The afternoon of the 16th of Trivor, 1329:

Taryn of Korsth was a half-elf of moderate height, with a whip-cord lean body, long auborn hair tied back in a clip, and eyes the color of a stormy gray sea. He had been sent by his lord Korsth of the Dragon Nations to investigate ruins in a distant nation – ruins once thought to have been co-ruled by a dragon, or so the legends stated. The Dragon Nations were really fifty dragons that served nominally under one leader, and all the dragons were learning to cooperate with one another, and with the humans, elves, and even dwarves that called the region their home.

If the rumors of a long-dead nation once co-ruled by a dragon were true, then Taryn was instructed to find out how the dragon ruled, and bring that historical information back to the Dragon Nations. Taryn had also recently taken on the vestments of the God of Memories, and so the investigation into history would also serve the newfound church. In truth, there was no church, per se; Taryn was only the third priest to ever take the vestments of the God of Memories, whom was also known as the Dragon God.

Taryn had taken a Rakoran sailing vessel from the Dragon Nations, through the hostile Straights of Sloph and around the dangerous city of Kur Maeth, and on to the distant land of Rakore itself. There Taryn's map led him to book passage up the Galanus River, and on up to a small town known as Takanal. From there, Taryn's map led him directly to the ruins of Tymarell, the ancient city once co-ruled by a dragon.

War was evident in Rakore, though Taryn saw no direct fighting, himself. He spied a roc-hawke as large as a dragon on his sail up-river, and saw the signs of war in the land, but luckily escaped danger, himself.

The draw in the mountainside that led into the ruins of Tymarell was easy enough to find for Taryn, an outdoorsman all his life. The entrance to the sewers of Tymarell had been more difficult to find, but the half-elf finally found a vine-shrouded entrance into the sewers when a horse whickered softly.

Behind the camouflaging line of vines had been a horse still saddled, with its reins looped under a large stone. Nearby had been an open back of feed from which the horse was munching slowly, and the clear water of the sewer entrance indicated that no filfth or refuse from excrement had flown through the sewers in a long, long time.

The sewer entrance was a shaft seven feet on a side, with a sidewalk on either side that bordered a slight trench. The sewer main went back far into the darkness from where the horse was, but Taryn's half-elven eyes let him see considerably farther in the dark than a human could.

Once Taryn had gone back perhaps a hundred feet, the light began to grow too dim for even him, but a great distance further on, he saw a green light of some sort go around a corner and vanish. Thinking the green light perhaps the source of the horse, Taryn lit a candle of his own, and proceeded deeper into the tunnels, cautiously, and quietly.

* * *

Sammeth Knar held his dwarven torch up higher, trying to see down a side passage. The emerald-green light from the 'torch' never went out, and was achieved through some miracle of dwarven design that the man had never figured out.

At waist-level, many smaller branches in the sewers fanned out, all at right angles to one another, and all half the height of the ceiling – each only three-and-a-half feet on a side, square-cut, and receding into the darkness.

Sammeth had hated having to go around and bypass the tunnel filled with spiders' webbing, for it led him off of the map Tram had drawn for him, of the sewers of Tymarell. Fortunately, the sewers' designers need for absolutely straight lines let him feel secure that he could find his way back to the other end of the webbed-up part of the sewers.

As Sammeth held the torch up to yet another side-tunnel, he spied a corpse half-hanging in the green light. The corpse was little more than bone and sinew, its skin long-since gone. Crawling up into the side-tunnel and its cramped confines, Sammeth saw the the corpse was probably human, and it was held up by its arm, the limb buried up to the shoulder in a yet-smaller sewer feed-line.

Sammeth examined the corpse carefully, and moving the skull aside, peered into the tiny sewer line. The arm seemed to end at the base of the humerous, and it took Sammeth quite a bit of maneuvering to see that the forearm was much further down the tunnel. It was as though something had pulled the arm into the small sewer tunnel, and succeeded in ripping the limb off at the elbow.

Sammeth hastily backed out of the side-sewer, and got back into the main line. He had no want to meet whatever creature could have done that to a man. He flicked his torch's light over the skeletal remains one last time, and then moved on down the main.

* * *

Taryn peered about in the branching of the main. One ran forward, towards where he had seen the green light, but another led into an impressive maze of webbing. The half-elf was unfamiliar with the spiders that could have created such a huge bit of webbing, but something caught his attention. The bottom foot of the webbing had been ripped out, perhaps by fast-flowing water.

Taryn did not even consider crawling low beneath the webbing, while unseen things were above him in the webbing. He continued on, in search of the source of the green light.

* * *

Sammeth came upon a large pool with a vaulted ceiling, perhaps thirty feet across, and half that high. The sidewalks still continued from the mains, along the edges of the circular pool. Three other mains left the direction of the pool, all at ninety-degree angles to one another and the one Sammeth had come out of.

Sammeth cautiously skirted the edge of the pool, half-expecting something terrible to rise from the waters. His worst fear was of a shit-monster in the pool, but he put that fear aside – the waters were too fresh and clean for that.

The water in the pool slopped, as though the fist of a god had struck the mountain. Sammeth heard nothing, and watched the water cautiously.

Water began to drip from the vaulted ceiling. And then the water began to trickle out of a myriad of drain spouts in the ceiling, and in the roof over the mains.

It was raining, outside.

Sammeth hurried down the right-hand main, making his way back towards the main where the spiders had been.

* * *

Taryn saw the water erupting from the ceiling, and withdrew quickly, hurrying back the way he had come. He feared that the ceiling would collapse, or he had sprung some trap, and discretion lent his feet speed, though his heart was calm and his fear was not great.

The half-elf made it back to the mains intersection where he had first seen the webbing. Carefully shielding his candle from the water above, he peered deeply into webbing, hoping to see the water sluicing away the silk-like stuff, but to no avail.

He did, however, see an odd green glow turn a corner, and disappear.

Sammeth peered into the webbing from the other side of the mains, and shook his head. Eyes peered back at him from the depths of the tunnel, though rats or spiders he could not tell. He was, however, back on track to follow Tram's map. Sammeth kept his hood up, consulted the cloak-protected map once more, and then proceeded down a main and off into a side sewer.

Not far down the side sewer, he cut a left, and found a grate lying on the bottom of the sewers. Water poured down all around him from smaller sewer pipes, and water flowed down the side sewers into the mains – but from the top of the tunnel above the broken grate, there was only dryness.

There were rusted rungs sunken into the wall, and with Silverwing carefully mounted on his shoulder and the dwarven torch in his belt, Sammeth began to climb slowly up the tunnel, going straight up. Once, the rungs had rusted through so badly that he could only save himself by bracing himself in the small tunnel, his back against the wall. After that harrowing moment, he slowly began to ascend back up.

* * *

Taryn pulled a small rod not much larger than a bundle of quills from his belt, pressed a stud on the rod, and vaulted into the air. The rod held steady in mid-air, supported by nothing what-so-ever, and Taryn hooked his knee over the rod, while his hands braced him against the ceiling. Water poured down all around him, sluicing off of his cloak and into the water below.

The water in the sewers was rising, but slowly and calmly. Unfortunately, the rats were being herded by the water, and great heaping mass of them – hundreds, perhaps thousands of them – cut under the webbing in a horde and began to bore down on Taryn.

He watched from his perch as they cut across the intersection of the mains, apparently heading for a drier part of the massive sewers.

Once he felt reasonably satisified that they were gone, he dropped down, and pressed the stud on the rod again. The rod came free from its prison in mid-air, and Taryn slipped it into his belt.

Looking deep into the webbing, he made a decision. He put out his candle and put it in his wallet, and then drew his sword. Upon command it ignited in flame, its blade hissing where water hit. Upon command, his mail shirt ignited in flame, as well. His pack was unharmed, as were his clothes and his hair – but the flames hissed where water landed on them.

Armed with flame, Taryn strode boldy down the main sewer line filled with webbing, brushing his blade about and melting any and all strands before him. He found little resistance, save a nest of inch-wide spiderlings that he put to the burning sword. They hissed and died, and Taryn continued on through the webbing.

Something was off, though. The lighting was wrong. He felt like he was being watched.

When he had burned clear through the main to the other side, he saw another branching of the mains. He spoke a word and the flames of his mail fell away. Using the sword to light his candle, he then put out the fire of the sword, and slid it back into its scabbard. Alone, again, with just a candle, he moved forward, looking for a cut to the left.

He found a smaller tunnel, and investigated it with his eyes, before clambering up into the side sewer. As her reached the juncture of the smaller lines, he saw a green glow continue on around the corner.

Before he followed it, however, he saw that the waters had only just covered a broken sewer grate – a grate from a tunnel up above. The tunnel showed fresh signs of moss and lichen having been scraped away, and the movement of a person up the rusted-out rungs in the tunnel.

Taryn glanced at where the green glow had gone before, and then ignored it, preparing to climb up the tunnel. He put out his candle, and put it back in his wallet, and ignited his armor. It would serve as a light in the darkness.

* * *

Sammeth had come up into a sub-basement, and from there had climbed up a set of spiral stone stairs to a more traditional basement. As the map had suggested, there had been a storage room with a large closet, and an opening into the main basement room.

The main basement room was almost devoid of dust, as though it had been cleaned up some years before. Unlike the rest of the architecture, the floor was not solid, unmortared stone with razored-straight edges. The floor was covered in dull gray pebbles all mortared in together.

Some of the pebbles were slightly different colors than others, though it was hard to make them out, but as Tram had suggested, the lighter gray pebbles were arranged into V's, three or five together with one at the point. Standing on the south side of the room, Sammeth saw in his green light that each of the V's, turned right-side up, was a mountain. There was one mountain for each in Rakore, forming a crude sort of map.

Off the west coast of Rakore was a small mountain in the waters, known as Hammer Isle. The mountain on the floor map was of five small pebbles, but they were a slightly gray-gold color, different than all the others.

Tram had explained that he and his partners had thought the gold colored pebbles indicated Hammer Isle was where the silver dragon Killishandrastatia had hidden her treasure. Old legends said it was she who had ruled the city with the others, and the few things they had found in the troll Grythe's lair had supported that claim.

When Tram and his friends had sent a ship to investigate Hammer Isle, they had found nothing but an empty chamber, hidden at the crest of the mountain. The chamber was large enough for a dragon, but if there had been anything there in the past, it had long-since been pillaged.

Tram felt that there was more to the story. The longer Sammeth stayed in the ruins, the more he felt there was more to the story, too.

He made a slow circuit of the edges of the room, tapping on the stone with his knife's pommel – and discovered two hidden doors. Neither door would move, and each was disguised in the wall as perfectly as only a dwarf could master.

Sammeth returned to the golden mountain pebbles, and pressed on them in combinations, and then all at once. There was an audible click from the walls. Sammeth returned to the hidden doors, and found that both pushed in with the slightest of touches, revealing small tunnels. Both hidden doors had opened up into a hidden room with stone shelves – shelves that were bare.

Sammeth scowled in disgust. Someone had been there, and recently. Dust marks on the floor and on the shelves indicated that the room had been cleaned out, perhaps after Tram left.

Tram had thought that one of the Traitor's men might have been using the treasure of Tymarell to fund the Ogran invasion. Sammeth put his boot in some undisturbed dust, and pulled the boot out. He couldn't tell the difference between his boot print in the dust, and one right next to it.

The room was sealed air-tight, when he explored the doors.

Hoping against hope, he returned put his dwarven torch in the nearest of the three ring-sconces in the room, and took to closely examining the shelves, looking for a hidden compartment, and listening with his pommel.

* * *

Taryn was cautious in his ascent, but he knew his limits. Slung over his shoulder was his bow and a quiver and his small-pack; the scabbard of his longsword was hanging from his waist; and the iron rungs of the small tunnel had long ago begun to rust – and worse, the more fragile among them had already been damaged by whomever had gone before.

The half-elf figured that only one person had gone before him, based off of the evidence left by the rungs, and the lichens and molds of the vertical tunnel.

Finally, up above him, he saw that the tunnel opened up into a room of some sort. Taryn pulled the candle from his wallet, and lit it with deft practice from his armor's fire, without melting the wax of the candle. He quietly uttered the command word to snuff out his armor, and listened with his slightly pointed ears. From somewhere nearby, he heard a slight rapping sound.

Working as quietly as he could, Taryn lifted himself up high enough to see out of the tunnel, spying the top-side grate and the room within.

Sammeth the Falconer rapped on a shelf with the pommel of his dagger, unaware that a stranger was only a room away. Thunder rattled through the ruins, now and again, but his ears were concentrated on the soft tones his blade gave him as he moved slowly about the hidden rooms and their empty shelves.

The Falconer's eyes went wide as he realized he was not alone; he distinctly heard the hiss of a candle going out, in between rolls of thunder.

Sammeth quickly spun and grabbed for the dwarven torch, yanking it from its rusted iron ring on the wall. He thrust it into his cloak, and found himself in pure darkness. With his other hand, he drew his rapier with a steely hiss. Its razor's edge glowed with a dim whiteness that let him see five feet around him, as though the blade were cutting through reality itself.

Taryn had moved along the wall, away from the twin doorways wherein the green light lay. A sudden darkness made him pause in the corner, his longsword already drawn with deathly silence. Of a sudden, he saw a pale white light – a long edge of something unearthly.

Sammeth tossed the dwarven torch into the map room and followed behind it, staying to the secret doorway's mouth. Strange syllables, like the hissing of a snake, greeted his ears – and then a man was engulfed in red-orange flames, as was his sword.

Taryn struck a defensive posture, keeping the corner to his back. The man was a hand taller than he, with short hair and a defensive posture. Ironically, he carried an elven rapier and buckler, the buckler before him ready to accept Taryn's fire.

Sammeth gritted his teeth, thinking the half-elf a battle-mage, perhaps from Lok Magius – or perhaps something worse. He had no defense against a man who enshroud himself in fire, or a blade with such a powerful flame.

Silverwing leapt from his shoulders, gliding out of the map room and back into the room with its tunnel leading down into the sewers, screaming in fright. Sammeth couldn't blame her. He wanted to follow her.

Both men held their positions, waiting to see if the other would attack – neither attacking, each measuring the other.

Both wore well-worn travel garments. Neither was a fop or a dandy; neither was married to death; neither had the eyes of a cold and cruel command.

The half-elf's lips moved, and the strange hissing language echoed throughout the room. The fire of his shirt went out. He spoke again, and the fire of his sword went out, as well, though he did not change his defensive position.

The room was suddenly lit only with the green glow of the dwarven torch, still laying in the middle of the room, half-way between both men.

From behind Sammeth, inside the secret room, there was an audible click, and then the slight sound of stone on stone for a moment. The Falconer glanced back for a moment, but could see nothing changed in the secret room; the door was still open.

Sammeth reached back behind him, where he kept several sunrods handy. He withdrew one, and rapped it smartly on the stone pebbles beneath him. The chemicals in the glass vial of the rod's tip mixed in a tinkling of glass, and ignited, adding a golden light to the room. The Falconer tossed the sunrod back into the secret room.

Taryn took a step forward, still holding his longsword defensively. Sammeth froze, waiting to see what would happen. The half-elf stepped forward to within a step of the dwarven torch, put his boot out, and then deftly tossed the torch in the human's direction with a nudge from his toe.

Sammeth caught the torch in mid-air, and kept his rapier ready.

The stranger merely turned and moved towards the stairs that led upwards and out of the map room. He sat there on the steps, watching intently.

Sammeth asked, “And your name?”

Taryn responded, “I'll give you mine, if you give me yours.”

The Falconer nodded. “Fair enough. I am Sammeth Knar, of Teras.”

Cautiously, the half-elf said, “My name is Taryn. I am… from far to the east, and south.”

Sammeth glanced back into the hidden room, eager to see something, but unable to from his position. He thought the stranger might be from Kur Maeth – an Inquisition-held city, and hostile to his native Rakore – but he didn't think so. “Kur Maeth?” he asked.

“A bit further east and south than that,” Taryn said with a clear voice.

Silverwing flew back to Sammeth's shoulder, rubbed up against him, and then flew to the stone ballustrade near Taryn.

Sammeth asked, “What're you doing here, Taryn?”

Taryn answered, “I could ask you the same.”

The Falconer ground flexed his jaw muscles, grinding his teeth in frustration. There were no signs of anyone else, and Silverwing's reconnaissance of the other basement room had shown nothing.

Taryn, for his part, was loathe to admit he was from Wuron S'fa – or the Dragon Nation, as his homeland was more commonly known. He knew little about the people of Rakore, or how they would react to his being friends to dragons, and knowledgeable of magic.

Ironically enough, they both feared and hated the Inquisition equally, and wondered if the other was of the Inquisition, and the churches that enforced it by the Avard Accords.

Sammeth stepped back into secret room, and glanced around. A hidden shelf had slid out from beneath another shelf's thick stone, and in it were a number of vellum envelopes, each with an odd set of symbols in gold-leaf script. Beneath the five vellum envolopes lay a folder letter in vellum, though of not quite so thin a vellum.

The Falconer, a veteran of many delvings into ruins throughout Rakore, knew trouble when he saw it. The gold-leaf runes could be sigils meant to ward the contents of the hidden drawer; as well, the drawer itself could have hidden defense in it.

Adding to his consternation, he had a complete and total stranger that could ignite into flame with but a few hisses in the next room.

Sammeth glanced out, and the stranger Taryn was nibbling on some jerkey – which he was also feeding to Silverwing. The falcon apparently trusted Taryn, even though Sammeth did not.

The Falconer sent a word of caution through his link to the bird, but the bird ignored him, swallowing another bit of dried meat, and screeching in protest to the caution.

Sammeth heard a click from the drawer, and then it began to slide back into position with a light rumbling of stone on stone. Sammeth cursed, and dared not touch the possibly booby-trapped drawer. After a moment, there was no indication a drawer had ever been there within the stone shelf.

The Falconer was stumped.

Taryn and Sammeth both had taken the measure of one another, so the Falconer called out to the other. A slow dialogue began, cautious, defensive, but honest.

Together, they puzzled out the secret drawer. One of the iron rings in the wall would turn, just so, and activate the gearing mechanism for the drawer.

Taryn hissed in that awful voice that echoed in the very soles of their boots, and told Sammeth that he was looking for magic – that he was a priest of the God of Memories. When Sammeth's reaction was studied and cautious, and not at all fearful, Taryn felt more comfortable in opening up about his mission, even as he examined the five packets, and the letter beneath.

The leather was sealed with golden-white wax, and had the image of a dragon with twin row of three spikes along the end of its tail. The letter was written by a Tylanion of the House of Elm – an elven house Sammeth had both heard of, but did not know of personally. Tylanion had apparently written in golden ink, and the parchment was to his or her children – one ring each from the treasure of Tylanion's 'master', the silver dragon Killishandrastatia.

From the letter and its description of the rings, they were powerful, indeed. One ring was as wide as an entire finger bone, with thin faces that, as the ring was rotated, slowly morphed into monsters, and then back into thin faces that could have been elven or human or other. The ring was intended for Shirasses, and so Taryn named the ring in that hissing speech of dragons. Supposedly, the ring would protect the wearer from powers that would force him to change his shape.

One of the rings was a band of golden kite shields, placed such that every other shield was upside-down. The ring was named As'shranas, and would offer considerable protection to the wielder by calling spectral golden shields into place to defend him.

The third ring was a plain platinum band, though in the light of the sunrod Sammeth had broken open for a nice, golden light – there appeared to be a slight blue glimmer to the ring. Taryn named it Sres'Haras, and said that the letter indicated a blue power of some sort would protect the wearer from attacks by even a dragon's maw.

The fourth ring was of silver and gold wire, twisted together and into a ring, capped with gold at either end as a torc for the finger. Taryn named the ring for Hras'Halas, and said that its powers were as that of the heavens themselves, and the stars in the night – a ring of great power and destruction.

The fifth and final ring was named Hras'esrases, made of silver and encrusted with faceted black diamonds. Taryn said that the black diamonds could store arcane, apprenticeship spells for wizards.

A stone placed into the secret drawer prevented it from automatically closing, and the mechanism stripped out. Both kin of the woodslands saw that there was little else there, in the secret room. Even the third iron ring, wherein the dwarven torch had set, had broken – so worn with rust and age that it had shattered on the second turning.

Sammeth and Taryn both moved into the map room, and consulted one another. Taryn, to help him achieve his goal of finding information for the Dragon Nation, would receive the letter, and the rings Hras'Halas and As'shranas. Sammeth would receive the three rings Sres'Haras, Shirasses, and Hras'esrases.

Though Sammeth worried over the power of the ring Hras'Halas, the gold and silver mini-torc, the Falconer felt the ring's power more suited to Taryn, whom read the letter and understood its powers more. The power to destroy was not one that Sammeth revelled in, and Taryn accepted the ring reluctantly.

Together, the two began to talk, and to learn from one another, a grudging trust developing into something more, despite themselves.

Talking quietly among themselves, they explored the rest of the ruins, moving up the stairs into the collapsed first floor of the manor. There, crawling amidst the broken beams and shattered stone, they spoke of their pasts, their adventures, and the tasks set them by others.

At the end of the manor, near a large set of doors that had collapsed in, they found the skeletal remains of an elf. A partially melted ring that might have once been an insignia lay on the skeleton's finger. Many of the larger bones had shattered, and there were holes in the skull from where the brains had boiled so quickly that they burst from the skull as vapor.

Taryn had seen men die from the heat of his lord Korsth's breath, but their bones had been seared and black and burnt; the bones of the elf were cleaned, as though by a great blast of steam, or cooked in a pot. With Sammeth's approval, Taryn collected the ring, and carefully, respectfully, collected the skull.

The Third Priest of Xynos held his amulet of Xynos in one hand, and motioned with his other hand, invoking a prayer to the God of Memories to watch over the memories of the fallen soul, and help him to find the identity of the body.

* * *

Down below, the water was rising, and the rain was flowing into the sewers from above. The supposed house of Killishandrastatia had been dry, but the sewers were wet.

Strange lights plagued them, dwarven light going around corners, or flickering candles moving away.

As they moved about the tunnels, their feet soaked in their boots, Taryn put out an arm to keep Sammeth back at one of the large pools. A great snake – perhaps thirty feet in length and easily two feet in width – slithered by, perhaps looking for a meal, or perhaps looking to escape the rain that fell all around them through the sewer holes.

The snake passed, and yet more lights strangely moved away, never coming closer.

Cautiously, the two looking out for one another and themselves, all their old defenses at the ready, the two tried to move out and away.

They were attacked. An invisible bolt of power slammed into Sammeth's hand, knocking his blade out of his hands. Taryn called his sword into fire, while Sammeth groped for his blade in the flowing water.

Another bolt moved at them so fast that water vaporized as it passed, and Taryn met it blade-on, such that the fire of his dragon-blade was extinguished. Unfazed, Taryn hissed forth the words to call the fire back, and it returned.

Taryn raced forward to meet the threat, as soon as Sammeth's blade broke the surface of the water, its white edge glowing of death.

Rain poured all about them, and thunder occasionally rumbled even down in the depths of the sewers, many feet beneath the ground. Taryn quickly spied their invisible assailant – at the center of the large pool, where neither could get at it without swimming into water of unknown depth.

There was a flash of light, and then Taryn faded before Sammeth's eyes.

Sammeth groped about for the half-elf, and his dwarven torch met nothing. Turning blindly in fear, he loped back the way he had come, and leapt into one of the myriad smaller sewer entrances, hiding his dwarven torch under his cloak.

Taryn found himself in a gray place with unseen walls and an unseen floor. He waited, patiently, seeing what would happen. After too many long, quiet breaths, he moved, using his flaming sword as a blind man uses a cane, feeling out the edges of his prison. It was not a prison, but a labrynth, with twisting passages and dead-ends – and then suddenly, there in the distance, falling water.

Taryn raced out of the gray place and back into the sewers, not sure what had happened to him, but angry.

The sunrod in Sammeth's belt was covered by his cloak, its golden chemical light still strongly blazing through its glass sphere even three quarters of a mark after it had been turned on. Sammeth unleashed its golden light from the depths of his cloak, and bid Silverwing take the rod in her claws.

The Rakoran falcon quickly grasped his idea, and flew out into the sewer main as quickly as she could. With the sunrod to light her way, she flew as fast as possible towards the exit, bobbing and weaving.

Their attacker followed in a blaze of equal golden light, mimicking the light of the sunrod.

Sammeth heard the splash of something in the main, and poked his head out to see Taryn's fiery sword hissing as it the blade swept through a line of water from above.

There was a sick crunching sound, and the ground vibrated beneath them. The waters were up to Taryn's waist, and suddenly reversed as a huge whirlpool opened up in the pool. The pools were not cisterns – they were drains, and that one had been clogged. The weight of the water above it had finally cleared it.

Taryn was nearly knocked off his feet by the surge of water, and the only thing that saved him was the rod he quickly activated. The rod was wedged into his belt, and held him in place, though his feet were knocked out from under him. Balancing on the rod and his belt, he nearly began to tilt forward into the fast-flowing water, barely keeping his head up and his other hand outstretched against the slick and wet wall.

Sammeth tied a length of his expensive silk rope about himself, and fed the other end out into the sewer main. The water still rising, even behind him, and only the smaller size of the tunnel he was in and the pressure of his legs and back kept him from being pushed out of the smaller side-sewer.

Taryn managed to get the end of the rope in his hand, and wrapped it around his forearm. Telling Sammeth to brace himself, he deactivated the rod for a moment, withdrew it from his belt, and then leapt with all his strength into the air, pressing the stud in mid-air. He held on, then, taking in the slack of the rope by wrapping it along his forearm. His sword he had sheathed already, operating almost blindly, and so he called his armor up to light his way. The armor burned and bubbled and steamed, and half went out in the powerful water.

Then the glow returned.

Sammeth had felt Silverwing drop the sunrod outside, as she swooped up into the forest. Whatever had chased her had stopped at the horse, which was trying frantically to escape its reins.

The glow advanced menacingly, and threw an invisible bolt against Taryn, stunning him for a moment.

Sammeth thought frantically, desperately thinking what could attack the floating wisp of light. He yelled to Taryn, “The ring! Use the ring!”

Taryn's grey eyes flashed, and he brought up his free hand – the hand with the silver and gold torc of Hras'Halas. He concentrated, even as the golden light threatened another bolt at him. Taryn answered with the power of the ring.

Three shooting stars streaked through the sewer main and detonated all around the menacing golden glow, knocking Sammeth back into the side-sewer, deafening them both, and vaporizing all the water around. Only Sammeth's cloak protected him from the searing steam and the dreadful power of the ring.

Sammeth slid out of the side-sewer and into the mains, where he was dragged back towards the whirlpool. The whirlpool gulped, and then covered over as so much water filled into the pool that the vortex was drowned for a moment.

Taryn shook his stunned head, and held onto Sammeth, wrist to wrist, as they both got their footing. For a moment. The whirlpool sucked down enough water that it returned, sucking harder than ever.

The great snake slithered by them, ignoring them, and then was captured by the whirlpool and sucked down.

When it went down, though, there was a strange sound, a sickening crunching sound, and something ominous. Taryn and Sammeth both knew that there was something down there, at the bottom of the whirlpool.

Sammeth called over the noise, “These sewers are not a safe place for the people of Takanal.”

Taryn answered him, hanging onto his rod. “No shit!”

So ends afternoon of the 16th of Trivor, 1329.

1,750. (total XP awarded for the campaign is 3,250)

Todd and I went with my brother Luke and Todd's son Bradley to the Orange County Gun Club, where we fired off some rounds and broke in Bradley's .22 rifle he'd gotten for Christmas. I'm not a great shot with Luke's .40, but I'm decent. Todd was incredibly accurate, putting a clip-load of ammo into a space the size of a half-dollar at 15m. That .40 was made for Todd.

After that, we headed back to Todd's to fire the game up, help Luke generate a character, and get the dice rolling.

I gave Luke quite a bit – a flaming mithril shirt and a flaming mithril sword – and I hope Todd doesn't mind or feel like I'm giving my kin a little more than he deserves. I ran into a problem once with my ex, where I gave her a were-tiger template out of the blue, and the rest of the party felt it was undeserved, so I'm hoping not to make a similar mistake. I think, though, that things will balance out.

Like Todd, Luke chose 9,000gp worth of magical items, as the DMG suggests for a 5th-level character, and then I added an equivalency of a +1 bonus here or there. I'm going to have to make a new House Rule for Luke: no more immoveable rods. He's hilarious, and always finds an interesting use for them. The last time he had two, he had them installed in a pair of boots, such that his toes could activate or deactive them – and used the boots to walk on air, among other things. The rods are probably an over-used and over-abused tool in D&D, but in this case, they may have saved their lives.

I don't hold punches. I don't kill players, but I do make difficult situations, and sometimes it's luck that saves the players – other times, sheer determination. The rings were a random roll, something that happens now and again. I try to keep things in Gaeleth magic-poor, and these may be the last magical items they see for a long, long time…

I really liked how they played out their meeting. It wasn't the usual, “Oh, hey; you're a fellow party member; welcome aboard.” It was cautious, wary, respectful. Neither was stupid, and both played well. I hope they had a good time, and we can have plenty more.