Once again our brave party entered the Dwarvin mines of the Silver Mountains to seek out and destroy all remnants of evil that the Ghost Kings have brought. Before they could travel far beneath the mountain their passage became blocked where the hallway had caved in and created a sink hole spanned by 6 pillars 4ft round, spaced 5ft apart from each other. The rogue was the first to jump, having tied a rope about himself and then leaping for the first pillar that just happened to be the extended tongue of a Cave Fisher. No sooner than the rogues foot touched the top of the first pillar then the pillar collapses and he fell 60ft down into the waiting mouth of said cave fisher. The party made short work of the cave fisher rescuing the rogue, then as the party struggled to cross the remaining cavern the ranger went back to the surface to purchase rope. Returning after all the party except himself has crossed the cavern the ranger began to construct a bridge across the cavern while the rest of the party scouted ahead.

In the great hall the party then encountered a group of dwarvin vampire women that created darkness then moved within it pausing only to attack the isolated party members from all angles. The party members made a valiant attempt to keep the vampires flanked at all times but their movement in the darkness gave them much trouble. It was the rogue that landed the first damaging blow thus inspiring the other players to keep trying again and again until the dwarvin vampires were defeated.

BEER!!! The party found a beer storage room and of course decided that this was the best place on this level to rest. Much drunkenness ensued as they finished off a giant keg. I did not have the heart to roll a wondering monster as they were having to much fun singing dwarvin drinking songs and playing dwarvin drinking games.

A quick trek through the Dwarvin kings tombs, were no one stole a single thing, brought the party face to face with the Ghost King of the third level, by this time the party were old hands at this sort of work and began to dispatch the minions of the Ghost King with ruthless efficiency. With one more ghost king defeated the dwarves of the mines began to move back into the third level and clean up the mess left by the undead.

There were many difficulties for the GM on this level. For some strange reason some of the images and items did not transfer over when the module was created and some encounters even though the GM could pull them up they would not transfer to the combat tracker, so they had to be rebuilt on the fly while the players waited. Kept getting module not open error when its was very open as we were using it. If I come up with an explanation for this odd behavior i will post it in a follow up.

Now you are wondering why the title Maze of Madness? There was a 5% chance that while moving thru the tombs that the party would become trapped in an extra dimensional maze of 30 by 30ft rooms with four doors. The map with the correct directions to escape the maze was found on a shelf in a clerics room but the party never used it for some strange reason. After an hour and a half of stumbling around the GM finally said that the party already had the map why don't they use it? Well turns out that the map was one of the things the party could not see due to the module transfer problem so while the GM could open and see the map the party would open the scroll and get the open module error. So in short the maze of madness was a bust and the GM will edit the adventure with a resolution to the maze without finding the map.

After being forced out of the Silver Mt Mines, the party re-equipped, gained two new members and once again ventured down. The fire of revenge burned in Durlin's eyes as he lead the party back to the exact location were his brother was slain, seeking out his murderers. Entering the room there again could be seen in the darkness a strange swirling humanoid shape always keeping just out of direct sight lingering in the corners of your eye's. Without hesitation Durlin and Thad charged the creatures chanting their new war cry, "Doran! Doran! Doran!". Torags energy crackled from the fingertips of Durlin as Torga filled him with his power, glistening silver steel flashed in the darkness off the Waraxe of Thad. Darkness mourned the presence of life and slithered forward into the mail strum of magic and steel. Durlin's magic struck forth drawing the un-life from the darkness, howls of pain not felt for generations vibrated thru the undead. Thad seeing his unrepentant foe, remembered the brief life of Doran, all the fun times he and Doran had drinking and eating and lifting the beards of Dwarves to make sure they were females in the house of lady favors, these memories only filled Thad with more and more rage over the loss of his buddy, with a great cry Thad swung his war axe calling on the name of Torag! The swing could only be what will go down in the annals of history as the most epic try of any dwarf ever made at any time in the history of the world, at the last moment the darkness did nothing to avoid the blow as the careening arc of total annihilation completely missed the wraith and landed squarely with a resounding with a deafening thud into the groin of Thad himself.

GM Note: Thad played this action like a champ only issuing moans of pain each time his turn came around. Never has so much laughter been heard as players battled for their lives.

The Durlin the Warforged, Drewan the Catfolk Rogue and Granebosh the half-orc Sorcerer, fought an epic battle to avenge Doran and rescue Thad from himself, and in the end overcame the evil undead and re-killed them? un-killed them? un-lifed them?.....defeated them forever.

Magic healing was applied to Thad and Thad was forced to bandage his own wounds. After a short rest for recovery that party moved on confident that they now knew the location of the Ghost King. The short trip thru the mines corridors was uneventful and the party finally after so much effort entered the chamber of the Ghost King! Skeletons and zombies formed a solid wall of undead between the Ghost King and the party of fearless adventurer's. Durlin marched forward into the mass of undead, Thad readied his mighty war axe, Drewan melted into the darkness and Granebosh fired his full spread of magic missiles at the Ghost King. On Durlins next round Torags power flowed thru him and the entire skeletal mass was destroyed leaving only zombies staggering forward. At the side of the Ghost King stood a Koblak but only for a moment as it vanished and then reappeared behind the party standing just behind Granebosh. Thad now waded into the zombie horde his silver axe moving so fast streams of light followed its every arc. Short work Thad made of the zombie horde just in time as the Ghost King stepped forward to the attack. Granbosh having found himself engaged in a life or death struggle with the Koblak fought with every thing he had magic energies flowing back and forth between the two foes. Thad his axe dripping with the gore of the zombie horde, stood his ground as the Ghost King floated across the distance between them, as the Ghost King took his first mighty attack against Thad the party working like a finely tooled machine all as one part supporting the function of the other, flashed into action. Drewan struck from behind first, landing a crippling blow to the Ghost King with his twin silver daggers, then came Durlin the power of Torag flowing threw him making him glow like silver blue flame as the energy screamed forth to encompass the Ghost King, it was now that Thad landed the blow that he had wanted against the wraith, silver streaking back and forth in a dance of death. The Ghost King staggered, wobbled, dropped to one knee and then fell to dust exploding in a rain of skeletal fragments and armor.
The Koblak seeing the death of the Ghost King abandoned his battle with Granebosh and vanished in to the darkness.

The party returned to the Dwarvin war camp at the entrance to the mines, bloodied and battered but filled with pride at the accomplishment of clearing the first level of the Silver Mt Mines.

The party has entered the mines in good spirits and quickly defeated a horde of skeletons, an easy walk of the hallway netted them several items, their confidence raised they marched on.
Further adventuring brought them to the Dining room where they were badly pounded by Ale elemental's, vegetable swarms and zombie pork, dinner not agreeing with them.
Limping back into the dark passages of the mines the party was ambushed by two dark and powerful Wrights. Surrounded by wraiths the welfare of the party looked bleak. In a effort of heroism the dwarvin paladin stood his ground while all the other ran. Dorans brave act will go down in the annals of dwarvin history giving his life so that others could escape.
Having fled the mines the party settles down in the dwarvin war camp outside the great doors of the silver mines to heal and search out better weapons and armor for their determined return to the mines to seek revenge for the death of Doran.