Prologue

Quintus blinked, looked around and shivered. He had stepped into the purple hued light of the last teleport portal and was transported to a glacier that ran as far as he could see. The freezing wind lashed him. He was dressed for adventuring in the hypogeum and traveling across the steppe. Even if he had been dressed for the cold, he would not want to stay here long. He could feel the hair on his head growing stiff. The sweat and blood from their battle with Bak, the alligator headed demon, was already freezing in his tunic. He had been here mere moments.

Quintus turned around, looking for the teleport portal to return back to the hypogeum. There was no portal. No purple glow. Only ice and bitter wind. He looked around, uncertain about what to do next. There was a cracking in the ice near him. Something erupted and grew skyward, forming from the ice.

Quintus hefted his war hammer as the ice elemental took shape.

The Feast

Quintus, Ozrik, and Elinor assessed which of their henchmen were left from the battle with Farhat and his dogman warriors.

• Found the corpse of their henchmen in the tangle of dogman bodies and the bodies of Oktar’s men. Elinor set off to dig a grave.
• They were lucky, only one of them died. All of the dogmen were massacred. Nearly all of Oktar’s men were dead or wounded. The party and Oktar’s survivors were in bad shape.
• Oktar sends a warrior back to his town to bring help. It will take four or five days for him to return.
• Ozrik plays the magic healing lute for the survivors of the battle. Over several hours of playing, he the group returns to full health.
• The party and Oktar begin digging a grave for the warriors and mounding the bodies of the dogmen.
• A few days go by and some of Oktar’s warriors show up to help out.
• The main body of Oktar’s warriors arrive three days later.

There are sacrifices, words spoken over the warriors, stories of battle and glory told. A great feast is cooked and the tents raised. The party join in the feasting though they are eager to be off for the hypogeum to loot the apartment of the empress defeated.

• The adventures travel across the steppe and have no encounters.
• Arriving at the ruins of the hypogeum at midday, they decide to descend into the well to the 5th level and take the blue teleport portal to the empress’s apartment.
• The party sees signs and muddy footprints indicating that the hill people, kin of the men they fought near the ruins of Zeleska’s garden, had passed through the garden portal through the 5th level of the hypogeum and into the forest portal with their families. The party did not pursue them further.

• The sandestin, the terms of its servitude fulfilled, had departed.
• The party finds a large octagonal room, perfectly preserved by the magic of the sandestin. Intricate carved furniture, cosmetics, a wardrobe full of clothes (they won’t fit Elinor, the empress was more dainty), and much gold jewelry.
• A large scroll of necromantic magic is recovered. Only Ozrik is aware of its contents. It contains several powerful spells including the spell Magic Jar which empress Zeleska used to survive what seems to have been an assassination.
• A set of double doors and stairs led to another room.
• This room was enormous. Near the door was a pool with a large statue of muscular man. Water sprayed from the statues mouth. The walls were lined with statues of Zeleska. A trough leading from the pool kept the water from overflowing the pool and sent it to a grotto at the bottom of the well.
• Healing sigils glowed in the clear, clean water of the pool.
• Ozrik stepped to the pool to fill a flask of water. As he bent down, the statue came to life.
• Elinor ran into the pool to attack the statue. Quintus flung his hammer and struck the construct.
• Ozrik backed off and prepared to cast a spell. Quintus threw his hammer, Elinor engaged it in melee.
• Ozrik’s spell hit the thing and it responded with a gush of water from its mouth that hit him with great force and flung him at a wall. Quintus was hit with a similar blast of water moments later.
• The party was able to whittle the thing down and destroy it.
• They bathed in the healing water’s of the bath and were healed.
• The party checked out the room, made some deductions about where they were and what part of the hypogeum they were in. They hauled the treasures from Zeleska’s room and took their ease back at camp.

The Demon, Bak

• The party decided that the creature they expected was a demon, Bak could not to be allowed to continue its stay in the hypogeum. They wended their way to the fourth level to confront it in it’s lair.
• As they entered Bak’s domain, the party heard squeaking and the skittering of small feet.
• Eyes glared out at the party from the edge of their torch light. Ozric doused them with the wand of cold.
• In the narrow hallway outside of Bak’s lair two frog like humanoids guarded his door. Elinor battled them though she seemed to be having a hard time of it. From the rear of the line, Ramil, her squire fought against 4 foot tall rat-like humanoids who swarmed him.
• The party defeated these servants of the demon and Elinor gave the door a swift kick. Ozrik had hasted the party and Elinor charged. Not bothering to hide his nature, Bak appeared as a humanoid the skin and head of an alligator.
• Elinor battle the creature as Quintus and Ozrick attacked at range. The draug got into the fight with their magic glaives the party had looted from a hidden room long ago. The battle raged back and forth until the demon having nearly done in the paladin was in a dire situation and decided that teleporting away was the best option. He growled at the paladin that he would get his revenge.
• Having defeated the demon, the party looted his lair, finding treasure and a potion of gaseous form\
• There was another door that turned out to a collapsed space. Rock and debris spilled into the room when they removed the barriors.
• Before returning to the surface, there was a last task the party wanted to deal with.

The Purple Portal

On their previous encounter with Bak, the party had learned that the purple portal in the hypogeum was a malfunctioning magical defense and security device. It randomly teleported creatures into the hypogeum from random locations throughout the multiverse. The party had met and fought many of its victims during their visits to the hypogeum. They also learned that the red portals were broken and fatal to their users.

It was discussed that the device could have it’s magic temporarily shut down with a dispel magic spell and then physically destroyed while it was inert. The party had one magic bracelet with a purple stone. They had never experimented with this portal and Quintus volunteered to see if it had some useful property. Despite misgivings from Elinor, it was agreed that Quintus would put on the bracelet and try the portal. Previous experiments with the blue portals and bracelets had been successful.

Quintus put on the bracelet boldly stepped through and was gone. The party waited, and waited, and waited. Quintus did not return. There was discussion as to how long they should wait. Ozrik did not want to abandon his brother and so they waited more.

After many hours, the light of the portal began to pulse and flare. A dozen dazed bat-winged creatures with thick dark hair growing from their heads and vicious looking proboscis appeared on the teleport pad. Ozrik hit them with a cone of cold from his wand and that froze half of them. Once the creatures recovered from the surprise of being teleported across the multiverse and immediately attacked with ice magic, the creatures flew at their attackers. Ozrik, Elinor and one of the draug immediately had one of the creatures probing them and drawing blood. The room was plunged into darkness and a mad melee of blades in the dark ensued.

Ozrik had damaged the creatures significantly and they were easy to finish off, if you could hit them with effect. Ozrik, Elinor and the draug were able to fend off their attackers but Ramil, Elinor’s squire was not so lucky. The creature drained him of his blood. The party finished off the last of the creatures but not before Ramil expired from his wounds. Ozrik dispelled the darkness and the party took stock of their situation.

Quintus had been gone many hours. Ramil was dead. The remaining party members and henchmen were fatigued. Ozrik was running low on spells. Elinor demanded that Sam the birdman dispel the magic of the purple portal so it could be destroyed. Ozrik was certain his brother would return. Sam decided that he’d had enough of this horrible place and did not want to return so he did as Elinor bade and shut down the portal. Elinor went to work on it and broke the sigils so they would never transport monsters to the hypogeum again.

Ozrik transformed into a bat using the power of his dagger and flew out of the hypogeum. Elinor finished her task and led the henchmen and hirelings back to camp.

---

I use Rocketbook with the “snapcast” feature for my online gaming. I draw the scene, scan it with my phone, and share the image via a link provided by the Rocketbook app or over Skype. This is similar to the way I run my in person games by mapping on a regular piece of graph paper. I draw the map as we progress through the dungeon.

The notebook I use the most is the Rocketbook Flip. The notebook is erasable and reusable. One side of the page has lines, the other a dotted grid, making it great for drawing dungeon sketches and sharing them with players without all the effort of creating a VTT map, fussing with dynamic lighting and fog of war.

If you are interested in checking out Rocketbook products, here is an affiliate link. If you buy something, I get paid a little bit of money for recommending the product at no extra cost to you.