Broken Heart

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• GM: Miles Jackson
• Time: Spring 809 WK
• Day: Wednesdays
• Level: Low

The Party

1. Theodonna - experienced adventurer and party leader; Namer extraordinaire (apparently of mixed heritage)
2. Zod the Dwarf - a low-down nasty fighter illusionist (and the things he can do with an asparagus spear ...)
3. Skafloc valGalen – a naïve earth mage elf, with delusions of understanding military things (scribe)
4. Brak the Barbarian – a loin cloth clad, axe wielding muscle-head with some E&E skills (has a habit of turning into a tiger)
5. Melldhor – yet another naïve earth mage elf, with beast master skills (has a pet wolf that can be made REALY big)
6. Tallama – A giant female goblin ranger, hangs around with Melldhor (also known as Tall Mama)

Employers

King Talon's self/over confident teenage son Prince Cavelli - assisted by Ambassador Yanise

Mission

Rejuvenate a tainted forest by recovering four missing ‘Hearts of the Forest'

Pay

25,000 sp for each heart

Calendar

Spring 809wk: Thaw
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
	Candlemansa		1	Guild Meeting - Prince Cavelli	2	The Dance of Spring	3	Gaterville Spiritlands	4	We fly HIGH	5	Water, Earth & Spirit	6	Water, Death & An Elvish Fury
	7	The Corinth Mausoleum	8	A Palace Visit	9	Death Catacombs, Spirit PoP, King Talon II's Wraith	10		11		12		13
	14		15		16		17		18		19		20
	21		22		23		24		25		26		27
	28		29		30		1		2		3		4
Spring 809wk: Seedtime
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
	5		6		7		8	Rites of Thunor	9		10		11
	12		13		14		15	Equinox	16		17	Eostre	18	The Seagate Spring Ball
	19		20		21		22		23		24		25
	26		27		28		29		30		1		2

Dear Diary

First of Thaw - A Tale of Terror

The Broken Heart of a Forest

The elvish Prince Cavelli tells a terrible tale. My home forests have been overrun by an undead forest, apparently courtesy of a guild party Lessons in Enlightenment and Respect. Evening would come and the forest would expand to envelop elvish and human communities - with undead swarming out of the grey forest eaves to destroy life. Many millions were killed (20,000,000!) or perhaps sacrificed to the growing evil forest spirit.

• The forest has expanded to fill a huge area - from the Southern oceans to the Northern ice.
• To the West the goblin shaman are keeping it out of their hills, while to the East the Troll Sink holes would appear to block further expansion.
• In the forest centre, the swamp burg of Gaterville remains, sheltering the last remaining humans - apparently protected by Snaggletooth the Dragon (a local inhabitant)
• The Frost Giants to the icy north welcomed the fleeing elves - including the court of the elvish King Talon.
• In the southern oceans, some forest elves have sought refuge with their aquatic kin in their floating cities
• Of my family and friends there is no news (sob)

The Mission

The Elvish court has three of the seven missing Hearts of the Forest (stones containing the powerful essences of the forest). They need them all to start to counter what has happened to their homelands. They have the essences of fire, earth and water. They need life, death, empathy and spirit.

We have a job to do! (Oh and, by the way, Human Skum need not apply)

The Prince seems a little cocky (like my older sister), but the Ambassador seems pretty experienced (a bit like my mother)

Preparations

Theo and I have previously had doings with Karakas the witch - a powerful potion brewer. For a little intimate attention and a small task, she will normally take the time to brew some potions of great use to adventures. Off we go

Karakas

We arrive at the witch's hut in the late afternoon. She's not home, but her gorgeous apprentice Elennar welcomes us. Karakas arrives later - and takes her evening leisure with Tallama and Zod (the Dwarf is left with small warty addition to his small warty thingy). The witch gives us a small task to carry out tomorrow. For that, she will brew some potions of greater enchantment.

It's been a busy day.

Second of Thaw - The Dance of Spring

The witch sends her people to an enchanted grove to collect potion ingredients, but recently, they have been chased off by a pack of semi-intelligent 2' rats. Karakas needs her potion ingredients, so we set off before dawn.

Theo Kills Spring

We approach what feels like an earth place of power – acts of violence in this area might have unpleasant side effects. We are assailed first by a woad painted ghost my pets are hungry and then by boogie rats and rat pixies. I say assailed, but the attacks consist of magically tided shoe laces and being charmed to dance. Despite this, we kill a number of them before we dance into the grove. Ever seen a dancing tiger? That's Brak.

The blue guy plays music and a glowing sphere at the grove centre pulses in time. I put a sling stone through the sphere – which seems to hit and Theo uses the reach of her staff to strike through the sphere.

The music changes into a dirge. A death buzz is felt by those sensitive to such things (Zod of course). So, Theo has killed in the grove. Oh dear. The blue ghost berates us for killing the Spirit of Spring. What?! Apparently Spring will not come now. Theo killed spring! We all dance on exhausted. The ghost says only death will break the dance.

Brak Kills Theo

Brak asks if we bring Spring back to life will that not do? Yes! The feline barbarian manages to shake off the enchanted dance by changing back to human form, grabbing Spring (a small cute child) from within the sphere and racing back in the dawn light to Karakas – who ‘reborns' the child. Spring is back!

Theo has a very nasty side-effect though – she cannot heal. To get rid of that curse Theo gets Brak to kill her (!) and Karakas resurrects her. The Dwarf has nasty boils on his neck too (caused by his nasty thoughts in the grove), but he is prepared to live with that. Karakas gives Theo a morphogenic potion

When you take this potion, think of the sentient creature you want to be

Karakas gives us our potions of enchantment – and a foretelling.

Look for the old long sweet the fly through the air

Something like that (I was drunk on spring mead. I hope it's not important). She gives us a second foretelling (I've got this one right!)

Some blame me, some bless me, some curse me, but it's all their own fault.

A Rite of Spring

We track down the Spirit of Spring as she dances across the land (surrounded by naked Dryads and priapic Satyrs). The entralling music of pipes and flutes, bells and harps surround us - and all except me surrender to the Dance of Spring and frolic (euphemism) the afternoon away. Whoohoo. I talk with the Spirit for advice

Seek the rebirth of the forest and seek the spirit of the forest

Not much help there, but she does give me the gift of a Snowdrop, which means that the Spirit of the Forest will recognize me as a friend - and I will recognise the Spirit of the Forest regardless of how hidden he/she/it may be.

Third of Thaw - Gaterville

Loose Ends ...

Back at Seagate, the next morning we buy supplies (from the 5,000sp advance the Prince gave us): three itemised barrels of sugar beet molasses and a restorative for each of us. Divining Zod reveals that he has been imbued with a Spring Life Essence that would cause any damage done by Zod to another sentient will also be done to – himself (how poetic). We decide to portal straight to Gaterville - so Yanise obliges (to the best of her ability - it turns out).

... straight to Gaterville – Ha!

We emerge in midair low over deep forest – our portal apparently disrupted. Zod and me miss the forest – and hit the ground HARD (I should be dead). The rest grab branches and start climbing down. The forest is unnaturally quiet as Theo changes into a rat and slips head-first into the deep mud (she changes back - still head-first in the mud). Extricating herself, she finally takes the Karakas' potion of morphogenesis, but can only think of cats (not of Karakas' instructions). She changes into some sort of ½ cat form – a cat centaur?! (miaow)

Out of the hushed forest eaves strides a massive dark shadow

Our magic seems to fade in its presence. We flee. It follows. Eventually we fight the 12ft tall black tree (an Undead Ent Theo tells us). Zod is nearly killed (a massive blow crushing his chest), but Brak, Melldhor and Tallama take it down with axe, dagger and tulwar – helped hugely by spontaneously flaming weapons. Apparently we all have Zod's Spring Life Essence – which manifests as flames against the undead. In the centre of the ent trunk we find a ‘heart' that suppresses magic. We take it with us.

Gaterville Greetings

Yanise stabilises Skafloc and Zod and we trek through the swamp and swarming bugs and eventually get to Gaterville – and encounter four hunters heading out on into the swamp. Despite our ‘treasure hunter' cover story, they seem to recognise us as guild members. Turns out they knew the first guild party - better they leave town me thinks.

A street urchin tells us more about the swamp burg (and probably reports us to the local thief's guild). Some nasty characters here, but Justa the Gnome seems to be the best source of information for us. While Yanise heals Skafloc and Zod, the rest go to see Justa. While they're away an orc comes through window – but leaves without his head. Thief or assassin? hard to tell (once the alligators have fed)

Justa Minute

Justa On A Hang-Glider

The gnome bounces from topic to topic so much he's hard to talk to, but eventually Brak gets some information for us. Justa knew the guild guys that came through a year ago and knows some of the events of that time (well, his version anyway)

• The grove containing the seven essences of the forest had been tended by a few powerful goblin and elvish druids. This place of power was about 40 miles north of Gaterville
• The three elf protectors were actually evil necromancers who wanted all of the power of the forest for themselves, and they sought to steal the essences for themselves
• Sacrificing to the forest spirit was a normal druidic practice, but when those guild members sacrificed an entire undead dragon to it, all hell broke loose – and the forest was tainted
• The evil necromancers were slain, but not before the last surviving elf stole and hid those three essences, eventually being cornered (empty-handed) in the now-abandoned human city 60 miles to the south. Got caught in The Grove of the Ancients

It looks like that human city is the best place to start our search.

Justa's outpost is full of a tinkerer's output – machines and drawings, strange carved pieces of wood and metal - and an airship with attached hang-glider. Brak bargains and it turns out the undead's ents heart is valuable (Justa will pay 5,000sp for one). Brak trades our one for the blimp, along with some experimental ‘white fire' grenados and a whole bunch of bug repellent.

• Brak takes some hang-gliding lessons from Justa (blind leading the blind really).
• Theo takes some blimp piloting lessons from Justa (blind following the blind really).

A Heated Exchange

Back at Gaterville, Theo tries another shape change – and changes into a real lynx (in heat of course - that's the Essence of Spring for you). Her mind is gone somewhere – well, more gone than usual. Brak (in tiger form) can't resist her feline wiles – all that going around rubbing herself over the place and long loud howls. Enough to drive a tiger crazy.

Brak: It was the lynx effect
Me: Don't get her angry, she'll have kittens
Brak: Theodonna the sex kitten

Well Brak must have got her angry alright, ‘cos Theo is now pregnant with quintuplets. Due in six weeks (Tallama can't compete with twins in 13 weeks)

W. Eed (Wilma Eed – a hobbit) arrives via some sort of limited duration portal (here today, gone tomorrow). Apparently after the (mis)deeds of the last adventurers' party in this area the guild are interested in monitoring how we are going. For this they ask a hobbit?!

While we ponder Theo's situation, this morning's hunters arrive back – lead by the old goblin shaman Tarnac. They're a bit battered – they didn't get far out of town before they got ambushed by a female elf and a pack of orcs. He divines that Theo's mind has taken by undead spirits from a necromantic plane. Luckily (!) he's a necromancer and can help us go the plane and track her down. From the Guild scribe notes, he seems trustworthy, so off we go.

Looking for Theo's Mind

The life of a wailing spirit can be, well, never-ending. Forever on the lookout for spirits with life energy to drain. Sacrifice enough to your own personal death orb and you get to ascend to a new level – a GREATER undead. Wahoo!

Gabriel Riel had taken great care in decorating her barrow. All built up painstakingly over the millennia. Standing stones circled it while the darkness within held a black pillar with chains – chains that held spirits while the black Death Orb drained them. Yes, Gabriel did like black.

• The things she had to do to get that orb – still held in the hand of its former owner.
• The skeletons of former victims tastefully littered the floor.

Ms Riel was somewhat surprised when a spirit just floated past. A real live one, pregnant with the five additional essences! It was quickly grabbed and chained while she started the ritual of the black Death Orb. Soon after, more live ones arrived outside (this time with their bodies) - also brimming over-full of life energy. Wonderful - Greater Undead-dom beckoned.

Outside she went - wailing and calling upon her skeletons as she went. The dwarf, a tiger and a hobbit resisted her moans and destroyed her skeletons with spell and blade, but soon she had the tiger, a giant thing (also pregnant!) and a bright elf spirit chained. The hobbit threw flames at her, but she changed form to avoid the heat (the tiger was burning though). I hope the tiger lasts long enough for me to get its spirit.

A Random Though. She was contemplating a random thought from the shining elf (trading the life essences of the six unborn for freedom) when his essence dimmed dramatically and he fell writhing and screaming. The dwarf brightened momentary before dimming - and then that first pregnant spirit dazzled even more. Wtf? Go figure.

That Damn Dwarf. All pretty much par for the course until the damn dwarf hit the black Death Orb former owner's hand with some sort of life filled weapon – destroying the hand, releasing the orb – and destroying the energy binding together the barrow. Bugga. Lesser undead-dom beckoned. I hate dwarves. I think I'll go eat some.

I'm told we stumbled away from the collapsing barrow, dragging a smoking tiger, following the hobbit dancing triumphantly with a dagger she snatched from within. Zod stealthily carried the Death Orb wrapped up oh-so-quickly in his cloak. I twitched & spasmed - and floamed at the mouth. Humm - note to self: The Spirt of Spring REALLY does not like the sacrificing the unborn for ANY reason

Tarnac gets us back to Gaterville - to rest and ready ourselves for a blimp journey tomorrow. Thoe tries to do the shape change thing and ends up with cat legs, rat body, terrier head and human arms. I don't think that's what she wanted somehow.

It's been a reeeally long day.

Forth of Thaw - We Fly SO High

Justa Blimp - A Flying Swamp Hut (stilts and all)

I knew it would not end well - if I was meant to fly I'd have wings (Melldhor agrees). Theo takes us off, up we go – SO HIGH. The earth is miles away. We crank along (like a brick doesn't). Endless forests and swamps sweep below. Some dirigible pirates ignore us.

A big group of orcs on rafts (travelling south in a swamp) fire ballistae at us (but miss). They seem to be lead by an elf female, so they may be part of the group that attacked Tarnac. They have a pennant featuring a seven clawed talon reaching through a ripped sky - so they may have something to do with the shrieking wraith that took Theo's spirit (as that was depicted on the inside of the barrow). I think we'd best avoid them.

Night arrives (nearly a full moon) and Theo burns more methane so we rise to 1000 feet for the night. Egad – can it get worse? Well maybe.

Fifth of Thaw - Strangers in the Night

Midnight comes. I hear the sound of ropes being cut. Brak and I leap onto the roof of the shack, yelling to awake our companions. I distract one of the black clad figures while Brak knocks the other one off. The barbarian stuns the final black clad figure while Tallama arrives (all 1000 lb of her) – and with that weight, the hut starts to disintegrate.

Theo decides we need to get to the ground quickly – at last! Taking the black hood off of the captive reveals a female orc, bearing a Clawed Talon token - looks like we haven't avoided them (I think we should have found out the emblem of the Gaterville orc assassins guild). A quick search reveals two black hang gliders.

The Long Drop

Magic slows our descent (wings from Yanise and Brak levitation) which of course attracts one of those undead ents - and there are orcs too (not sure why). Theo lands in a tree as the pieces of the hut fall off. Zod kills orcs in the clearing (flash of light followed by removal of testicles) while Brak and I play chicken with the ent, getting it into Theo and Wilma's white fire genado range. Melldhor flies in to attack from behind, hitting the ground big time as the wings fail in the ent's anti-magic field (could have predicted that). The tiger leaps to try to knock it over – and bounces (could have predicted that).

Eventually the ent burns fiercely – and the rest of the forest in the area. More orcs are coming, so as we grab rope and take off as Theo pumps methane into the blimp. The fliers tow us at speed away – apparently outdistancing our pursuers. We find a clearing and kill the magic – and look for materials to replace the missing hut (in some way). Zod thinks of interrogating the orcs (one female ninja, one eunuch).

On the ground at last. The orc ninja says she was told they were ‘hunting for people from off plane' and she'd been ‘launched off of a raft with a big catapult' (yeah right). On closer look, the symbol on her medallion is 7 tentacle tipped by 7 talons reaching through a rip in the sky. I wonder if it has anything to do with the seven essences. It has powers of life protection, identification and ‘allow passage'. The orc eunuch just glares at Zod (Give me back my testicles perhaps?)

The Grove of the Ancients

... is actually a 50 x 20ft island in the middle of a large square lake, protected by no less than two powerful magical barriers (the outer barrier drains life and the inner golden barrier dispels fly and transportation magic) and a large angry lightning throwing water elemental. No wonder the shore line of the lake is littered with layers of smashed bones.

On the south bank a band of five suspicious looking treasure hunters are camped (some of them pacted to Ganash).

We fly to the Northern Shore and check out the situation. Karnac summons a spirit and gets information.

• There was an assault on the island - which the inner barrier and the elemental destroyed (resulting in the litter of bones).
• A goblin did walk in across the water, but came out again
• Karina put up the outer draining barrier to stop anybody else getting

Abandoning the tied up orcs and our blimp, we fly over the top of the golden barrier and fly down. Yes, the fly spell is suppressed, but Brak's feather fall spell isn't (good idea Brak!). So we're in. Now what do we do?

The main feature of the island is a fountain surrounded by 8 representations of water. This is a water place of power! After much faffing around, we work out that one has a slightly different aura (a toad with eggs on it back) which ends up changing into a Lotus flower– the essence of life.

The Essence of Spring that Theo is carrying seemed do the trick. Theo had to offer to ‘share life' to do this little trick – but she was no longer pregnant (Brak is in morning). Once again Theo thinks of polymorphing herself, but is thinking about the Essence of Spring at the Point (sigh). She changes into a buxom horny female representation of Spring – which Brak immediately takes advantage of – and gets her pregnant once gain.

Brak: Theo changed from being a cute lynx to be a hot minx

In the course of our experimentation

• both Zod and me tried to talk to elemental (and get electrocuted).
• Zod drank the water of the fountain (and got healed)
• I bathed in the fountain – and became the elf equivalent of an 12 year old (200 years old).
• An airship arrives on the shore, and people kill our two orcs and start shooting ballistae at us

A stairway down

While the ballistae bolts fly Zod finds a stairway leading down from one of the stone gazebos on the island - a heavily warded and trapped stairwell! Zod rushes head-first in. Luckily he did not lose his head – ‘cos it was heavily warded and trapped. Fools rush in ... I guess. The rest of us follow into an underground fountain chamber (preceded by Theo's suppression of the wards of course).

This fountain is plumbed in with the above ground pool complex, surrounded by seven aspects of water. Opposite, a robed dead goblin sits in a chair – practically radiating magic! Yes, this is a water place of power and the gobo is the former warden of Water. He holds a Staff of the Water Mage – made of intelligent wood (luckily) and wearing a powerful amulet. The wood tells us that holding these two items will kill anyone but the most powerful water mage. We can take the rest (yeha!). The staff also tells us that:

• It is waiting for the next Warden to arrive – but that may take time. Shard the Goblin Water Mage was the last applicant, but has gone away to learn more before returning.
• Theo may have to give up some of her Elusian Spirit of Spring to put things right here. Oh well.

Zod is pottering around looking for something to ‘acquire' – when he disappears

The Heart of the Forest

Essential Investigations

• On the plane of Clanndathu each of the eight essences has a place of power – and the key of that essence is ‘held' in a representation of that essence (eg a stone lotus flower holds the key to life). Each of the places of power has a warden. Turned out Yanice was the Warden of Spirit.
• Essences don't exist in isolation. Each of these places of power also holds a representation of that essence merged with other essences – all except the directly opposing essence (eg Death in the Life place of power). Amongst other things, these merged representations let you travel directly from place of power to the region of another place of power. If you are in water place of power and identify the aspect of water & air merged, then you can travel to area of the air place of power (which is what Zod did – all by his little self).
• If you hold a key and all of its aspects and you're powerful enough, you can control that essence – which is what the creatures of the Seven Talons want to do. Once the wardens realized that the Earth and its merged essences were in danger from the Seven Taloned ones, they shuffled the various Aspects of Earth around their places of powers. Not sure exactly when this happened.
• So, what we are actually looking for are the Earth Essence itself and the Earth Essence joined with 7 other Essences. Looks like we have been hired by the bad guys to track down all these pieces of earth power

Chasing the Zoddamite

How did we find this out? We spend hours chasing Zod as he randomly travelled from place of power to place of power. Rushing into and out of deadly danger (we were trying to save him – ha!)

First up the Dwarf touched ‘Water merged with Air' (a glass globe filled with swirling clouds) and thought intensely about travelling there. So he did – up in those clouds, surrounded by seven columns with symbols, apparently standing on a lattice of Mitral. Melldhor watched him in the globe as he stumbled around. Eventually he sort of got sucked into the ‘Air merged with Earth' column and disappeared.

What could we do? Lead by a fuming Brak the adventurers and Tarnac follow to Air and then straight into nasty necromantic chains in the Earth place of Power (well, most us anyway).

Mellhdor, Brak and Theo avoid the trapping chains, and appear to be invisible to the male and female elf present. Theo divines that ‘he' is a necromancer while ‘she' is a Demon in disguise – The Master of Trickery himself.

Also there is the Earth essence itself, as well as ‘Earth and Fire', ‘Earth and Water' and' Earth and Death'. Yes, the Prince told us King Talon had all three of these of these pieces of earth power (we're pretty certain that King Talon's name is a BIG hint)

The chained Zod chooses to fully embrace death and the chains loosen sufficiently for him to escape and grab Earth and Death. Tarnac (a necromancer himself) escapes at the same time – and is able to dispel the chains.

Then all hell breaks loose! Theo grabs Earth and Water, Brak grabs Earth and Fire and Melldhor eventually gets the Earth essence itself. Of course the evil elves are not standing around doing nothing.

• Yanise appears out of no where and gets into really messy hand-to-hand combat with the Tricky one (she's not gotta win). Theo calls on the powers of water and manages to cast a really big waterspout – that may have given Yanise some breathing space.
• The male elf pulls out a REALLY big two handed sword and deals Zod a fatal wound – with Zod's last bit of consciousness he is seen gazing at his Earth/Death rock, and then disappears. Brak charges in, but is stunned immediately. The elf decapitates Tarnac on the backswing.

Brak recovers and Tallama grabs the head as we all flee to Theo – and touch her Earth/Water to get back to Water. Back with water, the staff tells us a massive battle is going on outside - so we decide not to linger futher. We choose (ummmm) Life! The Prince tags along. He's got a scroll from Yanise to give us.

Spirit Place of Power

Strangely enough all the local flora and fauna hates elves. We eventually get to Gloria - the Warden of Life (a Dryad).

• This place is located in the southern seas of this plane and its boundary is being attacked by orcs and goblins and goblinoids - under the Seven Taloned banner.
• She can resurrect Tarnac, but needs something more than his head - a body to put it in!

Yanise's scroll case contains two vellum scrolls (heavily warded) and 20 pieces of paper - covered in archaic elvish (apparently discussing archaic elvish political manoeuvring).

So, off we go to the boundary. We watch 50 or so plate mail armoured orcs attempt to cross area - to be mowed down by a variety of elementals (fire effrit, bear and earth). We watch - wondering how we will get a body for Tarnac. We scout the boundary until I spot what looks like a small suitable corpse and we head out. Of course 3 wights emerge from the ground. We destroy them (with a lot of Brak Bellowing and Prince Preening and Theo forbidding), but then retreat (there's got to be a better way!) An arrow comes out of the dark and hits Theo – with message attached.

We will offer 150,000 sp for the 5 essences you have – for the next 24 hours. 
We'll give you 100,000 sp for the remaining two

It's late, but on the way back we spot a goblin corpse in rather bad condition – but it's better than nothing. It's too late in the day for the Dryad, but she tells us that this ‘splitting' of the essences and their aspects occurred because some Ancient Evil in the past had stirred up bloody factional conflict.

Finally, we sleep.

Sixth of Thaw - Water and Death

Theo divinates the scrolls: one must be opened by a member of the Corinth Family. The other must be opened by Prince Achalon (who?!) specifically. Gloria reads another of the notes

The technique of creating Dark Ents was discovered by the court alchemist of King Talon about 200 years ago.

Back to Water ...

Gloria takes us to Spirit's aspect of Water (a forest pool) which Theo looks through to the Water place of power. She can see that the Talon-Followers have broken in. Corpses litter the ground while a female elf and a couple of orcs (plate and silk) watch while orc-fodder die trying to use the various aspects of water there (just one touch will do). Seemingly oblivious to this, a balding man sits playing solitaire! He smiles at Theo and then appears in our forest glade. Says he's the Prince of Fate and he's interested in any time or place where fate hangs in the balance. He gives us some information because there are some powerful entities are trying to upset the balance here

• The Talons are but pawns in this conflict
• The Warden of Death did not allow Zod to die because he challenged Death (of course!)

Well, that goblin body is just not going to cut it, so I offer my body as a spirit container for Tarnac. Gloria calls Tarnac's spirit back – and I accept it into my body (my spirit cowers in back of my brain somewhere). We charge through the forest pool and attack the Talon people. There's a short sharp battle (the silk clad assassin orc could reach through your skin and grab your heart – but Brak slept him) and Tarnac takes possession of a newly vacant male orc body (whew).

... and onto Death

Following Zod (once again) Mr Fate takes us to the Death Place of Power - a gloomy place of fire and rock and combat. We meet Marnok the Warden (oversized goblin with staff) who will assist if we have a little combat in his arena and ‘Recover something that was stolen from me a couple of days ago'. Oh well, why not?

As you could expect, our champion (the barbarian of course) has to fight Zod (who's some kind of death acolyte now). No contest you might say, but it turns out the dwarf has a great set of armour on and has accepted a power from the Prince of Fate (that he will be immune there-after to the first weapon strike against him in a combat). His special power does him not much good (as Brak changes into tiger form after his first strike), but the armour takes some getting through and the combat ends up being a close-fought close-in slug-match (daggers against claws & bite). Brak wins. Theo and me bet heavily on the tiger and make 565 sp. Whohoo!

Marnok wants us to retrieve Death's Earth aspect from the ancient mausoleum of the Corinth family (remember that scroll?) 50 miles to the north - griffon transport will be available. (What's wrong with walking I say?). The family were followers of Death – enemies of necromancers who deny death its rightful place.

Tarnac finally gets to chat with Helena's spirit. Yes, she was a good guy, hiding the various aspects of the essence of Earth from the necromantic Talon-followers. She did not know if King Talon was involved. She hid the Spirit aspect of the Earth essence in the Fire Place of Power. The Empathy aspect of Earth is at (wait for it) the Crypt of the Family Corinth – under the statue of the first Corinth. Also, in her time the Prince Achalon (an uncle of Prince Cavalli – a Talon) fled from the court of King Talon to (wait for it) the Crypt of the Family Corinth.

Guess where we're off to next?

A Quiet Evening?

We talk to Marnok the Death Warden

• The Corinth family were the original Wardens of the Essence of Death
• Yanice is alive but in trouble
• Zods is pacted to Marnok (I don't know what that means really)We head back to the barracks to rest the night (two rooms of course), and Theo settles to a quiet evening of divinations and DA to tease out any information we may get.
• The Orc assassin's pouch contains 3 (now 2) eyes of the basilisk (we found out the hard way)
• The assassin's dagger gives the wearer a wall walking ability, but your mind will be constantly able to be read by the dagger's maker. Humm - it may need some purification before it can be used.
• This made Theo wonder if the Prince's sword may have some eaves-dropping capabilities, so she started to divinate it – when bang, there goes the relaxing evening.

The Fury of an Elvish Fury

To elvish children the Fury is the ultimate boogie-man. My mother used to tell me ‘Eat your hazel nuts or the Fury will get you'. You never really knew what a Fury was or what it could do, but you knew it was BAD. Well we found out all about Furies that quiet evening.

A smoky creature materialised – solidifying into a spidery creature of teeth and fang. We attacked and it seemed easy to hit. It's counters where nasty, but not deadly. So far so good. But with each fury-filled strike we made on it, it gathered power. It then roared, which make most of us to wantonly attack it hand-to-hand. It gathered more power.

Karnack seemed to know what it was going to do, so he cast a spell to remove our souls from our bodies. Me and Brak resisted that instinctively. Not a good idea as the Fury unleashed its power, grabbing my soul from my body. My soul appeared on a necklace around its neck. Theo gathered her spirit of life and called me back (whew) and then triggered a banishment spell.

The Fury disappeared – hurray! The Prince disappeared – what? I disappeared – wtf? The Prince and I look at each other and look around. We recognise Alfheim on Elusia – as a couple of seconds later we disappear again, drawn by the life spirit with Theo. The Prince and I say (simultaneously) ‘But I wasn't born on Elusia!' Theo is busy and puts up a barrier vs summoned creatures and completes her divination. As expected, the sword can be used by an Ancient Evil to keep track of the party. We ditch the sword.

Thanks for saving me twice (at least) Theo!

Seventh of Thaw

Not a lot happened, just the Dwarf (need I say more)

We head off to the mausoleum on griffons (yeah, I know, flying again). The dry hills containing the vaults of Corinth are shrouded in a magical mist, while in the distance hovers a camouflaged balloon – with an air mage and assorted goblins. Zod decides it must be THE ENEMY so conceives of a bold / audacious / foolhardy plan to dive bomb the balloon from a great height. Later Brak is heard to say

Note to self. 
1) Never listen to Zod 
2) Always search Zod 
3) Never listen to Zod   
4) Never let the giant goblin play with magical items 
5) Never let Zod stand watch alone 
6) Never listen to Zod

The plan works perfectly – the griffon LOVES this sort of stuff. After taking out the balloon, it goes for the flying air mage (and kills him) but not before the mage unleashes a little whirlwind vortex on the dwarf (RIP Zod).

We collect the body and the loot (the giant goblin plays with his bow and lightning bolts Tarnac). Once Tarnac comes out of shock, he questions the air mage's spirit. Yes, of course Sharkey was a mercenary ally employed by Prince Achalon to lead us into his stronghold - the balloon would get teleported into the centre of the outer pool when it got close enough. So, of course we use one of the two resurrection items given to us by Mardok to bring him back to life. Oh yes, we use the other to bring back Zod. Sigh

Orcs in the Hills

We move closer to the vault and we discover that the mist is infested with orcs (gorillas in the mist). We avoid plate mailed guys, but two scouts and wolves seem determined to track us down. A short fierce battle despatches them: I control one of the wolves to attack the other one, Theo succeeds in a risky ‘slide through the legs and strike where it hurts most manoeuvre', Tallama knocks one over and crushes him between her massive thighs, while Brak, well Brak does what Brak does.

It looks like there an invasion force of orcs (at least) besieging the family vault. We ponder how were going to get in ourselves.

Brak Scouts

The vault walls are surrounded by an invading army of 9ft black beetles (giving orders), orcs and wolves. The defenders strike them down from the mausoleum walls using by bolts of light. The attackers seem to be going for the subterranean assault (lead by a huge orange worm)

We decide to go back to the Zod's latest crash site to see if we can find that ‘teleport in' device. It is guarded by goblins, so as we buff up to attack we find out two things:

1. A force of the besiegers is coming our way from behind (not good)
2. The mist surrounding this area is maintained by some very nasty undead called Mist Wraith – who are attracted by the casting of magic (worse)

So, in the middle of our buffing we get attacked by a solid piece of mist – a life draining, oxygen sucking, whirlwind vortex casting piece of fog. By the time Theo kills it with an awkward swing of a falchion, Zod and Brak are dying through lack of air and I'm dead though lack of cohesion of the parts of my body. Luckily Sharkey has some counters to give the kiss of life to the first two. The mist monster dropped a crystal – which Sharkey picked up.

We run and grab the teleport device and the four pieces of me - and retreat. Tarnac works on me to reunite body and soul – having to replace my eyes (enhanced vision – whohoo!) - and we decide to head back to see Mardock.

Mardock (again)

It turns out that there is a fate worse than death – that is having your spirit trapped in a Mist Wraith's crystal. There are 3 spirits in this particular crystal – and one turns out to be King Talon! Confused? I was.

About 200 years ago the King was awoken by his chancellor – and a Mist Wraith. 
The King is gone. Long live the new King Talon. 
Soon after Prince Achalon was ejected from court and the first undead ents appeared.

The king recognizes me as being a member of a family of lesser nobility – the Gorath – earth mages allied with the House of Corinth. Confused? I was.

Mardock has been able to open communications with Prince Achalon. They tell of a bigger threat. In two weeks time, when the 3 moons line up, the 7 Talons (the Ancients – allies of the Prince of Trickery) will invade this land. They tried to do this once before and is Prince Achalon's first ancestor gave his life to stop that invasion. The Prince fully intends to follow in his ancestor's footsteps/shroudsteps. By the way, Theo and Tallama are scheduled to give birth about two hours before the line up. Hummmmm.

The assembled forces of good decide on quite a number of lines of counter-attack – and we decide to go rescue Yanise from King Talon's palace (we have reports that the King is not there). Off we set – once more on griffin back (...sigh...) – with some potions and weapons provided by Mardok.

King Talon's Palace

We fly for hours until we reach the Palace – built on a ½ mile long, 50 foot deep ledge on a mountain side, protected by all manner of demonic strength magics. Not an easy nut to crack. We look around for a bigger nut cracker.

Theo takes a moment (well an hour) to divine herself. The unborn life within her is an essence of life, which is absorbing the life energy from everyone around her – and by the way is not Brak's offspring, despite his vigorous efforts in the past.

A plan so cunning

Brak and I come up with a cunning plan (well, it was mostly Brak). We will simply tell the Talon people that we have come to collect our money. As Seagate mercenaries that's all we are interested in.

• BUT (and here's the cunning part) we offer to become double agents for the Talon – and go back to Achalon & Mardock and get information and essences and aspects of essences - and whatever we can lay our hands on.
• To cement our credibility we need be able to rescue Yanice. TRICKY!
• To make it even more credible, we only share this plan with the party leader - the fewer that know the better.

Theo agrees and the next day we put our plan into action.

Eight of Thaw - A Palace Visit

Strangely enough Zod seems to be having some moral qualms about betraying Yanise et all. There might be some good in that dwarf yet!

We get an audience with Chancellor Gorack – and tell our tale. After a pleasant hour or two in a locked room (pleasant for Zod with the servant wenches at least) he agrees to our offer and sends off to the tower-top prison of the chained and unconscious Yanise. He gives each of us a magical medallion to defuse the magical prison protections.

It all turns to brown runny stuff at that point.

The tower is a giant trap. After much shaking and shuddering the whole tower takes off like an alchemist's rocket straight for a portal rift in the sky – straight into the plane of the Talon people. Oh dear.

The Talon Plane

We get the feeling that we are in deep trouble. The environment is very strange (purple sky and all) – and is an area of exceptionally high, but tainted mana (in some way). A 120 ft white stone tower is nearby – from which some alarming looking chariot mounted demon is fast approaching (scythes on wheels etc etc)

First Zod and then Brak decide to call upon the Prince of Fate – accepting that for every good fate there will be a bad fate.

• Brak is told that there is an item nearby that Yanice can use to return us – a small steel egg (he draws the Emperor as his bad fate)
• Zod asks for some way to control demons (especially the approaching one) and the PoF gives him a silver rose that will charm demons for a short length of time (he draws the Seven of Stars as his bad fate)

To cut a long story short, we follow Brak's information to the tower, Zod charms to demons to assist us and Yanise uses the egg to open a portal for us back to Palace Grounds.

Sealed section (R18 – highlight the text to read it)

Zod's Last Stand (of many)

The charioteer takes us at high speed back to his tower home, where a curvatious lightly scaled beauty emerges. The dwarf immediately tries to use the power of the rose on her – but that fails, and he immediately falls under the spell of the demoness' eldritch charms. He advances in a most erect posture – offering his undying love (in a typical Zod sort of way). Surprisingly, she welcomes his advances. Obviously a horny horned daemoness - and not very picky either. I was shocked, but Yanice darted into the tower to get the egg.

Well, THEN the big husky demon advanced menacingly on his mating mate, which worried Zod somewhat (did I say the demon was big?). Glancing over his shoulder at the towering fiend Zod squeaks a placating "Feel free to join in big guy". Well, boy did the big guy join in - and Zod soon feels the full passion of the demon's huge ardour (he was really big). A sort of Zod sandwich, or perhaps more accurately a Zod shish-kabob (with relish). I think it was the noise that shocked me most. (Zod says that meant for the 2 demons to go at it, releasing him, but the male demon had other ideas. I do wonder at Zod's hidden modivations though)

Cool headed Yanise (who's probably seen it all before) has figured out the egg and opened a portal back to her homeland. Problem – Zod is kinda pegged in place. As the rest of us slip through the portal, I give Zod a potion of gaseous form – which he manages to gulp down (under trying conditions). The dwarf vaporises and the two demonkind carry on, hardly missing a stroke.

We follow the party (ever seen a bow-legged gaseous form?)

Out of the Frypan

We arrive back the Palace courtyard and before any Thornies can react we jump aboard our griffins, who bound over the garden wall and go into a power dive to the valley below (they love that kinda thing). Behind us Councillor Gorak appears on the wall – where he unfurls large insectoid wings and follows us down at speed. Eventually Brak, Tallama Yanise and Gorak get down and dirty on the ground, with the rest of us trying to bring down this demon with magic. The Councillor's two Kata are particularly nasty (one holding the power of Icy Doom and the other Boiling Blood).

To add just a little more pressure, Gorak's minions are not far behind: six bow, sword and lance wielding griffon mounted elves.

It is touch and go as Gorak grievously wounds a backstabbing Yanise and others have to resist the life destroying magics of the Katas. Finally Tallama gets in a good strike and a striped Brak knocks him to the ground. Sharkey finishes him off with his favourite vortex.

Our spells reach up into the sky as incredibly accurate and damaging arrows rain down. A pin-cushioned Zod is stunned and manages to drop the last eye – Tallama turns to a large stone statue. Only three elves make it to the ground where first Brak webs them and I get a good earthy hand in them. Immobilised, they are soon slain (and looted: 3 master class bows)

With vengeful villagers on our trail, we meet up with Theo and Tarnak and fly swiftly back (once again) to the Land of Death

Mardock (yet again)

We have dinner with the assembled wardens (including Prince Achalon) and consider options. Disturbingly, Gorak's medallions reappear on us (magically tied to each entity, some form of curse, lets the thornese find us!). You can see why the wardens didn't really share their plans with us. Yanise will be under the healers' hands for at least 8 hours, so we defer any decisions until the morning. A quiet night's sleep would be good.

Ninth of Thaw

Undead Arise

Midnight arrives – as do eight skeletons with blue glowing hands – floating up through the floor. The lightly slumbering party reacts immediately. Tarnak unleashes hellfire to rid us of undead while I do my variant of hellfire (a backfire). Zod gets in close and suffers major claw damage - begins to be drawn back into the dark earth by his boney opponent. As he disappears under the ground he is heard to say

I've had a demon – nothing worse can happen to me

Combat rages and Melldhor too gets clawed - gets that sinking feeling before we dispatch the last of the skeletons. We catch a breath and I prepare to tunnel Melldhor out as eight zombies start emerging from the earth. Theo goes berserker for some reason, charging the zombies. The tunnel goes in and Tallama grabs Melldhor before he drops. Brak grabs Theo in an impressive overhead flying spinning grab.

Quiet descends - as we descend rapidly with a local Sergeant of the Guard – who leads us down to the Tomb of the Champions of Death – seeking our missing party member.

Zod's Story

The valiant young dwarven warrior awoke inside a sarcophagus. He was lying on top of a skeleton in full battle armour. The skeleton was of a human male and was too big for Zod to get into, so he stole the Amulet and the Ring from the dead guy. He also noted the emblem on the armour as being from the death champions and figured out he was in the mausoleum.

Outside the coffin he could hear a lone voice chanting. The lid started sliding off so Zod cast a Flash of Light and then leapt out.

He saw a male elf (not encountered before) startled by the flash. In the centre of the room stood a staff with a black orb embedded in the top. This orb was sending dark energy beams to each of the remaining sarcophagi and zombies were rising from them and floating upwards through the roof.

Seeing no other weapons at hand Zod grabbed the staff and bashed the blinded Elf on the back of the head with the orb. It was a very good blow and the orb shattered, knocking both combatants unconscious.

Unfortunately for Zod the Elf awoke first. Zod came to with the boot being put in by a very upset Elf, cursing that the dwarven swine had ruined his plans. The beating went on for a few minutes till the party arrived. The elf retreated to the far end of the cavern casting a nasty blood boil on the already battered dwarf.

Tomb of the Champions of Death

Zod lies screaming and writhing on the floor of a huge tomb - boot marks implanted on his face. A massive purple worm has knocked a hole in the wall - and another wall of flame stretches across the tomb, stopping access to the lower catacombs. Theo finds out that Zod's blood is boiling – soon to be terminal. We deal with the worm (a little bit of magic goes a long way) without too much problem, but the pontificating elf that walks through the flames takes a bit longer

I will be warmly rewarded for capturing you lot

Oddly, he carries a staff with a shattered globe on top, but it unleashes painful black flames on all of the adventurers. It all looks touch and go, but Brak counters with that simplest of spells – sleep. Sometimes less is more, as Brak strides up and makes the slumber a little deeper.

Questioning Sharin ...

Mardok arrives (finally!) and we take this Sharin for a small question and answer session in his dungeons.

• Employed by a King Talon with blue grey insect wings to stop us getting to the spirit place of power. Talon apparently did not want us getting the last of the death essences. (The spirit place of power is outside the Spirit City)
• The ex-King also hired 6 other mercenary groups – including one lead by Triptick (a goblin that turns into three copies of himself) and another lead by a binder. The job was to kidnap us (not kill)
• The staff could detect the medallions we are cursed to carry (amongst other things)

Things are rather quiet and cosy down in the dungeons when enveloping flames explode and a plate mailed armoured figure appear, along with a certain ‘necrobitch' and 3 identical goblins (Triptick we presume). The flames burn and the goblins elusively teleport around the dungeon – we can't get a blow to land or a spell to stick. Even Mardok is taking considerable punishment from a goon in plate.

... and a voice in our head says ‘Don't resist'

We came, we saw and Zod destroyed

What can I say? We gave into to the voice and were teleported and travelled to the Spirit place of power. It consisted of five exquisite ‘Mandelas' of coloured sand and miniature vegetation and buildings.

• Theo concentrated on the central Mandela – and disappeared.
• I concentrated on the Mandela that appeared to represent the forest – and disappeared [I could have stayed there forever – I eventually returned, having been imparted with arcane earth magics (Animal Growth)
• Zod threw a stone at the central Mandela – and destroyed it, along with Theo and a world of other people living in those miniature buildings.

These Mandela were part of an elaborate and time consuming ritual – a ritual which would result in the pushing back of the forces of the Talon. This was a dangerous ritual, as if the Talon took it over (as they were trying to do) the Talon would be able to invade this plane. If Yanise succeeded, they would be stopped. The problem is that the collapsed universe contained certain essences – which now have been lost forever.

On the good side, the Talon pack up and go home. On the bad side, Zod destroyed a delicate a beautiful thing (and Theo).

Brak: We barbarians hold grudges for a very long time. 
It is hard to slip out when you have been hung or garrotted. 
But you can try, you disciple of death, you.

We try to fix this. Even the Prince of Fate shrugs his shoulders. Theo resurrects herself (some item she carries) and works with Brak (mightily) to re-create the pocket-universe.

Maddock takes Zod away – not sure what for!

The bad King Talon arrives, but leaves – telling us that he has left behind a gift for us. Theo divinates his departure point – it was a portal back to (yes) the Palace.

The central mandela seems to have moved into a primal pre-history time - with volcanoes and teeny tiny dinosaurs and even teenier tinier cave men.

We follow Maddock back to his place of power.

... and we go back to see (wait for it) Maddock

Nobody really wants to talk much with us (surprise, surprise).

• Maddock tells us that resolving this ‘eternal winter' is clearly beyond us. Other more experienced people are going to have to deal with that (we don't argue).
• He also tells us that the Gorak's katana are far too powerful for us and offers us some lesser items in exchange (we don't argue).
• The Man of Death also offers us 500 sp to take Zod off plane (we could have argued I guess).

Almost apologetically, we offer to go find out what King Talon II's ‘gift' is (back at the palace) – if Mr M will lend us yet another flight of griffons (we have managed to ‘loose' quite a number). After an inscrutable stare, he agrees (I think he wants to get us out of the way)

Maddock: Don't forget to take Zod!

The Wrath of King Talon II

After yet another 5 hour flight (did I say I hate flying?) we arrive. The palace and the valley village have been devastated. The palace walls are gone. The ballistae are gone – the garden destroyed. The village is a wasteland – corpses litter the ground and tree & house seem to have had the life force sucked out. We investigate the village and rescue one survivor – the teddy bear toting child Claris (a part elf/part Talon). Huge bird-like feet track through the devastation. Zod talks nicely to Claris (Stay with me, I keep you safe) – for some reason she believes him (obviously young and inexperienced).

We fly up to the shattered palace and carefully penetrate its abandoned interior – through the chambers and corridors and into a large cavern – bored into the cliff wall behind. A very nasty disintegration wall of darkness cuts off an alcove from the cavern - which contains (according to Claris) a big black tree. I tunnel around the wall and yes – there's a big black tree, with a big black egg nested in a pile of treasure.

We get cracking

As if sensing our presence (perhaps our life force), the egg rocks and hatches – revealing a 6ft tall baby skeleton (Theo tells us it is a Wraith Ice Dragon). It charges - draining life through contact or by a black mist it breaths out. It also bites! Spells fly – hands of earth hold only temporarily, ice special seems to help. Tarnac triggers hellfire. Brak attacks with blade and tooth. Tallama uses a screaming axe (from Mardok).

I smell the distinctive smell of white fire disintegration from behind the fading wall of darkness. Zod is heard to say ‘Do you have another little girl?'. Dimly through the wall I see Zod with axe in hand attacking the black tree. No sign of Claris.

The skeleton baby is reeling as Theo and me add our small weapons to the combat. It dies. The barrier is gone – and Zod is down. Roots from the tree are penetrating the dwarf (obviously finding existing orifices first). Theo tells us that Zod is undergoing a transformation to an undead. We kill the tree and Zod is no longer being rooted – but is still transforming. Reluctantly, Theo, Brak and Tallama kill him (well, there were shouts of ‘let me do it, let me do it'). Tarnac revives the dwarf – but not before the rest of us secure any valuables from the nest.

Claris' story

Her spirit tells Tarnac that she trusted Zod. When faced with the cracking egg, she protected the dwarf by ‘hiding him (actually a teleport back to the cavern entrance). While the combat raged, her protector asked her to take them back (‘Lets go and get treasure when the dragon attacks the party) – and Zod immediately began rummaging through the treasure infested nest. The last thing she remembers is frantically trying to use her now depleted instinctive ‘hiding' ability - to avoid the descent of deadly magic. She failed - and the dwarf had failed to protect her.

The Wraith of King Talon II

Divination reveals that the King's gift is a huge wraith ice dragon, capable of using the life energy drained of entire cities to create offspring – just like the black egg we discovered.

A challenge for more experienced party than us. We return to Seagate a more experience party. We get 500sp from Mardok (by taking Zod with us)

On a personal note ...

I have a talk with Mardok about my origins – I am actually one of Prince Achalon's illegitimate children. My mother was sent to Alusia to escape Talon II's fatal attention. A loose thread in my life to be tracked down.

Appendages

Places

• Clanndathu - the plane that we are adventuring (no, it's not spelt Klendathu)
• (G) Gaterville - a collection of 2 and 3 story buildings, constructed on piles driven down into the swamp, surrounded by alligator infested swamps. Ragtag airships and blimps float overhead. Protected by Snaggletooth the Dragon

People

• King Talon - King of the remaining elves of this part of Clanndathu
• Prince Cavelli - The King's self/over confident teenage son. Fancies himself as a swordsman
• Ambassador Yanise - an older elf. Illusionist, healer and portaller, the Prince's baby sitter
• Snaggletooth the Dragon – patron/protector of Gaterville, lives on her own swamp island. Has a sweet-tooth
• Gretta and Gabby - Daughter and Mother running the Last Stop Hotel (G)
• Nasha the Healer - Master of 'imperfect' healing (G)
• Garlic - nasty Gaterville Crimelord (half goblin)
• Big Ben and Small John - swamp Pirates. John is the Hill Giant! (G)
• Alligator Bill - a top hunter, hangs out at The Elves Demise (pub) (G)
• Karena – psychopathic brothel owner (G)
• Justa – crazy tinker/alchemist/mechanist gnome, lives out on his own stilted building (aka Fredrick) (G)
• The Seagate Guild Party that caused this problem: Sooty (elf fire mage), Brother Bodacious Rhythm (human namer), Tanis Kerelon (human air mage), Elena (human E&E), Pierre (halfling illusionist), Aaron Ferret (human sword swinging E&E)
• The Hunting party (that knows those guild guys): Karnack (hunter with bow and spear), Tarnac (old goblin necromancer shaman with a staff of spell casting shrunken heads), Glenda (human hunter), Flex (young goblin mind mage)
• Gaterville guilds of assassins: Dark Brotherhood (Dwarves), Talon of the Night (Orcs), Blood Brotherhood (Human)

Administration

Equipment

Guild purchases

• 3 x barrels of sugar beet molassas (itemised): 1500 sp
• 7 x restoratives (-7 Endurance, + 14 Fatigue): 1500 sp

Justa purchases (in exchange for the heard of an undead ent)

• Airships with one experimental hang glider
• 5 x 'white fire' grenadoes (experimental)
• 1 doz potionss of bug repellent

Loot and Boons

Guild gift

• 2 x healing potions each

Karakas

• Greater Enhantments (all areas): Skafloc 19; Theo 14; Zod 16; Tallama 13; Melldhor 20; Brak 20
• Morphogenic potion (for Theo)

Prince Cavelli's Advance

• 5000sp

The Barrow of Gabriel Riel (On the Spirit Plane)

• A Dagger of Light - additional damage vs undead; Rk20 Light 1/day (22ft cube, 5 x D-5 hrs); Rk20 Flash of Light 1/week (save or blind 55 seconds)
• Sphere/Orb of Death - if 'lives' are sacrificed to it, the owner will eventually become a greater undead

Water Place of Power (Grove of the Ancients)

• Ring of Water – water breathing and walking
• Dagger vs Creatures of the Earth
• Pouch with seeds/eggs of water creatures (dormant)

Orc Assassin

• Dagger of Wall Walking
• Pouch with two Basilisk eyes

Mist Wraith

• Large crystal that once held King Talon's spirit

Chancellor Gorak

• 6 medallions wrapped in true lead
• 3 master class elvish bows
• 2 AMAZING katanas

Prince of Fate

• Zod's silver rose
• Black cards for Brak and Zod

Sharin (Tomb of the Champions of Death)

• Staff (of malignant flames?) with broken orb on the top (can detect the medallions)
• Amulet and Ring (looted by Zod)

Mardock (exchange for the Katanas)

• Main Gauche of Evasion
• Screaming Battle Axe of the Berserker
• Rapier of Escape
• Giant silver axe

Hatching's nest (Wraith Ice Dragon)

• Pouch with baslisk eyes (3)
• Coins (not yet counted)
• Broach of the Earth
• Silver Torc (vs draining)
• Ring of Strength of Stone (4 by RK12)

Keeping up Standards

Standard Buffs - Party

Standard Buffs - Individuals

Standard Marching Order

• Rank 1: Brak and Melldhor (and his wolf)
• Rank 2: Theo
• Rank 3: Tallama and Skafloc
• Rank 4: Zod the Dwarf

Standard Watches

• First:
• Second:
• Third:
• Fourth:

Nominations and SGT Snippets

Possible Award Nominations

Smartest

Bravest

Stupidest

Best Death

Treasure Roll Order

1. Zod (6)
2. Tallama (27)
3. Theo (54)
4. Skafloc (60)
5. Brak (69)
6. Melldhor (70)

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