The room at (A) was well-maintained and well used. Creel had kept it clean, well swept. Some carpeting covered the floor. It contained bookshelves on the west wall, upon which many books sat. Shelves also hung on the northern wall, glass jars filled with clear liquids and various implements lining them. A sitting area containing a small desk with quill and ink sat in the southeastern corner. A reading chair lay on its side with a spilled bottle of wine on the floor next to it, the red wine staining a throw rug in this area. Crumpled paper was strewn about around the knocked-over chair.

The books on the shelves were mainly treatises and monographs on history, spiritualism, religion, and numerous books on anatomy and physiology, including not only studies of human physiology and anatomy, but also elvish, orcish, dwarven and elven studies as well. The jars on the northernmost shelves seemed to contain clear fluid and scalpels and other tools of the medical trade.

Portraits hung on the east wall, displaying a white haired man and a stunningly beautiful woman. Menka read one of the crumpled sheets of paper and it seemed to be a half-written love letter to Illyssa.

The body of a fish man lay on the floor (C), blasted to death by what appeared to be a fire rune on the east door. We pondered the size of the invading group and, having personally dispatched several of their reinforcements, we believed even one fighter was hard to lose. Their numbers must be small by now, indeed.

Flint found no traps around the bricked up door, nor around the door in the east wall with the remains of the fire rune.

Creel’s Safe Zone#

The partially bricked-up iron-bound door in the northern wall was much, much older than the room we were in. Beyond lay whatever Creel discovered, and which drove Abigail to invade the place. Cathal detected evil behind the bricked up door, though he detected no evil behind the door with the expended fire rune. Flint searched both for traps, finding none.

We searched the room for secret doors and Kyril found one among the bookshelves, its hinges buried in the books. Neither Flint nor Seamus found any traps on this door. The door opened without effort and a well maintained hallway stretched for 70’ beyond. We entered the hallway and soon saw the outline of a door at the end of the passage. Flint checked this door for traps and finding none, opened it and we entered the 30’ square room beyond.

This room contained a door in the southern wall, and a bricked up door (the bricks matching the red bricks which make up the perimeter wall on the surface above) in the middle of the western wall. It also contained a semi-dissected ghast with kangaroo legs, splayed out all over an examination table. The stench was appalling. Notes for the examination were on the table as well, providing details about the horrifying creature’s physiology. The eviscerated creature smelled truly horrible. The party was forced to save vs. poison. Tim failed his save and began spewing his ring in all directions.

Stepping through gingerly we found no secret doors in the room. The door to the south was unlocked, so we entered, stepping into a clean, whitewashed room with a stone throne set on a dais (this is the room we started the session in, at (A)). The throne was covered by a blanket and a few pillows. The walls were covered in tapestries depicting pastoral, sheep-filled wooded hills and bountiful forests, a river and Creel’s tower. A bricked-up door was hidden behind the tapestries, on the same northern wall of the room the party entered through, 20’ to the west.

Gonchar checked out the bricked up door on the north wall. The brickwork was recent. Not very old at all. The dwarf found a hinged plate at the bottom of the red brick . The plate was about 2’ long and had a handle, though it seemed to be bolted shut. The small metal portal was as wide as the door and less than 2’ high, appeared slightly stained, and the handle allowed one to pull it open from the top when bolted. The plate did seem large enough to accommodate a medium sized humanoid. The party shuddered, and Cathal was pissed.

A table was setup in front of the dais. It was covered in papers and notes were scattered about on top of a book. The book was The Marvels of Science, a book we had last seen in Duneen’s hideout during Session the Seventeenth. The notes concerned resurrection and restoration, detailed how a zombie of a deceased human female cannot be restored, how mummification leads to irrevocable evil and is useless, and how the formula of creation of a Y’m-bhi ^{[What are these?]} cannot possibly serve his purposes.

We checked the throne and under the blanket and pillows we found unsettling carvings of tentacled things. These carvings had been mostly broken up and defaced. Kyril and Lycovyne found that the covered portions of the walls clearly once bore frescos, which had been damaged and torn away and crudely whitewashed, but the whitewashing did not obscure what was once there completely - the walls appeared to have once depicted an unsettling amalgamation of something tentacled with the suggestion of buildings with strange geometry and unusual angles.

Behind a tapestry there was an (unbricked) door in the west wall with emanations of evil beyond, while the area beyond the door to the east was not quite as bad, literally, and the paladin detected no similar evil beyond.

The door in the west wall seemed to be held in place by a bar on our side, which the party lifted and entered. A jackal-headed statue stood at the end of the long corridor, lined with four doorways on both the northern and southern walls. Menka thought he recognized the statue at the end of the corridor as a statue of the god Anubis (guardian of the dead, in his faith, but not an evil god), and thought it to be no danger to the party, as long as we refrained from thieving in its presence.

Each door had a small, closed window/hatch at eye level which could be opened from the outside. Cathal looked through a hatch in the first, easternmost door on the northern wall and saw a terrifying wight, screeching, infuriated, female, and which hurled itself against the door, causing it to shake, but it held as the undead terror attempted to extend its claws out the hatch, to no avail. The knight then looked through the hatches on doors that did not emanate evil. The next door on the northern row (#2) contained the body of a young woman, apparently deceased, lying on a bed of melting ice.

The westernmost cell on the northern row (#4 on the player map) seemed to contain the (neutral) zombie of a young woman. The woman was covered in wounds, several of which looked fatal. She wandered aimlessly around the cell. One other cell contained a zombie (the second easternmost door on the south wall of the corridor). Apparently Creel was experimenting, perhaps seeing if such zombies could be “recovered”.

Carter’s Prison Cell, Again#

Through the hatch in the door which was farthest west on the southern side of the corridor (marked as #5 on the map) Cathal noted continual light emanating from within and writing covered the walls. He entered and found that the cell, all 10 x 20 of the walls, were covered with writing - there was a thick nub of a grease pencil on the floor. There were various runes scrawled on the wall, which Tim and Lycovyne noted, even though they were smudged, to be of protective and summoning magic, as well as scrawled words in various languages, including, in common:

And this:

At several points were lengthy, winding mathematical equations - underneath which was scrawled:

Menka was both intrigued and puzzled by the continuing references to Anubis. In blood, above a stained sleeping cot:

Underneath, in larger print…

Upon the floor was a huge seven-pointed star. Around it, burn marks. Within, the scent of sulfur.

The next room in the row (room #6 on the player map) appeared empty through the hatch.

We returned to the throne room and proceeded to the door at (A). Seamus checked for traps, finding none. Through the door and within, the large, green, L-shaped room contained a larger Anubis statue, unmoving. We entered the room, and as the party looked around the room and moved towards a door in the SE corner of the room, the statue began to move. Hoping to convince the statue we were not thieves, Menka produced his holy symbol and appealed to the statue in his own language, but it had no effect. In fact, as Menka backed towards the entry door, the statue, moving quickly, smote him grievously.

• initiative win
• Menka took 8 points of damage from the statue backing out of the room, got 3 back from Cathal (48/54)
• Gonchar, armed with the Rod of Smiting, entered the room with Kyril and Cathal
• Cathal and Kyril found themselves slowed, though Gonchar did not
• initiative loss
• Kyril used all available points (from his Staff), lowering his AC by 4
• The statue swung its fist, connected, hit Gonchar for 15 points (81/100)
• Gonchar hit the statue with his Rod for 25 points, burning a charge
• Cathal chipped a nail
• Kyril hit the statue with a natural 20 for 8 points
• initiative tie
• The statue kept punching, hit Gonchar for 10 more points (71/100)
• Gonchar hit it back with an adjusted 23 (1 charge spent), shattering the statue
• stone golem (designed as a statue of Anubis)

The southeastern door was cold to the touch and Cathal got frost on his hands touching it. There was a box next to the small bed in the room. Above the bed, a portrait of the same red-haired woman. The box contained clean sheets and a concrete strap-on. No, wait, that fell out of Cathal’s backpack.

Flint found a trap in the lock of the SE door at (B) and disarmed it. He then unlocked the door. Cathal slowly opened it and cold, frigid air poured out. There was a coffin in the room, containing the body of a woman - seemingly the very same woman depicted in various portraits the party has seen here - we assumed her to be Ilyssa. Cathal detected absolutely no evil emanating from her corpse.

This was the end of the line, again. Once again searching the L-shaped room, the party inspected a rack of clothing on the west wall of the room. Menka checked it out and found several changes of clothes and robes, and the priest found 2 unusual clerical scrolls wrapped in a heavy robe, as well as a ring.

Loot!

• ring
• clerical scrolls
  • abate insanity
  • reincarnation

Back to the entry chamber. Upon inspection, the bricked-in door (D) looked to have been opened recently. It also looked like something heavy had been dragged through the door.

Seamus checked the door in the east wall at (C), before which the dead fish-man lay, for traps and found none. He then picked the lock. Walking through the door we found ourselves in a 30’x40’ room that reeked of garlic and had no visible exits. Continual light lit the room, and garlic hung from 4 torch sconces on the walls.

There were several desks and chairs scattered throughout the workshop-like room, weights and balances, mortar and pestle, sheets of papyrus and writing implements, some incomprehensible notes regarding how to make a skeleton speak, several pages of theoretical postulations on the languages of owls, and what appeared to be lists of ingredients for unfinished spells.

The northwestern walls had numerous shelves with more labeled jars with various higher-level spell components (2 small silver horns, bat guano, sulfur, flint, owl and hen feathers, legume seeds, licorice root, several dried up carrots, candles, fleece, pieces of turtle shell, nut shells, a miniature shovel and bucket, powdered lime, carbon, bark chips, glass beads, caterpillar cocoons, several plaques of ivory, some ink, quartz, bat fur, lumps of clay, pieces of bone, two tiny silver whistles, powdered diamond, small blocks of granite).

The north wall contained a 10’ wide bricked up section. High up in the northeastern corner, a 3’ section was also bricked up. As we approached the wall a large mouth appeared and tried to warn us off proceeding any further.

The party proceeded further, examined the jars, searched the walls, and the thief located a small, sliding compartment hidden in the southeastern corner.

Seamus checked the slot for traps and found none. Menka opened the slot and triggered an explosive rune. Boom. The priest failed his save and took 11 points of damage point blank. Nearby, Seamus saved though Cathal and Flint did not, and each one took 6 points of collateral damage.

Cathal doled out some first aid to the burn victims.

There seemed to be a latch under the compartment. Seamus checked the latch for traps and found none. Nobody believed him, so he opened the door himself and stepped through. The room on the other side reeked of body odor and excrement. Seamus left the room with the DM and much grunting and panting was heard from the kitchen, beyond.

Thelonious Creel#

A bright light emanated from the room. We entered to find a man we presumed to be Creel sitting at a desk. He was foul, disheveled, swayed from side-to-side, appeared to be clumsily trying to invoke a spell, had open, infected wounds on his arms and was not entirely sane. He recoiled at our approach, thinking the party a threat.

Cathal approached him while the party held back, a bit. The Champion of Diancecht was able to talk him down a bit, carefully placing Aesil’s letter on the floor between them and backing away. He begged Creel to read it. Warily, the shambling human picked up the letter and did so.

Mollified somewhat, he allowed Cathal to lay hands upon him and cure his disease. This worked well and seemed to bring Creel back to the land of the sane and living.

He told us that “her” servants had attacked his tower. It occurred as he was on this level, busy in his studies, a large party of subhumans (dragging a coffin) burst in, he defended himself as best as he was able with his magics, but was wounded, and fled to his safe room behind a trap door. He believed they followed him into this workshop (after triggering the trap), but did not linger or search long when he hid himself here, in the safe room, and readied more defensive magics.

After some time, he heard them leave. He did not venture forth. He seemed crestfallen - “I believed they were all out to get me, working together, my staff, the spiders, the ghouls, the vampiress and her servants, Carter and everyone else.” He sighed. “I now know that was foolishness. The book, it bent my thinking while I searched within for a means to return her to life. I let my people, my staff - they are family to me - down by being gripped by this obsession. Do they live?” He stood, moved to the door. “I must go to my tower above. If any invaders remain, I will avenge them all, and find who survived.”

The party stated its intentions to find the vampire. He stated that to the north was a complex created many years ago by a dark cult. He had cleared the rooms he is using, and sealed off the rest of the complex. The northern half of the complex is beyond water. He had not yet crossed beyond the water.

Cathal mentioned Randolph Carter to Creel. Creel said that he himself had dug too far into The Mysteries of Science in his endeavors to bring her back, and Carter had told him he had, so Creel imprisoned him, which Creel admitted with regret when the paladin cured his insanity. Creel also admitted regret about what he had done to his friend.

Creel told us there was a gate to the north that crossed the river. He also mentioned tangentially that the ghasts of Kn’yan roamed these halls (the kangaroo-shaped zombies), the same beasts which infested the sewers of Porttown.

Menka handed the 2 scrolls he found to Creel, and Creel handed abate insanity back to the priest, saying “You may need this”.

Creel said that if/when the party returns above, to make our way to the servants’ hall in the basement, ring the bell farthest to the right. Creel will come for us.

We decided to rest a bit and regain some first level spells, and then head through the door at (H). We broke up some already broken furniture and fashioned some stakes, in preparation for vampire annihilation. Seamus and Menka cured light wounds among the party. Seamus also used his heal other ability on Cathal.

Rested somewhat, we walked to the door at (D) and Cathal opened it. Beyond we found once-grand corridors. Kyril, Lycovyne and Menka grabbed torches from the workshop - each one emitting continual light, and the party entered.

Searching The Older Tower#

The hallways beyond were were likely quite grand in the past. The walls were damaged, torch sconces ripped out, the floor littered with broken stone and bits of rusted metal and bones, gilding torn off the walls, frescos damaged, and webs hanging everywhere. The frescos seemed to have once depicted a yellow robed figure with a crown (and, when examined, no facial features) and had a suggestion of grand plazas and huge cityscapes but all of this seemed to have been intentionally damaged long ago - maces or staves seemed to have been used to systematically smash the frescos and there were holes throughout.

Webs hung everywhere and between the webs and the debris it was easy to see that something large (coffin-sized?) had been dragged through to the north. A door stood immediately to the west, another down a 20’ corridor to the north and another farther down an eastern corridor.

The party opened the closest door immediately to the left/west. This large room (30’ E-W and 50’ N-S) was lined by crumbling frescos on the wall which depicted a grand city with wide plazas, what appears to be large marble buildings in the background, along with pyramids (also seeming to be of gleaming marble), tall flagpoles and rows of waving yellow flags, and rows upon rows of mounted lancers and what may seemed to be richly garbed nobles, all facing towards the west wall.

The west wall, opposite from the door which the party entered through, had two features. The first is a crumbling, faded, huge fresco of what appears to be a crowned king clad in flowing yellow robes, seemingly facing in the direction of the lancers and nobles, arms outstretched in a grand gesture. The king-figure wears a featureless mask. In the background behind the king-figure is again what appears to be more huge-seeming marble buildings and flagpoles, atop which are more rows of yellow flags. Also in the background of the crumbling fresco on the west wall is a smaller figure of a crowned female figure in flowing red robes, also wearing a featureless mask. She is looking away from the King-figure. The king-figure appears, to each party member seeing this, to be looking at him.

The other major feature of the west wall is what appears to be a placid pool of black water(?) - perhaps what was once a fountain - in the middle of the west wall at (K). There was a copper spout in the west wall above the fountain, dry and green from age.

Also scattered around the room were what appeared to be broken, shattered furniture, the remains of chairs and tables and desks and metal candleholders and torch sconces. The party took one look at this, the druid muttered “fuck this” in the parlance of the Druidic folk, and the party closed the door and moved on, proceeding up the web-and-rubble-chocked northern corridor, following the path-of-something-heavy-dragged.

The door at (F) was swollen and moist. Cathal stifled a cough, then opened the door. It opened with a loud, creaking pop! and Cathal stifled another cough. It opened into inky, wet blackness.

The River Chamber#

Menka stepped through the creaking metal door with some sconce light into a large dark chamber. A dark green algae-covered stone dock jutted over water which appeared to be about a foot below the surface of the dock. The huge chamber was water-filled and dark, with a misty quality to the air which seemed to blunt the light sources. This chamber was unlit, the water dark and floating with algae, impenetrable even when light sources hit the water.

Large pillars rose into the darkness above, coated again with green algae. They stood at least 10-12 feet above the water, presumably reaching the ceiling. The closest pillar was a few feet from the northeast and northwest corners of the dock-like stone platform we stood upon. The pillars seemed to rise out of the water in a grid at 10’ intervals thereafter and to the north out of sight. These pillars blocked the view of the watery room and cast shadows as Menka scanned the water, which seemed to move beneath the algae-coated surface.

The party heard, very dimly and in the distance to the north, a buzzing, watery, chime-like sound.

No boats or stairs of any sort were visible. Dimly visible in the distance to the northeast we a large statue of a muscular humanoid with the head of a squid. Great. To the west we thought we could make out crumbling steps ascending to something, perhaps another dock or landing.

This would be a great time to try out Tim’s Folding Boat (DMG pg. 138). The sorcerer agreed. He spoke the second of the three command words and the box unfolded into a 24’ boat with 5 sets of oars, a steering oar, anchor, a deck cabin, a mast, and square sail. Menka climbed aboard and went into the cabin to grab an ice cold beer from the fridge. The rest of the party climbed aboard and grabbed an oar as needed.

It immediately became apparent that the large boat was indeed too large to navigate in this room, due to the pillars. There was no way to “turn” to navigate the 10’ spaces between the columns. We clambered back onto the dock and Tim folded the boat, then unfolded it again into its smaller version.

The smaller boat could only carry 4 of us. Gonchar, with his Ring of Swimming, pondered jumping in the water but decided to take a wait-and-see approach instead. Cathal levitated and held onto the boat, while Menka, Lycovyne, Gonchar and Tim climbed aboard. The boat, that is.

Kyril shape changed into a bat to reconnoiter, flying off into the darkness. His reconnoitering allowed him to map the large, flooded room depicted on the player map. The north side appeared to mirror the south side - two docks in the corner of the room (which led to doors), and larger platforms on the center of the north and south sides of the large chamber, a door at the northern platform, stairs down on the southern. The pillars at ten-foot intervals stood throughout this water room, with four squid-headed muscular humanoid statues standing, 2 on the east end, two on the west, as indicated. Within 20 feet of the middle there is no floating algae - on the middle of the eastern and western walls are arched, barred entry and exit points, and moving water here appeared to flow in from the western grate and exit through the eastern grate.

We left the dock with Gonchar and Lycovyne rowing. As soon as we began to turn west toward the second landing, we were attacked by the statue from the east, marching at high speed through the water.

• initiative win
• Tim cast a lightning bolt at the statue, doing 26 points of damage, though it seemed to have no effect
• Menka cast Stumble on the statue with similar, also ineffective
• Cathal attacked the old fashioned way, doing 17 points of damage
• It clobbered the knight for 23 points in return
• Flint climbed walls from the dock in an effort to get to the battle
• initiative loss
• A second, identical statue approached from the west, wading through the water
• Everyone in battle with the statue found themselves slowed, as if moving through pitch
• Our current opponent hit Cathal again for 11 points (27/67)
• Cathal swung back, a glancing blow for 9 points
• Gonchar touched it with his Rod and destroyed it utterly, spending a charge
• The second statue hit Menka for 12 points( 34/54)
• On fire, Cathal hit this new opponent for 11 points
• Menka flailed the loathsome creature for 7 points
• initiative loss (slowed party members lose initiative)
• The statue hit Gonchar for 15 points (79/100)
• He nailed it in return with a natural 20, destroying it and blowing another charge
• 2 stone golems, 60 hp

Cathal applied some first aid to staunch all the bleeding, then the champion and the priest cured the party’s lighter wounds.

During the battle, Kyril flew around the chamber as a bat. Unable to get through the door at (I), he flew back to the dock and joined Flint. Simultaneously, as the battle started, Flint had tried to climb walls to get to the party but found it too difficult so returned to the dock at (F). As he jumped down to the floor, and as Kyril returned, a large, unnatural spiderish creature lowered on a strand of web and, whispering “sweeeeeeeet meeeeeeat” in common, it tried to grab Flint. The dwarf and the elf were able to fight off the monster with their broken milk cartons and broken candles and it escaped into the shadows, above.

We dusted ourselves off and made our way to the platform to the west (G). We alighted and looked around. At the back of the landing in the southern wall stairs led downward.

We saw another landing/dock to the west and climbed back into the boat with Cathal hanging on and Kyril and Flint hanging back. The plan was to jump off at the landing, fold the boat then unfold it into it’s larger version pointing north. The current seemed much faster to the north (center of room, where no algae grew), as if a river flowed through the chamber, and we thought the larger boat had a better chance of getting across.

We debarked on the small landing to the west at (H). The statue nook in the western wall stood empty, its occupant lying shattered under the surface 50’ from the wall. A closed door stood in the southern wall. Once again, we forbore to investigate. Tim folded the small boat and then spoke the command word for the large boat, aiming north. We climbed in and pushed off. As we reached the center of the room another muscular humanoid stone golem with the head of a squid marched toward us at high speed through the water.

• initiative none
• Gonchar, another natural 20 and another charge, and the golem shattered and sank below the surface
• we saw another stony squid fuckhead heading our way, this one wading through the water from the northeastern corner
• initiative win
• Gonchar hit it for 22 points of damage and draining yet another charge
• It attacked Gonchar, doing 6 points of damage (76/100)
• Cathal slashed the stone golem with steel for 7 points
• Kyril staved it for 10 more points
• initiative tie
• Gonchar smote the creature (1 charge), but Cathal hit it harder, destroying it
• 2 stone golems, 60 hp

Having survived the defenders of the flooded chamber, we made it safely to the dock in the northwestern corner at (I). We debarked and examined the door. It was swollen and moist, like the door through which we entered this chamber. We stood back as Lycovyne knocked the door from the end of the dock. It popped open.

Quieting The Din#

We noted that this corridor looked less damaged than the others to the south. Well-maintained, no crumbling frescos and not so dusty. The walls were moist and glistening, carved to suggest flowing waves and a background suggesting buildings of unusual geometry and incomprehensible curves and angles, merely glancing at them created a slight sense of vertigo.

The corridor led north, and the chiming we heard was much louder and seemed to emanate from the door in the northern wall at the end. Along that wall, a door stood closed to the west, while the open corridor continued east and then south. We ignored both and examined the door to the north.

Flint checked the door for traps and immediately had to save vs. spell as he examined the bewildering, seemingly moving waves and the perplexing background of unusual geometry and incomprehensible angles. His dwarven mind became befuddled. Failing his save, the thief was assailed by extreme vertigo. Seamus then did the same door check, failed the same save vs. spell and his world also started spinning. Cathal tried to open the door and made his save, but found it to be locked.

Gonchar pushed all the nancy-marys aside and, with the help of his Gauntlets of Dexterity ^{[DMG, pg. 145]} , opened the lock. It clicked open, as did the door did shortly thereafter. It opened into a large chamber with a pool at the far end, at (J).

From the door, we could see within a long room, 30’ wide, 70’ long. At the end of the room was a large pool from which the loud, watery, chime-like sound is sounding, at an almost deafening volume. Before the pool was a glowing orb on a pedestal, upon it the faint impression of a hand.

All of the walls were running with moisture and glistening and were carved to suggest flowing waves and a background suggesting the same unusual buildings and incomprehensible angles. The floors seemed to be moist and glistening and of a semi-translucent jelly-like consistency.

As we entered the room, the floor erupted into chaos. Ghostly arms and fists blossomed from the floor and attacked us as we tried to walk across.

• initiative surprise
• Menka got hit for 13 points
• Kyril got hit, but didn’t
• Lycovyne got hit for a whopping 23 points of damage
• Gonchar got hit for 9 points as well
• Flint got hit for 23 points as well
• Cathal got hit as well, for 15 points
• Tim and Seamus escaped injury
• initiative tie
• Menka said a prayer
• Kyril cast barkskin from his Staff
• Lycovyne zapped the arms and fists with magic missiles for 67 points of damage!
• Cathal hit for 17 points, splattering protoplasm everywhere
• Seamus leapt forward and placed his hand upon the orb. He saw a globe of force over the pool disappear and a chime became visible within the pool
• initiative loss
• the fists hammered Menka for 22 more points
• they missed Kyril again
• Lycovyne got hit as well
• it missed Gonchar
• Flint got hit for 16
• Cathal and Tim got hit again
• Seamus got hit and it pulled him away from the orb
• Gonchar finally smote the thing with his hammer, killing it
• shoggoth, 96 hit points

Cathal laid on the first aid, and Menka and Kyril applied some healing spells.

Cathal walked up and fondled the orb. The chime became visible in the pool, again. It was plain that the chime was part of the pool and could not be removed. Kyril cast water breathing on Gonchar and the dwarf jumped into the pool and began hammering away at the chimes with his hammer. Cathal felt a prickly feeling at first on his hand, and then warmth, like swiftly heating metal.

Kyril then took over the orb fondling to free Cathal up in case things went pear-shaped. Kyril felt the same sensation, which soon enough moved to agonizing. Menka cast endure heat on Kyril as the orb was getting really hot . As the endure heat began to wear off, Gonchar successfully shattered the chimes and Cathal yanked the dwarf out of the water, leaving an oily ring around the pool.

Gonchar reached into the pool and pulled out a large chunk of the chime mechanism. The chiming stopped and it got very, very quiet all of a sudden. Then we heard feet outside…

end