Having made it past the disintegration ray ^{[... and brother when it disintegrates, it disintegrates!]} , we paused for a bit by the bars in the wall to catch our breath. The psychic and physical darkness weighed heavily upon us. Seamus was the only one not bitten by the chill air.

Gonchar checked out the bars. They were definitely bars. It seemed to be a door of sorts and could probably be opened, though he could not discern how to do so. Recent scrapes and disturbed dust showed the barred door to have been used, recently. The walls seemed to glisten on the other side of the bars. So they do open. Flint checked for traps, finding none. Nor could he find any way to open it.

We a formed marching order and walked past the bars. The corridor opened up into a room with double doors north and south and stairs up in the west wall. Bitter cold air flowed down the stairs. Both sets of double doors were emblazoned with visages of the Two-Headed King.

The Company of the Delving Blades#

A dusty skeleton in rotted clothing sat propped up against the wall. It appeared to be a human male. One of his hands clutched a necklace, the other was balled into a fist. Cathal whacked the skeleton with his sword and the head simply rolled into a corner. It had nothing to say.

The necklace seemed to be some sort of holy symbol. Menka could not identify it, though Tim and Gonchar recognized it as the Blue Eye of Odin. A priest of Odin, then. His balled fist held a clove of garlic. We took the necklace; Menka added it to his collection for future reference. A backpack and a belt still hung on the skeleton.

Olaf Iverson’s loot#

• pouch which appeared to contain what may be spell components, including sulphur, a pinch of dirt, a small lodestone, and various dried, disintegrating herbs
• 6 crystal vials
• torches, tinder
• ink, quill, papyrus (Menka)
• 50’ of rope
• letter (Olaf Iverson’s last words: see below)

Cathal noticed a green glow at the top of the stairs. Lycovyne heard hissing and bubbling beyond the double doors in the northern wall. We formed a marching order again and headed up the stairs. We entered a large chamber with many pillars in rows along the west and east walls. Bones littered the floor in the room.

We did some preparatory party shellacking, assuming this was the chamber of the Big Kahuna.

• Cathal applied Oil of Sharpness to his sword, and quaffed a potion of Hill Giant Strength.
• Gonchar also applied Oil of Sharpness to his battle-axe.
• Menka cast resist cold (scroll) on Gonchar
• Tim, Lycovyne and Flint applied some Dust of Disappearance
• Tim hasted the party
• Kyril case resist fire on himself

The very large skeleton of the Two-Headed king sat on a throne on the far side of the chamber. On each of his heads sat a large crown. A large emerald floated between and behind the crowns. Behind the throne stood a statue of the King, himself. Each head on the statue was adorned with a large, golden crown.

Kyril Stone Shaped the lower half of the Two-Headed King’s skeleton to confine his legs and arms to the throne - this did not animate the skeleton. Kyril and Menka applied what healing spells they had left to the party.

The Two-Headed King#

Flint tried to relieve the skeleton of one of the crowns and it animated. Heimfell animated and tried to charm Kyril and Cathal. They both saved. A large battle ensued where Gonchar, Cathal, Lycovyne and Seamus attempted to batter the skeleton to pieces while simultaneously unsuccessfully avoiding the dual breath weapons of the creature’s gaze: frost and fire. We heard whispering from behind the ice walls, and saw the flickering motion of many skeletons through the ice. They whispered in a chorus, shockingly.

• initiative ???
• Lycovyne used 6 charges from the Wand of Frost to construct walls around all the pillars, enclosing all of the whispering skeletons
• Kyril made his save vs. breath weapon and took 8 points of damage from the frosty gaze of one head
• Cathal made his save as well, taking 13 points of fire damage from the other head (48/67)
• initiative loss
• Gonchar saved and took 5 points of scorching gaze damage
• Cathal got the frost this time, taking 13 points (35/67)
• Tim case Ray of Enfeeblement on the King, but he seemed to resist it
• Menka said a prayer
• Kyril cast faerie fire on the King and it worked!
• Gonchar, hasted, hit the King 4 times for 71 points of damage!
• Seamus, also at 4/1, hit twice for 21 points
• Cathal nailed the King twice for 37 points
• initiative tie
• 10 undead creatures entered the room, and Menka was able to turn them, praise Thoth!
• The King managed to break free of Kyril’s stone shape this round (I think)
• Seamus soaked up the scorching gaze this time, taking 8 points of damage (47/71)
• Gonchar got the frost gaze, though Menka’s resist cold prevented him from taking damage
• Cathal hit the King twice for 37 points, again
• Seamus whacked the King with his stein for 10 points
• Gonchar, 4/1, hit the King for 85 points of damage, and both heads exploded, doing shrapnel damage to those in range
• The King flopped backward onto his throne
• Gonchar jumped up and down on the skeleton as it seemed to be regenerating, probably due to the gem, trying to break its bones into dust.
• Cathal grabbed the green emerald, taking 8 points of damage from the King’s sword in the process - he stuffed it in his haversack but it immediately returned to its position above and behind the King’s crowns
• As the King with two exploded heads tried to return to its feet Kyril got rimed by the frost gaze for 8 points of damage
• Seamus got scorched again but saved and took no damage (??)
• Seamus fought back and once again the King flopped backwards upon his throne
• Tim zapped the green emerald with a lightning bolt and it shattered!

The bones of Heimfell, the Two-Headed King, were stilled forever. Quite entirely destroyed. The whispering skeletons behind Lycovyne’s Walls of Ice fell silent when the emerald shattered.

Gonchar and Cathal collected the crowns. The paladin put them in his haversack for safekeeping. The evil dampening field that pervaded the place did NOT dissipate when Heimfell went down. It is probably the doing of the fish folk and not the two-headed king. Flint, Lycovyne and Tim were still invisible and would be for a long time.

Kyril cast his last cure serious wounds on Cathal, getting him to 30 hit points, per the table above. We checked the Large double doors sat in the south wall of the large room. Smaller sets of double doors sat in the east and west walls, and two sets stood in the northern wall.

The double doors in the northeastern corner opened onto stairs going up. At the top of the stairs we found a 40’ round room with a statue resembling the woman we’d encountered previously as a hologram, carved in black rock. The statue was 20’ tall.

Corridors lead west and east. We followed the east corridor to a stairwell down, into a sw-NE running corridor with a locked door to the left (NE). To the right (SW) we heard the hissing and bubbling Lycovyne had heard before. The door to the north smelled literally ghastly, so we left it alone.

We walked toward the bubbling and hissing into a room largely filled with a bubbling, purple and black liquid pool of corruption and filth. Utterly repugnant. A walkable ledge traced the west and portions of the north and south walls. Double doors in the southern wall were accessible from this ledge, as was a single door in the north wall closer to where we stood. Seamus and Cathal walked the ledge to the left and found no traps on the stone door.

Cathal stepped through the unlocked door and found himself standing next to a statue of a harpie on his left. Grooves were visible in and around the jaws of the statue and they looked movable. Seamus attempted to pry the mouth open with his spear. I mean, what could go wrong? He was able to get the jaws to open and a purple gas flowed out of the harpie’s mouth. Luckily the monk and the knight made their save vs. poison. At the same time, a halfling vampire emerged through a secret door in the wall across the corridor from the harpie!

• initiative tie
• someone did 27 points of damage to the halfling
• the vampire did 9 points of damage to Menka, though the priest made his save, praise Thoth!
• Menka used Storm Voice (one charge from the Flail) on the vampire, but it made its save
• initiative win
• Seamus did 17 points of damage to the halfling and it assumed gaseous form
• The warrior vampire we had seen previously appeared behind Gonchar
• Menka missed it, badly
• Gonchar tried to knock the warrior vampire into the muck but failed
• The vampire hit Gonchar for 6 points and the dwarf made his save
• The female vampire appeared and attacked Seamus, doing 9 points of damage, though he made his save
• Tim zapped the warrior vampire for 32 points of damage
• Lycvovyne zapped the warrior vampire with magic missiles and the little wuss dissipated
• Cathal did 25 points of damage to the vampiress and she dissipated as well

We examined the secret door the vampires had come through. It seemed to be untrapped. Stepping through, we found ourselves in a long corridor. The floor was strewn with crushed and pulverized bones. The corridor ended in a 15’x15’ room. Flint found a trap in the floor and, attempting to disarm it, set it off instead. A large, perfectly round boulder fell from the ceiling. Flint got boulderized and squashed for 18 points of damage.

The corridor to the north smelled charnal so Gonchar, Lycovyne and Cathal put their backs into it and rolled the boulder into that corridor, to head whoever or whatever was in that direction off at the pass ^{[Cathal *loves* that cliche.]} . Flint then rolled well to open the door to the south, but it refused to yield. Gonchar and Cathal both failed to open the door as well. Lycovyne hit it with a knock and it popped open.

Beyond the door we found a room filled with treasure. Mostly coin and gems but also a HUGE blue diamond. Almost certainly this was the healing stone we were sent here by Aesil to find. A giant sarcophagus sat in the middle of the chamber. Flint found no traps in the room with his Wand of Trap Detection. Doors sat in the west and southern walls though we found no secret doors at all.

The dwarves sifted droolingly through the coin and gems while Kyril cast detcet magic and examined everything we’d found.

Heimfell’s Treasure Room#

• 1000s of silver, electron and gold pieces
• Roughly a quarter of that in platinum pieces
• Flint’s wand (WoW?, magic)
• Olaf’s 6 vials (not magic)
• Heimfell’s crowns radiated magic strongly
• “sword (not magic)” ?
• Huge blue diamond - blindingly strong magic
• sarcophagus radiated magic
• swan shaped platinum crown with opal eyes (not magic)
• gold tiara with 6 emeralds that fit Lycovyne just perfectly (not magic)
• necklace made of 6 light pink pearls

Gonchar and Cathal opened the sarcophagus and a banshee began to wail.

• initiative win
• Menka failed his save vs. magic and died on the spot
• Lycovnyne nailed the groaning spirit with 2 magic missiles for 31 points, destroying her
• groaning spirit, 31 hp

Cathal administered the Elixir of Life to Menka, returning him to 1 hit point. A cure light wounds from Kyril and 2 from himself got the priest back up to 22/54, praise Thoth and Skerrit! The party was now completely out of Elixirs of Life. Next time somebody dies, they’re dead. Stone dead. Forever.

• Heimfell’s Sarcophagus Loot
  • A gold-hilted, two-handed sword
  • A giant, blue sapphire - this is different than the blue diamond you pried loose from the coffin lid
  • A nasty-looking mace of gleaming black, hilt and handle of which is subtly carved with skulls and ghostly-looking figures

Having had just about enough of this rank fucking shithole we began to backtrack to the throne room ^{[If we continued on we probably would have found a back door to *The Chance*.]} . Without the Carpet, the lower entrance along the water to the south was of no use to us. On the way back Flint decided to steal the golden crowns off the statue of Heimfell behind the throne. The statue emitted the following words, but otherwise took no action:

“Dare not my wrath, mortal!”

Flint removed the 2 golden crowns and added them to the party stash. We walked south through the long throne room. In the southern wall large double doors stood, closed. They opened easily into a charred, blasted room containing a few charred, blasted skeletons. Doors stood in each wall. We did not open the door to the west, and the eastern door opened onto stairs going down.

The double stone doors in the south wall would not open. Tim cast knock on the doors. They opened with an explosion. Luckily nobody was within range. Beyond the doors we saw the bridge we’d seen on arrival, where we’d been attacked by ballistae. Far across the bride we saw the 2 large statues flanking the path. We walked through the door and as soon as we stepped on the bridge, the statues animated and began hammering the bridge with giant mauls in an attempt to destroy it and send us into the rushing river, below. Of course.

We ran headlong across the bridge as it crumbled. Menka and his plate mail nearly tumbled into the river but Cathal grabbed him by the arm and righted him, praise Diancecht! They barely clung on to what was left of the bridge, while the rest of the party battled the statues, which now attacked with those same giant mauls.

• initiative loss
• Seamus got popped for 17 points - ouch!
• He hit that same statue back for 20 points though!!
• Gonchar hit t’other for 29 points
• Flint hit one twice with a broken candle for 11 points
• Lycovyne hit one for 13 with his sword
• initiative win
• Seamus missed, then missed again
• Gonchar nailed his opponent for 25 more points and it crumbled to the ground
• Lycovyne hit the other one for 11 points
• Kyril whacked the stone statue (with a wooden staff lol) for 9 points
• Seamus got hit for 11 more
• initiative win
• Seamus missed
• Lycovyne hacked the thing for 7 points
• Kyril chipped a nail
• Gonchar shattered the remaining statue, meeting requirements
• 2 bridge guardians, 60 hp

Picking up the pieces after defeating the bridge guardians, we noticed that the gate through which we had originally entered this cavern was gone. Absent. And with it vanished our way out. Kyril quaffed 1/4 of a Potion of Growth and changed shape into a truly GIANT eagle and began ferrying the party up the cavern above the waterfall. In the water below, we saw a truly huge creature frolicking on the surface.

We made it back to the ground level entrance to Heimfell’s evil hall and made our way outside. Kyril regained hit points when he shape changed back to an elf and, walking outside, he breathed deeply of the fresh air.

Sitting on a rock outside, a tall, grizzled, graying ranger in custom armor, who we recognized as Chardas ^{[We haven't seen Chardas since the first session in December, 2012.]} waved to us and welcomed us back to the land of the living. Around him stood several gnoll heads on pikes. He told us that he was able to save all but one of our horses from the gnolls. Aesil had sent him hither to bring us safely back to her - “assuming, of course, she made sure I ask, you have the item?”

Cathal replied that we had indeed acquired the blue diamond, per Aesil’s request. As we blinked in the now-blinding sunlight, and the druid seemed to breathe deeply and with delight of the fresh, sunny air, the ranger looked around, appeared concerned and restless, seeming to listen, and his brow wrinkled.

“It is not safe here. I am led to understand that you are in danger, and there are those who seek what you have found within. No time to rest. We’re not going back the way you came, but we must make haste, for I am certain we are being followed….”