• We hear of a four headed Ettin that lairs somewhere to the north and our goal is to hunt down and destroy the Ettin. This would be a 7 day overland adventure.
• The Circle of Annihilation has been trying to kill the Green Dragon that lairs within the Marble Keep but has not been successful.

• 3-1-495 for Adaeril.
• 2-27-495 for Iona.
• 1-2-495 for Maervahr.
• 1-8-495 for Kek.
• 1-2-495 for Wine

• Kek - Human Fighter 4, AC 0/5 no shield, 12“ move. 35 hp, Can't be targeted during the surprise round.
• Maervahr - Magic-User 5
• Kana - Human Druid 1, AC 7/7, Doors 1-2, AL N, Birthdate 12-4-475.
• Rhinock - Half-Orc Fighter 6
• Sarkas - Halfling Cleric / Fighter

Kek finally took a bath and he declares that he is proud of his magic chainmail (id 29). We discuss how all magic armor gives you 1 better than the normal movement rate for that armor type.

Maervahr pitches in 20 gp for an Ox and a Cart. We have 3 Porters and 1 Linkboy who is using a hooded lantern.

We will head out for the Marble Keep after awaiting for some characters to catch up in the timeline.

Time advances and we finally head out to the Marble Keep. Once we arrive, we do not see any creatures outside of the keep. The clouds are heavy in the sky.

We will pay our upkeep at the end of the session.

Maervahr uses Clairaudience to listen at different areas throughout the ruined keep. He focuses his thoughts on the big pit, the Animated Armor room, the Marilith Demon Statue room. He finds that it is silent in all three areas.

We head toward the pit room through the hidden entrance. The rubble that was previously left on top of the trap door has been moved and flung to the side. We can see that there are animal droppings nearby, dog sized but completely flattened. We see no discernible footprints.

We head down through the ruined staircase and into the corridor that goes to the right. There is a door to the left. Sarkas, Rhinock and Kek are opening doors.

We push through the door and find that the room inside looks empty except for a small wooden stage or platform in the corner. Something lies on top of it but is now covered in dust. It looks like a 10' x 10' platform (pallet) with thin wooden beams but there is nothing under it and we find no secret compartments.

We head through the east door which is barely illuminated by the bullseye lantern. It is a 10'-15' high passage with a peak at the center. We find a gaping column that goes straight down into the earth. There is a staircase with no railing that drops down into the earth.

We come across some more doors and corridors and in the ceiling there is a sky light. It is 30' wide and goes upwards into a tunnel which is blocked by a thick metal grate but the grate is broken inward. We can see the gray clouds on the outside. Silhouetted on a ledge is a Gargoyle about 45' up which is about halfway up through the tunnel. There is a clear shot to the Gargoyle but they must be on the right half of the room to see it.

Not even the bullseye lantern can see the bottom of the large circular pit when we look down. We cut across this room and head toward another door.

We pass through a couple rooms and break through the eastern door. It is here where we find the statue of a dog with a collar. Standing up from the statue are 3 Men with longswords.

• Maervahr casts Charm Person.

The Men's blades go to their hands but do not make any motion. Kana and Sarkas make reaction rolls.

The Men say, “We thought you were going to be those Ogres.” They keep their distance but seem to not want to have anything to do with fighting. “Are you here to plunder the keep as well?”

They start eyeballing our coin purses and then warn us that they lost a couple of their companions to the north west. It was there where they found a group of Ogres. We pick up anything small and quick and get out before the Ogres look for them.

We ask them, “Where do you hail from?” They say they are from a group that normally operates out of the Western Branch of Hollow, in Criss Antha. They say that the Keep has been unoccupied for some time.

Based on their demeanor, we believe that they are Bandits. However, they say that they are just explorers. They ask us if we have heard of Rob the Bandit and then tell us that he is giving Kam a run for his money.

Parting ways with the Bandits, we continue to the north east and find the site of a bloody battle. The hallway is lined with statue bases and there is a panel that was removed. There is nothing left inside. The corridor curves to the north where we find a door of reinforced iron. We listen at the door.

Our Guard Dog is very obedient and well trained. He is now called Pippy and guards the passageway. We do not hear anything through the door.

Sarkas casts Find Traps but there are no traps on the door. Inside the room, the walls are lined with manacles and chains. They go all along the northern wall and there is a corridor that extends out to the right. There are many cages set up inside the room that appear to be rusted and unkempt.

The door to the west is hollow but someone spots a secret door. He can tell that the chain adjacent to the wall can be pulled. When it is pulled, the door does seem to move.

We are only surprised on a 1-in-6, thanks to Atena, the Weasel Familiar of Maervahr.

We go into the room that we see cages in. They all have metal bases and are quite large cages. They are placed in a grid format within the room and most look empty. However, there are 3 that contain corpses. The corpses are currently being tugged on by hungry Wolves. The Wolves raise their heads.

Kek charges into the group of wolves and Rhinock charges, Kek hits one 1 damage while Rhinock deals 4 damage.

The Wolves pile on top of the ones who charged in. There are two charging each character from the sides. One hits Kek and he takes 4 damage and then again for 3 damage.

Sarkas charges and Maervahr moves into melee. Kana casts Faerie Fire on 2 of the Wolves while Sarkas hits and deals 2 damage.

Rhinock did 10 damage the next round and Sarkas did 2 damage. Both strike the same Wolf but it does not fall. They attack 1 of the 3 in melee. There are 2 on Kek and 3 on Sarkas. None of them hit! Maervahr is now in position for Burning Hands.

There are 2 against Rhinock who takes 2 damage and another 2 miss Kek. 2 more of them hit Sarkas who takes 9 damage just before Burning Hands goes off. Burning Hands does 5 damage to 4 of them.

Meanwhile, Rhinock hits one for 8 damage and the biggest one is slain. Maervahr targets the one on the left that is illuminated by Faerie Fire. Kek hits for 1 damage and Sarkas kills the last Faerie Fired one.

The Wolves must now check morale. They begin back-peddling from the northern wall.

Burning hands hits 4 of them while Rhinock did 8 damage. Sarkas also did 5 damage. There is only one left standing and it must check morale. It fights on but misses Rhinock. Then Kek and Rhinock attack.

The Wolves are now all dead.

We are trying to pull out the three corpses. One of them has a brass ring on its finger that looks like a signet ring. The signet ring displays a conical shape similar to the Green Lance amulet. The ring also displays the lance head.

• Brass Signet Ring

We open the east door. It connects to another room which is taken up by a gargantuan rug. The rug appears to be flattened to a pulp and there is a northern corridor. The rug has a 10' area that is drenched with a DARK RED stain. We can also see that the left side of the wall has constellations all over it. The dog collar was found in here previously. There are also two statues of figures holding two axes. One of the axes opens up a secret door.

We continue down the northern hallway and Sarkas re-casts Find Traps. The corridor extends beyond the range of the hooded lantern.

Maervahr tries to listen 30' beyond the edge of the lantern with his Clairaudience psionic ability, listening into the darkness but hears nothing.

The passage turns left into a circular room dominated by a stone pool. The pool is still filled with a dark red liquid. Beyond it, the corridor continues into the black.

One of us is in possession of a blood ruby that had previously been detected as having Necromantic magic. With the magic gem. he approaches the pool. The liquid begins bubbling and soon begins to rise 8' in the air. It forms a wave like shape that matches Kek in height, about 6' tall.

• Maervahr casts SHIELD on himself.
• Sarkas charges it.

The Water Elemental does not hit Kek and Sarkas misses. It has AC 2 and Rhinock causes a ripple in the creature's form like a wave crashing into a hillside. The room smells metallic.

Sarkas can parry a blow by sacrificing his Strength modifier but first he must roll a reaction check against it.

A low voice sounds aloud that it guards this way. “Those who wish to pass must destroy it. Leave or lose your lives.”

Sarkas does 4 damage to the Elemental but Kek's weapon has no effect. The Elemental surges its form and tries to strike Rhinock but splatters against his shield.

The Elemental Creature is made of blood! Sarkas using a spell of Command, commands the creature to die. Meanwhile, there is a 4-in-6 chance to hit ally with a missile weapon as Kek prepares to fire.

The Elemental Creature suddenly collapses in on itself but commanding it to die does not actually kill it.

Kek fires two magic arrows though nothing has an effect except magic weapons. The Pool of Blood is now flat and silent, unmoving. It looks like the level of liquid in the pool has lowered but there is no visible sign of where the liquid drained. It just looks flat as the surrounding stone.

There is a 50% chance to recover a magic arrow. Maervahr searches thoroughly outside of the pool but finds nothing. There is however a passage that connects to a door.

We check the pool which is now about 2.5' deep. It appears that there is a thin layer of film at the bottom so we begin to further inspect the flooring and walls of the pool.

The search takes a while and we find that the well of the pool looks solid. Someone built this Blood Fountain to protect the area. Along one wall is a stone arm that extends out holding a stone candle aloft.

There are two iron trunks that are now open and empty. Kek is healed for 4 hp from Sarkas's Cure Light Wounds spell.

When Sarkas begins casting the spell he suddenly feels something burrowing in his mind, as if he has had a very sharp headache.

We turn back the way we came and the lantern light illuminates a pair of creatures, two large Moles with splayed noses.

Immediately, at the speed of thought, Maervahr is psionically attacked by a double Mind Thrust.

Maervahr defends with a Thought Shield but his Psionic Defense is decreased: 36 defense points are lost and he is down to 11 defense points.

This time, Maervahr attacks with an Id Insinuation and defends with his Tower of Iron Will.

He deals 40 psionic damage to one of the Brain Moles this segment and the Brain Moles attack Maervahr using their Mind Thrust, which will go up against his Tower of Iron Will.

Maervahr is now out of defense points and becomes wounded psionically. He has 37 Attack Points left. His psionic attack causes one Brain Mole to shudder and then go down silently. It shudders to the ground on its side.

Meanwhile, there is still the other Brain Mole which attacks. Maervahr's psionic defense is nil so he loses the TOWER OF IRON WILL! It can only be restored by a Wish spell or similar magic.

The Brain Mole Mind Thrusts Maervahr once again and he drops to the ground. He is now catatonic and shows signs of being dead. Maervahr looks dead to the group. In reality, he is locked into a strange “psionic coma”.

After Maervahr falls, the rest of the party manages to defeat the remaining Brain Mole.

The group attempts to depart by going back the way they came in. When they enter the room where they fought the Wolves now they see that digging through the bodies of the Wolves are 3 Ogres.

The Ogres Attack ttacks Rhinock for 5 damage and Sarkas is without a shield. He now has AC 4 type 4. Sarkas attacks and deals 12 damage. Rhinock deals 7 damage and Kek does 1 damage.

The Ogre Leader is still up but it misses Rhinock and Kek. However Sarkas is hit for 8 damage.

Everyone of us missed as did all attacks against Rhinock.

Next round, Rhinock takes 3 damage while Kek dodges and Sarkas takes 7 damage. The Ogres have AC 5. Rhinock strikes solidly which kills the leader and it falls into one of the cages. Kek hits for 11 damage.

All the Ogres are defeated.

The slain leader has a smaller pouch on him and there is a larger pouch that has coin.

• 80 gp
• 10 gems

We make it back to Gren and Maervahr has not improved.

The party was only gone for an hour and a half. Rhinock is wounded but is healed by Sarkas for 8 hp. They tried to use Rhinock's magic helmet to heal Maervahr but his condition has not improved.

On this day, Maervahr has still not recovered.

The group heads back out to the Hollow and the vast forest that lie within.

Joining the group in place of Maervahr is:

• Smedley “Jek” Brinlock - Halfling Thief 1, AC 5/8, not Keen Eared.

We cannot take a cart into the thick woods so we will be riding through the wilderness and through the woods.

As we pass into the canopy of trees, we see two trees suddenly pull up their roots from the earth and their roots land on the bed of the mossy ground.

We have encountered some Treants in the woods. Our Druid, Kana, rolls a reaction check. These Treants are 16' tall and the Druid says their piece. The Treants calm down and settle into the earth a bit. There is a low humming noise in acquiescence to Kana. They again adjust their positioning and say, “You May Pass.”

We camp in the forest this night.

As we continue looking around this stretch of the forest, we return to where we have our camp. Just then, as we turn around and angle our path to cover new ground, we can see something moving through the trees.

We are about an hour from our campsite and we spot two hunched creatures that look to be about man-sized. They move fast and have long claws from long lanky arms.

They look undead…GHOULS!

There are at least two Ghouls.

Sarkas immediately tries to turn them and is able to turn 5 Ghouls.

Jek is able to sling one Ghoul for 3 damage. It stumbles back into the holy light where vines wrap around them from an ENTANGLE spell cast by the Druid. The Ghouls cannot pull themselves free.

In this area of the forest is a large stone slab, part of a burial. It is in the long form that is typical of a Barrow.

We kill all the Ghouls and descend into a burial mound.

We find the corpses of animals and graves around by the Barrow. They appear to be either Human corpses or perhaps Elven. We find 5 more Ghouls lurking around by the corpses.

Jek kills one with a sling and Kek hurts one but does not kill it with his sword.

The Barrow is 25' wide and 45' deep. Sarkas is able to Turn Undead against all of the Ghouls and now they are cowering in the corner. They are trying to get farther way from us as we approach.

Our front line engages in melee with the remaining Ghouls. They have AC 6. Sarkas misses but Rhinock hits one for 6 damage. Kek kills one!

Combat continues until we destroy all of the turned Ghouls!

These Ghouls have risen from the unearthed burials. Inside one of the burials, we find a leather scroll case and some coins.

• 292 cp
• 875 sp
• 320 gp
• Scroll Case (looks like magic writing, arcane)

It is known that Cleric scrolls are written in common.

It is the end of the day now, approaching evening time.

We discuss burning the bodies. Kana says that mother nature will take care of the rest to recover the bodies. The moss covered slab is slammed down over the entrance and now it is invisible from normal sight due to the growth.

We head back to our camp.

The evening passes by uneventfully but we did hear the call of Wolves at night coming from different directions. However, we never saw them.

We have now broken camp and had breakfast. The group scouts around before heading back to Criss Antha.

During our exploration, we come across a glade that glows with an orange yellow light. There are some large boulders inside that are piled up in the shape of a natural throne. Sitting atop this crude throne is a creature with a body like a lion. It appears to be lounging like a Lion would but has the head of a Ram. It appears to be a type of Sphinx, perhaps it is a CRIOSPHINX.

We speak to the Criosphinx and the creature listens to their words, it adjusts its legs and wraps its wings around its body. It says something in a strange, impossible language.

However, Rhinock understands it due to his magic helmet. ASCIR is its name and it says that it understands not the tongues of men. It says we must make away from its grove. If we do not, it will make quick work of us.

The Cryosphinx's Rams head stays trained upon us, with its Glimmering eyes that follow us. Sphinxes have many tongues and they have a complex relationship between each other type of Sphinx.

We know of an Androsphinx named SHIN that dwells in a castle to the north west. The surrounding domain is controlled by the Androsphinx.

• 3x 50 gp gems
• 1x 35 gp gem
• 1x 10 gp gem
• 1x 100 gp gem
• 1x 200 gp gem
• 1x 160 gp gem
• 1x 300 gp gem
• 1x 350 gp gem

Maervahr is still alive so will receive a share of treasure for the first part.

1st Half:

Total xp from coin: 367 xp

We each get: 71 platinum, 2 gold, 1 electrum, 4 silver, 7 copper.

The Magic Scroll we found can be deciphered by a Magic-User.

Maervahr is back to normal now. We check the scroll and find that it has the following spells:

• Deep Pockets, Secret Page, Tongues, Trap the Soul, Maze, Gate.

It is worth 10,500 gp - SOLD.

2nd Half:

Total xp from coin: 2173 xp

We each get: 421 platinum, 2 gold, 1 electrum, 7 silver.

Maervahr 484 xp. Current Total - 37997 xp.

Jek 2290 xp. Current Total - 2519 xp.

Jek needs 2395 gp Loan for level 3 Thief from SKIFF. He uses all his Platinum toward leveling.

Kana, the Druid survived and got a level after gaining 2953 xp.