moi

Well, you got trooped off to Suzail, had to buy your own horses in order to become messengers, got a bit of money back when you reached Arabel and delivered the missives. You couldn't find Levi's folks, but you did find a place to hide the remains of the wand. The Priest and Paladin now have new abilities to play with and you were all just about to get to chat about them when you were unable to stop someone being murdered in front of you. At least you might be able to help the victim's daughter, if you can figure out the meaning of the map and the letter that he carried. . . .
So, you set off into the wilds following the map, encountering only a wild boar in the night. At the pre-determined location you came upon a great disk of stone lying flat and undisturbed. After some close scrutiny a central disk was discerned which did not yield to Dispel Magic or to Knock. However, with much prayer and meditation Levi determined that a Stone Shape spell may be able to remove the obstacle. This was duly achieved, although the volume of stone required numerous spells with a rest in between. Finally the circular iron trapdoor under the stone was revealed. With a mighty heave Levi managed to pull it open. A spiral stone staircase disappeared into the darkness below. With much trap checking the Mother's found themselves at the bottom of the stairs facing a short corridor ending in a door. This door was also checked but Gaspode failed to spot that the metal disk hanging on the hook on the door had explosive runes on the other side. Jito was the curious one who caused the small explosion. After passing through the door into the room beyond, three exits were noticed. One, decorated in stained glass seemed to be connected with Deneir, God of Glyphs and Images. The portal opposite them was closed. As all good Mother's do, they went left to the final door which was hanging ajar. The boring over-stuffed furniture could await further investigation when they returned. However, the wights would not wait. They burst malevolently from the two nearest doors with hate, hunger and evil dripping from their red rimmed eyes. But they could not withstand the power of Tyr and the faith of Levi as his proffered holy symbol forced them cowering back into their filthy dens. Two more closed doors can be seen along this passage, which continues on into the darkness.

You made it about 5 feet further along the passage (which seemed to turn to the right ahead) and stopped to examine the two doors, which were unlike those that you had previously seen. Both were sheathed in metal, the one to the north covered in various glyphs and sigils and bearing a large central lock, the one to the south adorned with a sculpture of a gryphon's head, which made you uneasy just looking at it. Fonesca examined the inscribed door carefully and was able to determine that some of the symbols represented the signature glyphs of various famous mages, Maximillian and Khelben Arunsun among them, others were letters from various alphabets and the rest were unknown to her. Levi determined that the straight route would not necessarily be the best one and so got the party back into the first large room with the dusty furniture so that he could regain some of the spells that he had cast. After a mere six hours the group had re-assembled to the left of the door and Levi had 'shaped' an oval opening in the wall. You could just make out some chests in the room as well as the arc of some sort of pattern on the floor. Jito conjured an unseen servant, but the disembodied force could not open the chests. Jito then stepped bravely through the gap, noticing for the first time the large form shimmering unmovingly within the circle in the centre of the room. He was much more interested in the eight chests and the large urn. Gaspode and Fonesca followed Jito in when they realised that they could squirm around the edges of the chamber and not touch the circle on the floor. It took Fonesca a bit of awkward bending to get herself inside. Gaspode checked all the chests for traps but found none, so he then picked all the locks on them. Fonesca withdrew. Jito's unseen servant opened all of the chests one by one, revealing one containing platinum pieces and one containing a robe while the rest had gold secreted inside. Once the robe was carefully ferried over to the waiting swag bag of Gaspode and dumped in, Jito noticed that there were other goodies in that chest. All of these were removed by the unseen servant and, untouched by any of the group, were divided amongst their various backpacks and sacks. The gold and platinum soon followed, though first it was shrunk by the sheet of smallness. This meticulous operation took some time, and when it was over the pair in the plate-mail were getting quite jumpy about the undead returning, and so the group decided to retire with their winnings. Just as they were leaving they were startled by an arrow ricocheting off the stone disk through which they were ascending. Their escape from the underground lair was blocked by four assailants, who were laughing amongst themselves merrily for having duped the party into doing their dirty work for them. For one of them, now clad in leather armour seemed to be the man that they saw killed not three days ago. Accompanying him was a woman wielding a long-sword and wearing chainmail who seemed to be the leader of the group, a dwarf in chain and hefting a hammer and finally a half-elven female armed with a mace. After ignoring the "offer" of the leader to give up all of their treasure, the mothers suddenly found themselves at the blast point of a fireball as the rest of the Puppet Masters advanced on them. In the melee, Levi's left hand was severed by the sword of the woman who lead the deceiving group, Jito was killed by one too many a hefty blow from the dwarf's hammer, and Fonesca nearly couldn't stand after being battered with magic missiles. But luckily, Gaspode and Guthranka dealt harshly with the half-elven mace wielder. Moving quickly to help the others once Gaspode had used the gem of true seeing to find out where the invisible magic user was, and Fonesca's bag of flour ensured that he could be seen without having the gem glued to an eye. Jito's confusion spell took the old man in the leather armour out of the conflict for the duration and seemingly strengthened by his maiming, Levi dispatched the leading lady. It took quite some time to bring the dwarf down, and only a last-minute magic missile from Fonesca stopped the sneaky magic user from fleeing. The old man was put to his final rest quickly. After taking stock and letting Guthranka lay hands on his stump, Levi prayed most fervently to Tyr and was rewarded after a rest and eight hours further meditation with the means to bring back Jito from the lands of the dead. Jito survived the ordeal but his body was weakened somewhat for ever more. After more minor cures were applied the group determined to head back to Arabel with all the gear they had gathered off the Puppet Masters (they knew their name after they had read their charter) including some fancy hand puppets of a Paladin and a Demon that Jito requisitioned for mementoes and seek a cure for Levi's hand as well as to determine what all of the gear they found could do.