Agirr wanted to get into the Kaer immediately, but we were more cautious. First of all Saif was badly hurt (something had put an enchantment on him that kept him from healing), second there were an unknown number of shadowmants near the entrance, and third we had no idea what we were walking into. He agreed that a guide would be helpful since kaers can be somewhat maze-like. The villagers agreed to give us a guide in exchange for help rebuilding their palisade wall. While the others were working on the wall, I spent part of the day learning a new spell, Life Circle of One. I thought that we might be up against a horror or construct of some kind. “The Screaming Death” that the villagers spoke of sounded like something a horror would do. It turned out that I was right.
p.
We spent the night in the longhouse with the rest of the villagers. We decided to keep a watch because something had stole into our camp the night before and cast a spell on Saif. During third watch Dederick saw something small and childlike crawling on the roof of the longhouse heading towards the smoke hole (Dederick was outside the longhouse while Camathon kept watch inside). Dederick entered the longhouse and saw the thing crawling along the ceiling (definitely not a child) heading towards where Saif lay. Camathon, who could not see it, began waking each of us while Dederick prepared to strike. I awoke to a shrill shriek and Dederick stabbing at something that started crawling up the wall. Andros took off into the air and yelled “It’s a horror. A Kreescra.” Which started a panicked exodus of the villagers from the longhouse. I immediately got up and began weaving thread for Life Circle of One. Dederick prepared to attack if it came back within reach, Camathon threw his spear and missed, and Kira helped the villagers get out. Andros charged the thing, with only his dagger in hand, and managed to pry it off the wall where Dederick promptly skewered it. It was still alive however so I cast my spell around Saif and myself to help ward it off. It seemed bent on escape rather than fighting and began to dig its way through the wall. Andros called his Zoak and continued his attacks, while I threw several Spirit Darts at it. I was Dederick who got the final blow with a well placed thrust and a flourish. The thing turned into goo.
p.
The next day Saif seemed to be on the mend and we began a plan of Andros’ to deal with the shadowmants. Since they were in the kaer all day and the entrance was fairly small we constructed a net from all of our ropes plus some others from the village and placed it over the entrance. When the shadowmants tried to leave the kaer at night they would get caught in the net. I would then Spirit Dart the caught shadowmants to death (the spell wouldn’t harm the net, whereas arrows might). We spent 2 days killing shadowmants in this manner (and collecting their venom). On the third day no shadowmants came out, so we figured they were all dead and prepared to enter the kaer the following morning.
p.
Our guide was a twelve year old boy who went exploring into the kaer occasionally. He said he would only take us to the traps, as he knew of nothing beyond. This first part of the kaer was empty anything of value had been stripped long ago. Agirr figured that what we were looking for would most likely be beyond the traps. We dismissed the boy and gazed at the magical runes that lined the floor and walls in front of us. Agirr said that it was a horror ward and would only affect horrors. We passed through unharmed and Kira took the lead looking for more traps. There were many layers of traps, mostly mechanical, that we avoided on our way through. We found a cadaverman caught in one trap that begged us to set it free. We simply killed it. We noticed that the traps and the ward appeared to be set up to keep something in rather than keeping something out. We guessed that this kaer had been partially compromised and some of the residents withdrew towards the entrance and put up a new ward and traps (perhaps trapping some people behind them) to keep the horror at bay.
p.
We finally came to a much larger cavern with residences carved out of the rock. What we saw horrified us. Many of the skeletons had an unusual number of heads, arms or other limbs. They were Namegivers only highly mutated. Astral space was highly tainted with some bodies or objects that were highly corrupted. The well in the center was the largest source of corruption. We guessed that the water might contain still active “Dread Iota”, but we weren’t sure if that would cause the mutations we were seeing. Either way we avoided the water. Looking around we began to piece together the story. Part of the wards on the exterior wall were damaged, as if they were purposefully destroyed from within. We then found a small shrine to Raggok hidden in one of the houses. It looked like a follower of Raggok damaged the wards and let one or several horrors in (maybe even our friend that we destroyed the other night). Some of the residents escaped and set up the traps and new ward leaving everyone else at the mercy of the horror or horrors. The “Dead Iota” appeared to be the only one left, although we did find the body of one horror buried beneath part of a building.
p.
We finally came to a hallway that was littered with bodies. The door at the opposite end was still intact and radiated strong magic. Agirr looked at it and told us it was enchanted with a permanent spell that would activate when someone tried to open the door. What the spell actually was, he couldn’t say, but the hallway of bodies gave us the idea that it wasn’t pretty. The recipe we were looking for was created by a powerful wizard so we guessed that we probably needed to get past the door. Agirr managed to dispell the door and we looked inside. Astral space was open here. The taint in the rest of the kaer had not entered here, so it appeared that this was the right place. We found what we were looking for. The recipe was for a type of blood charm and the body of the wizard one of the actual blood charms on it. There was also a lot of other valuable stuff. We took everything including the aged and damaged books and then looted the rest of the place of anything of value. The horrors except for the “Dread Iota” appeared to be gone, having left when all the people were dead or when the magic dropped. We took all we could carry and exited the kaer.