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Dalrylshana jumps into the room with the Illuminatus and checks it out: besides the doors and mirror, she finds the body of a recently dead hill giant, arrow wounds peppering its back and a shattered leg bone. It has not been merely dumped though and it would be a reasonable guess that it had something to do with the hill giants seen earlier.

Morin notices that scrawled on the wood where shards of mirror have fallen away is a phrase: "In the wizard's cloak"; he doesn't mention it at this point. There are no cloaks to be see, although there are a number of pegs for hanging them on: the easternmost of these would appear to be a switch!

When activated, a mechanism whirrs into action and a portion of the east wall opens to reveal a hitherto secret corridor - a ticking continues when the door is opened and it is found to be on a timer, slamming shut after a minute, with the investigative Morin inside. The party waste no time, splitting up temporarily and eventually finding that the secret corridor goes north and then east to another one-way door with a lever. This door opens into room with a clean, white marble floor, well lit by a white flame in a glass orb on the east wall which gives off a strange light making all shadows unusually precise at their edges.

There is a door on both north and south walls but as the north door is approached by Morin, an imp appears out of nowhere and begins to attack with impossible dexterity. It is a few seconds before Darius and Balin can get to the door to open it and join the fray, followed moments later by Kin and Rhadogan, also in the corridor as Jiriki and Dalrylshana guarded the route back.

Madcap battle ensues, the imp pirouetting and piercing, untouched by any strike made at him and moving at dizzying speed. all the while it giggles and taunts but does not respond directly to the vain attempts to persuade it to cease. As the room darkens, Jarek throwing his cloak over the glass orb, the party shadows return to their diffuse appearance - the whirling imp's shadow remains ultra precise edged, however.

A number of things happen at once in a confusing melee: Jarek prepares an arrow, Darius and Kin back up to the secret door and Rhadogan prepares a spell as Morin proffers the Illuminatus to Kin, believing there to be some illusion here. All at once, the room is flooded with light from Rhadogan's now enchanted forelock as the imp darts forwards and Balin and Darius engage. Balin stoops low to strike, his sword clanging against the imp's shadow as Darius flails and Jarek's badly shot arrow skims over the dwarf's head and then suddenly the impish figure stops stock still.

"Ah, bum - I was just getting warmed up," it says. "Oh, well - see you next time. Passage granted."

And with that, its body fades, the shadow rises out of two dimensions fluidly up into the body shape; for a moment, a dark mirage of the imp grins and gives a thumbs up and with a light 'ping' is gone. In the bright room, it's just barely noticeable that the light shining from under Jarek's cloak has turned a grassy green.

Jiriki and Dalrylshana join the party and she brings up the writing on the broken mirror, noticed earlier by Morin, and the fact that the party seems to have now effectively trapped itself as the only safe route back is now blocked by the one way door being closed....

The north door can now be opened to reveal an elliptical room. A few steps in is a large marble block with a number of coloured orbs resting atop it. In the centre of the room is a large silvery frame suspended and held by four old chains. The room is lit on the southern edge by two orbs, much like those in the room everybody is stood in, but shedding a white light, not green. There are no other doors.

7 crystal spheres stand before the suspended frame, each a different colour. Nothing can be discerned as to what to do and the party are about to 'just try something' when Morin goes to check the door in the other room. Balin takes advantage of the indecision and prepares to leapt through the frame, touching the blue orb first.

He barely has time to mouth "Shi....." when his body is surrounded in a coruscation of blue flaming light and he is tossed like a leaf in a hurricane backwards against the wall where his body clatters and comes to rest.

"Ouch," mutters Balin quietly, and a ring of smoke rises up from his mouth.

His actions are met with much disdain but he his healed whilst being chastised and then Jarek and Morin set out on further reconnaissance through the checked south door in the square room.

His actions are met with much disdain but he his healed whilst being chastised and then Jarek, Dalrylshana and Morin set out on further reconnaissance through the checked south door in the square room.

Some sense is made of the layout of the keep and Dalrylshana stays at the corner to keep a visual chain between her and Rhadogan’s glowing locks as the two rogues move west along the corridor to investigate the door on the south wall; it opens into a square room which has a stench of rotting meat from rat and humanoid corpses. This was clearly once a kitchen but only claw-marks in the dust indicate any recent inhabitation – they look like ghoul tracks.

The party gather and the door in the room is checked – itopens into a dining room that now looks like a charnel pit. There is a stench of death here, strong and foul and the walls and floor are stained deep red. Huddled in a corner arre five ghouls – as they react to the light the party bring and move towards the intruders, they revela the reason for their huddle – the body of the hill giant recently discovered was their lates feast.

Outside the dining area, Jiriki notes at the edge of the Illuminatus’ light that two ghasts are approaching from the west end of the corridor.

Rhadogan reacts swiftly, softly speaking whilst concentrating on his words of divine power, as he goes - his own mace and, roughly, the persons of Darius, Morin and Jarek are splashed with holy water: these are undead and you will take the blessing of St Cuthbert willingly or otherwise!

There is only just enough time for him to touch each of you, and though merely a tingle is felt you trust Rhadogan's word - by the sudden pause of the ghouls, it is clear anyway that you are now invisible to them.

Whatever concerns Darius may be carrying over his ability to lead (or where he's put his hat), he is still most naturally a warrior born and is unsurprisingly first to his foe. Dancing lightly from his most guessable position he allows a moment for Jarek, the next quickest to react, to take position so that the invisibility ward will be most effective.

Jarek is less calculating at battle but no less efficient - he tumbles lightly and quietly past the ghoul coming towards him and in two swift strikes has cut it to the ground from behind, its tight flesh cleaved painfully and frightful ooze leaking from its damaged remains.

Darius, some feet away, did not delay on his own actions - like a man possessed he becomes a pure fighting spirit: his first blow takes off a huge chunk of a ghoul's torso and his second cuts it almost in two. Even as it drops, he spins with the momentum and strikes a second ghoul with a vicious jab. His blade slices through its jaw and cracks through the back of its skull. As he draws the steel back the body of the ghoul collapses like a sick puppet.

All are visible now to the remaining ghouls but it matters little - Rhadogan is not close enough to deal any damage as the nearest ghoul to him seems to be heading to the western door. Morin is not so fortunate but is unphased; he wields his armoury confidently and his opponent already has a light-enchanted dagger protruding from its stomach. He takes a scratch to the arm (5HP) but does not yield to the feared paralysis and in moments, even as Jarek rounds the table to lend a hand, his foe is cut down, head lolling from a flap of skin that still connects it to its body as it falls.

At that moment, Dalrylshana bursts in from the other room, the battle having gone well with the ghasts and Jiriki’s newfound ring grainting his immunity to their touch proving very valuable, and is almost about to grin or applaud when the western door crashes open. She pauses.

In the doorway is a large beast, something you've never seen before - it's bigger than a hill giant and, though stooped to fit in here, does not look slowed or uncomfortable for this. Its body looks as though it is made of the tiniest grains of shale, ever moving and swirling, and yet, almost like a trick of the light, you glance a skeletal form of sorts within the mass. The eye sockets carry no eyes but gleam with a cold blue light like the sea in the moon's glow. It glances once at the body of the hill giant, laughs a short guttural laugh, reaches forward and tears the head off the last remaining ghoul and takes a bite before tossing it aside, as if it was some gesture of defiance, and advances on Darius.

Rhadogan, momentarily, stops dead in his tracks.......he recognises this as a sand giant and warns the party that it is dangerous. Jirki, hurtles into the room filled with battle-lust and vaults a table into prime strike position.