• A favored Lammasu seen flying overhead to see Shin in the mountains. They say that this is a rare council and is a sign to fear.

• A Band of Elves has not been seen since they purchased supplies in Gren. They were on an ill-fated mission to battle against the Green Dragon of the Marble Keep.

• It is the time of the High Summer Hunt in Mombafra. The goal is to hunt a Gryphon called “Guillotine Beak”. Those that undertake the hunt can claim the beast as their own mount. The hunt begins at midnight of the next month, starting on Midsummer. The Gryphon can also be sold as a mount.

• Maervahr paid 200 gp for upkeep.

Characters:

• GRUHL - HALF-ORC FTR 1, AC 3
• DAN - HUMAN MAG 2, AC 9
• PORTO - HALFLING THF 3
• MAERVAHR - HUMAN MAG 2
• TSANU - HALF-ELF CLR 1 / MAG 1
• MORRIC GIRMSSON - DWARF FTR 1, MV 6”

The days are warm with a light breeze, but today is overcast. The party is heading out for the Marble Keep. We have an Ox and Wagon, thanks to Halzgaz and Porto hires a Porter. We can scan the keep on the hills as we approach. When we arrive, we hear no noises and nothing is seen in the skies. The travel to the keep is uneventful.

The party has found another entrance inside the Marble Keep. It is located at the base of one tower, a partially blocked back door. We slide down the trap door and climb into a big empty room.

The floor has markings and the walls have sconces and torches. This is the corridor that we came down originally. After we determine our location, we decide to go check on the friendly dog they found previously.

We head down the long hallway which is presently empty. The door is just as we left it. Sleeping on the floor is a dog. It looks like a normal dog, like a labrador and it is spry, built for running. There is no name on the empty dog bowl but Dan puts food in the bowl. The dog eats the rations and then follows us. Porto brings the bowl with us to keep him with our group.

In another room, we find a lute that was missing strings and a dead kobold that was bitten by a spider. There are also the corpses of 7 Men and two Elves. It appears that the Elves were killed sometime in the last few weeks. Tsanu recognizes two of the Elves from the previous time we passed this way, they were the Elves came from the Taiga to the far north.

We find another hallway that goes forward about 20’ and to the left is a doorway. The hallway continues north. There is an extremely loud, continuous rattling noise, like gravel moving over the floor nonstop, mixing with each other and grinding against something else.

Porto sees a lock on the door and finds a large canine tooth on the ground. The tooth is too big for our new dogs head so must have belonged to something else. The lock is built in to the door and Porto sees through the keyhole. Inside, he can see the definite movement of something large. He sees a bunch of white shapes that are moving left and right. It catches the light as sparkles just catch it properly.

Porto could also hear it, the continuous sound, coming from inside. One of us decided to bring a Cat with us, which functions like a Ranger with 1-in-6 to be surprised.

We head north. Stranded and hung across the hallway is a web of metal wire that disappears into the wall. The wires are strung across the entire hallway and the gap beneath them is not big enough to fit through.

There is an alcove up ahead and a relief of a huge tooth grinning spider with huge eyes. It appears to be looking at the web that is blocking our path. Within the left alcove there is a lever made of metal and is the same slate gray as the spider face. The wires cross in the middle and are layered on top of each other in the center. The end of the wires disappear into a hole in the wall. We shine the light inside the hole and can see that the wire is attached to a hidden hook. There is another tiny wire inside each hole and this wire is hooked onto a smaller wire. Morric can tell that the stone can be slidable and can be pulled on by the wire. It appears like each hole is a tension trap, if one is released it will trigger a mechanism. It looks possible that we can apply enough tension on the wire to keep the trap from going off.

We attempt to pass through by wrapping the wire around some iron spikes. Porto is able to get through the metal web and he pulls the lever. Suddenly all the wires pop out and land on the ground. Porto looks inside the hole of the spider head and finds huge metal spike.

The hallway bends until we hit a dead end. On the wall is an imprint on a stone block that looks like a slider. A grinding noise opens a door to a room with a sarcophagus. Tsanu finds a small square panel to trigger the secret door.

We find some rooms with rotting food lying around. We hear nothing beyond the door and start looking for stone traps. Eventually, we try to open the door.

The door opens and we enter a room with stone benches on the wall. They are spread out all the way around the perimeter. Above the bench is a basin with a hole in the bottom and above it, like a dry fountain. We can see a Hobgoblin leg laying in the ground and a few dots of blood leading down the hallway. There are also a couple of bones on the ground that look older and rotted. There is something glittering about 6 inches inside the fountin hole and there is a stone pipe in the wall. We can all wee something shiny within. It is a gem stuck in the pipe. Thieves tools might work to get the gem out of the pipe. Instead, we use the Hobgoblin leg that was partially covered in padded armor. We use that and get some cloth and plug up the hole behind the gem. Porto is able to take out the gem, which is bigger than expected. It is a very large emerald.

Continuing on, we open the north door past the hallway. This opens to a room that has more bits of bones and discarded flesh scattered around. The eastern wall has a huge tapestry depicting geometric circles that look to be arcane in nature. It is composed of blue thread with gold trimming but the bottom edge has been nibbled on by something. The tapestry is attached by steel hooks.

Looking at the ground, we can see drips of blood around the area with blood smears dragged between doors. Something looks like it was dragging something else and walking with wet, rough footsteps which move to the left, opens the door, then closes it. Suddenly, we hear a loud door close.

It is noted that Dan, a Magic-User, is KEEN-EARED! He has a listen chance of 4-in-20.

Porto ducks into corner and standing before us is a large subterranean lizard, spewing forth blood and filth. The Lizard barrels into us.

Gruhl and Morric are in the front. The Lizard is going after Morric but he can strike first due to his weapon length versus a charge.

We quickly killed the Lizard.

We collect parts from the Giant Lizard, which is a subterranean variety, for use with magic inks. If these lizards bite us just right they would have destroyed us.

We look for a secret door behind the tapestry but the wall looks normal. The tapestry has a great weight but still has value. It is known that arcane circles have the same type of geometric structure used to contain creatures from the astral plane. These circles use the same pattern. It is woven so accurately that if it was laid under a creature from the astral plane, it might contain it, like a CIRCLE OF PROTECTION. This is determined to be quite rare.

The weaving further depicts protection from astral creatures. We take the tapestry and trophy head of the lizard to the surface and put it on the cart. There was nothing else found inside of the creature.

We head back and from the open doorway, we see a hallway to the right goes that goes into darkness. The hallway curves down to the right side but we open the western door instead. Inside, we find a gruesome scene of a pile of corpses, about 4’ high. There is also a huge pile of copper and silver coins left in here. Avoiding the corpses, we get to the treasure:

2,600 sp 3,600 cp

We only grab the silver.

As we travel further north, we come face to face with 10 Kobolds!

We quickly dispatch them and Maervahr casts Charm Person on one. It is successful! He hands the Kobold a shortsword and convinces it to come with us, to defend him. It has dark gray coloration on its scales and they can live for 135 years.

As we talk to the Kobold, he says that he saw something just like what we were looking for because it was filled with a bunch of rats. He says we can get there and that GRIKNACK is his name.

There are rats down that hallway and 2 more Kobolds in their group that are in a weird room. Griknack says they are missing one of their allies. When they ran through the area, they were missing multiple Kobolds. He continues that he “heard some kind of whooshing noise, from witchery and shamanism.” His group just got here because they heard there were Elves about and wanted to loot their bodies.

The other dead Kobolds had 3 spiked clubs, 2 axes, 2 shortswords, 2 spears, 9 javelins and 118 cp.

We decide to head back to town. Maervahr tries to learn some basic words in Goblin to talk to Griknack. We ask around Gren for more information about the Elves but find that nobody is looking for them.

We head back to the Marble Keep and return to the same area where we left off.

Griknack has 2 hp.

It is determined, since they are considered monsters, Griknack and the Dog that resides in the keep can open doors without a roll!

When we inquire further, the Kobold says that he heard a whoomp and then all his companions were gone after going beyond this door. We can hear the Dog barking on the other side. Morric looks for pit traps in the area, as dwarves are able to do with stone. Griknack opens the door. Inside we find that the Dog is waiting in there amicably. Tsanu listens but hears no other noises. Griknack says that one of his Kobold friends was carrying a bunch of their food.

Amazingly, the Dog walks straight through the door as if it were insubstantial! Inside, we find a magic circle on the floor and flickers of light from it. As the Dog approached the door it grew with a faint light and started looking around for something. The Dog does not bark.

Maervahr concentrates to use his Clairaudience psionic ability and can hear the low breathing of creatures beyond, then he hears a short phrase in a demonic tongue. There is something in there breathing low and gutterally. This happened before when Maervahr targeted close to an animals head.

The resident Dog fades and appears to not being glowing anymore as it steps away from the circle.

As Griknack opens the door beyond, the Kobold is lunged upon by 3 forms!

The Kobold has 7 AC so the mysterious creatures will hit Griknack on a 12.

The creatures REND him, killing him instantly. These are 3 Manes demons. The rest of the party failed to open the door and one of the Manes disappears into the circle. Tsanu takes 1 point of damage from an attack. Meanwhile, Morric and Dan grab the other Manes demons and pick them up and fling them to the center of the circle.

Teleportation circles are varied and cannot normally tell much from it. We do know that this been here for a long time. The dogs light fades when the Manes goes through the teleportation circle.

We collect 20 cp and a shortsword from Griknack.

The Dog is not glowing but rather appears to be cowering and trembling. This is a thin room with the center of the wall covered in a large rune. It is big and ominous. We identify it as a Rune of Pain and some of us get a huge headache along with some body sores. There are manacles and chains on the wall, placed relatively low to the ground. Someone would suffer extreme pain from this rune if placed there.

Maervahr hears the sound of many rats beyond the other door. We quickly open it to find 16 Giant Rats!

Maervahr throws an oil flask which explodes on one of the rats, killing it instantly. 2 other rats are also incinerated by the splash of the burning oil. The others make quick work of most of the Giant Rats. The last Rat flees through the southern door.

When we enter the room, we can see a 6 armed statue of a Marilith demon. There is also a table with a bunch of vestments lying around. The Marilith statue is made entirely of stone but in the center of the forehead is a big serpentine jewel. Each arm wields a saw edged sword made of a black metal. The jewel appears to be large and valuable. Tsanu finds the robes in the room along with a key made of metal that has big teeth on it.

We also find 1000 sp and a silver ring that detects as magic.

The porter we hired gets the silver coins while Morric tries to grab the sword. He finds that there is some sort of magical resistance but he could yank it out. He does…

As Morric pulls out the blade, the blade would go back about 20 feet away but the force is too strong. The statue stands about 8’ off the ground. Porto crawls up the Marilith statue's back and grabs the jewel with his dagger, using it as a pry tool. When the gem lands in its hands, the swords point at it.

The statue attacks…

PORTO is slain!

Gruhl approaches and the statue remains silent and unmoving. He touches the stone and the swords rise…Gruhl is also attacked while the Cat familiar of Dan tries to grab the gem. Porto had a Ring of Feather Falling and Maervahr saw it. Porto had stolen it from the now dead elves and sold it for 5,000 gp. However, he then successfully pickpocketed it back!

We escape from the room of the Marilith statue and leave.

The party successfully makes it back to town.

Since we know that the Ring of Feather Falling was stolen, we believe only the Silk Caravan might buy it, however Porto stole it from them after he sold it. Dan knew Porto had the ring and sold it.

The jeweler in Gren says that the gem is worth 2,000 gp and the emerald is worth 1,400 gp.

We find that the jewel has a strong magic aura to it. Porto had not informed us of the Thieves' Guild and the gem he found. We are going to sell the magical serpentine gem, which gets deducted / converted to 1,600 gp.

The emerald is worth 1,400 gp. We divide up the 3,600 sp while the silver ring is worth 90 gp. The Kobold weapons are worth 14 gp and 1,614 gp for the tapestry with the Circle of Protection designs. We are selling that for 1600 gp.

In Total: 8,215 gp, 1,643 gp, 2,017 gp with emerald and ring divided up.

Gruhl is on bed rest for one week.

153 combat xp each, 168 for Maervahr with 10% bonus.

Maervahr paid 3,000 gp (partially from some gems) to level up to Level 3 Magic-User. He buys more oil flasks and two large sacks.