as written by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia, himself.

Wealday, 15 Arodus

Downstairs we did not find bright colors and spacious rooms. Is it any surprise that it got darker, and mustier, and .. well, what would you expect from rough hewn rock? We were descending into the mountain, and our level of caution went up correspondingly.

Qatana seemed to have a high energy level. She aggressively made her way to the front, and, glancing at Sparna, I acknowledged it was my turn to look after Qatana, and moved to the front as well. The stairway down, and the passage we found at the bottom were both narrow, allowing no more than one person to pass comfortably.

As I mentioned, the walls here were carved from rock, and were apt to be moist. Occasionally there would be active drips, and in the distance we could actually hear running water. The passage opened into a chamber with a door leading off to the north, and another door to the west. Opening the former, we found a corridor with a stream running through it, and a plank that might be big enough to cross it on the far shore. Opening the other, we observed pool of water plus a small waterfall from the southern wall. Intriguingly, a small dry shelf of land was on the far side of the pool, maybe 25 or 30 feet away, and there was a door there, along with a small cask or barrel.

Etayne surprised us by simply flying over to the other side, but when she tried to retrieve the plank, she found it was too heavy for her, even with her fly spell. Before we could come up with a plan B, we were inspired by the appearance of a troll on the opposite side. “What going on here?” said the troll in Giant. There was a pause, before Sparna loudly replied, “Prisoner transfer!” And he waved one of the raven figures we’d lifted from the ninjas. “Orders from Runecaster.”

The troll thought hard – really hard, because he was a troll and that didn’t come naturally to him – and finally concluded there was nothing going on here worth getting in trouble over. “No want trouble” he said, in fact, and easily picked up the plank and laid it across the stream.

Looking to the right we saw a room with a huge furnace on one side, and a huge pile of coal on the other. There were four trolls there altogether. Sparna got that dwarven-joker look on his face, and with as innocent a look as he could muster, called into the room, “Do you need more coal?” The troll replied quickly, loudly, and just a mite angrily, “NO MORE COAL!” I saw Sparna quietly smirk.

To the left, the door was locked. With the still suspicious trolls looking on, we pulled out the keys we got from upstairs, but none of them opened this lock. Radella sighed, bent over it for a bit, and suddenly the door slowly swung open.

The room was large, and nicely decorated in wood paneling and art. The ceiling here had to be 20′ high. We entered the dimly lit room, peering at the tapestries, before Ana called out, “it’s a trap!” Clinging to almost unnoticeable handholds on the walls, were six darkclad figures. A couple of them made a throwing motion, and there was a small flash and a big noise as each hit the floor. It appeared from their gestures that perhaps both Kali and Etayne had been close enough to be deafened by the blasts, hopefully temporarily.

With the attackers all being above us initially, arrows were the answer of choice. Ivan, as always, was firing arrows faster than anybody I’ve seen and making them stick too. One of those who’d dropped a thunderegg was among the first to die, at the end of Etayne’s spear. Once on the ground, these ninjas were neither well armored nor particularly hardy, and swords became the weapon of choice. Radella, Anavaru, Ivan and myself all racked up a kill in dispatching them.

However, not before they yelled for help from the trolls. And just when we thought we’d removed them as a problem … But trolls are large creatures. It turns out that the double doors leading into this room made a very nice bottleneck so that we didn’t have to deal with more than one at a time. Don’t get me wrong – the first troll totally destroyed the doors, but had less luck on the door frame. Still, for that strategy to work, we needed at least two of our party to engage them right at the door. That fell to myself first, and eventually Anavaru and Qatana (!).

Kali helped with another aqueous orb like she’d used on the earth elementals a few days ago. That made the troll a little helpless and at risk of drowning, but with others waiting behind it, it wouldn’t be particularly helpful to move the disabled troll around as she had with the earth elementals.

After a short time, Qatana quietly moved away from the trolls, and strategically went searching for other potential enemies in the room, just in case we killed all the trolls, I guess. Being the guy in front had drawn a fair amount of blood from me, but glancing over my shoulder at one point, I was a bit surprised to see Qatana listening at and trying other doors in the room. “Noooo” I roared, and Sparna, now helping me with the trolls, looked at me, surprised. I nodded to my back, and as he saw Qatana opening a door, he grimaced and nodded at me.

But we were both engaged with the trolls at this point, and couldn’t step back without letting them in the room.

I think it was Kali who reminded us that it was not legend: trolls needed to be burned to prevent them from regenerating. Etayne obliged by bestowing alchemist fire upon our first kill, and Kali was able to throw some acid splashes too.

Qatana had cleverly uncovered a secret door, but then left Radella to find the ninja hidden behind it. How does she do that? Anyway, at that particular point, I happened to be troll-free so I rushed over to help. I managed to get a good blow in … only to have her disappear. Crap. Invisibility. She reappeared quickly, though, and surprised me as she cut me up – and apparently poisoned me (again). This time, though, Qatana quickly cast delay poison on me so the damage was minimal.

For the first time in several minutes, the dungeon was quiet.

We took inventory. The female ninja carried several useful items.

[300] vial (poison – stronger than the deathblade poison from before)
[301] masterwork dagger (Tien style, blue metal blade) poison residue
[302-304] shuriken, engraved with image of erupting volcano
earthfire, +1, flaming burst – DC15 reflex or catch on fire
[305] blowgun
[306] 10 darts
[307] 5 plain shuriken
[308] black body suit – MW, +2 AC, +5 stealth
[309] MW Thieves tools

Searching in the room with the coal bin, Ivan and Sparna found

[310] 42 gold armbands
[311] 100 amethyst in a bag

(How the trolls came into the possession of 42 armbands with no evidence of 42 arms is left as an exercise for the reader.)

Lastly, the monks that attacked us left

[312] 10 thunderstones
[313] 6 MW spears
[314] 6 amulets of finely polished bones, found to be +1 natural armor
[315] 4 nice jade raven statuettes

In the room where the ninja had been hidden, there was an ornamental screen [316] and a small leather trunk [317]. Inside the trunk we found

[318] ornate blowgun (jade and lapus lazuli)
[319] 300gp of Tien coins
[320] a scroll- decree to commandeer resources within 2 mi of Kjelsgaard
[321] disguise kit

While we’d been battling monks, ninjas, and trolls, Kali had shoved Lute into a safe room. Now that there was no immediate danger, Lute told us more of his story.

Lute was elected to the RimeRunners Guild council fairly recently, but Silverscore is a daunting political opponent. A young woman joined and was friends with Silverscore, but she died on an excursion (trading voyage to the south .. storm at sea, apparently). Kimindatsu was her name, and this happened within the last year.

Although grateful for our assistance, Lute decided, after having seen the type of people we were dealing with, that he might be better off on his own. I can’t say he might not be right. We escorted him to the cloakroom we’d originally hidden in, and left him with two fugitive bombs and one vanish potion.

Returning to the basement, we again saw ravens congregating on the roof. Left me with a bit of a creepy feeling. I really want to put an end to the aerial surveillance.

And perhaps that distraction left me a little less vigilant than normal, as the air crackled with electricity just before a bolt of electricity ran through our group, hitting most of us. I noticed a flash of red among black feathers again, overhead, and hit it quickly with an arrow.

But Ivan had been waiting for just such a moment, and in a flash he’d pulled out his arrow of Greater Magical Beast slaying, nocked it, and shot at the figure. He hit it square, and it paused for a moment before falling ungracefully from the roof to the ground before us. The ravens on the roof scattered haphazardly.

There was a magic band around its leg, which we later identified as a bird-sized ring of protection +1 [322]. It was bestowed, of course, upon Nihali. Nihali, for her part, remarked that the dead bird was “raven, but it’s wrong.”

Returning to the basement, we continued our exploration – this time as a supportive group rather than simply as a couple of individuals unlocking and opening doors. I had the lead, trying to stay ahead of Qatana. We entered one room where we found what appeared to be a circle of protection drawn on the floor in chalk. I heard a noise from under the bed, and the strangest sight emerged.

Two giant (not giant-sized, but mpnstrously bigger than that) hands crawled out from under the bed. The nearest figure to them was Radella, so they moved to attack her. A bizarre engagement proceeded as a giant hand attempted to attack Radella. It was surprisingly strong and quick, and did draw blood, even without a weapon. The other hand behaved similarly, and had similar success, but it was when Anavaru struck one that it displayed a deplorable capability: upon successfully being cut by Ana’s sword, it emitted a viscous fluid like pus, and Anavaru fell away, wretching.

This added a new element to the battle. Each cut could render the attacker helpless. But they certainly weren’t going to fall over and die on their own, so I pressed on the attack. Unfortunately, during this encounter, the most I was able to do was be grabbed by a giant hand briefly before breaking free. The hands were eventually dealt with, but not without a surprising amount of damage to ourselves. Qatana was able to channel a fair amount of healing back to us.

We suspected this might be Silverscore’s room, but other than finding a surprising amount of research papers and notes, the room seemed a disappointment … until Radella fiddled with a decorative piece of the bed and found a compartment holding [324] 3 scrolls of magic circle against evil, and [325] a vial of powdered silver, roughly sufficient for 3 circles.

Etayne, for her part, took the opportunity to collect a sample of pus from what was left of the now motionless giant hands.

Looking at Qatana’s map, we had hoped this room might have an entrance, secret or otherwise, to the room behind the door in the room with the waterfall. Kali had summoned an earth elemental, and in its waning moments, it examined beyond the walls of this room. That revealed there was no entrance from this room, so we returned to the waterfall room.

There seeming to be no other way about it, Qatana tied a rope to her and waded through the pool. The water did not crest her head, and she came out near the door, where there was also a small barrel. There was room for one more before the door, so Radella made a similar journey.

The barrel, it seems, was a cask. And the cask held … apparently some fairly decent sake! And in discovering that, they found, of all things, a key hidden beneath the cask. A key which unlocked the door before them.

Qatana opened the door. Inside there was a chamber with a tiny well in the floor and a bunch of fungi growing on the ceiling and walls. When Etayne heard there was fungi, she literally flew across to inspect them. She said they were death hoods, known for dropping onto the heads of those underneath, and then killing them.

However, Etayne also revealed that this fungi was repelled by alcohol, so Qatana took some of the sake and spread it liberally around the room. The fungus reacted noticeably to that. Qatana also said her detect magic said there was something magic at the bottom of the small well.

We were stymied for a bit until Kali (by this time, most had come over) suggested an unseen servant might be able to retrieve it. At that same time, there was a burst of flame from the bottom of the well. When the unseen servant came to the top of the well, it brought with it … a sword. A sword that said, “I sense Amatatsu scions”.

Yes. It said that. We had, at last, found Suishen [328].

“The orc threw me away.”

As we all looked at it – it looked quite impressive! – Ivan picked up the sword and hefted it. “Who shall carry it?” he asked, looking at me. “It’s a commitment,” he warned. But I needed a better sword, there was no doubt, and there was also no doubt that a better sword was there before me.

As I took the sword from Ivan, I felt … a surge, I guess. The sword just seemed to thrum. And I heard a voice that I later learned nobody else heard: “So you, then, are the Amatatsu champion.” It was not a question, but had it been I can’t imagine any answer other than yes.

Whereas before I had struggled with how much I should concern myself with Qatana’s welfare, and what Shalelu would think if harm should befall her, I realized now my concerns were much larger. As the Amatatsu champion, I was responsible for the heir – for Ameiko, currently and hopefully only – first and foremost. But because of the line of succession, I was also responsible for each and every one of the scions, too. My responsibility had transformed from a concern and a duty, to an obligation. Despite Ameiko’s position as heir apparent, because of their positions as scions, my concern for Qatana and all of the others suddenly had increased tenfold.

Well, ok, maybe with Qatana it only doubled, because I have been convinced for some time now that she was poised to die about every 15 steps.

I am not a religious person, but I have to believe this is almost what a revelation must feel like. I have new responsibilities. While I don’t disagree with that conclusion, I could also feel that strongly pushed from the sword. It was like being in the room with a very persuasive person. Suishen had been hidden, and disconnected, for a very long time, and the full force of its perceived destiny was now manifest.

As I held Suishen, I came to understand some of its capabilities.

neutral good
+2 defending, flaming katana (1d8+2)
confers endure elements by possessing it
3/day: airwalk, daylight, resist energy (cold), see invisible
darkvision