The party awakes to find themselves sitting at an extravagant banquet table. Among them are two new people that the rest do not recognize, and Elven Druid, Eleasar, and a Human Ranger, George. The table is laid with everyone’s favorite foods. The room is then filled with exclamations along the lines of “Who the hell are you?” between the original party and the newcomers and further questions of “Where the hell are we?” and similar.

After only a moment or two, a soft cough and a quiet, “Excuse me,” gets the attention of the group, who realizes that they are not along any longer. Three softly glowing figures are seated at the head of the table: a handsome dwarven woman in golden armor is seated on the party’s left, a beautiful elven woman in white and green robes is seated on the party’s right, and a kindly-looking old gnomish man in a silvery tunic is seated between the two. They are recognized by everyone as Koloka, goddess of protection, Alinys, goddess of luck, and Tachir, god of life, respectively.

“Greetings, my friends,” Tachir says as he stands up in his chair, “welcome and well met. We have something that we wish to discuss with you all, but first, please eat and drink your fill, and then afterwards we will discuss business.”

Most of the party immediately begins eating, but Ishmael and Eleasar refuse to eat or drink anything. Noticing this, Tachir smiles at them and says, “I assure you, nothing here is poisoned or will harm you in any way.” This has no effect, however, and both continue to sit there stoney-faced. Tachir finally shrugs, “As you wish.”

As the meal continues, so does the buzz of conversation. There is also a fair amount of bickering, which has rapidly become a regular occurrence during the time that the party has been together. At one point, Tobe flies over toward Ishmael with the intent of spraying pixie dust in his face after the latter says something insulting about Tobe’s family. Ishmael’s knife is instantly ready, but Tachir puts up a hand, and the pixie stops before making it more than a few feet. “Now, now, none of that please, at least not during our meeting. We would prefer that everyone stays in one piece.”

Once everyone has eaten their fill, except of course for Ishmael and Eleasar, who never ate a bite, Tachir stands up once again, “Ah, now that we are well fed… well, most of us, anyway,” he shoots a slightly annoyed glance at the two abstainers, “it is time to move on to business.”

“As you may be aware, my twin and her children are currently dominating our world, causing plagues, famine, and monstrous creatures to roam freely across the land. We, of course, would prefer that this were not the case. However, an outright battle between us would destroy the very thing that they seek to rule, and we seek to protect. So grandmother Caithyra has decided that it is time for a contest to be held between the champions of the forces of good, that’s us, of course, and the forces of evil. There have been many such contests in the past. Sometimes we win, sometimes they win. During the last contest, I’m afraid we made poor choices in champions…", Tobe makes and offended exclamation at this, “and they won. They won the right to dominate for a millennium before we, the deities of good, would have another chance to restore the balance. It is now time for us to have that chance. If good prevails, the land will be healed, the monsters will go back into their dark places, and civilization will once again have a chance to blossom and thrive. If evil prevails, the World will fall further into decay and despair. All nations will fall, and the races will be reduced to barbarism as they fight to survive in a world turned against them. It will remain that way until we, the deities of good, once again win one of these contests.”

“My daughters and I have called you here to prevent this from happening. We must once again push back my sister and her children, or the World will surely be doomed. Here is how this millennium’s contest will work. Each side will choose champions, who will receive a certain amount of power from the deities who chose them. The two sets of champions will then compete to gather four ancient artifacts together, and then bring them to the appointed place before the other side does so, and once there perform some final task, to be chosen by our All-Mother, who remains neutral in this as in all things. Mother Lalphaw is also staying out of it, as she has no interest, and Father Smonn will act as mediator, and will aid each side equally as necessary. The exact nature of the final task will not be known until after the artifacts have been brought to the appointed place, which will be inside the very temple which you just left. Myself, Daughter Koloka, and Daughter Alinys have chosen you as our champions. Sister Halit, Nephew Torowe, and Nephew Vicdak will choose their own champion or champions. If any champions fall, give up or are deemed unworthy before the contest is ended, new champions will be chosen. You will note that we have chosen to select multiple champions. This means that we must divide our granted power among you, but we believe that the dilution of our power will more than be made up for by your ability to work together as a unit, and thus increasing your combined power immeasurably. If I know my sister, though, the other side will likely choose to grant all of their power into one champion, as it is not in the nature of evil to cooperate for very long without turning on itself, though this one champion will undoubtedly have many minions and lieutenants. You will thus be facing an enemy or enemies far more powerful than you are individually. But if you work together, we believe that you will prove more powerful. You must be wary, but you must also have faith that you can prevail. If you do prevail, you will each be granted whatever reward you wish, short of godhood."

“And now, I will ask each of you: ‘Will you become our champion?’ Those that agree will be granted a blessing and sent back into The World to begin your task. Those who do not will be allowed to go in peace, and another will be chosen in your place.”

He does so, one at a time, and each person at the table agrees to become a champion.

“And now, daughter Alinys will grant each of you your portion of power to aid you in your task.”

Tachir sits down and the elven woman, Alinys stands, bowing slightly toward her father in acknowledgement. “Thank you,” says quietly to Tachir before addressing the rest of the group. She holds a deck of cards in her hands, and, smiling, she begins to shuffle them. “As father Tachir has said, I will now grant each of you a power which will aid you and will be yours from now on.”

She stops shuffling and turns toward Noah, drawing a card and holding it up for all to see, “First, Noah, who goes through the World depending on fortune’s favor, shall be given the power of The Fool.” The card floats out of her hand and fades into Noah’s forehead.

She draws another card and turns toward Valistar, “Next, Valistar, who seeks to right what is wrong in the World, shall be given the power of Justice.” The card floats out of her hand and fades into Valistar’s forehead.

She draws another card and turns toward Kronk, “Next, Kronk, who use your mighty body to do good, shall be given the power of Strength.” The card floats out of her hand and fades into Kronk’s forehead.

She draws another card and turns toward George, “Next, George, who turn your inner pain into outward strength, shall be given the power of the Hermit.” The card floats out of her hand and fades into George’s forehead.

She draws another card and turns toward Eleasar, “Next, Eleasar, who sees the World from a different perspective from most of the World, shall be given the power of the Hanging Man.” The card floats out of her hand and fades into Eleasar’s forehead.

She draws another card and turns toward Ingnacia, “Next, Ingnacia, who are fascinated with destructive powers, shall be given the power of The Tower.” The card floats out of her hand and fades into Ingnacia’s forehead.

She draws another card and turns toward Ishmael, “Next, Ishmael, who lives in secret and shadows, shall be given the power of the Moon.” The card floats out of her hand and fades into Ishmael’s forehead.

She draws one final card and turns toward Tobe, “Last, but by no means least, Tobe, who see the World as your playground, shall be given the power of The World.” The card floats out of her hand and fades into Tobe’s forehead.

She then addresses the group once more, “You will also now find yourselves growing in power rapidly, and perhaps in ways that most mortals would not be able to achieve,” and she makes a gesture to her sister and is once again seated.

Koloka, acknowledging Alinys solemnly, stands to address the group herself, “This is the nature of the four artifacts which you must collect. Each has great power on its own, in addition to being a part of this contest. Once the contest is over, however, they will scatter themselves throughout the world and will hide their true power until such time as they are needed again.”

As she speaks, images appear above the table, showing each artifact in turn.

“This is the Pentacle, which holds the power of Earth. The holder will be granted great fortune, and may call upon the power of Earth to protect them from not only physical damage, but also more esoteric damage. It will also grant the power of free movement over the earth, making it nearly impossible for the bearer’s body to be restrained.”

“This is the Cup, which holds the power of Water. This has a simple, yet deceptively powerful ability. It may call forth into itself any liquid the holder desires. Any liquid at all.”

“This is the Wand, which holds the power of Fire. The holder of this wand may call forth a variety of powerful fiery attacks to devastate the holder’s enemies.”

“This is the Sword, which holds the power to Air. In addition to being an excellent sword in and of itself, which delivers a powerful shock to those it strikes, the holder of this artifact may call upon the power of air to propel themselves, and a number of others, through the air. The bearer may also call upon the power of air summon a funnel of air which will not only protect, but do harm to those who may attempt to make their way through it.”

She nods curtly to Tachir and is seated. Tachir stands once more, “Those are the four artifacts of Balatro which I now charge you to find and bring together. May fortune follow you where ever you may go. The World is counting on it.”

The three deities bow to the group as the they and the room fades away. Everyone then find themselves waking up back in the real world. Eleasar and George are back in the forest where they had fallen asleep. The rest are back outside of the Temple there were just in, though the temple itself has changed. It is once again intact and looks brand new. The now formidable-looking and solidly closed doors have four indentations, each one in the shape of one of the artifacts.

Tachir’s voice sounds once more out of the air, “Oh, and I nearly forgot, Elrohir promised you each payment for escorting him here. Let’s see… it took 12 days to get here, so that’s 120 silver each, though you did do some fighting on two of the days, including today, so I believe 140 silver each is what was agreed…” 14 gold coins appear at each of the party members’ feet. “…and if you should seek out Elrohir again, be aware that he will not remember you or any of what has happened in the past few weeks. As far as he, or anyone else, is concerned, he has been in Asgoth going about his normal business.”

“Oh, and one more thing, this quest will be extremely perilous, so we could not in good conscience allow four children to accompany you into such extreme danger. They have been sent home safely, with the memory only of an excellent adventure to the ruins, and then a safe trip home again.”

As the group gathers up the gold coins and generally reorientates themselves, Ingnacia seems to suddenly realize that she has a new power and decides to try it out. A brief earthquake rocks the surrounding area. Nearly everyone just shrugs off the effect as little more than an annoyance. Ishmael, however, is tossed to the ground and is hurt rather severely. He gets back up, and limps over to the offending pixie, who he then proceeds to smack to the ground roughly in retaliation.

The noise of the earthquake attracts the attention of Eleasar and George, who turn out to be not very far away. They seem to know exactly who made the noise and walk over to join the group. Upon seeing Ishmael’s wounds, Eleasar casts a spell which heals some of them. Noah seems not to notice Ishmael’s wounds even then.

The group then begins discussing where they should begin their search for the artifacts. Tobe immediately pipes up, “I know where one is! Great Grandma Rittophoran has one in her garden! It’s in Iphily!” He then start expounding disjointedly about his great grandmother’s “Great Garden” and how she had long ago found and hidden something important inside of the Garden, and how it was probably one of the artifacts, since she was one of the party of adventures who sought them a thousand years ago. Some of the group seems to think that this is as good a place to start as any, but some others, Ishmael and George chief among them, seem to think that following a tip from a pixie is just asking for trouble, and going into the place with the highest concentration of pixies in The World is an even worse idea. For the moment, though, they decide to head back to Asgoth City for now, as that would be their first stop wherever they were going, and it was also the closest place where they could find someone who may know something about the rest of the artifacts.

The journey back is not completely uneventful, what with monsters infesting the countryside, but nothing that the party encountered is nearly powerful enough to cause them to do much more than pause for a moment to take care of them.

Once back in town, the party splits up. Tobe wanders off and is not seen again for the rest of the day. Valistar goes off in another direction, but finds nothing useful. Ishmael and Eleasar go to the nearest temple of Smonn, which also doubles as the local library. Noah and George start to wander the streets when Noah has this sudden urge to go into a tavern for a drink. Kronk and Ingnacia go in another direction, wandering the streets.

In the temple, Ishmael and Eleasar speak with one of the priests about where they might find information on the artifacts of Balatro, and also any information on the Great Garden in Iphily. The priest never heard of any artifacts of Balatro, and a few hours of research turn up nothing. The priest is able to give them a little information on the Garden. He tells them about how it is a powerfully magical place that has been there for several centuries, and how it is a very treacherous place to enter, especially uninvited. It is filled with powerful illusions which can confuse, with enough real threats to make the illusions especially dangerous. At their request, the priest shows them the Garden’s approximate location on a map of Iphily. They ask for a copy of the map, but the priest says that he does not have any to spare, but he directs the pair to the nearest cartographer, where they can obtain any maps they may desire. Once they have their map, they set off to find the others.

Meanwhile, in the tavern, Noah and George have a drink while they discuss their next move. While they sit at the bar, Noah becomes aware of the song that the tavern’s minstrel is playing. In particular he notices the word ‘Balatro’ in the song. This, of course, gets their attention, and they begin to pay closer attention to the song. It seems to be a somewhat disjointed song about a hero, who travels the land righting wrongs and fighting evil, accompanied in turn by a pixie, a swift magical horse, a beautiful warrior maiden, a cat and a monster. None of the characters are ever named, and the song never says anything about how the various companions arrive or leave. In fact, the song doesn’t even mention the word ‘Balatro’ again after Noah and George first hear it. The song ends with the death of the hero, and the lament of the pixie, who creates a garden with her magic and lays his body to rest in its center. Noah questions the minstrel about the song and has him play it again. The beginning of the song is much like the rest of the song. The part that had caught Noah’s attention is also the only mention of the word Balatro in the entire song, wherein the hero had sought “Balatro’s Charm”. The minstrel tells Noah that she does not know what Balatro’s Charm is supposed to be, she also doesn’t know for sure who had written it, for the song is many centuries old, and the author’s name has been lost. She suspects, however, that the garden mentioned at the end is likely the Great Garden in Iphily, near the big pixie village. She says she’s never been there herself, but she does know another song about the Great Garden. Noah has her play it, and it is a song about the dangers of anyone entering the Great Garden with the intent of stealing the treasure hidden there. It is much the same information as Ishmael and Eleasar found out from the priest, though it goes into some gruesome detail about the fates of the treasure hunters who went in, and also mentions an ancient and powerful pixie who lives in the Garden.

Noah is still not sure that this is really the place where one of the artifacts are hidden, so he decides to put his new ‘Fool’ power, which grants him extraordinary luck, to the test and, taking a dart from the tavern’s dartboard, and puts his back to a map of the world hanging on the wall. He tosses the dart over his shoulder and turns to see where it landed. The dart quivers in the wall where it sticks, pointing directly at a spot not far from a volcano in the foothills of the great mountain range that stretches along the east coast of Iphily, near a mark where someone has scribbled “Here there be Pixies”. He shrugs, and the pair leave the tavern to find the others.

Meanwhile, in the streets, Kronk flags down every pixie he sees and asks them if they know Tobe Det Ermined. Any who say yes get put into a basket gently where there are a few pixie-sized goodies. After Kronk thinks he has enough pixies, he sets off to find the others. Ingnacia then flits down to perch on the side of the basket and asks the other pixies excitedly, “Hey, anyone want to fertilize my eggs?” After glancing at the others briefly, one grins answers, “Sure!”

The lid to the basket is closed tight behind Ingnacia and… interesting… sounds begin to emanate from the basket, which Kronk ignores as he arrives back at the meeting place to find everyone else arriving as well, except Tobe who still has not been seen. Someone asks Kronk what’s in the basket making those sounds, and Kronk says, “Pixies! They can help us find the Garden!”

Ishmael opens the lid to take a peek inside and one of the pixies looks up angrily, wipes something from its mouth hurriedly, and says, “Hey! A little privacy, please!” and slams the lid shut again. Ishmael asks Kronk to hand him the basket, but Kronk refuses, and Noah says, “No, you’re not going to swing around the basket.”

A moment later, the lid swings open again, and several very satisfied looking pixies start to leave. Only Ingnacia remains behind, resting in the bottom of the basket. Kronk says, “Hey, you were going to help us find the Great Garden!” One of the pixies stops and looks back, confused, “No, you just asked if we know Tobe. If you want the Great Garden, you’ll need to go to Iphily.” This last pixie leaves without a backward glance.

While the others share what they’ve learned between each other, Kronk glances down at his basket, his eye drawn by the motion of Ingnacia leaving the basket to join the conversation, and notices that the bottom is now covered with some glittery powder, pixie dust. He grins stupidly and says, “Hey, look everybody! GLITTER!!” He then proceeds to scatter the contents of the basket over the others. Everyone immediately tries, without success, to get out of the way, looking disgusted, since they’d all figured out what had been going on in the basket. This effectively ends the discussions for the time being, as everyone decides that now would be an excellent time to find somewhere to clean up. George, in fact, decides that it’s time to leave the city completely and goes to find a camping spot with some fresh water nearby. Eleasar goes with him.

When everyone gathers back together, it is decided that they will get a ship to take them to Iphily, as everything they’ve found so far points to the Great Garden there. They set out the next day on the month-long journey to Iphily, traveling up the Long Bay into the Sea of Rotan. They then sail west into the Sea of Ilddald, giving a wide berth to Alaron, and its magical wall. As they travel south into the main part of the Western Ocean, Eleasar is gazing out over the ocean when he detects something with his ‘Hanged Man’ power, which lets him detect and analyze all types of Magic. Invisible to the naked eye, a large water elemental approaches the ship. He cries out a warning to the others so that they are prepared when it attacks. It attacks from many meters away, using blobs of sticky fluid and long tentacles of water to attack those on the ship. One of the blobs hit Kronk, but he shrugs it off with barely an effort. The rest of the attacks have little effect, though the party’s return attacks have similarly low effect, the elemental having a high resistance to physical attacks as well as fire, which is all that manages to connect. Eleasar does try repeatedly to call down lightning to strike the elemental, but seems to have a lot of trouble with his aim. The party does finally manage to knock the elemental unconscious with their blows, and though they don’t realize at first what has happened, since it is largely invisible to them, and they continue to pummel the creature until Eleasar tells them that he no longer detects any magic coming from where the elemental was.

The rest of the trip passes with no more incidents. They continue south and west, eventually following the coast of Iphily around to the great port city of Kierst, where they disembark.

After only a brief stop to resupply and rest overnight, the party sets off into the huge forest that forms the interior of the continent and nation of Iphily.

Current Era

Our story begins in the city of Asgoth. A very handsome man, named Valistar, in rather shiny plate armor is riding a white warhorse down the street. He is talking to his old friend, Ishmael, as they walk. Ishmael is dressed in supple leather and moves like a cat, smooth and silent. They are in the middle of a discussion about comparative religion when a little old lady suddenly rushes out of the crowd, carrying a basket. “Oh, please help me sir,” she said to Valistar urgently, “I need your help desperately!”

The paladin looks down on the old lady, smiles kindly, and says in a loud, clear voice, “Of course, madame, what do you need?” The woman holds up the basket she is carrying for him to take. The smell of freshly baked bread wafts from the basket invitingly. “Please take this to the orphanage down the way. I would never make it before the bread turns cold, and I’m afraid someone would take it from me on the way. I’m sure no one would dare try to take it from you.”

Valistar takes the basket and says, “Certainly, madam. It would be my pleasure!” The pair set off again down the street toward the orphanage.

A little way down the street, a pixie named [to be determined] is playing with a dog when he smells the warm bread. Leaving the dog behind, he follows his nose to the pair. He perches on the paladin’s shield and says, “Hello! You’ve got nicelies! Give me nicelies!”

Ishmael mutters something about there being a bug on his shield and pulls out a flyswatter as Valistar addresses the pixie, “I’m sorry, sir and/or madam, but these are for the orphans. I can’t let you have any.” This does not seem to dissuade the pixie at all and he starts to try to get at the basket, “Nicelies! Let me see the nicelies!” In his efforts to keep the basket away from the flitting pixie, Valistar passes it off to Ishmael who takes off running through the crowds. [To be determined] takes off after him immediately, not gaining, but not falling behind, either, dodging swings from the flyswatter as they go.

After being chased through several back alleys and side streets, Ishmael finally manages to lose his pursuer and makes his way back to his friend, who had continued on toward the orphanage at a sedate pace. It isn’t long, though, before [to be determined] follows his nose back to the basket of goodies and starts to bug the paladin again, “Let me see nicelies! I just want to count nicelies!” [to be determined] then sprays pixie dust in the paladin’s face out of annoyance. In desperation, Valistar takes a small bun out of the basket and tosses it away to distract the pixie and brings his horse up to a gallop, taking out his water skin and using it to wash off the pixie dust as he goes.

At first the pixie gives chase, but as the horse begins to outdistance him, he instead turns back and gets the discarded bun, brushes it off, and begins to meander off, heading in the general direction of the orphanage.

Valistar doesn’t slow down his horse until he arrives at the Luck of the Gods Chance House and Orphanage. Once there, he dismounts and knocks on the door. A voice is heard from behind the door, “Who closed this door! It’s keeping customers out!” A human man in clerical robes, Noah Valentine, opens the door and, smiling, beckons the paladin in, “Welcome, sir!” Valistar hands the basket to the priest, “Greetings, this is for the orphans,” and walks inside. Ishmael catches up shortly and follows him inside.

Noah hands the basket to an ogre, Kronk, who was standing nearby. Kronk passes the basket into the kitchen, where the sound of children’s voices can be heard, an elderly-looking elvish man walks in and approaches the priest, “Excuse me, do you run this place?” he asks timidly. “I’m currently in charge, yes,” Noah replies guardedly. “Ah, good! My name is ”/campaigns/balatros-expedition/characters/elrohir-oron" class=“wiki-content-link”>Elrohir Oron. I am a sage who lives in this city. I’m looking for an Ogre named Kronk. I understand that he sometimes hires himself out. I am in need of an escort. Several escorts, in fact, if he happens to have any associates looking for work." Kronk looks dully at the elf, then at Noah, looking to his human friend for guidance.

The priest looks doubtful, “Well….” “I am paying, of course,” the elf explains, correctly interpreting the priest’s hesitation, “10 silver a day per person, and an extra 10 silver on any day where you must protect me from any attackers.”

“What, exactly do you need an escort for. Where are you going?” Noah asks suspiciously, but his interest is piqued. “I’m looking for an artifact. I’ve been looking for the whereabouts of this item for a very long time, and I think I’ve finally found where it lies. We’d be going into the Great Forest of Senpol, probably about a week’s travel or more,” Elrohir explains.

The paladin perks up, “A quest!? We would be honored to accompany you, aged sir.” His gestures includes Ishmael who doesn’t seem too happy about being volunteered, but isn’t about to argue with a gold a day. Unnoticed by most of them, the pixie from earlier had slipped in quietly, having heard the children from outside.

Noah still has questions, “What artifact is it, exactly, that you’re looking for?” “Oh, I doubt you’ve ever heard of it. It’s been lost for many millennia. It’s called the Staff of Balatro,” the elven sage answers dismissively.

The pixie, who had been making his way toward the kitchen, perks up and flies up to the elf, “Balatro? What to you know about Balatro!?” The sage looks surprised, “Quite a good deal, little one. What do you know?”

[to be determined] launches into a rapid-fire and pixieishly disjointed story about Rittophoran Chanjefir Diddlyophemeylicles, who he claims is his great grandmother, and the rest of the party who, one thousand years ago, went on a quest to find four artifacts of Balatro. He finishes with, “So if you find anything to do with Balatro, it belongs to my family!”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see how having a member of your family who once looked for something gives your family a claim to anything of the sort. The artifact belongs to everyone, and I will see to it that it goes to a museum once I am finished studying it,” Elrohir explains, looking slightly affronted.

“Exactly!” the pixie replies, “It belongs to everyone, so it belongs to my family!”

“What? No! Besides, that sounds nothing like the legends I know, and none the artifacts you mentioned were a staff.”

The pixie seems ready to argue further, but at this point, Ishmael and the others decide that they want to play some poker, and Elrohir joins in, leaving the pixie to wander off. Kronk just sits at his post by the door, watching for trouble. After a few rounds of poker, which Ishmael wins in the end, Elrohir looks thoughtful and says, “Well, it looks like we have enough, though I would have preferred to have a mage or psionicist along. I don’t suppose you,” he indicated the pixie, “happen to be a mage. Pixies do seem to have a special affinity for the arcane arts.”

[To be determined] who had happened to have flitted back over to them for the moment says, “A mage? No… I mean I have a few special abilities, but I wouldn’t say I’m a mage.”

Elrohir looks disappointed, “Oh. Oh well. It would have been nice….”

The pixie looks around, using his natural ability to see arcane auras, and sees a human in robes at one of the gaming tables. It appears that he has been pretty lucky and has gathered quite a few coins. [To be determined] calls the others’ attention to him and flies over. When the man notices the pixie is looking at him intently, he begins to sweat a little and starts collecting his winnings.

As he heads for the door, [to be determined] starts poking around in the man’s robes, particularly in the pockets. Swatting ineffectually at the pixie, the ‘mage’ tries to leave, but he’s blocked by Noah, “What? What kind of shakedown is this?”, the mage says, “Can’t a man have a run of luck in here, of all places. This IS a holy place of Alinys, isn’t it? AND WILL SOMEONE GET THIS DAMNED PIXIE OFF OF ME?!” He looks affronted and more than a little annoyed.

Noah smiles, “Why yes, of course, but the little fellow seems to think you’re a mage.”

“So? (Get way!) That’s not a crime! (Hey, watch it!) Now let me go before I get angry,” the mage grows red in the face and tries again to push past Noah. At a gesture from the priest, Kronk leans over and closes the door, holding it shut, trapping the mage inside.

Noah maintains the smile, “Well, yes, being a mage isn’t a crime,” the smile disappears, “but using magic to cheat is rather frowned upon here.”

The mage looks even more angry. He does a good job of acting like an outraged innocent, but there’s just a little too much sweat, and the pixie doesn’t help with keeping his composure, “Cheat! CHEAT!? How dare you! I’ll call the city guard!”

The others in the room just look at him, and there seems to be a slight re-thinking of strategy going on behind the mage’s eyes. He huffs and puffs, still holding to the pretext of being an affronted innocent being shaken down, “Fine! Fine! How about this,” He drops a handful of coins into the donation box by the door, “will that be enough to assuage your ‘suspicions’? Can I go now?”

Noah nods to Kronk, who lets go of the door. The mage leaves at speed, setting records for the 100 meter nonchalant walk. At about this point, the pixie who dashes off to the kitchen and comes back leading a bunch of orphans who want to look at the mage and they go chasing after him. The mage sees them and takes fright. He casts a spell, turning the street behind him into a grease slick and runs on. The children instantly lose interest in the running mage in favor of the new ‘slip and slide’ in the street, and are quickly squealing and sliding around happily.

[To be determined], however, is distracted on the way to chase the mage, for he’d noticed that there is now an arcane glow in one of the paladin’s packs, which were strapped to his horse, that had not been there before, and his curiosity overcomes the desire to ‘play’ with the children and the fleeing mage.

He flits over and asks, “Hey, what’s in here?” and pokes the pack. A quiet voice from the pack says, “Go away!”

[To be determined] exclaims, “Hey!” and pokes the pack again, then opens it to see another pixie inside, this one appears female, though of course, pixies are actually neither and/or both male and/or female, so this one’s “female” appearance is simply due to her having eggs developing or developed at the moment. The new pixie scowls at [to be determined], says, “Go away!” again and closes the pack again. [To be determined] pokes the pack again, “But why are you hiding?” The voice replies, “The guards are after me. They want to arrest me.”

“Why?” [to be determined] asks, perplexed. The new pixie pokes her head out of the pack and looks exasperated, “I don’t know! They just completely overreacted when I accidentally set fire to some old building over there.” She gestures toward a column of smoke in the distance.

[To be determined] looks around, “Well I don’t see any guards around now. It should be safe to come out. By the way, I’m [to be determined]! What’s your name?”

“Ingnacia Ea Milintcia Ildri Wanyecha,” she says as she emerges cautiously from the pack.

Elrohir, who had been watching with interest from a little distance away, comes over at this point, “Excuse me ma’am. Would you happen to be a mage?” Ingnacia says, “Yyyyes, why?” Elrohir brightens visibly, “Excellent! How would you like a little job going with us out to an ancient temple. I’m paying well; 10 Silver a day, plus another 10 Silver on any day where you and the others have to protect me from anything that threatens me, such as monsters or temple guardians.”

“Ok, I think I need to get out of town for a while anyway,” Ingacia answers after thinking briefly. She suddenly sees a city guard walking down the street and ducks back into the pack she’d been in.

Elrohir looks pleased as he looks at the newly formed party, “Well, I think we should be just fine with what we’ve got. You lot seem to know how to take care of yourselves and no mistake. We’ll leave tomorrow morning. Gather whatever supplies you’ll need, and meet me back here at about dawn if you’re coming. Even though I expect the journey to only take about a week and a half or so, I’d take two weeks worth of supplies, or rather 4, since I assume you’d all like to make it back as well. I shall go complete the rest of my preparations. Good evening, and I look forward to traveling with you all.” Elrohir waves merrily and walks away.

The party goes their separate ways for the evening, gathering supplies and making whatever individual preparations they need to make. Noah buys a chicken for Kronk as a ‘pet’. In the morning they all meet back at the orphanage and set off out of town, heading generally northwest, following Elrohir’s directions. Several of the orphans try to follow them out of town (at the urging of [to be determined]), all carrying sticks with little bags on the end, but they are shooed back to the orphanage.

On the first night out, Kronk is cuddling his chicken, but misjudges his strength and the fragility of the chicken’s neck. The party then has a chicken dinner.

On the second night out, after the party has reached the outskirts of the Great Forest and they have set up camp, [to be determined] and Valistar, who are on watch, hear something out in the darkness. It sounds like voices semi-whispering, “Shh, stop it.” “Move over.” “Quiet they’ll hear us.” “Shh.” “She started it.” After everyone is quietly woken up, Ishmael sneaks out into the forest and finds… four of the orphans from Noah’s orphanage; two boys and two girls, all about 11 to 13 years old. With an evil grin, Ishmael creeps up on them and intones in a scary voice, “We’re off the map, kiddies, here there be dragons.” This, naturally, causes the children to scream with fright and charge the camp, where they all hide behind Kronk. Ishmael comes back into camp, laughing.

Noah looks angrily at the four children, “George, Raff, Audrey, Wynna, what are you doing out here? Don’t know how dangerous it is?” The kids had quickly gotten over their fright, but now have the look of all children when caught doing something they shouldn’t, “But we wanted to have an adventure with you and Kronk,” one of the boys mumbles. “Let ’em come,” Ishmael grins evilly at them, “we can wrap them in bacon and…” “No, we’re not using the kids as bait for monsters!” Noah snaps, then sighs, “Ok, we can’t just take them back now, we’re too far out, and we certainly can’t just leave them behind, either. You can come, but you four stay out of the way and if there’s any trouble, you immediately get to safety, understand?” “Yes, sir…,” the four answer in unison, looking contrite.

The following night, during the second watch, noise is once again heard out in the darkness, but this time, it’s not naughty children, but several ghouls coming for dinner. Most of the party position themselves between the ghouls and the children, but Ishmael actually tries to position himself so that the children are between him and the ghouls while once again making his suggestion to wrap them in bacon, and Noah once again retorts in a definite negative. This maneuver turns out not to work terribly well, since the ghouls close in from all directions anyway, and one does make it to Ishmael. However, the ghouls turn out to be not as much of a threat as they first appear. Before they are even able to draw first blood, Valistar stands up, holds up his sword in one hand, which gleams impressively in the firelight, thrusts out his holy symbol of Koloka, and shouts, “Begone foul fiends! In the name of Koloka, return to the grave from whence you came!!” A glow explodes from the holy symbol and the ghouls scream briefly as they burn to dust in an instant. A few more flashes and strangled screams are noted further out in the darkness where more ghouls had been on the way.

After a total of ten days, with a few more encounters with various monsters, but nothing that could truly threaten the party, they finally reach a crumbling temple. It appears to be a little on the small side from the outside, being about 10 feet wide and about 20 feet deep. The bulk of the roof is long gone, but the walls appear to be mostly intact. The door is gone, but there are two huge stone statues on either side of the opening, each of which appear to be holding giant great swords in front of them in a guarding position.

[To be determined] flies up to the statues, and pokes one. Nothing happens. He tries to fly past, but the statues, or rather golems, suddenly move and block his path. Noah also walks up to a golem, examining it. [to be determined] suddenly slips past them, at which point, a golem takes a swing at him, and the other one swings at Noah. Both miss, but then the party joins in the fray, except for Ishmael, who hangs back, watching with his arms crossed. [to be determined] disappears into the temple. After only a few, mostly ineffective, swings, one of the golems starts grinding its stone teeth together. This causes a noise similar to a set of fingernails being drawn across a very long chalkboard, and it just goes on and on. The noise effectively deafens and disorients everyone so that for a while, it is very difficult for anyone to hit the golems, while they have very little trouble hitting them. Both Kronk, who had stepped up immediately and started swinging with his tree-sized great club, and Valistar take quite a beating, though neither golem manages to do any real damage to either of them. By the time the golem had stopped making its horrible noise, Kronk had been nearly knocked out a few times, and Ishmael, seeing that his help may be needed after all, leaps onto the back of one of the golems, who immediately starts trying to dislodge him.

At one point, Noah makes a break for the interior of the temple, thinking that since the golems had not pursued [to be determined] inside, that he would be safe as well, but he then found out that the reason [to be determined] had not been chased is because the golems had not been able to see where, exactly, the pixie had gone. One of the golems broke off from the others and tackled the fleeing priest, flattening him and knocking him out momentarily. With that taken care of, the golem immediately returned to helping to block the rest of the party. After several more blows on either side, however, both golems lay broken, and the party took a few moments to catch their breath and entered the temple.

There is very little to see inside of the temple doors. The collapsed roof has left the main floor of the temple open to the elements for several millennia. There is, however, a stairwell leading down into some sort of basement that appears to still be intact. The party finds [to be determined] waiting impatiently at the bottom of the stairs, eager to continue inside, but not wanting to venture alone into the darkness. The party lights torches and moves down the corridor that leads away from the stairs.

A little way down this corridor, just beyond where any natural light reaches, they find a pit that spans the pathway. Nasty-looking spikes cover the floor, but the pit is only about 2 meters across, easily jumpable by anyone in the party. They are, of course, immediately suspicious of this, and they have Kronk prod the floor on the other side with his giant club. As suspected, the floor on the other side of the pit dips down when prodded, as if on a spring hinge. [to be determined] flits across to search for any way to secure the floor. He doesn’t find anything there, but when he looks back at the others, he notices something protruding from the wall next to their side of the pit. He calls their attention to it, and they hear a ‘thunk’ and a further prod shows that the floor has been stabilized. The party then easily crosses and continues down the corridor, finding another set of stairs leading further down, which they climb.

At the bottom of this set of stairs is a small landing, and then the corridor opens into a large, circular room with a solid-looking stone door blocking the exit on the opposite side. Just to one side of the closed door is a set of three levers with four signs, one overhead, and one just beneath each lever. First, [to be determined] flies in and examines the levers and signs while everyone else stays outside of the room, but the signs are in a language he does not understand. He tries to pull each of the levers, but is unable to move any of them. He calls Kronk in to do it, but the top part of the lever he tries just snaps off in Kronk’s hand. At this point, everyone except Ishmael comes into the room to see if anyone can recognize the language on the signs. Ishmael refuses to come in until the trap is made safe. He also realizes, upon examining the area he’s in, that him being there is the only think keeping the near door from closing, trapping everyone inside. Valistar and Noah both recognize the language as Celestial, but they are only semi-literate in the language, only knowing enough to read Divine spells written down. they are able to make out the following, though: The overhead sign reads “One….lie”, the sign on the left lever reads “…safe”, the sign on the center lever reads “…trap”, the sign on the right lever reads “Center….trap”. They determine from this that it must be a logic puzzle, and that they must pull the correct lever to make it safely past the trap. After much discussion, it is determined that the lever to the right is the safe one, but they are unable to move it. They figure out that until Ishmael moves so that the rearward door is able to close, then the levers won’t move either. They tell him he needs to come inside, but instead he backs up back to the stairs, whereupon, the door to the rear does indeed slam closed. While he waits for them to pull the lever and either succeed or die horribly, Ishmael returns to the landing in front of the door. When Valistar does pull the lever, the rearward door opens, but the forward door stays closed. They determine that as long as Ishmael is on the landing, then the forward door will not open. After much cajoling and assurances that they have it figured out, they finally convince Ishmael to come into the room with them. The rearward door closes, they pull the lever again, and both doors open, allowing the party to continue down the next set of stairs.

Upon reaching the bottom, [to be determined] finds and disarms a pressure plate near the entrance to the new corridor that appears to be set to trigger some sort of arcane trap, but they never find out what kind, since that would mean experiencing it first hand. They continue down the next set of stairs.

In the next corridor, they find a long pit, about 6 meters deep and 12 meters across and spanning the corridor. There are no spikes in this pit that they can see, but also no obvious way across. [to be determined] immediately starts to fly across it, he is suddenly slammed to the bottom of the pit hard by a magical gust of wind. The fall, aided by the downward push of the wind, nearly kills the slight pixie. Only the quick action of Ishmael saves his life, who pulls out a rope, climbs down, and carries the stricken and unconscious pixie back up to receive a healing spell from Noah. While healed fully, the pixie decides that he doesn’t need any more pain for a little while and curls up in Kronk’s pocket to rest while the rest of the party uses the ropes to make their way across along the bottom of the pit, which upon closer inspection is actually littered with old pixie bones. Not every pixie who had ventured so easily past the other traps had been lucky enough to have help and healing so close at hand when they came across this one, which had obviously been designed with them in mind. In order to get back out of the pit, Ishmael pulls out a grappling hook to attach to the end of the rope, but not before suggesting that they toss up one of the orphans (wrapped in bacon, of course), which is, of course, naysaid by Noah.

Once down the next set of stairs, this time with Ishmael in the reluctant lead, they walk down the corridor, unable to find any new trap triggers when suddenly the floor becomes magically sticky (if anyone had been able to detect such things, they would have known that it was actually psionic in nature), slowing everyone down to a crawl. At the same time, spikes spring up from one wall, and the whole wall starts to make its way across the corridor, destined to meet its opposite wall in short order, whether anything soft and squishy, like the party members, happened to be in the way or not. A lever can be seen on the opposite side of the spiked and sticky area. Ishmael, correctly surmising that this will stop the spikes, and seeing that he was not likely to make it in time, tells Kronk, “Ok, throw me as hard as you can.” Kronk obediently picks Ishmael up and easily tosses him out of the trapped area, though not without banging the human up a little in the process. Ishmael gets up quickly and pulls the lever, causing the floor and the wall to return to normal. They continue down the next set of stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs is another circular room, this one much larger than the one with the three levers. On the far side of the room is a circular stairway leading further down. Upon examining the area, Ishmael determines that there are trapped pressure plates all along the walls, and a large covered pit in the center of the room. There is only a narrow path to either side of the pit that is safe. With Ishmael’s help, the party safely navigates the room and heads down the stairwell.

This stairwell goes down considerably further than the previous sets of stairs, as well as being the only circular stairs they have yet come across. Eventually, it opens into a brightly lit, very ornate room. On the far side of the room is a dais with a shaft of light shining down on it. On a stand, on the dais is an extremely ornate staff with 12 shining white symbols along the shaft. Ishmael takes one glance at the room, and says, “This is a trap.” Elrohir doesn’t appear to hear him and becomes extremely excited, “THAT’S IT! THAT’S THE STAFF!! AT LONG LAST!” Before anyone can stop him, he runs forward into the shaft of light. There is a bright flash, and everyone falls instantly asleep.

(Ancient History)

The magnificent white horse, who Rit-Chan-Diddle calls Peg, the Mount of Heroes, ran like the wind; indeed faster than the wind. A journey that would have taken a normal horse a week or more is made in a couple of hours. Ferasar rides low with Blaise huddled safe in a pocket.

Peg slows down gently to a stop just within sight of a low, unassuming building. It appears abandoned, and there is no sign of activity. Ferasar dismounts and the horse disappears again, to be replaced by the pixie.

“I don’t think anyone’s home, Blaise,” observed Ferasar doubtfully.

Blaise looks solemnly at the building, “Oh no, he’s still here. It’s always looked like that.”

Rit stares at the building as well, “Besides, the place is glowing with arcane magic. I think it’s an illusion.” Blaise simply nods agreement.

“Alright, then,” Rit exclaims, eager to get going, “Let’s go get that bloodstone and get back quickly.” Ferasar gently interposes his hand in front of Rit to keep her from charging in immediately and addresses Blaise, “Any defenses other than the illusion that you know of?”

Blaise shakes her head, “No, it’s a pretty thorough illusion, though. If you don’t already know the true entrance you could wander around in the illusory building forever and never know anything was not as it seems.”

“But you know where the entrance is, right?” Rit asks. Blaise grins, “Oh yes. Ready to go in?”

“One more moment, Blaise,” Ferasar cautioned realizing that he is just barely managing to forestall the pixies’ natural impulsiveness, “What about the bloodstone itself. Where does he keep it? And what can we expect once we’re inside?”

Blaise’s grin vanishes and she looks grim, “He kept it with him, and as for what you’ll find, we just called it the Factory. He keeps lots of pixie… employees… at least that’s what he called us. He kept us in anti-magic collars so that we couldn’t get away, and forced us to work whenever we weren’t eating or sleeping, and he made sure that we had the absolute minimum of either. He even made us wear… um… special pants… so that we wouldn’t even stop working to, um, take care of other necessities,” she blushes slightly at the memory before continuing, “He had his office on one end, high above the main factory, so that he could always be looking down on us. He was always in there when he wasn’t out in the factory itself meting out ‘punishment’ to whoever happened to catch his eye.”

“Sounds like a wonderful guy,” Rit growls, “Can we go meet him now?” She glares at Ferasar, who lowers his hand, draws his sword and grins demonically, “Yes, Rit, I believe we shall.”

The trio closes in on the abandoned-looking building, and Blaise points to a blank wall, “It’s there. The entrance is hidden there.” She flies up to it and pulls on something invisible, and then appears to swing out, following an arc as if she were opening an invisible door. “In here. Don’t worry about being too quiet; the inside is very noisy all the time.”

Ferasar and Rit look at each other and shrug. No sound comes out of the place where the door supposedly is. The two pixies perch on Ferasar’s shoulders, one on either side, and he walks cautiously into the wall and walks through into the loudest din he’s ever heard. They can now see the open door behind them, and the small room into which they’ve stepped. Steps can be seen through another door in front of them, and the noise comes from up ahead. They step through the new door and down the metal stairs to another door, this one closed. They realize that as loud as the noise is, it’s actually being muffled by the heavy door.

After glancing quickly at the other two to make sure they’re ready, Ferasar carefully opens the door a crack to peer inside. The noise becomes deafening once the door opens, and it is also at this point that the smell hits them as well. Normally, a pixie’s body odor is considered quite pleasing, however this many pixies in one place, living in a state of constant fear and despair as well as being forced to work in their own filth has produced a smell not unlike that of a department store’s perfume section just after all of the salespeople have sprayed their product in your face at once, if the same department store had a sewage sales section right next to the perfume section, and those salespeople had their own samples to spray. Rit noisily gags and flies to a corner in the stairwell to throw up. Ferasar also gags, but manages to keep his breakfast down. Blaise ignores the smell and glares angrily inside. She yells in Ferasar’s ear, “THERE HE IS!” Such is the noise, that Ferasar still barely hears her, and the chances of anyone inside hearing is nonexistent. He peers inside and sees a gnome, dressed all in red with furry white trim. He is walking behind a line of pixies, who are assembling several unidentifiable things as the things are carried along some sort of moving band. Looking down at the end of the line, Ferasar can see that the end products appear to be small, brightly colored figurines which look to him like some sort of children’s toys. He looks back at the gnome, who appears to be just about the most harmless and, dare he think, jolly being he’d ever seen. He has a big red nose, a bushy white beard and eyebrows, and is so overweight as to be rotund, and he appears to be laughing to himself.

This image, however, is suddenly ruined as the gnome scowls for no apparent reason, shouts something incoherent in the noise, and kicks one of the pixies in the line hard, causing it to go flying across the room to land in a bloody heap not far from where the trio hid behind the door. The stricken pixie doesn’t move. The gnome scowls at it again, makes a harumphing motion, and motions to a pair of slightly larger pixies who go toward the fallen one. The gnome shrugs and walks off to the other side of the room where he disappears behind his door. At this point, Ferasar steps out of the door to confront the pair of pixies moving toward the fallen one. Their resigned looks become looks of surprise and then fear as they suddenly fall over themselves trying to run away. Ferasar notes that they do not fly, and upon observing this, he also realizes that none of the other pixies are flying either. Only then does he notice the small collars that each one wears, presumably the anti-magic collars that Blaise mentioned. He looks back down at the stricken pixie and at Blaise who is looking him over. After feeling for a pulse, Blaise looks back up at Ferasar hopefully and makes motions as if casting a spell and laying his hands on the other pixie. Ferasar nods in understanding, kneels down and casts a healing spell. Bones visibly snap back into place, and a healthier color returns to the little person. He weakly opens his eyes and looks around him. Upon seeing the elf looming above him, his eyes widen and he crouches on all fours with his face to the floor, pleading for mercy. Ferasar, Rit and Blaise watch him for a moment, then with a glance between them, decide that the best thing they can do for the poor, frightened being is to complete their mission.

By now, the other pixies have noticed them, but they dare not stop working due to the fear that has been ingrained into them by their cruel master. The trio ignore them for now, and walk briskly toward the little door that the gnome entered. Looking up along the way, they look up to see the gnome looking back at them from a large window high up on the wall. He suddenly ducks back out of sight when he realizes that they’ve seen him. Ferasar then breaks into a run and his pixie companions fly alongside, easily keeping up, but being careful not to fly too far ahead.

Ferasar wrenches open the door to the office and runs up the stairs. In here the noise and smell of the factory floor are utterly negated. The sudden lack of noise is nearly as shocking as the sudden influx of noise when they entered the factory. At this point, Blaise shoots ahead to the top of the stairs with a grim look on her face. The other two hear her shout as she reaches the top of the stairs, “HI, BOSS!!! REMEMBER ME?!” This is followed briefly thereafter by chanting and the WHOOSH of a powerful fireball spell going off above them. The heat of it actually singes them both slightly.

Ferasar and Rit reach the top of the stairs just in time to see a severely scorched gnome snarl in rage and cast a spell, sending forth a beam of darkness which Blaise easily dodges. “Ho ho ho yes, I remember you, my little deserter. I thought you might be back, so I prepared.” He starts to reach for a lever, but Blaise quickly casts an Ice Arrow spell, which knocks the gnome away from the lever and causes another severe wound. Rit casts a spell which creates the illusion of giant clockwork soldier, which advances on the gnome, but after giving it the slightest glance he ignores it, knowing it for what it is. Ferasar advances with his sword, trying to get into position to strike. The gnome then casts another spell, causing his skin to turn dark and reflective, like obsidian, and then he lunges again for the lever, this time he manages to pull it. With the sound of grinding gears, a metallic-looking man detaches from the wall to advance on the party, hefting a heavy-looking axe.

Blaise shouts, “Your toys won’t help you now!” as she looses another Ice Arrow spell, which shatters against the gnome’s obsidian skin, causing little harm. Rit then casts a spell and transforms into Reixelia, the warrior maiden, who grins and takes a mighty swipe at the advancing mechanical man. It is visibly damaged, but keeps moving as if nothing had happened. Ferasar wavers only briefly when the metal man appears, but seems to decide that if the gnome is gone, then the golem, or whatever it is, would either stop or not be as big a threat with no new orders. He swings his sword at the gnome, causing a large chip of obsidian skin to fly off, “Rit, er, Reixelia! Ignore the golem… thing, and help us concentrate on the gnome!”

The gnome snarls at this, but seems confident in his obsidian skin to keep him safe long enough for his mechanical man to take care of the interlopers. He casts a spell again, and the same dark beam that missed Blaise lashes out to hit Ferasar squarely in the chest, who looks weakened while several of the gnome’s wounds heal instantly. The mechanical man swings its mighty axe at Blaise, but misses the tiny pixie, only to hit a panel covered in buttons along the wall, demolishing it. Far below, in the factory, the moving bands stop dead and the captive pixies look around in confusion. Laughing, Blaise taunts the mechanical man while diving and weaving to avoid the swinging axe. The gnome’s face twists into an expression of rage as he realizes what his mechanical man has done to his factory, but the expression turns suddenly to shocked surprise as his head flies through the air, leaving his body behind as Reixelia, heeding Ferasar’s words, slices easily through the gnome’s obsidian-coated neck.

The body slowly topples over with a definite finality, the obsidian coloring fading as the life force powering the spell flees. The mechanical man, bereft of any new orders or direction, continues to swing blindly and move forward until it smashes its way through the glazed window and plummets to the factory floor far below, smashing to pieces in the process.

Ferasar searches the body briefly and pulls a pendant out and holds it up for the others to see. The large, blood-red gemstone dangles from its golden chain. “Alright,” Ferasar says wearily, “This is what we’ve come for, right? Let’s finish setting these pixies free and get out of here.”

(Ancient History)

Ferasar and the pixies clean up Tehk’s body as best they can, and take her with them out of the town where they bury her with all due solemnity. As they dig, they discuss how they should go about finding Cham and completing their mission. Rit is completely for abandoning the mission and leaving immediately to find Cham. It is only after Ferasar points out that they have no idea where Cham might be that she relents somewhat. “Besides,” she muses, “The Bastard is probably not one of the Stupids that have been after Cham. They’ve never been able to use magic like that. So he’s probably after the Artifacts like we are! So if we find the Artifacts, we’re sure to run into the Bastard again, and force him to give Cham back!” The thought of finding Cham and taking revenge on Thyden cheers up Rit immensely. She even revives enough to turn into Reixelia in order to help with the digging. Ferasar is careful not to mention that once he had the Artifact off of Cham, Thyden would have no reason to keep him alive, and it wouldn’t be the first senseless killing he had done. Cham’s only hope would be that Thyden would still have some use for him once he had the Pentacle.

Once Tehk has been properly buried, Ferasar says a little prayer to Koloka for the protection of her soul, all the time lamenting that he did not know the spell of resurrection, and that they did not have the time to seek out a temple of Tachir with a priest of sufficient power to perform such a spell.

The small group then heads back into town toward the palace, carefully avoiding the inn to avoid any awkward questions that the town guard might have.

Upon reaching the palace, they request an audience with the duchess. The guards are understandably reluctant at first, but when Ferasar shows his emblem of Koloka, a messenger is sent inside for instructions. After a short time, the messenger returns and the group is shown inside where they are met by a clerk who addresses Ferasar, “I’m afraid the Baroness is not accepting petitioners at this time. Even if she were, I’m afraid you would still need to go through proper channels to determine if your request truly requires the baroness’s personal attention. You understand that we cannot simply allow just anyone to walk in off of the streets to have direct access to the baroness, even an honored priest of Koloka such as yourself. Perhaps there is something which I can do to help you, sir. What is it that you wish to speak with the duchess about?”

Though he grates at the delay, Ferasar is no stranger to the ways of bureaucracy, but since he does feel that time is short, he decides to try to be as direct as possible while still being circumspect about the precise nature of their request. He realizes that a wrong word that this point could ruin any chances of avoiding bloodshed in their quest to obtain the Cup, “We want to speak with her about a certain… item… which she has obtained recently. We have reason to believe that it is of vital importance to…” Blaise interrupts at this point, “Yeah, we need to take her Cup so we can save the world,” she says, demonstrating that if one wants to be subtle or circumspect about anything, it is best not to bring along a pixie… or at least one that has not been gagged. Rit then pipes up herself with, “and save Cham, we’ve got to save Cham, too!” Blaise looks mildly annoyed, “well, yes, of course we need to save the big dummy…”

“Cham is NOT a dummy!”

“He’s the one who got himself kidnapped.”

“So, he was caught by surprise while he was asleep!”

“Exactly, a big dummy!”

“You take that back!”

Ferasar interrupts what appears to be about to turn into a full blown pixie fight, which is not anything that anyone wants to be near. At least not if you want to keep full use of all of your limbs or like staying the same shape. “Stop it, both of you! This isn’t helping Cham, Rit, nor is it helping gather the artifacts. Yes, I know what she said, Rit! This isn’t the time. Calm down before…” But it was too late.

The clerk had disappeared quietly into a side door during the exchange, and now guards were pouring into the room. A faint shimmer around each of them suggested that they had been given extra protection against any magical attacks that the party might possess. They do not attack, but they do take up position between the small group and the rest of the palace, leaving only the way back out available to them. The guard sergeant gives a lopsided grin and says to the party companionably, “I think your audience has been denied. It is now time for you to go, if you’d be so kind.”

Ferasar seems about to try to argue, but thinks again and merely says, “Very well, but we will return.” The trio leaves, with the pixies silently glaring at each other, and Ferasar looking thoughtful.

Once out of earshot, Ferasar says quietly, almost to himself, “Alright, perhaps we were a little too… direct. For that matter, expecting the duchess to hand over an item with nothing in return for no other reason than some vague assurances that it will save the world was a little naive of me. So, we have three choices as I see it… We sneak in and steal it, we take on the entire palace guard, not to mention a pissed off duchess who we’re pretty sure is a vampire, in order to take it by force or we find something that she would be interested in to trade for the cup.” Trying to hear the elf speak is enough to distract the pixies from being angry at each other, and the both pipe up at once. Rit says, “We can sneak in easily! No problem!” and at the same time, Blaise says, “We can take ‘em! We’ll blow ’em all to bits!”

Ferasar holds up both hands, “Whoa you two, first of all, no, we couldn’t take them all. There’s too many, and did you see the shimmer in the air around them? They have some sort of magical protection, and who knows what else. Maybe if we still had Tehk and Cham, but not now. And as far as sneaking in goes, yes, we might be able to pull that off, but upon reflection, I’m not so sure that we really want to be depriving a vampire of the only thing that’s keeping her from having to prey upon others. No, I think what we need to do is to find something that will replace it… something that will also keep her fed without harming anyone.”

Rit thinks for a moment and then says, “A bloodstone! That’s what we need: a bloodstone!” At Ferasar’s questioning look, she explains, “Its this kind of jewel-looking thing. It’s supposed to be able to always be full of blood. Evil mages and vampires prize the things greatly. They’re pretty rare, though….” The pixie lapses into silent thought.

Farasar looks thoughtful for a moment, then shakes his head, “It’s a nice thought, but we don’t exactly know where one of these rare bloodstones would be, and we certainly don’t have time to go looking.” He sighs heavily, “Oh well, I suppose there’s nothing for it, we’ll just have to…” Blaise interrupts him, “I… think I may know where something like that is….” The pixie seems hesitant to continue, but visibly steels herself, “I was once… employed… at a factory,” her tone suggests that the word ‘employed’ is merely a carefully chosen euphemism, “the owner, I only saw him a few times, but he was a mage of some sort. The last time I saw him, I was brought in to be part of some… ritual…. During the ritual, he brought out a pendant with a big red stone-looking thing on it. He tipped it up at one point, and what looked like blood poured out, but when he finished, it was still just as full as before. I didn’t see much more, because shortly after that he…” the pixie shudders as if the memory of whatever he did is particularly painful, “…er, that’s when I got away from him.”

Rit looks excited and doesn’t seem to notice the other pixie’s careful omission or her subdued demeanor, “That’s it! That’s a bloodstone! Where is he? We can go get it right now! And we can beat up on a baddy in the bargain!” Blaise looks reluctant at first, as if frightened at the prospect of facing her former master again, but then the thought that not only was she more powerful than before, but she also now has equally powerful allies dawns and she grins back at Rit, her spirits rising, but then she deflates again, “It’s many miles away, even a fast horse would take about a week or more to get there.” Rit looks shifty for a moment then says, “Um… I know a way to get there fast. Ferasar, do you remember that horse that Cham rode back when we found out about where the Pentacle might be? The really really really really really fast one?”

Ferasar thinks for a moment, “Oh yeah, the one that he said he could summon again if needed. But Cham’s not here to summon it.”

Mentioning Cham seems to dampen Rit’s spirits for a moment, but she rallies gamely, “Yeah, well, we don’t strictly need Cham to summon her…”

Rit then chants a spell and in her place is a beautiful white horse, which rears majestically then sidles up to Ferasar, waiting for him to mount.

(Ancient History)

The rest of the journey to Harraspor is largely uneventful. They arrive in the outskirts of the town just as evening begins to fall, and decides to stay in the first inn they come to. Tehk, of course, proceeds directly to the bar and starts to drink heavily. Thyden, their new human friend, joins her with gusto, as does Blaise and Rit, though it doesn’t take long before the pixies are passed out. Gnomes are smaller than dwarves, and so are their drink mugs, and their ale is not nearly as strong, but a mug of ale sized for any race other than a pixie is still the equivalent of giving the smallest party members each a keg all to themselves, and pixies have no word in their language for self-restraint.

Cham and Ferasar also take a mug each, but they do know the meaning of the word self-restraint, and do not indulge in the same way that the rest of the party does. In fact, after only one mug, along with a bowl of the hearty stew being served at the inn, they both decide that it’s been a long trip, and they head up to bed. Well, Cham heads for bed. As an elf, Ferasar has no need for sleep, but does go to his room for quiet rest, meditation, and prayer. Cham gently scoops up the pair of unconscious (and snoring) pixies and takes them up to his room with him.

This leaves only Tehk and Thyden in the common room, still drinking. Thyden gets up to get the next round of drinks (six at a time, of course). Tehk is definitely feeling her drink by now, and while she does admire the view of Thyden’s backside as he stands at the bar, she completely misses the small vial that he slips from his pouch along with the coins he uses to pay the innkeeper, and the small motion it takes for him to empty it into one of her mugs of ale.

During the night, Ferasar hears a noise coming from Cham’s room. Then he suddenly sits bolt upright as he senses someone casting Divine magic of some sort nearby. He runs out of his room and into Cham’s, noting in his haste that the door is ajar. He arrives just in time to see Thyden, carrying Cham over his shoulder, fade from sight as he completes a hastily cast teleportation spell. The light and heat from Ferasar’s futile blast through the place where the ‘archer’ once stood manages to wake the pixies, the adrenalin of fear and surprise temporarily overcoming the drink. They fly up in confused disarray as Ferasar runs to the window to look outside, knowing that such a hastily cast spell could not have much range. He is in time to see Thyden run around a nearby corner and out of sight. Heedless of the height, and his current lack of weapons, he jumps out of the window, injuring his ankle slightly, but still able to run after the retreating figure. He turns the corner, pixies just behind him, just in time to feel another sense of magic being cast and for a giant blob of night-black goo to slam into him and the pixies, pinning them to a nearby wall. Ferasar tries desperately to free himself, or at least free his hands and mouth so that he can cast a spell, but the sticky stuff holds him fast, and the poor pixies are completely covered in the stuff and hopelessly mired.

Seeing that his pursuers are well and truly stuck, at least for now, Thyden smiles gloatingly and approaches the stuck trio, Cham still slung over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. “You lot really are fools for trusting me so easily, you know. A few days playing nice in the wilderness, and I’m one of the gang. It’s a pity about the dwarf, though. She was quite a lot of fun. Well, I must be off before you manage to work your way free. It’s too bad that I don’t have time to finish you right now, but I expect I shall have another chance, if I’m any judge of your tenacity. Ta ta for now, gang!” With a final gloating laugh, he leisurely casts another spell and fades from sight again.

Eventually, Ferasar does work his way free of the goo, and frees the pixies as well. Rit is frantic, and desperately flits around, calling loudly for Cham. She flies off into the darkness alone, still calling and eventually screaming for Cham. Ferasar, knowing that Thyden is long gone now, trudges back to the inn with Blaise. On the way back, he finally has time to consider: Where is Tehk? She is normally the first into the fray, and that goo would have barely slowed her down. She’s sure to have heard the commotion, unless…

Ferasar suddenly breaks into a run, surprising the pixie, who picks up speed to keep up with the sprinting elf. “What’s wrong?” she asks. Ferasar ignores her and continues running. He stops as he bursts through the doors. There in a pool of her own blood, is Tehk. It appears that she had passed out or fallen asleep, and Thyden had taken the opportunity to quietly slit her throat. The innkeeper was up against one of the ale kegs, arrows keeping him pinned there and causing ale to mingle with the pooling blood on the floor. Most of the arrows appear to be in painful, but non-fatal places, but one arrow, or rather the feathers of one arrow sticks out from between the unfortunate gnome’s eyes. His bar rag has been shoved in his mouth as a gag.

Ferasar does remember some noise from downstairs earlier, but he had dismissed it as Tehk just having some fun. Now he realizes that it had been Thyden who had been having fun this time.

As the elf stands there stoically taking in the scene, and Blaise is quietly sick in a corner, Rit arrives. She is sobbing as she clings to Ferasar. “I can’t find him! Why did he take him? Where is heeeee?!” She doesn’t seem to notice the scene of carnage at first. “I don’t know, Rit,” Ferasar says in a raspy, emotion-ridden voice, “but I promise you. We will find him… and when we do,” his voice takes on a growl that can only come from a being with demonic ancestry, “we’ll be sure to make Thyden wish we’d never been born.”

(Ancient History)

As the noise dies down from the fight with the two priests, our heroes hear noises from behind a door. There are the sounds of small explosions and shouts of “Hurry, you fools,” and “They could be here any moment!”

Rit, in her enthusiasm to find out what’s going on behind the door, rushes up and starts ineffectively pushing on it. Ferasar and Tekh also waste no time in getting to the door. For Ferasar, it is because of his lust to destroy more demons, and for Tekh, it is just because of her eagerness for more fighting. Cham hangs back slightly, reloading and preparing his gnomish pistol. Ferasar gets to the door before Tekh and opens it quickly.

Beyond is a corridor running parallel to the door that was just opened. There is another door on the other side of the corridor. Facing this door is a lesser demon, which had been blasting away at it, with no noticeable results, though the walls around the door is scorched severely. To one side of the demon are a pair of Content Not Found: Vicdak priests, and a pair of small demonlings. To the other side of the demon is another priest in somewhat more ornate robes who shouts, “Get them!” and all three priests begin casting spells.

The demon responds to the command instantly and blasts Ferasar solidly in the chest, blowing him back a few feet, and knocking his momentarily senseless. The Demonlings are only a little slower and advance on Tekh and Rit just as Cham shoots the demon ineffectually with his pistol. Rit’s Demonling claws at the air, trying to shred the nimble pixie until the pixie turns suddenly into Reixelia and makes short work of the tiny demon with her sword. Tekh’s Demonling’s claws rip into the dwarf’s stony flesh, but then Tekh makes similarly short work of it. Suddenly the more ornate priest completes his spell and vanishes from sight, as does one of the other priests. The third priest stumbles over his incantations, however, and remains visible. He frantically restarts the spell. The sounds of more casting also comes from the general location of where the other two priests had been standing.

The remaining demon, thinking Ferasar out of action for the moment, smirks as it shifts its aim to the shining armored figure that appeared seemingly out of nowhere and sends another unholy blast into Reixelia. Her armor, however, protects her from the brunt of the blast and she smirks back and advances. Meanwhile, Ferasar regains his senses and his feet and repays the larger demon in kind for his wounds with his deity-granted holy blast of sunlight, doing significant damage to the evil outsider. Then Reixelia slashes the demon with her shining greatsword, doing severe damage, though the demon still seems strong.

Just then the invisible ornate priest’s spell ends and Tekh whips her head around suddenly, as if sensing something unexpected. She charges the apparently empty spot and the body of the priest suddenly appears as his head goes flying from his shoulders. The remaining demon suddenly disappears as its summoner dies, and the visible priest takes to his heels in terror. There is also the sound of running footsteps as the remaining invisible priest also flees for his life, leaving a very visible puddle behind where he had been standing.

With the demons and priests defeated, the group then turns its collective attention toward the door which had so frustrated the evil priests, and to the one corpse left by the fraca, that of the higher ranked priest. Under the blood splattered black robes, which were very finely crafted with silver filigree, the priest also wore black heavy cloth armor, which Ferasar was able to confirm had an unholy blessing upon it to make it stronger, not that it had helped the priest once Tekh had gotten to him. The door was finely carved stone, but when they tried to touch it, they found that they could not. There was an invisible barrier that covered the door completely.

It did not, however, extend to the wall, though said wall was still thick and sturdily crafted from stone. This didn’t matter much to Tekh, though. She merely pulled out a pickax, and started hacking away at it with her great strength. At the first blow, however, a great wail arose and a spectral voice shouted, “Noooo, Stop!” and Tekh felt a sudden painful chill. “Soooooo you’re just liiiiiike the ooooothers! Yooooou’re after my luuuucky chaaaarm!” Ferasar tries to argue with the voice, “But we need it to save the world.” Ferasar then feels a pain of his own as the voice shouts, “Doooon’t caaare! It’s miiiine!” Cham then speaks up and asks, “Are you Grogan Underminer?” He then feels the chill touch of the ghost as it replies, “Yeeees, now goooooo awaaaaay!” The party then moves a little way away briefly and conferred among themselves. Then they return, and Tech takes another swing at the hole while Ferasar stands ready with his holy symbol out. At the first sign of the ghost, Ferasar holds forth the holy symbol and shouts, “Let us have the Artifact!” The wail fades slightly, but comes back again as Tekh swings again at the wall. This time Ferasar says, “Go away, Grogan!” as he holds forth the symbol of his goddess again. This time the voice fades away completely as the ghost is forced to flee, and Tekh is able to break through the wall unmolested.

Through the wall is a study. It is the only room found so far that has not been trashed or looted. Everything is apparently as it was when the master of the house passed on. A thick undisturbed layer of dust lays over everything. In the course of their searching the room, the party finds a letter sitting on a table. The letter reads:

My Dearest Grogan,

Excellent news! I’m finally free of this cursed scavenger’s existence. I have found the most marvelous artifact which, when used correctly, will completely remove the need for me to hunt every evening for fresh blood. It will provide all the fresh, hot blood I can drink. You must come by when you can to see my wonderful cup. It even has glowing white markings similar to those on that old coin you always claimed was your good luck charm. Bring it along, and we can compare them.

Best Wishes,

Brin Rigtum

Baroness of Harraspor

The group put this away for later perusal. They also took a few of the books on the shelves of the study. In the meantime, Cham tried to check a large painting to see if it will open or pivot or otherwise reveal a secret passage or safe or similar, but didn’t have any luck with it. Then Rit flew over and gently tugged on the other side of the painting and it swings open easily to reveal a small room beyond.

Inside of this room was an ornate pedestal, and on that pedestal was a large brass disc about a foot across with a five-pointed star covering each side, and three glowing white symbols in the center of the star. They have found The Pentacle of Balatro. The group was cautious of traps at first, but the room and pedestal turned out to be safe, and they took the disc.

As soon as the disc is touched, it immediately shrinks to about 2 inches across.

As our heroes make their way back out of the mansion and back to town, they discuss the Pentacle and what to do with it, and the letter and what it can tell them. They decide to hide the Pentacle on one of them. Ferasar has Cham hide it in the elf’s long hair. He hides it so well that even Ferasar isn’t sure it’s really there.

As for the letter, Cham tells them that Harraspor is a small barony in Gnomina, the land of the Gnomes. He had not met the baroness, but has heard rumors that she is a fair ruler and well liked by her people. They decide that the cup she refers to in the letter is very likely to be The Cup of Balatro, one of the artifacts they seek. They also decide that her references to hunting for and drinking blood and her “cursed scavenger’s existence” strongly indicates that she is a vampire, so when they get back to town, they equip themselves appropriately both for the journey, and for taking on a vampire, using what knowledge of them they have available.

Once provisioned, equipped and rested, they set out for Gnomina. Only a couple of nights later, however, a thief sneaks into their camp and attempts to steal one of Cham’s boots. Cham awakens at the tug, however, and has a knife at the thief’s throat before he knows what happened. The thief, a rough-looking halfling, plead for his life and claims at first that he just wanted the boots because he just needed boots and those looked nice. After further interrogation, and a calming spell from Rit, however, he tells them that he was hired by a guy in black to steal what was in that boot. The party continues to press him, however, and when Tekh decides that it’s best just to kill him so he won’t report back, he manages to wriggle out of Cham’s grasp (actually, Cham let go to prevent his hand being chopped off by Tekh’s swing) and run for it, and though he takes a few wounds, he manages to get away.

When questioned on what was in Cham’s boot that anyone would want, he pulls out a royal insignia and explains that it’s his family crest and he normally keeps it in that boot for safety.

The party seems to accept this explanation, and goes back to sleep. In the morning, the thief shows back up again, but this time, he brings friends: two ogres, a goblin, a pixie, and a human. The thief grins and says, “Remember mGet THEM!” The reason for his sudden self-interruption is that Tehk had apparently not cared about his speech to come and had immediately attacked upon seeing him. Rit cast an illusion so that it seems that she summoned a huge fire elemental, which began to harry the ogres, which caused them to beat each other senseless (well, more senseless than an ogre thug already is). The pixie was taken out, after many tries (pixies are really really hard to hit) by a blast from Ferasar and Cham’s gnomish pistol. Tehk beheaded the thief, and finished off the ogre that was left standing after Rit finally banished the illusion. The only one left, the Human archer, managed to surrender before Tehk also left him without a head. This was largely due to the human’s exceptional good looks, and Tehk decided to let him stay with them as a ::ahem:: sparring partner for herself.

That night, after another day of travelling, the Underminer’s ghost reappeared, paying special attention to Cham, and revealing that the spirit sensed its ‘lucky charm’ on him, but Ferasar’s holy powers made short work of him, this time sending the spirit to its rest permanently.

After the spirit was banished, however, the party had a few choice words to say to Cham, who admitted that he had palmed the Pentacle and hidden it inside of his boot. He explained that he had done it so that no one would know its true location, even if someone in the party were questioned. The party grumblingly accepted this explanation, at least on the surface.

To Be Continued…

(Ancient History)

Just as Cham, Rit, and Tekh get ready to enter the grounds of Willi Longbeard’s mansion, Cham manages to convince them to wait until Ferasar gets back from talking to Dugan Goldhammer. Blaise, while they waited, got into her left-over ale from the previous night, and was shortly passed out in Cham’s pocket.

Ferasar, meanwhile, gets a lukewarm reception over at the Goldhammer mansion. After being let in by the butler, Dugan is, at first, reluctant to talk to this stranger who shows up out of the blue offering to “help” find his lost property. Dugan is, however, quite eager to get back the Pentacle, so he lets Ferasar’s clerical garb and apparently helpful demeanor convince him to allow the stranger to help. He tells Ferasar that the Pentacle, along with the rest of his collection, was under a very strong anti-magic field which affects both arcane and psionic magic, and was surrounded by extensive mundane anti-theft devices. During Ferasar’s questioning, however, it becomes clear that Dugan is unaware that effects that affect arcane and psionic magic have no effect on divine magic, and the method, if not the culprit, of the theft becomes clear.

Upon further questioning as to who may have taken it, Dugan reveals that there had been one bidder other than himself and Willi Longbeard at the auction, but that one had dropped out early. The other bidder had kept mainly to the shadows, and had been dressed in a concealing black cloak, but had probably been a dwarf. Dugan knows nothing else about the mysterious figure.

Ferasar makes his goodbyes and heads back to Longbeard’s estate to find the rest of the party waiting for him. He brings them up to date, and the party decides to split up. Ferasar and Tekh head back into town to question the auction house proprietor while Cham and Rit, with Blaise still sound asleep in Cham’s pocket, decide to question Willi Longbeard, though at this point, the party had decided that it was unlikely that he had actually committed the theft. Tekh had been reluctant to leave the possibility of getting to beat some answers out of Longbeard until Rit mentioned the possibility that there may be ale at the auction house. She set off at speed with Ferasar following behind.

Cham and Rit were let into the mansion by the butler. While Cham waited for the master of the house, Rit slipped away to do some exploring. Longbeard was unable to give any new information. He, too had seen the shadowy figure at the auction, but had also not been able to identify the mysterious bidder, having been too intent on bidding at the time. Cham left the house after only a short interview. Rit, in the mean time, had come across Mr. Longbeard’s art collection and been captivated by several shiny objects. She was so engrossed in looking at the shinies that she was caught after a short time by the butler and ejected from the house. The pair then met back up and headed for the auction house.

Back at said auction house, Tekh arrives first and demands ale from the proprietor. The bemused proprietor points hesitantly to a building nearby and tells her, “There’s… the inn is right over there.” Tekh starts to leave, but turns back and asks if there are any ‘good looking men’ in the auction house. The proprietor, still quite bemused, shifts his pointing finger to a building a little further down the street and informs her that be believes there is a brothel there. Tekh leaves happily for the inn just as Ferasar arrives and begins talking to the proprietor. Upon questioning, the proprietor reveals that he also had not found out the identity of the mysterious bidder, and hadn’t really paid it much attention, since whoever it was did not buy anything, and did not appear to have stayed around for any more items after the Pentacle had been sold. Ferasar asked if any servants, someone who may have been more focused on the bidders and less on the items being sold, may have seen the shadowy figure up close. The proprietor summons a young dwarf woman named Milli, who had been serving drinks at the auction.

Milli definitely remembers the figure. She had been afraid to approach it, though, as she had recognized the robes as those belonging to a priest of Vicdak, the god of trickery, who’s priests are as much assassin as anything else. She was fairly certain that whoever it was had been a dwarf, but had not dared to look closer than that, since such a one would think nothing of ‘eliminating’ anyone who could possibly identify them. Thanking Milli and the proprietor, Ferasar leaves the auction house and joins Tekh in the inn.

Cham and Rit arrive at the inn shortly thereafter. As they walk in, Cham, thanks to the good luck granted to him by the good deities, just happens to hear a group a patrons at a table discussing how a bunch of black robed figures had been seen coming and going out of the city toward a tunnel which goes further into the mountain. Further questioning, accompanied by Cham buying a round for the table, reveals the location of that particular tunnel, as well as the information that it goes toward Safehome and passes by the old Underminer estate. Upon joining the others, Cham passes this information on, and Ferasar remembers that the proprietor of the auction house had mentioned that the Pentacle had come from the estate of Grogan Underminer, and old adventurer who had died recently, leaving no heirs. The name had also been mentioned by Dugan Goldhammer and Willi Longbeard.

The party then decides to head for the Underminer Estate, which is far outside of the city, several hours walk away, after getting directions there, of course. The estate, being underground and built into a cavern, appears only to be a high wall that truncates a large cavern when seen from the outside. The wall is lavishly decorated, however, and the door into the estate is large and ornate.

Instead of opting for stealth, the party decides to ring the doorbell by pulling the rope outside the door. There is no response to the ringing bell, but it is obvious that anyone who may be inside would certainly now be aware that someone is on the property. After waiting a few moments, Tekh goes to open the door and finds it is unlocked and apparently unguarded, so the party goes into the darkened house.

The find themselves in what was once an antechamber, though what objects had not already been taken away have been smashed by someone. Moving through the only door takes them into a hallway which stretches off to the left and right into the darkness. After going only a short way to the left and around a corner, they come across a dead end which has a cleverly concealed door which leads to another passage. This passage makes its way around a large room, which the party is able to look into through a set of peepholes, and access through another secret door. The continue on down the secret passage, where they find another set of peepholes and another door which leads into another room. Both rooms had once been waiting rooms, but like the antechamber, their few remaining pieces of furniture have been smashed. Eventually, the hidden passage ends and opens into a huge hallway through another secret door. The huge hallway has a more obvious entrance directly across from the passage which the party took. The party decides to take the larger hallway, which had once been a grand entrance hall leading to the main part of the estate.

Just as they are about halfway down the hallway, a sudden blast of unholy light strikes Tekh from behind. The blast stuns her, but does little real damage to her and serves mainly to piss her off. The party turns around to find a demon behind them, now clearly visible as it bursts into an unholy flame and sends another blast of unholy light at Ferasar, missing barely. Ferasar responds with the blast of holy sunlight gifted to him by the good deities. While he, too, misses, the demon is still burned by the holy light as it passes nearby. This distracts the demon long enough for Cham to pull his gnomish firearm and put a shot into the demon, hurting it, though not seriously, while Rit sends an icy blast with her own deity-granted power, though her efforts have little effect on the demon. The combat continues like this, with the demon and Ferasar exchanging blasts of holy and unholy light, neither hitting the other, but Ferasar’s blast still burning the demon slightly with every miss. While this is going on, Cham crouches back against the wall and reloads his weapon, and Rit turns into Reixelia and advances. Then Tekh recovers from the effects of the first blast and activates her own deity-given power, becoming very heavy and very strong, while charging screaming at the demon. She plows hard into the demon, barely feeling the touch of the unholy flame surrounding the demon. The demon is hit so hard that he is knocked back several meters, and one of Tekh’s hand axes are broken, which only serves to anger her even further. Reixelia then reaches the demon and makes her own attack, but misses. The demon at this point begins to realize that he is overmatched, but then realizes that he has been pushed into a corner and cannot escape, so in a desperate attempt to gain the upper hand, he slashes at Tekh with his claws, causing a great gash in her side, but it is too little, too late. Ferasar’s blast finally connects and the demon screams and falls unconscious. Tekh, in her anger, then makes short work of the prone demon, which evaporates once life flees the body.

Once Tekh calms down sufficiently, the party continues down the great hall to where it branches to either side, apparently leading toward the east and west wings of the estate. Directly ahead, though, a pair of ornate double doors sit. The party opens the door to find a pair of black-robed dwarven priests, each with a summoned imp servant. The priests immediately begin to cast spells while the imps attack the party. Neither priest is able to finish his spell as first one then the other fall to Tekh’s whirling blades and Ferasar’s holy blast.

To Be Continued on December 20…

(Ancient History)

The party reaches Vidoon, the capital of Ceorther, the Dwarven nation. It has been a long and uneventful journey through the trade tunnels under the Worldspine Mountain Range, which divides the nations of Ostai and Ceorther. The trip was so uneventful, that the Pixie, Rittophoran, became very bored, which is something one should always endeavor to prevent. What follows is what is known as Pekzliryu Pekzhir, or “Pixies being Pixies” in the Elven tongue. The specifics of what happened on this trip has yet to be chronicled, as the only ones who know the full tale are those who were there, and the members of the party seem oddly reluctant to have the tale spread, though it is thought by many experts on Pixie behavior, that the survival of Rittophoran likely has more to do with the pixie’s natural dexterity and the ease with which she can hide than to the restraint of her companions, particularly that of Tekh StormCloud, who is known to have no restraint.

As it was, Tekh was barely out of the tunnels than she was inside the nearest inn, grabbing the first dwarven man who caught her eye, ordering a great deal of ale, and dragging the chosen male, who was still trying to sort out the whirlwind he suddenly found himself part of, up to a room. By the time the rest of the party showed up, a heavy rhythmic thumping could be heard coming from that room. After a while, even the minstrel by the fireplace had unconsciously started using the sound as a kind of metronome and adjusted his tempo to match.

Already inside the inn was a lone pixie named Blaise. She sat in a corner, looking dazed and confused. She had just had the strangest dream in which three of the deities had set on a quest to gather four artifacts, and she was to join another group who were also on the same quest. Part of her disorientation was also due to the fact that she could suddenly see much better than before, and seemed to pick out the finest detail with astonishing ease. She is then further confused when the very group that had been in her dream suddenly walks into the common room.

Ferasar, Cham, and Rit walk into the common room, and order drinks at the bar. Ferasar and Cham become aware of the pixie in the corner staring at them. Rit is oblivious at this point because she is head-first in the small mug of ale she’d been given, going from sober (for a pixie) to roaring, stinking drunk in two seconds flat. Cham tried to bring the other pixie to Rit’s attention, but she was too far gone. So Cham instead orders a cup of coffee to try to sober her up enough to converse. What he got was not only coffee, but the inn’s “Special Brew,” a coffee so strong that it was rumored to be able to take a drinker beyond sober and into the horrible mental state on the other side of sober where all of life’s little illusions are stripped away. Fortunately, Rit was far enough gone that the only effect was instant sobriety. Only then was Cham able to bring the other pixie to Rit’s attention.

Rit then went over and introduced herself with her normal enthusiasm. Blaise was shy and nervous at first, but loosened up quickly after Cham bought her a small ale (that was still the size of a small bathtub for her). Blaise was apparently quite thirsty and hadn’t had much to eat or drink for a while, as she did not have any money, since the coins were too large for her to have many, and she did not have the special money pouches that most pixies, such as Rit, tend to carry to enable them to handle money scaled for the human-sized people that populated most of The World. Besides, it had not been all that long since she had escaped from the clothing factory where she had been a slave, so she had not had a chance to earn any money, especially since she was still afraid of being caught and returned to the factory. She did not, of course, reveal any of this to the others.

As the pixies began to feel their ale, Ferasar decided that it was a good time to retire, leaving Cham to deal with the two drunk (and very, very giggly) pixies on his own. As the pixies were playing hide and seek in the brooding Cham’s hair and trying to cheer him up, he mumbled to himself, “I am truly in Hell…” and tossed a few more coins on the bar and standing. “See that they don’t hurt themselves,” he says to the bartender, who just gives him a look that said, “Do I look like a babysitter to you?” to Cham’s back as he went up the stair to his room. The pixies followed him up shortly thereafter, and proceed to keep him up for the rest of the night as he continued to think, “I am in Hell… I am in Hell… I am…,” as he tries to sleep. The continued rhythmic thumping coming from Tekh’s room eventually does lull him and the pixies to sleep.

In the morning, the pixies decide to go wandering around the market, looking for ‘shinies.’ This is another one of those Pekzliryu Pekzhir situations that it is best to avoid, so Cham grudgingly follows along behind them to make sure they don’t get in any trouble… or at least try to minimize the damage.

A little later, Ferasar wakes up and, remembering why they were in this city to begin with, asks the bartender about where he might find out about art collectors in the area. The bartender directs him to the city’s auction house, and when asked, lets him know that Cham and the pixies had left for the marketplace earlier. Ferasar then decided to go get Tekh before going to get the others. Just as he arrives at the door, Tekh’s ‘playmate’ sidles out of the room, dress in what is left of his clothes, and walking funny. He flashes a frightened look toward Ferasar and waddles gingerly away, mumbling something about a monastery. Ferasar watches the (un)lucky dwarf leave and knocks on the door of Tekh’s room. His only answer is a loud snore. He finally opens the door and walks in. After a few unsuccessful attempts at waking Tekh up, he finally takes the pitcher of water on the wash basin and pours it over her head. She wakes up…

In the marketplace, as the pixies are looking at some jewelry under the extremely watchful eye of the stall’s proprietor, Cham finally formally introduces himself to Blaise, saying, “I am Cham Leon.” Rit suddenly casts an illusion of an eight foot version of Cham saying the phrase again in a deep, serious-sounding voice. Unfortunately, a few of their fellow shoppers were decidedly startled by the sudden appearance of an apparent ogre in their midst, nevermind that real ogres are closer to 10-12 feet tall. There are screams and panic spreads, and shortly the marketplace is in chaos. Eventually, the watch shows up and tries to arrest the pixies, but they both bolt and are soon lost in the crowd, leaving Cham to deal with the guards alone, and since it was his image that had appeared magnified, they were not particularly kindly disposed toward him. Fortunately, just at that moment, a red-haired elf goes by trying to cast a calming spell at a full run, followed by a screaming, dripping wet, completely naked, and totally angry female dwarf, armed with a hand axe in each hand. The guards suddenly decide that stopping an attempted murder is more important than dealing with Cham, and runs off after them. A passing troubadour is suddenly inspired and composes a new song on the spot.

Eventually, Ferasar manages to lose himself in the crowd and Tekh stops running, at which point about a dozen guards catch up and try to disarm and restrain her. She barely even notices them, and her skin takes on a stony hue and she sinks into the ground ever so slightly. Suddenly, not even the strongest guard is able to budge her, and trying to knock her out only results in broken truncheons. Eventually, Ferasar shows back up and asks if she’s calmed down yet. Tekh glares at him, but doesn’t start chasing him again. He manages to get the guards to let them off with a fine, which is facilitated but the realization that none of them would actually be able to bring Tekh in anyway… at least not without some ‘special’ backup. During this, Cham had followed along behind at a more sedate pace, and was eventually rejoined by the pixie pair. Ferasar and Tekh find them and they all head back to the inn so that Tekh can get her clothes, and Ferasar can bring the others up to date about the auction house.

Once everyone is ready, and the innkeeper is paid for the damages to Tekh’s room, they head out for the auction house. Once there, they are greeted by an extremely neat and tidy-looking dwarf. “May I help you… people,” he asks, taking in the appearance of the motley group. Tekh bristles at the tone, but Ferasar steps in, “We’re looking for an art collector.”

The dwarf shrugs and answers, “Nearly all of our customers are art collectors of some sort. Could you be more specific,” his eyes flash to the holy symbol that Ferasar is wearing and he adds, “sir?”

“Perhaps one that specializes in ancient artifacts or magical items?” the elf ventures.

“Well, that does narrow it down somewhat, but it still leaves several collectors to choose from…”

Cham interjects, “Perhaps you could make us a list, and we can start contacting them?”

“I could certainly prepare a list, but we do not simply give out the personal information of our customers to just anyone who passes by. I could arrange meetings, though.”

“Yes, that would do.”

“It occurs to me that you appear to be looking for something specific. Perhaps if you tell me about it, I would know if anything like it has come through here and who might have it.”

Ferasar nods, "Yes, that makes sense. It’s about so big, " he makes a gesture with his hands, “shaped like a coin or disc, and has a big star on it.”

The dwarf’s face lights up with recognition, “Ah yes, that sounds like the Pentacle, it was auctioned from the Underminer estate. I believe Dugan Goldhammer, one of the top collectors in the city, bought it. I can send a messenger to arrange a meeting if you like.”

“Yes, thank you. We’ll just go find an inn and send one of us back to let you know where we are, so you let us know when the meetings with be.” The party had already decided that they would not return to the previous inn, as they might not be quite welcome.

“Excellent. I’ll send a messenger right away.”

As the party left the auction house, a quick conference was held. It was decided that, considering what happened to [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS], Mr. Goldhammer could be in extreme danger as long as he had the artifact, so Rit, in the guise of Iscarot the cat, would follow the messenger and find out where Dugan lived, so that they could get there quickly without waiting for a meeting that might never happen.

Rit transforms and follows the messenger, who leaves the auction house soon after the party.

In the upper class district of the city, where all the biggest mansions are, the messenger goes to one of the largest mansions there and knocks on the door, to be admitted by a butler. Iscarot tries to look in a window, but only sees into the anteroom, and the butler ushers the messenger further into the house. After a moment, the messenger runs back out of the house and heads toward, not the auction house, but the nearest guard house. Intriqued, Iscarot transforms back into Rit, who flits inside before the butler comes to close the door behind the messenger, who had left it standing open in his haste. There is loud dwarven cursing coming from further inside the mansion.

Rit makes her way further into the mansion and finds a richly-dressed dwarf pacing in front of a pair of closed double doors, shouting in dwarvish, and looking quite angry about something. Unfortunately, Rit doesn’t know any dwarvish, though time around Tekh has taught him a few of the more interesting curse words being shouted. Eventually she comes out of hiding and tries to talk to the dwarf. At first, he tries to swat at her and shoo her out of his house, but finally she convinces him that she’s there to help, and he explains shortly that the jewel of his collection has been stolen. He’s confused as to how they could’ve gotten past the locks and alarms. He knows they couldn’t have used magic, though, since he has a very strong anti-magic field set up that works against both arcane and psionic magic. He speculates that Willi Longbeard is probably behind it, as he also had bid on the Pentacle and had only relented when Dugan had finally bid more than the other collector could pay. Rit then announced that he would go and ‘beat up’ Longbeard and get the artifact back and left.

He then goes to meet back up with the rest of the party and tells them that Willi Longbeard has definitely stolen the Pentacle, so they head off for the Longbeard mansion, which just happens to be right beside the GoldHammer mansion.

The party arrives at the Longbeard mansion just as the guards arrive at GoldHammer mansion and go inside. Ferasar decides that he would let the others get on with handling things there, and headed for the GoldHammer mansion to talk to Dugan himself.

To Be Continued on November 22…

(Ancient History)

[This session has been DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS. What follows is a summary with spoilers removed]

The party awakens to find themselves in the presence of three deities, who wine and dine them, then send them on a quest to gather 4 Artifacts in order to save the world. They are each granted a power to aid them, and promised their heart’s desire if they succeed.

They awaken back in Vaa and set out on their quest. In their search for information, they find evidence that points them to an art collector in Vidoon, the capital city of Ceorther. They then set out, and except for a few minor encounters along the way, have a largely uneventful trip….

To Be Continued on November 1

(Ancient History)

This story begins in the local tavern, where many adventures begin, in the city of Vaa, in the nation of Ostai. Inside is a rowdy, flame-haired dwarven woman, named Tekh StormCloud, drinking dwarven ale and lamenting loudly at the decided lack of good, solid, hairy men around in the tavern. She spots a pixie girl, one Rittophoran Chanjefir Diddlyophemeylicles , or Rit-Chan-Diddle for short, on the tavern’s small stage, telling stories, using illusion to enhance the story. She starts shouting for the pixie to show her some ‘eye candy,’ which the pixie does readily enough. Two large gumballs appear before the dwarf’s eyes. “That’s not what I meant you little…,” she begins, starting toward the pixie. A handsome human man, called Cham Leon, sitting near the pixie tells his little friend, “Now Riddle….” Rit grins at her friend and giggles, “She said she wanted eye candy… Oh, ok, fine. How’s this?” The illusion of gumballs is suddenly replaced with the illusion of a well-muscled, bulky human man. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” the dwarf says, drooling over the image of beefcake before her.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged elven man in the simple garb of a sage walks in and speaks to the bartender, handing him a sheet of paper and a few coins. The bartender nods and takes the paper, which he then nails up on a post by the bar, and shouts “New Job Posting” to the room at large. The paper says “Adventurers Wanted” in large letter at the top, with illustrative pictures below showing big, burly fighters surrounding a figure in robes, and a pile of coins. There is smaller print saying that one Elrohir Oron, a local sage, is looking for adventurers to escort him into the great forest of Senpol, and is willing to pay 10 silver a day, with danger pay if any actual trouble threatens. It directs the reader to speak to the bartender if the reader is interested.

A vividly red-haired elven man with small horns on his head in the garb of a crusading priest of Koloka, named Ferasar Auvraheal, sits at the bar, nursing a glass of wine, when Elrohir enters. He looks at the notice, has a word with the bartender, who gestures toward the retreating sage, who sits down at one of the large table to wait. Ferasar then walks over to the sage’s table and the sage looks up at him and asks, “Here for the job? Good. Have a seat and a drink. I’ll get into details once we have a few more here.”

A rough-looking halfling man, called Vast, quietly approaches the table and seats himself, and the sage repeats his statement once more.

Meanwhile, Cham and Rit were conferring about the notice while Tekh continued to drool over the illusions Rit conjured for her. Eventually, they too approach the table, with Tekh in tow, who sits down and commences to take the sage up on his offer to ‘have a drink’ with gusto.

At this, Elrohir claps his hands together and begins to speak, “Ah, this should be enough, I think. I take it that all of you are here about the job I have for you?” He pauses for confirmation, then continues, “Good. Well, I suppose we can get down to business, then, alright? My name is Elrohir Oron. I am a sage specializing in magical items, ancient artifacts in particular. I need you to escort me to an ancient temple in the middle of ”/campaign/balatros-expedition/wikis/senpol" class=“wiki-page-link”>Senpol‘s Great Forest and back, as it is dangerous to travel so far alone. I’m willing to pay 10 silver a day. I do not think there will be any trouble from bandits with such a well armed escort, but if we are attacked, either on the way or once there, you will get an extra 10 silver that day. Once there, I will be searching for a particular artifact, the Staff of Balatro, which my studies suggest should be inside the temple. Anything else there, or that we come across on the way, you are welcome to. I will also provide provisions there and back. So, are you all interested?"

Ferasar says, “This sounds like a worthy endeavor, which Koloka would approve of! Yes, I will come.” Cham and Rit confer quietly, then Rit asks, “What’s the story behind this Temple and Staff?” Elrohir hedges, “Well that’s a long story…” Rit perks up, “Really?! Great! You can tell me on the way! We’re going!” Tekh slams down her empty mug after giving a long quaff and says, “Sounds good! I need the money, and maybe I can fight something!” Vast just nods and mumbles something affirmative-sounding.

Elrohir beams and stands, “Great! Well, I have preparations to make, as I’m sure you do as well. We shall leave in the morning. Meet me back here at dawn.” The group disburses. Ferasar goes back to the local temple of Koloka for the evening. Cham finishes his drink and heads up to his room while Rit, after waiting a moment, quietly changes form into a large black cat with overlarge ears and follows Elrohir, though the sage only goes to the local sage’s guild for a few hours, and then back to his home to sleep. Vast just quietly leaves the common room and goes to his rest. Tekh, however, continues her evening of drunken debauchery, and goes to look for the nearest willing dwarven man and spends the evening ::ahem:: indulging herself.

The next morning, the party sets out. They travel over the farmlands of Ostai, into the Great Forest of Senpol where they travel along the roads for some time before turning off and striking out through the trackless forest for several days. The entire trip takes 23 days, and is without significant incident. True to Elrohir’s prediction, no bandits harrass the formidable party along the way.

Finally, they arrive at an ancient, but surprisingly intact structure. There may have once been decorations, but they are long worn away. All that remains are two human-sized stone statues on either side of the open doorway, which is the only way into the temple. Rit pipes up, “I’ll go check it out!” and flies ahead of the others toward the entrance. She suddenly pulls up short, however, as the two guardian statues suddenly come to life and bars her way. They make no other move, but simply block the door with their bodies. As the others catch up, Rit takes a few moments to fly around the structure, looking for cracks or any opening that she could use to enter the temple. She then returns to the others and explains about the moving statues.

Tekh turns to Elrohir and asks, “We gotta get in there?” The sage nods, “I’m pretty sure that’s where the staff is.” Tekh asks Rit, “And these statues won’t let us in, right?” Rit says, “Yup, wouldn’t let me in!” Tekh then grins, draws her two battle axes and concentrates for a moment. The axes burst into flame. When the others see this, Ferasar and Vast also draw their weapons and prepare. Vast charges in first, swinging with his short sword and missing. Then Tekh comes charging in right behind him, just as the statues swing back at Vast and at Tekh herself. Tekh takes a large chunk out of one with her axes, as the statue swinging at her wallops her good in return and knocks her back a little way. Behind her, Rit casts a spell and suddenly in her place is a beautiful human warrior woman with shining armor and a shining great sword. The warrior woman charges in and attacks the statue on the other side of the door from where Tekh is still exchanging blows with her statue. Ferasar also runs in to help out the warrior woman, though with limited success.

As the melee continues, Cham stands back with Elrohir and shouts snide comments at the warrior woman. In the confusion, Vast suddenly concentrates for a moment, and then changes form into a small black cat, who runs between the golems legs and into the temple, only to reappear a moment later, again in halfling form, to stab a statue from behind, though without any visible effect.

The statues continue to exchange blows with the party, but eventually the statues are smashed, leaving the way clear into the temple.

It is only when the warrior woman finishes off the statue Tekh had been fighting that she notices the newcomer. “Who the hell are you?!” she asks in surprise, getting ready to continue the fight against the warrior woman if necessary.

The warrior woman pulls herself up dramatically and flourishes her sword, saying, “I am Reixelia! I am here to fight evil and vanquish those that would harm the innocent!” Elrohir then speaks up, “Well, thank you for the help, young lady, but I’m afraid I’m only paying these five here.” Tekh growls, “Yeah, so beat it, toots!” Cham admonishes Reixelia, grinning, “Riddle, I think you should tell them who you are before Tekh does something regrettable…” Suddenly, in place of Reixelia is Rit. “It’s me! It’s me!” Tekh’s jaw drops, “But…,” she stammers, “Where do you put the armor? …and the sword!?” Ferasar then breaks in, “Can we talk about this later and go inside now?”

The party then walking into the temple, only to find a spiked pit directly in front of them. It fills the corridor, but is fairly narrow, and easily jumpable. The group discusses this for a moment, when Ferasar just decides to make the small jump over the pit, whereupon he plummets down into a covered pit on the other side. He gets scratched by the spikes below, but luckily manages to avoid being impaled. The party shortly uses a rope to get him out again, but they are still faced with the problem of getting past the covered pit. Rit easily flies across and begins making exploratory forays further into the branching passages, though she doesn’t go very far because of the darkness inside the windowless temple. Cham examines the area around the pits thoroughly and finds a hidden lever, which he pulls. The larger pit then closes, and there is a scraping sound, like something moving across the bottom of the pit cover. The party then is able to jump over the original open pit and continue on, with Cham in the lead, checking for any more surprises.

Further into the temple, down a long set of wide stairs, the party comes upon a huge pit that stretches off into the darkness, with no apparent way to cross it. When Cham examines the edge of the pit, he feels an object sitting on the edge but cannot see it. It is about 2 feet wide and appears to stretch out across the pit. Cham inches out on hands and knees onto the invisible bridge, and eventually makes it across, with the rest of the party following along. All make it across safely.

Shortly thereafter, the party came upon a T-intersection and started to go off to the left, but Tekh suddenly spotted something funny about the wall just ahead of the intersection and stopped to examine it. She found a hidden catch, and suddenly the wall opened into a huge circular room with a large circular stair heading further down.

Cham once again took the lead and went into the room, carefully checking everything along the way for more surprises, which he found in abundance. There were pressure plates all along the wall, and a huge covered pit in the center of the room. He finally worked out the safe path across to the stairwell and led the party across.

At the bottom was another circular room of the same size as the one above, but with no apparent exits other than the stairwell. On the far side of the room is an alter with a staff laying on it. When Elrohir sees the staff, he gets excited and runs across the room before anyone in the party can stop him. He grabs the staff and… suddenly everyone gets very tired and falls asleep where they stand.

To be continued on Sept 27.