Dan went to Criss Antha to find a sage about the Lorelai spirit. En route to the city, he started feeling better…

Characters Played this Session:

• Morric - AC 0/2. Owed upkeep: 400 gp (paid).
• Vras Skag - Assassin AC 5/8. Owed 300 gp upkeep (paid).
• Maervahr - Magic-User AC 10/10. Owed 400 gp upkeep (paid).
• Gil - Cleric / Fighter AC -1/2. Owed upkeep.
• Dan - AC 9/10. Owed 2 months of upkeep.
• Ghrul - AC 2/4.

The party is headed off to Akemeledain which is located south east of Gren.

It is a dark and stormy day as the rain is falling heavy. It is also very cold. Akemeledain lies in the forest to the south east. The last time someone was there was when the Hydra was killed,

There are no Hirelings available in Gren right now. Link Boys and Porters can be hired but the Mercenaries are not available nor any other Hirelings.

We grab out mounts and immediately leave on the road, traveling south through the heavy rain for some miles until we reach the south east forest. This forest lacks the “mystical faerie” feeling of the north forest, where the Druids reside. However, there are Gnolls and Goblins that abound…and no charm here…

The forest was the stomping grounds of a Brigand band some time back but nothing has been heard about them in months. The only news was about the Brigands to the west that have formed an alliance with some Werewolves. They were said to be threatening Merchants in the western grasslands. These Brigands are found in the direction of Ulan, on the edge of the lands claimed by the Brigands and the Werewolves, along with their allies. Ulan itself is a small Thorpe and offers little to the Brigands so they do not mess with their residents.

This forest is not overly dense and it looks exposed for some distance with no difficult terrain. The weather is miserable outside. The magic Cat Familiar of Dan is only surprised on a 1. We travel for a couple of miles and the sun begins to come out suddenly. The rain cuts out and the drizzling of leaf water is all that can be heard. We can see that only a few different trees still have their leaves this late into the season.

Through the leafless trees we can see som movement in the skies,

Suddenly, there is a call of a Great Eagle. We spot a Giant Eagle way up ahead, coasting on the autumn winds, its head is cocked toward us as if surveying us through the trees.

We discuss our next options and we did confirm that we are traveling with a covered wagon.

The Giant Eagle drops down some feet away from the party and comes to a whooshing stop atop the tallest trees in the area. The entire tree shakes with its weight as it lands. It is approximately 15-20' away and perched 50' high. The Eagle Looks at our individual forms and that is when Dan hears a voice inside of his head, “You need not speak Eagle, I speak common”.

All Giant Eagles have telepathy.

Then, the Eagle calls into Maervahr's mind telepathically and its thoughts manifest in his mind. He is surprised we did not hesitate when it arrived and it finds us interesting though disorganized. It has no interest in creatures of human form. It then tells us that it nests in these woods and views it as its domain. It normally scours the forest for signs of evil.

We tell it about the Werewolves and Brigands out the west toward Ulan. We sense a feeling of shock and it says that this seems like a foul ordeal. “What could have brought these two evil folk together for such a purpose? Those fields to the west are not suited for birds such as a Giant Eagle”. The Eagle desires direct and violent crusade against evil.

Following some of our questions, the Eagle says it knows of the Boarmen and their Shaman but it only knows about them. Where it now dwells was once an Eagle eyrie and they destroyed 4 of his brethren. Now the Giant Eagle is a lone hunter.

Has he sought out any revenge against them? He says that their magic is powerful but often thinks of exacting revenge. He says that their number has been reduced in the last few months and that the Eagle would be struck down like his brethren.

We ask the Eagle if it has interest in destroying these Boarmen? Yes, but they are formidable. As it speaks, it appears that the entire trunk of its tree perch may sway and break at any moment. The Eagle proposes that we could join forces some day in the near future. We would need some sort of plan to overcome the Shaman's magic but it would be unhindered by the Shaman's gauntlet.

Asking about the Boarmen, the Eagle says it has seen about 40 Boarmen. It tells us that in some weeks time, to come back with a plan.

We decide that we might speak to the Druids first and find any Mercenaries we can in Criss Antha. The Eagle agrees with us that we could gather troops and it would be willing to lend its arterial powers to our forces. It believes that it has reasonable good chance of living after following through with the plan, even though it is the last of its clan. ELVAIN is the name of the Giant Eagle. It will return to this place in 2 weeks and we are to send a messenger to relay our progress.

Elvain soars off into the sky and a great breeze strikes us as it flies away. However, before leaving, the Eagle returns and we are struck by another rush of wind as it silently perched upon another struggling tree. It telepathically tells us that if we head farther to the south east we will encounter a band of Ogres that have moved into the area. They are now laired in a cave there permanently.

We have learned that this location, called Akemeledain, is the ancient shrine named by the worshippers of Cine. They were originally a group that came across from the Sea of Candles. They were explorers and aquatic based enterprisers when they first traveled across the sea. They were considered the First travelers from across the sea to this land.

We head toward Akemeledain.

Though we have heard of the telepathy of Giant Eagles, this one was more eloquent. While we think of this, we continue forward through the forest.

Suddenly, coming into view, we can see that in the distance the form of two great Ogres standing guard outside of a cave. They 40 yards away with many scattered boulders lying about. The boulders are not big enough to conceal a wagon or anything of that size but the hills are layered.

Maervahr and Vras go to hide our horses and we disengage from the party. We quickly retreat back 10's of yards where we find a couple of suitable trees to hide behind and we also hide our horses and wagons. Eventually we rejoin with the party and go south along the edge of hills. We can see the Ogres at the entrance to the old cave that eventually leads to Akemeledain. There are trees everywhere all around this part of the forest.

We head down on foot to get the jump on the two Ogres out front. We have a 5-in-6 chance to surprise them. We rolled a 3 and we now have 3 segments of surprise!

Vras quickly kills one and then the other Ogre is dropped by the rest of the party.

The party approaches the cave and we see numerous pairs of Ogre tracks leading into and out of the cave. It looks like they drag corpses down from cave opening. Inside, it gets dark quickly. There are remnants of voices from deep within.

We surmise that it would be easy to draw the Ogres out. The Ogres outside were wielding large spears but were mostly naked. There were no marks on their bodies, other than weird Ogre bumps. They have yellow colored skin and purple eyes. Hanging onto their loin cloths are some coin pouches which have some coins: 20 gp in one and 60 gp in the other.

• 80 gp.

It is still the morning hours. We head back to retrieve the Porter and the Link Boy. The Link Boy lights a bullseye lantern and Maervahr lights his hooded lantern. We can see a couple of passages that fork off from the end of the entrance.

We can hear the rowdiness of the Ogres to the right yet we still go that way to deal with them. There are several large rocks in the middle of this cave which opens up. We can see more large rocks within and the bullseye lantern illuminates a great distance, out to 9“.

There are numerous great Ogre forms and the place smells foul. Our Link Boy begins to tremble with fear. We estimate about 7 Ogres and some of us are setting up to receive a charge or throwing their javelins. Maervahr prepares to cast Web.

We have a tied initiative but we kept forgetting about Reaction rolls that could apply.

The Ogres cease their revelry and grab some weapons. They shield their eyes from glow of the lantern and shout out in the Ogre language, but we do not speak it. Then they speak in Orc, which some of us do understand.

They demand to know why we have stumbled into their home and they demand that we leave unless they massacre us with their big brawny arms.

We are taken aback by trying to solve this without violence and the party hesitates. Our spells are canceled even though they are clearly preparing their weapons. Morric and some of the others charge in and the casters advance forward to cast our spells.

The Ogres have spears that resemble big leaf spears and are 11' long. Morric has a -4 to his AC because he is a Dwarf. One Ogre misses him! Gil gets hit by an Ogre for 6 damage.

Morric hits back for 4 damage. Vras hits with a poison arrow doing 5 damage and causing a poison save for the Ogre. Morric and Gil both strike and Gruhl also cuts down one. Stinking Cloud is cast. There are 3 Ogresin the Stinking Cloud. Morric and Vras both hit and Dan manages to assassinate one! We cut down 2 more Ogres in the Stinking cloud and Vras shot at 2 of them. One Ogre retreats out of the cloud. Vras kills another one while one of the Ogres is burnt alive from a flask of oil, One of them is still left alive. Ghrul managed to assassinate one of the Ogres with a short sword. There is a Morale roll and they got a 1, for the remaining one left.

There is one that is still alive despite some burning webs and it begins lumbering through the rocks past Vras. It is trying to flee out of the cave and seemingly, it got away?

We find 310 gp from the Ogre's pouches.

The party gets to work and starts to search through the bedrolls. However, we find nothing of value.

We progress further into the dungeons of Akemeledain.

We continue down the hallway but it is difficult to see what lies beyond the branching pathways. We can see that the left passage opens into a cave room where we find 2 female Ogres brandishing spears angrily. They are standing in front of 9 smaller Ogres. They look like Goblins and are all armed with clubs. They all immediately attack us…

Dan's Sleep spell goes off and causes the 8 Ogre Children to fall asleep. There is an arrow strike on one of the Ogres and Ghrul charges in, hitting one. Ghrul is now in melee with two female Ogres. There are 3 attacks on Gil who is also in melee and they are struck once for 3 damage. The same female Ogre is hit for 6 damage. These Ogres will not check for morale as they are defending their home and children.

During the combat, Gil's plate armor suddenly shifts aside and he takes 4 damage…it does not defend him! GIL IS WEARING CURSED ARMOR!

There are 2 attacks on Ghrul dealing 10 damage. In response, Gil ends the life of one female Ogre and now there is only one left. She goes for Gil but missed. Gil kills the last one finally! The Ogre children are easily dispatched and we massacre them.

We check through the bodies and find some coin pouches.

• 100 gp.

There is a grimy, mold covered chest in here. Vras inspects the chest for traps but does not find anything. Morric opens the chest and inside finds some coins and a potion.

• 1,500 ep,
• Potion on top of the coins (white pink, fizzling).

Morric takes a sip and begins to feel rejuvenated over the whole of his body. He believes this feels like a healing potion. Ghrul immediately drinks the potion and is healed for 2d4+2 hp.

Around the corner from this location is the entrance to Akemeledain. We find the sandstone colored slab of a door with faint traces of berry based dyes in the swirling chiseled words.

We push open the door and find the stairs that descend and twist. Going down, we find ourselves in a room with the mural on the opposite wall.

We head toward the northern room where lies the decapitated body of a 5-headed Hydra. It smells awful. After we examine the corpse, we can tell that nothing larger than a rat has eaten the Hydra. Maervahr uses Clairaudience to listen beyond our location and hears nothing but dead silence.

Dan opens the dungeon door and he finds himself in a hallway…full of terror!

Thats not all, as he sees something of interest on the wall. It is a carving that takes up a 10 foot section of wall. There are wave designs in the picture but it is abstract, like the “Oriental Adventures” wave carvings.

Morric examines the stone work using his Dwarven stone cunning and finds that this wall is constructed to conceal a door. Maervahr casts Knock to open the door and it blasts open!

Inside, we find a hidden chamber. The air in here smells completely dead as if it has been sealed up for a very long time. The room is 50' x 50' and has numerous cloth sacks scattered all about. The sacks appear to be filled with something and there are some scattered silver coins. In the middle of the sacks is a beautiful quiver for holding arrows. It is adorned with red and blue coloring, not unlike the pillars. There are also some arrows, red and blue in color, that spill out of the quiver. There are a total of 17 arrows.

All of the sacks are filled with coins:

• 5,100 cp,
• 2,300 sp,
• 220 pp.

Vras picks up the quiver and finds that it is an immaculate craft. It appears to be made from an Elf craftsman, hundreds of years ago. Maervahr grabs the coins, up to 1100 coin weight.

There is also a mechanism on the wall, like a lever, attached onto the wall. We tap the walls but all are solid. There is a natural organic pattern on the walls of the wave designs.

We take the entire haul and head back.

On the way back to Gren, a band of Merchants numbering at about 110 people just arrived into town with a caravan of gold and gems. We made it back to Gren without any issues on the way.

We also found that one of our Treasure Maps we found leads to Cave that is about 3 miles to the west. It would take us about 1 day travel.

We decide to follow up on the Treasure Map and head west. We arrive in Nettin where all of the buildings look like Ulan in style. They mostly have roofs of thatch. We can see the mountain pass and will head that way. The pass is 20' wide at its widest and is beset with sharp cliffs on either side. It was here where both of the Ogre bands were slayed by our party in a single day.

We can see only steep mountains before us.

We secure the mounts to boulders and head further to the west. We are traveling with difficulty for about 2 hours until we find the cave indicated on the TREASURE MAP.

It rises 6' above the ground and we will have to stoop down to get inside. It is also surrounded by thick thorns and scrub. Maervahr listens using Clairaudience and can hear movement inside. It sounds like something that is walking around with claws. Perhaps multiple creatures? They only move infrequently and the sound is very faint. Seemingly, far away…

We proceed inside and enter the low cave mouth. Once inside we can smell scent of something…furry, like a dank wet fur smell. It is pitch black inside and the ceiling is low all the way from the entrance. There is only dim light here and we can see about 60' ahead from the entrance.

Maervahr lights his hooded lantern, and Dan lights up his bullseye lantern. Now, we can see that the cave ceiling drops to about 5' in height and the walls are covered in moisture. The earth descends at shallow angle but we do not see anything else. Some of us touch the wall as we pass by and it looks like the passage may turn up ahead.

We go around the long path which gradually opens to about 10' wide. It eventually comes to a wall where the left side is a partially collapsed from an unformed part of the cave. We decide to proceed to the right.

The ground in this part of the cave is littered with a bed of dried grasses and tufts of fur. As we look around, we can see that off in the darkness there are moving shapes…

They pounce on us!

We are surprised for 1 segment and there are 6 of us.

There is one creature on Dan who is hit for 3 damage. 2 are on Maervahr who is also hit for 4 damage. Another one attacks Dan but misses. Ghrul is attacked and takes 2 damage. And there are 4 attacks on Gil, who takes a total of 7 damage.

Maervahr instantly goes invisible, using his Psionic Invisibility. Vras backs up. Dan casts Sleep and 2 immediately fall asleep. They have AC 7. One is struck and killed by Ghrul.

Meanwhile, they attack us back but Maervahr is not targeted. There are 2 on Dan this time and they strike him for 7 damage. He is still alive! Ghrul takes 3 damage. The ones on Morric all miss. Gil is also missed.

Maervahr casts Shield on himself. In the meantime, Dan goes down, UNCONSCIOUS! One attacks again on Ghrul, dealing 4 damage. Morric is missed.

Maervahr sneaks around to cast Burning Hands from behind the creatures. They are WOLVES! Morric gets attacked by 6 of them and takes a total of 9 damage! Burning Hands goes off on all 6 Wolves, dealing 4 damage to each one. 3 of them die immediately but there are 3 that are still alive.

We manage to kill all the Wolves.

Looking around in the lantern light, we can see a square bed in the natural looking cave. There are only inches of space for other passages leading out. The bed is covered in soft organic matter and is piled up for many inches.

Dan is still unconscious.

Ghrul finds that the organic matter goes down for 5 inches of the depth but inside, he finds something made of stone. It appears to have been hidden under the organic matter and continues in either direction. Below the organic matter he finds a stone sarcophagus. It is set in the ground like an open grave and it looks thick and heavy. The lid rests loosely.

He looks around the stone sarcophagus for any traps but does not find anything. No signs of any traps. It is a very old sarcophagus as he can tell it did not have any modern stone cutting techniques. The lid is not airtight as it is not snug. Ghrul lifts the stone up.

Inside, we find a withered human body with the poor remnants of a loin cloth made of deer skin. It is also wearing a headdress that has long since worn away leaving only crude strings and a couple feathers. There is also a skin that might have been a hat and a withered hand that still grasps a cruel looking sharp spear. We also find a wooden box.

Ghrul grabs the spear which cracks off the fingers of the decayed remains. The box is made of old wood and its top sits loosely. There is a weight inside and the sound of glass hitting glass inside. We open the box and find 4 vials inside, each with a different liquid and consistency. They each have a crude cork top and are potion sized. Morric tastes them:

• 1st one - Has a weird feeling, see a gas come out of his mouth which dissipates.
• 2nd one - It tastes like the most delicious liquid ever, except when compared to Dwarven ale. There is no visual effect.
• 3rd one - He feels more nimble and springy than he has ever felt. Also he feels like he can scale any height.
• 4th one - He has a feeling of control and domination with brief visions of snakes and lizards.

The spear looks to be a normal spear, just that it is well made. There is some leather twine that once hug around the head, part of the headdress. Gil picks up the headdress and can tell that it has seen better days. The headdress looks to be a religious item but does not seem to have value in its materials, other than to collector of historical curiosities.

The body is a human sized corpse. We look around the chamber and see cracks in the walls but they all look normal, possibly created from moisture and erosion. We investigate the walls and room further. Morric feels that this cave is completely natural.

Is there anything under the body? Nope. Just skin dust. This body looks like it was a priest from a nomadic tribe that dwelled in the area hundreds of years ago. There are Nomads in the area and have been here since before settlements were found in the area. In the distant past, the people worshipped primal elemental aspects of the gods.

The smoke potion resembled a kind of “gas smoke”. Kind of like the type that vampires turn into.

We return to Gren.

The session is ending on…

There is a strong magical aura on the spear but no magic aura on the headdress. The headdress is sold to Skiff for 180 gp and we get 260 gp for the quiver.

Treasure Split: Each of us get 453 XP.

• 87 platinum.
• 3 gold.
• 1 electrum.
• 8 silver.
• 5 copper.

The potion of gas that gave off a weird feeling goes to Maervahr. It is 25 coin in weight.

Gruhl takes the magic spear. Vras took the 17 arrows.

• Dan gets 1050 xp.
• Gil gets 1100 xp.
• Gruhl gets 1350 xp.
• Vras gets 1190 xp.
• Maervahr gets 1150 xp.
• Morric gets 1150 xp.