The players enjoyed their evening with the native tribe at the base of the volcano Mt. Hellysium.

In the morning they decided they would follow their map to a castle location where they expected they would finally meet the mysterious stranger whose maps they have been following since Session 2.

While walking, the party was approached by a lone ranger who delivered a letter and bag of gold to the party.

The letter was from Diego, leader of the radical Masked Brotherhood. He was happy that the poisoned kegs were delivered in Session 7 but was dismayed to learn that the river port master was killed in the process.

The gold in the bag was a commission to the party for their tip about Urag’s treasure horde that they were unable to loot themselves in Session 1.

In the letter, Diego expressed his wishes to speak with the party again and provided them a map with coordinates to his temporary camp.

The party headed in the direction of the camp but first had to dispatch a flock of harpies in the wilderness. Warden was charmed by the harpy’s haunting call and pendulous breasts but was able to snap out of it when the fight ended.

They arrived at Diego’s camp and were able to speak with the man himself. The party explained that the port master’s death was unavoidable.

Diego began to fill them in on some more of his plans. He explained his ultimate goal was to overthrow the royal monarchy of Renaulton and establish a new democracy in it’s place. To do this would require a plan with many moving parts.

One part of the offensive would be spreading fear and terror in the city to undermine the royal authority. The poisoned kegs were a good start but more was still needed. Diego gave the party a large bomb disguised as a wine keg. He asked the party to plant it somewhere inside the royal city where the explosion would be impactful but also inflict minimal human casualties.

The second part of the offensive would be elimination of the royal bloodline. Diego explained his plans to kill the King and Queen, the King’s brother Prince Monroe and the young princeling Armod who was currently being held captive by the Masked Brotherhood.

Security was too tight to plan an assassination on the King and Queen but Diego did have word from within the city that the king’s brother would be heading north in 4 days. Diego requested the party make it to the north of Renaulton and attempt to ambush and assassinate Prince Monroe when he left the city.

In the middle of conversation, the ground began to shake!

A massive 13 foot tall, two-headed Ettin emerged from the forest. It smashed the tent with its club and began crushing Diego’s men and sending them flying through the air like rag dolls.

Diego was quickly scuttled away to safety by some of his men.

The party (and a handful of Diego’s remaining men) decided to stay and fight the massive monster! Fizban’s insects swarmed and some of the party’s attacks did hit but it was not near enough damage to actually fell this beast.

Fizban used his Ring of Control Person to charm one of Diego’s fighters to take the explosive keg and detonate it at the feet of the Ettin.

The plan worked and created a massive explosion that set a huge plume of fire into the sky. The Ettin was roasted. The camp however was destroyed and none of Diego’s people that stayed back survived the blast.

After that chaos, the party decided to continue heading to the castle on their map. It was actually quite close to the royal city of Renaulton.

When they arrived, they found the castle being overrun by skeletons and a wight. A lone wizard was fighting them off at the top of the keep but it appeared he may lose the fight.

The party rushed in but there were a lot of skeletons. Orion Payne was knocked out in the fighting. Fizban was taken out by a pit trap. Betamax was pushed off the castle walls by skeletons..

Eventually, and with much effort, the party was able to kill of the skeletons and the mysterious wizard was able to kill the wight.

The wizard was a very old man and was happy to receive the bones of his fallen friend. He explained to the party that he meant to leave on his final adventure and was hoping that someone worthy would come to inherit his accumulated treasures and his castle. A “life without adventure is a life that’s not worth living” he said.

He bequeathed his estate to the party. There was 1000 gold pieces, magical scrolls and magical boots of leaping. The castle was large enough that they would all have their own rooms and a garden to harvest food.

Fizban however is a greedy dark mage. All of these things were not enough for him and he attempted to rob the wizard of his spell book in the night. The wizard caught him in the act and fired him across the room with magic missiles knocking him unconscious and VERY nearly killing Fizban.

The wizard was perturbed by this and decided to leave the castle early and in a huff.