The Cast of Characters

Noteworthy People of Adros

Episode 1: A Pirate's Life for Me

A simple passenger ship sailed across the Nopidean Ocean, bound for the City of Lights, Skullsport. Less than a week from their destination, however, the ship's lookout spots smoke on the horizon; a small yacht, aflame, drifts in the water. The ship embarks on a rescue operation, pulling a wealthy merchant and his distraught wife from the boat. The merchant tells the captain of the ship about how his craft was attacked by pirates, complaining loudly about how they stole a chest of great value. His wife adds in tears that they also kidnapped her son, Ammex. From among the ship's passengers, four brave souls step forward and offer to retrieve the chest and the boy, for a price. The merchant assents, and the quartet convince the captain to follow the pirate ship in exchange for a cut of the reward.

The four adventurers introduce themselves to each other as the ship turns in the direction in which the pirates fled: Adi Piperberg, a human warrior of great skill; Alestan Thistledown, a halfling who values freedom above all else; his umber friend Napoleon, whom Adi quickly took to calling "Nappy," to the half-ogre's dismay; and finally a human swashbuckler named Zharad, who quickly wore on his companions nerves with his repeated pronouncements of his own greatness. By dusk, the pair had found an uncharted rocky atoll that they surmised would make a logical choice for a pirate's base of operations. They took one of the ship's rowboats and silently rowed towards a large cove they saw.

Within the cove, a large pirate ship was docked to what looked like a wharf. The cove had steep rocky walls, so that the heroes were unable to dock their boat without risking being spotted by one of the pair of pirates that stood guard in the wharf. Thinking quickly, they rowed behind the pirate ship, and Alestan was able to scamper up the hull and lower a rope for his new friends. Soon they were aboard the pirate ship, but they heard voices below deck. Nappy and Adi quietly moved a heavy barrel in front of the door to below decks, and the group devised a plan to have Zharad trick the pirate guards on the dock into coming towards the ship. Unfortunately, Zharad's acting skills were not all they were cracked up to be, and the guards became immediately suspicious. Sensing the element of surprise was lost, Adi and Alestan leaped forward to defeat the pirates, but not before one of them howled in alarm. From within the ship, three more pirates struggled to open the blocked door. They succeeded in time, only to get hit in the face with a barrel Nappy hurled at them. The trio of pirates was soon defeated.

The four adventurers worked to disable the pirate ship, fearing they might have to flee at a later point. They found a series of long ladders that led from the dock up the rocky face of the cove to land above. Alestan climbed up to scout the area, only to find five tough-looking pirates (including an umber) guarding the ladder's top. Cleverly, the group disguised Alestan to look like one of the halfling pirates they had defeated, eyepatch and all. With more acting proficiency than Zharad had demonstrated, Alestan was able to lure three pirates to the foot of the ladder with a story about a "tuffle" that the other guards had gotten into. When the pirates reached the cove floor, Nappy and Adi efficiently dispatched them. That evened the odds at the top of the ladder, and the adventurers sprung up to surprise the umber and the remaining pirate. In a display of raw strength, Nappy cleaved the might umber in two with a single devastating blow. The other pirate was captured. Alestan was able to convince this pirate (who went by the name "Weak-Willed Pete") to talk to them, and even to give up the pirate lifestyle! They learned that the pirate captain, an attractive lass named Capt'n Dani, had taken the chest and the boy up the trail to a pirate village. Pete also warned them about the Capt'n's constant companion: a fierce crab she had named "Snipsie."

The pirate village was filled with at least fifty pirates, reveling and drinking around a massive bonfire. Realizing they had no chance to defeat them in open combat, Alestan snuck into the camp in his pirate disguise. He was able to identify Dani's hut and sneak in the small window. Before he could search through the pile of booty he found within, though, he was surprised by the deadly Snipsie! With razor sharp claws, Snipsie snipped Alestan repeatedly, forcing the halfling to flee back to his larger companions. Meanwhile, Nappy, Zharad, and Adi had learned not to wait in the deep jungle that surrounded the pirate village. A large constrictor snake had managed to sneak up on them in the darkness, wrapping itself around Adi before Nappy chopped it into snake bits.

Alestan led his companions around the village to Dani's hut, where he once again braved combat with Snipsie. Since only Zharad (of the other three adventurers) was skinny enough to enter the window, he attempted to squeeze in after Alestan, only to face the wrath of the Snipinator. Adi managed to pull Zharad out quickly while Nappy stepped up and sliced the crab into pieces. They found the coveted chest inside the cabin, but knew they could not move it without going through the door and alerting any nearby pirate revelers.

In time, the group devised another clever plan to allow them to swipe the chest and search several of the huts in the village without interference. Alestan set one of the far huts on fire as a diversion while the two humans scrambled to search several huts for Ammex. Nappy, meanwhile, grabbed the treasure chest and began running towards the trail. There was no sign of the boy, but halfway to the trail a cluster pirates spotted the burly umber in the open with his hands on the treasure. The pirates ran to surround him, and a terrible rage overcame Nappy before he and the rest managed to defeat them. Having attracted the attention of even more pirates, the group ran, with Alestan staying behind to slow the pursuers with caltrops and a thunderstone. The adventurers made a stand at the top of the ladder, even giving Weak-Willed Pete a spare cutlass to help them out.

Victory was theirs, and Nappy began lowering the heavy chest down to the cove floor. Adi and Alestan stealthily returned to the village to see if they could find the boy, but by that time the burning hut and the stolen treasure had roused the entire village of pirates. Regretfully, they realized they had no chance to sneak back into the camp undetected, and they returned to the waiting rowboat.

The group rowed back to their ship as quickly as possible, where they informed the merchant that his son was probably dead. The merchant understood, and paid the group half of the original reward in compensation for retrieving his precious chest. He even agreed to take on Weak-Willed Pete as an employee. Zharad, meanwhile, parted ways with the group, having been a bit shaken up by his brushes with death.

With a group of new companions, a pouch full of gold, and even a pilfered treasure map the halfling had found aboard the pirate ship, Alestan, Nappy, and Adi sailed into Skullsport harbor with high hopes for a life of adventure!

Episode 2: Family Jewels

In the richest district of the mercantile city of Cerrus, a young snow elf woman named Lily sought out the home of wealthy merchant's son (and Blue Sorcerer), Larannen Dox. The woman had made contact with Dox's former professor at far-off Skullsport University about a mysterious problem, and he had instructed her to seek out the man for aid in reaching Rincali. Dox was planning a permanent move to Skullsport himself in order to work with his old teacher, and agreed to take the snow elf with him when he left, eight days hence.

But before he boarded his ship, Larannen had one last piece of unfinished business on the Tyhra continent. A recently discovered journal written by his great grandfather, family founder Echian Dox, spoke of a long-lost family holding. This tower was described as a retreat from the affairs of business, and Larannen hoped to gain some insight into his ancestor's life by finding the site. Upon hearing about the trip, Lily quickly volunteered to tag along.

The pair traveled to the village of Brystol, where after some questioning they were able to learn about a mysterious tower on the shore a few hours away. The captain of the town guard called it the Tower of Rats, and when Lily and Larannen located it, the reason was obvious. Thousands of rats swarmed over and around the seaside tower, covering it in an undulating mass of dirty fur and gnashing teeth. The rats seemed magically confined to the area around the tower; Dox's failed attempts to provoke the rats to leave the area confirmed this. After considering (and rejecting) several plans to avoid the creatures, they eventually settled on simply making a dash for the tower's door, suffering many tiny bites as the beasts climbed up their legs. They burst into the tower and shut the door behind them; in a burst of Blue magic, Larannen put those rats that had followed them into the tower into a deep sleep.

The pair of explorers began searching the tower, which had been long abandoned. They discovered a trap door leading underground, but decided to put off investigating it until they had searched the upper floors. On the tower's second floor, a pair of spiders surprised them, poisoning both of the adventurers before Lily's arrows finished them. They found a pair of trap boxes (from which the spiders had clearly been released recently) but no other clues. The third floor presented a sturdy locked door, which neither of the poison-weakened pair was able to open. They moved on to the fourth floor, where Larannen found a cache of love letters from a previously unknown paramour of his great-grandfather's.

While Larannen read, Lily began searching the room thoroughly. Unfortunately, the tower's structure had been weakened from years of rat infestation and erosion, and Lily's pokings and proddings had disastrous repercussions. The tower began to tilt, and the pair began to run downstairs. The tower collapsed around them as the ran down the stairs, and they barely made it outside before the entire building fell off the edge of the cliff and into the ocean.

When the dust settled, they noticed that the trap door remained clear, so they began exploring the underground passage. After squeezing through some rubble, they found (and overcame) a heavy stone block that served as a door for a sealed chamber of some kind. They encountered a deadly trap that threatened to seal them in an airless room and a zombie that Larannen was forced to fight in hand-to-hand combat, after which he discovered a walking stick that had clearly belonged to Echian. Lily then found a large room filled with mysterious treasure that resisted their attempts to gather (or even understand) it.

As the pair resolved to leave the ruin, they stumbled across a trio of mysterious figures that had snuck into the complex and prepared to ambush them. As both were badly wounded (and not the best warriors to begin with), Lily managed to talk the strangers into not killing them, but couldn't secure safe passage from the dungeon. Matters almost took a turn for the worse when Larannen refused to acknowledge the intruders' claims that it was there people that had built this place, believing that his Echian was its sole creator. In the end, though, the strangers forced the pair into a dead end room and spiked the door shut. Lily and Larannen chose to simply wait them out, and after a few hours, the trio left, though they had taken the mysterious treasure with them.

Content to simply survive with their lives, the pair returned to Cerrus to await their chartered boat. An uneventful trip brought them to Skullsport a few weeks later, where they both (with different goals in mind) proceeded towards the Skullsport University…

Episode 3: Purple Haze

After selling the loot they gained from the pirates, Alestan, Nappy, and Adi began to look around Skullsport for work. They eventually found their way to the Flying Silverpiece Tavern, a gathering place for mercenaries and adventurers. Arriving just as a young man hung up a new job posting, the trio learned of a work opportunity by someone calling himself "Mr. Q." The next day they gathered at the location indicated by the posting, where they mistakenly believed the human man (waiting with a snow elf woman) was Mr. Q. He was not, however; Larannen was waiting with Lily for his mentor and friend, Professoer Quarad, who had sent word to meet him there. When he arrived a moment later, Larannen accidentally ruined the man's attempt to hire adventurers without giving his name, and the professor resigned to telling all five adventurers of his need for explorers.

Quarad told the group of a Dwarven ruin from the migration period outside of the hill dwarf city of Brownrock, in central Rincali. While the ruin was fairly well-known, the lower levels remained the province of monsters. A recent exploration of those levels revealed a massive stone seal, put in place during ancient times. The dwarf-dominated local government had ruled to heed the warnings inscribed on the seal; not only were they unwilling to open it, they had placed a heavy guard over the whole ruin. Quarad felt that the archaeological significance of the sealed (and thus undisturbed) tunnels was too great to ignore, however, and offered to purchase on behalf of Skullsport Universiy any artifacts that the adventurers could "liberate" from the sealed area. Larannen and Lily, anxious for money and adventure, respectively, decided to join the trio in their exploration.

The group took the ferry to Brownrock, and purchased a map of the area from a local mapmaker. They ventured into the surrounding hills and mountains that evening, fending off a hungry mountain lion at one point, before coming to the mountainside entrance to the ruins. Five dwarves were guarding the entrance, and Alestan snuck up to scout their position and readiness. He waited for some time, observing them getting relieved by a second shift from inside the cavern. Realizing there were at least 10 armed and armored dwarves present, the group discounted attacking openly (except for Nappy, who suggested "severely wounding" them all). Eventually, Lily went forward to try to bluff her way past the garrison, and with some embellishing was able to convince the dwarven captain that they had been sent by the Rincalin government to investigate the seal. The captain allowed them through-but insisted on accompanying them.

Trailing the dwarf captain, the team descended to the lower levels, looking for the seal. After having to dig their way through a collapsed passage, the group was ambushed by a horde of twelve "vilstraks", insectile predators with rocky skin that could phase through walls. Larannen was able to put a number to sleep with his Blue magic, while Nappy and Adi were able to fend off the rest with the aid of the dwarven captain. The group descended a long shaft to a lower level, and while they began discussing strategies for proceeding, Alestan wandered off to scout the next room. He found instead a massive snake like creature with a spined skinless head! The vile creature grabbed the halfling and almost swallowed him before Nappy and Adi attacked. Alestan wriggled free, and the creature was killed.

In the creature's lair, the team found the seal. A massive stone disk covered with dwarven writing, they decided not to ask the dwarf captain to read it for them, despite the fact that none of them could read Khordok. Larnnen and Lily attempted to fool the dwarf into thinking the seal was leaking "pure evil" by using an illusion, but the wise captain became suspicious. Larannen tried to get him to order the evacuation of the ruins, but the stalwart dwarf chose to stand with the group against the imaginary evil. He soon realized that the group was trying to fool him, and Lily suggested that he lay down his arms if he wanted to live. A failed sleep spell from Larannen caused the dwarf to flee back to the shaft, but Nappy caught up to him and cut him down with his mighty greatsword. The dwarf was killed, something Lily and Alestan had definitely been trying to avoid, but the group continued on to the seal.

With a mighty feat of strength, Nappy rolled the seal away from the door. Within, a trio of dwarves with splotchy purple skin and ancient equipment shuffled towards the party. A brilliant spray of color from Larannen's wand was ineffective, so Adi and Nappy moved into cut down the zombie-like dwarves. As they killed each dwarf, more emerged from the darkness in a seemingly never-ending swarm. The warriors pushed forward until they could see the source: a massive writhing plant with whiplike vines and tiny violet flowers. A puff of purple musk from one such flower entranced Alestan to walk towards the plant, where dozens of tiny thorned vines began burrowing into his head and devouring his brain! The others worked hard to defeat the "zombies" and attack the plant, which seemed to regenerate leaves and vines as they were severed. The purple musk creeper was defeated just before the halfling's entire brain was consumed, and the team made certain to burn the plant to keep it from regrowing.

They searched the rooms the plant and its zombies had infested, finding a number of valuable ancient weapons, as well as a handful of artifacts that they were certain would be of interest to Quarad. In particular, they found a bronze statue of an ancient dwarf that they hoped would fetch a fine price from the professor. With a bluff of unparalleled genius on the part of Larannen, the team was able to leave the ruins right under the nose of the dwarves, and they returned to Brownrock to trade their loot and rest for a while.

Episode 4: The Rainy Day Blues

After a restful night in a Brownrock inn, the group awoke to the sounds of a thunderstorm sweeping through the Silver Mountains. They also quickly noticed that Alestan's brain injury was healing slowly, and the halfling was only marginally smarter than a small animal. The group ran a few errands, buying a new sword for the halfling and a pair of mules and a cart to carry the heavy statue they had retrieved from the ruins. Their first attempt to leave Brownrock met with failure, as a trio of Dragongard turned them back, informing them of a mudslide on the road out of town to the west. They decided to try the road east, hoping to just get out of Brownrock before one of the Dwarven guards they had deceived made it back to spread word around town. The road was clear for a ways, but soon their treasure-laden cart was bogged down in the mud. Unable to continue east without abandoning their prize, the group reluctantly returned to town.

The group discussed whether they could chance staying at the inn. The simple halfling, however, spotted a group of six cloaked dwarves in an alley beating a lone dwarf woman mercilessly. They pushed the woman's face into the mud, shouting curses at her in Khordok. Alestan tugged on Larannen's shirt, pointing to the altercation. Lilly and Adi were ready to simply walk away, but Larannen walked forward and demanded in an imperious tone that they cease their beating. Two of the dwarves edged forward, warning him to stay out of their business, but the Cerran responded with a burst of Blue Magic. One of the dwarves fell immediately into a deep slumber, collapsing onto the muddy road. As the group attacked (some of them reluctantly), the dwarf that was being harassed seized the opportunity to draw her weapons and fight back. Larannen and company defeated the dwarves, killing two of them in the process, and the dwarf woman volunteered to show them a place where they could hide and wait out the inevitable investigation by the Dragongard.

Hiding their muddy tracks behind them, the dwarf led them to a flooded basement in which they could wait. She introduced herself as Jilla Wornstone, a hunter and tracker, and explained that the thugs that were attacking her were part of a dwarven organized crime ring run by a man known only as "Grandfather." Her uncle owned a restaurant in town, and was being harassed to pay them protection money. He had contacted her to return to Brownrock to help protect him (not that it had turned out too well for her so far). The team mentioned that they could use a place to lie low, and Jilla volunteered to let them stay in her uncle's restaurant overnight. After dusk, as the rain let up but did not cease, she led them to her kin's traditional dwarven pub, where she hid them upstairs until after closing time. Then, the team camped out in the dining room, except for the brain-addled Alestan, who took advantage of a cot upstairs to try to hasten his healing process.

The team posted a watch, and in the middle of the night, Nappy heard a gravelly sound coming from outside the restaurant. Waking Adi and Lilly, the three saw a 15-foot-tall vaguely humanoid figure form from the rain-slicked paving stones and gravel that make up the street. Lilly immediately recognized it as an Earth Elemental, and sagely suggested that they all get the hell out of there. As she ran for the back door, she shouted to waken Larannen and Jilla. They woke in time to see the elemental crash into the building, wrecking a huge section of the front wall as it entered. Unfortunately, Alestan still snoozed upstairs, so Nappy hurried up to rouse his pint-sized friend. Jilla, furious at this attack on her uncle's place of business, engaged the creature but found she had difficulty penetrating the rocky form with her two axes. Larannen managed to weaken it substantially with a blast of Black Magic, as well as with lesser acid spells that sizzled off pieces of rock. The creature pounded Larannen into unconsciousness, right before Adi, Nappy, and Jilla surrounded it. While the warriors got a few good hits in, the elemental devastated Nappy with two near-fatal blows.

Soon, the team decided perhaps Lilly had the right idea. Adi fled out the ever-widening hole of destruction while Alestan struggled to heal Larannen. Jilla ran upstairs to try to get her uncle while Nappy simply ran out the back door after Lilly. Unopposed, the elemental began tearing up the walls of the building. Before long, a creak and a groan preceded the complete collapse of the second floor. Alestan managed to jump clear, but Larannen was buried in rubble (and was once again knocked out). Jilla had been on the second floor, and struggled to search for her uncle. The elemental vanished on its own, the spell that summoned it having expired, but the team still needed to deal with the aftermath of the devastation. Alestan managed to find, uncover, and heal Larannen, but only went two for three when it came to Jilla's uncle. He had been killed in the collapse.

Angry, Jilla immediately offered to pay the rest of the team if they helped her kill the man responsible. She sheepishly admitted that part of the reason Grandfather was harassing her was because she had once worked indirectly for him, and wanted her to come back. She knew this elemental attack had been in retaliation for her and the team killing two of his men earlier. While she still did not know Grandfather's identity, she did know who had summoned the elemental: a cleric named Goron who often did Grandfather's dirty work. She knew him well enough to know that he could only summon one elemental per day, and insisted that the group must go after him tonight if they were to avoid having to fight another earth elemental. After Lilly negotiated a fair price, the group agreed to do the deed.

The group rested a few more hours to allow Larannen to regain some of his spell power before letting Jilla lead them to Goron's house at the edge of town. A pair of guards soon fell to Larannen's Blue Magic, while a sharp-eyed Alestan spotted the fine tracery of a magic glyph trapping the door. A search of the house's exterior showed that all of the doors and windows were trapped in this manner as well, so Alestan simply concentrated on disrupting the one on the front door. Lilly softly sang to boost the halfling's confidence while he skillfully disabled the magical trap. The group entered and swept the first floor, finding no occupants before moving to the top of the stairs, where another trapped door stood. Unable to find the exact rune, however, the group elected to have Lilly open the door with a feat of minor telekinesis. While the door opened easily and safely from afar, the glyph glowed white and exploded with a loud BOOM of sonic energy. With their stealth advantage gone, the team moved quickly up the stairs.

By the time Nappy charged up the stairs and opened a door, Goron was at least partially prepared. The dwarf was still in his bedclothes, but had been able to grab his shield and morningstar, as well as summon a pair of fiendish wolves to protect him. Another sonic glyph blasted Nappy as he entered the bedroom, and the two wolves descended on him with vicious bites. The umber fought back with a mighty swing that sliced one wolf in twain and badly hurt the second. A well-placed arrow from Lilly's bow finished the second wolf, but not before Goron had time to paralyze Nappy with his earth-magic. Adi and Jilla then charged in, only to be engulfed a moment later in a sphere of shadow. The pair of warriors found it hard to pin down the cleric's location in the dark, and he managed to slide past them to his bedroom window. Larannen attempted to put Goron to sleep while Lilly attempted to use her bard magic to hamper him, but both soon found that the dwarven cleric was too strong-willed to submit to such spells. In the end, Alestan and Jilla managed to flank him as he tried to exit the window before Nappy shrugged off the paralyzation to deliver the final blow. The dwarf tumbled out the window through which he was fleeing, breaking his neck when he hit the ground. Jilla took the time to lean out the window and spit on the man who had killed her uncle.

After swiping anything of value Goron owned, the party retrieved their cart and the statue. Jilla agreed to lead them out of town via a seldom-used path that few knew about. Rather than wait for the bank to open with daylight, she agreed to travel with them to Skullsport, where she could pay them the money she now owed them for her vengeance. As the rain finally let up, the group silently snuck out of Brownrock before dawn, hoping not to return anytime soon.

Episode 5: Pop Goes the Weasel

Still predawn in the hills outside Brownrock, the team's new friend Jilla Wornstone lead them through the wilderness. Adi took ill after having spent most of the previous day fighting in the rain, and was forced to rest on the cart while they traveled. A minor rockslide forces the group to unload the cart and carry it and its contents across the unstable ground. As the team carefully moved across the rocks, Alestan spotted an owlbear on a high cliff. The creature sprung to attack Larannen and the mules, but the sorcerer reacted quickly with his wand. A flash of rainbow colors stunned the beast, and Nappy, Alestan, and Jilla finished it off.

The team found the main road soon after, and a few days of uneventful travel brought them back to Skullsport (and several nights of rest finally healed Alestan's brain injury). Larannen sent a message to Professor Quarad, informing him of their arrival, and soon received word to bring their goods to his office. They headed over Skullsport University, a large complex of a dozen or so buildings on the north bank of the Dragon River, where Quarad introduced them to three other professors of associated disciplines. The quartet of sages examined with great interest the objects the adventurers had retrieved, paying close attention to the large statue of a dwarven warrior. After negotiating a price, the scholars carefully asked Nappy whether they had opened the statue yet. Puzzled, the group heard from one of the professors how such statues were often hiding places for valuables. They figured out how to access the sculpture's inner chamber, which was revealed to be filled with hundreds of sheets of dwarven parchment, including maps, diagrams, and page after page of text in Khordok, the dwarven tongue. The professors agreed to contact the party should any of these documents reveal new venues for exploration, and the team returned to their inn.

Jilla met them, gladly paying them the agreed upon price for helping her slay the cleric Goron. A little nervous, she began stammering out how she had no real friends in Skullsport when Lily interrupted her to ask her to join the party. She was overjoyed, and happy that she didn't have to finish the speech she had prepared asking to join up permanently. The group, for their part, was happy to have someone skilled in wilderness lore, an area in which they were sorely lacking. Jilla thanked them, but also mentioned that she hoped to someday return to Brownrock and seek out "Grandfather" for his part in her uncle's demise; she hoped the team would help her again on that day.

Alestan, Nappy, Larannen, and Lily then left to go shopping in Skullsport's thriving merchant district. After selling a few items and buying a few more (mostly potions), they decided to visit the House of Jarus, the majestic (and heavily-guarded) banking guild that overlooks the city's open-air market. After opening accounts and depositing their excess treasure, they returned through the market towards their inn.

Suddenly, as they walked, Alestan spotted a halfling-sized figure wrapped in a hooded cloak. The figure had just lifted Larannen's pouch, containing his newly purchased potions, and immediately bolted into the crowd. Nappy caught up to him, as he was fleet of foot, but unfortunately fell victim to Larannen's wand as the mage unleashed a color spray that incapacitated the umber, but not the pickpocket! The tiny thief was fast and agile, and quickly outdistanced the remaining three adventurers, ducking and weaving through the crowd as they tried in vain to locate him. Finally, they spotted him ducking into an alley, only to watch him run to a spot towards the end, touch a wall, and then vanish with a loud POP!

The team searched the alley exhaustively, even examining the basement of an adjacent restaurant, to no avail. The wall had a tiny scratched arrow, pointing down and towards the back of the alley, but Alestan was unable to find any purpose or function to it. Meanwhile, the Dragongard had been corralled Nappy, but Larannen was able to talk them into letting the team off with a warning. With no other ideas to find the thief, though, they resorted to setting up a stake out. Lily was able to flirt her way into the heart of a nearby pawnshop broker, and he happily rented her his bedroom (which overlooked the alley). The four adventurers waited for hours until Nappy spotted a tiny weasel sneak out from between two of the buildings, sniff around, and vanish.

A few minutes later, the thief reappeared in the exact spot from which he had vanished. Lily immediately struck him with a touch of bardic magic, causing the bandit to collapse in hideous snorting laughter. Nappy leapt down from the bedroom window to grab the creature, but found that its skin excreted slippery grease, causing it to slide out of the barbarian's grasp. Anxious not to kill the creature (lest they never find Larannen's potions), the team pulled their punches, and when Lily's spell wore off, the thief disappeared with another POP!

Frustrated, Larannen and Nappy began digging a deep hole over the spot at which the thief kept disappearing. Alestan searched the spot the weasel had appeared, under the theory that the critter was the rogue's lookout. With the aid of a shrinking spell from Larannen, Alestan was able to find what was clearly the weasel's tunnel into an unmarked building. With a well-placed grappling hook, Larannen, Alestan, and Lily ascended to the roof and broke into the building, which was a warehouse for spare ship parts. Nappy waits outside in the alley, in case the bandit reappears. The three inside uncover a trapdoor and cautiously creep down a tunnel into the basement.

The thief suddenly drops on Alestan from above, grappling him. Alestan can see that the creature is not a fellow halfling, as believed, but a blueish-black monstrous creature with yellow eyes and sharp claws- a boggle!. The beast begins to shred Alestan with his claws until Larannen takes a chance by unleashing a spray of color on both of them. Unfortunately, he once again knocks out his ally and not the thief! Lily strikes the creature with a precise arrow that pierces the creature through. The boggle leaps to attack Lily in anger, slashing her badly before she backs up to drink a healing potion. Larannen tries to put the creature to sleep with Blue Magic, to no avail, and the beast turns on him, rending him into unconsciousness. Alestan recovers from Larannen's wand and slices the creature from behind. Injured, the pickpocket runs to the corner of its lair and POP! Disappears once again.

But this time, he appears above a newly dug pit! He falls and curses in a strange language, which Nappy soon silences with a single swing of his mighty sword. With the thief dead, the team finds Larannen's potions, a few odd gold pieces, and a mysterious note from an organization calling itself "The Ravens." The group returns to Adi and Jilla at the inn, and a few days of uneventful rest pass before they are contacted by Professor Quarad…

Episode 6: Two of a Kind, Part 1

Lily returned from a tough day of manicures and shopping with a new pet: a tiny hairless dog she had named Luigi. Enduring the mocking of the rest of the team, she followed them back to Professor Quarad's office after they received another missive from their benefactor. They met up with Adi on the way, who had just returned from the armorer's with his newly-fitted full plate armor.

Quarad (along with his colleague, Siriniak) explained to the adventurers how they had made a discovery on one of the maps retrieved from the interior of the dwarven statue. One old chart showed a ruin of an ancient city that had been built by an unknown race of reptilian humanoids. Based on accounts from other sources of which the two scholars already were aware, they surmised that this ruin might be an important discovery that would prove Siriniak's theory of an advanced reptilian race that predated humans and dwarves alike. Quarad hired the team to escort Siriniak to the location on the map: the Great Northern Swamp inside the hostile nation of Peleneas. The group agreed, and made what preparations they could to trek into the swamplands.

They found the border unguarded - the Pele relied on the swamp's inhospitality to turn back invaders - and entered the swamp cautiously. After a day and a half of difficult but uneventful travel, the group stumbled upon the ruin of a fairly large building. The swamp had grown over the shell of the two-story structure, but Alestan found the entrance to a basement of some kind. Jilla stayed above ground with Siriniak while the rest of the group cautiously descended into the darkness.

At the base of the slippery stairs, they noticed a black feline creature hiding in the darkness. The creature sprang to attack Nappy with two bizarre tentacles growing from its shoulders; Adi stepped forward to counterattack, but found the creature was not where he thought it was, and his sword connected only with thin air. The displacer beast savaged Nappy with its tentacles before Larannen managed to strike the monster with a blue-black bolt of energy that sapped its strength, leaving it severly weakened. Adi was frustrated by his inability to strike the creature, and when it fled he gave chase deeper into the dungeon. Luck was on the warrior's side, though, as he narrowly avoided falling to his demise in a pit trap to which the displacer beast had cunningly lead him. Nappy leapt the open pit to charge the creature, but it was Lily's arrow that felled the beast.

Jilla and Siriniak joined them as they proceeded into the dungeon, but the going was slow as Alestan paused to search almost the entire complex for more traps. His diligence paid off, however, as he was able to find and disable a number of well-hidden deathtraps. Unfortunately, he was so worried about traps that he, Nappy, and Adi walked right into the middle of a patch of grey ooze that blended into the dungeon's stone floor. The highly acidic slime singed their boots and blistered their feet before they leapt aside. The ooze came to life and enveloped Nappy with its dangerous goo, almost destroying his armor in the process, but the rest of the team surrounded the disgusting creature and pelted it with arrows. Cut up into smaller and smaller pieces, the ooze stopped moving and became inert.

A few more doors and a lot more traps later, Lily heard a strange blubbering noise as Alestan was searching yet another door. Peeking into an unexplored room, she spotted a pair of large green creatures with eight tentacles each. They were running right towards the party! She shrieked and ran behind the party's fighters for protection, and sure enough, Nappy, Adi, and Jilla stepped up to slaughter the bizarre aberrations before they could use their paralytic touch on anyone. Adi, in particular, noted how well his new armor blocked all eight of the creature's poisonous attacks.

With the first level of the dungeon explored, the team descended to the next floor. Suddenly, a putrid green slime fell from the ceiling on poor Alestan, dissolving his mithral armor and burning his flesh! He dropped to the ground and rolled around to scrape off the foul stuff, but it required Larannen's quick thinking to take one of the team's tents to use to wipe off the slime. While Larannen himself was exposed to the slime, he managed to get it off of his halfling friend. Both were severely sickened from their exposure to the slime, however, and the team conceded that they could explore no further without resting.

The team holed up in a room they had already explored and slept while Lily took watch. She soon heard voices echoing through the dungeon from near the entrance as a pair of mysterious voices discussed the very dungeon in which they were sleeping. She woke Nappy, and the two quietly listened as the strangers talked about how they had been hired to locate the reptilian ruins as well, and even had a copy of the same map given to the party by Quarad! The voices also hinted that they had at least two spellcasters with them, leading Lily to conclude that they were a full-fledged adventuring party like themselves. The rival adventurers were in a hurry to beat Quarad's team, and soon concluded that this dungeon was not related to their quest.

Lily woke the others, but after the consulted with the others it was decided that they could not risk a confrontation with this other team until they had finished resting. So Jilla, Alestan, and Lily returned to the surface to track the group, learning that they were at least 4 strong: one male human, one female human, one halfling, and one creature Jilla could not identify. When the others were well rested, they abandoned the exploration of the dungeon in favor of tracking the other party. Jilla led them through the swamp, occasionally losing the trail before finding it again, until they spotted a quartet of lizardfolk hiding in the bushes. Larannen disabled 3 of the 4 with his Blue Magic in an attempt to avoid bloodshed, but Nappy charged ahead and slaughtered both the remaining combatant AND one of the sleeping ones.

The remaining two were tied up and awoken, and Lily revealed that she spoke Draconic, the native tongue of lizardfolk. She interrogated the creatures, learning that they came from a nearby village built around an ancient temple. The lizardfolk had also spotted the rival adventuring party, noting that they did not attack them because their group included a red-scaled lizardfolk (whereas the captives had green scales). Worried that the other group possessed knowledge and advantages that they didn't, Lily pushed the group to head to the lizardfolk village to find the other team and the temple. They left the lizardfolk tied (over Nappy's objection; he wanted to just kill them).

An hour later, they were in sight of the lizardfolk village: a tiny collection of crude huts surrounding a mammoth dome of clearly ancient construction. The tracks of the other party lead right into the dome, but that was not an option for the team, since they could not hide themselves as they walked through the village. Instead, they discovered a back entrance that, while guarded, was not surrounded by huts due to the wet marshy ground in that area. Larannen developed a detailed plan to put the guards to sleep without hurting them or alerting the village, but when enacted, Nappy ignored the plan and began killing lizardfolk. One ran to alert the village, but arrows from Alestan and Lily dropped him before he reached his goal. With the guards down, they scaled the dome and entered the gaping hole at its apex.

A magical platform lowered the party into the dome, which extended far below ground level into an immense open space with no floor in sight. An entire city of buildings rose out of the darkness on support posts, each connected to the others by swinging walkways. Knowing that the rival adventurers were still somewhere within the city, the team moved cautiously, curtailing Professor Siriniak's attempts to study the ruins as they explored. Hours passed as the group searched building after building. While most were empty, one held a mighty statue clutching a magical greatsword. Alestan discovered three traps on the statue, but only managed to disarm two; a flurry of poisoned darts once again weakened the halfling's health. He retrieved the sword, however, and gave it to his friend Nappy. They also found a statue of a colossal dragon holding a giant emerald, but inscriptions noted that the emerald was holding a powerful and destructive dragon prisoner, and Lily held her natural curiosity in check and left the gem alone.

As the team backtracked along the walkways to explore other areas, they were spotted by a group of five lizardfolk priests - the only lizardfolk allowed inside the "sacred temple". The team backed up into a building to fight on solid ground, but not before the druids summoned a trio of large dire bats to swarm the intruders. Nappy almost fell when a bat latched onto his neck and bit him deeply, but managed to retreat into the building. Adi and Jilla fought the bats until the spell that had summoned them expired, but by this time the druids had each summoned a blade of pure fire and was advancing along the walkway to engage the party in melee. A tanglefoot bag from Alestan slowed their progress, and Larannen's sleep spell caused one to fall asleep and fall over the edge into the bottomless darkness below. With last-minute pushes from Jilla and Nappy, the last of the druids died.

Battered and out of magic, the team was forced to rest. They knew that the rival team was still out there somewhere, searching for an unknown treasure, and they might have to fight them before they left this place…

Episode 7: Two of a Kind, Part 2

After holing up in the lost city of the lizardfolk, the adventurers set out once again. After a few rooms of interest to no one but Professor Siriniak, the team found a room with three small movable statues of snake-like humanoids. Moving past them, they were struck with arrows from a trio of lizardfolk archers who were sniping from a distant rooftop. Lily and Alestan returned fire, killing one before the other two retreated into the building. Hurrying up the walkway, the team spotted a three more lizardfolk waiting in the shadows of the doorway. Lily used her illusion magic to set up an imaginary wall so that the team might advance unseen, but Nappy ruined the illusion's verisimilitude by firing an arrow through it. Thus, the lizardfolk disbelieved the wall and another battle began. Larannen tried his newest spell as a mass of blue web plastered the enemies to the wall, ruining the concentration of the enemy druid, who lost his summoning spell. The caster turned to using a flame blade spell to cut through the web, and the creatures escaped - just in time for Nappy to charge into the room. The barbarian cut down the two remaining archers in one blow, then followed up against one of the druid's protectors while Adi and Jilla combined to finish the other. The druid itself went to sleep, courtesy of Larannen's spells. Lily's attempt to interrogate the druid met with nothing but zealotry, so Nappy broke the creature's back, killing it.

Moving up to the second floor of what appeared to be a temple of some kind, the group found a heavy stone door with warning runes carved in some ancient dialect of Draconic. No one in the party wanted to be the one to open the door, despite Alestan's assurances that there were no traps present. In the end, Nappy's impatience won out, and the umber agreed to open the door. (The remainder of the party hid on the first floor.) Nappy had no troubles opening the door and was not harmed; he discovered an elaborately appointed room bearing three massive statues, identical to the three that had been found earlier. In the center of the statues sat an altar holding a black wooden staff. The staff was perfectly smooth and topped with a round stone, the surface of which seemed made of moving grey and green swirls.

Overcome with the beauty (and potential resale value) of the staff, Lily rushed into the room, the warnings of her compatriots unheeded. As she moved towards the statues, a field of electricity sprang into being between the figures, and a powerful bolt of lightning struck at the elf. She was able to avoid the brunt of the blast, though it knocked her back several feet, but her pet dog, Luigi, was not so lucky. Electrocuted by the current, the canine was little more than a smoking blackened corpse. While Lily grieved for her pet, Alestan went about attempting to disarm the trap. However, Lily and Larannen managed to persuade the halfling to ignore his more cautious instincts and try to simply dodge the lightning. The halfling made a spectacular rolling tumble through the circle, nimbly avoiding the lightning altogether, until he arrived at the center. Another trap disarmed and the altar's locking mechanism disabled, and the halfling was able to drag the staff back to his allies.

Happy with their powerful new toy, the team proceeded back to the center of the lost city to begin exploring another path. When they reached the center hub, however, a lone human man of Tochian birth was waiting for them, dressed in strange blue armor. He introduced himself as Tenkazu, and informed the party that his master had sent him to retrieve the staff that Lily was now carrying. While he answered some of their questions, he was either unwilling or unable to explain why his master desired the staff. He made it clear to Larannen that if they were unwilling to hand it over, he was prepared to fight for it. This was all Lily needed to hear, and she cast her newest spell, vanishing from visible sight.

The disappearance of his prize prompted Tenkazu to action. The samurai sprung towards Alestan, drawing his sword and striking in one clear, powerful stroke. The halfling was cut deep and immediately fell, and Tenkazu followed through to strike Nappy as well. Adi and Nappy attacked the warrior, only to hear the sounds of an invisible spellcaster nearby who healed Tenkazu as he became injured. Invisible, Lily dashed away from the battle along the suspended walkway, but the red-scaled lizardman they had heard about earlier made an appearance, blocking the other end of the bridge. A second invisible spellcaster summoned a violet wolf right before Larannen, which Jilla moved to engage.

Meanwhile, the dying Alestan found himself healed by yet another invisible source. He recognized the voice of the bard Zhirad, one-time ally, advising him to stay down until the fighting stopped. Alestan obliged for the time being, surreptitiously drinking a healing potion to regain more of his strength.

The battle raged on around him. Tenkazu proved to be a deadly warrior as he struck Nappy and Adi again and again, only to take attack after attack from them as he continued to get healed. The summoner of the wolf soon revealed herself-a halfling Violet Sorceress appeared on one of the hub's moving platforms. She conjured several orbs of acid, splashing Adi with the caustic liquid. Larannen could not strike Tenkazu with his debilitating energy ray, though the red lizardfolk was an easier target. Jilla finished off the wolf and ran first to Alestan's side and then, seeing him healthy, into the fray. Desperate to keep her new staff, the invisible Lily tried several times to activate it, not knowing even what its intended purpose was, to no avail. Her attempt at using a command word alerted the lizardman to her presence, however, and he soon closed with her.

With the invisible cleric appearing and paralyzing Adi and Nappy battered and bloody, Lily resorted to the most desperate of gambles. Dropping her invisibility spell, she held the staff over the dark abyss and ordered Tenkazu and his minions to stop fighting or she would drop the staff. The samurai never got the opportunity to respond, however, because the halfling sorcerer hurled two more orbs of acid at the snow elf, burning her flesh and knocking her unconscious. She dropped to the deck of the walkway, but the staff fell silently down into the darkness.

The red lizardman immediately leapt from the bridge after the staff, and the rest of Tenkazu's team began retreating. The sorceress and the invisible Zhirad activated one of the hub's three lifts, despite Larannen's attempt to put the wee mage to sleep. Adi and Nappy attacked Tenkazu and the cleric furiously, with aid from a revitalized Alestan. The samurai was wounded several times, even falling momentarily unconscious, before the cleric healed him once again. His objective out of hand, the warrior as moved towards one of the lifts and activated it, leaving the cleric to his fate. That fate was not long in coming, as Nappy liquefied him shortly thereafter. A few attempts to shoot Tenkazu as he rode the elevator platform to the top of the dome were futile, and most of the party, angry at the loss of the staff, took to healing themselves.

Alestan, however, leapt onto the third and final lift and followed up to the surface. As he neared the others, he shot wildly at the Violet Sorceress, only to get another blast of acid for his troubles. Zhirad looked down and implored the halfling to abandon the chase, convinced that his former ally would perish at Tenkazu's hands if he continued. Alestan, meanwhile, tried to convince the bard to switch sides, but the bard was being paid too well (and was too scared of Tenkazu) to agree. He warned the Alestan that a sixth member of their team was waiting at the dome's apex, which forced the halfling to admit he could not defeat them at this time. The halfling sent the moving platform back down, and Zhirad, Tenkazu, and the halfling woman escaped.

Returning to the hub, Alestan and the rest of the adventurers were too wounded and drained to give immediate chase, and made preparations to rest. But the team seemed determined to pursue eventually; whether they seek the staff or simply revenge remains to be seen.

Episode 8: The Day the Music Died

Licking their wounds from the beating Tenkazu and his allies dished out, the adventurers rested for a week in the Lost City of the Snake-Men, giving Professor Siriniak plenty of time to study the ruins' archeological significance. When it eventually became time to leave, the group waited until nighttime before sending Alestan and an invisible Lily up to the top of the dome to scout. They saw that while the guard torches had been extinguished, a small legion of lizardfolk were ready to attack at the base of each of the three sets of stairs down to the ground. Each group also was led by an ogre-sized lizardfolk with particularly thick scales; clearly, they had been alerted to the party's presence.

Lily snuck into the village to set a distraction fire while Alestan returned to gather his friends. They decided to simply try to barrel past the guarding lizardfolk, with Larannen trying to put as many to sleep with his Blue Magic as he possibly could. As Nappy and Jilla led the charge, however, they were met with a deadly surprise as the giant lizardman opened his mouth and released a deadly cloud of acidic gas! While hearty, both the dwarf and the umber were badly wounded and were forced to fight a defensive battle until Adi and Alestan could get into the fight. Lily hurried back to help in with a song and a few well-placed arrows, but in the end, Nappy and Adi cut the half-dragon lizardman down.

The team fled into the swamp before the other two groups of guards could be summoned, and soon lost their pursuers. Over the next week, they made their way through the dense bogs of Peleneas back to Rincalin territory, and eventually back to Skullsport.

Upon greeting and paying them, Professor Quarad was shocked to learn that another band of adventurers had assaulted them, seemingly under the direction of someone who had given them a copy of the map Quarad had provided. After some discussion, the list of possible leaks was short indeed, and the team decided to question Professors Burrowind and Lightwake as to what they might know of Tenkazu.

The team engaged in a bit of shopping, courtesy of their recent mission, taking advantage of the many merchants who were too confused by Larannen's smooth talk and too dazzled by Lily's beauty to object to some very unreasonable prices. Lily even took the time to purchase a replacement for her beloved dog, Luigi: a nasty attack dog named Bruiser. With the vicious dog in tow, Lily, Larannen, and Alestan set out on an ill-fated trip to question Professor Irina Lightwake.

Arriving at her home near the edge of Skullsport, Larannen and Lily agreed that the snow elf would use her magic to suggest that the professor answer truthfully. They knocked on the door, only to be called around back; the professor was harvesting the vegetables from her personal garden (it was mid-autumn, after all). She recognized the trio from their dealings with Quarad, and Larannen asked her to examine a map he had brought-a transparent pretense to distract her while Lily cast her spell. The professor proved cannier than they had reckoned, though, and was neither fooled by Larannen's ruse nor lulled by Lily's magic. Becoming alarmed, she began backing away, demanding to know what was going on. Lily responded with another spell, trying again to plant a hypnotic suggestion. This time she was successful, but her request-that Irina answer any questions truthfully and calmly-did not preclude her from retaliating when not speaking. The professor was soon revealed to be a cleric, as she attempted to paralyze Lily while backing away from the suddenly hostile adventurers. Lily's elven blood worked in her favor, however, and she shrugged off the spell.

Eager to keep her from running, Alestan ran forward and hurled a tanglefoot bag at the priestess, covering her in thick sticky sludge. Larannen attempted to diffuse the situation with diplomatic words, but Irina was having none of it; three mercenaries and their attack dog had entered her backyard and magically assaulted her! Lily, meanwhile, pressed her magical advantage and asked the professor two questions to which she could only respond truthfully: "Did you send Tenkazu?" and "Were you aware of the Mysterious Staff?" She answered negative to the former, but was alarmed when she blurted out a confirmation of the latter. Visibly distraught by the deteriorating situation, the panicked professor weaved her most powerful spell to repel the intruders. A column of white-hot flame shot down from the sky, immolating Lily, Larannen, and Lily's dog, Bruiser. Alestan watched in shock as all three were burned horribly, and ran back in time to save a dying Larannen with his healing magic.

But it was too late for Lily and her dog. The fire had consumed her entirely, leaving nothing but ashes behind. The halfling and the sorcerer gathered the ashes quickly as Irina Lightwake escaped, calling for the Dragonguard as she ran. Realizing they would be better off not facing the law right now, the pair beat a hasty retreat to the University.

Here, Larannen was able to easily convince Quarad that Irina had attacked them without provocation (mostly by avoiding inconvenient truths), and secured the dean's help in fleeing Skullsport. After some discussion, the adventurers agreed they would lay low in Cestia for a while, at least until things settled in Rincali. Quarad asked them to send a messenger when they arrived in the nation across the bay, so that he might alert them as things developed. Sad for the loss of their friend, Adi collected her ashes into a vial that he placed around his neck. Lily had made clear in life that she did not wish to be raised from the dead if she died, and the team respected her wishes. The group agreed, however, that revenge against the (now former) professor would eventually be necessary. Gathering their belongings hastily, the team left the University for the ferry to Cestia, uncertain when, or even if, they would ever return.

End of Book One...