The end of Sly George

We began the adventure by looking at the ruined tower, the upper floor almost completely missing. There were armed and armoured guards patrolling the remaining battlements - they were wearing similar gear to Sly George's mercenary pals so we were pretty sure we were in the right place. There seemed to be well established tracks (human and horse) leading to the south east.

The sun was setting and the mercenaries were lighting torches. Krisanna volunteered for a recon mission on the grounds that Sly George must have accumulated a fair stash over the years. She snuck up to the tower and climbed up to one of the unlit windows, finding the middle floors pretty much absent. She climbed up the inner wall to the 3rd floor and peeked up to see Sly George and Valeria, drinking wine and looking very cosy. She purloined their rope ladder so they couldn't get down in a hurry and returned to the party.

We all snuck up to the wall and Aodhan cast a pillar spell to lift himself and Krisanna into position for an ambush. He cast a wind spell down into the middle of the bandits, scattering them like nine pins and Krisanna followed it with a flask of acid splashing four of them. Arrows from Orla and Bastonn's sword put paid to the rest of them. Tough on bandits and tough on the causes of bandits!

Sly George tried to negotiate from the top floor where he was trapped, offering gems in exchange for his life. Krisanna was sorely tempted but Bastonn gave him an ultimatum - surrender and throw yourself on the mercy of the witches or face another fireball. He realised the game was up so he surrendered and we escorted him to the witches cottage to face his fate. 

They safely locked him in a cupboard and handed over the scroll that we needed to banish the Cryptwood tyrant and his hell hounds. We never did work out where they produced the scroll from as they were all in the nip as usual. They also agreed to owe us a favour if we needed their help at some future date.

After offering Valeria (the Miller's wife and ex-squeeze of the unlamented George) a job as a house keeper at Castle Bastonn we headed back to the tomb, pausing only to unfog the last spaces that we hadn't explored on the map. One of them was an unpromisingly looking pool that we didn't fancy camping beside so we headed into the forest where we had a bit of cover. This was a good move as a strange figure emerged from the depths in the night and set off to hunt. Krisanna was very tempted by the gold coins seemingly scattered at random around the edge but the others dragged her away from the obvious bait.

She sulked for a bit but was cheered up by a stone henge-like dolmen with flowers growing under the stones. She stepped through the arch to pick some flowers and returned ten minutes later, dressed in fine robes carrying a baby seal. She looked older than the young halfling that she used to be but as Aodhan tried to determine the magic that had transpired he saw a different reality through the archway - the world of fairy! Krisanna had no memory of the fifteen years that had mysteriously passed. 

We headed back to the tomb, determined to clear out the place and put paid to the Cryptwood tyrant once and for all. We remembered the rooms we had explored before and found the rooms we had explored before, and stairs leading down to the next level. We followed the corridor and opened a door to see a figure reclined on a couch plucking a lyre. She seemed to be suspiciously transparent - a g-g-g-ghost!