What's Happened: sphinxes and other stuff: adventure 2

The characters, sans Earthmoon, went to see Eugene. He had a book on the Fade that he had procured for a valuable customer. Unfortunately, he feared that the book might be a fake. The only Fade expert available was currently serving in the Kaydtch stockade and so he wanted to hire the characters to take the book to that expert for verification. He figured that the characters' status as soldiers would grant them the ability to get into the stockade.

Unfortunately, the guards had already taken the expert away in order to examine Fade ruins in the area. The characters tried to get more information, but nobody seemed to know where the expert had been taken. Eventually, someone mentioned that there were quite a few spots of Fade ruins in Kaydtch. Before they left, the characters tried to help Alicia escape, but got a lesson in peasant courage. The peasents of Kaydtch feared escaping the stockade and being rounded up by the Defenders.

The characters went to Kaydtch only to find the place deserted except for various apparitions running around. Emord detected evil from a manor house on the near by hill. While the characters attempted to figure out what to do next, they were attacked by a gigantic gargoyle that seemed to be made of rock and fungi. The gargoyle turned out to be a mean adversary and in defeating him, the characters lit another of Kaydtch's buildings on fire.

Meanwhile, Earthmoon was chased by hobgoblins away from her place of meditation and towards Kaydtch which had been set partially ablaze. Deciding that everyone needed to rest and recoup, the party decided to head off into the forest to set up camp. Unfortunately, they were set upon by a Wolf/Worg hunting party that was chasing down a herd of dire elk. The characters learned that they had met one of the worgs outside the temple of Boccob. Having slain most of the vile beasts, the party captured the last worg and charmed it into answering questions about the near by Fade ruins.

It then led them to those ruins which were set up in the center of the Kaydtch graveyard outside of town. Sitting atop one grave, which was covered with a chainmail blanket, was an insane sphinx waiting to ask riddles of passerbys. The sphinxes name was Hiromon and she claimed to have looked beyond time (thus the insanity).

The characters figured out how to move the chain blanket without revealing (too many) of the Symbol spells beneath. They were then able to trace a design which summoned up the spirit of a fade known as Buanhum the Hunter. Buahnhum traced a set of symbols on the Fade Ruins thus summoning Oash Koleesh, a remant of the monster Bokrug.

Oash Koleesh detailed that it could only be set free from the confines of Vargas if the characters traced the symbol of the fourth fade onto the fifth temple. The first fade was Buanhum. The second and third fade are up in the air (one is Vargas). The fourth fade is known as Ubbo Naphan.

Okay, so, four fade, each with a symbol. Somewhere is a fifth temple where a symbol needs to be drawn to release Bokrug from its eternal imprisonment with Vargas. Vargas is the reason for all the undead. Right.

According to Oash Koleesh, Ubbo Naphan is in his tomb where he is eaten by worms...whatever that means (wyrms?). The characters conversation with Oash was interrupted when a group of Drodswell's defenders came down the road with Geoffrey Flinthurst. He claimed to know nothing and that they brought him out to the ruins every day, but that he was no closer to figuring this out than before. The guards explained that Hiromon was always there and a royal pain with her never ending riddles, but that she, at least, kept the ghouls at bay.

The defenders assumed that the characters were there under order from Virgil Breech and so offerred the characters a safe place to sleep for the night. The characters went back with the defenders to the mansion they had taken over (the Old Pran place, same place that was glowing earlier). In the middle of the night, the Pran mansion came under attack by more gargoyle thingees and some spellstiched ghasts, no fun. Earthmoon nearly died. Emord learned that it takes a long time to put on armor and...yeah.

Feldon, turning invisible, made it to Geoffrey who was cowering in the corner and the party ran for it. Earthmoon turned into a dire badger in order to get everyone safely out of town but not before noticing that the sky was filled with green glowing fireflies (the gargoyles). Interogating Flinthurst revealed the legend of Bokrug in greater detail. The characters headed back to their room at Bruno Kielers where Blenbury has been kicking back like it was a bed and breakfast (which it kind of is).