����������� Book Eight, Chapter Four �This is hard, really very very hard�

����������������������������������� 19/09/2009

It�s an early start, honest. Its 11:30 in the morning and Bowlhead is curing the party up. Zytsi�s blindness will end in a few rounds time. Sir Martyn is blind for 2 weeks but Bowlhead has cured him.

We need to wait 24 hours for the loop to reset, and for Sir Martyn to acquire power points as he has only 1 left. Then Sir Martyn and Aruth have dodgy drug side effects to deal with. And finally we need a plan.

Trev is upset as his broadband has dropped out.

Bowlhead lends Daniel his buckler which acts as a small shield and gives +45 to DB. We wind up as before, more or less. Then the combat 4 all with Fire Armour go through - Daniel, Aruth, Sir Martyn and finally Zytsi (and in that order). Most of us got away with it, except Zytsi whose damage and stuns where slurped. Mild out burst of drug taking by the party�s junkies. We wait a couple of rounds and advance. Sir Martyn and Zytsi are the front rank, Aruth in the second poking with his staff and Daniel in the third rank ready to nip in if someone falls over.

We get to 60 feet and the golems appear, we have picked up the stuff ne needed to. We get first blow and Sir Martyn rolls 187 Holy Critical and 4 times damage. It�s knocked down for this round. Then Zytsi hits it for double damage and 82 and 86 criticals. Aruth pokes the other one with his staff for double damage and no critical. The one in front of Zytsi hits if forcing a must parry at -15%. Sir Martyn then hits his another nine times and � and � and it�s about half done! Zytsi�s once hits him again.

Second round. The one that Sir Martyn knocked down stands up. They miss the party this time round, Zytsi parries like fury. Aruth hits the one on Sir Martyn for a bit of damage. Sir Martyn was going to hit his ten times but the fourth critical forced him to juggle his weapon the rest of this round and parry next round. That was annoying as he lost the rest of his attacks this round and also those for next round, which as the last round of haste.

Third round. Sir Martyn must parry this round. Zytsi hits the one Sir Martyn has been hitting, and drops his weapon and takes two rounds to pick it up. Sir Martyn�s Bladeturn keeps him alive.

Fourth round. Daniel goes forward but takes a heat critical and gets stunned and won�t arrive with a critical so doesn�t go forward. So Zytsi draws dagger and parries. Sir Martyn has five attacks, but the fourth one he gets the must fumble roll again. Zytsi gets knocked back 5 foot.

Fifth round. Sir Martyn is stunned no parry this round. Not much happens this round. Daniel went to go forward and got knocked down, stunned and back organic stuff destroyed � armour saved but backpack trashed. Aruth knocked down. Sir Martyn finally kills his.

Next round Bowlhead slurps Daniel�s damage and stuns. We decide to run away as the heat criticals are killing us. Daniel goes first, then Aruth stuns his way through followed by Zytsi and Sir Martyn. As we are about to leave the area Sir Martyn notices that the one he killed had a pulsing gem like thing fall out. It appears to be regenerating slightly. Zytsi psyches himself up to go through and pick the gem thing up.

He goes through, Bowhead slurps the relatively trivial damage, he picks the gem up and he runs out. He makes it out! He has a big diamond. He has the skills to remove the magic stuff leaving the diamond. Can he doing? Scrape around for an additional 10% to make it 300. He can�t find it so it didn�t work. Shame it was worth 250,000d! Whimper.

Heal up and wait until tomorrow and try again.

Next day (23^rd of Nolus) same as last time. Fire armour and same order through as before. Through and then a bit of healing. Up the corridor, Zytsi picks up the morning star he dropped yesterday and it turns up. Zytsi hits it and got a 134 critical which was a bit innocuous. It hits Zytsi and knocks him to his knees, knocks his weapon backwards 10 feet and 24 stuns. The accumulated stuns make him unconscious. It hits him again. Sir Martyn hits it ten times, and Aruth hits it.

There are problems in the Birmingham area accessing the Internet via BT, which is why Trev keeps loosing his broadband connection.

Second round. Daniel drags Zytsi back out of the area so he doesn�t get fried. Sir Martin and the golem exchange blows, and Aruth hits it.

Third round. Bowlhead slurps Sir Martyn. Sir Martyn and the golem exchange blows, and Sir Martyn has ten attacks and finally kills it. Re-boot the Khuzdul so he can carve the diamond and so it stops it regenerating.

There is a 50 feet across circular room, to left and right there two sarcophagus. Sir Martyn tells Daniel to search the room, so nothing loath he goes into the room. Bad move! The bars of light go down behind him. There are 3 niches either side of the gap, each contains a Minotaur constructs. They fire shock bolts from their eyes. Sir Martyn and then Aruth come in. The bars do escalating damage. Sir Martyn gets 3 constructs; Daniel gets 2 and Aruth 1. Parry furiously and don�t get hit, though Sir Martyn does do some attacks and didn�t hit but got hit a bit. They are hasted and therefore have 2 lots of sword, axe, horn and bash attacks, that�s eight attacks

Next round we get shock bolted and try to run away. We can�t get through the bars. Daniel parries furiously taking 296 away and one rolls up three times and tops, that hurt. Aruth has no shield and his second one takes him on damage. Sir Martyn kills one of his.

New round. Shock bolts were ineffective. Zytsi smashes the gem and comes into the room. Sir Martyn and Daniel have two each and Zytsi one, and Daniel takes some healing drugs. Sir Martyn kills another one.

Fourth round. Shock bolts are ineffective. Daniel Must Parries and takes a bit of damage from his two. Zytsi hits his one and it doesn�t hit him. Sir Martyn exchanges lots of blows with his and he kills it.

Fifth round. Shock bolts really are ineffective. One each, and Daniel stun manoeuvres and hits his. Zytsi kills his as does Sir Martyn.

Sixth round. The last Shock bolt was totally ineffective. Daniel, Zytsi and Sir Martyn hit it and it dies.

Daniel gives Aruth drugs to heal him to consciousness.

It�s an Earthmaster site with ancient Eleven sarcophagus in it. Bowlhead comes through the first barrier so he can heal us in range.

One, two, three heave. Lift the lid off the sarcophagus and below it is full of blue velvet with a hole in it. Round about a large diamond sized hole. Do the next one, and it�s the same. Bowlhead sends through the first gem, the last one that Zytsi smashed. OK that�s in. The other one is the other side of the fire damage barrier.

The next day, 24^th Nolus. Bowlhead goes through the first the barrier and gets the gem and passes it through. It goes in the hole and Bowlhead doesn�t come in. The gems flash light between themselves building something in the room. Bowlhead comes in to us as it looks like we�re going somewhere. There is a portal between the two sarcophagus and we are in a solid prism. There are two sides to this portal, and this is the only way to go. But which side. Channelling is down but Mentalism isn�t. They make the Bard chose, so we keep going in the direction we were going in.

We find ourselves in a dark wood, leafless and purplish atmosphere. It�s another world. There is path we can follow, but no portal. A path that is going to the Harper�s Hall says Aruth. We walk on the path. After an hour we have to make a perception roll and everyone, except the bard, makes it and has to save versus Menatlism. Zytsi goes left and Aruth goes right. Sir Martyn goes after Zytsi and Daniel is told to get Bowlhead. Daniel and Sir Martyn no longer think they are on the pat. Daniel persuades Aruth to cast Path Finding and we go back to the path. We�ve lost the others. Aruth ties a rope round himself with us holding the other end so he can go and find them, which was a plan that worked.

We rope ourselves together and follow the path for eight hours. Then we see a sort of Greek temple on top of a hill. It takes about another hour to get there. It�s a well made stone building, about the six of fairly large room, pillars. Armoured figures with halberds, humanoid totally covered in metal. They don�t respond to talking so Daniel sings a song in praise of Galeroth and the doors open.

Its one giant room of white marble, apparently empty. In we go, and Daniel goes in singing. The guards close the doors behind us. Daniel sings and three figures appear and singing makes them and the harp real. Good singing makes the harp real, and under 275 makes the horned daemons real. I get the harp real on 5 plays 4.

The harp rests on a pedestal in the room. At last Daniel gets the harp. There is nothing else in here. Sing songs about Cherafir doesn�t get us there. Beyond the doors is a portal we go through the purple portal and we back in the sarcophagus room, the bars are gone. The Minotaurs are back, the sarcophagus lids are back on. The loop does no damage.

We go back to the God Stone. We can get to Cherafir from here.

Next time will be Zytsi wedding.

42,000eps for everyone, and Daniel gets an extra 8,000eps.

100d per plus of item to fix item that needs fixing.