it. The party quickly moves in puts a stop to the zombies, and then begins examining the remains of the circle. They quickly assess (at least the ones familiar with magic) that it used to be a circle of teleportation – they can’t discern exactly where it lead, but, they do think they can repair it, given time. With that, Brother Cole begins grinding up some silver, and Fin begins applying it, the best he can, to the damaged circle. While they’re in the process of doing so, Pythivakri heads to the surface to organize the porters, and get the to start hauling stuff out that the party believes might be worth something – this includes a pair of heavy statues found in the shrines they had seen earlier, and the stores of dreamlily. Cydd, meanwhile, continued to prowl around the mines, looking for any evidence of life – to no avail however. Their theories seemed to hold true; the previous inhabitants pulled up their roots and moved on out. The process of repairing the circle takes Fin a few hours. After a few minutes of debating amongst each other as to how to test it, Fin decided to do the most obvious thing. He stepped into the circle, and disappeared into a wisp of vapor. Shrugging, Brother Cole and Cydd followed suit quickly. Pythivakri and Loreli weren’t as convinced that what had happened was a good thing. They took about 10 minutes to decide that they might as well step through, leaving Nom with instructions that, if they didn’t return to the surface in a couple of hours, that they should head off back to Sharn without them. Milo would know what to do, they advised, so Nom should contact him. With a smile and a shrug, Nom waved goodbye and made his way to the surface, and the two girls stepped onto the circle and disappeared themselves. Loreli fell from nothingness into a pool if bile and sludge, and looked up to see Pythivakri floating above her. On a nearby rise, she saw the rest of her companions, empting out their boots of the putrid substance. Quickly clambering out of the river of waste, she joins them, with Pythivakri floating behind. Cydd had quickly assessed that they were all the way back in Sharn, specifically in the sewers; he knew them well. After some argument as to what they should do, they agreed that they weren’t going to get anywhere without any information. So, Cydd lead them aboveground into the Kyber’s Gate district, where they would start asking around immediately. Cydd, Pythivakri and Loreli immediately head off to some of the seedier elements of Kyber’s Gate (which is all highly subjective), while Brother Cole tags along with Fin. Cydd uses a bit more subtlety to get his information, while Fin uses flare, music and a little coin. Both groups meet up late in the evening, unscathed by their first visit to Kyber’s Gate, and a bit richer in information. They discovered that the inhabitants of the mine must have arrived back in Sharn not long after they had, by ways of the circle of teleportation, as there was a number of people looking for porters… all of them throwing a lot of silver around. They also discovered that Oth, Fin’s contact in Gannu’s Folly was amongst the individuals that were asking around – meaning, Oth had been working with the Daask in the mines all that time. Furious, the group moved as fast as they could back to their home turf in Olladra’s Kitchen. By this time, it was the middle of the night; they decided to clean up before prowling about looking for Milo for help. They head directly to their headquarters above Panbatter’s, but, upon opening the door, they discover a pool of dried blood at the bottom of the stairwell. Cautiously, they prowl up the stairs. The first thing that comes into vision is that of a man, strung up from the ceiling, obviously the source of all the blood; Fin identifies him as Oth, the man they were to look for. The second thing that catches their eyes is the pair of ogres lurking about in their headquarters. At about the same time, the ogres catch sight of the party. Chaos ensues, as it so often does. The ogres charge as Cydd shifts forms – this doesn’t keep one of the big lugs from nearly crushing him with a greatclub as his scurries up the stairs. Loreli and Brother Cole fare better as they wade in, Brother Cole supporting himself with magics as Loreli supports herself with grace. Dirt, Loreli’s dog charges in and takes a huge bite into one of the ogres before being knocked out. Fin strikes from the back with magic, song and the occasional flask of fire. The ogres are soon joined by a pair of ghouls and gnomish individual. Putting two and two together, the party guesses that the gnome is the same that had been mentioned having set up shop in Gannu’s Mine. As him as their objective, the party struggles forward through their unwanted house guests. After cutting through his guards, and dousing the gnome (who had tried to escape on the back of one of the ghouls) in alchemical fire and acid, they finally subdue him and secure him, just as they hear the sounds of the Watch approaching. Cydd tucks away into a far room of the headquarters with the shallowly breathing gnome, while the members of the Silver Tongue explain that they simply dealt with some intruders… the Watch takes the hint, and moves on, after collecting a few of the bodies. With the Watch gone and the gnome clinging to life, the party turns to each other and begins thinking of questions to ask…