*** Session 15 - Scene 2 (of 7) ***

Standing before Gra'bir is a large copper automaton wielding a scimitar in either hand. It immediately attacks, badly wounding the warrior with two deep cuts from its blades.

Gra'bir nimbly shuffles himself behind Abdul for protection as he bleeds everywhere. Abdul attacks out with his own scimitar, scoring a solid hit.

Butrus likewise moves out of the way to allow the sorceress through. Using a magic missile spell, Mirah blasts the automaton. Meanwhile, M'Balz calls to the others to charge at the creature.

Abdul attempts to lead a charge against the monster, but the uncoordinated Gra'bir manages to cause Butrus and M'Balz to bunch up. The automaton does stagger back a bit, but not enough to give them room to maneuver into the room beyond.

The automaton lashes out again with his slashing blades. Abdul fends off one of the hits but is struck by the other.

M'Balz tries to shift to the flank and attack, but his blow is fended off. Gra'bir hurls a javelin but it misses its mark.

From behind them, another of Mirah's spells blasts the copper automaton again. It seems only moderately damaged. M'Balz does little while Butrus actually bothers to check behind them to make sure nothing is coming up.

Abdul fends off a flurry of attacks from the creature. He maneuvers in and slashes across the creature's chest, causing more metal plates to go flying.

Gra'bir tries an attack of his own, but can't get a good opening. Low on spells, Mirah decides to hold back with Butrus and M'Balz.

As Abdul misses, Gra'bir scores a solid hit on the creature. It collapses to the ground with a loud crescendo.

*** Session 15 - Scene 3 (of 7) ***

Abdul takes the scimitars off of the inanimate body of the automaton as Butrus makes sardonic comments about how the sorceress is clearly powerful as she was more effective in the battle than the warriors. Gra'bir ignores the last part of the comment, saying her power was the reason he brought her to them.

M'Balz and Abdul begin searching around the room for any treasure, but none is found. Butrus checks the body while wondering what Mirah's mother looks like.

The room is smaller sized than many they have seen, with an open doorway leading out along the opposite wall. M'Balz looks around for any secret doors or traps, but none are found.

Butrus wants to get moving; he has everyone organize back together in their marching order and tells Gra'bir to lead them on.

The hallway outside the doorway has several twists and turns and another dead end as they follow it along. Their journey is slowed by having to stop every so often for Mirah to pick up her bag of spell components she keeps dropping.

After some time of walking along the hall, Gra'bir spots a pair of glowing red eyes up ahead. He has the others stop.

The warrior draws his javelin and throws it, aiming between the eyes. He hears a clink sound as the arrow apparently bounces off of whatever it hit.

M'Balz suggests they move closer. As they do, the lamps illuminate another statue of an efreeti on a small pedestal in the middle of the hallway, similar to the one they found when they came down into the dungeon.

The rogue moves in closer to investigate. He checks for traps or secret mechanisms or moving parts, but finds nothing. Butrus suggests Mirah use her spell to detect magic on the statue, but she denies him so M'Balz proceeds with prying off the fake ruby eyes.

After Gra'bir spends some time convincing M'Balz to give him back his javelin, the group moves on again. Shortly after, they find a passageway off to the right and decide to head that way.

*** Session 15 - Scene 4 (of 7) ***

After following more twists and turns in the labyrinth hallway, Gra'bir finds it leads to a door. He listens at the door, but hears nothing.

After M'Balz fails to find any traps on the door, Gra'bir opens the door. The room beyond is rather wide – they can see the opposite wall but not off to the right. There is another door along the wall in the far corner.

As they move into the room, they notice a strange odor. Butrus again wonders who built all of these large rooms under the city and what they could have possibly been used for.

Illuminating the rest of the room, they spot what appears to be a pile of molten iron off in the corner. It makes Butrus nervous and he tells the others to stay away from it.

Gra'bir has them shine the lamps on the ceiling above, but they see nothing. Ignoring Butrus' warning, M'Balz searches around the pile but finds nothing; though the molten pile gives him a strong sense of unease.

As Gra'bir muses about touching the pile, Butrus yells out to the others to not go near it, saying either his god or common sense is telling him to stay away. M'Balz backs away.

Butrus tells the others to leave quickly out the other door they found but M'Balz and Gra'bir are still fascinated by the pile.

Gra'bir fires an arrow at it, which hits. But the arrow gets absorbed in the pile almost instantly. The warrior suggests to the others to stay away from it, which Butrus sardonically remarks he would have never thought of.

The warrior then listens at the other door. He hears nothing, but does hear something in the room they are in, behind him.

Turning around, Gra'bir and the others notice the pile isn't as far in the corner as it used to be. It seems to have moved a couple of feet. M'Balz confirms the pile is definitely moving.

Nervous, Gra'bir tries to open the door but finds in locked. He tells Abdul to help him break down the door.

Meanwhile, M'Balz is watching the pile. But when he blinks, the pile moves yet closer to them. Pushing Abdul aside, he tries to pick the lock on the door but fails.

The two warriors begin hacking at the door with their scimitars. M'Balz turns around to see the pile has moved closer. He dashes to the other side.

Butrus also moves to a different corner of the room. Feeling a strange connection to the dwarf, Mirah follows him. As they stand waiting, he asks her if she will introduce him to her mother. She flatly tells him no, and the dwarf agrees it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway.

With the door broken down, Gra'bir and Abdul head through to the hallway beyond. Butrus sees the pile continues to move towards M'Balz. He and Mirah run out as well.

M'Balz finds himself alone in the room with the strange object moving slowly towards him whenever he blinks. He circumnavigates around it and gets out the door as well.

*** Session 15 - Scene 5 (of 7) ***

Everyone meets back up in the hallway and resumes their normal marching order. As they follow the twists and turns of the maze, Butrus again suggests the engineer was drunk when he designed the halls.

After some time, they come across a passageway off to the left. As they contemplate which way to go, Abdul has M'Balz check the rear; the pile appears to still be following them, lying just at the edge of their lamp light.

Gra'bir leads them down the passageway to the left. It comes to a door, but Gra'bir finds it locked.

With the pile slowly advancing on them, M'Balz attempts to search the door for traps but fails. He does get the lock picked as the pile gets close to the sorceress. Everyone quickly heads inside and shuts the door.

The room beyond appears to be illuminated by bright sunlight by magic. It is some kind of solarium, filled with various plants. There appears to be a door along the left wall and two doorways opposite of where they entered, one blocked by bars.

Butrus looks around at the plants for anything edible. He spots some berries growing on one of the bushes.

M'Balz is very nervous about the room. He suggests they leave quickly. He carefully makes his way over to the door avoiding any plants or potential traps along the way.

Gra'bir makes his way over to the bars blocking the doorway. Abdul follows over. Butrus and Mirah guard the door they entered from.

At the door, M'Balz puts his ear up to listen. The acid-coated door immediately melts his ear off as he screams out in pain.

Ignoring the rogue's screams, Gra'bir checks out the bars. There is a hallway beyond. He can't find any mechanism to open it from this side. He suggests to Abdul they attempt to force the bars open, but they fail.

Butrus moves over to the open hallway; it continues on for a while.

Driven from his senses by his pain, M'Balz grabs some berries and eats them. He finds them very bitter but encourages the others to try the "tasty" berries. He claims they have some kind of healing power.

Butrus tries the berries as well. He doesn't find any healing properties and finds them very bitter. He suggest M'Balz lacks his superior palate but the rogue says he must have got a bad one.

None of the others wish to try the berries, though Gra'bir suggests they take some for the road. M'Balz puts some in his pouch.

Following the hallway, they find it curves to the left but after a bit comes to a dead end. M'Balz finds neither traps nor secret doors at the dead end. He then tries knocking on the wall, but nothing happens.

They head back into the solarium. As they enter the room, they notice the pile of molten iron on the opposite side of the room. Butrus can see the door they entered from is still intact, so the pile did not appear to enter through it.

M'Balz investigates the bars and finds the mechanism locking them into place. As he turns to tell the others, he can see the pile has advanced on them again.

The rogue tries to lift the gate, but can't budge it. Butrus and Mirah see the pile getting closer to them so they move back further. The dwarf stares at it intently and can swear as he looks at it, the pile appears to blink out of existence and blink back in a little closer.

With M'Balz and Gra'bir lifting together they manage to raise the bars. The rogue yells out for his friends, and Little Chub, to get through.

Abdul wonders about using one of their potions marked "poison" on it. M'Balz counters that all their potions to date have been labeled incorrectly.

The warrior decides to just throw one of the scimitars he got off of the automaton at the pile. As with the arrow, the pile absorbs it. And with another blink, it gets even closer; almost touching the others.

M'Balz again yells for everyone to get through. Abdul, Butrus, and Mirah finally head through.

As they get through, M'Balz turns to move himself but finds his foot is now in the middle of the blob-like pile. He feels a burning sensation as his foot melts off. He hobbles away, with Gra'bir helping him down the hall.

The gate drops on the blob, but the creature appears to absorb it. Spotting the maimed rogue, Butrus mocks him about his missing foot as Gra'bir helps him along the hall.

The blob continues to follow. M'Balz throws his berries on the creature but all that does is turn it purple.

Everyone rushes along the hallway, passing by a set of plundered catacombs. Abdul in the lead narrowly avoids falling into a deep pit trap as he rushes around the corner. He warns the others.

Butrus waits by the pit trap until Gra'bir and M'Balz get by. When they make it to the others, Abdul fashions a peg leg with his extra scimitar and they continue on. Up ahead, they see it ends in a dead end.

Meanwhile, the dwarf still waits hoping to lure the blob into the pit trap. The gambit appears to work, as the blob gets closer then suddenly is no longer seen. To add extra insult to injury, Butrus urinates down into the dark pit.

*** Session 15 - Scene 6 (of 7) ***

Back at the dead end, Gra'bir searches around until he finds a secret door. However, he is also fairly sure it is trapped.

Gra'bir calls over to M'Balz for help, but the recent injuries are unhinging the mind of the poor rogue. In desperation, he drinks one of the potions marked poison. Alas, it was apparently mislabeled as it simply gives him a feeling of strength. Drinking the other, he finds it has the same effect.

After further urging from Gra'bir, M'Balz disables the falling block trap over the secret door. He then opens the door, revealing a large room beyond.

Inside the room appears to be a workroom with benches, tables, and tools. Pieces for copper automatons lie scattered about. There is only one door out of the room in the far corner.

M'Balz and the others work together to use the materials to fashion a prosthetic foot he can wear. Butrus uses a strip of wood and his warp wood spell to fasten it tight. They also "shoe" it with wood to make it slightly less noisy.

Butrus also comes up with an idea to fashion a headband and creates an ear horn for M'Balz as well. They also manage to scavenge enough lamp oil to refill their flasks.

After some debate, they decide to rest in the room for the night. Luckily, it passes without incident.

*** Session 15 - Scene 7 (of 7) ***

The next morning, Butrus heals injuries again. M'Balz is saddened to see the healing will not restore either his ear or foot.

Ready to move along, they approach the door. M'Balz is unable to pick it so Gra'bir and Abdul must break it down again.

They head into the hallway beyond, with Gra'bir setting off a spear trap. He moves out of the way, but Abdul is not as lucky. However, the wound is quite minor and M'Balz seems disappointed Abdul's trap is not as disfiguring as the ones he encountered were.

Gra'bir has the group continue on along the winding passageways. Eventually they take a passage off to the left. After some time it twists and turns until it comes to a door.

M'Balz finds the door has no traps and hears nothing beyond. Finding it unlocked, he opens it.

The room beyond is very large and M'Balz's lamp can only see the walls next to the door they are at. He rushes into the room and a patch of green slime falls on him. The acidic nature of the green slime begins burning his head.

The rogue attempts to grab his fine clothing from his pack to wipe the green slime off of his head, but the creature simply eats the clothes.

Abdul moves in to grab M'Balz. He yanks hard, pulling M'Balz back to the others so they can render aid.

Gra'bir decides the best course of action is to pour flaming oil over M'Balz's head. The rogue moves out of the way. With the pile of burning oil on the ground, M'Balz kneels down and dips his head into the fire to burn the slime off.

Butrus remarks he cannot help the stupidity, as he has no spell for that. He kicks M'Balz in the ass to get him away from the fire, but manages to kick him face-first into the fire.

The green slime burns off. M'Balz pours the water from his wineskin over his head and face. The flames go out, but he is badly burned and knows he will never regrow his hair or a beard and will be horribly scarred. Butrus suggests it is a good look for him.

Looking around, M'Balz can see there are more green slimes along the walls. There is also some broken glass in the middle of the room.

The rogue dashes in towards the glass. When he reaches it, the ground around him collapses and he falls into a spiked pit trap. He ruptures one of his testicles in the fall.

Calling out from the pit, M'Balz yells to the others he has found the way out. He then begins laughing maniacally and then changes to making owl sounds.

Gra'bir tells the others they may need to accept the fact their friend M'Balz has succumbed to the perils of the labyrinth. Abdul does not notice Gra'bir using a different name for M'Balz than he was given (Ra'uf).

Butrus, however, wants to help. He carefully approaches the pit and finds the half-insane rogue down below. As M'Balz is the one carrying the rope, Butrus calls out for him to throw it up to him.

M'Balz decides to tie the rope to an arrow and fire it up. He fires it up, managing to avoid hitting either his companions or the slimes.

The injured man is confused why the dwarf needs his rope, saying he has found the way out. Butrus tries to tell him it is just a pit, but M'Balz begins carrying on about the berries he found down there.

Butrus tosses the end of the rope back down to M'Balz and has Gra'bir and Abdul pull him out. He is still laughing hysterically when he emerges from the pit.

As Gra'bir ponders mercy-killing M'Balz, Butrus looks around for exits. There are two doors on the opposite wall from where they entered, but both have slimes near them.

M'Balz tells the others they can just speak to the slime. He walks over to one of them and begins barking at it like a dog. He then beckons over Butrus, insisting it is friendly.

Gra'bir approaches M'Balz and attempts to shove him into the slime. The rogue moves out of the way at the last moment, causing Gra'bir to fall into the slime. It begins covering his hands and face, burning them.

M'Balz laughs at Gra'bir, saying he has heard the voice and knows the slime is his friend. He begins barking at Gra'bir.

Butrus ignores the plight of the warrior and heads over to the door. He finds it unlocked and hears nothing beyond. He opens the door and heads through, saying the room is clearly cursed to turn people into idiots.

Mirah and Abdul follow Butrus' instructions to follow him, walking past Gra'bir rolling on the floor howling in pain.

Eventually, M'Balz asks Gra'bir why he is howling in pain as he is talking to his friend. M'Balz creates another pool of fire with his lamp and shoves Gra'bir's face into it.

As before, the slime burns off, leaving Gra'bir's head, face, and hands horribly scarred.

*** Session 15 - Session Notes ***

I'm not sure how to feel about this session. Everyone was able to make it this time with no problems, but the game was as silly as ever and I'm starting to wonder if we've gone down a bad path towards turning it into an actual Hackmaster style game. I chose to interpret it in the writing that they are going insane because of being stuck in the maze; I may have to cheat a bit to get them to the end soon before things get off the rails any further.

We did have the last minute addition of Mirah - who was the daughter of the Butrus player. Having a half-laconic teenage girl around made for some awkward moments; most of us had to be very careful to censor ourselves.

I'll admit to having a double standard. I have no kids but I was a teenage boy a couple of decades ago and I had brothers growing up so I'm a lot more comfortable when the other guys brought their sons into the game than I was with having the daughter at the game. With teenage boys, I feel like the trick is to not go too far to encourage bad behavior (because I know they won't get concepts like knowing when it is and isn't appropriate to repeat a joke, etc.) With a teenage girl, I feel compelled to try to avoid a "hostile environment" of any kind; for example, I didn't even feel comfortable referring to M'Balz by name while she was around. Now, her father kept telling us it wasn't a big deal and we were being overly sensitive, but there's no way in hell I or the other guys were going anywhere near a dirty joke when it was a group of adult males in a room with a teenage girl (particularly one already acting fairly shy).

In any event, it was no big deal avoiding dirty jokes for a session, just that it did change the dynamic a bit.

Other notes about the session:
* Mirah actually had no name in the session, I had to add it later. She was very shy and didn't want to come up with a name for her character (she has roleplayed before with her dad in other games I guess and seemed OK with playing, but I'm assuming she was just shy around a bunch of her dad's friends she didn't really know).

* Gra'bir's comments about the maze making no sense was the player's way of teasing (or perhaps coaxing) the Butrus' players' past comments (particularly since he knows I found them rather odd).

* There didn't seem to be a particular reason for Gra'bir to knock on the door; it was being silly for silly's sake I guess.

* The Abdul player, over Skype, must have said four times he wanted to take the scimitars from the automaton, as he kept missing my confirmation response each time due to various conversations occurring at once. It became a running gag later on, where we'd add "and Abdul takes the scimitars" whenever everyone was describing what they were doing.

* Butrus' joke about wondering what Mirah's mother looks like is a in-joke poking fun at the fact they recently divorced (as is the later exchange about hooking them up).

* Mirah dropping her spell components was a joke about her constantly dropping her dice under the table as she was playing around with them.

* Originally, the pile of molten iron was just a piece of flavor text for the room. But they kept making such a big deal about it that I turned it into a type of creature. I was inspired by the movie It Follows to give a sense of dread as it kept moving ever so slowly towards them.

* M'Balz's various disfiguring injuries were a cause of much joviality among the group, except for the M'Balz player himself. He decided the injuries would drive his character mad and started rolling dice to randomly determine his actions.

* When M'Balz had the scimitar peg leg, various "blade runner" / Pistorius jokes were made. (Side note - the M'Balz player loves to tell the anecdote where he asked his wife if she was familiar with the movie Blade Runner and she assumed it was about Oscar Pistorius).

* Once again, the mislabeled potions came into play. I was disappointed they didn't inadvertently strengthen the blob with it though, as throwing the poison bottle at the blob was considered for a little while.

* I originally had an empty room where the workshop was found. I figured they needed a way to make a prosthetic for M'Balz.

* After they added the ear horn headband, we agreed M'Balz had become the worst Steampunk cyborg in history.

* M'Balz and Gra'bir trying to kill each other with the green slime was hilarious to me, but the Butrus player got annoyed and that's why he had everyone just leave them to their stupidity.

*** Session 16 - Cast of Characters ***

M'Balz Al-Badassi: A human rogue from the city of Huzaz. M'Balz is the member of a noble family with political connections, but is bored with his wealthy lifestyle.

Butrus ibn-Duha: A dwarf priest with a fervent faith, trying to atone for a past as a con man who sold false indulgences.

Abdul-Aziz: A warrior from Hiyal who ran afoul of a local gang.

Gra'bir Boubi: A human warrior and hunter from the desert tribe of the Wah'na Poq-yah tribe of the Haunted Lands, looking to prove himself as a great warrior.

Mirah: A teenage human sorceress.

*** Session 16 - Scene 1 (of 5) ***

By the time M'Balz and Gra'bir make it out of the green slime lair, only Abdul is left in the hallway. He tells them that Butrus and Mirah slipped out of his sight while he was watching them.

Heading down the hall, they find it ends in another door. After determining it is free of traps, M'Balz also informs the group there are no noises beyond.

The door opens to a large room. From their vantage point, the three see only two of the walls, both filled with empty bookshelves.

As they look around, they see Butrus and Mirah. They also look around the large room and see a couple of doors along the north wall. The room seems very familiar to them.

After some time, they eventually realize this is the room they entered after the reverse gravity room. Butrus says they should go back the way they came and try one of the other passages.

This plan is quickly abandoned when they head back to the slime room and Abdul heads inside without being careful, leading to some slime dripping on him. M'Balz makes sure to tell Abdul he found his friend and begins barking at him.

After Gra'bir burns the slime off of Abdul, he tells the others to follow him as he found his initial partially-completed map in the bookshelf room and knows the way out. He then heads back down the hall to the bookshelf room, confounding most of the group but they reluctantly follow as they assume he knows what he is doing.

This plan doesn't go very far either once Butrus figures out Gra'bir is actually trying to lead them out of the maze. He gives a long argument about how his god is insisting he stay in the maze until he kills the enemy. Mirah openly comments she believes he is insane.

Gra'bir, believing they are foolish for wanting to continue on, says if they want to continue they could just go down the other hallway near the exit.

He then opens the door to the reverse gravity room. He tries to enter with a flourish and a somersault, but missteps and ends up badly spraining his ankle.

For the others, Butrus suggests they lower themselves into the room safely. On M'Balz's turn, Butrus pushes him into the room, causing him to hit his head hard on the ceiling. Gra'bir warns M'Balz to be more careful.

After they are all inside the reverse gravity room, Gra'bir suggests checking one of the doors along the north wall they never tried while they were in the room the last time.

The group spends a little time getting inside, only to find the hallway beyond leads in a circle back around to the other door in the gravity room. They decide to head back to the gravity room and sleep on the ceiling for the night to rest up (except for M'Balz, who stays in the U-shaped hall).

*** Session 16 - Scene 2 (of 5) ***

The next morning, Butrus heals up Gra'bir and Abdul. M'Balz notices he was excluded from the healing and comments about how strong he feels.

Eventually, Gra'bir leads them out and back to the location where the hall originally branched when they first headed into the dungeon.

Heading along, the path twists and turns like the other hallways they encountered. Eventually, there is a passage off to the right while it continues forward a little bit before coming to a dead end.

M'Balz urges caution. Gra'bir looks around for any secret doors but finds none. M'Balz neither finds a trap nor hears anything at the door.

Flinging the door open, the rogue finds a small room with a chicken pen. It has a dozen or so chicken inside with a bowl for water, a bowl for feed, and some straw bedding.

Butrus finds the room very strange. He notices there is another door in the small room along the same wall as the door they opened.

Looking around, the priest finds evidence the chickens are indeed real. He surmises they must be used for food by the labyrinth inhabitants.

The dwarf walks inside to get a better look at the chickens. When he does, he notices one of the chickens is actually a cockatrice. Before he can react, the monster pecks him, turning him to stone.

Seeing their companion petrified, M'Balz and Gra'bir leap into action. They both throw their lighted lamps into the room to try and start a fire, but the flames go out and they only succeed in spilling oil everywhere. They close the door quickly, finding themselves in the dark as they have no lit lamps remaining.

Abdul has a lamp but no oil left. M'Balz tries to fill it with his waterskin but Abdul finds it won't light despite M'Balz insisting it is oil.

As the darkness begins driving him madder, M'Balz starts shouting out about how he needs light. After some time, Mirah finally agrees to light her lamp, though wonders if her companions are mentally deficient.

Gra'bir suggests they try a different direction but M'Balz wants to save the dwarf. Butrus wants to use Mirah's lamp oil to light one of his arrows on fire so he can shoot it into the room and ignite the oil.

He eventually convinces her and puts his plan into action. The resulting fireball kills everything in the room but M'Balz manages to avoid getting burned himself and closes the door.

*** Session 16 - Scene 3 (of 5) ***

After the heat dies down, M'Balz opens the door again. He can smell the cooked chicken.

Inside the room are the cooked remains of the chickens and the cockatrice. In addition to the charred lamps and statue of Butrus, there appears to be a pile of blackened coins and other materials back where the straw used to be.

Gra'bir goes inside to examine the treasure. He ignores the coins but looks for a potion. He does find one, but it has likely gone bad. Undeterred, he pours it over the petrified Butrus, but nothing happens.

Also in the pile is a blackened ring and a blackened horn. Gra'bir grabs the ring while M'Balz spots the horn and immediately blows it.

The magical horn emits a very loud blast of sound, deafening everyone in the room and throwing them to the ground.

Cracks begin forming along the walls of the room and the ceiling starts to cave in. Moving quickly, everyone exits the room out the other door while M'Balz and Abdul pull the dwarf statue out. Just after, the room completely caves in, blocking their way forever.

*** Session 16 - Scene 4 (of 5) ***

Leaving the dwarf statue at the caved-in door, the others head off down the hall to investigate the area further. After following the hallway through twists and turns, it eventually comes to another door.

M'Balz checks the door and can tell it is connected to a trap on the other side of the door. He performs some actions that he believes will disarm it and listens to make sure there is no sounds beyond. He tells Abdul it is safe to proceed.

Abdul opens the door and it immediately hit with a spear from the door trap. When he comments to M'Balz, the rogue insists there must be someone in the room but Adbul is pretty sure it fired at an angle from somewhere along the ceiling.

Gra'bir can tell the room extends 30 feet and has some bars blocking a hallway beyond. The far east side of the room is still shrouded in darkness.

M'Balz decides to rush into the darkness to investigate the rest of the room. Hearing crunching sounds, he realizes he is standing on a giant swarm of locusts. The locusts begin swarming around M'Balz, biting him.

The rogue decides to douse himself in the water from his wineskin. This does not seem to deter the biting insects. He yells to the others to light the locusts on fire.

Gra'bir calls for Abdul to help him with the bars. He manages to get them started and has Mirah put his shield under them to keep them up.

Everyone goes under the bars to the other side, including M'Balz who is dismayed to see the locusts are continuing to follow and bite him. And now that he is near the others, the swarm is attacking them as well.

M'Balz blows the horn again. It liquefies the locusts and blows the bars through the door on the other side of the room. Mirah is also knocked to the ground again, deafened.

Gra'bir tries to grab the horn away from M'Balz, but fails. Mirah takes the opportunity to grab for the horn herself, taking it away from him. He tries to get it back from her but she pushes him away, storing it safely in her backpack.

*** Session 16 - Scene 5 (of 5) ***

Once that matter is dealt with, the group heads out again. With Abdul injured, Gra'bir takes the lead.

Eventually, the hall has a passage off to the right or continues on. Gra'bir can see the hall continues on then curves to end in another door.

Gra'bir listens at the door. A blade comes out, narrowly allowing him to move away quick enough to only have the tip of his ear cut off by the trap. However, he could tell there were a lot of loud scurrying noises behind the door, leading him to believe it is a nest of giant rats.

Not wanting to encounter the giant rats, the group moves off to check out the other hall. After some curves, they eventually see a barred doorway off to the right. Beyond the bars appears to be an empty room they can only illuminate part of.

The hunter decides to lead the group on down the rest of the hallway. It eventually comes to another set of bars blocking a doorway. Shining the lamp through, they can see the room beyond is large with a number of scattered humanoid bones. They do spot a door along the east side wall in that room.

While they decide what to do, M'Balz sneaks around and picks Mirah's backpack. He slips the horn back into his own belongings.

He then tells the others they should lift the bars, as he believes their salvation lies in those bones. Gra'bir reluctantly agrees to go along with his suggestion.

After some effort, they manage to get inside the room. Gra'bir stays off to the side while M'Balz starts loudly rustling through the bones with his javelin.

Gra'bir heads over to the door. He checks the door for traps, but finds none. He doesn't hear anything behind the door until it suddenly opens; standing in the doorway is a large berserker. In the room behind the berserker, chanting can be heard.

Suddenly, the bones come together and form over a dozen skeletons surrounding M'Balz. The berserker lashes out with his scimitar, but Gra'bir fends off the blow. Gra'bir attacks back, injuring the berserker.

M'Balz calls out for everyone to cover their ears. He then takes out the horn and blows. Unfortunately, the horn's magic backfires and explodes. M'Balz splatters all over the room as he disintegrates into a thousand pieces.

Abdul strikes out at a skeleton, injuring it but not destroying it. Meanwhile, Mirah casts a sand slumber spell on the berserker, causing him to fall asleep.

Gra'bir steps over the slumbering man, calling out for Mirah to slit his throat as he heads after the sorcerer who cast the animate dead spell.

As he enters the room, Gra'bir sees the ghul lord sorcerer. He stabs out with his lance, badly injuring him. The sorcerer runs away through a door on the south wall of the room and closes it behind him.

Back in the doorway, Mirah slits the berserker's throat. Unfortunately, this gives time for some of the skeletons to come up behind her and cut her down. Across the room, Abdul manages to destroy one of the skeletons as the others slice him to pieces.

Gra'bir heads up to the door to find it locked from the other side. Using his scimitar, he begins to cut it down.

The skeletons begin pouring into the room behind the warrior; one of them badly wounds him. He slips on the ring he found, only to find it is a cursed ring of folly. He can feel the ring magically draining his intelligence and wisdom.

The warrior returns to breaking down the door the rest of the way. He succeeds just as the skeletons chop off his head.

The End

*** Session 16 - Session Notes ***

So, after a TPK we decided to end the campaign. That's the first time I've actually ended a campaign with a TPK (though it has happened in a one shot or two).

I think it was inevitable at that point. The players couldn't seem to get out of "zany mode" and long since stopped approaching the dungeon as serious adventurers. As a result, they made poor decision after poor decision that kept them blundering into new bad situations. I'm not trying to be a deadly DM here - these are 1 HD skeletons we are talking about that killed a party of five characters levels 3-4.

And that's why I didn't fudge anything to stop it. If I tried to excuse one bad choice it was like peeling back an onion. For example, M'Balz died because he blew the horn one too many times. He blew the horn one too many times because he was low on hit points and surrounded by skeletons. He was surrounded by skeletons because they chose to ignore a room filled with bones as a potential threat and because he started loudly messing around with them. There's also an entire other branch where he was low on hit points because they didn't have a healer because the cleric got petrified, because he scouted out a room instead of someone else and they couldn't get back out to get a scroll to revive him because of stupidly blowing the damn horn. It just goes on and on from there.

In any event, we'll move on from here. I'm going to let the Butrus player run his "as deep as Warcraft" D&D game for a few sessions while I finish up my plans for Cthulhubusters: Crescent City.

Before we dive into that next campaign, I'm having some discussions with the players to make sure everyone is on the same page with what we are trying to get out of the game since our last couple of campaigns have fizzled (I completely lost my focus as GM on the Traveller 2300 game, and the players seem to have completely lost their focus on this one).

I want to say I really do like my current group and any given session has been pretty fun. We just have some challenges in getting the right campaign going:
* We don't have quite enough players coming regularly to get D&D to work well.
* The characters tend to be somewhere between morally gray and sociopathic, which takes entire genres off the list.
* We have people missing a lot, making complex plots very hard to follow. Plus, all of them are terrible at solving mystery plots (I found this with my previous group, too; RPG players who can put two clues together seem to be rare).
* None of the players really want to lead but a couple take issue with being told what to do (again, a problem I've seen for years with various groups; leadership skills are in short supply in real life).

Then there's my own shortcoming - I love baroque James Ellroy-style plot webs and always make my plot backstories five times more complicated than anything that ever gets revealed / discovered in the game.

In any event, I'm going to try for smaller, independent plot arcs next time and see if that works better.

*** Epilogue - The Secrets of Al-Qadim ***

In case anyone was interested, here's a few things in the Al-Qadim campaign that never got revealed during the game. I think it is pretty comprehensive, but if there's something I didn't cover that you wanted to know about, just ask.

* Bah'lain was the genie duplicate of Father Dao-Ling (this is a play off of the TV show, where Father Dowling's identical twin, Blaine, was a gangster).

* If the group would have defeated Bah'lain, everyone would have received various stat improvements and other bonuses as a reward from the Loregiver.

* Logan was going to show up in Hiyal as a consort to the female ruler there.

* The Dragon riddle cave they never went to had tens of thousands of coins of treasure there - more than enough to level everyone up a level and then some.

* The other cave map (the one found in the Salazar's Tower) was actually a fake, leading to a trapped cave with several bronze automatons.

* Neither cave was the lost gold mine of the Al-Kamari family (but that mine did figure into things, see below).

* If the group would have ever found the treasure inside Salazar's Tower, Snarg was planning to screw them over by insisting it was Salazar's treasure and only Omar's diary was the treasure to split (using that stupid "knowledge is the real treasure" cliché).

* After they left the tower, Snarg went back to serve as Alknar's toady and would have shown back up.

* There never was any treasure under the palace gardens, that was a false rumor. I thought it would be funny to steer them into the sewers instead.

* If they would have kept going in the sewers, they would have discovered the hidden headquarters of the thieves' guild and there was a whole plot about how the guild was at war with Geer.

* One of the thieves' guild guys was actually the son of Al-Fayeed in disguise as part of a larger plot (see below).

* The four threats prophesized referred to:

1. Threat of Wind - Alkar (the yak-man) and his worship of dark gods known as the Nameless Ones. That threat was the easiest to defeat and where I was planning to steer the game to next.


2. Threat of Sea - This one had to do with a whole plot around Admiral MacCatcheon leading an invasion force into their lands as part of the Holy Crusade of Tethyr as declared by the Council of the Isle of Claremont and High Priest Otho (various other homages to the First Crusade were in there as well).

3. Threat of Flame - This one had to do with Salazar sort-of returning from the dead in multiple ways (he had a clone, a simulacrum, and genie double going around) and forming an army with the Yuan-Ti.

4. Threat of Sand - This was the large conspiracy and meant to be the most challenging of the plots. The whole "C.D." thing referred to someone known as the "Caliph of the Dark", a man who formed an army of evil genies (along with a small clan of elves thought to be extinct) and was plotting with various rulers for the downfall of the Grand Caliph. The caliph of the dark was actually the exiled Al-Fayeed patriarch.

There was a large adventure planned as part of this plot around how Al-Fayeed found the lost gold mine of the Al-Kimari family and stopping the forces of his genies transporting the gold (it was based in no small part by the anime, Ninja Scroll).

* Daria, who they were so worried about, was shipping wax tubes filled with "powder of the poppy" inside her wine. She was a mid-level drug trafficker, but her only real relevance in the story was she got her drugs from the elves who served the Caliph of the Dark (it was how he financed his return to power, along with finding the Al-Kimari gold mine).