BR Recap Forum

Archive of the now closed Burning Retribution group.

Session 1 Velren the Gith and his strange colored friend met on a road, remembering each other from their escape from the underdark. They ran into 4 dwarves on horses delivering an important message of peace to the elves of Taer Valaestas. Soon, a fierce manticore attacked from behind. The 2 brave respectable dwarves stayed behind to distract the manticore while the 2 less respectable dwarves ran bravely away, giving the other dwarves horses to Velren and the oddly colored man so they could run away as well. Soon they were stopped by peasants asking for money to rebuild their burned Inn. Not trusting the peasants, the heroes decided to leave the peasants behind. This saddened the peasants, until lightning struck near the heroes. Sensing an opportunity, the peasants attacked. They were quickly killed. The heroes entered the town of Teryk, only to discover that it was mostly burned down by a human and an elf. The heroes were sad for the old couple that owned the place, but left without really helping. Soon the heroes entered the town of Pitchwall and got a room at an Inn. Elim quickly fell for a pretty lass with bloody, disfigured hands. She had medicine for her parents in Taer Valaesas and asked them to make sure her family got the medicine. The heroes also met a soldier (Thorair Glorox) who barely survived an attack by a large tongued beast. Elim assumed it was a giant albino frog. The soldier strongly denied the frog idea. They also met a lovely noble couple. The heroes decided to go to bed. Elim wanted a better room, so he bargained his way into a smaller room that he had to share with Barlo. Barlo wasn’t sure how or why his room got downgraded as well but just went with it. During the night, a blood curdling scream was heard. Everyone got up and discovered the pretty bloody handed lady was dead. MURDERED! Varus and Rorn joined the heroes to find the evildoers. Soon more screams were heard and the heroes split up and ran around the inn. Everyone they found was dead except the soldier, who they tied up and left. Then they discovered that the Inn keeper had been dead for awhile. Someone was impersonating the Inn keeper. The heroes found a hidden door into the basement where cultists of Dis were performing some sort of ceremony over a bloody alter. Lady Gracaalis was in a cage. The lead cultist ran away. The heroes killed the other cultists and saved Lady Gracaalis. Somehow Velren cut his belt and lost his pants in the fight. Barlo fixed his belt for him after the fight. Outside the inn, the cultists leader was standing with many, many cultists with torches. The leader threatened that he would be seeing the heroes again soon, then disappeared with his many friends. The heroes decided it was time to sleep. The next day the heroes took the soldier and Lady Gracaalis all the way to Taer Valaestras, none stop.

Session 2 Once reaching Taer Valaestas, Rorn decided to go do a little nightly exploring on his own. Elim decided to follow him. Rorn tried to ditch Elim, but Elim didn’t know he was trying to be ditched so happily kept following him. They stumbled upon a woman being burned as a witch with a bag over her head. Rorn decided to be a hero and save the woman, so he ran up, cast a spell and promptly murdered a half dozen of them. Elim watched. They grabbed the girl and they bravely ran away. They took the bag off her head and discovered that she was rather unattractive and warty, so they both quickly lost interest in her and left her. The next day, Barlo and Varus went to the capital to deliver the dwarven message of peace. The dwarves they got separated from were already there delivering the message. They wondered why Barlo was hanging out with criminals. Barlo was confused until Rorn stepped out. He had admitted to killing the peasants and turned himself in. The dwarves left for their hometown, wishing Barlo well. Velren’s oddly colored friend left. Velren joined the monk’s guild and met a new friend, Firali. Firali was introduced to the group. Varus tried to join the fighter’s guild. He had to win a 4 way fight to win. Despite dispatching 2 people himself, Varus lost to the 4th soldier. He impressed the fighters of the guild, but not enough to be allowed admittance. The heroes heard of a fighting tournament. Firali, Barlo, Elim, and Varus all joined. They all won their first round. Then they had to fight a 4 way fight against each other for the championship. Firali had been real sneaky before the fight and stole Varus's rapier, so Varus shot him. The 3 remaining heroes battled it out. It was an intense fight, Barlo fell first, then Elim. Varus was the champion and won 100 gold. The fighters were very impressed with him and decided to let him join the fighters guild after all. Firali then joined Elim and Barlo as they made there way to deliver the medicine to the elven lady's family as they had promised. They discovered the area of town she had lived in, Thornshadows was under heavy quarantine. Some kind of magical disease. At first the guards wouldn’t let them in, but finally they agreed. Elim went in himself. They decided he would have the best chance of sneaking in and out on his own once the medicine was delivered. If he wasn’t back in 12 hours, Barlo and Firali promised to get the others and come get him.

Session 3 (AKA The DM's mean surprise) Barlo wakes up early in the morning to go talk to Lady Graccalis about what she knows about the quarantined district. She convinces him that it would be suicide to charge in there and try to help the people at this time. She does tell him that she can pull some strings and get someone to let them out of the quarantine zone if they go and find him quickly. Barlo thanks her and goes to find the others. Elim makes friends with Dr. Tommy in the quarantine zone. He is given a gross bottle with an eye in it for protection, then they are attacked by a large zombie thing and a bunch of smaller ones. Dr. Tom says he can hold the beasts off, but pleads with Elim to kill him as he runs. Elim briefly considers staying to fight by Tom’s side, but in the end he follows Tom’s advice and jumps out the window, turning and shooting Dr. Tom as he fell. The rest of the group gather at the gate to Thornshadows. The guards agree to let them in for a small bribe of 15 gold. Reluctantly Varus and Barlo agree to pay and they go inside. Inside there are a lot of creepy people walking around. The group feels like they are being followed. They hear a dwarven battle cry in the distance and find Elim. They make their way to the gates and see a man standing in shadows on the rooftops. The guards refuse to let them out until 10 minutes later a guard (Theodore) comes with a message from Lady Gracaalis telling them to release us. The shield is lowered and the heroes leave the quarantine zone. They look back and the shadowy figure is gone. Future Problems? Barlo tanks the guard Theodore and tips him, making a comment about the guards stealing his money earlier. Theodore yells at them and returns Barlo and Varus’s money. The group quickly takes leaves town to get away before trouble starts. Some of the group MAY be cursed or diseased. The heroes decide they need to make some money, so looking at the job board they find a group of nobles looking for protection to party in the woods to the north. They decide to go meet with a man named Rooster about the job. Traveling north the heroes met Rooster and 20 other nobles in Aerie. Firali talked to the alchemist there that made the medicine made to cure Liliana’s parents. For 500 gold he would teack Firali how to make the medicine. If the heroes gathered the medicine for him, the alchemist could make potions for only 10 gold each. The heroes went into the woods by Pitchwall. With the nobles. The found some of the roots needed for the medicine on the way. Soon the came to the party shack. At the party, Rooster demand they have fun, so against his better judement, Barlo engaged in a game of dice with Rooster. Barlo won 2 out of 3, so Rooster demanded a game of mead pong. Elim said he’d be Barlos parner and a headed game began. Elim flirted with Rooster’s sister many times. She often said, eww dwarves. Eventually Elim started flirting with a girl named Stacy instead. The game was going well, it became a 3 way game with Stacy on Elim and Barlos side. Eventually Stacy quit, so Rorn stepped in. Rooster said that wasn’t allowed until Rorn gave an amazing speech about the rules of mead pong and Rooster had to agree that it was more then legal. Soon someone realized there were now 21 nobles, not 20. Barlo cast detect evil and the new noble was revealed to be a hideous white monster with a long, evil tongue. The Albino dire frog? The heroes attack and the monster and all the nobles scattered in fear into the woods. Screams were heard from the woods. Eventually everyone returned. Some people were missing. One of the nobles was acting weird and the heroes discovered the monster was impersonating one of the nobles this time. Again everyone scattered in fear into the woods. More screams from the woods. This happened over and over again. The beast impersonated different people. One time impersonating Barlo. The stupid nobles continued to scattered into the woods like morons any time they were a little scared. Eventually the heroes decided to finally listen to Firali and decided to stop attacking the beast. They simply couldn’t kill it. Out of frustration, Barlo went to the front door and yelled “Take me, copy my face again! Its fine! We’ll leave you alone and you can party! 2 Barlos is fun!” Another BArlo walked in the door and started copying Barlos every move. The sun came up and the beast left happy. The heroes left with the 11 nobles that were still alive. They were paid about half the money they would have received if they actually protected everyone. In Airie, the alchemist made one potion for them with the roots they found. All of the heroes could now be safe and disease free. The heroes went back into the woods to get more roots, but were confronted by ghosts so the heroes left, feeling defeated again. The heroes traveled back to Taer Valaestas feeling defeated.

Session 4 (AKA, they kill a god) Edited by DM to Include the Underdark. Varus, Velren, and Firali spend the week training. Rorn is oddly quiet. Varus and Barlo visit the soldier Thorair Glorox to tell him that they saw the long tongued creature he spoke of. They write a full report for him, telling him to warn people that if they see the monster, the best thing to do may be to just try to ignore the creature as odd as that seems. Varus and Barlo, spend a few days gathering rumors about the aarakocra Zeed. Between the 2 of them, they discover that Zeed should be back in town at the inn they are staying in within a few days. Barlo also discovers that Zeed likes to spend some fun time with many of the elf ladies in town. Barlo spends some time talking to a girl about how that works physically. Varus finds out that Zeed knows lady Gracaalis. Varus goes to meet with Lady Gracaalis. He wants to make sure she is ok, and to talk to her about the Aaracocra Zeed. He is met by her butler and is told he must make an appointment to meet her in a couple days. He makes the appointment. Elim, Barlo, Varus and Firali go to the barracks to meet with a man about some kobalds that have been harassing people from an abandoned mine base. When they get to the barracks, an assistant tells them they need the poster or she can’t find the job they are speaking about. Elim and Barlo wait at the Barracks while Varus and Firali go get the poster. On the way back a little girl asks them to help her with her puppy that escaped again. The “puppy” is a large, teleporting dog. Varus and Firali subdue the animal and the little girl leaves with it happily. Firali comments that this is the craziest, town he has ever been in. After returning with the poster, the assistant tells them where to find the kobalds and promises them 300 gold. They head out. The heroes find the mine and enter. They find a dead end, buried with rocks. Barlo removes some rocks and sees a kobald running. He pulls his crossbow and shoots it directly in the neck, killing it instantly. Soon they find some old mead. Barlo dips his finger in and trys it. It tastes super good, but its also very toxic and hurts him. You would think Barlo learned a lesson from this, but later they find more old mead and he again trys it, hurting himself. But boy it tasted good. They then discover a large pile of bodies. They appear to have large tooth marks. Barlo prays over them, which is apparently different then giving them barial rights. (point taken Mr. DM =)) ((you left a pile of 50 bodies just...laying there)) They stumble on a couple traps which Firali expertly avoids. They see some kobalds in the tunnel ahead. While whispering to each other about what to do, one of the kobalds speaks up and says, “We can hear you!” Elim speaks to them, as he is the only one that can speak draconic. Elim makes a deal with the kobalds that the group will help them kill the dark knife ears from the tunnels below. The heroes start following the kobalds and it is soon determined they are leading them to their “god.” This makes everyone nervous and a fight starts. After a ferocious struggle, the heroes kill all the kobalds, including their giant leader. After more searching the heroes find a giant hole leading a long way underground (the Underdark perhaps?). They rebury the hole and leave it for now. While doing more exploring they hear a sliding stone door moving and a giant lizard comes out and attacks them. The kobalds god! The heroes defeat it, with Elim delivering the killing blow, right through the eye. The last room left to explore is covered in webs. They see a wooden chest in the back of the room. Varus wants to burn the webs free, but the others are scared that the fire will destroy the chest. Barlo trys hacking through the webs but gets his dagger stuck. He borrows Elim’s sword, but gets it stuck too. They gather all the kobald’s swords and get them all stuck as well. Firali tries some ninja moves to get around the webs. He gets stuck. The others pull him out. Firali decides to gather the iron cages found in another room and push them through the webs. It kind of works after 2 cages being pushed in, but then Varus’s flaming staff sets the webs on fire by accident. A large spider jumps out and attacks Varus as the fire spreads. Elim quickly runs in and opens the chest, springing a trap that starts a collection of papers on fire. Elim manages to gather most of the papers quickly before they burn. He runs. The spider bites Varus and he falls unconscious. Barlo drags Varus away while Firali and Elim hold the spider back. The spider dies from a combination of hero inflicted woulds and fire. The heroes return to Taer Valaestas.

Session 5 (AKA The first death) The heroes meet a paladin woman named Renfri at the Inn. She joins them on their quest to save the city. They go to see Lady Gracaalis. She tells them that Zeed likes to frequent the ladies at the Mermaid’s Reef. The heroes go to the Mermaid’s Reef and find a huge line out the door. Renfri makes her way in but discovers the room too packed to get upstairs. She comes back out. Barlo and Renfri give a big speech to the people outside, telling them all about their sinful ways and telling them to go home. A number of them go home, more annoyed then convinced of the speech. The packed room inside is unaffected. Renfri talks to the half-orc bouncer at the back door, convincing him to let the heroes inside. Inside there is a loud crash upstairs, then the sounds of a didgeridoo. Varus recognizes the music as the same music he heard Zeed make on a boat weeks earlier. The music seems to have an affect on the tavern goers, causing half of them to start fighting the others. The heroes quickly make a dash to try to run upstairs again. In the room is a large demon in the bed. Women are around the walls and a bird man is playing music, its Zeed. The heroes attack the demon, the bird man is grateful for the help. It is a long fight, the demon takes over Barlo, causing him to hit Renfri and knock her unconscious. The demon thanks Barlo for his help, then sucks his life from him, healing himself and dropping Barlo to the floor. He’s dead. The heroes quickly finish the demon. Zeed contacts Barlo’s sister who just got to town, informing her of his death. She is very sad. The next day a funeral is made. Nobles attend. Firali is accused of molesting a noble while attempting to pick her pocket. Renfri slams Firali against a wall and they have a brief fight and some harsh words. The guards tell Firali he must spend some time in jail when their quest is done. Later Renfri joins the fighter guild by winning a tournament. The fighter guild wants to see Varus fight Renfri. They do and Renfri wins.

Session 6 (Death and New Friends) Lady Graacalis meets the heroes outside the inn as they prepare to head south to Pyrus Maradal to deal with a tree problem. It seems a treant or something is animating trees and causing a problem. She introduces them to Zanlen Talloth, a kender that assured them all that he was way smarter then them and therefore would make a great ally. The heroes reluctantly agree to take him along. Brenlyn stays in town, getting a job at the inn as a brewer. The first night was spent at a town. Most of the heroes stayed at the inn, but Firali decided to meditate in a tree outside town. In the middle of the night he was awakened by 3 ogres coming at him. Firali jumped out of the tree and ran away, back to town. In town he was going to meditate the rest of the night on a roof, but a guard caught him and threatened to throw him in jail, so Firali spent the rest of the night on the front steps of the inn. The next night was spent in a camp in the woods. Varus awoke the party to something he heard and the heroes found an elf in the woods. She introduced herself as Weslyn. The heroes had a discussion and agreed to take her with them for mutual protection. In town they found Brenlyn’s centaur friend who was also looking to fix the tree problem, so he joined them. They talked to the current mayor who would not help them. The old mayor went into the forest and disappeared. Renfri took the lead and talked to the new mayor but she refused to give them any information when Renfri made it clear that they were only interested in money. Keldar talked to her and said he and Zanlen were not interested in money so she agreed to talk to them. Weslyn came too and she really gave no more useful information, so they left to find the missing mayor. In the woods they found a tree in the path in front of them. Renfri decided to attack the tree. It seemed to do nothing until she tried to move around the tree, when it moved to block her path. They then noticed that 2 trees were also creeping up behind them. Renfri lit a candle and a scream shouted through the woods as the 2 trees behind them decided to attack. Renfri was hit by a solid blow, but the heroes managed to destroy one tree. Zanlen was struck down by the other tree, but Weslyn healed him and the heroes rallied to defeat the remaining tree. The team went back to town and bought axes. They also spent the night, then returned and managed to sneak there way past the tree in their path. Eventually they came to a giant tree being surrounded by Smaller awakened trees. They seemed to be doing some kind of ritual as a droning noise seemed to come from all of them. Keldar spoke to the tree in Sylvan and it told him that the elf was inside them and needed to be stopped. Apparently it had captured The Spirit of the Forest and held her against her will. Keldar agreed to have the tree shrink them to get inside the tree to stop the elf. They would have 1 hour to find the elf or they would grow to full size and die. The tree was a maddening maze. Up was down, down was up. It was very confusing and the heroes almost ran out of time, but eventually they found a Dis cultist that Varus recognized as the one that killed people in the tavern from session 1. He was with a dryad and told the heroes that they could have her when he was done with stealing her powers. The heroes pleaded with him, but he never handed her over. Everyone was cautious about striking at him since he seemed really powerful and could possibly hurt the dryad. He mentioned that Dis was gathering an army and that these trees would be in it after he gained the Dryad's power. Eventually the droning from the trees outside stopped and the cultist threw the dryad toward them. The heroes grabbed her and ran out, the droning of the trees seemed to be replaced with the cultist's laughter. Bugs in the tree seemed to appear everywhere as the group rushed through the tree but eventually they escaped. The dryad eventually regained consciousness. She saw Weslyn and bowed to her. She said she was powerless and needed them to protect her. If she dies, the forest dies. The heroes took her with and went to town, but everyone in town was dead except for 2 elves and a 12 year old boy. Everyone except Firali helped gathering the bodies and burned them at sea. Firali slept. On the way to Taer Valaestras they found a Giant White Wolf on a pile of skulls. The Wolf spoke to Keldar and Weslyn, in the Sylvan tongue and pushed a skull to Keldar, which turned into a long iron sword. The heroes reached home safely.

Session 7 (Kinky Fey, and the heroes save the day) Weslyn woke up smelling ham. Why was she cuddling a ham? She had no memories of the night before. As she woke up more she noticed a man tied up in what appeared to be some sort of kinky bondage gear. Weslyn asked him what happened, but he simply thanked her and tossed her 5 copper for her payment. Confused, Weslyn found the others at the inn and discovered that she went drinking the night before with the dryad Eilsanna. The dryad was still missing. Retracing her steps, they went to a nobles house and found a man/woman noble of indeterminate gender who had played a trick on Weslyn. Renfri punched her in the face for being rude. The he/she told Weslyn she should go to the temple, then told Renfri the guards would be coming for her. At the temple they found a naked dryad, poop in a serving tray, and a priest who also was involved in pranking Weslyn from the night before. They also found a naked, but very much alive Barlo, back from the dead somehow. He now had tattoos of Renfri, Firali, and a horned dinosaur man named Londarris. Firali gave him a magical belt of pants to cover his nakedness. The Burning Retribution geared up and headed to the quarantine zone. On the way, they met the dinosaur man from Barlo’s tattoo who agreed to come with them. The heroes slowly made their way through the quarantine zone, avoiding everything they saw until they found a mysterious platform with stairs leading down. Renfri yelled down the hole asking, “Is anyone there?” They heard Zeed’s telltale didgeridoo. Inside they found Zeed who left his old group to scout out this area. They proceeded to examine the building with him. They stumbled on a large room with diseased people that attacked them. Barlo and Zeed were the last ones in the room when a huge crash came from behind. A large mutated dwarf was coming! While everyone else fought the diseased people, Barlo barred the door and tried to keep the beast out. Just as the last diseased man had fallen, the mutated dwarf burst in. Renfri and Barlo were both knocked unconscious, but the heroes won. The heroes took a short rest and continued searching. They found an alter room with a large eyed, mutated elf. The elf started rising skeletons from the floor to attack the heroes. It was a long fight, but the heroes eventually won, after a giant skeleton and a skeleton dragon were summoned. Luckily the skeletons collapsed after the big eyed creature was destroyed. Behind the alter they found a magic potion billowing smoke. They covered up the potion and discovered that it was the cause of the curse. Anyone already cursed would be cured, but anyone already mutated would still be mutated. Everyone agreed to let Zeed destroy the potion in a volcano. The Burning Retribution returned to the inn.

Session 8 Through hell and beyond After investigating the magic of the swords, Barlo started using the glass sword. The sword started talking to Barlo in his head. Feeling weird and crazy, Barlo asked the sword to talk to the rest of the party so that they stopped looking strangely at him. The sword asked them to go on a quest to destroy another evil weapon of chaos. The heroes agreed. The heroes bought horses and headed north to the mountains East of Karrnath. The heroes meet some bunnies and kill them. The first night Weslyn is on watch and sees 3 things coming at her. She turns into a blink dog and howls and is promptly attacked by 3 giant elk. The heroes defeat one elk, 2 run away while setting the forest on fire It’s what we do. They hired a ranger guide and proceeded into the desert. A thri-kreen approached and demanded that they bow to the sun. Everyone except Firali agreed. The thri-kreen got mad and knocked his knees from under him and Firali reluctantly agreed to bow to the sun. The ranger warned them that a large leader of the Thri-kreen could read their minds and know if they are actually praising the sun or not. Sure enough, the next day a large group of Thri-kreen approached. Everyone bowed to the sun again, except Firali who was scared. Barlo’s magic sword, named JUSTICE now, asked Barlo’s permission to help Firali. He reluctantly agreed and the sword took over Firali’s mind enough to make him praise the sun. The Thri-Kreen left. That night, a large fire elemental came at them. JUSTICE warned them that they would die by this beast if they didn’t run, and it was likely faster then them all. The heroes bravely ran while leaving one horse behind to lure the beast away. They made it to Gatherhold where they learned that the soldiers are about to attack the elven kingdom of Cyre. They say that the elves betrayed them. The heroes find an inn to spend the night.

Session 9 (Hero lost, hero found.) The heroes travel to Vulyar then decide to head straight east to the volcano. After finding and eating a couple different types of dinosaurs, the heroes found a cursed temple. Renfri decided she wanted to kill the demon inside, so she ran inside. Barlo tried to stop her but she shrugged him off and ran inside. The doors slammed shut and she was faced with a demon. The demon told her to draw a card. Renfri drew a card and suddenly had a change of heart/alignment. She felt very good and lawful. The doors opened behind her, but Renfri decided to draw another card anyway. She suddenly found herself in possession of the title to a keep of her own. Letting greed get the best of her, Renfri drew another card and all the magical items in the whole party suddenly vanished. Of course, Renfri drew another card. Suddenly her soul was wrenched from her body and thrown into a jar shooting into space. Her body went limp. Varus went in to fetch her, and had to draw a card of his own. The demon told him that he now had a powerful demonic enemy and let him free. The heroes left, carrying Renfri’s body with them. Later, they stumbled upon their old friend Elim the bounty hunter. He told them that he is searching for the wife of the prince of frost. He decided to join them since they were on their way to a possible magical weapons hold. They get a little lost, but soon find themselves near the volcano. They find a group of 3 powerful women at a camp. One is an orc, one is an elf, and one is a gnome. The orc approaches Varus, calls him a prince and seems smitten with him. Firali trys to pick her pocket, but accidentally ends up groping her butt. The orc says only Varus is allowed to do that. With a little prompting from the group, Varus decides to grope her. She likes it. The group spends the night and Varus spends a magical 5 minutes 30 seconds with the orc before he is spent. Seeing Varus leaving the tent, Elim snuck in and convinced the orc to sleep with him as well. He lasted much longer then Varus, but the orc still seemed only slightly impressed. The party continued on and eventually found the entrance to a cave. A large creature with red stones growing from its body appeared. The heroes were in for a big fight soon…

Session 10 (Riddles and monsters) The party is immediately attacked by a large dinosaur in camp. It had strange red crystals on its back. They killed it, but the crystals flared to life and brought it back from the dead, so the heroes tried breaking the crystals on its back while fighting it. Eventually they killed it enough times that it exploded, knocking everyone unconscious except Weslyn who healed them. During the night, a brown robed man came and introduced himself as Ra-Shem. He agreed to help them on their quest, hoping the group would be willing to help him find the elf girl Sherriah. Next a sailor showed up with an axe. Says he got ship wrecked. He agreed to come with so we could help him get to a town. Then a burning tree man showed up. He was very quiet and secretive. Said his name is HIVE. He agreed to come with as well. Next a Thri-Kreen showed up and shared their food and drink with them before moving on. The next day, Elim and Weslyn agreed to stay outside to watch Renfri and the horses. The rest of the group went inside the mysterious cave. Inside was a sphinx with a riddle. If they passed the riddle they could pick a tunnel and go forward. Get the riddle wrong and they have to wait a week to move forward. The heroes got the riddle correct and went down the right tunnel. One tunnel seemed full of treasures. The heroes avoided that room. The next room was full of burning mud with pedastals hanging from chains. After much trial and error the heroes made it across the room, but not before many people fell into the mud and were burned badly. The next room was full of darkness, and an undead creature running around attacking people in the dark. Barlo turned the beast and the heroes took advantage of the beast being turned to slowly corner the beast and attack it. Firali grappled the beast and held it while the others attacked it. They found out it was a vampire and it knocked Firali unconscious, but they killed the beast. The heroes slept in the dark room to heal.

Session 11 (A true hearts desire) Hive finds a hidden compartment under the coffin while the heroes slept in the dark room. They found a magic hammer. With no other exists found, they backtracked to the sphinx room, answered another riddle and went north. They found a room full of water and Aldrick jumped in. In the bottom he found a crank. With Golem “9”s help, he turned the crank and water started to empty from the caverns. The depressed sphinx seemed a little happier. In the next room, 2 pretty naked green ladies convinced Aldrick and Barlo to jump in with them where they started drowning. Suddenly the flesh golem “9” jumped into the water and beat the women to death. The heroes continued on. They came to a strange room with strange membrane like walls holding back a torrent of water. This scared the heroes so they left and went to a room with a man and woman that attacked them. During the fight the woman turned into a werebear. It looked bad until the golem #9 finally made it to the room and helped them defeat the 2. They found a very powerful magic ring in the chambers of the fallen enemies. Among other things the ring had, it also granted a wish at the cost of permanent life damage every year. Most people in the party wanted the ring for varius reasons. They decided to flip coins to determine who got the ring. Londarris won, but when Aldrick lost he tried to grab the ring. Everyone jumped on him and tried to wrestle the ring away. Ra-Shem ended up with the ring and demanded everyone promise him to help him find Sheriah if he return the ring. But while they continued to fight, the ring started reading peoples minds and decided to grant the wish of one persons innermost desire…

Session 12 (Crab for Dinner) The heroes decide to go north. Hive and Ra-Shem stay back. They see a very large crab. They attack the crab. The crab nearly kills everyone by kicking up dust and blinding people, but by using all of his heal spells, Barlo barely manages to keep everyone alive. When all seems lost, Barlo uses his last spell to remove blindness from the flesh golem “9”, who pounds the crab’s shell into pulp. The remaining conscious people use the advantage to kill the crab. They find a chest and Firali steals a ring from the chest and asks Londarris to identify it. Londarris accused him of stealing it. Firali got mad and walked away. As he was walking away, Londarris knocked him out with his dagger and took the ring. The heroes rest and return to the crab room, seeing a trident behind the boiling water membrane. They cook some crab, eat some crab, and discuss some ways to get the trident from behind the water membrane without sending boiling water all over them selves. In the end, with no digging tools and no helpful spells, the heroes give up and decide to try coming back for the trident later.

Session 13 (Pool party!) The heroes head down the tunnel and come to a hallway full of metal plates. Varus threw a metal ball bearing into the hallway and they discovered that the metal plates super heated all metal taken into the hallway. The heroes put everything small into the bag of holding. Barlo had to leave his armor behind. On the other side of the tunnel they were ambushed by ghouls. Barlo tried to turn them, but they were wearing magical amulets that prevented them from being turned. Aldrich almost died multiple times, but the heroes prevailed. The heroes continued down the tunnels and saw a pit. Firali and Hive jumped over the pit, but discovered the other end was friction-less and started to slide. Varus tied a rope to his crossbow bolt and shot Firali in the back, stopping his slide, but Hive continued to slide into a pit. He fell onto old rusty spikes. He thought he was dead from super tetanus, but managed to resist the disease. They tied ropes to both ends and managed to cross. After following a winding underground river they discovered a secret door and traveled down the tunnel awhile before they heard rushing water behind them. They ran to a dead end and Barlo smashed the end open with his hammer. They ran into a room and the water behind them seemed to disappear. Next they came to a room with 3 sets of tanks, one inside the other. Ogre mermaids (Merro) were in the closest water level. They tried to seduce the heroes while throwing harpoons at them. Giant scorpions were in the next tank and Manticores were in the inside tank. Londarris shattered the closest tank with a spell and giant scorpions started to drown while thrashing around. The Merros started fighting the scorpions. The scorpions killed the merros. Londarris shattered the last level of glass and watched as the scorpions, swarms of quipper fish and manticores all fought each other. The quipper fish won. After taking some time to harpoon the quipper fish, the heroes swam under the room and found a door to another room. While the others were still trying to make the swim, Aldrich, Hive, and Barlo entered the door. Inside was a cute, happy Halfling smiling at them.

Session 14 (Free at Last!) Aldrich, Hive, and Barlo were staring at the cute, happy halfling girl who was smiling at them. Her name is Quesnef. Everyone searched the room and found some copper coins and a hookah. Everyone left, but Aldrich went back to grab the hookah. The party made it back to the room with the super heating metal trap. They decided to abandon the hookah because it wasn’t worth taking, so Barlo decided to take a toke off the hookah first. He noticed that something was blocking passage of smoke, so he broke the hookah and found the evil sword they were looking for inside. Quesnef turned into an ogre and attacked. The ogre threw a fireball on top of himself, hitting most of the group with a fireball. Hive and Firali were knocked unconscious and everyone was hurt badly. Barlo healed Firali and the ogre teleported down the hall and cast a cone of cold on everyone. Barlo and Londarris fell. Hive’s unconscious body was hit again, killing him. Firali jumped into the hallway and tossed his chakrams in a desperate last effort and cut the ogre’s head from his body. Barlo forgave Firali for any past transgressions for saving his life. Aldrich then picked up the sword and was enveloped in flames knocking him unconscious. Ra-shem managed to pull the sword away and throw it to the ground. Hive was dead, but Ra-shem determined that they might be able to re-grow a shoot of him. They took a piece of him and planted it. The sphinx said they had to answer a riddle to go north and try for the trident. They failed the riddle and had to spend another week in the dungeon. The heroes decided to leave. The sphinx said they have to answer 2 riddles to leave or get eaten. They answered the riddles and left. Outside they went to the top of the volcano and tossed the sword inside where it was destroyed. As they traveled through the plains, the heroes met Sir Lander. Ra-shem told him that he found the Frost Prince’s bride and Sir Lander’s curse could be lifted by touching the magic stone to his tattoo mark. Lander demanded a tent before he would strip down to remove his curse. No dignified noble would strip naked in front of everyone! Barlo helped him pitch a tent. As Lander was stripping down in the tent, Barlo noticed a blind woman on Lander’s horse. He offered to try to heal her blindness and his god healed her. In gratitude she read Barlo’s fortune. She said: “ The shadow goddess foretells sorrow. In the city of the north, a woman of the city will be slain. The kingdom of the plain is given to the peaceful duchess.” Sir Lander removed his curse, and his frozen arm, then started to curse the name of the Frost Prince. Varus noticed the ground starting to freeze. He shouted to run and everyone ran away, including a now naked Sir Lander. The heroes went to the temple of the evil demon with the deck of choices where Renfri lost her soul. The heroes camped outside deciding what to do next.

Session 15 (The black knight and the black night) The heroes come to a bridge in the plains. The bridge and the river were not there when they passed earlier. They found this odd. On the other side of the bridge was a black knight. In a very Monty Python like way the knight says “You shall not pass!” “You shall not pass!” “You shall not pass!” Then he started to attack, so Barlo told the knight, “No, YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” Battle ensued. Firali started the fight by running past the knight to prove that he would indeed pass! He tried riding the knights horse but got bucked to the ground. It was a long fight. The knight kept attacking Varus and calling him a girl, but slowly they cut the knights limbs off one at a time until he was just a body and head. Barlo used his hammer to golf swing the body away as it screamed, “Running away are you!” The knights horse flew away into the air after its master's body. Sir Lander warned them that the last man who fought the Black Knight did so 7 times before finally losing to the seemingly immortal knight. The oracle then told Sir Lander that they must leave. Sir Lander agreed to take the soulless body of Renfri back to her home and Aldrich went with them. Barlo kissed the oracle on the hand and tried giving Sir Lander a hug, but Sir Lander rejected the hug and they left. The heroes next came to the evil cursed temple. Peasants entered the cathedral and the heroes all saw blood splatter on the windows. It was disturbing, so they left. The heroes came to the small town of Vulyar, it was eerily silent. Inside they found a little girl rushing off. Barlo hailed her and she spouted some rhyme about going inside so you don’t die. It was unsettling. They went to a tavern and were told children have been disappearing. 3 are now missing. They were offered money to find the missing children. Firali, Hive, and Varus talked to the apothecary for clues. The apothecary tried selling them drugs and Hive didn’t like it so he threw some fire on the floor. She threw a drug on the floor into the fire and Firali got high. Firali now seemed to think Varus was his father. Elim and Barlo went to talk to the blacksmith. Inside was a huge man named Volkavoy with a legendary sword . With him was a distraught and mute woman whose son was missing. She wouldn’t talk. Volkavoy told them his adventuring party was going to come and help, but he’d be happy if the Burning Retribution solved the problem for them. All he would tell them is to check “The Hut” outside of town. Volkavoy then left town. Obviously he took one look at Elim and Barlo and KNEW they were very competent warriors who would handle the situation. Since it was midnight, the party went back to the inn to spend the night before checking out the hut in the morning. Barlo looked for a dwarf girl but couldn’t find any so he went to bed alone.

Session 16 (Creepy cookies in the woods) The heroes wake up in the middle of the night to a scream from the apothecary. Everyone ran over there. Elim saw a man in dark crouched over the apothecary and she was screaming. Elim immediately busted down the door and shot the man. The man said “Owe, what are you doing?” as his hood fell away and Elim saw horns. Elim immediately shot him again knocking him unconscious. Barlo checked the lady and saw that she was very high and thinking everyone was monsters, so they woke the man up. He was very unhappy that Elim shot him. He said his name is Lucius and he used to be human. He is looking for a cure to turn himself human again. Elim buys him a room for the night to apologize . The next morning, the new guy joins them to help save the children. When they got to the forest, they wandered for hours in the forest before remembering that the hut they were looking for only appears at dusk. They took a short rest and began searching for clues to the hut again. At dusk they found a hut that appeared. Inside it smelled of gingerbread. Lucius found a vial of fairy blood and they found a wardrobe. Inside the wardrobe was another forest. The party entered the forest and follow the smell of gingerbread to another, identical hut. They knock on the door and a lady’s voice says “come in.” Inside were 3 children eating gingerbread. The woman was a beautiful lady who said her name was Kurara(?). She said she saved the children from her evil sister that lives in the lake. The kids all said she was speaking the truth, so the party reluctantly agreed to help. On the way to the lake they all had a conversation about how they didn’t trust the lady, but they went to the lake anyway. As they looked into the lake, they saw a shadow behind them trying to push them into the lake. No one was behind them. They jumped in and were pulled down to the bottom of the lake. On the bottom was a creepy water lady. Kua-toa were swimming around. The kua-toa ignored them as they attacked the creepy water witch. She frightened Lucius and then screamed at everyone. Lucius was immediately knocked unconscious. A tiny Hive floated helplessly. Barlo healed Lucius and then Firali and Varus were frightened. The witch screamed again and Varus and Firali were immediately knocked unconscious as well. A tiny Hive continued to float helplessly. Lucius shot a vial of some unknown liquid into his arm and grew claws which he slashed at the witch, killing her. Everyone climbed up out of the water to regroup.

Session 17 (A forest Dance off) The party goes back to the 3 children after killing the evil witch. The kids seem scared so Elim tells them they better behave or he’ll gobble them up. At this the kids get scared and scatter. Elim and Barlo run after one of them after Barlo grabs tiny little Hive. Varus, Firali and Lucius go after the other kids. Elim, Barlo, and Hive come to a little portal and go through. Inside is a little forest clearing where a big tree stands over a sleeping child. The tree talks and is not convinced that the party is good so he sends runners out to verify what the party told him about trying to save the kids. Elim starts to play his fiddle and many animals come out, dancing and having a good time. Barlo says maybe we shouldn’t eat their food or drink their beer and tries to pretend to drink their beer. They take offence at this and move the party to the other side of the field without Barlo. Barlo tries to apologize while the others party with the animals. Hive gets rather drunk. Eventually a group of weasels come to talk to Barlo. They don’t seem friendly with the squirrels partying on the other side of the clearing. They ask Barlo a lot of questions about how he got his weapons and what war is. Barlo reads to them from his book of dwarven prayers and teaches them all about his god of war. On the other side of the clearing, the squirrels try getting Hive to tell them about war. Hive refuses. The weasel side says they are going to war to take the acorn patch from the squirrels. Barlo convinces them to let him try to talk to the squirrels for peace. But they want the acorn patch no matter what. Barlo goes to talk to the squirrels but they say he can not enter. Barlo yells for Elim and they come up with a plan to bring the leaders of the 2 tribes together to try to make peace. When Barlo returns to the weasel side, Sly the weasel challenges him to a dual for leadership. Barlo is given a hamster squire and Barlo goes back to Elim and appoints Elim as his dual champion. The weasel says he gets a champion too and brings forth a giant tiger named Shaka Khan The tiger seems sympathetic but says he has to kill Elim now. Barlo says “Wait, Elim gets to pick the type of fight!” The tiger agrees and Elim says the one who can knock an apple out of the tree fastest wins. He won. Elim then tells all the animals that he challenges Barlo to war and starts dancing. Barlo starts dancing too and they convince everyone that dancing is the way to fight. The 2 sides are brought together and a big dance party ensues into the night. In the morning the talking tree returns and tells them all to leave. Barlo asks if he can take his squire hamster with and the tree agrees too happily. They take the sleeping hamster and the 3 children and leave. At the town the party learns that the town never actually had the money they promised to pay them. Elim is quite upset but reluctantly agrees to take 50 gold for each child instead of the 400 promised. They are also promised free rooms at the inn whenever they are in town. Barlo learns that his hamster squire, Hamptaro, is not the squire he hoped for. Hamptaro says he is a proud warrior himself and a great warrior of Clangeddin Silverbeard. Lucius shows up back in town and tells a story about escaping from the tigers. He says they made him dual Firali and he may have killed Firali. He’s not sure. Upon hearing this Elim shoots him in the foot. Lucius yells at Elim and a 10 foot tall, lion masked paladin shows up. He takes them both to court and determines that they are both guilty. He marks Elim on his hand and says Elim can no longer shoot his crossbow without feeling pain anymore. Lucius is told that he can never tell a lie without feeling pain. The party goes back to the forest to talk to the talking tree. He says their friends are not dead. He will try to free them and return them to the group as soon as possible. They go back to town to figure out what to do next.

session 18 (Family found, family lost) As the Burning Retribution get ready to leave. Barlo asks around about a squire. None of the able young men seem interested, but a 6 year old girl says she wants to be his squire. Barlo seems hesitant but talks to her father who says, “Please buy her for 15 gold!” Then Hive notices that the father is very high on drugs. Hive and Barlo decide it would be better to take her then to let her live with a horrible father. At this Hamptaro jumps up and says “I will pay for her!” Barlo and Hamptaro agree to share the payment and watch over the girl together. Lucius went to the apothecary and tried some drugs of some kind. He got very high. Barlo talks to the little girl and discovers that her father probably killed her mother in an accident. Hive and Barlo decide they will do what they can to give this girl a better life. Varus arrives with an unconscious Firali. Elim heals Firali. Fortuente (the 6 year old girl) has a conversation with Hamptaro and runs to Barlo saying “Hey Barlo, Hamptaro said I could be his squire isn’t that great?” Barlo sighed while Hive laughed hysterically. Everyone then went to the Inn to sleep. They wake up at about 11 PM and decide not to travel at night. Elim goes out to hunt and the others spend time in town killing time. Soon a scream is heard outside and everyone runs outside to see a demon eating Fortuente’s father. The demon jumps on a house and tells them in infernal that this is his town and we are all his offerings. In a panic, everyone runs away and Barlo forgets to grab Fortuente. The last members of the party see the demon grab the little girl as they run off into the night. They hear a demonic scream behind them followed by a very similar scream shortly after, but higher pitched. Elim comes back to town after hunting and gets scratched by the demon. He quickly runs away. The group meets up outside town and Barlo looks at Elim’s back noticing that it is black and moving. It looks magical and will not heal. The party continues on and sees a man on a wagon. He tells them that someone is summoning a demon at a temple 6 miles back. They decide to go try to stop the demon. Barlo does not participate in the conversation, he is too depressed. At the temple Elim sees 2 monks running and immediately shoots and kills them both. Then they go inside and see a summoning circle with a body inside. A man with a dagger starts walking toward the body and Elim shoots and kills him too. A woman screams at him and says “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? You killed my husband! We were trying to contain the demon!” Then the demon took over the body of the woman and attacked. After a quick fight the demon disappeared and they heard screaming inside the temple further. Firali picked the temple lock and they went inside to see all the monks were slaughtered. Barlo gets hit and trys to heal himself, but his wound is black like Elim’s and will not heal. When he trys to heal himself, it actually heals the demon instead. After a long fight the demon is finally destroyed. The only survivor is a 13 year old girl named Etneutrof. She says she owns the temple now. Then Varus notices that the girl’s mom is still alive, but Firali “trips” and “accidentally” kills her, making the girl an orphan again. Barlo prayed over the mom’s body as Lucius looks around and sees a blue flame in a cauldron in the temple. He touches it and burns himself. Elim then decides to try to have the blue flames burn the black demon scar on his body. It works, but knocks him unconscious in the process. The black demon scar is gone. Barlo heals him and everyone with the demon scar burns it off. The group takes a rest in the monastery/keep.

Session 19 (A Spooky house of Horrors) The party wakes up in an unknown land. It is cold and Rainy. The 13 year old girl is no where to be seen. As the rain gets worse the party heads toward some town lights seen in the distance. They make it to town and go to the inn. Everyone scatters around the inn doing there own thing before settling down to eat dinner. A beautiful woman sings a song about a wizard named Astavar. After the song the group talks to the woman and she tells them that the wizard was a real man and his manor is haunted. The group decides to go have a look. They make it to the haunted house and are attacked by a giant rhino. Seeing runes carved into the door, everyone is too scared to open the door and they attempt to dodge out of the way of the rhino and have it break the door open. It doesn’t work. Barlo is knocked unconscious and everyone makes it inside the house after the singing lady opens the door. Inside Elim cats a healing spell on Barlo to wake him up and everyone rests. A loud knocking comes from a door under a stair case. Inside is a weird skull with symbols on it. Varus takes it. They continue on and the party splits up. Varus breaks open a door and Varus, Hive and Lucius go inside. There is a half finished chess game. After making one wrong move, Varus then corrects himself and wins the game with a check mate. Another skull appears. Elim and Firali go in another door and find a room full of skeletons with no skulls. They find another skull on the table. In another room they find a room full of rat statues. Varus crosses the room and as he touches a door handle, Varus and Barlo turn to stone. People and rats continue to switch from stone to not stone until the rats are eventually destroyed. In the next room they find a table with 3 apples. One red, one yellow, and one blue. When you touch an apple you are turned that color and everything you touch also turns that color. Through one door is a magically dark room. Varus goes in and comes out with another skull. Unfortunatly everyone is playing with the apples and everyone is turned into different colors much to Barlo and Hive’s annoyance. They go upstairs and find a room with a bed. Varus finds a magical ball and throws it to Firali, but it explodes knocking Hive unconscious. Varus thinks it’s a funny joke. Barlo heals him and they continue on. Lucius senses that Varus is acting strangely and asks Barlo about it. Barlo agrees and they assume that Varus is possessed but don’t know what to do about it. They should have done something about it because shortly after that the group splits up again. Firali goes into a room that shrinks him to tiny size and he is attacked by centipedes. Barlo runs in to help and is shrunk as well. Varus locks them in the door to fight the centipedes while he goes and kills Lucius who is all alone now. Elim is no where to be seen. Barlo, Hive and Firali kill all but one of the centipedes, but a giant Lucius/Varus/monster returns and throws a flaming dresser on Barlo and Hive, crushing them. Firali is paralyzed and eaten by the centipede. All is dark…

Session 20 (New Friends) Varus, Firali and Barlo wake up in the temple. There is no sign of Hive, Elim, or Luscius. Confused, they decide to pack up and take the 13 year old girl Etnewtrof (Etty), and her mom’s body with them and head north, towards Korth and towards the merchant that told them the temple was full of demon summoners. They catch the wagon and get a very small amount of money from him, but meet a Halfling girl named Zinnia. She decided to travel to Korth with them. Next a man walked out of the woods and starts inspecting the dead horse to harvest its meat. Next he went to a dead dinosaur and was thinking about eating it until Zinnia said “Hey that was my pet, leave it alone.” The new man, Invidia, was a little surprised that she didn’t want to eat her pet, but shrugged and went on. A human girl named Logann showed up soon later. Her group was attacked by demons and she found her way here. She also decides to go with the group. Hamptaro jumps on Invidia's shoulder and gives him a handful of the pet dinosaur's meat. "You can thank me later," he says. They travel into the day until it gets mysteriously dark. In the darkness they hear some inhuman screams. Invidia throws a firebolt into the night, lighting up a bunch of creepy looking demon things. Barlo shouts “Gather up everyone” and everyone makes a defensive circle around the wagons as the demons attack. After a long fight, the demons are slain with the help from a knight that wandered by. He looked very similar to Sir Lander and called himself Sir Strom Bonovian Deneith. Sir Strom proceeds to ask them about his brother Lander and is very impressed when he hears that they are the Burning Retribution who killed a vampire in the volcano and destroyed the evil weapon there. When they get to the town of Vedykar, people split up. Invidia gets his spellbook uncursed with a little help from Varus’s coin purse. Zinnia jumped off a moving horse to try to avoid Strom’s advances, and Barlo went to the healers guild spending most of his money to resurrect Etty’s mom from the dead. Barlo tried to hire one of the guards that impressed him in the demon fight, but decided that he couldn’t afford it after spending his money to save Etty’s mom. When they have the money to start a guild, he vows to find this Mike again. Everyone meets up in the inn and have a meeting where Sir Strom formally joins the Burning Retribution. Zinnia, Logann, and Invidia also seemed interested in joining for now. At least while they have a common goal. Barlo leaves 100 gold with Etty and her mom to take care of themselves for a while while everyone else jumped on the lightning rail to go to Korth. Every town they pass through seems oddly silent as they cruise to Korth. As they neared Korth the Lightning rail went off the rails and crashed.

Session 21 (Death and dismemberment) Zinnia and Varus wake up in a crashed railroad car. Varus can’t feel his legs and they see that he has a large metal pole from the seat stuck in his spine. Zinnia looks at everyone. Strom is missing an arm, and everyone is unconscious. Zinnia wakes up Invidia and Barlo and together they wake up Firali. Firali wakes up Sir Strom with a magic whistle Strom gave him earlier. They all do there best to patch up the wounded. Hamptaro goes and gets the horses, but ties their legs up as a joke. Barlo is not amused. They look outside and see a large flaming demon approaching, checking all the carts one at a time. Everyone holds Varus down while Barlo breaks the pole. Everyone runs for the woods with the less wounded helping the more wounded. They travel through the woods to the gates of Korth. Above Korth are hundreds of demons flying around. The group avoids a few traps and demons and makes their way to the healer’s guild, but it is being attacked by scores of demons. The demons are being repelled by acid traps, but there is no way inside. Barlo remembers a back, hidden entrance to the temple, since he trained here for years in his youth. Strom refuses to leave his horse at first, but reluctantly hides his horse in a basement with the other horses as they travel into the sewers and through some poisonous waste and make their way to the bottom of the healer’s guild. At the healers guild a masked man shows up. He offers to heal Varus, but says his ways are a little unconventional. Everyone agrees to let him try to heal Varus, against Strom’s wishes. The masked man says he is called Specter. He uses a spell to cause maggots to pull the metal rod out of Varus’s spine, putting him into a peaceful very, very painful sleep. He offers to give the maggots to Firali to heal his internal wounds, telling Firali to swallow the maggots. Firali grabs the maggots and starts chewing them, thus destroying them. Specter tells Firali how dumb he is for chewing them instead of swallowing them whole. Now his internal wounds will have to heal on their own. Barlo goes to meet some dwarves in the temple and discovers his family, alive and well. There is crying. There is joy. Strom meets Hamptaro, the mighty Hampster, and promply squishes him with his boot. The party has mixed feelings about this. Varus is happy, Barlo is sad. Specter trys to talk to Barlo about what they need to do to stop the demon portal, but Barlo is too excited about finding his family, so Specter walks away and talks to Logann instead. He tells her that he needs them to go and help to stop the demon portal. There is already a team inside, but Burning Retribution is needed to help from this side of the portal. While Specter is talking to Logann, Sir Strom tries to recruit Zinnia as his personal servant. If she performs well, she can be a knight in a year! She kindly declines. Sir Strom goes and asks Logann instead, but she also turns him down, being that she has no interest in being a knight. The party rests. Tomorrow they have a demon portal to stop. DM edit: changing the quality of Varus's sleep.

Session 22 (City saved, horsey lost) After listening to Sir Strom and Specter argue about whether or not he should take his horse into a stealth mission down town, they eventually leave. They head out to go to the location of the demon portal. It’s located at a mansion downtown. The group leaves without the horses to head into the demon infested town. There was also talk of Strom riding Zinnia, but she refused. Outside the mansion they are ambushed by 1 huge demon and 4 smaller ones. They are quickly dispatched. At the mansion they meet Specter’s 3 masked friends. They go inside the mansion together. A large demon is standing inside. The 4 masked men started speaking a spell, they ask the Burning Retribution to protect the masked woman and they would do the rest. After a long fight, in which a scorpion is summoned and spells are cast, the woman (Ghost) finishers her spell. The demon is captured and under their control. The scorpion comes up to Barlo and snuggles up to him. Barlo awkwardly pets it, but must have rubbed it the wrong way because it cocked on eye to him and quickly ran away. The Burning Retribution spend the next 3 days helping out in the city wherever they are needed. Barlo uses a new spell his god granted him to try to contact Hive, but there is no response. Next he contacts Zeed and discovers that Lady Gracalis captured him, tortured him, removed all his feathers and stole the evil potion that caused the plague in Taer Valaestras. Bad news. After the 3 days a dwarf noble named Daus? Shows up leading an army of 300 dwarfs. They have come to protect the city in the name of the dwarfs. Barlo wants to join their army and attack Rekkenmark to reclaim it for Karnath, but the group votes him down. Instead they go north because Strom told them of a ferry to the north that loggers use to send people across the river. They go north and find the town, but it is late so they spend the night at the inn. During the night they are locked in their rooms and hear people outside preaching to Lander all night long. In the morning Varus tells them that Strom is Lander’s brother. They are shocked. They take the heroes to the ferry and seem really suspicious about wanting to split the group up. They argue about it for a long time, but eventually Zinnia, Strom, Varus, and Firali go on the ferry while Barlo, Emi, and Invidia wait their turn. They push Barlo, Emi, and Invidia in the river and move to cut the ropes on the ferry, but everyone just jumps in the river. Everyone flows down the river as Barlo watches his beloved horse disappear into the distance…

Session 23 (Paradise Island) The gang all wakes up locked in a cell. They are quite naked. After calling for the guards, a cat man wandered up. He said he would let them go if they had coin. Since they were naked with no money, he wouldn’t let them go. He also said General Zaroff would let them out later and hunt them. Eventually they were released and led to an open area where a man sat on a large boar. He had several fierce looking dogs with him. He explained to them that he would release them naked into the wilderness where he would hunt them for sport. If they survived 12 hours they would be free. A large man asked a question out of turn and was immediately impaled by a large spike and killed. Barlo asked what would happen if they killed HIM before the 12 hours were up. He released another spike at Barlo, but Firali jumped in front of it, turning most of it away but getting stabbed in the process. Barlo then saw 3 naked dwarf girls, he told them if they stuck with his group then they would be protected, but they promptly scattered when the whistle was blown. The group decided to follow Zinnia and her expert survival skills. It took her awhile to get her bearings, but eventually she led them down a path and was able to hide everyone as 3 dogs ran right past them. They entered a clearing and saw Sir Strom and Emi emerge behind them. Strom was carrying a very large load of wood and Emi was instructing him on how to build them a cottage. Invidia jumped up and explained the situation to them. Apparently they were still unconscious in the beginning of the hunt and didn’t realize that they were being hunted. Emi said, “Oh, that would explain all the dead bodies we saw.” And “SEE, we don’t have to repopulate the island after all.” To witch Sir Strom seemed very flustered and lost for words…for once. Soon after they found the 3 dwarf women with a couple of half-orcs. They had 3 hunting dogs dead and strung up. The orcs were also killing a large deer. Barlo tried talking to them again, but they growled, showing razor sharp death and charged at the group. Barlo cast a spell to calm them just long enough for everyone to run away. Next they found a cave with a skeleton inside. The skeleton had a musical instrument and a rapier. Barlo took the rapier, Firali took his skull, and Invidia animated the skeleton causing it to wander off playing its music in a random direction as a distraction for the group. Eventually they found their way to General Zarof’s house. Firali skillfully helped them avoid all the pit traps and they made their way to the house. Zinnia turned into a rat and scouted the house, telling them it was safe to enter. Inside they found their equipment and got dressed. They made a plan to ambush the General when he came home. The cat man seemed fine with the idea, especially after Zinnia said he could have the island when the General was dead. Varus through the cat man a gold coin and the cat man threw him a key. Barlo told Varus he should keester the key just in case. Varus said no. The General came home and was quickly dispatched, thanks to a spell Invidia cast to make the room appear to be empty so they could all ambush him. He did manage to put up a good fight with his repeating crossbow and knocked Varus unconscious but it wasn’t enough for him. After he was dead, the cat man said they couldn’t have any money since it was all promised to him by Zinnia, but Emi, being a noble, said she would buy the place. They found a boat and with much trouble, spent the next 5 days figuring out how to sail the boat off the island to safety.

Session 24 (Firali finds fantastic family heirloom) The group is in Flamekeep. The town is full of racists, so the group quickly leaves. Sir Strom takes his leave from them in the night, telling them that he will find them later. 3-4 days later they make it to Fairhaven. No one is allowed inside unless they can prove they are allies of Aundair. After some talking the group convinces the guards they are friends and are allowed in. The guards tell them the closest monk monastery is 2 days north. This seems odd to Firali since he was told the monastery he needed to go to was in Fairhaven. They buy an identify scroll for Invidia, then Barlo finds a local girl to go on a date with. It doesn’t go well. She abandons him after a couple hours into the date. A procession of slaves walks by. Varus and Zinnia are told that they are headed to the salt mines. They aren’t exactly slaves, they are more prisoners. Invidia negotiates the release of 2 of the prisoners by paying for their release. Firali sees a veiled dwarf girl and pays for her release. She refuses to remove her veil saying over and over again “I must not remove the veil!” Firali takes her into an ally and asks her about her experiences with men. He tells her that he has a friend Barlo who has trouble with women and asks her if she would be willing to help Barlo with his confidence. She says she will have to take a better look at this Barlo and see. The group meets back up at a tavern and Veil asks to see Barlo upstairs. Barlo is scared so he asks Firali to sit outside the door while they go into a room. Inside the woman reveals her face. She is certainly not a dwarf. She has purple eyes and wiggly hair. She reveals that she is from a dark place and wants to know more about mankind. Firali comes in and she mentions that no one has survived her experiments before. Barlo and Firlai quickly excuse themselves and leave. Firali and Barlo went back upstairs to talk to her again. Firali asked her to travel with them to learn more about people. She responded by trying to disintegrate his chest with her eyeballs. Barlo quickly healed him, then Invidia peaked in and she disintegrated his stew bowl as he throws it in the room. Everyone leaves and finds a new inn to stay at. The group goes to Askelios and Firali has a very hard time locating the monk temple. After 5 days of searching he finds the temple. During those 5 days Barlo had a failed date with the town’s strongest woman and started making a ladle for invidia from a large wish bone Invida found. It looks like it was from a giant turkey. When Firali finally finds the temple he starts heading in. Zinnia goes to get the rest of the group but he has a 4 hour head start. Once inside Firali is confronted by snake statues. They give him a series of riddles to continue into the temple. If he fails a riddle he will plummet into pits of lava. He has to abandon a couple riddles and given new ones, but eventually he is able to answer enough riddles to get across to a larger snake statue. It tells him that he needs to fight him in order to get the heirloom piece he needs. With the help of his mirror image ring, Firali barely managed to win the fight. He got the first piece of his heirloom item and was told the next piece is in Pyras Pyrial to the south. The gang jumps on the lightning rail and heads to the dwarf lands to save some dwarfs.

Session 25 (Goblin boomsticks and crushed adventurers) While sitting in the adventurer’s bunker, Emi saw the group and said hello in an excited manor. A large man walked up and put his hand on Emi’s shoulder. She glared at him and he froze solid. The dwarf guards didn’t seem to like that much so they took her away. Barlo looked for Fortuente, the 6 year old super girl, but she was no where to be seen. The masked Phantom walked by with a name tag that says “Hello I am your adventuring leader.” The battalion leader showed up eventually to give them their new job. He was super muscled and looked like a cannonball. He told them they were on guard duty. On the way there Barlo buys Nalla some equipment since he owned nothing but an axe now. Burning Retribution was to replace a group of 20 dwarfs. 6 replacing 20. They quickly realized that the dwarfs must think they are quite awesome to have only their 6 replace 20 guards. Shortly into their guard duty the group realized they didn’t really know what they were doing. They threw ball bearings all over the floor, but then a dwarf with a cart came through, sighing as he looked at all the ball bearings on the floor. Zinnia turned into an ox to help move the cart across. A huge Blackstone golem shows up and walks through and crushes many of the ball bearings. Next a dwarf comes through. He says his name is Gruin Thunderbeard. He says he was on a scouting mission. The group decides to let him through since they were given no real advice or orders on who to let through and who to not let through. Soon after that, a golem with a cart with a dwarf on it goes by. Zinnia went to check the dwarf body. It was dead. Another dwarf comes in from the dark his name is Kirur and he looks like a canon ball. Very strong. They let him through as well. Next a Minotaur comes in from the dark. They question him a little more closely then the others because they are a little racist to the minotaur, but he seems OK. He says he is an adventurer named Asterion. He was down in the caves with a dwarf named Kirur who just died. This seems rather odd since a dwarf named Kirur just walked by and he seemed quite alive. Zinnia decides to accompany the minotaur back to the guards to tell them about the “dead” man that they just let into the city. 10 minutes later a swarm of goblins come charging at them. They are led by 2 wizard goblins. It quickly becomes apparent that the goblins are kamikazes. They are all covered in flammable oil and if they light themselves on fire they explode in a huge fiery explosion. The group does pretty good taking them out before they can explode themselves, until there are only a couple left and one manages to explode himself on top of a bunch of the dead bodies of his friends, who are all also covered in oil still. A huge explosion rocks the cavern. Nalla, Varus and Barlo are dead center in the explosion. Nalla manages to nimbly jump out of the way and avoid the avalanche, but Varus and Barlo are buried under the rocks. Varus is buried on the far side of the cavern with Firali. Barlo is closer to the dwarf side. Invidia helps Nalla pull the rocks off of Barlo. They try to staunch his wounds, but both fail. Finally Invidia is able to stop his bleeding. Barlo nearly died. On the other side of the avalanche, Firali has a very hard time pulling the rocks off of Varus, but he is eventually able to pull him out and stop his bleeding with a healing potion. Firali and Varus are left in the dark unknown until help can clear the avalanche. The others are forced to go back to heal, hoping their friends are OK.

Session 26 (Attack on goblin town) The gang all open their Christmas gifts. Firali got a ring, Barlo an old chewed bone, Invidia a wand, Zinnia a rope, Varus a Black potion in a panther bottle, and Nalla a feather. All were magical. The Burning Retribution then meets up with Canon ball. He gives them a mission. They are to be part of an attack team on a goblin village. 4 teams will be in the attack. One from each of the 4 compass directions. BR is to attack from the west. The attack horn is sounded and the battle begins. A swarm of goblins attack them as they enter the gate. Barlo surrounds himself with a swarm of little dwarf angels with axes that make quick work of all the goblins that come near him. Zinnia shoots a gust of wind that pins many of the goblins against the wall, then pins Varus up against the wall with them. Barlo and Nalla strike up a friendly kill count competition as Nalla fells many enemies with his great axe. A goblin wizard appears at the gate and tries throwing a wall of fire up to prevent the heroes from entering, but Zinnia dispels it. He throws another wall of fire up and Barlo dispels it this time. At this point the kills are wracking up between, Barlo and Nalla. Both were at around 7 or 8 when Varus announced “That’s 8 kills for me now!” That’s when they realized it was a 3 way competition. At one point Zinnia told them to go east to the center of the town. Firali was a little further north, so Barlo went up to him so he wouldn’t get ambushed alone. Firali said he was going east with the group, so Barlo left him. As soon as Barlo went with the group Firali then went north and was ambushed by a ninja hobgoblin all alone and nearly died but won the fight. As the group got to the middle, they met the other only surviving attack squad. Suddenly the goblins brought in a reinforcement squad of worg riders. At this point Nalla, Barlo, and Varus were all tied at 13 kills apiece. In the end, they finally won. 3 of the other dwarfs survived and all of the Burning Retribution survived, but everyone was bleeding from various wounds. Nalla won the competition with 15 kills. Varus had 14 and Barlo had 13. They all suspected that Zinnia may have actually won with her devastating lighting attacks though. She wasn’t keeping count. When they got back to Stonerift, Cannon Ball and the masked adventurer leader were very disheartened to learn that worg riders ambushed them. They suspected a spy in the war council. They are told the next attack will be against the giants and everyone heads off to bed or to get a drink.

Session 27 (Fake friends and scary giants) Canonball tells the team they have 2 days before their next session so Strom offers to take them to a nice place for a bite to eat and a drink. They went to a place called the “Bottle and Dine.” Inside there were very beautiful women walking around of different races. Barlo went to talk to one but quickly abandoned that idea when he heard Sir Strom offer to buy everyone a drink. At the table Invidia asked what kind of food they serve and suddenly a magical menu appeared in mid air. Invidia was very impressed that there was food on the menu that he had never heard of before. They ordered and the food magically floated to the table from the kitchen. Invidia and Barlo shared from each others plates so they could try everything. It was very delicious. Barlo had the expensive boar roast, Invidia had the Ash leg which was apparently a giant grasshopper, but it was delicious. The tavern owner, a man named Cocker Spaniel Aaron, noticed Barlo’s interest in the women and told him that the women worked for him. They were shape changing woman that he could spend the night with for a price. Barlo said no thank you, but Firali jumped in and said “I’ll do it!” He went upstairs with one of the women. Barlo tried to follow to make sure Firali was OK but he was not allowed upstairs. Barlo received a letter to meet someone in the back about his request to find a squire/soldiers. Barlo wasn’t allowed to take anyone in the back with him so he went alone and to his surprise he found a clean shaven and handsome Sir Lander. Lander told him that he knew of a promising guild for sale. 10,000 gold. He just had to go to the Glimmering Isle to the south when he was ready. The guild was named the “Finders Keepers.” Barlo thanked Lander for the info then asked him how he was doing. The last time Barlo talked to Lander it was through a magical sending spell and Lander said he needed help because he was trapped by a cult. Lander seemed rather confused about this and mumbled a non-response which made Barlo very suspicious. Barlo then told him that his brother Strom was in the very next room and Lander didn’t seem to care. This made him even more suspicious. They said their goodbyes and Lander asked Barlo to not tell Strom about him. Barlo said OK then promptly went to tell Strom about him. Strom ran off looking for his brother. Barlo then cast the sending spell again, contacting Lander who said he was currently stuck in the underdark with someone named Mollin, thus confirming the suspicions that Lander may not really be Lander. Invidia apologized for eating Barlo’s food while he was in the back room. Nalla talked to a goliath bouncer about their homelands. Nalla was looking for his own clan. The bouncer didn’t know Nalla’s clan but told him he could talk to his clan leader Braenor if he wanted to join his clan instead. The group then went into the back to gamble where Invidia met the dragonborn cook named Steelio Contos. Barlo told Steelio that Invidia was the best cook in the north. Invidia seemed to blush at that but didn’t deny it. Steelio and Invidia discussed recipes before they all went in the back to gamble. Everyone gambled except Barlo. Zinnia proved to be an excellent gambler, surprising everyone. The next day they were told that it was time for the giant attack. Burning Retribution was allowed to make the attack strategy because of their earlier success. They decided to have the main army attack from the SE while Burning Retribution attacked from the NE. The plan worked OK, but a lot of giants and ogres were left to defend the stronghold. BR snuck in and made fast work of the 1st Hill giant guard, but then soon discovered by the queen. She was an immense, chubby giant who seemed so fat she couldn’t even move from her throne. Burning Retribution was forced to retreat from the throne room to regroup when Strom came up to them from behind. “We have a problem back there guys. A huge giant we have never seen before is tearing us to shreds. We need help. Burning Retribution is now stuck between 2 forces of giants and Barlo is low on healing spells. What do they do next?

Session 28 (Failed queen attack and Bonovians down) Burning Retribution started surrounded on both sides. The giants open the curtain and unleash a volley of javelins and thrown rocks from the keep. Strom and Nalla take the brunt of the attack. Caught between two attacking groups, the group decides to turn back and help the reinforcements before charging forward. Barlo gets hit by rock and is downed. Zinnia healed him back up to join the fight. Barlo then tried to hold them back at the keep door with Zinnia and Invidia providing magical support. Invidia’s magic to freeze a giant in his tracks proved very useful. Varus’s deadly arrows downed many enemies as well. Meanwhile on the other side of the battle, Firali jumped on the back of one of the two super giants known as dwarf crushers. Firali dealt him a devastating blow, but was knocked unconscious in the process. Emi is killed, and they down one of the dwarf crushers. The dwarf crushers had been doing devastating work on the dwarf soldiers, plowing through them and killing all but 2 of them. Finally the final dwarf crusher decides to run away, knocking Nalla and Strom unconscious in the process. They heal the wounded with the little healing they have left. Barlo casts gentle repose on Emi telling them he can bring her back from the dead if he can get her to town within 10 days. They then run inside the keep. Inside they find a hole in the ground. The remaining giants pushed her underground and are trying to make a retreat. Invidia sends his familiar to see what they are doing and they see the queen being loaded onto a raft. There are a lot of giants down there with her, so the group goes outside and cuts off her retreat. They wait on a ledge for her to come out on her raft. Ready to fight her. After about 6 hours they realize that she hasn’t come out yet so Invidia sends his familiar down to peek again. It seems the raft has broken. The queen and a 2 headed giant are fighting over weather to blow a magic horn or not. Everyone goes back inside to the hole in the ground and start raiding the queen’s treasure pile while deciding what to do about the queen. Inside the throne Invidia finds a filth covered hobgoblin who now worships Invidia for saving him. He says his name is Snert and will only listen to Invidia. Zinnia cleans him with her magic water. Eventually they hear a horn blow from down below. Snert tells them that the queen used her magic horn to teleport away. They see that everything covered in her oil is also teleporting away so they quickly wipe clean a couple of her treasure items, but most of it is teleported away before they can do anything. The group then debates weather to burn the keep down or not. Zinnia is afraid of the damage it will cause when the dam it is built on burns away, so they decide to just leave. On the way back they come to a bridge with a red robed man on it. He says “Give us the son of Bonovian.” Barlo says “Can you be more specific?” and someone may have said “which one?” It all got very confusing but in the end the red robed man realized that there must be 2 sons of Bonovian. There is much debate but eventually the assassins attack. Strom is killed instantly as red robed assassins spring from everywhere. Domm screams “No my brother!” And Barlo, being a dwarf and not a human screams “No my brother!” too, hoping to confuse the assassins. The assassins are not confused. They simply decide to kill Domm and Barlo with there poison blades and leave. People don’t seem nearly sad enough in Barlo’s death, but amazingly by an act of the gods (and a spent karma point) Barlo isn’t quite dead. He is only mostly dead. Then the black knight comes out of the water. He wanted to kill Barlo, but since Barlo looks dead, he just walks up to the bridge and says it’s a nice bridge. He sticks his sword in the middle of the bridge and claims it for his own. In Strom’s last dieing breath…or breaths, he asks Zinnia to look after his horse and bring his sword back to his father. Strom’s last dieing breaths go on for a long time causing Invidia to wonder when he will just die already? Everyone casually walks past the black knight to stonerift. Barlo contemplates getting a mask and pretending he is still dead. He starts calling himself Ironblade. In Stonerift Cannonball is very unhappy that they let the hill giant queen get away. As he is yelling at them a horn sounds and they realize the town is under attack. Cannonball asks 2 them to jump in a mech suit and help fight the dragon. Varus and Nalla agree. Everyone else is to go defend the thunder cannons from attacking forces. Firali and Barlo(Ironblade) say they want to fight the dragon, so Nalla steps down and Firali goes to get in the mech suit instead. The mech suits do not help with magic so Barlo(Ironblade) is better off helping defend the cannons. They are low on magic so Cannonball offers the casters a mana potion each. Barlo says thank you and drinks it at which point Canninball says, “Oh I meant the potions were for the casters Zinnia and Invidia, not you.” Barlo feels bad. Someone arrives with a note for Barlo. Ironblade says “Oh Barlo died but I’ll take it for him.” He reads the note and it says “Barlo, thank you for telling us about the Bonovian brother. Here is a reward for thanks.” Signed Lander. Barlo feels even more bad.

Session 29 (Curses!) Barlo buys a ram before leaving Stone Rift. They tried buying a wagon in town. It would cost 200 gold…or Barlo could go on a date with the owner of the shop. He seemed to like Barlo’s new tattoos. Barlo reluctantly agreed to go on a date with the man, for the good of the group and impressed the man just as well as he impressed all the women he has dated. It didn’t go well... They take a trip to Sharn on the lightning rail. In Sharn they hire a boat to take them to Moonwatch. Captain Whistle is the Captain. He charged 10 gold per person but they needed to work while on board. Firali and Varus offered to pay 20 gold to not work on the ship. The Captain also would not take a wagon so they sold the wagon to pay for the horses travel cost. A storm soon comes and everyone but Firali helps. Firali gets sea sick while laying in bed while everyone works. When they finally arrive to their destination Firali throws up on Captain Whistle’s boots. They find an inn to stay in and Chauncy, Strom's horse, doesn’t want to stay in the stable. Nalla offers to stay with him. Chauncy wants a story so Nalla tells him a bedtime story. Chauncy doesn’t like Nalla’s story. Zinnia has a dream of Strom warning her to beware the bastard. They head out on foot and they meet peasants leaving Bonovian lands. The peasants are questioned and say its not a good place in Bonovia. Baron Clarance is the ruler of Bonovia. There are plagues and crops dying there. Barlo gave them each 1 gold and they freaked out in happiness. They also asked him to bless their babies which he did. The heroes arrive in Bonovia and knock on the door. The guards tell them to wait and they wait…No one answers and after awhile Firali climbs the wall and tries to unlock the door. The guards run away screaming as they open the door. Some guards stop the group and Barlo shows them his Bonovian tattoo. They then take them to the keep where, very reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, an old Baron Clarance is being controlled by an evil Diego Bonovian. Barlo decides to do something brave and stupid and tries to run up to the Baron and try casting a lesser restoration on him. Unfortunately an unseen curtain was hiding 2 death knights who jump out and immediately down Barlo. Firali grabs Diego by the chest and says he wants Barlo's freedom for a reward. Diego says he will think about it. Firali says Barlo can not leave his sight or there is no deal. Diego says no and so Nalla attacks him. A large fight ensues. Eventually everyone is knocked unconscious except for Nalla and Firali. Nalla manages to down Diego who turns into a shadow and reappears in the body of one of the death knights. Then Firali and Nalla are downed. Everyone wakes up in a dungeon. Invidia asks if he is doing this because he is the bastard son of Baron Bonovian. Diego says…”want me to tell you why I am doing this? It’s because I am the bastard son of Baron Bonovian.” If all the Bonovian children die then Diego will inherit the kingdom. Firali gets very angry and starts lipping off. Diego tells them all he put a magic curse on them. He shows them the power of the curse by snapping his fingers and killing Firali. Then he brings him back alive. Firali continues to lip off so Diego removes his hands. Diego tells them they have one year to kill Sir Lander or he will kill them all with the curse. Barlo then asks Diego if they can still have a reward for bringing the Bonovian son’s bodies to him. He agrees to give Barlo one magic item OR he will give ONE of Firali’s hands back. Barlo chooses his friend’s hand. Firali is given a metal hand and they are then informed that the new hand has an eyeball to spy on the group. Diego then tells them he will be eating Firali's horse and Barlo's ram for dinner that night. Varus then tells Firali to use his hand to “pleasure himself” tonight. Diego is very disgusted by this and says “NO DON’T DO THAT!” I’m not going to be watching you all the time, 24 ours a day. You guys are sick!” The heroes are sent out on their way, defeated morally and physically.

Session 29 1/2 (Terror Dungeon, no spoilers) 3 of our Burning Retribution heroes wake up in an unknown location. Varus, Zinnia, and Barlo find themselves with 7 other heroes. Only the brave are here. Luckily for everyone, the cowardly, gutless, craven of a man known as Lucian Lampurge is no where to be seen. If he was here he would be too busy sitting in his own puddle of pee, too afraid to move. But luckily without the jellyfish of a man known as Lucian there, most of the heroes escape with there lives. Exo, Garrik, Barlo, and Zinnia do not make it out in the end due to various reasons. Exo is brought back to life by the power and friendship and wishful thinking/begging. Barlo is also brought back due to the connection he made with Orsik after the fall of his friend Garrik.

Session 30 (An end to all good things) The group wakes up outside Bonovia. Invidia and Zinnia are missing. They find a note from Invidia saying goodbye. He also left a cold yummy treat that he called “icecream.” Firali said he wanted to leave and go get his “father’s” family heirloom so he said goodbye and left. They continued on to Sharn and saw a group of goliaths in the distance. Nalla recognized them as his tribe and immediately stripped naked and ran to them. Barlo tried to stop him from getting naked but to no avail. Luckily when Nalla got to his tribe they gave him some new clothes. At an inn in Sharn Varus and Barlo are approached by a dwarf. They invite him to drink with them. He says his name is Thorgrum Gravelaxe and he has been sent by a general in Karnath to find them and bring them to Karnath. Thorgrum also meantions that there are many women eager to meet Barlo there. As fun as this sounds, Barlo is a little hesitant. Its one thing to find a good woman who likes you for who you are, its quite another thing all together to have women like you just because you are famous. They go to Karnath and are greeted by women screaming Barlo’s name. One even tries to get him to sign her chest. Barlo is embarrassed by all of this and just pushes past to the general. Phantom is there with the general and they discover that the women have been payed to act like they love Barlo just to get him to come. It was Phantom’s idea. The General then asks Varus and Barlo to hunt down the missing necromancers in Korth. They agree. They decide they need to hire some help and Thorgrum seems interested. On the way out Barlo takes Phantom to the side and privately asks him if he could get Barlo some dragon scales to make some armor. Phantom is not happy with the request and leaves. Varus and Barlo head out to find some necromancers.