Session 2: Pharast 17-22

When last we left our heroes they were inside a dungeon trying to save Faunra from a cave giant. With Nyanta catching up to them (and clearing out their return trip) they made their way through a series of traps to get to the giant's lair.

They fled the giant, leading it back up through the traps they had just bypassed, dropping a large boulder on it and causing it to twice fall down a 60' shaft, damaging it enough to kill it, but not before it killed Variel with a thrown boulder.

Faunra screamed in grief for her dead brother, and her tears activated the Harp of Souls, showing it's true power- the power to resurrect the recently dead.

The heroes helped themselves to the giant's treasure and escorted Faunra and Variel back to down.


While in town they confronted Dibbler, who apologized for giving a fake stone to them- declaring he himself had been cheated by a dishonest merchant who sold the stone to him. Ivan attempted to turn Dibbler in to the Blackguard Irregulars, but found that Dibbler's silver tongue was a forced to be reckoned with. Fortunately, Dibbler was forgiving.


An evil goblin named patches attempted to lead the PCs into some kind of trap in the tunnels, but they were wise to his antics and chased him off.

Afterwards the party heard about several groups preparing to enter the Cave in an attempt to find magical artifacts. Apparently a halfling named Zaphod Humperdink had located a very powerful artifact, and had traded it in for quite a fortune to the Chilaxian church in the city.

The party attempted to meet with Zaphoid, but he was not seeing guests. His "notes" on how he got into the cave were for sale for 1000 gp, however. The party obtained a "discounted" copy, to find that the notes were intentionally vague and misleading. They consulted their old friend Dibbler for some advice.

Dibbler pointed them towards a Tiefling Alchemist named Zeta who was the only one Zaphoid would see regularly. Tiffania attempted to gather information from Zeta, but he was on his game. Ivan tracked Zeta to a meeting, and though he didn't understand Infernal, gathered enough to understand they were doing something involving a minotaur.

The party realized that the misdirection magics on the tunnels may be able to be bypassed by a Minotaur's natural maze immunity, and Ivan snuck into the church of law to find a minotaur named Jordan locked in the basement. He revealed that they were holding is daughter hostage to force his cooperation.

The party went to the camp to free the daughter, but found she had already freed herself, having gone into a barbarian rage and broken her chains when they attempted to kill her for being "no longer useful.". The party recruited Clara to help them enter the tunnels and rescue Jordan.

Clara led them through the caves, noting that her father was purposefully leaving tracks to follow and going down extended paths to slow his group's progress. She became immediately frightened when she discovered where they were going- to a shrine of Baphomet the god of minotaurs. Were he to be bound, the priests of Asmodeus may be able to force him to reveal the entire layout of the tunnels and caves, allowing them to gain all the treasure and artifacts for themselves.

The group caught up with the Chilaxians, who used the Horn of Baphomet to summon minotaur warriors to help them, though the party had Clara and now Jordan on their side. They were able to defeat the Chilaxians and obtain the artifact. 

When they got to the shrine of Baphomet they were unsure on how to destroy it, so they instead returned the horn to the statue, increasing it's power, and gaining a blessing of the Dark God Baphomet. Jordan taught the party some tricks in maze navigation and went on his way, while Clara stayed in town to start an adventuring career. 

In the minotaur dungeon, they discovered several tomes written by the minotaur that lived there, describing his exploits in the tunnels. They included direction to several dungeons inside the caves that have not yet been explored:

The Demiplane of Great Magic- the tunnels led into a rift going into the private demiplane of the powerful wizard Jacob the Exploiter.  

The Grave of the Dragons, - the tunnels lead into a valley in the mountainside where once lived a race of great dragons

The Summoning Chambers- a dungeon guarded by some kind of golem who seeks to have adventurers prove their worth too him 

The Dungeon of Mirrors- a dungeon crafted by a wizard obsessed with light and refraction

The Clockwork Dungeon- a high level dungeon with clockwork components constructed for some unknown purpose

Genie's Gamble- a dungeon constructed by four genies on a bet.

Session 1: Pharast 1- Pharast 17

The party journeyed to the town of Deepreach to find fame and fortune in the Cave. On the way they teamed up with some other adventurers heading the same way, and helped guard a merchant delivery headed to town, and were each rewarded with a potion of cure serious wounds for their effort.

Upon reaching the town the party sought out a place to stay to form a base of operations for when they explored the cave. Being quite poor, they were only able to afford to stay in a place called the Burrows, owned by a ratfolk named Rikkon.

Rikkon was having some trouble with some humans in his basement, so the party agreed to go down and eject the squatters on his behalf. During the combat, a few squatters gave up and escaped through an open window, but they were able to witness Maria Belmont biting into a fallen comrade to eat his sin.

The Illumanati were called to retrieve the dead bodies, and Rikkon noted that the squatters had eaten and soiled much of his food supplies. The party learned that the squatters had burrowed a secret tunnel into Rikkon's inn as well as the item store next door, though that tunnel had collapsed. The party destroyed the secret entrance and agreed to stay on as hired muscle for Rikkon in exchange for free room and board.


A few days later the Illumanati returned to issue warnings to Rikkon that they would be shutting down his business due to health violations- besides dead bodies being found with his food supply, his low quality foods and frequent disposal of soiled foods left Mayor Illuminus unable to allow his business to continue. They issued him a warning and said they'd be back and he'd better be up to standard.

The party decided to help him gain a new supply of food and gathered information using Lady Belmont's underground contacts. They discovered that the guilds had monopolized the suppliers and were trying to get The Burrows closed down in order to gain his real estate. The party learned that guild had recently been successful in closing down an alchemy shop called Infusions. Ms. Moonblade identified that suppliers to alchemy shops could easily be converted to supply for restaurants.

They went to infusions and found that the owner, a gnome named Lini had closed the store and sold the business to Al-Chema, a guild alchemy store that was working towards a monopoly. Her supplies had dried up and she worried about her supplier who is also a personal friend. She was packing up and was able to manipulate the sale of her store to protect her alchemy trade secrets and supplies. The party agreed to go with her to check on her supplier and try to convince him to supply foods to the Burrows.

On the way they were beset by bandits. The party learned that they had been hired by Al-Chema to steal Lini's supplied and alchemy formulas. They captured the bandit leader, questioned him, and eventually let him go. They arrived at the supplier's farm to meet Zarzuket, the gnome sorcerer who grows the crops, and Scout, his brownie familiar.

Zarzuket indicated that some blighted fey were attacking his crops. He was easily able to drive them off, but he can't leave his farm to deliver shipments while this is going on, and he cant hunt down their nest and leave his farm unattended. Scout was able to find the nest, but as a brownie she wasn't able to do anything against them. The party agreed to go the nest, kill the blighted fey there, and destroy the nest in order to disburse the fey.

The party was able to defeat some blighted hobkins thanks to some cold iron weapon blanche Lini cooked up and a cold iron short sword given by Zarzuket. They burned the dead tree they were nesting in, and were able to load up a shipment on Lini's cart. They returned to town and were able to provide Rikkon with excellent quality ingredients to allow him to pass his inspections. Rikkon, being a master chef and brewmaster, was able to utilize the ingredients to put his bar on the map, attracting more clientele. Lini set up shop in the basement and ran an alchemy store out of there, and used her master contract skills to avoid further guild entanglements.

After a few days of high business with the party acting as bouncers, an elvish bard named Faunra began entertaining at the Burrows, with a sultry song and dance routine that brought many big spenders into the Burrows.

Ivan Dogeater and Tiffiania Moonblade showed special interest in Faunra, and talked her up most of the night, learning that she was an adventurer who had come to town to find someone- that she had a warrior brother who was out of town at the moment- and despite their best efforts, was too busy in the late evenings to do any private entertainment. 

The next evening, Ivan was angrily accosted by Variel- Faunra's brother. 

Variel indicate that someone came to his sister's room late last night and now she is missing, and he knows some goblin had been flirting with her, and even inquiring as to her romantic tastes. The group decided to help Variel find his sister. Searching her room they found that Faunra was obsessed with locating a magical instrument called the Harp of Souls, which she speculated could be used by incorporeal creatures and had great power, but she was unaware as to its specific uses. She was in communication with an individual known as "D" who she was paying to locate the harp for her. The last known location was inside the Cave in the possession of an adventurer who was not seen coming back out of the caves.

The PC located some Tunnels directions, and went with Variel in search of his sister.

In the tunnels, the PCs stumbled upon some disenchanters eating magical items off some dead wizards, and later saw that the tunnels behind them had caved in, which would make the way back difficult. Then they ran into Dibbler, who was fleeing from some mercenaries. Dibbler had a silver goblet with the name "Sylvia" engraved on it. He insisted that it's his sister's heirloom and that the guards were trying to steal it from them, while the guards insisted that he stole it and they were trying to retrieve it from him.

After examining the chalice, Lady Belmont was convinced that Dibbler was a fine upstanding fellow, and turned the mercenaries away from him. He gratefully thanked her, offering her a Stone of Good Luck for her troubles, then left the tunnels to return to town. Suspicious, Tiffiania examined the stone to find that it was a normal rock with Magic Aura cast on it, and the party suspected that perhaps Dibbler stole that goblet after all. Lady Belmont, prideful, vowed to find Dibbler and settle up accounts for being made a fool of. 

The party continued to follow the directions to get to a dungeon opening. Ivan was able to squeeze down a hole in the floor to see that Faunra had found the Harp of Souls, and was using it to fascinate some kind of giant who had killed the cloaked figure as well as another group of adventurers. No one else could fit down the hole, so the party decided to try to find the other way through the dungeon to rescue Faunra from the monster. The party had just defeated a group of giant spider when...