The party, having just fled an avalanche of rock and debris down the southern hall, decides to explore the hallway to the north. Finding mostly dust and debris from rotting and crumbling furniture in various rooms, they do find seven very nice emeralds.

Continuing their exploration they find evidence of a secret door on the left (west) side of the hall. Having learned that westward facing doors tend to have massive quantities of rock and rubble behind them poised and ready to tumble down upon whomever tries to open that door, our female elf volunteers to be "tied up". Put somewhat more clearly, she offers to be tied to the end of a rope while she attempts to open the secred door. At least that way the party has some chance of recovering her crushed remains for an attempt at resurrection, or, more likely, a funeral.

The door is opened without major incident and behind the door, only a few feet from the door, lies a mountain of rubble and rock. Just at the edge of rock and collapsed stone of the building, the leg bones of someone mostly burried beneath the rocks. A search turns up a little bit of gold, and an odd staff of conspicuously sophisticated workmanship. Matt decides to carry the staff until the group decides what to do with it.

Completing their exploration of the building the group find three lesser examples of Everfull Mugs. They exit the building to what once had been a street, but is now a maze of boulders, partially collapsed stone walls, and fragments of demolished buildings. After exploring the mazework of debris, the group finds an entire building apparently undamaged as though it were protected by some invisible field that stopped all rocks and stones from approaching any closer to the structure than a couple dozen yards. The boulders did, however, fall close enough to damage one of two stone sentinels. The single undamaged sentinel was quite sufficient to prevent the party from approaching the building.

In one of their many attempts to make it past the sentinel, the party took an "Oath of Friendship" with one another. This made no difference to the stone sentinel. The party still could not pass, but it may not have gone unnoticed by the gods. Such things as oaths are not taken lightly by gods.

In yet another of their attempts, Tomber thought the staff they had found earlier, now being carried by Matt, might somehow be helpful. Tomber decides that he, as the owner of the staff, might be able to have some affect upon the sentinel. Tomber asks Matt for the staff in such a way that Matt understands Tomber wants the staff as his own and Matt willingly gives it to him.

Two very interesting things happen then. First, Tomber feels a serious drain of his life force. He feels markedly diminished in his abilities. [The price of taking ownership of this staff drained Tomber of xxx XP.] Except to observe the color momentarily drain from his face, the other party members would have notice nothing of this. What all would have noticed is that the staff, originally slightly taller than a man, suddenly shrunk to a size that was perfectly comfortable for Tomber to use.
[I know. I forgot to mention this latter point during the game.]

After regaining his composure, Tomber tries to use the staff to get past the stone sentinel... unsuccessfully.

Retracing their steps, the party returns to the avalance of rock they had fled earlier that day and found that, with considerable difficulty, the rockfall was possible to climb. Out the western door the troup followed a gradually upward slope until they found themselves on the outside of a horizontal cylindrical stone wall. Breaking through the stone they find themselves once again in the sewers of Ashtakahr. Marking their way on the stone walls with chalk, they find their way once again to the surface and emerge in the street drain on a minor side street.

Making their way to the nearest (northeast) gate, Perla observes notices posted that praise a certain City Guardsman (one Sgt. Kafilorn Walfren) for his heroism in single-handedly killing a band of criminals who had slain several other guardsmen. The subtext of the notice says the criminals were being arrested for transporting a dangerous animal (a giant three-headed dog, according to witnesses) when they surprised the guardsmen killing at least three, then fled into the sewers. Sgt. Walfren, outraged at the murder of his dear friends and fellow guardsmen, persued the criminals into the sewers where he chased them down and slew them one after the other.

When the party arrives at the northeast gate, they observe Walfren himself receiving praise and accolades from other guards. Slipping past unnoticed, the group present their letter from Battlemaster Glen and exit the city.
[For making it out of Ashtakahr, all PCs receive xxx XP.]

Though it is late and the shadows grow long as the sun sets in the west, our troup press on to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the city of Ashtakahr. Out of the glare of the lowering sun our heroes are fired upon by a barrage of arrows taking numerous hits. Their assailants are well hidden by the sun's glare and the dunes of sand. A glimpse of two or three gave the impression that they are roughly man-sized reptillians of some sort, though they could see little more than a silhouette in the sun's harsh glare.

Is this the end of our brave adventurers? Has destiny claimed them so soon after arriving upon Daeoria?
Tune in next time to see if everybody has to roll up new characters and try again.