• The battle with the otyughs and carrion crawlers continues. It is a long fight, and at one point Lenk succumbs to the nashing teeth and flailing tentacles of the otyughs, falling into the muck.
• Khalsig rouses the half-orc, and Firrian and Laeryth finish the creatures off.
• Deciding to take a moment during a short rest to search through the muck, Laeryth discovers a body. A portly gentleman, seemingly well-off before his demise, lays in a pile of filth, his legs eaten. In attire suitable for a merchant, his pockets are empty. However, in the muck under the corpse, Laeryth discovers a letter. It is barely readable, but the following can still be made out.

M. Lugo, it is my hope that our business can proceed as planned. After you have obtained what we have asked for, you can inquire as to my whereabouts at the Jester’s Horse.

• The party continues exploring the sewers, finally making their way north through the winding passages. Up ahead, the path is blocked by a wall of boxes, apparently stacked in haste. Sneaking up to the crates, Laeyrth peers through a crack and sees a small cadre of orcs apparently attempting to construct some shabby form of shelter out of old boxes and wood scraps. On the far side of the sewer chamber a large orc with a barbed spear issues orders from atop a stack of boxes.
• Wasting no time, Lenk charges through the wall of boxes. He is quickly surrounded by spear-wielding orcs.
• An orc priest, hiding from view, began weakening the party with curses and violent earth magic, drawing Laeryth’s ire. The elf declared his undying hatred for the priest and quickly engaged him.
• The battle raged on, and the fast-moving harriers could not reach the priest before it fell to the Avenger’s blade. The large orc Champion was taking Lenk apart with his blood-letting spear, and Firrian and Khalsig were doing all they could to keep the half-orc upright while fending off the spears of the harriers.
• As the battle progressed, a violent scrum was forming in the center of the chamber, as Lenk, Firrian, and Laeryth battle for positions of advantage and the party of orcs did the same. Eventually the skill of the party was too much for the orcs, and the party outlasted them.
• Weak but still standing, the party stands in a large sewer chamber, surrounding by the splintered remains of the orcs defensive structures, and covered in blood. The orc champion, currently unconcious on the floor from Lenk’s final blow, begins to stir…

• With the Ankheg diversion out of the way, the party decides to investigate the levers once and for all.
• Lenk turns the lever in the southern room, and the party heads to the room with the strange iron wheels.
• Alhambra runs to the room of the Gnoll Chieftan, and pulls the lever.
• Immediately, water begins flooding the floor from the far eastern chamber. Alhambra tries to run to the party, but Lenk has already barricaded the door. The bard opts to stay in the entry chamber, hoping that any flooding will simply lift him up the chasm.
• As water floods the level of the keep, Lenk holds the door as the pressure builds. Laeryth, Firrian, and Khalsig each grab one of the iron wheels and begin spinning. With each full rotation, a loud metallic clang can be heard beneath the stone at their feet.
• As water begins to trickle through seams in the wooden door, Lenk struggles to hold it closed. As each wheel is turned three times, a fourth wheel is further exposed, until finally it can be turned. Khalsig quickly rotates it, and at the last moment it clangs into place.
• A section of the stone wall opens to the west, revealing stairs down. The water in the hallway beyond the door begins to recede, and soon Alhambra rejoins the party.
• They make their way down the stairs. As they cross the small chamber below, a trap is triggered and Green Slime drops from the ceiling onto Laeryth’s head!
• A second slime falls, and Firrian discovers the source of the trap and sets about disabling it while the party fights off the slimes.
• A few acid burns later, the trap is disabled, the slimes destroyed, and it is safe to move on.
• To the east, a door, but it feels charged with electricity, and is painful to the touch. To the north, the statue of a human male, a Paladin by the looks of him, stands guard but seems to be missing a sword.
• The party heads west, and in what seems like the mess hall is strewn with skeletons and the signs of fighting. As they attempt to cross the room, the skeletons rise up and attack them, but they are no match for the party, who quickly dismantles them.
• South from the mess hall, the party finds a strange hallway. The walls are pockmarked with holes, and at the end a strange door. Thick wood, reinforced with iron, and at the center a large lock. However, there seem to be no pins inside for a key to function properly. After a cursory glance around the hallway, the party decides to leave this one for later.

• Continue to fight the undead gnolls, and eventually succeed.
• Find another strange level in the large room.
• Find a secret door behind a tapestry, next to the lever, and open it. There appears to be a hidden study here, and the group finds a note on one of the tables that is still legible.
• The party decides to explore a tunnel that has been dug out of the earth before messing with the levers, and before long they find themselves surrounded by ankhegs.
• Fighting off the ant-like beasts leads them further down a series of tunnels, where they find the ankheg Queen standing guard over her eggs. After a brief deliberation, they decide to clear the Keep of the ankheg infestation.
• The Queen is a worthy opponent, but no match for the party. While destroying the eggs, they find a diamond and a magic helm amidst the bones of the Queen’s prior victims.

• The party charges a group of Gnolls who have begun building fortifications inside the Keep, buried 200 feet under the earth.
• As soon as the party appears in the hallway, several Gnolls seem to disappear up a ladder.
• Lenk quickly draws the attention of a group of spear-wielding Enforcers, while Firrian and Laeryth circle around to deal with the Packrunners and Hunters yapping at the Half-Orcs flanks.
• Several Hunters have taken up positions on the wooden scaffolding around the room, and Firrian quickly moves leaps to the top to join them. Using the idol found on the Priest on the surface, Firrian summons a large Mastiff to help him get a deadly blow at the Hunter’s side while he fends off the dog’s jaws.
• Alhambra and Khalsig bring up the rear, where the Gnolls who disappeared in the east chamber suddenly scurry down the darkened stairwell just behind them. One of the Packrunners tries to slide past Alhambra, but the bard thwacks its brains in with a quick swing of his longbow. The other gnolls slink back up the stairs.
• The party swarms the Enforcers and Hunters, felling them quickly, but not before the Gnolls hiding in the staircase run back through the entrance room and through the northern door. Lenk bars the door, and the group searches the chamber.
• Behind a large pile of wood the Gnolls were using for construction they find a strange stone with a metal handle sticking out from the wall. Alhambra rushes in, grabs the handle and pulls, but the stone does not budge. Leaning into it, the stone depresses into the wall. Immediately the sound of ancient gears creaking back to life rumbles through the keep walls, until a loud metallic BANG from somewhere deep within the keep to the south.
• After a short rest, the party decides to head back through the north door. Down a winding hallway, the party stop when they can hear the barking and whining of more dog men. They are quickly greeted. “Come on out, we can smell you from here.”. Laeryth is happy to oblige.
• Rounding the corner, they are greeted with an odd sight. On a makeshift wooden throne in the corner of the room, a large gnoll in a fancy coat sits, right hand clenching a giant spear, left hand dipping a mug into a barrel of ale. A large cast iron cauldron sits on a pile of burning logs, bubbling with some foul smelling stew. North, a priest of Yeenoghu paints more symbols in blood, another dead priest of Ioun at his feet. Two more priests are tied up and unconscious next to him.
• Laeryth charges the room, kicking over the cauldron and covering a Gnoll with boiling hot soup. Spinning around the fire, he plunges his fullblade into the seared Gnoll.
• The large gnoll stays in the back, trying to stab from afar with his spear, but it doesn’t take long to realize that they are outmatched. Sensing the end, the priest, points his dagger at the priests and threatens the players to drop their weapons. Before he can carry out his threat, Firrian fey steps next to the gnoll and skewers him with his dagger.
• Upon searching the room, they find another stone block with a handle, but this time Alhambra is too distracted by the Gnoll leader’s fancy coat to push the mechanism. Lenk councils patience – they should try and discover what exactly the stones are for before disturbing them further.
• They awake the priests. Khalsig administers a few healing words to them, and soon they are able to speak. Apparently the High Priest of Ioun perished in the earthquake, falling into the chasm as the earth was rent apart. If he had any knowledge of a Keep buried deep in the earth under the temple, he had not passed that on before his death. The Gnoll leader ordered the southern door barricaded when a scouting party came back as some form of ravenous Undead.
• The party heads back to the first chamber, and Lenk removes the boards from the southern door. Laeryth begins scouting ahead, and upon reaching a fork in the hallway, he turns to look. His fullblade scrapes across the stone floor, and within seconds a door to the east bursts open and four Gnolls charge him. They have been dead for a few days at least.
• Lenk charges in, and Firrian fey steps past them, but the fight is in a cramped hallway and the fighting is difficult. Firrian finds himself surrounded, and before the others can help him, he falls unconcious under the claws and fangs of the undead gnolls.
• Khalsig calls down a Healing Word upon the Eladrin, and Laeryth slides in between the undead and the fallen rogue before they can fell him, but the party is now split in half and several undead remain…