We assumed that the Black Deaths, or should I call them suicidal maniacs, for all they seem to do is attack us and die, without ever killing any of us, must have come through Oldred, so we circled that fair city before picking up the road back to Rel Mord.  Hopefully we had eluded the second wave of attackers by doing this.  I was happy to note, though, that I was still not listed specifically on any of the wanted notices found on the Dead guys in Black.  So far anyone of them who'd seen me hadn't lived to tell about it.  Ironic that that was the exact reputation that they were supposed to have. 

I don't know if was the residual effects of having been poisoned twice, but some ill had taken hold of me, and I felt rather weak and lethargic the next day.  I could travel, but my energy and awareness were sapped.  As we wandered north on the road, we came across a tower that sat in plain view of the road, well more like smoldered ominously in plain sight of the road.  It looked like it had been involved in a short but failed siege with a red dragon, with blackened sections and gaping holes.  What was even more odd, is that none of us remembered seeing it there when we had come south. 

Ever the brave and fearless adventurers, well except for Trojan, who seems to cower from his own shadow as if it were going to come alive and throttle him, we went to investigate the strange building.  We wandered all over the place, pushing wreckage aside, and finding the occasional valuable trinket.  The place had that magely feel to it.  We also found a basement level that was still intact, which appeared to be a mages laboratory.  At some point Orion found a spell book of some mage, most likely the resident's spell book.  There was lots of good stuff, but I just didn't have the energy to fiddle around with much of it.  There was also a magical platform, with magical symbols all over it.  What it did was beyond me, then some idiot stepped on it, and disappeared.  I don't recall what order it went in, but everyone eventually stepped onto the platform and disappeared, and not wanting to be left out, I stepped onto the platform as well. 

We ended up being transported into a large cavern, complete with all the options, dark, gloom, dampness, you know, the Dwarven special.   Everyone was alive and safe.  We were in a "room" with only one way to go, so we headed out, and soon ran into a large group of dwarves, numbering 20 or more, I didn't count.  My head was pounding now, and Realtis looked like a frightened mouse being surrounded by cats.  He hates caverns more than I do it seems, quite a bit more I'd say. 

Well we talked to the dwarves, and it turns out that they had been hired to mine this end of a large chain of caverns by some wizard named Melkior.   The wizard had been the one who owned the well ventilated tower, and they gained access to the cavern via the platform, which the wizard used to send dwarves and supplies in.  Apparently the wizard could also bring people and materials back to the tower as well, but we had no idea of how that worked.  These caverns had once been a dwarven mine, until it got taken over by orcs many years ago.  However, the crooked teeth clan were living at the extreme opposite end of the massive cavern chain, and did not know of the recent occupation and mining operation of these dwarves.  Its a real shame that the back door was now inoperable, with the mage probably killed and dragged off to hell or something. 

The dwarves were going to run low on supplies soon, so it looked like the only way out was through the cave entrance, which as you've probably guessed by now, was on the other side of the orcs.  Had I been up to the task, I would have scouted ahead, but I wasn't, so I didn't.  What ended up happening is that we, our party and all the dwarves, who seemed more like fourty now, came to a part of the tunnel where there was a bridge over the typical bottomless gaping chasm.  At least it looked like that to me.  Everyone blindly made their way for the bridge when a hoard of stinking dung eaters, that's an orc for the unitiated of you, swarmed at us from all sides. 

I found somewhere to hide my weakened body, a wood pile fit the bill nicely, and launched arrows at all available targets.  Dullass decided to launch himself, at orcan archers, rather than a spell, and took several arrows before his head exploded spouting a gush of flames that wiped out a whole bunch of them.   I'd like to say his passing was sorrowful, but truth is, I never cared for the prick, well like they say, its better to burn out than fade away.  It went badly for the orcs, as expected, since I don't think they had a single orc who specialized in any of his weapons, too bad for them, they all died.  Too bad for us, a bunch of dwarves died as well.

We picked up the pieces and continued after some rest and healing.  Next stop, the towers of redemption.  We travelled quite a way without any more trouble, until we reached an area where the cavern opened into a vast opnenness.   A vast dark openness, for we couldn't see the ceiling or the other side of it, but it had the feeling of immenseness.  More orcs jumped us near the entrance to this giant cavern.  We killed them, and lost some more dwarves.  After that we moved forward and eventually spied out that we had to pass between 4 large towers that were armed with orcs and blocked our way. 

At this point great discussions were had as to what tactics would best work, I just lay on my side moaning, as although I was fit, my head pulsed like an orcish war drum.  Eventually the party members involved agreed that they would go their separate ways in hopes that sheer random movements would win the day.   Unfortunately they were out of ear shot when I got the energy up to yell "United we stand! Divided we fall!"  I dragged myself up and went after Refanij, who was the only living creature moving to the right of the towers. 

I followed him until we got near the towers, at which point I got pelted by arrows, so I crawled back and found a place to hide.  I sat in darkness for a while listening to the sounds of battle.  What little I saw wasn't good.  I was barely able to move, and the arrows had injured me sorely.  The sounds of battle and death raged on, then slowly disipated as triumphant orcish shouts arose.  Sometimes knowing their language is more of a curse than a value.  I was mightily afraid, for I feared that I was the only one of our party left alive. 

Desparate for something to do, I remembered the scroll which I had gotten from the pirate treasure.  I pulled it out and found the spell "Fly" on it.  This was my only chance, I could fly over the towers, maybe even high enough that no one could see me.  I cast the spell and took flight.   The cieling was high, and I passed over the towers, with them barely in sight.   As I went over the first, I saw a glowing object in the darkness at the base of one of them.  It had been near my last sighting of Refanij.  It looked clear, so I ducked down for a closer look.  I found the long nosed dagger thrower laying on the ground, his glowing magical dagger clutched in his hand.  I landed next to him and found that he was still alive, just barely, so I tied off his wounds and then took off with carrying his limp little body with me.  His nose made a very nice carrying handle.

We flew past the towers and into a smaller cavern.   After a little while, I could see light ahead.  Soon we were out of the caves and flying to freedom. I was elated to be free of the oppressive caverns, my skin still intact, I felt a great weight lift off me, figuratively anyway, as the heavy little gnome still dragged at my aching arms.  I flew high into the air and spotted a town far in the distance.  I took my unconscious little freind in that direction in hopes that I could find a healer before he passed on.  Luck would have it that botht he Fly spell and the gnome's constitution were able to hold out all the way to the town.

I got the little runt healed up, and we both figured that we were probably the only survivors from our group.  Rather grim, but it is better to be alive than dead.  We stayed over night, then decided to head back north to the area of the tower, to see if we could find our animals.  My horse had all the pirate treasure on her, fat chance that was still there now.  It turned out that the mines were several days south of Melkior's tower, so it would take us a while to get back there.   We did make the trip safely, but as expected, the horse was long gone, and so was the treasure.  Refanij was able to roust out his miniature bear type creature, and called out to T'RoJan'S pet mountain cat Zot.  The ferocious looking thing came bounding out from a copse of trees looking none the worse for wear.  I stayed clear of it, but REfanij seemed to be able to handle her allright.

We took the animals and went back to Rel Mord, hoping that someone of the group would make it back alive.  Not wanting to draw attention of the Black Deaths, we stayed at an Inn outside of the city, and snuck in a couple times to leave word at the Orse home, and get in touch with my contacts.  Almost a week had passed when we got word that our party had arrived in Rel Mord.  We caught up with them at the Orse home, to find out that Realtis had perished in the fight with the orcs, and that the party had been rescued by a dwarf showing superior battle skills and a half-orc defector that had saved Bran's life.  Just proves that Orcs never do anything right. 

The shortened story basically went like this:  While Refanij and I had headed off toward the right hand tower, the main battle group attacked and entered the tower to the left of our original position.   Realtis and almost all the remaining dwarves were killed  at this time, but the tower was achieved.  However, once inside there were too few survivors to do anything, so they decided to retreat before more orcs arrived.   (It was at about this time that I was flying Refanij out of the caves.)  Well more orcs did arrive and Bran was knocked out and captured, while Orion, Troj-enz, and Barta escaped.   The few remaining survivors ran all the way back to the relative safety of our original entering point.   They did a little recuperating and then went back and took out the orcs in small peices.    The battle was finally over, when the last remaining dwarf showed extreme courage by single-handedly defeating  the orc chieftan and his guards, while Orion, T'Rojan, and Barta ran screaming away in fright.  Somewhere in that mess, a half-orc had freed Bran and joined up with the rest of the party.  Now the orc and the dwarf were travelling with the rest of our party. 

Ref and I continued to lay low in our seedy tavern in the outskirts of Rel Mord, while the others finished recuperating at the Orse home.  I spent the days playing around with locks, learning how the things were made, I figured that knowing this would help me figure out how to pick'em.  Course a knock spell would do the trick to, but what self respecting thief would use magic to pick a lock.   Now that I think of it, I don't know any self respecting thieves, too bad I don't know that damn spell.  The nights I spent slugging back weak ales and avoiding the occasional outbreak of alcohol induced violence, and depending upon my mood would occasionaly grace one of the local ladies with the warmth of my companionship.