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Previously on The Tales of Gravidy’s Crossing
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Pankas Carter: Grunnarch, will you and your friends go to the Necromancer’s Tower? You only have a few days before it dissappears again.
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Guard: We won't let you into the tower.
Hal: Let me do the talking
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Booth: The tower is bigger on the inside than outside!
Jess: We can’t get out! All of the doors lead to the other rooms!
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Booth: Who are you?
Jacob: Jacob
Jess: Care to join us to try and get out of here?
Jacob: Sure.
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Hal: Grunnarch…this painting looks familiar
Grunnarch: The painting is of the statue, but he has a rod, bracelet and necklace.
Montage of party finding objects
Grunnarch: Shall we put the objects on the statue?
Fade to Black
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Fade In

Worried about the tower dissappearing before they got out, the group decided not to sleep as they had already spent nearly two days in the tower. Grunnarch was confident that once the items were in place upon the statue that the five of them (six if you include inky) would be teleported outisde of the tower. The heroes placed the objects on the statue, and the statue started to shudder and pieces of the material started falling. The statue collapsed and an acid ooze monster and a Gibbering Beast appeared. Sensing danger, the group attacked. The monsters kept dazing members of the party, limitng things we could do. Markers were required and sarah reacted quicker than Toby, using the Starburst sours that Toby had brought along as markers (see photo). After several rounds of attacks Hal, hit the ooze with a pretty hardy blow and knocked it so hard that he split it into two creatures! We now had three monsters to fight.

[Aside: When choosing the daily spells for Grunnarch, I have only gone for Acid Arrow once before, as I like the idea of knocking someone unconsious and executing them using coup de grace, however, I decided this day to choose Acid Arrow. Somehow I don't think acid damage would effect them]

Grunnarch decided to use his Shadowfell Gloves to change the damage type of his next attack to necrotic. He then chose to use Ray of Frost, much to the surprise of Shane (I had tossed aside the Acid Arrow power card as I didn't think I'd use the power, so it didn't even enter my thoughts, I was using the shadowfell glvoes to get extra damage). One of the ooze monsters died, leaving one ooze and the Gibbering Beast left. After a short while, the party was victorious. Jacob opened the door and strode through it... to the outside! As the party exited, Grunnarch looked mournfully over his shoulder, wondeirng if there was anything more he could have learned about the tower or the Necromancer. Booth lamented the surprising lack of Necromancers to kill.

The members of the guard that the party had let live, were astonished to see the party and esepcially Jacob. It turns out that only a few minutes had passed between the party entering and exiting the tower. The party slept (everybbody apart fomr Grunnarch slept outside, Grunnarch slept inside a tent).

The party headed back to Gravidy's Crossing to give the book to Pankas.

Back home, the heroes did their usual things, Jess checked on the message she had left for her Mother's people, but it had not been touched and she had heard no news. Booth told the patrons of the tavern all of the stories, proudly showing off his new sidekick - Inky. Hal listened to the stories while drinking the beer people bought for him. As the only thing that had happened was some soldiers passing through the village, the locals were glad to have some stories to entertain them.

While Booth stopped storytelling for a bit, the group managed to find out that the soldiers had come from the North, through the Howling Woods that used to contain goblins until our heroes dealt with them. The soldiers had heard of the strange goings-on around these parts and were trying to see if they could help out.

Grunnarch went to see Pankas and gave him the book of rituals. Pankas was happy with the book, promisng Grunnarch that he and Jess could take any rituals from the book that they wanted, although he wasn't sure if there would be any appropriate ones for them.

Coming back to the village the group had once again walked past the empty houses of the families that had died in the Goblin raid. There was something wrong about them standing there empty and keen to get out from under the feet of their respective parents'and guardians, the party thought it might be wise to buy one of the houses as a base of operations (and for Booth to display his trophies). Hal didn't actually have parents in the area to get away from, but was glad to have something a bit more permanent than his student digs. Len the Reeve agreed to sell the house to the party. Before they could settle in, Pankas sought them out and asked them to go on a mission for him. He had a buyer for the book named Walton, who had arranged to meet at the Trappers, an inn, near the northern entrance of the Howling Woods. Pankas gave them a note to give to the innkeep while they were there. After sleeping in their brand new house, the group set off.

They decided to stop at the woodsman's hut to check in. He was OK, although now that the Goblins weren't living in the woods anymore, the demand for his protective dogs had declined. No other news was gained from him so the heroes went through the woods. Nothing unexpected happened and the group arrived at the Trappers in good time.

They walked into the inn the customers looked up from their drinks to see what fellow travellers were stopping here. The smell of a nice stew was just what the hungry stomachs of the troupe wanted. Ordering four stews and some beer (and a mulled wine for the Wizard), the group gave the note to the barman. Jess and Booth noticed that at the mention of "Carter", several heads were raised from fellow customers, intrigued as to who had spoken his name. A glance around the inn revealed a table of Dwarves, several tables of customers without anything interesting and a dark corner. It was as if the light got to the corner, but didn't want to carry on travelling. It was odd.

Booth decided that the good peole of the inn needed to hear The Heroic Tales Of Booth And Friends. As he got to the part about killing the guy with the shadowy cape , (seeSession 6) the person in the dark corner came over and said:
"So it was you who killed my companion. For that there will be consequences."
As the person glared at the party, Hal sheepishly pointed at Booth. The tavern got a bit quieter. The shadowy figure walked out of the tavern. The barman told the group that the person associated himself with some elves and he didn't like serving them but they paid well and the first time he refused to serve them he found one of his stable hands dead the next morning.

Hal went to talk to the Dwarves about this creature and his elven friends, but got as far as "I'm Hal" and forgot what he was supposed to be doing. He then spent the rest of the evening talking to his kindred about gold, beer, weapons and the latest news from the clans. They told Hal about an archeological dig that had uncovered an old Dwarven Tower. When they hadn't heard from the diggers for a while, they sent out a party to check on them. They found the Dwarves dead, with the only footprints in the area being dwarven. They came to the conlcusion that Elves must have teleported in and slaughtered the dwarves.

Eventually Walton showed up and Grunnarch retired to the room with him and Jess (Grunnarch the Brave didn't want to be alone with him). Booth and Inky kept guard at the door. Walton looked at the book and said that it looked good. He gave Grunnarch the box that Pankas was expecting, which was sealed with a waxen seal. Grunnarch dared not open it. With that, the business deal was done. After a few more hours drinking the gang retired for the night.

The heavy drunken snores of Hal kept Booth awake. Agitated, he got out of bed when he suddenly felt the tavern move. After steadying himself he realised the the floor of the bedroom was not level. Waking Hal up (with some effort), he went to the other room where Jess and Grunnarch were asleep and together they headed downstairs (After Grunnarch changed out of his onesie). When they got to the bar area, they could see the floor was sunken. The barman directed them to the kithcen, which led downstairs. When they got there, some kitchen staff were huddled together and pointed to a door that lead to the wine cellar. Booth rushed off, forgetting he didn't have a lgiht source. Jess pumped the staff for more infomration. One of their number had been taken. The rest of the party followed Booth downstairs. Booth, now having a light source, could see a trail of blood. He began following it, but was stopped in his tracks by the explosion of stone as something came through a wall. They were Kruthik [see photo]. A fight ensued, Booth attempted to hit the things with his swords and then gave up on that idea and went back to using his bow. Grunnarch actually moved TOWARDS a monster (I wish I had taken a photo of people's faces). Casting Thunderwave, to move the monster out of the way, I then used an action point, to cast Sleep on the big monster. It succeeded, but he made his save so did not fall unconsious.

Booth had ongoing damage, which he failed the save for five times. Jess healed him, but he was draining a lot of her resources. Grunnarch was down to at-will powers once again and Hal, had got a decent shot at the big guy, while more creatures streamed through holes in the wall. Due to time constraints in real life, the game finished mid-fight. It's not looking good for our heroes.