Session 2

In need of transportation to Pax, the Party accepts the task from Colonel Grienhorn to investiage noises in the mountains that have been spooking his troops in exchange for horses. They traveled to the outskirts of the Borias Mountains. Skarl Hrolfson picked up on the noise Grienhorn mentioned and led them to a cave entrance. The cave was unnaturally black inside, even Samuel Bayard Fariman's eyes couldn't penetrate it. Aravo Zacksted volunteered to be tossed into the darkness by Fariman, unphased by the fact that this plan failed back at the cave on Celedon's Mountain. Fariman tossed him, and Aravo found himself in the entrance of the Soren Labs. The rest of the Party walked past the darkness-illusion and met two of the lab's scientists. The scientists explained that they were doing experiments with planar magics here to imitate the powers of the dragons in order to protect Stone Soren in the event of a siege. When a siege actually began, the scientists began to rush thier work, with cataclysmic results. Now most of them were dead and the floors below were overrun with planar energies.

The Party agreed to try to make it to the bottom floor in order to shut down the flow of planar magic. On the first floor, the party found the body of a dead scientist who had on him a journal of his time in the Soren Labs. The party explored the bunk room of that floor, and Aravo looted the chests at the foot of the beds. Marcus Hildebrand was so disgusted by this act that he smashed one of the chests. The party also explored the cafeteria and tried thier hand at a cooking challenge that was still being run magically. While Fariman, Aravo, and Skarl produced inedible food, Marcus's dish was good enough to win the contest.

On the next floor the party had to deal with the plane of earth. After dodging boulders, finding thier way through a maze of earthen walls, and fighting an Earth Mephit the party made it to the next floor. There, they encountered a wirlwind caused by the plane of air. Fariman braved the wirlwind, getting knocked around by debris as he did, and found himself caught in the lab's wind tunnel. The other members of the Party cleared an alternate path through the debris after much effort. They regrouped and defeated an Air Mephit. After a short rest to nurse thier wounds they continued to the next floor, where they encountered the plane of fire. They braved the intense heat and were assaulted by a Fire Mephit, which Marcus rebuked, allowing the party an easy passage.

Having finally arrived at the last floor, the party found a man chained to the wall with all sorts of liquids being pumped into him. Fariman awoke him, and learned he was part of an experiment to turn normal humans into planetouched. He begged the party to free him so he could purge the entire lab, saying that just shutting down the magic wasn't enough and that all the evil experiments needed to be destroyed. Despite objections from Fariman, Marcus freed him and he set to work setting the purge, even though it would mean his own death. Fariman fled after hearing that the purge would destroy anything with planar blood, including him. The purge was successful, and Marcus granted the man a quick death to prevent unneccessary suffering. Skarl collected him body and later him and Marcus would give him a proper cremation and burial to honor his sacrifice.

The scientists were angry that the Party had let the man purge thier experiments, but soon found that they had bigger problems as Marcus placed them under arrest. Fariman and Skarl objected, but Marcus felt strongly enough that they had to be brought to justice that he was willing to fight them if he needed. They backed down and the scientists were taken back to the siege camp at Stone Soren as prisoners, where they were met with swift execution by the Colonel.

The Colonel then revealed that he had other plans from the party than he had originally implied. He granted them horses, but only two. The horses were currently attached to a carriage, which would be heading to Pax, and in the meantime they would ride with the carriage and protect its other passenger, Lady Bastier. The Party had no choice but to accept this new arrangement. On the way, they engaged in polite conversation with the lady until they were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a mysterious man who just suddenly appeared in the carriage. He claimed to want to have a private conversation with the lady, but otherwise would tell the party little of himself of his intentions. After some exchange of mutual distrust between him and the Party, he lit his pipe and filled the carriage with a strange cloud of smoke. The party found themselves suddenly transported to an unknown mine.

Having no choice but to accept thier current situation, they made thier way through the mine. After solving a simple word puzzle they found themselves in an abandoned underground gnome town. They found the town overrun by monsterous cubes. These transparent cubes were hard for the party to spot as they tried to make thier way through the town, and it proved to be the death of Aravo. He became absorbed by one of the cubes and fell victim to its acid, suffering a painful death to the cube's digestive system. The cube was defeated, but Aravo could not be saved, not even by Marcus. They Party had heard, however, that it was possible to revive the recently deceased, so long as the spirit was not too long from the body. They took Aravo's body, in hopes that they might be able to find someone with the powers to revive him before it was too late,

They finally made thier way out of the town where they once again met Pierson Grey. He explained that he was here to hunt the cubes, which had been leaking up to the surface and cauising problems. When the party explained the fate that had befallen Aravo he offered them an insignia of the Royal Hunter's Guild, saying that members of the guild had been revived from the dead in the past and that those of powerful enough magic to peform such a feat might offer thier services cheaper to a guild member. He told them that they were immediately below Pax, and a simple trip to the surface would take them into the city.

On thier way up through the mine Pierson mentioned that General Rover had recently left with many of the higher ranked guild members, which had left Pierson overworked. On hearing Rover's name, the member's of the party had a sudden flash of recollection. While they couldn't get much out of it, one thing stuck in thier collective consiousness: The Zenith.