Quick Notes

Since everything at the bottom of this hell-hole had been killed, we had to tramp back upstairs and finish off the ogres, too. They were asleep, and Miara immediately slit their throats. I guess she didn't consider that we might have wakened them and found out more about that statue she's looking for. On the other hand, it's not like you can trust ogres to tell the truth: they could easily have been lying about it in the first place and have never heard of it before we mentioned it. I can't be real sorry about killing ogres without harm to ourselves anyway.

At least we found the rest of our belongings. I was quite happy to retrieve my medical kit, and carefully placed my new supplies into it. Of course, that also meant that Carmella is back in thrall to that red Zoggin' Rock. At least she didn't immediately incinerate us all.

There was no alcove up here, and Miara wouldn't let us rest until every inch of the place was scrutinized. There is no statue here.

But as we approached the pillar again, Carmella's rock and something within the pillar began to glow, brighter and brighter with each step. We had found another one: from Goldrim's appeals earlier, this was the stone of rock, or earth; one of the complements to Carmella's stone of fire. Goldrim went into another trance, and when he came out of it, he whacked Carmella in the head. Before I could ask him what the hell he was doing, he said his vision was a warning: we can't allow the stones to be close together, or we risk destroying the whole world. I could well believe that. I checked Carmella over, to be sure he hadn't killed her, but she was fine: just unconscious. I was afraid she would insist on getting the stone of stones immediately and probably do something stupid, so I left her unconscious for the time being.

We used one of the ogres' bodies upstairs to repeat the ritual so that Goldrim could ask how we can safely retrieve the stone of stones and evade the dire warnings in the parchment fragments we have. He received an answer: a long list of instructions he must follow.

Although I would far prefer to have nothing at all to do with these rocks, it doesn't look like I can escape from them. They keep throwing themselves in our path. We don't want to leave it here for someone else to grab, so we'll have to figure out how to get it safely ourselves, and how to handle the two we have together, and eventually the other two which will probably show up some time in the future. And then what to do with them once and for all.

In the meantime, we decided to return to the Druidess's temple in the woods. That, for once, was a quick and easy decision that we all agreed on.