For Ithimyr:

• Investigating rumors about the Bandits southeast of Gren.
• Looking for any news on figures seen outside of the Chapterhouse or to confirm that the place is still under the control of the Church of Riswa.
• Communicating with Exar (via the Brooch of Ciril he was given) and the Order of the Midnight Sun on what they plan for the Stone Circles. Also he still wishes to join the order should they accept him.
• The issue of the Toy Doll / Teddy Bear. Ithimyr has had this thing exorcised however, under the watchful eye of Sira, he will carefully remove the magical item found inside the doll to further determine what the mystery of this is. He does not plan to touch it with his hands, maybe using tongs.

For Maervahr:

• He should now be relatively fluent in Elvish so he has started studying Orcish with the guidance of Ithimyr and others within our group. He hopes to become fluent quickly.
• Now that the group has acquired a cottage, although it has not been determined as a group what will become of this place, Maervahr would like to turn the basement into a library / magical studies / science lab and will begin pulling together resources and people that might help with this.
• He checks on Rudolph Rinn and Dan to make sure that their curse is now appeased.
• Looking into rumors of what has happened with the Boarmen since their last encounter. Did we stir up trouble?
• Looking into rumors of any new activity at the Marble Keep and signs of a dragon that may have dwelled there.

For Ithimyr:

• Nothing of note heard about Rob's bandits. When Ithimyr asked around, people said (1) They haven't heard of bandits raiding the east road much, so maybe those bandits are raiding elsewhere or are otherwise content for the moment, and/or (2) Perhaps they are now somehow involved with the bandit situation to the west and have better things to do than try to pick of merchants on the east road?
• The Chapterhouse and old church are under 24/7 guard and construction is proceeding at speed. They haven't been attacked by anything the guards couldn't manage. Duskhollow has some classed guardsmen at the place, as well.
• Exar destroyed the remaining two standing stones, but privately informs Ithimyr that he retained a sample of the stone and a rubbing of the runes, in case he ever has the chance to share them with a scholarly member of the Order. At this point he hopes no more planar horrors will be unleashed despite the Koalinth activity at the chalice.
• Ithimyr finds within the stuffed bear a golden ring, which he removes without touching it.

For Maervhar:

• He is learning Orcish and started doing so right when he completed Elvish. Since he started on 494-08-06, he will be fluent on 495-02-06.
• Maervhar has relocated his own magical possessions and components (spellbook stuff, etc) into the basement of the cottage. However, if he wants to advance his capabilities farther, he will have to consult a sage.
• Consulting a sage is required to learn how to make magic items, and could also be done in order to gain other skills that Maervhar might find useful. The sage rules start on DMG 31 I believe, and Maervhar can go looking for sages in towns and cities any time he wants, whether to seek their services or just to gather information on what kind of sages live where.
• The original due date of Rudolph's soul has not yet arrived, but he tells Maervhar not to worry, and that he believes in the fruits of the party's work.
• Nothing heard in Gren about the Boarmen.
• Folk here and there will claim to have seen the Green Dragon or know someone who has. It sounds like the Dragon is actively hunting in this region.
• No rumors of activity at the Marble Keep other than the Dragon.

The Characters:

• ITHIMYR - CLR 4 / RGR 3
• ZENOBIA - MAG 3 / THF 4, AC 6/8, CG
• RHINOCK - FTR 4

We head back to the Marble Keep to look for the treasure on the Treasure Map.

Ithimyr brings Soul Devourer (the ghost dog) and Zenobia has a Guard Dog and a Hawk familiar.

The Mercenaries:

• There are 5 Light Footmen available. They cost 1 gp / day. Zenobia hires the 5 Light Footmen for 5 gp, d3+3. They have default Loyalty, 45% (average).

We head toward the MARBLE KEEP and arrive without incident.

There is a surprise roll when we arrive at the keep. We are on 10' scale inches when we go through the outer keep wall. We can see flashes of movement inside the keep. The movement of Ghouls are about, hiding between bits of rubble and waiting for us to enter.

We attack at range. Zenobia hits one with a sling. Ithimyr is able to turn 10 of them.

The Ghouls that are left charge toward us. It turns out that these remaining 3 are actually Ghasts that charge us. The Ghast paralysis affects Elves. They take 3 damage from our counterattack and Ithimyr take 8 damage. He becomes paralyzed! Zenobia becomes nauseous. Only 1 of the Light Footmen passes their saving throw and they get nauseous. Zenobia takes 6 damage and becomes paralyzed. The Guard Dog engages but it dodges all of the attacks against it. One of the Footmen is ripped apart by the Ghasts.

Rhinock hits a Ghast again but all of them are going after the Footmen. There are 3 hits. One Footman takes 4 damage and dies. Another Footmen is hit and also dies which means all of our Light Footmen are dead now. The Guard Dog is paralyzed. Rhinock hits one for 9 damage and is the only one left standing. However, he also gets quickly paralyzed.

The entire party is disabled and helpless.

Our Ox flees and the Guard Dog is dragged away. Our entire party gets dragged away, along the stone ground of the keep. There are sharp stones and metals that scratch up our backs. Pieces of our clothing rip off. We are dragged around to the backside of the keep. A Doorway slides open. It is a heavy stone door. There is Awful pain as we are dragged down some stone steps. Ithimyr's helmet rolls off and he is knocked out cold.

Some period of time later, Ithimyr has regained consciousness.

Everything is dark and there is the smell of undeath. There is a lack of oxygen as his body begins to tingle. It is as though he has been completely asleep and he can barely move his mouth to shout in pain.

Finally, Ithimyr can move his arms and legs again. He can feel his sword scabbard on the side of his body as he hits against something cold and stone-like. He finds himself in some kind of rectangular stone box that is tall enough to stand in. Crammed into a box and leaning against a wooden plank. He stumbles and almost crashes down when his limbs unlock. There is the sound of groaning and moaning from somewhere ahead but it is difficult to know because there is nothing but cold stone on all sides. Ithimyr is inside of a 6 and a half foot tall sarcophagus.

He pushes out and opens the stone lid. Ithimyr steps out, The others are doing the same thing until we all find ourselves inside of a 30' x 30' room. A sickly orange light shines down from an angular hallway. The room is bordered with vertically standing stone sarcophagi. We have each stepped out of one when suddenly the group hears from the hallway definite movements. Ghouls and Ghasts. There is a grinding sound of stone.

We look around at the walls. They are made of smooth stone brick and old masonry. There is a small wooden basket and a stack of about 10 torches. Inside is some flint and steel wrapped in old twine.

All of still have on our armor and shields but our gems and valuables are gone.

The undead vocalizations we could hear previously have now stopped. Zenobia tries to Move Silently and sneaks up ahead. Ithimyr takes two torches and the tinderbox and gets ready to light one.

Zenobia sneaks into another chamber and sees a glowing crystal that provides a dim illumination. Aimlessly milling about the chamber are several Ghouls and a Ghast. There is also a wooden dungeon door but in front of the passageway is a sarcophagus, a few of them. They are laid down normally not standing vertically. Zenobia can hear chewing and feasting on something inside. The 20' opening in the wall leads to another chamber, the one that we found ourselves in.

Ithimyr finds that a corner sarcophagus is built against the wall and in the back is a passageway. We pull open the stuck sarcophagi, which reveals a passageway in the wall…

We shut the door behind but make too much noise, the Ghouls and Ghasts shout in alarm. We shut the door with a huge bang. We can hear the Ghouls and Ghasts just beyond the door. Ithimyr spikes the door with two iron spikes and destroys the door mechanism, which makes loud noises. We can hear a horrible scraping on the stone wall but the spikes hold fast.

Rhinock scouts ahead. The passage turns at a 40 degree angle until reaching a ramp. There is about a 6' high ceiling. We go up the ramp which goes for another 60' and then after 30' it ends. At the end of the passage are metal spikes built into the wall like a ladder. They are going up into a shaft but we cannot see what is up at the top. Rhinock, Zenobia and Ithimyr all start to climb up. We find a trap door at the top.

Ithimyr is the only one that can see that there are 3 Ghouls and a Ghast in the passage now and they are charging at him. The Ghast keeps coming but the Ghouls stop. The Ghast is charging! It grabs onto the bottom spike and tries to gnash at Ithimyr's legs. There is a chance that a thrown object will hit Ithimyr when Zenobia throws down an oil flask, but it misses.

The Ghast attacks Ithimyr and his shield does not count so he has AC 3. Both of its claws hit and he takes 8 damage, fails his saving throw against paralyzation and becomes paralyzed! The Ghast climbs up over his frozen form, which causes 3 more damage and it tries to bite Zenobia.

Zenobia drinks a Potion of Flying while Rhinock cannot open the door. Zenobia flies up and manages to open the door for him. The Ghast follows Zenobia and is making its attacks, but misses.

They fall back into a pentagonal shaped room with a big black cauldron and stone walls. Rhinock pulls out his military pick. The Ghast continues its attack against Rhinock who takes 8 damage from 2 claws and then also becomes paralyzed. Zenobia flies out and can see the black cauldron with large fireplaces. There are tables set with dishes, mortar and pestles placed on top and the room itself has a 45' vaulted high ceiling that comes to a point.

Each of the walls are 60' in length in the pentagonal room. Ithimyr is still frozen in the shaft while Zenobia looks around for something to defeat the creature. The Ghast crawls on top of workbenches and starts trying to climb the walls, its hands scraping against the wall. Next to one of the braziers are 12 small clay flasks that Zenobia grabs. The Ghast is trying to get up the wall but starts going for Rhinock.

The Ghast grabs onto Rhinocks leg and throws him down the shaft but he knocks into Ithimyr and then they both fall down the shaft. Zenobia finally hits the Ghast with a flaming oil (from the 12 flasks) and the Ghast runs to the trap door and jumps down vertically. The Ghast starts to flee down the ramp and now both the ramp and shaft is illuminated. Ithimyr and Rhinock are still paralyzed at the bottom of the shaft.

Zenobia cuts the straps on Rhinock and Ithimyr's armor and pulls us up into the room. She drags Rhinock's body over to the top of the trap door and then she flies down for Rhinock's stuff. While doing this, she hears no noise. Zenobia stacks us on top of the trap door with all the random stuff in the room. She then drives a spike into the wall and makes a harness to stay up high indefinitely. The trap door would have been hidden like a secret door but its now fully covered by a bunch of stuff including the paralyzed bodies of her companions.

After 10 minutes have passed, we find that we are heavily wounded and still paralyzed. Zenobia notices that there are stone arms on the walls that are too long for a human. Each arm is identical to the other and each one is holding a candle made of stone that is finely crafted. Each arm is perfectly copied in some way as if made by a flawless mold. The room gives off a high class alchemical Magic-User vibes. There is a lot of valuable alchemy equipment in the room and Zenobia realizes, though very faintly, that there is a magic circle. It looks like the kind to be used for protection against Demons.

20 minutes have passed and the rest of the party are still paralyzed. There is no noise from anywhere. After the 20 minutes, however, Zenobia thinks the Ghast is not coming back. There is lots of equipment that may be valuable so Zenobia gathers up a bunch of it. There is about 1/3 worth of a 1,000 gp Alchemical equipment set.

While inspecting the room, Zenobia notices one of the flasks is made of silver and other containers are made of glass, stone or clay. She tastes one of the flasks… She stops herself suddenly and waits for Fly potion to wear off (mixing potions can be a bad risk). Instead, Zenobia inspects the arms. On one, there is some indication of scorch marks in the back. Fire definitely touched this hand.

After an hour and a half, Ithimyr can move again.

There is a lowered rope and we check on Rhinock and he is still alive. Zenobia listens at the door and does not hear anything. Zenobia sifts through the braziers to see what may be found while Ithimyr searches around on one of the workbenches. He finds a compartment inset in the bottom of the table. It is located way in the back of the table and it has a little wooden handle.

Zenobia checks for traps on the drawer and she finds an almost visible telltale glare from the torch, that the door shines strangely. She can see that a small circular area sparkles slightly as if there is a drawn sigil on the door itself that is almost invisible. It is drawn in a particular pattern. She could try to disable it with a check.

Ithimyr drives the military fork through the back of the drawer and the wood cracks and it slides open, facing away from him toward the wall. Suddenly, there is a bright flash that fills the room! White-red flames blow a hole in the stone wall. Zenobia looks in the drawer and finds three scroll cases all made of bone. One has a sigil on it that depicts a horned eye with horns coming out. There is an etching, “FOR YOU TALION.”

Zenobia examines them for traps or runes.

Following this event, the southern door pushes open and 6 beefy Fire Beetles burst in and head straight for us!

They have HD 1+2 for each of the Fire Beetles.

Zenobia casts Sleep and sleeps all of them. We make short work of them and then Ithimyr and Zenobia harvest all the glands. There are 3 per beetle for a total of 18 glands.

Ithimyr uses the magic brooch he was given to communicate with Exar and finds that they can communicate flawlessly. However, they can only transmit very simple thoughts. He tells Exar where he is and what happened.

Zenobia examines the circle more closely and sees that it appears to be a permanent fixture.

Rhinock wakes up. Zenobia applies a torch to the stone hand with the scorch marks and nothing happens. The candle will not light. Ithimyr examines the wall closely and finds a concealed door that is directly centered on the scorched arm statue. The other arms are all unmarked and they have no door crease.

Ithimyr examines the Treasure Map closely. The Ghasts dragged us through the very door we found on the treasure map, which shows 5 rooms. 3 of them are the same chambers we were in. The entrance indicated on the map is on the far side of the sarcophagus room.

Zenobia checks out the silver flask. It has no particular smell really and she can't put finger on what it smells like. She pours some on the table and she touches her tongue to the liquid. For a moment, she does not feel anything but we see her form grow smaller for a second. She hands a potion to Rhinock.

Two of the scroll cases are filled with dust but one has Magic-User or Illusionist spells on them.

After spending more time searching the walls here, we cannot find a way to open the SECRET DOOR in the PENTAGONAL ROOM.

We open the main door and find a hallway going 40' before turning right. The walls, floor and ceiling are all the exact same as the other areas we found inside the Marble Keep. Ithimyr puts a gland inside of his holy symbol, which will allow him to see out to 10'. We put one on the end of Rhinock's military fork.

At the end of a dead end, a handle sticks out of the stone wall. The handle looks like it can be grasped and turned. Rhinock turns the door handle and it slides open with surprisingly quiet movement. The door opens up to a hallway that runs perpendicular to the one we were in.

We head toward the south turn which opens to a 50' hallway and then turns again. At the end we find a wooden door and decide to listen at the door. Our party hears nothing inside so we open the door into a small room. It is a completely nondescript room with no furniture. Ithimyr searches for anything on the walls before we decide to cross the room. We do not find anything unusual and all the walls sound solid.

Zenobia checks the door for traps. Finding none, Ithimyr opens the door only to find another bigger non-descript room. On the empty floor are a couple of marks from blood. They look like they were made recently and run along the edges of the room. Something took a wound here and that was the result of their wound. Ithimyr finds some smaller bits of blood but they are very faint. That go through door we just came in through.

Rhinock looks up toward the ceiling and does not find anything of note. Zenobia goes along the north wall, looking for trip wires or loose stones, but does not find anything. Rhinock listens at the other door but when Ithimyr crosses the room, he disappears…

Suddenly, Ithimyr finds himself somewhere else and there is a large pile of teeth in the room with Zenobia and Rhinock.

We realize that this is the PORTAL ROOM that the other group found at the north end of the MARBLE KEEP. None of us were here but we heard the story from the other adventurers in Gren. Ithimyr has disappeared and Zenobia pockets the monster teeth.

Ithimyr finds himself in a room waist deep in teeth. There is a door and a handle and inside of the keyhole is a key. He tries to turn the key and it allows him to push open to door. With the many pounds of teeth piled up in the room, some of the teeth pour out into a hallway. To his right is another door and a corridor that goes to left. Ithimyr listens at the door and checks for any recent tracks on the ground. Finding none and hearing nothing, he pushes open the door and finds 3 corpses of desiccated Huge Spiders. Around the dead spiders are the cocooned bodies of Humans and Elves. Inside the cocoons, he finds nothing of value. They all appear to have been looted and pillaged. Amongst the corpses he finds the bodies of Lathar, Vargas, and Halzgaz.

Ithimyr uses the brooch to communicate with Exar and to let him know his situation.

Eventually Ithimyr makes his was back to the hall. He is moving along a hallway with sconces on the wall. It is noted that Ithimyr was vocalizing when talking with Exar, it was not a mental type of telepathy.

We (except for Ithimyr) make it back to the main room of the Marble Keep, this is the first room with the staircase that leads out to the surface. Quietly, we go up and look around, finding ourselves at the top of the stairs. The entrance is close to the front of the keep. We can see that the Sun is gone and it is now night time. Zenobia makes contact with Snowy, her Hawk familiar. The Hawk communicates that she is circling overhead and says that there are creatures that were prowling around. It says that the creatures suddenly galloped toward the back of the keep and disappeared into a hidden door in the wall. There has been no movement from the large pack of creatures since.

Currently, Snowy can see two Ghouls on the surface, looking for something. Zenobia asks if she can she our stuff on the ground? All of our belongings are cast aside but they are there. We make our way down through the Keep grounds, making their way down this way at a casual pace.

Suddenly, a rider reveals himself to be Exar. He has been here for 2 hours and noticed the undead activity in the Keep. Where is Ithimyr? Exar thinks for a sec and he reaches out to Ithimyr using the brooch.

Ithimyr says that there are 3 doors in the room he is in. He finds himself at the hidden entrance to the trap door to the tower but there is a Ghoul in the tower. Looking at the sky, Ithimyr sees that today is a New Moon and he can move along the wall to get to the entrance. He does not see any Ghouls as he goes.

Ithimyr's Warhorse retreated to a place nearby luckily so he is able to mount up. We find Zenobia's Pony sleeping over by a nearby hill and we find the Ox closer to the point where we were before. Exar casts Cure Light Wounds and the Ox is healed by DRUIDIC magic.

We successfully return to Gren…

The armor that is being refitted will be ready in two days, on 9/1.

We use Detect Magic and find that none of the alchemy items are magical. All of our packs were packed full to hold all of these items. The scroll is magic as expected and the beaker that Zenobia tasted has a strong magic aura on it.

It is indeed a Magic-User scroll that contains Invisibility, Protection from Normal Missiles and Tongues. Zenobia takes it and gains 800 xp.

The alchemical stuff is worth 950 gp. The magic beaker might have random effects and we find it is worth 12,500 gp.

Skiff likes random stuff, especially quirky items but he does not like magic weaponry as much. He only wants to buy oddities. He has a den of knick knacks and stuff like that for sale.

Treasure split is 4,483 gp EACH! We are selling the magic decanter / beaker. It may be a Beaker of Plentiful Potions.

During the downtime activity, Ithimyr will heal everyone.

4,803 xp each.

Zenobia gets 5,603 xp and “can” learn Invisibility if she spends one entire day and does not will the scroll to Skiff.

Ithimyr Pays off his loan to Skiff which is 4000 gp.