Zany Zenith

The group decides to press on and they head up to the double doors on the topmost balcony. They open up to a T-shaped hallway, with each end ending at another set of doors.

Checking out the door to the right, they discover a large T-shaped chamber full of large purple-capped mushrooms. Two pillars stand in the room, one has collapsed and the other is obviously cracked. Upon seeing the cracked pillar Salla can tell that the room is being supported by that single pillar. If it should fall...the room could likely collapse.

It is decided to leave this room alone, and they turn to the door that was on the left. They discover a rectangular room with frescoes on the walls of fish-men leaving the sea, and egg shells strewn about the floor again. Another set of double doors awaits them across the room.

Jonl sneaks forward (yes he sneaks on egg shells, he is the man) and cracks open a door attempting to peek inside. He sees a large chamber with an older dwarf sitting on throne of skins. He is playing with a glowing white orb, rolling it back and forth in his hands. Hanging from the ceiling are humanoid corpses, that twitch and jitter in a mockery of life. Also suspended from the ceiling are two Splintershield clan banners, hanging upside down...a grave insult to any Splintershield dwarf. Between the doors and the throne is a glowing blue circle etched into the floor.

Jonl quietly closes the door and returns to the larger group to report his findings. A plan is construed and action is taken. Jonl carefully makes a path for the group through the scattered egg shells, and attempts to sneak into the throne room. But, alas, Jonl makes an unlucky mistake tripping over a fallen body part from a corpse above. The dwarf looks up and staring right at Jonl says "I prophesy your doom!!" He follows it up with a hard throw of the glowing white orb which smashes into the wall near Jonl with no obvious effect.

The party scrambles in to the throne room, quickly swarming the lone dwarf, who certain party members now recognize as Zenith Splintershield. While some members of the party cant control their thirst for blood, others in the group strike to subdue.

Snake is surprised early in the battle by an invisible blow to his back. Snakes yells out the danger, and Salla responds by tossing a magical glitterball behind Snake. The ball explodes into a flood of glitter that covers everything in the area, including a vaguely man-shaped creature standing behind Snake. Modisto unleashes a lightning bolt on the creature, bouncing it off the wall to strike him twice with it. Snake turns on it and finishes it with a quick strike of his swords.

As the battle progresses, Morgan is also surprised by a fish-man dropping down from the dark walls above and sticking a dagger in his back. Luckily, Morgan avoids having the dagger end up in too vital of an organ, and is able to turn and fight against the fish-man assassin.

The slug fest continues, both sides dealing out substantial damage. Chul takes the brunt of it, as Zenith smashes his axe into him over and over again. Finally, Zenith topples to the ground, knocked senseless from the combination of lethal and non-lethal attacks.

Snake scoops up the unconscious Zenith, and the party moves quickly out of the fish shaped structure they are inside. But not before passing the prisoners again, and this time crushing their last hopes of being rescued.

Outside, the legendary white swan feather is pulled out and dropped into the lake. With a massive churning of water, a enormous swan-shaped boat grows in its place. Inside the boat, the party shoots across the two miles to the other side of the cavern.

Alas, they find that their invisible mule Bob has perished. Streaks and a dried pool of blood give away the invisible corpse's location.

After Modisto sheds a tear for his invisible body shield, the party enters the tunnel back to the surface. After a long underground trek, they reach the Pit of Seven Jaws. Jonl scouts ahead and immediately notices something strange. While hard to put his finger on, the natural sounds of the area seem a bit lacking. Carefully studying the area around the pit, Jonl notices on a nearby rise a portion of the red dragon they fought at Crazy Jared's. Apparently, it is attempting to hide and keep an eye on the pit.

Jonl returns and reports. The group realizes that fighting the dragon in their current situation would not be in their best interest, so they decide to camp out for the night inside the tunnel. In the middle of the night, they are awakened by a flight of giant bats heading towards the pit exit. A crossbow is fired into the bats and a small skirmish takes place.

During the skirmish, Zenith finally comes around. He is very timid, not making any attempts to speak or escape. Salla attempts to communicate with him, but has no luck. On occassion Zenith will stare wild-eyed at one of them and utter a short, near meaningless phrase. He repeats the same phrases to the same people several times during the trip.

Chul - "The child will be your salvation and your shackles."
Jonl - "The final jest will be your last."
Modisto - "Your heart harbors two ships: betrayal and joy."
Morgan - "A man in blue will slay you before the year is done."
Salla - "You'll be buried alive, but you won't be alone."
Snake - "The Smoking Eye will set your city aflame."

The group rests for two more nights in the tunnel, slowly making the entire party invisible. Jonl pokes his head out of the pit again, but this time there is no dragon to be seen and things appear to have returned to normal.

The journey back to Cauldron continues, but not before stopping at Crazy Jared's hut. Which has been burned to the ground, and what is believed to be Jared's corpse is found not too far away. His corpse is mangled, something having literally torn his body to pieces. The remains are buried and a few words spoken (very few).

Two days later, the group arrives at Cauldron. While most of the group comes out of invisibility, Zenith and a few members of the party remain invisible. They immediately make their way to the Drunken Morkoth where they find a note from Celeste awaiting them. The note explains she has left town to address an urgent need and that Lord Vhalantru will take care of Zenith in her absence.

The party decides to see if Jenya can help restore Zenith to some sane behavior. Jenya is happy to help, and spends some time with Zenith studying him, but does not think she can be of immediate help. She believes he suffers from some natural mental afflictions, maybe some sort of shock over what he has seen and/or been through. She mentions she can of course take Zenith into care at the church and attempt to heal him through the long process of treating mental conditions, but its not a sure thing at all. She also mentions that a senior official of the church will be visiting in the near future, she could put in a word to have him take a look at Zenith.

The party also turns to Tyro, asking him what to do with Zenith. Tyro gives his opinion that he would not trust the people in power of Cauldron to take Zenith's best interests into heart. He sends for Fellian in the meantime, and offers the Lucky Monkey and Shensen as a possible refuge outside of the city if they need it.

Ashkim is also sent on a task to find one or both of Zenith's brothers, who are supposedly still alive.