Opting not to take the quiet approach, we charge into the lutemaker’s shop. There is nothing here except for broken instrumetns. We decide to hole up here for a while and Krodmich fixes some party members’ armor.

Sarthisis checks out the window periodically and sees orcs tending to the bonfires in the center of town. We are not sure why they are doing this.

We decide to make our way across town to an abandoned cave for a more defensive position. We search the entire area and find nothing. Eilenos checks the walls at the back and senses something magical, perhaps a doorway. However the group cannot figure out how to activate or open it. We decide to stay for 10 hours and watch both the front entrance and the “magic door.”

Aliga watches the front entrance and sees three skeletons in the graveyard — there are certainly undead active here. They never go out of the gate and seem to be congregating in the southwest corner.

At morning we decide to take care of the giant. We sneak around the town and approach the silos, near a large farm. The giant’s tarp is hung over two silos and we hear snoring from within. Sarthisis tosses his lit torch towards the tarp. As he does this he casts a spell on the torch and a 4-foot being made entirely of flame emerges and walks towards the tent. It scales the tent and the entire lean-to collapses on the giant as it lights on fire. The giant awakens. The flame being, at Sarthisis’ direction, goes around the perimiter and continues to burn the canvas.

The giant emerges, roaring and rushing angrily towards us. Aliga strikes with a wind attack from Kili’s Storm. The elemental also moves to attack the giant. Other party members do ranged attacks at the giant and then surround for close combat. We kill him and grag the tarp off of the silos to see his home underneath.

Sarthisis finds a locked banded chest in the hay and realizes that the giant is wearing the key to this around his neck. After prying it off of the giant he opens the chest and finds many riches inside. Piles and piles of gold and jewels — much more than we could ever carry.

Sarhtisis takes nine diamonds as “magic components.” Aliga finds a suit of dull silver Elven chain mail that bequeaths major protection from harm, dexterity and little noise as it moves. As we are fawning over the armor, Sarthisis is pocketing over 800 coins and all the gems and jewelry he can find. Even though this must be incredibly heavy inside his robes, he seems to be able to move normally and it sounds as if he only has a few coins in his pockets.

Sarthisis takes the key from the ring and we see that Nadia is moving towards the house. We remember that she said this is her house. The place is completely trashed. She goes upstairs to investigate and finds four orcs in the bedroom. We kill them, and Nadia breaks down in tears. She regains her composure after a few minutes and searches through the rubble. Under a floorboard she finds a master-crafted longsword which she says belonged to her father. She leads us out of the house.

We get the cart and load up the loot from the Giant’s dwelling. We find that there were 8,000 gold coins and 3,000 gold worth of jewelry and gems. We drag the giant into the barn and burn it. We work our way through the town and burn the rest to make sure that nothing survives. At the smithy’s we find some armor repair kits for Aliga’s armor and some other random items. The rest of the town besides the mausoleum is burned.

The party finally ventures into the graveyard. Eilenos senses great evil here and is uncomfortable. We go in slowly with torches lit. It is about 8am. A large chimney comes out of the main room and light streams through from above. There are two zombies and six skeletons in here. We briefly have the idea of burning the place down and them with it, but then just decide to attack. Eilenos uses the bludgeon spell on his sword to destroy the skeletons.

After the skeletons are destroyed, Eilenos checks one of the sarcophagi. Nadia scolds him, saying that these are people she knows buried here and she will not have him defiling their graves. Eilenos apologizes and says that he was merely trying to ascertain that they had not been previously defiled. Sarthisis checks and sees that none of them have been disturbed. We re-light the brazier at the center of the room and depart from the crypt.

The party returns to the cave at the northwest end of town for an entire day to rest. We play dice games together and Krodmich regales the group with stories from Ironhallow Hall. Sarthisis inspects the back wall further with a spell from his reportoire. He sees that there is certainly a secret door here, and that a group of Elves passed through here five days ago.

Sarthisis speaks Elven to try and pass through, but nothing works. Nadia presses her Elven sword against it, and again nothing. Krodmich closes his eyes and charges at the wall, and he passes through! He sees a corridor with torches along the walls ahead. Sarthisis brings the horses into the cave and we all go through the tunnel. The tunnel appears to have been built by Dwarves. We come out into a large hall with thirty foot ceilings and huge stone columns. Nadia is amazed that this is here — she has never heard anyone speak of it.

In here we see several small “buildings” carved in stone, and lights emanating from them. We call out towards the buildings and say that we have come with Nadia and have purged the town of evil. They come out and greet us; there are fifteen in all.

Nadia rushes to embrace one of the Elves. The rest come out and begin to ask us questions. An elf named Talamir explains that a week ago they heard the mausoleum gates thrown open and they went to investigate. In the catacombs they saw two robed figures and then were attacked by zombies. A horde of orcs and the giant came later while they were preoccupied and took over the town. The survivors hid here in the secret area of the cave.

The party says that they will leave soon to purge the crypt of the undead. The people here say that they will care for our horses in the meantime. We give them the chest of gold and the jewels that the giant stole. Talamir and a Dwarf, Ulfgar, take us to a nearby building and explain that the crypt was built not only to hold the dead, but to protect a very powerful item, one of Antinius’ trappings. He draws a crude map of the area where the item lies in the crypt. There are three doors at the center with Berethenu’s symbol on them and no key. They do not know how to open the doors. Perhaps agents of Necros have been raising the dead in the area to ask them questions about how to enter the crypt and steal the magical item. Talamir apologizes but he says that he knows no more about the tomb. We say that we will waste no more time and leave immediately to purge the crypt.