Fire and Incorporeal Undead

... Immediately [Frodo put on the Ring], though everything else remained as before, dim and dark, the shapes [Ring Wraiths] became terribly clear. He was able to see beneath their black wrappings. ... In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs were helms of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of steel. ... Desperate, he drew his own sword, and it seemed to him that it flickered red, as if it was a firebrand. Two of the figures halted. The third ... sprang forward and bore down on Frodo.

Aragorn cautions Frodo not to put on the Ring

At that moment Frodo threw himself forward on the ground, and he heard himself crying aloud: O Elbereth! Githoniel! At the same time he struck at the feet of his enemy. A shrill cry rang out in the night; and he felt a pain like a dart of poisoned ice enter his left shoulder. Even as he swooned he caught, as through a swirling mist, a glimpse of Strider leaping out with a brand of flaming wood in either hand. ... (J.R.R Tolkien, "A Knife in the Dark", The Fellowship of the Ring, pp 240-1, Ballantine Books)

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I was just (on 15 April) playing in Aleksandr Revzin's iteration of Michael Curtis' Stonehell Dungeon in a certain pink-lit, pain-oriented temple-area of the dungeon, and a number of incorporeal undead appeared through the walls to attack our party. I was pretty sure they were wraiths; when they touched and level-drained to death a first level fighter-comrade, I was more sure they were wraiths. Technically I still don't know ...

But when another comrade, using a character who is a droid-body sent down by an orbiting starship, fired a ray gun at one of the wraiths (FLAILSNAILS is weird sometimes all the time), and Revzin our referee was considering whether it should affect an incorporeal undead, the same question ran through my mind. If I were referee, how would I adjudicate this?

Good thing I've done some thinking about this with my radiation rules. I'd adjudicate that a ray gun, as a kind of Coherent Radiation Emission Weapon System (CREWS for you Iain M. Banks fans), would affect such a creature, given that radiation damage does. So all well and good so far ...

But then I was thinking, what about fire? It's not coherent, but it is kind of a radiation ... or, one could say, it's also incorporeal, and so could affect bodiless things just as it does those embodied in flesh. Either way, it seems to me that open flames and fire in general should definitely affect incorporeal undead, even those "only affected by silver or magical weapons." After all, Aragorn and the hobbits are able to drive back the Ring Wraiths with torches at Weathertop! And fire is one of the main folkloric means of destroying a vampire, another kind of horrible undead ... Why not let miserable first level characters faced with lesser wraiths fight with fire??

Viggo Mortensen was good, but Bakshi's Aragorn (top image)
just seemed far and away more Aragorn to me

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All of which is a longwinded way of saying that I think torches should deal 1-4 damage against even incorporeal undead, while burning oil (though it cannot "cling" to something incorporeal) can burn from the ground below to cause 1-8 damage against the same.

Which is not to say that extremely cold undead (as many tend to be ...) will not immediately put out a torch or an oil-fire, either by mere presence, or in the course of being affected by it ...

I'm sure others have come to the same conclusions, and others the opposite. But for my game, I think incorporeal undead are affected by silver or magical weapons, or fire.

Play Report from Jeff Rients' Vaults of Vyzor 5

(the expedition to rescue Kat Eumeleia from captivity in the prisons of the Elf-King following the last expedition in which we faced off against the Elf-King himself and were driven back ...)

"Laurantha the Unbeautiful to the Sorcerer of the Blue Mask, and to Companions at the Jarrod Memorial Library,

"O! puissant one, comrades, Kat is free again and my honor restored, for though she was lost following in my employ, she has been delivered from captivity thanks to the efforts of myself and a fine fighting crew. This is my account:

"During our escape from the collapsing throne room of the Elf-King, wherein we had confronted him and learned of just what adamant he is made, Kat Eumeleia was captured by the coming reinforcements of lion-men come to guard the body of their king, and dragged bodily down into the darkness while we fled upward to the light. I myself was in little shape to help, my left hand mangled by a fell creature's claw and myself badly wounded.

"When we arrived on the surface, I found I must needs do three things; firstly, restore my hand and its ability to weave spells; secondly, discover from Laurela, estranged niece of the Elf-King and now guest of the Blue Sorcerer, just where Kat might be imprisoned; and finally, gather a company to descend into the dungeons once more.

"The first deed was done by Pete Loudly, resident wizard of power; using a magical silver dagger long in my possession, he fashioned new fingers for my left hand from its dweomers, fingers dextrous and deadly.

"Secondly, in going to Laurela, I purchased for her a mobile of brass bees for her child, which I heard she had recently delivered into the world. Thanking me for this gift (and worried for Kat no doubt, as Kat was the first to coax her from hiding in the Blue Sorcerer's tower), Laurela informed me that prisoners of import are typically held on the sixth level of the Azure Vaults--not far from where I myself have traversed before. I thanked her for this information and then went forth into the streets to collect a comitatus for adventure.

"These were the four: a human fighting-man called Colonel Kaffshyth; the owlman fighter and demon-slayer Lars Hootman; and my sometime companions, Mario de Parma, fighting-man, and Frigga the Witch. From the boldness of their hearts they agreed to accompany me seeking out Kat, and so we entered the Azure Vaults and quickly descended through the levels.

"Thanks to the number of good maps in our community (some of them my own), we made good time. The arena on the second level was filled with cheering and the sound of combat, but we hurried past on our way ever down. Finally, we arrived on the sixth level, followed Laurela's directions to the prison, and were confronted with a large ooze in the vague shape of a man. He did not see us--rather, Kaffshyth tied an animated talking skull ("Doctor Cranios" he called it) to a poll-axe and stuck it around the corner, which Cranios then reported the presence of the ooze-man.

"Frigga opined an excellent plan here: that I should become invisible, known and wanted as I am by the Elf-King's goons, while the others pretended to be torturers come to collect and torture a prisoner, namely Kat. Here it was that we realized that Mario was destitute and completely lacking equipment--he had followed along gamely into the dungeon, and here he was, essentially naked (I'm not sure just what he intended to do if a fight had developed ...). So Kaffshyth wore Cranios as a disguise, his own face swathed in a cowl, while Frigga played her creepy self, and Lars remained an owl-man, and the lot roped Mario up and led him in, dagger at his back, and the ooze-man took the charade in full swing.

"The Colonel declared that they had come to requisition the most wanted criminal of the lot for torture, and the ooze-man gamely unlocked a cell containing ... some assassin who had been hired by others to try to kill the Elf-King--not Kat. We duly collected him, but the ooze-man would not give us the keys to unlock other doors. When it seemed like things might finally require violence, Kaffshyth finally hit on the point that the ooze-man greatly desired to see what was happening in the arena above--he had money on some Gorgoro the Two-Headed, or some such, and Kaffshyth declared that Gorgoro was no longer two-headed, and the ooze-man pressed the keys into our hands and took off for the upper levels.

"Keys in hand, we quickly located Kat--much the worse for wear, poor creature--and just as quickly as we had descended, we returned to the surface, delivering Kat into safety and the assassin, Thoreg, to the Sorcerer of the Blue Mask.

"So easily was this deed accomplished that we resolved to return into the depths, this time seeking treasure. Therefore, some days later, we convened again and again descended, and behold, we found the ooze-man trapped in the menagerie of Agony-Machines on the first level. He begged to be let go, and Kaffshyth took pity on him, promising to free him if he would tell us where treasure might be.

"This the ooze-man readily agreed to, and told us to seek the crypt of the Elf-King's son on the third level, the sarcophagus of which contained not the body, but great valuables. Following this advice, we descended to the third level; and continuing east past the throne room, we found a south-branching corridor that opened into a great temple with a statue of the Elf-King, entirely of adamantium, backed by a tapestry depicting his ancient (and exaggerated) deeds. The tapestry we took down to sell, and lo! there was a door behind it. And through that door we discovered through the northeast door a crypt containing a sarcophagus for the Elf-King's son.

"I looked carefully and discovered a brown residue around the seam as if something had leaked out partially from inside; fearing to open the sarcophagus directly, Lars, Mario, and myself looped a rope around an extruding part of the effigy and hauled the thing open from the doorway--and indeed! a brown gas poured forth and filled the room while we waited in safety in the corridor. Finally, the gas settled, and we could enter and look into the sarcophagus, and there we discovered a suit of Elfin plate, a sword, and glinting jewelry worth many thousands of gold. All this was quickly stowed in sacks, and despite my protestations to look in the other door, my companions prevailed that we must leave immediately.

"Returning out to the temple, we interrupted an active service with strange communicants before the altar--a dozen floating spheres, shaggy with fur, central eyeballs surrounded by three tentacles. Before they could react, I cast a lightning bolt forth and incinerated eleven of the twelve, so that only the priest-thing remained, festooned in a ridiculous miter. This final shaggy thing was surrounded by the party and stabbed to death by the weapons of Lars, Mario, Kaffshyth, and Frigga; and Frigga, witch that she is, insisted on taking the corpse out of the dungeon to make some kind of fetish or spirit-trap.

"Back on the first floor, the Colonel was much aggrieved to discover that none of us had any means to free the ooze-man from his plight, and chastised me for attempting to blow past him without real acknowledgment. But really, I cannot understand the empathy of these human creatures--why care suddenly for a thing that one had just as easily cut down in the depths of the dungeon, a thing that was gleeful at the prospect of torturing others, just because that thing is now trapped? Bah! What a fool thing to have an empathetic soul.

"From here, we again made our way out of the Vaults without scathe, and much the richer for our haul. My account has grown overlong; no doubt the tales will be told drunkenly in the Drooling Thoule and around the town.

"Your lieutenant in the War Against the Elf-King,
"Laurantha Akala"

Expedition to the Shrine of Aesclepius-Apollo 2

During a showdown against the Elf-King who dwells in the dungeons beneath the Azure Tower of Vyzor, in his own throne room, Barnabus Sleet was attacked by the Elf-King's guardian creatures and had his right foot ripped off and a life-energy level drained from him before the throne room collapsed and the battle ended as both sides retreated. Laurantha also had her left hand mangled, and you can read her account of the battle here.

Because of these grievous hurts, Barnabus Sleet gathered a small company with him to go and seek out the Shrine of Aesclepius-Apollo where, on another expedition, his apprentice Emma Brighteyes had been cured of her malaise from a lost life-energy level.


the Party:
Barnabus Sleet (muscle wizard)
Jaina, Son of Folg (thief)
with Dale (fighting-man valet)
Magic Meryl (halfling, formerly magic-user)
with Tiberius (normal mercenary) and Galahad (orc mastiff)
Frigga (a witch)
Fulvia (NPC cleric of St. Ursula)
Laurantha (B/X Elf, my own character, but she was just along for the ride)
various livestock being taken to the shrine to be sacrificed
and some lackwits formerly enslaved by a lamia


The party started off in the city of Calpurnia, because IRL the plan had been to go to the Old Forest Keep, until the battle with the Elf-King happened and Barnabus needed healing. In Calpurnia, they acquired what they needed for the sacrifice to Aesclepius--Barnabus spent 1000 gold on flawless oxen, good wine, and fine incense, as well as a little bronze foot and another token to represent what needed healing. Frigga purchased a sheep and a chicken because she was interested in sacrificing them to Apollo and divining places to learn more arcana.

They then set out for Sweetwater, a town south west of Calpurnia on the King's Highway, and the town nearest the abandoned shrine. This journey took a week, so I rolled once on my On the Road table ... and in the middle of the week as the party was traveling along, they were suddenly attacked by insectoid horrors that burst out of the ground to attack Tiberius and Laurantha. But the attacks missed, and Meryl cast phantasmal force to create illusions of more party members with the intent that the illusions be attacked by the insects and the party could flee. But I rolled a morale for the insects being suddenly confronted with so many more things than expected, and they actually started digging themselves back into the earth. And so the company continued on their way.

In Sweetwater, Barnabus hired Fulvia from the local shrine to St. Ursula, as the sacrifice to Aesclepius requires a cleric of Good alignment to do it; they also picked up the lackwits left at the shrine last time, intending to take them to the shrine and have them healed of their lost wisdom (lost from the lamia's touch). The party then set out for the shrine; and immediately discovered that two weeks of their rations had spoiled (it was a random roll on one of my wilderness encounters charts), so they had to go back to Sweetwater to pick up more rations. They also considered casting a curse on the merchant who sold them the bad rations, one Thidrek of Calpurnia.

The only other encounter I rolled on the way was with hippogriffs, which meant merely that the party happened to see a herd of the creatures cavorting in the air over the hills to the east.

I did also mention the dragon that dwells in those eastern hills and mountains, which they glimpsed at a great distance only as a shadow of a serpent soaring through the air on great wings.

What I failed to mention was that the stars are singing--even this far south of Brakeridge and the Greyhame mountain, people can still hear the stars singing at night, though it is fainter.

Anyway, the party arrived at the shrine without trouble and looked on the old ruin of the shrine above ground, which is essentially a shell of classical-style columns and carvings, with a stair down in the far east wing where is depicted a man bearing a snake-twined staff; and another stair down in the far west wing, where are carved images of a handsome young man with a lyre charming birds and beasts or riddling with sphinxes and old gods.

There was some confusion as to which stair to take, but Fulvia ultimately pointed out that Aesclepius is the healing god, and that his accouterments include the snake-twined staff. So down the eastern stair they went. Meryl had a map from the last expedition, and so they quickly traversed the first rooms to the great hot spring pool where supplicants incubate to receive healing from Aesclepius. To the east of the hot spring is a smaller room wherein stands the altar and idol of Aesclepius; but looking into this room, the party discovered that another idol had been erected behind the altar, a crude idol carved from a great tree trunk with one thick limb in particular jutting up with a clear resemblance of an erect phallus.

Barnabus took down the new idol and had it chopped up to burn (to use in the fires required for burning the sacrifices), and then Fulvia took over and began the sacrifices. These are like any classical sacrifice, with the oxen slaughtered, their thigh bones, entrails, and fat burned on the altar while their steaks are cooked up and eaten by the supplicants and priest. Wine is poured out over the fire and then drunk in great quantity, while incense is burned and its smoke blown over the idol to please the god. All this takes a while, so I rolled a few wandering monster checks--alas! nothing came by to check out all this noise.

After the sacrifice was completed, Barnabus, Laurantha, and the lackwits still needed to incubate at the hot spring for a while, and so the rest of the company took their leave--Frigga, Meryl, and Jaina all set out back for the stairs to head down the west side and seek out the divining room of Apollo. Meryl had some trouble reading her map and took the party into a room labeled as having an Apolline statue, only for the party to find themselves confronted with a giant and his cronies and a large pack of wolves.

"What are you doing in here, man-things?" the giant boomed at them. "Come to raid this place, eh? Well get out, before I crush you!"

But as the giants approached to do just that, Frigga piped up, declaring herself a witch of the north, come to look for lore in the divinations through entrails.

"You know some lore, then, do you?" the giant asked, and a light came into his eyes. "Well--perhaps you can divine something for me then, too?" The party agreed--Frigga had brought an extra animal just in case she needed extra entrails--and the giant introduced himself as Vargir, son of Vanr, and then started leading the way to the proper chamber (not the one Meryl had just led them to). Along the way, some of the wolves peeled off and went in another direction, boding ill ...

Soon enough, the giant showed them into a room with an altar and an idol to another god, the handsome young man with the lyre, and a ceiling set with glittering stones in the shapes of the constellations at night. The giants gathered along the west wall and eagerly awaited to see some sacrificing and entrails-reading. "Tell us how to slay Yamir," Vargir ordered Frigga (who then had Fulvia do the sacrifices).

The answer to that question was, Fulvia declared, "A sword of truth." To which answer the giants fumed and stamped their feet. "We already knew that! That is his doom--but what is it?"

Frigga then stepped up and tried to read the entrails for more information, but found nothing. But she agreed to "read the entrails" of the other animal for the giants while secretly telling Fulvia to answer her question, which was, "Where can I find more witch-arcana to learn?"

So Fulvia did the whole ritual again, with Frigga "helping" and ultimately Frigga declared that a sword of truth must be made from the teeth of the dragon in the mountains that they had seen, as dragons are very ancient and powerful, and because of their ancientness closer to the truth at the moment of creation, or some such humbuggery. "Eklereath's teeth?" Vargir grumbled. "He seems rather a young dragon for such a thing ... still, if that's what you say ..."

Meanwhile, Fulvia whispered to Frigga that she had read something about "nine eyes" and "crows in the forest" and "an old castle", from which clues the party came to the conclusion that Frigga could learn her crow-summoning arcana from the crows that dwell on or around the Old Forest Keep.

Now, while all of this was happening, Jaina son of Folg was pickpocketing Vargir. She (yes, she, I don't remember the particulars as to why Folg's son is a girl, but so she is) pulled out a couple handfuls of gold with successful checks and but then decided to go big, because Vargir's bag looked like it contained quite a lot of coin. So she started emptying her own backpack and large sacks in the background, comedia dell'arte style, while everyone else was paying attention to the sacrifices. She then slit the bottom of Vargir's bag and, with another successful check, managed to gather 5000 gold in her sacks.

A great howling began to ring through the stone corridors of the dungeon at this point, and Vargir pricked his ears and then declared, "Sounds like Navitnir has got wind of your presence. You'd best be out before he catches you." Because the party had done him a good deed, he allowed them to flee out the door--and just in time, as a huge pack of wolves came surging out of the darkness to the west. The party fled, wolves panting at their heels; at the top of the stair, Meryl used her halfling stealthiness to hide nearby while the party fled down the eastern staircase. Then, as the wolves boiled up, howling, Meryl cast phantasmal force creating illusions of the party fleeing down the hill, out into the wilderness ... and the wolves howled and went straight for them. Meryl then fled down the east staircase after her fellows.

Returning to the hot springs, the party found more than just Barnabus, Laurantha, and the lackwits--with them now, was a great turtle, its shell mossy but with glittering gold inlaid below the growths, pontificating about esoteric metaphysics and turtlian dialectics; and interrupting the lecture constantly with crude jokes or bad faith arguments, and shrieking with weird laughter at the turtle's discomfiture, were a gang of yellow-eyed hyena-headed creatures--obviously gnolls.

The party was confused by the presence of these things: "You guys weren't here last time!" Meryl said to the gnolls, to which they laughed and responded, "Sure we were!" It came out that the idol that the party had destroyed was theirs, and now they needed a new one, so they sent their human slaves out to collect a tree and drag it back in, down the stairs to the hot springs. The party was content to wait and kind of play along, but when they saw that the slaves were just going to hack out a crude image, taking even more time, Meryl decided to try to scare the gnolls off. With another casting of phantasmal force, she created an image of Melodeia, the scorpion-lamia from the last expedition, rising from the hot springs.

In response to this, the gnolls got spooked, but rather than running turned menacing. Their laughter became eerie and forced morale rolls for NPCs (who all failed and started to try to flee), but the party got the drop on the gnolls with high initiative and Barnabus leapt to the attack. He and his floating fists (he has two or three that follow him around anymore) killed four gnolls in his round alone, while Meryl cast sleep over another four gnolls. These losses were enough to scatter the gnolls, and the party then elected to depart the dungeon, as their healing was complete, and they had managed to acquire a fair amount of loot.

Through the use of invisibility 10' they returned back through the wilderness without incident, and that was that--Barnabus had a new foot and had regained his level, the lackwits were (mostly) restored from their idiocy, and Laurantha was healed of her wounds (though her lost fingers she actually replaced with magic fingers created by powerful wizard Pete Loudly).

Play Report from Jeff Rients' Vaults of Vyzor 4

(my 4th report, not the 4th session ... go to Jeff's Gameblog to find the preceding 30+ sessions)

"Laurantha the Unbeautiful to the Sorcerer of the Blue Mask,

"O! puissant one! We, your lieutenants and servants, have confronted the Elf-King, Elexus Starchild, in his own throne room and come away without victory and badly scathed for our troubles. This is my account:

"I write this missive in great pain, only barely dulled by the strength even of my own mead--for my left hand has been mangled, leaving only a bloody mess without fingers. It throbs without end, and I fear as to my future spell-casting faculties; and Barnabus Sleet, muscle-wizard unparalleled, has returned from the depths with a stump where his right foot once firmly trod the earth; and Kat Eumeleia, a companion on the delve, has not even returned, but was captured by the Elf-King's lion-men during our headlong flight.

"I tell you, the company we gathered was good. Barnabus had with him his manservant Dale, as well as the wolf-demon Astonac; Pitwin Spryneedle was with us, a sapling who has grown as proud in prowess even as Magic Meryl, and he commanding the mushroom-demon Xasu; and Lobat the Laserer was with us, accompanied by trusted gnomes-at-arm Jade and Blondie. For myself, I had heard the Kat Eumeleia, cleric of the Star Goddess was considered a Champion of Vyzor, and so I enlisted her as my henchwoman, much to her ill fortune. Rose Royce, said to be kin to the Elf-King was also intended to accompany us, but alas was unable to join our ill venture ...

"And lastly, the creature Man-Rider was with us. [Man-Rider is weird. ~Ed.] This thing, said once to be a goblin--and now a weird blue thing with tentacles and too many eyes and a door in its breast--proclaimed itself a tracker faultless through its own eldritch faculties, and so we enlisted its aid to seek out the Elf-King in his dungeons below the Azure Tower. For this we required an article once possessed by the Elf-King himself, and Kat Eumeleia, after wooing Laurela--the estranged niece of the Elf-King, freed by the deeds of Kat and others--that is, Kat received from Laurela a dress she had once gotten as a gift from Elexus, which Man-Rider took (and wore himself, a most hideous sight), and declared that he knew where the Elf-King was.

"Therefore, Barnabus took the Man-Rider upon his shoulders (as was only appropriate), and we set out into the depths beneath the Azure Tower, following the directions of the misbegotten Man-Rider. On the first level we dithered for a while, finding orcs and goblins captive in the Elf-King's Agony-Machine cages. Suffice to say that the goblins were freed and the orcs all slain, save one charmed by Sleet.

"Thence we descended through the second level down to the third, and unto the very bronze doors of the Elf-King's throne room, those doors emblazoned with his ancient deeds of wonder. 'Through there,' Man-Rider indicated, and Barnabus Sleet hesitated not a moment before he burst open the great doors. Not a moment even to plan ...

"And there was Elexus, seated formally upon his throne, eyes like black holes, face made up in full Starchild makeup, wearing a robe of lucky charms and a cloak of the still-living-and-grimacing faces of inept servants--and attended by a host of lion-men! Without a thought, Barnabus leapt across the throne room to confront the Elf-King himself with but his fists, leaving the rest of us behind to fend off the lion-men.

"And this we did! Pitwin slew many with a wave of acid; Man-Rider, thrown into the melee by Lobat, incinerated others with his fiery burps; Blondie and Jade threw a tube of hair gel into the midst of the guards and shot it with their lasers, causing the tube to explode; and myself, I sent a line of lightning crackling through their ranks. Many died.

"Meanwhile, Barnabus's own lightning spell, cast through his connecting fist, was merely caught in the hand of the Elf-King, ready to throw back at us. Only good fortune saved us, in that Lobat then turned his laser rifle on the Elf-King and blasted a hole in his right arm, causing the lightning to ricochet around the room (incinerating one of his own guards). Still, the Elf-King lived--

"--and summoned an elemental of earth from the floor of the chamber! And the eight pillars around the room smoked and then transformed into horrid creatures with ebon skin, terrible claws, and red-burning eyes!

"Lobat rolled a keg of black powder at the elemental and shot it, causing the powder to explode and the room to shake, but failing to destroy the creature. Man-Rider sought to inject new strangeness into the melee, first by growing a great shell, and then by summoning a serpent-demon which proceeded to attack and dominate him; and while Barnabus continued to rain fists upon the Elf-King to little avail, I advanced to attack one of the pillar-demons with my sword. It should be noted of Pitwin that he showed conspicuous gallantry in throwing an interdimensional knife at Elexus, which he followed through the planar gap to stand beside the Elf-King himself, and to stab Elexus in the posterior with his knife, literally enacting the thing he had intended merely to spraypaint upon the throne room's walls.

"But this is where the tide turned against us. The pillar-demons struck out, and their attacks against myself and Barnabus Sleet caused grievous bodily harm. And here the Elf-King drew his sword, which I am to understand was forged from a single hair stolen from an angel, and stabbed at Barnabus--and only the sudden collapsing of the chamber's roof and the mutual surprise of everyone involved interrupted his incipient death!

"As the chamber shuddered, weakened by the explosions within, and the Elf-King hesitated, wondered at the shivering walls, we all fled headlong, uncertain of aught but that our doom lay within if we remained there. In the flight, Kat was lost and captured by a new contingent of lion-men coming to reinforce the first bodyguard, and one of the gnome lasses following Lobat was smashed in the hip, ever after to walk with a limp--but otherwise carried to safety out of the deeps.

"So it was that we, your lieutenants and servants, assaulted the Elf-King on his own ground, and were badly repulsed. For myself, I fully intend to return to the dungeon as soon as I am able and recovered of my wounds, thereby to deliver Kat Eumeleia from captivity, and to redeem my honor as the one who enlisted her aid ...

"Your lieutenant in the War Against the Elf-King,
"Laurantha Akala"

Session 25 of the Old Forest Keep Game

Session 25? Where are the other sessions? In my handwritten campaign notes ... this 25th session was the first online game I've run in this setting, and the first I'm recounting here. This may mean that I recount future sessions in this game here as well.

Anyway ...


The characters:
Magic Meryl  (random advancement halfling) and Galahad (orc mastiff)
Radmachar Whitebeard (cyborg pirate)
Rakka (orc muscle witch) and Amonsay the Immortal Constrictor (some kind of snake demon)
Gnarles Crackledust (gnome illusionist)
and a mad scientist and his lock-picking specialist (Chris P.)


In town, the characters gathered a little bit of information about the Cult of the White Dragon which presumably uses the dungeon under the Old Forest Keep as its base of operations for a campaign of brigandage, and Radmachar hired Manlius as a mercenary, while Magic Meryl hired Tiberius. Magic Meryl took on quartermaster duties and bought rations for everyone (the dungeon lies three to five days from town depending on my die rolls representing weather), and then the party set out through the woods toward the dungeon.

Some bad weather lengthened the travel time to five days altogether. Nothing happened for the first four days but rain, but on the fourth night, a group of giant ants marched right through the middle of the party's camp, carrying dead humans. Meryl cast sleep over the ants, and the party investigated the bodies, and found them to be dead bandits wearing white armbands, and a couple wearing cloak-pins in the shape of white dragons--these the party took, and then they slew the ants as they slept, and then continued their rest.

Then, on the fifth day, the party came into sight of the keep--which is not really a keep, as only the gatehouse remains standing, the old castle's curtain walls all thrown over and the actual keep having collapsed long ago. This keep was once a bastion of Law against the Chaotic Elves of the eastern Dwimmerholt forest, but has fallen into disrepair and been filled with Chaotic monsters and cultists. As the party approached the keep, a murder of crows rose up from the trees around them, alerting the orcish figures on the gatehouse top to their approach.

Before the orcs could send out a patrol, Gnarles Crackledust cast a spell of mass invisibility over the party (from a staff, I think), and then the party simply walked around the gatehouse to what was once "inside" the bailey, but which of course is now just open ground--from that side, they could see two doors, one entering the eastern tower of the gatehouse, the other into the western tower. So the party went to the first door and listened--and though they all failed to hear anything, Meryl's mastiff Galahad's hackles went up and he pointed at the door, indicating orcs on the other side (it was also at this point that we remembered that Rakka and Galahad probably wouldn't get along, she being an orc, he a mastiff bred and trained to hunt orcs).

Fortunately, the orcs had already passed on when the party opened the door; so they entered the dungeon and went through a first couple of rooms, one being merely a sleeping chamber with old pallets of straw that smelled of orc; and the other room containing a tapestry that divided the room in two. Chris P.'s character glanced around the tapestry to the other side and saw a large spider clinging to that side of the tapestry; Rakka decided that she would take the spider on with her fists, and just talk her way out of encounters with orcs the way she did in the Aesclepius-Apollo shrine.

So Rakka went around the tapestry and Anime Leap Attacked the spider, which does something like double or triple damage--the spider survived, though barely, and in its confusion at suddenly being attacked, its attempts to bite Rakka were erratic and ineffective, and so Rakka was able to destroy it by hammering further at its thorax with her fists. She then elected to take down the tapestry, intending to clean it up with magic in town later (the party left it rolled up in the room for the moment, as it was not a small tapestry).

At this point, Meryl recalled the trap door depicted on her map of the dungeon (it was an old map she acquired from Ligurias the Sage in town), and directed the party through several rooms toward it. They found the door locked, but Chris P.'s henchman easily picked the lock, and the door was opened to reveal four human prisoners in rather bad shape, emaciated and dirty. They were wondered at the door opening but "nothing" coming through, and then even more surprised to hear the invisible party promise them freedom. The prisoners hoped that meant they were leaving immediately, but the party told them they had to wait a little bit while the adventurers delved a little more.

So, a trapdoor was indeed found; and Galahad growled low as it was opened, indicating that there were orcs down the stairs below. It was agreed to send Rakka down to negotiate, and well beyond merely chatting the orcs up, she claimed to be the fleshly incarnation of Orcus (indicating to her invisible companions to pick things up and flash their lights up and down, etc. as demonstrations of her power). The six orc guards at the foot of the stair were not well convinced ("You don't look like Orcus," and, "She just looks like a girl,"), but ultimately bowed to her and agreed to her plan to show Rakka their king's chambers, to take his gold, and perhaps to kill him.

The orcs led the party north through some corridors and then pointed to a door--"There's the king's chambers," they said. "Well, open it!" Rakka replied. "We don't have the key," said the orcs, "but you're a god--why don't you open it?" And behold, the door was unlocked (Chris' henchman picked it invisibly), which thing wondered the orcs rather more.

Everyone piled in and started looting, mostly invisibly, and the party found a number of valuables--but as they looted, a commotion was heard at the door, and a half-orc woman with several ogrillon bodyguards was there, demanding, "What the hell is going on here?"

Rakka replied with her spiel of being Orcus incarnate, but this time piled it on with an ability from her class in which she can convince several creatures per level, once per session, of a lie of any magnitude. And behold, this half-orc priestess (Trapp is her name), fell on her face before the god-made-flesh. "How can we serve you, o! Orcus? Have you come to aid us in our efforts with the White Dragon Cult to waken the dragon sleeping in the pit of the dungeon? Can you not break the enchantment that keeps it slumbering, o! great Orcus?"

Rakka-cum-Orcus of course agreed that she was there to aid them, and would create a talisman to help waken the dragon, but that she required a great sacrifice of wealth and prisoners to increase her power. "Of course--we shall have a great sacrifice for you--I will gather the tribe, and tonight in the darkness we will slaughter our prisoners, drink wine, all in your honor, o! Orcus!" Trapp declared.

But Rakka replied that the sacrifice was required immediately; and so Trapp and her servants (and the other orcs, now swept up by Rakka's authority) gathered all the valuables they could in a short time, including Trapp's cosmetic box and rich furs from her own chambers, and also a huge pile of metal ingots that the orcs had found stockpiled in the dungeon when they moved in. All of this, and the human prisoners from above, were then gathered out in the courtyard above (with the orcs complaining a great deal about the sun and the sudden forced labor). As for the prisoners, Meryl had invisibly gone up to them when the party's plan had crystallized, and warned them that they should play along with much screaming, but not to worry, the party really was going to rescue them.

Everything gathered above, and probably half the orc-tribe standing in attendance, Rakka interrupted the setting up of an altar. "No, no," she declared, "no altar is needed--I will just open up a hole directly to my realm in Hell below!"

With that, Magic Meryl and Gnarles Crackledust both conjured illusions with phantasmal force, the gnome creating a vision of Hell's maw opening, while Meryl created an illusory demon, a huge orcish figure, tarred and feathered, to emerge and start "carrying off" the human prisoners and treasure (actually being taken up by invisible characters), while Amonsay revealed itself as well in all its vasty coils to awe the orcs, etc. A number of orcs complained that their hard earned treasure was being taken by a fraud god, but using a wand of lightning, Rakka fried a whole line of them and cowed the tribe into kowtowing submission.

Now, as for the treasure and prisoners--apparently Chris P.'s mad scientist has an armored hover SUV which he had neglected to tell the party about before trekking off through the woods on foot--but now he summoned it to their location in the old keep's bailey and all the loot was shoved onto it, followed by the quickly by the various members of the party, and then the whole lot of them flew off back to the city of Calpurnia in style.

Back in town, Rakka caroused (I think someone else did too? but Rakka was the only one who failed), and in her drunkenness and going on about her coup of the orcs with a clever lie about being Orcus, she finds herself enamored of a local fellow, one Titus Iulius, a hunter who can tell her much of the wonders of the wilderness (Rakka's life heretofore has been in a dungeon, so the outside world is all new to her). If she does not maintain this relationship, it will turn sour as Titus' sisters will spread evil rumors about the orc woman who seduced their brother.

Expedition to the Shrine of Aesclepius-Apollo

(don't know what was wrong with the format, but I fixed it)

SEEK OUT the shrine of Aesclepius-Apollo, dual deity of HEALING and WISDOM to help Emma Brighteyes sacrifice there and regain her drained level!

In NEED of healing? Add your sacrifice to Aesclepius alongside Emma's and cast off diseases, deadly wounds, terrible curses, or lost levels ... hopefully!

In NEED of an oracle or some kind of insight? Delve into the shrine of Apollo to seek for ancient diviniatory magics!

The Party:
Barnabus Sleet (muscle wizard)
Emma Brighteyes, Sharene, Rakka (the "witchlings", human, Elf, and orc--all Sleet's apprentices)
Dale the Valet (Sleet's fighting-man follower)
Magic Meryl (halfling, former magic-user)
Pitwin Spryneedle (gnome orphan, Meryl's semi-apprentice)
Galahad (newly acquired orc mastiff)
Mario de Parma (fighting-man)
Brutal Pete (insane dwarf)
Fulvia (NPC cleric)
Livia (NPC animal herder)
and two dogs and rather a large number of goats and such headed for the dungeon for sacrifice ...


The party FLAILSNAILED into Sweetwater, a town about a week southwest of my "regular game" set in the city of Calpurnia. To the northwest of Sweetwater, about a week's travel into the wilderness, lay the old shrine of Aesclepius-Apollo, once a pilgrimage destination for those seeking healing or wisdom from the dual Lawful Good deity. Emma had previously been drained of a level of life energy during a delve into the Vaults of Vyzor (when she unwisely wrestled an orc-succubus), and now the party had gathered to help her regain said level in the healing shrine of Aesclepius.

To that end, Emma and company (Sleet, Sharene, Rakka, Dale) acquired the required means for a sacrifice--incense, wine, animals (goats), an offering represented whatever healing was needed, and a Good cleric who could perform the sacrifice properly. They spent the minimum of one thousand gold on it all--more might have guaranteed the favor of the god, but Emma didn't have enough money.

Meanwhile, Magic Meryl was interested in seeking wisdom from Apollo, and heard that if one sacrificed the right animals at his altar, their entrails and livers could be read with the help of certain divination charts and thus answer questions posed to the god. To that end, she acquired several excellent, single-colored goats and then paid a fair amount to copy the local Law cult's divination charts, a certain scroll of Vegoia's Hepotomancy.

The party then bought some of the war dogs ubiquitously for sale along the north-south trade road on which Sweetwater lies, hired Livia to herd their animals, and then set out.

I rolled truncated wilderness encounters--just one per day--and the only thing that molested them on their way out descended on great scalloped wings that overshadowed the road--a dragon! Pretty much everyone ducked for cover as it landed before them, terrible and majestic, but Barnabus strode boldly forward to converse with the worm.

It declared itself to be Ekleriath, and expressed an especial interest in the feast of goats trailing the party. Barnabus bought time by flattering the dragon, which responded by preening and showing off its magnificence; then Barnabus brightly asked if it was strong enough to lift a cow.

Lift a cow? the dragon bellowed. You think I can't, with these huge wings? Ekleriath can lift a cow as well as any roc! With that, the dragon spread its vasts wings, blew up a cloud of dust and took off, circling through the sky looking for cattle, muttering to itself, Lift a cow! Hmmph, I'll show him!

Barnabus then cast invisibility 10' on the party (everyone crammed in close), and they all proceeded invisibly for the remainder of the journey.

The shrine itself is mostly underground, a double shrine with the western half dedicated to Apollo and the eastern to Aesclepius. An above ground temple exists, built in a Greco-Roman style with great columns and a roof, but the place is a ruin--the columns and the roof barely stand. Inside, one finds staircases down, one to the east and one to the west. The party went down the eastern stair first, finding themselves in a chamber with a southern corridor and a stream flowing across it, east to west.

They were wary of the stream, but unnecessarily--though knee deep (Pitwin had to be carried by Mario), the water was otherwise harmless. The corridor led into another chamber with three further exits, with mists rolling lightly from south and east; but the party spied a number of still stone figures in the room, all finely detailed and seemingly caught in a moment of surprise or horror--worried about medusas, the party got out mirrors and continued to the east.

Following the mists east, hoping for hot springs, the party indeed found a large room with a bath fed by hot springs taking up the center. A number of doors stood along the walls--one on the west had scorch marks on the floor around it--and another corridor opened east into a chamber with an idol of a god bearing a snake-twined staff over the altar before him, which was engraved, AEΣΚΛΕΠΙΟΣ.

Fulvia identified this as the altar of Aesclepius and got down to the business of the sacrifice: incense was burned to perfume the idol, wine was poured out (and drunk), goats were sacrificed--their entrails and fat burned on the altar, their thigh meat roasted for everyone to feast on--and hymns were sung to Aesclepius ... the entire rite would take one hour, and because of the noise of it all, I rolled an encounter check for each of the next six turns. Only the third roll turned anything up, and so arrived a woman, beautiful and robed, and followed by five humans--three men and two women.

The lead woman introduced herself as Meledeia ... I fumbled through the dialogue of her trying to ascertain the party, but ultimately she zeroed in on Emma Brighteyes and rubbed up against her seductively, from which Emma lost a point of Wisdom permanently. (meanwhile, Meledeia's followers were happy to partake of the wine, though they weren't much into conversation)

Seeing Emma a bit befuddled, and he being rather protective of his apprentices, Barnabus Sleet stepped in and turned Meledeia around to face him. She wanted to feel up his muscles, but he suggested they go out alone to the other room (reactions roll) ... Oh yes, let's! she answered.

Barnabus had Meledeia stand on one side of the hot spring and told her that he was going to leap into her arms from the other side; but what he was really doing was an Anime Leap Attack, some FLAILSNAILS shenanigans that lets him do excessive damage on an attack from thirty feet away--and he hit Meledeia with a good wallop, and then was a little concerned when I informed him that she'd taken the damage, but was not only not dead, but now shedding half of her human form.

Indeed, the illusion around Meledeia dropped, revealing the lower body of a scorpion topped by her here-to-for attractive female human top. She attacked Sleet with scorpion claws and sting, but wasn't able to pin nor poison him.

Magic Meryl got the drop on the humans and slept the lot of them, and then Mario and Brutal Pete charged out to join the melee against Meledeia. Between that round, a critical hit from Pete, and a winning initiative the next round, the party managed to slaughter poor Meledeia, cutting her fully in half, and she died with a wail, scorpion-half writhing, and then lay still.

Then the sacrifice continued, while Magic Meryl tied up the sleeping followers.

Nothing else bothered the party until the rites were complete, and then Emma had to "incubate" in the healing airs of the hot springs for a while (until the end of the session, I ruled), and so the party briefly looked into the doors around the springs. They found yellow-moldy robes behind some, and behind the scorched door, several chests full of treasure (lots of gold, plus a tafl board and pieces). The treasure also included a suit of mail, which Mario hastily donned, and immediately regretted it as it shrank over his frame, becoming heavy, tight, and awkward.

Everyone then agreed to head to the western shrine to help Magic Meryl find some oracular answers from the wisdom god. They went back up the first stair and then down the western stair, and immediately found a chamber with four exits (N, E, S, and W), and decorated with images of a lyre-playing god, one image of him riddling a sphinx, the other playing for animals.

They went north and found a room with a sphinx statue. At its base was an inscription: "Reaching stiffly for the sky, I bare my fingers when its cold, in warmth I wear an emerald glove, and in between I dress in gold." Tree! Barnabus blurted immediately (and correctly), but nothing happened. The party got a leaf and touched it to the statue, but to no avail.

It's probably some sphinx that got stoned by a medusa here, and then some adventurers carved a riddle into it for fun, Brutal Pete opined.

With a shrug, the group continued. Inside a room that was once a barracks, they found an old chest with a music book inside; then, at the door back to the corridor, they heard voices speaking in orc ...

They agreed to send Rakka out to talk (she's an orc), and when she stepped out, she heard the orc-voices complaining about some Werewolf-Lord taking their loot from their raids as "tribute" and how mad it makes them. There were eight of them, not quite orcs, but with horny, calloused fists and thick hides. Rakka hailed them and talked them into letting her companions help them destroy the werewolves. The orc-things were taken aback by Rakka's comrades, but the ever useful reactions dice suggested helpfulness on the orcs' part, and so they gladly led the party south.

There, they passed through a large chamber with a pipe organ along the west wall, and intrigued, the party stopped to play it. Pete set out the music book and tried to play a song, but he couldn't make sense of the notation (and no yellow mold came out of the wheezing organ, to everyone's relief). Meanwhile, Magic Meryl and Dale positioned themselves in the middle of the room in a good vantage to magic anything coming up the hallways--and lo! from the south came four figures, wondering about the noise of the organ.

That's them! the orc-things hissed, and Meryl and Dale blasted the four oncoming figures with a lightning bolt each. The poor creatures were instantly killed; the man-skins they were wearing split open, and out spilled four cooked and very dead wolves.

Inspecting the chamber whence they'd come, the party found some more loot (a gilded chariot among other things); but the Lord of Werewolves was out, it seemed, so the orcs were cajoled into leading the party to the shrine of Apollo (after a brief confusion that led to the fabled Well of Memory).

This shrine was similar to the one to Aesclepius, except it lacked a hot spring; rather, the ceiling was worked with images of constellations, and the inscriptions on the lyre-holding idol read, AΠΟΛΛΩN

Fulvia again sacrificed some goats, thought it was a much shorter ritual as she only needed to look at their entrails and the lobes of the livers and to cross-reference their appearance with Meryl's copied charts--thus to answer the questions brought by Meryl and Pete.

Asked Meryl, How might I regain the full magical powers I lost when I was reincarnated as a halfling?
And Pete, How might I escape the curse laid on me by the armor and warped soul of Ule Oakenballs, to go mad when I reach my limit of experience as a dwarf?
(the answers to these questions need deeper thought, and I a still mulling them over)

Their goals all met and our time nearly out, the party then set out for Sweetwater once more, not neglecting to collect Emma and to haul out their lucre. Emma rolled a success on regaining her level and her lost Wisdom; six of the eight orc-things agreed to accompany the party back to Vyzor, to avoid the wrath of the Werewolf-Lord; and the party led the erstwhile followers of Meledeia back to town, once they ascertained that they had been her slaves (and they found on the way back, moreover, that these individuals can barely take care of themselves and seem as naive as children and muddled in their thinking--it seems all of them had their Wisdom drained pretty badly).

They went invisibly as before, and managed to avoid any further encounters--though they did note a number of wolves howling in the distance, and coursing their trail (to no avail). Finally back in town, they sold their loot, and set the former slaves up with the local Lawful Good Cult of St. Ursula (founded not long ago by Lailith, a character from my "regular game"), with Pete giving a "bounty" of 500 gold for whichever adventurers are willing to take the five back to the temple to be healed by Aesclepius, while Meryl donated money for their care until then.


All in all, a rather successful expedition ...

Play Report from Jeff Rients' Vaults of Vyzor 3

Got another chance to play in Jeff's game in the Vaults of Vyzor on 8 December. I suggested I could play another character than Laurantha if we wanted to avoid the geas to enter the Azure Vaults, which suggestion was endorsed, and so I rolled up a level 1 cleric, Kat Eumeleia, devotee of the Cult of the Beautiful Life ...

------

Down at the (newly rebuilt Drooling Thoul?), Kat Eumeleia, newly arrived cleric following the Star Goddess, was seen carousing raucously with several orc floozies after her first expeditions into the Citrine and Verdant Vaults. Over the course of the night, she composed this pastiche of one of the religious hymns of her cults, singing it as well as she could without the advantage of autotuning magic (this is written to fit generally into the melody of Kesha's song “Rainbow”):

'Descended down into Citrine halls
looking for an orc brothel
and once there
couldn't help but stare
Walls covered with red velvet drapes
orc ladies with the leering faces
we had no coin
but I brought some wine

Trading swigs with the orcs, we
made some friends as we partied
with our charms,
won over even the madame!
Learned that not all there were happy
working girls, they were trapped, yeah,
so we brought them all
out of that brothel

We had a party
down in the dungeon, yeah!
With hard-A
drinking wine and dancin'
So seize your freedom now, girls
And come and dance away from here
tonight

Yes, Mario had some fun
with a couple of orcish doms
while they played
we had it made
And Emma found an Elf-lass
hiding back in the darkness
we sang, “Come on, girl,
come out to the world ...”

Saved them all from the darkness,
from a world cold and heartless
but back in the brothel
with dominatrixes from Hell
When Mario had ended,
they found the brothel abandoned
they sprouted horns!
demonic in form!

We had a party
down in the dungeon, yeah!
With hard-A
drinking wine and dancin'
So seize your freedom now, girls
And come and dance away from here
tonight

Emma sprang on one orcubus,
wrestling hard that seductress,
got an evil kiss
that left her listless
Yeah, our swords had no power
to defy them in that hour
so we fled
rather than end up dead!

We had a party
down in the dungeon, yeah!
With hard-A
drinking wine and dancin'
So seize your freedom now, girls
And come and dance away from here
tonight ...'

Asked by other patrons concerning further recollections of her expeditions into the vaults accompanying one Emma Brighteyes of the Jarrod Memorial Library and fighting-man Mario de Parma, she had more prosaic things to say:

'Yeah, we had a couple of gnome lasses with us--Babis was one, I don't remember the other's name--hired by Mario on his promise that they could get some orc-stabbing revenge down there. They weren't really sure what to make of the brothel, but don't worry; when Mario went off with those girls that ended up being orcubi, I took the gnomes under my wing and gave them some wine to take the edge off. But when those demon-babes revealed themselves, the poor gnomes almost got left behind in our haste to retreat. Only Emma's cool under duress allowed her to duck in and drag the two out under the demons' claws …

'Well, after we got out of the Citrine Vaults--and only barely ahead of the demons!--there was no way in Hell we were going back for the treasure we left behind. So we decided to try the Verdant Vaults--apparently some local Elf-chick here has some kind of a thing for bees, and there were supposed to be bees down in the Verdant Vaults ...

'And sure enough, we found them, and Emma used that Elf-chick's spell to charm the bees. We then used them to help us battle a few orcs fully intent on impaling a few helpless gnomes in some huge chamber that Emma said used to be a gnome-wrestling arena. The gnome lasses got their vengeance here--you can't imagine the glee with which they chopped off all six pairs of hands of the orcs we killed …'

Beyond this point, Kat, continuing to drink her wine, became semi-incomprehensible. She drunkenly proselytized the cult of the Star Goddess to the local women, going on about something called “the Beautiful Life” without explaining much … and then was later seen partying hard with Hilda, wife of Heinrik Gem-Eyes, alternately downing shots and goblets of wine, and then engaging in deep, seductive, philosophical conversations …

------

Kat Eumeleia was rolled up using Jeff's "Insano-Libs Cleric Advancement" rules ... she almost advanced to level 2 during this last session, but alas, not quite. Naturally, with her being a cleric follower of Ke$ha, I will have more to say about the Cult of the Beautiful Life as time goes by ...

Play Report from Jeff Rients' Vaults of Vyzor 2

"Laurantha the Unbeautiful to the Sorcerer of the Blue Mask, and to my comrades at the Jarrod Memorial Library:

O! puissant one! My companions and I have delved deeper into the Azure Vaults than any have yet dared to go, and yet our expedition there was cut short by the appearance of a fearsome enemy beyond our strength. This is my account:

Compelled by the geas that you have lain about my shoulders (along with the estimable Barnabus Sleet and Rose Royce) to seek and slay the Elf-King Elexus within the Azure Vaults, I sought about for bold companions for a sortie deep into his very lair. Three were found: the dwarf warrior Brutal Pete, the ever weirder Sapphean Gratchit, and the promising fighting-man Mario de Parma. To swell our ranks for this foray, I also retained the pathetic creature known as Ralph, whom I equipped with new plate armor, while Brutal Pete hired the services of Baguette, a young halfling woman.

Thus assembled, we entered the Azure Vaults. Now, on my last sortie into these vaults, I and my then-companions almost fully explored the second level. But just before setting out this time, we were apprised by one Magic Meryl, my sometime adventuring-companion, that she and another expedition had ascended from the second level through the room where formerly had been witnessed a dragon chained to the wall (and from which my own expedition had thus reasonably fled).

My first intent, therefore, was to corroborate on my own maps this means of ingress and egress to the second level, and so rather than descending immediately through to the library on the second level, I guided my companions north along a different route. North from the entry-stair, we observed a kind of terrarium containing an ooze and a black pudding, which we did not overtly disturb; then, coming around a corner to the north of that, we found ourselves suddenly trapped as a cage fell around us, and the bars of an adjacent cage opened into the one we found ourselves within.

Now, this other larger cage was not empty--indeed, it contained three inhabitants, two gaunt and pallid humanoids which I surmised to be ghouls, and a scaly humanoid creature with wings, claws, and a horn upon its head, which thing I have never before observed. These attacked us immediately we were trapped with them, but Brutal Pete and I stepped forth, weapons bared, and made a good account of ourselves. While I slew the first ghoul, Pete held off the scaly humonculus. Mario stepped forth into the opening of the slain ghoul, but found himself paralyzed by the second ghoul's bite (this confirmed my suspicion as to their nature); I stepped up to prevent the ghoul from killing paralyzed Mario, and while Pete slew his foe, I decapitated mine.

Sapphean, grown ever weirder in each subsequent appearance, now stepped up and spat into Mario's mouth, which both set the poor man alight, yet also cured him of his paralysis. I confess, I intend never to be affected by any sort of curse in the company of this man, such that I should require his "ministrations".

These creatures slain at our feet, we easily broke open the cage that had trapped us with them, and continued our journey. To the east of this cage, we found a corridor that curved around to the south, sloping down the while, and which did ultimately enter into the very chamber where before I and other companions had seen a dragon chained to the wall (this dragon, of course, is the very one now delivered unto you, o! puissant sorcerer, and so was not present).

From this room, it was known to me that we must travel south into an east-west corridor, and then travel west past a couple cross-corridors, and then find a northern corridor that sloped down to level three. This path we followed, and found ourselves upon the third level of the Azure Vaults, our ears assaulted by a great tumult.

To the right, almost immediately east from the corridor opening onto the level, was a wide alcove to the north with a great double doors on the north wise, currently opened wide. A pair of lion-man guards flanked the door; I was able to peek sneakily around the corner without their noticing me, and did descry through the door some kind of court proceedings within great throne room of the Elf-King. An orc and a morloi, backs to the door, seemed to be involved in some dispute before the throne; and upon the throne itself, Elexus himself, almost one of the fair-folk in stature, and yet possessed of black eyes blacker than the dark between the stars, darker than the wings of Anglamorath the Black Dragon of Night. Even I was shaken, glimpsing these terrible orbs.

Turning away from this tumult as a party, we quickly explored what we could of the third level, and discovered first a great feast hall, well set with service of silver and gold, all prepared for some soon-coming banquet--and yet, all empty of people. While my companions set about quickly stealing what they could of the silver and gold, I myself poured out the wine at the high seat, and replaced it with my own enchanted mead, which can render a man wobbling-drunk with a single goblet. We may hope some brawl of drunkenness may ensue ...

Enriched by loot, we all quickly returned to the second level of the dungeon and deposited our jangling sacks behind the dung heaps in the emptied dragon-room; we then returned below to continue exploring. North of the banquet hall, we found a room with a cold door--Pete warned of possible brown mold, but opening the door, we found a cold meatlocker. The door north of that was heard to have rats behind it--a pantry perhaps? And the kitchen lay further north; turning south of the banquet hall, we discovered a sloping corridor down ... down to level four of the Azure Vaults. Stepping onto this level, we found a south-branching corridor immediately to our right, and rather than stepping further into level four, we decided to be bold and descended ever further, down to the fifth level of the Vault. Here, we found a cross of four corridors; to the east, we listened at a door and heard a tumult of some horde of rats; but when we sought to the west to explore further, we observed three pairs of red-glowing serpentine eyes swiftly approaching from the north.

I cast a web across the corridor in an attempt to block its approach, but the beast tore through like a man tearing aside cobwebs--and as its claws rent the fibers, we saw three draconic heads burst through, one red, one blue, and one white. Confronted by this horror, Mario preferred the better part of valor, and as we all withdrew in good order, Pete and I held the rear, slowed as we were in our plate armor. Here it was that Pete proved his excellence as a comrade, for he was variously prepared for pursuit.

As we went up the slope back to level four, Pete poured greased lard behind us, and we heard well the scrabbling of claws fighting for purchase. But the beast was swift, and presently its foetid breath washed over our backs again. On the slope back up to level three, Pete then poured out a sack of caltrops, which served both to slow the thing, and to enrage it--and it gave forth a terrible shrieking bellow that shook the walls! And alas, it was still coming swiftly after us, panting death, and at the last, Pete poured sovereign glue upon the floor, hoping to catch the creature's belly fast--and it worked! As we came around the corner and ran for the upslope back to level two, the dragon bellowed again behind us, and we heard a tumult from the throne room ... but we went swiftly back to the erstwhile dragon-room, collected our ill-gotten gains, and exited the dungeon.

Thus it is that we companions penetrated deeper into the Azure Vaults than any others yet have; and that is also how the markets around Vyzor have been flooded with the silver and gold service-wares imprinted with the Elf-King's marks.

Your lieutenant in the War Against the Elf-King,
Laurantha Akala"

Journey Into Emma's Mind -- A Play Report, Joshua Blackketter Refereeing

The background:
On some kind of FLAILSNAILS adventure to which I was not party, Emma Brighteyes--apprentice and companion of the estimable muscle wizard Barnabus Sleet--was cursed by the fish-horror-god Blibdoolpoolp with catatonic insanity, such that she was basically incapable of any action other than lying around in bed drooling, being fed etc. by caretakers. Returning from this harrowing adventure, Barnabus Sleet sought around for some means of curing Emma of her catatonia and madness, and ultimately hit upon the idea of Pete Loudly, a high level wizard, sending Sleet and other companions into Emma's subconscious to literally quest the madness out of her mind.

My character, Laurantha the Unbeautiful, a B/X Elf 5, was one of the volunteers to accompany Barnabus Sleet on this quest; the other volunteers were Percival Dolmetscher, Magic Meryl, Brutal Pete, Sapphean Gratchit, and Ilse Raagenkampf-Sleet.
And thanks to Joshua Blackketter for the game! I thought it was a solid adventure in a dreamscape/symbolic sub-conscience, and everything seemed to tie together very well.
So:


"Laurantha to Xanthos--a Missive

Xanthos, my companion in arms--not only along the Dreaming River have I traveled, but now also through the rivers of dreams; the dreams of one Emma Brighteyes, apprentice of Barnabus Sleet (the founding librarian of the Jarrod's Memorial Library in Vyzor, of which I am an honorary librarian). This unfortunate, Emma, was damned by some fish-god with catatonic madness, and Sleet sought volunteers to journey into her very dreams to cut the madness out of her. We volunteers assembled at the Alchemy Shoppe of one Pete Loudly, wizard extraordinaire in the whereabouts of Vyzor; and greeted there by his imp familiar-shopkeeper, were transported by means of a cloud of thickly magical cigar smoke (blown in our faces) to the swamp-tower wherein resides the most puissant sorcerer Pete Loudly.

The imp-familiar announced us; then Pete Loudly ushered us through his halls into a most peculiar chamber, filled at once with weird crystalline machinery and fungal growths, of which fungus included seven seats. Into these seats we were ushered (Sleet leaving behind two hirelings he had brought, one a demon, best left behind due to the fact that it is generally not well-regarded to bring foreign demons into the depths of others' sub-consciences).

Pete then explained, 'It will be dreamlike ... things will have meaning, but not substance. Monsters encountered in the sub-conscience are usually external influences (though if Emma has latent homicidal tendencies, they might be internal/integral); it is unclear as yet in my researches just what happens to a body if the psyche is slain within the sub-psyche stratosphere--probably not death, but not necessarily a simple waking as from a dream.' etc. etc. and then we were suddenly transported through the machinery into the very dreamstuff of Emma's subconscious mind.

All was dark; as Sapphean himself glowed and Percival lit a torch, our eyes found ourselves in what might have been a meadow, other than the eerie deep-sea quality of the light, with layers of darkness above and around us. To one side of us, we glimpsed vast figures, veritable titans, clashing in what seemed to us a slow-motion melee. One was a bronze colossus in the shape of Sleet himself, the other in the shape of what I guessed to be Blibdoolpoolp, a great crab-clawed, lobster-faced titan of seeming-stone. To the other side of us, opposite these titanic figures, an eerie bio-luminescence glowed in the distance.

Blibdoolpoolp, apparently

We all opted to head for the eerie glow, rather than attempt to tangle with titans, and ultimately found ourselves, in the manner of dreams, suddenly walking through the streets of the Vyzor pocket-dimension. And yet, not all was as it should be; the people themselves were all crab-clawed and lobster-faced, and spoke in the nonsense singsong of dreams; and Castle Vyzor itself had been replaced with a vast statue of obsidian carved to represent a fish vomiting forth a woman in an edifice as towering as the castle normally is; and the Jarrod Memorial Library was likewise transformed into a monstrous growth of coral.

Venturing first to the library, given the logic that it should have some symbolic meaning to Emma, we found the place strangely distorted, full of corals and growths of sea creatures where books, scrolls, and the skull of Jarrod should have been. Upstairs, we found Emma's room filled with strange sea-things; but looking into Sharene's room (Sharene being a fellow apprentice, Emma's friend), we discovered it as it should have been, except with an arm upon the bed (Barnabus to Sapphean: 'You could tell if it's human by taste, right?' Sapphean: 'I might.'). This was the first clue as to the full nature of our quest, but at the moment it seemed only prudent to collect the arm (it seemed to be Sharene's) and continue thence.

Back out on the streets of dream-Vyzor, we headed to the great statue at the center of town, and investigating it cursorily, discovered a great hole beneath the vast carven fish, set into the large pedestal upon which it sat. Within the hole seemed an endless abyss of darkness; yet when Barnabus sent a lighted torch into it with a spell, it attracted the attention of an alien denizen of the deeps, a fish-headed giant that leapt forth to attack us. Barnabus leapt right back, into the abyss to punch the rising horror, and only managed to fall into the darkness. Meanwhile, the rest of us engaged the thing in melee.

Like this, except it also had arms that pummeled us

Percival received a powerful hit that knocked him out for most of the combat; Ilse managed to thrust her sword into the fish-giant's head deep enough to climb up onto it; Brutal Pete managed alternately to pin the creature's mouth open or closed with his spear; Magic Meryl both tended to Percival and struck the creature with a thrown stone; and I bravely stood before the thing, stalwartly drawing its ire and blocking its fists with my shield, too much engaged in defense to mount an effective offense. Eventually, the thing was slain by Meryl's dagger, and it burst into an ichorous mess, and we found Barnabus Sleet at the foot of a mere ten foot deep pit beside a great golden coin, and also a leg, as if 'twere Sharene's.

This coin, he lifted, and as he did so it suddenly shrank to the size of a normal gold piece; and because of my excellence in the melee, blocking hits with my shield, I was chosen to be the guardian of the coin, while Barnabus took the leg. Thereafter, we as a party intended to head to the Drooling Thoul, a local watering hole for adventurers in Vyzor; but along the way we came across a shack outside of which roosted a dream-owl--and Emma is known for taking the shape of an owl herself.

Seeing this, we stopped to investigate. Percival, a translator, attempted to communicate with the owl, and indeed upon mention of Emma's name, it turned its head. Then, breaking through the door of the shack, Barnabus revealed to us all a strange vision of child-Emma eating supper with her parents, except that her parents were crab-people like all the other villagers.

After some rather strange attempts to entice dream-child-Emma outside, we ultimately found ourselves following the owl out from Vyzor and into a forest (this, because Magic Meryl finally deigned to ask the owl outside the shack directly as to the whereabouts of Emma's spirit).

In the forest, we observed mice attempting to sneak through the brush, and yet being taken up by dark and shadowy hands from creatures that lurked in the darkness beyond our torchlight. Barnabus attempted to strike down one of the shadowy things with his fist, but managed instead to splinter a tree; nevertheless, this revealed the creature in our light to be a goblin, and yet its form was no fleshly thing, but a corse vaguely formed of oozing black oil.

The Sheliak from Star Trek seem
about right, just imagine goblin dimensions

Alas, distracted by this thing, we lost sight of the owl flying on its way; my comrades determined that slaying these goblin things was the best means of saving the forest for Emma's mind, but I inquired of Sleet as to the nature of the forest, and he suggested that it might be the home of the witches' coven of which Emma is a member. Armed with this knowledge, we all agreed to venture deeper into the wood, both seeking the coven, and destroying ooze-goblins as we went. These creatures being simple to destroy, we slew a great many on our way, and the mouse-population boomed behind us, ultimately including even Rodents Of Unusual Size; but in the end, we arrived in a clearing wherein stood the three Ink Witches (Emma's coven), except changed such as to have the heads and wings of owls.

Percival approached them and asked in Owl if they knew where Emma was; they pointed to a tree, in which sat the spirit of Emma in the form of an owl. We all got the dream-sense that Emma's self had recessed from personhood into the safety of merely being an owl to save herself from ultimate madness. We then went to the tree under the Emma-owl, and when I offered it the gold coin, it took it and flew away swiftly; and this seeming to be the logic of the dream, we all followed post-haste, but not without taking up the head of Sharene, which stared forth at us from across the clearing.

Following the owl, we arrived at a long shoreline of obsidian sand and glittering water. For some reason, Percival and Meryl began to throw stones into the water, and one of Meryl's stones landed with a clang rather than a splash. Barnabus used the last of his fly spell (cast earlier when he was within the grip of the illusion of the abyss that ended up being merely a ten foot pit) to search the water, and found a tonbo--a great iron club--sticking out of the water. Grabbing hold of said club, Barnabus then wrestled the club out of the grasp of the scaly arm that held onto its lower part, and then the arm sank back down into the dark waters. Meanwhile, those of us on the shore, combing the sand, came upon the other arm of Sharene, sticking up out of the sand.

Uncertain where to go without an owl leading us, we returned to Vyzor to seek out the Drooling Thoul once and for all; there we saw a man, not a crab-man, but a real (though dreamily indistinct) human man, who paid his tab as we arrived and then immediately went back out into the dream world. We followed him, and ultimately found ourselves standing before a great bronze gate. Upon the surface of this gate were carved spirals of stories in images, an infinite number, all spiraling forth from the single central image of two people meeting romantically at a pub. Every infinite possibility of the combinations of their own stories twined out of that central image; and Brutal Pete hit upon an interesting solution to open said gate when he kissed the central image. All the story-paths spiraling out lit up, and Brutal Pete touched the one he said he liked best, of the woman (she seemed to be Emma) learning not to need a man in her life, and yet who also found happiness with someone she could see as her equal.

Personally, I imagined stories spiraling out like the
expectation vs. reality scene from 500 Days of Summer
--except all part of a giant bronze gate!

All of the sudden, a kind of keyhole opened up with the tonbo as the seeming key; inserting it, the gate indeed opened, and revealed behind it the second leg of Sharene, which Barnabus duly collected.

At this point, Sapphean was certain that we should return to the shack wherein dwelt child-Emma, thinking that we had not yet exhausted the dream-possibilities there. So duly we returned, and there, Barnabus suddenly spilled his knowledge that Emma had deep-seated guilt over having once accidentally injured Sharene worse when trying to heal her; and that though she had ultimately saved Sharene, she still blamed herself for 'tearing her friend apart'.

And indeed, when we presented child-Emma with the body parts we had found, she brightened suddenly. 'You found them!' she declared, and then went to her 'room' in the hovel and produced a doll's torso that seemed the right fit for all the parts. Ilse then sewed every limb back together, and suddenly there was Sharene before us, alive--as far as dream-alive goes. She then led child-Emma to the clearing with the owl-witches, wherein they enacted a great ritual, summoning all the owls of the forest until finally the Emma-owl appeared, descended into a triangle created by the outspread wings of the owl-witches--and then suddenly it was an owl no longer, but Emma herself stood there, and she took her tonbo from Sleet, and she and Sharene mounted it together and flew off toward the colossi battling on the horizon.

We all followed; and we saw that when Emma and Sharene arrived, they nearly collided with the bronze giant of Sleet--and then with a flash, the colossus was no longer Sleet, but Emma herself, huge as Blibdoolpoolp and wielding a tonbo as tall as a tower.

We below joined in the combat as best we could in support of this colossus of Emma. Sleet and I threw lightning bolts; Brutal Pete drank a potion of giant's strength and tried to overtopple Blibdoolpoolp by wresting at her feet; Ilse cast haste on the party; and Sapphean flew around the fish/crab horror, biting at her and stinging at her with the bizarre growths borne on his body from the trials he has withstood while adventuring.

And then titan-Emma swung her great club at the colossus of Blibdoolpoolp, and with a crash like a thunderbolt, she burst open the fish-horror's breast. Obsidian fragments and ichor rained from above as the vast giant teetered and then careered to the earth to shatter into a thousand dark shards.

And all at once, we were seated once again in Pete Loudly's tower, surrounded by crystalline machinery and fungal growths. ...

I have since heard that Emma Brighteyes has returned to the waking world, as fully aware as before the damnation of the god that cursed her into madness. Undoubtedly, deep scars remain--but such are the scars of healing after great injury overcome. I expect there will be much rejoicing in the house of Sleet for some time to come.

Well, Xanthos--such is the account of my descent into the dreams of another. I tell you, I have seen many wonders since wandering down the Dreaming River, and I do not doubt that I shall see many more. Someday perhaps you should join me--and let that bitch Almalonthas preen in all her supernatural beauty alone for a time, while our powers grow and overtop hers. But that is of course, your prerogative.

Your companion-in-arms under the Black Dragon,
Laurantha Akala"

Play Report From Jesse Goldshear's Vymrrys 2

"Laurantha to Xanthos--a Missive

Xanthos, my companion in arms, you know, of course, that I am seeking to expand my resources for the brewing of mead, and this includes in particular the acquisition of properties in various places in which to store the barrels of fermenting brew. I have thus already acquired such a space in the strange pocket dimension around the Vaults of Vyzor, having set up both barrels and bee hives in the new gnomish quarter there; otherwise, I have also been seeking some property in the desert city of Vymrrys, down the Dreaming River and in another world--it seems a prudent place in which to brew a dry mead, perhaps to be labeled the Desert Visionary Brew ...

To this end, I sought one called Corvus Isn, a local freelancer in Vymrrys known for doing the dirty work for nobles unwilling to sully their own hands with whatever deed needed doing. He was said to have come into possession of some property that has changed hands several times recently, all under mysterious circumstances, and I imagined that this creature might have some further property for sale, or perhaps at least advice in the acquisition of such.

In my rumormongering, I had heard that Corvus Isn's last known location was in some neighborhood of the delightful moniker of 'Drunkard's Bottom'; and also, from one Ayatollah Goblini (a most peculiar goblinage who takes advantage of his fellows' servile nature in the pontificating of some strange cult of shortness), another frequenter of the Myopic Myconid tavern, I heard that Corvus had been delayed from some sort of meeting in the Dreaming Bazaar.

Jesse Goldshear's drawing, I believe

Therefore, I well intended to set out for Drunkard's Bottom to seek this Corvus Isn, and even as I made my preparations, I did behold Magic Meryl in her new halfling shape, accompanied by her semi-apprentice, Pitwin Spryneedle, a gnome child orphaned by the Red Hand Orcs in the Vaults of Vyzor. These two I had previously accompanied on a quest to discover the nature of the bacchanals of the Otter-Folk in Vymrrys. I hailed the twain, and after I briefly sketched my adventuring intent, the magic pair agreed to accompany me to Drunkard's Bottom. Considering the potentially dangerous nature of a neighborhood of such an eponym, Magic Meryl and Pitwin disguised themselves in local robes, and Pitwin added a special touch for himself with a spray-on-beard.

We headed east, setting sun at our backs, and before long sought further information as to the whereabouts of the neighborhood, our goal, from a street performer. This woman, wrapped from head to toe in skin-tight blue robes, was a contortionist of exceeding skill, earning her coin by seeming to wrap her limbs and herself into knots for an applauding crowd. When the other passersby had passed, we approached her, I with two coin in my hand ready to buy information; but Pitwin rushed ahead, clapping uproariously and exclaiming how amazing were her feats of flexibility.

This performer then revealed to us her moniker--Sarah the Astonishing--and when we asked for directions to Drunkard's Bottom, she suddenly seemed worried, glancing especially at Pitwin. 'It can be a dangerous place,' she said. 'Are you sure you want to go there?'

'You don't have to worry about us!' Pitwin replied, puffing up his chest. 'We're tough!' This gnomish child, luscious beard bristling out from beneath bright eyes, was excruciatingly adorable in that moment. I was myself, of course, completely immune to his charms, but Sarah the Astonishing visibly melted before his shining eyes.

'Is this your child?' Sarah asked, and while I rolled my eyes in disdain for this display of cuteness, Meryl piped up, 'Yes, he is!'

I must admit, however, that Pitwin did win Sarah over such that she offered to guide us to Drunkard's Bottom, for which service we gladly retained her. As night crept ever onward, we arrived in the neighborhood, and I asked that Sarah direct us to a good watering hole for rumormongering; to which she answered with the name of the Bell and Beetle, a place with both drink and entertainment. 'Is it age appropriate?' Meryl asked, worried for her ward; to which Pitwin piped up, 'I've seen things! I've gotten drunk, too!' Therefore, to the Bell and Beetle we went.

Within, we found the kind of cantina that seems ubiquitous in any hive of scum and villainy, filled with drunks of cosmopolitan types. 'I'm an adult!' Pitwin declared to the one-eyed, tattooed bouncer as we entered, to which he shrugged and answered, 'Sure, kid.' At the bar I and Meryl inquired as to the whereabouts of Corvus Isn, and a drunk sloppily informed us that Corvus had been seen at a pawn shop not far away. The barkeep further explained how to get to this 'Three Lanterns Pawnshop' after our local informant passed out from inebriation.

All at once, we noticed that Pitwin had vanished in the crowd (an easy feat for a gnome child barely knee-high), and though, of course, I was immune to his sickeningly adorable charms, I was nigh ready to draw steel and accost the barkeep for his disappearance when suddenly he reappeared, smiling, new gold in hand. 'I won a bet on some fighting grubs!' he declared, and regaled us in childlike detail as to what he had seen in the back of the bar, of a kind of pit where people set stinging desert caterpillars against each other; he had betted on what seemed at first to be the loser, but which ultimately came out on top.

As Magic Meryl scolded Pitwin for his irresponsible use of money, we all made our way out onto the street; and for an additional fee of 15 gold, Sarah agreed to accompany us for the night as a kind of thief-acrobat.

Up the street and down a couple blocks, following the barkeep's directions, we came upon the pawnshop marked by three lanterns out front (only one being lit at the moment). At the door, we found it not locked, but stuck, and when I knocked, we heard movement within, but got no answer. Pitwin stepped up to the door and cast ESP, and reported to us after some dire concentration that there two individuals inside worried about what they were going to do with a dead body and what 'the Patriarch' was going to do to them when he learned it hadn't been handled right.

Unable to enter through that door, we went around to an alley to look for a back entrance, and there we were jumped by a figure in black leather armor and purple robes--an Elf of the House of the Purple Sun! I drew my sword, and while the others flailed ineffectually, I hacked the wretch's arm off--though Meryl got the killing blow.

A backdoor into the pawnshop was duly discovered; opening it, we found a pair of Elves standing over a charred body, arguing, and Pitwin cast a spell of charm person on the nearer. As the fellow turned to him with the smile of a friend, Pitwin declared, 'We're here to help with the body!' After some confused argument between the two (Billy and Ted, Billy being our Elf), they ultimately accepted the story that Otter-Folk had killed their watchman outside, and that we were indeed there to help dispose of the body. Pitwin sent Ted outside to watch while Billy helped stuff the charred body into a corpse. In the course of this, we managed to investigate the body, and found that it seemed indeed to be the body of Corvus Isn, with a cryptic note: 'Property bought; bad feeling about it; do as you wish; ~Corvus Isn.'

According to Billy the Elf, he and his companions had hired a necromancer, one Orchard Ringfinger (sp?) to dispose of the body; he had said he would summon spirits that would devour the corpse in fire to leave only ash, but obviously what remained was a corpse, badly burned, perhaps, but not devoured entire.

While we ourselves helped 'dispose' of the body, Billy the Elf insisted on robbing the place while the chance remained. He discovered some loose floorboards by the customer counter, but as he ripped them open and hauled out the safe, a blue smoke overcame him and his flesh began to melt off his bones. At his screams, his associate, Ted, returned--seeing his comrade so distressed, he insisted on attacking us, and we cut his throat in response.

Billy the Elf melting, except imagine it with a cloud of blue gas

Magic Meryl and Pitwin thence suggested taking the body of Corvus back to Vyzor to be reincarnated by Pete Loudly, if possible, or at least to get a speak with dead spell cast over the body, a thing I well agreed with, and we quickly took up the chest containing the charred body and returned to the Myopic Myconid posthaste.

As for the pawnshop, I have since heard that it was robbed that self-same night, the safe completely disappearing, along with the books, and several valuable trinkets removed from the shelves. Clearly, dastardly thieves took advantage of the night's chaos to enrich their own pockets! And I have heard that they left behind a spray-painted tag that 'Dougal Lives'--the nerve of some criminals.

Well, Xanthos, such is the extent of my attempt to acquire property within Vymrrys--an attempt ending with an even greater mystery, and no clear possibility of easy property. Such is the life of adventure.

My efforts will, of course continue. I hope before long to earning gold hand over fist with these brews--you must try them, my friend!

Your companion-in-arms under the Black Dragon,
Laurantha Akala"