Mother of Flies A Mother Scorned They agreed to accompany Alebrecht to the shop and soon were on their way. As they approached the shop, Alebrecht and Janek moved ahead, followed by Gorac and entered the shop just as the thieves hiding outside launched their ambush. Inside the shop, Janek fought a  hard and ultimately victorious battle, while outside the others took the rogues out one by one, with Damon wrestling one of them into eventual subdual. As the battle reached its climax, a Red Cap joined in, striking down the last of the rogues. He introduced himself as Dog Tongue and told them he carried an invitation from his mistress, the Mother Of Flies to visit her in Hagwood. They said they would join him in a week and the Red Cap happily disappeared into the forest on the far side of the river to begin a reign of terror over the assorted mammals who lived there. In a weeks time, with their weapons newly ensorcelled, they crossed the river and joined him, finding him by going where the boatman refused to land. The Red Cap lead them off toward the Hagwood, where they had found lived one o more green hags who had made the area their home. As they approached, they saw smoke rising from the tree at the centre of the wood and the Red Cap encouraged them to hurry. As he did so, the area went unnaturally dark, which Damon dispelled by bringing forth the Morrowfall, just in time to see a hooded figure about to attack them. Without the aid of deeper darkness, the attacker stood no chance and was quickly vanquished. The Giant Camps Destroyed They approached the tree with caution and, on scouting the area, found it beset by giants, in several camps. Dog Tongue suggested they recruit his old tribe to aid in the assault, casually mentioning that they had not parted on the best of terms. Approaching the camp, they found themselves being jeered by several red caps, with particular malevolence being displayed towards their old comrade. After a little while, a shabby Satyr armed with a great axe came out and told the party to go away (although he may have phrased it a little more crudely than that). When they did not, he charged and caused some problems for the party before they finally beat him down. At this, the attitude of the Red Caps changed somewhat and Gorac found it relatively easy to persuade them to join in the attack on the giants – especially as this would mean they could kill something. They suggested getting Fmugwha to join in to cause confusion, mentioning in passing that this was a huge Bombardier Beetle. The beetle was in a foul smelling cave and Janek and Ruby went inside with Dog Tongue. He started stabbing madly at the floor as Gorac moved to collect offal to lure the beetle to the battle. As the floor shook and the beetle rose, Ruby and Janek came under attack from some little flying things – Jinkins, who appeared to be trying to clean the muck they had smeared themselves with to hide from the beetle off their armour. They left Dog Tongue capering around killing the Jinkins and started to lead the beetle to the giants camp. Unfortunately, they had not really considered what to do with it when they got there and left it near a rubbish pit as they charged into fight. The fight was rather one sided as the camp was full of lazy giants and rogues who were very surprised to find Red Caps ambushing them whenever they tried to sneak  into position. After a brief recovery period, they moved on to the next camp and decimated that as well, before setting their sights on what appeared to be the leaders camp. The Leader's Camp and A New Ally They decided to take out one more of the outlying camps and did so with relative ease. The next encampment was abandoned and so they moved on to the main encampment. As they approached from within the trees, it was clear that their attacks on the other camps had been noticed as there were screens barring the camp from the forest. The red caps lead the charge, with Janek and Damon close behind. However, as they approached the camp, a hail of small pebbles came over the screens, cast with darkness across the area in front of them. Damon used the Morrow fall to cast daylight but it did not fully dispel the darkness this time and they eventually fell back to formulate a plan against the much better prepared camp.   They formulated a complex plan to attack the camp under cover of daylight, since most of its inhabitants could see in the dark and turned in for the night after lighting a nice big cooking fire. As Damon stood watch, he heard the patter of pebbles landing around him and it all went dark. Drawing forth the Morrowfall, he saw several Dark Creepers moving in to the camp. Shouting  a warning, he moved into combat as the others awoke and prepared. Ruby flew up to strafe the enemy from comparative safety and spotted a Hill  Giant and several Ogres sneaking up on the camp (by the happy expedient of barging through the undergrowth). She started to harass them with fireballs, with the Hill Giant returning fire by throwing rocks at her. The others were easily winning the battle against the Dark Creepers when a human bearing two axes charged out of the trees and attacked Damon. This did not go well for the newcomer and, as the others joined in the assault on him he attempted to withdraw, with aid from two deeper darkness spells. Unfortunately, as he emerged on the far side of the dark zone, he was hit by a  magic missile from Ruby who was waiting for him and fell. They cleared the camp a little once the battle was over and went back to bed. The next morning, they were visited be the hag, who explained that the Council of Thieves appeared to be in the throes of a leadership battle among the Drovenge family. She asked them to attack one of the guild houses of the council, a place called Walcourt, as she wishes some revenge on the Drovenge family and it would progress the aims of the party, as she believes that the shadow beasts of Westcrown are in some way connected to the council. The party agreed and set off to go shopping. Walcourt at last While the others bought most of the magical supplies the town has to offer, Damon went on a reconnoitring mission, subtly hiding in plain sight as a fighter in full armour. He found a walled overgrown garden surrounding a run down and boarded up two storey building. Once the others joined him, they marched straight up the path to the front porch and, after a skirmish with some Shadow Mastiffs, through the front door where they came under attack from rogues. This went badly for the rogue apprentices and ended with one of them captured. At this point they examined the room a little more carefully, noticing the body on a table at its centre. Using a wand of detect secret doors, they cleared all of the adjacent rooms, finding only one way forward – a crawl space. Damon started to lead the way when a guillotine trap narrowly missed him, blocking the way forward. Frustration began to hold them in its grip as all routes into the building seemed blocked and Damon began to plan the burning down of the entire building. Meanwhile, Janek went exploring round the back of the house, finding a second, smaller structure. He gathered the others and they broke in, finding the place in even worse repair than the main building.  As they explored, a querulous voice challenged them from the stairs, where they spotted an old lady. At first, the conversation went well but then Damon started discussing killing her, as she was obviously in league with the council. The old lady went out of sight and when they went looking for her, all they saw was a cloud of mist disappearing over the roof top of the main building. The East Wing Exporations They moved in through the back door of the house, into yet another nest of dark creepers, who panicked as the Morrowfall blinded them and were swiftly dealt with. Moving on, with Janek leading the way, finding the quarters of the creepers but very little else. At the end of the passage way was a room with yet more dark creepers, who were again easily dealt with. Moving through the armoury, Janek opened a door to be set upon by swarms of rats, which pursued him out of the room and up the corridor. Ruby took off into the air to avoid them as the rats came close to killing the dwarf before the combined might of arms and magic dispersed the swarm. The other rooms on the corridor proved to be less eventful, until Janek opened a door at the end and fell into a pit, from which he was extricated with the help of Damon and Gorac. A corridor through a door to one side had obviously been deserted for some time judging by the dust on the floor. Searching through the rooms along the corridor, they found a door concealed behind furniture, the room beyond containing a skeleton seated at a desk. As they investigated, the skeleton attacked Janek with its tongue, which was a bit of a surprise to all, revealing it to be a mohrg. This proved a distinctly unpleasant adversary, particularly to the visual and olfactory senses, before it finally succumbed to the onslaught of violence. Having run out of areas to explore in this wing, they moved back to the room they had entered the house into and opened the other door, to see rows of arm chairs standing in front of a wall of darkness. Damon lead the way in with the Morrowfall and narrowly missed falling in the pit in front of the chairs, before being pelted with rubble by the dark creepers on the far side of the pit. How to use a table in combat and other mysteries explained Damon pushed a couple of armchairs in to the pit and then had sit down to recover from his exertions. Meanwhile, Janek and Gorac collected the large table from the previous room and set up a bridge across the corner of the pit. As they moved across, the room went dark and so Damon started moving in and out so that the Morrowfall would dispel the darkness. Once they had bridged the pit, the fight was relatively short and Janek set off to explore the room, successfully finding several pit traps, beyond which there was a dining room. From inscriptions on the entrance to the pit room, they realised that it was designed as an entry test for rogues wishing to join the order. Having run out of areas of interest downstairs, they headed up. Upstairs turned out to be a warren of passages and doors – yet more fun for the non-rogue troop! First they found some dark creepers, which were quickly dealt with, then Damon let off a spear trap just to see what happened – young minds should be encouraged in their quest for knowledge. Next was a room of false doors, which Damon and Janek tried to open before finding a few doors that actually went somewhere – into a room full of resting thieves. Damon asked them to surrender, but unfortunately the only one awake responded poorly and the others awoke as bits of him fell around the room. They readily surrendered (being in their night attire and little equipped to take on two fully armed warriors with a sorceror lurking in the background. They also found a kitchen and some offices, containing lots of paperwork about the guilds agents, fences and informants. Janek then found a trapdoor in the ceiling and went out onto the roof. There, he met a couple of rogues on watch who readily surrendered, since they had made a few assumptions about their brethren they had seen scaling the back wall of the garden wearing night shirts and little hats with pompoms on them. Janek passed the formal part of the surrender to Damon and went off searching the roof, finding an observatory, the water cistern and an already empty watch post on the houses ridge. An unfortunate preponderance of Chuuls They regrouped and continued to explore the upper floor. Finding a large room with a tinderbox and unlit chandelier in it, Damon and Gorac began to explore until they were hit by a cone of cold, causing them to retreat and consider their options. Damon decided to explore the curtained alcoves around the room and take the tinderbox, dealing with the cold damage from the automatically resetting trap as a minor inconvenience. Unfortunately, his exploration elicited nothing of interest and they moved on. After finding a few empty rooms and a few more traps, they moved into the last chamber on this floor, a large garret room. As Janek kicked in the door and moved in, he was hit by a lightning bolt from an unseen source. Shouting a warning, he began to search the room methodically with Damon guarding the exit until Ruby moved in with true seeing up. Realising he was about to get killed, the mage who had been hiding in part of the room used shadow walk to escape. With no other options, they headed down along staircase which came out under the house in a large cavern filled by a lake. They found themselves on a jetty with a boat moored to it and set off to row across the lake with Ruby flying. Half way across, they came under attack from Chuuls and first Gorac and then Damon were dragged from the boat into the lake. One of the Chuuls was swiftly dealt with but the other proved far more resilient and continued to harass Damon as Gorac climbed back into the boat with the aid of Janek. Ruby moved in to aid Damon as he discovered it was nearly impossible to drown if you were of a healthy constitution. Prisoners Freed, and Vampires Vanquished The Chuul once more grabbed Damon as the others frantically scanned the water for him – he freed himself just at it finally succumbed to their furious onslaught. Damon swam back to the jetty, followed by the others in their various forms of transport. Under Ruby's persuasive guidance, they decided to rest for the night to prepare for the rigours of the morrow and returned to the upstairs. The next day, it proved easier to cross the lake but, warned by Ruby who had flown ahead, they took care landing the boat as their were shadow mastiffs there. As the boat grounded (and Janek waded out of the water having decided to swim across for some reason known only to the obstinacy of dwarves), Ruby dropped meat to try to distract the dogs as Damon launched his assault. He was soon joined by Janek and Gorac (who tied the boat up first). The mastiffs had little chance against the armour of their opponents and soon fell. Damon forged ahead through a door to the right and was a little surprised to find a women, seated on some coffins, watching three shadows perform some form of play. As he told the others f his discovery, the woman told the shadows to attack and they soon found themselves in real danger, surrounded by shadows which poured out of the walls and floor. Gorac cast Death Ward on Janek and he waded in, with no idea what Death Ward meant but happy to give it a go. As Ruby and Damon were slowly being leached of their life essence, the shadows were slowly fought back, until none remained. They moved back to the room of coffins only to find it empty. Standing in the doorway wondering were the woman had gone, they were engulfed by a fireball. Ruby quickly cast see invisibility as Janek started searching the room in a grid pattern. As soon as Ruby could point out where the vampire (for such the woman was) was, she had no chance and was soon fleeing in gaseous form. To their surprise, she passed through a seemingly solid stone wall. Janek started to try to tunnel through but his chisel only chipped small shards off the wall. Giving up on this, they carried on their search, finding a room full of bodies with their lower jaws removed and a row of cells. Three of the prisoners were in a bad way, the rest being dead. Damon was surprised to recognise one of the prisoners as Eirtein Oberigo, head of a minor noble family. Once healed, he became quite loquacious, promising them a reward for his release. He also told them that the wall the vampire had passed through was the way to the secret guild treasury and that it was magical – he also volunteered the fact that it could only be opened by using ash from the guild chamber, which was also the other side of the door. Damon went back to town to escort the prisoners home and collect the reward as the others searched a little more. Of Monsters in the Sewer and other Unfortunate Occurances Once Damon had returned, they continued to explore, finding a room full of effluent with light filtering in through a hole in the roof sixty feet or so above. As they surveyed the room ,they came under attack from an unknown source using illusory fireballs. Most of them realised the illusion but Damon was badly injured and they eventually withdrew to discuss tactics. Failing to come up with any, they charged into the room with Damon and Janek searching it while Ruby and Gorac used area spells to try to flush their enemy out. this eventually worked and they discovered they were fighting a Nihiloi. Once they finally found it, they soon overcame the threat although not without some injury. Having healed, they approached the weird portal door and managed to open it, following instructions from one of the released prisoners. Beyond, a short corridor lead to a circular chamber with a well in the middle. As they stood looking down the well, a fireball hit them and they looked around, bewildered. Ruby used true seeing and pointed out there was a magic user on the roof of the chamber. As she did so, he used a forceful hand (that did not belong to Bigby) to push her down the well, where she feather fell until she saw a hulking six armed monstrosity, which caused her to cast fly and leg it back upstairs. As battle was joined, the frustrated fighters blindly fired bows and threw axes at the ceiling,scoring a few lucky hits, and the magic user pushed Gorac down the well. Unfortunately, Gorac did not have feather fall or fly available and found herself isolated downstairs, facing a six-armed killing machine, which soon knocked her unconscious. Realising her plight, Ruby flew down invisible and teleported them both out of there. As she was doing this, Damon and Janek finally managed to kill the magic user. Doors and Domination  They retired to the manor to recover from the battle and hatch a plan to deal with the Calikang. They used stoneskin on the fighters and started by softening up the monster with areas spells cast down the well, prior to flying and feather falling (or in Goracs case, climbing) into combat. Faced with the parties combined might, the Calikang soon fell but not without causing some major damage as it did. Having healed they moved on to confront the vampire in its lair. As Damon opened the door, he was immediately dominated and ordered to guard the door. Unfortunately for the vampire, Damon comes from a long line of pedants and commenced guarding the door against all comers, but leaving the doorway open. Janek took advantage of this and moved to attack, as a fireball took the rest of them unawares in the corridor. Looking in, Ruby used see invisibility to observe the female vampire sorceress who hade fled them before sitting on an altar behind Ilnerik (the male vampire). Ilnerik spent most of his time dominating Janek and Janek spent a lot of his time stopping him, while Ruby and Gorac used their magic to attack the vampires as best they could. For a long time, the battle went badly until finally Damon broke the domination and handed the Morrowfall to Ruby – as he did so, Ilnerik vanished, teleporting away and leaving the female vampire to face the sunbeam power of the Morrowfall, which destroyed her utterly. Uninvited Guests at Ristani Manor They rescued the ladies from the sarcophagi, discovering them to be the wife and daughter of Jarvis Alebrecht. Damon immediately commiserated with them on the death of their husband/father which was the first they had heard of it. The party next scoured the complex for the vampire but finding no sign of him they took the contents of the treasury and returned the ladies home. Ruby visited Janiven and discovered that the city had fallen into anarchy while they had been away, with the Hellknights and dottari at each others throats and a power vacuum at the top with the mayor missing. They repaired to Damon's mothers house and decided to stand guard throughout the night – this proved to be a good move as, simultaneously, several windows were broken by thrown bricks and shadow rats swarmed in. These were dealt with with some effort since Ruby wouldn’t use her more destructive area spells to avoid damaging the house. As there was a knock on the front door, Damon opened it to see Ilnerik (the vampire) with several spawn – however, even Damon was not silly enough to invite them in and their attempts to dominate Janek came to nothing. As Ruby dropped one of them with a sunbeam from the Morrowfall, the rest faded into the night. Vampire Hunting Spurred on by the previous nights attack against Damon's household, the party decided to track down and remove the vampire threat. With the aid of powerful divination magic, they located him beneath a house in the merchants quarter and immediately it was daylight, set off to kill him. The house turned out to be a cobblers, not yet open in the early dawn light. Undeterred, Damon woke the owner and managed to talk his way ion as an official of the city on a vermin extermination team – more or less true. The large sword and gleaming plate armour impressed the cobbler, who had not realised vermin could be so dangerous. A search of the house revealed little apart from a flooded basement – they decided to try their luck in the sewers and soon found a suitable entrance. After much unpleasant wading, an illusory wall was discovered and just the other side of it, some vampire spawn. The party was fully protected with protection from evil as well as other spells and the spawn had little chance, as did the swarms of shadow rats that tried to engulf them. Finally, they confronted the lead vampire in his lair and after a difficult struggle, overcame him, banishing him to the true death. They returned home to wash and then visited Janiven, who gave them an info dump. The city is in chaos, with rioting and looting in the south and rumours of undead and devils in the north. Worse, there are rumours that General Vourne is planning to send the Imperial Navy to calm the situation – the last known time this happened, the city in question was calmed until flat. Janiven suggests trying to enlist the aid of the Hellknights and nobles, against most of her principals, as she sees this a chance to unite the cities rulers and population in a battle against a common foe.

Annals