The group was able to successfully convince Captain Betlock (town mayor) that vampires had taken up residence with the Longstride family. The captain gathered up a posse of townsfolk and met with the adventurers at the break of dawn outside the Longstride house. The captain pledged support in subduing the family, but with a nervous look made it clear that there would be no help in dealing with the vampires directly. The adventurers made their first move by putting the mother (who was awake) asleep with a spell, and cast silence upon the doorway before breaking it down. They drug out the mother who was still asleep, and proceeded to explore the house. Inside they found freshly scrubbed floors, ordinary furs and pelts befitting the family of the huntsman, and nothing seemingly out of the ordinary. The group broke down the eastern facing windows which had been nailed shut, causing sunlight to spill through onto the staircase.When a few of the adventurers went upstairs to get the children, they found them awake and alert asking where their mommy was; as if the sight of the adventurers triggered some inner instinct, the demeanor of the children changed and they viciously began attacking the adventurers with wooden toys and tried to bite and scratch the intruders. The children were quickly subdued by several backhanded slaps from mailed gauntlets and a quick "hold person" spell. The unconscious forms were carried outside to lay next to their mother, and the two hypnotized children stayed to answer questions. The children had no memory of where the vampires' coffins were, but they did point out where the attic was when they were asked. The group smashed open the eastern window of the children's room, allowing bright sunlight to flood the room and slightly spill from the doorway. Now that both windows on each floor had been opened to let in light (and making a ton of noise outside the silence spell), the group set to investigating the attic while Lucien and Borbo remained downstairs, Ondraedon remained on the staircase, and Thea searched through the chest and wardrobe of the parent's bedroom. The other adventurers climbed into the attic to discover 71 bats clinging to the peaked thatch roof. The bats were startled by the light and immediately attacked the group in a massive swarm. Two of the adventurers knocked a hole in the thatch to let in light, which didn't phase the bats. After more combat, the bats were mostly slain, and a few fled the house through the fresh holes in the thatch. Meanwhile downstairs, Thea discovered gold coins in the chest, and found a disturbing fanged figurine of a lady in the wardrobe. When a sudden shift in the air made her look behind, she saw the fog-form of a little girl forming, it's eyes gazing intensly into her. Thea resisted meeting the gaze of the vampire, and called out to her friends who were still above in the attic; she avoided the lightning fast attacks of the girl's clawed hands as her friends entered the room. The room was quickly filled with people, and blows were exchanged; Gorg was struck by a blow and suffered injury of the spirit as well as flesh, losing two levels of experience. His injury allowed Thea to sneak upon the Vampire and deal it a grievous blow (this was a DM mistake, undead can't be backstabbed). The next moment, another fog was rising from the cracks in the wood floor beneath and the form of a boy coalesced. The boy gazed upon the room with his fascinating-looking eyes, charming two of the group's companions and commanding them to attack their comrades. The battle continued on, and both the girl and boy vampires were scattered into their fog forms by the blows they received, falling down into the floorboards; the hostile companions had to be subdued, but not before they were able to inflict wounds to the group. When the encounter was over, the group searched the remainder of the house for signs of the vampire coffins, but were unsuccessful. Ka'Gron went back to the pantry, and opened the trapdoor, laying down to look beneath the house fully by sticking his head below. He was immediately bitten by a giant spider which had made it's nest below the house, and became paralyzed and unable to move or speak. The spider continued biting his face, but Ka'Gron was fortunate that his comrade Ramkis was nearby and thought it odd that Ka'Gron didn't move or respond to his questions. When Ramkis kicked Ka'Gron's foot, and still didn't get a response, he pulled Ka'Gron from the trapdoor and discovered that he had been poisoned. While Ramkis dragged Ka'Gron outside and sought the aid of the village apothecary, Thea and Kyle made their way into the pantry after having exhausted other alternatives for the coffin's location in their search of the rest of the house. Thea cleared away the shelves on the wall, and noticed that the wood of the eastern wall was of newer wood than the rest of the wood in the room. Her and Kyle used crowbars to pry loose the wall boards and discovered a sealed off room containing two small caskets. They drug them outside, and as a group they kicked off the lids in front of the villagers. The pitiful creatures inside burst into searing flames which charred the coffins and caused all to back away from their intensity. The cries and screams of the once-human children filled the docks. The somber crowd disbursed after that, and the mayor thanked the adventurers for their bravery and service, offering them two chests full of gold and several magical items he had collected as an adventurer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- After several days of rest, the group ventured out to the Palace in the mountains and tried a new path; they went down the tunnel in the pool in front of the palace, and followed it deep down for a couple of hours. Finally they emerged in a strange looking hallway intersection going north and east, coming out behind a large gargoyle statue perched over a pool of stale water. Several group members fooled around with the statue, and Ka'Gron's dwarven senses told him the statue was a mechanism of some sort. They twisted the thumbs of the gargoyles hands to open a secret door up the north hallway, and to partially deactivate a trap in the floor the the same hallway. Ondraedon discovered that the hallway was trapped first by casting "Detect Traps", although no one could quite figure out what the trap was. One person threw a knife onto the floor, and after a couple of minutes the knife had melted into a steaming puddle of slag, a wax candle which had been thrown nearby the knife partially melted as well. Someone in the group dashed off to the secret entrance and Ka'Gron followed a moment later, but he was not fast enough for the trap deactivation, and within moments his armor, weapons, and other metal objects on his body heated up and branded themselves on him. Once he was through the secret door, the heat quickly dissipated to the point where it was just uncomfortable. The rest of the group made their way safely across and the group found they were all in a black stone corridor carved with ancient stygian hieroglyphs. The proceeded down this hallway which turned down a set of stairs. The group descended the staircase and found themselves in a series of black stone hallways. The first door they found, they entered, discovering some sort of burial chamber with a stone crypt (filled with hundreds of skulls and bones), and walls filled with canopic jars. Ka'Gron grabbed a large jar from off a scale weighed against a feather, and the party fled back to town. In town, Ka'Gron opened the jar to discover a heart submerged in liquid; and he bit into the heart. The organ was steeped in giant scorpion venom, and he died within minutes. Ka'Gron's body has lain for days in the warehouse under the protective watch of Ondraedon and Ramkis.
