The characters got to explore some more of the Shattered Sea as they were retained on an expedition to find some ruins in the north. On their way, a storm forced them to take shelter in the city of Mara, a now-decaying port that was once the jewel of the sea.
There, in a small tavern called the Goddess' Arms, they met a small contingent of dwarves - the first they had ever seen. The dwarves had more gold than the party members had ever seen too, which got them greedy. They learned a little bit about dwarven culture in some pretty funny bits of dialog and discovered the dwarves were refugees - fleeing from their stronghold in the north from a tribe called the Akknals. They entered into an agreement with the dwarves, via a dwarf named Garek, to retrieve a blackwood chest from within the vault of the stronghold in exchange for a reward. The party was headed that direction anyway, so they agreed to the quest.
They went north and docked their ship in a small hidden cove, making the all-day trek to the ruins. Demetrius got to show off his survival skills by providing for the party with some hunting and keeping them from freezing to death. In the ruins, they found an ancient hill fort and what looked to be a temple complex. Area transformed into a bird and scouted the area, noticing magic in the hill fort. The party examined that area while the sailors looked at the temple.
At the hill fort they encountered a large horned giant (a troll) with a club. Half the party and the troll were surprised - Demetrius and Capernius downed him with two pin-point shots with their bows after doing nothing to him in the surprise round. Jess detected silver under a large stone and moved it over with Isaac's help, finding a silver medallion with an iron spike driven through the center. They also discovered the stone was somewhat magnetic.
After knocking down an additional stone (number 13), Ares warned them to not touch the stones any further and not disturb the medallions. They reluctantly agreed and headed back to the temple, where the sailors had uncovered a cache of treasure and were busy gathering it up. They plan to approach the dwarven fortress the next morning and retrieve the darkwood box.
The characters all advanced up to third level and I'm still messing with the magic system. If I can get the rules cohesive enough in one week's time, I may attempt to make it up to GenCon and run some demo games at the Matrix booth. Right now, I'm not comfortable with them to really do that at all, so we'll have to see.
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