In Mombafra, we receive the following updates:

• We have learned that the Warriors in plate armor that attacked us in the unrestored portion of Mombafra were convinced to attack us by the FORGOTTEN MASTER. The City Guard found that the well we found was destroyed. There were molten rocks strewen about from a large, firey explosion that took place at the well. The rocks are now tinged red. The area below the modern surface leads to Old Mombafra, which was a repopulated city after the collapse of civilization, after the severing. This is a very old area.

• We saw people on the rooftops near the well and we thought they were Thieves. They are associated with the LUMINOUS COIN, which is the largest Thieves' Guild in Mombafra. THE SKYWAY is another group of Thief Acrobats that has operations in the Cradlelands and in the Hinterlands. Some of the figures may have been associated with these groups.

• Fothas the Dwarf asked about Dwarven settlements in the area and we learn that XELKA-DUN is one that is located north of High Dale. Over 1,000 years ago, Old Mombafra was built atop a Dwarven city. Rolo-Yan, the source of this information, shares in secret that there is a new entrance beneath a well that was never restored. He believes it may connect to a Dwarven complex beneath Old Mombafra. It may have been looted hundreds of years ago. Rolo-Yan is looking for two Dwarven tubes that may be found in the Dwarven complex. Rolo-Yan needs these for a particular item.

• Smedley “Jek” Brinlock hears that the Luminous Coin has plotted to steal the hidden icon from the Temple of the Verdolant Flame during its high ritual. However, of the group that went to do this, none of the Thieves had returned. They are presumed to have become living sacrifices. After this failure, they have not pressed the matter any further.

• An Acolyte of Sleal has informed us that an icon was stolen from their Temple during the Verdolant Flame rituals. The icon has “gain life” as an aspect of Sleal, which is told by the prophecy. They wish to recover this icon.

• SMEDLEY “JEK” BRINLOCK - HALFLING THF6
• SKIPPY - HUMAN THF1
• SAVINA LAFEY - HUMAN ILL
• ORIYAN - CLR1, AC 4/4, Med Shield, MV 9“, Doors 1-2, 1-2 Listen, 14, 17, 15, 12, 12, 14, 2 hp, NG, Mote.
• FOTHAS - DWARF FTR1, AC 0/2.
• OSWALD - CLR
• GALERIA - DRD
• PERIN BLACKTALON - CLR1 of Sleal, AC 3/3, Med Shield, 12” MV, 1-2 Doors, 1-2 Listen, 13, 17, 15, 13, 14, 15, 2 hp, LE, Sleal.

• Heavy Footmen x4. Savina is hiring 2 for 8 gp per day.
• Crossbowmen

Skippy hires Jim, a vagrant, for 4 gp. He has no weapons or armor. Fothas hands him a hand axe. Jim is old and believes he has immaculate clothing. We can tell the he is “off his rocker” when he starts looking at things that are not there.

The party is headed to the site of the well, and the entrance to Old Mombafra.

We walk through the streets of Mombafra and find the well. It is located in the unkempt garden with statues but Mombafra has many statues. The well wass a low stone well that wass missing a bucket but it has been blown apart almost entirely. About 2/3 of it is now missing. The surrounding stones have been blackened with flame and the edges of the stone have been melted down partially and then re-solidified.

Some spikes have been driven into the walls of the well and, looking down, we can see some water down there. It looks like the water is impure, very impure. From above, it looks like there is a piece of wood or a plank sticking out of the north side. Where the board is sticking out, it is suspended about a foot above the water. It is driven in with spikes after the well was blackened and the City Guards found it that way.

Jek listens and hears a splash, though distantly. The splash sounded heavy. Fothas climbs down first and makes it to the bottom of the well and he now has a torch. He can see that the board has been spiked into a dry area and the masonry of the surrounding chamber is roughly hewn. The water is stationary but goes off in two directions but there is an elevated portion on the west. Savina goes down after the Heavy Footman, the Linkboys and the Porters.

Inside the chamber at the bottom of the well, we find a broken spear laying up against a wall. It has been split into three parts. There is 2' of headspace above the water. Galeria examines the spear and can tell that it was split unnaturally. The wood has been mushed down multiple inches as if something clamped down on the spear in two spots.

We also find a door. It is wooden and reinforced with metal. The modern city of Mombafra was built 500 years ago but these doors look very, very old. We cannot climb over to the dry space on the other side of the water very easily as there is no place to walk.

Oswald and Fothas try to open the west door and it opens.

A Giant Toad flies through the air and goes to bite Fothas! It is the size of a man with a spear sticking out the back of it. The Toad deals 4 damage to Fothas and then he retaliates. He kills the toad.

There is some liquid on the floor that has a viscous nature. Up ahead, the room widens and we examine the Toad with a spear wound on its body. The Toad took the wound recently, at least within the last few days.

Skippy tries to skip a rock across the fluid and finds that it is not sticky and the skipped rock actually accelerates. However, this liquid is NOT oil but possibly a mucus from the Giant Toad.

There is a thin layer of slime on the floor in the room as well and there is the corpse of a Kobold that is mostly eaten. Fothas finds a coin pouch on the Kobold and Jek checks out the stomach of the dead Toad. There is a terrible smell coming from the dead Toad's stomach but nothing valuable inside.

• 11 cp

Moisture continues in this room. There is a door across the way and a passage to the left. We also find a shrine in this room on the back west wall that is made entirely of quartz. The shrine depicts a Giant Toad. The statue on the shrine is humbly, boldly sitting on a pedastal. The Dwarf can tell that this is valuable and Oriyan thinks this is worth at least 1,500 gp.

We find a stone door on the west wall.

Jek examines the statue for traps but does not see any moving parts and it is not attached to anything. There is also nothing in the alcove. There are no moving parts on the statue. Jek notices that there seems to be bits of small pebbles, dust, stone, underneath where the statue pedestal touches the floor and a slight absence of dust compared to the rest of the surrounding area. It appears that the statue was placed directly here purposely.

Oriyan illuminates the hall and Skippy is listening at the stone door. We can tell that the statue weighs 4,000 coins but the Porters will help. We manage to move it despite the weight and Galeria tries to open the stone door with Savina however it is locked and there is an outward facing lock on it.

Jek gets to work and tries to pick the lock. He opens the lock after 6 minutes.

Oswald, Galeria and Fothas open the grinding stone door as the smell of stale air from past centuries is omitted.

Inside we find some thick drawers, a chair that appears to have dry rot and a stone shelf that is built into the wall. There is a box on the shelf that is plated in electrum. Jek examines the box for traps and there does not appear to be any trap on the box. We pick up the box and there is a fine, metallic somethings inside that rattle and crack, like dull bells. Fothas opens the box.

Inside, a carving of a tree rises from the box. It is a miniature statue of a tree and a boy and girl that rise up. Then, a tune plays from the box. As it plays, there is a grinding sound and then it comes to a stop.

Clerics know that there are cults and sects that worship things other than the 17 main gods. We wonder if there are any cults that worship a “Frog Entity” that is worshipped by Bullywugs and Goblinoids. The Clerics believe that the power of the Frog being is pathetic in comparison.

Oswald opens the drawer and Jek checks for traps. Fothas asks Oriyan if he can appraise this box. Jek does not find any traps on the desk.

Oriyan thinks it might be worth 1,000 gp if it was not broken. Inside the desk we find some writing equipment, some empty potion vials, some red wood, black wood, and some wood with a sheen that are carved into prisms. There is also a cracked gem-cutters lens but a part falls off as we touch it. There is also a scroll tube made of leather with a twist top on it.

As he opens the scroll tube, there is a big puff of gas that comes out of the tube and envelops around everybody. Jek and Skippy drop to the ground! Galeria finds that they are still alive and breathing. Jek snores loudly. Suddenly, we hear the noise of a whine coming from the scroll tube. It becomes a very loud whine, like an alarm! Oswald obliterates the scroll case and it stops making noise.

Neutralize poison is cast on Jek and he awakes. Realizing what happened, Jek ties a bandana around his mouth.

Oswald finds a parchment inside the scroll tube that is not written in common and it is not a Cleric or Druid scroll. Illusionists use a secret code to transcribe their spells, which we guess might be written here. Although sometimes Jek can interpret languages, he cannot read the runes on the parchment.

• Scroll that nobody can read.

Fothas examines the wooden blocks we found in the box. They look like good specimens of wood though they are not immaculate and not good enough for crafting magic. They are essentially just rectangular blocks of wood. Galeria identifies the wood on them and notices that one is a type of wood from a tree that grows in Ikazingu though it is not carved from an overly skilled professional. That type of wood is not from around here at all and might be valuable.

• Ikazingu Wood

There might have once been other furniture in here but things have decayed and the wood is long rotted. Some of it has holes in it. However, the wooden blocks have not taken any damage at all and they look kind of like “thicker lincoln logs”. There is also a rectangular rod type of object. The wooden blocks almost seem like they could be cores.

Smedley begins looking for secret doors as does Fothas, using his Dwarven skills. After about 10 minutes, we have not found anything.

We begin searching the door and Jek does not find any traps. Skippy just is waking up.

Since we left the room and came back, we see a bunch of flies around. The Druid seems to find that they are attracted to certain members of the party Jek, Oswald and Fothas in particular.

Through the southern door, we enter another room. The entire southern portion of the room is covered in insectoid cocoons. They are several feet long but they are not as tall as an Ogre. Some of them are hanging by strands of fiber, dangling from the ceiling and there are some decaying ones on the floor that are just husks. The alcove is completely concealed by them. They could be Giant Centipede cocoons of some sort.

Jek throws a burning oil flask into the cocoons and they begin to make a sickly crackly and crunching noises. Suddenly, the air is filled with a brown tint so we depart and let them burn.

When we return, Fothas checks the room after 5 minutes and sees that the fires have died down. An alcove contains the corpse of a Gnome that is now only a burnt husk. He may once have had stuff but it was likely burned away. We do see that he had a short sword, some leather armor (Gnome sized), a backpack, some iron rations, a bedroll, and another bag that was secured to his waist. The bag is still filled with stuff. Looking inside, we see:

• 296 gp

Fothas draws the short sword but it is not glowing. We determine that hairfoot Halflings can wear Gnome-sized armor however the leather armor that is Gnome-sized has become blackened by the flames from the burning coccoons.

• Gnome sized leather armor.

Fothas, Jek and Oswald are now COVERED in flies and so are the Porters, they are all covered. This must be some sort of curse…

We depart and go to get the Frog Statue on the way out.

We come face to face with 5 Men in leather armor, short swords and shields. Jek slings them and so does Skippy.

Hold Person is cast on the Men and one of them starts to become friendly to Oriyan. Jek holds off on his attack as Charm Person is cast and Hold Person goes off.

One of them is now Charmed and 3 are being Held. A Command spell is also cast and one is commanded. Skippy shoots at them anyway as one of the Men runs for the door. The one that became Charmed will be under the spell's effect for 3 weeks.

Meanwhile, the Cleric starts tying up one. Skippy tried to talk one of the Men into surrendering and he readily surrenders. Fothas stops his charge after the surrender.

Some of the flies that are swarming us begin landing on the Men. There are now so many flies landing on us, nearly covering us.

The Charmed Man's name is Eeso. We start questioning him and he says that “Befin” was the guy that sent them down here. He tells us the Befin had some of his people get killed but he does not know what he has planned for them. He has not told them anything about it and just hangs out in the back. Eeso tells us that some of his friends have come in and out from here and they had a couple of decades (24) as far as their numbers go. Eeso mentions that there are not a lot of good things to eat down here.

Jek starts pilfering the held guys.

The Charmed guy does not object to taking the coins and he stands behind Skippy. He agrees to join us. Jek asks the guy, “Have you heard of a group called the Luminous Coin.”

He says that they are the best guild but most of his group are not members, other than Befin.

We have collected the following:

• 3x Short Swords
• 3x Daggers
• 3x Shields
• 3x Leather Armor
• 22 ep

He laughs at us when he sees the flies and says that we “messed around and found out”.

We are beset upon by hostile entities.

3 Kobolds run in from the east door and they are attacking us with short swords and shields. These Kobolds are not covered in flies.

Perrin is being attacked but the Kobold misses. One of them is attacking Oriyan and hits on a 15 he is hit for 5 damage and is now at -3 hit points. ORIYAN IS DROPPED!

Galeria is also being attacked but is missed. Perrin, Jek and Fothas are now being attacked. Jek kills one but the others miss.

In the next round, we kill all the Kobolds.

We grab the Frog statue.

When we get the statue, 4 more Men come back and they have their weapons drawn.

• Jek stabs them with his daggers.
• Galeria casts Summon Insects.
• Hold Person is also being cast.
• Command is being cast.

Jek only does 1 damage to one of the Men with his daggers but manages to kill another Man that is running away. The other Men attack:

• Perrin is missed.
• Skippy is missed.
• Fothas is missed.

Fothas hits one for 5 damage and kills one as the Hold Person spell goes off. The Summon Insects spell goes off at the end of the round. Two of the Men are held and then two others are slain.

Suddenly, the flies lift off all of our allies and change direction and start filling the mouths and ears of the Men.

Jek takes their purses.

• 36 ep

We get through the doors and enter the chamber at the bottom of the well. Galeria commands the flies to drown and as they swarm over the water, leeches leap up from the water and start eating the flies.

These are THROAT LEECHES!

We check east door.

Torchlight illuminates another open area and we see that the left hand wall has images of monstrous faces, depicting mountain goats.

Skippy inspects the wall for holes and he hears the braying of goats clearly in the distance. He notices that the carved goats' mouths are concave. After inspecting the wall, we find no traps related to the goat carvings.

At this point, the braying of the goats has grown to a great volume and is quite Loud. Skippy says that there are Goat Men above that he can hear. It is known that goats could be used with demonic rituals.

When we start going down the hallway. Galeria's charmed friend points up ahead to a metal contraption poking out from this room. He says there are traps put up in here and some of the traps have gone off recently.

We hear movement up ahead from something just around the corner.

Jek tries to hide in shadows with his sling at the ready. We hear a door open and close but both of the doors we can see are closed and the west door is closed.

Nothing comes and we escape.

We head out of the dungeon, which takes 2 turns. We also manage to get the statue out using ropes.

To have a spell cast by an NPC Magic-User is 500 gp per level of the caster. It will cost us 2,500 per casting of identify. Instead of paying that cost, we are selling the scroll.

• 1,800 gp
• The music box is broken and we sell it for 200 gp.

Iona is currently on Seed Moon (3) the 9th and must train for one full week.

Maervahr is on Seed Moon (3) the 12th.

We pay 100 gp for a Mending spell for the broken music box, which is now repaired!

The repaired music box is worth 800 gp, so we sell it.

The Ikazinga wood sold for 140 gp.

• 58 ep

2740 + 1500 gp in total.

4536 + 58 ep

• 567 gp
• 7 ep

• 2 ep to Savina

• 570.5 xp from treasure

• 936 xp for everyone except Savina who gets 937 xp.

Jek owes 600 gp Upkeep and he pays it.