Adventurers
- Alerich Greyborn (Fighter 2)
- Carbel Sweetleaf (Halfling 1)
- Elixabete (Dwarf 2)
- Kelro Mist (Elf 1)
- Assorted NPCs: Gutxi (C), Negu (H), Ondona (F), Giain (F)
Of the two rescued prisoners, one of them, the captured adventurer Giain, offered to join the party as a guide on their return, waiving aside a fee for the chance at revenge. She didn’t look too sturdy after her period of enslavement, but it was the thought that counted. She also drew up a simple map charting the parts of the complex she’d seen in captivity.
During the week in between expeditions, the party also caught the eye of an odd-looking merchant, and he offered them an array of utterly mundane and not at all magical concoctions. No need for the Duke to investigate arcane trafficking here. The adventurers purchased a pricey dust which might kill and resurrect the troll they believed to lurk somewhere in the gatehouse, reckoning that might be a handy ally against a company of ogres.
They arrived at the gatehouse and descended, and bumped into some haggard hairy ones. Recognising their fellow Tiger Beetle clan members, the hirsute creatures told of the ogres coming up and bullying the clan boss, so the adventurers went to meet him. The chief and his companions were very subdued, and he was very keen to emphasise that, if the adventurers were to attempt to dislodge the ogres, on no account should they be traced back to the clan. Until they succeeded, of course – then it would be a rousing Tiger Beetle endeavour.
Wary of going down the one way to the ogres that everyone seemed to know about, the party decided to follow up on the old serpent-loving cleric’s lead of a secret passage, and sent Carbel with his ethereal-granting armour through the dwarven mosaic where they’d fought the lava-spewing statue. The halfling returned to say that there was indeed a passage behind it, and Alerich crowbarred a small hole into the design.
They all crawled through and descended into a room which, as far as Elixabete’s dwarf senses could tell, was originally of dwarven make but had been extended back to a set of double doors by a different builder. In the middle of the room hovered a small brass bowl and, mindful of writing over the door declaring the need for blood, Alerich and Kelro as two of the sturdier adventurers cut open their palms and filled the bowl.
The doors swung open to reveal a mixture of human and dwarven skeletons, with a skull pinned to the door with a crossbow bolt. Beneath it lay some fancy jewellery, but as Kelro reached out for it first the human then the dwarven skeletons rose up and clawed at the party. Once Carbel and the squishier retainers had scrambled out of the way, the front liners took out the undead quickly enough that Gutxi didn’t even have time to whip out her holy symbol to turn them.
With the fancy necklace and earrings stowed away, the party debated whether to explore just one more room, but in the end got as far as opening one of the three other doors leading out, noting a junction of corridors, before calling it a day and returning back to Fourtowers Bridge.