This page was last updated: December 17, 2003,

8/11/03    Mist begins pouring out under the door. Melina goes ecto-plasmic and slips through the door where she finds a wall of ice blocking it. Continuing on she finds a man laying on a bed. As Melina searches the room a Draconian races down the hall away from the room. The party runs after it except for Rask, Illian, and Tandoran who follow much slower, and Melina who is in the other room. Makera racing down the hallway encounters a wall at the end of the long hallway. Rask and Illian still near the bedroom hear ice breaking.

Dimak arriving at the end of the hall where Makera is concentrates on the wall, and sees it briefly disappear. Recognizing it as another possible illusion, Dimak closes his eyes and walks straight forward and through the wall. Opening his eyes just in time he sees the draconian who had ran down the hall earlier swinging his sword at him. Reflexively Dimak lashes out with a power bolt, but it is only a glancing blow as both combatants are off balance from being surprised. Dimak immediately strikes out again with his staff scoring a hit on the draconian, but the draconian’s second sword strike glances of Dimak’s armor. The combat only lasts a couple more strikes with Dimak dispatching the draconian just as Lylia steps through the “wall” pulling Makera through.

Suddenly Tandoran collapses with a loud “ehn!” Rask casts entangle on the area and snags the “wizard”. Melina leaving the room sees what has happened and starts agitating the “wizard’s” molecules. The rest of the party hearing the commotion race back down the hall to discover what is going on. Dimak seeing the obvious target hits him with fire from his staff. Makera fires an ice arrow from her Elemental Bow, but hits Tandoran. Makera quickly fires again, this time hitting her mark perfectly and the “wizard” collapses. Makera spots a wand in the dead man’s hand and using her telekinetic ability sends it flying into her hand. Rask dispels his entangle field, and as it sinks back below the ground, rushes to Tandoran and begins healing him. Meanwhile, Illian moves to the body of the “wizard”, and deftly searches it. He finds 25 gold pieces and a gold ring, which he slips onto his on finger. Melina goes back to the bedroom to investigate it further.

As Melina is searching the room the man on the bed awakens, and after some brief conversation introduces himself as Athor. He has a few items on him that appear to be magical. After talking with him, everyone surmises that, he is in fact from our “time”. From the information that he shares and from what everyone has collected everyone begins to suspect that perhaps we are not in a different time, but are actually within the most powerful illusion that we have ever confronted. After a lot of conversation Dimak is able to convince Athor to join the party, but there is still a lot of suspicion and distrust between the party and Athor in both directions. While Dimak and Athor talk, Lylia searches a nearby desk, but unfortunately sets off a poison dart trap. Athor quickly moves to her side and heals her. While he is leaning over her, Lylia recognizes something familiar about Athor’s satchel. Lylia catches Dimak’s eye, and makes a very subtle gesture regarding her recognition of Athor’s satchel. Dimak suddenly realizes that the satchel is actually a backpack and that it is in fact Dirst’s! Dimak suddenly very suspicious again, approaches Athor, and questions him regarding the satchel planning to catch Athor by surprise. Suddenly Makera threatens Athor and notching an arrow in her bow aims it at Athor. Realizing what is going to happen everyone lashes out with attacks against Athor, but his defensive abilities prove to be formidable.

All the attacks seem to simply bounce off of him, when Dimak notices that he is holding Syn’s ruby in his hand! Continuing to attack the party tries to stop him from getting away, but Athor remains defensive as he creates an obscuring fog that surrounds him, and then Melina catches a glimpse of him climbing up an invisible ladder. Within the next couple moments we have cleared away the fog, but there is no sign of Athor. Melina using her enhanced senses then notices a hole in the ceiling that is hidden by an illusion.

Illian having tied his rope to his climbing dagger throws the dagger straight up through the hole and sticks it into the ceiling above. Fearful that she’ll be an easy target, but realizing that she has the best chance Makera has Rask throw her up through the hole. Athor, however, is ready and hits her with his staff. Illian then climbs up the rope followed by Flick. Dimak blasts Athor with paralysis by Flick being his eyes. Melina climbing the rope comes up and snatching the satchel checks it and verifies that it is in fact Dirst’s. Using her cognitive abilities, she sees the bags past and discovers that a half-elf had gotten the bag when he and his party captured Dirst and Syn. Athor then came along and beat the half-elf’s gang and took the pack and ruby for his own. Melina also discovers that Athor is actually a doppelganger, but is neutral and not evil.

8/18/03    Not wanting to risk another fight, we tie up Athor. Makera goes about identifying the staff and wand that we now possess. Melina uses this time to go investigate the upper passageway that we discovered after going through the hole in the ceiling. Using her incredible senses she finds some rooms, and in the first one are two small figures, possibly children, but we are not sure. Further down she discovers four giants in another room. The party decides to split up and investigate what Melina discovered. Lylia goes to the first room and making her way through the locked door discovers Dirst and Syn laying on the floor! They quickly make a plan to escape the room and rejoin the party. Dimak frees Athor and sends him on his way with an agreement of no hostilities. Illian and Rask decide that they will go in search of Garum and leave.

After Dirst and Syn rejoin the party, and tell us what happened to them, Syn shows us an amulet that she “acquired”, a dove with crossed daggers! Melina once again using her abilities “reads” the object and discovers that it was an evil half-elf that possessed it last. The very same elf that captured Dirst and Syn. She also sees that the half-elf had once visited the library that we were in. Dimak upon investigating the bedroom one last time before we leave finds a diary in a footlocker by the bed. He also finds some “official” scrolls in a chest, and upon reading them discovers that they are designed to incite war between the provinces of Quegnon and Parcos, others are written to provoke further animosity between the two provinces. The diary speaks of “the voice” and having to protect “it” and of a great pain caused by disobeying “the voice”. Apparently the wizard that we had killed earlier was under this “voice’s” influence, and was driven to being evil as he was apparently a good guy once. The diary goes on to speak of “the recruiting is finished”. There is also a picture of “the” crystal in the book.

As Dimak reads through the documents, the others finish the job that Lylia started and break open the desk drawer. Inside they discover 3 bags of gold coins, a bowler, and a small pouch with two rings. We then decide to head out and investigate the upper passage. Syn moves ahead checking for traps. We come upon some large stairs that lead down into a cavern, and passing that we discover a door behind which is a lift. After discussing the fact that this is most definitely a dangerous undertaking, Syn and Melina climb down that shaft to investigate. After Syn returns and tells us it all clear we head down on the lift. Traveling down the corridor and the bottom of the lift we discover the cavern and the bottom of the stairs and the four Hill Giants that Melina had seen earlier. Deciding it wouldn’t be in our best interest to fight four giants we continue down the hallway to a set of doors at the end. Opening the doors we discover eight draconians, and Dimak is able to get off a shot before they have a chance to fight back, but it is to no avail as the fight then begins. As the battle rages in the room, Dirst sets up a sanctuary behind us to block any rear attacks. After a long and exhausting battle we are able to kill all the draconians, and take a few moments to rest.