Episode 5.7

Brad, Kathy, Ernie, Wendell, Greg, Bob

The party met Fargost at the appointed time and place. They decided to pretend that Fargost had captured a few of them and the rest would be invisible. The frost giant went ahead into the dragon’s lair and returned claiming that the dragon was not there. The party went in to investigate.

Taragazon’s lair was a large cavern that was open to the sky on the far side. The party could see the side of a nearby snow covered mountain and determined the dragon’s lair was high up in a mountain range. The dragon did not appear to be there at first. However, when Kathy, who had cast see invisibility before entering, walked into the lair, she immediately spotted the dragon hiding invisibly on a shelf near the center of the cave. Just as she was warning the party, the dragon breathed her icy breath at them, injuring everyone but Kathy and Bob who were two far away.

Brad and Fargost charged the now visible dragon. In response, the dragon flew up into the air and out into the open sky, safe from any melee attack. Bob, Kathy, Ernie and Torcyn began launching spells at the dragon while Greg threw his mindblade at it. Wendell tried to hit it with his crossbow but failed. The dragon made itself invisible again and then blocked Kathy and Bob off from the room with a wall of ice. Bob took Kathy and teleported back into the room, then pointed out where the dragon was now flying by hittingit with a fireball. Torcyn followed her lead. The dragon then tried to land on Bob and Kathy with her crush attack. The attack nearly killed Kathy, but Bob managed to avoid being trapped. Now in reach, Brad, Greg, Fargost and Wendell all converged on the dragon and killed her before she could escape again.

After killing the dragon, they retrieved the needed key along with other treasure that she had stashed in her lair. Fargost drug her body to the ledge and pushed it over the cliff. They parted ways with the frost giant, then went to check out the other gate.

Beyond the gate they found another junction room with two intact gates and six destroyed gates. Like before (see episode), they found lots of remains of orcs, dwarves and elves. After searching for a while, they eventually found the elf who had the key to activate the other intact gate. Stepping through, they found a room with one side collapsed in. The other side had an entrance to a natural cave tunnel with light seeping in. Their appearance must have startled a flock of bats because the room filled with a swarm of flapping wings. The bats retreated out into the cave. Brad commented that it was likely to warn people that some had arrived through the gate. He was proven o be correct. When they exited the tunnel, they found themselves in a forest where several dozen elves, all pointing at them with bows, and a single female goblin, who seemed to be in charge. Brad tried to explain who they were and where they came from and the goblin agreed to let the party bring the refugees through the gate.

Episode 5.6

Ernie, Brad

Venturing once again into the slavers compound, the monk and the cleric again found two groups of gnolls battle each other. They again attacked the leader, who turned into gaseous form and fled. The gnolls turned on the two adventurers, but were no match for them. After the battle, Ernie realized that “JG” was the initials of the elvin vampire bard that hey had previously encountered (see episode 5.2 and 5.3). They surmised that JG had gotten into the compound somehow, created at least one vampire spawn and instructed it to start fighting amongst the gnolls. Ernie now took it upon himself to make sure to destroy the gnoll vampire.

Farther on, they found the frost giant and one of his polar bears in a stand-off with another group gnolls led by one of the winter wolves. The fight between the two groups began, but the party decided to fight the gnolls first. Ernie started by turning undead, assuming that one of the gnolls was the gnoll vampire that they had been looking for. He was surprised when the winter wolf was destroyed. The gnolls immediately became confused and stopped attacking the frost giant. The frost giant assumed control of the gnolls, ordered them to drop their weapons and then to go wait for him in the barracks. He then parlayed with the party.

Talking to the frost giant, whose name was Fargost, they learned that the mine was ruled by a very large, old female white dragon named Taragazon Blight. The gate to hell that had been mentioned actually led to the area where they had killed the misshapen dragon (see episode 5.4) Taragazon carried the key to activate the gate on a necklace the she wore at all times. Fargost hated Taragazon and they convinced him to join them in their attempt to kill iher.

Episode 5.5

Brad, Kathy, Ernie, Greg

When they returned to the mines, they found another note from JG that said “I thought I would lend a hand.” Hearing the sound of a battle ahead, they cautiously crept forward and found two groups of gnolls battle each other. One group was being directed by a leader that was holding back from the fight. Brad, invisible, rushed to the leader to attack but unfortunately fumbled his attempt. The fight shifted as first one group and then the other decided to attack the party instead of the opposing gnolls. The party won the battle, but the leader escaped.

They continued forward, with Brad in the lead, when he suddenly turned about and tried to snatch Ernie's holy symbol. The rest of the party quickly realized that Brad must have been affected by some type of charm and tried to stop him. Ernie, Greg and Kathy each took turns grappling with Brad. The holy symbol changed ownership numerous times as it was snatched, dropped and knocked out of other people's hands. Greg eventually used far hand to return the symbol to Ernie, who finally cast a spell to make himself larger and stronger. Intent on beating the monk into unconsciousness Ernie attacked the monk, but Brad grabbed the symbol away from him and tried to flee with it. The monk could not have known that Kathy blocked his escape with an invisible wall of force and ran into it at full speed, stunning him. Trapped between the wall of force and the party, the monk was nearly beaten to death when the compulsion ended. Brad told the party that when he had rounded the corner, he had seen the gnoll leader they were chasing and that it had charmed him somehow. The group again returned to rest.

Episode 5.4

Brad, Kathy, Ernie, Greg

After resting, they returned to the hallway and found it blocked by a cave in. Delgar told them that he had heard that there was a secret passage that led between the slave quarters and the ruins but that the slaves had stopped using it because something dangerous lived there. They searched around and found the secret door on the bottom of one of the pit traps. The passage led to huge bowl shaped area with a domed ceiling. Three walls were rock while the other was ice as was most of the roof. Light penetrated the ice and allowed them to see. The passage led around the outside of the bowl, about two thirds of the way. The center was filled with mist such that they could not see the bottom. While they looking into the dome, a gnoll appeared in the air above the mist and fell into it. Looking up where the gnoll had appeared, they found a triangular gate on the side of the wall angled in a way to dump its travelers into the mist. Another gnoll fell through and the party heard it land, scramble around and then get attacked and eaten by whatever creature lived in the mist. They didn't have to wait long to see what it was. A large deformed white dragon, strong and bent with misshapen wings leaving it unable to fly, crawled out of the mist up onto the ledge and attacked the party. After a long battle, the party prevailed and the creatures body fell back into the mist.

Further on, the party found the rest of the slaves. They met their leader, Janstina, who showed Kathy the “ancient writings” that were carved on the underside of two ordinary looking boulders. The rocks contained dwarvish runes with instructions on how to activate the gates and to activate a particular gate at dawn every day. The party surmised that the dwarves ancestors were left here many centuries ago with instructions to reactivate the gate everyday until someone sent word that it was safe to come through. That word never came.

The group convinced the slaves to return with them to be with the rest of the refugees then went back and rested.

Episode 5.3

Brad, Kathy, Ernie

The two groups got together and exchanged information about what had happened to them the previous week.

The first order of business was to find the real Gwibaen. Gwiend was happy to help with a locate creature spell. They narrowed it down to the room beyond where the doppleganger fight occurred. Entering the room, they were attacked by four invisible creatures. Brad and Edic did their best to fight them while Kathy, Torcyn, Gwiend and Ernie hit them with spells. Kathy started with see invisiblity and directed the others. After some fireballs, flame strikes cones of fire and maigic missiles, the creatures were destroyed. They found the real Gwibaen tied up in the secret room nearby - weak and withdrawn. He was left in Gwiend's care.

Torcyn and Edic went with the party back through the gate, hoping to reach the leader of the dwarves. Brad snuck up to the door that led to the main hallway and overheard an argument between what he thought was the frost giant and the ettin. The ettin wanted the frost giant to send his polar bears into the tunnel and have them investigate. The frost giant wanted him to send guards instead, but eventually suggested that he send in a slave and threaten the slave by telling him that if he didn't come back with information that all of the slave's friends would be sent through the hellgate. The frost giant eventually stomped away in frustration, muttering about how much he hated this place.

While Brad waited, someone got a dwarf and shoved him through the door. The slave wandered around and eventually ran into the party. He recognized Aliella and they had a happy reunion. Brad told the slave, named Delgar, to go back to the ettin and tell him that he saw no people down here. Delgar said that the ettin had a way of knowing that he was lying, but agreed to do it. While Brad waited invisibly, Delgar went and spoke to the ettin. The ettin got angry, called Delgar a liar, then kicked him down the stairs. Still angry, the ettin, armed with a large mace a larger whip-dagger, went into the tunnel with two winter wolves. The party waited to ambush them. Torcyn, Kathy and Ernie hit them with fire based spells, killing the wolves and injurying the ettin. Edic and Brad closed and surrounded the ettin, who never made it out of the tunnel. Brad and Edic finished off the ettin, with some more help from the spell casters, but not before the ettin injured Edic pretty badly. They cleaned up the mess and went back to rest.

The next day, they found the door open and two gnolls standing guard. They tried to lure the guards down into the tunnel, first by making noise and later by using Delgar as a lure, but the two gnolls were obviously ignoring everything. The frost giant passed by and asked them how they were doing. They lied and said that nothing was going on. Eventually, Brad and Edic snuck up to attack them in the hallway. Kathy had made Brad invisible before but cast greater invisibility on Edic. The surprised the two gaurds and one quickly died. The other decided to run away. Brad and Edic, both faster that the gnoll, chased it as it ran. When Brad passed him, he doubled back and went past the door where he started. Brad passed him again and again the gnoll doubled back. After running back and forth and passing the door a few times, Edic, whom the gnoll could not see, eventually took of the gnoll's head with a mighty blow from his club. The party went back through the gate and rested again, but before they left, they heard the frost giant pass the now closed door and growl his frustration again.