Thursday 21 April

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Back Page Article in the Rolling Stone
------------------------------------------------
Pirate Siting Near Bral

The free trader The Wandering Nancy reported an
encounter with a pirate vessel within a half
day travel from Bral. The vessel was a Medium
sized Dirigible powered by Steam Propellers
and equipped with a Heavy Bombard. The Wandering
Nancy was able to out run the pirate but sustained
light damage from a long range hit from the pirate. The
encounter was reported to the Bralian Navy
upon arrival at Bral, and a patrol was immediately
dispatched to the location of the encounter.
The patrol returned this morning reporting no
sign of the pirate.
------------------------------------------------

They have dinner at the Golden Helm with The Juggler.
She gives them some insight on what to expect at the
auction explaning the factions, etc.

Gerag is suspiscious of The Juggler and tells Ekkie
to take her out if she betrays them in any way.

They go to the auction at The Scrabble which is a warehouse
close to the docks. The party asks why the Bralian
authorities are not all over this, and The Juggler says
it is likely that the owner of the Warehouse is paying off
the authorities for its use in illicit activities.
Outside the Warehouse there are some halflings who check
their invitation and decide that The Juggler and her entourage
of six, three small people, and one big is OK.

Within their weapons are collected by a bunch of halflings
manning a make shift desk. They see Enk, a human nervously
hovering over the halflings, who spies out a dagger that
Sal was trying to hold out. Many of the pirates and
thieves seem to know him. As the party takes their
seats, Sal tells Wilhelm to explore.

Rayim of the Trading Company is there. He is with a floozy,
and two orc body guards. He says hello to the party, buys
them a drink, telling them he is on an expense account. He
is not a serious bidder, dropping out early, and seems
more interested in drinking and groping his girl.

The White Pirates, represented by a man named Cerash,
and accompanied by a Dwarf advisor, and two burly
human body guards. The Whites are rumored to work
closely with the Dwarves.

The Blue Pirates, represented by a man named Tinmor,
and two burly body guards. He clearly has some sort
of advanced communication system that he is using to
talk with someone remotely. The Blues are rumored
to be working with a faction of the Star Farers.

The Red Pirates, represented by a man named Rakanor
who is accompanied by a Martian, advisor called Horat,
and two burly human body guards armed with Martian weapons.
The Reds are rumored to be working with the Free Martians,
as opposed to those who have been colonized by the
Dragons, Dwarves, Elves... Rakanor and Horat
greet and talk with The Juggler who introduces
them to the Party.

The Grey Pirates, represented by Ashny, who shows
up alone. He sits with and talks with the Europans,
and the Greys are rumored to working with the Europans.

The Black Pirates, represented by a man
called Uwaa, who comes with two construct creatures
who are vaguely human but have four arms. The Blacks
are slavers and are rumored to work with the Outer
System Dwellers (Mind Flyers, Beholders, Neogi).
Everyone else keeps far from them.

From the Dragon Empire, a Black Dragon spawn called
Stakahlla, who is the official Dragon Empire representative
on Bral, a female black dragon spawn with two lizardmen
bodyguards.

Also from the Dragon Empire, a Red Dragon spawn called
Perekhvatkin, with two lizardmen bodyguards.

Dragon Spawn are the result of a Dragon mating with
a human, elf, etc. and look like small dragons walking
up right, and having more developed arms. They are often
the most trusted of retainers of the nobility of the
Dragon Empire.

The Black Dragons are currently the rulers of the
Dragon Empire. There is some sort of complicated
system where the rulership of the Empire is changed
every 100 years in a manner that is not obvious
to outsiders. The Red Dragons are the chief internal
antagonists of Black Dragon leadership. The party
is aware that trouble is brewing in the Dragon Empire,
with many predicting a civil war caused by the recent
disappearance of the Black Dragon Emperor.

Meredin, the head of Halfling Thieves Guild here on
Bral, actually escorts the two dragon spawn to
locations that are as far apart as possible.

The Shou Thieves Guild is represented by an
oriental looking man named Omes-Skel, with two
ninja looking body guards. The party recognizes
this guy as having the same manner of dress
as the man they encountered outside of Holliver's,
the head of Marnor Mages Guild, house on the night
of his death and when they raided his house. He
was seen flying away in a saucer-like vessel which is
characteristic of the Europans.

The Europans, who look like Greys, are represented by
Espolonin, the local Europan ambassador and two strange
things that look a cross between a cat and monkey, ie
a monkey with fangs, claws, and a prehensiled tail.
They seem to be partially sentient, but the Party notes
some sort of metal attachment at the back of their necks.

The auction
is arranged like a meeting with a dias, made of a bunch
of crates pushed together. The audience sits in a bunch of
chairs that are scattered about randomly. Some scantily
clad women (halflings, humans, Martians) are running about
selling drinks. They leave cards for The House of Heavenly
Flowers, in the middle city. Meredin circulates
among the patrons. He expresses surprise that The Juggler
is here, and wishes her good fortune. It seems that he
is being sarcastic.

The proceedings begin with Meredin thanking everyone for
their cooperative presence and reminding them that payment
in full is due at the close of auction. He pulls out a
Rail Gun Pistol, demonstrates it by shooting a dog that is
confined in a cage, that looks like a cage built to house a
bunch of Sophonts. The pistol looks exactly like one of the
ones the party brought back from the abandoned star farer ship.

Tinmor, the Blue Pirate, objects to the entire proceeding
saying that this is just a scam as the ship will be guarded
by Star Farer Tech. Meredin shuts this down by producing
a document from the Bralian navy declaring that the ship
has been abandoned and thus is fair salvage. He goes on
to point out that the Bralian authorities have declared
the ship to be a hazard to navigation pointing out that
this means they will be doing something soon to get rid of
it. Bidders should be aware that they have to act fast.

Meredin starts the bidding at 10k GP. The Europans and
The Juggler do not bid, but the Europan is constantly talking to
the Grey Pirate Ashny. At the end the Grey Pirates and the
Shou Thieves Guild are the last two bidders, with the
Grey Pirate winning the auction for 75k GP.

Meredin thanks everyone for their good
behavior and Enk for allowing the use of his valuable
space for this effort.

Sal speaks to Ashny, the Grey Pirate and winner
of the auction, revealing that he knows the location
of the Star Farer vessel and offering to reveal
valuable intelligence about conditions on the
wreck. Ashny is intrigued and they agree to meet
tomorrow at the Laughing Beholder.

Sal sends a note to the Shou, Omes-skel, telling him
that the party has valuable information to share
about the location of the Star Farer vessel, and to
come to the Golden Helm after the auction. No one
turns up.

Wilhelm returns to Sal and he has a black stone
wax seal embosser. The image is of a winged dragon.
It looks well used, and important.

Sal and Minus head to the House of Heavenly Flowers
and discover a brothel featuring halflings, humans,
and Martians. Upon entering the parlor, Minus seems
to be well known to at least one of the halfling
girls, and Sal hooks up with Methany, a human working girl.
She tells him that the Shou can be found in a small
section of the city known as Shou-town where at least
one faction of the Star Farers have some dwellings,
a store, and an outpost.

Methany is intrigued that Sal may have some
connection with the Star Farers telling him that she would
love to get to Alpha Blue, a well known Star Farer base in
the Ring of Smoke. She understands that it is very
good gig for a woman in her line of work. Can Sal
help her to do that? She would be ever so grateful.

Sal and Minus spend the night at the Garden of Heavenly
Flowers. Yumi is disgusted.

Friday 22 April

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Advertisement in the Rolling Stone and other
places. It is very fancy:
------------------------------------------------
The Fireball Alliance is pleased to offer for
auction 11 lots of Star Farer Tech. These
items were taken as slavage fron an abandoned
Star Farer vessel, and a certificate of provenance
from the CAS Office of Maritime Affairs is included
with each lot.

Lots 1-10 are ready to eat provisions for 10 sophonts
for 100 days. They are packaged and can be stored at room
temperature for at least 10 years. They do not need water
or heat to be prepared for consumption. They provide nutrition
to sustain a sophont and with the addition of water 10 sophonts
would need not other external inputs for 100 days. Samples will
be available before the auction.

Lot 11 is a Water Condenser. This condenser is brand new
and manufactured by International Data and Control. It is self
powered by sunlight. In relatively dry environment, 25% humidity,
the condenser provides enough water to sustain a large farm,
enough to grow cereal grains for 1000 sophonts for 1 year of
consumption. The condenser has been set up and water from it
will be provided at the auction. The condenser includes a
complete suite of spare parts and is guaranteed by its manufacture
for at least 10 years. Due to the nature of this item, which has
a reserve price of 100,000 GP, all bidders must supply a 10,000 GP
earnest fee to bid. This fee is refunded to all bidders on the
successful completion of the auction.

The auction will take place at the Man O'War at 7:00 PM
on Saturday 30 April. For details of this auction please
be in touch with The Dorotheum.
------------------------------------------------

Linrin returns to the party with a box that
contains 6 bottles of Elven wine
from Captain Aurliana. He tells them that Elven
wine is very valuable, 100's of GP depending
on vintage, and that it is purported to be
an aphrodisiac. He suggests bringing it to
The Edge, a fine tavern that is favored by
the Star Farers. They go crazy for stuff like
this.

Sal gives Linren two bottles as his cut, and they
pen a note back to Captain Aurliana mentioning that
Sansa is interested in real estate on Bral. Linrin
also mentions that he is working on a dwelling place
for the party here on Bral. Yumi is disgusted.

Ashny of the Grey Pirates turns up at the Laughing Beholder
asking after Sal, Gerag, Yumi, Wulfgar, Minus, and Ekkie.
First he asks if they want to join a return expedition, led
by the Grey Pirates, but they outright refuse. He then offers
them 6k GP for information about the abandoned ship. They
cooperate by drawing maps and telling him what they encountered
including the Black Fungus. While this dissappoints him,
he thanks them for their cooperation. Sal then mentions
the Party's interest in getting back to Kylindo. Ashny
gives them a pained look noting how difficult it is in
normal circumstances, but that it is especially bad now
with a civil war brewing in the Dragon Empire. He suggests
that they look him up in a week or so after he and his
friends have taken advantage of the abandoned ship.

Yumi goes to the Fireball Alliance and tells them about
the auction from last night. She accuses them of having
a leak and points out that there is now urgency in dealing
with the abandoned ship. They do not have a current
quest or mission for her.

Sal leads Gerag, Ekkie, and Wulfgar over to Shou-town.
Shou-town looks unusual with plastic and strange very
light metals leading to things that looks as if they
cannot possible be standing up or support the weight
on top of them.

They ask after Omes-skel and are led to a store/snack
shop. They are willing to share with him the location of
the abandoned ship and notes on its condition in return
for a trip to Kylindo. They know that the Shou can
get to Kylindo due to their mis-adventure on Kylindo in
Marnor where they clearly encountered a Shou. He tells
them that Shou must have had some sort of connection
on Kylindo which makes it easier to get there. Otherwise
it is quite difficult to get there. He is willing to
trade them for the information, but it will be time
consuming to arrange a trip to the inner system.
He can provide a reload for the Rail Gun Pistols,
they have many shots ~1000 in them, and one
reload is all any one ever needs.

The party has a long talk about with Omes-skel about
what they have learned. The International Data and Control
Corporation, manufacture of the water condensor, also
manufactured the Green Thing. The Green Thing is
clearly some sort of amalgam of magic, of the worst
sort of necromancy, and star farer tech. This is
the most cutting edge of research and is pursued
by many of the Star Farers. Something like it must
have brought the Party here from Kylindo as teleportation
over such a long distance is beyond the abilities of either
pure magic or the Star Farer technology.

Omes-skel and Sal arrange to meet at The Edge this evening
with the enticement of a bottle of Elven Wine to share.
Sal sends a note to Linren telling him that he has
a mark on the hook for the Elven Wine. Yumi is disgusted.

The party talks among themselves with Sal noting that
he is trying to build connections with the Shou and Grey
Pirates in hopes of finding someone who will be able to
get them back to Kylindo. Also Yumi notes that the description
of their friend Xort from Marnor, they talked about him with
Omes-Skel, sounds like a Grey Martian, which is one of the
rare sub-races that can be found on Mars. Sal puts an ad in
the newspaper, The Rolling Stone, asking if any one has seen Xort.

They review their options:

1) Return to the Purple Planet and try to reverse how they
got here. - No way. That place is too dangerous.
2) The asteroid Cincor where there is the remains of
Erisan tech called the Eggs. It is rumored that the
Erisans knew how to teleport across space. - That
sounds rather dangerous.
3) Look up the free trader Flowghost under Captain Ocaba
who is known to travel illegally to the inner system
- not clear if this is still viable with the troubles
in the Dragon Empire.
4) Go to Mars. It is rumored that there is ancient
Martian tech that can teleport across space.
- Mars is clearly a mess and quite dangerous.
On the other hand, their friend The Juggler is
clearly close with some Martians.
5) Take on the space pirates that attacked them as they
returned to the Rock of Bral/Zothique.
- Not even clear what sort of pirate attacked them.
6) Pursue an opportunity that Gerag found at the House of Tempus
where there is a flyer "Loyal followers of Tempus.
Information has reached us that a location sacred to Tempus has
been found in the Ring of Smoke. The asteroid Lethe has a ruin
that bears many of the signs of sacred Tempus. This House of
Tempus seeks brave followers to explore these ruins and report
back. Those that step up to this challenge will get all the
support that we can muster. Fight On!" - this sounds promising.
7) Soon factions of the Dragon Empire will be
recruiting soldiers, etc. for the brewing civil war. - no
one is excited by this.

They decide to pursue the ruin on Leche, Yumi notes that it
is a short two day journey, and Gerag and Yumi go to the
House of Tempus to talk. The Brothers are pleased to
see Gerag again and tell them that someone spotted a ruin
that included a clock. Tempus besides being a god of
war was also a god of time keeping. They give them
a drawing of the ruin, and wish them good luck.

Sal meets with Omes-Skel at The Edge, and they
share a bottle of Elven Wine. The Edge is
done up like a copy of Shou-town, but without the plastic
or light metal, thus it looks klunky rather than elegant.
Omes-skel tells him that the Star Farers travel to the stars
through some sort of natural tunnels through another
dimension which shorten the immense distances between
the stars. Finding ways to artifically open such
tunnels is one of the most important areas of research for the
star farers. Thus their story about their journey from
Kylindo to the Purple Planet is very interesting.
Also there are factions among the Star
Farers, but they have mostly sworn off violent
struggle, the consequences are very bad, but there
are fierce rivalries.

The Star Farers come to places like the Kylindo system
for the unusual technology that is very valuable.
Thus they come here trading star farer tech for
magic items.

Friday 22 April 981

The Juggler turns up late at the Laughing Beholder asking
after the Party and wanting to talk to them. She meets with
Gerag and Yumi and shows them a note she got from the
Dragon Empire Ambassador:

Dearest Lady, I would most appreciate the favor of your company
at the Dragon Empire Embassy at your earliest convenience.
I would very much like your help in recovering something
that is important to me that went missing at the recent
gathering that we both attended. I, and the Empire, would
be most grateful to whoever helped me in this matter, and
I can assure that prompt resolution of this matter will
result in tranquility, while other outcomes will be
calamatous.

Do they know what she is talking about? Neither Gerag
or Yumi have any clue. She also tells them that she
has another job for them. There is a warehouse that
contains some supplies that the Free Martians purchased
to aid their struggle versus Imperialism. This stuff was
stolen by pirates and brought here to Bral. She and
her friends have an opportunity to take the stuff back,
but need the party's help. Gerag and Yumi tell her that
they are willing to help, but they will be busy for the
next few days. What do they need to do? She needs them
to infilitrate, eliminate guards, hold briefly while a pick
up is arranged. That is fine, and she will be in touch next
week.

Saturday 23 April

Ad in the Rolling Stone: "Have you seen Xort, the Grey Martian?
Contact Sal, at the Laughing Beholder."

Party boards the Wandering Nancy and heads towards the asteroid
Lethe. Yumi and Gerag talk with Wilhelm and he tells them he did
take a small item, a shiny black rock, from the "Black Dragon
Lady". This is obviously the item that The Juggler was talking
about. They will tell her when they get back.

Monday 25 April

They arrive at Lethe and see a rocky, terraces with tunnels,
sandy small asteroid. They can clearly see the ruin which is
a stone building with a metal framework and
a prominant clock face. They are able to land
near by but do have to track across a plain to get to the ruin.
They approach from the side with the clock and see black
metal statues of pike welding soldiers. They can make no
identification of them. They get to the side of the building,
and Gerag enters via one of the windows. He sees a gallery
with a door and an old tapestry depicting a train traveling
through a green plain. The others come in, they do a bit
of exploring, and as they prepare to go through the door,
Gerag trips a trap. A big metal statue swings down and hits
Yumi, Wulfgar and Ekkie. They note a pressure plate in the
floor that triggered the trap. The statue is rusted and
pitted so badly that it cannot be identified.

They go into the main room and see a statue of a dancing
boy, which is polished smooth. Gerag notes that there is some
residue of polish on the statue indicating that someone was
recently taking care of it. They note the big entrances to
the exterior, stairs up leading to the clock, and down into darkness,
and two doors. They enter the two doors and see two Iron Servitors,
one of which begins beating on a copper gong. They move into attack,
realize how difficult the metal men are to hit, and then hear and
see more of them coming up the stairs. A tough fight ensues against
eight of the things. They manage to dispatch them, note that they
have no mechanism, but are solid.

Wulfgar is battered, he held the top of the stairs, and Yumi
heals him. Rail Gun pistols were quite effective and are
distributed among those who can use them. At one point Sal
grabbed two green power stones and tried to use them as
gernades. While they did explode they were not terribly
effective.

They debate what to do next and decide to go below.

Monday 25 April Continued

Lethe:
They descend into what looks like a waiting room, wooden
benches and doors to platforms, and explore the various metal
statues there. They enter
into the ticket office and encounter two iron servitors that
seem to be rather relunctant to fight. They dispatch
them. At the rear of the ticket office is vault door
which has been ripped open by something very strong, broken
locking pins. Within is a mess of decaying cloth and crates.
There is some coinage scattered about. They begin gathering
up stuff. Sal finds a set of golden scale mail. Gerag finds
a necklace that looks like prayer beads, but each bead is
skull. They find a staff with a silver squid with waving
tentacles on its end, an ebony wand with a large pearl on
the end, a silver dinner set with some very fine and unusual
decorations, a crate of Lift Wood (very valuable for building
flying ships), and a sea scape painting that gives any one
who looks at it the creeps. Sal Detects Magic and Evil
and finds that all are ordinary except the Skull Necklace
and the Squid Staff which are magical, but not evil. They
also gather a pile of coins, platinum, gold, silver, and copper.
It would take a great deal of time to thoroughly investigate,
and they decide to move on.

Yumi reveals to them that she can read the signs around the
waiting room. One says Tickets, another says Lunch, and
a bunch say Track 1, Track 2, etc. Clearly this is not
a temple to Tempus, but rather an ancient Erisian train
station.

They move into what seems to be a lunch counter. There are three
iron statues that seem to be unmoving. There is a rack with
sheafs of paper with colorful pictures on the front. Sal looks
at one, and begins reading. It is an essay of literary criticism
which explores the homo-erotic sub-text of the Dick and Jane
reading teaching series claiming that Dick and Jane were forced
into standard sexual roles by a patriarchal, reactionary society
when in fact there are many clues in the text to their underlying
homosexuality. To the others Sal seems to have become drooling and
distracted spouting nonsense about the erotic symbolism of Spot,
originally being a cat and transforming into a dog in later editions,
and Puff the cat. After a while Sal recovers, and the horrible
book is discarded.

Gerag gathers up two more of the "magazines" one being a tract demanding
the revolutionary overthrow of the existing political structure,
and the other called Swords and Bucklers with articles about fighting,
etc. Others crumble to dust when touched.

Yumi tells them that the two doors at the rear of the lunch counter
say "Men" and "Women" on them. Sal goes into the women's room and
sees a tiled room with fixtures filled with what appears to be fresh
clean water. There is faint acrid smell. In one of the basins a gold
ring glitters, and when Sal reaches in to retrieve it, there is
a violent explosion which burns and badly hurts Sal. After some
discussion, Sal is healed by Yumi. Sal insists on seeing the men's
room, where he finds a smashed, disicated mess. There is a closet
in the corner and within is a dented copper bucket. Gerag, accessing
a deep memory from a previous life, flees in terror.

They can see that the doors to the platforms are bulging inward
with trickles of sand where they are pushed open a bit. They wisely
decide to avoid these.

They head up the stairs and as they near the top, they hear something
falling from high above. Smashing into the stairs ahead of them is
an unidentified lump of iron, and they hear the beat of large wings.
Landing at the top of the stairs is a frightening creature that has
a female human head (although the eyes are large like Europans, or
has they have come to understand ancient Erisians) on a winged bull.
Parts of the bull body are metal (legs, armored chest) while
the face and wings appear to be flesh.

Yumi begins speaking with the creature and it sits down. She tells
them it is an ancient Erisian war machine and it has been here
hundreds of years guarding the train station. It says that
it is long over due for maintenance and that it cannot find the
repair station. It is called Stahleno.

Yumi suggests taking it back to Bral, while the others are clearly
frightened of it. Gerag notes, "Maybe it will carry our stuff,
or maybe it will kill us in our sleep." Yumi begins to
lead Stahleno back to the Wandering Nancy. The others check
out the clock, can see that Stahleno probably perched there
and watched them, and find that the clock mechanism is a rusted,
rotted mess. They then use the lift wood to rig a platform
to carry the silver dinner set back to the Wandering Nancy.
This works well. On the way they encounter a large rattle
snake, and Gerag is bitten and poisoned before it is killed.
They join Yumi, who has somehow convinced Stahleno to go
dormant in the cargo hold. Yumi puts Gerag into a Healing
Trance which stops the spread of the poison.

They make their way back to Bral on the Wandering Nancy.

Tuesday 26 April

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Article in the Rolling Stone
------------------------------------------------
Martian Rarity Visits Bral

The Martian Ether Battleship the Regal Radium
Reviler arrived at the port of Bral today. It is
said to be hundreds of years old, built during the
Mars-Erisian war, but now hailing from the city of
Kirtal. It is armed with the most modern
of Martian weapons. Citizens are urged to view the
wonder which is in port to join the Bralian navy
in an unspecified operation and is expected to leave
soon.
------------------------------------------------

Thursday 28 April

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Party returns from Lethe. They read the news of the Martian
Battleship and Sal hears from Linrin that their scam of
the Elven Navy Captain has come to an end. After some
discussion they send him a brief note that Sansa has moved
to Port Greely/Tinarath.

Gerag is taken to the Polyglot Temple to the Martian
Mishum who evangelizes for The Veneration of the Progenitors.
He puts Gerag in his radium machine and there is a green
glow. He tells Gerag that he has removed the
poison, but that he should remain calm for the rest of
the day and he should be OK in the morning. Gerag
donates 100 GP to the Mishum's cult.

Sal visits an armorer who will properly size his gold
armor and make a gold helmet, functional not decorative
to go with it. He is told that the armor with its
ancient Erisian decorations could be quite valuable to
a collector. The armorer will look into it for
Sal.

Gerag, Ekkie and Minus go to the House of Tempus
and tell the Brothers the bad news about what they found
on Lethe. The Brothers are disappointed. They show
the brothers the Squid Staff and Skull Necklace and they
cast some spells. The Skull Necklace is a protection
against undead, but they can make nothing of the Squid
Staff.

Note from The Juggler for Wilhelm at the Laughing Beholder:

Please send a note to the stage manager at the Royal Theatrical
Company letting her know that you have returned. The Juggler.

They respond to this and meet the Juggler in a bar called
the Crooked Square. It is near the ship construction yard
and it is clearly the hang out of the workers from there.
Gerag is resting, Minus goes off to visit his girlfriend,
and Wulfgar is busy seeing to new armor and new weapons
which were damaged in the fight with the Iron Servitors.

The Juggler, who is wearing her disguise, meets them there.
They return to her the black rock that Wilhelm took from
the Black Dragon. She is very thankful for this, and says
that the Black Dragon Ambassador was surprisingly cooperative when
she met with her. The Juggler thinks the Black Dragons
may be seeking allies for the coming struggle within
the Dragon Empire.

The Juggler tells them that she needs their help for
the cause of Martian indepdendence. She tells them that
a shipment of Dwarven weapons destined for Free Mars was
hijacked and brought here to Bral. It is in a Halfling
Theives Guild front warehouse and dock complex called
Nim's Holdings. She
shares with them a map of the complex. There is an
office building, three warehouses, and three docks
all within a fenced yard. The plan is that The Juggler's
Men will create a diversion by firebombing the office
building, fires are very serious on an asteroid like Bral,
and launching a raid on one warehouse. That should attract
the security patrol and lots of attention, allowing the
Party to hit the warehouse that they think holds the weapons
which is in about a dozen heavy crates. The Party will
have to get into the warehouse, find the weapons (it is
big with multiple entrances), transport them to the
big dock, where they will be met by the Martian Battleship,
which will have crew to load the crates on to the ship.
The Battleship is due back early tomorrow, and
tomorrow evening the attack will happen. The Battleship
has enough firepower that a good broad side would rubble
the complex.

She promises them 1000 GP each for a successful mission.

The party accepts, and they plan to meet again here
tomorrow afternoon to nail down details.

Ekkie goes to check out the complex
herself. Sal joins Minus at the House of Heavenly
Flowers.

Thursday 28 April Continued

Ekkie scouts out Nim's Holdings. The Juggler's map is acctually
quite accurate, but there are few differences. She sees a couple of
halfling guards patroling the yard. They armed with some sort
of Dwarven weapon, there is the obvious steam generator sphere,
but it looks stubbier than a Steam Rifle. She gets into the
target warehouse. The locks are simple and she has no trouble
picking them. The first room seems to be filled with a bunch
of raw materials. Besides a lock on the door to the second room
there is a noise making alarm, which she is able to avoid, but
her tampering will be evident if someone takes a look. In the second
room she sees what looks like a pile of dwarf weaponry in
about a dozen big crates. There are a couple of
carts and some sort of Dwarf steam truck parked within the
warehouse. She makes her way out, grabbing a box of spices
from the first room.

Minus visits Lidzira at the House of Heavenly Flowers. She asks
him about where he has been, and what he and his friends found.
He just tells her about looted ruins on a desert asteroid,
poisonous beasts, etc. Notably he does not mention Stahleno.
They spend a pleasant evening together.

After the meeting with The Juggler, Sal also heads off to
the House of Heavenly Flowers, but he just hangs out, drinking
and talking. He learns that after the Martian Battleship
arrived at Bral, it left in the company of ships from the
Bralian Navy. No one really knows what they are doing, but there
is speculation that perhaps they joined with a faction (Blacks,
Reds, Golds, Whites, one of the minor clans (Blues, Greens,
Silvers, Coppers, Four Elements)) of the Dragon Empire in some
pre-cursor operation to the brewing Dragon Empire Civil War.

Friday 29 April

The party meets over breakfast to make plans for the raid
on Nim's Holdings. They finally remember their flying
Skiff and realize it would be perfect. It can fly
over the fence, and drag loaded carts around. They
also realize that the Fire Brigade is likely to turn up
quickly, so they decide to get some disguises as firemen.
Plus they will bring some tarps to be sure to cover
up their stuff if they have to take it out of the yard.

They test their star farer communicators and see that
they find that they work well pretty much over the whole
of the small asteroid of Bral. They are like flip phones
and thus need a hand free for use.

Gerag and Ekkie go to the House of Tempus and tell
the Brothers about what they found on Lethe, i.e. that
the ruin was not a Temple of Tempus, but rather a
Erisian train station. They are disappointed, but
will let Gerag and his friends know of other opportunities
they find for Tempus sites. They invite Gerag to
meditation, i.e. sparring. Gerag does not do very
well, and Ekkie notes that he seems half step slow.

Yumi visits the Fireball Alliance, telling them
of the ruin on Lethe. She mentions the metal
gollums, the looted treasure room, and broken
clock. She tells them, that she and her
new friends are eager to explore other
such ruins.

Sal looks for firefighter disguises, and realizes
that the Bral Fire Brigade is highly revered
by the people of Bral, and there are many hats,
patches, etc. to be had. He is able to assemble
a credible set of disguises without much trouble.
He also visits The Juggler's Men hideout and
picks up some scrolls.

Minus searches for Fire Extinguishers. It turns out this
a common Star Farer piece of tech that is very popular here.
He picks up a set of 5 for 40 GP each. Similar to
small kitchen extinguishers.

Minus goes out shopping for some new clothes. In the
end he looks like Minus Ramone, the latest drummer
for the Ramones ready to join Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee for
their up-coming tour.

He also shops for better armor and buys a set of star
farer carbon shell armor. It will be resized and ready
for him in a couple of days.

In the late afternoon, they meet at the Crooked Square, and
discuss the plan for the raid. The Juggler tells them that mostly
the fire will be a smoke bomb, and her men will launch an
attack on a warehouse on the opposite end of the yard
as their target warehouse. The Martian Battleship
has already left port and is laying in wait just off
shore. It will move into the central dock when the smoke
bomb goes off. Marines will secure the dock, and be
waiting for the party.

The Rally Point will be the Laughing Beholder. Only
return there if they are not being followed.

As the sun sets, they depart agreeing that all will
start in about an hour. The party returns to the
Laughing Beholder, and Minus flies the Skiff to
an alley near Nim's Holding. It is very quiet
in the Docks area at night. There is night life
in the middle and upper city.

The smoke bomb goes off, and commotion can be heard at the
other side of the yard. They plan to wait for the
arrival of the fire brigade, but out of the darkness
they see the frightening silhouette of the Martian
Battleship bristling with weapons glowing green
with radium swing close and dock. They jump off
with Gerag and Ekkie scrambling over the fence.
Gerag checks to see if anyone has noticed, the
halflings are clearly distracted by the
smoke and commotion on the other side of the yard,
while Ekkie opens the lock on the outer door.
As Ekkie opens the door, Minus flies the Skiff
over the fence, scrapping the top in his nervousness,
as an alarm sounds. Gerag can see Martian Marines
swarming over the dock as he turns away to
join the others in the warehouse. Sal sends
Wilhelm out to keep watch while Minus flies the
skiff into the warehouse, and Ekkie opens the door
to the second room.

While all the others work to load crates on carts,
Minus is busy tying them to the Skiff and Ekkie
is figuring out how to get the Dwarf Steam cart
to work. Wilhelm can hear the sound of a struggle
on the other side of the yard, and the arrival
of the real Bral Fire Brigade.

They load the carts with 12 of the crates from
the weapons pile. There seem to be two sorts
and Minus breaks open one of each, taking some
ammunition and five Dwarf Steam rifles. They
fill two carts and the steam cart and begin
heading towards the dock. Minus grabs another
smaller crate and secrets it on the Skiff.
Wilhelm notes that some Halflings, clearly woken by
the commotion are spilling out of the
office building and either joining
the struggle at the other end of the yard
or moving towards the dock held by the
Martian Marines. Sal tells Wilhelm
to meet them at the dock.

As the little convoy moves into the
main part of yard a squad of halflings
nd Martian Marines are struggling
and paying no attention to the party.
They get to the dock where they see Martian
Sailors milling about. Ekkie simply parks
the steam cart, and Minus cuts the ties
to the carts, as they all pile on to
Skiff.

Minus pilots the Skiff away from the struggle in
the center of the yard, as the Martian sailors
begin loading the crates onto the Battleship.
They have no trouble getting over the wall and
disappearing into the dark streets of the Docks
area of Bral. No one seems to have noticed them,
and they make their way back to the
Laughing Beholder where Large Luigi and his
staff welcome them back. Minus checks the
box he liberated and sees what he notes to be
20 Dwarf Steam Grenades. He spends some
time repairing the scrape on the Skiff
where it had trouble getting over the
fence into the yard.

There is a note from the armorer for Sal: "The
Elven collector Bugik Nik is very
interested in the Golden Erisan Armor that I am altering
for you. Please come see me to discuss what you would like
to do."

Saturday 30 April

Beautiful embossed invitation arrives at the Laughing Beholder
inviting the party to the Auction this evening at the Man O'War
as the guests of the Fireball Alliance and the Dorotheum.
Semi-formal attire required.

Article in the Rolling Stone
------------------------------------------------
Bralian Navy Removes Hazard to Navigation

The Bralian Navy reports that they have mounted an
expedition that successfully destroyed a dangerous
hazard to navigation in the Ring of Smoke. General
Dairbad reported that word of an abandoned star
farer vessel reached the Bralian Navy about
a week ago, and the expedition was launched as
soon a possible to eliminate the hazard. He had
no comment to reports that other nations had
participated in the effort, but an anonymous source
reports that Martian and Shou Star Farers joined
the Bralian navy in the destruction of the wreck.
When asked if the derelict was plundered before
its destruction, the General ended our discussion.

The same anonymous source reported that the ship
had been thoroughly looted before its destruction.
We spoke to the Fireball Alliance, and Proconsul
Gadaric Main, leader of the local chapter, reported
that an Alliance expedition had explored the wreck
and reported it to the Bralian Navy. He mentioned
that an auction of some items taken as salvage
is taking place tonight at the Man O'War. The
Alliance concurs with the Bralian Navy's estimation
that the ship was a hazard, but Proconsul Main declined to
speculate on what the ship was doing in the Ring
of Smoke and what led to it being abandoned.

It is very intriguing that a star farer vessel was in
the Ring of Smoke, and further that it was abandoned.
We can only ask what a star farer vessel was doing within the
dominion of the Confederation of Asteroid States, and
what might have led to it being abandoned. Any information
on this would be most appreciated.

Another article:

Fire at Nim's Holdings

A fire broke out at local shipping and receiving firm
Nim's Holdings late yesterday evening. The Fire Brigade
was summoned as soon as smoke was detected, and their
prompt response insured that there was only minimal
damage and air fouling. Captain Tasan of the fire
brigade reported that the fire started in an improperly
secured tub of caulking material. Nim's Holdings
was assessed a large fine for the hazard they
caused to the Bralian air bubble.
------------------------------------------------

Sal goes to the armorer, Morweg, and they arrange to meet with
Bugik Nik, Elven collector of Erisian artifacts, on
Tuesday. Morweg will stop work on the armor, but
will continue on the golden helm.

Sal gets Wilhelm a new fancy harness for tonight's
festivities.

Ekkie tries to sell the box of stolen spices to
Large Luigi, but discovers that they are not
worth terribly much. She just gives them to
Luigi and the staff and they prepare her a free
meal of deep fried rat for breakfast.

Gerag goes to visit the House of Tempus and talks
to the brothers. There he meets Elder Enthom who
tells him that a Captain Mal Fisher of the free
trader Bella Legosi has need of a crew to investigate
a derelict. They will meet on Monday.

Gerag goes to Shou-town and buys some robes made of
some strange star farer material, but it does resemble
the flowing, vaguely oriental guise of Gerag The Wise.

Sal also shops for clothes and ends up looking like
a dapper steam-punk.

Ekkie shops in the main market looking for Sneezing Powder
and a Flash Bang, but has no luck. For her fancy dress she
finds a crazy dress with a giant hat. She thinks she looks
great.

For fancy dress Minus finds a lavender suit and a feathered
cowboy hat. He seems to pull it off and looks good.

Yumi disdains fancy dress, and simply cleans her austere
Star Knight uniform.

Wulfgar does not do well trying to find formal wear.

Minus visits Lidzira and learns a new spell.

Sal visits Gasper's Reclaimations. The shop specializes
in rare imported items both magical and technological.
He asks after an ever full alcohol flask. The mage
Nolan DeVries tells Sal, that such an item is possible,
but it will have to built in the inner system where
magic is stronger. Normally something like this would
cost about 1000 GP and take about a month, but with the
chaos in the Dragon Empire, DeVries makes no promises.
He will be back in touch with Sal when he has something
concrete.

Ekkie is distressed that The Juggler has not paid them for their
work last night. She goes with Gerag to their hideout, which
looks like an acting company which provides costumes and
props. She sees some men lounging in the entrance amid
piles of costumes and props. She demands to see The Juggler.
At first they try to bursh her off, but after she insists
and Gerag casually destroys a wooden chair with one hand, they
let her in to see The Juggler. She is in her usual disguise
and is exuberant about the success of the raid last night.
Ekkie demands payment, and The Juggler notes that they should
be happy to advance the cause of Free Mars. Ekkie is not
willing to work for free, and The Juggler says that she can
pay them in kind once the heat has died down. What is
payment? Very high quality lamp oil that the Dwarves and
Halflings manufacture. Ekkie says that is all well and good,
but The Juggler and the Free Martians owe them, and at some
point she and her friends will collect. OK. The oil will
be sent to the party sometime next week.

The party goes to the Man O'War. It is done up like
wooden warship with tables where guns would be. It is very
elegant. The Maitre d' Alistar greets the party and notes
that their host is waiting for them. He is distressed by
Wulfgar's clothing and from a side room and suit coat and tie
are produced for Wulfgar. After sprucing up everyone's
clothes with a lint roller he escorts the party to a
table where Proconsul Gadaric Main, the head of the local
chapter of the Fireball Alliance, awaits them.

He is a tall, thin man with piercing blue eyes and snow
white hair. Gerag and Ekkie are reminded of Mina, back
in Marnor, as he has the same mannerisms and turns of
phrases that she uses. He thanks them for their efforts
and tells them that he expects the auction to go very
well and net a large profit for both the Alliance
and the party. The party tells him of their plight
and desire to return to Kylindo. He tells them that
normally this would not be much of a problem, they
would book passage to the Moon and find a way
to get the Dragons to let them back to Kylindo,
but now with the Dragon Empire having cut off all
travel to the inner system the only means are
metaphysical means of travel. The ancient Erisians
invented some means of punching holes in the
fabric of the universe and making tunnels
between one place and another. Even for them
it seems it was erratic and unpredictable.

In discussion he notes that there seemed to be
some connection between where they were on Kylindo,
a mushroom forest in the Great Cavern, and the Purple
Planet/Naat which featured mushroom forests. It is
perhaps a natural connection or one of the Erisian's
tunnels that they some how fell into. In any case
their best bet would be find other places where there may be such
connections. He suggests Carcosa which is an asteroid
in the Ring of Smoke much like the Purple Planet/Naat.
There too the suvivors of Eris have devolved. On
Carcosa they seem to have become color coded (Red, Black,
White, etc.), and the place is so chaotic that it is
difficult to trade reliably. It is also dangerous as in
there some sort of black lake with an Erisian ruin in
the center. It still has active defenses and flying
vehicles cannot approach too closely or they are destroyed.
They arrange to meet on Tuesday, after the holiday weekend
and he will share with them what little the Fireball Alliance
knows about Carcosa.

Their waitress is pretty red head called Miranda (Fiery),
and there is a snooty sommelier called Herbert. They also
meet Felodrean, an elf, from the Dorotheum, who are running
the auction.

Those who are bidding begin to turn up. There is red Martian
called Horat, they met him before at the warehouse auction
and was chummy with The Juggler. He is representing the
city state of Kirtal which is known to be a center of modern
Martian innovation. The big battleship was from Kirtal.
There is the red Martian Princess Rostara with a White Dragon,
in human form, Duncan Hall, who is the colonial governor. They
represent the city state of Delonok, and scandelously the two
are said to be lovers. There is the red Martian
Justafil representing the city state of Lascaont which is one
of the strongest of the old Martian city states. There is
the red Martian Mishum with a Gold Dragonspawn called Peter
Francis representing the Gold Dragon aligned city state of
Fathire. There is the red Martian Silviri along with a White
Dragonspawn called Philio Gradon who represent the city state
of Emancipation, formerly Yatharith, which has been taken
over by group of disdent White Dragon freebooters who have
proclaimed that their territory is slave free which is an
anathema to both the Dragon Empire and Old Martians.

The Trading Company is there represented by the party's
old friend Rayim. He seems to be taking this auction seriously
as he not accompanied by a floozy. Ms. Niesse Hurnoc
is there representing a large trading company called
Smith's Coster. A grey bearded dwarf called Mordreggan
Zudrik is there representing House Zudrik which is known
for it mining interests in the Ring of Smoke. Gerald Daxult
is representing the large trading company House Daxault.

Some small free traders are there including Captain Fosus,
who rescued the party from the Purple Planet/Naat and Captain
Ocaba who they were refered to for an illicit trip to the
inner system.

The Barlian government, such as it is, is represented by
the Castellan Morika Ashan.

There is delegation from Alpha Blue, the star farer space station/
pleasure palace in the Ring of Smoke represented by a strange
creature that looks like a pile of rocks who is known as Rocky.
He uses some sort of device to produce speech that others
can understand.

The Elves are represented by the Ambassador and Elven Imperial
Space Navy Admiral Marianon Silmara. She is accompanied by grim
looking troop of elven gaurds.

From the Dragon Empire there is Blue Dragonspawn called Uskine. The
Blues are known to be allies of the Blacks who are the current rulers
of the Empire. There is a Red Dragonspawn called Perekhvatkin. The
Reds are known to be implacable opponents of the Blacks. There is a
Gold Dragonspawn called Cameron Spencer and a White Dragonspawn called
Gideon Marlin. The Golds and Whites are known to be neutral in the
struggle between the Blacks and Reds.

Valkan Riogan, a grim looking man with a prominent scar on his face,
is here representing the large mercenary company Valkan's Legion.

Felodrean begins the auction be describing the crates of food stuff, think
of military MRE's, of which the chefs of the Man O'War have produced
hors d'oeuvres which are circulated by the wait staff. There are
10 crates which can sustan 10 Sophonts for 1 year. There is vigorous
bidding and the food stuff is sold for a total of 75,000 GP.

The Water Evaporator is an extremely valuable piece of high tech that is
nearly priceless in dry conditions such as Mars and the Ring of Smoke.
It generates enough water to sustain a large factory farm. Glasses
of pure water generated by the device are circulated. The bidding
is very spirited with the winner being the Dwarf Zudrik for 1,000,000 GP.
He announces that he intends to lease the item, and those interested
in terms should see him on Tuesday at his office on Bral.

The Party and Fireball Alliance nets 90% of 1,075,000 = 967,500 GP. The
other 10% goes to the Dorotheum. Half is 483,750 GP and after acounting
for their 3,000 GP advance the party is owed 480,750 GP.

After auction the Zudrik approaches the party and ask if they want work
watching after the vaporator. If so they should visit his office
First thing Tuesday.

Gadaric Main of the Fireball Alliance tells them the money will be
in the party's bank accounts on Tuesday.

Sal talks to Felodrean of the Dorotheum and tells him
that the party has a cache of Liftwood to sell.
Please come to the Dorotheum's upper city office on Tuesday,
and they will be happy to arrange a sale.

Gerag, throwing caution to the wind, hits on the
Elven Ambassador and Admiral. She seems vaguely
amused, and brushes him off. Gerag, who had a bit too much
to drink then asks the pretty waitress Miranda
for a date. She responds positively, but says that
she has to work tomorrow, the holiday, but is free
on Monday. They plan to meet for lunch at the Golden
Helm, a middle city establishment.

Sal and Minus make their way to the House of Heavenly
Flowers where they are now minor celebrities. Linrin
is trying to ingratiate himself, and tells Sal that
he has found the perfect house for them.

Sunday 1 May

It is a holidady, May Day, which is a Quarter Day marking
the mid point between an Equinox and Solstice.

Sal and Minus awaken back at the Laughing Beholder. They
have a trophy with pie on the top. They have terrible
stomach aches. They have no memory of how they got it.

There is a parade through the city. There are floats,
marching bands, nobility on horses, etc. It leads
to the Festival Grounds and the Arena where there
are athletic contests and fighting contests. Gerag
joins the unarmed fighting matches as an amateur. Minus
bets on him, but Gerag is defeated in his first round
by a four armed green martian.

Sal and Wilhelm spend some time with the computer they
got from the derelict star farer vessel. It is
called Estella, and responds to voice control.
The computer tells them it is not connected to
its cloud data base, but it can answer questions
based on its general knowledge and some targeted
data bases that it has locally. They ask it about
travel to Kylindo, and it give them some standard
advice about journeying to the Moon, capitol of
the Dragon Empire, and then arranging a trip to
the surface of Kylindo. It does not seem to know
much more than they already do, at least on this
subject.

Gerag gets Miranda a live flowering plant, a traditional
May Day gift at the Central Market.

Minus gets a "+" tatoo in memory of his dead brother.

Linrin shows up telling the party that he has found
them a fabulous place to live. They make arrangements
to meet tomorrow. Ekkie talks with Linrin who directs her
to a Wizard called Cedric who is living among the halflings.
He is evidently hiding out from some thing, but no one knows
what. He sells Ekkie some Sneezing Powder Bombs and some
Flash Bangs.

Yumi checks on the Wandering Nancy. All seems OK and Stahleno
is on guard within.

Monday 2 May

Linrin drags Sal, Wilhelm and Yumi to the "house" he
has found for them. It is between the middle and
lower city among the halfling burrows. This one
is unusual as it has a front portion that is a wooden
structure. Linrin claims it will be ideal for the
party with places for big people and smaller people
back in the tunnels. On the other hand the place is
a wreck, smells bad ("It just needs a fresh coat of
paint!," according to Linrin), and they notice that
Linrin had to pick the lock to get in. With an initial
absurd asking price, 20kGP a month, and Sal noting that
Linrin is a known con-artist, the party decides to
pass on this "fabulous opportunity." Linrin tells them
that he will be happy to find them a better place.

Sal goes to the White Galleon a tavern in the Middle
City to meet with Edashan who is a member of the Arcane,
an organization dedicated to gathering knowledge. Edashan
seems very interested in Wilhelm, the talking Ferret,
and figures out that Sal got Wilhelm as a familar on
Kylindo. Edashan also does not have a good idea on
how to physically get to Kylindo. He suggests trying
to find Erisian gates, mentioning the Purple Planet/Naat,
Carcosa, and Erisian military sites on Mars. He is willing
to trade information for what Sal can tell him about Kylindo.
He also mentions that a similar group called the Inverted
Pyramid may be able to help them. They have an office
here on Bral too.

Gerag meets the Man O'War waitress Miranda at the Golden
Helm. She tells him that her family has long lived on
Bral working construction or cargo handling. She is
an aspiring actress. They decide to meet again.

Elder Enthom of the House of Tempus introduces Brother Gerag
to Captain Mal Fisher of the Free Trader Bella Legosi. Captain
Fisher says that he encountered a famous wreck in a treacherous
section of the Ring of Smoke called the Great Barrier Field,
lots of small rocks, dangerous to navigate. He saw the ancient
Erisian ship called the Esparto. It was loaded with Erisians
fleeing their planet after the Martian planet killer hit it.
Attacked by Martians, pirates, or space dragons the Esparto fled
into the Great Barrier Field and was never heard from again.
It is reputed to be full of treasure and Erisian tech. He saw
the wreck when the Bella Lugosi was hiding out in the Great Barrier
Field, but was unable to take advantage of the opportunity.
He wants to hire a competant crew to explore and loot the wreck,
and he suggests doing it as soon as possible. Whatever has made
the Esparto appear again, it is likely to make it visible to
others soon. They agree to 45/55 split, but the party gets first
choice of items. He suggests that they meet at the Bella Lugosi
on Wednesday. It is a 2-day journey to the Esparto.

Minus visits the armorer Morweg to try to advance his Carbon
Shell armor. Morweg tells him that money is not the issue;
it just takes time to work with Star Farer armor. Morweg
lends Minus a chain mail suit until he can deliver the new
armor.

Minus, after hearing about the debacle with Linrin and his
house, checks out some realtors and find that a man named
Kelkan comes highly recommended. His office is closed
today, but open tomorrow.

Tuesday 3 May

A note from Gadaric Main arrives at the Laughing Beholder for
the party. It has in it a bank draft for 480,750 GP. It says:

It has been a true pleasure doing business with you.
If you are interested in further opportunities in the Inner
System specifically on Selene, please be in touch.

Also please come to visit to learn all we know about
Carcosa.

Gadaric Main

Each takes 80,100 GP and are now "millionaires."

Yumi and Minus meet with the realtor Kelkan and they tell him
they are interested in 6 bedroom place with full service (cleaning
and food) and a shed. He tells them the going rate is 50 GP/person
and full service is 50 GP for food, 25 GP for cleaning and 50 GP for
their storage. Thus they are looking at ~400 GP/month. This would
get them a "tenement" in middle city. They seem OK with this and
he says that he will arrange for some to vist tomorrow at 10:00.

Bugik Nik, sharply dressed and a very discerning eyed elven art dealer
meets with Morweg the armorer and Sal offering 3000 GP for the suit
of golden Erisian scale mail. He would love to see more artifacts from lost
Eris that Sal and his friends could provide. Sal sells the armor,
and talks with Nik about gathering more such artifacts. They will
meet for lunch at the Haughty Epicure.

Gerag goes to the House of Tempus and makes a donation of 1000 GP
in return for a room for a year. They are thrilled by this.
He makes his way to the Royal Theatrical Company and after some
trouble meets the manager, a half elf called Kira Evensong.
He is pretty sure that she is The Juggler. He tells her
that he wants an audition for his friend Miranda Kanelos.
Evensong agrees to see her tomorrow. He then sees Miranda
who is working at the Man O'War and they arrange to meet
this evening.

Ekkie and Wulfgar visit the dwarf Zudrik at the House Zudrik
office in the Docks area. He has arranged a deal with the
White Dragons to take the vaporator to the Moon. He has leased
it to them who plan to use it for a farm there.
Zudrik, who trusts no one, not even himself, wants the
party to escort it plus a small team of Dwarves. The White Dragons
will arrange transport. He offers 2000 GP/person. Ekkie tells
him that she will bring this to the rest of her friends and they
will meet him again tomorrow.

Sal goes to the Doretheum, which is in the upper city
and is a very high end auction house. He speaks with
the elf Felodrean who tells him that the Liftwood is worth
10,000 GP. He can auction it off and the party would get
9000GP or he can buy it out right for 8000 GP. Sal takes
this deal. The Doretheum's
receptionist is a very pretty woman named Gillian, and
she wants to see Sal for dinner, inviting him to her
place where she will whip something up.

Back at the Laughing Beholder the party talks about what
they would like to do next. Gerag would like to get back
to the inner system and get back in touch with his god.
Ekkie and Minus would like to travel and a visit to the
Moon, capitol of the Dragon Empire, seems like a good
idea. Yumi is also interested in travel to the inner
system. Sal likes it here, and is thinking about stopping
being an adventurer and retiring here. Ekkie pens a note
to Captain Fisher of the Bella Lugosi telling him that
they are not interested in his expedition to a derelict
Erisian ship in the Ring of Smoke.

They meet with Gadaric Main and he shares with them what
he knows about Carcosa. He gives them a crude map with
some locations on it. He notes the Erisian ruin on an
island in a lake with an active weapon that prevents
ships from getting too close. The inhabitants, like
those on the Purple Planet, have devolved into barbarity.
It is very dangerous, but the Erisian ruin might be just
what they are looking for. They decide that this can
wait until they return from the Moon.

Sal and Gerag, in the guise of Gerag The Wise, go to the
Haughty Epicure to meet with Bugik Nik. Sal tells
the Elf maitre'd that Gerag is not his servant, but
free. After a pained look from the maitre'd, he lets
Gerag in the restaurant as they are guests of Mr. Nik.
Nik tells them that he lives here on Bral and collects
and sells Erisian and other interesting artifacts. Sal
expresses interest in joining Nik's operation bringing
his many contacts with the adventuring community. Nik
is intrigued especially after he is introduced to Wilhelm,
the talking ferret. Sal also tells him that they have
a Star Farer computing machine that could be very useful
in helping to run such a business. They agree to meet
again.

As they leave a pretty elf woman named Symithia
invites Sal for a drink. She apparently has dubious
intentions, and they disappear for the rest of the
afternoon.

Yumi goes to the Fireball alliance and trains.

At end of the day, Nolan DeVries sends a note to Sal at the
Laughing Beholder, that he has located a star farer device that
produces alcohol. Please come and see him at Gasper's
Reclaimations.

Sal then goes off and spends the evening
with Guillia.

Gerag meets with Miranda telling her the good news on
her audition at the Royal Theatre.

Ekkie sends a note to Zudrik telling him that she and her
friends will join the mission to escort the water vaporator
to the moon. They would like to meet to work out details tomorrow.

Minus talks with Lidzira, and she is interested in seeing more
of the world than Bral, which she has never left. She would like
to join the trip to the Moon. She is a skilled Illusionist.

Wednesday 4 May

Sal drags himself in after a long night.

At their morning meeting the Red Martian freedom fighter Horat turns up.
He has met them before at the warehouse auction, The Juggler introduced them,
and was at the auction for the food and water vaporator. He is from the
city state of Kirtal on Mars which remains free. It is also known as
a center of Martian innovation, and was where the big Martian battleship
was based. He tells them that he is very sorry that The Juggler has not
paid them for their efforts on behalf of Free Mars. While he has
few resources here, he can make things right when and if they
get to Mars. Also he tells them that Zudrik has engaged him to help
transport the water vaporator to the Moon, thus he can make things
up to them very soon.

A note from Zudrik telling them to meet with him the House
of Zudrek for lunch to make arrangements.

Party goes to meet the realtor Kelkan. He shows them what he
promised, and they see a couple of tenemants in the Middle City.
They are not impressed and they would like to see something like
the mixed halfling/big person dwelling that Linrin was hawking,
or perhaps something more private, i.e. an estate in the
Upper City. Both of these are harder to find and thus pricier,
but he will see what he can do. He will be in touch. Sal
has to fend off yet another random woman who throws herself
at him.

They go to the House of Zudrik where they are served a lunch
of baked beans and white bread. Also there is the White
Dragonspawn Gideon Marlin, and the martian freedom fighter
Horat. Marlin has arranged
for a Wyvern, the special dragons that fly through space,
cargo train to come to Bral, and take the vaporator to
the moon. Wyvern's have limited range so they have to travel
in hops. First to Mars, then Venus, then Mercury, and finally
to the Moon. Each of those hops is one or two days. He wants
to avoid Imperial entanglements, as there would be some sort
of big tax on the vaporator. Horat will arrange for them to
land at Kirtal and thus avoid interactions with the Dragon
Empire around Mars. They will have no special trouble on Venus.
The Elves hate everyone equally, so will not be a special problem.
The Dwarves are not a problem, according to Zudrek. The White
Dragons will arrange for the last hop to the Moon. Zudrek will
send a team of three of his men to accompany the vaporator, and
Horat will travel along with them, at least as far as Mars. The
party wants some space for cargo for their "equipment", Stahleno.
Marlin says that is no problem. The Wyverns will be here
on Tuesday, and ready to travel again the next day.

Minus, Lidzira, and Ekkie arrange to meet Gideon Marlin to buy
some magic items. He directs them to a house in the middle
city. There they learn that those dragon clans not in the
ruling heirarchy sell magic items illicitly to avoid paying
the imperial tax and thus keep more of the profit for themselves.
He sells them some invisibility potions and some green power
stones.

Thursday 5 May

They meet again with Kelkan on real estate and he shows them a dilapidated
estate in the high city. He apologizes saying that such properties
are hard to come by and thus there is limited choice. They pass on
this and he takes them to a halfling dwelling that had a two story
store in front. It will need some renovations to fit what they want.
They actually like this place, and he will get back to them
on it will cost to get it into shape. It will be cheaper to rent
as it is in a less desirable part of town, between the middle
city and docks. Probably more like 350 GP/month.

Miranda auditions at the Royal Theatre. She gets a bit part in the musical farce,
Starward Sail, about an inept pirate captain. She shows
her appreciation to Gerag.

Friday 6 May

Word reaches Bral that the Martian Battleship the Regal Radium Reviler
broke down on its journey to Mars and sailed to Alpha Blue, the star farer
space station/pleasure palace, where it
needs help for repairs to continue to get Mars. Horat is asked to
look into what happened to the battleship, see if he can fix it, or
figure out what is needed from Mars to fix it. Maybe Zudrik/The Party
can be convinced to side trip to Alpha Blue in return for the Battleship
offering escort to the Moon?

Javica from the Inverted Pyramid, some sort of society of magical
knowledge seekers, turns up at the Laughing Beholder
looking for Sal and Wilhelm. She is a statuesque, long haired,
red head but most strikingly she has a red crystal left arm
that is alive.

Javica wants to know how they got off Kylindo?
She meets them at the Raised Cup. They tell her what happened
to them, and she concludes that it was a strange
mistake that led them off Kylindo via some sort of natural
connection between the Purple Planet and the Great Cavern.
She leaves them a card with the inverted pyramid logo on it.
She tells them they just have to talk to it if they would
like to meet her or some other representative of the Inverted
Pyramid.

They ask if she knows Mina, aka Wilmina Gertz from Marnor. Javica says
she knows Mina, but how do they know her? They tell them of their adventures
on Marnor, which seems to amuse Javica. Can
Javica get Mina a message? Of course she can. They want
to tell Mina where they are and that they are OK. Javica promises to deliver
the message and get back to them with any reply.

Friday 6 May

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Horat tells them that the Martian battleship, the Reviler, broke down
on its journey to Mars. It went to Alpha Blue, and he suggests that
they journey there and he can investigate what is needed to repair
it, and see if he can repair it. Alpha Blue is a space alien out post
here in the Ring of Smoke. It is pleasure palace and an emporium of unusual goods from
not only the Kylindo system, but also the space aliens. Horat suggests
that if they can get it repaired, it would be a great escort for their
endeavor. The others seem willing and Horat says he will talk
with Zudrik on Monday.

Saturday 7 May

Zothique/Rock of Bral
Note from the realtor Kelkan. Renovations on the
house in halfling area will take
about 1 month and cost 10k. Rent would be 325 GP/Month.
They each throw in 500 GP (3000 GP total) and tell him
to get started.

They head over to the House of Tempus to do some sparring
with the brothers. They have lots of wooden and padded
weapons, and the high priest does a ritual that will
turn off the effects of magical things in their sparring
arena. They first do a purely physical battle. The brothers
are armed with short swords and in chain mail. They do not
do much coordination and are easily beaten. Ekkie
shows the value of sneaking around and attacking from the
rear.

For a second round the brothers gather up long swords
and bows, and one is operating as a cleric. The party
is a bit less coordinated and the brothers trap Wulfgar
as he charges into attack. Lidzira and Minus try using
the Influence spell which does not work well in battle.
Lidzira's Suggestion works better. Horat reveals one of his
gadgets, a Lightning Thrower. It takes out four
of the six brothers in one go and they end the fight.

Afterwards the brothers note the value of terrain, in
the second round they used the rocks to form a defensive
line, but their good tactics were defeated by the tactical
surprise of Horat's big weapon which struck in a line
and defeated them. They express willingness to do this
again, but the party has had enough.

Saturday 7 May

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Gerag hangs out and trains with the brothers at the House of Tempus.

Minus wants to learn some spells and Lidzira takes him to see
Cedric. Cedric is a human living among the halflings, and he
clearly knows Lidzira, she is his pupil, and he is willing to teach
Minus. He suggests Charm Person, and teaches it to Minus.
After, they go to dinner, with Cedric disguising himself as a
halfling for the outing in public. He is clearly hiding something,
but he does not reveal what. Lidzira tells Minus that it is best
not to ask questions, and that Cedric has worked to help the
halflings of Bral in return for them helping to keep him hidden
from whoever he is hiding from. They talk about Alpha Blue,
and Cedric, who seems to have some familiarity tells them
that it offers recreation, entertainments, a casino,
a brothel, etc. It is not a good idea to try to use magic
to gain advantage as they are pretty sophisticated. The
games are designed such that the house always wins.

Gerag looks up Miranda the waitress/actress and they
have a late night dinner. She tells him that she is
very much enjoying working on the play, she clearly
has the eye candy role, and knows that she owes it
to Gerag. She thanks him profusely that night. He tells
her that he is going away, and she tells him to look her up when
he gets back.

Horat, Ekkie, and Yumi go shopping for adventuring gear.

Sunday 8 May

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Gerag talks with Large Luigi about Alpha Blue. The star farers
built it a hundred years ago or so. It is a well known vacation
destination in the Ring of Smoke. It has visual entertainments,
a casino, some kind of electronic stimulation that simulates
any thing (a holodeck), a brothel, etc. They also have a big
shopping center and trading center.

Gerag is paging through the newspapers and notes that
for the last month there has been no real news out of the
Dragon Empire, i.e. since the report that the Black Dragon
Empire failed to turn up at a regular meeting. He notes
that they were supposed to have another regular meeting
on Friday, two days ago.

Horat and Ekkie go shopping and find some more useful
items. They gather five smoke grenades, and five throwable
glue traps. They are unable to find any explosives.

Horat visits Morweg's on Minus's advice. There he finds
some leather armor made from some advanced star farer
fabric (+2). Fortunately Morweg has a suit that fits
Horat perfectly for only 150 GP.

Horat spends some time writing letters to free Mars
contacts that he knows along their likely route (Alpha
Blue, Venus, Mercury, the Moon).

Yumi spends most of the day at the Fireball Alliance
training with them.

Monday 9 May

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Minus' Carbon Shell armor is ready at Morweg's.

Article in the Rolling Stone
------------------------------------------------
Civil War Breaks Out in Dragon Empire

Dragon Emperor Mirsoth failed to attend the meeting
of the Dragon Empire Council on Friday. The Red Dragons
and their Green supporters walked out of the Council
declaring the current rulership cycle over,
proclaimed the start of a Splendid Synchrony, even though
one is not due for some time, and proclaiming the leader of
the Red Dragons Shurshalin as Emperor of the Dragon
Empire. Fighting has been reported on and in the
space around the moon between
Reds and Greens versus Blacks and Blues. The leaders of
the White and Gold dragons appealed for calm.

As of now fighting has not spread beyond the moon
and none of the other factions of the Empire appear
to have been drawn into the conflict between
the Blacks and Reds. Order in the Empire seems to
have broken down with the five factions each seeing
to their own interest. It remains to be seen what
the effect on commerce this conflict will have.
See page 3 for an analysis of the business opportunities
that may have arisen with this development.
------------------------------------------------

Ekkie recalls that the Splendid Synchrony was mentioned
in the diary of the tentacled horror that they encountered
on Port Greely/Tenarath. It was said to be some sort
signal for the Outer System dwellers to attack and take
over the inner system.

Party wants to see Zudrick and try to convince him
to detour to Alpha Blue, and add the Reviler as more
protection for the Vaporator. They also want to
negotiate for higher pay as things are now more
dangerous. A note results in Zudrick inviting
them for dinner, and Gideon Marlin, White Dragonspawn
and arranger of the transport of the Vaporator to
the moon, will also be joining them.

Yumi goes to the Fireball Alliance and puts up
a notice for Star Knights to join the trip.

They all show up for dinner and a discussion. Zudrick
is convinced that the Dragon Empire Civil War is clearly
some sort of trick to steal his Vaporator. Marlin tells
them that the Black Dragon Emperor has gone missing, and
their rivals the Reds, are challenging them and trying
to move up the regular transfer of the Emperorship, which
comes around every 25 years or so, by about 10 years.
He is not constitutional lawyer, but what is supposed to
happen if the Emperor dies is that some sort of election
is held to decide on a successor. This nonsense about the
Splendid Synchrony is clearly wrong. It is some sort of
celestial alignment of the stars and planets. He is not
an astronomer, but there are Elves who figure this sort of
thing out.

He further tells them that there are 5 big factions in
the Dragon Empire. The Red/Green, Black/Blue,
White/Silver, Gold/Copper, and Elemental (Fire, Air,
Water, Earth). The Emperorship usually passes smoothly
among the factions; the others gang up if it does not.

Marlin tells them that the Whites were aware of the growing
problems in the Empire and they are not just sending transport,
but a troop of guards. At the moment the fighting is between
the Blacks/Blues and Reds/Greens and has not spread to a
general conflict among all the factions. Mars is especially
dangerous due to the interlocking alliances among the Martians
and the various Colonies.

Zudrick thinks it is a good idea to add the Martian Battleship
to the transport, and thus he is happy to support the trip
to Alpha Blue. Marlin mildly objects, but the party is
united with Zudrick on the trip.

They want various things from Zudrick for the added danger.
Horat suggests that the cargo should also include weapons
for the cause of free Mars. Zudrick is way ahead of him
and notes that the rest of the cargo space will get packed
with whatever he can lay his hands on here on Bral.

Minus and Lidzira want some help for the Halflings of Bral.
Zudrick offers to hire some into his operation.

Yumi would like better armor. Zudrick can help with that.

Ekkie, Gerag, and Wulfgar ask for more pay as they all
want to go on the journey. Ekkie and Zudrick negotiate
and agree to a 20% pay raise.

Tuesday 10 May

Zothique/Rock of Bral:
Reika, a friend of Yumi's arrives to work on modernizing
Stahleno's programming. They are very successful.
Stahleno can now be easily programed by Yumi. She basically
knows how to "guard", "defend", or "attack". Reika warns
that it is very deep in Stahleno's system to protect
Erisans. It may be difficult to get her to obey
orders if they involve harm to Erisans. Be careful.

White dragon cargo train of Wyveryns plus escort arrives
on Bral to transport the Water Vaporator to Selene (aka the moon).
The train consists of two transports (each three white
Wyverns pulling a train car like thing) and a troop
of guards, five Wyverns ridden by White Dragon spawn.
They are equipped with very long lances, and Marlin
reveals that the Wyverns can do some sort breath
weapon. Such trains are not uncommon on Bral, but
the accompaning guard troop is unusual, but not
unexpected given the uncertainty. They have been
flying through the Ring of Smoke and will be able
to continue after a day of rest and feeding. For
journeys through space, they need longer rest.

The party loads up their Skiff, Stahleno, and gear.
Also the dwarves load up the Vaporator and a bunch
of crates of weapons.

Gerag says good-bye to Miranda, and they part on
friendly terms.

Horat visits his Free Mars friends, they toast the
cause of Free Mars.

Wednesday 11 May

Party begins their journey to Alpha Blue.
Chief steward = Jabez Nickel (lizard man)
Commander of Guards = Benajah Crockett (white dragonspawn)
Dwarf leading those escourting the Vaporator = Stormdrulm
White Dragon Dragonborn = Gideon Marlin

Friday 13 May

Ring of Smoke:
Party stops at a Dragon Empire rest stop to feed and water the Wyverns.
No evidence that the Civil War has spread here.

Sunday 15 May
Party arrives on Alpha Blue.

Sunday 15 May Continued

Space Travel to Alpha Blue:
Along the trip Yumi inspects the cargo and notices the boxes
of Star Farer goods. She talks with Minus, Ekkie, and Lidzira
trying to convince them to break into the crates to see what
they are. Ekkie convinces her that this is a bad idea, as
the Star Farer crates will likely show the tampering. The lizard
man guards tell her that the crates were loaded at Bral and
they think they are destined for Mars. Yumi confronts
Horat accusing him of smuggling dangerous weapons to Mars.
He tells her, that yes these are weapons, but that Zudrick is
simply a savvy business man who is taking advantage of an
opportunity to make large profits due to the disruption caused
by the Dragon Empire civil war.

Benajah Crockett, the white dragonspawn captain of the guard
troop, and Stormdrulm, the dwarf leading those escorting the
Vaporator, seem to know each other, which the party finds a
strange coincidence. They talk with the party about the
strange circumstances of the Dragon Empire. There are
12 dragon clans each with about 100 dragons, and these
folks rule the Empire with an iron fist. They reproduce
infrequently as arangements for marriages, very rare, or
"procreation agreements," complex and infrequent, mean that
the Empire depends on hordes of lizardmen slaves. Most of
the staff on board the Wyvern train are slave lizardmen.
The dragons mate with sophonts, when they shape shift into
humanoid forms, and produce the dragonspawn,
like Crockett, who become the trusted lieutenants of an
individual dragon's household. They look like small dragons,
about 8 feet tall, but with hands. It is not clear what these
two want from the party, but they do seem to be feeling them
out about something.

They arrive at Alpha Blue which looks like the
Las Vegas Strip turned into a space station. They are able
to hear the conversation between the Train master and the
space station. They are questioned closely about their
involvement with the Dragon Empire Civil War, but after
swearing their peaceful intentions they are cleared to
land. There is a special bay for the space Wyverns.
They need to be fed and watered and will be ready to fly
to Venus in a day.

The party enters through a security line.
A stripper is entertaining those on line and she
is handing out hand bills advertising The Gelatinous
Cube, an area of adult entertainment of XXX-Sector.
As they pass through security they note that their
weapons are made to glow. They can keep them, but
they continue to glow, or they will be stored here
to be returned on their leaving Alpha Blue.
A small talking cube on wheels joins them and tells
them he is their escort and guide to Alpha Blue. It
seems to be not entirely happy with its job, constantly
complaining about the tasks that the party sets it
to. It escorts them to hotel rooms where the party
is able to shower, one of the luxuries not avaiable
on the Wyvern Train.

The cube tells them that Alpha Blue is heading
towards the Great Barrier Field, a fantastic
sight seeing opportunity. The party remembers the
exploration of same proposed by Captain Reynolds of
the Bela Lugosi, to find the wreck of the Esparto,
an ancient Erisan liner carrying refugees from
destroyed Eris.

All except Yumi join Horat on a trip to
the Martian Battleship, the Reviler. Horat is met by
a fellow adherant of Free Mars, Astok of the Martian
city state Kostrast. Kostrast is known be be an ally
of the White Dragons, and is very wealthy as it controls
the well watered Lascaont Valley, the best agricultural
land on Mars. Astok is enthused that Horat seems to be
working with the White Dragons and suggests that Free
Mars should embrace the cause of the White Dragons
in the civil war. This is not ideal, but they are better
than the facist Red or Black dragons.

Horat inspects the Reviler and realizes that
the problem is a small one with the oxygen generation
system that is needed for the space journey. He is able
to fix it with only a small amount of effort. The Captain
is very happy, but tells Horat that the ship will not be
ready to depart until the morning, as the crew is
enjoying liberty on Alpha Blue.

The party scatters to enjoy the pleasures
of Alpha Blue. Most go the shopping center.
Minus buys a Violet Wand (a club that does 1d6
damage, and on a hit does a paralyzation attack
for 2d6 rounds). It is a common Star Farer police
weapon. He and Ekkie also buy a Mortar that launches
a variety of shells (rg 100/200/300 - minimum 25).
One is a Corrosive Shell that essentially can eat
through a barrier. They buy 25 of these. They
also buy 25 Glue Trap Shells. These cover a 30 foot radius
with a sticky substance that immobilizes those within.
They also buy 25 Grenade Shells that deal 2d6 damage in a
20 foot blast radius.

Yumi buys a set of Star Farer Kevlar armor, that is
like leather armor, but give AC = 17. At the store
that sells high-tech glass she also buys a purple
tinted glass dagger and two mirror glass daggers.
These are basically regular daggers, but made of
an unbreakable glass.

Gerag shops for clothes and buys a garish set
of purple, dragon themed lounging pajamas in
size 4X. He buys a very nice star farer material
dress for Miranda and has it shipped to Bral.

Ekkie and Lidzira each buy a "Blink Belt". It can be activated
once an hour and instantly transports one about 10 feet in
a random direction. It is smart enough not to embed the
wearer inside a solid, but is still rather experimental
and prone to unexpected behavior.

Ekkie buys a microscopic drone. This is a small,
invisible to the eye, listening and vision device.
On a single charge it works for about 10 minutes, and
does not range very far (about 50 feet) from its control
unit, but it does display and listen to what it can
observe. It can fly and obviously penetrate the very
smallest of openings.

Minus buys a Deep Memory Retrival Unit. It is
meant to be able to access the deep racial DNA memory of
the wearer. It is highly experimental, and Minus has
to sign a waver that tells him that the memories accessed may
not be clear or make sense.

Yumi finds an improved repair kit. Ekkie tails
her and notes that Yumi gets this item from a robot repair
shop.

Yumi then visits a fetish shop and buys whip and a
dominatrix outfit. She is given a card for Sinful Syndee's,
a BDSM brothel in the XXX-Sector. She goes to visit, and
after a drink has no further memory of the evening.

Horat goes to the Ball Court. It is a game like
a cross between Raquet Ball and Hockey, and there is
furious betting on the matches. Horat is mainly a spectator
and bets only lightly. He enjoys the matches.

Minus and Lidzira go to the Gelatinous Cube in
XXX-Sector and have a good time.

Gerag returns to the lounge to smoke cigars, drink
brandy and enjoy the view. A man stumbles towards him,
slurring his words, "I love you man, I love you man, I
love you..., I love..., I..." and collapses on Gerag's
lap. A beautiful woman appears asking Gerag to help
get Leonard back to her quarters. She introduces herself
as Natalie, and promises to make the inconvenience worth
Gerag's while if he will help her and Leonard. Gerag
picks up Leonard and follows Natalie into XXX-Sector,
passing through the doors of the Pleasent Memory, another
brothel, to her room. She directs Gerag to put Leonard on
the bed, and once there she pulls off Leonard's shirt to
reveal that he is covered in tatoos. Gerag thinks better
of the entire situation and leaves as Natalie's attention
is on Leonard.

Ekkie uses her new drone to spy on Yumi's
quarters while she is away. She does not find anything
unusal except that there is no food, and that Yumi has a
set of plastic repair band-aid type things and her kit.
She then goes to the spa and is pampered.

In the casino Horat encounters a person who is
white on the right side and black on the left side. The
White/Black offers Horat a tentacled idol that he claims
he bought in a pawn shop. It has magical powers to summon
servants of the Outer Gods, it is claimed. He offers it
to Horat for 6000 GP, which Horat cannot afford. The
White/Black says that perhaps Horat can buy the idol if
he offers the head of a Black/White who is also here
on Alpha Blue. Horat collects Gerag and they search
the station for the Black/White, but are unable to
find him.

Monday 16 May

Alpha Blue:
A note from the Captain of the Reviler. It will be
ready to leave by noon.

Yumi awakens the next morning with an extra 2000 GP.
The little box tells her that she is fully booked
with appointments at Sinful Syndee's through the
morning. She cancels some, but not all, and plans
to visit the Star Knight Temple here. Syndee, the madam
at Sinful Syndee's, tells Yumi what a great job she did
last night, and that she could be a "star" here on Alpha
Blue. Yumi tells Syndee that she has to travel, but
will be happy to visit the next time she is here. Syndee is
a bit disappointed, but notes that rarity means
that she can charge a higher price.

After servicing a couple of clients, Yumi goes to
the Star Knight Temple here. The religion believes
in a all pervading Life Force that Knights can tap
into for power. Star Knights can use the power of the Force
for good. Void Knights, the bitter enemies of the Star Knights,
use the dark side of the Force for ill. Another Star
Knight, they are fairly rare, is here. He is named Qaria
and tells Yumi that he is working as a guard on an
interstellar expedition where travel takes weeks rather
than the days it takes to travel around a planetary system
like Kylindo. There is always work for a Star Knight as
while the Star Farers, a polyglot group of races, do not
have overt wars there is intense commercial competiton,
which sometimes is carried out by other means, and
there is always the frontier. Kylindo is a frontier
world, and there are expeditions for exploration and
discovery frought with danger.

Horat and Gerag spend time trying to find the White/Black
and/or the Black/White. Horat stops in at a shop and has them
work up a Black/White head that he stuffs in a bag with
some ketchup. Gerag is not sure whether to be disgusted
or amused.

Sure you can buy your own robot assistant, the little
box tells them. It can even have an obnoxious personality. It
costs about 1000 GP, but it won't be very useful away from the
Starfarer areas as it gets most of its value by tapping into
an interstellar information net. They forego buying one.

All arrive to journey to Venus on the Wyvern
Train. It will take 3 days, and since the journey is through space
the Wyverns will need 3 days of recovery before going on to
Mars. The Reviler joins them on the trip.

Ekkie intends to spy on the White dragonspawn and
dwarf to try to figure out what they are up to.

Monday 16 May

In transit between Alpha Blue and Venus:
Horat tells them of the note he found. It was with his fake
Black/White head on some black paper written in White,
"The Starfarers know you have something they lost. Be
vigilent as you travel to the Cylinder. They will be
hunting for you in space to take it back." There is
some discussion on what it is the Starfarers have lost.
Yumi is certain it is the crates of weapons, while the
others focus on the Vaporator. They tell Crockett
who tells them the point of maximum danger for them
is when they leave the Ring of Smoke and enter space.
They will have wear bulky space suits and The Reviler
will have to button up. As they move further into
the system the Wyverns will get stronger, and
be less attractive targets.

Horat spends some time jury rigging some escape
suits, there are none, and manages to get three
ready from materials he is able to find.

Tuesday 17 May

In transit between Alpha Blue and Venus:
The train is attacked by two Star Farer Destroyers.
They seem to be faster and more manuveurable, but
do not have as much fire power as the Reviler. The
White Wyverns have a short range icy breath weapon
and if they grapple can physically tear apart their
targets.

The Star Farer Destroyers appear to the starboard
rear. The Wyverns are in front, the two cargo
Wyvern teams are in the middle, and the Reviler
brings up the rear. The Wyverns and the Reviler
turn to starbord, while the Destroyers turn to
port to try to slip by the Wyverns and the
Reviler to chase down the lumbering cargo trains.
The Destroyers manage to slip by the Wyverns
with only one icy blast striking home, but the
Reviler manages to turn and fire a couple of
broadsides of its two large Radium Rays and
the shorter ranged Lightning Guns doing a great
deal of damage to one of the Destroyers.

The Starfarers seemed to have not counted on the
presence of the Reviler and break off, leaving
the convoy to reform and continue on to Venus.
One of the Wyverns was hit by a Photon Torpedo,
but is not seriously hurt.

Wednesday 17 May

In transit between Alpha Blue and Venus:
Ekkie uses her microscopic drone and listens
in as the White Dragonspawn Crocket and
the Dwarf Storm. They are discussing their
plan to aid the forces of Free Mars to steal
the Vaporator on Mars.

The party talks to them and tells them they would
like to join their effort. In fact they should
blame the loss of the Vaporator on the Elves, as
no one likes them. Crockett and Storm love this idea
and indicate that they are part of group seeking
to change things in the Dragon Empire. The group
includes some Dragons who think that the Empire should
be more democratic. They have decided that during the
disruption caused by the Dragon Empire Civil War
that the cause of Free Mars is a good bet to make
things better. At least at the moment the Free
Mars movement looks like the best way to a better
future.

Gerag pulls Ekkie aside and says that he does not
trust these two. Why is the party involved at
all if there was a plan to loose the Vaporator? Ekkie
reminds him that they were hired by Zudrick, who
may be ignorant of the plans by Crockett and Storm.
Gerag also wonders if Horat and his devotion to
Free Mars is real. Ekkie will see what she
can find out over the next few days.

Thursday 19 May

Venus:
White Dragon Wyvern train arrives on Venus. As they
approach the planet they are met by ships of the
Imperial Elven Space Navy. These ships look like
wooden sailing vessels with sun silk sails
and gravity defying lift wood. The designs
are beautiful with many of ships looking like
birds or butterflies. They use organic weapons
firing alcohol fueled flying torpedoes,
fire bombs, and short ranged fire projectors.

They closely question the train, but give
them clearance to land on Venus. As they
head in they can see the planet is shrouded in
clouds but there are a few large mountainous
regions rising above the clouds. On the largest
is a large central plain, with a sparkling lake
in the center. A large city is on its shore.
The lake is called Green Lake and the city
is Carmenta. They land amid a great deal of
activity with many Elven Warships visible,
and large number of Elven Marines marching
about. The party goes to the city, the dragons
and Martians stay behind to take care of and keep
watch on the Wyverns and the Reviler. They face
at least a three day stay here for the Wyverns
to recover from their space journey.

The city is very beautiful with canals and Elven
organic architecture blending into the land scape.
They are confined to the Foreigner Quarter where
they see Starfarers, Dwarves, Humans, etc. It looks
much like Bral, but there are many more Elves. The
Elves seem to keep Lizardmen and Halfling slaves to
do the heavy, menial, and dirty work. They stay in
a nice hotel and enjoy an elegant Elven meal which
Gerag and Ekkie find completely inadequate.

Horat breaks off and at a fast food joint
called Amalur's and meets his Free Mars contact, who is
Karad of Talsinth. Talsinth a city state on Mars
whose last ruler died and left the city state to
his underage son, but appointed an Elven regent.
The Elves rule the city state for their own benefit.
Karad thinks the Dragon Empire Civil War is a great
opportunity to strike at the Elven colonies on Mars while
the Elves are distracted supporting their Black Dragon
allies. He is aware of their mission, and asks what he
can do to help. Horat tells him of the entire plan,
and asks him to spread the word that the Elves have
stolen the Vaporator while it was here on Venus. He
says he can do that.

Saturday 21 May

Front page news story in the New Moon Express
-----------------------------------------------------
Dwarf Attempt to Join Civil War Turned Back

Elements of the White, Gold, Silver, Copper and the
Elemental Dragon clans space forces intercepted
a large fleet of Dwarven steam rockets violating
the Imperial decree closing space around Kylindo,
Selene, and the Dragonstars to non-Dragon travellers.

In a one sided battle the Dwarven fleet was annihilated
by the combined Dragon Empire forces. Count Percival
Cook, Lord Commander of the Gold forces, said, "We
may not agree on much these days, but no dragon wants
to see outside forces try to influence the internal
affairs of the Empire. When we got word of the incursion
we flew to the sound of the fighting. It turned into
a rout, as Fighting Wyvern's from the other clans joined in.
We all feasted on Dwarven flesh." Cyrus Oliver,
a White Congressman, concurred with Lord Cook's
account adding, "This simply proves that we are stronger
when we all stand together. I repeat my call for the
Reds and Blacks to come back the Council, follow the
Constitution, and allow us to choose a new Emperor.
This stupid fighting only helps our common enemies."
Niwa Yukisuke, Koshaku of the Water Dragons, enimatically
added, "The Superior Person examines the nature of virtue
and makes himself a standard that can be followed."

There was no comment from the Dwarven Embassy here
on Selene and representatives of the Red and Black dragon
clans. Other attempts to independently
verify the reports have been unsuccessful. Bryxina
Olacarin the Chief Astronomer of the Selene Obsevatory
reported that there is new astronomical object
in orbit around Kylindo near Selene. She described
it as a large clould of ice crystals consistent
with the destruction of a large number of Dwarven
Steam Rockets in space. The observatory has mapped
the orbit and supplied it to the Imperial Space Guard
and the Port Authority of Selene to help travelers
avoid this hazard to navigation. She declined to speculate
on the nature of the cloud, but she did the use
the term "Battle of the Cloud" in our discussion.

This unexpected turn of events reveals the dangers
and unpredictability of the present course of action
taken by the leaders of The Empire. The door has been
opened to outside influence, and the Red and Black
clans seemed to have achieved what had seemed impossible
only a few short weeks ago of uniting the other clans
to work together for the good of The Empire.
-----------------------------------------------------
News in The Absolute Story
-----------------------------------------------------
Emperor Announces the Closing of Venusian Space

Emperor Idrinian announces that due to the rising
dangers caused by Civil War in the so called Dragon
Empire that space travel in the region of Venus
has been suspended. Only those on official
Imperial business in Imperial vessels are allowed
to leave or approach the surface of Venus.

Further all non-Elves currently on Venus must
immeadiately report to the nearest office of the
Imperial Customs and Immigration as soon as
possible. Failure to comply will result in death.
-----------------------------------------------------

The party is stunned realizing that they are
stuck on Venus. Yumi immeadiately wants to go
to the ships and release Stahleno, but the others
restrain her. Horat sends Octo to spy things out
at the space port. It comes back saying that
all the non-Elven ships are grounded, and the Wyverns
and the Reviler have been pushed into a hanger.
The White Dragon crew and Martians seemed to have
been pressed into service as ground crew in
the Carmenta space port.

Colonel Carafaren turns up to talk to them. He is
the commander of the Space Port and tells the party
that he has orders to make all the foreigners
"useful" during this time of their confinement
on Venus. He does not know how long this will last.
Clearly he says they are not cut out to harvesting
lift wood trees, tending sun silk worms, or
operating sun silk looms.

Perhaps they would like to join the Emperor's
Foreign Legion? Those who loyally serve the Emperor for
five years can become citizens of the Empire or upon spilling
the blood of an enemy of the Emperor. No questions are asked
of those joining the Legion, and the Legion will happily
provide you with a new identity. Right now there is large
signing bonus and the term of service to gain citizenship has
been reduced to three years. Colonel Carafaren offers personal
assurances that those signing up now, will soon have opportunities to
face the Emperor's enemies. Ekkie notes that no matter how
long before getting citizenship there is a five year term
of service. No one seems interested much to Carafaren's
dissappointment.

Maybe they would like to deal with some rebels? He mentions
the ruins of something called Eryx. This is a name that
some of the party remember. It was in Sansa's book on the
Martian-Eris War as a location where ancient Erisan gate
technology might be found. Thus the party, responds
positively to this "opportunity." Carafaren seems
pleased with that, and tells him he will detail one
of his aids to assist them in this endeavor.

After dinner an Elf called Vamear turns up. He
is going to help and accompany them on their
mission to Eryx. He tells the Eryx is near
the village of Longbrdige which is just on the
edge of the range just above the cloud
layer. Eryx dates from the time of the Lizards
when the Snake People and Lizard Men ruled. It was
one of their temples or something. When their rule
ended Elven sorcerors explored and plundered the
place. It was then abandoned.

Escaped Lizardmen and Halflings have moved in
and have proclaimed a Free Republic. The Lizardmen
and Halflings here in the city, are not slaves but indentured servants.
The Lizardmen live below the cloud layer where there
are jungles, deserts, lava lakes, etc. as it gets
hotter and hotter the lower one goes. They come
above the clouds to work usually for a set period
of time and then get a lump payment at the end. Mostly
they work harvesting Drift Wood and tending the Sun Silk
Worm Bushes. The Halflings are intermingled with the
Elves and work harvesting the Sun Silk Worms, producing
Sun Silk, and in food production. There is usually
a Halfling and Lizardman quarter in cities on Venus.
The folks at Eryx are disturbers of the peace, they
rob the nearby villages, and are enemies of the Emperor.

He has a file on Eryx. Just recently, which
for an elf means decades ago, someone called
Nigel the Elf led an expedition to Eryx. There is
a fragment of his diary,

"...tracked the energies
ll the way to the southern edge. According to
the map it is near the village of Longbridge. The
village is near the base of a mountain called the
Firestorm Peak, which is the first of a series
of peaks and features extending to the south
below the clould layer. My studies indicate
that the flux of magical and particle radiation
emanate from the within the ominously named
mountain; this is definitely the place described
in the scrolls I recently unearthed. What is
troubling is that the cyclical nature of the radiation
indicate that the Vast Gate was still focused when
it was abandoned so long ago. What gives me more cause
to worry are the localized contradictions in reality
itself which arise whenever this cycle reaches its
apex...although I have spent the last twenty years
of my life researching this location, it is possible
I have misled myself about the true dangers of the
forces which I have sought to understand. I fear
that I may be forced to use the three Crystal Components
I have so laborously gathered from the Elder Elven
ruins to end a threat which none are yet aware of,
save myself. My friends of old shall be my companions
on the journey of discovery and danger. Derek Warcaller,
Wellfast Brightblade, and Quaren Ael Drim will be
ecstatic to learn..."

Nigel was obviously insane opines Vamear, and someone had
the good idea to make him useful by encouraging him to
explore Eryx.

The party wants to collect all their weapons and the Skiff
for a visit to Eryx. There is some argument about whether
to bring Stahleno, but in the end they decide that since Stahleno
is likely to freak out their Elven hosts she should remain
dormant. Vamear helps them gather their supplies and is
amazed by their Skiff. Most travel not by air goes via
giant lizard pack trains. The Skiff will make a few day
journey to just one. They see the White Dragon crew
and Martians of the Reviler, working in the Space Port.
Vamaer points out that the Emperor has ordered that all
foreigners on Venus must be made useful. There is much
activity at the port, but they cannot tell if it is out
of the ordinary or not.

Sunday 22 May

Venus:
They leave early this morning for Longbridge. They pass through
many mountain valleys noting that most of them are either
Liftwood Tree or Sun Silk Worm Bush plantations with hordes of
Lizardmen and Halflings toiling in the fields. They do see
the occaional community of Halflings along their trip.

As they move down the slopes there are fewer big plantations
and more of the available land is given over to food production.
Longbridge is clearly the end of the line, and it looks to
be a small, poor place. There is one city hall, a public house
with rooms to rent, and little else. While Vamear goes in
to present his credentials to the local authorities, Gerag
wanders about and notes that really looks like a poor place
that is barely hanging on. There are a number of empty
and run down houses, and the animals look scrawny. Horat
uses SCIENCE! on some animals and notes that there is something
off about them, but he cannot figure out exactly what. They
seem strangely listless and unpredictably aggresive.

Vamear returns telling him that he has secured the cooperation
of the locals. They have rooms at the local public house,
the Greenbriar Inn, and he learns that they are aware of the
rebels at Eryx. They do not raid Longbridge as there is little
to steal, but they there are a couple of big plantations a
few miles away in good mountain valleys that have had persistant
trouble. The mountain has been acting up more than usual lately,
again for Elves this may mean for the last few years. Every
few weeks fire wreaths its peak and touches off forest fires in the
dry forest of its slopes. These do not spread far due to the fact
that the fire runs into wetter vegetation at the cloud layer further
down the slopes. The mountain does look rather ominous, bare
and blackened as compared to its neighbors to the south that are
forested.

At dinner, which is a hearty but simple root vegetable stew,
they learn that the locals know where Eryx is. There is a disused
road, now not much more than a path, that is blocked by
gates that are as strong as steel but are transparent. These
lead to a dark tunnel that plunges under the Mountain. The locals
avoid the place as it is creepy. No one knows how to get passed
the gates and explore the tunnel beyond. There is some dim memory
of Nigel the Elf and his friends. They disappeared after saying
they were headed to explore the ruins of Eryx. Come to think of it,
soon after that, the mountain started acting up.

Sunday 22 May Continued

Venus, Longbridge:
Gerag tries to buy the favor of the locals by paying for drinks.
He learns nothing. An elf farm wife called Ylyndar hits on Horat,
but he rebuffs her. Ekkie eave drops on the common room in
the Greenbriar Inn after the party has retired. The big talk
among the locals is that the local militia has been called
up, and within the last few days has marched off.

Monday 23 May

Venus, Longbridge:
The party plus Vamear heads off to Eryx in their flying skiff.
They can clearly tell that it was once a good road, but it has
become over grown and cracked. They get to the tunnel leading
into the mountain and note that it is closed off by crystaline
gates. Horat uses SCIENCE! and notes that the gates are made
of see-through metal called Nephelium which is quite valuable.
Gerag's infravision can see it if not being overwhelmed by
regular light. Horat is able to make the gates move with his
magnet ring, but they can find no way to undo the bar that
holds the gate closed. Gerag gives Horat his Plasma Torch and
they are able to cut through the bar and open the gate. Yumi
rushes into the tunnel and steps on a caltrop made of Nephelium.
The wide tunnel seems to full of them. Horat uses his ring to
gather up 13 of these annoying, but valuable, things.

They travel down the tunnel in the skiff, until they see a stone
wall blocking the way. It rises up about 15 feet leaving only
a five foot gap below the ceiling. Horat sends his robot Octo up
to explore, and it is hit and knocked aside by a lizard man
wielding a pole arm. Horat calls out that they have come
to over throw tyranny and trade. He throws in a starfarer
food pack. This seems to break the impasse and Horat, Ekkie,
and Yumi are invited in to trade.

They see four lizardmen guarding the wall and note that
the wall is a later, rougher construction than the main passage.
A lizardman leads them deeper into the complex. Beyond the
wall they see an enclosure with four more lizardmen, and then
an arch way with four more lizardman guards. They turn right
passing through a very narrow corridor, a barracks with 10
or so beds, another right into a corridor, and then left
into a very large room where there is a bunch of noise.

They are on the upper level of a giant under ground
market place. The lizard man leading them talks to some
halflings who are patroling the upper level. The halflings
are riding giant spiders. The lizardman shows them the
food package and the halflings say that they would welcome
trading for surface world food stuffs. Horat has a few more,
and they are invited below to trade.

Below are many market stalls selling all sorts of things. There
are roughly 20 stalls and a hundred or so people of various
races circulating among them. There is a squad of lizardmen
guards on the lower floor and another squad of spider riding
halflings on the upper balcony that surrounds the market. They
see Dark Elves, Dark (Red, Grey are other names) Dwarves, and
other races that they barely recognize.

Horat talks with Iscath, a Dark Dwarf, who is selling the large riding
spiders that he calls Steeders. Horat asks after Nigel the Elf,
and Iscath says that as far as he knows, he is in the inner part of
the sanctum. One of Nigel's friends is here, in charge of
the market. Horat tries out a spider.

Yumi talks to Yhayos, who is unusual looking like a cross
between a dwarf and halfling, who deals in spices and a sort of
bean paste. Yhayos tells Yumi that his people control some
caverns in the under world where some radiation nourishes the
plants that produce the beans. The paste is a staple of the
under world. She buys some Under Bean Paste and some Deep
Pepper which she is told makes Elves sneeze. Nigel the Elf
is the boss of the inner part. Talk to the guards if she
wants to see Nigel.

Ekkie is distressed to see that there is a goblin slave
dealer here. She also notes that there are some Halflings
and Lizardmen selling items made of Nephelium and some
raw Nephilium sheets. She guesses that Nephilium is
mined and manufactured here.

They meet again and approach the Halfling guards and
say that they want to see the person in charge to arrange to
sell weapons, Horat mentions Dwarven Steam Rifles, and surface
food. They mention that Wellfast, a name Ekkie recognizes
as one of Nigel the Elf's companions on his expedition
to explore Eryx, is busy on Market Day, and they should
come back tomorrow to make such arrangements.

They are led back to the party and all return to the village.
Vamear is surprised by what they have seen. It does not
sound like Eryx poses much of a threat, and in fact there
seems to be a thriving under world society. Perhaps they
can be persuaded to join with the Emperor and help prepare for
the Time of Troubles which is coming soon. All the Emperor
does is to prepare for the Time of Trouble, and it would
be better for everyone if they would simply support the
Emperor in his great work. He does think that more exploration
would be good to discover the extent of the underground world.

Others note that this seems to much like they knew on Kylindo.
There are Dark Elves, and the Wulfgar tells them that Dwarves
have legends about the Dark/Red/Grey Dwarves and those other
creatures, called Gnomes, who live deep under ground like the
Dark Elves. Does this mean that the underworlds of the
various planets of the Kylindo system are some how connected?
They do note that they got transported to the Purple Planet
when they went deep underground on Kylindo. Heads explode.

Talking among themselves they decide to gather some food stuffs
to trade to get access deeper underground. There are many fruit
available as the climate is semi-tropical. They gather up
grapes and apples at bargain prices.

Yumi talks with lizardmen working at the Inn. They mainly
take care of the animals, pack and draft lizards and a few
horses. They eat meat, mostly pigs which thrive in the
lush forest. She seems to be trying to guage their desire
for revolution, but they are not terribly interested. Yumi
is disgusted calling them "Sheeple."

Tuesday 23 May

Venus, Longbridge:
They head back early the next day and get to the gates. They
find that they have been repaired and there is no response
to their knocking. The Plasma Torch is no longer
working to open the gates. The bar seems to have been altered
in such a way as the Plasma Torch can no longer get to it.
They try one of Ekkies acid bombs, but Nephilium seems to
be resistant. Eventually Horat uses his Lightning Spear to
smash open the gates.

They head down to the wall where it is omniously silent. Eventually
they manage to get a rope with a hook over the wall and Gerag
climbs up. He is met by Lizardmen who attack him with their
pole arms. Horat is screaming about trade, tossing apples and grapes
over the wall, while Gerag is getting attacked by the Lizardmen and
four crossbow armed Halflings atop the fortification behind the wall.
Horat flies in and annihilates the second line of lizardmen with one
of his high tech weapons. The first line of lizard men begin fleeing.
Gerag followed by the others, Ekkie has trouble
getting up the wall, charges at the fortification. Horat uses his
confusion ray on the Halflings, it is not terribly effective, only two
fall, while the others charge up in support of Gerag. Horat again
uses his high tech weapon to clear the line of Lizardmen manning
the archway. In the end they have captured one Halfling, one Lizardman
fled disappearing going left beyond the archway, and leaving 11
dead Lizardmen and three dead Halflings. Beyond the archway the
original tunnel continues forward, but has been filled with rocks.

Vamear, who was the last over the wall, viewing the carnage, asks
them again if they want to join the Foreign Legion. He would put
in a good word for them to be in Special Operations.

They contemplate how to continue their exploration in the face of
hostile reaction today.

23 May Tuesday - Continues
Venus, Ruins of Eryx

They talk with the captive Halfling who is called Munderic.
He tells them that Wellfast ordered them not to have any
contact with the surface dwellers which is why the party
was met with hostility. They share with him some grapes
and apples, which he says are good - much better than Under
Bean Paste. Ekkie uses her Microdrone to scout ahead.
She sees the blocked main passage and the two passages
off to the left. They go down the first of these, following
Horat's plan of always going left.

They pass through what is obviously lizard man barracks,
leave a glue trap behind, and pass into natural caverns.
They encounter three oversized skeletons with green
glowing gems inside them. The gems fire off a green
fire blast and the skeletons fight with large, rusted
swords. Ekkie puts down a glue trap and one
of the giant skeletons gets trapped.
At one point Gerag grapples the gem and pulls
it free from the horror. He is reminded of the Green
Thing back on Kylindo, and smashes the gems once the
three horror are dispatched. They recall
that Wulfgar is a tank.

Continuing into the caverns, always turning left, they
enter a room where there is large rock with a skeletal
hand reaching out from beneath. Minus searches around and
finds a rotted pouch with a piece of parchment in it. Reading:

...the Alienist has reached the Font of power under
Firestorm. When next the Vast Gate opens, Madreus
may command unclean powers the likes of which could
drive men mad. This Vast Gate is the source of his
power, reaching as it does into a realm so incomprehensibly
far from our own that the entities there may not abide by
the laws of reality as we understand them. The only
way to kill this threat is to kill Madreus and refocus
the Gate to another location, using the three Crystal
Components which we so ardously gathered from across
the system. To reach his inner complex many obstacles
must first be overcome, the first of which is lizardman
complex. However research has revealed that far more
insidious creatures lie deeper...

They continue on and find a room with two doors. One
of which they realize leads back to the entrance hall,
and the second is a short worked corrider leading to another
door. They spike shut the door leading back to the
entrance hall and put a glue trap in front of the
other.

They continue on and at a hairpin curve they encounter
a black, incopereal thing with red glowing eyes. Gerag,
Yumi, Minus and the halfling captive suddenly disappear.
The others struggle with the undead thing and manage
to dispatch it. During the battle Ekkie attempts to
hit the thing with her dagger, is sure she scored a hit,
but no damage was done. She realizes that such undead things
can only be hit by magical or technological weapons.

Meanwhile the others find themselves dumped into a small
room with two stone coffins. Two similar undead attack
them. Gerag tries to flee away by smashing through a door
out of the room, and manages to avoid falling into a pit
trap that opens beneath him on the other side of the
door. Minus and the halfling also flee the room, leaving
Yumi to fight the undead things. The halfling flees, while
Gerag and Minus do their best to help Yumi and kill the
things. They manage to kill them. Minus has Gerag lower
him into the pit and he finds some coins, gathers the gold,
a dagger, a quiver of 12 arrows, and two potions that look
much like healing potions.

Ekkie has been using their Starfarer communicators and the
split party is in touch. The first bunch holes up in the
room with the big rock. The others first follow the path
of the fleeing halfling, even though that he turned right,
but using the strength of the communicator signal, they
are able to find the rest of the party. Some healing
is thrown as the party is a bit battered.

23 May Tuesday - Continues
Venus, Ruins of Eryx

Once reunited they confront Vamear on his combat abilities.
He tells, that it would have not made sense to send someone
unable to take care of themselves into these ruins. He has
a hold out bow, and long sword that he wears in a well hidden
scabbard on his back. He also has some throwing darts.

After regrouping Ekkie sends her microdrone ahead and they see
penned scorpions. They head up to the scorpions and spend a large
amount of time killing them with missle fire. Just as they are
finishing up a troop of spider mounted halflings comes
from behind and begins attacking. A ragged defense line forms,
and Lidzira casts a Hypnotic Pattern which mesmerizes the halflings
blunting the attack. At the other end, where Gerag had moved
to watch the opening, a squad of lizardmen appear. A couple
of grenades are tossed, a glue trap deployed, and the two
group of attackers retreat leaving some dead halflings, spiders,
and a lizardman behind. Quickly dead bodies are pilled over the glue,
Ekkie loots some treasure secreted in a giant scorpion egg sac,
smashing the eggs, and the party continues always turning left.
She has a taken a whistle made out of the transparent metal
Nephilium, but when she brings it near her key, the key gets
hot and glows red. Horat gathers up two scorpion venom sacs,
in the interest of science.

They enter into a large, irregular room where there are
manacles set into the walls at the three entrances. There are bones
piled near the manacles. They also note that the floor is alive with
small insects. As they cautiously make their way through the room
heading towards the exit on the left, four much largers centipede
like insects emerge out of the floor and attack. In the battle with
the horrors Horat and Vamear are paralyzed, but the party prevails.
They note that as Horat and Vamear are motionless the insects begin
crawling up their feet and being chewing on flesh. They drag them
out of the big room into a section with a rocky floor. They
wait a bit until the poison wears off. Wulfgar drinks one of the
healing potions and it cures most of his damage. Horat gathers two
venom sacs from the large insects.

They make their way down a long passage that all can tell
is sloping down. It gets very dark, much darker than anything they
have experienced as they go down the passage. As they debate the
wisdom of this they see bright light up ahead. They enter
into a cross roads room via a ramp that enters into the cieling and
slopes down to the floor. There are signs proclaiming this to be
The Inn of the Flaming Pool. There are many oil burning lanterns
and the cave is brightly illuminated. Besides the Inn, which seems
to be a small eatery with a few rooms above, there are three
wide passages proclaiming Khurn Falder, Szrthilin, and
Zimzaulentan, and a set of crude stone doors. They
are met by Folcard Shortwick, apparently the patriarch of the
Shortwick clan which runs the Inn. He welcomes them, telling
them that this is a safe refuge, and they are welcome to stay
at the Inn.

As he leads them into the Inn they see members of the Shortwick
clan, including Sam, an older boy whose left arm is unnaturally
twisted. Folcard tells him that he and his wife left Eryx as
it was too creepy for them. They met the Pech, called Pollachron,
who watches over this place. The Pech look much like gnomes, but
they have very long arms and their skin seems made of stone. Their
eyes glow brightly. Pollachron seems to be made of white granite
and its eyes glow blue. They see it moving about, and note that
it seems to pass through stone walls as if they were not there. Folcard
tells them that the Pech are creatures of the Underdark and seem
to be devoted to maintaining life in the Underdark. They adopt
cross roads, or similar important places, and all know not to
bother them. If attacked or killed then bad things start happening,
earthquakes, tunnel collapses, etc.

Here there is the connection to Eryx where surface food is
available, the Drow, the Grey Dwarves, and the Gnomes come to
the market at Eryx to trade. The two most important things in
the Underdark are food and light. Looking closely at the
oil resevoirs they note that the oil is clear, but floating in
it are iridescent flakes. The oil resevoirs are
entrancing with the floating flakes constantly changing
colors in never ending patterns...

They find themselves in spartan rooms on the second floor; there seem
to be no other guests. They begin discussing payment with Folcard,
they discover that their gold is not of much value here, perhaps a
tenth of its value on the surface, but that their apples and grapes
are very valuable. They trade those for a night's stay, dinner
and breakfast, a couple of high quality lanterns (made by the
Grey Dwarves) and enough oil and traveling food for two days.

The oil comes from
a pool beyond those stone doors, but the place is chaotic with
flames that do not seem to consume, and it is dangerous to creatures
of flesh. Sam's arm was hurt down there. They rely on the Pech
to gather oil for them; what is there does not seem to bother
the stone creature. Beyond the burning pool is a passage that leads
to a room covered in words and another passage that leads to a bridge
of rock lighter than water. There are passages beyond the bridge,
but they have never gone over the bridge as it crumbles when walked
upon. The other passages lead to a gnome farming village, Zimzaulentan,
on the edge of the gnome controlled region of the Underdark, a Grey Dwarf small
town, Khurn Falder, beyond which are the deep mines of the Grey Dwarves, and
a Drow town, Szrthilin, which is on a navigable underground river and connects
to the rest of Underdark.

Left alone they discuss what to do. Vamear suggests that they should
return to the surface. This is not a nest of rebels, but rather a
whole civilization. They need to report back to the agents of the
Empire so that the Underdark can acknowledge the primacy of the Emperor
and join in the Emperor's Great Work. Others, led by Yumi, want to
go deeper into the Underdark to perhaps find a connection with the
Underdark on the other worlds. Ekkie is not terribly thrilled by this
as Goblins seem to a slave race in the Underdark. Others note
that they cannot simply walk out as they are unlikely to get a
friendly welcome back in Eryx. Perhaps they should go to the Grey
Dwarves, get some helpful weapons,
learn more about possible connections to the other worlds, and
then return out of Eryx. After all their goal is to get the cargo
in the Wyvern Train and on the Reviler to Mars and the Moon.

Vamear says that if they go back to the surface he would use his
influence to allow them to fly to Mars. They have made a valuable and
important discovery for the Emperor. They decide to travel to the
Grey Dwarf town, weapon up, and then return to the surface.

Dinner is a mixture of Under Bean Paste, mushrooms of various sorts,
roasted lizard meat, and fried insect parts. They see about 10
Shortwicks serving them and cleaning up. Dinner is filling, but pretty
bland. They are suspicious, and set watches as the lamps are
dimmed, and Underdark Night sets in...

25 May Wednesday
Venus, Inn of the Flaming Pool

Over night Minus is visited by Pollachron the Pech in his dreams.
He talks of his mission, to preserve and support life in the Underdark,
hinting that without the efforts of the Pech that the Underdark would die
and become steriile. He hints it is a mission of the creators of
the Underdark, and also that Ekkie has a valuable thing in the
magical Whistle made from Nephilum. Pollachron gathers
the oil from the Flaming Pool that the Shortwicks trade to make
this place a refuge and travel nexus for the Underdark. The place
is dangerous for creatures of the flesh. It is part of his mission.

Upon awakening Horat uses his Tri-Chorder to look at the Whistle and
it is IDed as a device that raises the dead to create minor undead,
such as zombies or skeletons. Over breakfast the Shortwicks say
that Pollachron is here unpredicitability, talks to them in their
dreams too, but keeps them well supplied with the strange oil.

They travel to the Grey Dwarf town of Khurn Falder. It takes them
most of the day as they move cautiously through the Underdark. It is
very dark and all their forms of night vision do not work. There is no
light for twilight vision or the star farer goggles. The infravision
of Gerag and Ekkie ceases to work as everything is the same temperature.
They have to rely on the light of the oil burning lanterns. The way
is smooth although it is clearly a natural cave. Wulfgar tells them it is
clear that the floor has been smoothed to ease travel and that this
way is sloping down.

Eventually they see light ahead and hear a trickle of water. They
enter a natural cave with a stream crossing it, and a small guard post
manned by five grey dwarves. They greet the party and ask what their
business is here. They say they want to trade and seek help against
the denizens of Eryx. This intrigues the guards, and they are invited
in. As they pass over the ford of the stream they find a bottle with
a message in it washed up on the shore. It has a message within that
says "Too late!"

At the back end of the cave there is a large worked corridor with
what looks to be a few wooden doors off of it. At the end are stairs
down. These leads to a large domed cavern where there is a town
square. There are shops selling edible mushrooms, wood-like
items made from some sort of large mushrooms stalks, and carved
art items made of the same. They are also selling steeders, the
medium sized spiders that are used as small pack animals and mounts
for halflings or gnomes. There are also gear for steeders, harnesses,
saddles, saddle bags, etc. There is meat from giant snails, and
the giant snail shells are used in the art too. The merchants
speak common, but many of the others do not. Their are a number
of goblin slaves performing menial tasks. Yumi trades her Alpha
Blue t-shirt and 200 GP for a steeder and some saddle bags. They
are fascinated by the manufactured fabric of the shirt.

There is much silver, gold and many gems as incidental decorations.
This seems to agree with the low value of such in the Underdark.

Eventually they are introduced to Urgan, the local Grey Dwarf leader.
He tells them that Eryx used to be theirs. They are the ones who
bricked up the passage to the inner sanctum of Eryx as there is
bad, dangerous chaos magic there. No one should go to the
inner sanctum of Eryx. They developed the mine for
Nephilum. They were attacked by a group of surface dwellers
who used powerful magic to break through to the inner sanctum.
They came out armed with that chaos magic and drove the Grey
Dwarves from Eryx. Then they brought in more surface dwellers,
and set up the big market, which takes
place on Sundays. The Grey Dwarves participate, but burn to
redress the stain on their honor and retake the Nephilum mines
of Eryx. Urgan invites them to his home, but laments that today
is a holy day, the clerics are sweeping the town for purity, and
no alcohol can be consumed.

He takes them down another level where there is a large multi-level
gallery where there are many dwellings, like apartments, looking
out onto the gallery. His dwelling is a large one on the bottom
floor. There are some guards, and large troop of goblin slaves who
begin preparing dinner for the guests. There is a variety of food,
lots of unusual mushrooms and snail meat, but as is becoming familar
it is rather bland. Urgan tells them that salt is common in the Underdark,
other flavorings and spices are rare and valuable, mainly coming
from contacts with the surface such as Eryx.

They decide to join forces and attack Eryx. There are some
loud gongs, which signals the end of the day, and Urgan
calls for Mushroom Ale, which is enjoyed by all, but not
to excess. The warleader Azthen turns up, and says
that the Purity day went well, only Joe and Charlie
were taken. Urgan and Azthen take them to what can only
be called a barn on the first level. They tell them that
the problem of Eryx is that there is a fortification guarding
its connection with the Underdark. There is a fork,
one side leading to the Haunted Caves, filled with traps
and undead, that then dump out into the heavily guarded
entrance way. This is clearly what the party came through.
The other way leads to a fortified block house where there
are loop holes for cross bow fire. They have a plan to deal
with this. Within the barn is something that the Grey
Dwarves call a "Tank". It looks like a spider crossed
with a World War I era tank made of black cast iron.
It looks to be inert, but is standing on a set of legs, that
seems clearly designed for movement. Urgan tells them they
have designed this thing to break through the blockhouse
at Eryx. After hearing that the party has taken out
what he guesses to be 25% of the Eryxian fighters, this
is a great opportunity to re-take.

Minus gives Urgan his purple, crstal knife that he got on
Alpha Blue. Urgan is fascinated as it is so light
and strong, yet seems to hold an impossibly sharp edge.
Gerag gives him a Space Dwarven steam rifle, demonstrating
its usage, and explaining that at some point the steam
generating ball will no longer be able to power the

They call it an early night, and rest comfortably in
Urgan's large home with their needs attended by
the goblin slaves.

26 May Thursday
Venus/Khurn Falder

They return to the barn with a Grey Dwarf soldier called
Thonar, who can speak common, acting as their minder.
He leads them to the barn where they see The Tank being
loaded onto a large cart. Also on the cart is cage
with a Grey Dwarf in his underwear. Also two large
glass bottles of red liquid are placed on the cart.
Gerag tries to stay as far as possible from the
bottles as possible.

A troop of about 25 heavily armed and armored Grey
Dwarf soldiers arrive for the trip to Eryx. There
are many goblin slaves, each Dwarf seems to have one
who fetches, carries, and takes care of their steeder
on which their gear is loded. There is a large bunch
of steeders who are pulling the cart, and some goblin
drovers. The dwarves are boisterious and excited, but
then the Priest Yerlak arrives, leading to silence.
He is dressed all in black, with some red accents, and
his face covered by a hideous mask with many horns.
He sits on the cart, and the battle group lurches
forward.

The journey back to the Inn of the Flaming Pool goes faster
than their journey the other way, despite being up hill,
as the Grey Dwarves seem to know the route well. They
get there around lunch time, stop to feed and water the
steeders, and take a brief lunch. The Shortwicks are
gawping at the spectacle.

To get up the ramp to Eryx it takes all hands, including
the party to drag the heavily laden cart up to the top.
Just beyond the top of the ramp the Tank is taken off the
cart. One of the bottles of red liquid is poured into
the Tank, the cage is taken down and put next to Tank,
and the Priest begins chanting. The dwarf in the cage
is pleading for mercy, the priest stops, and speaks to
some of the others. Two goblin slaves are grabbed and
tossed into the cage. The Priest begins again, there
is flash of red light, all in the cage crumble to dust,
and the Tank rises on its legs and begins to lurch
forward. The Priest, in a trance, is lifted
onto a sort of perch at the back of the Tank, and the Tank
begins to skitter its way down the cave towards Eryx.

The dwarves armor up, and take off after the Tank led by
Azthen. Thonar leads the party behind the Dwarves.
Shortly the Tank gets into the caves of Eryx, rounding a
corner at a T-intersection, the party recognizes this as
where they entered the Underdark, and heads towards the
blockhouse. This is a constructed wall across the cave,
with a large gate, closed, and a number of firing points
on either side. Cross bow bolts fire out of the blockhouse,
but bounce harmlessly off the Tank. The Tank moves up to
the Blockhouse, sticks a long pipe from its front into
one of the firing points, there is the smell of burning
flesh, and the sound of screams within.

The Tank then batters down the gate. Within is the burned
body of a lizardman. Across the room is another gate, which
is burned and charred. The Tank easily smashes through this,
continues forward, passes a narrow corrider leading to the right,
and then turns right down a wide corridor with a mine cart
track running down the middle. To the left the
mine shaft turns to the right splitting into a number of
traverses leading into the mountain. Two dwarves go out in front
as the Tank begins moving down the corridor towards the
heart of Eryx. The others led by Azthen are formed up behind
the Tank. The party is bringing up the rear.

As the Tank makes its way down the corridor. A rumbling
sound is heard from ahead. A large, dark shape, glowing orange
from within, is moving quickly down the corridor towards
the Tank. The dwarves are shouting, and Thonar turns to
the party, shouting, "Run!”

6 May Thursday Continued
Venus/Eryx

The party hastily runs back to where the mine tunnel joins the
others. They see the Grey Dwarves orderly retreat, but one of
the two scouts trips as he gets tangled up within the legs of
the tanks. They see a mine cart slam into the tank, and flip
over spilling burning liquid around and over the tank. They
hear the screams of the unfortunate Grey Dwarf scout, and smell
burning flesh.

As the fire burns out and the smoke clears,
>>>>>>>>
they hear the War Leader Azthen shouting at the Dwarves. Thonar
translates, "Come on you apes! After me! Do you want to live
forever!" Azthen is leading them around the burned out
tank, and down the tunnel. Charging at them is a troop of
Steeder riding halflings backed up by a squad of lizardmen.
They clash in the tunnel with the Dwarves getting the best
of the fight.

Gerag climbs up on the burned out tank. He can see the
dead, burned body of the priest, and notes that the
defenders of Eryx seem to be falling after one blow.
He thinks they are playing dead, but he approaches and
they beg for mercy, saying that they want to be
left in peace. Azthen is struggling with an Elf,
evidently Wellfast, the leader of the Outer part of
Eryx. They note that he looks strange, with one
side of his head swollen and oversize. During his
fight with Azthen he spits out what looks like a
small green snake, which burrows under Azthen's
skin.

Wellfast takes the opportunity of Azthen falling to
the ground writhing in pain, to break off and retreat.
The other defenders throw down their weapons and beg
for mercy. Looking at Azthen they can see what seems
to be creatures moving beneath the surface of his skin.
The Dwarves dispatch one of their number to go back
and get a jug of Spider Fire. Thonar steps forward,
calls on the power of the Great Smith, and casts
a Lesser Restoration on Azthen. Azthen writhes and vomits
up some black and green stuff, and then falls asleep.

Wulfgar steps up and leads the milling Dwarves forward
down the tunnel. They find a pen of goblin slaves,
and Wulfgar tells the halfling and lizardmen to release
the goblins. He tells the goblins to clean up the mess
and get some food going. They are trying to pursue the
fleeing Wellfast, and one of the lizardmen says that
he might have retreated to his quarters.

They lead the party into the market hall, and on the top
level into a door on the far side. Within there is a set
of paintings on the wall and an easel with a half finished
painting. There is a considerable amount of dust covering
the unfinished painting. They decide that perhaps Wellfast
fled to the Inner Sanctum of Eryx. They are led to the
lower level of the Market. There they see one corridor
guarded by a pair of young halflings. The two youths,
who are visibly terrified, tell them that Wellfast did
flee through here, and did head towards the Inner Sanctum.

They are led from the market place through some work areas
for Nephilum and then down a corrider that leads to a guard
post. There is a heavy door, with a metal bar that is
lying on the floor. The lizard man tells them that through
the door and to the right is the Inner Sanctum and that
nothing in the world will make him go down there. All
who go in return touched by chaos.

The party minus Wulfgar plus Thonar and six Grey
Dwarves will head into the Inner Sanctum. They notice
that Vamear has gone missing, and no one can recall
when they last saw him. Wulfgar would like to remain
here, restore the worship of the Great Smith, resist
the Worm Priests who oppress the Grey Dwarves, and
work the Nephilum mine.

Passing through the barred door they enter into a
wide corridor. It is clearly a continuation of the
entrance way which was bricked up. To the left they see
a similar bricked up wall blocking the passage.
The passage continues deep into the mountain on the
right. They follow it a long way, about 1/2 mile,
where they start seeing natural caverns branching off
to both sides. They see some signs of someone having
passed recently and they follow them to the right.
The passages are twisty and irregular. They lose
the trail, find a cavern that is free from dirt
and dust, and then find a creature that is all eyes
and mouths which paralyzes one of the Grey Dwarves.
They manage to kill the creature. In the next
cavern they find some sort of creature hiding beneath
a pile of debris which is salted with coins. It has
tentacles with fang filled mouths at the end, and it
uses a weapon and wand within the debris. Gerag
scores a big blow on the creature, cutting off one
of the tentacles, and the others pepper it with
missle fire, until it seems to withdraw under the
earth. It has paralyzed another party member.
(Who? I do not have it in my notes and cannot
remember!)

26 May Thursday Continued
Venus/Eryx

Digging among the mess Gerag finds a two-handed sword, a wand, and
a large emerald. The creature was welding the wand and the
sword. The emerald is oblong with one end cut into an intricate
pattern, while the other end is raw and unworked. Minus is able
to read the magic word on the wand, written in Dwarf runes, which
when spoken would activate the wand. Thonar notes there are many
coins within the pile, is a bit surprised that the others don't
seem to care, and with only a little effort gathers up 600 GP
of gold and silver coins. One exit heads back towards the main
tunnel, but gets very narrow. It is unlikely that any one went
this direction.

Ekkie uses her drone to spy ahead and sees a cavern filled with
all sorts of mushrooms. Horat recognizes some as Darkscape
Mushrooms which are known to have good effects at warding off
the effects of chaos. He gathers what he thinks might be 3-4
doses. He knows if processed it could be more effective, but
he does not know how to do it.

The party notices some strange time distortion effects (people
moving fast, people stuck in place, people disappearing and
reappearing).

The mushroom filled cavern continues back towards the main
passage and gets very narrow. There is no sign that any one
recently passed through it.

They head back to the room with the great crevasse in it. They
hear a loud chittering noise coming from the crevasse which
frightens them. Ekkie again uses the drone to look down into
the crevasse and sees a monstrous spider hiding below the lip of
the crevasse amid the innumerable smaller insects that cover
the crack.

They work up the courage to cross the room to the far tunnel. Ekkie
brings up the rear and she drops a glue trap between the exit
tunnel and the crevasse. She sees the spider begin to rise out of
the crevasse, and dip one claw into the glue, and draw back. She
feels a malevolent and intelligent presence as the eight eyes
of the spider stare at her as she follows the party down the
tunnel.

They see a dim light up ahead. They find two Grey Dwarves
huddled around a fire roasting a large insect. One is badly
hurt with a mangled leg. The two tell
them that they are the last remaining Grey Dwarves captured
by Wellfast and his cohorts when they took over Eryx. He forced
them into these caverns to harvest Darkscape Mushrooms. They
encountered one of those mouth/eye things which killed some
of their bretheren. They managed to run away, encountered some
Dark Spawn, things that dead yet remain alive, and have been
surviving here on insects and mushrooms while they try to
recover. They have 9 doses of Darkscape mushrooms. Wellfast
passed through about an hour ago.

The party decides to detail two of their Grey Dwarves to escort
these two back to the Outer Sanctuary, but take their Darkscape.

They head forward and get to a worked room. Curtaining the
exit is a mass of body parts with the torso of beautiful elf
sticking out and begging for help to release her from the
clutches of this horrible creature. As they approach cautiously
it begins slinging spells at them, magic missiles, a very damaging
lightening bolt, and a roving ball of fire. The party pulls out
their various missile wepons (rail guns, laser rifles, mortar bombs,
etc.) and tear away at the horrible creature. It tries to bargain
with them, but they will have none of it and finish it off.
They expend some healing magic, but one of the Grey Dwarves
is badly injured. They see more worked chambers beyond and
suffer another time anomaly.

26 May Thursday Continued
Venus/Eryx

Thonar tries to convince one of Grey Dwarves to swap
weapons with him, as his war hammer was damaged fighting
the living wall, and for the Dwarf to report back
on their progress. The Dwarf refuses, saying that it is far
too dangerous to go back on his own. Thonar uses
his Mend Cantrip to fix his weapon.

They see the strangeness in the next room with pod
like things and see a smear of
blue goo flowing towards an obviously damaged and
holed wall. Minus takes a small taste of the goo,
feels very bad,
retches, and throws up. Horat uses his Tricorder on it
and finds that it is like sap, but matches nothing he
knows.

They decide to hole up for a long rest to recharge and heal.
They post watches, and Ekkie sets up some warning traps.
The night passes uneventfully.

27 May Friday

They press deeper into the inner sanctum and encounter
a strange thing that looks like a cross between an
insect and worm. Gerag manages to knock it out
with a stunning blow and they hack it to pieces.
They note that within it there were brains.

They pass through partially ruined, once magnificent
domed room that leads to a long corridor. Along the
corridor are niches that clearly once held statues.
They pass an amazing sculpture of a thunder cloud made
out of some stone that they cannot identify.

As they move up the corridor they see what looks to be
six snakes floating in the air and they suddenly dart
forward and attack with fang lined mouths. Three attack
Gerag and three attack Thonar. They latch on and they
both feel as if they are being pulled in a direction
they cannot comprehend. The others attack the snakes
noting that their far ends do not end, but seem to
fade away. Minus and Lidzira throw a Hypnotic Pattern,
after a couple of failures, and the "snakes" go limp.
Gerag tears his off, causing some damage to himself,
and the rest continue to attack the limp "snakes".
Eventually they kill the creature, which materializes
and crashes down to the floor of the corridor. The
six "snakes" were actually tentacles that surrounded
a tooth filled maw. Apparently they were being pulled
into it. The creature was large enough that it could
have swallowed them whole. They have never seen anything
like this horror. Minus gathers some of the long fangs
from the maw.

They press on up the corridor.

27 May Friday Continued
Venus/Eryx

They explore further up the corridor and come to the four way
intersection which is filled with long, silver grass which
eerily sways in unison. They note that to the left the corridor
ends abruptly in a rock fall. They can tell that this is the
main, wide corridor which would lead straight back to
the main entrance. In front the grass grows thicker and
taller eventually filling the corridor. They turn to
the right. The two dwarves who accompany them are
named Lobster and Crab.

Wellfast jumps out to ambush them. He spits one of his
chaos worms on Thonar and quick action by him and Lidzira
lead to it getting smashed before it can burrow into his
skin. They note that Wellfast's head is mishapen
and they can see the chaos worms moving beneath his
skin. He seems to be alone and backs into a corner
to fight them. Gerag first tries to tackle Wellfast,
bounces off, but then delivers a stunning blow.
Horat gathers Wellfast's ring which they identify as
being protective. They bumble as they back away, frightened
by the worms moving beneath Wellfast's skin, and he
rises saying "My master has ordered me to retake the
outer sanctuary." He hits Thonar with his axe,
but Horat fells him with shot from his Lightening
Gun. He is a smoking ruin.

The head up the short corridor to large double doors
and bash their way in. Their are a bunch of Grey Dwarves
engaged in domestic activities, washing clothes and
cooking, and after some confusion and hesitation
a real fight breaks out. Of the ten dwarves, who
are unarmored, and only armed with kitchen implements,
six of the dwarves lie dead. The remainder say
that the one door leads to storage. A quick look
reveals an empty room and then a room with a strange
plant growth on the back wall. A second door leads to
"the living quarters." A quick check reveals a long
corridor with some doors off of it. Gerag spikes
the door close. Finally a big set of double doors
leads to the Lab. The master, plus his ten or so
assistants are never to be disturbed when they are in
the Lab. The dwarves are restrained, and they
prepare to crash down the doors and enter the lab.

27 May 981 Continued
Venus/Eryx

The party arrays itself led by Gerag and breaks into the lab. They the see
a crowd of supporters, Madreus at his podium chanting, the walls lined with Nephelim,
strange creatures dimly seen and moving in the walls and a big ball floating
off the floor pulsing slowly. Around the ball are three pillars; one is red,
one is green, and one is blue. Besides Madreus the elf, they see a Grey Dwarf
who is clearly some sort of wizard,
5 Grey Dwarf soldiers, two big trolls, and three clearly undead things that
they guess to be ghouls.

Horat launches a lightning bolt which kills the Dwarf wizard, and hurts Madreus.
The pulsing of the gate begins to slow down and what they can see through it
begins to go dim. Yumi reads Madreus thoughts and can hear him panic and planning
to flee. As they pile into the room and mix it up with the supporters, Madreus
disappears. A long bloody fight begins, with the party having the upper hand.
Eventually they kill them all except for two of the Grey Dwarf soldiers who
are knocked out and tied up. Lidzira and Horat examine the book that
Madreus left behind on the pedestal.
It is clearly in some sort of code, and will take some time to decipher. They
notice two more crystals, matching the green one that Gerag has, that are
a red Ruby and a blue Saphire. They can clearly see that the gems are to be
inserted in receptors in the podium, and there is a black track ball. They
assume that this will activate the gate and point it, but they are not at
all clear on the details. Thonar and Minus loot the lab equipment, which
is clearly a wizards lab, on the tables. Ekkie loots the body of the
Dwarf Wizard gathering up a ring and a wand.

They begin to think about going into the living quarters and as they
are pulling out the spikes on the door, the door is smashed open by some
invisible force. They can see Madreus down at the end of the hall
preparing to cast a spell. Horat manages to hit him with his Stunning
Field before he can get his spell off. They rush to bind him.

They take off him a dagger made of a spiraling bone that comes
to a point, a pair of strange glasses, and a black wand with a
glass bulb on the end. When he comes to, they begin questioning
him. Apparently he had figured out that Eryx was built by the
Snake People in ancient times. From the notes of the Elves who
first explored Eryx, he realized it was a Gate capabable of
connecting to other worlds. He organized an expedition to
explore, fought through the Grey Dwarves who were holding
the outer sanctum. He and his friends got to
the Gate, and he managed to begin to learn its secrets. He sent his
friends to guard the Gate, while he began his great work
of understanding the Gate. He has spent many years studying
the incredible worlds that he has found at the other end of the
gate. Yes, there have been problems. Some of the dangerous things
from the other end of the gate have leaked into this world, but
it is but a small price to pay for the wealth of knowledge that
he has learned. If you fools could only understand, you would
not be standing in the way of my continued work.

Horat feeds him a Darkscape mushroom. He becomes violently
ill, and passes out. Thonar checks on him with Detect
Chaos and finds that he is very chaotic, and the bone
dagger is actually the horn of Unicorn and is very evil.
The party grows more disgusted as this goes on, Gerag
can take it no more, and kills Madreus with his sword. No one
moves to stop him.

Once he is dead the trussed up Grey Dwarves
begin to get agitated. Questioning them, they say that they feel
as if they have just woken from a very long nightmare. They were
members of the Eryxian community, recall Madreus and their friends
breaking through to the inner sanctum, which the Dwarves had bricked
off, and then returning weilding chaotic magic. They themselves
recall seeing Madreus wearing those glasses, and then falling into
a confused state. Everytime they seem to be coming out of it, they
would have another session with Madreus and his glasses. They seem
to remember early days of Madreus pointing the Great Gate at the worlds
of the Kylindo system (Mars, elsewhere on Venus, the Moon, Kylindo),
but then pointing at a strange place with horrible creatures such as
those the party encountered on the way in. Madreus then grew obsessed
with this place and kept the Gate pointed at this place for a very
long time.

The party debates what to do. Trying to get out via the Great Gate is
going to be very dangerous. Heading back out is likely to be
difficult, but at least they know the way back and can likely
avoid stumbling into horrible things. Minus expresses the view that
he does not want to remain undeground, would like to see the
sun, and taste an apple again. Thonar is also very interested in
getting to the surface, connecting with the greater community
of the Dwarves who worship the Great Smith, and get help liberating
his people from the Worm Priests. Horat and Gerag want to continue
their mission of transporting weapons to Free Mars, and going on
to see what is going on the Moon where the Dragon Empire is embroiled
in a spreading civil war.

They give some thought to how to cleanse/purify this area, but are
daunted by how large and bad it is. A check in the storage area
reveals that the alien plants there are withering. They begin to
prepare for the trip to the outer sanctum.



Here also is a time line of the party’s trip to Venus:

Thursday 19 May - Party arrives on Venus
Saturday 21 May - Closing of Venusian space, party coerced
into serving the Emperor, meet Vamear
Sunday 22 May - Party to Longbridge
Monday 23 May - Party's first incursion into Eryx, discover Nephilum
and the Great Underground Market
Tuesday 24 May - Party's second incursion into Eryx, hostile reaction,
exploring the Dead Caves, discover Vamear is more
than he seems, to the Inn of The Flaming Pool
Wednesday 25 May - Travel to the Grey Dwarf town of Khurn Falder,
plan to liberate Eryx with the Grey Dwarves
Thursday 26 May - Assault on Eryx, Vamear disappears, Wellfast
excapes, meet Thonar, Wulfgar to hold Eryx,
party to the Inner Sanctum, rest in the Twisted
Caverns
Friday 27 May - Deeper into the Inner Sanctum, encounter alien life,
kill Wellfast, close the Great Gate, kill Madreus

27 May Friday Continued
Venus/Eryx

They decide to rest the night before making their way back out to
outer sanctum. Ekkie tells them to save a body to feed the giant
spider on the way out. Otherwise their route seems pretty straight
forward with no obvious source of trouble. There is some discussion
as they think they will be creating a spider with a taste for
sophonts. They also note they are headed back to space and the
spider could have a space ship and hunt them down. Ekkie points
out that it might be dangerous as there are still terrible things
here, pointing to ghouls and the trolls.

The servant dwarves immediately being preparing for the party
to stay. They gather blankets and pillows for beds, and cook
up a meal. One of them, Jasper, takes a liking to Minus and
Lidzira and plans to accompany them out into the outside world.
Minus checks out the store room and finds nothing spectacular,
but valuable food stuffs in the underdark. He gathers up some
stuff to trade when they get back to the Great Underground
Market. Gerag spikes all the doors closed. Minus needs a night
light.

28 May Saturday
Venus/Eryx

They make their way out with two Grey Dwarves who went in with
them (Lobster and Crab), two Grey Dwarf ex-guards of Madreus,
and three Grey Dwarf servants (one is Jasper). They note
that the field of strange white grass is withering and no
longer creepily rippling in unison. The weird pods are split
open and blue goo is drying up and turning black. They get
to the natural caverns. At the crevasse they note that the
glue trap has been neutralized by being covered by the bodies
and shed skin of countless insects. Gerag throws a body to
far edge of the crevasse, and they run trough the cavern.
Ekkie looks back and see the claws of the spider gathering
up the body. She still feels frightened as the spider
disappears from view.

They get through the caverns and head down the long wide
corridor back towards the outer sanctum. Along the way they
see two lizardmen running towards them. They are dressed
in the tattered regalia of Worm Priests, and looked battered.
They kill the two easily, and prepare for more. After waiting
a bit, none come and they continue their journey. Thonar
gathers up a very fine war hammer from them.

They get to the guard post at the end of the long corridor, and
find it manned by some Grey Dwarves who recognize Thonar. They
tell them the worm priests were hiding in some secret chamber,
tried to break out when they were busy with the great market,
and some how got to the tunnel to the inner sanctum. The Market
is going on now. They make their way up and find Wulfgar.
He and Grey Dwarf War Leader Azthen are in control here. They
sent some messengers back to the Grey Dwarf town to tell them
they have taken over Eryx, and to turn up for the Market.
Once the Grey Dwarf traders arrived, they too are joining
the rebellion versus the Worm Priests.

They tell Wulfgar that the horror in the inner sanctum has
been defeated, but that it is still dangerous. They suggest
barring the door and not letting any one go in.

Wulgar shows them the note that he found when he went back
to the Skiff, which was parked in the entrance way:

"Wellfast imprisons us. Some horror from the Inner
Sanctum has taken him over. Please come, save us,
and our families. Please bring more apples and grapes.
We only want to live in peace."

He has learned that they were afraid of Wellfast as he
could spit those horrible worms and turn them into chaos
creatures. Wellfast was aligned with Worm cultists among
the lizards, who they rooted out, and some how fled to
the Inner Sanctum. Wulfgar plans to stay here and lead
the rebellion against the Worm Cult, run Eryx including the
Great Market and Nephilum mine and forge, and hopefully
establish trade relations with the Elves on the surface.
His most difficult problem is liberating the Goblins.
Not only are the others having trouble treating them
as free, but also the goblins seemed inclined to serve.
It is still a work in progress.

They ask after Vamear, but Wulfgar and his friends did not
see him. They surmise that he escaped to the surface during
the confusion of the attack on Eryx, which was two days
ago.

They go shopping at the Great Market. Horat gathers up some
Nephilum rods and plates, Yumi gathers some Underbean Paste,
Gerag gathers mushrooms and spices, Minus trades the food stuffs
he liberated from the Inner Sanctum for 2 Cave Flower Molds
(Healing Potions) and a Spider Web Bandage (First Aid). Thonar
gets his fortune told:

"Heaven and Earth move away from each other. In the ensuing void,
the small invade where the great have departed. There is no
common meeting ground, so the Superior Person must fall back
on his inner worth and decline the rewards offered by the
inferior invaders.

Difficult trials as you hold to your course."

Minus buys some Nephilum based armor. He gets a shield (+2 to AC)
that is clear. Minus talks with the Drow who traded for the healing
stuff, Belenow, who advises him that his knife is from a Unicorn
and the Elves on the surface would be very unhappy with him if they
found him with such a thing. It is likely to be cursed in some way, and he should
try to hide it. Belenow directs him to a dealer who sells a scabbard
lined with lead that will hide the magical aura of the weapon. Minus
does so and thanks Belenow by giving him two poison sacs he took off
of giant bees that attacked them back on Kylindo in the labyrinth
leading to the great cavern below Marnor. Belenow tells Minus
that there are Worm Priests in the Drow world too and they are
struggling with the followers of the Spider God.

The party decides they should go out to Longbridge this evening,
and part ways with Wulfgar. All the Grey Dwarves, besides Jasper
and Thonar will remain here, joining Wulfgar in the struggle
against the Worm Gods.

They head out, it early evening and beginning to grow dark. They
head towards the Inn, and find the village very quiet. Ekkie
scouts around and note there seems to be no activity, but the
Inn is open. They head in and learn of Elvish attack on the
Dwarven colonies on Mars:

Front Page News in The Absolute Story
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Halkintalrik and C'thalgran Welcome To The Empire

Emperor Idrinian is pleased to welcome the people of Halkintalrik and C'thalgran
on Mars to the Empire. The Emperor has sent them the following message of
congratulations, "I am pleased to welcome you to our Empire. While
the circumstances are less than ideal, going forward you will know the
reward of being part of our Great Work.

It may be that our future may lay upon us more than one stern test. Our
past will have taught us how to meet it unshaken. For the present, the
work to which we are all equally bound is to arrive at a reasoned
tranquillity within our borders; to regain prosperity without self-seeking;
and to carry with us those whom the burden of past years has disheartened
or overborne.

My life's aim has been to serve as I might, towards those ends. Your loyalty,
your confidence in me will be my abundant reward.

I speak now from my home and from my heart to all of my subjects. To all so cut
off by the snows, the desert, the sea, of the vastness of space that only voices
out of the air can reach them; to those cut off from fuller life by blindness,
sickness, or infirmity; and to those who are celebrating this day with their,
families, children and grand-children. We all extend our welcome to you."

The "circumstances less than ideal" of which the Emperor speaks were
further elaborated upon by Fafir Traler, the Imperial Chief Herald,
who spoke of a space born incursion of these two former Dwarven colonies
on Mars. He released a list of awards and honors, which appears
on page 2, and a casualty list which appears on page 4.

Further analysis appears on our editorial page where we commend
the Emperor for making the most of the confused situation caused
by the Dragon Empire Civil War.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
People in the town are very concerned as the local militia was
called up and marched off over a week ago. Although no one
from the town is among the dead, they are afraid what might
happen next. Vamear reappeared Friday morning, same time as the
attack on Erys, and immediately left for the capitol. They
are not going to be able to catch him even in the Skiff, and
decide to stay the night before heading to the capitol first
thing tomorrow. They send a message via fast halfling courier
service to the Martians and Dragons warning them that Vamear
might be causing trouble for them.

They cautiously spend the night at the Inn, but there is no
trouble.

29 May Sunday

They load up the Skiff and head to Carmenta. Thonar marvels
at the fields of Liftwood Trees and Spider Silk Worm bushes
and the large numbers of halflings and lizardmen toiling
in the fields.

They head straight
to the space port, and ushered into a meeting with a Customs
Official called Myril. He asks them about what they might
be exporting and what they found in Eryx. His questions seem
a bit too probing for a Customs Official, he is curious that
there seems to be an extra dwarf and quite interested
that Eryx may be short of food. Horat uses the Glasses of
Madreus to steal his will. They grab and destroy his notes, but
Ekkie writes some benign entries, grapes, apples, underbean paste,
etc. and have him sign his name to an exit visa for all. They hurry
to the Martian Ether battleship, The Reviler,
and the Wyvern train. Their friends there share with them another
view of the recent events on Mars:

Saturday 27 May
Front Page News Story in the Chronicle of Really Exciting Events on Mars
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elven Empire Announces Addition of Halkintalrik and C'thalgran to its Territory

Fafir Traler, spokesperson for the Elven Empire, announced in the
name of the Emperor that the Martian city states of Halkintalrik and C'thalgran
have joined the Elven Empire. The circumstances are unclear, but
Halkintalrik and C'thalgran had been Dwarven colonies, and this
news is perhaps a consequence of the major Dwarven defeat at the
Battle of the Cloud last week. There was no comment from
Dwarven authorities.

Prince Korfax of Kirtal denounced this as a move of naked
aggression by the Elves. "Thus the off worlders show their
true face. When there is weakness, they do not offer a
helping hand, but rather they seek to take and oppress.
Now in this time of uncertainty is the moment for all
Martians to unite and throw off the chains of off worlder
oppression. Free Mars."
---------------------------------------------------------

They also say that the Elves discovered the cache of Dwarven
steam weapons on the Reviler and confiscated most of it.
On the good news front, the Elves did open Venusian space
today, and they are preparing to continue on to Mars.

The party wants to leave "right now" and after a short
amount of dithering, the Reviler and the Wyvern train
lift off and continue their journey to Mars. They
are headed for Kirtal, the most vibrant of Free Martian
cities, and the home of Horat. The journey should take
a day of space travel.

27 May Friday Continued
Venus to Mars

As they leave Venus they notice that Minus cannot
abide the darkness of space.

Horat and Lidzira work on cracking the code of the Book of
Madreus. They make some progress
on the code. They get the impression that the first
part of the book is on the study of Gates between Worlds
while the second part is on the study of the very strange
and chaotic creatures like those they observed in the
inner sanctum of Eryx. They will keep at it when they
have free time. Horat takes the precaution of taking
the Darkscape mushrooms and making a tea out of it
that he drinks while studying the book.

Yumi checks on Stahleno. She powers up OK and seems
fine. She was undisturbed while they were on Venus.

Thonar and Gerag talk about what the party is up
to. Gerag tells Thonar that they accidentally got
transported to the outer part of the system and
have been trying to make their way back to Kylindo.
Some (Ekkie and Minus) seem to be interested in
exploring on the way back, while he is more focused
on just getting back home. Two of their original
party dediced to remain in the Confederation of
Asteroid States with Sansa, a fairy worshipping
elf, becoming the ruler of Port Greely/Thanarath
and Sal, a artifact hunter, stayed behind on Bral/Zoothique.
Wulfgar decided to stay on Venus to rule Eryx and lead
the rebellion versus the Worm Cult.
He likens their journey back as being like a stick being
carried by a swift flowing stream. Gerag tells him that
there are great kingdoms of Dwarves on Kylindo that
worship the Great Smith. At the moment they are
escorting the Star Farer Vaporator to the Moon/Selene.
They found it on a Star Farer derelict vessel, it was
purchased by a Dwarf Mining Mogul on Bral, and then
rented it to the White Dragons who want to use it on
the Moon. Watching over the Vaporator is the Dwarf
known as Storm, and White Dragonspawn Crockett. They
have mentioned to the party that they are happy to
see the Vaporator fall into the hands of the forces
seeking to throw off the yoke of the Dragon Empire.
They expect that will happen on Mars and the Vaporator
will be taken by the Free Martians.

28 May Saturday
Kirtal/Mars

They approach the city state of Kirtal which is part of
Free Mars. It is located within the Western Uplands
and they note the giant volcano which is similar to one
on Venus. Is there any connection?

Kirtal is a series of vertical cities, known as the Hanging
Cities of Mars, clinging to the sides of steep valleys. They
are told that as Mars went dry over the last hundreds of years
the cities were moved out of the valley bottoms to give them
over to argiculture. The oceans dried up and filled with
fine silt, and silt ships were built which skim over the silt
propelled by the dry, desert wins. The former land is now
rocky desert with only a few wet areas maintained by a canal
system fed by melt from the polar caps.

Upon arrival the Reviler is unloaded. They managed to keep
some of the Dwarven Steam weapons from the Elves, but
it is disappointing that they will not have enough to
equip a Free Martian army.

They accompany Horat to see his mentor Rastia. She is
a leader of Martian science and has gone beyond simply
making use of ancient Martian technology. She is not
only expert at repairing the old stuff, but she is beginning
to learn how to make new things. The Reviler is one of her
creations. In talking with Rastia and the many students
that work in her underground lab, The Institute, they learn
that there is a big problem. The devices and weapons are powered by
the Green Crystals, the party has some that they found when they
first got to the Ring of Smoke and they power the Skiff
and some of their weapons, and there are not nearly enough
of them. They are desperate for more of them.

Thus while Kirtal has produced a large number of space
ships, like the Reviler but most are smaller, they
cannot deploy a fleet to challenge the Dragon Empire,
Elves, Dwarves, etc. who have colonized Mars.

The big news here is that the son of Prince Krofax, Eyrean,
has apparently gone missing. He led an expedition into
the deep desert to retrieve a flying ship located
in a green gem mine. This story was thought to be mythical
but a rival/colleague of Rastia's Vol Kovtu convinced
Eyrean that it was real. Without his father's
knowledge Eyrean led an expedition into the desert
about a month ago.

Just recently one of the members
of the expedition, Bardolph, has returned. He is
quite insane and seems to indicate that Eyrean's
expedition found the green gem mine and the flying ship,
but also found an entrance to the Martian underworld.
They went below, became lost, and found many horrible
things. He rants about the Nullites and the Cult
of Null, and provides a confusing map indicating the
progress of Eyrean's expedition. He was separated
from the rest during a battle, and managed to make
his way back to the surface. He was found wandering
the desert.

Rastia asks the party to try to find Eyrean.
Not only can they find a source of green gems,
a flying ship, the Martian Underworld, but also
Eyrean who is a great war leader and can lead the
forces of Free Mars in the coming struggle. Success
could be the key to free Mars.

She thinks that Vol Kovtu knows more about what
Eyrean was looking for than he has revealed. She
has convinced Prince Krofax to order Vol Kovtu
to accompany the expedition.

The party agrees to undertake the search for Eyrean.

Thonar talks with Rastia about some mysterious
items that he found in Eryx. She has an analyzer
and The Ring and Warhammer are put in for analysis.
She notes that these things have some sort of
strange Obfuscator Effect which makes it hard
to read their actual power.
She finds this fascinating and would like to
study this Obfuscating Effect further. Thonar
leaves the items with her and as they leave
they see her bent over her work table, scribbling
in what seems to be the latest in a set of hundreds
of note books.

The party then visits with Horat's school friends
at the Institutes Guest House, aka a dorm,
hearing their wild tales of hijinks and dining
on roasted giant grasshopper. Yumi takes
her pleasures with two of the nerds, Arkas and Dahrkon,
and learns from them that the Martian Tech is prone to failure.
They spend a great deal of their time repairing
Rastia's creations. They are less than enthusiastic
about a war to Free Mars as they realize they will
have to be on the front lines to keep the ships
and weapons working. After a night with Yumi, they
pledge their undying love to her.

29 May Sunday
Kirtal, Mars

In the morning, Rastia returns The Ring and Warhammer
to Thonar. She has discovered that The Ring is a
powerful protector (AC +2, +2 to Saving Throws), but
she still does not know what the Warhammer is. The
Obfuscation Effect is fascinating. Horat tries
with his Tricorder and confirms what Rastia has
observed.

They meet Vol Kovtu. He mumbles a bunch, and wears
a volumous robe and gloves. He tells them that he
chanced upon a desert prospector who had found
an amphora made of the green crystal. Upon
interogation the prospector told him that the
legend of the flying ship lost in the desert was
real, and the prospectors had found it at the
end of dried up water course that ended in the
village of Calencia. There is a mine for the
green crystals, the flying ship, and an entrance
to the Martian Underworld. He also seemed to
hint that there was something horrible in the mine,
and his expedition was wiped out with him being
the only survivor and the amphora being the
only item he retrieved. Vol Kovtu notes that
the prospector was "changed" without going into
detail.

Vol Kovtu told Empyrean who hastily set off with
his retinue realizing the importance of a green
gem mine. Vol Kovtu feels terrible about this
whole thing, is very sorry, and very much wants
to make amends by helping the party find the mine,
the flying ship, the Martian Underworld, and
hopefully Empyrean.

30 May 981
Kirtal to Calencia, Mars

They load their Skiff onto
a Silt Ship. When Mars became a desert the oceans
dried up and filled with fine sand. The Martians
built ships with skids and sails so that the desert
winds could propel them over the sand. The
Silt ship makes its way down the old coast from
Kirtal to the village of Calencia. They
arrive in the late afternoon. It seems to
have a few hundred inhabitants.

They note that Vol Kovtu quickly leaves the
ship and goes to Badbicca's Place, a hostel,
books a private room, and tells them he will
meet them tomorrow morning to head up the
dried water course.

The others scatter around the village.
Yumi and Thonar visit the Medicine Shop
run by Shaa, a middle aged woman and
her three young women assistants. They
purchase anti-venom for Giant Bee stings.
Yes there are Giant Bees in area, and the
sting can be fatal, but the anti-venom
is very effective. Yes, they remember
Eyrean's expedition, which came through
about a month ago. They too purchased
Bee Anti-Venom. Shaa tells Thonar of the
Oracle Inga Gooch who dispenses wisdom
and phrophecies. Two of Shaa's assistants,
Sori and Ninu, seem taken with Yumi and invite her to
join them at the Sleepy Lantern Tavern for
the evening. Yumi leaves with them,
while Thonar seeks out the Oracle.

At the Oracle, Thonar asks about his
prophecy that he got on Venus. She inscrutably
tells him, "One day you must decide betwixt
the life of an ally and riches to comfort your
life." and mentions that the proprietor of the
Sleepy Lantern Taan Cooti mistreats his employees
and will come to a bad end. The confused
Thonar heads off after Yumi.

There he finds that Yumi and her two young
friends have met Lefir Yiel, a handsome older
man, who makes silt
skiffs, small craft that carry one or two
at very high speeds over the silt seas. They
are popular here among the locals for traveling
the old coast line. This is apparently safer
than moving over the stony desert where besides
the giant bees, there are giant white carnivorous
apes. After a few drinks the four of them
head to Lefir's shop as Yumi is intrigued by
the silt skiffs.

Meanwhile Gerag and Ekkie walk around the perimeter
of the village. They note that there are two
big watch towers that clearly once overlooked
the bay on which the village once sat. They
seem to be manned and vigilent. They visit the
Blacksmith, Ulldir, and purchase some hunting
knives. He too tells them to beware of
the giant white apes, and that he sold much
to Eyrean's expedition a month ago.

They too end
up at the Sleepy Lantern finding Thonar having
over indulged and telling Taan Cooti that the
Oracle had bad things to say about him. "Why
would she do that, when you have such good beer?"
He replies, that time will tell who will come
to a bad end. They book rooms and escort Thonar
up to bed. They also hear that Eyrean's
expedition passed through here about a month
ago. They get the advice that they should take
as much water as they can carry if they are headed
into the desert.

Yumi discovers that Lefi Yiel is an incredible
artist. His Silt Skiffs are beautifully carved
and richly detailed. She purchases one of the larger
ones, which he will personalize for her in the
next week. It is quite expensive and no one can figure out
what Yumi will do with the large, heavy, awkward
wooden vessel. She spends the night with Lefi, Sori,
and Ninu.

31 May Monday
Mars/Calencia

Gerag goes to the General store, purchases several large
water skins, fills them at the town well, and joins
the others who are loading the Skiff for the journey
up the water course.

31 May Tuesday Continued
Mars/Desert near Calencia

They make their way back to the cave without incident.
Yumi has a strange conversation with Stahleno which
confuses and unnerves the others.
Stahleno begins an aerial patrol around the cave. They
occasionally see her swooping low over the mine entrance
in the distance.

While settling down in the cave Horat finds
a metal cylinder with a screw cap. Inside he
finds a journal telling a tale of madness and
death. It is written in archaic Martian.
It mentions the great god Thakos who
freed the writer and others from slavery. Thakos
tore the head off the Sorceror Xarthanos and led a
violent, deadly revolt by the former slaves of the
mine. The mine floods as no one runs the water wheel,
and madness sets in among the free slaves. Thakos
demands the return of the green crystals that they
had taken on their successful revolt, leading
to jealousy and death. Some return to the mine
growing sick, while the author flees to a
nearby cave. The author slits the throat of
his cousin who covets a green crystal they
horde. He witnesses a massive sand storm that
fills the water course, and a Viking raid on the
mine. In the struggle he sees the great ape
nearly bested by the Viking leader, but emerging
victorous in the end. He grows ill and descends
into madness. The last readable entry says, "The
Green Sun watches me. Never blinking,
always boiling." The party stares with
distressing comprehension at the crude drawings
on the wall of a winged ape and skeletal vikings.

Thonar begins some experiments on Vol Kovtu to see
how he reacts to the green crystals. Vol Kovtu
crudely offers to partner with Thonar to have
all the green crystals for themselves. Eventually
Thonar casts a major healing spell on Vol Kovtu.
It has big effect with Vol Kovtu breaking down,
and confessing his murderous behavior to gather
more green crystals.

It all started when he heard of a green crystal
amphora in Calencia which was found in the desert.
He visited to study the artifact, and revealed to
the villagers its great power and danger. He no
longer felt safe in the village and quickly
returned to Kirtal. He thinks they are hiding
the amphora in the village for some secret purpose
of their own.

From ancient records in Kirtal he guessed the
location of the mine. He organized an expedition to
the mine about two months ago. One feature
is that they avoided passing through Calencia, which
made it much more dangerous. It did not go well. They
found evidence of the mine, a few crystals, and encountered things
in the mine. At the top level there were out sized
insects, like the fire beetles they saw earlier. They
descended to the second level and were ambushed by those, he
indicates the crude drawings of the skeletal vikings
on the cave wall. His party of scientists,
lab technicians, and bearers were no match.
Most were killed by the vikings, and the survivors
fled into the desert. He became more obsessed with
selfish desire for the green crystals, and one night
cut open the remaining water skins and fled on the
surviving pack lizard. He presumed that the
survivors perished in the desert. Apparently not,
as the mad hermit was once one of his technicians.

Upon his return to Kirtal he realized the bad effect
the green crystals were having on him, and devised his
lead lined gear to protect him from the green crystals
terrible effects. He was still obsessed, but not
incoherent and murderous. He spoke to Prince
Eyrean about the green crystal mine and what its discovery
could mean for the cause of Free Mars. He hoped
that Eyrean would take him on a second expedition.
Instead Eyrean gathered his private guard and took
off suddenly and ill prepared, leaving Vol Kovtu behind.
He does not know anything about a flying ship or
a connection to the underworld, and has no clue
what happened to the Prince. When Bardolph, one
of Eyrean's guards, reappeared in the desert,
Vol Kovtu siezed on the opportunity to get
Prince Ferkiss to order Rastia to prepare a
mission of rescue and discovery. Rastia is
not really interested, and the arrival of
the party proved to be a perfect opportunity
to get back to the mine, which must be filled
with green crystals. He, of course, planned
to betray the party after they had found
the crystals.

Now he expresses regret, realizes that his
actions are beyond forgiving, and hopes that he can
help them find the green crystals and advance the cause of
Free Mars. It is his only hope for redemption.
They keep him hobbled and tied up.

They set watches over night, but are
undisturbed except by the sound of
the wind rushing through Stahleno's wings.

Wednesday 1 June
Mars/In the desert near Calencia

They head to the mine and prepare to go
below. They use the fire beetle glands
for light as they know without some way
to preserve them, they will burn out
in a few days. They descend on ropes
to the first level. Gerag leads the way and
finds a bunch of giant black centipedes who attack
from a ledge over looking the shaft down to
the next level. They easily defeat
the horrors.

They see clear evidence of a once working
mine. There are rails for a mine cart in
the floor. At the shaft they find the wrecked
remains of the windlass. Broken, rusted tools are
scattered about. They also see ventilation ducts
that clearly connect to the screen they saw not far
from the entrance way.

They cautiously descend to the second level
using ropes to get three down at once. They
note that the shafts have ladder rungs, but
they are thin and rusted. While fine for
the smaller members of the party, the ladder
is not trusted for the larger members.
Below the shaft they are attacked by crab spiders
lurking among the rocks. Again they defeat them
easily.

The second level is divided by a portculis. Horat is easily
able to open it with his magnet ring. Gerag
leads the way forward towards a shaft descending
to the third level when he sees six pairs of green,
glowing eyes hiding among the rough walls of
the chamber. They move to attack, heavily armored,
Skeletal Vikings welding long swords, but Gerag
is able to retreat behind the portculis, which Horat
quickly lowers. Thonar tries to Away them, but
they press forward. One is felled by their missle fire,
the others retreat and begin descending the shaft.
Horat raises the portculis, the party frantically
chases after them, but one moves forward to delay
them. It takes damage, retreats in good order,
and the five survivors escape below. Vol Kovtu
tells then that this is where his expedition was
ambushed leading to the few survivors to turn around.

The party grimly stares at the shaft leading
another 30-40 feet below. They realize that
these are not mindless undead, but something
else. The shaft is similar to the
other with an untrustworthy ladder. As before
they throw down two ropes and descend three at
a time. Gerag, Horat, and Thonar lead the way.
As they get to the floor below, four of the
Skeletal Vikings move to attack. Ekkie, Yumi,
and Minus descend to help, but their friends
are hemmed in by sword welding horrors. They
try to aid with missile weapons, but it is difficult
to aim and fire while clinging to a ladder
or dangling from a rope. Eventually Yumi leaps
to the ground to attack from behind. After a tough
fight, the horrors are dispatched. Thonar gathers
a gold shield covered with Norse Runes that one
of the Skeletal Vikings was using. The rest
of their weapons and gear is old and rusted.

The party sees the tracks for a mine cart descend
into the darkness of the third level.

Wednesday 1 June Continued
Mars/In the desert near Calencia

They fire off some healing and wait for Horat's Heal
to take effect. They note the snake themed doors which
clearly lead to some sort of shrine to Yig. They decide
to ignore this and continue down the mine following
the mine cart tracks. Horat detects lead, a number of
hits, down that way.

Horat sends his robot to scout ahead, and after a short
way the tunnel opens into a large cavern. Ahead is an
underground lake, to the left is block house structure
crudely built inside the cavern, and to the left is a
craggy wall with many nooks. In the middle of the cavern
making its way to the block house is a skeletal viking,
clearly badly damaged, moving slowly to the door
of the block house. Octo moves to strike at the skeletal
viking, and Gerag runs down the tunnel to finish
it off.

As Gerag enters the cavern more skeletal vikings
appear from among the crags and attack Octo and Gerag.
A long, bloody fight ensues with the key event being a Spiritual
Weapon from Thonar that is a special bonus success spawning
eight spectral war hammers that hammer away on seven skeletal
vikings. The others mainly hang back using their missle weapons.
A grey slime falls at the entrance of the cavern during the
midst of the fight dividing the party. It moves up the tunnel,
paralyzing Horat and beginning to engulf him, before it is killed.
During the course of the fight, Vol Kovtu begins to fall back
towards the shaft leading up to the second level. Gerag and
Ekkie notice, but Ekkie is too late to stop him. He screams,
"No one should have them!" and is consumed in an explosion that
leaves the shaft up and the entrance of the Shrine to Yg
choked with rubble.

When the dust settles the skeletal vikings are dead, Octo has been
battered into scrap, and the party does not know how to return
to the surface. They explore the cavern. They see the mine cart
tracks go beneath the surface of the lake, and end at a windless
sunken beneath the lake leading to a water filled shaft that goes
even deeper. Blind cave fish are easily seen swimming in the clear
waters of the lake. The walls of the cavern are covered in large,
pale green crystals. Between the block house and the lake one of
these large crystals has been carved into a 10 foot tall crude
likeness of a winged ape. Scattered around this are trinkets,
bones, skulls, teeth, mummified fingers, and some coins. Thonar
gathers the coins netting about 20 GP.





Accross from the block house is a gothic archway with iron doors.
thched into the archway in archaic Martian it says "HE WHO ENTERS THE
PRIVATE QUARTERS OF LORD KARSAS XARTHANOS WILL BE MADE TO SUFFER AN
UNSPEAKABLE CURSE." Xaranthos was mentioned in the diary they found
in the cave of the hermit/technician Vol Kovtu killed before
he was cured.

Hidden among the crystals is a tunnel heading back
towards the now blocked way out. It is narrower and goes about
20 feet before ending in a rusted iron door. The tunnel looks different
than the others, being round and Thonar recognizes it as the sort
of tunnel made by Underdark Worms, thought to be the spawn of the
Worm God and sacred to the worshippers of the hated Worm Cult.

The whole cavern is very warm and humid. The block house is notably
cooler, sweating with condensation. They can hear feint howls and
rattling within. They enter the block house. To either side of the
entrance are barred cells. Within one are skeletal vikings who upon
seeing the party beg to be released from their misery. The other holds
four hyena headed men, who look emasciated and bark and growl at the
party while rattling at the bars of their cage. Thonar preys over
the Vikings and uses his war hammer to smash their skulls, ending
their long misery of undeath. Horat releases the hyena men who
run howling and barking to the now blocked exit. Horat notes the
gnawed bones of what looks a fifth hyena man left behind in the cage.
They return dejectedly and begin trying to catch cave fish in the lake.
Horat shares with them some food, which calms and quiets them.
He then uses the Glasses of Madeus on them.

At this point the party notes a change in Horat's visage. His skin
has become colorless, grey, and wrinkled. They are alarmed and surround
him, asking him what is going on and while Horat tries to claim that
nothing is wrong, Gerag knocks him out. This seems to distress the
hyenamen, and it seems a fight is about to break out. Ekkie manages to
calm the hyenamen, while Horat is tied up and revived. He tells them
that he has been transforming for some time and is on his way to becoming
what is known as a Grey Martian. Gerag, Ekkie, and Minus are reminded
of Xort, the mysterious wizard who was helpful to them back in Marnor.
Was Xort a Grey Martian? How did he get to the Cylinder? What is
happening to Horat? Horat assures him that he is OK, but this is
something that happens when too much power is used in too short of
a time. He has not succombed to the forces of chaos. They buy
this, release him and continue their exploration of the block house.

There is a door at the end of the hall and Ekkie is able to open the
lock mechanism which is much like a combination lock. Within is
a laboratory. A partially disected hyenaman is on a examination
table, and there are many old, rusted instruments lying about.
Also there are many tongs and lead boxes of various sizes. There
are small shards of the larges crystals scattered about and pestals
and mortars clearly used to grind the crystals into powder.

An iron door leads out of the lab, and they have to wrench it open.
It leads to what was once clearly an office with an oversized
desk and rotted wooden chair. There is a painting of a martian in
archaic clothes. It is labeled KARSAS XARTHANOS, MASTER SORCERER.
Gerag notes that the cloak on the man in the painting is clasped with
a snake broach. The desk is covered with mouldering papers in
old martian. Horat is able to puzzle it out that the papers describe
the mining operation and the distillation of the large crystals
into the green crystals. The green crystals are dangerous and
should be stored in lead boxes and handled with tongs. This
part of the mine was apparently on the surface and is long
gone. The green crystals are needed to power a sky ship
which is stored in a hanger at the end of the purple worm
tunnels. The papers also mention the winged ape Thakos, who
was a sort of mascot for the mine, but seemed
to grow harder to control as time goes on. There is also
an iron key and a brass key.

The party decides to hole up here in the office to rest
and recover, before trying to find a way out. They heynamen
are left outside to warn of approaching dangers.