The party holes up for the night in the room/house with
the crossbow skeleton, spiking the door. In the morning, the group listen at
the door and hear some shambling and moans. The four zombies they had turned
from the previous day had returned. Mel and Nyphus turned two of them again
while the last two had to be hacked to pieces.
After the fight, the group head north back to the
room/square with the well. They manage to open the door to the west that was
previously blocked before. Pater scouts ahead and finds himself in what appears
to be a private family’s tomb. Within the wall lay corpses in burial wrapping.
A smaller set of child-sized holes lies empty. Hidden in one of these unoccupied
holes Pater finds a small stone seal which when pressed opens a secret door
into a hidden passage west. Through the short passage another secret door is
found (by Nyphus, I believe). This exit ends up on another north-south
passage/street.
The group head north and reach a door where they hear
intense buzzing behind. They try western room first that houses dozens of bats
which fly down the passage south. The room reeks of guano. Underneath the dung
is an intricate tile mosaic of elven designs. A minute after the bats have
vacated, the group hears eerie singing down the southern passage coming from an
open area. Nyphus investigates and finds an ancient elf chained to the eastern
wall within.
The group joins him. The dusty fellow proves to be
half-crazed, welcoming them to the great elven kingdom of Nevelainen. He speaks
in vague nonsense of a calamity that befell the city long ago and mentions the
Les Fourmir or the dead. They try to free him of his ancient bonds, shackles
pinned through his forearms. Once removed he disintegrates.
The group head north to the door where they heard
buzzing. Upon opening they find four giant ant men and six giant ants. All are
eating maggoty fly larvae. The ant men speak in a heavily-accented archaic form
of the Common tongue. The group explain they want to leave, but the leader of
the ants, an apparent head guard explains he must bring all trespassers before
their queen, unless some other arrangement could be worked out (bribe). The
ants notice that Br. Karnoff is bound and they ask to trade the prisoner for
permission to leave. Nyphus and Mel are fiercely against the proposal both from
a sense of morality as well as pragmatically wanting to keep him alive to use
as a way to get into the northern slave city of Ravenstone in the north, the
seat of the Green Mark, run by the Archbishop Nemesine who Father Thelbain said
was blackmailing him. The ant suggests he could take part of the prisoner while
keeping the conscious part of him alive. Again, they reject the offer. The leader
notices Mel’s necklace and scarab broach, and Renic’s golden earring. An
exchange is begrudgingly made.
The group leave the buried city and find themselves
toward the bottom of the cliff to the north of Morgansfort, facing the sea.
They find a small dry cave and rest a few days to rest and heal, fishing from
the sea, and planning their next move. That plan is to head back north to
Slateholm to find a ship to take them over the Western Sea to Ravenstone where
they hope to infiltrate, expose, or destroy the Green Mark.
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