• 25,000 silver pennies
• 8,000 gold shillings
• 9,450 silver pennies in jewellery

In preparing for the attack from the Hawks of Balor Lord Rockwall walled up the top entrance to the Kings tower. We also put a scarecrow with the Kings clothes on the throne and prepared to guard the King chambers. I stood watch on the Balcony and shortly after nightfall seven Hawks of Balor attacked. They seemed to be golem like and we destroyed (they puffed into lots a little shadows) six of them but one got away. Nothing further happened that night and we were paid our money (350 sp.) in the morning.

15^th Thaw 797 WK
We rested and recovered from our fight. Hadron did another reading on Kel and it wasn't nearly as bad this time. There were only two dark forces now and they definitely had suffered a setback.

Also we examined the copper plate that the scared hearth flame sits on and found the copper disk was magical and created by Aim and is demonically resistant to fire. Actually if you could fashion a trap from the copper disk it is strong enough to hold Aim himself.

The council offered us either 10,000 sp. or one of the magic items from the treasury (Not the Crown, Sever Blade or the Null Plate) to go north and sort out Prince Fengil. We choose the magic hard leather.

16^th Thaw 797 WK
We left and rode north all day to a small village. As we were heroes a local family put us up. Heard about Sara, a local wise woman who knows about herbs and curing boils.

17^th Thaw 797 WK
Next morning we rode north to the village Silver that is across the Felice river from the Siren forest. Next morning we will have to take the ferry then follow the path into the forest.

We stayed in The Silver Stag Inn. (15 sp.)

We chatted to a local in the commons about the forest. He said it was full of Elves who hassle travellers. They don't attack them but tend to do things like shoot their hats off with arrows, and try to tempt people to chase them off the path. The White Tower is a short way in the forest on a side path. Also he had heard of golden apples that if you eat one a day you will live forever. Also apparently there was an ancient king of the elves buried in the woods somewhere.
North of the Siren forest there is a Dragon in the mountains as well as the Frost giants etc.

18^th Thaw 797 WK
Next morning we crossed the ferry (1sp), and saw a path off into Siren forest after a logged area.
A short way along the path we saw The White Tower with a side path leading to it.

The tower had an open archway and an internal stairway. As you climb the stairs the tower and all in it shrink (unnoticeably) until you reach the top room. If you step into the top room the tower expands back to full height and any entities in the tower remain one twelfth in height (Major curse MA 20).

We were being watched by at least two elves that didn't want to talk to us.
Sasha lassoed the chest that was in the top room and we hauled it down. Inside the chest was a nice two-handed sword. We discovered this was silvered, magic and named "The Last Word". Any person wielding the sword will act last in the pulse (after magic) even if quickened but you will ALWAYS hit.

As we were leaving the elves in the forest threw darts at us attempting to knock off our hats and hit in the center of our shields. They only seemed to be taunting us.

We travelled further down the path and came across some nymphs frolicking in a pond. They threw us an apple each and said if we ate an apple a day we would not aging in any way (EVEN magical aging). However to reach the apple tree in the center of the pond we would have to cross the pond and this would make us old (but the apples would protect us). Thus as long as we ate an apple a day we would be young but as soon as we stopped we would become very old.
We tried to get some more apples but the nymphs turned into Hags and chased us off.

Further down the path there was a barrow off to the side.
Tso went over and looked around it, we think this is where the elvish king was buried. Unfortunately he rose up and created a huge, thick (can't see your hand in front of your face) mist that smelt terrible. He then put down an Agony spell and some sort of fear thing.
We ran away and only got drained a little.

About half a dozen miles further down the track we saw the Village of Mimir with a black Knight just this side of it. Sir Ty challenged him to single combat and asked his name. He said he was Baz so we subdued him.
It turned out that he had arrived at the village a couple of days before and was torturing the villagers to find out where the passage through the mountains started. We stayed the night and were put up for free.

19^th Thaw 797 WK
After we woke up we found we were much less agile and dexterous and much more intelligent and wilful. Investigation revealed that this was caused by the water in the well in the center of the village and this was magic. We found out that the effect was temporary and only lasted one day. We waited one day for it to wear off (except Kel who went back and drank the water the next day).

While we were waiting for the effect to subside we talked to the locals about the Ruins of Mimir and they told us about the sage from Eltrandor who came here fifty years ago with the Centurion Drajan. Apparently he went missing in the temple to Mimir (in the Ruins of Mimir). All that was found by the Centurion Drajan was some bloody parchment.

Tso and Sasha decrypted this and came up with the following.

We decided to go and investigate tomorrow (strangely Kel did not object).

20^th Thaw 797 WK
Today we went to temple of Mimir in the Ruins of Mimir in the middle of the Siren forest. The temple was an open square with ruins and edifices all around. In the middle of the temple was a seventy-five foot round pit that was fifty feet deep. There was a spiral staircase around the outside and a huge (eighty foot tall) stone pillar (actually a worn statue) in its center.

Down we went and knelt at the bottom and bid Mimir enter.
A stone block in the side of the pit slid aside and revealed a dark corridor sloping away from us. About fifty feet down there was an open iron gate into a room.
We went into the room and two figures wrapped in rags entered from side rooms. The one from the left was carrying a dish with white powder (Fog) in it. The one from the right had a dish with black powder (Poison) in it. Both carried short-swords and moved towards the altar in the center of the room. A brief fight ensued and we all got blinded by the fog and poisoned. Sir Ty, Tso and myself got one mummy and Kel (indirectly) got the other.
There was a secret door that opens behind the altar when you put white powder in the left depression on the altar and black powder in the right.
On the other side was a skeleton of a man with the top of his skull snipped off (remember Hadron's reading with Kel about the big insect that eats people's brains).
Quotes from Kel :
Kel to Tso : What if triggering that trap summons a demon and it kills us all. Then you'll be embarrassed.
The skeleton was lying on top of a pressure plate that closes the secret door once you step off it. It had two scroll cases :

• One had instructions on opening the secret door from the last room.
• The other had the solution to the riddle at the bottom of the pit (see above).

At the other end of the room was a corridor exiting it that had a strange side corridor in it. The side corridor had two shallow grooves cut in the floor which were flowing with blood (Yuck). These ultimately ended in a face that was crying blood.
Sasha touched one and it spoke to here in an incomprehensible babble. We were all disappointed.

We left that room and headed down the corridor towards the grooves of blood. We thought they were magical and Kel thought they proberly were poisoned as well. Sir Ty looked down the holes they ran into and started to feel as if he was choking. We pulled him back. It appeared that looking at or down the holes subjected you to some form of Mental Attack ! Kel covered the grooves and holes and we continued past the blood corridor to a door.

Through the door was a demon face on the wall which briefly tried to make the front people go mad then it faded away (spooky) and there was nothing in the room.

So we went back down the blood and grooved side corridor towards the bleeding face. There was a magic area down there with a beautiful girl standing in a side alcove (don't believe it for a second - remember the hags). Dunlan was very brave and discovered the magic is a mild form of mental control that made you a little drowsy and believe everything around you is benevolent.

We went back for a closer look and got attacked by two succubi that TK raged and Phantasmed us then stabbed Sasha and myself with poisoned daggers. Sasha died, Kel was badly hurt and I was poisoned and had to be saved by Sir Ty. At the end of the fight they ran away and we retreated to the surface to recover. While down there we saw a strange vase in a side room that we think one or more of the succubi live in (they seem to be able to walk through walls and are as fast as me). We bought Sasha back to life with one of those fantastic potions Hadron gave us.

We went back to the village to rest and recover.
That night the succubi talked to Kel's mind and told her that Shader had summoned them.
along with the Necrophobius but due to our efforts they were released now. They got Kel to draw a map of the underground area and said they wouldn't bother us if we wouldn't bother them. One of them said her name was Bodorward.

21^st Thaw 797 WK
Next morning we met a score of elves lead by Lirasal and Misopha (who was wearing a crown made of silver) who wanted their sword back (The Last Word). The one we had picked up from The White Tower. We apologised and gave it back. They agreed to guide us through the forest to the tunnel to the lake.
They told us we would need to enter the temple make our way through the maze then enter the totem of darkness. The warned us to not enter the room with Balor's head.

They told us that Prince Fengil is a greater undead skilled in dark celestial magic with hundreds of years of training. He has a handful of human priest/assassins working with him.

They also said that the temple of knowledge was something of a local joke (we didn't get it) and was used by the demon Shader to obtain sacrifices. There was knowledge to be gained there but it all came with a twist or payment.

They said the undead in the barrow beside the forest path was King Quicksilver who died of disease and wanted to die in single combat so was rather unhappy.

They didn't regard our Balor quest important (and wouldn't help) and said as long as the sacred hearth fire burned and the local king could use it to defend themselves Balor would not rise. We told them that the king was dead without a direct heir and the next in line (prince Doron) didn't know how to use the flame. This worried them a little and they said they might go and teach Doron how to use the flame.

22^nd Thaw 797 WK
We went back to the underground temple and went through it to where we met the succubi (who had left).
We then went and examined the side room with a vase (lidded) in it. There was also another ceramic vase with its lid off beside it.
It turns out that both of these are spirit traps that can trap insubstantial creatures (once). The closed one had a wraith in it and also rattled - something else inside. We took the open vase (possibly for Prince Fengil).

The next odd room (will they ever stop?) had seven skeletons and nine chests on the roof and a deep pit in the floor. If you walked into the room you "fell" upwards towards the ceiling. In the chests were three rings of walking on air with 23 charges between them.

Further along was an altar room with a seven-pound bronze cursed helmet and a copper box in it. If you put the helmet on you cannot take if off, until someone removes the curse, and you might be able to understand all spoken tongues (or you might understand none and be unable to speak) - 18 MA curse. The copper box had a strange folding card in it :

Next was a round room with a scroll on a pedestal in the middle. The scroll case (which was magic with preservation) had paper within with some sort of portal spell on it.

The Wyrm Lair was full of mud and had skeleton hands that tried to strangle you and a worm that magically paralysed things. We dug a hole and drained out the mud (with the worm), also some stuff went down the hole, including some rather good chain mail, but we recovered some stuff;

• Magical +2 damage Rank 10 weapon-smithed hand & half.
• Emerald Necklace (1200 sp.)
• Necklace (100 sp.)
• Necklace (438 sp.)
• 520 sp.

• 2 potions of Vision enhancement (Rank 20 Night Vision for 8 hours)
• 2 potions of Mental enhancement (+4 MA & +4 WP until next you sleep)
• 2 potions of Healing (10 points)
• Silver Ankh (Restore life - see earlier)
• Ring (Invested Agony - 4 charges Rank 10)
• Dwarf bone dagger (Magical +1 DM)
• Ring (Invested Sentinels - 4 charges - Summons a strange knight to fight for you)
• Scroll of Resurrection (Dead less than 100 hours, don't need a big piece of dead person, loose 1 - 3 EN, for a week have ¹/₂ ST and AG, must be performed at sunrise, the reader of the scroll can't use any magic for the rest of the day)
• Scroll of Entrapment (Draw a 15' diameter pentacle. A random number of creatures within 100' are sucked inside until released.)
• Gold covered brick.
• Silver brick.

23^rd Thaw 797 WK
Spent today resting with the elves after restore life'ing Tso and Dunlan. We also got Kel back and healed up Sir Ty. Decided that going back was a bad idea.

24^th Thaw 797 WK
We rode north (about 3 miles), escorted by the elves, to a cave in a cliff face. This is the start of the tunnels that go through the mountains. From the cave we heard a ghostly wailing. Just before we went in the elves gave us lots of healing herbs to take with us.

We went back and investigated the tomb, we fought a Wight, which killed Dunlan. We have 3 ¹/₂ hours before Dunlan turns into a night gaunt.

Since we were in a hurry we went back down to the cave near the forest and I gave Tso my flying wand. We made him invisible and told him how to evade flying dragons (He should be able to fly faster than them).
Sasha had a magic thing that kept track of Tso while he was flying. First he went south (as planned) for twenty minutes. Then suddenly he was to our north, then a minute later he was out of range (80 miles) or dead. Things first started going awry when Tso was over the middle of the forest. We were very confused and asked the local elves for help.

The local elves told us of TWO dragons and a ROC, one of the dragon was male and a Air mage (Opps) who had recently claimed this area (we didn't know about him). The other that we had heard about was a female dragon who was a Mind mage and lived in a ruined city to the Southeast. The Roc had being stealing cattle earlier in the day. The said they could transport us, via a tree-walking spell, closer to the last place we thought Tso was. We went there and Sasha tracked him to the south and moving slowly, then he vanished again. This time he was beyond the female dragons lair and heading south. We think they are flying between rune-portals or some such thing. Next we went and visited Hadron's at Lord Rockwall's to see if they turned up there and they hadn't.

Sasha suggested we go to see Grobbenbonk (about 50 mile south of Tso's last position) as he is a local Rune mage goblin she knew. We went to his tower but he wasn't home (but his Orc guards were) and we used his rune portals to return to the guild to report the missing guild members.

At the guild we had two astrology readings done. We asked :

1. Will Dunlan get resurrected ?
2. Where will we next see Tso and Dunlan ?

1. These events lie in the past.
2. It is up to Tso whether you will see him at the guild again.

25^th Thaw 797 WK
With little more we could do we went back to Lord Rockwall's with heavy hearts (they weren't there) and picked up some earth invested's on a use (and pay for) or return basis. Then back to the cave (not there either) and through the tunnels to the large hall to outside on top of the mountain.

We spied on the frost giants that lived in the hall near the lake and saw them eating a shepherd (YUK) with there six huge dogs (six foot high), we built a big pit trap for them and they fell in it and died along with a couple of dogs. The rest we dispatched except for one that Kel befriended and a puppy Sasha found.
The hall of the Frost Giants was a strange (BIG) place with a meat locker full of human bodies (Double YUK), a kennel and a storage room with the following stuff :

• Potion of Theriac. - +4 AG up to 25.
• Potion of Control Imbiber.
• Velvet bag containing the skeletal hand of St Cradock.
• Snow Gem - Looks like an Icicle.
• Large Round Shield - Magical + 5 Def.
• Leather Armour. - +1 AP due to magic (ie. 6 AP Armour).
• A Love Potion.
• 1,110 sp.
• 3,600 sp. in 16 Assorted Jewels.

• A 1 ¹/₂' diameter gong and a quasi-dimensional tapestry (100lb) containing a homunculus servant that can carry 20 pounds.
• 3 Giant sized silver pieces.

• A Runic dagger with a rune matrix of spell storage.

26^th Thaw 797 WK
Quietly tunnelled around the lake to the northern side where the temple of Balor was. It is actually on a pillar of bound earth and had Balor trapped within it. We scouted around a little and decided to attack next morning (don't fight undead at night).

27^th Thaw 797 WK
Our scouting detected the following things in the temple.

• 1 Wraith (Fengil?).
• 1 Obsidiac (Some sort of crystal golem).
• 1 Grey Hood.
• 2 Humans on the top level.
• 1 Giant Spider.
• 1 Night Gaunt.
• 1 Huge thing with a lizard tail that spits acid and has turkey like waddles of flesh in it's neck.
• 5 Ganglyings - Giant octopus like beings.
• Some zombies.
• Oh and one demon prince (Balor) who is huge and occupies multiple levels.

There were four priests of Balor on the balcony who poisoned Kel's Dog and her Rat before they were killed, except for the one we captured as our prisoner. We recovered

• 18 poisoned darts.
• 4 Vials of poison.
• 3 Obsidian hand & half swords.

The statues represented Fire, Earth, Air and Darkness and all had a door in them. All the doors, bar the darkness one, do horrible things to the person stepping in to them then throw your remains into the pool. The darkness statue shadow-walks you to somewhere else (on Alusia).

On Kel's suggestion Murthac (as he is the toughest) stuck a stick into the pool to see past the scum on the surface. A large black crystal golem (Obsidiac maybe) rose up and thumped him four times killing him. I smashed it and Sir Ty recovered Murthac's body.
This meant we had to leave the temple (with our prisoner) and return to the Guild to get Murthac fixed so we back tracked to the Elves then Grobbenbonk place then home.

That is where we called it a day. Interrogation of the captured priest of Balor revealed that we had killed all of them and there was only two Hawks of Balor left as well. We returned the armour that we were offered as payment for dealing with Prince Fengil (as he is still undead) and the invested's that we had borrowed from Lord Rockwall. Finally back at the guild we split up the loot except for the Cursed Helmet of Understanding which we kept as a group item so we could return to the Ruins of Mimir at a later date.

Daily Notes Part #2

1^st Thaw 798 WK
After getting together we left for Glissom via Grobbenbonk's tower.
We caught up with King Doron and found out that he was getting along fine. The Elves have been teaching him how to be a Fire mage. We told him that we were intending to go back to the Ruins of Mimir and then finish off Fengil (if we can catch him).
We picked up the armour (the magical leather offered as payment for dealing with Fengil and headed out of town to Lord Rockwall's manor to see him and Hadron. They lent us some Potions.

After contacting the elves from the Siren forest the transported us to the village of Mimir. They told us of a strange obelisk in the east of the forest that seemed to be draining the mana from the area.

2^nd Thaw 798 WK
After staying the night in the village of Mimir we were taken to the obelisk site by the elves. It pained them to get to close to the obelisk so Esmeralda walked the last bit alone to have a look at it.
Esmaralda looked at the obelisk which was made of some strange brown rock, and almost seemed to be alive. She collected some of this strange rock and bought it back to us for later examination.

We went to the Ruins of Mimir and found it was completely deserted (we had expected a wraith or elementals or succubi to be around).

3^rd - 12^th Thaw 798 WK
We spent all this time either at the Ruins of Mimir or having curses removed. Eventually we each had learnt one thing from the Catheads.

18^th Blossom 798 WK
We returned to the Elves from the Guild and entered The Mountains of Brack but since we had maps from last time it was easy to negotiate the tunnels.
Eventually we came to the hall of the Frost Giants (deceased) and it was pretty much as we had left it a year ago but the Giants bodies (and their dogs bodies) were all missing? We continued down our underground tunnel making much better time that last time we were here.

At last (mid afternoon) we got to the end of the tunnel and I tunnelled through the ice to the temple in the middle of the lake. Just outside the temple was the Eltrandorian war banner we forgot to pick up last time we were here.
We entered the temple, went through the maze, and prepared to go though the statue of darkness to defeat Fengil (and his minions - see above for the full list). It is a place of power for Dark Celestials and a high mana zone only for them as well. It also is made mostly out of magically bound earth and ice.

Stepping out of the beam of black light we arrived in the dungeon under the Temple of Balor. Steps lead out into this black gooey stuff. We waded through the goo (we'd been told it would protect us from the Grey Hood) and arrived in a huge room partially full of grey mist with a large throne at the other end of it. To our left and right were two small rooms which we looted first (Circlets and Cloaks).
On the stairs (leading down into the mist) on the right had side there were a number of strange torches which we left as we could all see in the dark anyway. We went through the creepy grey mist and through a door under the throne.

The next corridor had a wall of darkness in the middle of it and rooms (the doors to them were hidden by the wall of darkness) to the left and right. The left room was were you prepared for the test of Balor and the right had some scrolls in it. Logan and Sasha explored the room to the right and the corridor beyond it accidentally setting off an explosive trap (they both survived).
The rest of us continued straight ahead and carefully snuck through the circular room with the huge pool / well in the middle (supposably where the Ganglyings live) and out the other side where we were rejoined by Logan and Sasha.
By opening the two swing doors and shutting them so no breeze went down the stairs to Krang we ensured he would not smell us and attack us.

Finally we advanced down the stairs to where Fengil lived. In the big room down the bottom we saw six zombie dogs and two zombie frost giants. We had a quick fight and got two of the dogs until Fengil turned up and cast lots of Darkness around so we couldn't see. We backed off into the light and Fengil sent a couple of dark spheres after us, so retreated some more.
We realised that the magic torches back by the Grey Hood could proberly penetrate the darkness so I ran back to get them (mostly followed by the party). This also woke up the Ganglyings which I had to zap before getting back with the torches. I distributed the torches and we advanced through the darkness (the light shone out about thirty feet), we couldn't find Fengil so we beat up his zombies and Sasha laid a trap for him using her Scroll of Entrapment.

Just before we left Ithilmore bravely did the test of Balor and survived (although quite hurt) and got some neat Armour of Darkness. Only one person could do the test and then the magic left.
We backed off and camped in the tunnels outside the Temple and rested for the night.

19^th Blossom 798 WK
We returned to the Temple of Balor and found Fengil and another greater undead in Sarsha's pentacle of Entrapment (from the scroll) and we destroyed them both then returned to Glissom for much drinking before coming back to the Guild in Seagate.