Late Afternoon
The Three Hills Adventuring Company
Clear, chilly, moderate winds from the Southwest
Welcome Hein
In the morning (3rd Marpenoth) Jasper brought the Heroes down to the cellar to see what he had caught lurking about on the backside of the compound. It was Hein, that wily Teifling rogue that grew up in Diamond Lake, glowing eyes and all. After the misunderstanding was sorted out. Hein was released and Jasper apologized for clunking him on the head. Jasper then served the Heroes an excellent breakfast, and the dwarves began drinking in celebration of Moradin's Day of Honor. Eldron and Dolgun imbibed the most and seemed to revel in the festivities while most everyone else looked on in shock that they could consume so much alcohol so early in the day.
Igor
Igor Bersk, a Damaran teenager arrived and led the Heroes up, past the Boneyard, to the a cyclopean tunnel which he identified as the "Whispering Cairn". On the way the Heroes ran into Sarin and Tarin arguing about The Stirgenest Cairn coming down the trail. They said they were heading back to the Company and wished the Heroes luck.
The Whispering Cairn
The Heroes entered into the darkness and soon discovered that the Cairn was inhabited by a large pack of wolves. After the Heroes killed all the adult wolves, Eldron picked up three wolf pups and shoved them in a bag. He stubbornly would not part with them. The party then found an alcove with a fresco that was painted in a such a way that an optical illusion resulted in it looking as if they stood in a grand chamber with corridors leading off in seven directions. At the end of each corridor hung a lantern and colored in the order; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violent. Nora experimented and tried to make something happen by lighting the lantern she found in the wolves lair and then waiving it around, but ended up only looking silly.
After exploring around, more than one of the Heroes recognized some of the markings and suggested that perhaps this place was an ancient burial tomb of Djinns from ancient Calim who
once fought epic battles here far from their homes in the South. The markings and geometry of the walls suggested that these Djinns were somehow associated with the legendary Wind Dukes of Calim. The Heroes found what appeared to be a broken heavy mirror of some sort in an alcove with indiscernible markings. Shards of a strange black glass or semi-precious stone were found by Carenthal lying about the floor.The Heroes then pulled down the cobwebs covering the passage down to the north, ignoring the small spiders, and descended a steep staircase about 60' down to a large domed chamber complete with 7 dead end corridors just as in the fresco above. The green lantern in the north was lit with an eerie light and flickering. The walls of this room were infused with small reflective pieces of rock and mosaic that threw the light about the room in millions of little reflections casting a scene on the domed ceiling as if one was looking into the starry night sky. At the end of each of the corridors was a chain with a lantern at the end, except for where the red lantern should be and the indigo lantern should be, because they were missing. The indigo one was in Nora's hand.
The Party then investigated a stone sarcophagus in the center of the room. Nora soon discovered that the ancient bas-reliefed tomb was trapped with magical fire as she lifted off the lid before checking for traps, engulfing half the Heroes in a huge blast of fire that burned at least five of the nine heroes. When pushing open the lid, Nora discovered that the arrow shaped sarcophagus rotated clockwise and came to rest on the yellow lantern corridor. When this
happened a low rumbling sound was heard followed by a cylindrical stone 5' diameter column that lifted out of the floor directly in front of the yellow lantern. Two sliding doors then magically opened revealing a small thin chamber. No one entered the chamber then Storn and Nora decided to push the sarcophagus again to the next clockwise position. They first tried pushing it back but it seemed to only move in a clockwise direction. This time it moved to the green lantern position and when it did all heard a terrible sound of stone giving way and under immense stress. The cylindrical column in the yellow corridor closed and went down and then a similar cylindrical column appeared in front of the green lantern.About 18 seconds later, something mechanical gave way and the whole cylinder made a stressful groaning sound, followed by a cracking sound, followed by the crash of stone scratching against stone as it gave way and plummented down the tube...Followed by an immense crashing sound as it slammed into something below. Nora then walked up to the hole and looked down into the darkness below. She heard the sound of skittering bugs and when she thought about it, she decided to run away but it was too late; She only got about 30' away when a geyser of beetles poured out of the hole and made straight for her. And to make it worse a large spidery-thing with a single eyeball came clattering up after the beetles.
The combat nearly killed Storn and Nora(again) but the Heroes prevailed. After a short discussion all decided to return to the Three Hills compound and rest and recover before continuing. The Heroes made it back to the compound without incident.
Back at the base
Upon arriving Jasper told the Heroes that Elgan had returned and fetched Tarin and Sarin and Morgan's great big lance. He mentioned something about hunting something big...When one of the Heroes (most likely Nora) said that it was a dragon, Jasper became alarmed and went into his apartment, donned armor, gathered a few weapons and items, and headed out. He was bent on reaching his charges before ill befell them. Kamist, Hein, and Dolgun tagged along, struggling to keep up as Jasper headed in the direction of the Bronzewood Lodge to the Northwest.
Resting
With more than one of the Heroes wounded and the priests out of divine magical powers for the day, the others decided to rest up and heal. Tune in later in the week to learn what has happened to Jasper, Kamist, Dolgun, and Hine...
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