The AGRP return in triumph to Phylothea. But, also to a surprise. The harbor is filled with ships! Onshore the city is packed with soldiers from all the neighboring lords. Overheard conversations tell a tale of a coming war with the humanoid kingdom of Getusia. The Dark Lord of the Gets has committed an unforgivable insult to the great king Agamemnon by capturing the Princess Melina and the murder of Prince Mylos.

Meeting for the first time with Lord Irus, the AGRP are royally congratulated on their victory over Zam. The Lord is understanding over the necromancer’s escape, and excited to discuss the upcoming war. The heroes learn how the Gets used dark magic to kill and impersonate Prince Mylos to enter the palace at Mycenae. Once in the palace they kidnapped the Princess and vanished.

King Agamemnon has put out a call to all lords to come and destroy the Gets. Lord Irus invites the AGRP to join him, and put the Blue Water Cutter at their disposal. He proposes a plan to coerce the cyclops Steropes, a brother of the Titans, to help in the battle for the walled city of Smyrna. Steropes has a herd of Bullettes also known as land sharks. Irus hopes to use them to breach the walls. Irus proposes that they capture Steropes daughter Dionysus. The heroes question the morality of kidnapping, but Irus points out the tendency of Steropes to eat humans, and the promise no harm would come to Dionysus.

A fast sail aboard the Cutter lands the heroes on the rocky barren shores of Katsiki. Leading a detachment of sailors and captain Xevos the party travels inland where they encounter their first landshark.

Present:

The divine monk - Clint

Nelly Bly - Mija absent

Zyva - Ron

Billett - Steve

Arcadius - Scott

The top of Bly’s Rock has a narrow area of flat ground with a few stunted trees. The ruins of one tower contain a shaft that reaches almost to the bottom of the rock. The Party scales up this shaft and explores the remaining tower. This tower still has three intact levels. The party enters from the ground floor thorough parchment covered windows. The first floor contains a laboratory with a collection of belongings from victims. Here Zyva and Nelly collect several arcane books on necromancy.

Descending below the tower the party finds a prison containing one occupant, Arcadius the toy maker. He tells a grim story of capture and the threat to be murdered and animated as a spellcasting undead.

Going upwards again; on the second floor Billet finds a pile of bones. As the rest of AGRP climb the stairs the bones animate as a whirlwind of bones! The team join forces and peat the bones into a pile again. Zyva tries throwing the bones out the window, but they come flying back in from another! Nelly notices some personal affects among the bones. Collecting them stops the pile from re-animating. The third floor is empty.

Going downwards again; Arcadius points out the necromancer occupies the floor below his prison. The AGRP had bypassed his lair! Switching to stealth the divine monk sneaks down the stairs. Below she finds a bronze double door guarded by armored undead. Bold plans are hatched, but not shared. Zyva turns invisible and flies into the room. Arcadius uses his powers to distract the undead with his toy. Billet charges into the room, and Nelly records the action.

Through a combination of luck, arcane, and bold reporting the undead are defeated. Zyva also learns about the balance of moments. Finding the double doors locked the party decides to ignore them. Instead they destroy a collection of animated maids. This distraction allows the evil necromancer Zam to ambush them. Zam uses a combination of hypnosis and sleep to even the odds numerically. For a moment things look grim for our heroes. But, the divine monk gains the upper hand driving the foul necromancer to flee.

Our monk abandons the chase to care for her companions allowing Zam to escape. With nothing left to do the divine one sets fire to the lair, while Zyva and Nelly scramble to collect any valuables. All that is recovered are four tomes, an enchanted dagger, some scrolls, a well made fauchard, a chest of coins, and a strange humming gem.

The blazing ruins summons the Blue Water Cutter and Captain Xevos.

Present:

The divine monk - Clint

Nelly Bly - Mija

Zyva - Ron

Billett - Steve

Arcadius - Scott

On the pleasant island of Phylothea an unexpected party occurred. Gathered together by the sharp eyed poet Nothon, the adventurers were summoned to the Crescent Moon Inn. Whether it would end in success or failure, the great storyteller knew the tale would be worth the effort.

First to arrive was the elven Monk of no name. Free of artificial constraints she knew the universe would provide. The nameless monk was followed by Nelly Bly, a noted recorder of the truth. Arriving together were the bosom companions Zyva the cursed, a being that carried the blood of fey and dragon kind, and Billet the light an Asmir cleric. Here at the Crescent Moon the Adventuring Guild of the Raging Phoenix (AGRP) for the greater glory of Lord Irus.

The first Labor of AGRP. The evil necromancer Zam has taken residence in the ruins on Bly’s Rock, sailors and ships have begun disappearing. AGRP go to the harbor to interview the only witness, Capt. Janis of the Screaming Eagle. After cruelly trying the captains patience AGRP learn that fishing vessels and other small craft have been found floating without a crew. The only victim found was strangle scared and spoke of a green fog before dying.

The next day AGRP sailed aboard the Bluewater Cutter a liburnian in the service of Lord Irus. The captain Xevos and the strange Pim greet the heroes. Within a day’s travel they arrive near the rock, but wait until midnight to approach. Zyva proceeds to fly up and scout the rock. The islet rose sheer from the ocean like a hand thrust up with a round tower. Zyva returned to her companions, and together they entered the sea cave known to access the ruins at low tide. In the upper cavern the first walking dead are encountered and dispatched by Billet. Wisely choosing to bypass the suspicious mechanical stairs AGRP climbed to an upper balcony. Here, elven eyes led to the discovery of a secret door. Behind the secret door was the undead power that drove the mysterious mechanical stairs. Also, the naked elven monk misread the universe and ended the undead existence of a poor slave.

The party chose to leave the rails and climbed to the top of the rock and entered the ruins from above…

DoomAmegedeon

DoomAmagedeon

Aramil- Eric (not present)
Clarity- Mija
Hesperose- Scott
Kita- Shawn (not present)
Shiffit- clint-Currently running the game.
Zyva- Ron
Billet- Steve
Iris- Mark G.
Yaher- NPC



Mija is once more cajoled into the reading of the last blog, and once again is over come with emotion.

Back in the town of Miocena, the party attempts to convince the town leaders to send a peace delegation up the mountain to meet with Sherman. The town leader point out a rich cultural history of ignoring the monster at the top of the mountain and how well this has worked out for them, and the fact that the party “the winners of the Elven Games” are the first people to come back down the mountain. After a few days of helping out with the work on the wall and fixing the boat most of the party heads back up the mountain to talk with Sherman the really big 'Ogre' They find Sherman playing his mountian-digeredoo and they have a nice chat about his eons on the mountain top; his memories of his creation, how the mountain was an active volcanic, and his years of music and cloud study. The party is unable to convince Sherman to go down to the village of Miocena, Sherman points out his rich cultural history of people coming up the mountain to try to kill him. While party members are talking with Sherman, Clarity excuses her self the the Loo, and goes to Sherman's' Loo. She then tosses in the thick gold coins, that are used in the rituals of the temple, that she stole when she made her escape from the Temple of the Oracle. The DM finds this far more entertaining than Mija, as he knows that the priests of the temple want their oracle back and have been using the coins to scry and track “their oracles” location.

They party heads back to the Celeste and finds that Aramil has been become more and more ill. The giant spider poison working its way deeper into tissues. Since coming back to the Celeste he has not risen from his bunk, and is increasingly feverish. After a few more days of working around the village Clarity goes and asks the village priests if they can heal Aramil, which they promptly do. Aramil thanks the party for finally getting him some help. He then heads off into town to revel in life, that he felt slipping away for so many days. (The players then have a discussion on moral relativism.)

A few nights later the party hears horns in the distance and sees the town of Miocena arming for battle. The party girds for war. Then waits, and waits some more. After an hour Hesperose decides he has had enough waiting and heads off into the night. Bilet, Shiffit, Zyva and Iris follow after Hesperose. Clarity, Yaher and Kita chose to hold the boat, Clarity then endeavors to try to figure out the ballista on the Celeste, and notices that Aramil is M.I.A. The party heading off into the night reaches the partially built wall of the town and finds slingers up on the finished sections and hopolites attempting to fill the gaps. It is a dark night, screams and horns are heard beyond the walls. The Miocenaens explain that the horns warn everyone that they are under attack. Then everyone in the country side races to the town for mutual defense. Hesperose asks after the individuals that can not out run the attackers, and the villagers and the party members share and uncomfortable silence. The screams are getting closer to the walls and a smattering of terrified people are running into the village for protection. Hesperose, apparently fed up with the waiting again, marches off toward the screams. The towns folk yell out “hold the line”, “were are you going?” and “don't be and idiot”, Hesperose marches on. With slight hesitation Bilet follows Hesperrose, with Significantly more hesitation Zyva, Iris and Shiffit head out as well. Bilet and hesperose form a two person phalanx, Iris readies her bow, Zyva stays invisible and flies over head, Shiffit stands besides Iris and is concerned about what might happen. The mounted creatures of darkness appear out of the night, chasing down the fleeing civilians.

The creatures of darkness are mounted on trasmorgified creatures of darkness, who have grown to medium size, run on all fours, have much larger claws and fangs and have become more feral and bestial. The smattering of mounted units see the token force that is out from the wall and attack. The party defeats the mounted units and learn that the tranmorgified creatures of darkness are much more “worthy” opponents. Hesperose and Bilet both take significant wound, and Shiffit uses up his healing powers in an effort to keep them upright.

From out in the darkness a booming amplified voice is heard encouraging his troops onward, and shaking the hearts of the defenders, shouting out such lines as; “Death to all who oppose us”, “You do not know pain. You do not know hunger. Tonight you feast on man flesh.” and “We will cleans this island and claim it for our lord of darkness.” When the first sixty members of the invading force are see, marching out of the darkness the party members fall back to the wall. Except for Hesperose, who pulls his shoulder behind his shield and marches towards the leader, becoming a phalanx of one. Hesperose defeats a few of the first creatures of darkness that cross his path. The leader then sees the would be hero and commands his troops to let him pass, so he can meet such a worthy foe himself. Zyva starts plinking at leader type with sleep arrows, all of which he resists. A badly wounded Hesperose finally stands before the leader, who is mounted on a transmorgified creatures of darkness. A few rounds latter Hesperose is bleeding on the ground unconscious. Zyva then changes tactics and shoots at the mount, who fails its save and falls unconscious. Zyva then becomes visible and challenges the leader, in an effort to keep him from killing Hesperose outright. The leader then unleashes some of his divine might on Zyva, slightly damaging her and stunning her causing her to fall to the ground. The leader priest fails to finish off Zyva, who then flies away invisible. The leader then gets back to the business of rallying his troops to and striking fear into his foes, charging into the village. Zyva then flies back to the bleeding Hesperose and heals him in the nick of time.

In the mean time, the troops manning and filling in the gaps in the wall, fail to hold and fall back to form up in the village. Iris, Shiffit, and Billet fall back to the Celeste. It is pointed out at this time that the Celeste is not so much of a boat, but more of a raised platform. The sides of the hull are stacked in piles around the boat so the broken knees can be repaired. A plank is over the side of the deck to the beach below and there is a stair way from the open hold to the cabins aft of the main deck. Kita, Yaher and Clarity are still on deck. Clarity and Yaher have managed to get one of the Ballistas loaded. Iris and Shiffit walk up the plank to the deck. Billet takes up defensive posture at the bottom of the plank. Iris encourages the remaining party members to go and aid the fight in the village. Others point out that the deck is a good defensive position. Clarity points out that it would be an even better defensive position if the plank was pulled up. The debate continues, and Clarity continues to encourage the party members to pull up the plank. Many rounds latter a squad of baddies appears at the edge of the torch light. Bilet blasts them with her divine might, and retreats to the top of the plank. Two mounted units and their mounts survive Bilet's attack and charge. One heads up the plank and attacks Billet. The other investigates the open hold. Shiffit moves to hold the door closed that leads from the cabins to the deck, the rest of the party starts firing into the attacking beastie on the plank. Bilet, being already significantly wounded lasts only a few rounds and falls to the deck, the attacking beastie and rider fall shortly after. Shiffit then kneels down to try to stabilize Bilet and finds that Death has already claimed her. Clarity then asks who is holding the door? Shiffit saddened by the loss of a friend goes back to being a door stop. Iris then goes over and with a mighty shove, heaves the plank to the beach. It turns out the Shiffit is an excellent door stop and holds the door closed long enough for the party to arm three of the ballistas on the deck. The beastie beating on the door to get on deck has been reinforced with additional foot troops. The beastie then earns a place in legend, by rolling 3 natural 20's in a row, to knock down the door. The door flies off its hinges. Shiffit the door and the beastie fly through the air, crashing to the deck 20 feet away, making a deck, Shiffit, door, beastie sandwich. Shiffit moans. Ballista bolts and arrows fly as the baddies poor through the door way onto the deck. The battle rages across the deck of the Celeste. After several rounds of furious combat, Iris goes down. A round latter, suffering some attacks of opportunity, Shiffit breaks from his combat and tries to stabilize Iris and fails. The next round Deaths icy talons grip at Iris's heart, pulling her soul to him. Shiffit then remembers to apply pressure where the blood is spurting out, and Iris is stabilized. The remaining party members finish mopping up the baddies and this battle is won.

As dawn breaks over the village, it becomes clear that the villagers have won the day. Zyva returns to the ship dragging a still unconscious Hesperose. Clarity goes into town to see if the local priests are willing to raise Bilet from the dead. The villagers tell the party members that they have faced much larger forces of baddies in the past, but suffered worse losses this time. The village elders explain that the new transmorgified creatures of darkness are faster than the villagers and can hunt down their citizens as they are seeking the safety of walls and phalanxes in the village. Krustus, the village leader, acknowledges that the party must have caused the baddies to launch their attack prematurely, by cutting off their extra food supply. (with some help from Sherman “the Ogre”) The gods then smile down on the party as a 19 is rolled to see how thankfull the villagers are. A 19 is good enough for one raise dead spell and Billet is reintroduced to the land of the living.

Clint then hands the reins of running the campaign over to Ron.

And the cook too

Aramil- Eric (not present)
Clarity- Mija
Hesperose- Scott
Kita- Shawn
Shiffit- Clint-Currently running the game.
Zyva- Ron
Billet- Steve
Iris- Mark G.
Yaher- NPC

(Clairty saw it all coming, and her plan worked; the end.) The blog as written by Mija.

As typical, the gaming session starts out with the reading of last weeks blog and a reef of criticism reguarding my abuses of the English language. Steve also points out I left out the best part of last sessions game, where Bilet blasted the baddies at their own murder holes with divine noise.

The party picks it way past the pit trap, and continues winding their way down the passages. After some time the party comes to a large cavern. Zyva bravely scouts ahead, still flying invisibly. She spots a few scouts, hiding behind stalagmites, and largish groups of baddies set to encircle the party once they get into the cavern. Zyva flies back and reports. The party starts to try to hash out a plan. Zyva then enlarges herself to medium size, and with her permission picks up Iris and they fly into the cavern. Iris being visible quickly becomes a target and they retreat to the rest of the party in the passage. The party retires 45 minutes back up the passage to rest up for the night and heal.

The next day the party comes back to find the passage leading to the large cavern blocked with a pile of stones. The party, with some opposition, clears a hole. Zyva tries to fly through the hole and is nailed with a spear and falls back. But her second attempt is successful. Zyva then has a go at the baddies on her own with arrows and her greater invisibility. The baddies, having been attacked by an invisible Zyva before, are now ready and proceed to toss around bags of dust where the arrows are coming from, with minimal results. Having taken a few hits, and seeing that there are more baddies that she has arrows Zyva heads back to meet with the rest of the party, who have been discussing what there plan should be. After a good amount of debate about; what are the motivations and goals of the party, both small and bigger picture, the party decides to try another route altogether. The party having decided to head back, were discussing what kind of note to leave for Zyva, when she makes a dramatic entrance. The oracle is then given lead to pick the rout, and leads the the party to the surface. Once on the surface of the mountain island, the party faces little (none) opposition and hikes over to where some of the caves open up and smoke is coming out. The party finds the baddies smoke house where one of the baddies is supervising the smoking fires. The party captures the cook and a cow's head as evidence for the Ogre. They carry the cook and evidence back to the Ogre (which they name Sherman) Once back, Sherman listens to their tale and promptly; squishes the baddie cook with a finger and heads off. The party points out the cave opening where the baddies have been getting Sherman's cows from, Sherman blocks that passage with a 20' diameter bolder. Once down the mountain Sherman savages the cave openings, collapsing the openings, and impressing the party with his destructive power. On their way back up the mountain, Sherman agrees to leave the villagers herds alone as they were not the ones stealing his cattle. As a reward for finding the rustlers of his cattle, Sherman gives the party a tree to use to fix the broken knees in there boat.

With some minor incidents, stemming from the villagers trying to kill Iris on sight, the party makes it down to the village, and their boat, the Celeste.

Little did the party know that the DM had bag after ever increasingly horrible bag of evil tricks to play on them as long as the were blithely walking into this underground community.

First meetings

Aramil- Eric (not present)
Clarity- Mija
Hesperose- Scott
Kita- Shawn (not present)
Shiffit- clint-Currently running the game.
Zyva- Ron
Billet- Steve
Iris- Mark G.
Yaher- NPC
a random sheep with bell-would be victim/sacrifice

This evening's game starts out with the reading of the last session's blog. Mija starts out reading but is to overcome with emotion to continue on, Mark picks up the fallen banner of blog reading and dramatically carries on.

The party assess their wounds from the conflict with the spiders of unusual size, (which mostly entails trying to remember what happened). The party then continues down the winding passages, they come to a few branches, but continue to follow the cow sign/ tracks. After a full day and a half of marching the party attempts to find a defensible location to camp, sparking debate about multiple exits vs. avenues of attack. The oracle (Clarity) is quickly pulled into the debate and is asked to use her connection to the gods to help resolve the debate. Which starts a more heated and amusing debate about the validity of the oracle.

Zyva scouts down one of the side passages, and if she were not flying would have been climbing down a step chimney; and sees a small reptilian green orange dog like creature climbing up. Zyva flying invisible and quietly manages to slip passed the creature unnoticed. Once on the other side of the small creature (close to Zyva's size) they enter into a discussion, where each tries to convince the other of just how powerful and afraid the other should be of them. After much posturing, Iris continues her climb up the passage and meets the rest of the party, prompting Iris to comment that this must just be the scouting party of Zyva's afore mention army of 600. Iris then spots Clarity and runs to embrace her, exclaiming that she has followed the oracles advice and that her pronouncements have lead her to these caves, and much struggle. Clarity states that this was all the will of the gods, and that Iris was supposed to meet back up with Clarity as to be her guardian. Iris states that she will do her mighty best to do her duty. Which of course sparks another round of debate. After much discussion and more marching the party eventually settles down for some much need rest.

The next day's marching finds the amount of forks along the path start to really increase, but the main path continues to be quite obvious. The party has their first encounter with the, small, black, pointy eared, red eyed, fanged creatures that may be raiding the Ogre's live stock. The creatures drop rocks on the party from hidden holes in the roof of a passage, some 25 feet up. Those few that have shields raise them as cover for all, and the party attempts to walk through the ambush. Clarity is donked on the noggin and stunned, falling to the ground. The rest of the party simply walks across with out difficulty, leaving Clarity sprawled out and subject to more falling rocks, sparking cries of protest from the fallen oracle. Billet gallantly uses her shield to go back and cover the oracle's crossing. After a brief examination of the murder holes in the ceiling BILLET SENDS A MIGHTY THUNDERCLAP AT THE BEINGS AND THEN the party continues on. The party had been looking out for traps and ambushes before and these efforts are increased.

The next ambush is more obvious and is easily spotted by Zyva, who has been flying ahead of the party using her invisibility. The passage's left wall falls away into a chasm. The wall on the other side of the chasm has a long low window cut into it. Zyva, trying to fly very quietly, explores the window and sees the 60 would be attackers, armed with mostly slings and two large pintle mounted and crewed crossbows. The party is duly warned and a plan hatched. Zyva attacks invisibly with her bow, quickly moving after her attack. The slingers let go with a volley of fire trying to hit there invisible attacker, with some results. The party then attempts to cross kill zone. A heavy bolt/harpoon is fired at the party and misses, sticking into the stone wall on the right. A rope is attached the the bolt/harpoon which is meant to pull the impaled victim in the chasm. Zyva lets go with her breath weapon of fire on the crew of one of the cross bows. With some harrowing moments the party makes in past the killing zone and hurries on. Just one bend past the attack the hurrying party comes to a abrupt stop as Iris fall in to a pit trap, and is impaled on 5 of the stakes at the bottom. Still barely conscious (0 hp) Iris moans in agony as her body starts to slide down the stakes she is impaled on. A cry goes out for a medic/ some healing. The party members all look at each other in a bit of a loss. After a pregnant pause Billet steps forward and says that if the party is relying on her for healing they are all screwed. Billet is able to use her divine healing and UN-impale Iris without causing her death. Zyva, who had been continuing to harass the attackers at the window, rejoins the party and points out that the party has lost the element of surprise and now has enemies at their front and rear.

The Ogre

Aramil-Eric
Clarity-Mija
Hesperose- Scott
Kita-Shawn
Shiffit-clint-Currently running the game.
Zyva-Ron
Steve -Billet

Yaher-NPC
a random sheep with bell-a would be victim/sacrifice



    The intrepid party continues up the mountain, at first afraid of their own shadows but quickly relaxing there guard.  As the continue to climb the mountain they are mildly impressed at just how steep the terrain is.  They find foot paths criss-crossing the mountain, and flocks scattered about.  Sheep and some goats at the lower elevations and then more cattle higher up.  They talk to some locals and learn little.  The party spends the entire day climbing up, exhausted they ask for shelter at some of the locals huts and are generally told to go and sod off.  The party eventually hunkers down behind a stone wall, to at least be out of the wind.
    The next day finds the party bickering about who is making breakfast (a running theme in the party) then climbing up the mountain again.  Just before (the traditional) 11:00 in the afternoon, the party comes to the bottom of a 20' cliff.   A quick reconnoiter finds a cut in the cliff and the party scales the cliff hoisting up the extremely reluctant sheep.  They find a very different land scape at the top of the cliff.  The top of the mountain is mostly flat and is a maze of mesas and canyons, which is shrouded in fog.  Zyva states that she will scout ahead letting the rest of the party after the climb.  Zyva, flies ahead invisible, and finds a good bit of 'cow sign'.  She does an impressive scouting job, and is damned lucky, when her ears pick up a strange rumbling music.  Sneaking forward she finds a  truly Colossal humanoid playing his didgeridoo, which is not a tree, but the cave system of the mountain its self.
    Zyva flies back to the party, once again luckily finding her way, and tells them that the Ogre is over 40 feet tall, has eyes where its ears should be and great antenna/funnels on the top of its head.  Billet states that finally she has found a worthy opponent, causing Zyva to question her grip on reality even more.  The party bravely/ foolishly goes fourth to meet the 'Ogre'.  When they meet the Ogre they demonstrate a un-before seen level of wisdom and engage in friendly parley.  They learn that “Long Ago” the one who created the 'Ogre' placed him at the top of this volcano and told him to wait for his return.  And that is what he has done, spending the untold centuries in cloud study and playing his music.  Recently “little ones” have come,  mostly they leave him alone, which is good.  A few come up and bother him.  They party learns that the Ogre tosses the bodies and equipment of those that bother him into his pissoir.  A few of the party members, lead by Hesperose, goes and snoops about the Ogre's cave.  Finding the pissoir they set aside all since of hygiene and deeply assault their senses of smells and rummage through the detritus, finding generally rot and corrosion.  As if by magic, two things are not destroyed by the horrors of the Ogre's micturition.  Apiece of red cloth 24” square and a spear head.  Hesperose asks the Ogre if they can take these items with them.  The Ogre agrees but askes that the party leave some of there weapons in the pissoir, as to have fewer weapons out causing pain in the world.
    The party eventually gets around to asking after why the Ogre has been eating the cows of the Islanders.  The Ogre states that his cows have been going missing and since there is nobody else on the island with cows, that they must be taking them.  The party offers to find out where his cows are going and take their leave with the Ogre's blessing.  They party once again demonstrates shockingly good luck and finds a cave entrance cleverly hidden behind some bushes.  Following the cow tracks they wind their way through the labyrinthine cave system, having a brief scuffle with some spiders of unusually large size.