OSR: The Secret of Steam Hill, Session 10 & 11

Last session, the party reached the city of Boyer and sold the ill-gotten loot taken from the remains of Steam Hill.

Cazael the spiderling fighter. Not very bright but also not very dead, so clearly doing something right.
The Paladin, a beetle-ling hermit, wanderer, and servant of the Authority.
Wonderwood Strongbow the Elf thief. Superior to everyone. Keeps a collection of unusual "things" in flasks.
Slugsworth, a thief, and former... slug-of-negotiable-affection. Somehow leveled up more than the rest of the party, despite nominally even loot distribution.
Bill the wormling Orthodox Wizard. Thanks to some eyeball juice and a strange potion, Bill's magical abilities were enhanced. He has antlers now too.
Swainson, the hawkling Garden Wizard. Swainson is the only sensible wizard in the group.

The party's restful sleep was interrupted by a colossal fireball rising over the city of Boyer. The blast shook the windows of the inn and sent the party scurrying for a good view.

"Is that... the Illusionist College?" Bill said worriedly.
"Yup," Slugsworth replied.
"The one we sold all those untested magical artifacts to?"
"Yup."
"We... we did get paid up front."
"Yup."
"Right. I'm going back to bed."
"Good plan," said Slugsworth, and went back to bed herself.

The rest of the party, rousted out of bed by the Paladin, ran into the streets to try and stop the fire. They dodged illusionary beasts and false-image flickers, all the while admiring the orange-blue-white flames bursting from the college's library. Spellbooks on fire were discharging their spells at random. It was difficult to tell the illusionary flames from the real ones.


The Paladin tried to organize a bucket chain, then paused, slapped his forehead, and turned to the fire. In the voice of the Authority he commanded the flames to "EXTINGUISH". Every flame in a quarter of the city went out.

A truly enormous argument followed. The elderly and distracted Baron of Boyer turned up, got distracted by the Archchancellor of the Illusionists, and spent several minutes talking about his hunting hounds. The Baron's daughter, a fearsome young woman with an armour-plated mind and a voice like a bandsaw, took charge of the situation.

"Right," the Baron's daughter said, after several minutes of bickering, "the Elf is correct. No refunds."
"But the throne they sold us dominated the mind of one of my graduate students," the Archchancellor protested. "He broke out of his chains, stole every magic item he could get his hands on, and flew away into the night on the monolith these reckless hooligans also sold us."
"Why was he chained?" Bill asked.
"He wouldn't have sat on that throne otherwise, now would he?" the Archchancellor answered peevishly.

"SILENCE," the Baron's daughter roared. "That's it. You!" she said, pointing to Cazael. "You're being knighted tomorrow evening, by my father. It's unorthodox but it will have to do." As the party gawped, she continued. "You! Bill the so-called Wizard. I recall that my father paid for your education as a war-wizard. Then you vanished to parts unknown. See that it doesn't happen again. As for the rest of you, the Archchancellor will make you a very generous offer if you seek out and return his wayward apprentice and any stolen magical items."

"I will?" the Archchancellor said.
"Yes. You will."
"Ah."

Two days later, a convoy of wagons left the city. It was an eccentric collection. Cazael, newly knighted and still bewildered by his rise in status, had hired 10 mercenaries from the Rising Star company, renamed them to "Boyer's Butchers", and decorated them in the green and white livery of the Baron of Boyer. The mercenaries were from Foreign Parts, spoke with barbaric accents, and carried odd weapons.

Side Note: a new player rolled up a Barbarian from "a vast warrior nation that lurks just beyond the horizon." He is an expert fighter on horseback. He also rolled a random name: Klaus.

Yes, the Barbarian is from the Foreign Land of... Upper Saxony. 

Wonderwood had, for reasons unknown to the rest of the party, purchased 5 orphans from an almshouse. She'd bought them uniforms, cold weather clothing, and a separate wagon, and was busily training them to sing and dance. The rest of the group questioned the wisdom of bringing children into a dangerous and mountainous area, but reasoned that it was likely less dangerous than life in the city.

Slugsworth shipped money home to support the 135 children (ranging in size from a finger to a housecat) left behind in Leroux. Swainson bought a fancy fur-lined wizard robe and hat. Her wagon's cloth top was covered in rich blue fabric with white painted stars. She looked like a proper archmage. Bill spent most of his money appeasing the Baron of Boyer (or, more importantly, his daughter) with gifts and donations.

After a further two days on the road, the party reached the little village of Lost Past. It had always been a bleak and grey place, but now it was utterly deserted. Doors had been shattered, walls torn down. Worried, the party pressed on and camped on their former site overlooking Steam Hill. Wonderwood had her five orphans dig five orphan-sized graves. "Just in case," the Elf explained to the aghast Paladin.

The next morning, the party set out to explore the cratered and blasted remains of Steam Hill. The party decided to attack the wooden temple (11) first, as it seemed to have been rebuilt and reinforced. They crept in through the side, prying apart wooden logs to squeeze into a newly-built potion-making room.

After checking the flasks and pocketing three extremely volatile potions, the party hid in ambush. A few minutes later, the wayward graduate student from Boyer, wearing the looted crown and carrying a bundle of wands, bumbled into the room. Cazael leapt out and beat him to death with his sword.

"Wizard problem solved," he said.

The rest of the temple had been converted into a large open space with a smooth-sided hole bored straight down into the ruined dungeon below. The party decided not to descend immediately. They looted the rest of the temple and retreated for the morning.

In the afternoon, with a few more mercenaries in tow, the party decided to explore the pit. They sent Swainson down on a rope to look around. 60' down, she found the bottom, and a strange arch made of fused wands, crystal balls, and silver. It stood in the middle of a room, linked to ceramic-coated cables and humming magical devices, and practically oozing magical energy.

It was also guarded by a vampire. The same vampire, in fact, that the party had previously encountered and decapitated. It didn't seem to remember them, and thought they had come to offer magical items "for the great work."

As the rest of the party descended, Swainson stalled for time. The great work, the vampire explained, was a time-portal. It was very nearly complete. When fully operational, it would allow him to bring his masters, the extinct snake-man empire back to life, into the future, where they could thrive and support him and rebuild Steam Hill.

The fact that his plan was fueled by crystal balls, magic carpets, and random bits of magical jewelry hardly concerned the vampire. It deeply concerned the other wizards; time magic is a fickle and dangerous thing. Opening a portal a thousand years in the past would probably be catastrophic.

After a bit of whispering, the party decided to fight. Cazael took out his impossibly cold sword and, liquid oxygen flying everywhere, attacked the vampire, assisted by Klaus the Barbarian. Wonderwood threw flasks of oil near the portal, hoping to set it on fire. Swainson fired off a magic missile but incurred a magical mishap. Her feet and hands sprouted tree roots, trapping almost everyone in the room in a dense tangle of wood.

Bill, sensibly, used shrivel to desiccate the wood and free his friends. Wonderwood continued to fling lamp oil everywhere, then retreated up the rope. Slugsworth had left the moment the fight had started. Bill soon followed.

Cazael and Klaus finished off the vampire, decapitated him, and threw the corpse at the portal. The eldritch device, agitated by so much nearby magic, was beginning to shake and spark ominously. After another hasty retreat to the surface, Wonderwood chucked a torch down the hole and the party ran for the hills.

The resulting explosion was impressive. It was trapped in slow motion. Stone blocks the size of cottages and huge timbers from the temple spiraled through the air, leaving slow contrails of fire and smoke. It wasn't difficult to evade them, but the party didn't stop running until they reached their camp on the other side of the valley.

"Do you think that killed the vampire?" Cazael asked.
"Gee, I don't know," Bill said sarcastically, eyeing the slow-motion shockwaves rippling across the valley floor. "But if it didn't, no one can say that we didn't try."

The next morning, the party returned to the thoroughly mangled remains of Steam Hill. They briefly explored a previously untouched section of the complex. Thanks to a cunning use of Bill's capture wind spell, the party evaded a poison gas trap and looted two potions, a magical silver tray, and a large gold bowl from a set of refrigerated casks.

They then turned their attentions to the barred stone doors they'd previously ignored. The room was well protected and the doors were very securely barred. Whatever was inside must be valuable.

Some party members later remembered that the doors were barred from the outside.

With some careful footwork, Cazael and Klaus removed the enormous stone block protecting the doors and levered them open, revealing a curious room. A large platform was suspended in the centre of the room from four chains. Two levers on the wall raised and lowered the platform.

The PCs left a hireling at the top, tied a rope to the "raise elevator" lever, and began to descend. 200' later, they watched the rope fly upwards. 1,000' later, they were falling faster and faster. Bands of stone whipped by at terrifying speed. They entered freefall for a few terrifying moments before the elevator began to gradually slow. When it finally stopped, the PCs were certain they had fallen for miles.

They tried to signal the surface, but their cries echoed and faded in the enormous tunnel. A few minutes later, their hireling fell down the shaft, tumbling, screaming.

Had something pushed him, or had the suction from the falling elevator dragged him down?

What awaits the party in the Veins of the Earth?

Find out next time.

OSR: The Secret of Steam Hill, Session 8 & 9

Last session, the party accidentally destroyed a phoenix-based magical steam reactor. Steam Hill is now just "Hill" or possibly "Crater Hill" or "The Hill Formerly Known As Steam".

The Party:
Cazael the spiderling fighter. Not very bright but also not very dead, so clearly doing something right.
The Paladin, a beetle-ling hermit, wanderer, and servant of the Authority.
Wonderwood Strongbow the Elf thief. Superior to everyone. Nominally in charge of counting and guarding the loot.
Slugsworth, a thief, and former... slug-of-the night. Slugsworth knows how to use a rope.
Bill the Orthodox Wizard. Bill is a wormling and a fairly terrible wizard. His two spells are "Saw and Plane Tree" and "Capture Wind".
Swainson, the hawkling Garden Wizard. Swainson is particularly timid and refuses to lick things to identify them.

After discussing their options, the party decided to continue looting the half-demolished complex. They didn't want to leave valuables behind for others to find.

Leaving Wonderwood behind to guard their accumulated hoard, the party descended into the crater once again. This time, they ignored the turbine room and focused on the partially collapsed passages leading from it. The first path they cleared provoked the giant transparent ooze. After beating a hasty retreat and putting additional rocks and pipe-sections in the path, the party agreed not to use that path. The ooze could maneuver around fallen debris and looked just like water; any expeditions would be in grave danger.

Instead, they decided to explore a sunken path newly revealed by the explosion. The section they could see was waist-deep in cold water. After sending in Swainson as a scout, the rest of the party climbed down and began exploring.

Their first major discovery was a badly damaged statue of a snake-creature-thing, holding its hands in an inverted triangle. (29) White light flickered sporadically inside the triangle, as if some internal mechanism had failed. Slugsworth poked it with a finger; the finger vanished, as if neatly snipped off by the flickering light. The inconvenienced slugling bandaged the stump and soldiered on.

Ignoring the deeper passage to the right, the party ventured to the left, where the water was merely waist-deep (30). The Paladin was bitten by a leech-like creature which began to glow blue-white. The Paladin gestured to the party. He didn't seem to take any damage; in fact, he felt healthier than ever. Old bruises and cuts healed and vanished. He felt spry! He felt good! He felt great!

He felt slightly worried. The party pulled the leech off and stuffed it into a flask. Slugsworth and Swainson then realized that leeches had attached to them too. They felt good! They felt great!

They started to panic. Swainson was hit particularly hard and was hyperventilating - and glowing faintly - when the leeches were finally removed. The party climbed atop a sunken stone table, checked for additional leeches, and debated their next move. Everyone who'd been bitten by the leeches for any length of time felt fantastic, if slightly manic.

Side Note: The party had just encountered the Leeches of Paradise!, creatures that heal you by biting you... until they don't. They get harder to remove each time you use them.

Bill bravely volunteered to explore the passage to the south. He discovered a set of 5 egg-like seats and a podium on the far side of a deep pool of water (31). He swam furiously, his little wormling limbs flailing, and reached the other side. One leech did get stuck to him. He tried to pull it off (despite feeling good!) and then hollered for help (even though he felt great!). The Paladin, weighed down by his chainmail and gear, swam-hopped over to help. They succeeded in removing the leech before anything happened, but Bill was shaking nervously and fidgeting. He discovered the podium and seats were magical, prodded a seat and caused it to glow white, and then swam back to report his findings.

Thoroughly sick of leeches, the party asked Bill to use his capture wind spell to freeze the water. He'd captured three hours of ice-cold mountain-top wind. With a wave of his hand, he set the wind loose. The party retreated, shivering, and found a passage to a higher area (32).

Finally out of the water, the party climbed the stone steps upwards to a huge vaulted room. Six statues of glowering snake-men guards with metal weapons monitored a gigantic barred stone door at the far end.

The party set off two traps in short order. The first was activated when Cazael pulled a sword from one of the statue's hands. Steel darts attached to chains fired from the walls, filling the room with a criss-crossing pattern of thin silver threads. The party very carefully removed the darts, causing a clicking sound in the walls with each movement, and then ran. Moments later, lightning flowed down the chains, crackling and sparking and filling the room with ozone. The party watched from a safe distance. Cazael clapped politely.

Once the chains and darts had retracted into their wall-sockets, the Paladin bravely crossed the hall to listen at the huge stone door on the other side. He activated a pressure plate and was swatted by a massive stone hammer that swung in from the right hand side of the room. He survived thanks to the invigorating after-effects of his leech encounter, but he was still winded and nervous.

The hammer revealed a small room with a bowl of gemstones on a plinth. Suspecting a trap, Cazael tossed a grappling hook at the bowl from a safe distance. It bounced off a barrier; the gems, plinth, and room were illusory. The hammer swung back, smashed the grappling hook into a flat plate, and revealed a second "gem room". This time, the plinth contained even more gems, and an attractive female (the party presumed) spiderling waved to Cazael from behind the treasure. He was not convinced.

Image not related, but it's very nice. By Igor Burlakov .

The party ignored the giant stone door. Instead, they climbed all the way back to the surface, circled around the crater, and climbed down the stairs (19) into a mostly unexplored section of the caverns. They found a locked iron door in room (20) with a polished lock and retractable bolts. While examining it, Bill set off a lightning bolt trap. The crackling purple bolt deafened the wormling and send him bounding around the room, expanding and contracting wildly. Luckily, thanks to the invigorating effects of the leeches, he suffered no other serious injuries. The party could communicate with him by bellowing straight into his ear.

Further wizard investigation indicated that the trap was still active. Worried, the party investigated the rest of the hallway. In a gigantic sunken chamber (28), they found a huge tentacled creature lurking and glowering. It grabbed Cazael and nearly strangled him, but the party bludgeoned it back and dragged their friend free. The creature's enormous bulk and lidless, staring eyes unnerved the party. It seemed to be guarding an sunken iron door.

"I HAVE A PLAN," Bill announced. The party pretended not to hear, and instead focused on the Paladin's plan. Communicated via diagrams and gestures, the Paladin suggested taking chains from the lightning trap in room (32) and linking them together, putting one end in the water of room (28), and then activating the lightning trap in room (20). He expected that the lightning spirit would fly out, pass down the chain, and strike the hideous creature dead.

After activating the trap in the statue hall and retrieving several lengths of chain, the party settled on a system. Bill, as the chief wizard, would throw the chain and leap back. The Paladin would assist, as Bill couldn't hear the signal from the rest of the party. Cazael would throw the chain into the water, run away, and give a signal. Slugsworth and Swainson would remain at a safe distance, "in case anything went wrong."

Luckily, nothing did go wrong. The lightning sped down the chain and sizzled into the water. After the shrieks and pops faded, the party carefully investigated the chamber. Their plan had worked; the giant creature was floating on the surface, bloated and coated in in grey slime.

Bill was the first to clamber onto the creature. He pried its three red eyes out, passing them to the slightly disgusted Slugsworth. "VERY MAGICAL", he shouted, "GOOD FOR POTIONS." To the party's horror, he punctured one of the eyes and took a drink. He grinned, glowing with faint magical light. "YES GOOD," he said, offering the melon-sized orb to the rest of the party. No one else indulged.

Side Note: Bill gained the telekinetic shove ability for his trouble - the first positive effect from ingesting strange creatures in several sessions.

The party put the remaining eyes in a chest on the surface, packed them in snow, and returned to the now-frozen tunnels (30). They walked over the ice to the strange egg-shaped chairs and the control panel. Touching the chairs caused them to light up and pulse with faint white light. An amber gem on the console also lit up for each chair.

Bill, a sensible wizard, convinced Cazael to sit in a chair, reached out, and flailed at the console, and swatted the button corresponding to the fighter's chair. Cazael vanished with a scream as the chair plummeted down an enormously deep well shaft. There was a very faint splash a few moments later.

Everyone looked carefully at the console, which now had a blue light on the gem corresponding to the fighter's vanished chair. The Paladin shrugged, hopped into another chair, and pressed his button as well. He also vanished, though his descent featured several loud crashing noises.

The Paladin and Cazael found themselves floating on an underground river, using their glowing chairs as boats. They paddled closer together, lashed the boats together with rope, and began to worriedly examine their surroundings. Their lanterns revealed nothing but water. However, the water ahead of them seemed noisier and more turbulent, as some titanic waterfall or chasm lay ahead.

Meanwhile, up above, Bill prodded one of the blue buttons. After a brief pause, Cazael's chair began moving backwards, against the current. When it reached its original position it rocketed upwards, depositing the soaked and shivering fighter in front of his companions. The second button also retrieve the Paladin, though his chute seemed to be partially clogged with fallen rocks, as he arrived in a spray of gravel and dust.

"SPLENDID", Bill said, as the rest of the party glowered.

"Why don't we go check out that iron door in the dead monster pool instead?" Slugsworth suggested, to prevent any further experiments with the chairs.

Once again, the party found themselves examining the bloated corpse of the tentacled creature. Cazael stripped off his armour and, after some encouragement, dove into the water to look for treasure. He found a few gold items, then, after further encouragement, decided to open the underwater iron door. He tied a rope around his waist and gave the other end to Slugsworth. After a few turns of the central lock, the door opened, then swung wide. The rush of water and the descending tentacle monster nearly drowned the fighter; the room on the other side had been full of air, not water. The party hauled their friend out, dried him off, and decided to return to camp.

The next morning, the party loaded up their remaining wagon and began the long trek back to civilization. Cazael was given the fearful task of holding the matter-evaporating ball bearing on a glass rod. Swainson and Wonderwood towed the floating obelisk, steering it with ropes and trying to aim it. Everyone else helped guide the overloaded cart or rode alongside, saddlebags bulging.

The party reached Lost Pass just before midnight but, after a rather undiplomatic encounter with the locals, decided to press on. While guiding the obelisk down a mountain path, well ahead of the rest of the party, Swainson and Wonderwood spotted a strange deer-owl-thing sitting in the middle of the road, its eyes glowing in the moonlight. Acting in unison, the hawkling and the Elf aimed the speeding obelisk straight at it. The creature barely had time to cry out, "Halt, fair...." before being smushed into a glowing paste.

Willing to risk it, Wonderwood stopped to scoop some of the paste into a potion flask filled with red eyeball fluid. Blue crystals began to form. Pleased, she stowed the flask and moved on. Several hours later, the crystals had grown to the size peas and the flask was glowing with raw magic. According to Bill, the potion would either explode or neutralize itself in a matter of minutes. There was only one thing to do. As the rest of the party hid behind a hedge, Bill drank the potion.

The wormling wizard sprouted antlers. He grinned as  his ears popped and healed; his deafness was cured! And he felt fantastic! He almost seemed to hover. His eyes shone with a silver gleam.

After asking several  important questions, such as, "Do you feel evil?", "Do you feel like exploding?", "Can you say a prayer?", "Are you sure you don't feel like exploding?", the party decided Bill was no longer a significant risk, and resumed their journey.

They reached the city of Boyer the next morning. A veritable orgy of commerce commenced. The three major wizarding colleges of Boyer - the famous and well-respected Garden Wizard college of Thrumsbury, the smaller but daring Illusionist college of Stoke, and the very dismal Elderstone Orthodox Wizard Outreach Branch - all competed to buy the various magical items offered by the party.  Slugsworth had secretly stolen a huge hoard of gems and earned three times as much as anyone else. The Paladin donated vast sums to the Church. Their pockets practically bursting with gold, the party retired to the finest inn that would admit them.

Their future was uncertain. Steam Hill still had unexplored chambers and strange subterranean mysteries. Their original missing - locating the bandit knight Sir Gilesworth - was still incomplete. Would they survive magical capitalism and their own meddling tendencies? Was Bill really OK? And what message did the mysterious owl-deer-thing want to deliver before its untimely death?

OSR: The Secret of Steam Hill, Session 6 & 7

Last session, the party reached the mythical Steam Hill, defeated three horrible vampire children, set off a sandstorm, and fled to the safety of a watchtower.

The party burst into the watchtower like a frantic storm, spotted a fungus-ant in the corner, stabbed it to death (still screaming) and then looked around. They also spotted a familiar figure dangling from the ceiling, wrapped in a crude spit-and-rope bundle.

"Swainson?" Slugsworth exlaimed in confusion. "What are you doing here?" The last time the party had seen the hawkling wizard, she'd been traveling directly away from them to report the disaster to Baron Ellimure. 

"And I did," the hawkling exclaimed, once she'd been freed from her resinous prison. "And the Baron said, 'Good job doing a wizard thing, now here's another one' and sent me to sort out some trouble in the hills. And then these ant people kidnapped me! And now I am here."

The party, reunited, now consisted of:

Cazael the spiderling fighter. Not very bright but very faithful and very good at fighting.
The Paladin, a beetle-ling hermit, wanderer, and servant of the Authority.
Wonderwood Strongbow the Elf thief. Keeps finding bits of dead creatures and putting them into a  jar "for later".
Slugsworth, a former... slug-of-negotiable-virtue. Slugsworth isn't so much a thief as a quartermaster at this point.
Bill the Orthodox Wizard on the run. Bill is a wormling and a fairly terrible wizard, but a life of danger and tomb-robbing appeals more than the War.
Swainson, the hawkling Garden Wizard. Swainson is particularly timid.


The party decided to wait for dawn in the watchtower (9). They fortified the thin wooden walls as best they could, tossed the fungus-ant corpse into the cold, and huddled in a corner. At first light the party shuffled back across the basalt wall (8) towards the ruined bathhouse. 

Side Note: At this point, readers may wish to refresh their memory of the first time a group attempted to explore Steam Hill. It didn't go well. 

They scrambled up the slope and began searching the ruins of the bathhouse, hoping to discover the object of their quest - the renegade knight of the Order of the Speckled Hen believed to dwell near Steam Hill. At least that was why Slugsworth and Cazael were here; the only two survivors of the Baron's mission. The others were here for gold, fate, or fame.

The wooden ruins were soaked by the rain and escaping steam. The party found a few scattered coins. The Paladin and Slugsworth bravely took a bath in the hot pool (3). Wonderwood discovered a mysterious pit or shaft in one of the ruined, roofless rooms (6).

It looked like a complex elevator, operated by a set of chains. The party carefully lowered themselves down into a strange stone hall. They roamed steam-filled hallways coated in pipes - some ancient, some newly repaired - and listened to the heartbeat-thrum of some vast machine in the darkness. Scald-zombies, burnt-pink undead creatures somehow altered by the steam, assaulted them and were cut into writhing fragments.

After detecting and evading a gelatinous ooze creature, as clear as glass, that was masquerading as a pool, the party reached a huge hall. Their lanterns illuminated four huge cylinders half-buried in the floor. The cylinders were covered - or perhaps made from - spinning rings of stone. Some moved in a blur, some moved very slowly.

The party climbed a set of stairs into a gantry and began creeping along, cautious but noisy. They were ambushed from above by a strange and terrible creature. It wore leather armour, but puffed, as though designed to encase rather than protect its contents. It wore a metal dome helmet, a silver sphere instead of a head, but with a huge cut through one side. The face inside, barely glimpsed, was a withered nightmare of grey flesh and sharp fangs. It fell onto the Paladin, stabbing with its needle-tipped fingers, and drawing blood up the tubes that coated its arms.

The fight went about as well as could be expected.

1. Bill, lacking any useful spells, threw his lantern oil at the creature. He splashed it all over the place, including the Paladin and the Paladin's torch. Fire began to spread rapidly.

2. Swainson cast whirling staff and threw her spinning quarterstaff at the creature. It bonked off its head and vanished into the darkness. Dejected, Swainson retreated. Slugsworth followed.

3. The Paladin, now quite injured, passed out while staring angrily at Bill.

4. Cazael once again drew his dubiously enchanted sword. The blade instantly froze the air itself, sending freezing steam and drops of liquid air in every direction. Cazael swung at the vampire (who was, if you'll recall, on fire).

Side Note: Liquid oxygen is... like a car. If you know how to use it, and you know the dangers, it's perfectly fine. If you don't, or you suddenly find a car in your living room, something is probably going to go wrong.

5. The resulting explosion bent the catwalk, threw Cazael backwards, threw the creature in the pressure suit backwards, and sent a massive fireball into the air.

6. Completely confused, utterly deaf, and properly murderous, Cazael charged the vampire and hacked it to shreds while screaming incoherently.

7. The rest of the party applauded politely.

After carefully putting the Paladin's blood back inside him using the finest medieval medical techniques (praying and prodding), the party was pleased to discover that their beetle-ling friend was still alive. While Cazael sheathed his sword and tried to thaw his fingers, the rest of the party cut off the creature's desiccated head and tried to burn it. Wonderwood looted the creature's silver helmet and, discreetly, dribbled some of its blood (and the Paladin's blood) into the now brimming "jar of extra parts" the elf was accumulating.

The blood, it should be noted, tempted both Bill and Slugsworth. They had both been bitten by the vampire children in the previous session. Both resisted, shared a meaningful glance, and pretended not to notice.

The party carefully explored the rest of the catwalk and upper level of the enormous buried hall. They discovered two monolithic slabs of stone built into the walls of the enormous chamber (25, 27). The slabs had dozens of gems embedded in them, faintly lit by a magical light. They also both had large, bright red wheels attached to their fronts. Bill recognized the writing on the wheels as ancient snake-man script, but nobody could translate it.

In the centre of the room, below the party on the ground floor, they spotted an enormous pool of water. Two orange-red lights, like buried coals, illuminated the water. Above the tank, floating impossible next to the catwalk, was a third monolithic block. (26). Instead of a wheel, this one had two opal orbs half-sunk into the smooth black stone. Finally, directly above the tank, they noticed a metal and stone contraption with dangling chains and scoops.

Bill raced between the panels excitedly, checking gem colours and magical tints. Meanwhile, the rest of the party made an alarming discovery about the spinning cylinders (24). Anything thrown at them - rocks, daggers, scald zombies - was spun up like thread being wound onto a spindle. The cylinders... spread anything they touched, turning it into a thin ring before it vanished utterly.  The party decided not to touch them.

They also examined the pool of water and discovered, to their surprise, that it was ice cold. They discovered two large pipes and several dozen smaller ones. The small pipes were wrapped around two metal spheres sunk 15' in the water. They were coiled like snakes or like a tangle of string. They also noticed a chasm, a break in the perfect basalt walls of the tank that started a few feet down, widened, and then disappeared into the darkness.

"I think," Bill announced after an hour of carefully examining - but not touching, never touching - the panels, "I think I have a plan."

The rest of the party experienced a variety of conflicting emotions.

1. The party split into three teams. The Paladin and Wonderwood waited by the south monolith (25).  Bill and Slugsworth took the middle, floating monolith (26). Cazael and Swainson took the north monolith (27).

2. The two groups at the north and south monoliths gave their red wheels a 1/2 turn. The water level in the pool below began to drop slowly.

3. After turning the wheels back and letting the water level rise, they then, at Bill's direction, gave them one full turn. The water level began to drop much more quickly. As it reached the top of the sunken red-hot orbs, it began to flash-boil and steam. The water valves seemed to control the water input from the two giant pipes on either side of the pool. The party hastily turned them back.

4. Very carefully, the party turned the valves slowly and adjusted the water level so it was just above the chasm. The Paladin volunteered to descend and look in. Slugsworth and Cazael assisted and lowed him into the pool on a rope.

5. The Paladin discovered that the chasm was full of air; the water streaming out of the tank and into the chasm created a waterfall. He spluttered and swung in and out of the ice-cold spray. When they hauled him out he was unconscious and full of water, but some good traditional medieval techniques (poking him) soon revived him.

6. Once revived, the Paladin tried to report what he'd seen but his chalk had been dissolved. He retrieved a pen and ink and wrote a long and blotchy testament on Slugsworth's bedroll. Cazael, who treated writing as some sort of magic art, applauded politely. The Paladin said he'd seen winding paths, a "eyeless thing that stared at him with curiosity", and "giant, valuable crystals." The party was intrigued.

7. While shutting the valves at the south monolith (25), the Paladin discovered that the wheel kept turning backwards to a fully closed position, as if the valve inside was failing. The mute Paladin tried to call for help by kicking things but gave up. Instead, he tied the wheel closed and lashed it to the railing. The rope strained and creaked but did not break.

8. On the north side, Cazael was having trouble of his own. His red wheel had snapped off completely. Everyone panicked. Cazael shoved his regular, slightly rusted sword into the hole and it seemed to work. He cranked it around, got the valve open, and then tied it in place. It wiggled ominously and seemed to be warping under the strain.

9. Once the panic subsided and the water level seemed to be stable, Bill cautiously touched the two opal spheres. They seemed to control the vast array of rusty chains and gears above the pool. Bill could send it rolling from side to side, lower chains and scroops, and raise them again.

"Guys, I have a plan," Bill announced. "We can use these scoops to remove the two red-hot orb things in the water. Then, we can..."

"Sell them?"
"Rub them on our heads?"
"Use them to cook food?"

"Uh, I'm not exactly sure what, we'll do with them," Bill said, "but removing them seems like a good idea."

"Why?" everyone asked, in varying tones of bewilderment.

"Because we can," Bill said.

As this was a good enough reason, everyone but Bill stood at a safe distance while the wizard began to play with the orbs. He carefully centered the device, then began to lower the chains and scoops. Unfortunately for everyone, the device's rusted gears and wheels failed utterly. The entire contraption -  a huge block of stone and metal - fell of its railings and plunged 40' down.

Bill turned to see the rest of the party running. He scrunched up his wormling body and scooted away as fast as he could. The crane-engine plunged into the water, sunk, shattered pipes, crunched stone, and generally demolished everything it encountered. It sounded awful, like a thousand red-hot stoves falling into a bath of ice cubes and springs. A rolling wave of steam followed the party, along with what sounded like anguished bird calls.

"Flee at once!" Cazael shouted, as if anyone was considering waiting. "We have angered the steam by doing wizard business!"



And so, the party ran. They ran past the gelatinous goop pool (21) which luckily rose to follow them and blocked the rushing steam. They ran all the way up to the surface via the stairs (18), then scrambled up the hill. Just before they reached the top, a colossal explosion tore the courtyard apart,  sending steam, stone, and mud flying in every direction.

Two giant birds made of fire rose from the explosion, flapping their blue-white wings and shedding embers. They broke through the sound barrier about 2,000' up and vanished in the distance. The party stared in blind incomprehension.

"Phoenixes!" Bill said, "they must have been in those metal sphere! The people who built this place must have used their heat to make all this steam for... for..."

"For wizard business!" Cazael hollered, holding his hands over his ears, "Keep running!"




The party regrouped at their original camp in the hills overlooking Steam Hill. The found Wonderwood's surviving hireling loading the horses for a quick getaway. He awkwardly helped them set up camp again. The party spent the rest of the day relaxing, eating, and trying to calm down. The remains of Steam Hill were no longer steaming. The major structures - the wall, the basalt block, and the wooden temple on top of it had survived with a few dents and cracks.

The party slept uneasily. At just past midnight they were interrupted by three ashen spirits. They looked like grey scarves made of cold embers with a single red light at the end. One coalesced into a child-shape, a thing of wisps and crawling fingers, and began to creep through the camp. While Slugsworth tried to rouse the others, she discovered one of the ash-spirits attached to the Paladin's neck. She threw a rock at it.

The Paladin spotted two of the spirits and, perhaps unwisely, shouted "MERGE" at them with his divine command. They fused together into one hideous, screaming mass of ashen limbs and flickering red light. The Paladin winced, hauled out his holy symbol, and furiously banished it at the spirits, sending them hissing into the darkness.

But during the fight, the third spirit had possessed Wonderwood's hireling. He waved jauntily to the party, made a few unlikely excuses, and sprinted off into the darkness, grinning like a lunatic. The party elect not to pursue a possible vampire-ash-ghost-thing in the dark over uncharted terrain. They put the Paladin's holy symbol on a pole in the middle of the camp and fell asleep.

In the morning, the party returned to Steam Hill to search for more treasure.They had found a few bits of gold jewelry in their hasty escape. The jewel-encrusted panels also held a certain appeal. The gems alone would be worth a king's ransom, and since the machinery they once controlled was scattered a dozen acres, removing them would probably be perfectly safe.



The party crept down, skirted the edge of the crater, and investigated the wooden temple (11) on top of the hill. They found a giant gold and silver throne inside, but most of the rest of the structure was poorly and hastily built. Fungus ants, comatose or dead, filled some of the rooms. The party tried to avoid inhaling the spores.

They located three child-sized coffins in one of the rooms. One contained a single grey ashen silhouette of a child. The second was empty. The third contained a hideous tangle of ashen limbs and body parts. The party hauled all three coffins into the sun and watched as the ash burst into flames. 

After knocking through a few walls, the party located a secret workshop in the centre of the temple. It contained several delicate glass and gold instruments (which were stuffed into a sack) as well as two large glass cylinders full of "shiny bread dough", as Bill described it. The sealed cylinders were also carted off to the party's growing pile of loot.

Side Note: A fourth coffin, one for a pressure-suit-wearing vampire, was not found in the temple. The players haven't realized this yet.

Leaving Wonderwood and Swainson to guard the loot, Bill, the Paladin, Slugsworth, and Cazael descended by rope into the broken-open basalt vault. The spinning cylinders had torn themselves to pieces. Chunks of stone covered the floor, some sizzling with raw magic, others just sizzling with residual heat. Water covered the floor.

Cazael noticed a very strange object floating or rolling across the surface of the water. It looked like a ring from one of the cylinders, but it was only 4" wide and spinning very, very quickly. Any water it touched seemed to be drawn around it like thread being wound onto a spool. The spinning stone ring was calmly, slowly, rolling towards the wall.

Testing (throwing pebbles at it from a safe distance) confirmed that the small ring had all the "winding" powers of the larger cylinders. Anything it touched stretched, spun, and vanished in a blur. As the cores of the now-broken giant cylinders were made of glass, Bill found a glass shard in the wreckage and very carefully inserted it into the centre of the spinning ring. It did not disintegrate. The wizard cautiously lifted the ring out of the water and held it upright.

"Guys," he said, "I have a plan..."

Ten minutes later, the wormling was cautiously hoisted to the surface via a crude rope harness. He held the spinning ring of doom at arm's length. To his credit, despite many wobbles and swings, he made it to the surface. The party wedged the glass shard and ring upright in a pile of stones and stood back.

"We're going to be rich," Bill said eagerly.
"Wait, we are going to sell this thing?" Slugsworth asked.
"Yup."
"To who?"
"The highest bidder," Bill said, utterly unperturbed.
"That seems like a bad idea," Cazael said.
"Think about it. It's safer than any other option. We just need to get it back to civilization..." Bill trailed off, looking at the ring. "I'll come up with a plan."




The second venture into the basalt vault yielded handfuls of gems, pried from the control panels on the north and south walls. Cazael retrieved his sword, which had been bent into a full corkscrew shape. He stowed it anyway. "In case we have to fight crooked enemies," Slugsworth joked.

But the lift control panel (26) was still intact and, mysteriously, floating. It seemed to disregard gravity, although it could be pushed or pulled with great effort. The party spent several hours hauling it towards the wall, then slowing it, then pulling it up to the surface. It seemed to ignore any weight placed on it. Finally, after many trials, the massive stone block, 10' long, 5' wide, and 1' deep, hung in the air in exactly the way normal rocks don't.

The party sat down to a late lunch and a serious discussion. Should they leave now and return to civilization with their wild tale and enormous pile of loot, or should they try and explore and loot the remains of the legendary Steam Hill?

OSR: The Secret of Steam Hill, Session 5

Last session, the party explored the mysterious and magically charged catacombs under an old monastery. They found a giant black stone. Touching it set off a chain of magical disasters that left two PCs dead and a third trapped somewhere in the darkness.

The three confirmed survivors, Jack the elf, Swainson the Hawkling, and Cazael the half-visible spiderling (whose torso stubbornly refused to reappear), cowered in the town of St. Simon until morning in the stone-walled home of a local manorial knight.

At dawn the next day, Swainson and Jack debated what to do next. Cazael roamed the streets looking for his master, the knight Tschana, who (unknown to him) was currently languishing on a strange flying island in death's domain, aging and shriveling into a husk. The sight of a floating torso terrified the villagers. One ran to the outskirts of town to retrieve a wandering beetle-ling Paladin of the Voice who had camped next to the road.

After determining that Cazael was not a ghost, but merely cursed, the Paladin shrugged and turned to leave. Tales of the monastery's disastrous end caused him to turn around and return.

Meanwhile, Swainson had given up on the entire venture. She insisted on leaving to report the strange deeds at the monastery to Baron Ellimure. She wished Jack the best of luck and walked out of town.

Jack, after a few minutes of terrified hand-wringing, decided to return to the monastery to retrieve his horse. Cazael agreed to accompany him to retrieve his master's horse, and the newly recruited Paladin, in slightly damp chainmail, decided to accompany them. The party was also shadowed by a mysterious elf. The improbably named Wonderwood Strongbow, following a map of ancient settlements, had arrived in the village of St. Simon the night before. According to her map there was something buried under the monastery, and these strangers seemed to be on the trail of something valuable.

Slugsworth, meanwhile, had not died in the dungeon. Navigating by luck and the dim glow of the stone, she had managed to crawl her way to the surface overnight, evading the storm seals, the skeleton guardians (who seemed to be harmless anyway), and any other unsuspected hazards. She was frantically trying to get Jack's horse untied when the party arrived.

"You left me to die!" Slugsworth yelled as she fiddled with the halter. "Fuck you!"

"We thought you were dead," Jack said apologetically. "And stop trying to steal my horse."

"Fuck you, it's my horse now!" the irate slugling replied.

"Slugsworth," Cazael said slowly, "how are you going to ride that horse, exactly?" The party looked at the slugling's gastropod body, trying to imagine it leaping up and flopping onto the horse's back.

"Fair point," Slugsworth conceded, "but there is no way I'm going back into that dungeon."

Five minute later, Jack, the Paladin, Cazael, and the still-fuming Slugsworth descended into the catacombs. The half-invisible spiderling offered a brief and extremely confusing tour to the Paladin, who - still silent - accepted everything with good grace and a raised sword.

They were briefly surprised to see Wonderwood the elf following them. After a hasty interrogation and the revelation that their unexpected follower had an actual map (of sorts), the group agreed to allow the elf to follow them. After all, two elves had to be better than one.

This mini-dungeon was based on Michael Prescott's two-page dungeon "The Full Dark Stone", but with a few adaptations and twists. Here's delve round 2, Jason Thompson style.

Map by Michael Prescott. Edited slightly by me.

1. The party descends, hears sound of storm seals, flees towards stone.

2. No sign of their former companions or the Angel of Death. Wonderwood points out that the copper plates are valuable, drags a few to the top of the stairs with great effort. Stone emits a terrible noise; party decides to try staircase.

3. Strange iron post with a glowing sapphire-flower-thing at the top of each staircase. Radiates calm, menthol coolness. Party decides these are valuable but probably too dangerous to steal.

4. Staircase leads to ritual room. Party deciphers inscriptions with aid of Paladin charades. Room can turn gemstones into spell-boosting brain-gems. Jack the elf is immediately intrigued. Rest of party is deeply skeptical.

5. Party descends, searches caves for gemstones. Finds a few sapphire flecks. Encounters a hideous cave-squid, fights it to a truce, gets a few trinkets from cave-water including a magic opal-bearing crown. Jack brains self on stalactite while leaping over a gap, falls down concussed.

6. More searching. Party finds and disassembles a skeleton-miner. Finds some sapphire shards. Wonderwood and Slugsworth both find large sapphires and conceal them from the rest of the party.

7. After waking up Jack, the party climbs the stairs again.

8. Debate on next moves. Cazael wants to leave and take the iron posts and sapphire flowers. The Paladin wants to find the cause of all this. Slugsworth and Wonderwood want Cazael to walk across the wood planks on top of the stone to see what's on it, get valuables. Jack wants to test out the gemstone ritual.

9. Cazael cautiously makes his way across the planks. Finds a broken reliquary and the skull of St. Andrew sitting on the stone. Carefully scoops up valuables and skulls, returns safely. Had considerably difficulty (couldn't see own feet, has 8 feet).

10. Jack tries to interpret ritual instructions. Thinks he has "about 80%" of it right, will figure out the rest as he goes along. Loads sapphire shards into alchemical basin (ritual specifies whole gemstones). Chants most of the required words. The power of the black stone melts the gem fragments together into a liquid-glass potion. Jack loads his desiccate spell potion. Lacking a bottle or a cup, he drinks it with his bare hands.

Party investigates screaming, finds Jack stumbling around, spines of sapphire growing from his skull and flesh. Raw magic flickers under his torn skin. He screams, "it's fine! It's completely fine!" The party slowly closes the door and backs away. A few moments later there's a wet bursting sound. Cazael picks through the spattered remains for gemstone bits. 

11. After further debate, party decides to nick iron posts and run. They do it in a relay team, grabbing one post at a time and then seeing what happens. First two removals are uneventful, save for some whistling noises. Third removal causes the stone to shake and bend in a very unusual, probably impossible way. The party flees to the surface, dragging 2 copper plates with them.

Cherenkov Radiation

They hitched the copper plates to their horses and rode away at top speed, trying not to look back at the shaking, whistling, and faintly glowing hill. While they were just half a mile away the hill and monastery imploded in a cloud of purple fire, then detonated, sending a magical shockwave through the air and tossing huge chunks of masonry up to three miles away. The party escaped harm... but decided not to visit the village of St. Simon.

Side Note: Jack the elf failed his roll to interpret the ritual's instructions, botched his roll to create the potion, and failed his constitution check to survive drinking it. In short, it was a disaster... just as the other players predicted. Jack's Save value was lowered due to a roadside curse he acquired in a previous session, but it didn't really matter.

Speeding away from the newly-formed crater, the party traveled to the city of Dubois, in the rich barony of Regnard. They hastily sold their magical loot to Gombolin the Beige, a curious retired wizard, dentist, surgeon, and matchmaker. They briefly debated selling the items to the local baron and his wizards, but Gombolin pointed out that the sale - combined with the mysterious purple flash seen earlier that day, could raise suspicion. In any case, the party was vastly enriched by the experience.

The party spent their ill-gotten loot in very different ways.

The Paladin donated almost everything to the Church, in exchange for a place to sleep in an under-construction cathedral's chapter house. The chapter, always eager for donations, readily accepted the large bag of gold and the relics the party had "rescued". The only unusual item the Paladin purchased was an unlabeled wand from Gombolin's "Barrel of Discount Wants - 5gp each - no refunds or exchanges". He also bought a horse and cart.

Wonderwood hired two assistants, bought a horse, a cart, winter clothing, and 90 rations.

Slugsworth held on to their gold, saving it for later. She bought two healing potions and a few minor items.

Cazael bought a magic sword with an untested cold enchantment, a suit of plate armour, and a potion to cure his half-invisibility. The potion worked, to the surprise of everyone.


The disparate group then debated their next move. Without a noble patron, Slugsworth and Cazael were in trouble. Baron Leroux, who had sent them a mission to exterminate a bandit camp in the mountains, would not be pleased if they returned without his knight and without and dead bandits. The Paladin was also interested in the mountains. He had followed a prophetic dream to the village of St. Simon, and the dream had vaguely mentioned the mountains. Perhaps it was all connected. Wonderwood's map also had hints of something in the mountains... and more treasure was appealing.

Before departing, the party also recruited Bill, a worm-ling, but more importantly a disheveled Orthodox Wizard fleeing the War. Baron Regnard was going to war, and he was bringing all his wizard with him... despite the fact that Bill's only spells were "saw and plane tree" and "capture wind" - spells more suited to a life of carpentry and mill-improvement than warfare.

Carminite

The party set off the next morning before sunrise and reached the village of Lost Pass just after sunset. Nominally a town, Lost Pass was a tiny cluster of huts around a central hall, built in an ancient style and nearly falling to pieces. The village was high in the mountains, accessible only by a single dirt track. Beyond it was uncharted and inhospitable territory. As a light dusting of snow began to fall, the party noted that the huts were empty, but the hall full of quietly arguing voices. They approached, listened, and then tried to get inside.

The hall was completely full of peasants, who instantly went quiet and stared at the interlopers. After being warned to leave, the surly door-keeper shut and bolted the door. The Paladin was having none of it. After some very stern looks and a few veiled threats, the party was let inside. Nobody would speak to them or reveal why the entire village had crowded into the hall for the night. The windows were also barred and protected with holy symbols. The party was offered stew and a corner to sleep in, but no other hospitality or kind words. Slugsworth noted that the villagers ranged from young adults to stooped elders - there were no children present.

While the Paladin was on watch that night, a distinct and eerie wail came from outside the all. The villagers remained sleeping. Cautiously, the Paladin picked his way over to the door, and after a bit of angry pantomime with the villager on watch, peered outside though the crack.

Three pale children in bare feet stood in the snow outside the hall, staring inwards with wide, eerie eyes. They were dressed in rural finery, with neatly embroidered clothes and well-combed hair.

"Let us in," one whispered, "we are so very cold."

"Let us in," another said, "we are lost and afraid."

"You must let us in, Paladin," the third said softly, "your God demands it."

But the Paladin would not be shaken or moved. The stoic beetle-ling planted himself by the door and refused to move. Unfortunately, he also fell asleep. Slugsworth, the next to awaken, was lured to the door by the cries of the eerie children outside.

"Slugsworth," one whispered, "your children are in danger."

"There is still time to save them," another hissed, "if you open the door."

"If you act quickly there is still hope."

"Open the door."

"Yes, open the door."

"Let us in."

With a cry of, "MY BABIES!", Slugsworth tried to tear the door open, waking everyone and causing a massive scuffle. When the dust cleared, the door remained closed, and Slugsworth remained terrified and agitated. Nobody slept well that night.

Side note: you may recall that Slugsworth left their 135 slugling children (ranging in size from a thumb to a housecat) on the late Tschana's farm.

In the morning, the Paladin learned, via a few whispered conversations, that the village's children had been kidnapped by a dark creature from the north. Only holy icons and stoutly barred doors protected them now. They urged the Paladin to seek out and destroy... whatever it was.

Now very worried and extremely cold, the party set off for the high pass, heading into the uncharted mountains and the possible location of the "bandit camp" they'd been sent to destroy. The road was narrow, and often disappeared completely. The trees were dead and withered, the landscape was desolate, and the air was ice cold. While passing through a gully, the PCs were ambushed by three hideous fungus-ants. These creatures, once part of an ant-ling colony, were now mindless berserkers, attacking with their jaws and feet instead of weapons. The party fought bravely, but one of Wonderwood's hirelings was devoured. As the fight ended, the PCs could see more fungus-ants in the canyon just below them, scrabbling up the scree.

"Cut down that tree with your magic!" Slugsworth shouted to Bill. With a flourish, Bill pointed at a gnarled, dead tree by the side of the road and neatly sliced it off the stump. It slid down the gully. Wonderwood tossed a flask of lamp oil and a torch after it.

"That'll smoke them out," Bill said with satisfaction. The party, realizing what they'd done, turned to him in shock.

Cordyceps fungus

"Time to run," Wonderwood said meekly, hopping on her horse cart. As smoke billowed from concealed holes throughout the gully and antlings boiled up from the ground, the PCs fled at top speed, climbing higher and higher, hoping the altitude and the cold wind would keep their hundreds of pursuers at bay.

"THIS WAS A TERRIBLE PLAN," Bill shouted from the back of Wonderwood's cart.

Meanwhile, the Paladin's cart and horse were far ahead of the party and gaining speed. His horse had bolted, and, unbeknownst to the rest of the party, the holy beetle-ling warrior was no longer in control. He was being carried at full speed for the edge of a rocky cliff. He managed to cut the leads at the last second. His horse slid away from the cliff edge, still running at full speed. The detached cart slid, cracked, and more-or-less disintegrated around the Paladin.

After dusting themselves off and retrieving the Paladin and his horse, the party set off once again, looking for any villages or signs of life. They did spot something in the distance - a constant column of steam, rising from an isolated pass.

"Aha!" Bill said. "That must be the legendary Steam Hill."

"What's so legendary about it," Slugsworth asked.

"Well, they say it produces... steam." 

"What else," Slugsworth prodded.

"They say, it is also..."

"A hill?" the impatient slugling interrupted.

"Oh, so you have heard of it!" the wormling said apologetically.

As night fell, the party cautiously climbed to a ridge overlooking Steam Hill. The area seemed deserted, but the hill itself was a hive of activity. They could see figures moving in the twilight, carrying wood and stone and buckets of earth. A grand temple made of wood was rising from the top of the hill, leaking steam from several pipes. It was a strange and alarming sight.

"We should approach stealthily," Slugsworth said, examining the complex, "and at night. There should be enough moonlight to see."

The PCs decided to wait until dark, leave Wonderwood's surviving hireling with the horses, and descend to the valley floor. They would then creep across, climb the visible stairs, and scout the area.

Spook, xadhoom

It did not go particularly well.

Near the top of the stairs, Cazael was ambushed by a mashed zombie horse thing that half charged, half fell onto him. Screaming in panic and unable to use his sword, the spiderling squire flailed and tried to escape the creature's mouth-ribcage. The Paladin commanded the creature to "DIE". The voice of the Authority, louder than a thunderclap, echoed through the valley, and the horse-zombie collapsed into rotten, frozen meat. Cazael crawled free, clearly shaken.

"What... what was that?" he said, gesturing around expansively. The Paladin shrugged.

Slugsworth hissed, "Well whatever it was our cover is FUCKED. Get to the top of the stairs and try to find somewhere to hide! Go!"

The party, slightly deafened, ran to the top  of the stairs, stepped over a second, much less mobile zombie-horse, and hid behind a cluster of wooden buildings. They seemed to be the remains of an old bathhouse, disassembled and left open to the wind and rain. Behind it, they could see the bulk of the wooden temple rising from Steam Hill, with a long basalt wall in front of it and a watchtower on the opposite hill.

"We should go for the watchtower," Wonderwood said, "clear it first, and them move on to the temple." The party agreed, and slid down the hill to run across the wall. Cazael's armour clanked like a belltower, and the party had no cover during their run. When they were halfway across, three spectral white figures flew out of the temple and passed overhead. The party froze and tried to hide, but the figures spotted them almost immediately.

"Come play with us!" the three pale children said in unison as they flew towards the party.

"Fuck no!" the party (well, all except the Paladin) screamed.

A furious fight began. The children were as quick as water, but strong as steel and utterly fearless. They fought like devils, dancing around killing blows, darting in to bruise and twist and crack joints. The Paladin commanded one to "RUN" and it laughed in his face; the divine command rolled off its soul like droplets of mercury.

The Paladin drew his "#18 Special" wand, bought from the bargain bin, pointed it at the nearest eerie child, and waggled it in a suggestive way. When that didn't work, he poked the button on the side. The wand immediately fountained forth a stream of sand, whipping and twisting and growing into an impenetrable sandstorm. While two pale-fleshed children tried to haul Slugsworth into the air, the extremely nervous fighter drew his newly purchased sword.

When he sold the sword, Gombolin the Beige had taken pains to warn the fighter against using it unwisely. "It's been sitting in a tomb since the stones were all runny," he said, "and I haven't activated the enchantment fully. Don't worry, the spell is strong. But... ah, I'm sure it will be fine."

The sword crackled in the air. Water - no, not water, air in liquid form - ran down the blade and spattered onto the basalt. Cazael's fingers froze. He swung once and sliced one of the creatures in half. Slugsworth, Bill, and Wonderwood had not been idle. Their daggers had pierced the flesh of one of the creatures and, with great effort, they'd succeeded in prying its head off. No blood sprayed forth. the creature barely even stumbled, but without a head, it could not see or attack in the sandstorm.

With a few more swings, Cazael dispatched a second creature, bringing the fight to an end. Both Bill and Wonderwood had been bitten during the fight and drained of blood, though the long-term effects of the bite were - as yet - unknown. While the Paladin assembled a hasty lamp-oil pyre, Bill the wormling, operating under the philosophy of "in for a penny, in for a pound", started eating chunks of cold and bloodless meat, as secretly as he could in the whirling sand. He felt his brain fizzle with new and distressing spells.

"To the watchtower," Cazael cried, as he sheathed his frost-coated sword. His hand was still frozen into a claw, but, after shaking a it a bit, the fingers seemed to still work. Blinded by sand, terrified, and confused, the party stumbled forward.

They had reached the legendary Steam Hill... but would they survive the many dangers that lay within?