Subarchon Sabado called upon a few trusted warriors for a secret mission. They were distracted on the way in by watching a comical puppet show of the Miserable Union, then they continued on to the out-of-the way meeting chambers Sabado preferred.

• Vecna. Vanguard, Diplomat, Chef, Chosen (Kristy)
• Tancred Boiler. Skirmisher, Engineer, Gunner (Shaun)
• Dandol “Dan”. Berserker, Carouser, Miner (Simon)

Seluvria, the elven ruler at the Forest Door entry to the Caskbound Pocket, sent word. The elves guard the Voskul Pit, a site in the woods that necromancers once used as a base. The occasional undead thing would shamble out and fall to the elven shafts. But traffic was higher lately, and Seluvria saw the Pit as a Caskbound problem.

After all, Pyoros the Dread Necromancer was the Pit’s last master, and he raided in the Pocket 200 years ago. Legend states that he got the Sifting Maul, a powerful weapon of the clan; the Coldsyvin family was the second line of thanes, and the Sifting Maul was their archonic dynastic name weapon. Returning it to the clan would be a victory indeed.

Journey to the Pit

They traveled down the Shot river to Klossa, where they were met as heroes. They chatted briefly with Speaker Kurtz, and they spent the night with the Boiler family (Tancred was from Klassa.) Dandol made it a point to bed one of Tancred’s cousins.

The next day they rode a beetle down through the rough terrain to the Forest Door, and they followed the water, encountering elves who spoke broken Neverecht. They were guided along to a henge, where they spent the night. The standing stones were built by dwarves, long ago, not elves. And they commemorated the site of a battle between one of the Gods of Ur and a dark force. Perhaps it was no accident that the necromancers chose the nearby pit as a lair; it was suffused with ancient darkness.

Eventually they had to walk, leaving the beetle behind, and the elves guided them to a narrow ribbon of rock that led across a chasm to the entry into the Pit. The stalwart dwarves roped themselves together and traveled the expanse, then descended.

The Pit

The doors lifted on a pivot, and could be turned to open. Tancred figured out the counterbalance (and some of the traps) and they entered. As they moved in, they saw pools set up to condense any memory of life and transform it to incorporeal undead. Not wanting to wake anything prematurely, they left that alone, and continued on.

They found a throne with a long carpet before it, and lights mounted on the back, with a robed figure slumped before them. They roused him, and the throne dropped into the ground so only the lights emerged, and the carpet became a ramp for an endless swarm of skeletons to attack them. After battling for a while, they realized the skeletons were endless. Tancred smashed the lights on the back of the throne, cutting off the entry, and the floor became solid once more.

They saw a metal door set in the wall like to a furnace, and left that alone. They also found what appeared to be a necromatic trash pit, and didn’t explore it. They did find a very fancy door, and once Tancred defeated the lock they stood before a massive brittlestone-infested statue of the necromancer.

Brittlestone grows slowly, it is like a mineral that infects remains and raises them as undead. It is the necessary ingredient for necromancers to do their work.

Pyoros the Dread Necromancer

As the dwarves regarded the hideous statue, a wraith of the necromancer emerged. It stuttered, crossing with the corporeal plane for just a moment, and the dwarves pounced and tore it to pieces before it could destroy them. Then the statue split in two, and they saw the mummifed remains of the necromancer inside it, and they smashed up the corpse.

A supernatural wall of thorns blocked the way forward, so they hefted a massive piece of the statue and laid it on the thorns, making a way through. They found a whole tree of brittlestone! No wonder the site was active.

The Apprentice

Exploring further back they found bushes infused with brittlestone, and a young human in bone armor boasting he would ascend now that his stifling mentor was gone. They pulped him at once, and had a desperate fight with his undead bushes. Then they settled in to rest and heal up some.

Pushing their luck, they ventured deeper in, and found a statue that was a horrifically expressive rendition of a pile of dead dwarves, a feast for scavengers. They understood that captive dwarves had been forced to make these horrible statues. They smashed it, and inside found a trunk of gems stolen from them centuries ago.

The Sifting Maul

The only light they could see was from one hallway, and they followed it to find the Sifting Maul; it had been glowing brighter as they got closer, in response to them. Vecna passed two creepy statues and pulled the maul off the display, triggering a foul wind that was likely to draw the undead.

They moved fast, encountering minimal resistance. A wraith popped up out of the undead making fountain, but the maul slashed through it and they kept going until they were safely back in elven woods.

The elves thought about trying to take the maul, but Vecna discouraged that line of thinking, and the dwarves were soon back under the mountain. They kept their prize a secret until they were back at Whiskey Forge, so the subarchon was the first to know.

They did the clan a great service, raising its prestige, and they were honored as they Told the Tale. In addition, Vecna was chosen to be the bearer of the Sifting Maul, so it could be an active symbol of the pride and power of Clan Caskbound.