The Third Edtion Campaign:

Adventure 4: The Demon Claw
Date 02/01/02

The adventurers are:
* Curly Greenleaf, human, male, druid 3 (Mark)
* Anton De Mail, human, fighter 3 (John)
* Emma, human, female, Paladin 2 (Nigel)
* Pyhphor, human, male, wizard 4 (Dale)
* Cammeron Blade, elf, male, sorcerer 3 (Logan)

Adventure Details
Having defeated the roper Phyphor and Anton go about retrieving the remans of their fallen comrade, the paladin called Emma. Having done so, and placed the remains in Phyphor's wheelbarrow they quickly search the chamber, and gut the roper in an attempt to find some loot. They eventually find several gems and a magical ring in the creatures gizzard.

They return to Hommlet where they find Canoness Y'Dey not very impressed that her favourite daughter is dead! She takes the remains and raises Emma warning her to stay away from that ne'er do well Anton.

Phyphor too is in for a surprise, he returns to the carpenter, one Bill Gates, to find that he has formed a company called Woodsoft and is now marketing his "wheelbarrow 95's" all over the north and has cornered the market. Worse, he has patented the idea and is now sole owner of the rights to wheelbarrows world wide. It seems that Farmer Gates is on to a winner.

A month passes, while Phyphor is closeted in his uncle's laboratory, studying the arcane arts. As his time for training ends Canoness Y'Dey informs Emma that she has a job for Emma and her friends. It seems that a paladin friend of hers has gone missing. He went to see a notable wizard, one Fhelzor Hornstaff, in his tower called Demonsclaw, which lies off the coast not far from Hommlet, at that the paladin hasn't been seen since. She instructs Emma to go and find out what as happened to the paladin and his squire.

Emma rounds up her friends and head for the coast. They find the tower and a fishing hamlet nearby and arrange for local fishermen to ferry them across to it. Curly makes himself popular by mending fishing nets before the short trip begins.

Reaching the tower the adventurers find no obvious entrances so Emma scales the cliff face to an upper level and then lowers a rope for her companions. In a few minutes the adventurers and their equipment (including Phyphor's wheelbarrow) are on a small platform. They wander across a bridge linking the platform to the main tower and knock on the door. There is no reply so they bash down the door and enter. Moments later a demonic creature appears and Emma tries to reason with it. It replies by blasting her with a lightning bolt. That is enough for Phyphor and Cammeron, they flee back to the platform, leaving the warriors and druid to deal with the creature. A battle rages and the two spell casters join the fray, blasting the creature with magic missiles. It disappears vowing that "I'll be back!"

The party explore the keep and locate the remains of the paladin, it appears that the demon slew him. The explore deeper the rest of the keep. They find a room encompassed in darkness and are then blasted by a lightning bolt from within the magical dark. Emma falls to the blast and once again Phyphor leads the retreat but the others battle on and the demon departs, but not before saying that it will slay all their families before returning.

The party explore some more and find a bit of treasure before returning to the laboratory which had been formerly hidden by the darkness spell. It is now light and they explore. Cammeron sets off a trap, and is caught in a sepia snake sigil, as he examines the wizards spell book and at that point the demon makes its third appearance and reclaims its spell book before departing.

The adventurers do a bit more exploring before returning to the lab to rest up. There is no further sign of the demon and they rest without incident. They then head down to the dungeons and locate the missing squire. Satisfied that her mission is accomplished Emma takes the remains of the paladin, and his squire, back to Hommlet to her mother while the others wait for Cammeron to be freed of the magical globe.

A few days later the party reunite and divide up the spoils.

Adventure 5: Back to the Forge (of Fury)
Date 10/02/02

The adventurers are:
* Anton De Mail, human, fighter 3 (John)
* Emma, human, female, Paladin 2 (Nigel)
* Pyhphor, human, male, wizard 4 (Dale)
* Cammeron Blade, elf, male, sorcerer 3 (Logan)
* Gorian Zachian, human, male, wizard 3 (Bryce)

Adventure Details:
Several weeks have passed and the adventurers have been resting, and training, in Hommlet. A new apprentice scribe has been employed by Burne, the mage of Hommlet, as a favour to a friend and he's driving the old wizard crazy having nearly destroyed his laboratory twice with his experiments. As a result Burne has ordered Phyphor to take the young apprentice, Gorian, and get him out of the wizard's hair, or else!

Phyphor meets up with his companions and they discuss what to do next, they have heard rumours that the swords they've recovered may be linked to a long lost dwarven forge so decide to return to the dwarven delving to investigate. Phyphor seems amazed that the place was a dwarven ruin until the others point out the sarcophagi, and mining work was obviously dwarven. Sometimes the young wizard just seems to totally miss the plot. Oh well, must be too many arcane experiments!

"A Dwarven forge... I wonder where it is?" muses the wizard P{hphor.
"We've found it you idiot" Emma rebukes him.
"Really?" says the incredulous mage. "Where?"
"The place with the swords," says Anotn. "Dwarven runes, inscriptions, architecture, big room with many dwarven sarcopogi...Does any of that ring a bell?"
"You mean..."
Emma and Anton just raise their eyes to the heavens.

They head back to the old dwarven hold and cautiously enter. In the large room where the ranger, Faramir lost his life they are ambushed by a troll which has moved into the hold. The foul humanoid rushes out from behind a pillar after having been alerted to their presence by their light sources, and attacks. Emma bravely leaps into the path of the enraged monster in an effort to protect the spell casters from it but the troll barely notices her as it all but tears her in two and tosses her like a rag doll. She slams against a rock outcrop and lies motionless, blood pouring fro several wounds.

Cammeron rushes to her aid while the rest of the party battles the monster. The spells of Phyphor and Gorian turn the tide and the beast is soon slain and set alight to stop it from regenerating.

The party then hole up in the chamber formerly occupied by the orc shaman for a couple of days while they recover from their wounds. They then head downwards to the next level and a door which was previously barred.

Phyphor uses a knock spell to open the door and the party head up a flight of stairs to the next level. They are briefly stumped in an octagonal room where the doors are trapped but their caution means that nobody is injured by the dwarven traps therein and they eventually find a secret door.

Beyond the secret door is a short passage leading to a large, and inhabited cavern. A voice tells the adventurers to go away but they eventually draw the inhabitants out to parley but only after several crossbow bolts narrowly miss the more inquisitive members of the party. The adventurers decide to get some ale for the grey skinned dwarves they've met as a way to open up some trade negotiations.

They return a short time later after having claimed some ale form the orcs stores in the upper caverns and negotiations begin. Emma detects that the dwarves are evil so the party try to bait them into attacking, which they don't do until Phpyor reads them a trade document that he'd written which contains "every insult that I can manage to scribble down in five minutes" this infuriates the dwarves who attack.

The adventurers prove victorious and head deeper into the dwarven fortress and soon discover the forge, and three more grey-dwarves who they overcome. Pressing on they next encounter an undead apperition (an allip) and it too is eventually slain although by now the party is low on spells and hit points so they return to the forge area to rest. A few hours later another undead creature (a wight) attacks. It too is slain but only after Emma loses a level to its energy drain ability.

The party tries to rest some more but are once again interrupted by the inhabitants of the complex. Three grey-dwarves order them to leave, they refuse and Anton challenges the leader to single combat. She agrees and a deadly battle begins. Anton has the better of the dwarf for the first few minutes but her superior training starts to show and she scores several wounds on the human warrior, before long both a bleeding from half a dozen cuts and either could go down but luck prevails and Anton just bests the dwarven champion, although he too is sorely injured. The other two duergar flee.

Adventure 6: The Forge Continued
Date 22/02/02

The adventurers are:
* Anton De Mail, human, Fighter 4 (John)
* Emma, human, female, Paladin 3 (Nigel)
* Pyhphor, human, male, Wizard 4 (Dale)
* Curly Greenleaf, human, male Druid 4 (Mark)
* Leith, human, male, Rogue 2/Fighter 2 (Trev)

The adventurers have rested up in the forge and are joined by Curly Greenleaf, their sometime companion and Leith, a human warrior/rogue. A careful examination of the map reveals several passageways running off the throne room which beg further exploration. The decide to systematically explore them (well, okay they used a dice to decide which way to go but...)

Before long they came to an old dwarven chapel and Emma detected an evil presence. As she concentrated dust swirled up into a humanoid form and two skeletons shuffled out from behind the altar. The three undead monsters attacked. The undead were quickly despatched and the room searched. Neither Emma nor Curly ould allow the Leith or Phyphor to search the altar and indeed hurried the party out of the sacred room. To ensure that the remains of a dwarven hero lying on the altar remained undesturbed Curly used a spell to seal the door shut.

They then search almost a dozen empty rooms, former living quarters and storerooms by and large, before coming to an old library in which sits a beautiful young woman in the most revealing of clothes. Emma detects evil and gets a definite feeling of evil. However the woman has already engaged them in conversation and asks if she can leave the room, they refuse to let her so she charms Phyphor and asks him to stay with her. The conversation goes something like this:

MU (Dale): "Now let me get this right. You are, so hot that you could fry eggs on your body and you want wimpy little, bucktoothed, drooling, pimply-faced virgin , like myself?"
(Evil Succubi) "Well it's been awhile and I'm desperate...I'm sure it will be fun."

Anyway that little episode led to many role-playing opportunities and for a while threatened to force the party to self destruct as they struggled with getting Phyphor out of the room. Eventually they succeeded and retreated back to "their" forge.

The others drag him kicking and screaming out of the room and gagged him. Hours later when they release him.
"I'm going to kill you. My one chance to lose my virginity and you guys ruin it for me!"
"But she was evil."
"So what, she was hot!"

After resting up they followed the paladins lead to smite the evil woman before she did any more evil. However, attacking her freed her from the enchantment that bound her to the room. They attack but are unable to harm her (thanks to her damage resistance) but they are soon convinced that she is in fact a vampire so try to use every possible weapon as a "wooden stake" and take called shots at her heart and head. The rogue, Leith, is more than a little perturbed when she casually plucks the two arrows that have buried themselves in her chest out and eats the ends before baring her fangs at him. After toying with them for a while she is finally damaged by a magic missile cast by Phyphor, she casts darkness and leaves. Unfortunately Curly, Emma and Anton are all caught in the darkness and Emma nearly whacks Anton by mistake before they find their way out.

The potentially famous last words were something along the lines of:

DM: "You hear a noise to your left."
Emma: "I attack!"

Fortunately she missed her target.

At that point deciding that discretion was the better part of valour they left and headed back to town, only to find a large tent city had been established on the village commons. Apparently a large group of dwarves had come to claim their ancestral homeland. Realising that dealing with the dwarves fairly would be their best option the adventurers agree to show them where Durgeddin's forge is and the grateful dwarven leader, Durin Silverhammer, pays them each 500 gold nobles reward as well as promises to forge them each a masterwork weapon of their choice.

Adventure 7: Prey for Tyrinth (Dungeon #90)
Date Thursday 28/02/02

The adventurers are:
* Anton De Mail, human, Fighter 4 (John)
* Emma, human, female, Paladin 3 (Nigel)
* Pyhphor, human, male, Wizard 4 (Dale)
* Leith, human, male, Rogue 2/Fighter 2 (Trev)

Almost two months have passed since Durgeddin' Forge was liberated by the adventurers. Summer has turned to autumn and the leaves have been changing colour while the last of the crops have been harvested by the busy folk of Hommlet. After the initial excitement of the arrival of the dwaves things have settled down and life is once again peaceful in Hommlet. The Heroes of the Forge, as the dwarves call the adventurers, were guests of honour at a large celebration held in the halls by the grateful demi-humans. Now trade is booming in Hommlet and both the village and dwarves are busy in mutually beneficial industry. Burne is most pleased by the amounts of gold being contributed to the tax coffers by all this industry and it looks as though both parties will continue to enjoy the fruits of their labours.

In the past few weeks the adventurers have gone their separate ways as they trained in their respective skills, but now at last four of the band have once again met in Hommlet and are eager to adventure anew. They are summoned to Dugeddin's Forge where they are once again honoured guests at a ceremony to bestow each of them with a masterwork suit of armour or weapon forged especially for them. The festivities last late into the night and it isn't until the next morning that Emma realises that the reasons that dwarves spend most of their lives underground is because the lack of sunlight is a great cure for a hang over.

Durin, clan leader of the Forge, greets the adventurers the next morning and has a small favour to ask them. Disturbing noises have been heard occasionally emanating from the well in the central halls and he would like the party to check it out. Of course they agree and once they are suitably equipped (with provisions borrowed from the dwarven stores) they are lowered down the well and into a small cavern. Water flows through it and there are numerous blind fish.

Over the next few hours the party are frustrated as they are again and again attacked by some creature that they can neither see nor avoid. Lightning bolts, colour sprays, shocking grasps and even melf's acid arrows, take their toll as whatever it is uses the water as cover to creep close, fire off a spell, or make a bite attack before fleeing at high speed.

Eventually frustration leads to ill caution as Phyphor, usually the most cowardly of the adventurers, decides to drive a spike into the wall of a ledge on the far side of a whirlpool, thanks to the use of a fly spell. Something grabs him and slams him with bone crushing force into the wall. Fortunately he has a fly spell active and uses this to flee, at high speed, back up and out of the well to where the two young dwarven sentries, Grak and Brak, are tending to the wounds of the also badly injured Leith (who had been seriously bitten by a snake- like creature earlier).

Emma and Anton are arguing over who should have the honour of being the last back up the well, when the snake creature attacks but Emma's reflexes are quicker and she lands a solid blow on it forcing it to flee. They then head back to the dwarven halls where they too are healed.

Returning to the caverns beneath the well the party are once again lightning bolted but then the naga makes a serious error. Believing them to be seriously injured she charges but is quickly overcome by blows from Anton and Emma. The jubilant party take the head of the beast back to the dwarves as evidence. Now there is only one more area that they haven't explored, the whirlpool room. They decide to leave that until the next day though, when they have more spells.

They rest up for the night and then return the next day. Phyphor uses fly spells on his companions and they fly over to the ledge where they are attacked by a shambling mound. Both Anton and Emma are seriously injured in the ensuring battle but finally weight of numbers, magical support and oil flasks turn the tide and the monster is slain. In its lair they recover a shield +2.

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Sunday, 17 March 2002