| Session Date | April 4 2024 |
| Start Date | 28 Reaping 1273 |
| End Date | 1 Harvester 1273 |
| Starting Location | Dead Hobgoblin Storage |
| Ending Location | Lich's Tomb |
| Player Characters | Helga, Hans, Burt, Mord, Deaglan, Sirius, ZZ |
| Base XP Gained | Carry Over |
| Player Notes | ZZ's Notes |
Leaving behind the hoards of dead Hobgoblins, the party immediately ran into a force of Trolls and Bugbears. The Trolls noted that these were the adventurers they’d encountered before. The Bugbears told the party they were responding to a lot of noise. The party told them they’d just wiped out something like 50 Hobgoblins who they believed were in the employ of the Serpentine Lord. The Troll Kings’ force were aware of their presence but were under the impression that they were just a small mercenary band passing through, but the Bugbear admitted that they could very easily have been lying. The groups parted peaceably, with the Bugbear saying that the party might receive a summons from their kings soon, but in the meantime to stay to the south to avoid trouble. Moments later the Bugbears found the dead Hobgoblins and were clearly quite impressed!
The party now came to a bare room with walls all covered in carved stone vines. As they explored it, the thorny vines came to life and began to circle the party, but Hans cast a wall of fire which cleared them out. Not finding anything, the party headed back to the west to avoid antagonizing the Troll Kings. They came to the sign painted on the floor to “Keep out” but passed over it after Mordecai cast find traps. Sure enough, there was a pit trap just beyond it.
They soon came to a round, domed room lit by a purplish glow around the periphery but without apparent source. Hans walked to the center of the room and shadows began to form at the apex of the dome. A coin of light did nothing to dispel them and soon they began to flow downwards in an almost oozing column of darkness. They soon began to take on a humanoid form. Hans meanwhile levitated above it to search its point of origin but found nothing. The figure remained eerily quiet until ZZ asked it to name itself. It responded “Ikru-bal,” the name of the demon or other entity the Dark Folk worshipped. Other questions were unanswered by the thing so the party left; the shadows began to flow back upward as they did so.
Another round room, this one with shiny, polished walls, contained manacles in the walls, with a black cloth in the center covering something, a line rigged to enable someone at the door to pull it upwards. Lifting the cloth revealed a stone embedded in the floor casting a bright light like intense sunlight throughout the room. They theorized that it was a form of torture device for the Dark Folk.
Upon entering a third round room, the party felt a slight disorientation. Presuming it to be a teleporter room, they experimented with it several times, using chalk marks and the like to ascertain what it was doing to them. In the end, it seemed to do nothing, and they seemed to be unaffected by it except for the slight disorientation.
Continuing onward, the party descended a short staircase to the south and ended at a T-intersection. The cross corridor was filled with debris, burn marks, pock marks in the stone, and the like. To the west was a door beyond which Deaglan could hear high pitched chatting, which he took to be Dark Folk. To the east, as the party began to move that way, a light began to glow and they could see a statue of an angry wizard holding a wand pointed at them along the axis of the corridor. They retreated around the corner and Burt sent an unseen servant to see what would happen. It had barely made it ten feet down the corridor when the hallway was engulfed in a blast of fire; the unseen servant was no more.
Not wanting to take the long corridor towards the statue, the party doubled back to the Hall of Emperors, where the party pass walled down into the statue area from behind. Unfortunately, the wand shot out magic missiles which swerved and hit a number of party members. Hans, ZZ, Mordecai, and Sirius jumped down to assault the statue while Deaglan, Helga and Burt were paralyzed by the wizard statue. Hans also learned his new sword was cursed! The statue managed to hit the party again, this time turning Helga into a (paralyzed) rabbit. But the statue eventually fell to pieces under a barrage of magic missiles and blows from weapons. Helga was restored by a dispel magic spell.
Around the corner form the statue the party found a large temple lit by purple fires, 3 elaborate bronze doors leading from it. In the center atop a dais was a huge statue of Maelentir, greater god of evil magic in his form of a black humanoid with great bat wings. He was surrounded by four statues of wizards, two male and two female. The air was heavy with a strange incense. Not wishing to tangle with this now, the party retreated back to the Lich’s crypt to rest, ZZ spreading some sand along the way to mark footprints…