The Death of Zhray

The Cast

Joe as:	Jax - Male Human SpellThief (Complete Adventurer)
James as:	Rookwood - Male Dwarven Totemist (Magic of Inarcnum
Matthew as:	Zhray - Female Human Wizard
Ron as:	Durgall - Male Dwarven Cleric
John as:	Lorash - Male Human Druid
and:	Mort - Wolf Animal Companion

The heroes escape Jzadirune, going back through the Keygan, the locksmith’s shop. They leave behind the Skulk they tied up. The locksmith is very unhappy about not getting his familiar back, while having possibly alerted the Skulks about someone attacking them. He’s worried that the Skulks will kill his familiar in retaliation. The heroes plan to go back to the temple of Dol Arrah to get healed and regain spells.

Keygan “You can’t just leave him down there, all alone in the dark, and hungry!”

Lorash (the Druid) “Do you have any way to heal us?”

Kaygan “… no.”

Lorash “We’re not going to certain death for your rat.”

The heroes leave behind the manacled Skulk for Keygan to watch over.

The heroes return to the temple, are healed by Jenya the acting high priest, and rest. Jenya seeing their poor condition grant them 3 more potions of cure moderate wounds, and gets an update on their progress, and introduces them to Durgall another cleric interested in joining the investigation. Glad to have more healing they return to Jzadirune, finding nothing changed with Keygan or the captured Skulk.

They explore the hall to the west of the entrance, examining the various runes on the doors there. Exploring the south of the hall Durgall & Rookwood leading the party fall 20 feet into a pit, which promptly closes before any of the rest of the party can react. Before they can get up, the pit itself falls over on its’ side impailing them on wooden spikes on what is now the floor. Being hardy dwarves both still survive, and brace themselves between the spikes ready for anything else that might happen. Zhray starts pounding at the lid of the pit with her staff, to no effect. Lorash decides to try putting some weight on it moving one foot out, putting increasing pressure on it. The lid gives, and both tumble into the pit, 30 feet down into the workings of the tilting pit. Zhray tries to soften her landing with the training she’s had as an acrobat, but it isn’t enough and she falls unconscious. The gears of the pit grind and bring the tilting pit back to an upright position, above Zhray and Lorash. Mort whines at the top of the pit, and Jax tries to find some way to open or stop the trap from above. Durgall & Rookwood seeing the spikes on the other side of the trap go and brace themselves against it, thinking it might toss them that way next. Lorash heals Zhray, brining her back to conciousness, The pit does tilt the other way, but Durgall & Rookwood were prepared, and weathered the fall easily. Jax unable to find any way to stop or open the pit, jumps on top of the lid, opening it. He manages to catch the edge and hangs there a moment before jumping to the workings at the bottom. Even with the few feet the lid gave him, and his nimble landing, Jax is hurt. The lid closes once again, leaving only Lorash’s wolf mort out of the pit. Lorash heals himself. The pit tilts back upright once again. Zhray and Lorash start beating on the workings of the pit with their staves ineffectually, while Jax picks himself up, takes a look over the gears, finds a lynchpin necessary to it’s function and removes it, bringing the pit to a stop above them.

Durgall & Rookwood tear a hole through the wooden floor of the pit and haul up Lorash and Jax. Zhray stays below and starts reading through her spells, telling the rest if they give her some time, she can prepare spider climb and climb out. The rest not wanting to wait that long work on finding a way out of the pit. Hollow gears hold the lid in place. Rookwood takes his rope and flings it through one of the gears, and climbs up, while Lorash chops the tips of the spikes off the sides of the pit so that they won’t hurt anyone. Eventually Rookwood figures that grabbing the edge of the gear will pull it down the lid partially above him. After doing so, Jax takes off all his gear, tries to scramble over him, but falls back to the floor of the wooden pit, unable to get a hold on the lid. . Durgall heals him, and Jax tries again, getting the top edge of the pit this time. He dashes off to a room they’d explored earlier getting cots and trunks to use as counterweights. He doesn’t have a rope to get down to them, and goes back to the Skulk they’d left tied up before, unties him, and takes the rope. Jax doesn’t come back after awhile….

Durgall attached the other end of the rope to himself, and carefully climbed over Rookwood, finally giving the rest of the party a way up. Lorash has difficulty tearing Zhray away from her studies, but does so, and they climb up without further mishap.

Lorash asks Mort to track down Jax. They track him back to the room where the Skulk had been tied up, and find a small pool of blood on the floor. Tracking beyond that they find a chamber with Jax lying face down on a cot, with a bloody rag on his back.

They carefully enter the room, and approach Jax, whereupon the chameleon skinned Skulks there spring from their spots and attack the party, who quickly dispactches them.

Durgall heals up Jax. And Jax opens a chest there, where they find 2 robes and some silver. Rookwood and Lorash don the robes, there is a brief argument between Rookwood and Zhray between who should have the robe, but Zhray gives in, and lets Rookwood have it.

They decide to see if they can find the rat before leaving, traveling the new rough tunnels to a huge chamber with lights floating about it, and a large fountain. Jax leads now carefully scanning the way ahead for traps. They go to investigate the fountain. As they near it, two more skulks leap out from the shadows, one badly injuring Durgall with a precise thrust of his rapier. Zhray casts a charm at the better of the two Skulks, and it’s eyes glaze over.

Zhray yells “Stop attacking my friends! We’re with you!” Meanwhile the rest of the party converges on the other Skulk ending its’ pitiful life. With some further quick talk Zhray convinces the charmed skulk to lower its guard, and that they need to feed the rat that is hostage, so they still have it to control the locksmith. The Skulk takes them through more rough honed tunnels into a small room in which the tunnel comes out in the floor. There is another Skulk there, but with the other skulk, Zhray manages to convince it to let them by.

They enter a room with a chest with a rat in a cage on it. They start to approach the chest, and it starts talking to them, in a language only Rookwood & the Skulk recognizes as Undercommon.

Chest: “Hey if you’re going to feed the rat, feed me first!”

Rookwood agrees tossing it some jerky.

Chest: “I’m still hungry”

Rookwood translates, and the Zhray tosses it a chunk of cheese.

Chest: “I’m still hungry”.

Rookwood attacks the Skulk suddenly, but misses. Then says “Oops, sorry my weapon slipped” Zhray’s magic is strong and the charm doesn’t break. Zhray tries to grab the cage off the chest, but finds it stuck fast. Jax attacks the chest and gets his rapier stuck in it, and can’t free it. The Chest retaliates whipping out two giant tounges which smack Zhray and Jax hard enough to knock them out, and proceeds dragging them to it’s ravenous maw. The rest of the party kill the skulk in the other room and offer it to retrieve the two snacks from the chest. It agrees, and lets them have the rat as well, spitting out it’s two other victims.

They get the charmed Skulk to fill in what blanks it knows about on the map they got from Keygan, including finding that the missing children were sold off to someone down an elevator. They go find the next to last skulk it knows about, finding him transparent, and wearing a wolf suit, they finish him off, and take his treasure, then go to the Skulks treasure room and retrieve their treasure from a moldy rotting carrion crawler, after thoroughly searching the room for anywhere else it might be.

They decide to retreat and rest before going further. Returning the rat to Keygan he’s happy, and sets off to start changing the locks around town so that the keys he made the Skulks no longer work. While Keygan is gone, Larash and Rookwood take the manacled skulk back down to Jzadirune without informing the rest of the party, and dump it down the pit they’d had so much trouble with.

They sell off what treasure they’ve found, and buy some additional healing potions and scrolls from the Temple, and return again to Jzadirune.

The Heroes come to the invisible room with the construct. They stop outside. Figuring they just want to get by, and not finding another way they decide to run across the room one at a time, so as not to be bunched up and provide a nice target for the construct’s scream. A couple get through with no incident, but when Larash and his wolf go, the construct comes to life and screams at them. They manage to get through, and aren’t persued, so next Zhray goes through, but gets screamed at as well. It’s so loud she passes out. Larash drags Zhray around the corner and heals her, while Jax at the front of the line looks for traps and the dark ones they expect in the room they’ve come to. Rookwood goes through, but again the machine screams, he survives the onslaught and gets around the corner though. Durgall goes last but bumps into the invisible machine. He tries to push his way past, but the machine throws him back to the ground. Rookwood comes back and pinpoints where it is and gives it a solid strike, but it just moves off to where it can scream at both him and Durgall. Durgall finally gets through and the party starts fanning out into the room where they are sure the dark ones are hiding, just to get away from the machine.

They are surprised when it follows them to the room, where Zhray gives it the last blow. They start searching around for the dark ones, when they spring on Zhray and pierce her through the heart ending her life prematurely.

Will the heroes survive? Is Zhray really dead? Will the missing children ever be found.

The Adventure Begins

The Cast:

Joe as:	Jax - Male Human SpellThief (Complete Adventurer)
James as:	Rookwood - Male Dwarf Totemist (Magic of Inarcnum
Matthew as:	Thrys - Female Human Wizard
John as:	Lorash - Male Human Druid
and:	Mort - Wolf Animal Companion

A group of intrepid adventurers some traveling from afar, some from near, gathered in Cauldron at the Drowned Morkoth Inn. One night after discussing how to make a name for themselves, get the attention of the Lord Mayor who is known to be hiring adventurers, they decide that walking the streets at night is sure to lead them into trouble. This is just what they are looking for.

After walking through drizzling rain just after nightfall they hear a cry for help down an alley they just passed.

While the main party goes directly toward the noise Jax goes around the back.

Investigating they find a group of 3 men with faces painted black on one side and white on the other. One holding up a beaten young man by his cassock growls "Stay away from the orphanage." Jax and Rookwood also spot a girl hanging off the roof of the alley buildings like a spider, all in black, with a painted face similar to the other 3 figures.

Rookwood takes the lead, demanding to know what’s going on here. The painted men drop the beaten one, backing off drawing weapons, while their leader growls “Bugger off.” Rookwood presses toward them, while the rest follow. Lorash sets his wolf to guard the beaten man. Rookwood demands of the beaten one “What did you do to the orphans?!” Lorash repeats Rookwood’s orginal demands “What is happening here?” The painted ones repeat their demand “Bugger off! Now!” but outnumbered 4 to 3 (including Mort) don’t press the issue. The beaten man says “I didn’t do anything, these criminals just dragged me out of the street, bring them to justice!” Rookwood doesn’t believe him, pulling him up off the ground, and tells him “Stay away from the children”.

The painted men don’t seem to want to fight, and take into the night. Jax says to the girl hanging off the building “What about you?” She replies “Well done, the point has been made.” And skitters across the roof away into the night.

The heroes straiten out the situation from the beaten man, as he heals himself with a spell, finding that the man is actually a holy man from the Temple of Dol Arrah, goddess of light and self sacrifice. That he was investigating the disappearance of 4 orphans, and had just come from the orphanage. He thanks them for rescuing him, although he wishes they’d been a bit more vigilant against the criminals. He does not know who they are. He invites them back to the temple.

In the temple they meet Jenya acting high priest of the temple, who offers them a job to find the orphans which they agree to. Jenya explains she has used a relic to cast divination to try to find what happened to the orphans and got a cryptic riddle.

The locks are key to finding them.

Look beyond the curtain, below the cauldron,

But beware the doors with teeth.

Descend into the malachite ‘hold,

Where precious life is bought with gold.

Half a dwarf binds them, but not for long.

The heroes first start again at the orphanage interviewing all the people who work there. None have any useful information. Jax thinks the Half-Orc Janitor Patch is hiding something, but can’t figure out what it is. Rookwood questions the children, and finds that the only one who has anything is a young child who had a dream of a nasty smelly gnome with crooked teeth trying to give him a kiss.

Not finding any leads at the orphanage, they hit the streets, asking around about the men with painted faces. Zhray meets a half-elf named Farlo in the Drowned Morkoth who says he’s actually investigating them himself for a private party. All he knows so far is they are some sort of Rogues’ Guild that calls themselves “The Last Laugh” that is known to mint their own money with a jester’s head on it.

After the day was over, convinced the headmistress at the orphanage to let them stay the night, for fear more children would be kidnapped. The party broke up the next morning to try to investigate different leads.

Zhray checking the mines, to see if anyone knows of anything that might be a ‘malachite hold’.

Rookwood & Lorash checking out the lake in the middle of town, thinking the locks had something to do with that.

Jax had found that all the locks were made by a gnomish locksmith, and went to his shope. Keygan’s Locks. Jax started asking about the locks in the orphanage, Keygan became nervous, Jax knew something was up. Jax asked him to inspect the locks in the orphanage. After arriving at the orphanage, Keygan took just a glance at each and said there was nothing wrong. Jax confronted Keygan, “That’s all you are going to do? There are 4 missing children here! What do you have to do with all this?”

Keygan broke down “I didn’t know they were going to take children.” “They blackmailed me with my familiar to make master keys for all the locks I’d made in the city.”

Jax “Who?”

Keygan “I… I don’t know, they… There were two kinds I know of, humans who’s skin changes color to match the surroundings, and ones that look like gnomes with hooves for feet. They came from Jzadirune.”

Keygan explained that Jzadirune was the secret enclave of gnomish magicians, which was abandoned when their magic caused them to start vanishing about 75 years ago. The only entrance through his shop, which was his father’s before him.

Keygan explained there is one of the chameleon skinned humans watching him from the back of his shop.

Jax gathered the rest of the party back together, and they went back to his shop pretending to buy something expensive in the back.

The Skulk felt something was amiss, and ran through the secret door before anyone could see it. The party quickly followed descending into the magician’s hold.

They came to a large chamber where laughing, birdsong and music seemed to come out of the walls. They carefully examined the chamber, Jax finding a trap on the odd gear shaped door to the south, which appears to have a triangular depression instead of a keyhole. Jax was unwilling to try to disarm the trap, it appearing to be magical, and beyond his abilities. Lorash spotted the skulk and a couple buddies hiding just on the other side of a partially open door, ready to strike. He quietly informed Zhray, who cast a sleep glamour on them, knocking two out. Rookwood charged into the room trying to get the last, but not in time, it bolted for a rough tunnel in the wall. Mort blocked it off, and it went for the other tunnel. Rookwood chased it down and ended it’s life.

They tied one and manacled the other sleeping Skulk. Awaking both they tried to interrogate them, but they were indomitable. Sneering at and insulting the heroes.

They dragged the manacled skulk upstairs and left him for Keygan to watch. Before leaving Keygan gave them a map his father had, and told them his father told him the place was full of holes, doors concealed in practically every room and hall, which aren’t marked on the map. Jax asked Keygan to re-key the locks in the city he had made, starting with the orphanage. Keygan refused, saying he wouldn’t put his familiar at risk, but would if they retrieved his familiar who he knew was alone, afraid, cold, hungry somewhere within a mile. Jax grudgingly accepted the mission.

After descending again they set off through the rough tunnels that the Skulk had tried to flee through.

They found a strange underground forest room with trees and birds. Lorash investigated, and determined that it was an elaborate illusion.

Then they continued on to a kitchen where two human sized dead spiders lay. Investigating, they were surprised by two Dark Creepers (the hoved gnomes), one of whom tried to grab the sunrod Jax was holding. The creepers clothes came alive providing them some measure of protection, but it wasn’t enough, and the party quickly eliminated them.

Not finding another way out of this room besides through another gear shaped door Jax assumed was trapped they then went back the other way to a room where when Jax stepped in he disappeared. After he stepped in the party heard a gnomish voice say in gnome “Destroy all intruders” which Rookwood was able to understand. A loud grinding sound started, and something attacked Jax, which no one could see. The party fought the invisible thing ineffectually, bumping into it, trying to get past, and throwing flour which disappeared just as they did. The thing screamed so loud their bones shook and brought stars to their eyes. They finally got a glimpse of it as it passed across the room and became visible for a second. A golem with 3’ long rock drills for arms, attached to what looked like a cement mixer for a body. It felled both Rookwood and Jax with a scream, then a crunching gear sound came and it quieted.

Lorash had mort smell out where Jax was when he didn’t respond, and healed him enough to keep him from bleeding to death with his last bit of magic, then searched out Rookwood, and dragged him off through the hall. Zhray went over to Jax, not strong enough to drag him, she found the healing potion given by Jenya, and poured it down Jax’s throat. That brought him round, and they both escaped down the hall before the machine moved again.