The Eye of the Serpent

This continues the tale of half of the Pre-Fosweld party.

The Eye of the Serpent (UK5) by Graeme Morris.

Spoiler Alert! Do not read if you intend to play this adventure.

A note about the four NPCs: they can be found at the back of the module and their characters and abilities developed as the story advanced. A deity for each was chosen based on the descriptions of the colours they were wearing.

Route taken by the party: 1 - R1 - 3 - R2 - 5 - R4 - R5 - 7 - R8 - 10 - 13 - R15 (closed) - R14 - 15 - R12 - 9 - R9 - R7 - 6 - R6 - R4 - 8 - R9 - R10 - 12 - R11 - 18 - 17 - 16

The huge birds deposited the party in a massive nest on a high peak in the mountains. Once the two rocs were satisfied that their captives were secure in the nest, they flew off.

This was when the party realised they were not alone! There were four humans already in the nest - Ovlov, Ollopso, Scobby and Catoink. What now? Here begins The Eye of the Serpent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_the_Serpent).

Chapter 1 (14.04.2024) - Escape from the Nest

The four NPCs already in the nest were not best pleased at the arrival of the six new people in the nest. After a bit of arguing, during which time Ollopso blamed Catoink for everybody's plight and Scobby complained quite a lot, the party - now ten of them - introduced themselves to each other.

Scobby complained more, Catoink seemed nervous, Ollopso told everyone they were doing everything wrong and Ovlov sneered. However, the whole party started searching the nest to see what they could find and looted it of useful items, as well as the copper sheet that was the note to Ji from Arne.

Xymiton read the note to the others and everybody pondered its meaning. Ollopso told him how he could have read it better. Also during the search of the nest, Scobby put her hand in something disgusting and wanted to wash it off, but Ollopso told her not to waste water and wipe it off on Catoink's cloak.

Catoink didn't like this idea very much, and Pinimpy kindly offered the use of her cloak instead. Both Scobby and Catoink were grateful for this. When Tikarada found and started emptying the sour wine from its skin, Ollopso again told him that was the wrong thing to do, so he kept half of it.

Scobby now complained about a headache and a splinter and wanted some of the healing potion that had been found in the nest, but she wasn't given any. Tunaxicon kept it safe for everyone. Especially himself.

The party begin their escape from the nest.

Retty had taken out his 75' long rope and when they found a ledge that was only 40 feet or so down, he and Pinimpy started lowering everyone down onto it, before the rocs came back. Tikarada went first, then Xymiton, the two dwarves and the four NPCs.

Retty then lowered Pinimpy down and used the rope they found in the backpack to tie securely so he could keep his longer rope. He managed to climb down and the party set off down the steep, rocky, icy path, Pinimpy and Retty at the front.

Shortly after they encountered a pair of hungry wolves who attacked. Retty scored the first hit, Pinimpy missed, and Scobby, who was in the second row, pushed her way between the dwarves who were behind her to get out the way of the fight.

Razadar's mighty blow didn't just finish the wolf, it was sent flying off the mountain. Tunaxicon picked up the other defeated wolf and threw that one after it. Ollopso told him how he could have thrown it better.

Tunaxicon and Scobby had a bit of an argument about Scobby pushing backwards and not fighting, but nothing came of it. The party changed their marching order so that the two dwarves were now in the second row, Scobby and Xymiton in the middle, then Ovlov and Ollopso, with Tikarada and Catoink guarding the rear.

Chapter 2 (15.04.2024) - Plop!

The party were on the move again after the wolf encounter and soon had to make a choice - follow the snowy, rocky trail or climb down an alarming but not too treacherous series of ledges to the ice lake area below. The party chose to climb down.

Once everybody was safely down, the party continued and were soon set upon by a snow leopard that they had disturbed. Retty scored a hit with his sword and then Razadar finished it off with another almighty blow from his axe.

Ovlov said the pelt was valuable, but Razadar took out his 10 foot pole and prodded the dead cat across the ice until it plopped into the lake. Ovlov was very disappointed at the unnecessary loss of the valuable pelt, but the dwarves giggled and the party continued on nevertheless.

Xymiton attempted to carefully cross the ice using a lot of lengths of rope, but the ice sheet was about a mile wide and the party did not have a mile of rope. After a bit of dithering and confufulation, everybody made it across the icy wasteland by walking carefully.

As they circled clockwise around the ice lake, everyone managed to jump over the stream that led up the valley where the herd of musk oxen live. Pinimpy used a luck point to avoid falling into the icy water. The party did not go further up the valley and continued across the ice sheet at the south end of the lake.

When the lacedon burst through the ice from where it had been hiding, Pinimpy managed to one-shot it with a single decisive hit from her longsword, having avoided a bite with more Luck Points. The party looted the lacedon's gold bracelets and saw a dagger in its jewelled sheath resting at the bottom of the lake in the clear waters below.

There then followed a discussion about how to retrieve the items on the bed of the lake. They were only about five feet down, but somebody would have to dive in. Xymiton tried hooking the dagger out with the crooked end of his staff, but that just caused the scabbard to disintegrate.

Ollopso was all in favour of Catoink jumping in, and Ovlov too. Catoink didn't fancy it much and a few of the others took his side. Eventually Tikarada dived down to retrieve the gems and the dagger. Tunaxicon ended up keeping the dagger and the party were ready to move on again.

Chapter 3 (31.08.2024) - Mirth in the Mist

Meanwhile, the party making their way down the mountain were on the move again. Eventually climbing down from the ice lake to the geyser lake without exporing the mysteries of the western side, they wondered whether it might be better to cross the ice bridge or remain on the same side of the river.

When they reached the ice bridge, a huge single natural arch of ice, there was some debate about who should cross first. Pinimpy, being the lightest member of the group was suggested, and then Ollopso said that the heaviest should go first, as if the arch withstood their weight everyone else would be fine.

That meant Ovlov would lead. He wanted danger money for this, but eventually accepted an extra day of iron rations as payment, which Tikarada carried. The party had enough rope to rope everyone together for about a quarter of the crossing, which was clearly not enough.

All the same, they roped themselves together and set off in a line, with Retty and Tikarada following the portly cleric and the two dwarves bringing up the rear.

All the same, they roped themselves together and set off in a line, with Retty and Tikarada following the portly cleric and the two dwarves bringing up the rear. When Ovlov was across, but before the others were, an ice troll emerged from beneath and demanded payment for use of the bridge.

A fight started. Ovlov Commanded the ice troll to dive into the river, but it didn't. More started appearing and Retty ran up and disembowelled the second one with a massive critical to the stomach. Tikarada also scored a 20 to hit on flying charging kick, and a third ice troll was badly wounded.

The following round the troll on Ovlov scored a pair of hits and floored him, but the three remaining ice trolls didn't last long. Pinimpy killed one on her own and finished another, Scobby threw a couple of accurate daggers and Tunaxicon's crossbow found its mark as well.

The final ice troll refused to surrender and once it was down and Ovlov was healed, the party searched the disgusting stinky ice troll lair beneath the end of the bridge while Razadar busied himself with throwing the trolls off the side of the mountain. Everone else found a stash of silver pieces in four separate sacks but nothing else. Then they were off once again, with Ovlov mysteriously back to full health.

The group became hesitant when the distant geyser they were approaching first erupted, but gradually they drew closer, noting its further eruptions. A steam mephit was waiting for their arrival and was not best pleased to see the party at all. He hissed and cursed them in the mephit tongue, which nobody understood, then explained about the egg it wanted to destroy, speaking in the NE alignment tongue.

Both Tunaxicon and Ovlov caught a few words of this between them, namely egg, ice, steam and ice cave, and the delaying tactic worked for the mephit. The party backed away about 15 feet before the geyser spouted, but that was nowhere near enough.

How the mephit laughed and laughed as the party writhed in pain and yelled from the scalding waters! Everyone took damage and four members of the party fell unconscious. Retty gave a healing prof to Pinimpy and cast a CLW on Ovlov.

Ovlov was reluctant to use his last CLW on Xymiton or Razadar in case he needed it for himself. Retty pointed out rather sharply that he had used his final healing spell to revive Ovlov, and Ovlov told Retty that he had better hope he didn't receive another injury!

The party hurried off, carrying their two unconscious comrades, until they were out of range of the geyser. Pinimpy carried Xymiton, and Tunaxicon and Catoink carried Razadar between them as the mephit continued to hoot with laughter at their retreat.

After a confufulation of uncertainty, it was decided everyone would go all the way back to the ice troll hovel and sleep there to regain their strength. Scobby didn't want to go because of the horrible smell, but in the end she agreed and said she would do the first watch.

Ovlov finally healed Razadar with his last CLW before going to sleep and charged him for it. Razadar, who was uncomfortable about lying, told the cleric how much gold he had - 29gp. Ovlov demanded 20 gp and the dwarf relectantly handed over the coins.

In the morning, Retty healed Xymiton. With everybody back on their feet and Scobby complaining about the smell, pimples, and anything else she could think of, the party discussed a plan for how to get past the steam mephit and the scalding water from the geyser. There was quite a bit of confufulation and conversation, and the usual bullying of Catoink from the other three NPCs.

Some of the party wanted to kill the mephit, but Catoink talked them out of it, arguing that the creature would not attack if it was sleeping. As they approached, Ximiton reckoned the geyser erupted about every ten minutes and his Sleep spell would last for five minutes, so everyone would have plenty of time to sneak by.

The mephit pointed and laughed at them again as the party drew close, timing their arrival just after an eruption had finished. Xymiton disguied his spellcasting by pretending to laugh along with the mephit, who suddenly succumbed to the wizard's magic and rolled over to float, comfortably asleep in the hot water.

When everyone was passing by, Xymiton, who wanted to feel the creature's wings, reached out and touched a wing - and was instantly stunned and scalded. Pinimpy grabbed him and started carrying him away. Once Xymiton had recovered from the stun, he asked Pinimpy to put him down.

Xymiton told the others that the creature was wearing a platinum necklace, hard to see against its grey skin unless close up. He and Tikarada decided to go back to loot the creature before it awoke from the Sleep spell.

Tikarada dived into the water, which was like a bath that was a little too hot and a bit uncomfortable, and swam to the bottom, where he found ten small gems, one for each party member. Meanwhile, Xymiton had taken off his cloak and wrapped it around his hand. With a DEX roll of 1 he calmly and coolly lifted the platinum necklace easily off the mephit.

Just as Tikarada surfaced with the gems, the mephit began to awaken from the Sleep spell. Tikarada and Xymiton sprinted back to the rest of the party, who were still waiting for them in the same spot. The monk gave out the gems and the magic user stashed the necklace with the party treasure.

Continuing on down the mountain, the party climbed down by a smaller waterfall where a watery woman emerged from the cascades and invited them to stop and answer a riddle. Xymiton answered the riddle almost immediately and the woman seemed pleased. She dissolved back into the water, allowing the party to continue along their way.

Chapter 4 (02.01.2025) - Bickering and Burning

Meanwhile, how were the other party shaping up? Well, there was still quite a lot of bickering and arguing going on, and bullying of Catoink, and eventually the marching order was changed to reduce the amount of confufulation.

Ovlov and Ollopso, the main bullies, were at the back, with Scobby and Catoink in the second row, in front of the two dwarves, and with Retty and Tikarada leading. Pinimpy and Xymiton were in the fourth row. The group were approaching a crossroads and some kind of lizard creatures were spotted, lurking in the misty gloom near a big old tree.

Two of the creatures immediately squirted muddy water into the eyes of Retty and Tikarada at the front of the party, blinding them. Ollopso cast Sleep and the whole group fell under his spell. The two dwarves finished the creatures off, either by axe or by stamping. Catoink thought it was grizzly and wondered if Tunaxicon was breaking a law, but Tunaxicon doubted there was any law against stamping on lizard creatures where they were on this mountain.

Ollopso, pleased with his work, told everyone, especially Xymiton, that that was exactly how a Sleep spell should be cast. He also advised Catoink how to walk, and Retty and Tikarada to crawl on their hands and knees and feel their way if they could not see.

As the two of them got down onto all fours, Ovlov insulted Ollopso and told him that he would make anybody do anything if he could. They argued for a while and Ollopso told Xymiton she should check out the lair.

Xymiton crept carefully into the marshes to look at where the creatures, muckdwellers by name, had been lurking by a tree. Just behind it she saw a two foot tall wooden statue of a lizardman. There was also a hole low down in the trunk of the tree and she reluctantly stuck in her hand. Therein she found a few treasures - a bit of money, a broken bracelet, some silver wire which Scobby could use to repair the bracelet, and a mysterious copper sheet, not unlike the one they found in the rocs' nest. This one had a picture of a snake and the name 'Eli Sweetgrass' scratched into it.

With everyone back on the path again, they decided to continue straight on, the way they were previously heading, at the crossroads where they were now stood. They managed to travel some way in that direction, but found that the path simply fizzled out into the surrounding marshes and there was no way to go on. They turned back to the crossroads and then took the path to the right, watching out for dangers.

After a while the path ended, and so did the marshes. Ahead was an area of grasses, around eight feet tall with thick stems, growing close together. It was no longer marshy here but the way ahead was difficult. They would have to hack their way through the grass, which would be tiring and slow. There were a lot of beetles and mosquitos which made progress more uncomfortable. Scobby didn't like it and Ovlov said that a few more pimples from mosquito bites wouldn't make much difference as she was always complaining about her pimples.

As if that were not enough, before they had gone far through the difficult terrain, a large spider wandered towards the group and fancied an attack. Tikarada punched it, Razadar accidently hit Ollopso with his axe for nine damage and caused him a terrible wound, putting him on the floor, and Tunaxicon's axe finished the spider off. Retty used a Healing Proficiency and then his last Cure Light Wounds on the fallen wizard, who tottered shakily to his feet, on one hit point, explaining how he would have hit him with an axe and how to cast a healing spell more effectively.

A few people wanted to try to milk the spider for its poison, but couldn't decide what to put the liquid in, or if they even had an appropiate container.

Then there was even more debate. At this point, several people wanted to try the final path at the crossroads in case it was easier, but others didn't. After some disagreements and discussions back and forth, the party turned around and headed back to the crossroads. There they walked straight across, in the opposite direction. As Ollopso was not in the best condition, the marching order was changed so that he was in the middle of the party and better protected.

Razadar, unconcerned about the trouble he had already caused, started bothering Scobby by flicking her backside. She turned around and slapped Tunaxicon, who was right behind her, thinking it was he who had done it. The bothersome dwarf chuckled and continued his flickings. Scobby stopped and said she wanted to swap places with him so that he would be in front of her, not behind.

Alerted by the sound of the party's bickerings and squabblings, another large spider attacked the party. Tunaxicon cleaved it in two with one mighty hit.

Continuing on, they found their way blocked again by more of the tall grass, like a corn maze. They decided that hacking their way through was necessary after all.

Tikarada had the idea of using lamp oil to burn the plants away and help clear a path. It would make the cutting easier, everyone would have less to carry and empty flasks would also make a containers for spider poison! Everyone who had lots of lamp oil in their backpacks contributed flasks and several people with blades and axes hacked away at the stalks, making a path as they did so. It was sweaty work but progress was made.

Suddenly somebody noticed one of the dreaded rocs circling high overhead! The party stopped hacking and burning and ran back along the path they had cut to the edge of the grass area, where it met the marshes. There they lay down, making themselves as small and as hard to see as possible, and waited a time. Eventually the roc flew off. Realising they were hungry as well as tired and sweaty from hacking the weeds, they decided to have lunch from their rations. Altogether they had used 30 flasks of lamp oil.

Chapter 5 (06.01.2025) - Ovlov Plans to Get Rich

The party continued to hack and burn their way through the tall grasses until nobody had more than two flasks of oil left. They felt they should keep that for any challenges that lay ahead. From that point onwards, and with lighter backpacks, they only hacked at the plants, without burning. It was late evening by the time they had hacked their way through to a climb up some ledges, which led to a higher cliff path, where they planned to camp for the night, away from the biting mosquitos.

Just before the climb there was a fight with some giant bats, during which Xymiton walloped one with his staff, twice, killing it, before anybody else had managed to hit. The fighters then finished the rest of them off.

During the climb, Scobby thought she could see, in the distance in the fading light, a small cave. It was a couple of miles further along the mountain path. Everyone agreed they would investigate the next day. They found a place where it seemed reasonable to make camp.

Before they slept, Ovlov gained another 10gp gem for casting his last Cure Light Wounds. Several party members tried to remonstrate with Ovlov, saying that he was not kind to demand payment for healing. Ovlov said that he didn't come adventuring to make friends or be kind to anyone, he came to make some money. If his companions kept injuring themselves, he would make quite a lot.

Retty cast his final Cure Light Wounds as well and thus was the first member of the group to achieve level two, as a cleric.

Tikarada, Pinimpy and Catoink were the watchers. They were not disturbed during the night and everybody set off the next morning after breakfast, towards the cave Scobby had spotted in the distance.

They marched for a while without any major incidents. They discovered that directly below the ledges up to the path to the cave, there was a pile of small bones. While the party were investigating it, a quartet of bloodhawks flew down from above and attacked! Pinimpy and Catoink defeated one each, with Retty sharing one with Razadar, and Tunaxicon sharing the other with Tikarada.

Another climb up some ledges lay before the party, before they could access the narrow winding path that led to the cave. It was an easy enough climb. At the entrance to the cave, Scobby lit a lantern and they proceeded forwards, carefully, until the cavern opened out into a wider area, which contained a large, almost circular pool. From within the pool came a faint pulsing blue glow and the sun, shining faintly through the thick ice of the cave, lit the whole place gently with a dim blue light. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Over on the far side of the pool there crouched a winged figure, probably a statue.

As the party reached the pool and started to fan out to see what was making the blue pulses of light, the statue of the strange creature leapt into the air and flew towards them at speed! As it came, it breathed a jet of cold, which froze Retty, Scobby and Xymiton to where they stood. Ollopso tried to hide behind the frozen Xymiton, and Ovlov behind the frozen Scobby, while Razadar and Tikarada each managed to score hits against the flying fiend.

The next round, the creature breathed again, this time freezing Razadar and Pinimpy. With half the party frozen and unable to take any actions, Catoink scored a hit with his longbow, and then Tunaxicon finished their winged assailant off with a critical hit from his crossbow. This was an ice mephit, and an enemy of the steam mephit that the party had encountered a day or two before.

Half of the party were still frozen, so Tikarada dived to the bottom of the pool to investigate the source of the pulsing blue glow. Resting on a collection of gems was a large egg. This was evidently the source of the mysterious light. It felt curiously warm and very smooth. Tikarada took it and swam to the surface with it. The egg's pulsing seemed to grow stronger and brighter when it was out of the water. Ovlov wanted Tikarada to return and fetch up the gems, so the monk swam back. Tunaxicon held the egg just under the surface of the water.

Tikarada swam back up again, with the twenty 10gp blue quartz gems in his hands. When he had climbed out, he lifted the egg out of the water again with Tunaxicon. This was the third or fourth time it had been fully exposed to the air. As everyone was looking at the thing, it started to crack, split open, and a very nasty creature appeared forth from the shell and immediately attacked!

Tikarada and Tunaxicon tried to threaten the freshly hatched creature with the sharp points of their weapons, but the creature fought and bit Tikarada who was trying in vain to hold it still. As it wriggled from the monk's grasp, Catoink shot it with an arrow and Tunaxicon ended the nasty thing with his daggers. Catoink's arrow smouldered briefly, then burst into flames.

It was a baby remorhaz they had defeated. Ollopso told the others what he knew about these creatures. Just then the freeze that had affected half of the party started to wear off. Xymiton was angry with Ollopso for hiding behind him after he had been frozen and there were a few arguments. When everyone had organised themselves once more and had received two of the blue quartz each, they set off, past the pool, to see what was at the back of the cave.

There they found another tunnel sloping slowly upwards. Scobby lit her lantern again and eventually everybody came out of the other end of the cave, onto the snowy plateau by the ice lake, where they had been a day or two before. However, now they were on the other side of the lake. Everyone started making their way back down the mountain once again. It was cold but sunny and the high elevation allowed for a wonderful view.

Whilst following a path along a narrow ledge beside the ice lake, it suddenly tilted violently sideways, dumping several of the party into the freezing cold water. Near where they had plopped into the pool, hiding below the surface was an exiled koalinth, which attacked the people who had fallen in. It had gold-ringed armbands and a fancy spear of bone with mother-of-pearl inlays. It was a foolish move by the koalinth to attack and it didn't last long against Tikarada, Razadar and Retty.

After the fight, the party stopped and built a fire to dry off and warm up, and went through the creature's treasure. Whilst they had their lunch, Xymiton tried on the armbands, which were Bracers of Defense AC 8. Razadar put on the ring, which was a Ring of Warmth. Tikarada liked the spear of bone and mother of pearl, which turned out to be a +1 Spear. Scobby took the snake amulet, having said that she could fashion a necklace for it from the silver wire they had found the previous day in the tree by the muckdwellers. Xymiton, Razadar, Tikarada and Tunaxicon (as a thief) all levelled up from their recent battles and treasures.

Lunch completed, bodies warmed and clothes dried, they continued down the path, down past the waterfall, and after some time, down past where they had climbed up into the tunnel that led to the cave with the lake. They climbed down further, to where they had fought the bloodhawks, and then marched onwards, past the climb down into the thick grass where they had burned and hacked their own path the day before.

That was when a pair of wolves charged at the party along the path. Tikarada, who was at the front, set his new spear to recieve the charge and one of the wolves impaled itself. The other was hit first by Retty, then by Razadar, who amused himself by tidying up, flinging the two dead bodies off the path down somewhere into the thick grass far below.

A mile or so further along and the party came to a narrow gorge which was littered with many bones. Among them were human, dwarf and elven remains. This seemed suspicious so everybody stopped to see what there was. Scobby noticed a gemstone peeping out from below a skull. Then, blam! Suddenly a gambado jumped (the Bwabber jumped too!) out of its hole some way off, sailed several yards through the air and attacked Retty, knocking him down. The horrid thing took a few hits, including a Magic Missile from Xymiton, but it was vanquished eventually.

During the fight, Retty was injured and fell unconscious. Ovlov pulled him out of the combat and tried a Healing Proficiency, but that failed. Ollopso told him how he could do it better and Ovlov, displeased at his tall companion's remarks, sneered "Shut up, wizard!"

Next, Ovlov cast a Cure Light Wounds on Retty. When he regained consciousness, his first sight was of the fat cleric leaning over him, his face inches away from Retty's, and poor Retty suffered the full force of Ovlov's horrible breath. Looking pleased with himself, Ovlov snarled "I've just healed you. How much are you going to pay me?"

Retty was not best pleased, but reluctantly gave him a 10gp gem nonetheless, one of his blue quartz. Ovlov seemed satisfied. Nobody noticed that during the fight Ovlov had sneaked the gem Scobby discovered on the ground among the bones into his pocket.

Scobby and Xymiton went to search the hole that the gambado had leapt from and found a bit of treasure, which they added to the party's stash. Everybody continued on past the bones and found that the path led to a climb down into some woodlands below. It was a fairly easy climb and nothing bad happened to anybody.

After just a couple of minutes in the woodland, a slightly wounded deer fled past, stopping briefly as it came upon the party, then bounded off into the forest again. Somewhere nearby a horn sounded and then a pack of dogs with three hobgoblins appeared. For a moment both groups hesitated, surprised to have encountered each other, then the party challenged the hunting hobgoblins and their dogs attacked.

The battle ended very quickly! After Razadar, Tikarada and Tunaxicon felled one of the hounds each, Ollopso cast a Sleep spell and all of the rest of the enemies were affected and fell into a slumber! Tunaxicon went around slitting the throats of all of the slumbering enemies, and then the party searched the bodies. Ollopso again bragged about how good his Sleep spell was as the party continued through the conifers and hardwoods, keeping the cliff face they had descended to their right.

Making their way between the trees, they eventually came to a pond, which was fed by a small waterfall from the cliff above. As they were passing around it, a pair of giant frogs leapt towards them. Pinimpy and Catoink defeated one, while Razadar annihilated the other with a massive blow from his axe. There was no treasure to be found, but from where they stood it seemed there was a tower on a peak of the mountain ridge a few miles away to the east. The party decided to head for that.

The next hazard the group faced was a river that needed to be crossed. Tikarada went across first, taking a rope to help the others across. Everybody made it without too much trouble and Razadar brought the other end of the rope with him.

It was starting to get late. As they made their way eastwards towards the setting sun, they came to the foot of the steep mountain ridge and found some steps cut into the rock. It was clearly dwarven workmanship. The first fifty or so steps led up to a tunnel, which looked as if it led up to the tower they had seen from far off. There were many more steps in the tunnel and it was a tiring climb, but they reached the top and found themselves on a high, bare windy platform. The low red setting sun was ahead to the east and to the left stood a pair of double doors at the base of the tower, which, like the stairs and the tunnel, was cut into the rock of the mountain.

That was not all they found. There were some territorial crows watching the party as they appeared from the stairs. Once a few of them had arrived, several of the crows swooped down for an attack. Most of them were quickly killed in melee, so the others left the party alone. This is the scene you can see on the front cover of the module.

Although the double doors to the tower were not trapped, they were locked and Scobby picked the lock. Tunaxicon started ordering everyone about, saying that he was the only one who could get them to Fosweld as he was the only one with Direction Sense, but most of the others refused to jump at the commands of the bossy dwarf. Ollopso was particularly sceptical, arguing that east didn't really count as very specific directions.

The doors were opened and a dust cloud billowed upwards to obscure everyone's view. After a few moments, the dust settled somewhat and everyone could see that there was a thick layer of the dust which covered everything in the room. It seemed that nobody had been in here for years. There were five dust-covered boxes and a dwarven skeleton slumped over one of them. Tunaxicon ordered Catoink into the room...

Chapter 6 (07.01.2025) - In the Abandoned Dwarf Tower

Catoink refused to enter the room, asking why the thieves could not go in first, as was normal. There was quite a lot of arguing, mostly between Tunaxicon, who was trying to boss everyone around, and a number of the others, such as Catoink, Ollopso, Ovlov, Xymiton and Scobby, who all had different points to make. Tunaxicon believed it was obviously dangerous in the room with the skeleton there, so Catoink should go first as nobody cared about him and it didn't matter what happened to him. Xymiton said that wasn't true, and he at least cared what happened to Catoink.

Scobby grew bored of the arguments and left everyone to it. She started to explore the room, following the wall around to her left, and then most of the others followed her closely. Not Ollopso though, who went the other way to prod the skeleton of the dwarf with the end of his staff. There seemed to be a pair of daggers buried between its ribs.

The room seemed to be fairly safe, if rather dusty. Tunaxicon ordered a few people to check out the five wooden boxes "...at once!", which all turned out to be empty. Then there were even more arguments - again, between Tunaxicon and several of the others. Ollopso told him he was doing it all wrong, Xymiton told him not to be so nasty, especially to Catoink, and Ovlov told him he was just wasting time they could be using to make money. Ovlov was accused of being greedy and he smiled and said in an oily voice, "Yes."

In a protest against the others for not jumping at once to follow his orders, Tunaxicon took a dump into one of the boxes in front of the whole party, making the room stink and causing shock and outrage among most of the others. This earned Tunaxicon an alignment point breach as it was too chaotic an act for a lawful character. Ollopso asked if Tunaxicon had just broken a law, but Tunaxicon doubted there was any such law against doing a number two in a wooden box in this place.

Everyone started to search the floor under the dust. It was quite a messy business, and Tikarada found a square crack in the floor that could be a trapdoor. Searching the walls as well, Tunaxicon found a small secret compartment, about a foot square. He felt suitably smug for being the one who found it.

Checking for traps, the thieves were rather suspicous of the square crack in the floor and the square crack directly above it on the wall, at about eye level for a dwarf. Nobody was able to find or disarm any trap - the only thief who could see the secret door was Tunaxicon. Some discussion followed as to the best way forward. Eventually, Razadar, by far the strongest member of the group, managed to hold Tunaxicon at arm's length for long enough for him to open the compartment.

It was a good job for the party that they had been so cautious. As Tunaxicon opened the secret compartment, the trapdoor over which Razadar was holding him opened as well! At the bottom of the pit that had opened up was the remains of another dwarven skeleton. In the secret compartment that Tunaxicon had opened was a box, which almost reached the top. The compartment was surprisingly deep.

Xymiton's staff had something like a shepherd's crook at one end, and using this he was able to hook the top of the box and slide it out some way. Retty was then able to reach up and grab the end of the box as it protruded from the hole, and slide it the rest of the way out. He put it down on the floor, carefully.

Next, Tikarada and Pinimpy climbed down into the pit to see what they could find down there. The skeleton was wearing leather armor and had a shortsword in a manky old scabbard. There were various picks and tools scattered around as well, and these were gathered up and put into a pouch containing others that they found among the bones. The dead dwarf's other pouch was taken too.

The long box was not locked and inside the party found a beautiful tapestry wrapped around a valuable silver mirror. The tapestry depicted the mountain they were on and stream which flowed to the island that looked like a serpent's eye. Scobby thought it might be worth 500gp, but it was very cumbersome. Ovlov wanted to take the tapestry and was willing to carry it, so Ollopso helped him.

However, they didn't carry it very far as the other door, when it was unlocked, led to some stone steps that spiralled upwards. It seemed that it would be easier to leave the thing down here - for now at least. Tunaxicon wanted to rest and Ovlov suggested checking the top of the tower first and perhaps sleeping up there. Most of the others agreed that they should make sure the tower was secure.

However, Tunaxicon refused to try to open the door. He wanted to rest and made a big show of lying down in the dust and pretending to go to sleep. The others ignored him. Once Scobby had the door open, they started up the stairs, Razadar at the back of the group carrying Tunaxicon, who was still pretending to be asleep.

When the party arrived at the top of the stairs, they found another door. This one was not locked, but it was stuck. Tikarada was at the front and he tried to kung fu punch it open, but failed. They were going to summon Razadar, but Retty, who was also at the front, managed to open the door quite easily.

Ahead of them was a ruined lookout room atop the tower. There were remains of a few bits of broken furniture, holes where the windows would have once been, and more crows which tried to attack. The party were aware of the crows' tendency to peck the eyes out, but they never had a chance. Retty slashed one with his longsword, Scobby another with her shortsword and dagger, and Pinimpy the last one with her longsword.

The room was secure. Tunaxicon had 'woken up' by now and then the night's watches were agreed. Tunaxicon said he didn't want the spellcasters to be watching, which seemed reasonable, especially to the spellcasters. Scobby refused to watch and complained about her assortment of ailments, so Catoink, Tikarada and Pinimpy would be the watchers.

Several of the group were still injured. Retty used his last two Cure Light Wounds spells, but still needed one himself, which Ovlov had. Being Ovlov, he was simply not prepared to cast it unless he recieved some sort of satisfactory payment. There was then a lot of arguing between Ovlov, Retty, Tunaxicon, Ollopso and several others. When Tunaxicon argued that Retty should be healed for the sake of the whole party, Ovlov accused Tunaxicon of being a "half orc lover", which seemed to Ovlov a very strange position to take for a dwarf.

Finally the argument was resolved by Tunaxicon giving Ovlov one of his 10gp blue quartz gems. It was for the good of the party after all. With a grim satisfaction, Ovlov gave Retty his final Cure Light Wounds, for eight points of healing, and everyone settled down to sleep.

Not Pinimpy though. She was too troubled to sleep and told Catoink, the first watch, that her father had died and her mother was having all sorts of troubles as well. Catoink listened patiently and eventually they got what rest they could.

Chapter 7 (17.01.2025) - Razadar Falls In (A Few Times)

The 29th session of play on the way to Fosweld began with the party waking on a rather chilly and clear morning in the lookout tower. Nothing had disturbed them during the night and they had all had to cuddle up all together to keep warm.

Pinimpy was curious if Catoink had ever been married and wanted to know if he liked cake, because if they were married, Pinimpy would make a lot of it for him! Catoink was very pleased, and flattered.

Looking out from the tower the party could see the weed lake and its island some way away, as well as a lot of the lands before them. Although the two dwarves were up for some difficult and dangerous mountaineering and Xymiton wanted to just head on down the mountain, the rest of the party were in favour of investigating the island first.

The majority prevailed and everyone descended the other stone steps through the tunnel, similar to the entrance they had used to reach the lookout tower. Tikarada almost tripped and fell, but in the end everyone reached the tall grasses below in safety.

These grasses were not as thick as the ones the party had previously encountered. Tunaxicon again organised the party and they picked their way between the stalks, almost in single file, eventually arriving at the plank bridge that led to the island on the weed lake.

Tunaxicon wanted everyone to walk across like soldiers, but that was never going to happen. He and Razadar led the group in single file across the bridge with an exaggerated walk like a Mortimer Mouse cartoon. Tunaxicon's foot stamped right through a rotten plank. He could not move, nor could he escape easily.

Razadar assessed the situation and reached for his battleaxe. His first strike narrowly avoided causing a severe wound to Tunaxicon's trapped leg. With his second strike however, Razadar managed to chop him free with a highly precise cut from his battleaxe. Tunaxicon didn't even lose his shoe.

As Tunaxicon led everybody forwards, taking more care to avoid further rotten plank incidents, the rest of the party looked up. There on the battlements of the old run-down building on the small island marched a strange figure - a rather creepy and frightening figure to behold! Everyone had to make a saving throw versus spell and several people failed.

Pinimpy, Catoink, Retty and Xymiton all fled into the grasses. Ovlov tried to flee but slipped and plopped into the water. With his heavy gear and lack of ability to swim, he started to sink and drown. Razadar also tried to flee. He managed to avoid Scobby, almost pushing her into the weed lake as he barged past, but tripped over Ollopso and fell in. Razadar was wearing some heavy gear as well, but his swimming non-weapon proficiency allowed him to grab the side of the bridge.

Meanwhile, the four who had fled into the stalks came face to face with four giant ants. A fight began, breaking the Fear. Xymiton cast Enlarge Reversed on one of the ants, which reduced the amount of damage it would do on a hit. A few of the group were wounded. Retty had managed to pull one of the ants from Pinimpy onto himself, and once he had defeated this one, he gave Xymiton a Cure Light Wounds. The quartet prevailed and the giant ants were defeated, with everyone sharing the experience of the battle, which lasted six rounds. After voicing a certain unwillingness to do so, they began to make their way back to the others on the bridge.

Meanwhile, Tikarada had seen Ovlov sink and dived into the water after him, following the bubbles. With his swimming proficiency, Tikarada was able to bring the fat curmudgeonly cleric to the surface, where he spluttered and thrashed in panic, claiming that he couldn't swim. Tikarada told him it was going to be ok and calmed him down. Ovlov held on to the side like Razadar and calmed down a little.

"Don't just stand there gawking, help me to climb out!" Ovlov gasped, but Tunaxicon refused and said that he seemed to be doing just fine, then turned away so the others couldn't see him laughing. Tikarada did a cool kung fu somersault from the water up onto the bridge and began to help. Scobby, complaining about a tummy ache, and Ollopso, started helping Ovlov onto the planking as well.

Eventually Ovlov lay on the bridge, exhausted and soaked, his panic draining away and being replaced by relief, and feeling rather grumpy. Tunaxicon went over and put his hands on Ovlov's chest, allegedly to help drain the water from his lungs, but Ovlov didn't like this and found it weird. He used his Command spell to make Tunaxicon dive into the lake and laughed as the dwarf jumped in. Razadar was able to grab Tunaxicon and haul him to the surface.

While Ollopso told everyone how to pull the dwarves out of the water, and Tunaxicon shouted "Shut up, wizard!" at him, Razadar squirted a mouthful of the water at Ollopso, but it wasn't a great shot and only made his shoes a bit wet. Scobby complained that she was wet as well after she had helped the ones who had fallen in. Tunaxicon took the mickey out of her, calling her 'whiney'.

It was about at this time that the four who had fled into the tall grasses reluctantly returned, having been happy to have escaped the "annoying dwarf" and the "irritating cleric" for a while. They arrived to find Tunaxicon threatening Ovlov with his axe and hammer crossed before him.

That was when Tunaxicon noticed something moving against his leg. Tunaxicon found a fish, still alive and flapping, in his pocket! He took it out and told Scobby to kill it and make it into their lunch, so she took the fish from him and tossed it back into the water. At first Tunaxicon was angry, and Scobby told him that he would have to jump into the lake and fish it up again if he wanted it so badly. Ollopso pointed out that one fish wouldn't make a very good meal for ten people and things moved on.

The party seemed as if they wanted to split into two factions - Tunaxicon, Razadar, Ovlov and Ollopso, with Tikarada as well, who felt it was unfair to have a group of six and a group of four, and the other half being Scobby, Ximiton, Pinimpy, Retty and Catoink. During their exchanges, Pinimpy (who Ovlov called 'Pimpley') admitted she hated that name and also being called 'Lip'.

It was Scobby who suggested that the entire party should stay together to have the best chance of reaching civilisation, and then they could all go whichever separate ways they wanted to and need not see each other ever again. Everybody reluctantly agreed.

With the bridge finally crossed, the group found themselves in the garrison courtyard on the small island. The gates had fallen off their hinges, but somebody must still be there as a pair of fresh scaly pelts hung from a hook by the door to the building at the top of some stairs. Muckdweller pelts, the party later discovered.

Nobody noticed the pit trap in front of the stairs despite Tunaxicon's search. Razadar and Tunaxicon were at the front and both fell in. They were helped out by Tikarada.

Everyone decided to cross the pit at the corners onto the stairs. Nearly everybody managed just fine, but Ovlov somehow fell in. Razadar also fell in, again, landing on the cleric and only taking a point of damage. Ovlov gave himself a Healing Proficiency and Razadar refused his expensive Cure Light Wounds spell.

Tunaxicon then did something rather cunning. He offered to haul Razadar out of the pit for nothing, but said he would only pull Ovlov up for 10 gp. Ovlov was annoyed, but finally agreed as this seemed to make some sort of sense to him. Tunaxicon told him it was only fair as that was how Ovlov had been operating, after all. Ovlov was the heaviest member of the group and too heavy for Tunaxicon to haul up on his own, so Razadar helped and Ovlov grumpily gave Tunaxicon one of his blue quartz stones.

Everybody was crowded onto the stairs beyond the pit by now. Tunaxicon ordered Scobby and Tikarada to check for traps, which they did. Tikarada thought there was something highly suspicious about the door but was unable to determine what it was. He was fairly sure it wasn't an illusion.

Ovlov suggested that Catoink should open the door if it was dangerous. Everyone stood back to let the fighter open the door, but he couldn't because it was locked. As Scobby picked the lock, the four at the back teetered on the edge, holding hands for support, and Razadar fell in - again! As he started to fall, Ovlov and Ollopso let go of his hands, so they didn't fall in with him.

It is not often that somebody falls into the same pit three times in just a few minutes, but Razadar had managed it. He refused Ovlov's offer of healing again, and Catoink opened the door. The moment he did, a heavy crossbow, which was primed inside the hall beyond, shot its bolt and hit Catoink in the shoulder. Retty tried a Healing Proficiency, but failed, so used a Cure Light Wounds.

Tunaxicon set about removing the heavy crossbow from the floor. He wanted to keep it for himself. The rest of the party spilled into the hall. Razadar was hauled out of the pit once more and Tunaxicon told Scobby and Tikarada to check the first door in the corridor "... at once!". Scobby didn't find anything noteworthy but Tikarada said there was a fishy smell coming through the keyhole.

As soon as the door was opened, a strong smell of fish wafted over the entire group. In the room beyond were racks and racks of dried fish! Tunaxicon ordered Scobby and Tikarada into the room to check for traps "...at once!"

Scobby asked Tunaxicon why he didn't want to do it as she thought he was a rogue as well, but his answer was rather vague and enigmatic. Scobby shrugged and entered the fishy room with Tikarada.

In one corner there was a ladder. Tikarada was quite suspicious of it but it seemed safe enough. He climbed up to a trapdoor in the ceiling and opened it just a crack and saw a pair of grey feet walk past. Tikarada kept as still and as quiet as he possibly could...