A CLOSE RUN THING!

 The battle raged for some time and our heroes were hard pressed to defeat this group of enemies, the Umber Hulks particularly were hard to stop, the heroes had learned to avoid looking directly at them, and this knowledge certainly saved the day, trading precision of attack for immunity to the confusing gaze of the huge monsters.

 Some heroes were sore wounded before the battle ended, the enemy archer traded shots with Andrena but in the end the Elven markswoman bettered the Ronin, (for it turned out the enemy was such). Thraug stood his ground and fought the terrifying monsters toe to toe! Both surviving Neogi tried to flee, one was cut down and for a moment it seemed the other would escape but Flint pursued in the Turtle ship and eventually the crew shot the beast with the vessel's armaments.

 Frost cast his divine magic to aid the party, Arken smote with with his great sword and thus the tide of battle turned in the parties favour.

             NEOGI PURSUED BY TURTLE:

Aftermath

 The party regrouped and began to sift through the wrecked Spidership, inside they found a horrific discovery, the craft was powered by a fiendish device which sucks the life from the unfortunate wretches locked in a cage in the helm room!!!

 The most recent victim was still alive and with a little care they managed to save his life, he introduced himself as Okan Kimi Special Envoy from the Empire of Kirshim, and he immediately asked them to help him rid these lands of the curse that has befallen them. The party were not averse to such a course of action, Mr Kimi's equipment was rescued from the hold of the ship and he clad himself in his armour making ready to help the party finish their task. And they all set off back to the Ziggurat.

                                                  DRESSED FOR REVENGE!

                                              

ASTONISHING VICTORY FOR NEWBIE PILOT!

 A STRICKEN SPIDERSHIP! 

Our heroes quickly loaded their companions onto the newly acquired Turtleship and Flint lifted it once more using all his magical energy, but the fearsome and huge Spidership was almost upon them! It quickly became clear that they would not be able to escape and then the carapace rolled back to reveal the massed heavy weapons that the awful leviathan was sporting!

  There followed some exchanges of shots with neither side really gaining much advantage, the Spidercraft headed to cut their retreat off, maybe to attempt to send their horrible Umber Hulks to board and then Flint made the seemingly insane decision to turn towards the enemy and attempt a ram attack!

He furrowed his brow and gritted his teeth and drove the turtle forward and KERBOOM! The turtle's heavy metal head made contact with the spider with devastating effect. The whole enemy vessel shuddered and simply fell out of the sky crashing to Coe with a huge BOOM as it hit the ground.

 The heroes quickly followed it down and exited their ship to launch an attack on the survivors of the crash. The survivors for the most part came out fighting although the Neogi were clearly intent on escaping and just leaving their Umber Hulks and erstwhile Drow allies to fight for their lives, one half elf also survived the crash and while Thraug charged directly at the Umber Hulks Andrena targeted him with her deadly bowshots. And this is when, for the first time she received return of fire just as deadly as her own as the man wielded his own asymmetrical  longbow in response to her shots, his aim was as almost as good as hers. 

AUDACIOUS RAID ON THE ENEMY BASE!!

                                    Unlikely Stealth Agent!

After a great deal of intensive planning the group decided to send 2 invisible members to get into the ziggurat and see what mayhem they could cause, they settled on the half-orc and the dwarf on the basis of ability to fight their way out if discovered.

  The pair quickly made it to the edifice and made their way to the top, from where they began to work their way back down on the side. Despite the redoubled guard outside the situation within was much less stringently patrolled. Had the enemy once again underestimated the heroes of Coe?

 The only shaky moment was when they almost bumped into a Neogi in one of the gloomy corridors of the intermediate level. But they managed to avoid detection and soon followed it down to the lower level where they found yet another strange craft, this one resembling a turtle, in the centre of a large area, it was clear that this ship was being loaded and they even observed an Umber Hulk carrying a cage with two captives in it onto the craft.

  Taking their moment as it came they sneaked onto the turtle via the ramp at its stern, once inside they were amazed to find the vessel kitted out for carrying a lot of cargo, slaves or otherwise, still debating how best to create the diversion that might allow their comrades to storm the entrance they found the heart of the vessel, a large ornate throne like seat with sculpted armrests each of which was adorned with a midnight blue globe, the entire chamber literally vibrated with residual magic...

 After a moment's hesitation Flint bravely sat in the seat. Instantly he felt connected with the vessel, his very being extended to include all of the craft's extremities into his senses. He was elated and perhaps a little premature but he moved the ship as if he was moving himself and they immediately and unanimously decided to simply steal the vessel right there and then.

 The first attempt to bring the ship out through the empty core of the ziggurat met with a resounding CRASH! And masonry fell to the ground after the ship hit the structure, but Flint quickly compensated and guided the ship out and into the open air. 

 The stunned enemy inside the building needed a moment to react but were able to use their communication mirrors to alert the huge spider ship that was patrolling outside. However this delay gave our heroes a little time to get ahead and try to pick up their comrades.

 

                                   EXIT TURTLE PURSUED BY SPIDER!

The Battle for the Ziggurat Begins!

               HEIGHTENED ACTIVITY

Getting close to the Ziggurat also meant getting close to danger, a first skirmish with the guardians led the party to seek refuge in a nearby ruin, hoping to remain there undiscovered, but they had been seen...

 Before long a large force of bandits seemingly led by one of the 1/2 orc clerics and a Minotaur headed directly for their hiding place, at the same time one of the Neogi accompanied by a terrifying hulk also approached but kept a safe distance hiding behind a rock.

 It seems the foe are still not aware of Hugin the crow and his ability to spy for the group!

 Through a crack in the rubble they were also able to see that a horrible Spider ship was also in the area. The enemy formed into two groups one to each side of the only entrance to the ruin perhaps hoping to minimise the deadly effectiveness of Andrena's archery. A forlorn hope as it turned out.

 Even as the party were finalising their plans Flint seemingly possessed of some ancient racial insanity just ran out on his stout legs and attacked the Minotaur directly!! 

 At the same moment the Hulk left the Neogi and headed for the side of the ruin, then all hell broke loose, Arrows flew with the usual mixture of deadly accuracy and alarming mishap that seems to be Andrena's trademark, Flint and the Minotaur clashed, Thraug dashed out to support his ally, Arken began weaving his battle magics and Frost sought the favour of Tyr to grant power and protection to his allies...

                                                                                              A TERRIFYING HULK

 The enemy cleric tried to use powerful forces against Flint and Thraug, the Minotaur struck and missed, arrows whizzed and disrupted the cleric's power and the deafening clash of metal range out briefly, after the initial onslaught the party seemed to clearly have the upper hand,  however as the Hulk arrived a deadly duel ensued between it and Arken and only his ability to keep a clear head when facing the terrifying monster and the timely intervention of Frost and his warhammer imbued with divine magic saved the day!

 What was left was just mopping up, the Neogi had fled the scene and now in the midst of battle remains the heroes began to consider how they would deal with the Ziggurat...

                        A TRADITIONAL ENCOUNTER!

The jungle trek continued, and after a day or so they came upon a place where a road crossed the river they were following, the river was clearly heading into a ravine, the party decided to avoid going under the bridge and instead head to the road and cross there.

                                        A Perfectly Normal Bridge!

It turned out to be not quite so normal in the end though! No sooner had they reached the road when they met with a Troll. At first they tried to negotiate with him, but it turned out that his apparent willingness to talk was only buying time for his 3 companions to arrive. The fight was short and due to the expeditious addition of fire to some attacks the monsters were overcome.

Moving on from here and following a goat track near the lip of the deepening ravine they spotted what seemed to be Deer watching them on the other side of the chasm. Imagine the surprise when said deer suddenly unfurled wings and began to swoop down on the adventurers, relentlessly they attacked goring with their antlers and biting at the hapless friends, Frost was rendered unconscious before the party managed to vanquish the strange creatures.

Finally emerging to the edge of a cliff they saw the vale laid out before them with the pyramid/ziggurat in the middle and then they noticed what they first imagined to be gigantic flying spider! which they eventually understood was a flying craft of some sort that had been fashioned to look like a spider. 

A HUGE FLYING SPIDER!

Noticing that the device was flying in a search pattern they made their way carefully into the Vale and on to the Western village, where Flint made good contact with the Dewmen who agreed to assist the party on their journey, despite thinking it to be a great folly! And so the group found themselves on the road to the Ziggurat...

LARGE HUMANOID HIPPOS!

The party eventually went to the village after meeting some of the locals and discovering that they are in fact descendants of the legendary Dweemer! There was an explorer from the Dwarven strongholds amongst the Dewmen they met and he elected to join with the party to find out what exactly is going on here.

    At the village the hippos or "Giff" as they are known seemed likely to accept a bribe to allow the party to pass by however a kind of warrior rivalry sprang up between Thraug and their leader. In the end a duel was agreed on!

 The two closed warily, the Giff drew the strange bent tube from his belt and pointed it at  Thraug, there followed a very loud bang and huge cloud of stinking black smoke erupted from the device (apparently called a pistol). However Thraug was not harmed nor deterred and with the wicked Urglen's Four raised high he lunged at the huge creature, what followed as brief as it was bloody, in just a few seconds the axe sliced through the hapless beast's neck and its hippo head fell to the floor with a thud.

  The remaining hippos simply melted away! The dwarven explorer , Flint picked up the strange tube weapon and after some experimentation he seemed confident enough to try to use it, pointing it away from anyone he took a breath and activated it, there was a huge bang and the usual cloud of smoke and sparks and Flint went flying backwards and landed with a thud on his backside!!
  After a discussion with the villagers the party headed to the Giff's office only to find they had fled, leaving little behind. They decided to chase down the other Giff which they managed in short order and another brief but violent encounter took place, the remaining Giff being taken care of the group decided to avoid the roads and traverse the jungle. Taking with them a strange mirrorlike device  that they understood was a means of communication.

                                                         THE JUNGLE

 As soon almost as they set off the strange device began to make odd noises when they looked at it they first of all saw a Giff asking Thraug where the sergeant was and then  a truly horrific creature that said in common and with a nasty rasping hissing voice: "We will find you!"

                                                   "We will Find You!"

    It was decided to leave the mirror behind, in case it was able to track them, After half a day of picking through narrow jungle tracks all expertly located by Andrena with a little help from Thraug they came upon their first encounter in the green hell.

  Serpopards are vile leopard/serpents that are voracious predators, and as the group quickly learned they can spray a vile smelling poison out of their anal glands.  This fight went on for a while before the monsters were defeated and the party had a chance to wash the vileness off their clothes and their bodies.

  Continuing in the jungle and having decided to try to navigate by the rivers they could place from their mental images of the vale as well as Hugin's invaluable aerial reconnaissances the party were once more assaulted the next day, this time by two huge white furred apes! These fiends attacked with terrible ferocity and were not at all dismayed when Flint used the long tubelike weapon he had taken from the Giff, however the shot went wild in any case and a desperate fight ensued, during which the monsters seemed to try to focus their energies on anyone they saw using magic. Poor Flint made a terrible blunder and actually spiked himself in the foot with his pick this and other mishaps aside the group eventually overcame the apes. Bloodied and perhaps a little more cautiously they continued to head towards the pyramid.

Venturing Forth

                               Beyond Fort Galandar  

Just as the party sets out to explore the valley further their lieutenant calls after them and brings them a slightly worn down figure, someone they had found in the roads who it turns out is someone on a similar mission, to bring good back to Mas Medina and the lake!

 Enter Arken a holy warrior in service to the Maimed God Tyr!

  Introductions made they decided to unite forces and head into the vale, what a different landscape to Mas Medina! Oppressive heat yes but now with lush vegetation pressing on both sides of the track, a track that was once a pretty grand paved road but now rotting away and almost overgrown in parts. 

                 YELLOW SHRUBS AND THEIR THRALLS:    

 The heat increased as they descended and the vegetation became more and more luxuriant, then suddenly two shrubs, one on either side of the road, puffed yellow clouds of dust into the air and Andrena and Thraug were completely overcome by the effects and just wandered over to their creepers!

 The battle started badly but Frost and Arken fought back Arken wielding his greatsword to good effect and tinged as it was magical fire it seemed to hurt the creeper more deeply!

 But now the thralls of the thing shambled out of the undergrowth, 5 of them, soon followed by another 5! and began to attack the party, the fight was long and although the zombies were neither fast nor powerful they were many and the creepers themselves also fought with lashing tendrils, however the party defeated this horrible enemy finally and after judiciously applying flames to the creepers ensured they were truly destroyed.

 As they were about to leave the area Thraug spotted something in the undergrowth close by one of the creepers and with a bit of a struggle extracted the treasures some other hapless adventurer had lost there.

 A well forged orcish war axe with decorated with symbols and a beautifully well formed Longbow of High Elf manufacture, probably from Kirshim.

 After a rest it was a much more cautious party that set forth once more, and before long they came to a vantage point from where they could see the first village and sending Arkan's raven to spy they learned of the presence of strangely short humans with thickset bodies and heavy facial hair but also four huge humanoid hippopotamus like beings that were clearly sentient and warlike, possibly even soldiers or mercenaries...