Ain't No Southbrook

In front of the heroes, was a large stone rolling door - to which no force they applied could open.
The party began to put out the braziers surrounding the temples face and with that, the door rolled open.

Looking into the inside of the temple complex the party could see an altar with past-spilled blood, and many stairs and ramps leading downwards.

The party made it's way down to the bottom-most platform. In the distance they could hear the howls of some beast - Rev informed the party that he knew what they were and the party didn't have much time.

The party looked around at the door in their way and saw a rune painted in blood, with a grate under their feet with what looked like the remnants of some kind of liquid - possibly blood.

Mephitical cut her hand and traced the rune to no avail.
Baz cut his hand and dripped it into the grate, to which some bloody water came out of the hole near the rolling stone door, but also to no avail. He then took it upon himself to go to the altar and spill blood from his leg into it. Danetrix bandaged him up and as the blood ran down from the top to the door - it slowly rolled open and the party ran in with haste, sealing it shut by pushing the rolling stone across and jamming it with rocks.

As they entered the bowels of the temple, they met sheer falls, with small platform off into the distance, each of them with two pillars which looked movable.
They pushed the pillars over to form a bridge for each section, using rope and Heidar's mage hand to steady themselves. Rev used the form of a bird to aid them in getting from platform to platform to tie off the rope.

As they got deeper, they were faced by huge waterfalls on either side of themselves - and sloped narrow platforms to traverse.


As they finally reached the end of the deadly, slippery gauntlet of platforms - they reached a broken down door.

Stepping into the dark entrance there was no light - so Heidar cast a spell of light and floated it outwards.
As he did so the groaning of the undead could be heard from either side.

The heroes battled the small guard troops of the dead, and inspected the innards of the temple.

In front of them was a mirror on a donkey-wheel, a pedestal which looked like it should house a gem or other item, and a statue skirted by pools of acid, and a chamber behind with a locked door.

The party went east into the temple finding a dark room with statues magically linked to a locked door.
After much frustration and activating the fire traps in the rooms, singing themselves the party finally managed to move the statues into their correct positions, finally unlocking the door.

Baz took the Gem from one of the statues and seated it in the pedestal in the main room, then went east down the other corridor, finding a similar rotatable mirror, and a room with a focusing prism, behind the prism a large hole in the wall.

He ran back to report this to the party and they pressed on through the eastern door, into another room full of mirrors.
On the South-East wall there was another large hole, where light was streaming through into another focusing crystal. The party moved the mirrors around and each time they were in the wrong position to reflect the light down to the west side of the room into another large hole in the wall - the ceiling of the room began to lower towards them.

Finally, the party managed to align the mirrors before being crushed, and hastily ran back out into the main chamber to find the statue glowing from the light passing through the gem.

The acids pits and door into the chamber behind the statue had miraculously disappeared.

As the party moved past the statue, darts flew out of the wall, but the age of the temple would suggest that the traps hadn't had regular maintenance - as the darts missed even the least nimble of the party..

Hesitantly the heroes walked through the portcullis where the door had once been.

To be continued...

Rewards Breakdown:

See the party loot log for the experience gained by the party.
The characters now have enough experience to reach level 6.

This would have been higher had challenges not been changed to appease frustrated players.

John rallied up the party from the Inn, and together they organised who they could from the town - gathering up a caravan, supplies, some of the local militia and civilians along with some horses and attempted an escape from the town.
He know far too well what was approaching from the mountains - the Necromancer.

As they began to ride out, the drums began again - louder this time.

Beyond the ridges of the mountain the silhouettes of an undead army, dark men, the necromancer - and the thought dead, goblin Gumbo began to creep towards the town.

The heroes told John to escape with the townspeople as they held what they could of the town.

The Necromancer smote Bard'mn's Inn with a bolt of Necrotic energy, the barrels of alcohol exploded and the whole building went aflame.

Gumbo let out a roar of contempt for the party and the Necromancer commanded the army forward.

Danetrix prayed to Pelor for protection and guidance, and a divine ray of light shone between the heroes and the army of the Necromancer - a small tree grey from the ray of light bearing crystalline fruit.
Heidar aided by creating false walls of light next to the tree blocking the armies path with Prestidigitation.

The Necromancer blew another bolt towards the tree, it dissipated with intense force on the tree, so Danetrix ran over to gather the crystalline fruit as quickly as he could.

The undead Orc lieutenant trod down from the army and up to the wall, placing his hand against the shimmering light, he walked straight through it with a roar - with that the Necromancer called down a rain of necrotic bolts near the party, throwing them to the ground unconcious.
Zulir gathered some horses form the farm - flinging the party over their backs and rode off into the wilds with haste.


In the clearing, the druid Rev appeared to guide Zulir into the wilds, helping him fel trees along the way to make sure that the army did not follow.

The party awoke in a small makeshift camp in the wilds, the caravan erected.


A large campfire burned in the middle of the flat land, and John, Zulir and the druid Rev stood conversing while the townspeople frantically paced and settled the animals.

The party joined them at the fire, and John, Zulir and Rev explained what had happened over the course of the day they had been unconcious.

Baz decided to scale one of the trees to survey the land - sighting a statue with glowing light, some large trees, a world tree bough and a tropical rain forest in the distance.

Rev revealed that there was a large elven city far to the North-East who had helped him and his people in times past. The party requested he send an animal messenger to ask for safe passage for the party. Rev then set off into the woods to commune with animals who he knew so that he could get them to help guard the townspeoples camp.

The party organised the militia into patrols and set off towards the statue to divine anything they could about their new surroundings.

The party found the statue of a Dryad lord who had built a Herding Stone. Upon inspecting the Herding stone and activating it's runes - the party were granted a map which led to a temple the Herding Stone identified as an area that the Necromancer may be interested in, as it houses an artifact that can be used to travel through Planes. This was particularly interesting as Rev had explained that what he knew of the Necromancers folklore was that he sought such an item.

Returning to the camp, the party suggested that the townspeople fetch water from a nearby river to bolster their supplies, and told them they were going to investigate the temple.
Rev returned with two wolfkin beasts from the forest and offered their assistance in defending the people.

Rev also offered to lead the party to the temple, as he had been there before. He exclaimed that he had seen hooded people dragging animals and elves into the temple - he had tried to get beyond it's gates but never succeeded.

With that they set out into the rainforest, over a large bridge so high that they couldn't properly make out the canopies of the trees below.

All of a sudden, the storm clears as if by some kind of magic.

The thunder stops it crackling, the rain stops stomping on the rooftops.

The figure of on elf darts out it's door across the town to the armoursmith, arguing loudly.

From the Inn window you can only make out that there is something odd about this meeting.
The silhouette of who you can only assume is Zulir walks through the armourers door, then back out with him, a bundle of something in his hands.

The two are doing something over near the anvil, the furnace burning bright - then Zulir is gone again, sprinting off with his bundle.



All of a sudden you hear the Inn door fly open, running around the corner, you see John's figure standing in the doorway.
Alarm in his voice, "Are you all awake!?"

John looks out of one of his shop windows - disturbed by what he can hear between the roars of thunder.

The apothecary's shop door flies open and John's figure dashes out into the rain...

A dark night falls over Eastbrook...

The rain is heavy - a sound like giants feet on city pavement.

The lighting of the night is unusual - it's pallid, there seems to be little hue in the light.

It is dark... but it isn't like any normal night you have seen before.

The moon does not sit in it's cradle in the sky. It is absent.



Besides the giants feet on rooftops there is no noise. It is still.

Even the freshest adventurer knows that a night like this is a terrible omen...