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The battle against the massive wolf is done and the party buries Soderic upon a nearby hill. As Savaric finishes saying words over his brother, the sounds of battle are heard coming from a nearby rise. The party investigates.

Upon the rise the party spies four massive Urkhani (Orc) warriors felling a human in robes. Savaric calls to them in their native tongue to “Stop!”. This seizes the Orcs’ attention and they begin to charge. Mõrvar strides forward, an intimidating scowl upon his countenance. This brings the leader of the charge up short, forcing him to declare that “this” is their kill. In the meantime, Surm has summoned a fire beetle to fight in his defense and it chooses this moment to appear in front of the Orc leader and attack. The melee begins in earnest.

At the end of the battle, the Orcs lay dead and the party is licking their various wounds. It was a hard-fought battle of magic and blade.

After looting the Orcish bodies, the party checks out their kill. Two humans lay dead—one a warrior and one in robes. The robed one carries a Masterwork dagger with a ring of flame etched upon the blade. The symbol is meaningless to all. Further, hidden upon his person, is a crumpled bit of parchment that looks like a map of some sort. After investigating the map further, Mõrvar determines that it points to a gully some five miles from the site of the battle. After a brief discussion, the party decides to pursue what the men were looking for on the map.

After a short trip to the gulley on the map, the party discovers a crawlspace into the hill. Savaric finds no tracks leading into or out of the crawlspace. Discovering that their battle with the Orcs had taken a lot out of them, the party decides to camp for the night and attempt the crawlspace in the morning.

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Rilka leads the way into the crawlspace. It is 25’ wide but only 3’ tall. The path begins to narrow and decline almost immediately. Soon the way is blocked by what appears to be a broken and fallen pillar with strange, disturbing tentacle motifs carved into it. Passing by the broken pillar, she finds that she is sliding down into stone room! Savaric slides quickly after her down the decline while the sorcerers manage to brace themselves and lower a rope down into the chamber to climb down.

In the chamber, the party finds another pillar with the disturbing carvings and Mõrvar insists that something wrong with this place. They appear to be in an antechamber of a much larger room that is split by a 5’ wide rift. Exploring around a corner, keeping clear of the rift, the party finds an alcove decorated in mosaics depicting people bowing to shadowy forms in the sky. There is a statue of an unusually thin, bearded man in robes at the center of the chamber…