After the group's retirement (shortly before I graduated and went on to Berkeley), I figured my time DMing in the land of Trond was over.  I was wrong.  Caving to pressure from the rest of the group, I dusted off my pad of graph paper, converted everything to D&D 3rd ed, and continued the story.  Having lost touch for the most part with the people that I used to send the original "Chronicles" to, and having less time to while away by composing huge emails, I didn't bother to write any of it down.

Until now.

The Chronicles of Trond, continued

as briefly recounted by Samwise

Contents

The Call of You-Know-Who

The Snowglobe

Tucq and the Staff of Destiny

The Army of You-Know-What

Eni Hides in Shadows (like never before!)

Adventures and Misadventures in Esh Alakar

Approximately a year passed as our heroes enjoyed their retirement.  Crioth expanded his fortifications, building a wall around the castle keep and providing a central area for peasants to meet up, market wares, hold festivals, or seek shelter in the unlikely event of invasion, and became one of the most well-respected landholders in the area.  Eni's guild prospered, without ever falling seriously afoul of the law.  Leuth enjoyed his new wight-free life, and Baxter became proficient enough in the arcane arts to handle all of the castle's day-to-day magical needs, leaving Leuth free to pursue intellectual pursuits, such as leafing through the lich's library (ably assisted by the modron librarian) and studying the snowglobe, which did indeed seem to be a miniature universe.  Yzahak grew slightly restless and left for lands unknown; we shall not speak of him again.  Durandle, as the highest ranking cleric of one of Tharon's grandest temples, became known as a great spiritual leader, and his flock numbered in the thousands.  And Kiotucq, of course, resumed his duties as a pueblo priest in the Pasocada Basin, telling stories of the wonders he had seen in the east, and rumored as a likely successor to Koyisqatapi as the next Gilded Priest.

After this year, Tucq, having grown increasingly restless with the settled life, obtained permission from the Gilded Priest to take a brief leave, and walked the paths of the spirits to step out of the tree in Crioth's courtyard, exactly where it was when he had planted it.  Naturally, his friends were delighted to have him back for a visit, and he was offered a guest room in the castle for the duration of his stay.

As it happened, this was around the time that Baxter began having troubled sleep.

Crioth was awoken one night by Gordon, one of his guards.  "Lord Crioth," he whispered, "I apologize, but we thought it best to wake you."  Crioth rubbed sleep out of his eyes and asked what was so important.  "It's the young mage.  He... well, come downstairs."  The guard looked shaken.

Crioth thumped on Leuth's door to rouse him as well, and they followed the pale-faced guard downstairs to the dining hall/reception area/war room, where Baxter sat at the table, eyes open, but not seeming altogether in the land of the wakeful.  He seemed to be babbling softly to himself, rocking back and forth.  "He is with us always... not dead as we know it... that is not dead which can eternal lie... Their hand is at my throat, but I feel it not... Ia!  Shub-Niggurath!  Cthulhu fhtagn!" The words were incomprehensible.

And then, to their horror, they saw that Baxter had taken it upon himself to express his thoughts more legibly.  His right hand was bloody, fist tightly clenched, as if he had dug his nails into his own skin to the point of drawing blood.  And on the table was written, in a delirious scrawl, using his own blood:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Rushing forward, Leuth shook Baxter awake, who flinched out of his dreamlike state.  "Where... what am I..."  Feeling the pain in his hand, he looked down, seeing blood still seeping from his wounds, and blanched.  "What happened?!"  Leuth rushed him off to the tower for medical treatment, while Crioth and the guards exchanged worried looks and puzzled over the writing on the table.

Not knowing what else to do, they retired for the night, keeping an eye and ear on Baxter's door as he slept, to make sure no further harm came to him.  The remainder of the night passed more or less uneventfully, with the exception of a book that feel from Leuth's shelf for no apparent reason.

The book was one of the ones taken from the lich's library; Leuth hadn't get gotten around to reading it.  Intrigued by its leap from his bookshelf, he took a look at it now.  Necronomicon, read the cover.  The foreword at the beginning read as follows:

I, Abdul Al-Hazred, say this to you:
The Elder Gods have put the damned
To sleep. And they that tamper with the seals
And wake the sleepers, too, are damned.
And I say further, herein lies those spells
To break the seals that hold in thrall
Cthulhu and his ebon horde. For I
Have spent my life to learn them all.
So, fool, the darkness is pent up in space:
The gates to Hell are closed. You
Meddle at your own expense: When you call
They will wake and answer you.
This is my gift to mankind -- here are the keys.
Find your own locks; be glad.
I, Abdul Al-Hazred say this to you:
I, who tampered, and am mad.

Recognizing the name "Cthulhu" from Baxter's bloody scrawl on the table, Leuth's brilliant deductive mind put two and two together and came up with a quantity approximating four.  He made a mental note to investigate the tome further. 

Baxter remembered little of the previous night's events.  He had vague memories of terrifying dreams involving fathomless depths, bestial chanting, and some sort of great awakening evil.  "To be honest, I'm glad I don't remember much of it," he shuddered.

Leuth turned his attention to the book.  It was a rambling treatise written by a madman on forgotten gods (referred to as "the Elder Gods", and implied to be utterly incomprehensible forces that are older than the universe itself) and powerful alien races that existed long before the emergence of humanoid life.  Inked in blood and bound in flesh, it contained bizarre burial rites, funerary incantations, demon resurrection passages, and other invocations of blasphemous powers best forgotten.  Among other things (and it was very hard to pick out anything resembling a cohesive narrative among all the raving madness, but certain themes tended to repeat themselves, and small bits of information could be gleaned), it told of Great Cthulhu, the most powerful member of a race that had come to Trond from the stars, and the most powerful priest of the god Azathoth.  His power grew so great that the gods themselves feared him, and putting him and all of his brethren into a deathless slumber, sunk his mighty island city of R'lyeh below the ocean.  There he waits for the time when the stars are right, when R'lyeh will rise and he shall be free to rise and feast upon the world, for his hunger is an entity unto itself, and cannot be slaked.

Even in sleep, Great Cthulhu is such a powerful being that his very dreams touch the minds of sensitive beings the world over.  Since time immemorial, the Necronomicon hinted, there have been beings of many races that hear these dreams and worship the dreamer, responding to Cthulhu's call and forming cults in his name, awaiting the time when he shall rise again.  Even more disturbingly, Al-Hazred conjectured at one point that a powerful magical surge might make Cthulhu restless and be the catalyst for his return.  At this last revelation, Leuth remembered the magical shockwave from the destruction of the Staff of Creation, and gulped.  Coupled with the fact that Baxter's psychically sensitive mind had picked up an "awakening evil", and that the dark book had taken a life of its own and wriggled free from its shelf, Leuth had a theory or two about what was happening.  The phrase Baxter had scrawled on the table, according to the Necronomicon, translated to "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

The question, of  course, was what to do about this?  What could they possibly do against an Old One such as Cthulhu?  From the descriptions in the Necronomicon, he sounded like a being of godlike power, able to lay waste to an entire planet.  How could a group of mortals, even such exceptional ones as our heroes, possibly stop the disaster that was sure to befall the planet?

That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange aeons even death may die.

Leuth was intrigued enough to devote some time and energy into studying the globe further.  After a fair amount of research, he was able to pinpoint the exact nature of the universe within the sphere - it was scaled down in both space and time (in accordance with the laws of relativity), meaning that not only was it tiny, but everything inside was moving very very fast compared to everything outside.  Hence the fact that in a matter of one "objective" year, planets had formed, civilizations arose, and magic been discovered.

Not only that, but Leuth was able to develop a spell that would perform a temporary "relativistic shift" on its subjects, moving them into the sphere's frame of reference (i.e. shrinking them and speeding them up), and transport them to a reasonable location inside the sphere.

Duhr was not idle while Leuth was carrying out this research.  Engrossed in the topic of impending doom for life as he knew it, he had been seeking steadily increasingly more powerful forms of guidance, both mundane and divine.  When he had exhausted all other options, he called upon Tharon himself for help, and was answered with the vague suggestion that Leuth's crystal sphere held the answers they sought.

Therefore, with a mixture of trepidation and excitement, the group joined hands around the snowglobe as Leuth performed the incantation that would transport them to that world.  What wonders lay there, they knew not, but they were packed and ready for adventure.  Kraig voiced objections over Crioth leaving his lands leaderless for an unknown period of time, but he stood watch outside the door to Leuth's tower to ensure that the spell was not interrupted prematurely.

You can only imagine his surprise when the group emerged less than a minute later, in most cases with new equipment (much of it apparently enchanted and like none found on Trond) and/or longer hair, scars, and other evidence of having been gone for an extended period of time.  It is said that at the time when they emerged, the lights in the snowglobe had vanished without a trace, but none who were not with them can say for certain what happened during that minute.

As some of you know, and for those who don't, Tucq had a side quest last night with the gracious help of Duhr ("Marklar") to obtain the graces of Masauwu (The Skeleton Man) and empower my new Staff of Destiny.

After zapping back to Michaca, we headed out the following morning via Magic Carpet to the lands of the Wolf Tribe, and, more specifically, to Growling Falls. (If you pull up the map from the City of Gold, which Spam has posted, you can see where these areas are.) Here, my 1st task was to capture the essence of the mighty bear spirit trapped within the falls by defeating it in combat while only using my staff. After MANY buffs from Duhr, including a raise in my AC to 45 (jealous Chip?), I was able to defeat the bear.

 

The following morning, we zipped off to the Black Mesa, located between the Shrew and Eagle tribes. There, I had to gather a chunk of the purest piece of the sacred black rock (coal). Wasn't as easy as it sounds. Laying down upon the purest rock was a brass dragon.

 

He asked us two riddles:

I walked and walked and at last I got it.
I didn't want it, so I stopped and looked for it.
When I found it, I threw it away.

and

You eat something you neither plant nor plow.
It is the sun of water, but if water touches it, it dies.

Duhr answered both of them. (Post your guesses, then i'll put out the answers) The dragon rolled over. We took a chunk. Said our thanks. And jumped onto the carpet.

 

We headed directly to our next point, which was the mines of Ukolo, in the lands of the Mountain Lion tribe. Along the way, the smoke signals were sending what seemed like urgent messages, so we checked, and there was trouble in the mines. Once we arrived, we met with one of the miners who informed us that there were three miners trapped down deep... that a wall busted open and these creatures took them. The miner lead us to the point where the wall busted, then waited there as Duhr and I continued on. There were four trolls holding them captive. Tucq went after them with his staff and his spirit weapon, which he had cast a moment earlier. Duhr summoned an earth elemental, casted a few more buffs on us both, and then used his mace to thwart them away. But as we hurt them, they healed.. so we had to continue to hurt them. With the elemental on our side, our task was easier, as he inflicted MANY the hp. Once we got them all down, the elemental piled them up, and Duhr hit them all with the finishing move: Flame Strike.

 

With the enemy defeated, we rescued the three miners, who we found a little further down the tunnel, in a pot, probably to be the next main course. I then asked if they could lead me to the purest piece of turquoise, my final piece of the puzzle.

 

We then met back up with the Gilded Priest, who had 1st greeted us when we arrived (Marklar Marklar), and told him that I had aquired all that I needed for the staff. He lead us up to Dunobo Springs were he and I (Duhr had to wait and watch) covered ourselves in Micha, then entered the springs, following the micha as it rinsed off our bodies. We were then in the Astral Plane. We headed down the Sun Trail to another gate which brought us to Wenimats, or the afterlife of the Azuposi people.

 

Once there, the Gilded Priest told me to follow this trial down till I reach a kiva while he met with Masauwu. I walked through a beautiful forest till it became darker with more trees till eventually there was very little light. I was underground, and surrounded by elders of my people that I did not recognize. They were in debate over whether to move the tribe out into the unknown or stay here, where it was safe. I told them that "they will never know what life holds for them unless they experience it" They responded "But what if we are then killed?" "Then it is our Destiny." "Very good, Kiotucq."

 

With that, the place lit up, and i could see more elders, including some that I knew (who had passed on years ago). They began the two month process of helping me in crafting my staff with all the rituals, engravings, and fixing the piece of turquoise on the top of the staff. Once completed, I met with Masauwu myself. He asked why I needed a staff of this power, and "You have been away from your homeland for a long time now. And I am told you are to leave again. Why should you receive this power if it’s to be used away from your people?” I responded, “I was chosen by our elders to join a group of travelers and learn of the other cultures and worlds to help our civilization grow. They have requested my help in their recent adventure, an adventure where they need all the help they can. I cannot say no to this group, who took me in as one of their own.” With that, he touched my staff, which caused the turquoise to glow. With that, he said “Never forget your people.” I bowed, said, “I never could,” and headed out.

 

The Gilded Priest and I appeared out of the water after about ten minutes had passed for Duhr (“Marklar Marklar Marklar!”). That night, there was a party in my honor for my departure the next morning.

 

So, in summary, I now wield my Staff of Masauwu: where I have 50 uses to cast either prayer, flame strike, or the bear that I caught; +3 to hit and damage; +4 AC; and +3 to all Saves while I hold it.  “Marklar”…or… for those who don’t speak Azuposi…. THE END

Bearing the Staff of Masauwu, Tucq returned to Seacrest with Duhr in tow.  Fortunately, they arrived just in time to help deal with the latest imminent threat. 

Crioth and crew sprang into action.  The peasants, having fled from the approaching army, huddled within the perimeter wall.  "An army of the dead!" they cried.  "Gods save us!"  The lookouts on the castle walls could dimly see the army approaching by moonlight, looking to be in the hundreds if not the thousands.  Taking charge of the situation, Crioth mobilized his small collection of troops (all infantry), positioned his household guard on the walls to serve as archers, and send a rider to seek help from the city.

The city of Seacrest, upon hearing of the impending threat, began fortifying their own meager defenses, but sadly could spare no troops for the castle.  If the worst happened, they didn't want to be left defenseless.  Crioth's friends, though, planned to offer whatever help they could.  Eni and a squad of the best archers in his guild made haste to the castle to lend their assistance.  Duhr put out the call for all of his parishioners who could bear arms to meet at the temple, and, having gathered a group of about 100 commoners with makeshift weapons and torches (as well as a couple of tougher-looking hangers on who were just passing through town and wanted to lend a hand), he marched to the castle.

As Crioth and his castle were steeling himself for the worst, their reinforcements arrived.  Eni's band of thieves joined Crioth's archers (the nimbler ones didn't even bother using the stairs), and Duhr's army of Tharon joined Crioth's forces, forming a group of fighting men about 200 strong.  A couple of the out-of-towners also took up positions as archers, and one of them joined the front lines, unsheathing a tremendous two-handed blade.

Leuth, meanwhile, had been securing the Necronomicon in his tower, suspecting that an advancing "army of the dead" might have something to do with the so-called Librum e Mortis.  Baxter stayed in the tower to keep an eye on things up there, and Leuth went to help with the military preparations outside.  He "magicked up" the keen-eyed Eni with some spells of flight and invisibility, and sent him to scout out the situation - the army appeared to be perhaps an hour away, at its current slow rate of movement.  Eni returned looking slightly battered.  He reported that not only was the army indeed composed of the dead (at least predominantly), there seemed to be spellcasters of some sort in their ranks, which had flung some fairly painful offensive magic at him.

The small army formed ranks, prepared to keep the invaders away from the castle and the peasants at all costs.  Duhr rode on his celestial steed, holy symbol grasped in hand, prepared to send the dead back to their graves.  Leuth hovered in the air, arcane magicks at his fingertips.  Crioth held his sword high and prepared to direct the battle.  Eni peered out into the gloom and started picking out targets.  Tucq stood on the wall with Eni and the archers, calling all of his allies from the spirit world to his aid in the upcoming battle.

When the army of the dead arrived to do battle, the mortal army wavered briefly, but rallied by Durandle and Crioth, they held the line.  Durandle wasted no time in invoking Tharon's might to return huge numbers of the oncoming zombies to dust.  Eni and his squad of archers slowly but surely whittled away at the enemy's ranks.  Leuth swooped over the field of battle, raining down fire and lightning.    Tucq summoned elemental forces to do battle with the undead.  And Crioth joined his men in fighting on the front lines, felling at least one zombie with each swing of his enchanted blade.  Here and there the army of darkness struck back with magic (predominantly aimed at Leuth as he swooped too close), but for the most part the zombies fell like wheat before a thresher.

The enemy did play one ace they had up their sleeve - while the heroes were occupied with the main thrust of the battle, a flight of winged horrors (not altogether like ants, or buzzards, or moles, or mummified human corpses, and yet not altogether unlike them either) descended from the stars, making a beeline for Leuth's tower, and smashing a window to enter.  Fortunately, Baxter was able to hold them off with staff and spell long enough to get Leuth's attention and finish disposing of the menace before they could lay hands on the Necronomicon.

The battle was over surprisingly quickly.  Despite being outnumbered five to one, Crioth's troops sustained remarkably few casualties, thanks in large part to Crioth himself carving wide swaths through the undead on the front lines.  The back ranks of the undead were thoroughly decimated by magic, so that by the time the front rank had been disposed of with conventional weapons, there were none left to renew the assault.  A cheer went up from the troops as the last zombie fell, and Duhr was quick to administer healing to those who had been injured in battle.

Eni picked through the bodies of the now-complete-deceased, hoping to find some clues, while the magic-users followed the ragged trail of destruction left by the army, hoping to find their origin.  The tracks led to a rocky area on the coast and then stopped - it was not clear whether the army had come out of the water, been raised on that spot, or had been raised elsewhere and then arrived at that spot without leaving tracks.  Not having a ranger amongst them, it was hard to say for certain.  It was clear, though, that dark forces were at work.

Eni located among the dead a few who looked as if they had been fully alive up until recently, and surmised that these were perhaps the spellcasters that had been active during the battle.  He found very little on them other than matching tattoos, all more or less concealed, of a symbol that he did not recognize.  Leuth insisted on dragging one of the corpses back to the castle for "questioning", and cast a Speak Dead on it.  He got very little for his trouble other than a croaking cry of "Cthulhu fhtagn!" and a lung full of water as the corpse invoked dark Mythos magic against him.  The corpse was quickly returned to a restful state lest it cause any more trouble.  Eni, meanwhile, set about trying to figure out what the tattoos were all about.

Initial reconnaissance indicated that the estate was surrounded by a high wall, with the garden inside the wall patrolled by guards (and an unknown number of guards patrolling the house itself).  Getting past the wall stealthily was therefore the first challenge, since the front gate wasn't an option.  It turned out to be more difficult than Eni had anticipated, since he couldn't risk the noise of using pitons, and had to ascend with nothing more than his tenacious grip.  After a couple of tries, though, he was able to scramble quietly to the top and vault over, landing very softly in the grass on the other side.  He was able to conceal himself in the shadows as a guard passed by, and then make his way up to the house, silently and unseen.

There, Eni let himself into the master bedroom by dismantling a window and reassembling it behind him.  Being careful not to wake the person sleeping in the canopied bed, he proceeded to creep around most of the rest of the house, including an extensive library, a grand dining hall, a well-stocked kitchen, a pantry containing cured meats of questionable origin, and several galleries of antique art objects.  The house was patrolled by several guards, who Eni carefully dodged as he was "casing" the house.  After scouting the place out thoroughly and committing its layout to memory, he let himself out the way he had entered, and returned to his base of operations to plan his next assault.

Ever the consummate professional, Eni returned to the estate no fewer than four times (each time having a bit of trouble with the wall), and was never spotted once (though he had one or two close calls).  Once he had thoroughly mapped out the house, he was able to determine that there was a secret room concealed behind the wall in one of the art galleries, and it was a simple matter for him to figure out the mechanism and gain entrance to that room.  What he discovered was a sort of underground temple, dark and dank, with a vaulted stone ceiling that met at odd angles with the walls, somehow not adding up according to the rules of Euclidean geometry, and making the room about twice as large as it should have been.  In the center of the room was a pedestal, currently empty, and on an altar on the north side of the room was a sealed stone jar with a disturbing  idol carved into the top of it.

Convinced that he had found the object of his search (the "focus" that the mighty wizard Melvin had spoken of), Eni once again took his leave, carefully shutting the secret door behind him, and went to seek divine guidance.  Durandle provided him with a flask of holy water big enough to fill the stone jar, and bearing this, Eni once again sneaked into the estate, let himself into the secret temple, figured out the jar's mechanism, dumped out the briny sea water it contained, and replaced it with holy water.

When he returned and the group was congratulating him, Leuth asked, "So... what did you do with the old water?"  Upon learning that Eni had simply dumped it out on the floor, Leuth was horrified, fearing that the cult would discover the puddle and realize that something was amiss.  Duhr procured a sponge and they sent the thief back in to clean up after himself.  As Eni, once again in the darkness of the secret temple, sponged up the puddle (the idol leering down at him), he heard noises outside.  Hastily, he hid behind a pillar, just as the secret door opened and a group of people in black robes filed in.  Placing the idol on the pedestal, they began performing an awful ritual.

Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Eni as he hid behind that pillar, barely daring to breathe. There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic license here whipped themselves to daemoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstacies that tore and reverberated off the stone walls like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organized ululation would cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse voices would rise in sing-song chant that hideous phrase: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.    (paraphrased, with apologies to HPL, from The Call of Cthulhu.)

When at last the ritual was finished (it felt like hours; Eni could not be sure, for time itself seemed to pass differently in that terrible space), the cultists filed out, and after waiting a suitable interval, Eni made good his escape.  As before, he was not detected, and he was able to return home, his mission a success (for the cult, as far as he could tell, had not been able to detect the change in their idol).

Duhr decided that he would very much like to visit his brass dragon friend again, and after doing some research, he determined that brass dragons derive most of their sustenance from morning dew.  He therefore prepared for his upcoming visit by collecting as much dew as possible; some via more or less natural means (scraping dew drops off the leaves of plants), and some more creatively (spreading canvas tarps to collect larger amounts).  After about a week of this, he had a fair amount of dew harvested.

At the same time, Leuth was making plans to visit the ruins of Esh Alakar, desiring to gain further knowledge of the magic that had been practiced there, and perhaps augment his own arcane knowledge.

At the same time, Tucq planned to make a brief trip back to Michaca to converse with his superiors and spend a bit of quality time with his people.

And so it happened that when Crioth and Eni joined Duhr for one lunch, they decided to journey with Tucq to Michaca, and perhaps thence split off and go pay a visit to the Black Mesa.  They accompanied Tucq in his journey through the mighty oak tree, and after emerging in Michaca, bade Tucq farewell and flew on Duhr's magic carpet to the Black Mesa.

Not long after this happened, Leuth emerged from his tower, and, finding nobody about, decided to proceed to Esh Alakar on his own, supposing that perhaps the group had gone there ahead of him.  Just as one of Duhr's clerics started to say where he thought the group had gone, Leuth spoke the words of magic, and teleported to Esh Alakar.

Needless to say, the rest of the group was quite distraught when they eventually found his snake-bitten corpse lying in the subterranean ruins.  Fortunately, Duhr was able to bring them back to his temple, and revive the errant mage.

Once everyone was in one piece, they were able to return to the ruins and explore further.

Excerpt from party journal (compiled by Eni):

As we brave adventurers explore the ruins of Esh Alakar for potential ideas and/or powers to try to thwart the coming threat of... you know who... we've encountered a few snakes, a pair of ghosts, a pair of stone golems, a few more dangers of the less active sort (acid pools, astral deadpools, corridors of foul air, temporally-frozen people...), and a mosaic of the Planes.

Between the scuffles, we've come across some sealed boxes in which lay several items, and more than a few items lying around in the cursed halls of this place.

There was also an incident with a temporal stasis trap, followed shortly thereafter by an errant dagger finding Leuth's groin.

Excerpt from party journal (compiled by Durandle):

Just as any man would go "ooouuuch..." seeing someone inadvertently fall into the splits, we all had to witness the mother of all cringe scenes. So horrendous that it stunned the master of such work and forced the fighter to take a prolonged tea break. After the two priests made sure they hadn't suffered a similar fate, the cleric went over, put aside the catalyst of this scenario (his mace), and called upon Tharon to mend the mage's grievous wound.

Finding his family's line returned to him, the mage declared he was fit to continue on. He and the cleric sifted through the rubble of the golem, and found nothing but ogre urine -- something they both had to don as a not so pleasant reminder of what can go horribly wrong when you least expect it.

Onward, with Eni 20' ahead to warn the party of any approaching dangers. And sure enough, more of those resident snakes tried to make a meal. They were very quickly dispatched: three by Eni's rapier, one by Durandle's mace, and even one by Leuth's Otahk.

Then there was a good amount of wandering, forking, doubling-back, and pushing forward. Just when the party started to think about joining Crioth’s tea party, Leuth spotting a familiar angry face. The ghost of before had mustered his will and sought out the party again. The party sprung into action as Durandle went for his trusty holy symbol again. It got off a shot, but luckily, Tucq was strong of body. Durandle warned the ghost about suffering his wrath if there should be a next time, and the ghost’s anger turned to fear as it felt the power of Tharon channel through the cleric. It promptly departed through the rogue and into the complex again.

After a few idle comments upon the fate of the ghost, the party continued until they came to a point where there seemed to be a cave-in. The sky was visible because of it, and all could see a dark storm brewing despite the fact it was merely noonish. The path was not entirely blocked, so the party pressed forward. Tucq made sure to note that we were in the most cursed part of Esh Alakar now.

True to warning, Eni found a huge skeletal tyrannosaurus-rex – except it was formed of stone. The brave rogue informed the party and rushed in only to find his attack wasn’t sufficient to even chip the leg he attacked. Just then, Crioth finally finished his bloody tea. He drew and empowered his frost blade and charged in only to do not much more than get a pebble sized bit out of the dinosaur. It turned its attention to the fighter both as he approached and as he stood there, taking a pair of ferocious bites. While the dinosaur had its attention on Crioth, Leuth ran to him and turned the fighter’s skin until it was as hard as stone. Tucq guessed that since it was made of stone, that maybe he could warp it with a spell, but alas, it was in vain. Durandle then thought to fight fire with fire, or in this case stone with stone, and summoned a greater earth elemental to his side.

Again the rogue and fighter tried their might upon the dinosaur, making a little more headway this time, but not by much. Leuth hasted Crioth and then nimbly tumbled out of harm’s way. Tucq took a hold of his staff of destiny and summoned a spiritual bear to do his bidding. Durandle’s elemental came to life and to the same size as the dinosaur. Durandle commanded it to charge forward and to cover him, making a dramatic moving stone wall to close the gap between the fighter and his healer. It also managed to give their adversary a nice upper-cut in the process.

Eni kept up his work, and so did Crioth, except he took a pause to see if he could find a weakness in his opponent – and found none. Leuth and Tucq both took the wisdom of the cleric and each summoned their own earth elementals: an elder and another greater. And the spiritual bear probably got into Crioth’s tea here. By now, even with Crioth’s enhanced reflexes and toughened skill, he was in very poor shape at the jaws of the dinosaur. Durandle commanded his elemental to push the dinosaur out of the way as he went to the fighter’s aid. Unfortunately just then, it seemed that the ground betrayed the elemental and was easily pushed itself. Durandle was lucky though, ran quickly enough to just barely avoid the dinosaur’s teeth, and shared Tharon’s love with Crioth – restoring him to full health.

With reinforcements there, and renewed vigor in the fighter, the party laid their final assault. Eni, Crioth, also Durandle, an elder and a greater earth elemental all bore down upon the dinosaur. Durandle’s elemental, on the other hand, having lost contact with its element, stumbled and returned to it in a very ill timed manner. The dinosaur gave its last bit(e) of attention to Durandle before Crioth finally smote it.

Durandle's additional notes scribbled after that point:
• Found shattered, incomplete spell tablets.
• Triggered a fireball trap that Eni avoids completely, Leuth and Tucq avoid somewhat, and Crioth takes it on his shield. He unwisely praises Kaela instead of Tharon.
• Found a very intricate room pattern. Fascinating enough to entrance Eni. Party gets him moving again, and Duhr coughs.
• Room with illusionary flames that turn out to be ghosts. Tucq goes it, and Crioth sears. They find that closing their eyes makes the flames not burn as they pass. Tucq trips, and everyone laughs at him.
• Room that had an explosion. Room of magical summoning.
• Shattered remains of a tremendous stone humanoid statue.
• Ethereal archer, and no one’s smart enough to know the difference between the anger and wrath of Duhr. So everyone has an orgy with the ghost, and Duhr turns it, yet again.
• Malfunctioning magical trap.
• Victim of temporal stasis; mage caught in mid-combat. Everyone joins Duhr and bear for more of Crioth’s tea (which he started brewing more of at some point).

There was much discussion about the temporal stasis victim.

Not long after leaving the mysterious time-frozen robed guy, the party encountered a compartment in one of the more intact rooms, similar to a wall safe. Duhr volunteered to open it, with Tucq and Crioth providing physical and moral support while Leuth hid outside the room. A Cone of Cold issued forth when it was opened, lightly frosting all those in the room. (Leuth suffered no direct damage, but slipped on the newly iced floor when he strolled in later.) Inside the compartment were a few valuable items of treasure, which the party nabbed before continuing on.

Further along, the party was proceeding down a particularly crumbly and spooky section of hallway when they were suddenly pitched into inky blackness. As they scrambled to figure out what was going on (had their continual flames been discontinued?), they became aware that Duhr was engaged in some sort of life-or-death struggle. (Unbeknownst to them, a skulking undead creature had dropped on him from the ceiling and was busy trying to drain his precious bodily fluids.) After a lot of panicking and flailing about in the dark, the thing let go of Duhr and skittered away to digest its meal in a dark corner before Leuth could blow it to smithereens. Duhr survived the experience and after a bit of divine healing was none the worse for the wear.

After that it was more of the usual Esh Alakar hijinks. Hideously poisonous snakes (at one point Crioth accidentally stepped on one that Eni hadn't spotted in time and got an ankle full of venom in exchange), another hostile stone golem, a cloudkill trap, a few more valuable ancient relics, and a teleportation chamber that Crioth barely dodged after accidentally triggering it.

The group's biggest setback so far came in the form of an undead horror called a "blaspheme". A mockery of life created from stiched-together human body parts, and standing over seven feet tall, it used its gleaming black teeth to devour the very strength from Crioth's body, weakening him and dazing him too much for him to fight back effectively. It was finally dispatched by the combined force of two summoned elementals from the priests, but not before severely weakning Crioth and taking Eni and Leuth down a peg or two each.