Tim finally decides that we are more important than family, showing up to introduce his "sneaking bastard" t’skrang Tz’kri ("Squiggly"). He is joined by Nick (Ooth) and Bruce (Belwin Linnet). As before, Dan is in charge.
Tz’kri is a sneaking bastard, a t’skrang with no sense of honor or propriety. He is, however, twice as fast as a greased lightning bolt. He still lives with his mother, and keeps a hand axe strapped to his tail.
Several of the players have noted that with a starting population of less than 2000, divided among several races, the people of the kaer should be getting quite inbred. It turns out that there are several different strategies in play to deal with this problem. The trolls, who have seen maybe twenty generations go by, have dealt quite poorly: there are only about 60 of them left, and the survivors are slowly dying out from sterility. The orks, on the other hand, have seen about as many generations but have expanded to a population of some 800 with no signs of stopping. The humans are doing okay, though (as Belwin finds out later on) they’ve avoided inbreeding through a system of rigidly arranged marriages. The windlings and the elves haven’t actually had to deal with the inbreeding problem much, as both races are sufficiently long-lived that they haven’t seen many generations go by.
The kaer is ruled by a Council of nine Name-givers. Though there are only 190 dwarfs in the kaer, they hold five Council seats. The humans, elves, windlings and orks each hold a single seat, while the trolls hold none at all. The obvious consequence is that the dwarfs hold power far out of keeping with their actual numbers. Knowing this, it is really quite clear why so many orks are so unhappy with the rulership of the kaer.
Margulen Linnet tells his son Belwin that the family will be holding a formal dinner. It will be quite an affair, even to the level of including meat on the menu. Margulen claims that he will be announcing some really good news for Belwin, and urges Belwin to invite some of his friends. Belwin invites Ooth, whom he knows fairly well, and Tz’kri, who might not be much of a friend, but who is oily enough to pretend to be.
The dinner turns out to be rather more than Belwin had bargained for. It quickly becomes obvious that the guest list includes another human family, with their exceptionally corpulent daughter, "Little" Bethany, as the guest of honor. The blood drains from Belwin's face when Margulen announces that he has arranged a marriage between the two of them. Margulen is obviously very proud of the match, and expects that Belwin will abandon his dissipative ways once he has married and raised a large family of fat little ones.
Ooth sows the very fertile seeds of future trouble by telling Little Bethany about Belwin’s deepest dreams and fantasies (or at least Ooth’s visions of them). He finds that she is obviously very taken by Belwin, for no obvious reason. She appears to think that he is incredibly brave for his agreement to stand First In Line when the Horrors break through the Kaer Seal. Ooth also recognizes that Little Bethany isn’t one of the brighter residents of the kaer, as she is perfectly willing to accept romantic advice from a creature with horns on it’s head and boils on it’s face.
As the evening progresses, the party gradually grows both larger and more dramatic, spilling out from Margulen’s dwelling into the streets and attracting most of the neighborhood folk. Sadly, Belwin and Ooth very conspicuously don’t participate in the celebration. Tz’kri (who had been having a great time) happens to notice this, and suggests that the two of them accompany him to his mother’s place for a drink. Tz’kri promises that his mother, whom he rather oddly refers to as "the Queen-mother of us all", is even less mobile than Little Bethany, and certainly won’t object to the presence of non-t’skrang.
Shortly after the characters arrive at Tz’kri’s mom’s place, they hear a disturbance across the kaer. Belwin suggests that everyone head over to see what’s going on. He secretly hopes that the noise might be either a Horror or a riot. In either case, there would be a fine opportunity for Belwin to get himself killed.
The characters arrive to find their old friend Mank inciting another riot. His basic thesis appears to be that the trolls are responsible for all evil in the world, or at least the kaer. Among their many sins, they’ve been responsible for the disappearance of eight orks. They aren’t even satisfied with tormenting the Noble Ork People, as Tik-Tik the t’skrang hasn’t been seen for days. Even though there aren’t more than sixty trolls left alive in the kaer, the orks in the audience seem really prepared to accept them as some kind of Secret Anti-Ork Conspiracy.
Midway through Mank’s monologue, the characters notice that the orks are starting to circle around them. Several of the rowdier members of the audience start casting accusations of being "Ork-haters" at them. Tz’kri makes the incredibly unwise move of setting himself up as the center of attention. He accuses Mank of killing Tik-Tik, and fingering the innocent trolls to avoid his own guilt. This swiftly makes the situation even more untenable. Mank starts up a chant of "Now is the time to show our intent! Now is the time to show our intent!"
Ooth proclaims to the other characters that he’s interested in not getting himself killed. Quickly thereafter he hides himself in an alleyway, while the other two characters continue to serve as a diversion. Ooth then makes the bizarre decision that he should throw a Mind Dagger at Mank. The spell flies true, causing Mank to emit a bellowing roar but not too much else. Predictably, the orks in the audience explode into fury and violence. What had been a mere angry mob quickly becomes a rampaging riot.
Tz’kri rushes up a wall, pulling Belwin behind them. They manage to get out of the way just as a mass of orks rounds the corner (think a cloud of dust with arms and legs sticking out). The orks swiftly fall to looting and rioting, and are eventually broken up by the police, who move in with large shields and saps.
Several hours and some actual bloodshed later, the riots are subdued and Margulen Linnet’s party breaks up. Quiet returns to the kaer, though nobody knows for how long.
Ooth is heading home towards the caves when he takes a wrong turn and runs right into Tik-Tik. The little t’skrang had been happily chewing on a chicken bone. When his eyes touch upon Ooth, he drops his chicken bone and turns paper-white. Ooth is really genuinely glad to see him, and urges him to come have a drink. Tik-Tik, nearly unconscious from fear, explains that he’s trying to hide from Mank. Ooth pays no attention and drags him along towards a common-house.
This little errand is interrupted when Ooth passes next to the crystal. His old, arthritic master He-Who-Speaks-With-Stone calls him aside. Ooth is somewhat surprised by this, as Speaks-With-Stone is old, stodgy, and cataract-ridden, and rarely ever moves much anymore. Ooth adopts an appropriately respectful attitude and explains to his master that those pesky orks are rioting again. Speaks-With-Stone tells Ooth that the spirit of the stone has awakened. Because of this, he is not surprised that the orks have been causing trouble, killing windlings in the ancient troll fashion and rioting. Speaks-With-Stone predicts that there are changes in the future, and that Ooth will be the first troll from the kaer to walk in the outside. After this statement, Speaks-With-Stone passes back into silence, staring at the crystals. For the first time, Ooth just how thick Speaks-With-Stone’s cataracts are, and speculates that he might actually be blind.
In all the excitement, Ooth completely forgets about taking Tik-Tik to a common-house, which is just as well with the little t’skrang. Tik-Tik takes this opportunity to disappear back into the darkness of the caves.
The next morning, Ooth is again approaches by Speaks-With-Stone. The old shaman tells him that the spirit of the stone had been traveling. Unfortunately, it was due back today and hasn’t appeared as scheduled. Speaks-With-Stone interprets this as a terrible, terrible omen. Ooth does his best to take Speaks-With-Stone seriously, even though he gives little credence to such fanciful notions as "spirits" living in solid stone. "Hah!" thinks Ooth, "Next the old bat will try to tell me that magic works and there are Horrific creatures outside the kaer who are eager to kill us all. The stories that fossil thinks up…"
The next day, the Council makes an official proclamation: people are no longer to walk the streets carrying weapons and armor. The Council representatives explain that this restriction is intended to minimize the damage caused by any further public disturbances like those of the previous day.
Belwin, hoping against hope to be able to forget the latest disaster his dissipative life has uncovered, heads to the common-house to try and cadge ale-chits from other, more productive, kaer-dwellers. As luck would have it, he is still waiting to get lucky when Batz, an ork Swordmaster with whom Belwin bears passing acquaintance, lumbers in, beer in hand. It quickly develops that Batz has become a cop, and isn't too happy about it. He explains to Belwin (who can't help but stare at Batz's mug of beer) that his dad and his brother got into trouble the night before, and now everyone in the family has to work. Batz attributes it all to ork repression.
Belwin spends a lot of time trying to point out all of the things that Batz (and orks in general) have to be proud of. For example, now that Batz has a job he get lots of ale-chits, plus a new jacket and a nice pair of boots. Batz is forced to admit that he does prefer his new boots to the old ones, which were so small he had to cut the ends off so he wouldn't hurt his toes, but he remains unconvinced. After all, he notes, now he is forced to work thirty hours a week!
The conversation is shattered when Little Bethany sneaks into the common-house and gooses Belwin, shattering whatever satisfaction he had gained by backhandedly complimenting his friend. She makes things worse by chortling, "Only six more days, my apricot tart! Tralalala!"
Around this time, the ever-helpful Ooth, accompanied by his loyal sidekick Tz'kri, strides in. He suggests to Belwin, "Slap the thigh and ride the wave in!" Belwin is overcome, and collapses in a twitching heap.
Noting that he's lost the spotlight almost entirely to the great waddling mass that is Little Bethany, Batz stomps off, still complaining about having to work for The Man and take orders from a dwarf.
Ooth proposes that everyone head into the mines to see what the orks are really up to. Mindful of the new prohibition against walking around armed, Belwin stops by his dad’s carpet shop to pick up a carpet to hide everyone’s weapons. While there, he has a brief and painful conversation with Margulen about gifts for his bride-to-be.
Everyone wraps up their weapons in Belwin’s carpet and heads for the caves. Tz’kri makes good use of his Silent Walk and Tracking talents, scouting out ahead of everyone else. He very quickly identifies a set of ork tracks heading deep into the caves, farther than most of the characters have ever gone before.
The characters trudge and hike through a series of winding caverns for about two hours, until they come upon a crude elevator in an old mining shaft. Ooth is initially quite unwilling to get into the elevator, rightly fearing that it could be a death-trap. The other characters, some of whom have no fear and others of whom have no sense, finally bully him into getting on board. The thing makes a tremendous racket on the way down, sufficient to wake up an entire ork army. Unfortunately, there is no ork army available at the bottom of the shaft, but the eight orks who are available prove to be more than enough. A fight breaks out even before the elevator makes it to the ground.
One ork sneaks up really fast to hit the brake on the elevator, stranding the characters up in the air. Meanwhile, his companions pepper the area with crossbow bolts, to little effect. Ooth answers them with a series of Mind Daggers. Tz’kri dodges down to handily dispatch the ork who hit the brake. Belwin scrambles out of the elevator, fails to Taunt three nearby orks, and is multiply engaged for his troubles.
It quickly becomes obvious that the fight belongs to Tz'kri. In spite of his diminutive stature, he hacks through orks like nobody's business. His success is extremely fortunate, as a pair of well-aimed blows quickly remove Belwin from the fight, while Ooth refuses to desert his safe perch up in the elevator cage. By the end of the fight, Belwin is the only character to have taken any significant damage. The other characters have managed to take three of the orks captive, though only one of them is actually conscious. Things even work out for Belwin, who uses his Booster potion to make a stunning recovery.
The ork explains that he and his friends attacked the characters because they assumed the characters were Horrors. The characters assume that he is making up stories to save his scrawny hide. Ooth asks him if there are any other orks around. The ork claims that there aren’t many of his brethren around, most of his people are in the kaer. He promises that Mank and Rag Vorn (the ork shaman) will be back in a few hours, and implies that these worthies will make short work of scum like the characters. The ork also claims that the remaining figure, bound and lying still in the back of the cave, is named Lie.
Lie proves to be a large figure, as large as a troll but apparently made out of stone. He is a sort of glossy black color with red stripes. Beyond the ropes and the gag, he appears to be fairly badly hurt. Ooth ungags him and starts talking. Lie claims, "I was sent by my Liferock in my dreams. The Scourge is over. I must send my message to all within the kaer." He finally admits that he’s interesting in talking to He-Who-Speaks-With-Stones.
The characters struggle and groan to get Lie up the elevator shaft and to the crystal cavern. He-Who-Speaks-With-Stones is unsurprisingly found staring mindlessly at a piece of crystal. Ooth communicates the situation to him, at which point Speaks-With-Stones tells Ooth and Tz’kri to take Lie to the Dwarf Elders, so he can spread his message to the entire population of the kaer. In contrast, he urges Belwin to head off and drink ale for an hour so to avoid insulting the dwarves yet again.
The Elder Dwarves are not too sure about Lie’s message. They spend some time debating what to do, and whether or not to tell the whole population. They fear that the orks will use this information to stir up more trouble, and that the Council may try to suppress this information so they can stay in power. The Elder Dwarves finally decide to sneak some people out of the kaer secretly. Because they do not believe they will be able to get access to the Council map showing the safe path through the traps the protect the Kaer Seal, this will be a very dangerous task likely to end in death for the intrepid explorers. To ensure that their efforts don't deprive the kaer of any really valuable contributors, they decide to ask for volunteers from among those who have already been impelled to volunteer to stand First In Line to Fight the Horrors. They aren't necessarily too surprised when Belwin's ultimately expendable name comes up.
On the plus side, Tz’kri manages to get a bagful of ale chits from a Dwarf scholar who doesn’t drink. He and Belwin head off to have a celebration at the Two-Tailed T'skrang. At the ale-house, they discuss how best to survive getting out of the kaer. Tz’kri finally decides to try and sneak into the Council Keep to steal the plans. The plans are held in the Storage Tower of the keep, directly across the courtyard from the Library Tower, where the Dwarf Scholars spend their time.
Tz’kri waits until not-day-fall, then sneaks up to the Storage Tower. Belwin watches his progress from the Gardens. Tz’kri carries no weapons, but does wrap his head in cloth like a ninja. Belwin carries his dagger under his cloak.
Tz’kri is able to pick the lock without trouble. He quickly makes his way to a second-story storage room, which he discovers is extremely dark. He sneaks out, talks to Belwin about this problem, then finally gets Ooth to ask the Dwarf Scholars to give them a light-quartz stone.
His return to the tower is interrupted by an encounter with a patrolman who seems to think that he’s got a sword. Belwin manages to distract the guy by yelling, "Hey! Come back here!" and running off into the darkness. The patrolman, encumbered by a truncheon and a heavy shield, lumbers after him. Belwin eventually loses the guy.
On his return, he notes that Tz’kri hasn’t returned for a half-hour. He sneaks into the tower to find Tz’kri still gamely searching for the plans. Belwin joins in to help, but provides precious little aid. It eventually takes the two of them over an hour to realize that Tz'kri had kicked that particular scroll under a desk during his entry. Along the way, Tz'kri also notices an interesting brooch that he chooses to pocket.
Upon the characters' return with the plans, the Dwarf Scholars rather unapologetically explain that the only truly expendable candidate they've managed to find for their expedition is Belwin. They tried to find the Swordmaster Batz, but quickly discovered that nobody has seen him for some days, ever since the ork riots. Unwilling to see their slight acquaintance slaughtered alone, both Ooth and Tz'kri eventually agree to join him. The Dwarf Scholars augment the expedition's numbers further by including one of their own, a Scholar named Thrumb with a particular hatred of Belwin, and an elementalist they hired from the general kaer population. This last worthy is needed to open up the Kaer Seal, and then to close it up again once the characters are out. He won't actually venture outside, but will wait at the Seal until the characters return.
The plans detail how to get out of the kaer alive. They also note that possible consequences for not following the safe path include: electrocution, evisceration, defenestration, and dissolution in acid. The characters agree that following the safe path to the letter is a Very Important Thing.
Before their departure, the characters obtain some equipment from the Dwarf Scholars. Tz’kri and Belwin ask and are granted medium crossbows, which now do Step 12 damage straight, plus 10 bolts. Each character is also given two waterskins, two weeks’ worth of traveling rations, a backpack, and a bedroll. The group is also given several special items: a Last Chance potion, and three Healing Potions. Finally, the Dwarfs make sure that Belwin has an embroidery kit and Tz’kri has a woodcarving kit to ensure that they can demonstrate themselves Horror-free when they return. The Dwarfs apparently don’t care if Ooth is able to get back into the kaer or not.
The path to the Kaer Seal is marked by one long hallway full of traps, followed by a series of parallel stairways through which there is only one safe route. The characters follow the rules laid out in the plans, and manage to survive without event.
The characters' troubles start when the elementalist opens the doorway. Everyone becomes suddenly unable to breathe, as if there is no air. The whole party quickly blacks out, sagging to the floor. When they finally regain consciousness they realize that the air is clean: they have become so used to the strong smells of the kaer that they had never realized just how strong the stink was.
Emerging into the outdoors, the characters are struck by the colors and the brightness. Everything is garish greens and reds and blues that pierce the eyes. The experience is really quite disorienting for everyone. On the other hand, Ooth manages his lifelong dream: he not only sees a tree, he actually touches one!
The characters find themselves staring at the wreckage of a huge ship of stone, surrounded by a patch of collapsed columns. Ooth notices a couple of bluish heads pop up behind the shipwreck.
The characters start to sidle towards the shipwreck. Ooth takes cover behind a second of collapsed column and casts Air Armor upon himself. He spends a lot of time complaining about the goofy way his own high Spell Defense makes it hard for him to cast spells on himself. Meanwhile, Tz’kri Silent Walks up towards the shipwreck and Belwin pulls out his new crossbow and carefully advances, trying to cover everyone else.
Tz’kri manages to sneak around the shipwreck and get a better look at the creatures living inside it. They are blue-skinned, with huge heads in comparison to their twisted little bodies. Their fingers are phenomenally long and grasping. They are slightly bigger than human, but still smaller than a troll.
They also prove to be hostile. The creatures rush over the debris in a swarm, quickly overwhelming Ooth with numbers. There are seven of them, and they quickly clump around the characters, striking with their teeth and nails. The characters are cut off from one another, with Ooth getting the worst of two, Belwin slowly cutting two apart, and Tz’kri slashing two into bits and flinders. The seventh, possibly the leader, does not engage. Instead, he stays perched upon the shipwreck, watching the conflict unfold. He flees into the distance when Tz’kri cuts his two opponents into small pieces, swiftly outdistancing the t'skrang.
When Belwin kills one, it starts emitting blue foam, then disintegrates into a sodden mass. Tz’kri sees the same phenomenon happen when he strikes down those he is attacking.
Inevitably, the characters get whittled down even with Tz'kri's initial successes. Ooth is the first to fall. Belwin takes a strong blow and falls over, but isn’t taken out of the fight. Tz’kri tries to step in to help him, but the t’skrang’s luck runs out and he takes a blow that drives him unconscious. However, the distraction provided by Tz’kri’s intervention is enough for Belwin to stagger to his feet and make a pair of all-out attacks against the blue-skinned creature, enough to kill the thing.
With the immediate threat gone, Belwin rushes to Ooth’s side and pushes the one Last Chance potion down his throat. Ooth chokes and heals enough to become merely unconscious. All the characters make some recovery tests and complain a lot about how much they're hurt.
Ooth and Belwin investigate the derelict vessel while Tz’kri bullies Thrumb into setting up a camp. The hull of the craft is made out of stone, which is a bit surprising to the characters. It has obviously already been looted, but the characters are able to find a single surviving fire-cannon. Ooth spends some time trying to figure out how to make it work, and ultimately decides that he doesn’t understand the runes carved into it’s sides. Ooth decides to have Thrumb take a look at the thing, to see if the crafty dwarf has any notion what it might be. Thrumb doesn’t know how to use it either, but he does know that it takes a kernel of True Fire to make it work. Thrumb also offers the suggestion that the vessel might have been one of the air-ships the Therans would have used to enslave the people of Barsaive.
The characters camp in the shadow of the air-ship wreck overnight. They rest easy in the knowledge that they might be murdered in their sleep, but hopefully not for a couple of days.
By the end of the session, the characters have managed to complete the following goals:
They also managed to defeat two sets of opponents (the orks and the gnarled blue-skinned creatures), and obtain one item of treasure (the defunct fire-cannon). Beyond that, Tz'kri gets one additional Legend award for squawking about how he was "favored of queen" in a manner almost exactly like a simpering deyrey drone, and a second award for his incredible swordsmanship against the orks. Ooth gains an additional award for persuading Little Bethany to make Belwin's life miserable. Belwin gains an additional award for taking on three orks at once, with negligible thought to his personal safety. Each Legend Award is worth 90 Legend Points, giving Tz'kri 810 Legend points, Ooth with 720 Legend points, and Belwin with 720 Legend points.
Everyone agrees that the current movement rules lead to obnoxious "Cheetahs on Crack" effects. In the future, a figure will be able to move only one map square for every ten yards of movement (combat or normal).