Location: Mag Kivak

Date: Winter, 1333 Avard

Characters: Keth, Nevaeh, Anastasia, Sheldrog

The tiny elementals known as mephits left the three subdued people cased in hardened mud, and went through a set of double doors, leaving them in a room with a loud pillar of fire. The heat was unbearable.

Anastasia instantly began breaking Keth free, while Neveah – not as unconscious as she had feigned, helped Sheldrog. They were weakened, and the unbearable heat did not help. Rather than follow through the double doors that the mephits had gone through, they explored their escape.

They found that if they blew hard enough on the element of wind symbol on each stone, it lit up. They quickly used mud, torches, and water from their skins to light up more elements. With timing, patience, and several retries, they found out how to open the magical walls of the room – and escaped.

They gathered their belongings, and fled back up the mines. The dwarves helped them, heard their story, and wanted no part of such elemental magics. They immediately sent a group to start boarding up that part of the mine with a lock-and-key, reinforced door.

The dwarven priest, Bauxite, offered to help as best he could, though. He made offerings to the Forge God and made temporary enchantments upon Anastasia's crossbow and Keth's greatsword.

Sheldrog and Neveah bonded a bit, and Neveah was able to help Sheldrog obtain weapons and a buckler.

Neveah and Keth researched elementals, as well, pouring over their training and what information Beryl the priest had. Of course, their friend Rose had been extremely knowledgeable about elementals – but they would have to try to save the world without her.

One of the dwarves offered to accompany them. His name was Gabbro, and he had lost his beard to the mephits before they had arrived. He had earned Sheldrog's respect for having – he thought – killed one of the mephits. Gabbro figured that, magic or no, the worst had already happened to him. The mephits had taken his beard – what mattered his life, if Galgiran took his soul?

Beryl gave Gabbro the key to the door that would let them to the wall. They loaded up on water, and returned, ready for a rematch with the mephits.

There was no sign of the wee elemental beasties outside the wall – nor in the fire room. They found that only fire was needed to unlock the double doors, and opened them, preparing for combat. Instead, they found a very short corridor of no more than fifteen feet – and another set of double doors.

After painstakingly searching for traps and listening at the doors, Sheldrog knocked.

The doors opened, revealing a room as large as the fire chamber – with three more sets of double doors leading out of it. It also had four mephits and an undead, skeletal figure in blackened robes and shadowy sinews.

Sheldrog and Gabbro held the front, while Neveah, Anastasia, and Keth let loose with every spell and bolt and prayer they could. When the mephits were defeated, they exploded into steam or shards of ice or balls of flaming magma, and so the battle was tough. Worse, the skeletal figure hammered at them with necrotic bolts, and then moved in with an axe made of some metal that soaked up light as though it were eating it.

Anastasia, reading the mephits correctly, again, knew that the skeletal figure was the linch pin. The mephits were not fighting because they wanted to – but because they were being forced to. Gabbro went down, the mud mephit within his lungs, handing a potion off to Sheldrog. Sheldrog and Keth took the front line as Gabbro's large dwarven shield rolled away.

The skeleton of shadows put his black axe into Gabbro, finishing him off, before turning to Sheldrog. Spells and prayers and bolts concentrated on the skeleton, and Keth's enchanted blade and Anastasia's enchanted bolts did considerable damage. The final blow was Sheldrog's as she hammered her shield into the shadow and then finished it off with her own axe.

Date: JUL2019

DM's Notes: This was a birthday celebration game for Saige – and vengeance for the last game session. The group of teenagers had not been pleased at being bested by two foot tall elementals. They were aiming for a rematch – and they got it.

Reference: Campaign X
Previous Episode: Xs1e2
Next Episode: Xs1e4

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