19th of Marpenoth, 1376, Year of the Bent Blade

 We continue and some clouds seem to come in really, really fast, and it gets really cold really fast. We hear sobbing.

Vondal leads us off the path and straight to the sobbing sounds. We see a farmstead, and blood, and the ghost of a little boy. The boy is grotesquely injured. Vandederp seems truly frightened - it almost looks like he has aged somehow.

I ask the little boy ghost what happened to him, and he talks about claws and the claws stealing his mom and dad. I doubt we can save them, but perhaps we can stop it from happening to some other family, and maybe give him peace so he can continue on. I ask where, and he gestures down a path of broken branches and blood stains. We leave the boy and go along this path. At the end, we find a little sunken area and a door to what must be a burrow.

Vondal and Vandederp try to open the door and fail. Vondal laments needing to break such a lovely door as he takes a pick ax to it. Eventually, we get through, and we see stairs going down.

We follow Vondal - apparently his mace glows in the dark. We get to the bottom, and see a huge room, being held up by 4 columns, and a whole bunch of sarcophagi along the edges of the room. There are footprints everywhere in the dust. We hear voices in the corners, and sarcophagi opening. There are zombies everywhere. I go to the center of the room and see a sort of black ghost thing. I go for them, though I know I should stick with the others and kill the zombies. But these look nastier and harder to kill. We manage to kill them all, and look around, at the sarcophagi that didn't open. We don't dawdle though, and go to a door that had been behind the ghost things. Vondal opens the door by pulling it off its hinges, and starts to tear up at destroying another beautiful door. If he is to ever settle down, perhaps I will get him a door for a gift.

We go down a hallway, and we hear a soldier voice yell out "Soldiers! We can reclaim Glory!" Well, I guess it's another fight! There was a ledge above, and we need to kill the soldiers up there as well. Vondal went up one side and cheered as he shoved them off the ledge. If only I were that strong! And I suppose Vorest turned to an earth elemental, for she traveled through the wall to arrive on the ledge - I did not know they could do that!

After we kill them, we continue down the hall and find another door. Vandederp opens it, perhaps to spare Vondal the agony of breaking another door. It is more hall, this time with doors to the sides. Vorest, as the elemental, points to a door and signals 3, and tries to point about where they are. One is close to the door and we all go for that one. They have terrifying faces... eyes? and it is hard to fight them while looking at them - not that it is easy averting ones eyes! We manage to kill them.

 We leave and go to another door. Vondal says there are machines working inside. We enter and we are on a chunk of floor with holes in it - it's not connected to the rest of the floor chunks. Below us, there is a floor covered in spikes. Across the room, we see a platform with a chest and 3 flaming skulls. We jump across the platforms, and fight the skulls. Some of the platforms would smash against the ceiling, and some thrust spikes up, so I decided that it would be best to stay on the walls. Vorest made a tunnel to the chest, and after beating the skulls and getting the treasure, we leave in Vorest's tunnel.

We go in the hallway and continue to the end. We open the door and see a room with marble columns, and a floor with really fancy tiles. The door slams shut behind us. Across the room is another door. There are four sarcophagi around each of the 4 columns. Vondal goes forward and finds a puzzle. 

Four by Four, Heroes in Rest  

Names long Lost, in Sigils they're Dressed

 

Three with Three, and Six with Four,

Four with Five and Three with More

Press the Four, and Pass without Harm

Take your Time, and Sound the Alarm

We look around and after noticing the designs on the sarcophagi, Vandederp manages to figure it out. While we are following his directions, we are attacked by ... something. After our answers are chosen, the invisible things just go away. The door at the far end opens, and the bright lights go away. 

We continue through the door and find more doors. We choose one and go through. There is a lot of death in this room. There is a weird flower on the ceiling. It looks like it has corpses in its vines. Vorest looks overwhelmed by the smell, but thankfully got over it quickly enough. We kill the flower, who was making zombies (or something), and continue to the next room.

We enter and the room feels circular. We see sarcophagi in the center, surrounded by bones and fat ghouls. We hear voices towards the far side, happy to have more food. A giant bone monster appears to materialize by the bones opposite the ghouls. It grabs Vondal, and declares it has food for "master." Vondal and I attack it, but unfortunately we don't hurt it too much and it vanishes with Vondal. After a bit we manage to defeat them all. We see a dais in the centre, with stars carved in a grid. On the side, Vondal and Vandederp read out another puzzle.

Brave warrior met demise foretold, Their secret kept shall yet unfold, If crowns placed correctly on the shrine, Celestial beds for four of nine.

We manage to solve it, and the side of the dais opens and a hammer shows up. Vondal squees, grabs it and we go back to see if we missed anything important. We get out, and Vondal closes the crypt. We go back to the kid, but he is not there. We decide that it's an okay enough place to camp for the night.