The Rescue

Jacinta Whiteface, paladin

The Budgie Smugglers (Huilam [Jamie], Tylin [Ian], Burrito [Darryl], Lammy [Kevin], El Cid [Shane]) plus three of of the Billet six (Jacinta Whiteface, Samuel Chad, and Morgan Leaf), were down on "Level Two" of the gnoll mine waiting for Sorrow's [Jeff] final reconnaissance of Level One. The marmalading Argile [Richard] and Moonlight had been left up by the top of the shaft. Argile woke up from his malady, wiped his mouth, and clambered down the rope ladder to join the others in the musky Level Two tunnel. Moonlight lay on the grass by the shaft and drooled.

It wasn't long before Sorrow joined them, and then gave the "go" order. So, he lead them back up the rope ladder to Level One. But, unluckily, while they were in the middle of all climbing up, two gnolls happened to wander past in the passage. Lammy was already up, so he let loose with a Sleep; they both dropped. Sorrow and El Cid scurried out and killed their sleeping bodies, dragged them to the shaft, and dropped into the water, five storeys below. 

The rest of the group ascended, and Sorrow took everyone down the passage to the slave room. Here, he helped to SNEAK some in for a surprise attack. There were six gnoll guards in the room and four chained slaves. Lammy's multiple Sleeps again dropped three of the gnolls, and the other three were polished off with arrows, Argile's sword and El Cid's IMAG fists. El Cid almost got killed by a gnoll spear thrust, but he ducked just in time [he expended his Special Armour, and used his Tough as Nails feat]. 

The allen keys were used to free the four slaves' manacles: Khartoum, two half-elf girls and male elf.

Sorrow scouted down the tunnel to the next chamber: the stamping mill room. Luckily, none of the battle noises had got down there. There was a single gnoll obliviously preparing the stamping mill for the morning shift. On the side wall were the hyena cages, with eleven hyenas. This cave had the main exit to outside, a long wide tunnel, and the tunnel to the mine face where they got the quartz.

Day 12

Light! It was morning and daylight flooded in down the wide tunnel. 

heinous hyena

Sorrow waited a bit and observed a patrol of two gnolls and four hyenas arrive back. This brought the hyenas number up to 15. In the distance, down the exit tunnel, he could see another two gnoll guards. The two patrol gnolls caged their hyenas and headed down the other tunnel (to the mine face).

The single gnoll (who was tending the stamping mill) then headed towards where Sorrow was crouched, so he quickly withdrew back to the prison room. Lammy used Sleep on that gnoll.

Just as Sorrow returned to the stamping room, he had to about-face. The shift change happened, and seven prisoners (Betsy, a half-elf, and five farmers) started to file in to the prisoner tunnel. They were escorted by four gnolls. These four were ambushed in the prisoner room, and killed, but not before two of them managed to sound the alarm!

Now that the game was up, the party rushed to the stamping mill room with all eleven freed slaves in tow (seven still chained), and then paused. El Cid and Argile quickly moved to block the tunnel to the mine face, and fired several volleys of arrows blindly down that tunnel. This was enough to slow gnoll reinforcements from that way.

Sorrow, Burrito and Lammy headed to the mouth of the entrance tunnel to look for the two guard gnolls, but they weren't there and instead there were now six gnolls. They were all in defensive positions among the old mining equipment outside. Their powerful gnoll bows would make leaving the mine tunnel suicidal.

While they did this, everyone unoccupied used the allen keys to free the seven prisoners, and then they all set about killing the helpless 15 hyenas in the cages. 

Sorrow & Co returned to report, and the whole group tossed up the difficult decision of whether to go back to shaft and up the rope ladder, or to chance a rush outside and run the gauntlet of gnoll arrow fire.

While the others argued, Sorrow and Tylin checked the tunnel towards the shaft, and found that way was blocked after all.

So, Sorrow lead a group-action SNEAK outside with Burrito, Argile, El Cid, and Lammy. (Jacinta and Samuel replaced Argile and El Cid shooting down the mine tunnel to keep the gnolls at bay).

The plan, then, was for everyone else to give the sneakers a few minutes and then to rush out too.

gnoll archer

Sorrow managed to get his four close enough to engage the gnoll archers. Even so, it was touch and go. El Cid was almost killed, twice, and Sorrow almost killed once [they had to make resistance rolls].  And Argile did a magnificent save [using his Bodyguard feat], to block an arrow destined for El Cid's black heart.

All the gnoll archers were killed and everyone then fled back to Billet Copse. There was no immediate sound of pursuit. They decided that Billet Copse was not safe, so they needed to return to the owlbear cave, an hour away. But they wanted to recover Bertha's impaled body from the spike, and recover Moonlight's marmalading body from the top of the shaft.

So they split into two groups. Tylin lead Jacinta, Morgan and Khartoum to collect Bertha's body.

Sorrow and Burrito lead everyone else to collect Moonlight's marmalading body. They sensibly did not waste time to retrieve all their ropes and rope ladders from the shaft.

Both teams returned to Owlbear cave by noon with no problems, and here collected John Red-shirt, the pack horses and Mr Clucky the war capon. One pack horse carried Moonlight's marmalading body, and the other one Bertha's rotting body.

Loath to rest even a little, they left the cave and headed into the hills, away from the mine entrance, towards the upper reaches of the battle branch of the Siren river.

Night fell, and they kept travelling into the night, and waited until midnight before stopping to rest.

There was movement seen during the night on a distant hill, but they wisely stayed put.

Day 13

A couple of hours into the morning, they spotted a stationary black sphere in the centre of a valley on their route. Rather than approach it, they spent a few valuable hours to skirt it at distance.

Eventually, they got to the Siren river (battle branch) and headed downstream walking beside the river. It was much flatter here than the rough hills, so they made good progress.

Up ahead, on the water's edge, there were four buildings, with a jetty out into the water. In the old days, this would have been the loading site for barges to supply the mine. But it seemed to be in use again; there were a few carts around with crushed quartz in them, and some horses.

Two of the buildings had two large spheres of darkness.

The group tried to skirt this site, but there wasn't much cover. Two smaller black spheres emerged from the nearest larger sphere and headed directly towards the group. These were each the size of an IMAG priest's sphere, so the group let them approach and didn't just shoot them down. After all, when you bear an IMAG mark, milk it.

Raspy voices spoke from within "Greetings brothers, may IMAG's darkness envelope you always."

This was obviously intended for the IMAG-gifted Sorrow and El Cid, who stepped forward. Jacinta sniffed, and turned away in disgust.

Sorrow and El Cid posed as leading the ragtag bunch, and then made up some cock-and-bull story about working for the Scabport IMAG Foundling on some secret need-to-know mission. It was so outrageously over-the-top and cringingly preposterous that the rest of the group fingered their weapons in preparation for an attack. But the naïve IMAG priests seemed to accept their lies. 

So, the group carried on past, and followed the river bank downstream. 

Then they saw a barge heading upstream at walking pace, against the flow of the river (and not pulled by horses; what was powering it was a mystery).  It had a large black sphere on what would be the wheel-house. The barge was empty, presumably heading to get a load of quartz.

Four bowmen rushed out of the sphere, and crouched down ready to fire. The party made no suspicious movement, and the barge carried on upstream past them.

An hour before dark, they passed the point where the battle branch of the Siren joined with the main tributary of the river. It got really wide here. They continued.

Just on dark, they came across a fortified farm house by the river, with its own jetty. A farmer and daughter came out to say hello, just as another barge came downstream. This barge was the daily Siren river ferry, and it was heading downstream to Sirensville on the coast.

So, they hopped on board and took the trip to Sirensville, to arrive by morning. They slept on the boat.

Day 14 

The ferry arrived in Sirensville at light, and moored at the docks on the battle side.

They disembarked, left Sirensville and headed off towards Winjammer. This trip was on the well-travelled coast road, so was uneventful. 

At Winjammer, they headed straight to the Copper Kettle and found Chang Billet, their employer. He was rather pissed-off at them not bringing the Staff of the Phylactery. But he grudgingly agreed that they did return Jacinta's party, and that was on the contract, so he paid them the 12 COIN after all.

As the group were saying goodbye to Jacinta's team (who had REAL business in Winjammer), Huilam remembered that he still had the annoying 4 COIN promissory note on him from the pirate king (from many missions ago). He had a cunning plan to fob it off by surreptitiously secreting it onto Jacinta's person. But, there was a problem. When he got it out, he noticed that some new words had mysteriously appeared on the magical paper: "paid in full".

"Oh dear, that can't be good," someone said.

They first rushed to the Winjammer Wizards' Guild to check their three chests (3 COIN) were still safely secured. They were. 

Then they rushed down to the docks, to the Winjammer main wharf, and to where they had moored their shallop boat the Smoking Loon. It was gone !

They went and spoke to the harbour-master. He was surprised to see them.

"I thought you buggers had left," he said. "'Bout a week ago. The Loon's gone."

"Well it wasn't bloody us!"

They asked about other boat movements at the time. It was the same day that the pirate schooner Debonair had left. 

"Well," demanded Huilam. "You can pay us for a new shallop then!" 

"I jest said we'll keep 'n eye on yer boat," the harbour-master said. "Tell yer what ... I'll speak to the Winjammer council arses 'bout this."

They grudging left, and returned to the Copper Kettle for the night.

________________________

The next morning, they hired a wagon. First they ferried all 12 chests from Billet's coffers to the Winjammer Wizards' Guild in a few trips. Here, they took the heavy chests down to the root cellar to join the three chests that were already stored there under a sheet of tarpaulin with "Lammy" scrawled on it in chalk. 

A wagon can carry six chests (6 COIN), so, from the 15, they loaded it up, and then left Winjammer for Sirensville. That trip took all day.

There, in Sirensville, they established a new base (using the chests). A new base meant that they could train, and it had a secure vault where they could store four chests.

The Gnoll Mine 2

The Budgie Smugglers (Tylin [Ian], Sorrow [Jeff], Lammy [Kevin], El Cid [Shane], Burrito [Darryl], and Moonlight [Chris]) had just arrived back at the Billet Copse after fleeing out of the gnoll mines.

Argile [Richard] and Huilam [Jamie] were there, slung over the pack horses drooling marmalade. 

Jacinta Whiteface
[Joff pic]

Huilam gave a little cough, slipped off the horse, staggered to his feet, and wiped the marmalade off his mouth with the back of his hand. Moonlight suddenly sagged to his knees with a silent cry, and collapsed drooling marmalade himself. El Cid gave a mighty marmalade belch then sagged too. Huilam slung them both over the pack horses to join Argile who hadn't stirred.

The group had four new arrivals, rescued from the mine: Jacinta Whiteface the paladin, Samuel Chad the fighter, Morgan Leaf the half-elf minstrel, and John Red-shirt the farmer. They were all dressed in tattered rags (except for John whose tight red shirt was always pristine).

Already, the surrounding hills echoed with gnoll barks and hyena cackles - the gnolls use hyenas as their hunting dogs. But the group had unquestioning and uncritical faith in Burrito's track-covering skills to avoid any gnoll detection or pursuit. 

Jacinta, not one to mince words, was appalled at the disgusting IMAG taint of Sorrow and El Cid, "You are worse than the gnolls!" she said. "At least their evil is mild."

"Well, why don't you go back to them?" Sorrow sneeringly replied.

She was lawful good and not lawful stupid, so she had to suck it in and tolerate the IMAG presence over the need to rescue her companions.

Lammy gave Jacinta some paper and crayons, and she, Sam and Morgan drew a map of the tunnels that they knew, then summarized the state of play inside the mine. They had no idea as to how many gnolls: "between 20 and 100, maybe". They added that the gnolls had a bunch of hyenas too, which they used outside for hunting and tracking.

They did know that there were now eleven slaves inside: Khartoum and Betsy (the last two of their team), and five men, three half-elves (one male) and one elf. And there was one dwarf (poor Bertha) but gnolls hate dwarfs, so she was tortured and killed. As slaves, they were fed okay, but forced to work two shifts a day at the mine face, mining quartz, under the lash. The gnolls also punished their own kind by making them work on the face too as a punishment for mistakes.

 

Stamping mill

The mined quartz was taken from the face to a stamping mill in ore carts.  The mill was powered by slaves using a big treadmill wheel (this mill was seen by the group when they fled this morning). The crushed quartz was not smelted here. There was a dilapidated furnace outside among the old mining remnants, probably used in human times, but it wasn't used now. So, the crushed quartz was taken outside in slave-pulled ore carts and loaded onto piles next to the tailings. 

The three didn't know what happened to the quartz then, but the outside piles never got any bigger. So, there must be someone or some group who took it away: in wagons? Maybe to the Siren river?

While the three were briefing the party, John Red-shirt quietly slipped away to the pack horses. Here, he delicately licked the drooling marmalade off Argile, Moonlight and El Cid's lips, faces and necks with his feather-light tongue, like a little hummingbird laps at nectar in a honeysuckle trumpet flower.

Marmalade

John was working on El Cid, his long tongue buried deep in Cid's mouth, when El Cid suddenly jerked awake [Shane had arrived late]. There was the brief awkward moment when their eyes met, then John withdrew his tongue, and staggered back in alarm.

"Sorry, sir!" squeaked John. "I thought ... the marmalade ... I was just cleaning you. Sir!"

El Cid was about to sink his black IMAG fist into John's face, but he tasted the inside of his own mouth. Instead of the normal bitter grapefruit, sour lemons and pectin (drooled marmalade is known for its lack of sugar), he only tasted roses and butterscotch. It wasn't bad at all.

"Well," snapped El Cid. "Stay away."

El Cid joined the rest of the group in discussion.

John's eyes gleamed and he nodded "yes, sir", then returned to the marmalading Argile and Moonlight. He had spotted a lovely piece of sticky grapefruit lodged in the suprasternal notch of Argile's neck.

Day 11

Now that it was day, from the Billet copse on the side of the hill, they could look down into the surrounding valleys and hills. The occasional group of gnolls and hyenas could be seen wandering about, searching. 

50ft™ rope (10kg)

Burrito and Sorrow (good sneakers) left on a reconnaissance mission to the shaft on top of the mine hill. The remnants of an old lift overhead and hoist beam was here, so there were plenty of good anchor points. Sorrow affixed a rope, and climbed down into the darkness. Burrito stayed at the top and guarded. At the end of his 50ft™ rope, Sorrow could see, two storeys below him, a boxed side-tunnel off the lift shaft. So, he joined on another length of rope, climbed further down, and peered into the side-tunnel. It was a short passage that ended in a tee, with a candle in an inset at the end. He carried on deeper down the shaft, and there was another side-tunnel down another storey. This one was all dark. This was as far as Sorrow was brave enough to explore at this time.

While Burrito and Sorrow were away, El Cid, Lammy and Tylin needed to de-stress. This meant indulging their vices.

• El Cid again tried to find things to break, but he had yet more bad luck, and the rocks he selected were quite sound and unbreakable. [1 - the 3rd in a row]
• Tylin satiated his obligation to Sly Stone with a little prayer and some correspondence [4]. 
• Lammy, once again the master of Weird, found another wild beehive, and spend six glorious hours rolling about in the honey with his raw ginger and napkin rings [6].

When Burrito and Sorrow returned with their news, the group decided to do the rescue mission that night. The plan was for Sorrow, master of SNEAK, to do a quick scout alone, and then return to collect the entire group when he spotted a viable path.

Jacinta, Sam and Morgan were still in their tattered rags (even if very fetching and stylish rags; hauts lambeaux), so they needed some better gear if they were going to help with the rescue mission. The group had seen lots of equipment in Thorn's workshop the other day, so Tylin & Burrito suggested that they take the three on the four-hour round trip to see Thorn. 

While planning this trip, the three were surprised to hear that Thorn actually made the very staves that they were seeking; the Staves of the Phylactery. But when they heard that the main component was the skull of a virgin girl, they were horrified. 

"We shouldn't have taken that cursed job off Billet after all," muttered Jacinta to Sam. "He never said anything about evil, or virgin skulls."

Then she turned on the group, and said with bitter sarcasm "But why does this stop you lot from completing the damn mission? You all travel with, and condone, those two sickening REAL-cursed abominations, yet you let the mere murder and decapitation of a virgin girl get on your conscience?! Take a Perspective Pill." 

Two hours later, when they arrived at Thorn's place, he was outside tending his precious runner beans. 

Jacinta noticed immediately that he cast no shadow, and she whispered to Tylin "he is evil, but it's weird sort of; I get waves of it - on then off." Then she couldn't help herself "but, nothing compared to the two IMAG bum-boys in your group."

Thorn

Thorn surveyed the newcomers with interest.

"Ah, a paladin of REAL," he said. "Welcome! Welcome! Would you like some tea?"

He motioned everyone inside to his workshop-cum-kitchen-cum-lounge. 

Jacinta certainly noticed the six unfinished evil Staves of the Phylactery along the back wall, but said nothing; she was on best behaviour not to make any scathing or sarcastic comments in front of Thorn.

Thorn made his delicious tea for everyone. This time Tylin and Burrito took to it with great gusto [each dropped a stress]. Jacinta looked and sniffed her cup, as Samuel and Morgan watched on. Satisfied, she then nodded to them, and all three drank the delicious brew. [NPCs don't use the Stress game mechanic. They are protected by such literary elements as 'narrative function' and 'plot armour'.]

After tea, Thorn rummaged through his gear scattered through his rooms. He certainly had lots of odds and sods. Sure enough, he managed to scrape together enough to equip Jacinta and Samuel with last-season chainmail armour and weapons. And he found Morgan a fetish set of cuir bouilli (leather armour). He found some toy bows, too, for Morgan and Samuel.

Jacinta grudgingly gave thanks, and even a blessing of REAL. And then everyone went back to the Billet copse.

While the others were away with Thorn, Huilam and Lammy spent the day building one huge rope ladder (100ft) out of four 50ft™ ropes ready for the night mission. This basically used up all the party rope.

As it was now a couple of hours before dark, they began to get worried about the vampires again. Someone suggested moving to the owlbear cave. So, they headed for there. It was an hour's travel from the gnoll mine shaft.

It had been many days since they were last in the owlbear-spider cave system. The owlbear cave was on a side passage and had its own exit, but this cave was now strewn with spider webs. Obviously, the spiders had ventured down the owlbear tunnel (the one unblocked by the group). The party soon burned all the webs clear (they didn't see any spiders), and then re-blocked the connecting tunnel. 

Then night fell.

_________________________

It was time to put the cunning plan into action. Sorrow and El Cid went back to the shaft. El Cid stayed up the top to protect the lift head, and Sorrow went down on a double rope.

He explored below down the side tunnel (candle inset).  The candle was at a tee. One way lead to a room with a lot of chatting gnolls. The other way curved around, past several dark passages heading off, like spokes on a wheel. The tunnel width was generally two-people wide, and not as short as the spider tunnels. Nevertheless, gnolls would always have to stoop.

At one time a gnoll patrol of two ambled past. Sorrow hid in one of the spoke passages. 

Further down, the passage opened into a room where he could hear the clink of chains, the barks of  gnolls and the groans of prisoners. From the passage tunnel (not too close!) he could see one chained man sitting on the floor. Jacinta had said that there were always six gnoll guards. 

None of the spoke passages seemed travelled, from what he could see with his IMAG eyes, but at no time did Sorrow explore them in detail.

Unable to progress any further Sorrow went back to the shaft, and climbed down to the deeper level. "Level 2" he named it. He took a few paces down the passage here. It smelt musty and wet, but he didn't explore any more than that.

Down the shaft, he could see another side passage off the shaft "Level 3", but he didn't go down there at all. And beyond that, the shaft hit water.

Then Sorrow returned to the surface and to El Cid. So, having reconnoitered, the two took the on-hour walk back to the owlbear cave to collect the rest of the party. 

Morgan Leaf

Everyone traipsed back to the shaft. They carried the new rope ladder. They expected that Argile and Moonlight would wake up during this foray into the Gnoll mine, so they made a conscious decision to bring the (surprisingly clean) marmalading bodies along. With the extra carrying capacity of Jacinta, Samuel and Morgan, this was just feasible without needing a pack horse, even with the nonresponsive dead-weight of drooling bodies. So, the only one left in the owlbear cave was non-combatant John Red-shirt, and the two pack horses, and faithful guard Mister Clucky, the war capon.

It was almost midnight when they all got to the shaft. First, they dumped the two marmaladers up by the shaft.

"If they wake up, they can sodding well climb down themselves."

Next, with the double-length rope ladders, it was easy enough for everyone to climb all the way down to "Level Two", and to creep into the musty tunnel entrance, and wait. The plan was for Sorrow to recheck the tunnels above, to see if anything had changed in the last three hours.

Sorrow went up to "Level One", the gnoll level. He spotted that Khartoum and Betsy had annoyingly been split up. Khartoum was in the prisoner chamber, which meant Betsy must be at the mine face digging.

While Sorrow was out, a wave of musty air washed down the tunnel, past everyone patiently waiting there. No-one was brave enough to check it.

Then Sorrow returned and hissed "Time to strike!"

The Gnoll Mine

The Budgie Smugglers (Tylin [Ian], El Cid [Shane], Sorrow [Jeff], Burrito [Darryl], Lammy [Kevin] and Moonlight [Chris]) were resting in the pure REAL sunlight by the entrance to Cave Four ("Undead Cave"). Tylin had just collapsed with marmalade, so he was hauled back to camp to join the marmalading Argile and the pack horses. 

Ghoul

The six re-entered the tunnels, found and defeated three more ghouls, and found a secret door (a camouflaged curtain). Down this winding tunnel was a large chamber with a mine face, where over one hundred skeletons were digging. As soon as the group entered the cave, the skeletons came swarming out after them, so they beat a hasty retreat. The skeletons lost interest and returned to the face.

It was a few hours before dark, but El Cid, Lammy and Sorrow were already very stressed, so the group decided to let the three have a Vice Break. But they were worried that there might be more vampires deeper within the caves, and these vampires would not take too kindly to discovering the destruction that the party had wrought upon their mates. So, they moved camp to be a good two hours away.

Here, the three took a Vice Break.

El Cid's indulging vice consisted of breaking things. He could not find many satisfying things to break out here in the hills, so did not relieve much stress [1 on a D6]. 

Beehive for Lammy

Sorrow's vice was "obligation to half-elves", and the only other half-elf in the group was Huilam. Huilam's face was a sticky mess of drooled marmalade, so Sorrow tended him. But it was a sad and pathetic sight with fitful dabs using his soiled hanky, and so he failed to relieve much stress [two 1s on 2D6].

Whereas Lammy, whose vice was Weird, indulged his vice with ease. He found a beehive, and broke it open. While the honey poured out and the angry bees began to swarm, he got out his peeled ginger root and mother-of-pearl napkin rings. Suitably adorned, he rolled around naked in the honey as the bees darted and stung. This proved to alleviate a lot of stress [4].

Sorrow and El Cid finished their vice-indulging just as it went dark (Lammy would take another three hours). As they were organizing the group into watches, the still night was rent by a hideous scream. It was more psychic rather than aural, and was full of despair and rage. They guessed that the defiled vampire tomb had been discovered.

 

Sorrow's powerful IMAG vision could see flying things in the distance, circling, searching, spiraling.

They waited, with Sorrow watching the four things spiraling outwards in a methodical search pattern. Vampires had superb infra and ultra vision.

"We be safe," muttered Burrito. "They no can get to us this night."

But when Lammy finished indulging his vice and cleaned up, his wizards' knowledge of classical mechanics soon put paid to those calculations.

"There are four of them," he said. "We are certainly NOT safe!"

Thorn

So, the group upped-sticks and moved.

They hurried back to Thorn's cave and to the side entrance (the over-hang that led to the sentient root cave). Here they camped, and hoped the searching vampires would not spot them.

Half way into the night, there was a quiet shuffling. 

It was Thorn. And he was not very happy with the great evil that was now in his caves (Sorrow's IMAG eyes and El Cid's IMAG fists). But Tylin consoled him [with a good SWAY roll] and he agreed to tolerate one night. The over-hang was enough cover, and so the vampire searchers did not spot them.

Day 10

Morning arrived. Thorn brought them all a mug of his delicious steaming (stress-reducing) tea. Sorrow and El Cid had left early in the morning, so, by the time they returned to their mugs, they got no benefit (the magic tea had gone cold, and tasted like asparagus urine).

The whole group headed off  toward the Gnoll mine, and returned to "Billet copse". This was the good copse that was 20 minutes from the Gnoll mine entrance, had a spring, and was probably where the Billet six had camped.

El Cid and Sorrow were still very stressed, so they had another attempt at indulging their vices. This time Sorrow was more successful - he gave the marmalading half-elven Huilam a bed bath with the spring water. But El Cid still could not find many things to break. So, he didn't de-stress much. [Another 1 ! But this inter-mission vice-indulging has a useful feature of un-ticking the once-per-mission feat tick-box. This would prove to be useful for El Cid later on.]

While the two were indulging their vices, the rest of the group searched the vicinity for other entrances into the gnoll mine.  

They found a vertical shaft at the top of the hill dropping into the darkness, with no signs of recent use. 

Plus the stream, from the spring that they were camped near, was diverted from its natural course into a hole in the side of the hill, and down a cut tunnel. Tylin crawled down here, and after 30 minutes, emerged into the ceiling of a cave, two storeys off the floor. The stream water trickled out of this hole into a bucket on the floor below, and then into a gutter in the floor. The room had one exit (gutter went that way too). Tylin wiggled back to the outside to tell the others.

They waited until night.

They wiggled down the tunnel in a tight line. Tylin peered into the gloom, and the bucket room now had six gnolls, all sleeping. He relayed this back down to the others in hushed whispers. Then they decided to sneak it. Tylin anchored and let down a rope and then they all proceeded to sneak into this room. [This was a Lead-Party-Action SNEAK roll. Three fails, and no 6s. ] 

It didn't go quite as they planned in that they made a bunch of noises, and the gnolls all awoke.

There was a fight and a massacre; Lammy's Sleep spell proved very useful. And IMAG fist and sword did the rest. The water gutter filled with gnoll blood.

Out of the bucket room was a tee onto a passage with mining noises from one direction. Sorrow went for a surreptitious sneak. The mining noises came from a large cave with 15 chained figures digging quartz on a rock face. 11 of the diggers were gnolls, and the rest were two men, one woman and one half-elf lady. The slaves were guarded by six gnoll overseers. There was an exit, large, beyond the face.

Gnoll overseer & slaves (Samuel and Morgan)

Sorrow reported back, and the group returned and attacked. It was a quick battle and the overseers were defeated. Again Lammy's Sleep proved invaluable and El Cid's IMAG fists effective. But he did get badly wounded, and so did Sorrow. Moonlight went to cure those two, but as he was doing this, the 11 treacherous gnoll "slaves" started to scream and holler. 

And very soon after, approaching noises were heard in the corridor behind them.

Tylin found an allen key on one of the downed overseers, and he unscrewed the manacles of the four non-gnolls. Then everyone fled.

They rushed down the wide passage, past mine carts filled with quartz, to a stamping room (it was night, so the stamping mill was not active). From here, they rushed down another wider passage, and down to the end. Here they could see outside and the night. But two gnolls stood at the entrance there and drew their heavy gnoll bows.

Sorrow shot at one and El Cid shot at the other. Sorrow hit and wounded his one, but El Cid didn't and would have got a heavy gnoll arrow through his eye, but fate smiled and he only got a nasty scratch. [Level 4 fatal harm - "arrow to the brain". El Cid's Battleborn feat (tick feat tick-box) reduced this to Level 3. His Tough as Nails feat then reduced this to Level 2. And his armour then reduced this to Level 1 harm "deep scratch".]  Sorrow then dropped his gnoll, and El Cid dropped the other with his fists.

The group and the four freed slaves ran out into the night, and onto the floor of the valley. The sides were steep, so they clambered up, hell for leather, and only just got over the top when the mine mouth disgorged gnolls by the dozen.

Burrito now moved to the rear and frantically started covering tracks as the group headed back to Billet Copse. This was to stop gnoll trackers. 

It was a few hours before light when they got to the copse, and assessed the situation. Three of the four freed slaves turned out to be the ones they were sent to find from Billet's group: Morgan Leaf the half-elfess minstrel, Samuel Chad the human fighter, and Jacinta Whiteface the REAL paladin. The fourth one was a farmer called John Red-shirt.

Jacinta knew about Bertha the dwarf being killed, and was interested to hear from the group that they had spotted her impaled body.

"Now," exclaimed Jacinta. "We need to rescue Betsy and Khartoum. Then we will recover poor Bertha."

 

Mine Three

The Budgie Smugglers had returned to their temporary base, near Mine Number Two: El Cid [Shane], Moonlight [Chris], Sorrow [Jeff], Burrito [Darryl], Huilam [Jamie]. Tylin [Ian] was up. And Lammy was up [played by guest visitor Jamie's daughter Niamh]. Argile [Richard] took ill with marmalade. 

Day 8

Sorrow and El Cid were feeling a bit stressed out, so they indulged their vices (Obligation and Pleasure) [using the new inter-mission Indulge Vice rules, to reduce stress]. 

During the six hours while they were doing this, Tylin and Burrito went out scouting. They spotted another cave in the distance and went over to investigate. By the mouth of this cave, they espied a solitary elderly figure, dressed in a tattered robe, tending a garden.

Thorn

He was standing in bright sunlight, but he cast no shadow.

They watched for a bit, and then he headed into the cave. They had a brief reconnoitre to check out the beans and then returned to the group to report.

Burrito, Tylin and Sorrow viewed from behind a rock, while Lammy and Huilam had a chat with him.

He was called Thorn. The local gnolls didn't seem to bother him. While they were chatting, he suddenly raised his head and looked over at the rock Sorrow and Burrito were hiding behind and said "There is great evil there." They assumed it was Sorrow's IMAG eyes. Sorrow sloped off. Then Burrito tried to sneak close and into the tunnel, but he wasn't so successful; everyone, including Thorn, looked over at him.

He sheepishly joined the group talking to Thorn.

The entire group was invited inside into the cave. Sorrow and El Cid hung back - both had the evil IMAG gifts, and Moonlight hung back - his pet toad and El Cid's Mr Clucky freaked out whenever they neared Thorn.

In the living chamber there was an attached kitchen area, and along one wall, it was a workshop. 

Staff
of the
Phylactery

Six partly-made Staves of the Phylactery were along the back wall. Thorn manufactured them, it seemed to be his job, but to finish each one required the skull of a virgin girl; human, elf or half-elf. These six staves were each awaiting their skulls.

Thorn explained how it worked. The person who wants the staff must supply the skull, and place it on the staff himself. If an incorrect skull (non-virgin or wrong race) is brought and placed on the staff, then "The last person to handle the skull, dies."

Thorn offered them all tea. No-one was prepared to finish the tea at first, everyone taking little polite sips. That is, until brave Tylin did. It was very refreshing [and restored a Stress].

They left Thorn and rejoined Sorrow, El Cid and Moonlight to brief them on the new information. Then Tylin, Burrito, Lammy and Huilam snuck in through a back entrance that Tylin and Burrito had discovered earlier. This set of tunnels ended up connecting to Thorn's tunnels. There was a wet cave with dangling glowing phosphorescent grabby plant roots. And then a smart (but old and musty) bedroom with a magical chest of drawers.

Thorn encountered them in these tunnels, and he was a bit miffed that they had the audacity to skulk into his home like lowly thieves. So, they made sheepish mumbled apologies and left. Heaven knows what would have happened to them if they had destroyed all of the sentient guard roots, or had looted the bedroom.

Day 9

Early in the visit, Thorn had pointed out that there was another abandoned mine about two hours away, "... filled with skeletons". So, the next day, the entire group, horses and all, went off there, and relocated base.

There were two dead gnolls at the entrance. Dead maybe a week or two, their heads cleaved with axes.

Like the other tunnels, this one had been a gold mine too. With narrow single-file tunnels, and shored-up ceilings. 

There were several sets of skulls embedded in the walls; two skulls facing each other, at the same height off the floor. The group suspected that this was some kind of magical alarm system, so, rather than walk through them, they were careful to gingerly step over the imaginary line between the two skulls, or to squat and crawl beneath them. Deeper in, when there were two skulls on each side, and two imaginary lines, this exercise in gingerliness became more difficult.

Down a side passage, there was a pit that blocked the passage. It had a rickety wooden bridge across it. Huilam tried to fix it [with TINKER] but failed in a spectacular fashion, and all the wood collapsed into the pit. 

Scrabbling skeletons

Down in the pit there were some desiccated unmoving bodies, in rotted clothes, so El Cid climbed down loot them. There was some petty cash and some knick-knacks. While he was down there, he passed up the pieces of timber from the broken bridge. 

Lammy had a go at fixing it this time, but he used his Mend spell, and did a sterling job.

The party moved down further, but a group of skeletons came swarming down the tunnel. The party withdrew back across the pit, and pulled the bridge back as each mindless skeleton approached. It didn't take long until all the skeletons had fallen into the pit. They scrabbled around futilely.

The group continued down the now-clear passage into a chamber. This was where the gold vein terminated and so the cave was a large mined seam. There was broken mining equipment around, and with no exits.

Double tomb doors

They returned to the main passage, and off another side passage was a recently carved room (into the rock), with twin double doors, reinforced. But they were no match for Sorrow, and despite the intricate mechanism, he managed to move the bolt enough to prise one open.

Inside was a nicely carved room with four sarcophagi. No-one was brave enough to open them until El Cid volunteered. Everyone withdrew to the passage, and he stuck a crowbar in to prise up a lid. There was a little hiss. 

Inside was a wooden coffin. Since it was still daytime outside, he risked opening the coffin. As expected, there was an immaculate body inside, well dressed. It was a young woman. 

"Vampire!" growled El Cid.

He hammered a wooden spike into her chest. Not much happened; until black blood began to pool in the bottom of the coffin.

So, several of them helped him, and they lifted the coffin out of the sarcophagus, and carried it outside into the sun. There, the effect was more spectacular, and she exploded into magical fire, then burned down to a dry skeleton - with fangs.

The other three sarcophagi were dealt with in a similar matter. The vampire casualties were one woman, one man, one half-elf man and a gnome girl.

There wasn't much loot in the sarcophagi: just some petty cash and funerary items. Though, the first girl had a gold key with an emerald inlay.

Back in the tunnels, further in, they came across some ghouls. As it was single-file, El Cid had to fight them himself - two waves of two ghouls. He chopped them all down, but the last one scratched him, and it's foul grave filth paralyzed him. 

Peering into the next chamber, they spotted a number of milling figures. So, they dragged El Cid out into the sun to wait for the ghoul paralysis to wear off.