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29th May 2013
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4th September 2013

4th September 2013
As the party arrive at Court Farm it is quite clear that something in wrong - the gates are barred! Some vigorous knocking succeeds in only getting a response from a young girl who quickly runs to her father in some distress. A polite enquiry by Mardram reveals that a serious situation has occurred. Mrs Court has been trapped in the basement by several beasts of unknown origin. With no knowledge of their foes, the party spend a few minutes preparing themselves with various spells, much to the agitation of Mr Court.

Cautiously they enter the basement, its darkness only alleviated by a overturned lamp burning in the corner. The dim flickering light reveals a couple of fiendish looking brutes prowling the room.

Insert Fight sequence here...

The last beast flees underground only surfacing briefly to take a swipe at Mary

With the last beast hiding, Linden and Mardram are able to locate the trapped Mrs Court in a sub basement. As they try to get her to follow them to the surface, the last wolverine burst through the wall almost collapsing the stairwell An awkward battle ensues, destabilising the walls further. The creature finally dies and with a bit of bracing of walls, Mrs Court and Linden escape, barely!

Unfortunately the Courts life savings are now buried under several tons of earth.

With everyone safe, talk turns to how to retreive the Courts buried safe. With a little scratching of heads Andrei comes up with a plan to use one of Mardrams Summoned Earth Elementals to safely dig down Following a quick batch of instructions from Linden the elemental vanishes through the nearest wall only to emerge a few moments later trailing the slightly dented safe behind it.

With the safe now... safe Mardram examines the corpses and get mary to skin them resulting in 2 hides (500gp, 1500gp) and a variety of dagger sized claws and teeth

Mr Court then takes them on a tour of the stables and offers them a good deal on some fine, fine horses (4000gp for 5)

One more door in the stable remains and Mr Court takes them through to see nothing less than a young Hippogryff! The beast was found in the mountains, alongside the corpse of its mother and Mr Court is trying to rear it himself.

18th September 2013
The party awake the next day refreshed and ready to go. Mr Court chances his arm and asks if they could investigate the hole in his basement created by the monsters.
Always interested in a mystery, the group gather themselves together and venture into the darkness.
Upon entering Mardram recalls that he has an Ioun Torch in his pack and fishes it out. The head-orbiting device provides bright but flickering illumination as a result of its turning motion.

With no knowledge of what could be ahead of them, they travel slowly with frequent stop to listen for movement of voices, but the only sounds are of water dripping and running down the walls.
As the passage turns a bend, its ceiling takes an abrupt dip, forcing all but the diminutive Mardram onto their knees. Linden finally has enough of the flickering torch light and gets out his oil lamp which he hand to Mardram - the only party member still walking upright.

The passage gets wetter the further they travel until suddenly Mary kicks a wall and water comes pouring out.
She slips but Mardram quickly manages to grab her leg and prevent disaster. Linden however was not so fortunate and barrels into both of them sending everyone sliding uncontrollably down the slope!

The tunnel branches and it looked like they would be split up, but everyone headed the same way, coming to rest a few seconds later in the darkness. Lindens lamp is nowhere to be seen but although coated in dirt, Mardrams torch provides dim lighting.

As they take inventory of their situation, out of the darkness comes an almost invisible, oozing blob...

Mary gets to her feet, while Mardram hoping to block the monster in the narrow tunnel summons some help in the form of two small Earth Elementals.
Lindens lets off a few offensive spells while Mary shoots it and the creature is soon dispensed.

With everyone safe again Linden manages to find the remains of his lamp which he believes he can get back in working order, and they decide to investigate the other tunnel.

A few minutes later they find that the tunnel leads into a stone room featuring a raised dais on which is drawn an obviously magical symbol.
The dais is littered with broken glass which with a little investigation could only have come from a nearby shelf that had collapsed, spilling its contents everywhere.
It would appear that the shelf had been home to a variety of magical compounds including unholy water and when they were spilled on the dais the monsters that attacked the farm had been summoned.
With nothing to contain them they dug their way out and ended up at the farm.

The only other exit from is a spiral staircase that led up to an old stone door. Mardram and Mary push on the door, but only succeed in moving it slightly.
Lindens eye for engineering detail notes that the door and hinges are badly frost damaged, and a sharp strike in one place should cause the door to fall open.
Sure enough a firm tap of Mardrams mace causes the stone to split from corner to corner and half of the door falls outwards.

The door is not the only weakened part however and the entire roof starts to buckle.
Mardram is the first to notice and gives a warning cry before inexpertly launching himself through the door, clipping his foot and falling in the process.
Cat-like Mary bounds through perfectly and turns to help Linden who stumbles and bangs his knee.
With the threat of death by crushing imminent, Linden is spurred to make the leap of his life, coming to rest several metres past Mary.