I just want to state that this was not my idea, and I think it is a bad one, but as I have been tasked to keep this group alive, I went with them.

Ruined Buildings

• The original town of Illusk was always in conflict, attacked and sacked repeatedly, then rebuilt.
• Eventually, Luskan grew up around it, believing this area to be cursed, they stopped trying to fix it and just left it be. Except for adventurers who never can leave well enough alone.
• Much of the area is as ruined as one would expect, but #13 finds us a way through to a house that seems unusual for its unruined status.
• After Shohei and Ms. Lendiel check it for traps, we head inside to find it sparsely furnished and completely unlived in.
• There is a chained and locked trapdoor in the floor, so naturally Mr. Darkfoot unlocks them, Shohei removes them, and Ms. Lendiel checks for traps.
• She finds nothing, but Shohei says there is magic beneath the door – a glyph of warding.
• They attach a rope to the handle and we all go back outside to pull it open from a distance.
• A fireball goes off, adding this house to the many ruined buildings around it, but everyone insists on going back in to see what was locked up below.

Undead Abominations

• We head down and in, to find a room full of piles of bones, unmoving.
• When Mr. Shohei and Ms. Lendiel begin examining the first door in this room, the second opens and an abomination of a skeleton with three heads and wearing armor and wielding a staff steps out.
• The piles of bones reanimate by his command and attack.
• The three-headed thing casts Cloudkill on the room, and things get a little fuzzy to me after that, though I remember Ms. Rosewood repeatedly waking me up and dragging me out of the cloud.
• After the fight, I want to crush the skull and dispel all magic from those skulls, but Mr. Darkfoot insists we use it to make our way through this place.
• The rooms are, of course, Necromancy Laboratories, including an altar covered in runework like the skull.
• Using the skull triggers an illusory message of a man in a cowl, robes, and gloves with a very strange book in hand.
• The illusion reports that the Sword Lord and his Skeletal complement is progressing. He believes they will keep the attacking orc forces out, and ensure they can take back the city, saying the bones of the lost will be the foundation of the future. And identifying himself as Kurth.
• After this message plays, the wall shifts and reveals another staircase.

Levers and Traps

• The first room at the bottom of these stairs contained six skeletons in glass domed-cases attached to chains leading up to gears in the ceiling.
• There were also two doors and two levers.
• Mr. Darkfoot starts with the doors, removing the traps and unlocking them.
• #13 suggests that we should not try the doors without using a lever or both, specifically the more used of the two levers.
• Mr. Darkfoot climbs up and puts a crowbar through one of the chains near some crossbeams to prevent the attached dome from lifting. Others follow suit, but we don’t have enough for all the domes. Why would I carry a crowbar?!
• Mr. Darkfoot pulls the well-worn lever and something shifts in the southern wall.
• The southern door leads to a very narrow hall, to another door, which is quickly opened.
• This opens into a work room with another obvious lever, a gate, and several flesh golems standing inert beyond it.
• The lever seems to be hooked up to a runic plate, which Mr. Darkfoot says is lightning in nature, something that sends Flesh Golems into a frenzy.
• Ms. Lendiel finds another lever worked into the room’s table.
• It is well-used, so we pull it and hear a shift from the previous room.
• Shohei, meanwhile, detects that there is something magic behind the golems and sends his mage hand off to check, and uncovers a scepter secured to the floor.
• Back in the first room, we head through the eastern door, to another narrow hall, to another work room. This one with four work stations, two labeled levers, and another altar.
• The levers are labeled Domes and Gate.
• After some discussion, we agree to try the Gate lever and hear metal scrapping against stone.
• Shohei and Mr. Trisfir return to the second room to try and retrieve the scepter.
• They return after a few minutes without it, saying the claws holding it seems to be on a circuit with metal plates under the flesh golems.
• The door in this third room seems unlocked, so we try to open it, but lightning shoots out as a glyph glows briefly.
• Going back to the first room, we try the less-used lever and the glass domes begin to lift, we slam it back, but one skeleton escapes and we have to put it down.
• Then, we return to the third room, leaving Tuppance to observe, and pull the Domes lever.
• One of the crowbars breaks as the domes lift again, but we put the lever back before any more can.
• We dispatch that skeleton, as well, and I fix Mr. Darkfoot’s crowbar.
• Shohei and Mr. Trisfir decide to go and try to sever the connections to the Flesh Golems so the lightning lever can be used safely. The rest of us stay back in the third room with the Gate lever.
• Tuppance is left, once again to watch, or rather, for Mr. Darkfoot to watch.
• When they start breaking into the stone instead of chipping at the wires, Tuppance scolds them and they head back.
• Except Mr. Trisfir bumps into one of the golems, disturbing it from its rest. Didn’t we say he wasn’t supposed to go on infiltration missions?
• We all head in to deal with the awakened golem, and somehow manage not to wake the other two.
• Once it is down, with the other two disconnected, we pull the lightning lever, which frees the scepter.
• Back in the third room, we put it in the altar and get another illusory message.
• Kurth tells us that the secondary precautions are in place, citing the things we have been fighting. Then mentions a crowning achievement called Valarian who will “cleanse this place.”
• The southern door is now able to open, and is full of body parts, presumably the leftovers from the Flesh Golem creation. There are also a number of magic items hidden amongst the bodies.
• And another stairwell leading down.

Mohrgs

• There is a hall of three doors, the first must be expertly made because Mr. Darkfoot cannot get it open.
• He has more luck with the second door, which opens to another workroom. This one full of ruined books, scrolls, and dripping skeletons with giant tongues.
• I managed to turn two of the three and we take them down one at a time. There is a runic book spine that fits into an altar in this room.
• This time the illusory Kurth has his hood back to reveal a ruined face and hideous wounds, which he seems to have try to fix with other bodies’ parts.
• He reports that the orcs are pushing again. That he might not finish. That he wishes to save the city from damnation, and will leave the commander in charge.
• Back in the hallway, #13 forces the first door open, and we find more of the same.
• These skeletons manage to put Mr. Darkfoot down, but Ms. Rosewood saves him before I can get there, and nearly gets eaten herself for her trouble, but I keep her up until the others put the creature down.
• This has been a lot of terrible fights, so we drag these two bodies into the other room and hunker down for a long rest.

Guardians

• The southern door evaporates when we open it, leading to quite a large laboratory.
• There are many undead wraiths in here, all standing at attention, and one wearing a full suit of armor.
• The turned to face us as one, and the Commander, for that is surely who the armored one must be, slams sword to shield and speaks.
• “Hold. We know not what drives you forward. Leave now or die. Valarian the Damned must not be let free.”
• Seeing he was not simply mindless we ask after Valarian and are told it is Kurth’s final and more horrible creation, a beast of total destruction.
• Kurth found it completely uncontrollable and set these to guard it forevermore and let none enter its chamber.
• The group wants to kill this final abomination, despite my protests that we allow these wraiths to continue their vigil. We have killed too many of the other defenders they argue. I just want to go back to the Library.
• They take a vote and I am overruled, though Mr. Darkfoot tries to get me to change my mind, but relents when I remind him I didn’t want to come to the ruins in the first place.
• The fight is brutal, and we nearly lose several people, several times, but we are, unfortunately, victorious.
• We sit down after the fight, to gather our resources and prepare for an even tougher battle ahead.