What Lurks Beneath
	Running Quest Log
	2010 What Lurks Beneath
	2009 What Lurks Beneath
	Queen of Hearts
	1995 Questing in Rhiassa

What Lurks Beneath 2009
Main Quest Log

November 14th, 1009:

Adventurers from far and wide gathered in Rhiassa, meeting up in the root cellar of a Rhiassan storehouse, a known link in some sort of underground network that had been exploited by local trolls and goblins. Large excursions arrived from many nations. Chimeron, Eagle's Rook, Arenor, and Grimloch to name but a few. As they were about to be led into the caverns by the Rhiassans that met them, another attack by monsters on the other side of the city called the Rhiassans away. As the remaining heroes entered the underground, tremors sealed shut the entrance that they used. They were cut off.

The heroes fought through a system of cellars, sewers, secret tunnels, and catacombs. Along the way they encountered goblins and trolls wearing matching heraldry and using a clear chain of command. Something organized and sinister was happening beneath the streets of Cold Springs.

As they crept further into the depths, the heroes realized they were being summoned away in small groups to an unknown part of the Rhiassan underground. There they found their way to a strange library, where the trapped denizens had been transformed into puppets and a whimsical child's ghost gave them access to tools they would need to be successful that day. The first few groups of adventurers were to receive oddly magical didgeridoos.

Fighting still further into the dark, the heroes encountered strange turtle-like creatures that were aiding the trolls. They soon came to a cobbled together underground fortress, and had to force their way inside past powerful shaman calling on some strange unknown force. Soon having felled the entrance to the fortress, the heroes closely examined the slain shaman and found they were covered with runes which honored a great, one eyed master of some kind.

Struggling through the interior of the fortress, the heroes soon came to a herculean form. A great troll champion who shrugged off their blows stood between them and the way forward. Nearby, held safe by strange swirling energies of warding, three shaman played haunting music on didgeridoos, no doubt enchanting the champion in some way.

The key to unworking the magic was written on the back of the champion, and the hereos were able to use their own didgeridoos to cancel the protective energies of the shaman. The champion was rendered vulnerable to their blows and was soon struck down. Meanwhile, the library still called to the heroes and then began to give them fragments of a shattered book.

Moving further into the underground, the stamina and the magics of the heroes began to wane. After many grueling fights, they finally found themselves in an underground cavern filled with stone pillars. In the center of this cavern was an old shaman, secure in a powerful circle of protection that no one could penetrate, deep in a trance. As the heroes studied this venerable troll, countless numbers of his kin soon burst forth from the living stone itself. Somehow the magics woven by the shaman gave his protectors the ability to merge in and out of the stone at will.

As many of the heroes fought these waves of trolls, others snuck about the cavern to find some mysterious chests that seemed enchanted by an unknown benevolent force. After placing the shards of the shattered book in the chests, it became whole and could be opened to an ancient, lost spell of great disenchanting power. Powerful spellcasters amongst the heroes followed the direction of the book and surrounded the old shaman's circle of protection. With but a short phrase, the protective energies of the circle, and the conduit through which trolls were entering through stone, were both broken.

As the swords of the heroes bit into the flesh of the shaman, he cried upon his death... "Brother I am Slain!". In that moment, bursting through a wall in the side of the cavern, rushed the Troll Champion, alive again through the enhanced magical abilities of his brother and instantly summoned to his side. In a final, desperate struggle, the heroes subdued him again just as the Rhiassan rescue party were able to close on their location and lead them out of the caverns.