Talum...aka The Negotiator!!

Deciding that the secret cupboard didn’t make a great hiding place, Tay Vorn collected evidence from the sacks in the room and Na’zel pocketed the magical helm.  Then looking out into the room, Gith’orl puts the two maids to sleep with her magical staff.  Unsure of how best to get away, the rest of the group escape through the barred window while Tay Vorn heads outside through the kitchen, completely failing to bluff the servants but still managing to escape with the entire cart load of wine!

Heading to the Miyori house, the gang present their evidence about Selra’s extra-curricular activities but by the time they can get the merchants moving and return to her mansion, Selra has fled taking with her the contents of her bedroom safe.  A body, probably the original Selra, is discovered buried in the cellar.  In return for not revealing that the Merchants Guild had been duped, Talum negotiates a six month free lease on the house in Westcarlham and, pressing his luck, also gets the Guild to agree to paying a 30,000 gp bonus, payable in six 5000 monthly instalments.

Deciding to do something for the people (and taking advice from Gith’orl about Sarenae’s preferences), Tay Vorn organises the group into building a public baths for the poor of the town and Sarenae blesses the group for their acts.  Talum pursues his ideas about recovering the gold from the lake, cast there by the Rhenee tribes, despite a mini tidal wave that damages the docks of the town.  Gith’orl casts a spell to allow her to possess a stone image and Talum and the gnomes lower her into the lake.  Beneath the waves she makes several important discoveries:  there are fish people farming and living below the surface of the lake; the fishfolk are collecting the tribute of the Rhenee and surrounding an undersea hill with a circumference of gold; finally, the hill is no hill but a behemoth buried under the muck.  The tidal wave was caused by the great beast stirring in its sleep and possibly a prelude to it awakening.

Partially prompted by this discovery and partly by a message from Nerith Alia, their Shadows employer, the party set off to find the rest of the cairns and, not incidentally, the rest of the Doomheart device.  The journey goes well up until the party are ambushed by gnolls but they deal with the cowardly creatures quite smartly.  Following the escaping gnolls, the group come to a hill overlooking the gnoll village but they have a extra couple of surprises;  one of the cairns they have been looking for stands on a hill overlooking the village and the gnolls are lead by the crippled beholder of whom Sarenae had blessed Gith’orl with a vision of.

Scrying on the neighbours

Na'zel uzses his Scry spells to check on old adversaries and potentially future ones.....

Prince Karit. Scry was successful.  You can view Prince Karit and he is in a huge tent giving orders to officers of his army.  The prince is still on the plane of fire and is currently at war with other Ifrit over the artifact.  Once he returned to the other Ifrit and wanted to lead them against their enemies from the Plane of Water, other Ifrit nobles stole the artifact from him and they are all fighting over it now.  Think of throwing one bone amongst a pack of dogs with no pack leader.  There is war now but it is amongst the Ifrit.  One of the problems of being Chaotic; everyone wants to lead, no-one wants to follow!

Icefang.  Scry successful.  Icefang has settled into a cold forest in the far north, west of the Worldwound, in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords and is settled in a cave and collecting tribute from from the surrounding tribes, both because he is getting more powerful and because he drives off the demons from the open rift to the Abyss.

Steelbane (if this is Captain Argon).  Scry successful. Argon is drunk in Quantium.  He has the new arm that you gave him (if you have given it to him yet) but still he hates himself.  He thought he was a hero and he turned out to be a fool, duped by the White Lady, and a weakling, defeated and maimed by Tay Vorn.  He hates both of them and would kill either of them if he could. He is unshaven, dirty, constantly drunk and picking fights, which he is still strong enough to win.  He rants about owing you a debt of honour but hates you too because, without you, he would have died an honourable death.  He does not rave about wanting to kill you though; he save his hate for the dragon and for Tay Vorn.  He often thinks about taking his own life but fears what the gods would do to his soul if he did.  He has gone from being a vain noble to being a violent, self-despising drunk.

A wagon full of wine!! Gone!!

Na'zel gets accidentally locked in the vault in the cairn when he reveals a new talent and teleports across the room and Moreta gets the hump and crosses back to the rest of the party, unwittingly activating the vault seals again.

Amongst the treasures that the party finally recover from the vault is part of the Doom-heart, an untested weapon designed to destroy the behemoth if it ever returns, as well as an Amulet of the Planes that proves to not be 100% reliable (more like 50% or less).

Finally leaving the cairn, the group waits for the bandits to return from their raid and ambush them after they split off, picking them off one by one in the surrounding hills and forest.  Picking off the bandits in small groups though means letting the two mercenaries escape.

Travelling back north, the team see a cloud of wild magic sparkling in the daylight.  Mountain lions are following the cloud to pick off weakened survivors of the cloud but the party decide to avoid it all.

Getting back to Westcarlham, after stopping off at the Temple of the Shrines for Gith'orl to pay her respects to Sarenae, everyone visits the Miyori family, keeping the sons hidden out of sight so as not to reveal that they have been rescued yet.

Questioning Miyori, and already suspecting Selra, the adventurers decide to investigate her house.  They buy a wagon of wine to be delivered to Selra's house and stage a fire to allow them to get inside under the cover of invisibility spells.

This gives them the chance to search the house and, in the study, they discover a hidden room with a twin to the teleport circle in the cairn and a magical helmet, which the spell casters have failed to identify at the moment, on a wooden stand.  As the servants in the house discover the smoke-sticks that were used to stage the fire, the group pull the bookcase closed behind them.  Taking care not to be locked in, they lie in wait as guards and servants search inside the house for intruders.

Play the Game!!

Inside the cairn, as the poison fog cleared, the ogre fled, happy to have got away with his life and Talum, frustrated at losing Donyer, rejoined the group.  Not knowing whether there were still enemies inside the cairn, some of the group kept watch while other members searched the dormitories.  This didn't reveal a great deal of loot and one of the few traps, concealed beneath a false floor in a foot locker, failed to do anything more than scratch Na’zel’s metal arm. 

The room occupied by the ogres, next to the filthy and unhygienic kitchen, held only flea-ridden bedding and a few handfuls of copper coins; the ogres rather pathetic 'treasure'.  The escaped wizards rooms though proved more difficult to navigate.  Na’zel managed to dispel the alarm spells protecting the doorways and the prize of Donyer’s spell-books, in the form of scrolls were bundled on the shelves of his study.  The rather  more prosaic treasure of the bandits was held in four chests in Donyer’s bedroom.

Opening the bandits treasure chests proved to be more difficult than the team anticipated and they failed to detect the traps on two of the chests.  The acid clouds released by traps ate severely into Moreta’s armour and singed her hair so severely that it will take a good stylist to restore her good looks.  Amongst the quite significant treasure that they are able to loot are a large number of Westcarlham gold trade bars, a fine Elven flute and a strange gold whistle.

Following the map provided to them by their earlier captive bandit, the gang proceeded to investigate the rest of the cairn, finding an alchemists lab and a forge and, at the bottom of the stairs, a second floating rune pair, marked with an L and a pair of wavy lines.  The forge has some kind of red jewel set in its roof that Na’zel thinks has  a connection to the Elemental Plane of Fire, but Tay Vorn persuades him to wait until the cairn is fully investigated.  The doors on this level respond to the whistle, opening and closing with each single note.

Across from the forge, the group stumble on a sitting room and then a dark room with three different sets of disguises and a magical circle, that the group suspects is for teleporting but the arcanists in the party can't be completely sure of its capabilities and again, the party decide to leave it alone.  It looks like Raxen both has multiple identities and methods of traveling long distances by magic.  One of the disguises, and the presence of so many trade bars amongst the loot, causes the team to suspect that the merchant Selra in Westcarlham, that sent the party to the Miyori family initially, would look similar to Raxen in disguise.

The party then rescue the two missing Miyori scions from their prison, originally some kind of animal pens, and warn the young men not to touch any swords that they see lying around.  This leaves only remaining two routes to check, the stairs down and a corridor to the north-west.  This corridor is protected by a spell similar to the alarm spell upstairs but both much more powerful and combined with the permanency spell.  The spellcasters are unable to dispel the barrier, which does not react to a rock thrown through it and so they decide to investigate the stairs down first.

The stairs come out in a small room antechamber which leads into a room with a checkerboard drawn on the floor and, concealed behind two weapon-racks, many small nozzles.  Suspecting a trap, the party are about to leave when Na’zel puts his foot onto the checkerboard and four ghostly, shapeless figures appear on the far side of the board.  Tay Vorn recognises the board and pieces from a Taldorian game, one used to teach strategy to children as luck plays no part in the game; Na’zel now has to solve the challenge or risk triggering some kind of trap.  Though before stepping on the board it was possible to move around the room, now the entire room has become sensitive to the trap.  With Tay Vorn’s help, Na’zel is able to navigate successfully across the board almost to the end, but making a wrong choice leaves him with the only option of a last mad dash across the rest of the board.  Though this triggers the necro-corrosive gas, Na’zel is close enough to the end of the task that he survives, having activated the sprays only once rather than the four times that it could possibly have gone off, had he just run across. Marks on the floor had already revealed that one of Raxen’s bandits must have already tried this tactic once.  Unsuccessfully. Having passed over the entire the board, this action reveals and unlocks the hidden vaults at the far end of the room but leaves the chessboard room trap still primed until Na’zel crosses back across the board. Na'zel must choose to proceed on alone or return back to the group, re-locking the vaults and resetting the magical trap.

Top 'o da Cairn Ma!!

From the bandit they captured, the group are able to gather some details about the first Star Cairn that the bandits are using as a hide-out.  There are about two dozen bandits left, led by a female human fighter called Raxen and supported by Donyer, an idle and lecherous mage, Tarsot, a cleric of Urgathoa and two recently hired mercenaries, Arnoth Sudheim and Fiyori Lanklander, both deserters from the Nexian army.  Donyer has also charmed several ogres as extra muscle.  Before they tied him up, they also got a basic description of the lay-out of the cairn.

The group decided to circle around the rough hills to the south so as not to appraoch the cairn from the most direct route and while this avoids any guards that the bandits may have posted, they unfortunately get their first glimpse of a wandering and erratic iron golem, which Naz’el identifies as being of a similar age and quality to the magical sword, Silver Tongue, that they had recovered from the bandits in the previous fight.  Despite the suggestion that they could lure the golem against the bandits, the party wisely decide that that is a fight that can wait for another day.  After only a short while in hiding, the golem loses interest in looking for the group and wanders down between the hills, taking, as Moreta puts it, ‘the path of least resistance’.  Out of sight is out of mind, as far as the simulcrum is concerned.

Watching the cairn from a hill quarter mile away, they can see a ten foot high pile of large rocks surmounted by a wide tabletop of stone. As night falls they scout out the approach to the cairn using a combination of stealth and the invisibility sphere provided by Naz’el.  Except Moreta doesn’t watch where she is putting her feet and trips over a rabbit hole.  This disturbs the Donyer and his latest love interest who are supposed to be on sentry duty and the heroes withdraw to rest up overnight. 

While watching the next morning (and while Tay Vorn guts the rabbits that they caught as trail rations; something else for Lissa to learn to cook!), they see the two deserters and most of the bandits leave the cairn and form up outside, heading off to raid the supply wagons that serve the Temple of the Shrines to the north.  Taking advantage of invisibility, and with the rest of the goup preparing to charge the cairn, Talum and Tay Vorn assault the two guards from the air, cutting one’s throat and Talum pushing the second guard from the height of the cairn, the fall breaking his neck.

Moving down the stairs, Tay Vorn passes up taking the sword that hangs temptingly on the wall and suprises the majority of the remaining bandits at their breakfast.  Tay Vorn leaps onto one table and with his signature whirlwind strike, he takes out three of the bandits and wounds Tarsot the Cleric.  Talum bombs the second table of bandits and kills all four of them.  Naz’el is confronted just for a second by a vision of a displeased Urgathoa before his fiery rays strike the opposing Cleric. 

With the dining room cleared, the team check out which exits have had the most traffic and first investigate the dormatories, where Moreta is ambushed, unsuccessfully, by a single enemy who had taken the death of his colleagues as a signal to loot their possessions and try to flee on his own.  While the party are investigating this small collection of treasure, Talum notices the sound of someone fleeing.  Heroic as every, the little gnome fetches Tay Vorn to help but the fighter is suddenly presented with a choice: pursue the unknown fleeing enemy up the stairs or fight the three ogres that were only now coming to investigate the explosions and the sounds of combat.  Tay Vorn blocks off the ogres and orders Talum to pursue the fugitive.

Tay Vorn and Laris take out two of the ogres, with Tay Vorn blocking the ogres exit into the room and Laris stabbing past him with his Bec Corbin.  Despite this solid tactic, Lissa leaps past Tay Vorn to attack and ogre only to find here magical rapier still failed to pierce it’s thick hide.  The last ogre finally overcomes the charm spell cast on him by Donyer when it becomes obvious that fighting Tay Vorn is suicidal.  The party convince the final ogre that it can surrender and will be allowed to flee and it is just climbing the stairs as a cloud of noxious gaqs pours down the strairs.

Up on the roof, Talum has confronted Donyer, alchemist vs mage.  Donyer strikes at the gnome with an enchanted rope but fails to trap him.  Talum responds to each of Donyers tactics by bombing him until Donyer finally drops a stinking cloud on the area.  Blinded by the thick fog and retching from the poisonous cloud, Talum charges where he thought the mage would still be (despite the fact that casting a spell and then moving out of the way is a standard tactic for the party) and plunges out of the cloud, straight over the edge of the cairn.  His acrobatics skill saved him from much damage but the few seconds extra that the noxious effects persisted allowed Donyer to escape, likewise taking advantage of the huge bonus to his stealth that his own invisibity skill gave him, not using the ladder but dropping to the ground and disappearing into the surrounding wilderness.  Hope he doesn’t run into the wandering golem out there! 

With the aid of the layout described by their earlier prisoner, the party should have no problem exploring the rest of the cairn; but there may well be some surprises waiting for them!

Westcarlham bound....

Two nights from the town of Westcarlham, the party's camp is invaded by a swarm of bloated plague zombies rising out of the nearby lake and while fighting them off, the heroes discover the undead 'burst' when slain. Forewarned they are able to deal quite handily with the creatures, with Laris doing his best to defend Gith'orl from attack. Only then do they discover that the monsters were only a distraction to allow the creator of the zombies, a night hag, to try to invade the Moreta's iron fortress. Tay Vorn and Lissa try to fight off the hag, with Lissa trying to break Tay Vorn's bow over the hag's head. Gith'orl and, more importantly, her Osirian dagger finally convince the hag to withdraw for now, promising to return.
Pushing on to get away from the environs of the lake, the troop are able to rest at a military way-station run by an old man called Hansla. As well as Naz'el taking the opportunity to teach Lissa some of the more practical skills of adventuring (such as cooking), the comrades are able to discover that the 7th Nexian Hussars, who unknowingly supplied the parties identification papers, have been recently reassigned to the southern fortresses.
Arriving in Westcarlham, the party find rooms to stay in the Golden Auroch inn. Close to the Mana wastes, Westcarlham has both a large military presense and a healthy population of gnomish engineers. Despite the warnings about the hag hiding off the road to the north, the authorities dismiss the encounter, suspecting the party of exagerating a minor encounter with a local witch. The party also hear of the Rhenee orcish tribes casting treasures into the southern lake to placate the great beast that supposedly lives in the lake and of the gnomish attempts to raise those lost treaures. Few of the people in Westcarlham believe in the Rhenee legends, thinking that it is perhaps just a kraken or similar, but the orcs believe that if the creature stirs, it will destroy the world.
At the nearby Temple of the Shrines, Naz'el is able to talk a priest of Nethys into helping him summon an Arbiter Inevitable to carry back his message to it's masters about the Ifrit plan to invade the Elemental Plane of Water. Tikmala, the Nethian priest, warns Naz'el that despite being creatures of logic, Inevitables are not to be trusted. Indeed, Marut Inevitables are towering beings of stone, steel, and storm who bring a fitting end to those mortals who try to cheat death in attempts to live forever.
Talum meets Boldock, one of the gnomish engineers, who is recuperating at the Temple of the Shrines after having been turned to stone by a creature in the high fells east of the large fortified temple compound. Despite the first thoughts that it might be a medusa, from Boldocks description, they begin to suspect that it might be an aberation created by the Mana Wars called a Beholder, a multi-eyed monstrosity. Wishing to know more about such a creatures capabilities, Gith'orl consults Sarenrae who blesses her with a vision of the beholder being maimed in combat with another monstrous creature.
With a cover story of being firearms merchants, the party meet with Selra of the Merchants and Traders Guild who directs them to Miyori of the Miyori trading house. Miyori's sons, Kharles and Artur, have been captured and held for ransom by bandits that are reputed to have a large number of magical weapons. This might also be a clue to the location of one of the Star Cairns , where these weapons were researched and crafted. The fight at the ransom exchange became a confused mess partly because of the party dividing and confusion over who was to hold back in reserve and who was to go forward to meet the bandits and partly because the leader of the bandits attempted to use his cursed sword, Silver Tongue, to entrance the entire party. The end of the fight though revealed that the party had won through again, despite the magic sword attempting to possess Gith'orl and the revelation that the hostages brought to the exchange point were in fact bandits in disguise, one of whom they have taken alive.

Quantium Dog...

Arriving in Quantium, the crew find rooms at the Rusalka tavern and take the opportunity to do some long outstanding shopping.  Moretta gets a replacement composite bow and Nazel visits the neglected Library in the poor district and meets Chadwick the scribe, learning a spell to allow him to contact the Inevitables as he gains in knowledge and power. 

Tay Vorn decides to learn about firearms and joins Inego Montoya’s school to learn the musket and flirts with Lissa, a precociously talented seventeen year old woman.  Lissa’s father runs the Black Dagger tavern and while visiting this dive, Tay Vorn discovers that Lissa’s father is Kurgan, the brutal head of the Black Dagger thieves’ gang.

Laris visits the Temple of the Sun and has his wolf-spirit possession suppressed by a magical ring provided Lady Reatha, the local High Clerist.  He is quite romantic towards Gith’orl and buys her flowers as a thank you.

Talum demonstrates his skills with the lyre to the local Bards guild but they still seem reluctant to open up to him yet.  Talum also searches for signs of Sergio the Vizier but despite hearing that Kolgot is in town, Talum is unable to trace either of them.

The team finally visit Nerith Alia, mage leader of the Nexian Shadows and she hires them to investigate the Star Cairns in the south of the country, where just over 160 years ago, a group of wizards set up five concealed magical research laboratories, based on an ancient arcane tome.  Tay Vorn tries to foment trouble between the Shadows and the Black Dagger Gang.

The girls, Moretta and Gith’orl, track down the Inn of Eleven Delights, a brothel and gambling house where anything can be had for a price.  Here they meet Hero, a corpulent fixer who can arrange most things if a value can be agreed upon, and purchase military uniforms and passes, stolen from soldiers in the north of the country but probably safe to use in the southern areas that the group are going to.

Visiting The Black Dagger, Tay Vorn convinces Kurgan to allow his daughter to accompany the party but lies about where the group are heading to.  He also tries to drive a wedge between Kurgan and Willen, Kurgan’s second in command and a cleric of Norgorber.  Willen tries to cast a divination regarding Tay Vorn but for whatever reason, his god refuses to enlighten him.

Gathering together in the morning and preparing to leave, Talum spots some ne’erdowells spying on the party but loses them in the crowds.  Not knowing about Kurgan, Talum suspects that they were working for Sergio; only time will tell whether he is right.

Once on the road, the troop make good time in their wagon, with Lissa sharing Tay Vorn’s horse, but once into the southern swamp area the group are attacked by a bridge troll.  No relation of true trolls, bridge trolls are a sort of elemental spirit that combines wild magic and local belief to incorporate as creatures out of children's stories.  Taller than a man on a horse, its sudden appearance is initially shocking but Gith’orl paralyses it with a quick spell allowing Tay Vorn to finish the beast off with a terrible blast from his musket.  Nazel appropriates the creature's hide, knowing well that he can use it to make a magical jacket or cloak.