Session 3


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Continued from the last session...

After a brief rest from the battle with Blind Lars, the wounded, waterlogged and weary party began to make a rough camp in the shade of the strange trees that hung over the back of the beach.

The beach spans about 200 yards from roughly northwest to southeast by Angry Pipe's reckoning. Both ends are punctuated by broken rocky cliffs about 60 or 70 high. Their rock is splintered and crumbly with sparse trees sticking out here and there. They look extremely difficult to climb, but not impossible if the rock would hold.

The beach itself is wide and clean. The sand is almost white. Large pieces of driftwood lay randomly, bleached by sun and salt. The sand goes inland about thirty yards, to clay and dirt. Strange trees lean forward over the sand here, their broad flat leaves radiating out making shade. They have bark like scales and hard green berry-like fruit hang in bunches from the top of their trunk.

Behind the beach, the forest becomes dense. The land climbs. The top of a small mountain peaks over the tops of the trees. It's peak is perhaps a mile up and across from the beach.

Little lizards scatter under the rocks, then come out again peering impassively.

The sun is high and hot. The low waves and tide make a steady hiss along the shore.

The party helps Garfer pull the remaining barrells and crate that you tied together under the tree. Garfer digs down into the sand and barries the barrels up to their lids to keep them cool. "These'll go fast in this heat."

"Now I wish I'd bought that Hunk O'Troll back in Marnsk," says Garfer. He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a small leather bag tied around his shoulders. "Yep, all that good stuff." He roots around and pulls out a small glass bottle and hands it to Seika. "Well I figure Gamburu forfeited. Congrats. Oh yeah, it was custom on the Lido that the winner share with the crew!"

Mosholu helps drag pieces of driftwood into a pile. Garfer builds a fire and Angry Pipe succesfully lights it. Wad pulls the body of Blind Lars up to the camp and begins to chop it up and skin it. Sensing Mosholu and Seika's disgust, he builds another fire down the beach aways (though still too close for the humans taste) and roasts all the good parts of Blind Lars over the fire.

As the sun begins its downward path, the party relaxes around the fire, sharing sips from the victory bottle (which they find to be strongly alchoholic and rejuvenative). They sleep the night, taking turns on watch. Nothing untowards happens.

The next morning, the sun comes up early, promising another hot day. Seika finds the bounty of the ocean large and catches enough fish for the party. Garfer cooks it up over a lattice of green branches and adds some spices and salt from the little pouch under his tunic. After a satisfying meal, the party gathers their belongings and heads into the woods behind the beach.

The trails of rodents and small mammals criss-cross across the ground here. After some investigation, Angry Pipe notices an older, more symmetrical trail lying deep under the grass. It has not been trod on for years, but it is clear to his elfin eyes that it was once a common trail for man.


The part follows the trail, that switches back as it rises. A landslide blocks the way and everybody but Garfer, who falls twice, scraping himself up, is able to get over easily. At the top of the trail, they see an ancient stone platform. Two pillars rise up from it and a skeleton is chained by the hand and foot to each. They study the skeletons closely, finding an old chain shirt on each and a sword in each hand.

As they are studying the surface of the platform, Mosholu notices a block raised slightly higher than the others. A metal ring potrudes from it. Suddenly, they are surprised by the swoop of a large black bird. It's hideous cry matches its ugliness and it closes in for attack. Flying behind it is it's partners. The party engages the birds in combat. Wad, bracing with his shortspear and Seika with her bare hands do the most damage, while Mosholu and Angry Pipe pull the stone out of the ground, revealing a passage way into darkness below.

The creatures were old, dying, the last descendants of some horrific race of birds. Their feathers were an oily black.

Linear decided at the last minute that he would prefer to scout this island and see what he could find out about the plants here. He told the others he would meet them when they came out.

Angry Pipe went down first, his elfin vision allowing him to see when the ladder stopped about 30 feet below the entrance. The shaft continued, but there was no way for him to climb down. A passage way came off of the shaft to the east. He also noticed a cog with an oiled cable below him.

The others came down the ladder and they walked to the end of the passageway. It ended in a small room with a trap door in the floor and a large wheel bolted to the wall. The wheel brought up an ancient bronze elevator in the shaft they had first entered. Mosholu, Seika and Wad got in the elevator while Angry Pipe and Garfer stayed in the wheel room and lowered the elevator. While they waited for the others to signal their need to return, they lit their pipes and hotboxed the ancient chamber.

Below, the three walked along a row of empty cells. At the end they found a guards room. An ancient vellum tome lay open on a desk by the door, it's pages filled with lists of names written in an ancient text. On the ceiling they found a trapdoor and opened to let Garfer and Angry Pipe down.

A large door on the eastern wall was embossed with a giant olive tree. They opened it and went through. The hallway here was carved from the stone of the mountain and lined with flagstones. It was designed with more care than the hallway they had first came in on. It turned to the north and opened into a small rectangular room.

The room was dominated by a pool filled with milky water in. The floor on the side of the pool was tiled and there was a door on the other side. Angry Pipe noticed something glinting and reached in, to disturb some ancient worm-beast who exploded out of the pool. It's segmented body was a sickly white and almost as tall as a man. It had only a mouth, open and round and filled with sharp teeth.

Mosholu ran for the door while the others fought it. Wad finally put it down with a savage blow of his shortspear. In the pool, they found a scattering of coins.

Mosholu found stairs heading deeper into the mountain on the other side of the door. The party went down them and came to a split in the hallway where it went in fourn directions. Mosh pressed for the party to continue going north. He entered into a small antechamber that ended in two huge doors. One was slightly ajar and without waiting for the rest of the party, he went through. He was immediately attacked by large bats and came out again.

The party braced themselves and entered together. The bats came again. There were at least six or seven of them and their swooping attacks proved hard to hit in the gloom. But the adventurers prevailed, while Mosholu pushed forward, as he is always wont to do at his young age.

Beyond the bats was a huge archway. The tattered remains of tapestries hung from the ceiling. Through the arch was a giant cathedral, carved out of the rock of the mountain. It's domed ceiling rose far above their heads, it's peak hidden from the light of their torches. Pews lined the room to their left; smashed ones formed a rough pile on the right. In the middle at the back of the wall there was a giant fountain. An olive tree was embossed against the back wall and one of it's branches came forward, hanging above the fountain. Water splashed from it into the fountain in a steady flow. To the right of the fountain was a circular staircase going up to a closed pulpit.

The group went directly to the fountain and their drinking of it was disturbed by five zombies, animated bodies that came out of the wrecked pews and advanced upon them. As soon as the fight began, Mosholu ran up the stairs to the pulpit. Just as he was about to reach the top, something took hold of his limbs and paralyzed him. He could not move a muscle!

Below, our heroes clashed with the zombies, dealing blows all around them. But something went through the air, filling them with a sense of despair and anxiety. But they kept fighting. Seika noticed that something was moving in the pulpit and she ran up there. It took her a while to get around Mosh's immobile body.

Below Angry Pipe was trying to stay out of the angle from the thing in the pulpit. Wad, after dispatching a few zombies, ran up the stairs to the pulpit. At the top, Seika was engaged in a wrestling match with a priest in a curiously clean robe of white. She backed up and charged him, knocking him off of the pulpit just as Wad arrived with what he thought would be the killing blow. The priest fell and landed directly on Angry Pipe, who'd just finished killing the last zombie. Wad turned around and ran right back down again.

Angry Pipe threw the injured priest off of him and tried to bite him. The whole time the priest was yelling in some ancient version of common, ranting about the silverware and the water. When Wad made it to the bottom, he ran his spear through the priest's chest. As he lay dying, the priest said, "you'll never get the water."

Wad grinned sheepishly and said, "Sorry!"

Seika stripped the priest of his robe. It was made of a fine silk that somehow did not seem to get dirty. Mosholu searched the whole room and found a hidden door. Beyond it he found the priest's changing room which contained some valuable candlesticks. On the back wall was another embossed olive tree. One of the olives was a slightly different color and by pressing it, Mosholu opened another door. It went to a library and amongst the rotted remains of the books he found a scroll and a curious black robe that felt slightly greasy. There were also a few gemstones of middling value.

The party left the church, which they noted was heavily dominated by an olive theme and went back to the intersection. This time they turned west and entered a large dining hall. It had a master table with four skeletons on it, looking as if they were having a dinner party. There was no cutlery or tableware, but a tempting jewelled goblet that Wad immediately grabbed.

To noone's surprise, this awakened and annoyed the dining skeletons. The one holding the goblet turned it's head and stared it's empty black eye sockets at the party. The skeletons lifted their awkward, disjointed frames from the table and closed with the adventurers, who respond in kind! Soon the dinner party is over and bones litter the floor. They poured some water into the goblet and found that it had the magical power of cooling down any liquid that was in it to a refreshing level!

North of the dining area is a large open fireplace and behind that a kitchen and storage area. Angry Pipe finds ten bottles of wine and ties them up in the cloak he found. Garfer finds a pair of solid iron cooking pans and takes them.

There is a humble door on the west wall of the dining room and it opens to a narrower hallway lined with doors.

To be continued...