Chapter 10 - "Endgame"

Throy to Sachem, finds old friend Cpl. (now Sgt.) Brendig but he and all others clam up when Sylune is mentioned.

Vynri(R-5) joins via Throy's recruitment.

Sylune turned over to Richard at Riveria, he declares various sentences complete on receipt of criminals' shares.

Carrine and Flasheart retire.

Over the previous month, Araglas and others have noticed items for sale that they know to have been sold before.Conventional investigation gets nowhere, so Tovan casts Commune; answers point to a forest east of town and something there called the Caves of Evil, also indicate agents within Waterdeep might be involved.

Recruit a wizard: Delifrand (Dell) Silverstaff(MU-8) joins.

During night, capture a Leprechaun; conversation reveals he knows Darby (who is from here).  Tylara flies him off and releases him.

Deeper in forest, meet Leprechaun again and a few hundred of his friends; they drive Party back into a waiting huge Green Dragon: Throg killed and Tylara's flying broom destroyed in resulting brawl, but Dragon slain.  Party flees.

Planeshift to road outside Waterdeep, arrive in a farmer's fertilizer cart.  To town, and baths.

Throg raised by Tovan.  Tylara makes arrangements for broom repair; costly, and will take a while.

Return to forest and try again; Leprechauns block and put half of Party to sleep, rest gather sleepers up and run.

Fleeing Party stumble on to a couple of adventurers and take them in: Varis Whisperwind(NtC-7) and Seamus Thornbeard(WrC-7) join.  Leave forest, on foot this time.  Weather still awful.

Stumble on to and watch a one-sided jousting contest on a road; Party take pity on the loser and take him in, so Richesard Ironsword (Cvr-7) joins.  Within minutes Seamus nicknames him Ritchie, and this would stick.

Arrive at village of Tucker's Bar in evening, decide for no particular reason it must be involved with Caves of Evil.

Try ambush again.  While waiting, Leodran disappears; he has been charmed and taken by a Dryad.  Party cannot spare time to free him; a half-hearted try gets nowhere.

Caravan arrives and Party clobber it, but Kazka (who Party want alive) goes to –11.  Tovan tries Death's Door and fails, so he tries again (never a good idea) and fails spectacularly.  Corpse explodes. (meanwhile a psyonic charm on Kazka gets transferred to Tovan, who spends the next several days feeding the Caves' Beholders every shred of information he can about the Party, its capabilities, possessions, etc., all the while operating as if still a Party member.  Rest of Party never suspect a thing.)

Surviving caravan guards paid off and sent on their way.

Tylara and Araglas bail Leodran out by trading a captured Elf to the Dryad.

Arrive at village of Farthing, hire a barge to go upstream.

Find a suspicious dock and go ashore here; it's the right place, so Party head inland.

During night, Tylara killed while on watch.  Leodran discovers this a few minutes later and is attacked himself; he raises an alarm and the killer (Joram, A-10) is tracked down by Calion and Leodran and killed. (Joram had been sent by the Beholders to kill and loot Leodran; they know Leodran's Helm of True Seeing will negate many of their traps and defenses, and want it for their own people.  But Joram blows it by killing the wrong person, then belatedly tries to fix his error by attacking Leodran, and only gets killed for his trouble)

Seamus casts Speak With Dead on Tylara; she declines resurrection.  Varis throws Death Prayer on her, buries her, and Party carry on.

Finally find Caves of Evil and charge a few Kobolds waiting within, but Kobolds have high-powered help.  Calion goes behind lines to take out an enemy spellcaster and is taken out himself by Darine(T-12) who would go on to become a huge thorn in Party's side.  Calion leaves, not by his own choice: captured and dragged off.

Party back out, then try again and walk into an ambush.  Varis killed by Darine, now sporting much of Calion's expensive gear.  Seamus to –9.  And during all this Tovan finally strikes, launching a few Flamestrikes into the fray before fleeing outside and joining up with (and curing) Darine.

Determined to find Calion (via Seamus' psyonics they know he's alive), Party keep going and walk into another ambush.  Leodran killed by poison, and Dell and Ritchie killed by hit-and-run attacks from Darine.

Seamus dimension-doors to outside, finds Tovan here, and somehow manages to defeat him one-on-one, so Tovan captured.

Araglas and Throg find a glyph (of Tovan's) on way out; with no other way to get rid of it, badly-injured Throg heroically dives through: Throg killed.

Araglas and Seamus flee with Tovan, Leodran and Varis corpses; spend several very cold days escaping forest.

Throg, Ritchie, Dell and Tylara(oops!) all revived via mass-retrieval wish at Waterdeep; same wish gets Calion and everyone's gear back to Party. (and Darine, in forest, swears a blue streak!).

Big argument over who pays for wish; Ritchie retires and leaves during this.  Tylara gets her repaired broom.

Back to Caves (weather terrible yet again); reach previous point of furthest advance unopposed and plow on in.

Various Golems slow Party down; Tovan nearly killed by an Assassin during this.

Open a door; a Beholder waits on the other side, and Seamus killed by its death ray.  Party retreats into forest.

Seamus raised by Tovan.

Party engage Beholder and find it's in a vertical shaft; Throg jumps onto it and collapses; Araglas follows and goes down shaft with it – and finds there are two more waiting below.  Rest of Party raggedly follow, meanwhile Araglas contacts distant Diora with instructions "wish us back if you haven't heard from me again in a week!" while somehow holding off Beholders…and Darine, who soon shows up.

Party almost annihilated:  Leodran disintegrated, Tylara petrified (and lucky not to shatter when she crash-lands; she was in flight at the time); Calion, Throg, Dell and Tovan all asleep or paralyzed, and Varis slowed, but Beholders just can't quite finish the job.  Darine captured.  Leodran becomes R-8 as he dies.

Dell charms Darine later and overdoes it; she falls madly in love with him and happily tells him what she can about this place and its former occupants, so Darine(T-12) joins now though Party don't formally decide to take her in until a few days later.

Explore until someone finds a book and gives it to Dell; he starts reading and cannot stop, a firefight breaks out when Darine leaps to his aid as others try to wrest book from him.  Both are bound, and book destroyed; Dell uncursed later.

Everyone investigates, learn ship carries two passengers who may intend to eventually destabilize Waterdeep. (at least, that's what Party is told.  Reality is that said passengers are a potential threat to some local political interests; a large bounty is put on preventing their arrival, but nobody local dares touch the job due to likely repercussions.  So, some foreign suckers are lured in…)

Also learn key targets may be disguised and discerning innocents from targets may be impossible.

Calion finishes training (to F-8/T-8).

Find red-hulled ship.  Calion swims under it (with lots of magical help) and drills several holes in hull, then rips rudder off.  Dell fireballs ship from air.  Darine lands on ship, backstrikes some random officer, and dives overboard; Calion has to rescue.  Dell chucks a few more fireballs in as ship founders.

Ship sinks; Party find survivors in water and slay (and loot, in some cases), then leave.

Find treasure with little difficulty; it consists of a small box containing only a gold nugget, a piece of string, and a pinecone, along with a bit of soil.  Return to Verwood via planeshift.

During night, lots of characters have very vivid dreams, mostly to do with regrettable actions during adventuring, either by themselves or by some other character whose role in dream is to tell this character to take their place...or something like that.

Party wake up in a 20'x20' underground room with one exit.  Secret doors lead to a multi-dimensional maze that always ends up back in the same room.  Comparing notes between characters leads to correct conclusion this is something to do with Asgeir's Saga, as that's all these people (or those who are being replaced) have in common.

Obvious exit leads to a round room with 2 small frightened children in it.  Schurra takes these in.  Keep going.

Munin loses 6 points of Wisdom to a stone Minotaur.

Meet a skeleton; Munin loses 3 points of Intelligence.

Meet 2 more small children, but these are Vampires: Leshendra and Lanefan lose levels (to T-9 and F-7).  Lots of paranoia sets in regarding the other two children, but they're normal.

Meet a little old lady (simulacrum of Asgeir as if 104 years old) in a rocking chair.  Mrikle telekinesis-es her in her chair ahead of Party as they go.

Leshendra loses 11 points of Strength to a Roper.  Munin aged 6 years by Asgeir-clone, who then ages the Roper horribly and thus gets much younger, more powerful, etc.  He'is and others then carve her to pieces.  Sack out.

The two children morph into Loki minions and fix all the drainings except Munin's age (they can't fix this) and Rohn's death (he has no spirit left, so their attempted resurrection has to fail).  So they try a plan B: they go to Loki's realm and steal a spare spirit that happens to be hanging around, stuff it in a 3"-long golden spike, get Loki to quickly bless it with Rohn's knowledge (or a reasonable facsimile), return, and jam it into Rohn.  This works, so Rohn revived but with some guy named Ingvar stuck in his head as well – along with a bit of Loki.

Minions hand everyone each a pair of dice; people roll:
 o Leshendra disintegrated to ash in a blaze of fire with all possessions;
 o Schurra and Diora each gain 2 points Dexterity;
 o He'is loses all gems and coin, thus He'is killed when his Drow gem disappears (he also gains immunity to fire);
 o Thistle blinded but becomes highly psyonic (blindness easily cured later);
 o All Pearl's magic items get one notch better at whatever they do;
 o Munin loses half his h.p. permanently but gains 4 points Strength;
 o Mrikle loses 6 points Charisma;
 o Rohn loses 3 points of Constitution.

Planeshift to Verwood except Thistle, Pearl, Munin and Lanefan all left behind.

Thistle fireballs some passing geese.  A small band of wandering Orcs come to investigate; Thistle offers them geese to eat and also tosses her dice on the ground for them; this counts as a second roll so she loses a level, thus back to MU-7/T-7 (was T-8).

Rest of Party planeshift to Verwood.

He'is raised then Healed by Trilby, with lots of magical aid.

Thistle retires to rest.  Mrikle retires to sulk.  Schurra retires for no particular reason.

During various dealings at Mirabar through month, assorted people hear various rumours of odd goings-on of late in western Coldwood.

Meanwhile, Nashanna arrives at Verwood looking for people to deal with the same thing, but they're all in Mirabar, so she meets them there.

Planeshift to old mine site where Lanefan was rescued at end of Asgeir's Saga D, and head north into forest.

Find a huge strange-looking creature and slay it; it's a Tyrannosaur (nobody knows this) and has no business being here; Party conclude it is alien but have no idea how it got here, or why.  Cold weather.

Find some local Gnolls; He'is talks with them and gets some information; Party leave them alive (!) afterwards.

Party find and capture a 7'-tall bipedal ant; Rohn's truth-read gives loads of info. but he also realizes his psyonics aren't working fully, perhaps due to interference from massive psyonic use around here (several thousand ants, all psyonically linked and all relatively nearby, have a lot to do with this).  Lots of snow.

A massive scaly worm erupts from ground and swallows Myra; Party soon slay but start some fires in process.

Trilby casts Speak With Plants on a tree; this and the fires draw attention of a local Ent – Silverbranch – who soon arrives.  Once fires are out, he provides lots more info; for one thing, he knows the Githi for what they are.

Return to mine in heavy snow; pick an entrance, and wade in.  Githi, Hobgoblins, and ants soon respond:
 o Party exposed to balefire, a long-lost Githi magic, for first time;
 o Nashanna and Trilby collapse various parts of mine complex, by sheer luck prevent bulk of enemy forces from quickly reaching Party, but the few dozen that do prove a handful;
 o Party take down a Githi MU-17 and F-17 without ever fully realizing just how powerful each was;
 o Myra goes one-on-one with a powerful Hobgoblin Cleric and is lucky to survive;
 o Party planeshift out to Verwood with an enormous hoard of loot just before main enemy force can arrive.

Later that day, various Party members are scryed; much paranoia results.

Nashanna sacrifices a Very Evil Mace and unknowingly gets cursed: all rolls for anything at –3 for a day.

Silverbranch slain late at night; Rohn gets a psyonic distress call as he dies.

Rohn shuts down Pnyum's psyonics at his request.

Return to complex one at a time via tapestry; get discovered immediately, so another major brawl happens on same site as last one. Again, Party lucky not to lose anyone (Myra survives a square-on balefire hit, among other things), and they establish a beachhead and explore from there.

A 2-headed Dragon, its pet Mind Flayer, and one last powerful Githi (I-16/F-14) provide a stiff challenge.  Much discussion after on how to shut down the enormous inter-planar gate they were guarding.

More exploring.  Captives taken to Mirabar via planeshift.

Right at midnight, Dakiell(F-8) appears in midst of Party, says "I have been sent, to thank you" in an odd voice, then keels over dead.

Dakiell raised by Nashanna.

Finish exploring.  Collapse cavern holding gate.

Try to leave, but Dakiell's arrival has put Party one over their travel capacity, so only half of Party can go.  Marlu, Lanefan, Munin, Trilby and Nashanna stay put; rest to Verwood.

Once at Verwood, Diora asks S'nel'be for help; he takes her to Dafan and back, she then tapestries to mine and takes Marlu etc. to Dafan, where S'nel'be waits to take them home.  Unintended side-effect of this is to briefly put Lanefan back on a Dafan he thought destroyed, but S'nel'be insists it is Dafan; Lanefan isn't so sure, and he would follow this up later (see Return To Dafan).

Leaving Lanefan, Myra, Trilby and Leshendra behind, Party back to Coldwood.

Find Silverbranch's corpse; Nashanna raises it.

S'nel'be convinces Rohn to contact Nashanna; she returns to Verwood.  S'nel'be gives approval for plot and passes on what he has learned; she makes sure Helm is blessed by Banyatok as a result.

Rohn confronts Nashanna and gets her to tell plot details; she does, then pays Rohn 30,000 g.p. to shut him up.

Munin puts Helm on Marlu's head at breakfast in castle's great hall.  Marlu becomes NrC and is converted to Banyatok on the spot; she also becomes NG.  Ketall attacks Munin but is quickly told to stand down by Marlu.

Nashanna then tells all of payment to Rohn; much grumbling follows.  Nashanna departs for the plains.

An Arctic Elf – Mialee – shows up at Verwood looking for Denae, not seen in ages.

Luskan is hit by waves of undead, second new moon in a row this has happened; Diora calls for help.  Party agree but then wait for days at castle while Diora tries and fails to get more info up north; she spends the next several nights helping destroy undead.

All to Luskan, size up situation.  Diora Commune (at last) gives useful info.

A local Cleric is sent along to help out: Magnus Malulfson(NrC-8) joins, he's not very bright but eager to help.

Conveniently not mentioning their killing of the Giants' scouts, leave Jakhuutsfell with an escort of 6 Frost Giants.

Another Commune from Diora, then Diora and Leshendra to Verwood and Waterdeep for supplies.  Party now know they are up against a Dracolich named Azurphax.

Find Azurphax's hideaway and wade in.  Leshendra blows an easy trap and gets fried.

Meet 4 lycanthropes in Human form, easily defeated but Magnus infected; he doesn't know it, yet.

Mialee loses a point of Con. due to a spell failure.

A significant Hel Cleric (NrC-11) and a pair of Medusae cause enough delay that Azurphax can blast a few fireballs at Party; Party flees and, after some discussion, retreats all the way to Verwood

Lots of pre-casts by retired Verwood types, then Party back to Azurphax's caves.

Rohn loses a level he had just bumped in to (so back to F-9) via Azurphax's breath.  Pearl (to MU-9) and Mialee (to MU-6) soon follow.  Myra, who by all rights should have been drained, keeps her levels; an immunity from a long-ago magic surge at last is put to the test.  Azurphax slain.

Diora casts Death Prayer on remains of Azurphax and crumbles them to dust.

Explore, find little treasure; convinced there must be more, Party stay put.

Mialee wishes for a golem and gets one (!), so now has a pet Stone Golem.

All to Luskan for next undead invasion; all that appear are a few leftover stragglers from last month, easy pickings.

Magnus' lycanthropy kicks in and he attacks Party; they manage to fix problem without killing him.

During night, Alcavron's astronomy skills lead him to conclude this is the right world, except its moon is missing.

Diora has trouble getting spells in morning, eventually learns she is probably praying to Luthien here.

Party travel for days to get to Elves; realize it is very late summer here.

Reach Savola, town on border of Elven land Glantri ruled by 'Sheh, an ex-running mate of Alcavron.

Meet Anniki and Oozzoo, descendants of old adventuring companions of same names.  Learn 'Sheh disappeared a century or so ago.  Soon get enough evidence to prove this is a version of Dafan kicked about 200 years into the future, so start referring to it as NewDafan. (and start asking lots and lots of questions)

Lanefan learns old friend Kaija is still alive; sends a message to her.  Also hears tell of various other old Dafanites, all Elves except one Gnome.  Tylara learns old nemesis Valashi (a human) is still alive.

Much confusion trying to sort out dates etc.; it seems a few centuries have passed here in what was 6 subjective years to those on Riveria, but experiments show time is running consistently now between the two worlds.

Ritchie shows up at Verwood to enlist Company aid in an escalating dispute between Jaretch, his liege lord, and Orvik, a neighbouring baron.  Araglas notices Ritchie is a bit glazed over, but assumes it to be either his normal state (he's not very bright to begin with) or stress from the situation. (in fact, Ritchie is a psyonically-controlled Githi puppet these days and is here on their orders)

Party forms and sets off; some by boat, some by tapestry

Arrive at Jaretch's lands; get ambushed by Githi in a small forest.  Ritchie killed but Githi otherwise fare poorly with supposedly-deadly initial onslaught (e.g. Myra survives 7 balefire hits), and Githi soon fall.

Discussion with Jaretch, later Orvik, is just starting to get places when Rohn receives a psyonic distress call from Pnyum at Verwood: the Keep is under attack.  Leaving Myra, Mialee and Yuriel behind, rest planeshift to Verwood.

Searching hole-riddled Keep reveals Dakiell and Thistle dead, killed in their sleep never knowing what hit them; also all staff and guards are dead except Sgt. Peters (Minor's replacement as seneschal) and one soldier.

Further search shows Munin and Pnyum are missing.  Speak With Deads on some Gith corpses, and a S'nel'be Commune, get some worrying information: Gith are thawing in numbers as Banyatok and Mielikki's watch on the icecap has failed – again; and Munin is a Gith captive.  Pnyum's fate is less certain.

Rohn contacts Atlas; mention of Gith gets him worried, he starts flying across the seas to see what's going on.

Diora retrieves Myra, Mialee and Yuriel.

Gith corpses have some loot; of note is an evil ring of unknown use.  Leshendra and others want to try it out but Yuriel will have none of it, and when all are distracted elsewhere Yuriel sacrifices ring.  A big argument follows (including Araglas to Yuriel: "you're not greedy enough to be in this party!"), so he walks out: Yuriel retires.

S'nel'be determines surviving soldier is charmed to something; everyone becomes extremely paranoid.

Chiron(F-9) joins, having seen the fireworks from a distance and come to investigate.

Next day, Rohn contacts Nashanna and learns Banyatok is missing again.  Lots of people to Mirabar's Mielikki temple, also confer with Asgeir and other high-powered wizards.  Mielikki types then throw Commune, as does Diora; learn Party's involvement in all this is somewhat accidental, so Party decides to just go after Munin.

Back at Verwood, a Gnome shows up driving a cart carrying another Gnome in a box; she has been sent to drop off the boxed Gnome.  On release, this Gnome immediately decides he's known everyone for years and then starts hugging his weapons; Rohn's psyonics determine he really is insane but for some reason Party take him in anyway: Broken(F-8) joins.

By various means, learn Githi are at an old city called Keriak and Munin is in a particular structure there.

See a huge army heading south toward Keriak, determine these to be Hobgoblins.

Using Atlas and Chiron as troop carriers, all fly in and survey Keriak.  Find a hole in roof of target structure; long discussion on how to defeat hole's defenses ends when Broken just dives through, he is lucky to survive resulting fall.

One Gith (and his little pet dog) is all that defends entry room; easily killed.  Schurra takes dog in.

Led by insane Broken, Party starts frantically exploring structure; 6 more Githi fall to Party's stupendous firepower. (these are just the prison guards; most Gith in city are busy finishing work on thawing out about 10,000 others of their race, Party leaves those for Hobgoblins to deal with)

Find and rescue Munin, along with 2 Hobgoblin prisoners; Munin joins; a side trip to find Munin's gear, then retreat to cloud.

Mialee and Araglas fly down and establish contact with Hobgoblin commander; return rescuees (one was a high-powered Azak'hri Cleric), and set up psyonic communications.

After dark, Hobgoblins attack and annihilate Githi.

As soon as battle ends, nearby lake water starts rising extremely fast; Atlas gets suspicious and starts cloud flying south.  Lake then freezes more quickly than it has any right to, trapping entire Hobgoblin army in ice.

A titanic battle erupts (probably between divine minions, or worse) above Keriak and lake.

Rohn contacts Nashanna and learns Banyatok is back functioning and had "disappeared" by Her own choice. (it then becomes clear this whole operation was designed to trick Azak'hri; She fell for it, putting many of Her most powerful Hobgoblins in that army, supposedly to take revenge on the Githi, and so focused was She on this it never occurred to Her that Her army was also a target)

S'nel'be Commune gives little useful info re Pnyum.  By now, he knows surviving soldier is not charmed any more.

A ring in treasure holds a wish; this is used to revive all slain in castle attack, thus Dakiell, Illyrah, Thistle and Tamarrik all revived along with various soldiers, staff, etc.  S'nel'be then retires to train (to WrC-11).

Diora Commune determines Pnyum will probably get back on his own, given time. (he is in fact with Wowbagger, having ended up there by mistake, and is perfectly safe…he just has to wait for a gate to open to a useful part of the Riverian world, and walk through)

Leshendra starts investigating her treasure from Leshendra's Treasure Map; several days later determines it to be mostly symbolic, though planting the nugget opens up a small gold mine just to west of Keep.

To Waterdeep, meet up with Throy, Phoenix, and Vynri.

Varis called to local Rillifane temple, casually told "There's a Drow problem in the mountains, see to it, will you?"; for various reasons, Rillifane types think Varis is about 10 levels higher than he is thus such a mission should be relatively trivial.

Kattenalas (Katten) Silverquill(I-6/T-6) joins.

Phoenix hires a hench: Porter(F-3/T-4) joins.  (she is in fact a spy sent by Waterdeep interests to keep tabs on Party for possible later use, but she ends up dying too soon for anything to ever come of this)

Rillifane types show Party a local teleport circle, Party to mountains far southeast of city.

Teleport missed by 100 miles or so, have to cross a small snowy realm to reach target, so set off.

Leaving Throy, Lin, Araglas and Pavro behind, Party to Verwood.

Vynri raised at Verwood.  Party to Waterdeep.

Varis raised at Waterdeep by Rillifane types, now becoming suspicious of their "high-powered Cleric"'s ability.

Katten stays with Varis, rest return to away team.

Throy uses his brick to set up a little stone cottage; late in evening cottage leaps 2' in the air having been struck from below by a surfacing Earth Dragon.  Party frantically planeshift out just before Dragon (with a mushed-in nose) can breathe on them.  Spend night on Tymora's plane.

Earth Dragon (still with bent nose) shows up again and is easily defeated.

Pavro leaves, having brought Party as far as she's willing to go.

A couple of Frost Giants provide good sport.

Find a suspicious and magical entrance into a suspicious and magical hill; Throy walks in, a Demon shows up and a deep booming starts far underground.  Demon soon killed.

Into passage, find a cavern, Piercers attack and some Drow join in; Party win, then retreat outside.

Phoenix to Verwood to learn spells, everyone else back underground.  Throy and Araglas carefully explore cavern and find waiting Drow, also an odd lump of rock not there yesterday.  Lots of planning, and all to Verwood.

Tapestry to cavern in an all-out assault; goes wrong immediately as lump of rock is a Roper.  Lin's strength to –14 so Lin killed; Throg down to Str. 5, Tovan to 6, but Party take the cavern again…and again retreat.

Phoenix hires another hench, this time out of EC: Arac(MU-5) joins after bouncing around Alpha group for ages.

Back to mountains, find same suspicious entrance; so Rockheart walks through, resulting Demon easily slain.

Yet another assault on cavern, against the same Roper (revived by Drow) and some underdark friends, goes well; this time, Party actually stay here afterwards

Find a door; some Drow await behind.  Arac killed by an Assassin who had been following Party for some time.  Take one Drow captive, and Phoenix manages to charm it on the first try.(!)

Phoenix re-charms captive.

A hidden Black Dragon guards path.  Varis, Vynri, Rockheart and Drow captive killed; rest of Party a mess.

Explore Dragon's somewhat barren lair, find a captive; Party takes him in, so Sven(T-7; a.k.a. Flash) joins.

Planeshift to Verwood.  Tovan Commune once here.

A pair of Monks arrive at Verwood and sign up: Moonshadow(Mk-7) and Purity(Mk-7) join. Party spend several days gaining information on what they have to do once in Zakarith.

Throy finds out the hard way a ring of free action he just bought is cursed, but no lasting harm done; Tovan fixes.

Meet a Drow who wants to talk; this is Zakata, and for a spell or magic item per person she offers to guide Party through Zakarith to where they want to go.  Amazingly, Party don't kill her; even more amazingly, they take her up on her offer and buy themselves a guide.

Ignoring any number of temptations to cause trouble, Party sneak through Zakarith to Llolth temple.

Backed by a Trilby-summoned Fire Elemental (16 HD, 145 h.p., lots of damage on any hit), Party try a frontal assault:
 o He'is spends most of combat paralyzed and is lucky to survive; 3 opponents are killed or distracted at different times just when they were about to run him through;
 o Ketall fumbles and throws his magic sword into a pool; the pool is acid, and Marlu almost killed when sword blows up right next to her shortly after;
 o resident Clerics summon a Demon that is almost a match for Party's Elemental but it doesn't last long; Elemental then dispelled
 o a web of acid causes some grief and leaves Purity and Moonshadow cut off facing Tiereza, who runs the place; vastly outgunned, they somehow hang on long enough for Party to win through and slay.

Katten and Phoenix explore altar and find the Egg of Phyrexia (the reason Party is here) and a tiny spider.

Phoenix levitates spider out; it becomes gigantic and attacks, and Purity killed.

Party take Egg, whereupon a large mocking Llolth face appears above what appears to be a pool; Party now realizes what various "walk into the face of danger" clues they've received have been on about, so after some discussion (and without bothering to explore and loot rest of temple) they walk toward the face, fall into the "pool" (in fact it is a planar gate) and find themselves somewhere very different…

Party arrive in the Abyss (but don't know it); find themselves in endless twisty corridors with misty walls and ceilings, and writhing spirits in the floors.

Purity raised by Tovan but he gets a Demon spirit instead; Demon takes over Purity's body and tags along, but has only partial Monk abilities and no memories of Purity's previous existence.

Start exploring corridors, find a door; behind it are 24 Trolls.  Phoenix and Marlu do over 1000 total points of damage via each casting a fireball, unfortunately about 65 of it is to Ketall, so Ketall killed.

Find a Cleric with 5 captives; correctly deduce captives are real enemy (though Purity attacks Cleric anyway) and kill, Party takes Cleric in: Trose(NrC-10) joins.  It soon becomes clear he's as lost as the Party is.

During this, Throy panics and flees into mist; efforts to recover him are futile, he floats at random with no idea where he is or was or even which way is up.  He lets out a rope with grapnel in hopes of snagging onto something; hours later he does, and is hauled in by 3 Drow; he throws one into mist but cannot defeat the other two, so Throy killed.

Party meet and kill a Drider, Sven steals its sword but gets caught by He'is; arguments follow.

Kill 4 Drow, throw heads and corpses into mist.  Later, find a headless Drow corpse in different corridor; this tells Party that mist can eventually spit things out.

4 Demons (plus summoned friends) in a room cause trouble; the Egg of Phyrexia starts vibrating at combat's end and Party find themselves in a different corridor.

Find site of Throy's death; mundane gear, but no Throy.

Rockheart does 60 points damage in one swing to a clone of himself; the 20 Ogres with it are a pushover.

Meet a pair of Drow; kill one but one escapes, both are carrying bits of Throy's gear.

4 more Demons hiding in water cause lots of problems – He'is flees into mist but uses a teleportation device (risky!) to get back where he started – but die.  Egg vibrates again after this, takes Party to another corridor.

A room with 3 mice starts generating Demons.  Trose killed and Party getting clobbered, so Purity finally strikes as well.  Rockheart killed but Party wins…barely.  Purity subdued and captured.  Egg takes Party to yet another corridor, where they sack out.

Marlu notices Banyatok is not answering prayers in a.m. (see Revenge of the Gith; Party here don't realize how quickly time is flying past on Riveria, where it is already Jema)

Explore, find an arch gate leading to a forest, but Purity cannot pass through so Moonshadow kills Purity.  Corpse passes gate just fine.

Forest full of nasty critters; Party's predations here soon attract attention of local Elves, who take them in:
 o this place, realm and world is known as Caer Sidi;
 o Lord Alfric is the local ruler, controlling an outer defense keep against Llolth's invaders;
 o Llolth has been slowly taking this world over for centuries.

Alfric learns Party's goal is to stymie Llolth, he gives them some handy magic items to help.  Meanwhile, Sven is busy trying to pick up Alfric's wife, but she is over double his level in Thief and embarrasses him mightily.

Trilby Commune gets enough information for Party to realize they are probably stuck here (cannot go home); he does not think to ask the date, so Party carry on thinking it is still Jera.

Rockheart takes first Phoenix, then Purity on in drinking contests; all three pass out.

Escorted to gate by Alfric, then back into misty corridors.

Find another arch gate with a Frost Giant looking through.  Phoenix, perhaps still hungover, fumbles with his wand of lightning and blows himself up: Phoenix killed.  Giant doesn't last 2 rounds.

Return to Caer Sidi; Alfric hasn't even got back to his keep yet when Party is in view behind him!

Phoenix raised by Trilby.

Back into corridors again, soon meet a small but very powerful band of Drow and a huge Drider; Moonshadow and Purity get cut off from Party and clobbered by spells: Moonshadow killed and Purity barely survives.

Return Caer Sidi again (this time, Alfric made it back to his keep first, but only just); Moonshadow raised by a very busy Trilby.

Into corridors yet again.  This time, find Throy's naked mangled corpse lying in a corridor.

Bypass a few more arches, then enter one that leads to a room (with lots of spiders and passages…).  Here find and rescue a Dwarf, Elf, and Gnome who have been living on the run for years; the Gnome sticks around, so Partly(T-9/I-9) joins.  She functions mostly as Thief from here on; she has no spellbook and can't learn much of use from Katten.

Return to Caer Sidi, drop off Dwarf and Elf.

Into corridors for last time.  Find and rescue Trinax the Questor, and steer him to the right plane.

Find a big imposing door and barge through to somewhere very different; start killing everything found here.

Sven killed by a pair of Ropers.

Return to entrance; door gone but a new small passage has appeared, this seems much less oppressive than everywhere else here – and spells work properly – so it becomes Party's base: the "happy place".  Party soon also discover that sleeping here after having bumped a level sees you trained by morning.

Sven raised by Tovan.  Party rests a few days.

More exploring, more combats.  He'is loses a level (to F-10) to a Succubus.

Back at happy place, Phoenix casts Summon Monsters and gets some uncontrolled Demons, which Party kill.

Meet an image of Llolth and a bunch of real Demons; learn they must defeat Her champion to leave.

Moonshadow activates psyonics during this and gets blasted by 6 Demons; 2 succeed: Moonshadow killed.

Retreat to happy place.  Tovan Commune; little help.  Trilby Commune not much better.

Another foray, then return.  Purity and Rockheart throw a Llolth statue down a bottomless pit and manage only to curse themselves: all saves at –2 from here on.

Phoenix tries Summon Monsters again and gets a bigger Demon; Party kill it, then contemplate killing Phoenix.

Spell failure at one point teleports Party all over complex; soon regroup and are lucky all are safe.

Big brawl in a Llolth temple.  Tovan killed. Purity almost taken out by a Marlu lightning bolt.  Retreat.

Tovan raised by Trilby.

Exploring every last possible passage, Party take out some Demons and rescue a prisoner they were guarding: Yamarashi(MU-18, Ki-rin) joins.

Marlu fireballs a webbed-up room and kills 5 prisoners (4 Elves and a Human) she never saw…oops.

Return to happy place; Yamarashi becomes popular when he generates a barrel of sake for Rockheart.

Explore everything they can find, then make way to Llolth's lair; meet champion and some Drow companions:
 o Drow companions last just long enough to get in the way, then fall;
 o champion teleports to Yamarashi and Trilby and attacks, disrupts spells from both;
 o Yamarashi killed by champion in 1 round;
 o lots of chasing around as champion tries to pick his targets, but Party stays mostly together and foils plan;
 o spells failing everywhere – Tovan summons a Demon and Trilby summons a huge anvil over champion's head; it lands for 42 points damage;
 o Tovan killed by Demon and champion; Trilby almost follows but He'is saves;
 o champion retreats to cure self, returns, and quickly dies.

Llolth image appears, thanks Party for killing both champion and Yamarashi, then shows Party the way out after marking each of their souls to return to Her realm on death…

Party loot room then walk through lavender portals to a snowy forest; here meet Constable Morgan who escorts to Wowbagger's hold.  Meet Pnyum, here as a result of Revenge of the Gith events; learn months have passed and date is now about Jema 22.  Then learn they have to stay here about 6 more months until a gate to Riveria is available; somehow, all retain their sanity despite Wowbagger's best attempts.

In his more lucid moments, Wowbagger helps identify lots of magic items over the next few months.

Meet Shauna; learn she has been here for years and is now based here quasi-permanently, not entirely by her own choice.

Various people self-train the old-fashioned way while here.

Trilby begins work on setting up his own temple at Buckford; also starts research on how to get Yamarashi back to his own world (he is not natively Riverian).

All retire.