In the days that follow our return to Yggsburgh, rumors and chatter abound. All the talk was of Byrne, Leader of the infamous Red Griffons, and two of his comrades, Brok Hammerfell, dwarven priest of Moradin and Cormack Mak Bran, errant Knight of the Order of the Citadel, tied, shackled and frog-marched through the city gates like common criminals. The rumors and alley talk escalate to the extreme, as the notoriety of the Red Griffons captors reach ever greater heights. Brother Wesley, holy mage of St Cuthbert, Jane the Halfling enforcer of Yggsburgh, and the renowned adventurers Kolya the Halfling cleric and Desi the fearsome barbarian woman, have all become to some degree the talk of the town. These Red Griffons now lie incarcerated within the city prison, awaiting trial for charges yet unknown to the public. In the Green Dragon, patrons are shocked that fellows they have known well have been arrested. In the Outs Inn, adventurers surround our comrades table, offering drinks in exchange for the true story. Wesley, along with his friends Kolya, Jane and Desi, comply and tell the tale of their most recent adventure to Castle Zagyg.

I shall start, says Brother Wesley, and help me friends if I miss a detail. Our day started early as I and Jane visited the Swordsmen’s Brotherhood, to acquire fighting men from Ulysses to support our endeavor. We not only secured the services of Fenrik, an able crossbowman, but on great insistence we convinced Ulysses to hire out to us the services of the pious Hathaway, a fine warrior with much experience. I led Hathaway in a prayer to St. Cuthbert, and we then began our adventure.

We traveled to our favorite place of passage (location unknown, wink, wink), and readied ourselves for whatever strange price of passage would be requested that day. Our friend Gaynok sat upon a rock plucking unskillfully on a poor and weathered mandolin. The price of passage, he said, was a song played on the mandolin and sung in the human voice. Placing the instrument in my hand, Gaynok bid that I play and sing. It was at that moment I was most grateful for those years as a child singing in the church choir at the Citadel of St. Cuthbert in Greyhawk. As my fingers recalled the chords and strums of the mandolin (again thanks to my mother for those music lessons forced on me at an early age), I then proceeded to sing a song that might please Gaynok, a song called “Your Song”, by the great and flamboyant Greyhawkian bard “Sir Elton John”. While Sir Elton was perhaps not his favorite composer, old Gaynok was quite pleased with my rendition and granted us passage. Oh, and he also returned my magic dagger left with him on our last visit.

Reaching Castle Zagyg, we took a moment to visit St. Cuthbert’s famous tree. Kolya told our friend Hathaway the story of our first visit, where we had met and drank with St. Cuthbert, as he sat visiting our mortal world in the guise of a poor farmer. While I was skeptical on that day, in the months since, I have grown to believe that it truly was our lord who visited us that day, and I remain humbled and ashamed that I did not believe so at first. I shared this with Hathaway, and upon consideration, he fell to his knees in heartfelt prayer before the tree.

We then proceeded to the Castle, secured our mule what we hoped would be a safe passage, and then sought out those strange and poorly garbed high elves that live within the castle. They scoffed at our readiness for our planned visit to the third level o f the Castle, deeming our preparation insufficient for the dungeon designs of the zany Zagyg. They allowed us passage and showed us to a roughly cut circular stairwell that wandered its way deeper into the castle underground. I noted my surprise that this was yet another pathway down to the lower levels, and as we traveled unevenly down roughly 60 feet, I suspected we were at the same depth as our previous adventure when we met the Juggernaut and the snake people.

The granite hewn stairwell ended and opened into worked passages, leading east and west. We first explored the east passages. Opening the first door we came to, we were immediately assaulted by two crossbow wielding human fighters in some sort of bedroom. Barely had the fight ensued when another door within the room opened and a mage in black entered. The battle did not last long, with the wizard falling early and Desi taking care of the rest with an awesome whirlwind attack. Some large rats came upon us after the initial combat, but were quickly vanquished. We discovered a chest under a bed full of silver and copper, and from the defeated wizard I acquired these beautiful bracers (I raise my arms and let the cuffs of my robes fall back to display the ornate bracers with their strange runes). Strangely, we did not find the wizards spellbook, although we were having quite a clumsy day as we endeavored to search for secret doors and hidey-holes.

As the corridors meandered we found other doors further along. Behind the first we were certain there was a warren of rats, as we could hear their scurrying and could see various rat holes along the main corridors. We braced ourselves for rodent slaughter and smashed in the door. The rats scampered towards us, just in time to be blasted by Kolya’s deafening soundblast. A few rats had come out to meet us in the main corridor, but in no time at all we cleared this area of the infestation. Some treasure was found within the rats smelly warren. (Friends… remind me what we found there?)

Further along the corridor, we opened another door to find a room that brought us worry and foreboding. The room glowed with a strange light and a pentagon lay centered on the floor, its lines made of silver filling engraved channels through the granite. We chose not to enter this room, and moved further on. I was left wondering though if this room was used by the wizard we had vanquished and if perhaps his spellbook could be hidden within.

Upon opening the next door, we discovered a barren and empty room. Made wary by the previous room, we scanned this room for magic without entering, and were surprised to discover that the entire room glowed with magic. Kolya threw a copper coin into the room, which promptly disappeared. Whether transported, time travelled or destroyed, we could not tell. Jane put her are in and then out of the doorway, to no harm, although the sight of her arm disappearing from view was unsettling. As we deliberated and delayed further action, Jane impatiently and impetuously walked fully the room and disappeared. We waited precious minutes later, but Jane did not reappear. Desi threw in a length of rope, and as she pulled to retrieve the end, it seemed to be grasped with firm tugs. The rope was then released and Desi was able to fully retrieve it. We wrote a note, hopefully to Jane and attached it to the rope and threw it within. Jane was able to write a reply which we gathered in on the end of the rope. At one point, Desi reached in with her are and was able to grasp Jane’s wrist, however she was unable to pull Jane through the threshold of the doorway. Kolya continued to throw coppers through the doorway. Jane’s final note said that she could hear others in the passageway outside the room she was in (identical to the one we could see) and she was moving on to explore.

While I had been reluctant to use my magic to locate Jane, thinking it unlikely that she was anywhere or anytime near us, I finally relented to the insistence of my comrades, and cast locate object with Jane’s Enforcer’s badge as my focus. Sure enough, I could sense its presence some distance away Northwest of our position. As I maintained focus on this token, we backtracked the way we came, to explore the western and northern passages as quickly as we could. We passed by corridors and doorways, taking no time to investigate, in order to maintain our fast pace. I sensed the location of Jane’s badge turn more to the North Northwest and final due North as we closed in. We reached a point where it seemed we had no choice but to open a door in order to further progress in a Northward direction, and we did. As the door swung open, to our relief we saw a lighted passage ahead with Jane standing before us. Our initial relief quickly turned to alert as we realized Jane was not alone. Standing directly behind her was the loathsome Byrne, leader of the Red Griffons, our hated adventuring nemesis, along with the rest of the Griffon band.

Desi stood up front and I moved to stand behind her. Kolya stood to the front and engaged the band in parley. We quickly understood that Jane had been taken hostage and was being forced to lead the Griffons way through the dungeon. Kolya tried his best to convince the Griffons that we were better off as friends than combatants, and that upon releasing Jane we could perhaps be of some benefit to each other. We pleaded to Cormack, recognizing him as a less than resolved member of the Griffon troup, hoping to stir his sense of honor and justice regarding the wrongness of subjugating Jane, an officer of the law. Instead, they detected magic on us and demanded Kolya’s magic sword in exchange for Jane’s release. He refused, just as I slowly pulled out a scroll and tried to discretely cast a Wall of Stone spell, hoping to separate Jane from the rest of the Griffons behind her. Unfortunately their sharp eyes caught my movement and they jumped into action. Quickly, Byrne, Brok and Cormick charged ahead of Jane and engaged us in combat. Quickly Hathaway fell from their blows, while Kolya and Desi tried to hold them off. Once the shock of their initial foray was overcome, we fell into action, leading off with my spell. Looking at the new positions of our foes, I quickly determined that a diagonal wall was required, leaving Jane on our side and the other Red Griffons, including the one standing beside Jane, trapped behind the wall. Success! We now faced only three of the Griffons.

As combat continued, Jane moved forward and we held our own, insisting between blows that the Griffons stand down from combat, that the day was lost to them. They did not deter and we were forced to fight on. Kolya cast his divine magic and suddenly Byrne was frozen stiff and unmoving, locked in place by a Hold Person spell. In that blink of an eye I saw my opening, the perfect tactical geometry for a blast of lighting from my wand. I backed off several feet, braced my arm, focused my aim, and let loose a long jagged stream of electrical energy. The blast struck through Byrne where he stood on the right side of the corridor, all my comrades safely on the left side. The energy flowed onwards, bouncing from the diagonal wall of stone I had laid across the corridor. The lightning crashed against the side of the corridor, reflect again to the diagonal wall of stone, and straight back towards me. The energy tore through Byrne once again, and flashed towards me, ending just a dozen feet or more in front of me, petering out in a crackle of fading sparks. Byrne fell to the ground, unconscious and perhaps dying. Desi was faced off against Brok, the dwarven cleric, and with a Barbariac roar was completely intimidating her foe. Kolya cast another Hold Person, and intimidated as the dwarf was, he froze unmoving and completely held. Cormack, the fallen Knight and unsteady comrade found himself torn, but in the end still loyal to his leader. He dropped to his Knees in front of Byrne, fed him a potion, and then faced us with sword planted upright in defensive posture. We plead with him to stand down, and that we would speak for him well when the others were brought to trial for the crime of holding hostage and bartering ransom of a lawful enforcement officer of Yggsburgh. He refused, saying his must needs protect his unconscious leader.

With that last stand, Cormack lost his final chance for the leniency we offered. I pointed my wand towards him, the geometry exactly matching the previous blast fired just moments before. I looked Cormack in the eyes and said “Sir, lay down your sword”. Knowing the dire consequence of further refusal, Cormack dropped his blade, and entreated upon our honor to hold to the offer we had made to keep them alive for trial in Yggsburgh and not to murder them on the spot. Although Kolya took some convincing, we did grant them their lives and bound them securely for deliverance to Yggsburgh justice.

It was interesting after the fact to hear the story from Jane’s perspective. The room to which she was transported was affected by strange magic. The rope and Desi’s arm appeared through the doorway as if from thin air, and try as she might, Jane could not pass through the threshold while grasping rope or arm. The details of her capture were surprising, the Red Griffons threatening her life if she did not disarm, and going to some lengths to belittle her position as an officer of the law. She was used as trap bait, marched ahead of their party to test the dungeon flooring for pit traps. Their efforts to ransom her life and freedom showed their complete lack of respect for those who represent the just and the good.

I am not sure what charges may be brought to bear, and I do not doubt that these Griffons have allies who may help them avoid true justice. Their comrades remain free and likely are unhappy with the events that transpired. We have not made friends. But we certainly have taken them down a notch or two. Perhaps their egos may be checked to some degree. More likely, they’ll be spurred towards some sort of revenge. That does not bother me… we now know we are well matched.

Til next time Byrne, til next time…