Upon returning to the town, Targus, Edvin, Grendal and Augusto met up with Nils, who had just arrived in Torch. At some point, Nils had joined up with a traveling companion, a strange fellow named Fact. He is an alchemist with elaborate tattoos over his body.
After healing and rest, the party was ready to return to the Black Hill caves. The leader of the skulks had mentioned a purple-haired woman who had passed through the caves a couple of weeks ago and had continued on through the gremlin warren. The party returned to the warren and found a large door made of glaucite, a strange alloy common to the ancient ruins throughout Numeria. Despite their best efforts, the party was unable to open the door. Returning to the skulk chamber, they were directed to another glaucite door which was easier to breach. Passing through, they entered a very different sort of passage. The walls were glaucite, rather than natural stone. They passed through a series of metal doors and small rooms and fought a brief battle with an automaton like the one Khonnir Baine brought back from his first expedition.
Eventually, the party came to a large chamber with natural stone walls, a sandy floor and a glaucite domed ceiling. It appeared to be some artificial structure made to appear natural. The sand floor revealed tracks which Nils was able to follow. As they crossed the open terrain, they were beset by a group of four-armed skeletons. The party handled the skeletons with little difficulty. Feeling confident, they continued on until they came to a cave on the other side of the chamber. There was illumination in the cave entrance, but they could not immediately locate the source. After some searching, they determined that there was a glaucite door in the back of the cave that was obscured by an illusionary wall. The door was slightly ajar and there was illumination inside. Continuing on, the party came to a room with a lot of equipment, flashing lights, buttons and switches. They spent a considerable amount of time attempting to understand everything they saw. Eventually they were able to make some sense of it and realized it was a control centre for the structure. With some further experimentation, they were able to power up the habitat. The ceiling of the large chamber lit up, revealing an alien sky. Also, many of the de-powered door locks became active. The party then continued on to another chamber and it was there that fate dealt a cruel blow. Inside the room was a juju zombie, a potent foe to be sure. Like the skeletons before, it had four arms and it wielded two swords. A long and deadly battle followed. The juju zombie proved very difficult to fight. It enjoyed immunity to many magical attacks and even weapons seemed to do less damage than one would expect. Men would fall, the party would retreat. They would advance to rescue fallen comrades, only to see others fall. Eventually, Augusto and Edvin were the only ones left standing and they came up with a desperate plan. They had lured the juju zombie out of the room and they planned to run past it and seal the door behind them, leaving the monster outside while they recovered inside. Augusto went first. The juju zombie swung one of its swords, but Augusto was able to dodge successfully. Edvin then ran through, hoping the juju zombie would be unable to recover in time to take a second attack. Sadly, the juju zombie was not caught off guard. It swung low and caught Edvin through the chest. He went down, bleeding badly. With great regret, Augusto was forced to slam the door shut and seal it tight, leaving Edvin to his fate.
The party locked themselves in for a few days. As various party members recovered, they were able to administer aid to the rest. When they were all once again in fighting shape, they emerged. Edvin's remains lay where he fell. They gathered his body and headed back to the caves. As they walked through the now illuminated habitat, they encountered the juju zombie once again along with the reformed skeletons they had fought earlier. The juju zombie was still damaged from the previous battle and they were better prepared. Vengeance was swift and merciless. The undead horrors were put to rest for good. With sadness, they headed back to Torch.
-Rognar-
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