Menka spoke with Aesil about gaining access to the mirror she kept somewhere in the tower. She was far less than interested in providing access and was neither concerned with events far to the the south nor with the visions provided to the priest by the messenger of Thoth.

Looking around her office, Menka noted that portraits of 9 wizards (including herself) lined the walls, each with a familiar. He noted that her familiar was a snow leopard. He also noted that Guldar Heel was among the wizards in the lineup. Looking for leverage, he asked Aesil to check with Guldar Heel, hoping that wizard far to the west could convince her to give us access to the mirror. She was willing to check with Guldar and would get back to the party via the one men called Tim.

Later, Tim would inform Aesil that indeed we had found 2 gorgeous and unique snow leopard statues in the dwarven cavern. Her eyes lit up and she told the wizard she would readily provide access to the mirror if the party turned the statues over to her. Tim told her he would have to consult with the party on the matter.

Convinced he could do no more, Menka left her office and the tower and rejoined the party outside. The group then traveled to Findar’s to drop off the horses and made their way to Thuragin’s Rest.

Gimme Gimme Gimme#

In order to fund the party’s level advancements, we needed to convert all (or most) of our gems to cash, in the form of gold pieces. While hanging at the bar at Thuragin’s Rest we heard about a local jeweller and his wife, Sidnos and Nancy. They could probably help us convert our gems to cash and, apparently, they were tosspots and the conversion rate could conceivable improve if we greased the wheels a bit. This happy couple often pinted up at Thad’s Borderlands Trading Post, in the keep (#10, map). Thad provides services as a general merchant and store.

It was mid-afternoon and Menka, Cathal and Lycovne headed over to the Borderlands for some day-drinking. As we walked across the cobblestone yard between the watch towers (#2, map) we were challenged by a corporal and a scribe. The grouchy corporal warned us that swordplay would not be tolerated, and the scribe took down our names as we entered.

We reached the Borderlands and bellied up to the bar. The place was not inexpensive. We ordered drinks, the barkeep was talkative and offered us a lot of information about the keep. An old timer at the end of the bar, one Ragnus, chimed in now and then, as old timers at bars tend to do.

The bartender pointed out Sidnos and his missus in the tap room and Cathal (?) approached them. Buying a few rounds and loosening them up, they said they would be willing to do business but could not do so here in the tap room. They maintained offices elsewhere in the keep and asked the trio to meet them over there.

Across the courtyard from the Borderlands stood the loan bank run by one Randall Carter. A watchtower stood directly south of Mr. Carter’s bank. Men with spears and bows peered down from the tower upon everyone and anyone entering or leaving the establishment. Sidnos and Nancy did business within. Menka, Cathal and Lycoyne entered the building. (And ??)

An annotated map of the Keep at Markheim is saved here.

The Identify Two-Step Tango#

2 items listed as magical in the notes, the pine cone topped staff and the rotted corpse’s boots, were not in fact magic, and cost Tim 2 of his identify attempts. He therefore cast detect magic on the lot.

• Robe of the Archmagi, Tim
  • We don’t know the alignment, but it was discarded by the undead mage who had torn and burned his own spell book. Was good, then turned evil, so possibly a good robe?
  • DMG pg. 152
• Mordenkainen’s Lucubration, Tim
  • white dragon’s necklace with a gem
  • UA, pg. 61, 26 charges
• Wand of Earth and Stone, Menka
  • white dragon wand, tipped with stone
  • UA, pg. 96, 10 charges
• Leather Armor +1, Kyril
• Zagyg’s Flowing Flagon, Gonchar
  • dragon’s drinking flagon
  • Zagyg or Zagig
  • UA pg. 104
• Dagger of Venom, Flint
  • undead wizard’s dagger
  • DMG pg. 168
• Flail, +3, Menka
  • white dragon’s loot
• Spear +2, Seamus
  • lich loot
• Elven Chain Mail, +3, Lycovyne
  • loot from the slime creatures from outer space
  • Lycovyne will sell his +2 Elven Chain
• Wonder Woman Underoos, Flint
  • Gives the wearer +2 chrisma when speaking with Amazon employees
• Idol of Hamali Celanil, Kyril?
  • Small crystal idol of the elvish goddess of love and beauty.
  • Gives the holder +2 charisma to elves of the opposite sex.
  • This is the holy symbol of the elves of the Vinewood.
• Potion of Firebreath, Kyril
• Oil of Acid Resistance, stored in one of the Bags (which one?)g
• Potion of Healing, Lycovyne
  • peryton loot
• Scroll of Protection from Cold, Tim
• Flail +2, stored in one of the Bags (which one?)
  • “crazy wizard”???
• Scroll of Flame Strike, Menka
• Scroll of Speak With Monster, Menka
• Scroll of Commune, Menka
• Wooden rack of flasks found in the rotted corpse’s loot
  • Oil of Disenchantment, Tim
    • UA pg. 90
  • Oil of Impact, Menka
    • UA pg. 90
  • Oil of Sharpness, Cathal
    • UA pg. 90
  • Oil of Elemental Invulnerability, Kyril
    • UA pg. 90
• +1 arrow, Lycovyne
• +3 arrow, Lycovyne
• Rope of Climbing, 50’, Menka
  • DMG pg. 153
• Potion of Hill Giant Strength, Lycovyne
• Dionysian Wine, stored in one of the Bags (which one?)
  • Effect depends upon how many pulls one takes from the bottole.Some healing, some attributes get briefly enhanced, others briefly retarded, depends on how much you drink. This is a chaotic fluid, and not governed by DMG p. 82. Have a drink. Maybe two. Maybe three even. It can be hard to stop. This is really good wine. See what happens. Take notes when those drinks go down.
  • There seem to be about 9 draughts in the bottle.

We now have 11 pearls left. After trading in gems and valuable, non-magic items, and after paying level up costs, the party has 768 pieces of gold left. Menka loaned 3,000 gp from his church funds to the cause to get the party leveled up.

We did not sell:

• 2 large diamonds, 6,000-9,000 gp each
• 2 snow leopard statues
• golden sickle and bowl
• all magic items

Levelus Upus Interruptus#

Tim rested for a while to regain his strength and composure after identifying the party’s loot haul. He then took the time to train the magic user half of Lycovyne’s split personality, leveling the elf up. We had plans to visit the armory in the keep, as well as to re-visit the tower of Aesil and discuss her mirror and the snow leopard statues. Gonchar did manage to get to the armory and pay for the construction of white dragon scale armor and a shield. The smith could accelerate the build for the price of 250 gold, and the set of armor would be complete in 3 weeks.

As the party pondered its next moves, Ninax and several of his men-at-arms began hammering on Cathal’s door. They were raising the alarm: apparently the daughter of the castellan and his wife, Harald and Maeve, had been abducted while afield with 2 men-at-arms and a ranger.

The men-at-arms had been slain by an ice ogre, and the ranger yet lived but was near death, having been left behind when the girl was taken. Kyril had met the red-haired girl and the ranger while wandering the wilds and said they were both good people. Ninax took us to meet with Harald and Maeve to get the full story.

Harald was of Northman descent, like many others in Markheim. Maeve seemed to be a transplanted Hibernian.

The castellan convinced us to go look for his daughter. He believed her to have been abducted and taken to the tower of the mad sorceress Lolath, probably to be sacrificed in some horrifying manner to dark gods. Maeve agreed and beseeched us to bring her daughter home. The party agreed and, in any event, Cathal could hardly do otherwise.

The journey to the tower of Lolath was too long to undertake on foot or even on horseback, and Harald feared his daughter would be slain long before we arrived to save her. As it happend, Harald and Aesil were aquaintances of old, and the castellan suggested we head to her tower at once so that he could request the use of her mirror to teleport us to the area.

The party rode out to the tower of Aesil with Harald, Maeve, Ninax and a contingent of keep soldiers and men-at-arms. When we arrived at the tower, the illusory tall man appeared on the wall to speak with us. Harald told him to fuck off and get Aesil. The short man did just that. Harald and Aesil argued back until Aesil finally agreed to teleport us to the area of the tower of Lolath.

Damsel In Distress#

Aesil knew of Lolath and her sister. Apparently Lolath loved to experiment on humans and animals. In light of this, Harald and Maeve’s anxiety for the daughter was understandable. Lolath Dhu’sarn, she used to ride a white dragon. The party wondered if we’d slain her mount. Aesil told us that Lolath may have a copy of the dreaded Cultes des Gules in her possession and, if we were to return it to her, she would send us anywhere we wanted through her mirror. This presented an interesting option, though remains was conflicted on the topic.

The sorceress lead us up and endless set of stairs in darkness to the top of her tower, where the teleportation mirror stood, on our way she described the dangers of using the mirror, thus, including (but not limited to) materializing in solid rock or 1000’ above the ground.

Gonchar kept yelling “Mountain! Mountain! Mountain!” and threatened violence if Mississippi Queen wasn’t played immediately. We let him rave.

Standing before the mirror, Aesil told us to watch it closely and, when we see an image of a cold, snowy mountaintop, to jump through and not hesitate. We did just that, held our breath and jumped through. We did indeed find ourselves on a cold snowy mountaintop. Only the self-insulating monk was not freezing. With snow whipping around us, we formed a loose marching order and made our way toward a looming darkness before us. With Cathal and Gonchar in the van we found a crumbled cave entrance. Cathal tripped over an aptly named tripwire without any immediately apparent effect.

Then we were surprised by yeti and attacked, and we figured it out.

• party surprised
• Cathal got hit for 6 points of damage
• an ice ogre blinked into existence behind Tim and Kyril, attacking them with an icy breath weapon. Kyril and Tim made their saves but took 7 points of damage, each
• Gonchar nailed a yeti twice for 25 points, killing it
• Cathal hit the ice ogre for 11 points
• Menka bashed the same one for 7 more points
• Kyril then hit it for 8 more, killing it
• Flint sliced and diced an ice ogre for 26 points
• Kyril then finished it off
• initiative loss
• they hit Gonchar for 5 points
• Menka got hit for 1
• Gonchar nailed one for 14 points
• Cathal sliced a monster open with a natural 20, limbs flew everywhere
• Menka nailed one for 6 points
• initiative win
• Gonchar killed one
• Cathal hit the remaining one for 11 points, while it missed him in turn
• initiative loss
• it missed Cathal ^{[4 out of 5 dentists surveyed think the paladin is an asshole]}
• Gonchar splattered monster guts everywhere, killing the last one
• 4 yeti, 24 hp each
• 1 ice ogre, 27 hp

A cavern to the side of the entrance seemed to be the yeti lair. Poking around in the debris and filth, Flint found a broken short sword with gems set in the pommel. Tiring of the frigid temperatures, Kyril cast Control Temperature 10’ Radius ^{[PHB pg. 59.]} , creating a moving bubble of warmth 70F within.

While we stood around thawing out, very large wolves attacked us from behind, through the entrance. Hugely big wolves.

• party surprised
• huge wolf breath weapon attack - everyone saved, taking 4 point of damage, while Seamus took no damage at all.
• initiative win
• Tim cast flaming sphere
• 2 of the 4 winter wolves saved, the other 2 got hit for 7 points
• the party attacked the wolves, landing many blows
• breath weapon again - Seamus saved and took no damage but Flint, Tim and Lycovyne took 11 points each
• initiative loss
• breath weapon again - Seamus saved and took no damage but Flint and Kyril failed their saves and bathed in ice breath, took 9 more points of damage.
• Tim saved and took 4 points
• Flint nailed a wolf for 19 points
• Lycovyne nailed one twice, the one that had not yet delivered the goods with a breath weapon, killing it
• Kyril missed
• initiative loss
• both wolves missed
• Flint killed one
• Cathal hit one for 11 points, the Lycovyne killed it
• 4 winter wolves, 26 hp

Half of the party was bloody, indeed. Cathal doled out the first aid, then laid hands upon Tim, getting him back 14 hit points. Menka cured Flint’s more serious woulds, while Cathal cast cure light wounds on Lycovyne.