We get into town fairly easily, despite standing out like sore thumbs – it’s market day so merchants are expected, and there isn’t even a toll at the gatehouse!

Sir Stickuptheass chooses an inn near the gate, and it looks like quite a fancy establishment, so I don’t dissent from the choice. The food is OK as well, but the clientele is a bit rowdy – a bunch of funny dressed guys having a bit too much fun. The serving boy says they are Yazzaks from the south. Turns out Yazzaks is an ethnic demonym, rather than the long slang. Anyway Sir Killjoy keeps us all on a short leash – something about being undercover – which suits me, and we head to bed fairly early (although not before the Yazzaks I notice – lightweights).

We are all bunking up together because it’s market day and I am woken suddenly by Psychofiregirl shouting out. Assuming that the stunty can’t keep his hands to himself I leap up to watch the fun, and duck out of the way of the fireball, and discover that I can’t. Someone is grappling me as well. This isn’t going to end well for somebody – that’s for sure. I hear Muscles give a roar and suddenly the guy groping me lets go and scarpers. I switch, quick as you like, from incanting Dimension Door, to giving him a full Blight right between the shoulders, and he goes down like a sack of bones. Which he is now. I taste his life-force as I suck his soul into my body.

Muscles seems to have restrained one now, who is a giant rat, and then changes back into a man again. Ah-ha – a were-rat. I have just the thing for that, and get my silver dagger out of my boot as I get dressed. Psychofiregirl and Muscles tie up the were-rat.

Muscles and I go downstairs to see where the rest of them might have got to. The tap-room is empty, but we discover that the back door is still slightly ajar, so they have obviously scarpered like, well, rats. My original thought had been that the inn-keeper might have shopped us to the authorities, and the stories of the antics at that stupid village might have already reached her, but I reckon the authorities aren’t likely to use were-rats. So it seems like we should ask the inn-keeper what the f**k is going on here. We find his room behind the bar, but the door is locked. That stops Muscles for about 5 seconds. The inn-keeper wakes up to find a six and a half-foot barbarian wearing nothing but the remains of a door and wielding a battle-axe in his room. I’m pretty surprised that he doesn’t shit himself.

He turns out to be pretty talkative for some reason. Claims that the were-rats are a syndicate giving him a shake-down, and we were the saps because we were new in town. We escort him upstairs, where Sir Smartypants has cast some sort of scary Zone of Truth spell and is questioning the were-rat, who is keeping schtum. Even spits in his face at some point, which takes some guts, given what I have seen him do to much larger things with that sword of his. But he’s a wuss, so doesn’t respond. I reckon that we’ve caught him burglarizing red-handed, and back where I come from the penalty for that is losing a hand. Enough of us to be the jury as well, so time for the punishment. I get the silver dagger out, and carve off one finger – ain’t nothing that says you can’t have a bit of fun administering justice or that the hand has to come off in one go. You can hear the flesh sizzle as the silver contacts it, and that gets him talking nice and fast.

Still don’t get much out of him though, and the inn-keeper genuinely doesn’t seem to have a clue, but we do get directions to their lair. We set out, with the bound and gagged were-rate guiding us, but Fingers and I out front. My Devil’s Sight means I spot a couple of likely candidates keeping an eye on the road from the inn though long before they can see me, and Fingers and I circle round and take them from the rear. Roughly. My blast ain’t the best, but Fingers kills his and finishes off mine as well. Kill-stealing, but I’m already pumped, and its for the team – better than them making a noise. We get closer to the house where the entrance to their tunnels is, and spot another one – this time I cast Invisibility on the two of us to make sure we ain’t spotted. We think for a second that one of them has smelt us though, but it doesn’t save them. A small tunnel entrance awaits Team Silent-Death (plus the other losers who I guess we will need to bring along as well).

Continuing to lead my carefully disguised team down the main road towards the nearest town and then the capital of Hool, we encountered two young children by the wayside looking distressed. Hailing them in my friendliest terms, for children are especially protected by Helim, wherever they maybe, I discovered that they were looking for someone to help their village, where almost everyone was struck down by a terrible illness. Obviously this was a task set before me by Helim himself, to prove his light in this land of darkness, but means of signs and miracles.

We followed the children and soon reached their village – a cluster of dilapidated huts around a small well. They led us to their home, where both their parents were bed-bound and severely ill. The druidess confirmed with her leeching skill that they were suffering from some kind of enteric illness, possibly caused by fouled water. I laid hands upon the two of them and invoked the glory of Helim, and his radiant light purged them of their impurity. Soon they were both able to walk and I urged them to visit the rest of the village and determine how many were ill and find me the most severely affected or closest to death so that I could treat them first.

Meanwhile, I sent the scout, or rather the miscreant who was posing as our scout, down the well, as that seemed to be the obvious source of the illness. A call, followed by some retching, indicated that a partially decomposed goat was fouling the water. We threw down some burlap, which he wrapped the corpse in and I then had it winched out of the well, followed by a similarly befouled scout. I then descended myself and purified the water in the well, removing the contamination from both the goat and the scout’s stomach.

Returning to the surface, I was guided to those most desperately ill, and was able to return three more of them to health with Helim’s divine light. At this point a youth from the village appeared with an aged and obviously insane hermit. He was obviously known to those here and inspected them before brewing some tincture from herbs, which he fed those still ill. I explained that we had identified and removed the source of the contagion.

The hermit gave us a shrewd look and engaged me with questions. I demurred initially, but he obviously knew the truth and I am not one to hide the light of Helim behind the clouds of untruth, so revealed the in Helim’s name I had indeed performed healing miracles here in the village. He cautioned me that we should not reveal our affiliations so readily here in the land of Hool; but I said that my vows did not permit me to ride past when the poor and innocent were suffering. He thanked me for what I had done here, and we talked further of the nature of the land we were now in.

He joined us for an evening repast and we lay down to sleep by our fire, but in the morning he had disappeared without trace. Possibly he was a servant of the Master in disguise, but the infusion he had given the villagers seemed to have worked, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

We bade farewell to the grateful villagers, and paid them for some fresh food for our rations, before returning to the main road. After many hours, as the afternoon was drawing towards evening, we reached a wood that the road ran through. Entering the wood, we saw that there was a large group within it. Assuming the worst, our scout slipped from his camel and attempted to hide in the undergrowth, but was easily spotted, and returned, shamed, to his mount. I engaged them in conversation, for they did not seem threatening. They claimed to be a band of outlaws who had been trailing us since we crossed the great pass and entered the land. Now that we were safe from prying eyes in this wood, they wanted to talk to me, for otherwise the eyes of the Master were everywhere. They told me that there was an inn further down the road where we could rest in safety, and they could tell me more of their stand against the Master.

My keen senses told me that these stone statues were far too realistic to have been carved by the sort of craftsman that would frequent these forsaken lands, and so the obvious solution was that we were dealing with the lair of some terrible aberration; maybe even the fearsome basilisk itself.

A detailed search of the area revealed no tracks though, or any indications of which if the two cave mouths might be the lair of this beast. It seemed that I would have to use my intuition and divine sense of guidance in order to guide the rest of the company on the right part, but the druidess Elune spoke to me. Apparently amongst the curses bestowed on her by her deviant and degenerate worship of the old gods was that of changing shape into the form of a beast. She therefore offered to turn into the shape of a giant spider and investigate the caves in that form. I assented, with misgivings, to using such foul magics, but reasoned that we were following a holy misson, and I could purge her of her heresy at some later stage.

She disappeared into the right hand cave, and was never seen again.

Well, actually she did reappear, but only after many hours had passed. I feared that the last vestiges of her rational mind had succumbed to the bestial urges and passions of her debased form, but eventually she returned. The cave led to a tunnel apparently, at the end of which was a barred door, and a speaking tube of some kind. She had seen no other creature on that path.

We followed her route and found the barred door. Elune changed once again, into a miniature spider, and started climbing up the speaking tube. The plan was that on the far side, she would return to her natural form, and open the gate for us.

While she was gone however, we were addressed through this tube, and questioned as to our purpose. I stated boldly that our purpose was to reach the lands beyond, but they asked me why and on whose authority I proceeded. I glossed the true purpose of our visit and averred that we were here by invitation of the Master, which was true enough, for we had a scrap of parchment that he had given us through the magic mirror in the tomb of the Scorpion King. Indeed when a hobgoblin appeared to check our tale, I was able to show him this invitation directly.

This obviously satisfied the guard for the gate was raised and we passed through, and out of another cave into the valley below. Looking back, we saw that as well as some hobgoblins, a storm giant guarded the gate. Elune rejoined us in spider form and we followed the road down the valley.

After a day on the road, we fell in with some merchants, and ourselves posed as a merchant (Mordana) and her guards, looking for wares to purchase and trade back across the mountains. They were friendly and told us of a nearby town, but also warned us that our elven and dwarven friends would cause attention and possibly even aggression from some of the humanoid inhabitants of this realm.

We resolved that the elves should be able to hide their appearance with cloaks or hats, and maybe even a false beard, but the dwarf would be a different problem. Mordana offered the suggestion though that we could make it appear as if he was our slave, and therefore it might not cause such attention.

The Book of Light says ‘where the darkness is deepest, there the light can shine strongest’. Following my success in Hutarkka where I brought the light of Helim to that benighted backwater and brought peace to their warring factions with the light of my mace, I am not content to rest on my laurels or take pride in my achievements, because I am merely a servant of the eternal light.

Thus I am now here, in the western deserts of the Republic of Darokin, because the light of Helim knows no earthly boundaries, and nor do its servants. Here I am unknown at present, but soon my renown will shine across the land in the service of the Lord of Light. The distance from Karameikos can be the only explanation for why my aid has not been received with more gladness, for I have been treated in many respects as if I was a common soldier. But we are also taught that sometimes it is necessary for the light to be hidden for a while so that it may shine forth suddenly in the midst of its enemies.

I find myself commanding a rag-tag of drop-outs and misfits that are too rebellious or unbiddable to be included in the main army that moved out against the desert nomads a few days ago. My desire to smite the forces of darkness burns within me unquenched though. I command and am commanded, as is proper, so I shall excel at my duty, whatever my duty may be, even if it is unworthy of me. Do everything as if you do it for Helim.

Last night I was given an opportunity to show my valour indeed. It was the third watch and there was a cry from the wilderness beyond the palisade. Hearing in that cry the voice of a man sorely oppressed, I vaulted heroically from the palisade and ran towards the noise. When I arrived, I beheld a man being attacked by a foul creature which the sight of Helim (all blessings to him) showed to be a fiend from the deepest hells. The man was sorely hurt, but two great blows from my mace, backed with the radiant power of Helim, was enough to dispatch the foul creature back to its infernal lair.

The man could barely speak, but thrust a scroll tube into my hand and whispered something about crossing the great desert, journeying through the great pass, and defeating the Dark Master in his temple of Death. Or something like that – the details are a little hazy. But it matters not – Helim himself, in this stranger, has revealed to me my purpose in this land, and I will fulfill his will.

Fortunately my superiors concur that I am destined to bring doom to this dark master, and have concurred with Helim’s will, as they obviously must, but without struggle, which is always the best route. I shall lead my squad upriver and then into the desert, to find the great pass and the temple of death.

The next day, as my troops are preparing our rafts and supplies, we are attacked by a wizard on a wyvern and several trolls. The wizard uses cowardly tactics, casting spells from a distance, but I am able to catch him on the ground and show him the justice and righteousness of Helim until he submits and acknowledges his majesty in a most final manner.

The trolls are beneath contempt and are slaughtered repeatedly and then burnt until they stop moving.

Well, this seems as good a place to lie low as any, or so I first thought. Volunteer for the army being sent out to the desert border, and then scarper when things look like getting hot. Not that I can’t look after myself these days, since the deal was done, but no sense making trouble for myself. Trouble is this place is buttoned up like a snake’s arse, and there is no where to go anyway, except downstream. And I saw what they did to some guys who tried to run away that way. So kept my head low, and made sure that I was useless enough not to get picked, but not so useless that I get nailed for anything. And I mean nailed up. It was all OK until a few days ago, and then the main force moved out, and we were left to garrison this dump. Opportunity at last I thought, but this complete stick-up-the-arse aristocrat has put himself in charge of our squad. We seem to be all the awkward bastards and misfits and I think a bunch of them are playing the same card as me and appearing a lot more useless than they are. There is one girl who is nice enough, except she keeps playing with fire the whole time, like literally. I think she is a few loaves short of a bakery shop, if you ask me. And this dwarf who is the grumpiest sod I ever met. And a complete meatheat who is so up himself its not true, and his slimy sidekick. Plus the aforementioned nob. And some kind of hippie chick.

Anyway, night before last we were doing duty on the rampart, and suddenly heard a kerfuffle out in the desert. Black as pitch out there, but of course that doesn’t cause me no problems, not with my witchsight. I could see what was going on – some bloke in desert robes fighting with some kind of creature. Unnatural looking thing. Anyway Stephen, the nob, Stephen de Hautville he insists on being called, he shouts a warcry of somekind, and jumps over the frigging rampart. Must be a twelve foot drop to the bottom. Brains of a tadpole that one. Brave, I’ll grant you, but I’m amazed he has lived thsi long. Anyway, he goes pegging off towards the fight. The flight is getting closer, and I think the others can see what is going on now, including Stephen. The thing is definitely unearthly now, but Stephen doesn’t slow down. I think there really is quite a lot of brain missing there. Anyway, he gets in close and starts slugging it with his mace, which is quite impressive – blasts of light as he hits it. He looks like he is having far too much fun though, so I banish it back to wherever it came from. Works like a charm as well. Kill-steal! The nob looks a bit disconsolate but pulls himself back together and tends to the wounded bloke, then carries him back in. They vanish off with the rest of the boss types, so I go back to staring at the desert.

Next morning, its all go. Seems we now have a top secret mission to go on. Must be related to the bloke we rescued I guess. Anyway, far to top secret for me to know about, except that I am quite good at knowing about stuff that I’m not supposed to know about. Apparently we need to go into the desert, through some sort of great pass, and find the temple of Death. Not sure what we are supposed to do there, but I guess a bit of mindless violence will be called for. Anyway, first step is to travel up the river for a couple of days and through a marsh, then strike out across the desert until we hit the caravan route, and pick up a caravan. They try to but be on raft loading duty, and then realise that its really not what I do, lugging stuff around. So I get to round up the camels instead. Evil bloody creatures, but smart. They rapidly realise who is boss, once you give them a quick mental picture of what true suffering really is. The Stephen nob gives us a speech about how we should be proud to be doing the will of Helim. Utter claptrap. We spend most of the day doing this, and then someone spots something in the sky flying towards us. We take cover and the dragon flies pass with a bloke on it. I send Faustus up to have a look, but he can’t keep up with it and the sunlight hurts his likkle eyes. Couple of hours later, its back again, and this time its heading straight for us. We go to take up a defensive position, but suddenly the bloke on the back gestures and a mote of flame flies over and explodes in the centre of us. We’re not too badly damaged (or at least I’m not), so I blast him back with a fireball of my own – not just him, but the three trolls who have just hopped over the palisade to support him. Stephen goes charging off at him again – the guy seriously only seems to have one tactic. The flight is relatively short – I blast off a few more eldricht blasts, but make sure to keep myself well out of harms way. The hippie-chick summons a pack of wolves, which is quite impressive. They don’t last long against the trolls, but it makes it just too complex to be bothered woring out who I should be blasting. Starts getting pretty boring towards the end – the wizard on the wyvern dies quite quickly and the wyvern buggers off fortunately. It quite funny watching them chop up the trolls, which keep pulling themselves back together. Finally they start hitting them with fire spells – the nutjob with the fire fixation is obviously fairly good at that, and the nob has a neat trick where he gets his mace to burst into flames when it hits, so they all stay down in the end.

The slimeball has had a root through the pockets of the wizard by the time I get there, but my arcane sight shows me that he has a magic ring on, so I get the Brazen Tome out (a sign of especial favour from my infernal lord) and start preparing a spell of identification.

The others finally returned and we took a brief rest as we recovered from our exertions.  We then explored the rooms that they had been in.  There were two bodies, which matched their tales.  Their purses were empty unfortunately.  We proceeded to a trisection with a strange clay statue, which proved to not be magical, and didn’t attack us.  Going north, we then headed east to a door, beyond which Feyabelle heard kitchen sounds.  We burst in to once again slaughter menials, to be confronted by a mess hall and two heavily armoured warriors eating a root-vegetable stew.  

They leapt up, Sorrel cast spike growth, so they leapt on the tables and jumped across the room towards her.  One slipped and fell on the floor.  Feyabelle shot at them, and Arielle rushed in to fight the one on the table.  Thorg stomped round to the one on the floor.  Feyabelle moved further in and shot at the one on the floor, killing him just as Thorg reached him.  Thorg turned and stomped back to the other one, reaching him just as Arielle killed him.  It all seemed quite boring, so I waited in the corridor.  They certainly didn’t seem to be of a calibre to waste my magical might on.

There was a kitchen in the far corner with three menials that Thorg and I interrogated.  As we were gagging and tying them to the cupboards, the floor around the other three erupted upwards.  A woman had appeared in the other doorway of the room.  She then retreated back through the door and Sorrel followed her.  I ran up and saw a short corridor with two men at arms supporting her.  Arielle cast a circle of silence on her to stop her casting further spells, and I cast my own earth erupting spell which caught the three of them (and Sorrel as acceptable collateral damage).  The two henchmen went down rapidly, but the woman took a pounding from Feyabelle, Arielle and Thorg.  I cast a web spell on the door at the far end of the corridor to prevent her running away.  We realised later that only Thorg’s sword and Arielle’s dagger had really been doing her much damage.  Finally Thorg delivered the coup-de-grace and she exploded in a shower of razor sharp stone shards, cutting up Sorrel and Thorg quite badly (Arielle managed to dodge them all).  Now to see what lies beyond the door.

Much fighting continued.  I penned the grey dwarves in with a wall of fire, and was then attacked by the cultists who had come in through the door next to me, but used my gnomish magic to disappear from their eyes when the first one hit me, so the rest missed.  I saw Thorg finish off the bulette rider, and then go and wait for the grey dwarves to come through my wall of fire.  Invisible, I then moved around the back of the cultists and killed one with a sneak crossbow bolt, while Arielle finished off the rest.  Arielle, Sorrel and Feyabelle then vanished through that door, while I went over to help Thorg against the grey dwarves, who had still not emerged.  Thorg went through the northern stone doors, and was hit by a crossbow bolt from a concealed arrowslit so some of them were still alive.  I conjured some smoke mephits from my pipe, and sent them through the wall of fire to attack any living grey dwarves, but they soon returned, so I dropped the wall of fire.  We found the charred remains of three grey dwarves, but no sign of the other two, so assumed that they had turned invisible and sneaked past us – hopefully to flee into their deep diggings.

I guess we had better go and find out what has happened to the other three – they have been gone for quite a long time.

Having dealt with the excitement at Red Larch (and tried to persude them that we have saved them from a horrible fate and that a small amount of collateral damage from lightning bolts was a small price to pay – difficult without actually setting off the sphere of destruction to let them see the impact), we thought about our next steps. Obviously the earth temple was the next target, but given we had come in through the front door on each of the previous two occasions, I reasoned that we should try the back door this time, in case they spotted a pattern. Accordingly, we returned to the water temple and went through the passageway to the north.
We emerged after a short trek into a large columned hall. Unfortunately we got very little time to appreciate it before we were attacked by a bulette. It was chained up to a column, but the chain wasn’t really up to the task and broke. We pulled back down the corridor to fight it, and killed it reasonably rapidly, but its bite gave Thorg a couple of quite nasty nips.
Emerging back into the chamber, we spotted another bullette sleeping and chained to one of a pair of columns further into the hall. We decided to avoid another fight, so Arielle cast Pass Without Trace and we snuck past. We found a chasm splitting the room with the noise of hammering echoing up it, but were able to cross easily with the aid of some rope. On the far side we found yet another bulette, which we sneaked past again. On the far side of the hall we found another corridor. Off to the right we found a chamber lined with giant statues of dwarves with maces for hands, set up as some sort of alchemical laboratory. There was a man in there with his back to us, wearing a cloak of small stone tiles. This alone was enough to persuade us not to give him the benefit of the doubt, so we piled in on him. His reactions were pretty slow, and he went down before he could even turn around. A quick perusal of his paperwork showed that we had been right to let him have it with both barrels – he was the #2 in the earth cult and could command the statues to attack us.
Leaving his room, we proceeded north. The next chamber was another large columned hall. Near us in the corner was a group of hobgoblins around a fire, and in the far corner another bulette, this time with a rider.
I zagged to the left and lightning bolted the bullette, while the others took care of the hobgoblins. Next turn they moved towards the bulette, Feyabelle taking cover behind Thorg, while I lightning bolted the bulette again. The bullette surprised us though by leaping on top of Thorg and Feyabelle, almost crushing both of them. Thorg’s counter-attack finished it off though, although not the rider. At this moment, both doors into the chamber opened. On the right side were three grey-skinned dwarves, and on the left a bunch of cultists.

Our recuperation at Red Larch was as vigourous as normal, and it was with a heavy head that I was woken up on the second morning by shouts of surprise from outside.
We all hastened out in varying stages of undress (except Thorg – does he sleep in that armour), although not enough undress in some cases unfortunately… In the centre of Red Larch was a group of water cultists – some warriors, a priest, another shivver and an elemental in plate armour (you had to be there to understand). In centre of their circle they had a chest from which they were pulling out a sphere while chanting. The sphere was exactly as Theorgorm had described at Womford, which had caused a flood that had washed away the village. Concerned about the effect this Sphere of Destruction would have on Red Larch, we put our efforts into stopping them doing the same here.
Thorg waded forward to assault the water elemental. Feyabelle starting shooting people before getting attacked by the water elemental. Sorrel turned into a bear and starting clawing at people. Arielle ran up a house (new trick that one) and started throwing things at the priest from the chimney. I lightning bolted the elemental and the shivver and then ran behind a house and turned invisible. The shivver vanished in a puff of mist (obviously not expecting proper resistance), and the priest went down to Feyabelle’s shooting and Sorrel’s claws. I ran round the back of the house to the unattended sphere, popped it back in its box and ran out of town. I had noticed that the box had fire runes on it, and guessed that the fire runes somehow neutralised the water bomb. I was shown to be right when I subsequently had the time to cast identify on it – it turned out the bomb was only 6 seconds from exploding, but that timer was suspended while it was on the box. I made sure the box was really properly latched shut at that point.

Seeing the reinforcements arrive, and concerned that my ball-bearings would only hold them up briefly, I quickly found a pile of fabrics and cask of brandy that looked suitable for starting a blaze, so used one of the smoke mephits to set light to that pile. Before the lizardmen could spot it, I scurried, still invisible, across to the south side of the market hall and started another one.
Seeing that the lizardmen had spotted the blaze, I then prowled south from the market hall, still concealed by my invisibility. To the south was another square with a central statue. I checked the rooms, and found the lizardmen quarters, now deserted, and some other rooms. My scouting was interrupted though by the arrival of more reinforcements – another one of the one-eyed cultists and some more warriors. The leader was muttering something about the stupidity of the hideous woman who was already in the market hall, so I resolved to follow them.
I found them in the market hall, facing off against each other and trading insults. It looked pretty het up, and so I decided to see if I could get them to actually start fighting each other. Hidden in the southern doorway, I cast an illusion over one of the warriors of him throwing his javelin at one of the ogres. It missed (even ogres can probably spot an illusionary javelin hitting them), but that was enough to get the ogre to lunge forward and attack. The rest of the warriors leapt to his support and I followed up with a magic missile on the other ogre to get him riled up as well.
The hideous woman transformed before our eyes into an even more hideous hag – so terrifying that one of the warriors dropped dead of fright on the spot. The one-eyed cultist started fiddling with the strange water tank on his back and a water-snake emerged from it and attacked the hag. At the same time, he muttered an incantation, and an ogre and two of the lizardmen fled into the pool to the west.
The fight after that was fairly brief – the hag was quickly throttled by the water snake and the rest of her minions (the ones that were still alive) fled when she died. The cultist told them to run and keep going – and that he would kill them if they didn’t leave immediately. He then muttered something about stupid lizardmen setting off glyphs by mistake and disappeared back to the south – I had hidden in one of the side rooms to avoid being spotted.
When he had gone, I ventured back into the temple, but it was empty (although there were signs of a fight having taken place). There was a door on the far side, but when I went through it, there were just some unoccupied rooms. I was low on spells and tired, so decided to hide under a bed and get some sleep.
The next morning (possibly – I have lost track of time), I returned to the temple to start trying to find my colleagues. Imagine my surprise when they emerged from out of the pool of water in the temple – it turns out there was an underwater passage to a secret chamber where they had spent the night. They had also found a trove of old tomes belonging to Brulthenar, and had a defecting (and defective) priest of the water cult tagging along with them.
We decided to finish off the one-eyed cultist before we left, so headed south. We found a room with many great barrels of water, which we didn’t investigate. After that, we found him in his laboratory. Barging through the door, we achieved surprise and Thorg was able to hack him to pieces before he could even reach for his deadly water-snake backpack. A bunch of bugbears then burst in through the south door, but we fairly rapidly dealt with them to.
We returned to our original boat (our water priest cultist persuaded the troll waiting under one of the bridges that we were trusted guests) and returned to Riverguard Keep and then to Red Larch to replenish and recuperate.