After awakening in the ‘control room’, the party is afflicted by an insidious drain of abilities. Every hour spent within the mine leeches a point from the primary attribute of the character. A full day of rest is required to restore each point lost. However, Dalliance bends time to her will and causes each hour to pass as six. Within a trio of days the party is refreshed and ready to return to the control room.
There Barada discovers other traps are yet unleashed and the controls for said traps are here. The controls to raise and lower the elevator platforms are likewise found within, as well as ‘seeing tubes’ that allow the viewer to see the view from the ceiling in each monitored area. Most are dark, but enough remain lit to give the impression of a vast enterprise with a bustling security detail.
Barada calls up a platform from the depths and the party descends, mindful of the need to make haste. The ride ends in a room with an exit passage that is spacious by dwarven standards, but rather cramped for some of the larger party members. The room is littered with bodies of the Blue Bear Barbarian tribe – home tribe of Da’Nog and Hubar alike – and the walls have pictograms depicting the tribe members fleeing a large figure with horns, fangs and bat wings. Evidence of mining cart traffic can be seen, and the group descends onto the ramp.
As they descend, they hear a sound from behind them. Actually, a pair of sounds – a mocking laugh followed by a heavy crash that gives the impression that something large and heavy has been used to seal the passageway behind them. Down the ramp they go and into a room of rubble and three exits. Sounds reminiscent of a herd of mourning cows and a large but distant spectator sport can be heard. As the party members begin to cross the area, a pair of misshapen grey creatures bolt from concealment and run from the party, adorned with dozens of jingle-jangling bells.
Alarmed at the thought of the alarm, Dalliance, Barada and Lubbitch contrive to fell the creatures as they rush down a hallway that was once filled with dwarven statuary but now contains only rubble. It takes longer than anyone would have liked. As Barada stands point, Dalliance moves up to support, leaving Humbar in the rear. Soon enough a trio of triple armed, double-mouthed toothy horrors heave into view.
Trailing them is a crimson scaled female humanoid with large bat wings. She carries a scimitar that seems to absorb light and leave behind wisps of darkness. Filling the passageway beyond her are a quartet of grey-fleshed, bull-horned humanoids, built to a massive scale. As they advance upon the party she is heard to bellow “Just who in the Nine Hells are you?” With that the battle is joined.
The front ranks batter away at the multi-armed menaces, while Barada shoots arrows as fast as he can. Dalliance tries several tactics, but finds that they are of limited use against outerplanar beings. Spells are cast and blows are traded. The crimson female disappears to reappear behind the party members, and accomplishes two things. First, Humbar the Barbarian is sealed in a bubble of impenetrable force and is left adrift upon the wind. Second, she erects a Wall of Force to seal the party into the hallway. Things turn grim, then better, then grim again. Although the toothy horrors are finally rendered inert, this only means that the square grey bullmen are ready to engage. They deal terrible damage and knock Lubbitch unconscious, and almost slay multiple party members before being battered down. Well, technically, Only two are beaten down. The other pair has withdrawn, and coupled with the absence of the red-scaled womanoid the party thinks that reinforcements are imminent. Barada tries to remove the Wall of Force with his lute, but to no avail.
Sure enough, there are drums and whistles sounding and the background noise has turned from spectator sport to lynch mob. After a few seconds of hurried conversation, Bud activates his Anti-Magic Shield to broach the blocking Wall and the group flees up the stairs, towing the unconscious Lubbitch and pushing the bubbled barbarian.
Confronted with the expected large slab of iron-clad stone that blocks the hallway, the party chugs about 8000gp worth of potions of strength to try and force an opening as the sounds of distant hordes grow ever less distant.
As the party is unable to force the door in time, Dalliance teleports Humbar and Lubbitch back to her tower in Thudheim. Meanwhile the rest of the party members are drinking potions of gaseous form, except Barada, who uses a ring to teleport to the control room. While the rest of the party flees, he unleashes clouds of acid gas and waves of boiling/flaming oil upon the pursuers.

The group regroups in the desert, then Dalliance teleports everyone back to the town of Thudheim.

What next? Only the funion knows!

Flush with cash, the group spends a brace of years to train Dalliance, instill Barada and Dalliance as the latest two members of the Lords of Waterdeep. Bud visits his hobbit community. Lubbitch and Thad of Thudheim spend time training, while Reza acts as Dalliance’s personal bodyguard while in Waterdeep.

Evil seems to be laying low, and eventually the group gets ready enough to go visit the beholder-guarded dwarven gem mine. Once found, it seems like it is long-abandoned. The party already knows it is stuffed chock-full of traps. Once the main mine doors are opened, it is one trap after another: explosives, spears, steel posts, pit traps, glyphs and the like. After a say or so, the group is three-quarters of the way around a main loop when an illusory wall is detected.
Beyond the wall, more traps, but eventually the group wins into a large control room that oversees a pair of elevators apparently used to haul gems from the depths.

The group pauses to regroup and prepares to deal with the next slew of traps that undoubtedly lies ahead…

Returning to the desert in search of the missing dwarven gem mine, the group is headed northward along the abandoned caravan road just beyond the goat-cheese making village, While the group plods through the desert sands, Bud and Barada scout about in bird form. Early one morning Barada spots the now familiar sight of a fez wearing figure shuffling along through the desert. “Tis Mr. Slippers! A brief debate is held about whether to fight or run, but in the end Dalliance opines that it might be better to take him on here and now as opposed to having him turn up later at a more inconvenient time.

Plans are laid: Lubbitch and Barada will soften him up with a few rounds of arrow fire. Reza will hurl Dalliance’s potions of explosion, Humbar will go berserk and ready the sword of Golem slaying (’cause everyone thinks he is a golem), while Bud circles about and will attack from the rear when the opportunity arises. Dalliance will loose some potent magic and stand by as needed. When Mr. Slippers comes within range he cheerfully calls out ‘I’m here to kill you’ – and the battle is joined, Brada looks upon him through the Gem of Seeing and reports that ‘yes, he is a golem’. Dalliance looses a powerful lightning bolt, only to see it grounded into the sand. The first round of missile fire rebounds upon the attackers, throwing parts of the plan into disarray. A second lightning bolt is similarly dispensed with, and more arrows are returned to sender.

As Mr. Slippers climbs out of a huge sandy crater making a distinctive ‘chuff chuff chuff’ shuffling slipper sound, the group attacks.
Berserk Reza and Humbar enter the fray, followed closely by Lubbitch and her flaming two-handed sword. Blows rain down and within a few seconds Lubbitch is dead, her head having been reduced to overripe melon consistency from a wicked blow, Mr. Slippers lights up like a flashbulb and nearly slays the attackers with bursts of magical energy. more missiles, more combat, more deadly damage. Alternating between drinking potions of extra-healing and nearly being beaten to death, Reza grimly battles on. Humbar strikes blows and is eventually felled by a smash from one of the slippered one’s fist. The creature engages Dalliance while the rest of the party flails away at it.
Dalliance takes a pounding, but distracts the creature long enough for Barada to get in a few blows as well as the flying fists of Feaster fury to deal some damage. Party members shoot and strike each other, Reza pops a strap on his magical bracers and it is all looking very grim as the battle rages past the one minute mark. Mr Slippers flashes again and more party members are sorely wounded. Finally, only a few hit points separate Bud from a future as worm food, Barada is dealt a few wicked blows and Dalliance might be considering the wisdom of flight when Reza snatches up the sword of Golem slaying from Humbar’s cooling hand and strikes a savage blow from behind that ends the threat. Total elapsed time from the first arrow…one minute, twenty five seconds.

The discovery is made that the golem is made of solid admantium and garbed in magical fez, slippers, pantaloons and vest. As Lubbitche’s ring of regeneration works it magic upon her, Dalliance teleports the body of Humbar back to the temple of Lathander in Thudheim where he is raised and healed. Rejoining the party, Dalliance summons elephants to drag the body back to Waterdeep, pausing in Thudheim to spread the news of the removal of the slippered threat. An honor guard is dispatched and the group travels to Daggerford, where they are fete’d by the town council. Finally arriving at Waterdeep, the group kicks off a three day long celebration. Amidst the festiveties, Dalliance and Barada are offered positions as Lords of Waterdeep (due to Mr.
Slipper’s removal of two of the previous lords). Dalliance seeks training from Rary and Barada makes sure to tell the tales in every tavern that he can frequent. The golem’s magical garb is found to be a fez of magic resistance, a vest of missile reversal, pantaloons of null gravity and slippers of wind and water walking. Divvy divvy goes the group, and items are distributed. Mr. Slippers is delivered to Lord Stumpy and melted down into bars, fetching a nice dividend of 200,000gp per party member. While Dalliance searches for Rary, the rest of the group ponders what they might do wile their mage is in training…

…say…wasn’t there some sort of dwarven gem mine to go look at?