SIns of the Saviours Spires of Xin-Shalast The Kodar Mountains After a brief pause, they left Runeforge using the large Sihedron circle in the Halls of Wrath, which took them to the slopes of Rime skull. Collecting the dragons hoard they had left behind, they moved to Sandpoint, where they split up, Thorfinn heading north to his stronghold, Setsquatrin and the others to the big city to sell the loot. Eventually, they gathered in Sandpoint to plan their next move. Visiting Brodert and telling them all their news they discovered a little known tale of the dwarven Vecker brothers, who had claimed to have discovered Xin-Shalast, shortly before their mysterious disappearance. The trail lead high into the Kodar mountains, where they found a deserted mining operation built up a cliff face. To one side grew a pine, leaning over a spoil heap, while the cabin climber over sixty feet up the cliff. After checking out the store room, they entered the cabin proper, finding little of interest until they came to the ore separation room (although none of them, not even Thorfinn, understood the purpose of the room). In the corner was a dwarf, eating gold dust from the floor. He told them to try it but they all thought this was a silly idea and declined, at which point he vanished - obviously a haunt of some kind Whispers in the Wind They moved on, beginning the long ascent of the stairs up the cliff. As they neared the top, Thorfinn felt the stairs give way beneath him and dived forwards to safety. As he did so, the chain hanging down the shaft animated and they found themselves under assault from the ore bucket on its end. this lead to some confusion, with Thorfinn trying to use the winch at the top of the shaft to limit the buckets reach and Zarlis charging up the stairs to help, only to discover that he had started below the break in them. After a minute or so of combat, the chain suddenly fell silent and they all made their way to the top. They searched the cabin at the top of the shaft, finding little of interest and easily shaking off the effects of several more cannibalistically inspired hauntings. From the porch at the front of the cabin, they discovered that a blizzard had blown in and Setsquatrin tried to calm it with control weather. this was not entirely successful, which lead him to suppose that some other effect was already controlling the weather. Meanwhile, inside, Thorfinn was confronted by the ghost of a dwarf, who offered to tell them the way to Xin-Shalast in exchange for the return of his brothers bones. Using Setsquatrin to scout for the location of the bones, they set off to a high plateau, finding them after some effort. As they reached to retrieve them and fulfill their quest, the spirit of the bones attacked, causing some consternation before he was laid to rest once more. As the ghost faded, a howl rent the air and the blizzard intensified once more.   The Wendigo They set off back to the mining house with the bones. As they did so, Setsquatrin and then Nattie came under attack from a creature flying in out of the snow. When it attacked Cerebrim, he identified it as a Wendigo and urged speed on the trek. This lead to Thorfinn remembering that he had used Wind Walk on the troop to get to the plateau and they used the spell once more to get home. Once there, they began to settle in for Cerebrim to do some research. Setsquatrin went to investigate the surroundings of the shelter and was a little surprised when an old and seemingly dead tree came to unlife and beat the wotsits out of him - he was joined by the others who used fire spells to defeat the bizarre undead menace before retreating back to the shelter. That night, they came under renewed attack from the Wendigo as they attempted to reconcile the two long dead dwarven brothers, which tore parts of the shelter apart to reach them. After a long, hard battle, they drove it off, reconciled the brothers and Thorfinn left for Magnimar to buy some cold weather gear. The next night, with Thorfinn still away, the Wendigo returned, this time fighting a vicious battle to the death - unfortunately for it. On the World's Roof The next day, Thorfinn returned bearing pasties and he used repair on the badly damaged shack. Cerebrim noticed a secret door in one of the few complete sections of wall and behind it they found the meagre wealth the Veckers had managed to scrape from the hills. After resting the night to recover from their various ordeals, they began to head further up into the mountains, following the instructions in the pages of the Veckers journal returned by the ghosts, with Setsquatrin alternating between a scouting Eagle and a mighty yak, forging a path through the snow drifts. On the second day, as they headed up a valley, they heard the sound of an avalanche in the hills above them and Thorfinn and Setsquatrin immediately took to the air. Cerebrim used flay on himself and Nattie and they headed up to safety as Zarlis took shelter against the steep valley side. Once the avalanche had passed, they located Zarlis beneath it using detect magic and Cerebrim dug her out with a fireball. That night, as they rested in Leomunds tiny hut, Nattie on guard was a little disconcerted when a large rock landed at her feet, waking everyone. Cerebrim contented himself with checking that everyone was OK and then went back to sleep. Setsquatrin summoned some dire bats to try to put off any rock throwers as he, Thorfinn and Zarlis used various methods to reach the cliff top to see what was going on - Nattie started the long ascent on foot. At the top were two Frost Giants, busy flapping away the bats that had attacked them - once the party joined in, the battle was soon over, with Nattie arriving just in time to see the last giant fall. From this point on, they decided to sleep in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion instead. The long haul continued for a few more days, until they were moving up one of the high passes, where a strange trilling caused them to pause. As they did so, a huge Frost Worm burst from a snow bank and got Fire Storm-ed,  Flame Strike-ed Fireball-ed - not its finest hour. They continued to climb, finding the going increasingly hard until they reached a plateau with a large rough hut in the middle of it. Finding the hut empty and obviously giant sized, they waited for its inhabitant. After some time, a Rune Giant came marching across the wasteland, whistling a happy tune. Thorfinn, deciding discretion was the better part, asked him if he knew where Xin-Shalast was, only they had an appointment with Karzoug and they were running a bit late, you know how it is, we never expect snow and all the trails are blocked, etc. The Rune Giant pointed and told them to go that way, so they did. After some more climbing, they surprised a Cryohydra as it was wandering about, minding its own business. It decided its business was lunch, which was very careless of it as it discovered the threat of fire magic to creatures of the cold in a terminal sort of way. Taking their leave of the Nymph, they carried on through treacherous mountain passes and steep ravines until, without warning, two giant boulders fell from the cliffs above. Using a combination of  Holy Transformation and Fly, all but Zarlis moved to the cliff top where they discovered four cloud giants - Thorfinn moved to engage after casting some mighty magics as Nattie and Setsquatrin used spells to help. Cerebrim cast invisibility and then transformed into a golem, and moved to combat. This went badly as some lucky blows from the giants smashed into him, killing the unfortunate mage just before the last giant fell. Xin-Shalast They moved on up a steep pass, until finally they reached the top and the great city lay before them, a tumbled mess of giant buildings with a glacier running down one side. They moved toward the city gates, where they were challenged by a large bird like creature, which asked for their papers. Zarlis patiently explained they did not have any, art which it attacked, together with several comrades. The combat went badly (especially for Nattie) although it was complicated by the herd of Aurochs in the courtyard beyond the gate. Eventually, Setsquatrin used Fire Storm to thin the enemies ranks, causing a stampede of the surviving Aurochs into the city. Finally, having vanquished the enemy and interrogated the survivor, they realized that the papers needed were the symbols they had been finding all this time and a surprising number were found lurking on various persons. They moved on, through an almost empty area with signs of recent giant occupation - the stampede having cleared the way. As they passed out of the giants turf, Zarlis was beckoned into a building by a blue-skinned ogre covered in tattoos, who asked them to attack a fearsome dragon at the towns far end to provide a distraction so that he could help his kin to escape from the city - they all agreed, with varying levels of enthusiasm. As they rested that night in an empty shell of a building, Setsquatrin who was on guard heard the door to the building open and a vague shape emerge, only to lose sight of it in the gloom. After some nervous calling out, a figure emerged from hiding and introduced itself as Morgiv, a mighty leader of the skulks, an enslaved race who were hiding in the under city. Morgiv asked for help ridding his race of a fearsome enemy, a hideous creature which had decimated his people. The next morning, they set off with Morgiv into the belly of the rotting remains of Xin-Shalast. Morgiv lead them to the skulks ancestral home, in a sewer junction beneath the glacier. After a heroes welcome and a feast of rat garnished with lichen, they set off to do battle with the skulks nemesis. On the way, they were ambushed by four skulk vampires, who weakened them considerably by draining level before they were finally vanquished. Without pausing except to heal, the party continued to the hidden beasts lair, where they were met by a lightning bolt from an invisible creature. Thorfinn cast true seeing and advised the others of the beasts location, which Setsquatrin promptly fire stormed. Nattie moved to attack and got, in her terms, bitch-slapped by a giant squid, at which point Thorfinn, annoyed at the lack of progress, cast destruction, reducing the creature to a pile of ashes and causing much philosophical debate among the gods as to whether a vampire could return from this. After partying with the skulks into the night and restoring their many lost levels, they moved on into the city and had a brief encounter with some yetis, which proved more difficult than the battle with the hidden beast. They moved on through the city, taking care to skirt round the giant encampment and moving through the rubble at the edge. After some time, the burnt ruins to their right gradually changed, overgrown with plants. Setsquatrin warned them that the plants were somehow unnatural, at about the same time as a Tendriculous reached out and hit him. Thorfinn and Zarlis moved to help, hampered by the rubble, as Nattie provided magical support. As the creature fell, the plants seemed to react almost angrily. Taking even more care, they progressed onwards until they found a camp for the night in a ruined tower. As Setsquatrin stood guard, he failed to hear the giants creeping round the towers base, attracted by the light of the camp fire, and found himself in some difficulties as the others slowly roused themselves. Using firestorm helped and eventually the battle was won. They moved on in the morning, carefully skirting the vegetation and checking out the race track. From there, they moved on into the arena, moving through the large corridors provided for crowd access to the bleachers. As they passed over a crossroads, they were suddenly surrounded by whirling shards of ice and split up, moving swiftly until clear. More Ice Storms followed and Thorfinn found himself separated from the others as they all moved to try to find their assailant. The Ice Devil moved in for the kill, using Cone of Cold and Thorfinn dropped dead from the shock of the extreme cold. Setsquatrin moved to his side and cast Last Breath, setting in progress the reincarnation of the Dwarf, as the others moved to attack. The Ice Devil proved a tricky opponent, using flight to avoid their attacks but was eventually driven off. They settled down to wait for Thorfinns new body, noticing that it did not fully resemble the squat, powerful figure of their friend but was in fact elven. The shock of this very nearly did for Thorfinn again, once he noticed, particularly the change in timbre of his voice and a rather disconsolate elf/dwarf trailed in the parties wake for a while. As they moved on, they suffered ambush attacks from a Dread Wraith, which became very annoying and potentially life threatening until it was turned. Another turned up but this one finally got Thorfinn to accept his situation as the old standby Bolt of Glory sent it back to eternal rest. They moved on toward the royal box in the amphitheatre, with Zarlis bringing up the rear being harried by a dread wraith that kept popping up through the floor. As everyone else was concentrating on the box, Zarlis became increasingly exasperated. Setsquatrin and Nattie started ferrying chests out of the box to Thorfinn, who set about searching them by throwing the contents out on the floor. As they were thus keeping themselves entertained, they were suddenly attacked by the ice devil from the top of the box using his favourite ice storm spell to try to confuse and separate. This time, however, it did not work quite so well and so he resorted to cone of cold instead, doing fearful damage. Zarlis was kept busy with the dread wraith for a short time before it was vanquished, soon followed by the ice devil. After healing, they set off to leave the amphitheatre and continue up the mountain. At the exit, they heard giants talking and one rushed them down the corridor - not a good move for a hill giant! Thorfinn asked for more giants as those outside appeared to be preparing for a siege. Setsquatrin flew out as a bird and, in a coordinated assault, fire stormed the assembled giants prior to the others rushing out. Battle was joined, with Setsquatrins spells doing most of the damage until only a rune giant was left standing. Zarlis went toe to toe with it and soon discovered how bad an idea this was, falling unconscious and sorely wounded to the floor shortly before the rune giant was finally laid to rest. After healing, they moved on, resting in the old disposal unit for those who had lost in the games. The next day, they discovered a small tower, with a long tunnel seeming to rise into the foothills of Mhar Massif. As they exited onto the mountain side, Setsquatrin was attacked by a gargantuan mountain roper and reacted in typical form, by changing into an adder. The roper seemed to be doing OK until it discovered the unpleasantness of being trapped in a landslide with a stalactite where the sun does not shine. Continuing on, they decided to wind walk the rest of the way to the top but found themselves back where they started, repulsed by the occlusion field. After this experience, they decided to walk up instead and had a series of tricky climbs up the partially ruined golden road, finding themselves eventually at the top, in painfully thin mountain air, at the lower reaches of the zone of death. With judicious use of endure elements and adaptation magic, they prepared for the final assault. Finding the surrounding buildings empty, they moved to the towering edifice at the heart of the fort. A ramp led upwards, curling round a central pillar. As they reached the top, they came under attack from four cloud giants and a storm giant and were forced to retreat, taking out two of the cloud giants and the storm giant as they did so. Some time later, in the company of an earth elemental and two fire elementals, they began the assault again, this time easily taking out the remaining cloud giants. The fire elemental opened a small (by the standards of this place) door and suddenly disappeared, as the magic summoning it was dispelled. Setsquatrin looked into the room and was dismayed to see Karzoug, who promptly tried to disintegrate him. This did not work and Setsquatrin fire stormed the place, without harming Karzoug as he realized that this was illusion magic. Nattie realized this also and advised the rest of the party. On Thorfinn's advice, they closed the door -  to the sound of the runelords mocking laughter. They retired to their base of operations for a night's R&R before continuing their assault on the stronghold. To their surprise, the entrance had been barred - unfortunately for the giants, Thorfinn and Nattie had chimes of opening and the party moved into the next layer of defense. To their great shock, there were some giants standing guard inside and battle was once more engaged, as several waves of giants, gradually growing in stature and power, came to deflect their attack. Eventually, battered, bruised and very short on spells, they won the day and retreated back to their bolt-hole to recover once again. During the night, Nattie heard something large land on the perch in the pitch black above her and warned the next watchman that something was up there. After some time, it took off and suddenly, a lightning bolt blasted in through the door. This woke them up and the mocking voice of Karzoug rang out to them. Realizing that this was a trick of ventriloquism and mimicry, together with the blue dragons head they had briefly seen in the reflection of the bolt, they decided to be wary and try to stay in the less accessible corners of the tower. Thorfinn mocked the dragon back and the stand off lasted through most of the night, with neither party prepared for battle on the others terms. They rose in the morning slightly jaded from their restless night and cautiously surveyed their surroundings, but the dragon seemed to have gone. They made their way back up the tower and found yet more giants - this time, being better prepared, they managed to slay the giants without exhausting themselves and they began to explore the complex. Opening a door, Thorfinn found a room with two rune giants and a fighter, so he promptly blocked the entrance with a wall of stone and fashioned a murder hole to one side. With the Rune Giants failing repeatedly to break the wall down, Thorfinn and Setsquatrin had free rein to annihilate the opposition with very little threat. Once the one-sided battle was over, Thorfinn fashioned a door in the wall and they entered the room to explore. They briefly explored the room, finding a corridor leading off the back of it and several doors. In their battered state, discretion won over valour and they retreated back to their hideout. During the night, Setsquatrin on guard heard movement outside, just in time to see the Ice Devil move into their quarters. The battle raged for a long time, as the dragon engaged them with lightning bolts and an unseen sorcerer threw spell after spell into their lair, as well as summoning more devils to disrupt their sleep. As the Ice Devil and Kyton fell, the sorcerer vanished in the night and the dragon flew back to its den, leaving them quite annoyed at the interruption to an uncomfortable nights sleep. In the morning, they cautiously made their way back to the top of the spire. They moved into the complex cautiously, with Thorfinn opening a door as quietly as he could to discover several cloud giants within. Backing off, he cast a new spell he had just learned - Elemental Storm. The elementals rushed the cloud giants, who defended themselves valiantly but to no avail. Although wounded and a little short on powerful spells, the party decided to continue to the next chamber. Nattie checked it out and spotted a lone Lamia Harridan within - unfortunately, although she did not realize it, she was noticed and, when the elementals moved to attack, there was a blade barrier in the way. This became something of a theme until Thorfinn got bored and sent the elementals through the wall to one side of it. An epic duel started, with the elementals dropping before a series of fire storms and the harridans (there were actually two) gradually being whittled down. As the harridans dropped, they discovered the real source of power in this room - a Lamia Harridan Cleric. After standing against them for some time, she withdrew down a corridor. As they finally paused to assess there position, there came the sound of heavy, large feet pounding down the corridor towards them, where their final group of elementals stood ready. Charging down one of the corridors came a rune giant, which started trading blows with the remaining elementals, with Nattie and Setsquatrin providing support. Shortly after, the harridan moved to attack from behind the giant and Thorfinn and Zarlis set off down the other corridor to try to get in behind the combat. This did not go as expected when they met a second rune giant and the combat became fragmented. As the elementals finally fell, things looked bad for the heroes but, with some major magical effort, they prevailed and searched the room. They searched the rest of the complex, finding several of Karzoug's manifestations and bypassing them using anti magic shell. Eventually, they found the last group of creatures in the complex, several denizens of Leng working on a great machine, with an advanced and very cheesed off hound of Tindalos. The combat wore our heroes down, very nearly killing several of them before they prevailed and were left pondering what to do next! They began the search for Karzoug, opening the sarcophagus (empty) and Thorfinn tried viewing the world through the green lens held by the statue (it gave the world a green hue). While doing this, he noticed traces of blood on the lens and immediately applied some of his own. As he did so, he became disoriented and the world became bleary, apart from the flame in the brazier before the statue. He placed his hand in the brazier and was immediately immolated. Without a second thought (not even checking for magical traps), the others did the same, lead by Zarlis. Who knew that this was the way to kill off an entire party? Fortunately for them (sort of) their actions actually transported them to the demi-plane where Karzoug was gradually returning to full strength, just in time to be fire stormed by the flying mage. Thorfinn cast anti-magic shell and tried to smash the soul lens (a huge copy of the lens outside) while Karzoug unleashed the full force of his arsenal on the others - Nattie fell, Zarlis had to use lay on hands and Setsquatrin turned into a rat to gain some respite from the onslaught. Eventually, Thorfinn noticed that things were not going too well and joined in, dropping his protection and casting destruction - the mage saved and refocused his attacks on the cleric, giving the survivors time to recover a little. Karzoug shrugged off the spell and the two exchanged death spells, until at the third attempt, the Runelord was annihilated. The party raised Nattie and, with barely a backward glance, set off to the biggest party Fort Rannick had ever hosted (a quiet sherry in the study and pasties for everyone).

Annals