• Maervahr - Stoneskin, Phantom Armor, Invisibility
• Koriss - Stoneskin, Phantom Armor, Invisibility
• Litlee - Stoneskin, Scroll of Neutralize Poison
• Lucien - Stoneskin
• Thorgard - Stoneskin
• Tatrin - Stoneskin
• Lok-Vurn - Stoneskin
• Erasma Rookhammer - AC 1/2, Medium Shield, MV 6“, Doors 1-3, Listen 1-2, AL LG.
• Azrin the Thief - Dwarf Thief - AL LE, AC 8/8, MV 9”, Doors 1-2, Listen 1-2.

This is a continuation of the previous session, LIBERATING FORT XOCH-NAAL: TITUS'S QUEST.

We are currently at Fort Xoch-Naal in the middle of a fight with Troglodytes with poisoned javelins.

The Scout Captain and his men stayed 2/10ths of a mile back.

After the last Umber Hulk falls, we see a movement in the darkness are Azrin and Erasma. They are supporting a warrior wearing banded mail. They were here on a mission of their own. Erasma may be here due to Rook and Azrin is a Dwarf. They have the only two survivors that survived an attack by 8 Hell Hounds. They are at full hitpoints!

There are two Dwarves with them and one is unconscious. We untie Tatrin and bring him back to the group. They say they were attacked from the south but did not see another group of Dwarves. They did not see what happened to the Cleric but he is dead.

Erasma fought so valiantly in battle that Rook bestowed her 4 Cure Light Wounds spells on Erasma. Fothas is cured for 5 hitpoints by Tatrin. The Dwarves are at 0 and -4 hitpoints respectively. One is now at -1 hitpoints.

It has been 2 turns since we arrived at the Fort. Maervahr has 7 turns +1d6 of Flight left. Maervahr is 25' up on the roof of the Fort.

There is a door on the gallery that goes down into the basement where the gong is located. Lucien discusses getting to the gong to provide a diversion. Much of the sound of the gong can arise up through a tube. Levels one and two are not completely visibility but they can see most of the lower level.

Erasma cast Protection From Evil on Titus and Tatrin will cast it on Thorgard. Maervahr casts Protection From Evil which will last 18 rounds.

Prayer will be cast as well, +1 Saves, +1 to AC, +1 to hit. Lucien will cast Spectral Force to use the idea of Vernum to play off the fears of the Troglodytes. He will use line of sight.

• Lucien waits for the door.
• Titus uses Expansion psionic to open the door.
• Maervahr casts Protection From Evil.
• Thorgard and Lok-Vurn will open the door with Titus.
• Tatrin holds.
• Litlee holds.
• Fothas he will go on round 2.
• Erasma casts Protection from Evil on Titus.
• Azrin holds.

Titus becomes 11-12' tall. Evil creatures attacking some of us will take a -2 to hit us. Lok-Vurn, Titus and others try to open the Stone Door. He has 18/91 Strength so can open the door on a 1 by himself. He opens it!

The Stone Door's bar shatters and part of it shatters on the inner keep courtyard. Troglodytes are on an upper gallery 18' tall. There are 30 Troglodytes on the gallery and 12 on the floor. The leaders are wearing special beads and bangles. 18' up is the headdress of the Shaman that is currently chanting, his head is dancing and chanting in a strange language.

There is an upper level that is the gallery and there is a stone door up there. In the back are some stairs that go up to a gallery.

The Troglodytes win initiative. The javelins have a range of 2'/4'/6' so one third of them are at medium range. 30 javelins are thrown at 3 targets. Titus is large and is worth 4 size points. Lok-Vurn, Titus and Thorgard are in there and only Lok-Vurn does not have Protection From Evil but all have Prayer.

Thorgard is at -12 AC currently. These are their special weapons and they have a +3. One hit of six on Thorgard for 6 damage. Thorgard took another 8 damage.

Lok-Vurn is targeted 4 times. All of them miss. Titus is at a -10 AC and there is one hit on Titus for 4 damage. This all happens on segment 1. All of the medium range javelins miss the Dwarves!

The Troglodytes on the ground have no javelins at all. Lucien is casting Spectral Force as soon as the door opens. Maervahr is casting Invisibility.

The Troglodytes charge at Thorgard and Lok-Vurn without weapons, they have AC 6. They can attack. Titus hits and Lok-Vurn hits for 11 and 10 damage respectively. Titus kills one in a single blow. There is one leader and 10 Troglodytes to complete their charge. They get +1 from the chanting of the Shaman.

The leader charges Titus as the Troglodytes attack with their claws and bite. They all miss. That leaves 10 regular troops. Stoneskin applies for the claw damage on Lok-Vurn. A large character is subject to 8 attackers so they surround Titus. His shield can block 3 attacks.

Titus is at AC -5 and he takes 1 damage from a claw. His shield is not magic. He takes 3 more hits. He takes a total of 9 damage from the Troglodyte. That gets rid of his Phantom armor and he takes 4 damage. The Shaman is still chanting. All the other Troglodytes have one javelin left.

Erasma can attack and Thorgard can get a second attack. Erasma kills one! Maervahr is invisible to everybody. Thorgard hits for 12 damage, instantly killing one.

Spectral Force is cast and consumes the entire area. He creates a gong noise, slightly louder than before, which would gather attention. He then creates a resonant heartbeat inside the floor, he creates a purplish ripple that opens a crack as a large Beholder thing, emanating a drop in temperature emerges…“it smells you little carrion” tentacles try to grasp at everything in the area…

Immediately this thing appears just on the edge of the battle. Everyone inside feels the temperature change but they are not trapped. He learned the words from one of the Dwarves.

The Troglodytes need an immediate morale roll. The forces do not break! The Troglodytes do believe the illusion is real and they begin backing up from the fissure. The Troglodytes are distracted by this thing and are somewhat panicking or spooked! They will be fighting at -2 to hit.

Round 2.

• Lucien concentrates and adds condensation to the walls.
• Titus is attacking.
• Maervahr flies into the room, hugging the ceiling.
• Thorgard and Lok-Vurn attack.
• Tatrin casts Hold Person.
• Litlee casts Hold Person.
• Fothas attacks.
• Erasma attacks.
• Azrin attacks.

Disbelieve checks go off, which are the two highest ranked officers and the Shaman. One of the leaders tries to disbelieve, but if he fails he will be hit automatically for twice damage. One fails to disbelieve. The leader just failed to disbelieve, he does not take twice damage as said previously.

The javelins all go at Titus or the illusionary Beholder. 9 art on Titus and the others are at the Beholder. It has an AC 0. They do 25 damage to the Beholder but it just laughs it off! The remainder go off on Titus and they all need 20s to hit. The javelins must get a 20 to hit him. He takes 6 damage. The other medium range javelins that go off on the illusion miss and one hit on Titus for 2 damage.

The officers are throwing at Titus and both miss. The higher ranked one goes for the illusion and misses. Everyone who took damage take 1 extra damage.

The ground forces are attacking. The officer goes after Titus and misses and then the other Troglodytes go for the others.

One on Thorgard, who has AC -7, he fights off all the Troglodytes. Only 4 can surround him due to his size. Two more are going for Titus who fights them all off! Actually one claw hits for 3 damage. Thorgard hits for 8 killing one, Lok-Vurn doesnt kill one, Fothas kills one. Azrin is using a short sword and she missed by one!

Both Hold Person spells finish. Litlee casts it on the Shaman and it fails! He is instantly held by the spell! The Hold Person is targeting the leader, who fails and two others pass their saving throw. The tentacles attack and there are 7 of them that attack with 8 HD, he needs to roll a 7 and there are one attack against each of the four leaders, all four get hit dealing 5, 6, 5, and 6 damage each. Three more tentacles attack the group at the door. He gets two out of 3 dealing 3 and 7 damage. One of them is picked up and smashed into the ceiling, so the Troglodyte thinks it is dead!

The illusion continues. Fothas hits for 8 damage, killing one. There are 5 normal Troglodytes on the ground and one frozen Leader.

Round 3.

• Titus attacks and then falls back.
• Maervahr begins casting Cloudkill.
• Thorgard and Lok-Vurn attack. Lok-Vurn falls back.
• Tatrin holds the door.
• Litlee casts Hold Person.
• Fothas attacks.
• Erasma attacks and then falls back.
• Azrin moves silently.
• Lucien starts pulling down the gallery.

Initiative is tied. Morale checks are made for the Troglodytes. They dont fail to surrender so they are fleeing. Thorgard hits for 8 damage and kills one!

The Illusionary Tentacles start pulling down the gallery, many panic begin to flee. All of them get an attack.

Fothas kills one, Erasma does 4 damage, Azrin holds as they rush past her. All of the others are dropping from the upper level or running down the stairs.

Hold Person is 5 segments and Thorgard hit one for 8 and 9 damage, Titus hits for 8 damage. One is dead and two are wounded. Litlee is in the middle of a spell. Cloudkill goes off at the same time as the Hold Person spell.

The Troglodytes flee to get away from the Cloudkill spell. The Troglodytes will take falling damage from the gallery being pulled down so they will take 2d6 damage from that. There are 30 of them plus the Shaman. The first 5 take 7 damage killing two, then next take 8 damage, killing 3 more. The next take 8 damage each, two more dead and the last ones take 9 damage killing three more.

Many of the javelin wielding Troglodytes fall dead. The party can only see the hologram effect of the spell.

Lok-Vurn is delayed but is able to get away. Azrin stands in the doorway. This huge cloud of green death drops to the ground with the weight of its poison. Immediately the Troglodytes are killed by the spell and the Troglodytes that are buried or die by being paralyzed. The Cloudkill eventually overruns all of the Troglodytes inside. Azrin gets out of the doorway and gets away. Fothas goes into the gas and looks for loot.

Lucien is occupied with the illusion and Litlee is going to try and stop one of the Troglodytes. It tries to go out the door but immediately comes face to face with our Dwarven Men-at-arms and it surrounds to the 25 Dwarves.

Titus goes to kill the held Troglodytes.

Fothas is looking for the Shaman's items though they dont look valuable. One thing catches his eye, a dagger that is sheathed and has a sigil on the hilt right in the center. It looks like a bunch of Humans skulls in a ball. This sigil is twice the width of a gold piece. It looks very decorative. There is a coin pouch which is quite heavy.

• 320 pp
• Decorative Dagger (strong magic)
• Clay flask that has liquid inside. (lesser magic)
• A few javelins without poison.

Litlee goes up the walls to find where the Umber Hulks came from. She has a torch and finds that a corner of the wall has been built into the side of the cave wall. There is a tunnel with steps carved by Dwarf hands. It opens to an open area, about 20' below where we are currently standing.

Titus asks Erasma for a Cure Light Wounds and receives 7 hitpoints.

We are planning to go down into the basement. Titus stops using psionic Enlargement.

We go through the door and find a storage area. We find amongst the Dwarven supplies, there are two chests that stick out with the same sigil in cold iron that was found by Fothas. The others look to be of Dwarven construction. There are stairs descending sharply several levels, possibly going to the basement. Tatrin had cast Find Traps but does not detect traps.

We continue moving forward and find ourselves inside a cold basement, stacked up with a ton of supplies. A wide variety of more expensive weapons and some material components. Nothing is marked with that same sigil on the dagger like that chest. There is a 12' diameter gong positioned next to a tube going up to a chimney. Maervahr is tapping some of the walls, listening for hollowness. The Dwarves look for shifting stonework and Titus knocks on walls too. We both agree that a section of the wall sounds hollow on the south wall. All of the Dwarves believe that it will slide. There are no traps here.

They try to open the door. It opens with a push and inside are some sharp stone steps rising upwards to another obvious door about two levels upwards. There are no other doors. There are no traps and then Find Traps expires.

We get to the top of the stairs and open a secret door, standing on the opposite side of the keep.

There is an edge of a cavern but there is only one broken javelin here. The area looks wide open just before we return to the basement. We begin to search the basement.

The Dwarves outside of the Keep are not surprised. There are no characters out there. The Dwarves see a light coming down and they are all on the walls. They see a dim set of lights, like several coals in the blackness down the corridor to the north east. They count 5 burning coals in the blackness.

The Heavy Footmen's Captain tells the Dwarf to get the party and they will brace for a charge. The Crossbowmen are under the command of the Captain. They will shoot their bolts at them.

The five coals charge forward, these are firey Hell Hounds. They can leap and bound and are vicious. The Dwarves fire and must hit AC 5 and the Dwarves have THAC0 18. The Sergeant also has an 18. There are 5 hits from the Crossbowmen for 5, 5, 2, 3, and 4 damage. None of them fall to the bolts. They continue their charge. The Hell Hounds will try to break through the portcullis which the Dwarves shut. The Hell Hounds have an 18 Strength and they can emit fire while trying to break through. The bars must save versus magic fire. The bars hold! They are still outside of the portcullis!

The Dwarf starts shouting about the Hell Hounds and we can hear the alarm being sounded.

• Titus charges outside.
• Maervahr flies to get outside.
• Thorgard and Lok-Vurn charge.
• Tatrin charges.
• Crossbowmen shoot and Heavy Footmen start gathering by the doors.
• Litlee starts moving out.
• Fothas heads out.
• Erasma charges.
• Azrin follows everyone out.
• Lucien goes out.

The Hell Hounds have to check morale but they pass and try to get through. They are using their fire to get through the doors. Behind the portcullis is the wooden door into the keep, it catches fire.

The Dwarves fire their shots, shooting at their backs. 3, 4, 4, 5, and 2 damage is done to the Hell Hounds.

Round 3.

We continue moving and the Dwarven ground forces position themselves. The Hell Hounds need to make a morale check again. They keep going.

The portcullis bars hold fast but the door is burning.

The Dwarves do 2, 4, 2, and 4 damage this time, all of them are still standing. We get outside and see the door is roaring in flames.

• Titus moves up.
• Maervahr moves toward the wall.
• Litlee moves.
• Fothas moves and then fires.
• Erasma advances.
• Azrin still moves.

Round 4.

Shots are fired and hit for 3 and 4 damage. None of them are dead yet. Fothas gets in place and Maervahr rises atop the wall.

The Hell Hounds turn and flee.

• Maervahr plans to cast Lighting Bolt.

They move 6“ away, they are just inside our light. The next round, the Hell Hounds get away.

Maervahr's Fly spell expires. The Clay Flask is on Maervahr. Maervahr handed off the dagger to someone going in to check the chest.

Those opening the chest, find that the dagger is a tool to open the chest, as predicted. There is a weird windy noise and the Chest pops open.

• 10000 sm, 1900 gs, 380 ps
• 18100 ed

The Dwarves that came down say this is not their treasure. We collect all the coins.

We discuss going to explore the tunnel where the Umber Hulks came from and know that there is a pond over there.

Maervahr tosses a continual light coin from Thorgard to throw down the tunnel to see better.

Maervahr, Fothas and Lucien stay at the wall as the rest of the party goes to explore the pond area.

Down the tunnel, they find four corpses of Purple Worms with their maws facing the party. They are laying on top of each other like old ropes and look to be eaten out like a loaded potato. They look like they go 30' in our light. There is a passageway going off to the right and straight.

Some of the company is fearful of the area. Something has dug out a gutter and laying inside of it is a Purple Worm that is captured inside of a dangerous looking metal trap made of twisted scrap metal made of sinew, rope and intestine. Something has started eating the Purple Worm here too. They come up the side of the gutter and find a smaller passage that is 10' wide. They find a lung shaped area.

This area has been dug out by some kind of creature and they find two sections. There is a left lung and a bigger right lung sized area. They find that there is a bunch of hard body parts, though unidentifiable body parts. There are thousands of coins along with a white sack. There is a mechanical trap on the left lung on the dirt stone tunnel.

Azrin attempts to Remove Traps but fails in the attempt. She finds that it is conceals by a cleverly packed layer of dirt and gravel. There is a mechanical device underneath but finds no way to disable it.

Erasma grabs some fleshy stuff to throw into the trapped pit. With a big pile of gizzards, she throws it and they fall through the floor and a sword shoots out, as a big bear trap shuts like a pair of claws. The trap does not reset.

Erasma goes around the pit and is standing next to the treasure.

• 7100 sm, 5600 ed, 7700 gs, white burlap sack.
• The sack contains gemstones, thousands of them.

They leave behind the silver coins. The Men-at-arms want to return to Yaga-Kell though Titus offers them the silver coins in exchange for staying. They reluctantly except. They stay behind with the silver.

We get all of the coins and start heading back.

There is an encounter while we heading back through the tunnels…

We are not surprised but they are. Actually nobody is surprised.

We encounter a force of 95 Gnomes armed with spears and Man-Catchers. They are flying the banner of Lawful Good. We see them at the distance of 80' and nobody is surprised.

• We go to parley.

Fothas goes to talk for us. They are well met and they say they are Worm Hunters from a nearby hold that is only a week away. They travel great distance to hunt great Worms to find treasure inside their bellies. They offer us free healing.

Fothas and Titus take their offer. Titus is healed for 3 and 7 hitpoints. Fothas is healed for 3 and 6 hitpoints. They do strange dances and perform chants. They have warpaint in teal and red.

Heal spells are cast and Thorgard is at full now.

Maervahr asks what the name of the Hold is that they come from. It is called Sevihd Hold.

We invite the Dwarves to join us at Yaga-Kell to stay and they agree. The Scout Group were also attacked by Hell Hounds so they were down some Dwarves but they join us.

We arrive at Yaga-Kell without issue.

We inform them of the success of our mission and they will grant the Meteorite Armor for Titus.

The value of the gems is 5,500 gp.

Titus and Erasma spar with the dagger and it grants a +2, +3 versus large creatures!

Litlee, Titus, Erasma, Fothas, Azrin and Maervahr all get gem shares.

PCs who take gems take 1000 less gold and that amount in gems.

player share: 66 pp, 1438 gp, 2256 ep, some people need to take gems instead of part of gold.

Maervahr takes 800 gp worth of gems from Erasma. Maervahr gets 66 pp, 438 gp, 2256 ep minus 800 gp in gems.

Lucien gets the dagger! It is id 351.

There is a clay flask. Thorgard finds that it is oil. It is sold for 750 gp. NVM!

There were 9 PCs and 3 Henchmen including the Dwarves. However, Titus and Fothas roll off for the oil. Titus claims the oil! It is id 352.

• PCs get 3,542 xp
• PCs showing up this session get 3,348 xp
• Lucien gets 3,792 xp
• Henchmen get 1048 xp.

We will head back to Maelc. We are given a measure of respect from the Dwarves of Yaga-Kell. We have the ability to be in Yaga-Kell as long as we are staying there as a Mountain Dwarf from our group. Azrin, Fothas, Thorgard, etc. Titus cannot come to the hold by himself.

Maervahr is going to spend some time casting Stoneskin on people that need it.

Azrin and Litlee will be training. Fothas will be staying behind in Yaga-Kell for his armor to be forged.

Ending on