Notes from the Trollshaws

Where were Ryu and Lotho Sandbybanks before they met Oryndiel Tilith in Eregion? They spent the spring adventuring in the Trollshaws, doing some dirty deeds for their past employer and uncovering loot of fabulous worth in the process. The tale of their adventures North of Bree were comprised of equal parts treachery, dungeoneering and devil worship, and shall be described in brief here.

The introduction
After Oryndiel left Bree to travel to Rivendell, Lotho hung about drinking and wasting his money. The wizard to whom he had delivered the mysterious locked box contacted him and asked him to do another job, in company with Ryu. Lotho, being easily led, agreed, and was told a completely fabricated story for the new adventure. The essence of the story: a fallen Dwarven community in the Mountains had been infiltrated by an evil wizard called Durzh, who was reanimating the bodies of the dead Dwarves to create an Undead army. Lotho and Ryu needed to find Durzh, kill him, steal his key to the kingdom, then enter the Dwarven kingdom and take whatever they find, since the kingdom is long dead and they will have saved the world from a legion of reanimated Dwarven corpses. All this information, Drydan claimed, had been contained in the box which Lotho and Oryndiel had delivered from Gondor. Lotho, of course, believed every word of it.

Durzh
Lotho and Ryu travelled to a remote keep to ambush a spy called Eblung, who had the map to Durzh's keep. They did this in fine style, and from there went to Durzh's keep. Unfortunately this had already been infiltrated and ransacked by a gang of wererats, who Lotho and Ryu had to slay. These wererats, it turned out, had come to kill Durzh and loot his castle. They knew about Durzh because they originally came from the Dwarven community, which had close relations with Durzh and had actually asked him for help in curing a disease - lycanthropy - which had afflicted some Dwarves in the community several years ago. These Dwarves who needed curing were the very same wererats now rifling through Durzh's lab. They were also the same wererats who had opened a secret entrance in the Dwarven kingdom to grant entry to a mind flayer, which subsequently destroyed the community. Durzh was simply a lonely Dwarven wizard doing some alchemical research ...

The pursuit
Not yet convinced that they had been lied to by Drydan, Ryu and Lotho took the wererats' secret key to the Dwarven Kingdom and headed East to the Ettenmoors to find the Dwarven kingdom. On the way they were ambushed by a Barbarian chap called "Frosthammer", who demanded the key to the kingdom in exchange for their lives. They gave him an exploding stone instead, and escaped his rear camp after he set out for the kingdom. They followed Frosthammer and his small band to the entrance to the Dwarven kingdom, waited until he invoked the exploding stone on himself, and then ambushed him and his followers. In a close battle they prevailed, and through such tactics opened their way to the kingdom.

The kingdom
The Dwarven kingdom proved to be completely overrun, all its Dwarves dead and various of the upper rooms infested with goblins, creeping mushroom monsters, Kuo-Toa, and other nasties. Ryu and Lotho slaughtered their way to the treasure chamber, where they stole various fancy items including a Swan Boat and the "Star of the Underheavens", a powerful morning star. In leaving the treasury they discovered a squad of Dwarves from a different kingdom who had come to find out why this kingdom had been destroyed, and to recover the Star of the Underheavens. Rather than give it up, Ryu and Lotho ambushed and slaughtered these Dwarves. After further exploration they discovered a githyanki Astral ship, which they could not yet move. Further inside the kingdom they discovered evidence that a Mind Flayer was on the loose in the kingdom.

The Mind Flayer
Lower down in the mines at the base of the kingdom, the characters discovered the Mayor's office, and read the documents describing the Mind Flayer's destruction of the kingdom. They struck out towards the mines, and discovered the Mind Flayer itself. Fortunately they had come prepared, protected their minds from its vast and cruel intellect, and slaughtered it in short order. They stole its magic items, all the Dwarves treasure and the Astral ship. A successful incursion completed with only two moments of treachery so far...

Drydan's comeuppance
Having realised that Drydan had lied to them at every step of the way - about the undead army, Durzh, his real reasons for asking them to enter the kingdom, and exactly how much he knew about the demise of the kingdom - Ryu and Lotho did the only rational thing under the circumstances. They returned to Drydan's home, slew him and looted all his possessions. What other fate does one expect one's employer to suffer if he is not entirely truthful?

From this noble and glorious ending, Ryu and Lotho flew their skyship to Rivendell to do some more research, and discovered that Oryndiel had headed South to Ost-in-Eidhil. They decided to follow, and soon arrived in the newly-founded city. There after a single day hanging in the air near the castle they were hailed by Oryndiel, returning on his hippogriff from the East; and so our journey begins again.