You take a nights rest to recuperate, ready to tackle the forge again the next day. However the next morning a messenger arrives bringing an invitation to meet with Merrix d'Cannith a week hence at 7pm to discuss a matter of mutual interest. Merrix is the head of house Cannith and given your recent invasion of a secret Cannith compound this makes you very nervous. But there is a week before this meeting so you decide to head back to the forge. This time Topsy joins you and you find you are easily able to defeat the lava mephits and secure the room. Chronk is raging and rushes down the new tunnel that has been revealed through the collapsed back wall and runs into a long dark cave, killing more giant fire beetles as he goes. You chase after him and suddenly find yourself in a cavern lit by a pool of lava and filled with the charred, ancient bones of dozens of hobgoblins. Tunnels run off this cavern to the north and south. After examining the bones you decide to investigate north, but you are already getting weary from the extreme heat down here. You find an alcove filled with ancient coins, mostly copper and silver but also gold. They are all semi-melted but it is a large pile, there must be thousands of galifars worth there. You notice movement to the north and spot a giant minotaur skeleton in front of a lake of lava . You sneak around and are able to surprise it, launching a savage attack. However when you are revealed, some of the lake bulges and a form reveals itself. It is a fire elemental that moves in to attack. The creature engulfs Topsy and Chronk before passing over them and engulfing Ashana. You attack savagely, drawing it away, but when it leaves Ashana's sapce she is lying on the ground - a burnt husk. Dusty rushes over with a potion of healing to try and revive her but it is too late. She is already dead. You manage to kill the skeleton and the elemental and then return to the forge. Distraught, you take Ashana to her home, The Shrine of il-Yannah, and ask her superior The Enlightened Havakhad to raise her from the dead. He sadly explains that there is no-one in the temple with that level of power that they could reverse death itself but suggests that you take her to House Jorasco. They do have rituals that can reverse death, but they take time and they don't come cheap. You take the corpse down the House Jorasco who can indeed raise Ashana, but explain that even the effort costs 3,000 galifar. If the dead are willing to remain wherever they have gone there is no power that can force them to resume life. You leave a deposit and Ashana's body with house Jorasco and return to the forge. You have another nights rest and then set up a chain gang with Topsy's warforged staff to bring up all the coins. You spend the day gathering, counting and organising the coins before taking them to House Kundarak to get valued and changed into modern denominations - a 3,000 galifar note of credit to House Jorasco and 2000 galifar of lesser notes to make up the rest of what you found. You then visit House Jorasco who tell you that the ritual will take two days and ask you to visit then. You then return home for another nights sleep. The next morning you return down the tunnel to explore further. You find a number of dead ends and a tunnel that has been blocked by a cave in. You also find a cavern with a strange black obelisk standing in the centre. It has a number of strange runes on it which seem to blur in and out of vision. Chronk is the first to find it and he finds it fascinating. He stares at it and finds a calm enter his mind, a calm that he has never felt before. It feels like a new presence is in his head, but also a clarity and understanding of the world that he never possessed before. Life is good. You all find him there, and Topsy also examines the obelisk. The same effect happens to him but does not seem to affect the rest of you. You move on and find yourself in another cavern where a small ledge holds a large stone chest on the other side of a pool of lava. As you are considering your options lava snakes emerge from the pool and quickly surround you. You defeat them, but it is a close thing. During the fight Chronk realises that he is too calm. He can no longer enter a rage. While this makes him less effective, it is worth it for his new feeling of wellbeing. You then look again at the chest. Chronk realises that he is strong enough to be able to jump over to the ledge with a run up, so he does so successfully. He then opens the chest and finds a treasure trove of ancient hobgoblin weapons - all in perfect condition. He then proceeds to throw all the weapons over to the rest of you before looking to return. However he realises without a run up it is unlikely he can make the jump successfully and on the ledge he can only manage a standing jump. You throw him a rope and prepare to pull him as he jumps to try and increase the distance. You hold the rope tight as he ties it around his waist and then he makes the jump. It's close, but he doesn't make it. He lands in a shallow pool of lava and falls as the pain sends him into immediate anguish. You pull him out before the rope burns completely, but the flesh has already melted away from his legs and across his body. It is gruesome. Topsy casts a healing spell that seems to reverse the effects and you make your way back to the forge to recuperate. Topsy spends that afternoon and the next morning examining the weapons. All of the weapons are magical and while they are somewhat similar in function to contemporary weapons they use a strange form of unstable magic. He realises that there must have been something in the chest keeping them stable as the magic auras interact in weird and dangerous ways. It is dangerous to keep more than three of these weapons close together. He seperates them all out and starts examining this strange and interesting form of ancient magic. That afternoon you return to House Jarasco for the end stages of the ritual. You watch as the flesh and colour return to her body as a team of dragonmarked halflings perform the strange ritual. Suddenly Ashana takes a deep breathe and opens her eyes. She is back.
