The heroes make their way through the Deep Roads and run into a Giant chasing a group of men and a giant golden goose. The men and the goose hide inside an ancient castle as the giant beats down the walls with a large bell as if it was a flail.
The giant notices the heroes and stupidly assumes they are the same people who just ran inside with his goose "Mildred" and turns his assault on the party. Gud'rune explains that it takes an army to take down a Giant, and directs the party into the castle for it somehow is withstanding the onslaught of the Giant's attacks.
Once inside they discover the men are members of the Sons of Shadow and they are being lead by man named Salt. He has a magical harp dangling from his hip and a giant golden egg in his hand. He explains how he is going to retire in the swamp clan with a goose that lays golden eggs.
One of the Sons of Shadow, A hulking blonde man, revealed himself to be a childhood friend of Gud'rune. His name was Amileth and he is madly in love with Gud'rune who has always denied all his advances and was crushed when she married her now dead husband, Magnus.
The loud sound of the giant's bell flail shakes and rings across the castle. Gud'rune and Atoone are confused on how the giant hasn't leveled the castle yet as the monstrosity has been hammering at the walls for quite awhile now. Thats when the party noticed the giant obelisk standing in the middle of the castle entry way. It was covered in glowing elder runes and each time the giant's bell smashed into the castle one of the glowing runes vanished in a puff of smoke. They were on a timer!
The party investigated the ancient castle: Princess
Jazel found a magic lamp hidden in ancient throne,
Choppa found a portrait of the mage who owned this castle 1000s of years ago. The portrait is animated and can't speak but held up a hand written note that said "find my red book." The girls become fascinated with a stone sarcophagus that when they opened it, a horrible specter wielding a dark scythe (than rendered whoever it hit to 0 hp) emerged and began to attack shouting "I am magically bound to protect this castle, I will kill you." No matter how many times they killed the specter, it would re-emerge from its stone sarcophagus moments later.
Jazel wandered off into a dark night garden full of strange and exotic fungi. As she lit her torch to get a good look around, she came face to face with a group of aggressive merfolk reclaimers who had a strange compass that was pointing straight at her. Battle breaks out, but Jazel managed to deftly evade the 5 on 1 assault on her as she made her way back to the party members who were in the middle of dealing with the Giant whose arm broke through a window and was grasping for "Thieves! Villains! Horrible Rat People!"
The reclaimers were lead by a merfolk wearing a strange elder looking helmet that was allowing him to control a powerful flaming bull named
Kitava a hostile enemy from Atoone's past. Atoone explained that Kitava was corrupted by an Orc pirate that practiced demonic magic many years ago and she failed to save the flaming bull and now it has been driven mad.
Combat ensued as the party juggled getting the golden goose Mildred back to the giant thus angering Salt who ordered the sons of shadow to attack the party. Fighting the merfolk, Kitava the Red Bull, dealing with the unkillable shade, and Jazel and Choppas eagerness to find the Mage in the portraits's missing red book. It was chaos!
Gud'rune promised a kiss to the hulking love sick brute Amileth if he would kill Salt. The sons of shadow turned tail and ran off when Amileth agreed. Salt's brother Pepper is a powerful man and there will be consequences for this treason.
The battle escalated as Kitava's hatred for Atoone ignited into a fiery explosion continuing the obelisks's protection runes to progressively fade. Just as the party thought things couldn't get more out of hand, 4 more merfolk appeared from the hot springs in the middle of the great hall all dressed in white hooded robes.
Surprisingly enough, these new merfolk didn't attack the party, but instead attacked the Reclaimers! With the new distraction, Gud'rune commanded the party to head upstairs and escape out the master bedroom balcony on a rope made of tied together bed sheets. Atoone and Amileth led the girls down safely but Gud'rune decided to give haste toward Salt who she noticed was hiding in the ancient barracks of the castle.
One of the white hooded merfolk approached Jazel outside the castle and discovered they both spoke Sylvan, the language of the spirits. The merfolk explained that they were the Keepers tasked with stopping the reclaimers from a horrible mission to
flood all of Pandora using some ancient forbidden elder artifact. The Blood Moon's presence had weakened the magics that seal the device away and the reclaimers are gathering ancient artifacts such as Jazel's axe and Salt's harp to break the seal completely.
Jazel received one of the magic compasses the merfolk were using to find the Elder Artifacts. The roar of Kitava broke the silence as the red bull found Atoone and was about to leap from out of the balcony to enact its revenge.
Gud'rune found Salt playing a game of cards with a ghostly figure that had a red book laying on the table. A horrible looking book that had demonic writing all over it. The ghost welcomed Gud'rune to play cards to win the book as her prize. Fire blazed in the castle, the roar of Kitava just a room away, but for some reason Gud'rune and Salt were mesmerized by this red book and everything else seemed to fade from their mind as they played their game of cards with the ghost.
Choppa saw the red bull charging off the balcony and had decided she would put all her strength and will into the magic sword Jazel gave her, the prize for slaying the Mythril girl in the proving, she was going to blast that angry bull into one of the dark pits that littered the cavern floor. As the bull rushed in full gallop Choppa let out a loud scream and the magic sword released a powerful torrent of wind that seemed to open a rift in time and space that blasted the red bull through the underground ceiling and into the stars above. Everyone stared in puzzled amazement. How was that even possible? Atoone looked at Blood Moon's eerie red light as it poured into the cavern knowing that moon was going to do alot more harm in the days to come.
"You win" smiled the ghostly figure as the demonic red book materialized into the physical world. Gud'rune held the book in her hand and the loud explosion outside from Choppa blasting the red bull through the ceiling snapped her out of her daze. The princess! Gud'rune called her Polar Bear to her and the both of them rushed out to rejoin with the others with the red book held tight in her off hand.
