The Dark Continent Adventure

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: The Dark Continent Adventure
GM: Miles Jackson
Season: Autumn 804 WK

Party

• Dirk
• Raidon
• Tanis
• Robert McLeod
• Falco
• Theodonna

Employer

John McCormick

Mission

rescue his young daughter Nicole from the demons that kidnapped her and sealing the temple up

Pay

2000sp just for going on the mission

4000sp for rescuing the daughter

4000sp for sealing up the Temple (which in effect will remove the curse).

Original scribe notes

Media:Snau0401.zip

Scribe Notes

The Party

• Dirk, (elected party leader), a mixture to beast-master/ warrior / namer / military scientist, has the wolf named Shadow and a baby Phoenix. He is a Dwarf with a lovely Golden cloak. Good with Battleaxe.
• Raidon, a Human, he was an Air Mage (from the sounds of it, not any more, thought he still has some of the spell for that area). He has merchant and healer skills as well as Military Scientist. (below average in looks).
• Tannis, a Human Air Mage, not long a Guild member, good with a bow and has good horse riding skills.
• Robert, a Human Mind Mage, like to be in the front line for attacks, he has death aspect. Good with Battleaxe.
• Falco, a Human Shadow Mage. He is slight. He has mentioned his Thief skills. Likes his Rapier.
• Thedonna, a human Namer, not long with the Guild. Learning new things all the time.

The mission if we choose to accept it.

John McCormick comes from a different plane looking for Adventurers to rescue his young daughter Nicole from the demons that kidnapped her and sealing the temple up. The temple is in the Dark Continent where John had gone to look at and research for the University, among other things. He and some other people have unsealed the temple and cursed themselves. He does not really believe in magic because he comes from a technological society.

He will pay to each member of the party 2000sp just for going on the mission 4000sp for rescuing the daughter 4000sp for sealing up the Temple (which in effect will remove the curse).

The Information that the Party has been able to get out of John and Hildargo.

John went on an expedition to the Dark Continent to explore this Temple and bring back items for the University. He went with his assistant Terry and some hired soldiers to protect him, he also brought his eldest daughter Jasmine along with him.

He was warned by Hildargo, who lived in the ravine near where the temple was situated, which is a hole in the ground, to not discrete the Temple, (Do not open).

His soldiers mysteriously ended up dead or missing a half his bearers from a nearby village were killed off as well. A fellow explorer (a rival), by the name of Baron von Grunhiltz, also around the same time had decide to explore the temple.

They broke the seals of the Sarcophagus and took the items of treasure for further study. Since then strange things have started to happen.

John got the statue of a female with feline features. John assumes the other two statues, a bat and a cat, were taken by the assistant Terry and the Baron. John has received a strange message from one of them and he thinks it is to do with the strange things that are happen with his family.

Other items that John got were a golden Torac, a bracelet, a necklace, a belt, a Scarab Beetle broach and some gold coins. Terry took the gems and the Baron took the metals.

Hildargo says you need all the statues to seal up the Temple again and this should appraise the Demon who resides there.

From the information received the Demon is Alyria, who a mostly female body. She can transform into any animal. Her favorite creature is a lion and she likes the dark, weakness is light, bright light. She comes from the 7th plane of hell. She will grant powers. She has a vindictive streak.

There is some History that says people came down from the north and started to worship the God Basst at the Temple and Alyria got usurped. Basst is a feline god.

Back to Hildargo (a witch doctor).

Hildargo seems to be a sort of keeper of the Temple. He has made a deal with someone(thing) to verbally warn people off. He seems to be the friend of John and is helping him out for some reason. He says if the items are returned things should be okay. (From what he says and the way he says it you seem to think he has been forced into this arrangement, something to do with the entity??)

After the items were taken from the Temple weird things have started to happen to John’s family. Nicole the youngest start to get violent and after two months of this she was kidnapped by two foot tall flying demons with sharp claws and teeth (Quasit).

John has been D/A and he has a greater curse and it will take a Rank 35 to maybe get it off. All his family needs to get it off themselves otherwise they will re-infect each other. We accept the mission.

We have to wait 3 days for the conditions to be optimum for Hildargo to transport us to the plane we will need to go to. While we wait we go to Karakaz to get some potions to help us on our mission. Karakaz is two hours ride away from the Guild. She is also looking after Dirk’s Phoenix. Karakaz is deemed to be very ugly and repulsive in her features.

When we go visiting a Gollum is tending her garden we go to speak with it. It says we have to wait for Karakaz and that she will not be long. After about half an hour a dishealved young man comes out looking very dazed.

A high pitch voice asks us to come in. We ask if we can get some potions and greaters. In payment she would like to have a go with one of the party members. She picks Raidon, so he has to do the deed to get us the greaters and the potions. Raidon gets very shagged and will have explicit and not very nice memories of the experience. Karakaz is very please he lasted the whole session.

• Tannis, Dirk, Robert, Raidon, Thedona will get greaters +16
• Raidon an endurance with +18
• Dirk gets a potion for agility +8 points
• Falco an amour enhancer (+2 points to defence/amour?? and make skin go a sickly yellow colour), and also a +9 Greater
• Potions: 4 x resurrection suppository, a strength potion +17 (2 week duration)

Karakaz says that a delivery of herbs has not come through from a town and she will need these to do the potions. The village is reluctant to send more shipments. We are to take a message and give it to the person at the gate and that we are not to ask too many questions.

Pick up the herbs and bring the shipment back here. 2 girls have gone missing; they had been transporting the herbs to Karakaz. We will get a bonus if we sort out the problem. The bonus would be

• 2x stealth potions (2 weeks duration),
• 1 x Manual Dexterity +10 (2 weeks duration),
• 3 x healing potions (14 points),
• 4 x resurrection potions and
• 2 x troll skin salves (smear on limb and it will regrow)

The village is populated with werewolves.

Day 2

We go near the village in morning to deliver the message. Raidon, Robert and Shadow check to see if anything is following. They think squirrels.

Walking unseen is cast on all members of party except for Thedona who will deliver the message at the gate of the village. Dirk D/A’s Thedona and last magic to impact it ESP. Party members are lurking in the trees watching and waiting.

Thedona goes to the gate and knocks and hands over the message and then goes in, (she should have stayed outside and waited for the reply). When going through gate last magic to impact is Hellfire – no effect. (Aura going wacky???) She is taken to the hall where food and drink are served and gets spelled by one of the young men there.

Meanwhile the daughter of the leader comes out to see the other party members and says Thedona got saved by the village leader Garon. Thedona lusts after one of the young men. Garon says Hello and give a box of herbs for Karakaz, and do not open. An Iron box comes out Dirk D/As it get three questions trapped with hellfire opening it causes it to activate illusion special to counter it.

Tannis takes Thedona arm to help her out of the village, (still feeling the effects of the spell). Dirk gets Shadow to sniff to see if everyone is the right person. They are. Thedona gets to walk with the chest. Others are still unseen, Shadow scouting around. On the way back to Karakaz we find a body in the middle of the road, looks human and female. Party gets Thedona to stop to have a rest as if she has not seen the body yet. D/A (dead. formerly living and killed by a blow) Robert cast ESP and gets 90 foot range with a 60 degree angle and feels emotion of two confused and one angry.

Thedona starts walking again and acts surprised to see the body, so this will trigger the trap hopefully.

Trap triggered.

A smoke Granados comes flying out of thin air and lands at Thedona’s feet, then before the grenados take effect she see an Eleven lady come out onto the road in front of Thedona shouting in a guttural unknown language.

Fight ensues. We get attacked by two unseen trolls wielding battleaxes. The elf lady gets killed by a troll trying to get Dirk. One of the troll’s runs off when the fear spell is cast at it. The other troll gets hit with mental attack from Robert. Part of the party is damaged, takes healing potions.

We see what we find on the bodies

• 1 x Giant Battleaxe with silver teeth (200 pounds)
• 2 x undetectable potions
• 4 x smoke Granados
• 300sp
• strips of plate armour for metal.

decide to track it back to its hideout, it is a cave, when we get near there we hear heavy movement. We cast some spells and this stops it and then we check the cave out. We find glass vial with stuff in them. They get D/A to check what they are and the seem to be the Karakaz herbs.

We go back to Karakaz to claim the reward and get the other things we came for. Karakaz gives and extra reward of magical gauntlets, which men fear. Tannis get them. (One had does fire, the other does cold).

Items are split up. Silver taken of the Battleaxe. Brought 6 x healing potions from the Guild.

Day 3

When we get back to the Guild, John our employer is bruised and bandaged, (trying to take apart a Golem).

We go and hypnotize him to get more information, he is willing. Found he has missing memories concerning his assistant. Also catch up on the research from the Guild. (See first page)

Day 3

When we get back to the Guild, John our employer is bruised and bandaged, (trying to take apart a Golem). Which was not happy to oblige.

We go and hypnotize him to get more information, he is willing. Found he has missing memories concerning his assistant. Also catch up on the research from the Guild. (See first page) Dirk suggested to John that he should get hypnotized to see if the party could get any more information.

The information that we got out of him was the he got the statue of the woman, (one of the sealings). He also got a Golden Torac, a number of nice jewelry, which is scarab beetle, a Bracelet, a necklace, a belt, and a quantity of gold. All these seem to be at his university office.

He has a key to the door at the university. He has an assistant, Terry McChallister.

There are two other statues one of a cat and one of a bat. More about the daughter Nicole's kidnapping.

They were having dinner, (all the daughters, the father and Hildargo) about four days ago. The creatures that attacked were two foot tall, small and brown with horns and sharp claws and teeth.

Information on Hildargo.

On the expedition they found him in a hut in a ravine near the temple, he warned them not to discrete the temple. The expedition party consisted of the father, the assistant, the daughter Jasmine, 6 soldiers and a few beaters.

The soldiers and half the beaters died by magical means, eg shriveled up and got burnt in flames, or just disappeared.

Because of the soldiers disappearing and that another party had come as well to with Baron von Grunhiltz, (reveals), they combined parties.

In the temple the saw a sarcophagus and the items that John got were from the sarcophagus. The Baron took the metals, and the assistant took the gems.

We ask about his assistant and when he last saw him. He could not remember the last time he saw his assistant. We notice by asking some other questions that he seems to have other missing memories.

It has been one month since the expedition and that the assistant Terry went with Baron. Dirk gave him hypnotic suggestion to give us the items to us to help daughter and not to remember it his session.

Hildargo returns from visiting friends.

We talk to Hildargo.

He is a sort of keeper of the temple and he has made a deal with someone (???) to verbally warn people away from the temple. (We get the impression that he was forced into the arrangement with the entity.)

He says to us to talk rather than fight.

He also says that other looters may visit the temple. And to do with the case of John and his daughter that if the items are returned, things should return to normal. We will meet the daughter before the end and when he takes us to the other plane he will use most of his strength.

Dirk and Falco get D/A's off on Hildargo, mine fails. The D/A's on him do not seem to be working properly because we got some strange answer. His Generic True Name came up as Gnoll and he is pacted with Father Christmas, he last shifted from a plane was 4 days ago and the Geased is in effect and there does not seem to be a magical link with the entity that had Geased him.

(Other info found out the next day. Hildargo has lived near the temple for a couple of years. Before that he has moved around a lot. Hildargo is pacted to learn knowledge.) A little bit later the party asks John about the city he lives in and if there are things we should know about dress and any customs.

The men of the party are expected to wear a kilt and a they can also wear a sword with it. Amour is not really worn around the city and would look strange if we did. Us ladies of the party would have to dress as Ladies of that realm because women over there do not dress as men and are not armed either.

There are no magic users in Edinburgh. We are told that they were burnt at the stake. We will have to be carefully about what magic we use where and when.

The people of that city worship the sciences, I do not what kind of religion that is and asking the other party members, and they do not know really either. We did get a little bit of an explanation from John. (could they be members of a cult?)

John says we may be able to be passed off as weird foreigners (smelly unwashed foreigners) and have a cover story coming from Tansavaner.

We buy a jet amulet, (4800sp), with a radius of 50 foot to stop demons from coming in, (as long as the person wearing the jet amulet steps does not move the radius pass the demons, which will let them in.) I get to wear this one.

We buy an Iron amulet, (4000sp), with a 10 foot radius. Raidon wants to wear this one. The party will sell this for profit later on.

We know that Alyria was sealed in the temple. And we know the John, the assistant Terry, and Baron von Grunhiltz desecrated the temple

Day 4

We walk to the Portal site and Hildargo walks faster for one so small.

At the Portal, Hildargo puts his staff in the field. All the grass trees in a 50 foot radius start to whither. The staff starts to glow, while the grass blackens. The Portal opens. Hildargo crumples to the ground. The party helps him up and through the Portal.

The Next Plane.

It is dark, misty and raining. Great way to start the morning. In the distance we seem to be able to see lights of some kind. John says that is Edinburgh Castle on the hill, and we are about a mile from the city.

John goes off to organize transport to his town house. And the temperature is very cold to me. Someone recons that it is around -5 degrees, at the moment. A few people that are seem to have taken a bit of an interest to us. The Party exchanges a few coins to stave off that interest.

We take the transport to John's townhouse where he is greeted by servants, and are informed that his remaining daughters are waiting. The daughters are Jasmine (mid 20's), (she is wearing men’s clothes and a rapier and she has total contempt for us??), Julie (21), (she seems to be quite friendly to everyone except Falco), and Francesca (16), (the males of the party think she is a stunner). All of them are wearing riding clothes and not the frilly stuff either.

Dinner is served for all party members and John and his daughters. About halfway through dinner discussions on other things we need to know about and a basic plan of attack is drawn up. During Dinner Falco talks to Jasmine about her rapier, she has learnt this a finishing school, as well as riding and other things and the other sisters are nearly as proficient with this.

John tells us that we will be meeting Baron von Grunhiltz in the next couple of days and will be going for a ride in a Zeppelin. (Whatever the hell that is). Something that floats and moves in the air. Wouldn't a flying spell work just as well.

Four men bring a crate, which has in it the feline statute, a belt, a scarab beetle broach, a necklace, a Torac, and a bracelet.

Dirk, Falco, and me D/A the items. The necklace, the bracelet, and Torac are non-magical items. Falco gets no answer to his question on the belt. Dirk gets that the most powerful effect it that of Demonic communication.

The Scarab Beatle Broach - has the ability to transform the wear into a scarab beetle. We also D/A the daughters

• Jasmine - last magic to impact was a greater curse, and she feel a little bit under the weather and also stronger.
• Julie - seems to be faster and more agile.
• Francesca - weird dreams of the future, her boyfriend has disappeared and she has lost money and an item.
• John - he seems to be healthier, better than the last ten years.

The attack on the daughter Nicole is explained that the items were on the table, which the father had put there. Nicole had turned very aggressive and then the little winged creatures turned up and took her.

Falco D/A's Robert and the last magic to impact is life wasting from the Portal. Raidon uses his nontactal empathy and he feels that everyone is a little bit drained.

Dirk tries to divinate Francesca but fails. It now 10pm at night in this realm we all go to be in the main guest room and we take the items with us to guard. We set watches for the night. We would like to talk a maid, (any maid), about back stairs. You would think in a place the size of this that there would be back stairs.

Day 5

At breakfast, the party and John discuss plans about what is going to happen today. We will need to go to John's country estate later today, where the Baron will meet us tonight and then the next day we start on the journey to go to the Dark Continent. It will take about 2 hours riding from here to get to the estate.

Some of the party members want to try out the weapons called guns to see how the work and how useful they would be to us as a group. Dirk is going to divinate the items, and Shadow and Raidon are with him.

While Dirk and Raidon are find out more about the items, the rest of the party members and me go off to the firing range. We are shown the very basics from some of the servants about the guns and left to practice with them. They seem to be not as accurate I expected and they are very loud.

As we are going back to the house, we here and explosion. We think it may be from the room where the divination was happening. It is. (I later find out that Dirk was doing a 3 hour divination on the statue. The fire place started to smoke and obscure the visibility in the room decreases. In the distance they could hear servants yelling for help. Shadow was able to smell something in the smoke.

Raidon thought he could see another one coming through the fire place.

The first thing gets D/A by Dirk and it was a Quasit. Dirk says it went after him and only got it claws into his clothes. He brushed it off and it starts to circle around.

A third one appears before Raidon could get the fire out. He saw in the fire place that the grate is gone and they are coming out of the ground. (Raidon maneuvers himself so the amulet stops any more from coming through.) We dash into room to help fight what has come up in there. We have a fight killing the Quasits that are in the room.

From outside we hear a very loud clank. It is the grate in the courtyard. More Quasits appear from here. The staff of the townhouse decide to help and defend there employers place as well. Raidon casts lightening and gets the rest of the Quasits. I can see that a cart has been over turned on the grate area to stop others from coming through.

We hear a Scottish voice say “oh F****K!!!”

We go downstairs, towards the area that we think the voice has come from. We see a young male person in a kilt, speaking in a strange language, looks like he is casting a spell, with a Quasit fluttering around him.

There are 12 other Quasits in the room as well. We engage in a battle and win. While we are fighting this person and the Quasits, John our employer comes to try and help with one of his guns. He recognizes the person as Terry, his assistant. Terry, his assistant, has now been turned into an undead Necromancer. In the battle Raidon got his heart ripped out. On Terry’s twisted body we find the Bat statue and a crystal. We D/A the crystal. It is heart linked with Raidon. Person who holds the crystal can draw from the person it is linked to all but 1 point of Fatigue and Endurance. If the crystal is destroyed the person who is linked dies.

Information of the Divinations.

The Statue
- It Enhances Mana of beings pacted with Alyria
- Limited Shape Change to the processor
- Sealing Demons
- Demonic Origins (Alyria created it)
- Curse has been put on afterwards to summon things when divinated.

Dirk and Falco go up to Divinate the weak and resting Hildargo.

- Demonic Geas
- Geas older than two weeks
- Instructed to prevent the release of Alyria
- Protected by enhance Illusion
- Currently under life drain
- Age 1200 years old
- Black mage (Wicca), with a bit of Necromancer
- Not pacted at all.

Dirk gets the professor to guard Hildargo. (Otherwise we have no way to get back) We decide to go down the hole where the fire grate is. It looks as if it has been tunneled out by something. Raidon goes down in Gases Form. At the bottom it comes out into tunnels with bricks, at least two foot of this very evil smelling sludge. One of the tunnels heads in the direction of Terry’s house, (which is Northwest of here), and the other tunnel heads Southeast.

Before the rest of the party members go down to the tunnels, Tannis casts vapour breathing on the rest us. Wolf stays and guards Phoenix. Also Phoenix tells us a legend: Alyria and Basst were sisters and they had a falling out over a male demon. They had been great friends and they had similarly abilities before he had driven a wedge between them, (he is half human and half demon). He also boosted this to other demons. The sisters do no know that the have been played.

The tunnel leads the way to Terry’s house looks as if things have been moving down it recently. We go in that direction.

After traveling for over half a mile we find a ragged hole in the tunnel. Dirk D/A’s it and finds out that there had been an Illusion on this section of the wall and that was about 12 hours ago. Falco decides to throw a pebble through the hole in the wall to see what happens. We now can see light through the hole. We can also see stairs the are 8 foot wide and 20 foot long with a set of double doors at the top of them.

Raidon use his special sight to look through the rock walls, he relies that he can see a basement like area with a shambling slug like creature, (60x60 foot and 20 foot high). We decide on a plan of attack.

Dirk goes and kicks the door open. Falco cast wall of light which it promptly goes through and goes berserk and goes after Falco who is behind Dirk. Falco decides to try his new owl form out and make a hastily flying exit from the slug. After some of the party gets some damage, Robert manages to cast control animal on the slug and it is his faithful giant African Slug. The room looks as if it was a lab of some kind. Papers are scattered all over the floor. While quietly looking around at the books on the desk I sneeze. Instant reaction from Dirk, who leaps away emitting a girly scream and ends up quivering behind Tannis skirt. While this happens Raidon is able to find Terry’s diary. The last pages are covered with very scrawled writing and the last page contains “yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa….. HELP ME!!!”. We are taking the diary with us.

There is a door that we think that will lead up to the house. Robert is a bit disappointed as the slug is to big to fit through the doorway and follow him around. We shut the doors to the sewers so the slug is unable to get out and go up the stairs. We go up 105 feet and come to a wine cellar. Wine but no beer. We go now to explore the house after we get out of the basement area. There was once a live maid, but she has had her head ripped off and that looks as if it was about a day ago. The door to the rest of the house looks trapped to me, but Falco does not think so. Dirk being party leader opens the door and gets hit with a poisoned spiked steel ball. Dirk drops to the ground and is crying and screaming in agony. Raidon helps him, and he stops screaming.

There are four doors, they all looked trashed. One has girl clothes in it and we assume that they might have been to do with the daughter Nicole. The front door is trapped magically and physically.

As we are looking through the house, we hear noise from outside. There is a mob gathering outside and they look as if they mean business. Some of the people outside thump on the front door and set of the trap. We can now hear screaming from outside. A creature has been summoned when the trap went off and is the Devil Irenes and the counter for it is Greater Summoner and it can control males.

The mob disappears. There is a rumbling noise of big heavy carriages. The Cannons and a gatling gun arrive. Dirk helps with a bit of magic, while dodging cannon balls while been unseen. The people operating the cannons manage to kill the Devil Irenes. We scoot over the 6 foot wall in the back garden of Terry’s house and get away.

We go back to our employers John’s house, but there is a mob and soldiers out there as well. This is not good. Raidon scouts the area out and finds out that the servants have got scared and have been spreading gossip about the strange things that have been happening around here recently. We go round the back to the stables, there are soldiers there as well. One of the daughters is there. She whispers to us that the soldiers are interrogating Hildargo in the stable and the have already talked the professor (John). The other daughter is waiting outside of town.

Hildargo is chained up and guarded and he can see through the unseens. One of the party members is able to help him escape with the use of gases vapour potion.

Raidon flies the males out and summons a big storm to confuse any followers. The women come by carriage with Shadow protecting them. The storm soaks the men while they wait for the carriage to catch up, the women all arrive in armour. We all head for the Country estate. The Baron is late with the meeting because of the storm. The army will take about two hours to get to the country estate. While we are waiting for the Baron to arrive we have dinner and Robert makes Raidon go to sleep so the storm will go away.

The Zeppelin, which is from the College of Technology.

The Baron is dressed like a Prussian Tsar. He asks if we are friends with the professor. Dirk asks if the Baron has been feeling well lately and some other questions, the Baron has respect for alternative sciences. The Baron has lost a few members of his family very recently. Dirk also D/A’s him. He is cursed with transform into a demon, his highest rank sill is a rapier and the last magic to impact on him was a greater enchantment.

The Baron tells us that we can be on our way as soon as all the wood has been brought on board for the air ship. Raidon gets woken up. When we are finally able to board the air ship, one of the daughters tells us not to touch anything and to keep our hands in our pockets. Once we are underway the Baron asks us to formerly dine with him. (We are cursing 5000 feet up (normal mana for us now)). While we dine with him we ask about the journey we are about to take in the air ship to the Dark Continent, (we also brought our own food along). The Baron says that before we go to the Dark Continent, he will be making a slight detour and we will be picking a female friend of his. I ask is it Basst and he confirms it that it is. He says that he will not be divinated, and that Basst wants to dispose of her treacherous sister. She had appeared to him about three days ago and that she has put an abeyance curse on him for his cooperation. He has already seen the effect of his disobedience from Basst, this is where a couple of family members have had a few problems of dying very early.

The Baron says the journey will take about two weeks on his flying ship. And if the daughter is taken by boat and camel it will take them six weeks. The Baron thinks Alyria has taken the daughter to be sacrificed, so she can free herself fully.

A bit later in the evening we go and dance on the dance floor that the flying ship has. Raidon goes and retires with Robert’s help because he is drawing a big storm toward the flying ship.

Day 6

feel the same. Also Shadow is fuzzy, he has been drugged, and he can smell brimstone and they is some brimstone as well.

With D/A’s we have been able to tell that Dirk, Raidon and me have been divinated. Dirk decides to divinate himself and finds out that it a wicca divination has been done on him, and he has a life linking spell put on him and it is not of the usual type either and a Farseeing spell. He will not be able to tell us if it is active or not. I D/A him on that, and it is not working at the moment.

Dirk does a counter wiccan on himself and is able to remove it even though he said it resisted.

We ask the Baron if he is feeling a bit fuzzy as well and he is. The party members that had been dancing last night do a recount of what they remember. The ones that were there remember seeing Dirk dancing by himself, and he thought he was dancing with the Baroness.

We have a party meeting in the cabin assigned to us. Suggestions:

• get the demon sisters to make up
• hijack the flying ship
• track down Cambion and get the two sisters and him together

Speculations:

• Hildargo has geas from Cambion
• curse is from Basst
• Cambion somehow bound Basst and Alyria and wants them to stay bound
• Dirk thinks Cambion may be worse then them
• “Dirk” do anything to get maximum payment
• make deal with one of the demons to remove curse

We go to talk to Hildargo about the binding process. The binding process needs 1 pint of arterial blood from a virgin, for the sealing process. Monkey brain – Rhesis – and they are quite big. And a Black Louts flower. They grow near the temple. The demonic beings do not need to be there. When the ritual starts they lose there powers. Hildargo looks like he is in pain when he is speaking to us. Dirk D/A’s Hildargo’s door and it has Hellfire on it and it is activated by a demonic being. Raidon uses his nontactile empathy on Hildargo and finds out that he had been dragged also last night.

We hear a commotion in the corridor and Robert feels a couple of death buzzes. The flying ship is being attacked. The big Giant Flying Monkey’s are attacking the ship and are trying to rip out the engines, there are six of them. We go and help. One of the engines gets ripped out by the Giant Flying Monkey, but the flying ship is still okay. Robert gets thrown overboard during the combat and Raidon goes and catches him to bring him back. Dirk looks to the top of the balloon and is able to make out a Roc. The Roc seemed to be trying to change the direction that the flying ship was flying in. He could also see a humanoid near the Roc. As Dirk was going to go up to the Roc, it flies off. He did not know if the humanoid went with the Roc or not. Robert casts ESP and can feel something that is very happy. We head in that direction. We encounter the Baron along the way and ask where the most vulnerable part of the flying ship is. It is the control pod. Dirk tells the Baron to get the crew members to go around in pairs for safety reasons. We go to the control pod, when we get there two of the attachments have been snapped. We cannot see anybody there, they must be invisible.

Robert goes in to attack where he thinks the invisible being might be. He gets a very lucky hit in and beheads the being. He gets a death buzz from a minor demon, and he is really buzzing with this.

Six crew members were killed in the attack. The Baron says there are 21 hours to our destination and that the Roc was turning us North. Baron says that he has received a message for Basst, (we deduct that he has Far sensing on him). He says that she would need to occupy one of the party members mind for a minute to transfer that person and the rest of the party to where she is, there would be permanent far sensing on that person. She would not be able to transfer Hildargo or the daughters.

Raidon volunteers his mind for the job.

The daughters appear and ask what has happened. We tell them. We pull out of earshot and discuss this amongst ourselves, and agree that we would prefer to take the long way round. Dirk informs the Baron about this, and also to baton down the hatches as Tannis will cast mage wind to help speed things up. Robert does a precog for the nest two hours and things seem to be good.

Raidon starts to feel unwell. From D/As it says enhanced ability to attract storms is affected and he cannot turn it off. Big storm coming. He prepares a sleeping draft for himself. Knock out gas comes into the cabin, Falco can see nothing, and we get out of the cabin and into the wind, which dissipates the effect. Robert falls to the ground unconscious, but we are able to wake very soon afterwards.

Robert cast ESP and finds anger coming from the control room. Shadow can smell that there are 4 people in there. Three crew members and the Baron. It is one of the crew members, Robert is able to mental attack him.

We drag that crew member back to the cabin so Dirk can divinate him. Our door turns into three Wooden Gollum while Dirk divinates him. We survive, but they did not. On the divination Dirk finds out that he is unaware that he is being controlled and also has far sensing on him. This has happened after the Giant Monkey attack on the flying ship.

The Baron seems to have become petrified in wood, from a Wood Gollum. He will get sorted out later. Dirk decides to give the crew a morale speech, “Pair Up”.

We go to look for the daughters and get answers from them, eve if we have to knock out of them. Robert uses his ESP and sense fear from the crew, and from the daughter’s room anger/fear/violence. We hurry to there room.

When we get the there room we can hear shouting in a strange language, (it could be the casting of a spell). Falco D/As the door before we go in and it has been warded against us. Dirk is able to get a counter spell down for it, and cast a binder special so we would be protected from Alyria. All the daughters are in the room. Nicole and Jasmine are fighting each other with flaming weapons and there is a lot of heat coming from the room. The other two daughters are cowering in the corner of the room. After a short battle the daughters are knocked out. The daughters are bound and gagged. Julie is bought around so we can ask questions of her.

Hildargo comes in through the hole in the wall and tells us that we should get rid of the door because it has Banishment on it. Hildargo looks very pained when he tells us that he only opened the portal to summon us here.

Nicole came through the wall and attacked Jasmine, when Jasmine was knocked out Francesca sided with Nicole. Julie has a deep fear of them. Julie tells us that Jasmine and Francesca have been sneaking out. She also says she feels funny. D/As reveal that they are now all long live sentient, they are becoming demons.

The other daughters are starting to wake up, Robert knocks two of them back out again. We let Nicole wake up. Alyria is controlling Nicole’s body. She would like us to kill Jasmine so Basst will be temporally bound to the temple again. Alyria and Cambion controlled the Roc.

She offers rewards if we do the deed. Nicole bounds go up inflames and she leaves us to decide for a couple of hours. Alyria says the vessel body is becoming weak, which is Nicole’s body.

A new door is made into another cabin so we can by pass the warded one. We ask Hildargo some questions, he tries to answer but he is very pained, so we let it go. After much discussion we wake up Francesca/Cambion and talk to him. Then we talk to the Jasmine/Basst vessel.

After much discussion we go with Basst and what she has to offer. The party is now going to have to play the other demons.

Falco gets transported to Basst as part of the deal, to get mind scanned. When Falco comes back he has had a mind merge. Basst will await us at the Barons castle, as the flying ship will need to re-supply and refuel. She also tells us there is protection around the cabins of the flying ship but not the balloon, this is not her doing. Falco tells us Basst thinks there is a “D” in the picture as well.

Some of the party members are able to detect an aura in the air, it is magical and the entity that produced it is Hildargo and it prevents scrying and listening.

We are able to deceive Alyria. As security Raidon offers his crystal heart for minor spirit binding with Alyria. “It will go away when her sister is successfully Bound in the Temple”. I ask as a matter of interest if she had any other sisters. She had one called Clarice and she died in a family feud about 2000-2500 years ago. Interesting. This seems around the same time with the Alyria/Basst/Cambion thing. I wonder if there is a link.

Nicole/Alyria moves from the flying ship, but they will make regular checks on us. I am able to cast Dissipation on the Baron, and he is a bit scared when he is unspelled, but we tell him what has happened.

Day 7

We arrive at the castle for refueling and re-supplying. While waiting Dirk finishes his divinations on some of the items we have got so far.

The belt – enhances strength on women, has a curse on it to serve Alyria. The Scarab Broach – helps you communicate with demons, shape change into a scarab beetle, curse advanced aging.

Also while waiting we have the usual watches up and Falco is checking regular on the D/As with last magic to impact on people.

Robert cast ESP a few time during the day and gets flashes of incredible anger and hate. It is Basst.

Day 8

Dirk divinates the door with the Banishment on it. When activated it has a ten foot radius for taken things. Only our party members can activate the door and it will take us back to our plane. The gets the door boarded up so we can get quick access to it when we need it. The Baron says the journey will take another 7 days. Raidon takes guns in his backpack for us to use later on. Dirk made arrangements for the possessed daughters to be at opposite sides of the flying ship to each other. The question of the metals that the Baron got from the Temple is raised, he says it has been incorporated into the design of the engines of the flying ship, and it is ore efficient than before. The flying ship will need to stop a couple of time to refuel along the way.

We are asked again to go to formal dinner again and he assures us that there are no female crew members aboard this time, as like last time. The entire crew has been replaced as the previous crew got the fear put into them. The Baron has also hired some mercenary types as well. All the crew seems to be wearing steel helms with face plates; they think it will stop magic on them.

Hildargo has got chatty all of a sudden, and how easy it is to change the binding spell/ritual. He leaves two gems behind, we D/A and they are for sealing, one is for Basst and we assume the other is for Alyria.

At around 11pm a messenger comes for Dirk to see the Baron, he goes with the messenger and Raidon goes in wind form to keep and eye out. The Baron is in the control room and then the Baron leads him to his private study. Dirk says that the Baron says the Scottish Empire is after us and they are using the telegraph to relay messages. We are now in a bit of a race to get there before them, and that we may have a spy aboard and we are allowed to find him out. The Baron would like protection from magic.

Plan of attack, new crew do not know schedule. Feed false information to the crew. Follow crew members with undetectable to see if they are spies. Check out the homing pigeons and the person who looks after them.

Falco gives the pigeon handler a scary when he decides to go off and talk with him, with the Baron there as well.

Day 9

This morning Tannis get Hildargo to cast enhance enchantment on her so she can cast mage wind to speed us up and to cast feather fall on us as well. She is able to the mage wind and all but one of the feather falls. On the last feather fall she backfires and summons a blue winged demon that looks like a stunned mullet when it appears, and it makes the room go very cold, very fast. Robert asks what the hell it is doing here, while Dirk, Falco and me D/A it. It is a minor demon, with an cold attack, most useful counter spell on it is Ice special, and it has a high combined Endurance/Fatigue. And to banish it an Air special will do that.

The demon would like gold compensation to leave (500sp worth of gold), or a pint of Dirk’s gold enriched blood. Robert gives the blue demon 500sp of worth of gold and asks that the demon to head North where it is cold. He says he will come back in an hour to ask about Dirk’s gold bound cloak in exchange for training. It would teach an Ice College spell to him. We get a warning about raised voices in our cabin, the wall are thin and crew can hear what we are saying and that is not very good for us. It is not very good for us because it can scare the crew more than they are already.

In that hour Tannis goes and talks to the pigeons, and some of the crew are interviewed that have volunteered to go on the Temple trip with us.

The demon comes back and would really like to have a nibble on Dirk’s cloak, but he is not sure if he would affect the magic on it. Dirk is adamant that the demon is not going to have a pint of his blood or anything to do with his cloak. We are able to pump the not to bright demon of some information. He and some others, (ten of them, blue ones and a couple of grey one which all he knows is that they do bad things), have been brought here to do a job for another demon and she has blue skin, he calls her sweetness and light. We try to get the name of his mistress, we bribe him with some more gold (1000 sp worth of gold) for the name and all we get is that she is one of the three. Gold specks appear on him after he eats this later lot of gold.

After the thing with the demon Falco cast undetectable on himself and heads down to the pigeon place to watch what happens there. Dirk gets the Baron to announce misinformation about where we are headed. A non descript crew member comes in and sends a message off on one of the birds that does not go to the Barons place. Falco was able to D/A him and that person has high skills in spy and unarmed combat. Falco takes a while to get back to us and by that time the spy will have managed to have changed his appearance. We have a quiet discussion on what to do.

I ask if Shadow would be able to smell if the spy is emitting a different smell than the rest of the crew. Shadow confirms that the one we think is the spy has very neutral smell compared to the other crew members and he thinks there may be another, but cannot pinpoint that one. Dirk D/As him while he is on his shift at one of the rear engines and finds out that he has high assassin skills as well, he was a late mercenary person who came aboard). We decide to bundle him up while he is sleeping to ask him questions.

12.01am Day 10

Tannis gets the three spy pigeons and take them to our cabin. Robert goes and saps him while he is sleeping and brings him back to the cabin.

One of his teeth has poison in it, I used the Pooka horn in his mouth to check on his teeth. I also D/A him and the last magic to have effect on him is hypnosis. Robert tries to Bind his to his will but it backfires on him and he lose will power points and also ends up with a curse. Dirk goes and wakes up Hildargo up to see if he can remove the effects of the back fire.

Hildargo backfires on his first attempt and his hair falls out, so now he is bald. Dirk says when he started to wake up he asked if we have found his mate yet.

In the end Hildargo is able to hypnotize Robert and reverse the effects. While he was doing this Hildargo asked him a couple of questions in a demonic language that we could not understand. We asked Hildargo about it. Before Hildargo goes back to bed he says he can cast curse removal.

Robert tries again with bind the spy and this time it works. The spy and he are best of buddies for the next two days, Robert says he will cast the spell again in two days time to keep he spy on our side. He speaks German, but will not speak common, he can understand us. Robert hypnotizes him so we can more answers. He does not know about the poison tooth he has. he cannot understand why he cannot speak common while he can write it perfectly. Dirk divinates him and he has had Quasi hypnotism used on him to stop him accidentally speaking common and this was done about 5 to 6 days ago and he has also had compel obedience put on him and this was about three week ago and it was a high ranked spell. We use Raidon stone on him, he tries to resist but after a couple of tries it works. We find out what happened about three week ago, with the lady wearing blue. In the end the decision is made to send him back out there to act normally, but is under our control. He does not know who the other spy is and he is pretty sure there is another aboard.

Morning of Day 10

We give him one of his pigeons to send a daily report.

We will be stopping for fuel today in a township. When we get there, there is a gunship in the harbour, near where we are going to land. It is decided that the flying ship will head down a few miles to get the timber that it needs. The flying ship goes to the place where it needs to get the timber.

While this happens some of the crew is sent to get items. The spy goes to get more pigeons. The crew members come back with scientific items like a telescope, and surveying equipment. There are also a couple of containers that are pact with ice that hold a flask with some what they say is Nitroglycerin, used for blasting rock. Trigger words are “stand well clear”.

Hildargo does the curse removal on Robert.

Baron says there is a next pre-arranged stop at the junction of two rivers.

Day 11

We have started on our trip again. Robert cast ESP to feel what is going on around the area, and he feels a mind about 50 foot below us that is more calculating and it is bored. Falco cast witch sight on a couple of the party members to see if they can see anything. All that they can see is a blue haze. Dirk asks Hildargo to see what he can see. He says one of Alyria’s Quasits is down below us. He was going to say something, but he falls to the ground, it must be something to do with his Geas.

Robert and Falco carry his unconscious body to his cabin and put him in bed. While we are there waiting for him to conscious again, we all have a look around and do D/As on the vials of potions that he has in travel box. The is a trap/ward so that we would be unable to touch those vials without something not so nice happening to us. There is also a note book open. we have a read as there is no trap/ward or curse on it.

He is frustrated because he is being forced to do something from a female entity, which we do not know. He found out about three days ago that he is being duped and there has been a change of plan. It is better to have two locked up then have all three lose and it sounds like they are all female. There is a line in there with, “and everybody thought she was dead.” He is frustrated that we have not been getting his subtle hints about things/ We go back to our cabins. Falco thinks we should talk to Basst. Dirk sets some ground rules about our discussion.

In the evening the demons start inhabiting the vessel. Falco does mind speak with Basst. He gets summoned and we wait for the verdict of what Falco has told him. He comes back with Scroll and a Scroll Case. We check it with D/A’s for traps/wards or curses. It’s clean. Falco opens it and the case is lead lined. The scroll has a message from Basst on it, she would like the question in advance so she can answer them quickly, as she may have to depart quickly.. She also has put on there the time she will inhabit the body.

At the bottom of the scroll there are incantations. They are instructions on how to don an undead demonic counter spell. This is protection against what Terry did to Raidon. There is a fast learning spell on it for one person. Dirk uses this. Dirk teaches me with the help of the staff, so I can learn it at a faster speed.

We discuss the question that we are going to ask Basst. Hildargo comes in with a tray of drinks, he says they are something to give you clear thoughts. We D/A it gives control to your thoughts and no other, it has a mind cloak and mind speech thing. Hildargo tells us a bit more. It makes mind speech private with the ones consuming the drink and we would know if there was someone there that should not be there, (basically no leakage). He says “C” (Cambion) suggested to give us this and has only made enough for us to have.

Dirk and Raidon test this. They say they could hear each other and when they looked at the other party members they looked as if they were not speaking or moving. Time seems to be different. Falco and I join in. Basst is already there talk with Dirk and Raidon.

They had sent her sister Clarice to the plane of light and Basst and Alyria inherited her power, half and half. Her powers were to do with great illusions. She like the colour blue. There is no reason for the sisters to think she is undead, they are certain that she is not alive and would not have been able to give anyone the slip. The remaining sisters were bound 400 years after Clarice was destroyed. We would be unable to detect Clarice’s illusions. Basst may be able to help remove the curse on his crystal heart. Basst would like to punish Cambion herself.

It goes quiet and we come out of the mind speech thing. Tannis and Robert say that we were in a trance for about 15 to 20 minutes. It felt like a couple of hours to us. The Baron invites us to dinner again, we have a pleasant meal, and we talk about the navigation. We have a quiet night.

Day 12

During the day at random times Robert does ESP. As we get further along the background thoughts of animal are becoming non-existent. The natives are not taking pot shot at us, which the Baron thinks is unusual. Dirk decides to divinate the flying ship and finds there is and aura emitting from it. It is creating a fear zone around the flying ship. Someone is clearing the path for us. This is not affecting us.

Dirk is able to see a strange metallic ship of unusual design coming up the river. We go further inland with the flying ship to get refueled and there seems to be a good prevailing wind helping us. Dirk divinates this and find the it is Demonic in nature. The sip is going slower than us so we will reach the temple before them.

The night is quiet - no problems.

Day 13

We arrive 10 miles from the temple. During this day we have discussion on what we need to get and how we need to get it. We get more information from Hildargo about the ingredients of Monkey brains and the black louts flower. The flowers are in the library near the temple. The Monkey brains are from the big monkeys that inhabit the trees in the ravine around the temple.

Plan is for Raidon to fly a couple of people down there, one would be Robert, do mental attack or control animal on one of the Monkeys. The trees are four to five hundred feet tall and the Monkeys live up around the two hundred mark. We are going to have to penetrate the canopy.

Dirk says the aura around the flying ship has changed. It has changed to suppressed demonic magic.

The crew fears us and they draw straw on who is to bring us our meals. The decision is made to do this the next day, from first light.

Day 14

Raidon. Tannis and I are staying aboard with Shadow and Phoenix. About an hour in Raidon and Robert come flying to the ship and attached to them are a couple of giant spiders by webs that the have shot onto our party members. It looked as if Robert had control animal on one of them as it attacked the one that started to attach itself to the ship. Both the spiders are now falling towards the trees and then they both disappear back from where they come from.

Our hunting party reforms and has another go with a slightly different plan of attack. While down there Raidon gets hurt pretty badly by hitting a branch at 50 mph and he is unconscious when they bring him back. He a bit of a brain injury for the moment and will be out of action for a few days. Dirk was able to get the Monkey brains. This is after all the hunting party dodging aimed coconuts, a shaman Monkey with a staff that can control animals. The Monkey brain is preserve in ice until Raidon can preserve it with magic.

Day 15

There is a dingy like ship coming down the river. Falco goes and scouts. It is our employer John and Falco says he looked changed. There are 15-20 natives rowing. There are two other people on board and they look scared and they also looked as if they have been beaten up. One has the highest skill as a navigator and has been subjected to demonic magic in the last week. Falco D/A on John say he is not possessed or controlled, has he gone native? He has on him hide armour that looks human and skull on the armour as well.

About a mile behind Falco see a blue skinned demon following this craft. After this Falco has come back to report. Dirk goes with him on a return trip. Dirk finds out that John is now a minor demon and he is linked to Clarice and the counter spell required is the demonic undead one that Dirk and I have learnt recently. The rowers are possessed by John, so far for a short period of time. The other captive has no aura and resists the D/A. There is also a Sharman aboard and he is not possessed and his highest ranked skill is summon greater undead.

The Blue demon sees Dirk and comes to say hi, our friend the blue demon. He talks about John, and how mistress says that they have to get to the temple and get the ritual done, and he has been following for three days. He says John has been arguing with some of the people on board and he now has snapped and decided to take a few hearts out. The two beaten men have special skills. The blue demon says he will come and see us this afternoon. Discussing with Hildargo the ritual again, just to get it straight.

Alyria needs the bits to bind, Basst does not nee the bits. Hildargo says the alter has the shapes of which item is to where. The ritual will start when the virgin’s blood touches the monkey brains.

Hildargo teaches Dirk/Falco and Robert on how to use his staff to open a portal. He says there is someone waiting on the other side to summon us, they can sense when it has been opened. He says not to use the staff if weak or injured, as the staff drains life. Hildargo says John will not reach the top of the waterfall until tomorrow morning and if he cannot fly down it will take an extra day for him to get down.

We get to the rim of the bowl, the trees are gigantic. There are water ways down at the bottom of the bowl. The bowl is flask shaped. We are told there are all sorts of different animals down there. This area seems to have affected all the life here in different ways. They are bigger then they should be and they are more intelligent as well. The temple is in the middle on slightly higher ground. Best guess this happen around 3000 years ago.

Jasmine says there should be rafts at the bottom of the waterfall. Robert would like to drop some of the nitro onto the trees to clear the area for us. The idea is vetoed. Hildargo says that he can give us oils to smear on us to help stop getting attached to the webs.

The Blue demon sees Dirk and comes to say hi, our friend the blue demon. He talks about John, and how mistress says that they have to get to the temple and get the ritual done, and he has been following for three days. He says John has been arguing with some of the people on board and he now has snapped and decided to take a few hearts out. The two beaten men have special skills. The blue demon says he will come and see us this afternoon. Hildargo says that he can give us oils to smear on us to help stop getting attached to the webs.

Robert does some limited pregcogs. Outcome the undead magic’s of the bowl affect the engines of the flying ship, when it gets to close to the canopy. They party will leave Raidon and Shadow with the ship while we go finish getting the ingredients Dirk divinates the staff we were given from Hildargo, if someone gets hit by it, it can drain up to 30 points of life a day.

Hildargo will get himself and the daughters down himself, while we will go down with shadow wings. A word of advice from Hildargo - respect nature, and the king of the beast is not always the obvious one.

We fly down, the area in the bowl is a high mana zone, and Hildargo is happy because this area suppresses demonic magic’s. As we are flying down to the library the flying ship blows up. Raidon and Shadow were on the ship. Dirk has the crystal and is able to tell that Raidon is at least still alive, we do not know about Shadow.

As we get near the library we can see a glow coming from it. There is a scream from below, (find out later Robert actively resists something). Raidon and Shadow are lying on the ground. There are three blue demons on the four corners around the library, and one is unconscious on the ground. One of the demons is the one we know, it has gold flecks in its skin, it says to us to go away. Dirk can see Shadow is starting to come around, when questioned by the party he says a crew member came in and said it was time to go and put a hand on our shoulders, and this is where we ended up.

The demon says if we go into the library one of the demons will have to go with us. He says Basst said we did not need to go in there. He seems a bit dimmer that usual. We are allowed to get the black flowers. The other two demons seem to be more aggressive toward us. Dirk tries the gold trick of bribing. The gold flecked one and the one of the others seem to be okay with this but the other conscious one decides to go insane at this and attack Dirk. Robert seeing this throws a gold coin to try and distract it. Dirk gets hit by claws and teeth. Dirk feel cold seeping into his blood. Dirk manages to retreat into the 50 foot radius of the amulet and the insane one is getting more insane by the second as it cannot reach Dirk. I am staying put, as I do not want to move the wall so the demon can get in. Meanwhile Falco and Robert were having words with the gold fleck one, and found out that they can be killed and damaged by healing and fire. The gold fleck one suggest to kill the insane on and the unconscious one, (this is because he wants the gold). Dirk borrows the money from Robert. Gold fleck heals Dirk of the Icy Doom, and he grows a foot because he took some of Dirks blood and got the gold out of it. The gold fleck and the other one disappear. Tannis kills the insane one with the fire gauntlet and Dirk kills the unconscious one.

Raidon seems to be a lot better, he can now cast spells.

The door to the library is warded with whitefire and triggers when entry to library of a species other than caster. I fly up to the roof to see if we could get in that way. The glass panes are spelled and there are tripwires up there as well. I get a counter Celestial on them and disarms part of the trap. In the end we manage to lift one of the glass planes out and get into the library. Tannis cast vapour breathing on us, as there seem to be a lot of dead rats on the floor of the library. There seems to be a large grey skinned humanoid at the tree line that is interested in us. The pool in the floor under the glass looks a bit funny, we avoid stepping into it. Falco gets some of the lotus flowers and puts them in the case, because they emit a sleeping vapour. There are magic piranha in the pool.

The walls of the library have different scene on them, there are a total of six scenes. Robert does some precogs. With the clue that Hildargo gave us, we can see in the scenes only one animal that is in all of them and that is the rat. From the precog we know there is going to be trouble with rats coming out. I cast an unknown counter spell with the help of the Namer Staff I have, and cover the area with it. It works and when all the rats are activated in the scene stairs appear in the ground to an underground passage. In the passage there doors but they do not seem to have any handles on them. At the end of the corridor and a few precogs later, Dirk uses brute force to enter the last door in the passage. It enters onto an Octangle room with three other exists. The other doors have an identical aura, but they are separate auras.

We go to the door to the left of us and it looks like an advanced alchemist room, with all the equipment. The labels on the items we cannot read, it is in an unknown language to us. We D/A as much as we can, and they are either flasks with potions already made up, or they are the ingredients to make the potions. By walking into the room we set something off. A glass Gollum is created and attacks Dirk. In the end Tannis is able to shatter it with an arrow. Raidon/ Falco/Robert take damage from the glass Gollum. But Dirk gets turned into a sort of living quartz being, putting glass onto Dirk’s wound heals him up. By being quartz it has changed things on him.

We go to another room, checking for traps and things, but the only way to trigger the trap of a stone Gollum is to remove an item from this room. Raidon tells us these are computer terminal in here and there are disks to go with him. Don’t know what they are, maybe he will explain a bit better later on. There are books in here as well, they range from alchemy to mind control, and it seems Cambion got his diary stolen by someone. That might be helpful if we have a read. It is decided to have a few hours rest here, Robert wants to read and memories some of the books if possible. Raidon decides to look at the disks. The disk seem to contain the history of the Hildargo’s people and how they got here. The disk contains information on the creatures of this region.

In the diary, it is found out that we two more items. They are Statues for Clarice and Cambion. We need to find the eye and a snake. It says those two items will be near the alter in the temple. The other door seems to be in the direction of the temple. It is decided that to speed things up a bit, the party will preserve some of my blood for the sacrifice. We have a hot meal and have some rest.

From talking to the other party members after the attack of Clarice and Cambion, I find out that Clarice was able to sense that virgin blood had been taken and preserved, she still does not know who the virgin is. There was a fight, we all got mental attacked. We all got affected to different degrees, it looks as if I was the last one to get out of its effect and this was awhile in to the combat. Hildargo was chained and beaten by the demons. Falco manages to unbind Hildargo without make himself visible, he was undetectable. Hildargo manages to give Falco six potions to take with him. Hildargo told Falco to go through the far door to get to the temple. Falco comes back to the party and starts getting the items while Dirk is trying to distract Clarice and Cambion. Falco eventually manages to get to the far door and into an area that they would find difficult to get to. The other party member are in combat with giant mozzies and a Rhinoman. Hildargo gets the stone Gollum to activate by throwing one of the items out of that room. While the rest of the party is retreating to the far door, the stone Gollum pummels the Rhinoman into the ground and then disappears because it cannot sense an other living beings in its area.

Dirk and Robert go back for some items and get a spear, a pair of magic Cestii, a great axe, and a potion. Hildargo goes back to the first room for various potions. The case is used to put in as many of the statues and other ingredients as possible.

The six potions are diminishing potions, Falco used his when he retreat into the room behind the door to make it impossible for the demon or the henchmen to get him. He went in between the suspended creatures that were behind tunnels that were about a foot in diameter. Behind that room it comes out into earth tunnel in the ground. We are now being followed by some other creatures. Shadow thinks they are big rats. As we get further along in the tunnels Falco cast Light walls to slow them down. In the end we come to an open are, where we can go up the walls to the ground above or somehow cross the area to get to the tunnel on the opposite side. There are vines hanging down the walls. Robert does a precog. The vine are lethal, they are carnivorous.

It is decided that we will go up the creak. The rats attack. Eventually all the rats and the Illusioned grey demon gets killed, but not before Raidon gets his arm ripped off by a summoned earth creature. The arm gets squished, cannot retrieve. We eventually climb up and met the cat people. They can help us with Raidon arm, it is not a normal human are, and getting us to the temple tomorrow. To help give us some rest some of there hunters will move around with the belt that was unable to fit in the lead lined case. Raidon finds the staff the rat creature was using, and we are able to retrieve it. The cat people have seen the rat creatures using when going into the temple.

Day 16

The cat people fed us, before we go on our way again. We can hear drums, the cat people says that it is John coming. Shadow and Phoenix are going to be looked after by the cat people. Shadowform/witch sight/feather fall and vapour breathing is cast on everybody. The cat people recommend that we swim to get inside the temple, the party follows there advice. We get into the temple by swimming under the water, with small tubes to get air. We seem to be at the top of the temple. The alter is underground. Where we are in the temple there are four doors and each one faces a compass point. They all seem to lead down to a big room underneath.

We stop at the end of the passage before the one of the entrences of the room. There are quite a few different bodies in the room, some have been there for awhile and others look very recent, like a couple of blue demons that looked as if they have had very violent deaths. There are four chandeliers and thick dust on the floor, in the centre of the room there is a place that looks as if it will go further underground. After a few of Roberts Precogs, we go in with damp cloths over our noise and mouths. We are able to pick up a few items from the dead bodies. At regular interval we are getting attacked by dust devils and they seem to be going after Dirk. We had made it about half way down the stairs to the next underground level, when it is decide to go back to try and deactivate what is bringing forth the dust devils. I do some counterspells on the chandeliers and then the rest of the party smash them, and this really does stop the dust devils. We go down again.

At the end of the stairs there a set of double doors, with a crystal globe and a very tall figure on each door. The doors each have a ring that you can pull on. Robert does some precogs, and it is bad if you pull on the rings with your bare hands. It is decide to try carefully tying a rope around one of the rings and pull open the door that way. It works. The room has a couple of strange auras. I do some counter spells on some of the room, but I backfire on one of them and summon an Imp that starts pick our pockets while Dirk is trying to bribe it with gold and also get a bit of information out of it. We manage to get the items it pick pocketed back and it vanishes, but we do hear a far away Impish giggle.

In the centre of this room there is an alter made of black stone. The D/As suggest that Raidon should not go into this room, because of his crystal heart. The Imp makes an appearance by the alter and throws at us a bloody thing, it is Raidon heart. Dirk manages to banish the Imp. Robert and Dirk manage to do open heart surgery on Raidon, before he dies on us, with a battle axe to the chest. I give the regen potion and it works. As they were doing surgery on Raidon, there is moaning coming from the room.

Dirk recognizes one of the creatures as a Tome Rot. and the other is an Undead Snake that can spit venom. The alter also changes into a creature and it has a staff similar to the one Hildargo has. Hildargo suggest we kill it quick Dirk and Robert manage to kill the creatures with the help from Hildargo with Hellfire.

In the centre of the room there are to slightly cooked hearts, the D/As say that they are John’s and Terry’s, we will take them with us. Robert says they had a strong case of heartburn. We carefully tie a rope around one end of the staff to drag is with us, the evil, evil staff. Robert does a precog of opening the other three doors that are in this room. The North one leads to the temple, the East door lead to a weapons room, and the West door leads to a Museum room. We check out the museum room first, likely place for the other items we need. A few precogs later, I go in and put a counter spell on the crown and it works, no creatures being summon to go after Dirk. There are some chest at the back of the room, one is trapped with magic and physical traps. The trap is defeated with a shield in the way to catch the spear that goes for the opener of the chest. In there we find Cambion’s snake statue. We have a look around the room to see if we can see Clarice’s eye. There are a few interesting items here in the room. Dirk goes to investigate the Black Plate armour that is in a glass case. The case is not trapped but is locked. I manage to open the case so Dirk can get a better view of the Black Plate Armour. Dirk opens lifts the face plate and awakens a Spectral Lord from it sleep. Instead of attacking it heads straight to the crown which I had deactivated with the counter spell, and with Roberts ESP he says it is very unhappy that the crown does not seem to be working for it. It has managed to summon spectral warriors to help it. When Dirk and Raidon attack it, it ages them a few years. In the end Raidon kills it, but as a result get a death curse. The Eye was in the armour. It has the ability when looked through to see through Illusions.

From the first door we came through the is a loud clanking sound. Robert uses ESP and finds out that it is a creature that is doing something against it will. Robert is able to knock it out with mental attacks and then we hack it to pieces so it will not bother us any more. Robert casts around with ESP and feel anticipation before it gets blocked. It is agreed that the Lobster creature was a distraction to let something get past while we were busy with it. Dirk and Raidon vaguely see something from the corner of there eyes, not sure what. Dirk looks through the Eye and can see traces of Illusion leading to the door to the alter room. Also some of the items in the museum room look different now as well.

Robert does a few precogs of going into the weapons room, but that does not look to healthy to do at the moment. We can investigate is further later on. The installation of the statues and gems and combining of the ingredients needs to be done pretty soon.

Raidon is starting to feel the effects of the death curse. He drinks another healing potion to get him by for the time being. Dirk decides to have a look at Hildargo through the Eye. He falls down gibbering. Raidon slaps him out of it. This is when we find out Hildargo is a greater undead, he was cursed with it. Dirk says compared to Hildargo Dwarf maidens look really good. Hildargo says he understands if we want to part with his presents. We have nothing against him, and he has helped us so far.

It now approaching midday. Before we going into the alter room Dirk says it would be best if each of the party members had at least one of the statue in the hand to go to the alter and the statues in the places they need to fast. Falco wants to leave the Basst statue out, and he argues with Dirk. In the end Dirk gives him a party leader order to give the Basst statue to someone else, so that it will get placed in the alter. It is now past midday.

We go into the alter room. The alter is seven sided and above the alter on either side there are cold iron cross, with a demon on each struggling to get off. We also can see a mirror. There are about 10-12 columns in the room as well. Robert can feel curious mind watching us.

Some of us have been made undetectable. and we all go up to the alter to put the items into the holes. Clarice steps out from the shadows and asks if we need any help and puts her hand on the alter. This is when the statues change there images and play musical statues. We are not sure if we have put the items in the right hole now because Clarice does seem to still have her powers. Seems that Clarice came out of the mirror at midday.

Falco/Raidon and Tannis go after Clarice to give Dirk a chance with getting the statues in the right order. Raidon dies and gets rid of the death curse. Tannis dies as well. While this is happening Robert is holding the ingredients and is waiting to pour them into the bowl. I see a blue and a grey demon enter through the doorway. The grey is waving its arms as if it is casting a spell, and the blue is rushing in blindly. Hildargo cast Hellfire on the blue and grey demon, the blue dies, and the grey is distracted.

Dirk manages to get the statues in, but the Cambion one seems wrong, because Cambion has not been summoned down here. With the statues in Clarice is put out of action. Tannis and Raidon are resurrected.

The snake statue needs a sacrifice of a freshly killed greater undead. Hildargo volunteers to get cursed again, by trying to learn how to use the evil evil staff to summon a certain greater undead for us. In the end we run out of time as Cambion comes to see what has taken so long. While we are trying to sort things out Falco finds a hidden door a which is trapped, I try to disarm is and I just miss getting hit by a stream of corruption. A couple of us can hear far distance foot steps coming from behind the door. I swap with Robert at the alter with the ingredients. I crouch down a little so I can see through the eye. The thing walking towards the door hits into my amulet and is a bit stumped as to why it cannot go any further. Half of us were looking at the main doors when mist starts to come in. It is not a illusion. Raidon use wind to move the mist away and Cambion is in the middle of. As soon as we see him, he looks like he is getting ready to cast a spell, I drop the ingredients into the bowl in the alter to finish the binding ritual. Cambion sees this and lets out an anguished scream and starts yelling at the pillars and offering his services to the demons in the pillars if they will help him. They decide not to and tell him he has to fight on his own, and they seemed to be taking bets on who would win. Raidon could hear this with the Scarab Beetle Broach. Cambion goes berserk.

Dirk and Raidon go in close fight with him. Raidon gets impaled on the cold iron trident and it affects the hits Cambion tries to inflict on some of the other members. After a furious battle Cambion is knocked unconscious and we here clapping from the pillars at this. We resurrect John and he is okay now, and we heal ourselves. Hildargo said he will wait around, but he will need to take Cambion off plane somewhere. He does that while we look around and get some training in some areas and look further at some of the other items. Hildargo will take us back when we are ready.