We cleared away the pile of skulls and went through the door that they had been blocking. Beyond it was a room with two summoning circles on the floor, one at each end of the room, each behind a portcullis. On one of the circles was a pile of red ash, and on the other was a near-dead fiend named Avaxial. He told us that he had been imprisoned by a Thassilonian named Karzoug. He wanted us to kill him to release him from his tortured existence, and Devin obliged.

We next came to a room with a pool of water on the floor, and a scale model of Skull’s Crossing on the wall. A large creature shaped like a scorpion and covered with skulls and bones attacked us here, and scared Gulnyr away. The rest of us tried to fight it, but were not very effective against it. Devin suffered some Dexterity damage when struck, and Ash nearly died. Fortunately, Gulnyr came to his senses and returned, and we managed to kill the creature.

Upon examining the model of Skull’s Crossing, we found that there were levers that control the sluice gates. Unfortunately, there was no power available, so pulling the levers did nothing. We figured out that the fiends in the summoning circles had been used as a source of power. We decided to try using two of our party members to power the mechanism, so Gulnyr and Ash each stepped into a summoning circle, and Eliatris pulled the levers. This successfully opened the sluice gates, at the cost of giving Gulnyr and Ash a negative level.

Having fixed the dam, we returned to Turtleback Ferry to report our success to Mayor Shreed. He in turn told us that he had done some more research regarding the sihedron tattoos, and said that half of the townsfolk had them. He speculated that there had been a concerted effort on the part of Lucretia to tattoo everyone in preperation for killing them as a sort of harvest. Finally, he requested that we go to the Shimmer Glen, which required passing through Bitter Hollow.

We traveled to Bitter Hollow, where we met B. K. Pedwyn, who runs the trading post and is the de facto leader of the town. He mentioned that Lamatar Bayden is a frequent visitor. We ventured out on the Wicker Walk, and soon encountered a pixie named Yap, who was crying. He told us that Myriana was his mistress, and that she was ill, and asked us to help her. We followed him, and along the way some ghostly fay emerged from the forest and caused Ash some injury.

We rested for the night. During Ash’s watch, a derelict ship appeared in the swamp. She awoke Gulnyr, and then went to sleep. Gulnyr examined the ship, and then smashed a hole in the side of it, awaking the rest of us. There was a magical darkness permeating the inside of the ship, but Devin dispelled it. We then went inside to investigate. We came to the captain’s quarters, where we found the dead body of the captain sitting at a harpsicord. His chest had been burst open, and there were some kind of polyps inside. Eliatris used a torch to burn them away.

We returned to camp, and saw a white dog with milky white eyes. As Eliatris approached it, three large caterpillar-like creatures emerged from the water and attacked us. After we killed them, Myriana herself showed up, in the form of a ghostly figure with disembodied arms. As we fought her, she blinded Ash. Devin cured her blindness, but Myriana blinded her again, as well as Eliatris. Devin then channeled energy to kill Myriana. As she faded away, she told us to bring Lamitar’s remains to her at Hook Mountain.

We left the keep, and returned to the forest to spend the night. The next morning, we scouted the keep through a spyglass, and saw that there were 18 ogres remaining. We then returned to the keep. On the first floor, we encountered a large ogre tormenting two smaller ones. The large ogre had goat legs, and his face was covered with red pustules. We fought and killed them, and just as the large one died, he said “Jaargrath will eat your face!” to Gulnyr.

We went up to the second floor. Ash heard ogre voices coming from the temple when she listened at the door, so we prepared to fight them. First we checked the commander’s quarters to makes sure it was still unoccupied from the night before, and found that the ogre that we had killed there had been put into a cooking pot. Returning to the temple, Gulnyr knocked on the door. It was opened by an ogre who had part of his jaw missing, and another, larger ogre was inside with him. We saw that the temple was decorated with antlers mounted on the walls, and they had strips of bloody flesh hanging from them. We fought the ogres, and just after killing the smaller one, another ogre emerged from the conference room across the hall. Inside the conference room was a fourth ogre, with tiny hands and feet, and a huge head and butt, wearing a chef’s hat. We killed all of the ogres, and found that the large one had a list of names, written in Lucretia‘s handwriting. Also, Eliatris found a magic sword lying on the altar of the chapel, which she felt was a gift from her god, so she took it.

Looking inside a wine cabinet, we found a wooden coffer containing a bunch of love letters written by the captain to a woman named Myriana. There was also a locket, and a strand of silver hair. Jakardros said that the captain was probably still alive. He then gave us three tasks to complete:

1. Report back to Turtleback Ferry
2. Go to Hook Mountain to clear out the remaining ogres there
3. Investigate the Shimmer Glen to find the captain

We returned to Turtleback Ferry, and found that it was flooding from the rain. Many townsfolk were trapped in buildings, and there were some schoolchildren trapped in a boat. A large sea serpent, known as a nightbelly boa, swam towards the boat to attack the children. Their teacher, Tylia Hendrickson, called to us to help them, and we noticed that there was a sihedron tattoo on her arm. Gulnyr attacked the boa, but the water made it difficult to get to it quickly, and we were unable to prevent it from grabbing and constricting a little girl. However, Devin was able to heal her and prevent her from dying after Gulnyr killed the serpent.

As this was going on, we heard screams coming from the church, and Ash and Eliatris went off to investigate. They saw a huge tentacled sea creature phasing in and out. We realized that this was Black Maga, the creature that had recently sunk the Paradise gambling boat. It breathed a cloud of black smoke that was capable of causing Wisdom damage. Devin arrived and used Channel Energy to harm it, at which point it retreated.

In the evening, we met with mayor Maelin Shreed. He told us that the dam at Skull’s Crossing should have prevented Black Maga from getting in, and asked us to investigate it to check on the sluice gates. He warned us that it was home to a tribe of trolls known as the Skulltakers. We then reported to him what we had found out about Fort Rannick, the Black Arrow Rangers, and what we had done. We also mentioned Lucretia’s list of names, and told him about the sihedron tattoo on the teacher’s arm. Her name was on the list, and we asked him to investigate other townsfolk who were on the list, to see if they had similar tattoos.

We spent the night in town, and the next day we met with the mayor again. He told us that he had investigated some of the other townsfolk as we had asked, and they did indeed have sihedron tattoos, but that it was merely used as a membership symbol for the gambling boat.

We then went to Skull’s Crossing to investigate the dam. Its face was decorated with carvings of skulls. On one side was a stairway sized for large creatures. Eliatris tried to climb up on her own, but slipped and fell into the water. Gulnyr then climbed up, taking one end of a rope with him, and the rest of us used the rope climb up after him.

At the top, we encountered and fought an ettin. Inside its cave, we found some coins, a velvet pouch containing six pearls, a phylactery, and a jade scroll case containing three scrolls.

We then proceeded to the top of the dam, where we encountered five ogres. We killed them, with Devin tossing the last one over the edge of the dam. We came to two sets of double doors leading to the interior. One set of doors was barricaded from the inside, and the other set was stuck. Gulnyr was able to open the stuck set of doors, and we proceeded inside.

The first room was a large chamber with rubble on the floor, ogre bodies, and broken weapons. There were vines of some sort of moss or fungus growing on the walls. Four trolls emerged from the vines and attacked us. We killed them, and found that we had to use fire to prevent them from regenerating.

We explored a few more rooms, eventually coming to a set of giant-sized stairs leading down. We followed them to a set of double doors, which opened into a room with a pool in the middle, which was filled with slimy yellow fungus. There were five doors in this room, and one of them was blocked by a pile of humanoid skulls. A scrug (sea troll) named Grazuul emerged from the pool and attacked us, and we killed it.