1. Maervahr is making steady progress learning Elvish.
2. Maervahr finds that the name of the warlord who built the Marble Keep was Nisus. He bore the title of “Bloodfather” for what his forces left behind in their wake. Outsiders were never permitted to visit the keep under its original occupant though it was said that Nisus would often send groups of his own troops into its dungeons, merely for his own amusement.
3. The Marble Keep has often been fought over for its defensible position and robust fortifications (even in its ruined state).
4. Ithimyr met with Exar, having been introduced through Lathar who is receiving training from Exar. Exar wore a brown cloak and rode upon a chestnut steed. The cloak was secured by a shimmering clasp depicting a white sun on a black field. His outfit and equipment was in immaculate condition for a man of the forests. Exar explained that though their order is referred to locally by other names, their true name is The Order of the Midnight Sun. They are a federation of skilled adventurers, stewards, and warriors that hold loose associations with one another throughout the land. Their primary goal is the discovery and honing of the world's magical anomalies for the purposes of Good. There are relatively few of them, and their strategy is to spread themselves thinly to cover as much of the realm as possible, always keeping their eyes and ears open. Most of the Order operate in pairs, but individuals and trios are not rare. When significant discoveries are made or serious action must be taken, groups may join together over great distances. They have various means of sharing information with one another, both magical and mundane. Only to Rangers and Paladins are these things so freely revealed, as it is known by their profession that they tend to be trustworthy. Even to Paladins is this information sometimes withheld for a period since their allegiance to Law can dilute their attention to pure Good. The group in the forested mountains northwest of Gren is a trio, two rangers and an illusionist. They have been in those parts for nearly six moons now, ever since discovering a series of odd standing stones of great age and mysterious power.
5. Exar told Ithimyr that his trio has somewhat of a relationship with the northwestern forests' Druids. Though their relationship is somewhat uneasy as the Druids view the Order as having the potential to upset the balance of things. That being said, Exar can introduce Ithimyr if Ithimyr ever travels up that way.
6. Exar also tells Ithimyr that a Druid visited them a couple weeks ago, asking about the grassfire in the fields to the south of the woods. The trio told the Druid they knew nothing of it and the Druid departed.
7. Word is the Elves are not staying in town, but rather have made camp in the Grenwood to the southeast. They seem to be keeping their distance from Gren, having visited but one time to purchase supplies.
8. Some farmers of the southern fields have mentioned seeing some flying beasts thereabouts the southern hills, but none have seen near enough to identify them. These sightings are typically commonplace in this valley. However, Ithimyr speaks to a merchant guard drinking at the Otherside Tavern who swears their caravan saw a young dragon flying over the Grenwood from the southern hills when their caravan was headed into Gren a week ago.
9. There is also some info about the ruins across the lake. Those who know anything about it seem to say a mixture of these three things:
   1. Corpses found in the area indicate that some meat-eating creatures are laired there. Some who have gone out to the lake have seen humanoid shapes moving across it, in the ruins, in the moonlight, and have stayed far away.
   2. Some say they've seen or have talked to someone who has seen a strange glow of moonlight near the center of the ruins, even across the lake, even an a dark, moonless night. The light seems to come from nowhere and land in the ruins.
   3. Some say Rudolf Rinn braved the ruins a decade ago, shortly after arriving in Gren.

Prior to the game, we discuss Fighters and confirm that they will add +1 on their “to hit” rolls at Level 2. This is an optional rule in the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Characters played this session were:

• RHINOCK - Half-Orc Fighter 2. AC 4.
• ITHIMYR - Half-Elf Cleric 2 / Ranger 1. AC 3.
• OLEANDER - Half-Elf Ranger 2. AC 4.
• ZENOBIA - Elf Magic-User 1 / Thief 2. AC 6.
• TALON - Human Paladin 2. AC 3.

The party discusses returning to the Chapel area this session, following the deadly encounter with the Hydra in Akemeledain.

We discuss a previous encounter from the Chapterhouse. Rats are normally afraid of fire and the ones in the Chapterhouse ran through the fire and attacked us. Perhaps they were spurred on by something even more dangerous or magically controlled?

Today is a cold day but it is not raining or storming. We head out to the Chapterhouse.

Once the party arrives, we find multiple sets of very large dire wolf tracks. The tracks are about 50' from the Chapterhouse and some of the tracks were from as recent as today.

As we approach the Chapterhouse, we can see that the door is pretty far open. We kick open the door the rest of the way and see 3 Dire Wolves!

They have AC 6.

Talon immediately kills one and Zenobia casts sleep. The sleep spell goes off and Ithimyr kills one. We dispatch the third one that was put to sleep.

Combat Ends.

Ithimyr harvests the DIRE WOLF PELTS and throws them on the Mule.

Zenobia pulls out a bullseye Lantern and Ithimyr pulls out his hooded lantern.

We enter into the dungeon and come to the big stone door room where we can see that the wooden stair case that lead upwards is completely gone, burned away. In the northwest corner is an opening about 15' up on the ceiling but there are no stairs left. Zenobia climbs up the walls with an iron spike Ithimyr gave her. After she drops a rope, the rest of the party climbs up.

We go south and find a room with a big stone table. On the table is a key ring and 4 keys. The eastern wall has a cabinet with 2 cabinet doors. The cabinet has a tiny keyhole that does not match any of the keys. There is also a door to the southeast.

Zenobia looks for traps in the cabinet and finds two needle sized holes. She can see a box on the other side of the keyhole but otherwise the inside of the cabinet is mostly empty except for a rack with a vial in it. Zenobia bypasses the traps and the cabinet is opened.

Ithimyr grabs the vial and the rack. The vial is filled with a clear liquid. Zenobia decides to taste the liquid and has a sudden urge to fly (or soar). Zenobia pulls the key ring off the table which weighs 2 pounds (20 coins).

There is a padlock in the steel door room. We are now standing in front of the steel door but also in this room are a set of manacles. We try to open the door but it seems to be blocked by something. The party determines that this door must lead to the chained SCARY DOOR.

We decide to batter down the middle door and with that, completely destroy the door. We enter the area of the great wheels. Inside, we find that there are remnants of a battle from some time ago with one of the great wheels is cocked and splintered. It appears damaged. All of the corpses are cleaned of flesh. We take a look inside the bins and find that they are filled with rocks under a layer of dust. Talon clears out some of the rocks but finds nothing else in the bins.

We go down the stairs down and find that there is a door to the south that has a large keyhole. Zenobia checks this door for traps while Talon finds that the door is locked. We unlock it with one of the keys we found and push open the door.

Inside this room we can smell a lingering tobacco or pipe leaf odor in the room. It is apparent that this room has been sealed up for a long time. There is a stone table in the center of this room surrounded by chairs that are dyed black and appear to be burned. On the table are 5 bottles of wine. The chairs are upholstered with black leather. On the floor next to the chairs is an empty bowl of fine looking make. We also find 16 chalices made of silver with 2 of them fallen over and are lying on their sides.

Ithimyr does not see any tracks inside the room. As for the wine, there are 2 bottles on a rack while 3 are on the table, already opened. The silver chalices are weight about 20 coins each.

After hearing some sounds from beyond the door, we quickly decide to flip the table to give us 75% cover (a +6 to AC). Oil is also spread in the room. We then push open the door, light the oil, and see that coming straight for us are 8 Giant Rats!

They run through the flaming oil and through some dropped caltrops. The Giant Rats must save versus paralysis. The caltrops actually manage to kill one of the Giant Rats while the burning oil kills all but one of them! The remaining Giant Rat attacks Talon but misses but Bitters, Oleander's War Dog, kills the last one.

Combat is over.

Zenobia destroys all of the chairs while the fire goes out and the door is closed.

We open it again and continue on. We shine a bullseye lantern down the cavern passage. It shines on an enormous 20' diameter pit and we can see that, hanging over the pit, is a drill that is attached by rods and chains. We can also see that hanging off the far edge of the pit is a flail that shines brightly. The shining flail is only a few feet from the edge. There is also a signpost driven into the ground nearby that reads:

“HERE DIES RINN THE LIAR!”

It is at this point that we suddenly hear a noise, a padded noise to the south. We prepare ourselves to meet something else…a 15' tall, massive ball of Giant Rats. A Rat King!

The massive ball of Giant Rats rolls into our party with a Charge Attack. The attack will be on the group. It rolls at us at high speed but we manage to quickly light some oil flasks and throw them at the ball. Ithimyr manages to bullseye it and the oil flask explodes! (A successful roll to make sure the flask breaks apart).

There are now 50 bodies of Giant Rats rolling around like a rush of water, dying from the fire. However, their tails were all fused together, or tied up. We realize that there would be no mundane reason why they were all tied up together. This was done on purpose. Eventually all of the Giant Rats die in the flames.

Combat Ends.

We continue through to the pit room and find that overall, the room is very empty. We take a closer look at the sign but find nothing else unusual about it. The drill bit is dangling precariously by the rods and chains but is otherwise incredibly well held on. In the center of the drill contraption is a huge pole which is very robust looking. Overall, the drill structure rises up about 30'-40' high above the pit.

Zenobia looks down the pit with her bullseye lantern and sees that it goes down about 80' before it hits darkness. However, we can also see a faint distant glowing light at the bottom. It is a blue whitish light that does not flicker but we estimate that it is probably over 300' deep.

The walls of the pit appear to be smoothly bored and then we come back to the flail that is dangling on the edge of the pit. It is a footman's flail.

On a side note, one of the recovered books we found in this dungeon had a passage that said something about “burying his enemy”. We decide that we will research this more later.

Most of the edge of the pit is broken up by the excavation and the cavern floor is cracked. The pit breaks through the stone and lying next to the flail are 2 gold coins. When Ithimyr looks closer at the pit he can see glowing of all sorts near the pit.

Zenobia finally grabs the flail while being attached to the rope and she realizes that the flail is not actually glowing. She looks up at the drill and sees very old looking dirt, no twisted metal or anything else. There are no levers or complex machinery connected to the drill. Talon was thinking of using the fly potion to go down.

Instead, we head south around the caverns and find that it splits up. Here we find the Giant Rat's nest and can see 1000's of coins on the ground of mostly copper. The nest is full of crap and coins as well as loose bits of rat tail that have been chewed off.

The total coinage equals to 3000 cp and 50 gp but we also find a deep purple amethyst. We do not take the copper.

Continuing on, we head toward the east tunnel where we find tons of rats parts while holes and cracks line the entire way. At this point, we decide to leave and we go back to Gren.

Tomorrow is the festival of Cine (on the 2nd). Zenobia casts detect magic on the stuff we have returned with but none of it is glowing. The flail is valued at 400 xp so we sell it for 200 gp which means 200 xp for the party. The chalices are worth 40 gp each while the bowl is worth 40 gp and the amethyst is worth 100 gp. The bottles of wine are old and of fine make. We can sell them for 50 gp each (if they are unopened) and 25 gp each (if they are opened). One of the bottles is so fine it is worth 300 gp. In total, that means we get 450 gp for all the wine.

How much for a silvered weapon? The blacksmith can make arrows for 1 gp, quarrels for 1 gp or 2 gp, sling bullets for 2 gp, daggers, and spears for 75 gp. Other non-traditional weapons include hammers, maces, flails, jo-sticks, and mauls. We put in an order for a silver spear which takes 3 days.

The treasure value is 1,230 gp in total without the flail sale.

Today is the day of the Cine festival! The festivities in the garden happen with poetry readings and famous little plays. People from town with no theater experience come to perform the roles. There is also a competition and Ithimyr participates in a puppet theater.

Talon asks around amongst the Cine worshippers about the Clerics and Akemledain. Israel, a worshipper of Cine, has heard of Akemeledain of which he read in an old tome. He read about a band of seafaring adventurers with 8 ships that sailed everywhere and they had poetry and songs. They were all skilled Fighters. There were entire families of adventurers that were known to build large complexes of shrines dedicated to Cine and they would leave little signs of appreciation to Cine. There were also people outside of the worship of Cine that would view them as pirates thought this group were pretty famous. They did not view themselves as pirates but opportunists that set out to earn gold and treasure. There was only mention in one place of Akemeledain and it was within 100 miles.

We receive our new silver spears and head back out to the Chapterhouse. We re-enter the dungeon and head straight down toward the pit. Once we arrive, Ithimyr uses 4 iron spikes to tie the ropes securely and Talon lowers Eric the pigeon down into the pit. We use up all of the rope to lower it all the way toward the bottom of the pit.

Eventually, Eric's cage pings on something metallic. It seems to be about a 400' deep pit and we can hear the sound of the pigeon echoing nervously. Ithimyr drives 3 more iron spikes into the walls to further secure the rope and then climb down first. He stops before the bottom and his lantern casts light upon a huge mound of thousands of coins. Laying atop the pile of coin is a glowing long sword along with the body of a person, horrifically mangled. The body is rolled off to one side and also has a medium shield. There is also sword sheath for a short sword and a short sword lying nearby. Along bow also lies shattered in half.

Ithimyr grabs the longsword along with the sheath which contains a purplish hue of rubies. The sword has an inlay of silver in the hilt in a flowing pattern. The shield looks to be of decent quality. It is a medium kite shield and has a vertical line to separate the shield panels, which are slightly blue tinted although there are no symbols contained within them. The body wears a suit of plate mail which is unmarked but otherwise completely destroyed. The helmet has rolled off and lying against the shield.

Ithimyr returns to the top and Talon takes the longsword after he hands it to him. Ithimyr grabs the arrows and the long bow string. There is also a backpack. Rhinock finds that it is completely empty although it is an adventurer's backpack with all the pockets opened. It is made of decent exotic leather.

The total coinage amount found at the bottom of the pit was 6,800 cp, 3,800 sp, 1,160 ep, 490 gp and 27 pp.

At the bottom of the pit are no other exits or markings so we take the time to extract out all of the treasure. During this time, evening arrives but no monsters or undead encountered. It is only a few hours after nightfall that we head back to Gren, traveling along the river. Our party is luckily, not waylaid but our cart creaks as it has never creaked before.

Back in the town of Gren, we determine that the backpack is made of a magical beast leather and is worth 280 gp but no magic is detected. Zenobia sees a magical aura on the longsword, the quiver and the shortsword. There are also 6 magic arrows, a shield and a helmet.

The stronger aura comes from the shortsword, but the helmet has a stronger aura still however its magic is related to alteration magic and it is not cursed. There is a conjuration magic on the other things and some type of extra magic on the shortsword.

All of the items would give us more xp if we were to sell them. Yet, we decide to divide them up. Ithimyr takes the magic shield.

For the coinage…

1,960 cp, 760 sp, 232 ep, 210 gp, 5 pp,

This means Ithimyr receives 632 Cleric + 695 Ranger xp. He pays 200 gp for his upkeep.

Ithimyr reaches level 2 for Ranger and has paid 1,500 gp for training. Ithimyr uses all of his stashed treasure and had left over 24.785 gp = 24 gp, 1 ep, 14 sp, 2 cp.