Approximately every 30 years, someone vanishes in The Whispering Cairns. The last occurrences were 60, 30, and 6 years ago.

As we entered the cairn, we found a long-abandoned doll. The child to whom it belonged was probably long dead.

We explored the first part of the cairn with relative ease. After killing off a pack of feral dogs, we discovered a broken mirror, carved with strange runes. Bella did a lovely etching of some of them. She also took a shard of the strange black glass that had at one time been the mirror’s surface. Nearby, we found an almost gnome-sized blue glass lantern.

Eventually, we discovered a round room with a rainbow of lanterns hanging from a ceiling so high we could not see it (oddly, the blue and red lanterns were missing). In the center of the room was a sarcophagus. Carved into the top was a human-like figure. It was missing a finger, which we just happened to find on the floor.

We reattached the finger, but nothing happened. We hung the blue light, and again nothing happened. We pushed at the sarcophagus with all our might, and eventually moved it toward the yellow lantern. A column rose slowly out of the floor. Inside the column was an opening, and in the opening, there was a…Badger! The poor little monk had gotten trapped inside somehow. Was he thankful to see us! Smelly, though.

The roguish Feldon managed to hop into the column and descend to a level below us. He explored the area nearby, but his path was blocked by a large stone slab. Perhaps an already triggered trap. He managed to get back up to the sarcophagus room with little difficulty.

We moved the sarcophagus to point towards the green lantern, and up came a column! Feldon and Badger went down to see what was in that hole. The path was clear! As they sent the column back up for the rest of the party, they heard a horrible grinding noise. The column collapsed. Feldon and Badger were lucky enough to escape being crushed by the rubble.

Above, the rest of the party was not faring as well. A swarm of nasty beetles, oozing an acidic slime, poured up through the shaft. They were followed by a nasty eyeball-spider! Sam and Vardeen managed to kill the eyeball-spider, while Bella decimated the beetles with a flask of…something.

The party regrouped at the bottom of the green lantern’s shaft. They discovered a room filled with water deeper than a gnome is tall. Vardeen, the fighter, was the most gifted swimmer, so she volunteered to explore the room for openings, and statuaries for Bella. She was attacked by a ghoul. The remainder of the party were such bad swimmers, that they could do little but stand at the edge of the water and shout encouragement. Maeve tried her best to get to Vardeen, but before she got close enough to offer aid, the fighter had been paralyzed by the ghoul’s touch. Maeve was able to turn the creature, and drag Vardeen back to shore. By that time, the ghoul had stopped cowering in fear, and attacked as they reached the rest of the party. The ghoul was eventually killed, and the party went back to the mine office to lick their wounds and regain their spells.

Loot in the mine office:
5 wolf skins, red leather vest with 8-pointed star, winter blanket, 1 marble statue (Bella’s)
Treasure from ghoul room:
38g, 2p, 55s, 8 marble statues (Bella’s)

We explored the rest of the area underneath the green lantern, and discovered a room full of beetles, which we killed, and another room filled with water.

Treasure from rest of green area:
Mummified hand, 3 unidentified vials (beetle room), pearl (worth 400g?), 9 marble statues (Bella’s), backpack, shortsword with algae covered scabbard, red lantern

Hung the red lantern in the sarcophagus room. Nothing happened. Party went down the yellow shaft and moved the slab out of the way. We discovered a red-clad body, and a red mist was released.
As we marched down the hall an eyeball-bat attacked. Feldon ran away, and Vardeen collapsed into sleep. We kept going down the hall, and saw something glowing in the distance.

We entered a room and saw what looked like an egg made of stone. Bella whacked it with a club, and it stood up! It was Artophanx, and he was pissed! He was also a wimp. We easily killed him. In the Artophanx room, we discovered an alchemist’s lab. Feldon got minute-seeing glasses and we found a magical chain mail shirt. We also saw a weird brown carpet. Maeve lit it on fire, and it nearly killed us. Vardeen managed to pull everyone to safety, and Bella later killed it with a cone of cold.

After resting up, we decided to tackle the sarcophagus room again. Feldon climbed up the blue lantern’s chain, and discovered a room. It was very windy, and he could hear a child’s laughter.

The party remembered they had left another room off the alchemist’s lab unexplored. It was a big potty! In the alchemist’s lab, there was a wooden rod of 7 parts, Bella took it (not as neat as statuary, but still!).

We went back to the sarcophagus room again, and Feldon was able to spike up the wall to the room he had discovered. Dreyma was able to climb up as well, then hauled up everyone else with ropes. Feldon outlined a trap trigger in chalk (raised plate on the floor). There was an entrance to a room carved to look like a giant, blowing face.

We entered the room. Across a rickety old wooden plank, we saw a closed door. The floor was 15 feet below us, and the ceiling was 12 feet up. The floor was made up of rusty metal balls the size of grapefruit. The walls were carved into stylized wind currents, by hands unfamiliar to Vardeen. They were also dotted with grapefruit-sized holes. When each person stepped onto the plank, they heard a disembodied voice discourage them from crossing. Of course, most of us ignored the voice and continued on anyway. Bella was hit by a metal ball and fell. Feldon climbed down after her. Maeve, Badger and Sam all tried crossing the plank.

Feldon had almost reached the other side of the room when he was attacked by a tentacled snake with a beak. Scary! Most of the party rushed to Feldon’s aid, but Dreyma decided to converse with the disembodied voice instead. The icky thing was killed, eventually. Then, Sam was possessed! A ghost spoke through him and said it had been cursed, and offered to open the door for us if we would take its bones to be buried with its family. The ghost said its name was Alistair Land. We agreed, and Vardeen started searching for the bones. We found them, along with a longsword, 1p, and a suit of banded mail.

We took the bones back to town and healed up. After resting, we took the bones to the Land farm. We nearly buried Alistair, but discovered his family had been dug up. We went into the house and killed an owl bear. Feldon and Bella got an owl bear cub, which they named Fluffy. In the abandoned farmhouse, we discovered a tattoed arm.

We described the tattoo to the town sage, who said it was the personal mark of Garaven Vest, a mine owner who had died 2 years ago. Cullen the bartender has that very tattoo. Bella also told the sage about what we had discovered at the cairn. We learned the story of the Wind Dukes of Aka. Sage was getting “The Chronicles of Chan” sent to him from a library so he could read more about them.

Bella got a weasel familiar.

Picked up some rumors about Smenk, who inherited (took over) Vest’s properties. “He is good and generous, and lucky because of his good deeds.” “His estate is guarded by “bears”. He is currently bickering with other mine owners.

We told the priests of Wee-Jas about the grave robbers at the Land farm.

We searched out Cullen, and discovered him at a manky tavern called “The Feral Dog”. Feldon started a bar-fight with Cullen and his cronies, and we somehow won. Cullen’s mage friend told us that Filge has the bodies of the Land family. The bar owner was mad we beat Cullen and crew, so he threatened us with the law. We beat a strategic retreat.

As we left The Feral Dog, we heard a disturbance at The Emporium. It was a fight! The mayor (Neff) and sheriff (Cubbins) were at odds. The mayor wanted to allow the fight to continue, as it would bring in betting revenue. The sheriff wanted it stopped. The owner of The Feral Dog complained to the sheriff about us, but the sheriff told him to stop being such a big baby.

Cullen, who’s real name happened to be Rump (no wonder he went by Cullen!) came out of the bar and offered to serve us in exchange for getting him away from Smenk. We agreed.

Rump’s story:
He and his friends had worked for mine-owner Dervin Vest, who died mysteriously. His assets were taken over by Smenk, who is creepy. Filge was a friend of Smenk’s from Iguana Shores who came to town about 2 weeks ago. He was currently living in the old observatory. Smenk ordered Rump and co. to obey Filge. Filge ordered them to get bodies from the graveyard 4 days ago. Rump and co. were wary of the priests of Wee-Jas, so they went looking in the country-side, and eventually found the Land farm. They took 5 skeletons to Filge.

We spend the night at Badger’s uncle Tidwode’s place. The cheap bastard charged us 5g each for 1 night! And he didn’t even provide breakfast! We had to eat at The Hungry Gar. Blech.

Went to observatory and scoped it out. We went into a shed and killed some undead dust balls. Then we went upstairs and fought 6 undead, who were armed with crossbows. We explored the tower and looted as we went along. In the dining room, puppet-like corpses were eating dinner. Bella nabbed their jewelry--8 earrings, 6 necklaces, 3 bracelets. Rump then whacked all their heads off, because Maeve asked him to, because they were creepy.

In Filge’s bedroom, we found a desk, with papers and a jar with a dead worm inside. The papers included a letter from Smenk about the worms and rumors of unkillable undead (neurosurgeons?). Also notes on reanimating undead. Ewww!

Spells in Filge’s spell book:
0-Level: Detect Magic, Disguise Self, Disrupt Undead, Ray of Frost, Read Magic, Touch of Fatigue
1-Level: Cause Fear, Chill Touch, Identify, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Ray of Enfeeblement
2-Level: Command Undead, Magic Mouth, Scare, Spectral Hand, Touch of Idiocy

There were also two statues. One statue was of an angel playing a harp. The other was a halfling in a nice black suit holding a platter. He was wrapped in bandages and had on gray glasses. There was a woman’s head on the platter, and on her tongue was a coin.

Rump took the coin, and the head started screaming “Intruder!”. He hucked the head out a window, but it was too late. Filge had discovered us. He invited us to come up to the top of the tower. We fought Filge and his undead. Vardeen and Dreyma died. We killed the undead and took Filge prisoner.

Loot:
Filge--Bird skull necklace (magic), 3 metal syringes, key.
Dreyma’s body--5 sunrods, +3 longsword, +1 magic banded mail
Vardeen’s body--Dwarven war axe (to be sent to her family), short bow, scale mail, brass thing in green wool blanket, 8s, 8g

We went back into town, and spoke with the priests of Wee-Jas at the graveyard. We explained what was going on and gave them Filge.

The next day, Maeve went back to the crypt and met with Amaris, the head priestess of Wee-Jas. She had learned a little from Filge. Apparently, Smenk and Ragnor Dourstone had a deal going on. When Smenk went to Dourstone’s mine to discuss it, he picked up rumors of a cult called Ebon Triad. Smenk thought they might be worshiping the glowing worms, and that the cult might be run by Dourstone. Filge kept repeating “The age of worms (wyrms?) is upon us.”.

Badger and Feldon went off to Badger’s monastery and then were heading to the observatory to retrieve the bodies of our comrades. Maeve took the Wee-Jas priests with her to the observatory, where she learned how to tell by someone’s skull if they had died of the “red plague”. The Wee-Jas priests took all the bodies (Land family, Alistair, Dreyma and Vardeen) back to graveyard. Met up with Badger and Feldon on their way out of the tower. Learned that the priests of Wee-Jas frown upon rezzing, so getting our friends raised was not going to happen. We had a nice burial ceremony for them, though.

The next day, we learned that the heads of the three main churches in town had been killed. The right hand had been cut off the head priest of Hieronius. The heart had been cut from the head priestess of Wee-Jas. They eyes had been cut out of the head priest of St. Cuthbert.

The sage, Alliston, was woken by a deputy with news of the Hieronius murder. The others were discovered later. The priests of St. Cuthbert were going to speak with dead to see what their head priest could tell them of how/why/by whom he was murdered. Alliston also told us that The Whispering Cairn is probably the tomb of Zoshial, a Wind Duke of Aka. He advised us to get out of town.

Loot left at Tidwode’s:
Lamia rug (from Filge’s), Dwarven War Axe (to be sent to Vardeen’s family), papers from Filge, brass thingy, tequila recipe from observatory

We went back to Whispering Cairn and Alistair had opened the door as promised. The room it opened into smelled fresh. The light source was mysterious. We couldn’t see the ceiling or the floor under the bits we were on. We figured out how to trigger the four alcoves into playing their home movies (push down on the turtle rock thingy).

1. Peaceful scene, green lawns and purple sky, alien buildings. Dozens of circles in the sky. Hundreds of frolicking figures, bald, tall and robed. Dark and twisted shapes begin to appear on the edges. They writhe and form a monstrous creature--wolf-spider. Bald people move to center, circles in the sky disappear.

2. Towering bald guy, on chest has amulet carved with rune (he’s Zoshial). Hundreds of similar figures make a circle around another guy, who is taller and burlier. He has a different rune on his amulet. The hundreds of guys in the circle draw their swords high and salute the middle guy.

3. Room with a platform - 12 seats. All have bald humanoids seated at them. Big guy in the center. 7 others rise up from the floor. They are all carrying 1 staff. One of these turns, and it’s Zoshial. Leader picks up the rod and breaks it into 7 bits. Rod is carved, pieces are different. Bella draws the pieces and notes who was holding which piece.

4. Similar landscape to Iron Lake area. Badger recognizes landmarks and realizes it IS Iron Lake! Huge battle between Wind Dukes (using spears and longswords) and wolf-spiders. A 3-headed spider appears (2 heads wolves, center head human). Wind Duke jams rod into its back. A black sphere appears. 6 red beams hit WD (1 from each of the spider’s eyes). The rod breaks. Zoshial used the rod, not Ekoseal, like Alliston thought. He was not there?

Feldon went to the middle of the room, where a column of air is rushing up. Two giant suits of armor rose up and attacked. Every time they clanged their swords together, they zapped stuff. They were ceramic and Bella killed them with a wand, which ran out of juice. Feldon stepped into the airstream. We followed.

Went up to a new room. Zoshial’s real tomb. There was another moving picture:

Bald warrior and demon with a magic staff that controls a glove of darkness. Darkness touches the warrior and he fades from sight. The diadem he was wearing fell to the ground. Zoshial?

Feldon headed toward the sarcophagus, searching for traps. On the 2nd step, he heard a voice “Say my name.”. Feldon said “Zoshial”. A blue light emanated from the sarcophagus. It faded, and Feldon approached the sarcophagus, checking it for traps. It had no handle or hinges.

Inside the sarcophagus were:
In the head area: ornate silver diadem, runed (Feldon)
In the chest area: 2 horns, 2 ½ feet long, sharp and pointed with red tips (Badger)
In the leg area: long pewter box, 4 feet long, sealed with lead, intricately carved
Feldon opened the box, and discovered a 2 foot long stick with a round circle on the end
He took the stick and left the box.

Great.

Now we’re all gonna die.