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They examined the odd crystal, discussed what spells might affect it, and realized that the magic they had at their disposal would do little against it. They examined the crystal, finding it covered with odd runes in an ancient tongue. Timm cast comprehend languages and found it to be part of the history of an ancient race of the distant past. It was a memorial of some kind, but the historical references it made were lost to him. He was able to glean from it that it was one of four similar crystals. As they tried to leave to follow the passageways, Maximus found himself unable to go more than 20 feet from it. Jon and Sasha, too, felt a strange tug as they walked away from it, but were able to do so. No matter how hard he tried, however, Maximus, it seemed, was now tied to the crystal.

Feanor checked out the leftward passage, finding it lead to a ladder that rose up to a trapdoor. The elf smelled soot and smoke, and guessed that it led to the now burnt and collapsed stable.

Sending the others out of harm's way, Sasha, Sir Souline, and Maximus battered the crystal with their weapons. Small fragments flew from it, but not nearly enough to impede its power. It responded by blasting first Maximus and then Sasha with a sickly green arc of energy. There was no way they could withstand the crystal's onslaught for as long as it would take to destroy it physically.

Timm cast dispel magic on it, and that weakened the strange aura that was keeping Maximus captive just enough for him to free himself. Vowing to return to investigate further, they continued down the natural cavern.

It led them on for over a mile, and occasionally they'd come to a side passage that led off to the north that smelled of swamp water. That part of the cavern was already lost to the encroaching swamp. A little further along, they came to a "T" intersection. Jon examined the passages for signs of traffic, and found feminine footprints leading off to the rightward passage. They followed that route for a short while and soon found themselves back in the Mistwood Mines.

Thinking this would be a good time to check out the submerged passage blocked by the gelatinous cube, they made their way once more through the mines. Jon destroyed the 'cube from afar with his ring, and Maximus cast water breathing on several members of the party to they could investigate. They discovered a room with veins of mithral in the walls, floor, and ceiling. Timm theorized that it may have been a meteorite that struck the world eons ago, infusing mithral into the very rock here and raising the mesa in which the mines were located.

They had Sir Souline take the village girl they'd rescued out of the mines and back to the Mathen Manor to fetch their horses. The rest of the party returned to the caverns to see where they led.

The cavern went on for another few miles, and soon the party could hear the monotonous humming of yet another crystal. As they approached it, they noticed that it stood on an island amidst a pool of green slime. Below it in the cavern was what had to have been the carrion moth breeding grounds. Six carrion crawlers, six carrion moths, and nearly a dozen slime crawlers were moving about in the cavern. Timm cast a web spell in an attempt to block off the passage and create a bottleneck to make killing them easier. As soon as the party starting moving into the chamber, however, the crystal started arcing green energy to certain points on the floor. Where ever the energy struck, an umber hulk rose from the earth!

One after another the party battled the horrid creatures as they slowly fought their way into the chamber with the crystal. They fought and killed four of the things before they were able to cross the room and by now, the carrion moths were well aware of them. The battle with the moths went much more quickly than in their first encounter with them, and soon they were wandering among the butchered carrion crawlers and carrion moths setting the eggs alight with oil and flame.

They began to move into the next chamber, a huge natural gallery littered with stalagmites and columns. It was lit dimly from above by odd purple fungus. They moved carefully and slowly, wary of the huge room and what its dim precincts might contain. Their caution paid off.

Nearly a score of Tsathar scourges and Floth the Tsathar filth priest charged at them from three points in the darkness. They party fell back to the hallway that attached the breeding cavern to this one, effectively denying the Tsathar their advantage of numbers by creating a bottleneck where they could only fight two-by-two.

Mimi Mathen appeared here as well, as did Fluoplilth the Mind Flayer and his "pet" chuul! They stepped from their hiding places behind columns in the large room as Sasha and Maximum charged past the Tsathar to reach them. Mimi pounded the party with another fireball, and Timm answered in kind. Shuka, Jon, Feanor, and Timm also keep the remaining Tsathar tied up in melee, leaving the more powerful fighters, Sasha and Maximus, to deal with Mimi and Fluoplilth. Before he could do much to Mimi, Maximus was intercepted by the crab-like chuul. Mimi retreated to drink healing potions, which Feanor invalidated by pounding her with arrows and taking back all of the damage that was healed. Floth and several of his Tsathar scourges broke off from the bottleneck to go after Sasha, and she spent her time dealing with them one by one. The mind flayer tried to work his mental magic on Sasha and Maximus, but to no avail: their wills were just too strong. Meanwhile the chuul grabbed Maximus up in one of its huge claws and held him so strongly that he couldn't escape. It moved to do the same to Sasha, who'd just finished off Floth, but was unable to successfully grab her. Timm cast call lightining to pound Mimi and Fluoplilth. That was the end of the mind flayer, but with all that was going on it was Calcyx who got the killing blow on Mimi Mathen. With the mind flayer slain, there was no one to defend her unconscious body. The little dragon took care of her with a fierce bite.

With Fluoplilth, Floth, and Mimi dead, the remaining Tsathar were routed. The few survivors fled to the rushing waters of an underground river and escaped. The party took a few moments to rest after the hard-won battle, and returned their attention to the huge cavern. There was still much that needed to be done. There were two more crystals somewhere out there, and they also hoped to discover some indication of exactly what was going on.

They explored the cavern where the Tsathar fled to, and found it led to a deep underground river. The cave continued along its shore for a short time, coming to a larger room with a huge black obelisk at the center. The room was filled with strange, bluish mushrooms that put out a faint glow.

Not wanting to risk inhaling whatever spores the mushrooms might put out, but curious to see what this obelisk would do, they had Shuka and Sasha roll a barrel of oil to it, which Jon ignited with a produce flame spell.

As with the other obelisks, when this one was attacked it spit forth a monstrosity from some strange otherworld. This creature was a massive slug that flinched away from the fire spreading at the base of the obelisk and spit a gout of acid at Shuka. Severely injured by the attack, Shuka retreated as the party braced for the slug's next attack.

It surged forward, with mushroom spores erupting all around it. It spit again, this time at Sasha, as she and the rest of the party assailed it. To the party's dismay, most of their attacks bounced harmlessly from its slimy, rubbery, thick skin. Even their magic weapons seemed to harm it only little. Fire and cold harmed it, as they found out by a process of elimination, so Feanor stowed his bow and attacked with his frost longsword. Tim and Jon blasted at it with produce flame, magic missile, and summoned fire elementals whilst Max and Sasha trusted in their strength to push their attacks through its blubbery form. The disgusting slug managed to grab Sasha in a worm-like secondary mandible that erupted from his mouth, but before it could swallow her whole the great thing gave a deep shudder and vanished back to wherever it had come from.

Leaving that obelisk and the now burning mushrooms, they continued on to explore the rest of the cave. Feanor found a secret door at the south end of the great cavern, and they entered into a strange cave that spiraled almost like a corkscrew straight down into the earth. After a brief debate, they decided to check out that cavern. Straight down they went in a spiral for several minutes until the cavern opened up in a vast abyss crossed only by a delicate narrow natural arch. Seeing this, they stopped to debate again. This passage, it seemed, was leading purposefully into the Underdark, a place to which none of the party wanted to venture. Now, at least, they knew how Fluoplilth the Mind Flayer had come to the cavern above.

They turned back and explored the rest of the cavern, finding another cave with a black pool with a small island that bore a blue-green obelisk much smaller than the others. It was humming only faintly. Feanor sensed something strange about this obelisk, and called Maximus in for his opinion. The obelisk, to these two, suddenly seemed faint and transparent. Curious, Feanor loosed an arrow at it and it all but vanished completely. It was an illusion! Wondering what this was all about, the party made ready as Feanor crept in to explore the room. His eyes snapped down to the black pool, and lurking in its depths he saw a great tentacled fish surrounded by a thick wall of slime. He felt a brief intrusion into his mind, but managed to fight off the compulsion. He retreated back to the rest of the party, and after describing what he'd seen Jon was able to identify the beast as an aboleth - best left alone!

The remaining as-yet-unexplored cave led upwards, and Feanor noted a hole in the ceiling at one point. He sent Calcyx up to investigate, and the little dragon reported back that the passage was s-shaped and led still further up. The room at the end of the passage they were in contained yet another obelisk, this one black and mirror-like, showing a night sky with a star pattern none of them could recognize. Not even Tim and Jon, with their considerable knowledge of the natural world, knew any of the stars or formations. Max put his hand close to the obelisk, and felt a profound cold emanating from it. As they observed it for a few minutes, the saw that the star pattern was moving, much like the natural night sky only much faster.

Again curious to see what this crystal would spit forth to defend itself, the party prepared as Jon gathered up some cave stones and tossed them at it. Four will-o'- wisps flew from the void depicted on the obelisk and attacked. They were difficult to hit, as they were small and moved quickly as they spat forth arcs of energy. Once hit, however, they were easily destroyed, and soon all four had fallen to the ground and returned to the obelisk.

Having had enough of this obelisk, they decided to do a complete, methodical search of the great cavern. They found yet another secret door, this time leading to a living chamber of some kind. It held a cocoon-like bed, several skeletons, a huge desk and chair, and a large idol of Tsathogga. There was a silvery box on the desk with an image of the frog-god on it and a spell book. The party knew this room, as they'd seen it in the crystal ball back at Nebellor's place in Byrny when they scried Mimi and Mildridge Mathen.

Jon cast detect magic to see what might be of interest, and they found some magic items on the skeletons. The box on the desk also put off an aura. Feanor examined it, and determined that it contained two magical traps. Looked at it, and with assistance from the others identified the spells as feeblemind and baleful polymorph set to go off in that order. The box had no obvious keyhole or hinges, so it was impossible to determine how it was opened. Timm cast identify on it to see if that would give him a clue as to how to open it, and, unfortunately, that set off the traps. The feeblemind spell affected him, unfortunately, but he managed to stave off the effects of the baleful polymorph.

The rest of the party helped the now near-mindless Tim into the chair before he ran into something and hurt himself as Feanor had a brainstorm. He grabbed the holy symbol of Tsathogga from around Floth's neck and ran it over the image of Tsathogga on the box. The box clicked and sprung open. (Honest to goodness serendipity there! The player pretty much perfectly guessed what it would take to open the box.)

Inside the box was a note written in some odd tongue and an ancient-looking bronze key. Feanor deciphered it to be a message from Deagle.

Fluoplilth,

Hail Tsathogga! This is the key to tomb B-117 in the Bonegarden Cemetery. This is where Milo and I have hidden the ethereal diadem, should you have need for it again.

Yours in service of the Great Frog,
Deagle

Jon had actually heard of the ethereal diadem. It was a crown-like item that one could use to focus and enhance the powers of chaos. This had to be the item that the Mathens had used to activate the obelisks that were powering the heteroclite portal. All they had to do was find it, and they could deactivate the portal.

But first they had more pressing concerns. They wanted to get out of the caverns once and for all, they wanted to burn down Mathen Manor, and, finally, they wanted to see what it would take to have Tim's mind restored to him.

They investigated the s-shaped cavern, and found it to lead outside not far from the Mistwood Minds. They ventured overland to the mines to collect Sir Souline and the girl they'd rescued, Carla, and continued on to the manor house. Soon it was engulfed in flames, having been soaked in massive amounts of oil for days.

They returned to Byrny victorious, and learned from the townsfolk that two throngs (200 men) were marching on Byrny from the City State! No one knew their purpose, and since Byrny was a loyal demesne of the Overlord it was of great concern that he was sending an army against them.

The party decided to stay in Byrny that night, not wanting to have to sneak past the throngs on the road. They also had Max pray for sending the next morning to see if they could find anything out from Langwellan. The old wizard responded that the rumors of mithral in the Mistwood Mines had been confirmed, and the Overlord was coming to retake the Mathen lands as his own. The grant provided to the Mathens was forfeit, their peerage revoked for not reporting the wealthy find to their lord.

Finding that amusing, the party happily left Byrny and even waved to the soldiers as they passed them by on the Rorystone Road. The only concerns the party had were how they would return to the caves to deactivate the heteroclite portal if the Overlord was going to have an encampment there.

That was a matter to be solved another day, however. Once back at the City State, they were able to get Tim restored in the Temple of Odin. Jon asked the priests there if they'd heard of the Bonegarden Cemetery, and the acolytes replied in scared whispers, "Only in legend!"

The Bonegarden Cemetery was an ancient burial ground on an island in the Windark Sea. Once a place for the interment of the diseased and those cursed by madness. Soon the place was so cursed that the ground would no longer hold the dead.

If they wanted to shut down the heteroclite portal, they had to find the Bonegarden and risk travel there to find a particular tomb.

sparky 90 wrote:

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Nice wrap up. So the Bonegarden next.