The Character Roster:

• Timbraun - Human Dual-Class to Cleric / Magic-User, MV 9“
  • Litlee - Human Cleric AC 3/3, m shield, MV 6”, Doors 1-2, Listen 10%, 13,9,14,10,14,9, hp 2, NG, Tralf, age 20.
• Xrith'atiril - Fighter 5
  • Khu'sut - Fighter / Magic-User 1
• Jacob - Fighter 8
  • Josalyn - Cleric 6
  • Briiz
• Lygan
• Valter of Mur - Human Cleric AC 6/6, lg shield, mace, staff, Doors 1-2, 14,10,14,13,15,12, hp 4, AL CG, Tralf, age 25.
• Savina

For this session, we are returning to the Celestial Font of Thena which was part of a class quest for Lusia. On the most recent trip, we destroyed the 30' tall Ichor Weep, an intelligent, psionically empowered fungus that had grown inside of the Font.

The Font is about 25 miles northwest of Mombafra.

We should have used weapon vs AC vs Grimlocks during the last session. Clerics have no sling proficiency so this has been changed for some characters.

Valter of Mur comes from Lake Mur which is the big lake near Wyrin'wa. It is known for having people that live on floating barges on the lake. Blumenthal is Valter's birth barge.

Savina casts Phantom Armor on Timbraun for 10 gp (for the component cost). She now has AC 3/3 and 3 extra hp that when consumed, cause the armor to become consumed.

The weather is cloudy as we leave in the Summer time and we head to the north east. We know there is a secret entrance at the base of the plateau. It is the same opening in the earth that has limestone stairs and cool air coming up.

Jacob and Xrith both have continual light.

Jacob will be looking out for men at arms.

The available Mercenaries are:

• 11 Light Footmen plus a Lieutenant.
• A Sergeant.
• 16 Crossbowmen and a Lieutenant.

No Mercs are hired so we head out.

Travel is uneventful. We arrive at the entrance and Valter asks about the dungeon so we give him a synopsis of the place, as we have found so far.

In the first room is a statue of a warrior maiden pointing toward the stairs leading down. The Celestial Font of Thena is named for a demigoddess of Rook and she is unknown in the Hinterlands. She is more common in the Easterlands. We also find a fresco displaying ancient warriors attacking a monster, which is displayed on the door to the west.

Xrith'atiril, Jacob and Lygan are in front and opening doors. We have no trouble with the door.

We can see that the 12' tall statue of warrior maiden, pointing toward the passage remains as it was previously. Underneath is the same inscriptions, “Point me the way, Bastion of the Sun, point me the way, Tower of White!”

We head through the west door and go up the stairs.

We are not surprised this time. DISREGARD! No encounters at this time.

Josalyn casts Find Traps which lasts 3 turns.

There is a small landing area and then we go toward the other door. In the wall there is a relief of a warrior maiden with a longsword. On the landing is a pair of broken iron manacles. Xrith sees that the hinges are freshly oiled, but the hinges are smashed open. They are too big to hold a Gnome but could hold a larger humanoid or human.

Lygan listens along with Xrith and Khu'sut but we do not hear anything.

We open the door and enter a room. Is that a secret door on the other end? No.

This is a big room and against the west wall is a faded tapestry which would conceal the wall if it was not torn. The tapestry depicts warrior maidens defeating Beastmen. There is rubble and debris littered on the floor and the tapestry does not look to be valuable anymore.

The floor looks like creamy marble stone but there are signs of deliberate destruction. Josalyn does not detect any traps.

Valter attaches the goat to some rubble and we look at some graffiti on the north wall which says:

• “Thori was here, slayer of basilisks” and there is a crude humanoid face with fangs. It closely resembles the fanged face from the Meadow Tomb.
• “K - AJ betrayed us. Do not trust him. Take them far away. - P”
• There are some Dwarven runes that we cannot read yet. Khu'sut makes a rubbing on some vellum using some torch charcoal. She will later take it to Thorgard. Later translated as “They ate Itz-Loc”.

We also find a tarnished silver torque with the inscription: “by the light”.

We hear movement of something large coming up to the door.

• Valter hangs against the north wall as battle medic.
• Litlee prepares for melee as does Timbraun.
• Xrith goes to the front door and prepares for battle.
• Khusut uses her bow.
• Jacob and Josalyn form up at the front line, averting their eyes.
• Briiz has a bow out.

There is a loud bang on the door and it opens up. The stench of Hobgoblin and Bugbear comes in! We see a group of Hobgoblins, wielding glaives, ready for battle. They have an intense look in their eyes and in the front of their group is a well decorated Hobgoblin leader.

There is also a hulking Bugbear in the rear of the group. The Bugbear has a wicked looking bardiche.

Briiz shoots into the melee and is shooting an ally twice!

Jacob, Josalyn, Litlee and Xrith'atiril are up front. Jacob and Litlee are struck but they missed Jacob. One of them hits Litlee for 2 damage who is also shot in the back by Briiz and FALLS UNCONSCIOUS! LITLEE is Dropped!

• Briiz continues shooting while Jacob and Josalyn attack.
• Timbraun binds Litlee, if he can get into melee.
• Khu'sut does not attack.
• Savina goes to drag Litlee out while invisible.
• Lygan charges.
• Volter is off to the side.

There are 11 Hobgoblins and 1 Bugbear in total.

There is a 5/13 chance to hit an ally. This time, Briiz is hitting an enemy.

Xrith's attack does 9 damage to the Bugbear. Jacob does 15 damage to the Bugbear. Josalyn hits the Bugbear for 9 damage as well.

The Bugbear is still pushing into the room. One of the Hobgoblins is cut down and the Bugbear is instantly gutted by Xrith, Josalyn and Jacob! There are still another 10 hobgoblins.

Lygan missed. There are 6 characters in melee

3 of the Hobgoblins are on Valter. He has an AC 6/6 and there are 2 hits, he is down to -1 hp!

Lygan is attacked but is missed. He has AC 1/3. Due to his magic Buckler +2, both attacks miss!

2 Hobgoblins are on Xrith but both miss. 2 are on Timbraun, who has AC 3/3 with the Phantom Armor. Both miss, luckily! The Hobgoblin Leader is now also attacking Timbraun, but misses!

Valter is taken down by the Hobgoblins and falls unconscious. The Hobgoblins are suddenly panicked! The Leader shouts to hold it together in the Hobgoblin language, which Xrith and Khu'sut can both understand.

He shouts, “We must continue the mission with or without Zakta. We need to find the Drow for the payday!”

Jacob hits the leader for 11 damage, and KILLED THE LEADER!

• Timbraun does a fighting withdraw.
• Khu'sut charges the remaining Hobgoblins.
• Everyone else is in melee.
• Savina hides.

They have a base of 51, 21, 11 for morale up to 31. They pass and the Hobgoblins show a sudden resolve! They are spurred on by potential wealth.

There are 5 attacks on Jacob who has a large shield. There are no hits for the first 3 but 1 hits with a glaive. He takes 3 (-2 for his full plate armoor) which ends up being just 1 damage.

There is 1 attack on Xrith which misses. 2 attacks on Timbraun and 1 hits. He takes 1 damage but still has Phantom Armor.

Xrith scores a blow and does 6 damage while Khu'sut's charge does 4 damage. There are 7 Hobgoblins remaining as we kill only 2 of them this round.

• Timbraun does a fighting withdrawal.
• Khu'sut and Xrith both attack.
• Savina casts Light on their eyes.
• Lygan attacks.
• Valter is still down, unconscious.

Xrith and Khu'sut both miss but Jacob and Josalyn kill two more!

One Hobgoblin misses Jacob. 2 of them are now on Timbraun. 1 hits doing 1 damage yet he still has Phantom armor! Xrith is missed. Jacob is missed again.

The Light spell goes off on the Hobgoblin that is following Timbraun. The Hobgoblin's eyes blast out with light and they cannot see anything and it is now considered disabled! Jacob does 10 damage which kills another one.

• Timbraun does a fighting withdrawal once again, since the one that was attacking him is now disabled.
• Xrith is attacking.
• Khu'sut is attacking.
• Savina charges the blinded one.

Khu'sut hits for 8 and Xrith hits for 7. Everyone else kills the rest of the Hobgoblins!

Based on what the Hobgoblin Leader shouted, we believe there must be a Drow here somewhere, or there could be an opening to Vernum (the Underdark / Underworld).

We collect:

• 110 cp.
• 130 sp.
• 130 gp.
• A piece of very low quality parchment. It is wrapped in a small leather bundle with a string and it appears to be a bounty. It was written someone called “Zenkar Ten”. Zenkar Ten put out a bounty for someone called “Tis'ill”. They are wanted alive or dead but, based on the language of the bounty, that part is a side thing. They really want the recovery of a Mithral Key.

We travel back to Mombafra after 2 days out.

Detect Magic is cast and the tarnished silver torque is not magic. It is worth 200 gp. Xrith'atiril claims the torque in exchange for 200 gp to the party.

We get 40 gp, 16 sp each.

Following the fall of two characters, this time KALISET joins us. He is a 3rd level Assassin (replaces Valter of Mur). He wears Studded Leather +2, has AC 4/6 and 18 hp.

Litlee is recovering so will not be rejoining us.

Savina tries to talk up Jacob as she sees him as the strongest among us.

We go back and head to the room where the fight with the Hobgoblins took place. No encounters on the return trip.

We arrive back in the room and the corpses are still there. They are now 2 day old bodies. Kaliset takes a glaive from one which weighs 75 coins.

We pile up the armor and weapons in the room and check out the alcove or passage we can see leading out the west wall. Kaliset looks for traps and has a 20% chance. He does not see any traps. Kaliset can see an empty hallway beyond but about halfway down the passage are two circular mirrors that are about 1' in diameter.

The passage continues beyond that into the darkness.

Kaliset looks for traps in the passage but does not see any. He has read about talking mirrors that could be trapped. Josalyn casts Find Traps at this point, not trusting Kaliset's search, and sees no traps on the mirror or anywhere beyond.

The mirrors are set into the walls. They look to be mounted and built inside. To remove them we can roll under Dexterity on a 3d6. Jacob does it and succeeds!

Josalyn casts Detect Magic and she detects magic on both mirrors. It is a strong magic. The statue at the front is also magic and the 1' diameter mirrors are set at human eye level.

Kaliset lobs a body of a Hobgoblin and it flops down between the mirrors. Nothing happens.

Timbraun is interested in the mirrors as well and finds that it looks like a regular mirror. He looks directly into the right mirror. It reflects and then slightly and gently wavers. Timbraun says, “By the light” and it slowly forms into an image over a minute.

After the minute, the north mirror shows a long hall with a couple braziers and two staircases going up. It looks like a long hall and there is no pool in the image. It appears to be looking down into the hall below us though. Timbraun finds that the mirror is solid when he touches it.

The south mirror, however, shows the pool with the huge mushroom (Ichor Weep) and the 25' tall statue of a warrior maiden. The mushroom looks dead and still.

Xrith'atiril and Khu'sut duck past the mirrors as does the rest of the group when they move past.

We come to an area, a room, with wood panelling. There is a ruined bed frame with a rotting desk and chair along with some moldy rags and burned torch stubs. There are also several burned out candles with lots of crumbs and debris scattered about. Next to the chair is a pile of whittlings of wood, like from wood carving.

There are no traps detected and Timbraun rifles through the desk. One desk door contains a soiled glove but only the left hand. The rags on the ground appear to be shredded Cleric's vestments. They look to have been torn apart by talons or claws. We notice that the crumbs look to be fresh crumbs on the ground.

It has now been 3 turns since we passed the hall. Find Traps is still going.

The single glove is intact yet soiled. Briiz grabs it. We still have Find Traps going as we continue on down a passage and we come to a dead end with the following writing on the north wall:

“To the front it brings you, for what was done behind. But even as it drives you, it burns and sears your mind.”

It is a RIDDLE, and it was immediately solved by Kaliset and Lygan: The answer was “Vengeance”.

We pass through a secret door after speaking out loud the answer. We are now in the room with the foot lockers where we have been before.

We go through the north door to continue exploring the caverns in that area, where we previously encountered Grimlocks.

In the main room before this area however, we find the shrine which has two stone silver dragon candle holders. We will collect those later.

Beyond the north door, we see that the deer carcass has decomposed more but is still somewhat nasty. There is no sound of hooting and hollering, as we heard before when we encountered the gray skinned, white eyed Grimlocks.

The silver dragon statues weigh 1,000 coins each. They are covered with silver but they are otherwise statues made of solid stone. They still look quite valuable.

As we move up, we find that there are no corpses in this area. The Grimlock bodies were moved! We continue north along the cavern passage and as we shine our light, we find the bodies of the creatures laying up against the wall. They are shoved in the corner. Some are laying on the others but all 16 are piled up. We believe that this number includes some of the ones that escaped last time. Somebody else was here…

At the end of the cavern are some stairs going up and there are many bones on the ground.

These bones were all humanoids and the creatures are more closely visible. They have long black hair, their skin is gray and scaly and they are wearing rags, Their eyes are blank and cloudy.

We move forward and head up the stairs. Kaliset will check the stairs for traps and it is trap free.

The party finds even more stairs going up past an alcove of sorts along the north wall. Inside the alcove, which looks natural, there is a low cairn of stacked flat stones. On top of this flat stone is a dusty wooden mannequin about 18“ tall. It is of a young girl in faded black robes. In front of this statuette is an iron bowl which contains several electrum coins.

230 ep in total.

Timbraun and Josalyn recognize that this is an icon of Vishkul, an ancient death aspect of Tenn.

Kaliset, the Assassin, throws a coin in and he feels empowered and confident in battle. He murmurs a prayer in his alignment tongue. There is 231 ep in the bowl now.

A natural cavern that goes to the left is thin and additional sets of stairs go further up, eventually leading to a bend in the passage. Down to the south, the cavern continues.

Josalyn casts Find Traps once again.

There is an acrid smell of animal waste here but there is otherwise nothing valuable found on the surface. To the south is a stone door with a keyhole.

The tarnished key we found earlier unlocks the stone door! However, we know this leads to the stone bridge in an previously explored area of the dungeon.

We continue up the stairs and we come to another natural cavern area. It has a chimney that is 3' in diameter and located near the exit is a corpse. It looks like the same black haired monsters: Grimlock, and it is clearly dead. It looks prone as if it was defending itself. Kaliset and Josalyn find a deep wound on the body that looks like a big nasty bite wound, like from a dog, but does not have a long jaw.

We do not see daylight through the chimney, at least not at this angle. Kaliset does think he can hear a bird outside however.

We continue on…

Our Continual Light illuminates another cavern where we can see movement from another creature.

It is 10' long and its body consists of several segments, like that of a centipede. It has lots of clawed feet. At the end of its face are 8 tentacles.

A Carrion Crawler!

• Jacob attacks.
• Briiz shoots.
• Josalyn attacks.
• Timbraun attacks.
• Xrith draws his weapon and attacks.
• Khu'sut casts Sleep.
• Savina casts Light on the creature's eyes.
• Lygan braces for a charge.

Briiz fires twice but MISSES!

Sleep goes off and the creature falls asleep! As it falls, its eyes glow up with light streaming out.

The creature is decapitated by Kaliset, and boy did he really decapitate it! (As an Assassin can only do to a helpless opponent).

Josalyn looks for traps but again, does not find any with her Find Traps spell.

There is lots of detritus and rags discarded in the north east alcove. Amidst this trash, we find some treasure:

• 700 sp.
• 400 gp.
• 120 pp.

Xrith and Khu'sut tap along the alcove wall, it seems solid.

Kaliset climbs up and squeezes into the chimney. The chimney bends and twists until eventually he can see sunlight from a sharp bend. He emerges from a sinkhole amongst the tall grass outside.

Inside the cave, we can see that there are several scratches along the walls. Xrith'atiril searches in the room full of trash and turns up a dirty velvet pouch. Inside are a bunch of marbles, with a total of 80 marbles. He hangs onto it for now.

Khu'sut and Jacob pick up the heavy stone statues so we can take them back with us.

We head down into the main hall and head toward the Celestial Font of Thena. Khu'sut tries to harvest parts of the Ichor Weep for later use with spells. Others begin searching around and we find no secret doors on the west wall.

We check the two rooms that head east off the room with the Font and they are unchanged. This is the laboratory and the putrid chamber with the bucket. We search all the walls in the putrid room but nothing else turned up.

Back at the above hall, Kaliset mutters a prayer to Tenn to see if it is his will to remove the mirrors but he gets no response. The mirrors are glass disks and Savina removes the north mirror from the wall. There is a slight cracking noise but she recovers it undamaged. It weights 300 coins.

Jacob recovers the other one so now both mirrors are going with us. After pulling it off the wall, Jacob stares in it and he still sees the area below the passage, looking at the Font.

Back at the Font once again, Josalyn tries to purify the pool. Her Purify Water spell is cast but it would take several casts to fully purify it, or completely remove all the remnants of the Ichor. She also casts Bless and the pool is now blessed.

We make camp outside by the chimney opening. Nevermind! Kaliset just covers it with leaves and we camp by the entrance to the dungeon instead.

The night passes without incident and we return to the Celestial Font of Thena once again. Kaliset removes his clothes and enters the pool since it was both Blessed and Purified. Kaliset submerges himself entirely and he has a terrible feeling of distressing energy. He feels as though he is swimming in a celestial plane and he feels a deep inner conflict. Holy energy seeps into his pores causing him to become somewhat weakened.

He takes a -1 to Dexterity and he is now Lawful Neutral! This causes him to lose a level and all of his ASSASSIN abilities as well…however, he does get a 1st level Cleric spell that can be cast 1/day: Detect Evil.

Kaliset must now atone himself, such as from a spell. This means he must perform a task for his deity. He is now a 3rd level Assassin that lost his abilities. He must be careful about using poison or he reverts to Lawful Evil, though there is some question on if this alone would be possible.

Revision: he actually does NOT lose a point of Dexterity! The pool does not drain his ability since it was blessed and purified so he gets a point of Dexterity back.

However, he is now level 2 and has lost his Assassin abilities.

Lygan also fully immerses himself in the pool. This time, Lygan is actually drained for 1 point of Strength, and he gets a Cleric spell to cast 1/day. He acquires the spell Portent!

It seems like a Blessing on the pool would prevent the drain.

After gaining the benefits (or curses) from the pool as we have, we depart the dungeon, perhaps one day to return and fully utilize the pool…

We head back to Mombafra.

We arrive back in Mombafra after sleeping overnight in the wilds. Kaliset uses his new ability but detects no evil on the marbles Xrith found. Xrith had grabbed one suit of scale and other people had grabbed the rest.

The group decides to sell the magic mirrors and we can get 300 gp for the mirrors in total.

There is 260.7 gp for xp.

• The xp for Volter is 103.
• The xp for Kaliset is 332.
• All henchman get 141 xp.
• All PCs get 435 xp.
• Litlee gets 41 xp.

Our shares are 16 pp, 176 gp, 94 sp each.

• Khu'sut and Xrith'atiril will take the rubbing of dwarven runes from the graffiti room at the Celestial Font of Thena to Thorgard for translation. It says “They ate Itz-Loc” and does not mean anything more to Thorgard.
• After that, they will begin doing some research on what they believe is an Elf named Tis'ill and someone, possibly a Dark Elf named Zenkar Ten. They will ask around at any known Elf enclaves, if such a thing exists, to find out more about these people and about such a bounty, who placed the bounty?
• If that turns up empty, they will ask Kaliset to contact someone from the Assassin's guild about this bounty, who Zenkar Ten is and the person named Tis'ill. Did someone in the Assassin's Guild put out this bounty? Why would they seek out a Mithral Key?
• They will also do some more research, perhaps with a local historian or with Sira at the Temple of Riswa or anyone else in the area of Gren, Qarn and Mombafra, about the three different necklace pendants from the Meadow Tomb. Particularly the one with the Fanged Face and see if they can tie that to the same graffiti we found in the room at the Celestial Font.
• If they are unable to find these answers through conventional means, they will go to a Sage about the pendants found at the Meadow Tomb and about the different factions associated with the 3 pendants. Who were they? What do they represent? Are they still around and if so, why would they show up at a Shrine to a demigoddess called Thena (of Rook)?
• Finally, back in Qarn, Xrith'atiril and Khu'sut will each be checking for rumors regarding The Shrine of Hevargun, the Dwarven shrine east of Delbo. This was where some people in this party managed to unseal and re-seal an entrance to Vernum. They want to find out if anyone, any adventurers, or if any passers-by in the last couple of years have gone there and heard anything about it.