Finished looting an ancient dwarven tomb, and rifling through a burned troll’s discarded treasure; Kella, Sashka, Hulnir, Luvon, Uhr, Hasselhoff, and Geo all make their way back to the main room of the cave. The journey back to the cave was made slightly more difficult because Geo was still paralyzed from the poisoned needle hidden in the door knob of the tomb door.
There, they find a younger Stirge resting atop the pile of burned troll remains, gently flapping it’s wings. Intrigued, Uhr slowly steps forward, and offers his dagger (still coated in his own blood) to the creature. The young Stirge happily lowers it’s proboscis, and partakes of the blood snack. Thus acquainted, the Stirge is coaxed onto Uhr’s shoulder where it promptly stabbed him and took a proper meal. The rest of the party looks on in bemused horror as Uhr smiles through the pain and give a shaky thumbs up.
With the blizzard still blowing outside, the party decides to take a short rest and try to identify the horde of new items. Items identified, most of them go back in Hasselhoff’s bag of holding to be distributed later. With the blizzard continuing unabated, Nira insists it’s time to get back to Zaloth, so the party sets out into the storm. With only minor signs of frostbite they are able to make it back to the warm embrace of the hidden crater city and are welcomed as the heroes they are slowly becoming.
After a nice meal and night to sleep off the horrors of the day before, the party makes ready for a meeting with a “God of Fire”. Uhr is ‘gifted’ a plant fiber net meant to fasten to a bag that would contain his new bloodsucking companion without harming it. Thar, village elder of Zaloth leads the party down into the caldera to the shore of the lake for a meeting with the Kel’ek’ki’ai. Their God of Fire. As they descend towards the lake, the temperature rises dramatically and the plant life becomes lush and abundant. Hoping to avert another stabbing, Uhr spends a little time hunting for small game that he is able to let his Stirge feed off. It is voracious!
Finally the party reaches the edge of the water and is led around to a secluded dense brush tangle that hides a small steaming pool of water. Thar drops to his knees and bows, placing his head on a well worn stone at the edge of the pool, stands and drops all of his clothes. The clothes fall off his form in one swift, and well practiced motion. Thar looks back over his shoulder at the gathered party still decked out in all their gear and then starts walking into the water. “Come! we have a difficult swim ahead of us. I wouldn’t recommend wearing all that armor!” Thar waits for a few moments while the party doffs much of their gear, Luvon and Sashka opt to mimic Thar and go fully nude. Luvon raises his arms in praise as the sun rises above the caldera rim and spills into the small thicket. Time for a swim.
Thar takes a deep breath and dives beneath the water, quickly heading into an underwater tunnel. Everyone quickly jumps in and follows. After a harrowing swim and very close call with Sashka, the singed group is able to make it through a long underwater tunnel system and emerge in a large underground cavern ringed with 7 lanterns glowing with gemstones in massive iron and stone lanterns. Each gem glows with a color of the rainbow. A long walk through tall tunnels some 30 ft tall finally leads to a massive semi circular chamber with a large arch in the middle of the flat side of the room. Behind the party the curved wall some 200 feet across is covered in towering carved depictions of fire giants. A wave of heat is felt by all as they enter the space, and the source is immediately apparent. A fire giant clad in a girdle and draping pieces of intricately worked panels of dully glowing dark iron stands in the midst of the arch with arms crossed. The fire giant stands some 25 feet tall and has hair and large beard that appear to be made of flames. He looks down at Thar and greets him warmly. After some introductions, the Red Fist leads the party into Kel’Kek’s Eye, the home of the fire giants in the Wolf’s Teeth mountains.
A walk along a wide rim next to a lake of lava lets the party see a settlement of reclusive fire giants in intricate stone and iron buildings clustered around the rim of a large churning lake of magma. They finally reach a platform set out over the flames and see a massive, but lithe figure practicing a martial practice form. No weapons, but the movements of the hands and feet look like they would be deadly even if only human sized, and not made of heat itself. Thar introduces Zenith, leader of the Fire Giants of Kel’Kek’s Eye. Thanking the party for their roll in protecting the Vlazoth, Zenith offers to point the party in the right direction and potentially offer aid if they are able to deliver a gift to the Stone Giant’s of Kroatash. It seems the Stone Giants have had more direct dealings with the Xeriketh’s Blades, and some have even abandoned their duties to the portal to elemental plane of earth. Armed with knowledge of a previously abandoned dwarven keep at Elder’s Pass, and a delivery to to Kroatash, the party takes their leave.
Another hot, but less lethal, swim and the party is back on the shores of the lake in the caldera. The party recovers and distributes some items, and sets off with Nira to guide them to Kroatash. The first day of their journey goes well, but near noon on the second day, Luvon spots a horde of harpies winging down upon them, flying in from the sun!
Glub-glub the goblin leads the party to an alley that contains the secret entrance to his goblin warren. In the alley, they find a Kymarian dragonborn shouting at the walls and searching for the entrance. He has with him several Reborn who appear to be manacled and under the influence of a spell. Dresden approaches the dragonborn, who introduces himself as Zarthos and immediately insults Dresden for his kobold appearance. The conversation quickly devolves into combat.
The party manages to scrape by. More mesmerized Reborn appear, and it becomes apparent that they are being controlled by a circlet that Zarthos is wearing. They almost manage to convince a young Kymarian to lay down his weapons, but he gets blasted by Zarthos’ breath-weapon before he can do so. The party manages to kill Zarthos, take his circlet, and free one of the reborn: Bobby Bones.
After the fight, Glub-glub reveals the entrance to the goblin-warren, and introduces the party to the Sharp-Knife Gang.
Inside the Crooked Bone Tavern, Toof and King Knut’s distraction had become a full-on fracas. A drunken dwarf leapt off the bar and attempted to swing into the brawling crowd on a ship’s-wheel chandelier, but it came crashing down on poor Artair’s bear back, knocking him to the floor. Half-filled mugs and bottles filled the air as the party members attempted to dispatch the Restless Dead sellswords still in the Bone while avoiding the punches, kicks, headbutts, and grabs of the rumbling bar patrons.
Toof and Artair were grappled from behind by two brave (foolish?) souls, who saw no issue with holding tightly to a brown bear and a furious, well armed tiefling while their buddies tried to get some shots in. Both of the grab-happy gentlemen were met with brutally violent, though entirely predictable, ends via bear paw and stolen hook hand.
The bard Andoryx, whose sleeve had mysteriously caught fire in all the hubub, dowsed the flames with a nearby beer and, seeing an angry man rushing toward him brandishing a barstool like a greatclub, quickly Charmed his assailant, convincing him to smash the stool over the head of a nearby Restless Dead wizard.
Two of the three mercenaries who had been in the bar were now dead, but the vigilant party members saw the third make their way through the front door, pausing briefly to change their countenance to that of the warrior Toof! Will they be able to tell the difference between the two Toofs? Teef?
Outside, Ta’ahsu and his snake construct Hiss accompanied the aboleth egg-guarding sellsword to the front desk of the Dank Anchor Inn. Ta’ahsu slipped the clerk a bribe of precious gems and received a key to room 18, which Ta’ahsu had convinced his Restless Dead companion was where his captain was waiting for them. This, of course, was not the case as the mercenary captain Duran was being slowly but steadily dissolved in giant toad stomach acid in the street below.
Once inside the room, Ta’ahsu shut the door and set Hiss on the mercenary, who had begun to suspect he was being duped. The mechanical snake’s bite went wide, and the mercenary drew his sword to do battle!