5 Kuthona 4709
Abandoned dwarven monastery

Candal ran to open the door and stepped down into a room full of disembodied eyeballs. The gnome immediately began to cast fire spells at them, while simultaneously, an elf appeared in our midst from an unseen hiding place. Before introductions could be made, a creature of all eyes and mouths appeared amongst the eyeballs, which we then had to dispatch.

At some point, Kasa, never particularly sneaky, managed to pull a box from Candal’s bag. When he noticed it missing he chased her with an axe! I would have killed him on the spot had not several other things happened concurrently. I got the box from Kasa as she dropped it, and handed it off to Tythe. Her eyes lit up and whispered “run!” to me. We took off after the mammoth, with Liake and Salma also in pursuit. We soon outdistanced the paladin and our new elven companion and stopped to rest, and open the box— I had the key in my possession, for it was THE BOX for which we were questing. Feeling a bit weaker after opening the box, we found it contained a 1’ long quartz crystal wrapped in gold and rubies, resting in a bed of gold coins. Salma said it radiated magic, but not evil. Touching it, she disappeared. Liake touched it as well and did the same. After a quick glance at Tythe, I grabbed Kasa and the three of us touched the crystal as well.

We found ourselves standing in a volcanic crater under a blood red sky. An iron fortress with four octagon towers stood in front of us. Hundreds of iron chains hung from this, and from them, hundreds of screaming souls….