Porodo sees that the nearby tracks go to a wall. There is a small hole on the wall and Sarthisis presses into it. A doorway opens and a cavern ascends.

At the top we go across a wooden bridge over the falls. In the center there is a platform with a huge pile of gold on it.

As we walk onto the platform, Eilenos sees a fire drake descending upon us and tries to attack it, but his sword bounces off its scales.

The others move to attck but the drake buffets its wings and tries to blow us off the platform. Eilenos is taken off guard and falls backward 20 feet down into the lava, and is seriously hurt.

The others continue attacking and Charon jumps on his back. Sarthisis sets several elementals on him as well.

Due to his fire invulnerability ring, Eilenos is able to recover and climbs up the platform. He strikes the drake in the belly, and the drake strikes with his tail. Eilenos strikes again and takes him down.

We loot the area but don’t care too much about the gold. Sarthisis takes some jewels, but there are also several magical items: a wand of mini fireballs, which Charon takes. Also a pendant of awareness, a dagger, and a blunderbus.

The blunderbus also comes with an “instruction manual” which Josephus looks at. He says that the book is about the lost art of gunsmithing, which the Dwarves haven’t done for generations. We give the gun to Josephus for him to use.

We all gear up with rings of fire protection given to us by the Dunmeshi. With them we take no damage from background heat (the temperature in the Realms of Fire), 4 points of armor against direct heat attacks, we can walk through lava unharmed, and we have a +2 trait roll bonus against fire spells.

We open up the portal to the Realms of Fire and jump through. We immediately feel the heat and see fire all around us. We proceed across a bridge that goes over a river of flame. Ahead of us we see a huge statue that is “crying” lava and looks like it is screaming.

Suddenly there is a booming voice, which we assume to be the local Flame Lord, that tells us if we want to fight, we can, but it is ultimately fruitless. We may win, but in the end the spirit trapped in the staff will betray and kill us all. He suggests that we ditch her and team up with him to defeat one of the other flame lords.

We consider it briefly, but decline (since he is surely lying to us as well) and rush to attack. We go across a lava floe to an island of ash, where a dozen or so normal looking desert-garbed dervish warriors are around a camp fire.

Two hydras ascend out of the lava pool and we strike them down.

Eilenos, struggling to get across the lava, is suddenly blinked to the middle of the battle and strikes down one of the soldiers. This was probably Josephus helping out with a quick teleportation spell.

The elves give us supplies including some magical items. We are also given a guide who will help take us through the forest. Before we can depart, sentries come in from the forest and sound the alarm — six dragons are inbound and ready to attack!

Sarthisis relates that there are several types of dragons. It appears that the ones coming are Swamp Dragons, and they spray noxious fumes. As they come closer, we see that the dragons have riders upon them. There is one huge dragon and five smaller ones. They fan out to attack.

Sarthisis sends air elementals and fireballs toward them. The big dragon descends and the rider lances Eilenos, and the dragon shoots its noxious breath at us. Eilenos barely gets out of the way in time, but is wounded. Imra uses a spell on the big dragon and it shrinks to the size of a large dog. It climbs out from beneath the saddle and rider. Sarthisis roasts it (and nearly Eilenos as well) with a fireball. Charon jumps out of a tree and stabs one dragon, killing it instantly. He jumps off the dragon to safety before it hits the ground. The other dragons and riders are dealt with.

Eilenos believes that Marta, the goddess of beasts, has taken sides against us. She must have sent the dragons and the riders.

Imra thanks Sarthisis for using her during the battle.

We go to Anthal and let him know that we are heading out. Our guide comes with us. It takes 3 days of walking to exit the forest, and we head into a small town called Sundale. The guide says that we should go to Fort Stone. The road will take us to Dunmeshi. It will take us four days to get there from here.

The doorman at Dunmeshi doesn’t let us in, though we describe our mission and ask to speak to the master of the keep. We tell him that we are adventuring on behalf of the king of Iron Hallow Hall, Krodmich, but he doesn’t believe us because Krodmich is not with us. We mention Josephus, and suddenly he appears through a portal. He gives Eilenos a huge battle-axe and asks him to “Hold Krodmich for a moment.” Eilenos is startled, but assents. The guards recognize Josephus and let us all in to the city.

We head into town and buy a horse and cart. While there, we hear from the locals that there are Wood Elves in the forest that are wild and potentially dangerous. Josephus advises us to stay close to the river as we travel.

Setting off, we travel for a while and soon Porodo finds human tracks going to and from the river. However, we don’t see anyone and feel it is safe to bed down here for the night. During first watch, Aliga hears something and sees four humanoids to the north. He quietly wakes the rest of the group.

The humanoids are a group of elves, and they don’t seem particularly friendly. They ask us what we are doing there. We tell them of our quest and they actually know of Josephus. They invite us to their village. They are a tribe from Trevenfal, and have separated from their brethren in Elleday due to a fundamental schism.

The elves escort us to their home. As we travel, the plants bend to get out of our way and let us through. We see the tree city up ahead, but the trees do not look natural. Above us we see many walkways. They bring us to rooms that are meant for visitors. We drop our things and they take us up to the city center on a lift. We go through the market and up another lift to a building with large spires and a blue energy field around it.

We are taken up inside and there are many guards with natural looking armor. There is an elder sitting on a wooden throne, wearing a cloak of leaves. His name is Anthal. We tell him about our plans, and he offers to help us get to the castle. He will also help us retake Skraag when the time comes!

We see humanoid figures in the dark, probably less than twenty of them. Several fighters seem to be out in the front area of the house.

We see a figure behind the house glowing with fire. Sarthisis hits him with three fireballs, but they do not seem to affect him. The figure responds with a huge blast of fire that injures Sarthisis. He blacks out and begins attacking the party. He manages to miss Porodo by pure force of will.

We defeat the fighters and then team up to kill the wizard. He goes down after a brief battle. We check him and he has a magical scourge (a cat o’ nine tails) called the Scourge of Unhealing Flesh, staff, Cloak of Greater Protection, and non-magical manacles. His followers were carrying a non-magical symbol that looks like a scourge with manacles attached to them. Charon takes the magical flail.

The staff seems to have some fire powers that it gives to Sarthisis as he wields it. Suddenly it speaks to him — the staff is sentient! She says her name is Ilira the Igniter, and is the spirit of a Flame Lord. She is trapped within the staff and wants our help to be released. Porodo asks her how she can help us in return. She says that there can be only six Flame Lords at a time, and that they are not necessarily evil. If we take out Cinder, the flame lord who destroyed her body, she will take his power and then help us clear Iron Hallow Hall of orks. To get to Cinder, we must travel to the elemental plane of fire. She can take us there.

Josephus suggests that we leave for Hampton, northwest of here, through Jagen’s Wood. Hampton is the most powerful of the Five Kingdoms — rich and with military might. Josephus says that we should meet him at Dunmeshi Castle, which is closer to Scragg. He needs to leave to attend other business. He enters a small portal and disappears.

Walking through the razed town, we don’t see anyone else alive after the orc attack. The group tries to check for a trail where the orcs may have come from, but we can’t find anything.

On the other side of town, we see a farmstead off in the distance. Above us, there are clouds massing for an oncoming storm. We think that perhaps it may be magical in origin, but the senses of the people in the group say otherwise.

We head toward the farmhouse and on the way we see orc tracks going through the fields. As we get closer to the house, we don’t see any more orc tracks but there are human boot prints everywhere here.

Aliga checks the house and finds nothing. Porodo goes in the basement and there are barrels of rotten food, but he finds a trapdoor underneath one of the barrels. He calls the rest of the group down.

We open the trapdoor and it is a shaft that descends for quite a ways. Eilenos descends first and sees that there is a long stone hall. The others come down and we start searching around.

We hear a scratching nearby, but we’re not sure what it is. We go through a door and there is another stone room with a basin in the center. Next to that is a forge. Another couple of rooms on this floor do not have anyone in them. In the south room there is a spiral staircase that descends.

On the lower floor there is what appears to be a chapel or worship area with pews and an altar. Sarthisis has his lizard knock over the altar to see if anything is underneath, but there is nothing.

A room off to the right appears like a bedroom. There is a loose brick in the wall and behind it seems to be some magical items. We open it up and there are several items here:

Small book – green leather with a tree on it
Brown leather (larger) – beasts on the cover
Brown leather – screaming face. This is a torture journal.
Scroll — non-magical, a list of 15 names. Off to the side there are names of seven places.
Slaver’s shackles — magical shackles that slow the person down
Sack full of gold

The text references “Malignus” who Eilenos remembers as a follower of Galignan and Necros. He amassed power and wealth and an army of followers. This group must be a cult of his followers. The book has dates of all of the torture victims. One of the names, Carter, is listed in the book and rings a bell. Porodo remembers Carter was one of his rangers. Unfortunately he was likely killed here about three months ago.

In the next room there are a bunch of torture victims. We free two of them, an elf and a Merikii and two seem to be okay. They say that they were kidnapped by cultists, but they seem to have left recently. We find their stuff in a nearby chest and they gear back up.

The new people, Charon and Imra, meet Nadia and Josephus. Josephus says that they have the touch of destiny about them, and that they should come with us.

The weather hasn’t changed, and it is still raining hard, so we decide to stay here for the night. Aliga is nominated to watch, and in the middle of the night he sees something outside and wakes the rest of the group.

We sail from Nyambe to the Five Kingdoms. We arrive in Rodare in the country of Hamsburg, and dock. However, we see smoke off in the distance and realize that the city is under attack. We rush off of the docks area and into a building where we see villagers being attacked by savage men.

The group, including Josephus, jumps into the fray and starts taking down the men one by one. Eilenos fires off his crossbow and misses, and then is blindsided by one of the savages, who takes him down to the ground. Sarthisis turns and immolates the man with a firebolt, and Josephus rushes to heal Eilenos.

We hear a loud noise and suddenly a giant wyvern descends into the area and begins to attack us. Porodo climbs up a building and attacks him with his sword, but jumps off the building, injuring himself.

The ground begins shaking and through the earth comes a huge ork, collapsing part of the building in the process. He immediately attacks Krodmich and knocks him down. The ork brings his huge double axe down on Krodmich and it creates a swath of ice for more than 30 feet. Everyone manages to get out of the way, but a giant icicle goes through Krodmich’s chest.

Sarthisis aims his magical weaponry at the wyvern and torches it in a ball of flame.

Eilenos and Aliga team up on the ork and cut him to ribbons.

We rush to Krodmich and try to tend to his wounds, but Josephus shakes his head gravely and says that nothing can be done. With his dying words, Krodmich says that we must take his axe to Skraag and free his homeland. Josephus bends down next to Krodmich and waves his hands over him. His body turns to dust and disappears into a small pouch that Josephus carries.

Sarthisis cuts the wyvern’s head and tail stinger off to take it with him.

We look over the fishing village and find no survivors. We think about it, and we believe this was a deliberate trap that was set for us by Grom.