We left Druissi in the morning and continued our journey towards Uxphon. Gerd did not journey with us as he decided he needed to continue his quest on the wandering walk. We had been walking for 3 hours when we saw a wagon ahead of us. It was being attacked by bandits. The bandits were identified as rust devils by Ragland. I suspect it was rust devils who killed my family. When I spoke to him afterwards I discovered they had killed his mother as well. We dispatched them quickly and I found a note on the bodies from someone called hunchback stating he had slaves for sale in Legrash.

The merchant on the wagon was called Gren Coronus. Gren warned us to stay clear of Legrash as it was a hive of slavers and disease. He knew of Gerd as Gerd travelled with him as a guard when he came through Tremble pass from the Steadfast. He offered us 2 shins / day to escort him to Uxphon as several of his guards had been killed. We agreed as we were going there anyway and the shins are always useful. We reached Tremble pass at nightfall. We continued through the night as Gren said it was safer to pass Legrash at night. We had been travelling through the pass for about 3 hours when we were ambushed. We were hit by a shower of arrows from the darkness. Ragland got hit by several arrows but the rest of us were lucky. Damian threw a cypher which exploded, killing three of the attackers but more appeared. I used a cypher to pacify them. Damian and one of the guards were also affected. They all just sat down and started talking. The attackers were disfigured humans. They said they were sent by the hunchback to get slaves. The hunchback ran Legrash. When the pacification effect wore off we killed them.

We decided to give Legrash a wider birth. We travelled the rest of the night with no further excitement and reached the far end of Tremble pass near dawn. We rested, then travelled a day on to the village of Fasten. There Gren delivered some wine and we stayed overnight. We had to find accommodation individually as there was no tavern and the only bar was in the back of a shop. Ragland spent the night with the barmaid.

We travelled another three days to Deathwater canyon where Uxphon is situated. There was ancient pipework everywhere. Some was still working and carrying warm liquids which was used to heat many houses in the city. Gren told us we might want to seek out Om, an Osbergian who was tall, had 6 fingers and was an expert on numenera, or Sabasia, an information broker, if we wanted information. We went to find Horrek at Derris's place. Damian caused a fracas with a count Flen Remorian on the way. He was whipping some slaves who were carrying him on a sudan chair and Damian objected. The counts guards threw him out of the way.

We found Horrek at Derris's place. Horrek arranged to take us to Count Tichronus in the evening. We went to market in the afternoon as Ragland wanted to get his future read. He found a fortune teller who would tell his future in exchange for him performing some of his acrobatic tricks. She said we would work for count Tichronus and that he had dark secret. She said there was important things we should remember, in order:
Circle, Green, Em, Water
She also sensed great danger for everyone. When we got back to Derris's we found Gerd had arrived. He said he had changed his mind and decided he needed to earn some shins before he continued with his walk.

In the evening we went with Horrek to count Tichronus's. The door was answered by Dorial, the counts manservant. We were led to the sitting room to wait for the count. The count said he had to go away on business for the amber pope because Gaians were encroaching from the north and he had been asked to lead an army against them. He expected to be away for a month. He needed to look after his estate and keep an eye on the servants. He said to beat them if required. We were to start in the morning. The pay was 1 shin / day + an expense account of 100 shins, but we would need receipts. Food and accommodation was provided. The count's attitude was quite rude, and made some threats about consequences if there were problems, but then he just gave us the job without asking questions. Quite a strange individual I thought.

Horrek took us out for evening. We arrived early at count Tichronus's estate the following morning and helped him load luggage before he departed. The estate had 5 slaves, one showed us to our rooms. We then explored the estate. Joe found hidden door in the study. Behind was a metal panel with buttons and symbols.

I pressed a button with a blue circle, a button with a green crescent, a button with a red M, then a button with white wavy lines in the order given by the fortune teller. When I did the floor disappeared beneath my feet and I fell. I dropped about 30ft before landing. There was a soft fleshy substance on the floor which broke my fall. I found myself in a chamber with green pods everywhere. I had started looking round when Gerd landed on me. Is I picked myself up 3 humans attacked us from the darkness. One wore armour and the other two were bare chested. While we were fighting them, some small creatures shot from the pods, hitting me and Gerd. When we had killed the humans we saw they had creatures attached to their spines. We found that whatever had shot from the eggs had also attached itself to us. I attacked it mentally and that hurt but otherwise I felt ok. I scanned the creatures and discovered they were highly evolved and had intricate nervous system.

On exploring the chamber further we found the eggs were growing out of human bodies which was rather concerning considering we now had these creatures attached to us. Just as the others had finally got hold of a ladder and were lowering it down, a fleshy portal opened in the wall and a female figure stepped through.

She looked more like a walking statue than a woman of flesh and sounded like creaking stone as she moved. Damian challenged her and we heard her say Lilly. I read her mind and found she was an ancient construct and Lilly was her name. I sensed a second personality buried deep inside her. From her thoughts I got two other words that had great meaning to her, Devola and Negaina. She pointed at us and said 'host'. When I said Negaina she replied matron mother Negaina. Negaina are some ancient extra-terrestrial race and apparently Devona was a Negaina matron mother. Lilly said Devona could remove the creatures that attached themselves to Gerd and myself, and to follow her. I started following with Gerd while Ragland was shouting down from above about it being a trap. When I told him I had read Lillys mind and she was telling truth the others followed us.

We followed Lilly down a passage, walking for at least an hour and passing other passages and chambers as we went. Finally we entered a causeway made of metal. Damian saw something down a side tunnel and went to investigate. Ragland and Joe followed but they all returned when he lost sight of it round a corner. Lilly said it was a disassembler. I looked it up in my numenera book and found it came from previous age. It was a form of nanospirit which had gone mad and behaved erratically. It could attack, assist or ignore people it came across and was able to disassemble objects at a microscopic level and turn solids to liquid or gas.

As we continued, Ragland pushed button on a panel he spotted on the wall. A light lit up on the panel and grew in intensity before a beam of light shot out and formed into a cypher in the form of a syringe on the floor. From by numenera book I deduced the panel was a kiosk which was originally a public access device used to access the data sphere. Ragland removed it from the wall as it looked to be a very useful device. We continued on when a section of the ceiling collapsed on Damian, trapping him under a girder. Gerd could not lift it with Joes help using brute force so I showed them how to use a simple lever to lift it off him. Finally after a long walk Lilly pointed at a hole we had come to and said Devola. There was a catwalk beyond the hole. We followed Lilly through. The catwalk lead to a giant cylinder rising from the darkness below. We went into the cylinder where we were sprayed by a fine mist. We then continued into large a chamber.

The chamber was full of bubbling vats and equipment. The ceiling was 50ft high. Something uncoiled from a platform above us, Lilly pointed at it and said Devola. It looked like a giant snake. I read its mind and found it was the Negaina matron called Devona. It had no hostile intent and I told it that Lilly had brought us to have the creatures removed. Devola asked if we were hosts to her children. And said we would die in 3 months if they were not removed. She required two things to remove he children safely, for us at least, as the children would be killed by the process. She required a chemical called gharlon which was found in a deep sea thermal vent and created by creatures called Celosia. To get that we would need to go to Harmuth and speak to Cagyn Rilid. A special numenera tool called an impossible blade was also required. She would also require a payment in the form of a service. She said a lifeform called an Insidious choir was encroaching on her and the humans territory and that she required us to destroy it. She said the Insidious choir can infect humanoids so we needed a vaccine from her. Vaccination involved her injecting us with a barb. It took two attempts for her to vaccinate me and the process hurt a lot.

She said we needed to take an ancient conveyance to an ancient field of towers which would be far faster than travelling there on foot. To use it there were shackles that needed to be released first and she described the process. When we got there we needed to go to the top of a tower and destroy a device which would cripple the insidious choir. She warned that it would be guarded. She then gave us directions to a stash of numenera that she thought might be useful. We went there and found in a chamber some cyphers and artefacts.

We continued to where we would find the conveyance. It took us about 25 minutes to get to a ledge overlooking a large chamber. Below we could see a large snake like machine stretched out along the chamber. There was three huge clamps holding the machine in place. Ragland jumped the gap and landed on the machine. Damian followed him. Joe climbed up to investigate a higher balcony. On the balcony Joe found a lever which released one of the clamps when he pulled it. We then used rope to climb across to the machine and Gerd climbed down to the floor of the chamber where he found a second lever. He then found a hatch with a ladder leading down to a small lower chamber where he found a third lever. When he climbed down the ladder it gave way and he fell and when he landed he was attacked by three metallic spiders. He killed two of them before Ragland and Damian jumped down from the machine and killed the third.

When Gerd pulled the last lever the last clamp slowly retracted then with a shiver the machine slowly started moving. I shouted down to warn the others. As the rope passed them, Ragland grabbed it and scrambled up onto the machine. Damian tripped up and when Gerd grabbed the rope it snapped leaving him sprawled onto the floor. Gerd grabbed Damian and activated one of his cyphers allowing him to leap up onto the machine. The machine entered a tunnel and continued accelerating.

After about an hour the machine started slowing down and eventually entered another chamber. I climbed up to have a look outside and something fell on my head knocking me back into the machine. The creature that landed on me was green and looked to be made of a rubbery material filled with liquid. When Ragland attacked it, a liquid splashed out over me. Joe then cut it in half, covering me with more of the liquid and I used my abilities to perform miracles to cure me of any disease or poison it may have contained.

The machine started accelerating again and there was noise from the rear as another of the creatures started to tear its way in. We moved into another section of the machine then Ragland pressed a button he found which caused the rearmost section of the machine to separate and start dropping away. We moved further up the machine. We had to kill another two of the green creatures on the way. Finally the machine slowed down again then stopped and we heard three loud clangs as clamps secured it. We found ourselves in a chamber similar to the first but in a far worse state. Daylight streamed in through a hole in the ceiling.

We climbed rubble up to the hole. From there we could see ruins of past ages. We set off in the direction Devola told us to go. On the way we heard strange screams. On investigating we found six 80ft tall statues in anguished poses in the centre of a lake. The screams came from the statues. I found mention of the statues in my numenera book. They were left following a visitation of creatures known as ultra-terrestrials during the fifth age who came to study humans and when they left they left statues as a monument to their failure throughout the world.

There was a shack on the far side of the lake which we walked to. When we approached a figure appeared in the doorway. He had an Aneen in a fenced enclosure. The individual was called Laryx Festus and was covered in nano tattoos. He was on his way to Charmonde. We asked if he had heard of an impossible blade and he suggested travelling to Uxphon and asking the fortune teller or Om. He gave Ragland and Damian tattoos then we took an abandoned boat to go and investigate the statues further. I performed scan on the slime floating on the lake. It was an organic substance which was extremely caustic. Damian also discovered this when he put his hand in it.

We paddled out to the centre of the lake. Ragland, Joe and Gerd started feeling ill from the screams and wanted to return to shore. I performed a scan and determined they were an artificial construct and solid though they were radiating some form of nano spirit energy. When I tried to alleviate the effects in Ragland he passed out. We returned to the shore and eventually Ragland woke up. I performed a scan on Ragland and discovered his density was slowly increasing. I scanned Gerd and found a deformity in his hand while Joes density was decreasing. Alleviate helped Gerd slightly but not Joe. We decided to rest the night and in the morning Gerd was feeling better though Ragland and Joe were not.

In the morning Laryx left to continue his journey. We searched the hut and Joe found a pipe under the hut which was leaking the slime. There was a stream feeding into the lake. Gerd followed it to a spring which seemed to come from an artificial source and the slime was coming out with the water. Alleviate finally cured Ragland but Joe was still feeling unwell. Gerd and Damian walked round the lake in the afternoon while we were waiting for Joe to recover. They found the end of a half buried pipe that appeared to be empty.

Joe started feeling better, but Ragland started feeling a bit sick. We decided to explore the pipe while he rested. The exit of the tube was blocked by a semi transparent membrane. Gerd tried cutting through . The knife went through but the membrane was intact afterwards. Gerd put his arm through and it was wet when he pulled it back. He then tied a rope around himself and pushed through into a water filled chamber. He found a button which turned lights on. When he did so he was attacked psychically by a snail like creature which was lurking in the water, stunning him. Damian went into the chamber to attack the creature while I helped Joe pull Gerd out. Damian sliced into the creature but that just released one of its young through the cut. Gerd went back in to help Damian while I attacked the creatures with psychic blasts and Joe used an artifact that fired beams of energy. We defeated the creatures after a protracted fight and both Damian and Gerd got back out before drowning.

In the chamber were some humanoid figures in cylinders, and there was a pipe with a black fluid gushing through it. The creatures shell was recovered and after Damian cut away its flesh the shell was used to take some air into the chamber which was used by Gerd and Joe to breathe while they searched the room. I spend the time scanning areas of the room to try to determine what was happening. I detected a power source beneath the chamber. Gerd found a lever which stopped the flow of black fluid through the pipe when Gerd pulled it. Damian found a box of pills which gave the ability to breathe water. We searched the chamber and found some cyphers.

Gerd found a button. When he pressed it the cylinders opened releasing the creatures inside. I read one of their minds and determined they were confused but not immediately hostile but Gerd attacked one enraging it. It attacked him and he had to kill it with Joes help. Joe found a panel with controls which allowed him to open up a screen which showed the bottom of the lake. There were some large fish swimming about and a silver box on the lake bed.

We went back down the pipe and swam into the lake to find the silver box. Inside were some cyphers. We then rested before continuing our journey to the field of towers. As we approached down a ravine we saw some people at the end of the ravine gesturing madly. We took cover when a huge worm about 50ft long burst from the ground. Joe dislodged a rock making a sound and the worm immediately turned and charged him. Joe dodged it but Gerd was hit by a stream of goo and immobilised. A hit it with a powerful blast of energy and it turned and smashed into me, seriously injuring me. The others attacked it while I picked myself up and threw another bolt of energy at it, striking it between its eyes and killing it.

The three individuals approached. There was a stocky man called Theobald, a woman who was wearing chainmail called Arscalar, and a dark haired woman wearing a leather suit called Adrena. They said the creature was called a cragworm and they were very dangerous. Adrena said she was looking for a powerful artefact in the central tower and suggested we travel together. S it was getting late we camped for the night before continuing in the morning to the field of towers. The field ws a wide open space full of towers, most of which showed signs of damage. There were five pairs of strange green coloured creatures patrolling and in the centre was the tallest tower. Damian told us that Adrena was actually searching for her brother who had been taken by the insidious choir and she did not trust her companions.

The towers were open structures covered in overgrowth. The tops were broken and it looked like at one time they held up some other enormous structure. Two of the patrolling creatures spotted us and approached. Theobald Gerd and Damian fired arrows at them. Theobald then fired again killing one, and Damian cleaved the other with his sword. Adrena proved to be very incompetent in battle and managed to hit me with a dart. The other eight formed a group then attacked us. We killed them without suffering injury.

Light shone through the central tower which was made of a lattice of metal beams. We could see seven platforms spaced at 100ft intervals on the inside and there appeared to be two insectoid creatures crawling on the outside. A spiral walkway wound up the tower which looked to be a more recent addition. We reached the base and started climbing the spiral walkway. There was two of the green blobs [from the train] on the first platform. I slipped and fell part way back down as they attacked. The walkway collapsed and I fell to the ground. While I healed myself the others killed the creatures. As the walkway had collapsed I levitated myself up to them.

Arscalar had become infected by one of the creatures so I healed her. We then searched the platform and found two cyphers some equipment and some shins. We then climbed to level 2. On the platform was a creature the size of a horse with barbed spikes on its tongue and covered in green liquid. It leaped at Damian and slashed him with its tongue. It was quite tough and infected Damian before we killed it. I had to heal him. There were some gnawed bones and broken cyphers scattered about but nothing of value.

We climbed to the third platform where we found a figure hiding under some rubbish. Adrena rushed to hug him shouting 'Dro' and 'my brother'. She injected him with something which cured him. On level four was two huge vats of a bubbling liquid. There were 6 of the humanoid creatures we saw at the base of the tower and as we watched one was lowered into a vat by a giant claw. Another of the creatures was sitting at a control panel. Joe threw a dagger, killing the one at the control panel and we attacked, killing the rest. Arscalar got infected again. Levels five and six were empty.

We got to the top of the tower where we found a large mechanism on top of a 20ft tall obelisk which was surrounded by energy. There was a huge barrel chested man with a numenara device strapped to his arm standing in front of the obelisk, and two more of the creatures inside the energy shield standing at control panels. Joe used a cypher which caused the man to be teleported off the tower, causing him to fall to his death. I attacked the creatures with physical and mental onslaughts but the shield absorbed both attacks. The two large insect creatures we had previously seen on the outside of the tower then made an appearance. They attacked us and Joe used another cypher to create a wall of force which pushed one of the insects off the tower. Gerd and Arscalar were injured by it before we killed the second creature.

Ragland tried pushing the energy shield which resisted his efforts. He then jumped on top of the energy bubble which he found could take his weight. We then decided to concentrate our attacks on the energy shield which caused it to collapse. We attacked and killed the two creatures as the energy shield reappeared. As we were inside it we were able to destroy the large numenara device which caused the energy field to collapse. We searched and found several cyphers and an artifact which could be used to detect people lying.

We left Arscalar, Theobald and Adrena who were returning to Charmonde and travelled back to the conveyance where we had to spend a day clearing away enough rubble to reveal the levers that released it for the return journey. Lilly was waiting for us when we returned. She took us back to the house of Count Tichronus from where we went to visit Om to ask if he knew of the impossible blade. He wanted paying for information so I read his mind and discovered he was an Osbergian who were extra-terrestrial merchants. I also saw that he thought an impossible blade could be obtained from someone called Enosh who could be found travelling straight west into the wastelands in a hut by a stream. We then went to visit the fortune teller who asked if we were here about Enosh.

Damian upset a nearby noble who commanded his guard to attack. He resisted a cypher I used on him but Joe stabbed him a couple of times then Gerd killed him. The noble then walked away not appearing to care about the guard he had got killed. We restocked from Count Tichronus's storeroom before setting out into the wastelands. We travelled uneventfully for three days before finding Enosh's hut by a gully. There was a collection of large nests nearby.

As we approached, six chirog appeared from the nests and advanced towards us. Joe shouted out for Enosh and they stopped. I read the mind of one and found it thought we would be tasty but were waiting for their leader to decide what to do. A strange creature appeared from the hut and spoke to the chirog who then retreated. Enosh wanted us to free him from the chirog as they were holding him captive. He sent two away to collect food then we killed the four that remained.

Enosh told us an impossible blade could be found in the tomb of Queen Starloset near Barrowtown which was another two days west. The journey there was uneventful. Barrowtown was built several hundred feet above in the girders of a giant structure from a previous age. The locals retreated as we approached and I spotted a strange luminescent and slightly transparent figure in the crowd. Gerd spotted a tavern and persuaded the reluctant owner to let us in. We asked about Queen Starloset and someone called Buris spoke up to say he knew of her.

Buris had tales which he told us. He said that the land around Barrowtown was called Garamer about 150 years ago and was ruled by Queen Starloset. There was a civil war after her death from which the region never recovered. Her tomb was built in somewhere called Artorious's pit which was believed to be an entrance to the kingdom of the dead, though the description sounded like a construction from a prior age. The tomb was rumored to be filled with treasure and traps. There was also legends of a god called Artorious who took the form of a large stinging insect and watches over the entrance of the tomb. The legends said Artorious spoke the language of the dead.

Buris also suggested we spoke to the Scholar Senia Aria so we went to visit her. She told us a legend of needing to survive the sting of Artorious to be able to venture deeper into the tomb. She asked to come to the tomb with us as she had knowledge that might be useful. I used scan to determine she was an artificial creature from a prior age. I asked her about the luminescent figure I had seen earlier who she said were called the Shirani. They were human once but had touched some goo which oozed from a machine about 20 years ago and had become covered. They did not eat, sleep or do anything productive.

In the morning we met her and Buris who had agreed to show us to the pit. On the way we passed someone on a cart who called himself Avindar the necromancer. He gave us some information he found in an old tome which he thought it was a code - 'ABACBBAABDCDE'. Joe traded an ancient underwater weapon we had previously found with him for a cypher which would teleport someone.

We arrived at the pit in late afternoon. It was a 250 foot wide depression at the bottom of which was an 80 foot wide shaft with a wooden staircase built round the edge by the builders of Queen Starloset's tomb. We descended the stairs. 300 feet below at the bottom of the stairs we came to an archway in the side of the pit. The pit continued into the darkness below. There was a membrane in the archway which a scan showed to be a very strong field of an unknown energy. Joe pushed through it and the rest of us followed.

Beyond we found ourselves in a vast cavern stretching into the distance. There was images of the queen painted on the walls. We walked to the end of the chamber where we found an image of the queen descending into a golden shaft while a hideous insect looked on. A scan detected a residual energy from the eyes of the insect. Gerd pressed the eyes and a small portion of the wall moved aside to reveal a staircase descending into the darkness and we heard a buzzing noise from below. As we descended the noise got louder.

The staircase descended into another chamber with a strong acrid smell. In the centre was an insect creature the size of a small man. I read its mind and discovered it was a bio engineered creature called Artoria whose purpose was to inject poison which would allow access to the lower levels. Joe let it sting him without any ill effects so rest of us then also got stung without ill effect. The creature then lost interest in us and scuttled off. We found no other way out of the chamber so we returned to the archway and Gerd lowered a light on a rope further down into the shaft. I spotted what looked like a tunnel about 60 feet below in the side of the shaft.

I hovered down to take a look. Gerd tried to lower Joe down but slipped and fell over the edge. Joe managed to hang on as Gerd plummeted. Gerd managed to catch the ledge of the tunnel leaving them both hanging but connected by a rope. Joe slipped while trying to climb back up and was saved from falling by Senia. Joe then tied the rope off before they climbed down. Just inside the tunnel was blocked by a wall with a wheel. Joe turned the wheel and the wall moved to the side. Beyond was a short distance to another door. After a lot of experimentation and some help from Senia we worked out there were five doors which had to be opened and closed in the sequence Avindar gave us.

Beyond the last door was a brick room with dirty ceramic tiles on the floor and there was a blunt arrow in the centre of the floor. At the far end there was two passageways. Joe started into the room but one of the tiles gave and he disappeared into a hole below. We found he had fallen into a pit full of spikes. There were bodies of other dead tomb robbers in the bottom of the pit. I lowered a rope down to him. He found a helmet on one of the bodies which was some sort of artifact, before he climbed back up.

There was another tile which caused arrows to fly from the walls. Joe searched for traps and found a safe way across the room. There seemed to be traps everywhere. The corridor on the right ended with a door. Beyond was an empty room with another door. Beyond that door was another room with a sarcophagus in the centre. Joe and Gerd lifted the lid and within was an unadorned body that did not look very queenlike. We went back to the room of traps and investigated the left passageway which lead to a room filled with works of art.

I performed a scan of the room. Among the treasure was vases and urns of ceramic covered in gold, gilded chests and other ornaments. There was a chest which contained a glass object with a very hot material. Gerd hit the chest with a hammer, causing it to explode showering us with the super heated material. There was a shield on the wall which I detected had a passage behind. Joe found a button which moved the shield aside. Joe went down the passage searching for traps but managed to trigger one, and got impaled by a spear which shot out of a wall. When Gerd tried to help him he also triggered the trap, causing Joe to comically shoot across the room, still impaled on the spear. Finally Joe was able to un-impale himself and disarm the trap before we continued.

Joe disarmed more traps before we came to another chamber. There was a large cylindrical device in the centre of the room. Jutting out of it was four metal plates facing each corner. There was another plate in each corner. There was a large pile of cloths on one side which looked like a body in the fetal position. Joe thought the room was a giant trap and anyone trying to pass would get crushed between the plates. We tried throwing a crate through and the plates slammed together, crushing it, proving him correct.

Gerd and Joe got the sarcophagus lid to try to jam the mechanism. I used countermeasures as they did so which froze the machine momentarily. Joe rushed to get past both plates and got hit a glancing blow as it started again. I used countermeasures a second time to allow the rest of us to pass safely. Beyond was a square room with a flexible cable hanging from the ceiling with a rubber ball. When Joe squeezed it the room descended rapidly.

After a few moments the room stopped descending and we could see into another room. The walls were faded with peeling murals. Two old corpses were lying against a wall and a glass disk was floating above the floor and emitting a hum. Damian walked up to the disk, and when he touched it some liquid started pouring from the ceiling and started pooling on the disk then started morphing into a strange human/insect amalgam. It spoke in an unknown language then collapsed into a puddle. There was a corridor leading from the room and a set of metal double doors at the end of the room.

There was another wooden door halfway down the corridor and another room at the end. In the centre of the room was several tables and green slime covered part of the floor. Damian threw part of one of the bodies into the slime and it immediately turned rubbery. Gerd smashed down the door and was hit by a heavy weight on a chain which swung down. The floor of the room was warped and rotten wood. There was a wheel on the wall in one corner of the room that had been chained up. Gerd ripped the chain off the wheel then turned the wheel.

When we went back to the double doors we found they had opened. Beyond was a small room with another door at the far end. When Gerd touched the door it silently rose into the ceiling reveling a large room beyond. The floor was black and white tiles covered in a tattered red carpet leading to a statue of the queen in white marble. Large pictures lined the walls and a chandelier hung from the ceiling.

As Gerd walked up to the statue its eyes lit up and fired a beam of energy at him while speaking 'Flee defilers of my tomb, your lives are the only thing of worth you will take from here'. Gerd fled in terror back to the room we had descended in. When he calmed down Ragland ran past the statue, dodging the energy beam. He then tried climbing on the statue which toppled and landed on him. After Gerd rolled it off him we found a cypher that had fallen from its head. Past the statue was a short hallway then a chasm with a rope bridge spanning the gap.

I used hover to leap the gap but was grabbed by some horrible tentacled monster. I hit it with a mental onslaught and it shrieked. When Damian tried crossing the bridge it collapsed and left him clinging to the edge. Ragland hit it with another onslaught, killing it and I leapt back across the gap being chased by another three strange creatures, one of which appeared to have Raglands face. Gerd taunted one into trying to cross the gap, causing it to plummet into the darkness. I hit one with an onslaught and both retreated into the darkness and we saw a green glow illuminate briefly.

Gerd tried to leap across, slipped and plummeted into the darkness then crashed into the bottom of the chasm, breaking his leg. I hovered down and helped get some rope to allow Gerd to climb back up. Gerd splinted his leg before making the climb. Damian then tried walking across, slipped and plummeted into the chasm. After we got him out we decided to rest before trying to cross. I performed a miracle to fix Gerds leg.

Gerd then used a cypher to teleport himself across the gap with Damian. Ragland jumped across and I used hover to glide across. We were not attacked, and found a machine with three green pods in the centre of the room. In the far end was a transparent cylinder sticking out of the floor, and a panel next to it with a red and a yellow button. Damian pushed the yellow button and the lid slid off the transparent cylinder. He then pressed the red button, and the cylinder slid back down followed by a flash of light from within. Damian then tried again, putting something in the cylinder and the flash of light caused it to disappear.

While I was examining the machine in the centre of the room which emitted the green glow, Ragland climbed into the tube and pressed the red button, causing himself to disappear. Damian said he was above us somewhere. Gerd followed him and also vanished. I determined the machine was able to create and destroy living matter and I deduced it had created the creatures that attacked me when I first crossed the chasm. We then followed Gerd and Ragland through the cylinder and found ourselves at the top of one of the towers outside the pit. Raglan and Gerd had climbed to the bottom and appeared to be creeping up on Buris and two other humans.

We descended to where Gerd and Ragland were. Buris and the others appeared to be waiting to ambush anyone coming out of the pit. Ragland said he had also seen four Shirani. We attacked and defeated them, though Gerd got covered in a white slime one of the Shirani vomited over him, and another of the Shirani turned invisible and escaped.

We spent some time descending back to the room with the teleport cylinder, then pressed the yellow button twice which caused us to teleport us into another corridor with a mirror on the far wall. When we approached the mirror looked more like it was a vertical wall of liquid. Gerd poked it and something bit his finger off. He then hit the mirror until it broke, splashing the liquid all over the floor. His finger was inside a numenara device with a blade his blows had broken.

There was also a lever which caused the wall to retract, revealing another room, inside which was a statue and a gold sarcophagus with a plaque above reading 'here lies queen Starloset'. There was a chest containing some treasure. In the sarcophagus was her body, with a crown, scepter and the impossible blade.

There was another door out of the room. As we approached it opened automatically. Beyond was a force field. Gerd used an artefact which was a helmet that could create a tentacle to reach through the field to press a button on the wall and turn the field off. There were three globes of light hovering in the room beyond. I scanned them and determined they were life forms. I read their minds and discovered they were alien lifeforms in a meditative state. There was a set of double doors at the far side of the room and a room to our left. We crossed the room to the doors. Beyond was another room full of consoles, screens and other equipment, all in a mess. I found four cyphers amongst the wreckage.

The room to the left had holes in the floor with geysers of steam erupting from the holes at random times. Gerd got hit by a geyser when he tried to run across as did I. There was a large room beyond with another off to our right. In the room to the right was large fungi growing across the floor, and there was a rent in the far wall from which soil was spilling in. There seemed to be spores floating in the air so we did not enter. In a side room on the left was a very large glowing ball, another of the creatures. Another corridor lead to the side of the pit we had originally descended. The last corridor lead to a chamber that looked to be a temple though of a technological nature. Six more of the glowing balls floated in the room. There was a raised platform surrounded by columns and pipes.

When Gerd moved towards the platform, one of the balls moved towards him then turned into a floating brain with a lash which wrapped round Gerd. It started talking and when convinced we had no hostile intent, released Gerd. Gerd negotiated swapping two cyphers for the answer to a question from the datasphere which apparently their meditations let them contact. He asked how he could stop stillbirths in his clan. They said Orgolians were a race of genetically engineered creatures who had originally created the ancestors of Gerds clan. They may be found in the Planes of Kataru or Scorpions reach. He would need to seek them out to correct genetic mistakes they had made.

There was nowhere further to explore in the tomb so we returned to Barrowtown. The barman in the tavern suggested catching a boat down the Tithe river to get to Harmuth and we could find a village on the riverbank about two days away. We travelled to the village where the village elder was called Lec. She said that recently several children had been killed by a creature they called the hidden mouth which had been seen on the bank of the river at night. It was large with a tail, pincers, spikes on its back and was able to vanish.

We waited until night then set out a lure and waited. Something invisible took the lure then attacked Gerd. I managed to touch it and used countermeasures to make it visible. We attacked it, but it became invisible again quickly. Gerd was knocked unconscious briefly and I was badly wounded but we finally killed it. The villagers spent three days building us a raft as payment. The trip to Harmuth was uneventful and took ten days. When we arrived we asked directions to Cagyn Rilid who lived on a house boat on the shore.

Cagyn said a black marketer called Frund knew about gharlon and could be found at the tentacles rest. He also said he had a tracker which could be used to locate the vents where the Celosia were but it had been stolen. A rich local called Ateth Rowley 4th had also been a victim of a robbery. We found Ateth in the market. She had 10 rings stolen. She had been walking, felt something brush past and the rings were gone. She offered 5 shins per ring we could recover. A friend had a necklace stolen but it was recovered near some trees.

We went to the tentacles rest to find Frund. He said he had gharlon but it was not for sale as it was needed for his terminally ill partner. I offered to heal her in return for his help in obtaining more gharlon, to which he readily agreed. He was very grateful when I healed her and offered to take us out to the vents if we could find transport.

We found the trees where the necklace was found. At the top of a tree was a nest which had a ring in it. Some kids said they had seen something grey with big eyes jump in the tree at night. We found another nest in another clump of trees with a creature in it. Gerd grabbed the creature and we found it had been sitting on a pile of rings. We returned them to Cagyn and Ateth. Ateth said we could get transport at Stastins boat dock. Stastin loaned us a skimmer which would be programmed to take us where we wanted. Cagyn would lend is his ring to help find the vents.

We set out on the skimmer. After a few hours several birds started circling and several times landed on the boat looking for food, but eventually got bored and flew off. A storm blew up overnight. Damian was washed overboard but Gerd managed to throw him a rope and pull him back. One of the masts was cracked in the storm as well and Joe had to repair it. The storm eventually blew itself out and the rest of the journey was uneventful. It took six days to get to the area of the vents.

A large ship appeared on the horizon towards where we were headed. As we approached the ship we were able to see it appeared to be a village built on top of a giant creature. It was flying a flag which Damion thought was from somewhere called Sabbeth which was on the far side of the sea of secrets. Gerd heard a voice in his head saying welcome and come over. The skimmer pulled up alongside it and stopped. Cagyn's ring indicated the vents were nearby.

A net was thrown over the side for us to climb up. The vessel was populated by 7ft tall humanoids. One of the humanoids wanted us to follow and I sensed no hostility in his thoughts. He lead us to a laboratory in which was another humanoid whose skin shifted between red and blue in hue. She introduced herself as Shan Ha and said the others were crew she had hired. Her thoughts were guarded and did not betray her intent. She advised us there was an underwater maelstrom in the area which she thought was of artificial origins, and I saw the name Moyag in the surface thoughts.

She said she thought the maelstrom was coming from an artificial structure and wanted us to investigate. She would pay us 10 shins each and had some ability to envelop one of us to provide protection. She also gave us goggles to aid our vision underwater. The vessel was positioned in the eye of the storm to provide some degree of safety. Gerd volunteered to be enveloped, a process which evolved her splitting open and surrounding him.

We jumped into the water and started swimming down. Beneath us a pale translucent platform appeared out of the darkness and appeared to be positioned directly over a vent. The surface of the platform felt rubbery, and there were small pale creatures stuck in the surface. Gerd spotted a seam through which he was able to push through with some effort and the rest of us followed.

We found ourselves in a chamber full of red floating creatures with tendrils. Pulsating in the middle of each one appeared to be a heart. When Joe brushed against one, its tendrils wrapped round his leg. He cut it off and it floated away. In the next room the floor was made of metal on which was snail like creatures. Their movements caused flashes of energy which were sucked into a maelstrom of energy in the centre of the room.

I performed a scan which showed the maelstrom was a high power energy source and the creatures were mechanical in nature. In the third room were turbines spinning round. There was purple fish swimming round eating any debris. There was a seam in the floor through which we were able to push. We found ourselves in another chamber with two huge annemomies growing from the floor. The next chamber was filled with tiny eel like creatures and there was occasional sparks between them. When Gerd entered the eels parted and two other creatures could be seen.

One swam up to Gerd and bit him. We attacked them, and when one was killed the eels surrounded the other as it retreated. We followed it into the next chamber where it took cover behind one of the thermal vents. When Gerd followed it into the room it attacked him. Damian also entered the room and attacked it, and it was quickly killed. There was some crabs running about which hat the gharlon on their underside and Gerd caught five of them.

The next room was covered in veins full of golden liquid leading to a tree with fruit hanging from its branches. I scanned it and discovered it was the power source for this structure. The fruit were some weak point so I destroyed them, which caused the malestorm to slowly collapse. We then returned to the surface where we discussed with Shan Ha what we had found before returning to Harmuth.

We then returned to Uxphon and returned to Devona where she removed the parasites from myself and Gerd. We then returned to Derris looking for Horrek. Derris said the baron had imprisoned Horrek. We visited Count Tichronus who agreed to return Horrek in return for our silence on his dealings with Devona. He also offered us more work in the future as he was impressed we had survived Devona.

We decided to go our own ways at this point. Gerd wanted to travel to the Planes of Kataru to seek out a solution to his clans problems. Damian and Ragland took employment performing acrobatic entertainment to another count. Joe wanted to return to Harmuth to collect some daggers he had arranged to be made out of cragworm teeth and I decided to travel with him as Frund had suggested I could make a good living there healing people.