Taking a look around the lich’s chambers the group does a quick assessment of the situation. A hasty bit of plundering follows while the group tries to orient themselves. Several doors lead to more secret peepholes and passages and one os followed into a strange cavern…complete with hexagonal rite pit, chained and caged corpses/wights a strange knot of living darkness and a brace of shadowspawn guards with wicked flails of electrical blasting. The pit is also home to a strainge and regal woman clad in armor and bearing a snake headed mace.
The group rolls up and attacks…Reza engages a guard, takes a wicked blow and then fells him with a smash from the Mace of Disruption. As he advances, the woman blasts him with a bolt of dark energy – slaying him immediately. Humbar and Feaster move to attack while Barada and Lubbitch ply the bows, shooting at the armor-clad woman and striking her with a pair of telling blows. Humbar takes up the Mace and attacks the next guard while Feaster moves to engage. Humbar is struck blind and Lubbitch drops her bow to take up the Mace and kill the second guard after taking a hit. A net of strange purple energy shrouds the pit and partially screens the woman from view. Barada’s next magical arrow vaporizes in the energy field, and an attempted shot with a normal arrow is deflected from its target.
Barada unlimbers the Rod of Resurrection and raises Reza – pointing him towards the woman of doom. Dalliance is persuaded to use the silvery fire to try and cast Dispel Magic on the energy net – it fails. When Reza uses his boots to leap into battle he passes through the net and is imprisoned in a web of crackling black energy. He crashes to the ground – immobilized.
The woman holds Feaster immobile and Lubbich escapes due to her ring of freedom, passing through the web to engage the target. Barada unlimbers his lute and tries a Dispel of his own, which also fails to affect the web, but frees Bud. Free Bud leaps into action. The woman strikes Lubbitch with the snake-mace – which poisons her and causes her to die. Feaster pops up with a helping of Neutralize Poison and Lubbitch is back in action, striking the woman with the Mace. The battle rages on, with terrible damage dealt. Dalliance uses her last bit of silvery fire to teleport into the heart of the web, attacking the woman with her staff while Feaster and Barada try to engage.
Feaster is slain by the woman, Dalliance is incapable of striking her her and it is left to Barada firing arrows at point blank range to finally deal the fatal blow (yay!), but not until he has wielded and broken the Mace of Disruption (boo!).
The Rod comes out to restore the Feaster to livingness and the wights are slain by Barada’s point-blank arrow fire. The web of dark energy fades away and the Silvery Witch possesses Barada’s body and uses him to blast the knot of darkness with pure silvery light until it is gone, The weave is restored – much to Dalliance’s delight. The group works to formulate a plan of action. Reza is loaded on the carpet of flying and the group makes haste to exit the area. They return to the village they visited before and find the dalefolk in a state of agitation.
Apparently the ranger that the group rescued has been imprisoned on charges of aiding the party in sedition. Judgement is to be passed the next day in the heart of the dale. Barada dons his hat of disguise and rides to the assembly, trailed by Bud in bird form. The rest of the group (Reza now freed) plans a general uprising to try and throw out the invaders, Barada makes his way to the assembly, sees overwhelming force and decides to lay low for a bit. The prisoner is trotted out before the crowd and his crimes are read aloud. Any dissent is dealt with by spells of silence, and the lord judges him to be guilty. He is to be imprisoned for 30 days, then sent to labor in the mines for 25 years. Barada acts, using his lute to dispel magic, breaking the silence spells, as well as an illusion which reveals the ‘lord’ of the dale to be a pretender, The crowd is outraged and mayhem erupts. The ‘lord’ is hustled back inside the tower while the skymages rain fireballs into the crowd to quell the disturbance, Although the crowd is dispersed, the embers of discontent have been fanned into the flames of rebellion. Barada makes his way back to the village and plots with the group. On the ‘morrow…revolution!

Exploring the ledges near the edge of the vast cavern reveals some footprints that lead off into the darkness. A lit path seems to pass directly through the boulder field. Investigation reveals that the boulders behave as normal rocks _except_ for the part where they whiz about in space as though unaffected by gravity. Arrows and coins that are projected into the area behave as expected, falling into the vast chasm. There is a brief amount of head scratching and some calls to ‘sleep on the matter’, but in the end it is decided that hanging about on the ledges is probably not conducive to continued drawing of breath and the decision is made to cross the chasm.
Dalliance wishes a bridge into existence and the group readies itself for a brief transit that skirts the edge of one of the boulder fields.
Reza carries a length of rope and crosses first and it is only his potion of spider climbing that prevents him from being knocked into the chasm by the boulder that homes in on, and smashes into, him.
Worried glances amongst the group members. Perhaps it will be harder than hoped for. Secondary measures are readied and the march resumes.
Each party member save Barada is struck by one or more smallish stones and the rope saves most of them. Humbar must resort to his potion of Gaseous Form to avoid death – but eventually all are grouped on the opposite side.
A short hall leads to doors that bear a sigil they have seen before.
While Humbar solidifies, Barada and Dalliance share lore about the various wizards of which they know. Finally they decide they have sussed out the rune originator but he died over four centuries past.
Dalliances muses on the possibilities. One – a wizard’s tomb, full of nasty traps and the like, but stuffed with neat-o magic items that can be plundered. On the other hand, it could be the above, but with an undead occupant. Mayhap this is a lich’s lair? Hmm. Oh well, enough musing, time for action.
Opening the doors presents new mysteries. Booted, Sandal Shod and Clawed feet have all traversed the area within, coming from various points and leading to a common one. Choosing to investigate sandals first brings the group into a large bedroom suite and face to face with a pair of dusky-skinned humans in plate mail. Reza squints menacingly then springs into action. The guards react with a combination of flame blasts from wands and attacks from halberds. As the party streams into the area, black, rubbery tentacles spring out of the ground and starts crushing the life out of Lubbitch. While Reza makes short work of his opponent, Bud and Barada engage the more distant one with fist and arrow.
Dalliance is feeling safe in her Globe of Invulnerability, but a Feeblemind spell ends that train of thought..and delays the departure of any future trains. Luckily, Dalliance has been tongue-kissing goddesses lately and she uses one third of the silvery kiss to restore her intellect. She uses a wand of invisibility detection to reveal the presence of a shadowy woman clad in rich brocade. While Dalliance watches, the woman appears to step into the shadows and vanishes.
Reza suddenly finds himself confronted by a shadowy woman clad in rich brocade who seems to step out of the shadows. She seizes him and attempts to drain him of most of his vitality. Luckily for Reza – scarabs of protection are built for just these occasions and he is saved. As the lady steps back into shadow and reappears across the room, Reza pauses to grab his handy Mace of Disruption in the hope she is some sort of undead. His boots of springing bring him to her in an instant and as she turns, he smashes her with the MoD and destroys her. Moments later the second guard is dead as well. Lubbitch’s tentacles are slain and she is healed, While the party strips the cooling corpses and laments about the mace annihilating ‘all the good stuff’, the room is investigated while decisions are made about sleeping. A secret door is found, then opened, then investigated. A hallway leads to more decisions than can be dealt with in short order and the group settles down for a nap.
No visitors come to disturb their slumber and once refreshed they decide to press on,. Dallaince is alarmed to find that she can no longer retain as many spells as previous, probably due to the unraveling effect on the weave of magic. A highly motivated group moves quickly through the corridors and finds peepholes and more secret doors.
The first door reveals a ‘blinded’ beholder and the group moves to attack. Reza falls into a pit and is near death before it is discovered that the whole room is a trap and the beholder is illusionary. After Humbar restores Reza, the group decides to return to the secret passage. Eventually they come to a locked stone door.
They open it quickly and find themselves in the lich’s laboratory. A stunned undead stares at them. A mere moment’s hesitation is all, but that brief pause proves decisive. Reza thrusts forth the wand of illumination and flash-bangs the decaying wizard, them leaps across the room with his boots – landing on the mage’s workbench and smashing him with the MoD. No easy kill this time, but damage is still meted out, then another strike from Reza rocks him on his heels. Meanwhile, Lubbitch and Feaster are running to the fray. Dalliance and Barada assist and it is ON! The mage cast a mass hold spell, but the group is awash in rings of freedom and magical protections and only Bud Feaster falls victim. Reza thrusts the wand towards the mage and flashes him again, them smashes him again. The smash and flash maneuver renders his opponent in bad shape and Lubbitch and Barada help to make it worse. The mage turns invisible, but Dalliance is hep to that trick.
The wand doesn’t care if you can be seen, just if you are undead and the burst is fatal…the lich lies dead upon the stony floor.

After plundering the room of all its secrets, the party hurries upstairs and starts systematically emptying rooms of all that they can find that retains any value, while keeping an eye out for any guards or forces of the Baneites. A few hours later they conclude that any remaining forces must have fled along with the priest – probably to raise the alarm. Nonetheless, for the moment – their work at Castle Krag is done. Rounding up the locals, they set off on a day’s march to the nearest thorp in the shadow of the Krag. There they tell their tales, try to inspire the populace a bit, set tongues-a-wagging, and redistribute 1000 gold coins to the elders, This prompts a small celebration, and the group (except for Bud, because he is still stone) enjoys themselves.

The following day, the castle plunder is marked for identification and the more memorable items are investigated. Bud is returned to flesh and the group stumbles across a personal diary of the high priest.
Within they find information that – when combined with what they already know – sets them on a course to find the likely temple of Shar, whose clerics are involved in weakening the weave of magic in the area.

They seek and find and enter, battling a behir, discovering secret doors and corridors, fighting enchanted suits of armor and being sniped by screaming crossbow bolts before finally entering a vast chasm full of floating boulders. Perhaps this is the ‘Grinding Gulf’
they have been seeking…perhaps not. Time will tell…

With the echoes of the hounds dying away, the group decides that haste makes the most sense so they beat fleet feet across the courtyard and through a wooden door into the round tower that makes up a part of the curtain wall surrounding the hilltop. There they find signs of inhabitation – a lot of doors and a set of stairs leading down. They scurry down the stairs and into the basements of the tower, Immediately they encounter a huge ogre and a pair of souped-up undead that are moving boxes. The group attacks with the element of surprise.

Dalliance uses her Undeath to Death to quell the onrushing undead while Lubbitch, Reza, Bud and Barada battle with the ogre. The foe is fearsome and deals savage wounds to the attackers, but after a few tens of seconds the ogre is slain. Humbar casts a Detect Traps spell and peeks his head around the corner of the hallway and collapses in excruciating pain after finding the trap. The hallway marks the entrance to a temple of Bane. Entering the temple, the group is attacked by undead – some puny and laughable, one scary and fearsome.
The scary, fearsome one drains 5 energy levels and 16 points of Constitution before Reza manages to land a solid blow with the Mace of Disruption and consign it to the void.

Despite the notion that there was a survivor of the temple battle that may be spreading the alarm, the group falls back to repair in the Mansion, using Humbar’s Restoration spells as well as Selune’s Silvery Kiss to heal themselves. Emerging after 21 hours, they quickly return to the temple area and begin to search. They find trapped false doors and concealed doors that lead to a silvery portal located in the temple antechamber. A quick bit of head-scratching leads to the temporary solution of a Wall of Stone to seal off the portal from this side. With the threat of reinforcements eliminated for the moment, the group decides to try and clear the fortress of mercenary troops.
They search for, find and investigate the priest’s bolt-hole then go to search his bedroom. There the ubiquitous detection of magic yields two magic books and a pair of magic undead basilisks that turn Bud Feaster into a garden statue.

The party responds with alacrity, alarm and maximum effect – so Bud is the only casualty of the creatures. Wondering aloud what sort of person could sleep with two undead under the bed, the group returns to the main storeroom, the scene of ogreish combat. Choosing a door at random, Reza boots it open and stares in disbelief at the Horned Devil that stands within and beckons to him to enter. Behind the devil, a semi-circular wall studded with doors and torture equipment. Barada is quick with the Gem of Seeing and yells to the party that the devil is illusionary!

The announcement prompts a fireball that streaks towards the group.
Reza thinks he knows which door it came form and he charges into the room, followed by Lubbitch. As Reza bounces off of the stout door, a second fiery ball explodes. While a Globe of Invulnerability is prepared, Dalliance shatters the door to flinders with a bolt of lightning and reveals the occupants – ugly, twisted demon gurners. As Reza and Lubbitch retreat in search of healing, Dalliance fires off a fireball of her own. It is ignored and returned, and as the Globe arrives, the creatures charge the party. The hand to hand is savage and brief and the creatures are vanquished.

After extinguishing the flames, the group batters open the various doors and releases the occupants. Most are villagers taken from nearby to act as forced labor, but one captive tells the party that he is a local ranger. He offers to help the group by raising a host from the forests nearby in support of their mission to rid the area of evil.
While the help is appreciate, the party tells the villagers to wait in the tempe are while they go and neutralize any remaining threats.

Along the way to the stairs to the surface, they discover a secret door to a secret corridor to a secret room. The secret room has old secret coins and an old secret rug and and old secret sword that turns Reza’s outlook on life decidedly lawful and quite good. Whether the change is permanent or temporary is yet to be determined…

In the aftermath the group spends a few moments preparing, opening the tomb of the spirit of magic and descending the stairs. At the bottom is a plain room, a coffin and a swirling ball of red chaos. It is all eyes and mouths and grasping arms and swirling madness. It is also apparently immune to all magics. Luckily, Reza is carrying the long lance taken from the fallen bat-rat-toad rider. He stands well away from the creature and pokes it repeatedly until it vanishes. When the creature fades away, a shimmering radiance coalesces into a silvery form of a woman. She kisses each party member and delivers some information regarding the unraveling strands of magic and a likely target for the party to engage in their quest to free the dale.

The party rides quickly away from the area, returning to the village they saved and regaling the villagers with their tales of glory. The villagers seem a bit skeptical, but they listen intently. The party quizzes them on local lore and attempts to identify the location of the next target.The next morning, the group rides through the fringes of the forest with Bud flying a looping scout mission in the skies overhead. He spots a rat-bat-toad that seems to be trailing the party.
A quick discussion and the group sets up an ambush. An ambush lightning bolt and a followup fireball from the wand and the rider plummets like a comet from the sky to the ground. Not enough of the rider is found to make looting worthwhile.

Fleeing the scene of the most recent crime, the group wends its way into the foothills and then back up amongst the craggy cliffs. The group – through the eyes of Bud – surveys the scene for the better part of the day, observing the coming and goings of the patrols, riders and strange wall-walking figures. Under cover of darkness, they sneak up the side of the hill and cross into the courtyard. Barada scouts ahead and tries to gain a glimpse of the strange liquid shadows that flow around the courtyard within the wall. Instead he falls into a pit. When he exits, an automaton assembles itself out of the rubble and tries to attack. Dalliance springs into action and disintegrates the offending attacker. Humbar casts Detect Traps and finds another pit – and another automaton. Dalliance disintegrates that one as well.

The liquid shadows coalesce into shadowy hounds that howl bone-chilling howls and attack. The howls cause panic amongst the party members and first Reza, then Barada and finally Humbar panic and run. It is left to Lubbitch to slay the hounds with Dalliance’s help and as the echoes of the howls die out, they wait for the return of the runners and haul Humbar out of one of the pits. A moment later, the group has regrouped and awaits the fall of the other shoe…