Tyriis Kryst's page

Ah, quickly now, I must commit my thoughts to paper before they begin to fade. Hopefully the light from the burning wagons will last long enough for me to complete my thoughts…

It was a fairly uneventful rest of the trip north from Torch, which we were thankful for after falling into that pit of undead. The group seemed jumpy and skittish the last few days, each of us waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop as we each built up our own worst expectations in our minds while we trudged quietly along towards Scrapwall. It seems as if the joyous times carousing in Torch were not enough to battle back the uneasiness we all harbored, so the march north was a near silent affair.

The day before we expected to reach Scrapwall we happened up on curious sight that of course resulted in conflict as is the norm for our little band of heroes. The terrain we were travelling across was not particularly rugged but the rolling hills and valleys did make it difficult to see very far off into the distance. This is why we were able to avoid detection as we came out of one of these small valleys and spotted a Gearsman and a Collector robot leading a trio of prisoners or captives in chains. We were able to approach undetected, upon revealing our presence the Gearsman blasted the area with a deep resonating tone that caused my ribs to rattle in my chest! It warned in Androffan that we were not to interfere with Technic League business or we would be dealt with severely. Well, we don’t have any particular love for the Technic League so the opportunity to interrupt their plans (no matter how small) was too good to pass up. A swirling melee ensued but it seemed that the lances of lightning Tharion flung about were the real work horses in that battle and they really turned the tide against our heavily armored opponents. After defeating the robots, we passed some extra weapons and food rations to the prisoners after releasing them from their bonds. They thanked us and headed off on their own.

Oh, I forgot to mention, my cousin Tharion has joined us from home. He was sent by father to check up on me after some of my reports made their way home and of course father was ever concerned that I would be unable to take care of things. After the departure of our gunslinger at the conclusion of our activities in Torch, having an arcanist add his power to our arsenal has been a real blessing. Also it is very nice to have someone fluent in our native tongue nearby so that we may discuss matters in the appropriate manner.

It took a week of travel from Torch, but we finally crested a barren and shrub covered hilltop that offered a distant view of Scrapwall. We can see the fort of Aldronard’s Grave sitting on the west bank and the eyesore that is Scrapwall rising from the dust on the east bank. We wandered through a few more wadis and washes losing sight of Aldronard’s Grave for a bit. When we came back into the flatlands leading down towards the river valley we suddenly spot thick black smoke rolling up from the fort where before there had been none. Tharion and I decided to scout ahead under cover to see what was happening. We encountered a couple of guards on the fort wall that tried to convince us they were burning plague-infested corpses. We immediately noticed they had a very strange manner of speaking, their words were in the common tongue, but their pronunciation was weird and they formed their words with accents I had never encountered before. Tharion and I quickly retreated and gathered the others as we were sure that something dastardly was underway.

As we approached the front of Aldronard’s Grave, the soldiers inside waived to us and called out that if we were determined to help burn the bodies then they would welcome our efforts. Again their odd speech patterns assaulted my ears but I thought little of it. Several of us cautiously stepped towards the portcullis and as we passed through the archway the gate was dropped and their ambush unleashed! Raimden and I dived forward out of the path of the falling gate while Morgrym and Aiden fell backwards outside. Poor Menas was so surprised that he was unable to react in time and was pinned beneath the points of the falling portcullis. Raimden and I could only shrug and we looked at each other and then drew blades to face our attackers. We were heavily outnumbered however we could tell by the way they held their blades that they were not as skilled with their weapons as we were with our own. Raimden quickly dived into a group of them and was immediately surrounded but his ability to deflect and riposte served him well as we was able to fend off most of their attacks. Some blades got through but they did mostly superficial damage. As I approached one warily, I quickly discovered the reason for their odd accents as each of them had cut off their own lips leaving their grisly gums and gnarly teeth exposed and protruding from their faces!

Raimden and I were forced to defend ourselves for a few seconds while Aiden and Morgrym tried desperately to lift the portcullis but after a few attempts it became clear they were not up to the task. I had to valiantly dive into the gatehouse, risking life and limb, to use the winches to lift the gate. That was even more challenging while I was forced to dodge the attacks of two of the lipless mongrels. Thankfully the combination of their poor quality blades and obviously ill-fitting armor that they had scavenged proved to be a blessing as it hampered their efforts to stop me! Eventually I was able to lift the portcullis a few feet and allow the rest of our group to join the fight. Once the others waded into the battle, it was quickly finished but not before Aiden hit one of them with his earthbreaker so hard that the vile ganger literally exploded like a blood filled wine skin smashed beneath the wheel of a carriage! Tharion and Menas were bathed in blood and I am sure they will not soon forget that day!

Afterwards we explored what was left of the fort and found things that turned my stomach. The lipless ones had assaulted those occupying the space and were working on flaying and fileting their bodies for dinner! We found horses and humans in various stages of butchery, their skin hanging from makeshift hooks being smoked and saved for dinner. We also found some horribly beaten (and I assumed tenderized) survivors that we immediately set about healing and getting them back in shape. We had the unfortunate task of informing them of the indignities inflicted upon their companions, but the news was taken as well as possible by the stoic paladin leading them.

We learned some of the history of this place, but the most intriguing point is that locked away behind those doors directly opposite of me wanders the spirit of Aldronard himself, still around and haunting any that would dare venture inside. The warning not to enter of course only piqued our interest further and I wanted to scribble down the events thus far before anything else happens, just in case we do decide to investigate this specter further. I shall report back more once we make our decision and if I survive, the results of our exploration! So exciting!

Well, after a couple of months off due to holidays, family, and folks being away we are back in the saddle… Let the fun commence!

Well, well, well. I finally get some time to get back to my journal. I regret that I have been distracted of late as details begin to slip if not written down quickly. However after finishing up our romp through the halls of the ship below Torch we had a bit of cash in our pocket and some pent up stress that needed to be taken care of which kept us busy for a few days. The band of merry adventurers has been spending loot, buying trinkets, and seeking the company of the fairer kind while we explore our next moves.

I guess I should mention that we were all surprised to discover that the giant flame that makes Torch and Black Hill such a destination for metalsmiths and crafters was a lot more complicated that we expected. The giant flames that burst from the ground above are the result of a broken bit of technology down below. I say bit, but it was actually a massive room sized bit of machinery that I don’t understand at all. Morgrym described it as the power source for the entire ship and that after all of these many many years it was still working, kind of. The machinery is damaged and degraded and the flames are a result of energy building up and having to release which is why it is hotter and better than any other flames in the land. The interesting part is that someone else found out about the source of the flame and has been trying to divert the leaking energy to another source by using some kind of transmitter. This transmitter is why the flames stopped, which we decided to take for ourselves to figure out.

The details are a bit foggy as the brews that they make in this small town are surprisingly strong, but somewhere along the line we decided to stick together and see where this leads. We gathered ourselves, refreshed and repacked our supplies, and headed out. At this point I am just following Morgrym and Raimden around as I’m sure they know where they are going. Our travels began well enough, however a couple of things have happened.

Firstly we ran into a trail of robotic footprints the size of small wagons! Their course and heading were similar to ours, but not parallel, so it appears we missed whatever massive creature is owner of those paws. Our bard, who seems to be knowledgeable of a great many things, did some scouting about and thinks that whatever it was, it had multiple legs similar to that of a spider. I had heard rumors back in Torch about a giant robot wandering the wastes but at that time I had brushed it off as silly nonsense, now I am not so sure…

The next day started out as any other, Morgrym woke us at dawn with his prayers and I was stiff from sleeping on the hard ground. We each went about our normal routines as we nourished our bodies and prepared for more walking. Early that morning, right in the middle of a wonderful discussion about local legends, the ground collapsed and swallowed up a good half of the group! In our travels we tend to keep the softer targets in the middle so that anything that may happen to surprise us has to fight to the middle. Well when it turns out the middle can’t react quickly enough to dodge reflexively, that creates a problem for the rest of us. Thankfully our bard was able to react with lightning speed and cast some sort of falling spell that kept our friends from being hurt. However as they lightly touched down in the ring of light that was created by the hole in the ground they fell through, all we could do was watch as they started shouting up to us about shuffling tech-mashed undead that were slowly moving in for a freshly delivered dinner!

I quickly grabbed the rope off my pack and lashed it to the pommel of my sword with a sailors knot, and then rammed the sword down into the ground to serve as an anchor point to rappel down into the void. There were no trees or large rocks as the lands we were travelling through were pretty barren. The trick worked for me, however one of the *ahem* heavier members of the group tried to climb down after me and instead succeeded in pulling my blade free of the ground. There goes our way out… Anyway we landed in some long long forgotten underground building or temple that was home to a sizable army of undead that had been experimented on, I guess? They had massive drill bits for arms and other pieces of what appeared to be random pieces of tech wired in to their bodies but they all wanted one thing, our blood!

Long story short, we were able to fight our way out as we explored several rooms and we ran into many packs of the nasty zombies. Of interest is that they were all slightly different and we were able to learn which ones had different traits and how to fight them. We also found the creature that had raised them all back to life, a nasty (although surprisingly physically attractive) tiefling type caster that was raising her own army! Our group did a fantastic job of engaging her and her troops so that we suffered only minimal damage. The only other thing that stood in our way was some crazy type of plant that barred the door out, any time we got close it would shoot roots out at us and then fling clouds of spores at us. I don’t know what the spores were fore, but I didn’t particularly want to play host!

My turn for watch is coming up, so I must retire from writing for now. I will have more time to record my thoughts now that we are travelling again, so I will get back to this soon!

So it appears that whatever that broken piece of tech was we salvaged out the lift was turned out to be pretty easy to fix. It only took Khonnir an hour to get the thing bent back into whatever shape it needed to be back into. Now that we have corrected that particular problem, it means it’s time to wander back down into the interesting spaces below the Hill. We made our way back down below and placed the piece back into the correct setting and suddenly things start lighting up and working again.

There was what turned out to be a final room to explore that held one of those machines that liked to stick needles in your body. We were able to dispatch it quickly but not before it got in a good shot on me and sliced open my side as I moved to flank it. A quick spell from our bard and I was good as new.

We discussed it for a bit and decided that we should try and check out what awaited us above. As the lift doors opened on the top floor, a small chime rang out announcing our arrival. This alerted several large dog-like creatures with spiked collars and overly large fangs that dinner was being served. They were lounging about upon piles of old bones, tattered cloth scraps, and various other bits of debris but they were certainly quick enough to leap into the fray as we spilled out of the lift. I think I am starting to learn some strategy as even though I was the quickest to react to the situation, I allowed others in my troupe to dance ahead of me and engage the beasts so that I might better find a flanking position to attack from. The fight went surprisingly well and we were able to dispatch the fiends with little effort, only some minor scrapes and wounds amongst we the intrepid heroes.

This room that we had found was oddly shaped in a sort of half circle with many doors along the flat wall ahead. I decided to start from the left in an orderly fashion and doing my best to be silent I opened the first portal. I was certainly surprised to see two half-orcs and three ratman-type creatures beyond the entrance wearing an odd assortment of make-shift armor and improvised weaponry salvaged from rather large bits and pieces of sharp metal and broken tech found lying about. Thankfully I was able to duck out of sight before they noticed me. I signaled back to the group and they prepared for the engagement. The group braced for combat as the scavengers ran out and started attacking. Some fantastic swordplay was on display as we traded shots back and forth. At one point I was even balanced up on a rail stabbing down at the green-skinned brutes. I found a weak point in their defense and exploited it deftly, killing the beast. While I was bounding about the battle my allies were also doing well as they were able to defeat the poorly equipped creatures. The fight wrapped up quickly and we were able to continue with our explorations.

I opened a second door and found a trap unlike anything I had seen before. Bold green arcs of electricity bounded back and forth from small projections in the walls of the small hallway. It took me some time to find the mechanism that disabled the lighting. After bravely walking through I found another interesting room behind another door. The room featured a broad staircase prominently featured in the center leading up to a raised balcony area. Off to my right I quickly spotted a suspicious looking statue that resembled one of those ghastly gargoyles I’ve often seen decorating important buildings around town. It sat between two large burning brazier’s which seemed odd to me. I’ve read in other journals of explorers describing similar scenes and I always wondered if it were true? Where were the stacks of wood that would be required to fuel such things? Where would the smoke from the burning go? Who stokes the fires and keeps them running? Well, I have no answers to any of those questions, but sure enough there were two of them burning happily away in the center of these tunnels deep below ground. Odd.

Anyway, it turns out that I was right to be nervous about the statue as it was a living beast. I guess it didn’t notice me but it did notice my friends and it quickly came alive and flew over to assault them. The fight was very tough because of the beast’s thick hide that seemed to be able to deflect our blades and offer it some significant protection. Eventually I and Aiden fell below the mighty blows of the living stone fists and claws, thankfully the rest of the group was able to finish off the creature and then tend to our wounds.

Ahh, the sound of new book bindings creaking, always a rewarding sound! I had to replace my old journal as it suffered a significant amount of damage in the last trip underground due to an upset automaton pounding my body into pulp several times. However I was glad I had my journal as I am sure it saved me from a final blow from the angry machine by providing just enough extra padding that my lungs were not destroyed!

It seems that our jolly band of treasure hunters needs to work on our communication skills a bit, lest we suffer another round of near-extinction! After we wrapped up in the room with the dead prisoners we decided to continue on and explore just one or two more rooms before we retreated to regain our strength. For whatever reason, it did not get clearly communicated that our cleric and bard were basically out of their magical abilities for the day. Also some of the more physically inclined party members failed to disclose exactly how hurt they were from the previous encounters. Looking back, it is pretty easy to see how we ended up nearly all dead and just another footnote in the history of Torch.

Anyway the rescue of Khonnir was accomplished, but it was almost an end to our troupe. We encountered these two automatons and they were a significant challenge for us. Yes we were depleted and out of resources, but even if we had our full complement of spells we were still unprepared for what we faced. One of the machines seemed to just want to inject some sort of sleeping poison into us then the other one would scoop you up and pound on you. The first machine was not horribly difficult to deal with and even though it managed to cause some issues it was tackled fairly quickly. The second one was an entirely different story.

As it turned out, almost nothing we had in our arsenal was strong enough to get through the additional armor and padding built into that foe. Even with my ability to find and exploit weak spots, we were unable to do more than chip off dust or occasionally ding the outer shell. The one guy we were really hoping to make the difference by using his earthbreaker seemed to be unable to hit or when he did the machine would jerk just to the side and cause the hit to glance off. The fight dragged out and part members were falling left and right so Alexis and I decided to just grab Khonnir out of the metal cage he was in and make a break for it. Well it turns out that the machine did not want to let Khonnir go and instead of focusing on the combatants directly surrounding it, followed Alexis and I as we tried to escape. This of course ended up with us being beaten unconscious, then healed back from a magic wand, then beaten down again, rinse repeat.

Eventually the bard ended up saving the day by landing some especially critical hits while using his longsword two handed. We learned that we did not have the correct tools for that job so we needed to correct that situation. We returned Khonnir to Torch but had to seek some immediate help as his mind had been diminished to almost that of a feral beast due to some sort of mechanical disease called nan-ite-is or nanbots or nanites or something like that. But a couple of days under the care of the local healer and Khonnir was back to his old self.

(OOC) – So, as UseplanB said, this night was uber frustrating and it was our fault as party members and also the encounter being something we as a group were not ready to handle. Because we only play every Friday night, we somehow forgot to go over the fact that we had not rested at the end of last Friday and so were all still hurt and out of spells. So yeah, rookie mistake and dumb of us. However the fight we ran into was hard enough that it would not have mattered if we had all our abilities and I encourage GMs to think about it very carefully before getting here. We ran into something that had a hardness value that none of us were prepared to handle. Our group has never been the most strategically minded so we almost never run away from a fight, so we even tried that and it didn’t work. We also almost never use the assist other function so we didn’t think about that until it was too late. So don’t be afraid to offer some gentle nudging or ideas if your group doesn’t have a lot of heavy hitters.

After returning to town and seeing that Khonnir was safely taken care of, we did what any other adventuring group does and focused our efforts on getting paid for our efforts, selling our finds, and getting some much needed rest. I mostly spent my time around the tavern resting and regaining my strength. I know Grym and the singer spent some time meeting with a local Sanvil Trett and had some of our finds evaluated and traded. That ended up leading to Trett trying to sneak in and steal some of our tastier things later that night. It did not work out so well for him as he found one of the bear traps Aiden had left about as protection. It basically mutilated his leg and alerted us to his presence. He had waited until the very darkest hours of the night while we were all sound asleep but we caught him.

I searched him and found our stuff but I also found a slip of paper with our names all listed as well some other folks in town. We went around and interviewed the folks and ended up talking with Garmen about why his name was on the list or if he knew anything about a warehouse that was also written down. He of course, as a fine upstanding citizen had no idea what we were talking about. We had a feeling he wasn’t being honest so we dropped it at that and left.

After some interrogation of Trett at some later point we learned that he was a member of the League and that Garmen was a major crime boss in the area. We also learned that he might be hiding some things of value in his warehouse across town. This of course led us to checking the place out the next day. We cased the place and found that it was disguised to look abandoned but that there was one entrance that had been recently used. After employing some heroic lock-picking skills I was able to get us into the place, but that presented a problem. As usual, we had not discussed what we should do if we run into someone on the inside. So upon opening the door and seeing 2 Ropefist guards walking around, well, we had no idea what to do. Our swashbuckler just strutted right past us and started working some bluff magic and found out that Garmen was here.

Well, that presented some problems so we employed our standard tactic of shoot first ask later and jumped into a free for all right there on the catwalk. When I finally rolled into the building I was momentarily slowed by some feeling of sickness that seemed to vibrate in the air but it quickly passed. Later I found out that Garmen had been hiding a particularly rare piece of technology that was causing headaches and sickness all over town. The fight was relatively short in that we were able to handle the Ropefist guards rather quickly even though they really pack a punch (pardon the pun). Garmen nearly gutted our swift-talking fancypant swashbuckler but we were able to gang up on him and eventually bring him down before finishing the job.

So now, we have to figure out what to do with this new piece of tech as we prepare to return to the tunnels below!

This place we have decided to stumble through just seems to continue to offer surprises and disconcerting situations. It has become increasingly challenging to even describe the artifacts and machines left behind by the aliens (for indeed these can only be from an alien source) after the destruction of their habitat. Should we find Khonnir and return him safely to Torch, we will surely be able to fill our pockets with gold after selling the strange and wondrous things we keep happening upon. Of course that assumes that we will survive the trip.

As our group has progressed through the tunnels and rooms of this alien place, I have continued to search for any of the traps or barriers that one would commonly expect in standard expedition exploration. However as this is so strangely different from any of my previous hunts through underground places, I have yet to find anything that resembles your usual explorer-bait. I’m continue to be vigilant but I am concerned that I will become careless and when the time comes that I truly need to perform my duty as an expert in traps and barriers that I will miss a sign to the detriment of my companions. I will just have to stay motivated and do my utmost to remain focused.

We began our exploration by opening into a medium sized room that seemed to have a central desk and various bits of debris and whatnot scattered about. There was the presence of some nasty red mold off in one corner but our bard assured us that is was harmless. The primary thing of note was the massive red stain of dried blood and gore that had once pooled under a door to the north. The size of the stain left little to the imagination of the fate of the victim, but only about half of it was on our side of the door and the rest disappeared behind the closed portal door. A moment passed where we each seemed to catch each other’s eye in a questioning sort of way and as a group we sort of mentally shrugged and prepared our individual weapons for what may lie ahead.

Cautiously we opened the door and peered ahead, expecting an ambush. Instead we were greeted with a scene of horror and ruin that caused us to take a step back. A hallway extended before us, the floor coated in gallons of dried blood from what had to be many bodies being dragged through to the door beyond. However it appears that the group gave as well as it got as there were many twisted and melted heaps of metal in clumps along the curving hall. It appears quite an exchange of steel and magic reduces many of the automatons to melted rubble, but not enough to stop several explorers from passing on. The floor was not the only place covered in the dark red tapestry, as many splashes and slashes of dried blood on the walls encouraged us to keep our hands to ourselves as we passed through this hall. It curved to the right and ended in another portal door, I wish the blood trails would have ended there as well however we could see them continue on as if it were some gore-filled fairytale road.

We entered the next room and it appeared to be some sort of study area or science oriented location. We observed piles of dirt and geodes on tables strew about the room. Off to one corner there seemed to be some sort of plant creature that was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was only as tall as a gnome but it was shaped like a giant bulbous brain with spindly little limbs that barely supported the weight. The most commanding feature was the giant mouth the spanned the entire span of his round body, like some sort of tooth-filled Mohawk waiting to chew us down. Oh, and also it spoke directly into our minds, sounding like the scariest child imaginable. We spoke back and forth briefly and were able to determine that some machines had dragged several bodies through the room into some other hallway beyond yet another portal door. After saying several times that it enjoyed the “bright red food” left behind by the previous altercation in the hallway, it finally got hungry enough to try and take some more bright red food directly from our bones. Or course we were loath to comply with such a request and a fight for our lives ensued. It was a quick battle with bites and blades exchanged, however the important part is that yours truly survived without incident! I don’t believe the creature was able to even strike a blow against me which is truly a wonderful turn of events! It did have one sneaky trick, some sort of sound pulse that was so powerful in our minds that caused a few of us to be sickened and nauseous for part of the battle. In the end, I was able to land a particularly solid stab that seemed to cut the fight short, or at least hasten the end of the plant’s life.

As we continued on through the portals on the other side of the room we continued to follow the trail of blood. It led to yet another doorway that seemed to move into some other area, so we decided to double back and clear the rooms behind us to assure that nothing angry (or hungry) would surprise us amid another battle. I wish I could explain the different machines and other baubles we encountered, but I don’t understand at all what we were seeing. I will say we found some strange tubes that seemed to have rations in a gooey almost liquid form contained within. Even after such a long time underground the goop still had a great flavor and seemed to be edible. Several of us took some to either use or sell as each wished, but other than that the technology in this place is beyond my skills. Morgrym and the bard seem to be as happy as can be rushing from thing to thing, I am just hoping to survive!

This small prep room opened into a much larger room that seemed to be designed as a large dining room. Mostly overturned metal tables and stools occupied the room along with some machinery along the wall. We did run into a couple of small yellow globs that I had heard tend to carry disease. They slowly creeped across the room and I tried to warn my companions, but Aiden leapt off one of the tables heroically and smashed one of them into the ground with his massive weapon. The resulting explosion of acid and goop may have exposed several companions to illness, but only time will tell.

Eventually we came to a different sort of room, it was a small place and the doors did not react in the same way. Morgrym told me it was called an “elevator” and that if it was actually working it would act in the same way as a lift. There was some sort of sparking and arcing lightning bouncing around some metal wires that burned a bit when I tried to remove the broken parts. I had to give up on it but had better luck when I came back through later. It took all of my skill and reflexes but I finally got it out on the second try.

It seems that maybe some of the experiments may have grown up and taken over this place as we continue to encounter aggressive and oversized plant life that hungers not for the sun, but for flesh. This time we moved into a room covered with ivy and foliage. In the back of the room, hidden in the lush dense brush was a giant yellow flower with very long thorny vines. Of course, as we are very attached to our skin we fought back and thanks to one heck of a great shot by Alexi the plant was beaten quickly. I wish to point out that I survived yet another battle with barely a scratch, so this must have been my blessed day! As we were wrapping up that engagement, a door off to the side of the room swished open and a band of tiny living vines with claws came pouring into our space. They were mean and angry little beasts but we were able to finish them off with careful application of strategy and sharp blades.

After we explored the room and found cell with human prisoners with torsos that had exploded outwards, as if some vile creature had burst forth from within. What sort of clue that might be is yet to be determined, however I am sure that I will not be taken captive under any circumstance if that is to be the fate of prisoners. I believe each carried a holy symbol of Brigh upon them, which was not a pleasant situation for Morgrym to have to face.

Here we paused to discuss our options, I will report our decision of which path we choose to follow in my next journal entry.

Well it would seem that after returning to town, my companions required some down time to shed the stresses of being underground roll off their shoulders. I don’t quite understand how participating in games of chance that are heavily weighted to the advantage of the establishment makes them feel better, but things seemed to go well for us as a group. I believe we all ended up making some coin as the fates seemed to be in our favor. After spending some time there we all retired for the evening to prepare for the next trip below.

The next morning we again descended into the tunnels and picked up our explorations where we left off. We noticed how the walls quickly stopped being made of stonework and shifted to being made of some kind of strange dark grey metal. The corridors were very quiet except for the ringing echo of our steps as we slowly made our way deeper.

I scouted ahead and stopped the group as a robot guard came into view. After looking it over we determined that it was just another repair robot and that it was not interested in us or much of anything else. It just stood there as we approached carefully and did not react as we circled it and waited. After a few moments of nothing happening, we decided it was safe to try and find a way through the portal door that it seemed to guard. There was a small raised pad area on the side of the door so naturally that looked like a great place to start. Grabbing my best set of picks I worked my way under the panel and heard a click as my picks activated the mechanisms underneath. I heard Aiden shout out my name and then I remember nothing as the back of my head caved in…

I woke up at some point later thanks to Morgrym’s magical healing. I’m not sure what happened for the few minutes I was unconscious, but I am starting to be afraid that one of these times Morgrym won’t be able to bring me back from the brink. I’ll just have to be even more on my toes as we continue in this strange environment. Which speaking of strange, as we crept forward the walls kept changing back and forth from smooth and obviously metal structure to deep red rock and natural sand floors. I’m not sure why it changes back and forth but it is disturbing.

In the first major space where the engineered tunnels converted to wide open natural rock and sand we ran into some kind of creature I had never seen before. This beast lived under the sand and it would fling tentacles at us as it tried to pull us into a maw of razor sharp teeth. That particular behavior was not uncommon amongst other creatures we have all encountered, however it had some sort of ability to make the sand around it turn to a thick and almost soupy sort of consistency that instantly would start to suck you downwards. My natural agility made it easy for me to escape the clutches of the sand once it had me, but there was little I could do to avoid the initial suction of the sand. Because of this I spent most of our battle dancing in the sand trying to avoid being dragged below to my death. Finally other members of our band were able to raise enough offense from a distance to kill off the monster.

After defeating the sand monster we ventured further into this great desert expanse in the darkness that surrounded us. We were all eager to understand what was here under the Hill but after the many surprises we had encountered thus far we were understandably cautious. With a marching order that best utilized our reaction times and skills we set out following the footsteps in the sand that obviously just had to be Khonnir’s group, right? We had seen very little sign of any other recent activity down here so we figured that these footsteps must have belonged to the remaining members of the group we are here to rescue. As we forged ahead, we encountered (at different times) these wandering four-armed and rather tall skeletons that had way too many bones in them and that also prominently featured this sickly green light that while was bright, seemed to ooze out of their eye sockets. The first of these fell before the rapidly moving blade of RaimdenThe creature could not even muster a defense in time to stop the angry thrusts leveled against it. . After the battle Raimden mentioned that he had spent time in Osirion and that even that far south he had heard rumors of four-armed aliens and that these may be undead versions of those beings. The second creature suffered the same fate although in this instance it was the mighty hammer of Morgrym, guided by the power of his faith, that turned the walking pile of bones to dust.

A while later as we were moving deeper into the land we encountered a third one, only this one was a king of its kind for sure. This superior being quickly overpowered Aiden as he rushed in to meet the beast face-to-face. It battered aside Aiden’s weapon and with seemingly one strong swipe tore a gaping wound the length of Aiden’s torso wide open which quickly put the brave fighter out of the battle. The rest of us quickly moved to encircle the creature and to move it away from Aiden, but we had very little success in even hitting it. When we were able to land a blow, it seemed that our weapons could not find solid purchase. I was able to sneak past its defenses and land a shot, which quickly earned me some unwanted attention. As has been the standard for my time with this group, in short order I was overpowered by the sheer strength of the beast and was left unconscious once again. I don’t know how the fight ended as I was not standing to see it, but we were victorious and had to move away quickly to find a safe spot to lick our wounds.

After we were back to some sort of fighting shape we continued on towards a lit cavern off to one side. We were able to explore some areas that some of the smarter folks in our group were very excited about because they were full of technology to play with, but I was more focused on another four armed fellow with very sharp serrated short swords that seemed intent up killing us. The fight raged back and forth trading advantage between sides but eventually we were able to strategically position ourselves and finish him off without too much of our blood being spilled. For now though, our group is out of spells and tricks for the day, so we must rest and see what the next day will bring!